tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/first-person-13823/articlesFirst person – The Conversation2020-03-04T19:08:32Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1318982020-03-04T19:08:32Z2020-03-04T19:08:32ZWe should use ‘I’ more in academic writing – there is benefit to first-person perspective<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318493/original/file-20200304-66064-1wuzbkf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The use of the word “I” in academic writing, that is writing in the <a href="https://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-writing-in-first-person.html">first person</a>, has a troublesome history. Some say it makes writing too subjective, others that it’s essential for accuracy.</p>
<p>This is reflected in how students, particularly in secondary schools, are trained to write. Teachers I work with are often surprised that I advocate, at times, invoking the first person in essays or other assessment in their subject areas. </p>
<p>In academic writing the role of the author is to explain their argument dispassionately and objectively. The author’s personal opinion in such endeavours is neither here nor there. </p>
<p>As noted in Strunk and White’s highly influential <a href="http://www.jlakes.org/ch/web/The-elements-of-style.pdf">Elements of Style</a> – (first published in 1959) the writer is encouraged to place themselves in the background.</p>
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<p>Write in a way that draws the reader’s attention to the sense and substance of the writing, rather than to the mood and temper of the author.</p>
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<p>This all seems very reasonable and scholarly. The move towards including the first person perspective, however, is becoming more <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1607509">acceptable</a> in academia.</p>
<p>There are times when invoking the first person is more meaningful and even rigorous than not. I will give three categories in which first person academic writing is more effective than using the third person.</p>
<h2>1. Where an academic is offering their personal view or argument</h2>
<p>Above, I could have said “there are three categories” rather than “I will give three categories”. The former makes a claim of discovering some objective fact. The latter, a more intellectually honest and accountable approach, is me offering my interpretation.</p>
<p>I could also say “three categories are apparent”, but that is ignoring the fact it is apparent to <em>me</em>. It would be an attempt to grant too much objectivity to a position than it deserves. </p>
<p>In a similar vein, statements such as “it can be argued” or “it was decided”, using the passive voice, avoid responsibility. It is much better to say “I will argue that” or “we decided that” and then go on to prosecute the argument or justify the decision. </p>
<p>Taking responsibility for our stances and reasoning is important culturally as well as academically. In a participatory democracy, we are expected to be accountable for our ideas and choices. It is also a stand against the kinds of anonymous assertions that easily proliferate via fake and unnamed social media accounts. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/post-truth-politics-and-why-the-antidote-isnt-simply-fact-checking-and-truth-87364">Post-truth politics and why the antidote isn't simply 'fact-checking' and truth</a>
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<p>It’s worth noting that <a href="https://www.nature.com/">Nature</a> – arguably one of the world’s best science journals – prefers authors to selectively avoid the passive voice. Its <a href="https://www.nature.com/nature-research/for-authors/write">writing guidelines</a> note:</p>
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<p>Nature journals prefer authors to write in the active voice (“we performed the experiment…”) as experience has shown that readers find concepts and results to be conveyed more clearly if written directly.</p>
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<h2>2. Where the author’s perspective is part of the analysis</h2>
<p>Some disciplines, such as <a href="https://www.adelaide.edu.au/writingcentre/sites/default/files/docs/learningguide-firstpersonwritinganthropology.pdf">anthropology</a>, recognise that who is doing the research and why they are doing it ought to be overtly present in their presentation of it. </p>
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<span class="caption">There’s more to Descartes’ famous phrase than a claim to existence.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/cogito-ergo-sum-latin-philosophical-proposition-481385488">Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>Removing the author’s presence can allow important cultural or other perspectives held by the author to remain unexamined. This can lead to the so-called <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/297525123_The_crisis_in_representation_Reflections_and_assessments">crisis of representation</a>, in which the interpretation of texts and other cultural artefacts is removed from any interpretive stance of the author. </p>
<p>This gives a false impression of objectivity. As the philosopher Thomas Nagel notes, there is no “<a href="https://www.amazon.com.au/View-Nowhere-Thomas-Nagel/dp/0195056442">view from nowhere</a>”. </p>
<p>Philosophy commonly invokes the first person position, too. <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/descartes/">Rene Descartes</a> famously inferred “I think therefore I am” (<em>cogito ergo sum</em>). But his use of the first person in <a href="http://www.classicallibrary.org/descartes/meditations/">Meditations on First Philosophy</a> was not simply an account of his own introspection. It was also an invitation to the reader to think for themselves.</p>
<h2>3. Where the author wants to show their reasoning</h2>
<p>The third case is especially interesting in education. </p>
<p>I tell students of science, critical thinking and <a href="https://philosophy.fas.harvard.edu/files/phildept/files/brief_guide_to_writing_philosophy_paper.pdf">philosophy</a> that a phrase guaranteed to raise my hackles is “I strongly believe …”. In terms of being rationally persuasive, this is not relevant unless they then go on tell me <em>why</em> they believe it. I want to know what and how they are thinking.</p>
<p>To make their thinking most clearly an object of my study, I need them to make themselves the subjects of their writing. </p>
<p>I prefer students to write something like “I am not convinced by Dawson’s argument because…” rather than “Dawson’s argument is opposed by DeVries, who says …”. I want to understand <em>their</em> thinking not just use the argument of DeVries. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/thinking-about-thinking-helps-kids-learn-how-can-we-teach-critical-thinking-129795">Thinking about thinking helps kids learn. How can we teach critical thinking?</a>
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<p>Of course I would hope they do engage with DeVries, but then I’d want them to say which argument they find more convincing and what their <em>own</em> reasons were for being convinced.</p>
<p>Just stating Devries’ objection is good analysis, but we also need students to evaluate and justify, and it is here that the first person position is most useful. </p>
<p>It is not always accurate to say a piece is written in the first or third person. There are reasons to invoke the first person position at times and reasons not to. An essay in which it is used once should not mean we think of the whole essay as from the first person perspective. </p>
<p>We need to be more nuanced about how we approach this issue and appreciate when authors should “place themselves in the background” and when their voice matters.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/131898/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Ellerton is affiliated with the Centre for Critical and Creative Thinking. He is a Fellow of the Rationalist Society of Australia.</span></em></p>An academic should be able to use “I” in an essay which offers their point of view. In this way, they take responsibility for their argument.Peter Ellerton, Lecturer in Critical Thinking; Curriculum Director, UQ Critical Thinking Project, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/543372016-02-18T19:18:30Z2016-02-18T19:18:30ZFriday essay: on the Sydney Mardi Gras march of 1978<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111905/original/image-20160218-1261-1dalkbi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The 1978 Mardi Gras started as a peaceful march and degenerated into a violent clash with police. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Pride History Group</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On April 27, 2015, Christine Foster, a Liberal Party councillor and the sister of the then Australian Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, moved a motion at the Sydney City Council calling for a <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/city-makes-unanimous-call-for-apology-to-those-named-and-shamed-in-mardi-gras-march-of-1978-20150430-1mxbcx.html">formal apology</a> to the original gay and lesbian Mardi Gras marchers. </p>
<p>It was passed unanimously. The NSW Parliament is expected to debate a <a href="http://www.starobserver.com.au/news/local-news/new-south-wales-news/pressure-grows-on-nsw-police-to-apologise-for-1978-mardi-gras-arrests/135597">motion to offer such an apology</a> in the first sitting of Parliament in 2016. </p>
<p>Is a formal apology warranted? </p>
<p>To answer this question, some understanding of the prevailing oppressive social conditions affecting the lives of sexual minorities (now termed GLBTIQ communities) in Australia in the 1960s and 70s is required.</p>
<p>What is needed, too, is a better knowledge of the actual, momentous events that took place in Sydney between June and August 1978, when violent social unrest and public protests on the streets erupted with far-reaching effects for Australia that can now be seen in historical context.</p>
<h2>The march of 78</h2>
<p>On a cold Saturday night in Sydney on June 24, 1978, a number of gay men, lesbians and transgender people marched into the pages of Australian social history. I was one of them. </p>
<p>Several protests and demonstrations were organised during June that year to commemorate the <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/introduction/stonewall-intro/">1969 Stonewall riot</a> in New York and to demand civil rights for Australian lesbians and gay men. </p>
<p>Gay activists in San Francisco had asked the Gay Solidarity Group in Sydney for support in their campaigns in California and the word had got out. At Taylor Square, where we assembled, I was impressed by the turnout (a report in The Australian estimated the crowd at about 1,000 people at this early stage of the night). </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111892/original/image-20160218-1252-1ozj7fg.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111892/original/image-20160218-1252-1ozj7fg.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111892/original/image-20160218-1252-1ozj7fg.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111892/original/image-20160218-1252-1ozj7fg.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111892/original/image-20160218-1252-1ozj7fg.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111892/original/image-20160218-1252-1ozj7fg.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111892/original/image-20160218-1252-1ozj7fg.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111892/original/image-20160218-1252-1ozj7fg.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Marchers at the 1978 Mardi Gras parade.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Pride History Group</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>The early rainbow nature of the movement was evident, with transgender and Aboriginal people and people from migrant backgrounds all mixing in. We were a diverse and spirited group of a few hundred mostly younger men and women ready to march down Oxford Street to Hyde Park, along a strip that was becoming the centre of gay life in the city. </p>
<p>The atmosphere was more one of celebration than protest. Little did we know then that, by the end of the night, many of us would be traumatised and our lives changed forever.</p>
<p>As a young émigré in my twenties, from the Queensland bush, like many gay men and lesbians from the country in those days, I was, in effect, an internally displaced person. We were refugees in our own country. </p>
<p>Having arrived in Sydney seeking refuge from the <a href="https://theconversation.com/jacks-and-jokers-bjelke-petersen-and-queenslands-police-state-24700">never-ending police state of mind</a> that was life under the Joh Bjelke-Petersen Queensland government, I was renting a studio flat in Crown Street, Darlinghurst, at the time. </p>
<p>All through history, cities have offered people like me a measure of escape from oppression and persecution. But in 1978, even in a big city like Sydney, refuge and security could not always be found and, without even basic human rights, we were always vulnerable. </p>
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<span class="caption">The 1978 Mardi Gras parade.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Pride History Group</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>As a high school teacher working for the NSW Department of Education, “coming out” posed a major risk for me – it could mean the loss of my job. For the those who were <a href="http://camp.org.au/100-voices">subjected to electric shock treatment</a> in the 1970s at the old <a href="http://press.anu.edu.au/apps/bookworm/view/Movement,+Knowledge,+Emotion%3A+Gay+activism+and+HIV-AIDS+in+Australia/6291/Text/intro.html">Prince Henry Hospital</a> in Little Bay, it could even mean losing your mind. </p>
<p>Living a “double life” was a means of survival. Gay people’s lives were wrapped in stigma and shame. </p>
<p>The real unspoken tragedy of the times was the loss of the lives of so many wonderful young people who struggled with their sexual identities and, unable to deal with all the pain and shame inflicted on them, ended up committing suicide.</p>
<p>The Stonewall Riot, which had occurred nine years earlier, far away in Greenwich Village on Manhattan in New York, marks the modern era of “homosexual liberation”. This oft-quoted term was popularised as early as 1971 by <a href="http://blogs.crikey.com.au/liticism/2013/08/09/dennis-altmans-the-end-of-the-homosexual/">Dennis Altman</a>, the Australian academic who became a leading voice of the movement.</p>
<p>Altman <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18106848-the-end-of-the-homosexual">continues today</a> to chronicle and interpret the movement. The violence, unrest and resistance of the Sydney Mardi Gras of 1978 has <a href="http://alga.org.au/2011/791">clear parallels to Stonewall</a>.</p>
<h2>Back to the march</h2>
<p>We started off from Taylor Square in a festive mood. Chants rippled along the marchers, strangers joined hands and we sought to bring people out of the bars and into the streets to join us. Some did come out of the bars and joined us; others lined up and watched the parade but did not join in. </p>
<p>I heard the commonly used Australian put-down of those times, “poofters”, hurled at us. “Ratbag poofters”, too. When we reached Hyde Park we were denied entry. </p>
<p>Confusion reigned and an officer in authority appeared intent on breaking up the march. His derogatory tone of voice and the way he hurled insults and abuse angered <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/25163015?selectedversion=NBD43231705">all within earshot</a>. </p>
