Policy context

Three states in Australia are presently under a strict COVID-19 lockdown: New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia. New South Wales is experiencing a major Delta variant outbreak, which is highly contagious. It has spread to the other states through working-class people, who do not have the luxury of working from home. Similarly to what happened in the Melbourne lockdown in 2020, residents in migrant communities have been placed into a tougher lockdown relative to others, even as they are required to continue working, and submit to COVID testing every three days (“surveillance testing”).

Public discourse about the COVID-19 outbreaks continues to be racially coded in media articles and in press conferences. This contributes to a moral panic about racialised people. Blame is placed on multicultural communities for not listening to public health messages, even though the majority of cases originate in ‘essential’ workplaces that are not required to shut down. As some communities remain confused about public health messages, state responses have been heavily criticised for not promoting culturally-appropriate public communication campaigns, while targeting migrants with a heavy police presence.

In early-July 2021, 200 police were sent to South Western Sydney, where at least half the population are migrants. Since then, reports on infringement notices feature in the daily press conferences. This did not happen at the beginning of this latest outbreak, when infection was exclusively spreading in Bondi, an affluent suburb where the majority of residents are white, Anglo-Australians.

On the morning of 24 July 2021, the New South Wales Deputy Police Commissioner announced 246 people had received infringement notices in the past 24 hours, highlighting the case of a grieving family gathering to mourn, implying they were from a non-English speaking background. The Minister for Health spoke heavily about ‘multicultural’ communities not following the rules by visiting family members who don’t live in the same house. By the afternoon, 3,500 anti-lockdown protesters marched through central Sydney without masks, being violent, and yet only 90 people initially received infringement notices, and 57 people were arrested. The race of the protesters—who were overwhelmingly white—has not been a focus of media reports.

Delta outbreak

The origins of the current national emergency began on 16 June 2021, with two initial cases in Bondi. A private driver who works with international flight crew became infected., followed by his wife. The driver was reprimanded by media and officials for not wearing a mask and for not being vaccinated (quarantine workers, including drivers, are mandated to be vaccinated). However, his employers were not subject to this scrutiny, and the broader ongoing problem with quarantine system, which is a federal government responsibility, was not given the same attention. Rightfully, the Bondi driver’s race, language and ethnicity was not the leading story.

The virus spread across Bondi over the following four weeks. Experts agreed from inception that the Bondi outbreak was serious, and very different to previous outbreaks, because it was the Delta variant. The community was encouraged to stay home and get tested; however, Bondi was not placed into a tough lockdown. There wasn’t a focus on handing out fines, or otherwise policing Bondi residents, even as they continued to go out in droves. Bondi is a white, Anglo-Australian majority suburb. The whiteness of the community was not villainised.

By 18 June 2021, the rest of metropolitan Sydney was placed on elevated restrictions due to the Bondi outbreak. Throughout this time, Bondi residents continued to move around, without adhering to social distancing rules. However, when ethnic minorities broke the rules – even momentarily – their names and images are published by the media, in a way that did not happen in Bondi.

On 8 July 2021, three removalists from Sydney travelled from Victoria into New South Wales and South Australia while knowingly infectious. In mid-July, another two Sydney removalists travelled into regional New South Wales after testing positive for COVID-19. The media has heavily focused on the latter two removalists’ Arabic background. Critiques of ‘multicultural communities’ followed. The two removalists are brothers. Their family say that they did not understand the phone call from New South Wales Health informing them about their positive COVID-19 test, due to low English language proficiency, and they requested NSW Health contact their boss. The brothers’ names have been made public, despite the fact that their mother died of COVID-19 after the case was made public, their father has also since tested positive.

The same is not true of the three removalists who travelled into state. They have been charged and face court proceedings, however, their ethnicity, and their community by extension, are not under trial by media.

The Australian media has been relentless in naming and shaming index cases, including the driver who was the first person infected in the Bondi outbreak. This is reprehensible. Yet the media and police go one step further, by relishing the opportunity to punish migrants.

Racialised lockdown

On 9 July 2021, metropolitan Sydney was placed into an even stricter lockdown. All office workers were ordered to work from home. On 17 July, three suburbs from South Western Sydney were given stronger restrictions, with only essential workers allowed to leave their local area, but only if they submit to COVID testing every three days. The majority of currently infected people live in South Western Sydney and Western Sydney suburbs. These suburbs have a predominantly non-English speaking population. For example, 69% of Liverpool residents were born overseas, with the biggest groups from Iraq, India, and Fiji. Similarly, 60% of Fairfield residents were born overseas, primarily in Vietnam, Iraq, and Cambodia, and 50% of Canterbury-Bankstown residents were born overseas, primarily in Lebanon, Vietnam, and China. While the Government recognises that these residents are ‘essential workers’ who are keeping the economy running, a strong police presence was announced for South Western Sydney.

