Our work
Our work addresses substantial threats to social cohesion in Australia and other pluralist democracies.
We focus on understanding and countering racism and hate, and on enhancing anti-racism efforts. With the emergence of COVID-19, we have expanded our research areas to explore racism and resilience in the pandemic.
We drive new insights that empower communities to build resilience and deploy strategies to challenge racism. We provide analysis and commentary on these issues of national importance. We inform, educate and train individuals and communities on positive, community-based and policy interventions for culturally diverse societies.
Racism and Belonging in Victoria
Our projects will enhance the data that we have on racism and belonging in Victoria: often filling gaps, such as in online contexts (including the sharing economy), schools, health facilities, and other public settings.
These will provide the evidence base for new program and policy developments, which will be piloted and evaluated through government-community partnerships and community-led initiatives.
Our aims
We aim to:
Seek to understand the best ways to enhance social cohesion
Foster community-level action against racism by ordinary Australians
Generate virtuous cycles of improved intercultural relations
Establish new and improved social norms in intercultural behaviour in all spheres of life
Our Current Project
Emerging vectors and sources of racism: responding to the online challenges to social cohesion
This project expands on our previous project’s findings and insights into COVID-19 recovery to address online challenges to social cohesion. Racism is exacerbating the already strained cohesiveness of our society as a result of the pandemic. Additionally, in the context of the pandemic, misinformation beliefs are further straining the cohesiveness of our society and the mental health and well-being of Australians. Countering misinformation will reduce the welfare and counselling burden on government and industry, and will enhance civic trust better enabling the work of government.
Our Completed Projects
Publications
Improved data management, monitoring and analysis could be critical to combatting racism – here’s a plan for how research and numbers can help us tackle one of Australia’s biggest social issues.
Awais Piracha asks, as Asian communities grow in our urban areas, what are the implications for race relations?
In this Reconciliation Week, non-Indigenous ally Alanna Kamp provides some insights on how to 'Indigenise' curriculum. Alanna says ‘I'm on a lifelong journey of learning and action so the reflections and tips I provide in the blog post are by no means prescriptive. Rather, I hope they inspire you to take action in informed, respectful, and meaningful ways.’
Professor Fethi Mansouri argues for a national vision to fix racism in Australia. A national approach starts by acknowledging that racism exists, naming it and calling it out, but must go further and look long term and systematically.
The American sociologist W.E.B Du Bois wrote “the problem of the twentieth century [was] the problem of the color line” referring to the racial inequity and relations among people of different ethno-national backgrounds (Du Bois, 2008, p. 15). After more than a century of global wars, revolutions, and national social movements, the colour line remains visible in many parts of the world through perpetual ethnic and racial inequities, systemic racism, and racial hatred.