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<span class="caption">Police and marchers met in the 1978 Mardi Gras.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Pride History Group</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>It soon became clear that our open-back truck that would have provided the disco music for a party and a platform for speeches in the park was to be forcefully confiscated and the driver arrested. We then realised it would be a mistake for us to enter Hyde Park at all.</p>
<p>At the front of the march I remember a few split seconds of initial doubt that we would be able to do it, and then, in perfect, bold, spontaneous unison, at our success in breaking through the cordon of police across College Street, we shouted, “On to the Cross!” (Kings Cross).</p>
<p>With an exhilarating surge of energy we turned from College Street into William Street. Propelled onwards with hundreds joining in behind us, we turned left into Darlinghurst Road into the heart of Kings Cross. We were sick and tired of being criminalised, pathologised, demonised, of being made to hide who we were and having our rights to live as human beings denied. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111898/original/image-20160218-1276-vyjxeh.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111898/original/image-20160218-1276-vyjxeh.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111898/original/image-20160218-1276-vyjxeh.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=777&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111898/original/image-20160218-1276-vyjxeh.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=777&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111898/original/image-20160218-1276-vyjxeh.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=777&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111898/original/image-20160218-1276-vyjxeh.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=976&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111898/original/image-20160218-1276-vyjxeh.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=976&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111898/original/image-20160218-1276-vyjxeh.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=976&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The 1978 Mardi Gras.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Pride History Group</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>That night we were in the streets and we were determined to get our message to as many people as possible. After marching down Oxford Street and seeing our numbers swell as many people came out of the coffee shops, bars and hotels to join us, now we wanted to call on everybody in the Cross to listen to our chants and come out and support us as well. We chanted: “Out of the bars and into the streets!” </p>
<p>We wanted the whole world to hear our cries for freedom from the oppression that characterised our lives. In numbers, suddenly, wonderfully, we were unafraid. Here there was a direct parallel with Stonewall, for <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/98480.Stonewall">as with the NYPD</a>, the NSW police force faced an unexpected and vigorous resistance.</p>
<p>As determined as they were to put us back in our closets there was no stopping us. Now we were coming out. And now we had straight people willing to join in and support us. In Darlinghurst Road in Kings Cross we were cut off and ambushed with hundreds of police with dozens of wagons blocking us in front and from behind. </p>
<p>These were critical moments, because in truth the crowd would most likely have dispersed at this point.</p>
<p>Yet the real violence was about to begin. It was there in Darlinghurst Road that we faced the most brutal onslaught of the whole night. The police, arriving in numbers, took advantage of the semi darkness of the night, unleashing a reckless and ugly attack on the marchers. </p>
<p>They acted as if they had a licence to inflict as much injury as they could and I feared there would be dead bodies everywhere if they had guns in those paddy wagons and were to open fire. Despite that fear we did not run, we fought back, resisting arrest as the police wielded their heavy batons indiscriminately. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111895/original/image-20160218-1261-10ilt22.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111895/original/image-20160218-1261-10ilt22.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111895/original/image-20160218-1261-10ilt22.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111895/original/image-20160218-1261-10ilt22.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111895/original/image-20160218-1261-10ilt22.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111895/original/image-20160218-1261-10ilt22.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111895/original/image-20160218-1261-10ilt22.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111895/original/image-20160218-1261-10ilt22.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Pride History Group</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The more we were assaulted the more we resisted. The group-solidarity had taken hold as we tried to stand our ground, rescuing “brothers” and “sisters” from the clutches of the police as they were being forced into paddy-wagons. I distinctly remember the way that the police near the El Alamein Fountain targeted women for arrest, in particular, and the smaller and more vulnerable among us.</p>
<p>The first Mardi Gras is often <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/7554218?selectedversion=NBD13681626">described as a riot</a> but I didn’t see it that way. It was a very defiant act of resistance that proved a turning point. We were willing to stand up, to resist. We were people too; our sexualities may have been diverse and different but that did not make us any less human than others. </p>
<p>The discriminatory attitude of the police and the violence they meted out to us seemed to represent in highly symbolic and condensed form the very pain, humiliation and suffering that society as a whole constantly inflicted on us as lesbians and gay men.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111899/original/image-20160218-1252-zi1vd5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111899/original/image-20160218-1252-zi1vd5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111899/original/image-20160218-1252-zi1vd5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=777&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111899/original/image-20160218-1252-zi1vd5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=777&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111899/original/image-20160218-1252-zi1vd5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=777&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111899/original/image-20160218-1252-zi1vd5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=976&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111899/original/image-20160218-1252-zi1vd5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=976&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111899/original/image-20160218-1252-zi1vd5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=976&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The 1978 Mardi Gras parade.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some 53 men and women were arrested, all of whom – unhelpfully – had their <a href="http://www.starobserver.com.au/news/local-news/new-south-wales-news/pressure-grows-on-nsw-police-to-apologise-for-1978-mardi-gras-arrests/135597">names and occupations subsequently published</a> in The Sydney Morning Herald. Many lost their jobs or housing as a result.</p>
<p>Gail Hewison, one of the women detained, described to me the whole experience of being locked-up without charge as one of shock and trauma. She had all her possessions taken away from her including her glasses. She told me she could hear the sounds of a man being horribly beaten in another cell. Then, after a while she also began to hear the supportive chants of the crowds gathering outside.</p>
<p>In front of the police station, close to Oxford Street and Taylor Square where the march had started hours earlier, battered and bruised, hundreds of us gathered in an enraged state shouting, “Let them free!”. We continued the refrains from our earlier chants: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Two four six eight, gay is just as good as straight! </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Looking out at the angry crowd the police inside the station must have been apprehensive about what would happen next. They were greatly outnumbered and for some moments as we inched closer and closer, you could sense an urge on the part of the crowd to takeover the police station, to demand the jailers keys and so to release our brothers and sisters. </p>
<p>Over the years I have often wondered why we didn’t storm the building then and there. Strangely after a short period of silence somebody started to sing the Afro-American spiritual “We shall not be moved” and the whole crowd joined in:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We shall not, we shall not be moved <br>
We shall not, we shall not be moved<br>
Just like a tree that’s standing by the water<br>
We shall not be moved<br></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Reflecting on this now I would like to think that, despite the provocation on that night itself and the centuries of violence that had been perpetrated upon us, we as a collective knew instinctively that violence was one of our main grievances and we had a mission to resist it and fight against violence using other means.</p>
<p>Someone in the crowd cried out, “I am a lawyer. Are there any other lawyers or solicitors here? We need to raise bail money!”. The campaign to win the legal battles was now well underway, culminating in 1984 when <a href="http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/parlment/hansart.nsf/V3Key/LC20140304059">homosexuality was decriminalised in the NSW Parliament</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111894/original/image-20160218-1269-1mwqxcz.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111894/original/image-20160218-1269-1mwqxcz.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111894/original/image-20160218-1269-1mwqxcz.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111894/original/image-20160218-1269-1mwqxcz.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111894/original/image-20160218-1269-1mwqxcz.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111894/original/image-20160218-1269-1mwqxcz.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111894/original/image-20160218-1269-1mwqxcz.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111894/original/image-20160218-1269-1mwqxcz.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The 1978 Mardi Gras parade.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Pride History Group</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This brief narrative of the first Mardi Gras is told because the events of that night, their causes and repercussions can now be placed in clearer historical perspective and they help us to understand why keeping politics at the centre of the annual Mardi Gras is so important. </p>
<h2>Facing the HIV epidemic</h2>
<p>As Dennis Altman pointed out in <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18106848-the-end-of-the-homosexual">The End of the Homosexual?</a> (2013), it was the precise timing of the Mardi Gras leading to the decriminalisation of homosexuality in NSW in 1984 that ultimately helped save thousands of Australian lives in the HIV epidemic that hit Sydney hard in 1985.</p>
<p>The epidemic could only have been handled as effectively as it was because decriminalisation and critical bi-partisan cross party political support resulted in more openness and less stigma.</p>
<p>The old days of identity politics are now gone and labels are eschewed in these times where the fluidity of sexuality is recognised and better understood. But the struggle is not over. In 2013 we witnessed the arrest of a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxtFtVfAee">young teenager at the Mardi Gras parade</a> who was assaulted and abused in ways reminiscent of 1978. Again the police were not held accountable for their actions. </p>
<p>Young people are still ending their lives because of the <a href="https://www.beyondblue.org.au/docs/default-source/default-document-library/bw0258-lgbti-mental-health-and-suicide-2013-2nd-edition.pdf?sfvrsn=2">pain and homophobia they experience</a>. If there is a timely lesson for the police here it is in the need for an authentic engagement with minority groups where honesty and respect replaces suspicion and contempt.</p>
<p>So at the same time we celebrate just how far GLBTQI people in NSW have come with dramatically improved community attitudes and we not only welcome but applaud a contingent of the NSW Police Service marching in the annual parade, we need to resist attempts to whitewash our history and we need to make sure we do not lose the memories of our earlier struggles. </p>
<p>The motion at Sydney Town Hall earlier in 2015, calling for an official apology to the 78ers for the violence of that June night in 1978, was strongly supported by out-lesbian elder and Deputy Lord Mayor Robyn Kemmis, who recently died. </p>
<p>We owe a debt to her work and that of people such as <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/mardi-gras-still-breaks-down-barriers-after-35-years-20130302-2fd7h.html">Steve Warren</a>, one of the original 78ers who has worked tirelessly for an apology. That Sydney City Council action has prompted a small bipartisan group of NSW State parliamentarians to take up the call for an official apology. </p>
<p>Sadly, any apology now is too late for so many who were present at that first Mardi Gras and are no longer with us. Many were cut down before their time in the HIV AIDS epidemic. </p>
<p>The efforts of these NSW parliamentarians, though, are important and mean a great deal to the 78ers that survive. Back in 1978 we called, in vain, for a Royal Commission into the police violence of that June night. We also called for an apology from Fairfax for publishing the names, occupations and addresses of all of the 53 people who were arrested that night. </p>
<p>Till this time no formal apology has been received from Fairfax. After nearly 38 years since the first Mardi Gras an apology by the NSW State parliament would help to heal the wounds.</p>
<p>So as an original 78er I welcome an apology by the NSW Parliament. But it needs to be a “living apology”. A living apology is one where Parliament affirms the need for ongoing vigilance so that the human rights of LGBTIQ people are respected and protected in law. </p>
<p>It also has to affirm the need for ongoing social investment in educational programs that create a more inclusive NSW community where differences are respected and where the power of diversity is celebrated.</p>
<p>We welcome anyone who participated in the 1978 Mardi Gras with an interest in the apology to contact the <a href="mailto:seventyeighters@gmail.com">78ers committee</a> or the <a href="https://web.facebook.com/pridehistory/">Pride History Group</a>. If you are in Sydney for the Fair Day in Victoria Park on Sunday February 21, come our tent and talk to us.</p>
<p>In the current international climate with the re-emergence of fascist threats from all sides there are too few places in the world that offer the hope of this kind of open society. Sydney, and Australia more broadly, could represent this kind of inclusive society. It will be a society where the role of the police shifts from suppressing the rights of minorities to protecting and even championing them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/54337/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Gillespie is affiliated with The '78ers.
