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Dr Catherine Koerner

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Senior research fellow, Federation University Australia

All publications are freely available on https://cdu.academia.edu/CatherineKoerner

Motivated by compassion, Catherine Koerner is a Senior Research Fellow at Northern Institute, Charles Darwin University, committed to interdependent nonviolent relations. Since 2003, Catherine Koerner has taught across undergraduate and postgraduate in community and human services, critical race and whiteness studies, identities, Indigenous land rights and white Australian identities, climate justice, pluralism (including religious freedoms), colonialism/anti-colonialism, critical Indigenous and social policy, critical community and international development and counselling. She has collaborated in community work, activism and research in Australia, Indigenous Australia, Indonesia, Nepal and India.

Before this, Catherine worked for ten years in the community not-for-profit sector in sexual violence crisis response and prevention, homelessness, poverty prevention and advocacy and as an environmental activist, including direct action protests since the 1990s. She was elected rural and remote Qld representative on the National Youth Coalition for Housing. She also received several awards, including the Australiasian finalist for the International Stop Rape contest (New York); a National University-Indigenous Community Partnership Award (with Professor Simone Ululka Tur and Dr Christopher Wilson); an Australian University Quality Assurance commendation and an Australian Award for University Teaching all at Flinders University of South Australia.

Her research interests include critical race and whiteness, colonialism/decolonisation, Indigenous relations/land rights/climate justice, pluralism and identity. Her current projects include The Patience to Win Freedom with Tenzin Choephel, which discusses Tibetan experiences of Chinese colonialism and genocide. Catherine has over 40 publications, including her most recent books:

Koerner, C. (2024) Towards an Uluru Heart: Relationality, Identity, and Justice in Australia Settler Colonial State. Available: https://cdu.academia.edu/CatherineKoerner
Koerner & Pillay, (2019) Governance and Multiculturalism: the white elephant of Social Construction and Cultural Identities, Palgrave and MacMillan.

And examples of my unique research footprints in articles:
White Australian identities and Indigenous land rights based on qualitative research in rural and remote locations.
Koerner, C. (June 23, 2021). The denial of White Privilege in Australia is Hegemonic. Politics Today
(May 11, 2021). What Black deaths in custody have to do with white privilege in Australia. https://politicstoday.org/author/catherine-koerner/
(2019), Ever Expanding Circles of Compassion, Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Association e-journal

Experience

  • –present
    Research Fellow in Social Policy, Charles Darwin University

Education

  • 2011 
    Flinders University of South Australia, Doctor of Philosophy

Publications

  • 2019
    Governance and Multiculturalism: The white elephant of the social construction of cultural identity, Palgrave & MacMillan (forthcoming)
  • 2019
    Ever expanding circles of compassion, Critical Race and Whiteness Studies
  • 2017
    The Socio-legal construction of Ahmadiyah as a Religious minority by local and national government policy: Restrictions before the law, a challenge for religious freedom in NTB, http://artsonline.monash.edu.au/indonesian-studies-journal/files/2017/08/AHMADIYAH-FINAL-VERSION.pdf
  • 2015
    White Australians & Indigenous Sovereignty, , http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13504630.2014.1002391?journalCode=csid20
  • 2013
    Learning the past to participate in the future: Regional discourses of Australian colonial history , International Journal of Critical Indigenous Studies
  • 2011
    A critical analysis of white Australian identities and Indigenous land rights: an empirical study, Native American and Indigenous Studies Association Annual Conference
  • 2011
    In relationship with Indigenous sovereignty, http://www.acrawsa.org.au/files/pdf/ConferenceProceedings2011.pdf
  • 2011
    Child protection consultation in the Solomon Islands: Capacity building or welfare colonialism?, http:// www.acrawsa.org.au/files/ pdf/ConferenceProceedings2011.pdf
  • 2010
    We’re multicultural mate!”: regional Australian discourses of multiculturalism and the reproduction of ‘white Australia’ as a national identity, , TASA annual conference published proceedings 6-9 December, Sydney: Macquarie University.
  • 2010
    Whose security? How white possession is reinforced in everyday speech about asylum seekers, http://www.acrawsa.org.au/ejournal.htm

Professional Memberships

  • Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Association
  • The Australian Sociological Association TASA
  • Native American and Indigenous Studies Association NAISA
  • Meditation Association of Australia

Honours

New York International Stop Rape Contest Australiasion finalist; Australian Teaching & Learning Program for programs that enhance student learning (2009); National University Indigenous Partnership Award (2007, DEST).