Visual sociology of the rest of November 2017 with gorgeous blooms, an urban bunny and mass displays of social identity.
Tourists caused a kerfuffle on McDougall Street in Kirribilli, by taking photos of the jacaranda trees in bloom. The trees are plentiful around Sydney and other parts of Australia and warm climates. 6 November 2017
It’s our visual sociology for September-October 2017! Our usual suspects of films and art are here, as well as a couple of festival and the countdown to marriage equality.
I marched at the Marriage Equality rally in Sydney on 10 November, among with 30,000 people! It was the biggest LGBTQIA protest in Australian history and also the biggest rally ever in Sydney. Over three quarters of Australians participated in the voluntary postal vote on marriage rights. The Opposition and most other major parties opposed the postural vote as it is very expensive ($121 million) and unnecessary (the vote should have been held in Parliament, where it likely would’ve passed by majority conscience vote).
To paraphrase Senator Penny Wong: we didn’t want to be here, but now we are here, let’s get this done! Continue reading Marriage Equality Rally
Visual sociology for August 2017 has us sneaking into a conference (kind of), keepingour eyes on multiple protests, attending the Cherry Blossom and Chocolate festivals, and getting ready to do our bit for marriage equality!
I was lucky enough to momentarily crash a conference to meet a colleague, at the amazing International Convention Centre. It is humongous! Several conferences happening at once, including one with giant Lego! 2 August
This is the Rocks Discovery Museum. It’s interesting historically as the artefacts tell the story of Sydney prior to European invasion. But it’s more fascinating sociologically – in how this history is represented. The first room you see (“Warrane. Pre-1788”) uses words like “arrival” and “first contact” to describe the relationship between colonialists and traditional custodians of Sydney, the Gadigal people. The second room (“Colony. 1788-1830”) uses words like “settlement” and “colony” prominently… but not *colonialism.* The word “invasion” only appears on a side panel – this display is excellent, reflecting on British treatment of Aboriginal people as a “catastrophe.”
For the past three years, I’ve written about the gender and race dynamics of the chosen portraits, painted by children up to the age of 18 for the The Young Archibald Prize (the “Young Archie”). Most of the subjects are women, especially mothers. Few artists and subjects are people of colour. This year, while mothers, grandmothers and sisters feature, described for their caring qualities, I was delighted to see a handful of works by and about Asian Australians. Remarkably, two of these paintings, one by a nine year old and another by a 16 year old, explicitly depicted themes of death in terms of acceptance and wonder. Truly wonderful.
In the iconic Martin Place in central Sydney, people who are homeless are camped out in protest over the lack of housing for the city’s underprivileged groups. The not-for-profit initiative also provided food, clothes, books and other support to protesters. In a press release on their Facebook account, #247StreetKitchenSafeSpace, emphasised that services need to better cater to the material reality of Sydney’s homeless as well as providing appropriately priced and positioned housing options, rather than prioritising rich developers.
As long as poverty and inequality persist in our world…
Rhythm, Colours, Flavours of Peru is an event of the Open Inner West festival. Continue reading Rhythm, Colours, Flavours of Peru
It’s noodles, resitance in science and philosophy, brotherly love, the matriarchal alphabet, and the Writers Festival for this visual sociology of May 2017.
Sydney Noodle Life. 5 May
The Other Sociologist 