</span></em></p>Is a formal apology to the 1978 Mardi Gras marchers warranted? Some understanding of the oppressive social conditions affecting the lives of sexual minorities in Australia in that era is required.Mark Gillespie, English for Academic Purposes Specialist, Anthropologist, Centre for English Teaching, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/476312015-09-16T09:45:13Z2015-09-16T09:45:13ZWhat it’s like to be a woman working in science, and how to make it better<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/94965/original/image-20150916-11961-1qv7bjs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=269%2C387%2C3937%2C2436&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There are still barriers to overcome to keep more women in science.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">CIAT/Flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This Wednesday saw the launch of the Science in Australia Gender Equity (<a href="https://www.science.org.au/sage">SAGE</a>) <a href="https://www.science.org.au/SAGE/Pilot">pilot program</a> by the Australian Academy of Science (<a href="https://www.science.org.au/">AAS</a>) in partnership with the Academy of Technological Science and Engineering (<a href="https://www.atse.org.au/">ATSE</a>).</em></p>
<p><em>SAGE is a gender equity program to address the chronic underrepresentation of women in Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Medicine (STEMM).</em></p>
<p><em>The Conversation asked women in the sciences to reflect on their experiences working in the field and comment the significance of the SAGE initiative.</em></p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Nalini Joshi</strong><br>
<em>Georgina Sweet Australian Laureate Fellow in Mathematics and the Chair of Applied Mathematics at the University of Sydney</em></p>
<p>I was the first female professor of mathematics ever appointed to the University of Sydney, Australia’s oldest university. I remained in that singular position for 14 years, until July this year when the number doubled; we now have two female professors of mathematics! </p>
<p>When I arrived, the most common question I got asked was: “are you a real professor?” I tried to respond: “yes, according to my payslip, I am.” Later I worked out what the question meant. Was I a chair of a discipline area? Or a permanent named chair corresponding to distinctive research and scholarly leadership? Or was my position of lesser distinction? </p>
<p>I wondered then whether new male professors would have been asked that question. The underlying message was that being female is incompatible with being chair of a discipline. It also implied that I couldn’t belong. </p>
<p>I have been the only woman in most rooms for most of my professional life. I had come to terms with contradictory subliminal messages a very long time ago, and they were not going to stop me pursuing and solving problems in mathematics. </p>
<p>The standard approaches undertaken by Australian organisations for equity have been blind and deaf to these subliminal messages. Most organisations would say they are ticking all the right boxes for equity, but at the same time remain puzzled by the persistent lack of diversity at the senior levels.</p>
<p>The SAGE initiative aims to create a framework that will bring systemic, subliminal bias to light and change the gendered landscape in Australian organisations.</p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Tanya Monro</strong><br>
<em>Deputy Vice Chancellor Research & Innovation at University of South Australia</em></p>
<p>I will never forget the day when, as a 31 year old new physics professor recently returned to Australia, I sat down to my first meeting with my colleagues. Fists banged on the tables, voices were raised and I found myself pulling my chair back ever so slightly and asking myself what I was getting myself into. </p>
<p>It was certainly a culture shock after seven years in the UK working within a very diverse and dynamic research centre. It seemed ironic to me when well intentioned colleagues would tell me that I needed to be less “aggressive” when what I was doing was simply being persistent and determined in figuring how we could establish the partnerships, research infrastructure and a team with the critical mass required to make a difference. Or that I should just bring along my babies when I needed to lecture. </p>
<p>When I found the criticisms start to sting, I would kid myself that they came because of my age not my gender.</p>
<p>As a 14 year girl who discovered physics as a result of an inspirational teacher at an all-girls school, it never entered my head to question whether a women could succeed in science. I figured out that I needed to get a PhD as the basic entry requirement to being a professional physicist, and off I went. </p>
<p>When at university I started to note some significant differences, particularly around exam time, when my male friends would seem supremely confident after exams, whereas I and my female friends would instantly agonise over the things we found too difficult. It took me a while to realise that this was a confidence gap rather than an ability gap, as the gender split was never evident after the results came out.</p>
<p>One of the most transformative things that made a difference to me, and stopped me being one of the “leaks” in the career pipeline, was when I was fortunate enough to secure a Royal Society University Research Fellowship at The University of Southampton at age 27. </p>
<p>This meant that I no longer had any job security issues, and that I knew I could pursue my dreams in science without sacrificing the choice to have a family. A few years later, when my husband and I had our first child, and I was working four days a week after my return to work, the director of the centre in which I was working spontaneously reframed my role as being full-time, while only requiring me to come in four days. The sense of feeling valued I got from gave me a huge boost and my team grew to over 25 people.</p>
<p>It is a great joy being able to mentor emerging scientists, but it is sobering to reflect on the stark differences I have experienced in talking to these young scientists. The majority of the men have an attitude of “I’m enjoying myself, doing well, let’s see where this takes me”, whereas many of the women ask for some certainty that they will have job security into the future so they can contemplate parenthood. </p>
<p>It’s clear that while we certainly attract outstandingly capable women into STEM, we need to do something really different to keep them there. The current system, which typically involves a sequence of short term contracts, simply doesn’t work for many women, so they leave. We simply can’t afford to lose half of our talent pool if we want science and technology to play a major role in transforming Australia’s future.</p>
<p>I am thrilled that we have launched the SAGE pilot, which will enable us to drive the adoption of best practice in our universities and medical research institutes. I am proud that The University of South Australia is one of the inaugural members of the Athena SWAN Charter in Australia. </p>
<p>This focus, which isn’t on understanding the problem, but is rather on concrete action based on changing institutional policies and practices is just what we need at this time. I very much hope that by the time my children go to university they will never be in a room where the filter for who is at the table is based on gender rather than talent and drive.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/95005/original/image-20150916-11977-1n8kxy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/95005/original/image-20150916-11977-1n8kxy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/95005/original/image-20150916-11977-1n8kxy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/95005/original/image-20150916-11977-1n8kxy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/95005/original/image-20150916-11977-1n8kxy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/95005/original/image-20150916-11977-1n8kxy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/95005/original/image-20150916-11977-1n8kxy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/95005/original/image-20150916-11977-1n8kxy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Women are already working in all fields of science.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Australian Synchrotron</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p><strong>Maggie Hardy</strong><br>
<em>Senior Postdoctoral Research Fellow at The University of Queensland in the Institute for Molecular Bioscience</em></p>
<p>Google provides two definitions of the word <a href="https://www.google.com.au/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=define:+sage">sage</a>. The first is “an aromatic plant.” The second is where we hope to see ourselves but half of us don’t: “a profoundly wise man.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/94952/original/image-20150916-11975-18i48on.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/94952/original/image-20150916-11975-18i48on.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/94952/original/image-20150916-11975-18i48on.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=222&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/94952/original/image-20150916-11975-18i48on.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=222&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/94952/original/image-20150916-11975-18i48on.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=222&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/94952/original/image-20150916-11975-18i48on.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=279&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/94952/original/image-20150916-11975-18i48on.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=279&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/94952/original/image-20150916-11975-18i48on.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=279&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The definition of ‘sage’ has a gender bias.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In many ways, this is where the challenge lies: it is one of a mounting pile of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microaggression_theory">microaggressions</a> directed towards women.</p>
<p>Researchers have helpfully identified <a href="https://hbr.org/2015/03/the-5-biases-pushing-women-out-of-stem">four major patterns of bias</a> women in STEM careers face at work in the United States. Black women face an additional fifth type of bias.</p>
<p>I still think it’s great to be a scientist. I have three children under three years of age, and for me and many others a career in research is a fantastic place to be a <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/comment/science-offers-great-careers-for-women-20150422-1mqgam.html">working mom</a>, despite the need to account for career interruptions due to maternity leave.</p>
<p>But we still need real change to support women researchers and their careers. We should protect researchers from sexual harassment at work, as I’ve outlined previously <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v512/n7513/full/512136d.html">here</a>, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-need-to-talk-about-the-sexual-abuse-of-scientists-31059">here</a>. Policy should support <a href="https://theconversation.com/future-fellowship-cuts-hit-early-stage-researchers-hardest-39180">early-career researchers</a>, especially at the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_ranks_(Australia_and_New_Zealand)">level B/C</a> mark where women start to evaporate. </p>
<p>We should support science communication and engagement, because if people don’t know the value of our research <a href="https://theconversation.com/budget-cuts-are-harder-if-people-know-the-benefits-of-research-40324">how can we save funding for science</a> at budget time?</p>
<p>We need to recruit and retain excellence in a way that proportionally represents the diversity of our nation. The challenges I face as a white woman <a href="https://theconversation.com/early-career-researchers-the-missing-link-for-stem-diversity-38026">are compounded</a> for women of colour, and conversations about equity should be inclusive and intersectional.</p>
<p>There’s another definition of “<a href="http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/169730?rskey=aggZnH&result=3&isAdvanced=false#eid">sage</a>” given in the Oxford English Dictionary: practically wise, rendered prudent or judicious by experience. With any luck, this is what the SAGE Forum will help us all become.</p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Suzanne Cory</strong><br>
<em>Immediate Past President, Australian Academy of Science, and Honorary Distinguished Professorial Fellow, Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research</em></p>
<p>When I was growing up, my mother and her peers gave up their paid jobs when they got married, to look after their families and support their husbands’ careers. They also contributed greatly to society as unpaid volunteers – at the local baby health centre, on school committees, delivering meals on wheels or organising local charity events. </p>
<p>But my mother had yearned to be an opera singer. In unguarded moments, she and her friends would admit to feeling frustrated that they hadn’t had the chance to achieve their own personal dreams, or be seen clearly as individuals rather than simply as a mother, carer or wife.</p>
<p>The role of women in our society was changing by the time I took my first forays into the workforce. I was fortunate to have male mentors who always supported my career. Although my promotion may have been slower than it should have been, I never felt that any door was closed to me. But a great deal more change is needed if every woman is to have the opportunity to fulfil her potential in society.</p>
<p><em>This is an extract from the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/boyerlectures/people-for-science/5697312">Boyer Lecture</a> from September 2014.</em></p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Amanda Barnard</strong><br>
<em>Office of the Chief Executive (OCE) Science Leader and Head of the Virtual Nanoscience Laboratory at CSIRO</em></p>
