Greg J Watson | Curtin University, Perth (original) (raw)

Papers by Greg J Watson

M/C Journal, 2018

IntroductionContemporary societies are increasingly becoming sites in which it is more difficult ... more IntroductionContemporary societies are increasingly becoming sites in which it is more difficult for people to respectfully negotiate disagreements about human diversity. This is exemplified by people who must oppose oppressive social conventions that marginalise them because they identify as belonging to one or more minority groups. One of the key factors in this dynamic is how people’s being in particular sites impacts their being as a person. The “fate of the stranger” is shaped by the spaces they inhabit and people are labelled as “insiders or outsiders” (Amin Land 2); for many people this means our societies are sites of dissatisfaction. For example, in some sites asylum seekers and refugees are referred to as “co-habitant and potential citizen,” while in other sites they are referred to as “impure and threats” (Amin Land 2). This process of defining a person’s being is also experienced by people who are “multi-abled, multi-sexed, multi-sexual, or multi-faith” (Garbutt 275). Th...

Concept: The Journal of Contemporary Community Education Practice Theory, 2020

Human rights are 'struggle' concepts and people engage in this struggle through theory and pract... more Human rights are 'struggle' concepts and people engage in this struggle through theory and practice; people encounter prejudice and discrimination as ideas and actions. Although this is often depicted as a dichotomy, our everyday encounters with prejudice and discrimination make it clear that this struggle requires that we dismantle the false divide between theory and practice if we are to truly achieve the rights and freedoms that belong to us. Community education projects that enable people to contribute both ideas and action have much to teach us about how to weave together theory and practice in ways that enable people to contribute to the human rights struggle within local communities. I offer this article as a contribution to this task. In it I analyse participants’ perceptions of their involvement in a method of community education known as The Human Library, and I discuss what these perceptions teach us about community education projects that enable people to contribute their ideas and actions to the human rights struggle.

M/C Journal, 2018

Societies are increasingly becoming sites in which it is more difficult to respectfully negotiate... more Societies are increasingly becoming sites in which it is more difficult to respectfully negotiate disagreements about human diversity. This is demonstrated by the way that people’s being is defined differentially as spatial norms influence people’s being in our everyday spaces and that many people experience their societies as sites of dissatisfaction. This paper responds to this phenomenon by considering the example of the Human Library: a project that brings people together in everyday spaces to discuss what it means to be different. Using this as its entry-point, the paper discusses what scholarship tells us about our everyday spaces as sites that perpetuate societal and spatial norms and it considers how the Human Library helps us rethink how our everyday spaces might become sites for protesting against the marginalisation of difference.

The Rites of Spring, 2017

Human rights activism can often assist in the disruption of discriminatory behaviours and attitud... more Human rights activism can often assist in the disruption of discriminatory behaviours and attitudes in local communities. One way this can occur is by encouraging community members to gradually recognise the emergence of alternative ways of understanding themselves and their fellow community members. This chapter presents a case study of a group of volunteers involved in the anti-prejudice movement, Human Library. The study examines how six volunteers, who act as Human Books, interpret their engagement in the Human Library method as a process that aims to rupture and discontinue the construction of distorted understandings of what it means to be human. In doing so, it discusses the construction and reconstruction of being human as a theoretical concept that emerges from the study and how it benefits from the philosophical considerations of Richard Rorty and Paulo Freire.

Coolabah, 2018

Copyright©2018 Greg Watson. This text may be archived and redistributed both in electronic form a... more Copyright©2018 Greg Watson. This text may be archived and redistributed both in electronic form and in hard copy, provided that the author and journal are properly cited and no fee is charged, in accordance with our Creative Commons Licence.

Abstract: Living with difference is an unavoidable part of living in Australia. How we live with difference, therefore, impacts how people imagine and reimagine Australia. This paper considers the matter of reimagining Australia as a phenomenon that is located within the microecology of our everyday urban spaces. It is interested in knowing about these spaces and how they can contribute to the reimagining of Australia at the microlevel of society. It considers two examples of spaces that engage people in this task and advances the notion of the cosmopolitan intersection, framing reimagining within Anthony Kwame Appiah's vision of cosmopolitanism and Jean-Luc Nancy's vision of coexistence.

