And I for Truth

Posted on by Dr Zuleyka Zevallos

Part 2 of 3 of my visual sociology for 2019. Take in the flavours of April to June. We start with a look at the architecture of inclusion. Then we go backwards, so you may join me in a feminist retaliation. Let’s then reminisce over racial justice at the Sydney Writers Festival, and think deeply on Aboriginal women’s family bonds through the wonderful play, Barbara and the Camp Dogs. We go on to trace the joys of the Finders Keepers market, the Sydney Comedy Festival, and Peruvian treats. We bear witness to the destruction being imposed by the Adani mine. I also bring you a cornucopia of the sociology of trolleys, and a special guest appearance by the enigmatic Bubsy.

Continue reading And I for Truth

Visual Sociology of Resistance

Posted on by Dr Zuleyka Zevallos
A building has a roller door with colourful street art. Drawn in a cartoon style from The Planet of the Apes, a purple figure in a military-style helmet says: It's time to end colonial power'

Below is my visual sociology for the first quarter of the year, from January to March, 2019. Take a journey from the Central Coast to Melbourne, and back to Sydney. This is part of my Weekends With a Sociologist series. Much of the imagery feature elements of social justice, protest or resistance, perfectly encapsulating what fuels my perseverance as a blogger and visual sociologist. More coming very soon. Enjoy!

Something for everybody

The year started hot and creative. Having gotten yet another tattoo for my birthday only a month earlier, I went back to Japanese-Australian artist, Hitome, from Broadway Tattoo, to get my next piece. I had long been looking for a woman of colour artist to entrust my intricate pieces, and she was wonderful, smart and easy to work with.

The parlour features a large black and white framed poster with art by Good Time Charlie and a quote from Leonard “Stoney” St Clair (below).  2-4 January 2019

“I am in the business of rendering a service to this community for the small group of people who choose to have their bodies decorated in some way or another. I choose my intelligence and skill, wishing not to offend anyone, but instead with my love of mankind, do what good I can before I die.”

Continue reading Visual Sociology of Resistance

Blogging Stocktake

Posted on by Dr Zuleyka Zevallos

I’ve been busy the past few months consolidating all of my writing onto my blog. It’s been a humongous undertaking, but the task was designed to help me save my work in future. My blog has proven to be the most reliable way to preserve my content. The consolidation project began because, late last year, Google+ announced it was shutting down in April 2019. Long-time readers would know that, outside of this research blog, much of my public scholarship emerged from Google+. From my involvement in a community run by multidisciplinary scientists, Science on Google+, to my co-management of STEM Women (a community and website supporting the careers of women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics), as well as my own sociology posts, much of my public sociology and outreach happened thanks to Google+.

Google+ held over 3,000 (!) of my public posts on my personal profile, let alone hundreds of private community and interpersonal messages. Importing my content to my blog was the easy part – editing has been a massive effort.

Google+ is much like other microblogging sites like Facebook or Twitter, where you can make original posts, or simply share things you find interesting. In the early days, I reshared a lot of content, which I now only privately consume. For example, I read and commented on a lot of news, but nowadays, I mostly publicly discuss specific issues tied to my professional life, rather than comment on everything that captivates my attention. It was a massive task to re-read every G+ post and decide their past and future value. It was also a kick to see how my sociological social media ‘voice’ has changed over the past few years. You can see a little of that on my blog; I rarely nowadays post just for fun, but I did this in the early days.

Having already faced the shut-down of Vine and Storify, I couldn’t go through the potential loss of my content all over again. After I finished importing not just my personal posts, but another three G+ pages I managed, I started to import, and curate, my Tumblr. This was yet another 3,000 public posts and a few hundred drafts to organise. Phew! The process was both fun and it also brought dejection along the way. Continue reading Blogging Stocktake

Spanish Film Festival 2019, Part 1: The Realm, Tremors, Champions, Crime Wave, Rojo

Posted on by Dr Zuleyka Zevallos

It’s an exciting season in Sydney, with multiple festivals concurrently keeping us entertained from April to the end of June. First up is one of my favourites, the Spanish Film Festival. I bought a pass to see 10 films, mostly from Latin America and half by non-Indigenous, non-Afro women directors. We have a long way to go with stories reflecting the writing and direction of minorities. The festival has, however, included stories with disabled, queer and/or other ethnic minorities as protagonists. Those are the films I’ve predominantly chosen. The rest are political stories. Today, I bring you the first of two posts reviewing films from an intersectionality perspective. The festival began in Sydney on 16 April and ends 8 May, before travelling to all metropolitan cities.

Let’s take a look at the political thriller, The Realm, which sweeped this year’s Goya Awards (the ‘Spanish Oscars’). Tremors is the compelling but distressing story of a devoutly religious gay man from Guatemala. Champions is a highly successful Spanish movie featuring an ensemble cast of disabled actors playing a famous basketball team. Crime Wave takes a serious premise (an emotionally abusive man is murdered) and turns it into a cascading set of comedic deaths. Yikes! Finally, another political drama, Rojo, swells from the early days of the devastating Argentinean coup. The players ponder: under which local conditions do national tyrants rise? The answer is from ordinary towns, where people are too polite to notice men arguing and boys “disappearing.”