<p>Like all women in STEM, I endeavour to conduct myself as if my gender is irrelevant, assuming that I’m judged on my skills and knowledge alone. I conduct myself this way because that is the way I want to be treated, and the person I want to be. But I know it is also a bit naïve.</p>
<p>Like many women working in STEM, I have experienced my share of discrimination, but it has not been a defining characteristic of my career. I’ve noticed during my time in Australia and abroad that this varies by nation, by organisation, and as a function of time.</p>
<p>I’ve had good experiences, where I can honestly say my gender played no part in how I have been perceived, and I’ve had bad experiences where I would have to be in a state of utter denial not to recognise unintentional biases from colleagues. Some of these interactions have bordered on insulting, but I know they were not intended that way.</p>
<p>One such occurrence was earlier this week. For many years these incidents played on my mind, and I admit I have occasionally reevaluated my decision to dedicate my career to STEM as a result of them. </p>
<p>In more recent years I have decided to turn it on its head and see the positive side. Like some women in STEM I have found myself to be the only female in a meeting, or on a committee or part of a project, and I choose to see this as a competitive advantage. I think differently, and I bring something different to the table. I’m proud of that, and would not change it for the world.</p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Chloe Warren</strong><br>
<em>PhD student, DNA Repair Group, Hunter Medical Research Centre and University of Newcastle</em></p>
<p>During my science outreach work, I get so excited when I see little girls getting interested in science. But I’ve had parents ask me what it’s like to work in academia, and I have to honestly tell them that it’s probably in their kids’ best interests to look elsewhere. </p>
<p>We spend so much effort thinking about ways to make science – especially maths and physics – more accessible and interesting for girls. But, to be honest, that’s not even half the battle. </p>
<p>People shouldn’t have to compromise between having a happy family and having a fulfilling career. Yet, so often it falls to women to make the difficult decisions. Having children doesn’t have to be a deal breaker. </p>
<p>I’ve seen so many wonderful female colleagues who’ve found returning to work so challenging and inflexible, that they’re unable to continue on with that same passion for science as before they left. </p>
<p>The academic structure grew up around a world comprised of full time workers with full time wives. It’s not going to evolve of its own accord to support a modern workforce comprised of both genders, working part and full time together. The SAGE initiative provides an opportunity for us to reclaim the academic structure to make it work for us and everyone.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/47631/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Suzanne Cory is President of the Australian Academy of Science, which hosted the SAGE Forum and launched the SAGE pilot program.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maggie Hardy is on the Executive Board of the Australian Early- and Mid-Career Researcher Forum, an initiative of the Australian Academy of Science. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nalini Joshi is co-chairwoman of the SAGE Forum.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amanda Barnard, Chloe Warren, and Tanya Monro do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>What is it like to be a woman working in the sciences? While there are hurdles to overcome, there are joys as well. The new SAGE initiative hopes to make STEM even more amenable to women.Suzanne Cory, Research Professor, Walter and Eliza Hall InstituteAmanda Barnard, Office of the Chief Executive (OCE) Science Leader, and Head of the Virtual Nanoscience Laboratory, CSIROChloe Warren, PhD Student, University of NewcastleMaggie Hardy, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, The University of QueenslandNalini Joshi, Professor of Mathematics, University of SydneyTanya Monro, Deputy Vice Chancellor Research & Innovation, University of South AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/451562015-08-06T06:25:31Z2015-08-06T06:25:31ZHow we won the world robot soccer championship<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90966/original/image-20150806-1962-yihtw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3675%2C2547&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">And the crowd goes wild as number 5 kicks the winning goal!</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sean Harris/UNSW</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>My team from UNSW Australia defeated team B-Human from Germany 3-1 last week to claim back-to-back Robocup SPL World Championships. Here’s how we did it.</p>
<p>The competition involves fully autonomous robots, with no remote control, competing against each other in 5-on-5 soccer. Each team uses the same robots, so the competition is focused on software and artificial intelligence (AI) development, not on hardware construction.</p>
<p>The final was a nail-biting match locked at 1-1 with less than three minutes remaining. Both teams had strong strategies and well-tested code, but in the end, our speed proved too fast for the Germans to keep up with.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iNLcGqbhGcc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">You can watch the entire match here.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Late push</h2>
<p>We went into half time with a 1-0 lead after dominating field position for most of the 10 minute half. Despite playing mainly in the German’s side of the field, we struggled to score many goals against their heavily defensive strategy. At one stage the Germans brought all five robots back to their goal box in an attempt to stop us from scoring.</p>
<p>The second half saw things briefly fall apart for us midway through. We had three robots lose power as a result of heavy falls and were suddenly reduced to only two active robots on the field. The Germans capitalised, and equalised with around three minutes remaining, leading to us calling a time out to revive our injured robots.</p>
<p>After our timeout though, our robots got things back on track. With five robots now on the field, we pulled the momentum of the game back in our favour and scored two late goals to secure our second title in as many years.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90664/original/image-20150803-15134-1746ebm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90664/original/image-20150803-15134-1746ebm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90664/original/image-20150803-15134-1746ebm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90664/original/image-20150803-15134-1746ebm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90664/original/image-20150803-15134-1746ebm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90664/original/image-20150803-15134-1746ebm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90664/original/image-20150803-15134-1746ebm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90664/original/image-20150803-15134-1746ebm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">2015 UNSW Australia team.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sean Harris/UNSW</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our strategy for winning was focused on exploiting our fast walking speed. Our robots are able to accelerate much faster than most teams’ and they reach a top speed of about 30 centimetres per second (about 1 kmh). Although this is slow compared to humans, in robot soccer it’s really quick!</p>
<p>When the ball is in our half of the field, we don’t bother trying to pass it to a teammate, we just try to boot it up the other end of the field. The idea is that we kick the ball deep into their half, then use our fast walk speed to reach the ball before our opponents have time to clear it away. </p>
<p>This leads to us playing most of the game in our opponent’s half of the field, where it’s hard for them to score goals, but easier for us to score.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90967/original/image-20150806-1947-1bmm558.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90967/original/image-20150806-1947-1bmm558.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90967/original/image-20150806-1947-1bmm558.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=235&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90967/original/image-20150806-1947-1bmm558.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=235&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90967/original/image-20150806-1947-1bmm558.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=235&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90967/original/image-20150806-1947-1bmm558.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=295&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90967/original/image-20150806-1947-1bmm558.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=295&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90967/original/image-20150806-1947-1bmm558.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=295&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The team awaits the next half.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sean Harris/UNSW</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Listening for whistles</h2>
<p>The competition changes the rules each year to make the games more challenging. This year, all the finals matches were started by a referee’s whistle, instead of the regular Wi-Fi message. This meant that the robots had to listen out for the whistle before each kick off.</p>
<p>We were the only team to reliably start all our robots on the referee’s whistle. A big reason for this was that the team decided whether or not they had heard the whistle, together. </p>
<p>If only one robot heard a whistle, but the other four didn’t, they decide that the one robot must have been wrong, and don’t play. If three out of the five hear a whistle, but the last two don’t, then they decide the two must have missed it and they all start playing. </p>
<p>This majority vote system was crucial in ensuring our team listened to the whistle reliably.</p>
<p>Another of the major reasons we think we were successful is the development and testing practices we have as a team. Each week we run a series of standardised tests to see how fast we can score a goal. </p>
<p>We start the robot in the same set of places each week and time how quickly it gets to the ball and shoots it into the goal. This quickly highlights how effective the past week’s worth of development has been and where we need to improve. It also quickly shows us any major bugs we have introduced with the latest set of changes.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90668/original/image-20150803-15159-10lavil.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90668/original/image-20150803-15159-10lavil.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90668/original/image-20150803-15159-10lavil.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90668/original/image-20150803-15159-10lavil.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90668/original/image-20150803-15159-10lavil.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90668/original/image-20150803-15159-10lavil.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90668/original/image-20150803-15159-10lavil.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Face off.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sean Harris/UNSW</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We also play small practice games of 5 vs 0 or 3 vs 3 as we get closer to competition. Firstly, this shows us how well our robots position and play as a team, which is crucially important in a team sport like soccer. </p>
<p>Secondly it shows how well we are able to perform in a changing environment, playing against a live opposition. It’s always much harder to score when you’ve got opponents getting in the way!</p>
<h2>Looking to the future</h2>
<p>Winning two world championships in a row has put a huge target on our back now. All the other teams will be closely watching our progress and focusing their strategies to beat us next year. We will spend the next 12 months continuing to innovate and ensure that we bring an even better team to the competition next year.</p>
<p>Robocup also announced that it is coming to Sydney in 2019! Although it’s a long way off yet, we are looking forward to having a home ground advantage in a few years time.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90669/original/image-20150803-15152-1ro9lmv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90669/original/image-20150803-15152-1ro9lmv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90669/original/image-20150803-15152-1ro9lmv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90669/original/image-20150803-15152-1ro9lmv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90669/original/image-20150803-15152-1ro9lmv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90669/original/image-20150803-15152-1ro9lmv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90669/original/image-20150803-15152-1ro9lmv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Games can be stressful to watch!</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sean Harris/UNSW</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/45156/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sean Harris is the team leader for the UNSW Australia Robocup Team.</span></em></p>Hey robot sports fans, here’s the inside story on how UNSW won the world championship in robot soccer last week.Sean Harris, PhD student in robotics and artificial intelligence, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/452982015-08-05T02:56:39Z2015-08-05T02:56:39ZTheatre directing in Australia – some notes from the wings<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90273/original/image-20150730-25745-68ai24.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'What makes directing worthwhile are the people who you do it with.'</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://one.aap.com.au/#/search/bell%20shakespeare?q=%7B%22pageSize%22:25,%22pageNumber%22:1%7D">Jane Dempster/AAP. Bell Shakespeare's production of Tartuffe, 2014. </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For a theatre director, plays are like bulls: it doesn’t matter how fancy your cape work is, any one of them could kill you. </p>