Since then, infringement notice reports feature daily at news conferences.

Tougher lockdowns, surveillance testing of essential workers, and penalties were not a daily feature of press conferences and media coverage when the majority of COVID cases were in Bondi. Even now, with the entire metropolitan Sydney population under lockdown (and South Western Sydney under even stricter limits), affluent white-majority suburbs flout lockdown rules (see Coogee below).

Unlike other states, New South Wales has resisted defining ‘essential workers’ throughout the pandemic. The first list was provided on 17 July, only to be expanded two days later, after ‘consultation with businesses.’

Further lockdowns were imposed on three regional towns on 21 July (Blayney, Cabonne and Orange), but, unsurprisingly as they are white-majority areas, the announcement came without the threat of extra policing. Just three days later, on 24 July, Cumberland (58% overseas born) and Blacktown (44% overseas-born and a sizeable Aboriginal population), have been placed on the same restrictions as the three other South Western Sydney suburbs.

Working class burden

People in precarious jobs cannot simply work from home. Health officials continue to report that workplaces are the key ‘seeding’ events (where infections originate), and that infected workers then transmit the disease across the community via their households. The pandemic continues to illustrate how race and class inequality function: there is a general lack of protection of working-class workers (class), and most working-class ‘essential workers’ are racial minorities (race).

When white people are caught doing the wrong thing, their race is never mentioned by the media. However, when racial minorities are involved, their communities are implicated. South Western Sydney mayors say that this is a ‘double standard.’

Lebanese Muslim Association president Samir Dandan says the police response is ‘disproportionate’: ‘This is highly problematic and reinforces the experience of this community being over-policed and continues to create heightened sensitivities around the over-scrutinisation of these communities.’

The South Australian outbreak started on 18 July, when a man arrived in Australia from Argentina, and was isolated into a New South Wales quarantine hotel (due to the pandemic, the majority of international arrivals come via Sydney International Airport). After becoming injured in quarantine, he was taken to a New South Wales hospital, and subsequently tested positive for COVID-19.

The spread of infection is exacerbated by the lack of protection for working-class people, especially racial minorities, in quarantine jobs, aged care, healthcare, and other essential services. Quarantine safety and vaccination are both the responsibility of the federal Government.

Media and officials continue to blame racial minorities in a way that does not feature for white-majority communities. For a deeper look at how this plays out, revisit our Race in Society series, which delves into this head on, in Media Representations of Race and the Pandemic.

References

Aualiitia, T., & Xing, D. (2021, July 15). Sydney’s multicultural communities have mixed views on lockdown — while some back the measures, others fear they target migrants. ABC News. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-15/sydney-community-members-react-to-latest-covid-tactics/100292930

Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2017, October 23). 2016 Census QuickStats: Cumberland (A). 2016 Census QuickStats. https://quickstats.censusdata.abs.gov.au/census_services/getproduct/census/2016/quickstat/LGA12380

Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2017, October 23). 2016 Census QuickStats: Liverpool. 2016 Census QuickStats. https://quickstats.censusdata.abs.gov.au/census_services/getproduct/census/2016/quickstat/SSC12361?opendocument

Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2017, October 23). 2016 Census QuickStats: Canterbury-Bankstown (A). 2016 Census QuickStats. https://quickstats.censusdata.abs.gov.au/census_services/getproduct/census/2016/quickstat/LGA11570?opendocument

Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2017, October 23). 2016 Census QuickStats: Fairfield (C). 2016 Census QuickStats. https://quickstats.censusdata.abs.gov.au/census_services/getproduct/census/2016/quickstat/LGA12850

Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2017, October 23). 2016 Census QuickStats: Blacktown (C). 2016 Census QuickStats. https://quickstats.censusdata.abs.gov.au/census_services/getproduct/census/2016/quickstat/LGA10750?opendocument

Bath, G. (2021, July 9). South-west Sydney gets 100 extra cops. Where’s Bondi’s? Mama Mia. https://www.mamamia.com.au/south-west-sydney-covid/

Cockburn, P. (2021, July 7). How NSW’s COVID-19 outbreak grew from one limo driver to more than 300 cases. ABC News. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-07/nsw-covid-19-outbreak-explained/100271128

