Crossroads in Cultural Studies Conference 14-17th December 2016 Program Index

pharmaceutical commodity above providing proper patient education. The concept of pharmaceutical
fetishism relies upon the forms of pseudo-autonomy presented to consumers, namely through direct-toconsumer
(DTC) advertisements.
Stephen Tomsen* & Kev Dertardian
Violence, identity and marginal masculinities in urban drug/substance use
Men who inject illicit drugs are almost universally viewed as a serious social threat with significant potential
for violence and criminal activity. This presentation reports on the results of semi-structured interviews
focused on life experience and meanings of violence among 20 male injecting drug users presenting at the
Sydney Kings Cross Metropolitan Safe Injecting Centre (MSIC) in early 2016. Interviewees exhibited identities
that were shifting, vulnerable and at frequent risk of victimisation without being drawn to violence and
criminal activity as a straightforward assertion of dominant masculinity. Furthermore, these marginal
“client” masculine identities are partly drawn from construction of the MSIC as an abject space of drug
consumption that contrasts with a mainstream reconfiguration and new legitimacy of Sydney’s urban male
leisure consumption in locations of extended high profit and taxable hedonistic drinking and gambling.
10L
Educational spaces, race and postcolonialism (Chair, Remy Low)
Lara Palombo* & Elaine Laforteza*
academic
Are universities “white” spaces? Race, whiteness and the non-white
In this paper, we track how Australian universities can operate as “white” institutions that define rules and
techniques of pedagogy that imagine the “acceptable academic” as well as mediate staff interactions with
students and other staff. We contend with issues that bear upon our experiences as long term casuals and
short term contract workers that are also committed to critical race studies inside zones of contact
(in)formed through whiteness. Here, we recognise that Australian universities have been and are made up of
paths of privilege, non-compliance, questioning and subversion that have interpolated our desires, as well as
allowed our presence within these institutions. We reflect on how the institutional strategies that might
have brought us in this space are now competing to limit, if not extinguish, our presence. So we end with the
question: how does whiteness, as a form of structural privilege, shape our presence and interactions within
universities?
Ryan Al-Natour Postcolonizing Educational Institutions
For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, Australian universities have functioned as racialised Eurocentric
spaces that have served to colonise them. Various disciplines from anthropology to the medical
sciences have marginalised and oppressed Indigenous peoples. In recent decades, higher educational
institutions have allowed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to form part of the student and staff
cohort. In this context, universities have considered incorporating Indigenous content and embedding
Indigenous knowledges into their curriculum. While the Indigenous/non-Indigenous relationships within
tertiary education have transformed, it is evident that a “hidden curriculum” still exists within the
epistemological foundations of universities and continues to marginalise Indigenous knowledges. I argue
that conceptualizing Australian universities as postcolonizing institutions productively enables the
identification of a series of colonial relationships that are (re)produced and remain unchallenged in higher
education today.
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