<p>When people ask: “What plays do you like to see?”, I say: “Ones I don’t have to direct”. </p>
<p>I’ve been directing since I was 16, so nearly 35 years. I’ve worked consistently, but haven’t clocked up many shows. That’s because I’ve done other things as well: been a historian, a dramaturge, a policy analyst, even a critic (for a few years, until I got sarky and gave it up). </p>
<p>Theatre directors come in two kinds: “star” and “of use”. I’m in the latter category, which means that for any given play there are at least three or four other directors who could do it equally well.</p>
<p>I’m not supposed to admit this. I’m supposed to think of myself as a unique artist. But in the hyper-competitive world of Australian theatre I think it’s salutary to acknowledge the truth of similarity as well as the truth of difference. It doesn’t diminish a director to own to shared skills and values.</p>
<p>I’ve read that directors are at their best in their fifties, but that was before the cult of youth turned theatre into a sandpit for <em>ingénues</em> and <em>enfant terribles</em>. Now I’m in my fifties, however, I’m not so sure. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90731/original/image-20150804-11977-1mhzzbm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90731/original/image-20150804-11977-1mhzzbm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90731/original/image-20150804-11977-1mhzzbm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90731/original/image-20150804-11977-1mhzzbm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90731/original/image-20150804-11977-1mhzzbm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90731/original/image-20150804-11977-1mhzzbm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90731/original/image-20150804-11977-1mhzzbm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90731/original/image-20150804-11977-1mhzzbm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Simon Laherty performs a scene from Back to Back Theatre’s Ganesh Versus the Third Reich, in 2014.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Candy Welz</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I can feel the energy leave my body in steady quanta, like a battery running down cell by cell. The amount of effort required to direct a show is staggering. The ones that go well cost you. The ones that don’t cost you more, because you have to keep investigating, try to discover where you went wrong.</p>
<p>I’ve worked for major theatres and small ones, on big productions and fringe shows. Hand on heart, there is absolutely no difference in terms of artistic significance, quality of outcome, or standard of personnel. </p>
<p>They are all equally demanding, equally worthwhile. The pressure comes from the outside, from public expectations. But mainly it comes from the inside, from the artists you work with. Everyone gives 100%. As the director you have to give the same.</p>
<p>History is important to me, particularly the example of older artists. I have interviewed dozens for the books and articles I have written. I interviewed the designer Tony Tripp the month before he died. I have interviewed John Bell, Robin Nevin, Richard Wherrett, Julie Forsythe, George Ogilvie, Monica Maughan, Aarne Neeme, Jean-Pierre Mignon, Lyndal Jones, Peter King and many others. </p>
<p>Respecting the past doesn’t diminish the present. It doesn’t undermine “the new”; that’s just the spillover from a thousand marketing campaigns flogging useless crap where “newness” is the only saleable feature. In art, innovation is nothing without tradition, and vice-versa.</p>
<p>Talking with older artists is very humbling. You realise you are part of the ongoing story of the artform. You aren’t going to dominate it and, in fact, that’s a flawed aspiration. What matters is participation, making the best contribution you can make. God knows, that’s difficult enough. </p>
<p>I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve said, “I’m a theatre director”, only to hear, “So you wrote the play, then?” or, “Do you act in it as well?”. In practice, not many people know what artists do unless their role is high-profile, like being a star in a TV drama. </p>
<p>When directors are feted, it’s for their mysterious “genius” rather than their hard-won craft. That shows ignorance, and a lack of understanding of what the job entails. </p>
<p>The main part of a director’s work is staging: arranging a play’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-mise-en-scene-27281"><em>mise en scene</em></a>, helping the actors interpret their roles, agreeing to the set design, the sound design and any related technologies. </p>
<p>Generally, it is taking charge of all aspects of its performance realisation. <a href="http://www.britannica.com/biography/Louis-Jouvet">Louis Jouvet</a> called directing “a tragedy of execution”, meaning you spend your life terrified things won’t work or something will stuff up. </p>
<p>I dipped into theatre director Braham Murray’s <a href="http://oberonbooks.com/how-to-direct">How to Direct a Play</a> (2011) recently. I was fascinated by the idea that the job could be given a predictable shape. </p>
<p>He writes about fear and the need to manage it. Directing theatre is more than a risk: it’s indeterminate, meaning you don’t know what you’ve got until a show opens. Then you know. Then you think: “Why didn’t I understand this before?” </p>
<p>It’s like trying to see round a corner. My friend <a href="https://www.bellshakespeare.com.au/about-us/artistic-directors/">Peter Evans</a>, who now runs Bell Shakespeare, once said to me that the only show you can rely on is one that’s over. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90732/original/image-20150804-11977-1laqp7n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90732/original/image-20150804-11977-1laqp7n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90732/original/image-20150804-11977-1laqp7n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90732/original/image-20150804-11977-1laqp7n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90732/original/image-20150804-11977-1laqp7n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90732/original/image-20150804-11977-1laqp7n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90732/original/image-20150804-11977-1laqp7n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90732/original/image-20150804-11977-1laqp7n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nathaniel Dean, Ursula Yovich and Roy Gordon in the Sydney Theatre Company’s The Secret River, adapted for the stage by playwright Andrew Bovell.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP Image/Heidrun Löhr</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>If I never hear the word “auteur” again, it’ll be too soon. I’ve devised and adapted work, as well as directing straight plays. Mostly I collaborate on Australian drama. That means I work with living playwrights, which is rewarding, but also exhausting. </p>
<p><a href="http://dailyreview.crikey.com.au/dead-centresea-wall-red-stitch-melbourne/27064">Dead Centre</a>, the play I recently opened, took eight months to develop and involved countless drafts. My watchwords are “simplicity, clarity, veracity”. At the end I often get, “Well, it directed itself didn’t it?”, which can be a little exasperating. </p>
<p>I’m good with my ears. I can read a script and accurately judge the quality of the narrative and the dialogue, sometimes the impact of individual moments. This is called dramaturgy now. Back in the day it was just part of directing. </p>
<p>It’s about understanding <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-cant-get-those-two-hours-back-drama-works-as-time-unfolds-39687">how time works</a>, how something that happens in the third minute affects something that happens in the 53rd minute. That doesn’t take the fear of not knowing away. But it does soften it.</p>
<p>Theatre is about relationships. What makes directing worthwhile are the people you do it with. I am amazed at the resilience, talent and good humour of my colleagues. </p>
<p>Artists sometimes get a bad wrap, but in all my years in the theatre I’ve never had an unrewarding working relationship, not once. </p>
<p>I grew up in London where there might be 70-plus shows running a night. No Australian city is comparable in that way, but the quality is comparable.</p>
<p>Australia is full of intelligent, creative people. What stands in their way is the low official standing of Australian culture, the so-called “cultural cringe”. </p>
<p>I heard last year that a major theatre company was thinking of appointing a “star” artistic director from overseas. After everything Australia’s been through! After the long struggle for artistic autonomy! </p>
<p>It’s like the country is asleep, or hasn’t quite grown up yet. One day that will change. I can’t predict what it will be like. But I can tell you this: it’ll be a damn sight easier to direct plays in. </p>
<p><br>
<br></p>
<p><em>Dead Centre/Sea Wall, directed by Julian Meyrick, is showing at <a href="http://redstitch.net/gallery/dead-centre-sea-wall/">Red Stitch</a>, Melbourne, until August 15, <a href="http://darwinfestival.org.au/show/dead-centre-sea-wall/">Darwin Festival</a> on August 22-23, <a href="http://www.brisbanefestival.com.au/whats-on/dead-centresea-wall">Brisbane Festival</a> September 15-19, and <a href="http://www.oldfitztheatre.com/dead-centre-sea-wall/">Old Fitz</a>, Sydney, October 20- November 14</em>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/45298/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julian Meyrick does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>‘Theatre directors come in two kinds: “star” and “of use”. I’m in the latter category, which means that, for any given play, there are at least three or four other directors who could do it equally well.’Julian Meyrick, Professor of Creative Arts, Flinders UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/435482015-07-13T20:18:29Z2015-07-13T20:18:29ZFreedom Stories: what I’ve learned from filming Australia’s asylum seekers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/88020/original/image-20150710-16754-1j4g8g0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former detention centre detainee, Shafiq Monis, and his daughter Mahidya. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image courtesy of Steve Thomas </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As an independent documentary maker, my journey through asylum seeker terrain began in 2002, when I was researching a <a href="http://nfsa.gov.au/collection/film-australia-collection/program-sales/search-programs/program/?sn=8615">documentary on the history of the township of Woomera</a>. That research eventuated in <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4535358/">Welcome To Woomera</a> (2004), the first of what’s turned out to be a trilogy of films I’ve made touching on the situation and lives of asylum seekers in Australia. </p>
<p>From those films, and the years working on them, I’ve noticed certain patterns and gained first-hand insights.</p>
<p>My second film, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/atthemovies/txt/s2259589.htm">Hope</a> (2008), was a collaborative documentary about the life of the late <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/amal-basrys-long-journey-finds-home/2006/03/20/1142703280987.html">Amal Basry</a>, one of a handful of survivors of the <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/life/weekend-australian-magazine/why-we-should-still-hang-our-heads-in-shame-over-siev-x/story-e6frg8h6-1227092806148">SIEV X</a> people-smuggling disaster of 2001, when 353 people drowned en route to Australia. </p>
<p>The third film – <a href="http://freedomstoriesproject.com/feature-doco/">Freedom Stories</a> (2015) – was completed in February this year and premiered at the <a href="http://www.sff.org.au/">Sydney Film Festival</a> in June.</p>
<figure>
<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/127212383" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Freedom Stories (2015) trailer.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Much of my 25 years of filmmaking has been preoccupied with the question of how it is that good or ordinary people can end up doing bad things, and the effects on those to whom those bad things are done. </p>
<p>In <a href="http://www.creativespirits.info/resources/movies/black-mans-houses#axzz3fj8Ph2kB">Black Man’s Houses</a> (1992) and <a href="http://beamafilm.com/Least%20Said%20Soonest%20Mended/#.VaMHJJOqpBc">Least Said Soonest Mended</a> (1992), I pursued this theme in situations as diverse as missionary efforts to “civilise” Aborigines in the late 1800s and – in my own family’s case – the removal of my sister’s child for adoption in the 1960s “for her own good”. </p>
<p>My research for Welcome To Woomera in 2002 involved the entire span of the South Australian outback town’s existence, from its inception as a base for <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/business/australia-eases-access-to-worlds-biggest-weapon-range-20130530-2ne3a.html">weapons testing during the Cold War</a> to its role, at the time of my research, in detaining “boat people” from countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran under Australia’s <a href="http://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/fact-sheets/asylum-seeker-issues/mandatory-detention/">unique policy</a> of indefinite mandatory detention.</p>
<p>Woomera has always been that place that every country seems to need, where not very good things are done, out of sight of the populace, by perfectly nice and ordinary people, on behalf of the nation’s security. </p>
