MAY CONTAIN MARKUP

BY PETER SUTTON and KERYN WALSHE

The ongoing debate sparked by "Dark Emu" by Bruce Pascoe delves into the historical perception of Indigenous Australians as either farmers or hunter-gatherers. Pascoe's book challenges the traditional view of Indigenous communities as solely hunter-gatherers by presenting evidence of sophisticated farming practices. This controversial interpretation has ignited discussions among scholars, historians, and the general public, raising questions about the true nature of pre-colonial Aboriginal societies. As the debate continues to unfold, it prompts us to reconsider our understanding of Australia's rich indigenous history and the complex relationship between humans and the land.

Melbourne. Melbourne University Press. 2021. 287p.

By  Jacob Davey, Cécile Simmons, Mario Peucker

The re-emergence of Australia’s far-right in the mid-2010s saw an unprecedented level of online mobilisation and a wave of street protests across the country which were often met with counter-protests by anti-racist and anti-fascist networks, most of them associated with far-left groups. This often resulted in clashes, sometimes violent, between opposed political groups. Potentially violent threats associated with the far-right and, to a significantly lower degree, far-left mobilisation in Australia have become the subject of growing concern for government- and public authorities in recent years.  This demonstrates a shift in understanding of the radical, extremist and terrorist landscape beyond what Australia’s intelligence apparatus now refers to as religiously motivated violent extremism. However, evidence of threats posed by far-left actions remains limited, while the full extent and impact of far-right fringe and extremist activity continues to be investigated by researchers.

Beirut; Berlin; London; Paris; Washington DC : Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), 2022. 19p.

By Umar Butler

This report, commissioned by the Islamic Council of Victoria (ICV), argues that the failure of social media platforms to improve their demonstrably ineffectual systems for the review of hateful material, coupled with the grave harms of online Islamophobia, necessitates government intervention.

While there are a number of competing approaches to the regulation of social media, the ICV’s preference is to reform the systems that have enabled and, indeed, at times encouraged the widespread and unchecked dissemination of hate speech, rather than attempt the practically impossible task of taking down hundreds of millions of individual pieces of anti-Muslim content.

To implement this approach, the ICV proposes that Australia place a statutory duty on platforms to take reasonable care to protect users from harm (the ‘eSafety duty of care’), similar to the regime set to be established by the UK’s Online Safety Bill 2021. Regardless of the particular regulatory response taken, however, this report makes clear that something must be done. If not to improve the mental wellbeing of Muslim users, then at least to ensure that the events of the Christchurch attacks are never repeated.

Melbourne:Islamic Council of Victoria, 2022. 23p.

By Frances S. Hasso

Race, Reproduction, and Death in Modern Palestine.. Bringing together a vivid array of analog and nontraditional sources, including colonial archives, newspaper reports, literature, oral histories, and interviews, Buried in the Red Dirt tells a story of life, death, reproduction, and missing bodies and experiences during and since the British colonial period in Palestine. Using transnational feminist reading practices of existing and new archives, the book moves beyond authorized frames of collective pain and heroism.

Cambridge University Press (2021) 288 pages.

By Adele Chynoweth orcid

A History of Children in a Queensland Mental Asylum. Series: Aboriginal History Monographs. Goodna Girls tells the story of children incarcerated in Wolston Park Hospital, an adult psychiatric facility in Queensland, Australia. It contains the personal testimonies of women who relate—in their own no-holds-barred style and often with irreverent humour—how they, as children, ended up in Wolston Park and how this affected their adult lives. The accounts of hospital staff who witnessed the effects of this heinous policy and spoke out are also included.

Canberra. ANU Press (2020).