Webinar Series: The Missing Peace: Talking About Nonviolence

First Nations understandings of understandings of peace and security, violence and nonviolence, relationality and entanglement, have so much to teach us as we grapple with The Missing Peace.

The Green Institute is immensely privileged to bring you this conversation through which we will explore the complexity of decolonialism and nonviolence with three extraordinary Aboriginal thinkers, activists and writers: Adjunct Associate Professor Dr Mary Graham, Professor Yin Paradies, and Nidala Barker.

Nonviolence as an active practice of resistance to oppression emerged in no small part through decolonial struggles – most famously through Mahatma Gandhi’s leadership and philosophy of satyagraha. This is not to say that all decolonial struggles have been, or must be, nonviolent. Indeed, we are coming to learn more about Aboriginal resistance in the Frontier Wars. But it challenges recent claims that decolonisation is necessarily violent, and that nonviolence is a philosophy and practice born of privilege.

The fact that First Nations peoples lived on the land we now call Australia for countless millennia with no wars of aggression or territory, with no word in any of their languages for invasion or conquest, reveals how much we have to learn from Indigenous philosophies and practices of relationality and entanglement, with each other, and with country, with the land that is the law. Decolonial scholarship rejects the dichotomy between violence and nonviolence. Indigenous systems of governance institutionalise conflict in ways which acknowledge the reality of violence, but suppress its use. This is in some ways the opposite of the modern State, which institutionalises violence and has become ever worse at managing conflict.

To help us begin to understand, we have three tremendous guides.

Dr Mary Graham

Well-known to and deeply admired by Green Institute audiences, Dr Mary Graham is an Adjunct Associate Professor in Political Science at the University of Queensland. She grew up in South-East Queensland, and is a Kombu-merri person through her father’s heritage and a Wakka Wakka clan member through her mother’s heritage. With a career spanning more than 30 years, Mary has worked across several government agencies, community organisations and universities. Widely published and an experienced teachers, Mary is a Director of Future Dreaming Australia, an Indigenous and non-indigenous partnership organisation working to increase cross-cultural ecological knowledge in Australia.

Professor Yin Paradies

Professor Yin Paradies is an Aboriginal-Asian-Anglo Australian of the Wakaya people from the Gulf of Carpentaria. He is Chair in Race Relations at Deakin University. He conducts research on the health, social and economic effects of racism as well as anti-racism theory, policy and practice across diverse settings, including online, in workplaces, schools, universities, housing, the arts, sports and health. He also teaches and undertakes research in Indigenous knowledges and decolonisation. Yin is an anarchist radical scholar and climate / ecological activist who is committed to understanding and interrupting the devastating impacts of modern societies. He seeks meaningful mutuality of becoming and embodied kinship with all life through transformed ways of knowing, being and doing that are grounded in wisdom, humility, respect, generosity, down-shifted collective sufficiency, voluntary simplicity, frugality, direct democracy and radical localisation.

Nidala Barker

Driven by her relentless hope in humanity, musician, sustainability educator and activist, Nidala Barker’s work dedicates itself to creating reconciliation; of ourselves with our emotions, of our daily lives with our natural environments, and of Indigenous wisdom with innovative ideas. Whether it be through her music or her workshops, she reminds us of our belonging in this world, and helps us to step bravely into our shared responsibility to protect it. Born of the Aboriginal Djugun people of the Kimberley, her words are anthem for open hearts and raised fists. She hold a Master’s of Sustainability from the University of Sydney carried by her time in the jungles of northern Colombia and urban farms in Sydney, as well as a double degree in Public Policy and Social Justice Law from Macquarie University. She has worked for major organisations like the Big Issue and Greenpeace, as well as in farming cooperatives and nature mentoring programs. Nidala currently sits on the board of Green Music Australia and The Returning Indigenous Corporations.

Register below to join in the discussion. This webinar is the fourth in a series we’re hosting over the coming months as part of our project The Missing Peace: Talking About Nonviolence. We look forward to having you along!

Full bursaries are available. Email event organiser (email listed below) with your request.

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