<p>By the time we began shooting Welcome To Woomera, the detention centre was closed, most of it having <a href="https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/23578">been burned down</a> by the inmates, but there were still women and children living in community detention in the town. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/88010/original/image-20150710-16754-1mb06l0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/88010/original/image-20150710-16754-1mb06l0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/88010/original/image-20150710-16754-1mb06l0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/88010/original/image-20150710-16754-1mb06l0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/88010/original/image-20150710-16754-1mb06l0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/88010/original/image-20150710-16754-1mb06l0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/88010/original/image-20150710-16754-1mb06l0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/88010/original/image-20150710-16754-1mb06l0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Freedom mural, painted by inmates of the Woomera detention centre, circa 2001.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image courtesy of Screen Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I met some as they attended the Sunday inter-faith service at the local church. One young woman had attempted suicide after two-and-a-half years in detention and its attendant dissipation of hope. </p>
<p>This horrified me. </p>
<p>But what struck me with equal force was that, in different circumstances, she could have been my next-door neighbour. I could detect no significant difference between her hopes and dreams and my own – except that she bore her suffering with more dignity than I could ever muster. </p>
<p>We were forbidden by the Department of Immigration from recording detainees’ stories but as the detention centre was now empty we were allowed inside to film.</p>
<p>While wandering around what remained of the place we came upon some old single-storey brick buildings. On the ends of these were large, beautifully painted murals, the legacy of a brief “<a href="http://www.britannica.com/event/Prague-Spring">Prague Spring</a>” moment when a more benign manager had given the inmates paints and brushes to occupy them. </p>
<p>In these pictures, kites flew through a blue sky, ducks took off from a lake into the sunset, palm trees waved in the breeze, city lights glinted on the horizon, and in one the Titanic was gliding by, unaware of its impending fate.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/88011/original/image-20150710-16789-1job3bk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/88011/original/image-20150710-16789-1job3bk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/88011/original/image-20150710-16789-1job3bk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/88011/original/image-20150710-16789-1job3bk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/88011/original/image-20150710-16789-1job3bk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/88011/original/image-20150710-16789-1job3bk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/88011/original/image-20150710-16789-1job3bk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/88011/original/image-20150710-16789-1job3bk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Titanic mural, painted by inmates of the Woomera detention centre, circa 2001.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image courtesy of National Library of Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These symbols of freedom didn’t look to me like the work of fanatics, terrorists, jihadists or even illegal queue-jumpers bent on taking everyone’s jobs. They looked like the genuine dreams of a peaceful world that ordinary people such as my suicidal friend and I shared. </p>
<p>They stayed with me, those murals. </p>
<p>As the years rolled on, I often wondered who painted them and what had become of them. </p>
<p>A decade later I embarked on making Freedom Stories with those murals in mind. I wanted to explore the current lives of people who’d spent time in detention back then, some as children, followed by years on temporary protection visas, before finally becoming Australian citizens. </p>
<p>As the ethnographic filmmaker <a href="http://rsh.anu.edu.au/people/profile_system/public.php?id=115">David MacDougall</a> wrote in his book <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/6346.html">Transcultural Cinema</a> (1998), the “shock” of the transculturality of film is that, through the particularity of discrete images and stories, the universality of human experience is evoked. </p>
<p>Although from different cultures and backgrounds, my documentary participants and I inhabit the same world, and this cohabitation is a source of commonalities as much as it is of differences. </p>
<p>That was my hope. </p>
<p>By collaboratively listening to former asylum seekers rather than the histrionic voices around them, perhaps I could help return to these vilified people the humanity of which they have been ever more <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-australia-animals-have-better-rights-than-asylum-seekers-27583">crudely stripped</a> over the years with the seeming assent of fearful sections of the populace. </p>
<p>We no longer empathise because they have become solely “them” and <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-care-about-the-health-and-well-being-of-asylum-seekers-27382">not at all “us”</a>.</p>
<p>I had met lots more former asylum seekers in the intervening years through the making of Hope and travelling with it to screenings around the country. So it was no surprise to me that this common humanity shines through in Freedom Stories. </p>
<p>But what has surprised me is how magnanimous the film’s participants generally are towards the rest of “us”, despite the punishing “welcome” our country gave them and the psychological scars that many still carry. I believe this lack of bitterness is partly a result of the many acts of kindness that they experienced from some Australians who, for example, <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2014/06/09/asylum-seeker-letters-campaign-revived">wrote to them in detention</a> and helped them on their release.</p>
<p>One participant in the film is Amir Javan, who was a jeweller in Iran and now works in real estate. He spent four-and-a-half years in detention while the government appealed and re-appealed his pending release all the way to the High Court. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/88012/original/image-20150710-16754-1d0ousk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/88012/original/image-20150710-16754-1d0ousk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/88012/original/image-20150710-16754-1d0ousk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/88012/original/image-20150710-16754-1d0ousk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/88012/original/image-20150710-16754-1d0ousk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/88012/original/image-20150710-16754-1d0ousk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/88012/original/image-20150710-16754-1d0ousk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/88012/original/image-20150710-16754-1d0ousk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Former Curtin and Baxter Detention Centres detainee, Amir Javan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image courtesy of Flying Carpet Films</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When I ask him in the film why he smiles so much, he tells me what he learnt in detention is that we must all care about each other. </p>
<p>Another common trait among the former asylum seekers I’ve met is their enthusiasm and determination to contribute to their new country. It’s a truism to say these are the very people we need in Australia but it’s so. </p>
<p>I don’t want to idealise those people. I think part of the reason for their determination is the feeling that they must prove themselves, to demonstrate that they are not the usurpers and opportunists that many claim they are. </p>
<p>Whatever their motivation, some are inventing ways of creating jobs that the rest of us haven’t thought of, including opening up new trade with Asia and the Middle East – countries with which they are already familiar. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/88013/original/image-20150710-16750-10g8ueb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/88013/original/image-20150710-16750-10g8ueb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/88013/original/image-20150710-16750-10g8ueb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/88013/original/image-20150710-16750-10g8ueb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/88013/original/image-20150710-16750-10g8ueb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/88013/original/image-20150710-16750-10g8ueb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/88013/original/image-20150710-16750-10g8ueb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/88013/original/image-20150710-16750-10g8ueb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Former Woomera detention detainee, Arif Fayazi.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image courtesy of Flying Carpet Films</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Arif Fayazi is from Afghanistan, via Woomera, and when I ask him in the film about the risks of starting a new business venture, he replies: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>There is no greater risk than the one I took getting on that boat. When I came here I started from scratch and if this business fails, I will start from scratch again. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>These are admirable characteristics, but one’s fear now is that if the offspring of these new Australians, who went through so much, are not adequately embraced by our education system and the like, the magnanimity and enthusiasm for progress that their parents are demonstrating may evaporate. </p>
<p>Indeed, this is what we are starting to see among – although in very small numbers – alienated youth who are flirting with extremism, despite their parent’s determination to escape from such. That’s the fear that I now see in the eyes of many of those I have got to know. </p>
<p><br></p>
<p><em>Freedom Stories will screen exclusively at Cinema Nova, Melbourne, for one week only from July 23-29. Details <a href="http://www.cinemanova.com.au/movies/9849.php">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/43548/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steve Thomas is the documentary maker of Welcome to Woomera, Hope, and Freedom Stories, the films on which this article is based. </span></em></p>Over 13 years and three films, director Steve Thomas has been following the stories of people who have arrived in Australia as asylum seekers. What has he learned? Read on …Steve Thomas, Lecturer in Film and Television , The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/409602015-04-29T19:38:45Z2015-04-29T19:38:45ZMelting moments: a look under East Antarctica’s biggest glacier<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79714/original/image-20150429-7100-xc5r9x.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=9%2C97%2C3234%2C2311&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Totten Glacier, the largest in East Antarctica, has deep channels running beneath it that may allow relatively warm water into its belly.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tas van Ommen</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s 11 o’clock on a January evening in 2011 as our venerable old DC-3 aircraft banks over <a href="http://www.antarctica.gov.au/living-and-working/stations/casey">Casey Station</a>, in the last golden rays of an Antarctic sunset. Offshore, an armada of giant icebergs sits stalled in the relative shallows along Peterson Bank, a mix of dusky pink highlights and violet shadows. </p>
<p>Inside the aircraft we shut down our instruments, and I strap myself back in my seat before the gentle bump and swoosh of the snowy landing – another mission under our belts.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.ig.utexas.edu/research/projects/icecap/">ICECAP</a> (International Collaboration for Exploration of the Cryosphere through Aerogeophysical Profiling) project – a collaboration between US, British and Australian Antarctic researchers – has been mapping the East Antarctic ice sheet to look for changes. On our many flights, we have used radar, laser, geomagnetic and gravity instruments to survey an area the size of New South Wales, inland from Casey Station. So far, the flights have covered a total of 150,000 km over the frozen continent’s vast eastern expanse.</p>
<p>And it turns out that East Antarctica needs careful watching. The project is giving us a new look at the underside of the ice sheet in East Antarctica, and causing significant concerns for future increases in sea level. One of the project’s major recent discoveries is that the <a href="http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v8/n4/full/ngeo2388.html">terrain under the region’s biggest and most important glacier</a> may make it more vulnerable to melting than we thought.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79715/original/image-20150429-7104-j4hpgt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79715/original/image-20150429-7104-j4hpgt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79715/original/image-20150429-7104-j4hpgt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=270&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79715/original/image-20150429-7104-j4hpgt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=270&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79715/original/image-20150429-7104-j4hpgt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=270&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79715/original/image-20150429-7104-j4hpgt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79715/original/image-20150429-7104-j4hpgt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79715/original/image-20150429-7104-j4hpgt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Surveying the ice from the skies.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jack Holt</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Before embarking on the ICECAP project, there were huge gaps in our maps of the bedrock under the ice. The region contains some of the thickest, deepest ice on the continent, more than 4 km thick, and it’s a place we need to map as we look for a good site to drill an elusive <a href="http://www.clim-past.net/9/2489/2013/cp-9-2489-2013.html">“million-year” ice core</a>.</p>