Dye, J., Carroll, L., & White, D. (2021, July 23). NSW COVID cases grow by 136; Cumberland, Blacktown LGA further restrictions implemented. The Age. https://www.theage.com.au/national/nsw/national-emergency-nsw-records-136-new-covid-19-cases-20210723-p58c97.html

Guardian, The. (2021, July 23). NSW Covid lockdown restrictions: update to Sydney, Orange and regional coronavirus rules explained. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/jul/23/nsw-covid-19-lockdown-restrictions-sydney-update-coronavirus-face-mask-rules-explained-greater-syd-western-fairfield-canterbury-bankstown-liverpool-regional-new-south-wales-orange-blayney-cabonne-masks-indoors-singing-dancing-weddings-public-transport

Hanrahan, C., & Blumer, C. (2021, June 30). The Bondi cluster is NSW’s biggest COVID cluster so far. Here’s how it compares to the other outbreaks. ABC News. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-30/bondi-is-nsw-biggest-covid-cluster-so-far/100253676

Jackson, S. (2021, July 21). Removalists’ dad tests positive less than a day after wife dies. The Weekend Australian. https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/removalists-dad-tests-positive-less-than-a-day-after-wife-dies/news-story/21a9002b01970af4a4fd5d15c4de6900

Keane, D. (2021, July 22). As SA’s COVID-19 cluster continues to grow, here’s a look at how the state landed in a lockdown. ABC News. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-22/the-covid-19-case-that-landed-sa-in-lockdown/100310002

Kontominas, B., & Taouk, M. (2021, July 9). NSW Police deny targeting multicultural communities in COVID-19 operation. ABC News. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-09/nsw-police-defend-covid-19-operation-in-south-west-sydney/100280106

Livingstone, T. (2021, July 9). Coronavirus NSW update: Extra police patrolling Sydney south-west LGAs targeting lockdown breaches, “This is not about discrimination, not about racism.” 9News. https://www.9news.com.au/national/coronavirus-sydney-update-extra-police-patrolling-south-west-lgas-lockdown-breaches-cases-surge/676bd916-6f0d-4d52-957b-0dc3ed2b1f90

Media Watch. (2021, July 5). COVID driver. Media Watch. https://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/episodes/limo/13432308

Moore, T. (2021, July 17). Non-critical retail, construction to shut in Sydney. Australian Financial Review. https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/nsw-expands-exposure-list-testing-sites-20210717-p58aio

NSW Health. (2021, July 24). Due to the emergence of further cases of community transmission in Sydney’s west and south-west. Twitter. https://twitter.com/NSWHealth/status/1418737922983952388

Olumee, F. (2021, July 21). South-west Sydney residents feel “targeted” by increased police presence during lockdown. ABC News. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-20/south-west-sydney-residents-feel-targeted-in-lockdown/100299024

Race in Society. (2020, September 10). Media representations of race and the pandemic. In Race in Society. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wChvxXa4zRY

Rachwani, M., & Zhou, N. (2021, July 8). Western Sydney residents feel they are being ‘scapegoated’ as police pledge Covid crackdown. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/jul/08/western-sydney-residents-feel-they-are-being-scapegoated-as-police-pledge-covid-crackdown

Razik, N. (2021, July 18). Southwest Sydney mayors say new COVID-19 restrictions segregates community from rest of Greater Sydney. SBS News. https://www.sbs.com.au/news/southwest-sydney-mayors-say-new-covid-19-restrictions-segregates-community-from-rest-of-greater-sydney

Snowden, A. (2021, July 21). Covid-19: Sydney removalists who spread virus in NSW, Victoria and SA caught on CCTV. The Weekend Australia. https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/covid19-sydney-removalists-who-spread-virus-in-nsw-victoria-and-sa-caught-on-cctv/news-story/2395fd057139a0fb07f8f956ac7ae9df

Swain, S. (2021, July 24). Coronavirus anti-lockdown protests updates NSW: Chaos as thousands gather for anti-lockdown protests. 9News. https://www.9news.com.au/national/coronavirus-updates-nsw-fines-sydney-lockdown-parties/50e2f654-23af-4876-99d7-d0f8394c92f4

Zevallos, Z. (2020, July 5). Pandemic, race and moral panic. The Other Sociologist. https://othersociologist.com/2020/07/05/pandemic-race-and-moral-panic/

Zevallos, Z. (2020, October 3). Indigenous Sovereignty and Responses to COVID-19. The Other Sociologist. https://othersociologist.com/2020/10/03/indigenous-sovereignty-and-responses-to-covid-19/

