Keynote speakers: Professor Megan Davis (UNSW)
and Professor Leah Bassel (Roehampton)
Megan Davis
Keynote (day one): First Nations Voice and the Right to be Heard
Professor Megan Davis is Pro Vice Chancellor Indigenous and Professor of Law, UNSW. Prof Davis is an expert member of the United Nations Human Rights Council's Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Prof Davis is a constitutional lawyer who was a member of the Referendum Council and the Expert Panel on the Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples in the Constitution. Megan is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law and the Australian Academy of Social Sciences and a Commissioner on the Australian Rugby League Commission. Megan supports the North Queensland Cowboys and the QLD Maroons.
(image credit: Andrzej Liguz)
Leah Bassel
Keynote (day two): Listening as Solidarity
Abstract: In this contribution I consider fleeting moments of political equality that become possible when listening is practiced as a form of solidarity. Such moments can coalesce around the ‘refugee crisis’, anti-austerity activism by and with women of colour across Europe, and in migrant justice movements which centre Indigenous sovereignties. I explore these moments in and since my book The Politics of Listening: Possibilities and Challenges for Democratic Life (Palgrave 2017).
Leah Bassel is Professor of Sociology at the University of Roehampton, UK, where her research interests include the political sociology of migration, intersectionality and citizenship. Her books include Refugee Women: Beyond Gender versus Culture (Routledge, 2012), The Politics of Listening: Possibilities and Challenges for Democratic Life (Palgrave, 2017), and Minority Women and Austerity: Survival and Resistance in France and Britain co-authored with Akwugo Emejulu (Policy Press 2017). She is currently co-Principal Investigator, with Akwugo Emejulu, of the Open Society-funded project Women of Colour Resist. She is a member of Haringey Welcome, a campaign group working for fairness, dignity and respect for migrants and refugees in the London borough of Haringey. Before pursuing an academic career, Leah was an emergency outreach worker in Paris, where she provided humanitarian assistance to asylum seekers and created a circus camp project for refugee youth. She holds a DPhil from the Refugee Studies Centre/Nuffield College, University of Oxford and a BA and MA from McGill University.