<p>Generally, we expected the mapping surveys to reveal a picture of a stable ice sheet, not likely to be affected by changes wreaked by climate warming <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-can-now-only-watch-as-west-antarcticas-ice-sheets-collapse-26957">like the more vulnerable West Antarctica</a>. But this view was to change.</p>
<h2>The melting monster</h2>
<p>Satellite monitoring drew our attention to a hot-spot right beside our Casey hub. The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totten_Glacier">Totten Glacier</a> is the largest glacier in East Antarctica. It drains most of the area of our survey, every year discharging more than 70 cubic km of water into the Southern Ocean. The monster glacier reaches the coast behind a large rocky obstacle known as Law Dome. </p>
<p>Casey Station sits on the west side of Law Dome, while the Totten Glacier runs out on the east. As it does so, it carves a deep trench more than 2 km below sea level, through which the ice emerges and begins to float. Our satellite measurements were showing that just around this point where the ice begins floating, the Totten is thinning and its surface height is lowering by about 2 m per year. ICECAP researchers set about measuring the Totten Glacier’s outlet, so we could understand what is happening.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79718/original/image-20150429-7073-1kh5xg9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79718/original/image-20150429-7073-1kh5xg9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79718/original/image-20150429-7073-1kh5xg9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79718/original/image-20150429-7073-1kh5xg9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79718/original/image-20150429-7073-1kh5xg9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79718/original/image-20150429-7073-1kh5xg9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79718/original/image-20150429-7073-1kh5xg9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79718/original/image-20150429-7073-1kh5xg9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Totten Glacier drains a huge area of East Antarctica.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The project’s results have quite dramatically shifted our view of East Antarctica, in terms of both the <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X14007961">overall picture of ice stability in the region</a>, and the implications of the changes in the Totten Glacier itself. The previous view was that, aside from a poorly mapped valley far inland of Casey called the <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21637255">Aurora Basin</a>, most of the ice was resting on hills and mountains, well above sea level. But it turns out that Aurora Basin is <a href="http://www.the-cryosphere.net/5/551/2011/tc-5-551-2011.pdf">very deep and much larger than we thought</a>.</p>
<p>More seriously, the basin is connected to the coast by terrain that is extensively below sea level. This makes it much more like West Antarctica, where there is serious concern that <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-can-now-only-watch-as-west-antarcticas-ice-sheets-collapse-26957">gradual but irreversible ice loss</a> is already under way. The prospect that such a pattern could also impact East Antarctica is a new one – and the prospect that the Totten Glacier’s thinning could herald a similar process of accelerating ice loss in East Antarctica is deeply concerning.</p>
<h2>Glaciers and groundwork</h2>
<p>To appreciate the physical situation, some glaciology is needed. First, outlet glaciers like Totten meet the ocean in floating ice shelves, where they calve icebergs and also melt in the relatively warmer ocean. These ice shelves are buttressed against the coast on their sides and also, in cases like Totten, are very congested at the calving front. </p>
<p>This acts like a “cork in a bottle” that slows the ice as it flows to the sea. But any loss of the ice shelf or retreat of the calving front can let this cork pop out. </p>
<p>A second factor can kick in when the glacier rests below sea level, on a bed that deepens towards its interior. In this situation, if the ice retreats, a runaway process of accelerating flow and further retreat is unstoppable until the ice reaches a point where the bed begins to rise again. In the case of Totten Glacier, a retreat all the way into the deep Aurora Basin would release enough melted ice over the coming centuries to <a href="http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v8/n4/full/ngeo2388.html">raise sea levels by at least 3.5 m</a> – similar to the potential contribution from the whole of West Antarctica.</p>
<p>What’s more, my colleagues and I recently identified <a href="http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v8/n4/full/ngeo2388.html">at least two deep channels reaching back under the glacier front</a>, which may provide a way for warm water to reach deep under the glacier, and could explain the observed thinning and lowering. We discovered the channels with the help of airborne radar and gravity measurements, but what we really need next are direct ocean measurements. Plans are being considered for use of remotely controlled underwater vehicles and robot floats dropped from the air to investigate what is really happening under the Totten Glacier.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79710/original/image-20150429-7073-xuddwz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C6%2C1018%2C518&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79710/original/image-20150429-7073-xuddwz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C6%2C1018%2C518&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79710/original/image-20150429-7073-xuddwz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=310&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79710/original/image-20150429-7073-xuddwz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=310&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79710/original/image-20150429-7073-xuddwz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=310&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79710/original/image-20150429-7073-xuddwz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79710/original/image-20150429-7073-xuddwz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79710/original/image-20150429-7073-xuddwz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Casey Station, from where researchers are studying the nearby Totten Glacier.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ACasey_station_from_the_air.jpg">Rst/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Better mapping of the region’s bedrock and ocean cavities will also help us match observations with computer model simulations of the ice and oceans, which will be crucial in predicting the changes we can expect East Antarctica to undergo in the future. </p>
<p>Drones and submarines will help gather these measurements, but there is still plenty of work ahead, and it’s fair to say that our old workhorse DC3 aircraft will be busy surveying East Antarctica for many years to come.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40960/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The ICECAP Project (International Collaboration for Exploration of the Cryosphere through Aerogeophysical Profiling) has operated with support from the U.K.’s Natural Environment Research Council, the U.S. National Science Foundation, the Australian Antarctic Division and Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems CRC, as well as NASA’s Operation IceBridge, the G. Unger Vetlesen Foundation, and the University of Texas at Austin’s Jackson School of Geosciences.</span></em></p>Researchers in East Antarctica have surveyed an area the size of New South Wales to study the behaviour of the region’s biggest glacier - and the secrets below the ice that could speed up its melting.Tas van Ommen, Senior Principal Research Scientist - Climate and Ice, Australian Antarctic DivisionLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/394992015-04-23T05:23:53Z2015-04-23T05:23:53ZHow a PhD in linguistics prepared me for motherhood<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79022/original/image-20150423-10353-kzbp9y.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Linguist and mother ignoring Steven Pinker's advice.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Unlike most newborns, on his arrival into the world, my newly-minted son found himself in the arms of someone well-versed in the the most fiercely contested question in contemporary linguistics: is language innate? </p>
<p>Are babies born with grammar hard-wired into their brain? Or is language something bestowed by culture and socialisation? </p>
<p>The early exchanges of gaze, attention and vocalisations with my baby in his first hours, days and weeks were experienced against the melodrama of modern linguistics’ greatest schism. This happens to revolve entirely around the role of mothers and significant others in the development of a child’s language.</p>
<p>In the story of how language emerges in the child, as told by Noam Chomsky, nature is largely the lone hero. The child comes with a “language organ” already installed in her or his brain, as <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/an/academic/subjects/languages-linguistics/english-language-and-linguistics-general-interest/nature-and-language">a sudden and isolated gift of evolution</a> – out of nowhere, all-at-once, fully formed and forever unchanging.</p>
<h2>Chomsky’s Universal Grammar</h2>
<p>Called “Universal Grammar” (or UG), the language organ is “<a href="http://books.google.com.au/books/about/Reflections_on_language.html?id=R78kAQAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y">invariant among humans</a>”. While the world appears to be full of <a href="http://wals.info/">many and varied languages</a> (<a href="https://www.ethnologue.com/">estimated at more than 7,000</a>), to Chomsky this rich variation in linguistic forms and functions is, despite appearances, superficial.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Chomsky speaking in 2012 on Universal Grammar and the genetics of language.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Why? Because of the “empirical conditions on language acquisition”, by which Chomsky means the quality and quantity of the language around the infant. Chomsky has argued for more than 50 years that language must be innate because the familial and domestic discourse that surrounds infants is “degenerate”. Children simply could not learn language because the input they receive from their mothers and significant others is “impoverished”. </p>
<h2>The ‘poverty of the stimulus’</h2>
<p>Chomsky named this central plank in his theory “the poverty of the stimulus”. As such, Chomsky’s most famous disciple, Steven Pinker, <a href="http://stevenpinker.com/publications/language-instinct">advises parents</a> to ignore their offspring:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Young children plainly can’t understand a word you say. So why waste your breath in soliloquies? Any sensible person would surely wait until a child has developed speech and more gratifying two-way conversations become possible.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Maternal language, Pinker continued, is all part of “the same mentality that sends yuppies to ‘learning centers’ to buy little mittens with bull’s-eyes to help their babies find their hands sooner”. It is nothing more than a collective anxiety to “keep the helpless infant from falling behind in the great race of life”. </p>
<p>If you believe that language is not for communication, then this makes perfect sense. The real function of language, Chomsky argues, is to converse with yourself inside your own skull.</p>
<p>“In any useful sense of the term,” <a href="http://books.google.com.au/books/about/On_Nature_and_Language.html?id=ZVgdqm77AB8C&redir_esc=y">says Chomsky</a>, “communication is not <em>the</em> function of language.”</p>
<p>While infants and toddlers might display “language-like expressions” – like the twins of YouTube fame (below) – this behaviour, to the 20th century’s most famous linguist, is akin to a dog being trained to <a href="http://books.google.com.au/books/about/Reflections_on_language.html?id=R78kAQAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y">respond to certain commands</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_JmA2ClUvUY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Talking twins showing turn-taking and the intonation patterns of their mother-tongue.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In a <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/au/academic/subjects/languages-linguistics/cognitive-linguistics/language-myth-why-language-not-instinct">new and very readable critique</a> of Universal Grammar, <a href="http://www.bangor.ac.uk/linguistics/about/vyv_evans.php.en">Professor Vyvan Evans</a> writes that “despite being completely wrong” UG “is alive and kicking”. </p>
<p>Evans argues that the myth “has become institutionalised via retellings which are now immune to counterevidence”. The evidence and arguments against UG have come, for many years, from fields as diverse as <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajpa.1330970212/abstract">animal communication studies</a>, <a href="http://www.umass.edu/preferen/You%20Must%20Read%20This/Evans-Levinson%20BBS%202009.pdf">language typology</a>, <a href="http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199896684.do">language evolution</a>, <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/au/academic/subjects/psychology/developmental-psychology/speech-beginning-interpersonal-communication">infant communication</a>, <a href="http://www.bloomsbury.com/au/the-language-of-early-childhood-9780826458704/">child language development</a>, <a href="http://books.google.com.au/books/about/Bright_Air_Brilliant_Fire.html?id=NGIIGZmarOAC">neuroscience</a> and <a href="http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/brain-and-culture">psychiatry</a>. Evans reviews some of this evidence in his new book.</p>
