Sandy is a Wiradjuri transgender/non-binary person. Since 1991 they have taught and researched across gender and sexuality, museums, the body, performance, design and First Nations’ identity. They are a 2020-2024 ARC Future Fellow, with a project titled Saving Lives: Mapping the influence of Indigenous LGBTIQ+ creative artists. The project will explore the unique contribution and influence of queer artists to understand how modelling complex identities contributes to the wellbeing of all First Nations’ peoples.

Jacqui Katona, a Djok woman, from the Kakadu area of the Northern Territory is an Aboriginal advocate. She has worked for the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, the Stolen Generations Northern Territory and assisted her family to prevent uranium mining at Jabiluka in Kakadu National Park. With Yvonne Margarula, of the Mirrar , she shares the Goldman Environmental Prize for Grassroots Activism in the category, Island Nations 1999. She completed her graduate law degree at the University of Melbourne and is a PhD candidate at the University of Technology Sydney. She works as a Lecturer Researcher at Moondani Balluk Academic Institute located at Victoria University.

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Seminar description:

Since the 1930s Indigenous political activists in Australia have tirelessly campaigned for their rights.  In the current political climate there is a national discussion about Indigenous representation, treaties, and truth telling processes.  In Victoria, a series of community forums, working groups, and commissions contributed to the legislative reform required to advance potential treaty discussions.  In 2019 the inaugural First Peoples Assembly of Victoria (FPAV) was established to develop a treaty negotiation framework with the State Government of Victoria.  This democratically elected representative body has advanced pathways for treaties between First Nations and the State of Victoria and led the establishment of the Yoorrook (truth) Justice Commission.  These substantial achievements create an environment that empowers First Nations to negotiate treaties, uphold their sovereignty, recognise their inherent rights to lands and waters, and hold Governments accountable for past injustices. The outcomes in Victoria demonstrate the benefits of a rights-based approach supporting self-determination that provide important learnings for other jurisdictions.

Seminar description:

Rock Against Racism (RAR) in Australia was a series of concerts that were held mostly from 1979 to 1988, and advocated awareness of Aboriginal issues and protests happening at the time leading up to and inclusive of the ’88 protests of Australia’s bicentenary celebrations. This paper will historicise this series of concerts and in doing so convey how the development of contemporary Aboriginal music in Australia and the community-controlled organisations with which RAR was involved worked in tandem. 

Seminar description: Prof. Segalo is currently serving as the Chief Luthuli Research Chair and is a professor of psychology at the university of South Africa. Her research interest is at the intersection of community psychology, visual arts, and gender studies. She is interested in the ways in which people navigate and deal with historical traumas in their personal lives and in communities. Her work looks at trauma as a relational experience affecting not only the individual but those they are connected with. Prof. Segalo’s research seeks to find ways in which we can move towards social cohesion – reconciliation, social justice and psychological healing.