Zevallos, Z. (2021, June 18). New COVID-19 restrictions in Sydney and Blue Mountains. Twitter. https://twitter.com/OtherSociology/status/1405697566524641283

Zevallos, Z. (2021, July 19). List of essential workers (‘authorised’) expanded. Twitter. https://twitter.com/OtherSociology/status/1416926512519946240

Zevallos, Z. (2021, July 24). Deputy Police Commissioner: 246 infringements issued in past 24 hours. Twitter. https://twitter.com/OtherSociology/status/1418742909218684930

The economy depends upon the work of racialised people, exposing them to higher risk due to casualised frontline services, which have kept the health system and other businesses going throughout lockdown. At the same time, racialised people are provided inadequate protections against infection, including poor personal protective equipment.

Our first guest, Sanmati Verma, is an Accredited Specialist in Immigration Law. She discusses the legal issues faced by temporary visa holders and migrants, as they lack access to economic security. Our other guest is Professor Sujatha Fernandes, who is Professor of Political Economy and Sociology at the University of Sydney. Her research explores the uses and misuses of storytelling to shape understandings of the political activism of racialised people. She discusses how “curated storytelling” narrows the public’s engagement with economic rights during the pandemic.

Sanmati Verma on undocumented workers

Sanmati Verma has analysed some of the punitive immigration policies that have impacted undocumented workers. She joins us to discuss how these patterns have been exacerbated during the COVID-19 outbreak. Sanmati notes that the techniques used to police Australia’s borders and control the population were first developed by the colonial state to oppress First Nations peoples. Sanmati describes that the term “undocumented” is mostly used in North America and the Europe to mean someone without visa status or people who have precarious visa status that imposes stringent limits. For example, people who need to engage paid work even when their visa doesn’t give them permission to work.

Australia uses a selective points-based skilled migration system that is mapped against specific visa categories (e.g. specific industries), and does not make adjustments based on age, educational background, or employment background. Sanmati notes that Australia’s system is stricter on admission and harsher than many other nations:

Sanmati is influenced by Angela Mitropoulos, who shows how borders “commodify movement, to dictate its form, to deprive people of visa status, primarily in the interests of the state and of capital.”

Sanmati says there is an estimated 100,000 undocumented people in Australia. The longest standing undocumented population are Pasifika people who come from Pacific Island nations. They have a long history of being exploited under colonialism. (Read more on the history of blackbirding in the “Learn More” section below.) Sanmati explains that some Pacific Island workers who’ve come under guest worker schemes have overstayed their visas, leaving them undocumented. Another group of undocumented workers are former international students who had been in Australia for many years, but from 2009 faced a complete overhaul of the skilled migration system, leaving them little recourse for a visa. Other groups from Malaysia have overstated their visas, or applied for protection visas and are left waiting in limbo.

Sanmati argues the Migration Act has long limited visa applications. During the pandemic, many undocumented migrants fell into “essential services” sectors. For example, they do work that cannot be done from home, such as contract cleaning, farming, and care work. So to fill this gap, new visa provisions permitted people to enter critical sectors, and receive a 408 COVID-19 visa for 12 months on a rolling basis, so long as they continued doing frontline work.

Sanmati says this is akin to offering amnesty for undocumented workers, but how could these provisions be fairly broadened? A similar amnesty was implemented in Italy, that soon led to protests, that the amnesty was “for vegetables and not for people.”

Sujatha Fernandes on curated stories

Sujatha explains her book, “Curated Stories,” which looks at stories that are told about marginalised and racialised populations, in the media, academic and social media. She argues marginalised groups “are often called to perform stories about being marginalised subjects.” These stories depend on racial stereotypes, including slavery, racial capitalism, or colonialism.

“During legal hearings for their domestic worker, bill of rights campaign, we’re often coached to tell these kinds of stories about their bad employer and how this individual single bad employer did such terrible things to them. And they’ve always discouraged from talking about broader systemic exploitation of the industry. And so we can see how these kinds of very individual tropes, as the bad employer draw from furthest tropes of, say the bad slave master under slavery versus the good and caring slave master. So that’s just one example of how some of the stereotypes that are used today in the media and in discourse have a very long history.

“I think another stereotype that’s particularly around undocumented workers is that they’re often asked to talk about what value they bring to the economy and that they should be valued because their labour is valuable. And one of the things that some more critical social movement advocates have argued is that why should they have to prove that they’re valuable to the economy just to be treated as human beings? We should see intrinsic value and worth in them as human beings.”