M/C Journal, 2018

IntroductionContemporary societies are increasingly becoming sites in which it is more difficult ... more IntroductionContemporary societies are increasingly becoming sites in which it is more difficult for people to respectfully negotiate disagreements about human diversity. This is exemplified by people who must oppose oppressive social conventions that marginalise them because they identify as belonging to one or more minority groups. One of the key factors in this dynamic is how people’s being in particular sites impacts their being as a person. The “fate of the stranger” is shaped by the spaces they inhabit and people are labelled as “insiders or outsiders” (Amin Land 2); for many people this means our societies are sites of dissatisfaction. For example, in some sites asylum seekers and refugees are referred to as “co-habitant and potential citizen,” while in other sites they are referred to as “impure and threats” (Amin Land 2). This process of defining a person’s being is also experienced by people who are “multi-abled, multi-sexed, multi-sexual, or multi-faith” (Garbutt 275). Th...

Concept: The Journal of Contemporary Community Education Practice Theory, 2020

Human rights are 'struggle' concepts and people engage in this struggle through theory and pract... more Human rights are 'struggle' concepts and people engage in this struggle through theory and practice; people encounter prejudice and discrimination as ideas and actions. Although this is often depicted as a dichotomy, our everyday encounters with prejudice and discrimination make it clear that this struggle requires that we dismantle the false divide between theory and practice if we are to truly achieve the rights and freedoms that belong to us. Community education projects that enable people to contribute both ideas and action have much to teach us about how to weave together theory and practice in ways that enable people to contribute to the human rights struggle within local communities. I offer this article as a contribution to this task. In it I analyse participants’ perceptions of their involvement in a method of community education known as The Human Library, and I discuss what these perceptions teach us about community education projects that enable people to contribute their ideas and actions to the human rights struggle.

M/C Journal, 2018

Societies are increasingly becoming sites in which it is more difficult to respectfully negotiate... more Societies are increasingly becoming sites in which it is more difficult to respectfully negotiate disagreements about human diversity. This is demonstrated by the way that people’s being is defined differentially as spatial norms influence people’s being in our everyday spaces and that many people experience their societies as sites of dissatisfaction. This paper responds to this phenomenon by considering the example of the Human Library: a project that brings people together in everyday spaces to discuss what it means to be different. Using this as its entry-point, the paper discusses what scholarship tells us about our everyday spaces as sites that perpetuate societal and spatial norms and it considers how the Human Library helps us rethink how our everyday spaces might become sites for protesting against the marginalisation of difference.

The Rites of Spring, 2017

Human rights activism can often assist in the disruption of discriminatory behaviours and attitud... more Human rights activism can often assist in the disruption of discriminatory behaviours and attitudes in local communities. One way this can occur is by encouraging community members to gradually recognise the emergence of alternative ways of understanding themselves and their fellow community members. This chapter presents a case study of a group of volunteers involved in the anti-prejudice movement, Human Library. The study examines how six volunteers, who act as Human Books, interpret their engagement in the Human Library method as a process that aims to rupture and discontinue the construction of distorted understandings of what it means to be human. In doing so, it discusses the construction and reconstruction of being human as a theoretical concept that emerges from the study and how it benefits from the philosophical considerations of Richard Rorty and Paulo Freire.

Coolabah, 2018

Copyright©2018 Greg Watson. This text may be archived and redistributed both in electronic form a... more Copyright©2018 Greg Watson. This text may be archived and redistributed both in electronic form and in hard copy, provided that the author and journal are properly cited and no fee is charged, in accordance with our Creative Commons Licence.

Abstract: Living with difference is an unavoidable part of living in Australia. How we live with difference, therefore, impacts how people imagine and reimagine Australia. This paper considers the matter of reimagining Australia as a phenomenon that is located within the microecology of our everyday urban spaces. It is interested in knowing about these spaces and how they can contribute to the reimagining of Australia at the microlevel of society. It considers two examples of spaces that engage people in this task and advances the notion of the cosmopolitan intersection, framing reimagining within Anthony Kwame Appiah's vision of cosmopolitanism and Jean-Luc Nancy's vision of coexistence.