Central Park Mall, where Palace Cinemas Central and Platinum is hosting the Festival

Continue reading Spanish Film Festival 2019, Part 1: The Realm, Tremors, Champions, Crime Wave, Rojo

Charming Central Coast: Aboriginal Organisations and Sights on Darkinjung Land

Posted on by Dr Zuleyka Zevallos
Sommersby Falls with the blog post title overlaid: Charming Central Coast - Aboriginal Organisations and Sights on Darkinjung Land

I’ve previously mentioned that I’d been away on secondment for six weeks at the end of last year. I was part of a national program that matches professionals from policy and corporate sectors with Aboriginal-controlled community organisations. I worked with Barang Regional Alliance (Barang) on the Central Coast, on their Empower Youth Summit, which was held last weekend, on 23-24 February 2019. Barang looks after the interests of 12,500 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people on Darkinjung land. It was a pleasure to work on this meaningful project and to learn more about Barang and its partners, whom I touch on below. You can see the Barang team and my fellow secondees below.

Next time, I’ll talk a little on my project, and some photos from the weekend, attended by 120 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth.  Today, I’m going to focus more on my broader experience on the Central Coast, especially the Aboriginal-Controlled organisations with whom we collaborated, as well as the cultural walks and sights. I’ll share with you a visual sociology of our visit to Finchley Campground, the beautiful rock art at Baiame Cave and Bulgandry, the Koori Art Exhibition, various national parks and festivals, plus much more!

Continue reading Charming Central Coast: Aboriginal Organisations and Sights on Darkinjung Land

Sociology of Spiders

Posted on by Dr Zuleyka Zevallos

A tiny spider on a centre of an orange wall, in a halo of light

A diminutive spider accompanied by its tiny shadow had me captivated as I pondered the sociology of spiders and fear.

Spiders inspire irrational fright, despite the fact that most spiders can’t harm humans. The small percentage that can are not usually found in our homes and they don’t specifically seek us out for attack. Yet even I overreact at the sight of a spider at home (or in my swag during a recent camping trip!).

Our collective fear of spiders in urban areas is culturally determined, and it far outweighs the risk posed. Spiders feature as focus and metaphor for different types of fears in Western societies. Even amongst educated people, spiders are a source of disgust and anxiety. Why might that be the case?

Continue reading Sociology of Spiders

Invasion Day 2019

Posted on by Dr Zuleyka Zevallos

This past weekend was the Australia Day long weekend. The holiday marks the genocide and dispossession of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. This day will never be inclusive or live up to ideals of multiculturalism, as it is a Day of Mourning for First Nations people. We need to not just change the date but also #ChangeTheNation. This is time for truth-telling of our national history, a Voice to Parliament and Makarrata (treaty), as outlined in the Uluru Statement From the Heart.

On 26 January, beginning at 11am, we marched at the Invasion Day rally from Hyde Park South to the Yabun Festival. The rally starts with speeches, smoking ceremony and dance commentating survival. Remembering the Waterloo Creek massacre.

Continue reading Invasion Day 2019

Visual Sociology for December 2018

Posted on by Dr Zuleyka Zevallos

Visual sociology for December 2018! I bring you back some of the final sights from my secondent to the Central Coast. We delve into the political and health upheavals in South Africa from the past half-century.  We then mosey over to the zoo, on a super hot day, and see that elephants know how to throw a good water party!

‘We are breastfeeding friendly’

I loved this sticker at a cafe in The Entrace, Central Coast of New South wales! 2 December 2018.

Continue reading Visual Sociology for December 2018

Sociology of Indian-Australians and the Diwali Festival

Posted on by Dr Zuleyka Zevallos

I’ve been away for work for awhile now, and hope to bring you more on this soon. For now, I thought I’d share with you a post I had planned to  publish weeks ago, but haven’t been able to finish until now. Let’s talk about the sociology of Indian people in Australia, with a case study of the Hindu festival of Diwali in Melbourne.

Indian migration to Australia has a long history, dating back to the 19th Century,  with early records showing the British brought Indian servants (noting this may have included forced servitude). At the time of colonial Australia’s first Census, there were 1,800 Indian people in Australia. Today, Indian-Australians represent our fourth largest migrant group and they are also the biggest growing migrant group next to China, with their population doubling in the past decade, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

In the most recent Census of 2016, over 455,000 Australians were born in India, corresponding to 1.9% of our population, though this does not include the second-generation (their children born in Australia).  Together with Nepalese-Australians, Indian people make up 76% of the Hindu population in Australia (noting that Hindu people make up only 1.9% of our national population).

Indian families gather at Diwali: Indian Festival of Light Oct 2014. Federation Square, Melbourne, Australia
Diwali: Indian Festival of Light, Federation Square

Continue reading Sociology of Indian-Australians and the Diwali Festival

We Have All the Time for Diversity

Posted on by Dr Zuleyka Zevallos

Disfruta – our visual sociology of October-November 2018.

Unemployed philosophers

Our backup career has been taken by The Unemployed Philosophers Guild. 1 October 2018.

We have all the time for…

The Bank, a local pub in Newtown, New South Wales, greets everyone with respect. Except racists, sexists, transphobes, direspectuful people and dickheads. Useful policy for our weary days. 2 October 2018. Continue reading We Have All the Time for Diversity