As I work on my bicycling PhD, time seems to lengthen, flatten and conflate.
Timestamps such as teaching semesters, due dates, and Public Holidays mean little to me as I continue to work independently on my self-directed community bike research.
But today is different.
January 26th stands out for me (as it does for many others): ideologically politically, socially and culturally as a very challenging day.
This is because two significant events occurred on this date that continue to have reverberations – and both of which have a particular link and meaning to me and my research. (Read to the end of this post to find out why).
Trouble in Australia
Where I live in Australia and around the world, January 26th historically and currently continues to be a date on which a number of transgressive and contested struggles have been brought to the surface.
Here are two main reasons society should be engaging with challenging conversations on January 26th.
In Australia, January 26th is a VERY controversial date.
This date is the official national (holi)day of Australia – what many call ‘Australia Day’.
It has also been called Anniversary Day, First Landing Day and Foundation Day.
It was on this date in 1788 that the First Fleet arrived in Sydney Cove* and white colonisers ‘claimed’ sovereignty over Australia.
Australia Day has been positioned in politics and the media as being a day to celebrate national pride and the diverse Australian community.
But such ‘celebrations’ negate Indigenous Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and First Nations peoples who were here well before European colonisers arrived, but who suffered the brutal and fatal hostile take-over of colonisers, the legacy of which is still very much alive today.
In recognition of this, ‘Australia Day’ is hotly contested and is also referred to as Invasion Day, Survival Day, and Day of Mourning.
Despite what your position is on this issue, it is important to keep engaging with a range of voices, ideas and perspectives. It is unconscionable to simply reject, disengage or ignore that this debate is going on – such a social issue demands attention and action.
This blog has thousands of readers, many of whom are outside Australia and may not be aware of this debate.
So I’ve put together an initial list showcasing a range of indigenous, academic, educational and news commentaries below for our international friends and those interested in learning more:
- Australia Day: January 26 marks a massacre in NSW. Will a cement plaque really help? – national Indigenous affairs correspondent Isabella Higgins & Sarah Collard
- The truth about Australia Day – Henry Reynolds (Australian Historian)
- The Hypocrisy of Australia Day – Koori History
- Australia Day, Invasion Day, Survival Day; a long history of celebration and congestion – Prof. Katie Darian-Smith
- Australia Day History & timeline (on the Official Australia Day website) by Dr Elizabeth Kwan
- Australia Day: What’s the fuss about January 26th? – Australians Together
- Changing Australia Day is pointless – and there is much to celebrate – Dr Anthony Dillon
- The day I don’t feel Australian? That would be Australia Day – Assoc. Prof. Chelsea Bond (ATSIS Unit, UQ)
- Debunking the myth of Australia Day – Charis Chang
- Australia Day – Rona Glynn-McDonald (Common Ground)
But January 26th is not only a day of confrontation in Australia.
*Many of us growing up in Australia were taught in school that it was Captain Cook who landed the First Fleet in January 1788, but in actual fact, it was Captain Arthur Phillip. Captain Cook had been dead for nine years at that point. Just goes to show there are serious discrepancies in the so-called factual reporting and historical educational/news reproductions of this event that needs to be interrogated and revised to be more accurate… and most important of these is the truthtelling, recognition, experiences, and the standing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders peoples.
Trouble on January 26th (2000) in the USA
Elsewhere, this date is also infamous, but for different reasons.
On this date, 21-years ago in New York, American rock band Rage Against the Machine (famous for their provocative and revolutionary political views and lyrics) played on the steps of the US Stock Exchange.
They had a permit to play and were recording a music video with Michael Moore for their song ‘Sleep now with the fire’ (which is about capitalism and greed).
The video pretty much shows what happened.
It is essential viewing and I set it for homework for my students.
Yup…it’s (still) that good!!
Essentially, with several hundred fans watching on, the protest-concert-flash mob-recording was considered so disruptive and ‘dangerous’ that the cops were called in and scuffles broke out. During the confrontation, security made the call to shut down the New York Stock Exchange – a move that had never happened before in its 200-year history…and one that many saw as a successful, direct political challenge to halt capitalism.
These two events are very important individually, but there is a specific link for me between the two as well.
A particularly unsettling link
As a middle-aged, temporarily able-bodied, Australian, white, educated, female conducting research located in disadvantaged communities in Sierra Leone (West Africa) issues of power, gender, race, and ethics are paramount.
As a researcher, I constantly need to revisit my relationality to my research from the point of view of:
- Subjectivity: to what degree this research is influenced by my subjective, personal perspectives, values, preferences, opinions, feelings, and experiences.
- Positionality: What is the stance or position of me (researcher) in relation to aspects of the study (participants, places, communities, organizations)
- Ethics: To uphold ethical conduct and the highest integrity for the design, conduct, activities and reporting of the research.
- Postcoloniality is another ongoing tension I wrestle with in my research.
Forefront in my mind is to avoid being another white person (benefiting from) doing research ‘on’ a southern, disadvantaged community – and thus reinscribing the very exploitative colonial practices and not the empowering/progressive alternative my research claims to be.
So on January 26th, I am ideologically and culturally engaged and moved by both these events and ongoing challenges – and the kicker for me is this:
In the lyrics are these lines:
Naming Christopher Columbus three ships The Nina, The Pinta, The Santa Maria, is a deliberate move by Rage to draw attention to European colonisation ‘discovery’ of the ‘New World’ , which essentially lead to the decimation of first nations peoples, cultures, and land.
Although I am not specifically named after Columbus’ ship The Nina (I’m named after a great Aunt), the intertwining link between these two events AND my name PLUS the inherent (post)colonial challenges inherent in my research adds extra complexity and assumed accountability for me based on past-present implications of/for colonization, greed, extractivism, and exploitation.
Such a link is a weighty reminder for me.
And I take it very seriously.
This is why January 26th has an even greater significance for me.
So, I am not ‘celebrating’ today.
Instead, I’m taking time to think deeply about these events (and around the world) and look at who has power, who does not, and to consider my role in situations where social injustices occur.
We should all be engaging more directly, intelligently and honestly with such events.