<h2>The alternative to Universal Grammar</h2>
<p>As I waited for the birth of my son, I eschewed Australia’s <a href="http://www.panmacmillan.com.au/display_author.asp?Author=Barker,%20Robin">best selling book for expectant mothers</a>, in favour of the growing body of research <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/au/academic/subjects/psychology/developmental-psychology/speech-beginning-interpersonal-communication">on infant and mother communication</a>. In this research, nature still had a crucial role: no less than giving my son his complex brain, <a href="http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199896684.do">one ready and able to learn language</a>. </p>
<p>But nature bestowed on him something else besides: the capacity for “intersubjectivity”. The research shows babies are innately tuned to display their subjectivity – their tiny personalities – and to adapt or fit their displays of attention and emotion to the subjectivity of others.</p>
<p>Once researchers started to look – really look – at young infants, their early sociability became apparent. <a href="http://www.pmarc.ed.ac.uk/people/colwyntrevarthen.html">Professor Colwyn Trevarthen</a> has, since the 1970s, closely observed the communicative repertoire of very young babies. <a href="http://eprints.lib.hokudai.ac.jp/dspace/bitstream/2115/25359/1/26_P9-44.pdf">He has observed</a> their smiles, their coos of recognition, their frowns and their hand gestures". All these postures “announce, for a sympathetic other person, the infant’s state of openness to the world”. The babies gestures are prolific, intelligible and organised.</p>
<figure>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Colwyn Trevarthen began observing mothers and young babies in the 1970s.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Babies’ survival is tied into a capacity to establish <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/communicative-musicality-9780198566281?cc=au&lang=en&">the mutual rhythms which produce human companionship</a>. <a href="http://eprints.lib.hokudai.ac.jp/dspace/bitstream/2115/25359/1/26_P9-44.pdf">Trevarthen writes</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Being conversational is what it takes for a young person to begin learning what other people know and do, and this is the behaviour a fond parent expects and enjoys. It is the human adaption for cultural learning.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It is, of course, our capacity for cultural learning which sets us apart from all other animals. </p>
<h2>Babies need joyful, responsive human company</h2>
<p>Research in countries as diverse as <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/communicative-musicality-9780198566281?cc=au&lang=en&">Scotland, Nigeria, Germany, Sweden and Japan</a> has shown mothers speak to infants in a manner that is rhythmic, repetitive, musical and regular. Far from being “degenerate” or “impoverished”, this kind of language is maximally designed for the needs of the young baby.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Fld0b2KHDs0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Father in conversation with nine-week-old girl.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Babies need and seek “<a href="http://eprints.lib.hokudai.ac.jp/dspace/bitstream/2115/25359/1/26_P9-44.pdf">joyful, responsive human company</a>”, with a known, loving and attentive conversational partner. These “proto-conversations” provide the foundations for infants to step into the systems and structures of their <a href="http://www.bloomsbury.com/au/the-language-of-early-childhood-9780826458704/">mother-tongue</a>.</p>
<p>As helpless and dependent as my baby son was, I knew my little munchkin was biologically prepared to initiate and sustain the interactions through which his beautifully complex human brain could get to know the world outside him, and his place in that world. </p>
<p>I knew our conversations would propel him into the rich and extravagant culture around him. And that this culture would reciprocate his curiosity with its many artifacts, including the infinitely creative, collective resource that is human language.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/39499/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Annabelle Lukin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There’s nothing like raising an infant to help galvanise one of the greatest debates in modern linguistics.Annabelle Lukin, Senior Lecturer, Linguistics, Macquarie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/346542014-12-08T02:43:10Z2014-12-08T02:43:10ZAdding pimento: a flavour of Caribbean migration to Australia<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/66120/original/image-20141202-20606-1aa28ky.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Trinidad-born Australian novelist Ralph de Boissière migrated to Melbourne in 1948 to escape Trinidad’s colour/class hierarchy.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Breakdown Press</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Growing up with a Jamaican grandmother in 1970s small-town Australia was unusual. There weren’t any other Caribbean (or West Indian) people living nearby and a Caribbean community did not exist in Newcastle, New South Wales. </p>
<p>When I interviewed members of the Caribbean community who migrated to Victoria from the 1960s to the 2000s for the book <a href="http://breakdownpress.org/?p=1124">Adding Pimento: Caribbean Migration to Victoria, Australia</a> (2014), co-edited by Lisa Montague and Pat Thomas, it put my grandmother’s migration into the socio-political context of the time. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/66121/original/image-20141202-20585-v27k14.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/66121/original/image-20141202-20585-v27k14.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/66121/original/image-20141202-20585-v27k14.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/66121/original/image-20141202-20585-v27k14.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/66121/original/image-20141202-20585-v27k14.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/66121/original/image-20141202-20585-v27k14.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/66121/original/image-20141202-20585-v27k14.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/66121/original/image-20141202-20585-v27k14.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Adding Pimento (2014).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Breakdown Press</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Remarkably, my grandmother had come to Australia on an <a href="http://museumvictoria.com.au/collections/items/273346/form-general-assisted-passage-scheme-undertaking-department-of-immigration-1950s">assisted passage</a> – for many years, only offered to people of European background – which she was able to successfully apply for in 1971 because she’d lived in London prior to migrating to Australia. </p>
<p>By the 1970s she was a British citizen. She was also a fair Jamaican who emigrated to Australia because her daughter met and married an Australian. </p>
<p>Caribbean people did come to live in Australia in the 19th century, mainly through the circuits of empire established by the British or because of the attraction of the Gold Rushes in NSW and Victoria. But their attempts to migrate were severely curtailed after the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Australia_policy">White Australia Policy</a> was implemented in 1901. </p>
<p>My grandmother was one of the very small group of Caribbean people who had been able to migrate to Australia before the official end of the White Australia Policy in 1973, either because of the colour of their skin or due to their citizenship and/or marital status. Assisted passage which was yet another way of trying to keep Australia “white”.</p>
<p>The Trinidad-born Australian novelist <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_de_Boissi%C3%A8re">Ralph de Boissière</a> migrated to Melbourne in 1948 to escape Trinidad’s colour/class hierarchy, which exists as a legacy of slavery. </p>
<p>In his autobiography, <a href="https://overland.org.au/2010/10/non-fiction-review-%E2%80%93-life-on-the-edge-the-autobiography-of-ralph-de-boissiere/">Life on the Edge</a> (2010), de Boissière describes the “crippling sense of inferiority” experienced by Trinidadians and, by extension, all West Indians as a result of the colonial system. </p>
<p>While de Boissière himself had no problem entering Australia in 1948, his wife Ivy and daughters Marcelle and Jacqueline were detained on board the ship while immigration officials decided if they would “fit in”. De Boissière reports that the family left the ship “feeling that we were tolerated migrants”. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/66122/original/image-20141202-20588-wqcprz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/66122/original/image-20141202-20588-wqcprz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/66122/original/image-20141202-20588-wqcprz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/66122/original/image-20141202-20588-wqcprz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/66122/original/image-20141202-20588-wqcprz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/66122/original/image-20141202-20588-wqcprz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/66122/original/image-20141202-20588-wqcprz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/66122/original/image-20141202-20588-wqcprz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Charlie McKenzie migrated to Australia in 1974.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Breakdown Press</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the 1960s and 70s, the granting of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Caribbean#Independence">Independence</a>, and the rise of the <a href="http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/143020?uid=3737536&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21105333172123">Black Power movement</a> prompted Caribbean migration to Australia. </p>
<p>The influence of communism and socialism on Caribbean political leaders such as Cuba’s Fidel Castro, Jamaica’s Michael Manley, Guyana’s Forbes Burnham and Grenada’s Maurice Bishop also played a part in migration.</p>
<p>Historian <a href="http://history.cass.anu.edu.au/people/emeritus-professor-barry-higman">Barry Higman</a> <a href="http://jj.instituteofjamaica.org.jm/ioj_wp/">claimed</a> in 1976 that Australia was seen as a “haven”, particularly by white and fair West Indians who were fleeing these socio-political changes.</p>
<p>Charlie McKenzie, a former sugar plantation owner from Barbados, decided to migrate to Australia in 1974 after Independence because:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>there was an undercurrent that I didn’t know anything about and I didn’t want any part of. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>McKenzie left an affluent lifestyle to resettle in Melbourne. Prior to arriving, Charlie thought he would work as a taxi driver because “the only thing I could do was drive a car”, but he ended up working in the public service.</p>
<p>Tony and Schavana Phillips left Guyana in 1978 because of the increasing socialist orientation of the Burnham government. They felt that the changes that were taking place, such as compulsory military service for all young people, including women, and the restrictions on imports were making Guyana an uncomfortable place for themselves and their family members.</p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tony and Schvana Phillips on their wedding day.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Breakdown Press</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In their story, Schavana says: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The country was very dangerous to live in; also the economy of the country started to deteriorate … It was really a desperate situation. We made a decision to get out and we got out.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Phillips already had family living in Melbourne, which was the main draw-card for re-settling here.</p>
<p>It is important to note that not all Caribbean people who came to Australia in the 1960s and 1970s, were fleeing the region because of these shifts in power and political ideology; nor do they necessarily share the same political views as those who did. Some saw Victoria as providing greater job opportunities, or they had family or marital ties here.</p>
<p>But Australia was not the destination of choice for the majority of Caribbean people, because it was initially against their attempt to migrate. Instead they emigrated to the United States, Canada and the UK where there were and still are large Caribbean diasporic communities. </p>
<p>After the White Australia Policy was abolished in 1973 more Caribbean people migrated to Australia but mainly because they had met and married Australians, or because they had chosen Australia for work and/or educational purposes.</p>
<p>The Caribbean community in Victoria mainly comprises people (of many races and ethnicities) from the English-speaking or Commonwealth Caribbean, including some who identify as Black British of Caribbean descent. </p>
<p>Like adding pimento to Caribbean food, the Caribbean community has added yet another layer to multicultural Victoria.</p>
<p><br></p>
<p><em><a href="http://breakdownpress.org/?p=1124">Adding Pimento: Caribbean Migration to Victoria, Australia</a> (2014) is released today, Monday December 8.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/34654/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>CaribVic (the Caribbean Association of Australia) received a grant from the Victorian Multicultural Commission to publish Adding Pimento: Caribbean Migration to Victoria, Australia, of which I was an editor. I am also a member of CaribVic.</span></em></p>Growing up with a Jamaican grandmother in 1970s small-town Australia was unusual. There weren’t any other Caribbean (or West Indian) people living nearby and a Caribbean community did not exist in Newcastle…Karina Smith, Senior Lecturer, Literary and Gender Studies, Victoria UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.