Sujatha notes that these racial stereotypes have been prevalent throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. This includes the early but insidious references to:

“The Chinese virus, and Asians were seen as virus spreaders. They were treated as infectious. And as the sort of villains of the story who had brought COVID to Australia and to the rest of the world, and this sort of fits uneasily with another stereotype about Asians who were from the very beginning, were often the ones wearing masks. And this led to another stereotype as Asians, as very obedient versus freedom loving Westerners who wanted to just exercise their right to do whatever they want…

“We’ve also seen a real upsurge in these colonial stereotypes in the media about Black and migrant people as being diseased, as being undisciplined, as unable to control their bodies. And that has even sort of spread into these as stereotypes of migrant and Black people as criminals. And even, I think we could include Indigenous people today. There was a video this morning just circulating of police grabbing an Indigenous woman who wasn’t wearing a mask.”

Sujatha notes that policing has intensified during COVID, and this has been “racially divided.” She notes how wealthy people who brought COVID into Australia via cruise ships, or ski trips in Aspen, evaded public wrath, while two Black teenage girls were accused of criminal deceit after they entered into Queensland from a hotspot. Similarly, affluent people in the Eastern suburbs of Sydney were free to move around, while migrant dominated suburbs in Western Sydney were heavily restricted. Migrants in public housing towers in Flemington and North Melbourne, Victoria, were also treated as criminals, as were the Black Lives Matter protesters in June and July 2020, who were harassed by the police.

Building solidarity

We asked our guests to describe practical ways that we can build solidarity between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and undocumented workers, who have been subjected to these economic inequalities and racialised violence throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sanmati says: “A critical point of solidarity is to… understand the Australian States formation as a territory of exception, as a territory of legal fiction… the concept of Terra Nullius” (the false idea that Australian land was unowned before colonisation). Sanmati also warns us against becoming “distracted or enamoured” with terms conceived by the state, such as “essential work” and “essential worker.” These labels make workers seem neutral, and masks their racial status. She also asks us to stop replicating arguments about economic utility, which only serve to reinforce the idea that legal status is legitimised by ability to do certain types of paid work.

Sujantha suggests that we can support local organisations to help with mutual aid efforts, and to “push for policy changes, like sick pay, COVID leave, adequate health care for legal status.” Sujatha also calls for mobilisation; that we actively support Black Lives Matter protests, frontline worker strikes, and other industrial action. Other actions include contributing to funds to pay fines for protestors, organising teach-ins, and building coalitions between students, workers, and First Nations peoples.

Sujatha says:

“I think when we start to all realise that really what’s happening here is connected, and that there is a criminalisation of protest that’s going on right now, that’s going to affect us all. That’s moving us towards a police state. We need to find ways of coming together and supporting one another. I think there’s inspirational ways of how that’s already happening.”

Learn more: blackbirding

Blackbirding describes how Pacific Islander people (primarily South Sea Islander people) were tricked or kidnapped, and subsequently enslaved, in Australia from 1847 to 1903. The majority were forced to work in the sugar industry in Queensland, while others were enslaved into the pastoral industry in New South Wales, and pearling in Western Australia. This occurred well past the official abolition of slavery in other colonial nations, including the UK (1833), Peru (1854) and USA (1865).

Among the first laws of Federation in 1901, the Australian Government implemented the Pacific Islanders Labour Act that sought to deport 10,000 South Sea Islanders from 1906-1908, with many sent to Fiji or deported elsewhere other than their original islands. This history continues to impact South Sea Islander people to this day.

In July 2021, the Mayor of Bundaberg, Queensland, offered the first formal apology acknowledging this history.

A renewed practice of seasonal working visas from the 2012 repeats blackbirding, by targeting Pacific Islanders to work in arduous and highly exploitative conditions. Working long hours, they receive less than $10 weekly after deductions.

The 2018 Pacific Labour Scheme has provided three-year contracts to more than 20,000 Pacific Islander people. Since the pandemic, some of these workers have been forced to go home or face unemployment, while others have been stranded in Australia unable to return home.

References

Department of Home Affairs (2020) Temporary Activity visa (subclass 408). Australian Government endorsed events (COVID-19 Pandemic event). Canberra: DHA. Online resource: https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/visas/getting-a-visa/visa-listing/temporary-activity-408/australian-government-endorsed-events-covid-190

Fernandes, S. (2017) Curated Stories: The Uses and Misuses of Storytelling. New York: Oxford University Press.

Mitropoulos, A. (2017) ‘Bordering Colonial Uncertainty,’ Political and Legal Anthropology Review, https://polarjournal.org/bordering-colonial-uncertainty/

Verma, S. (2019) ‘”We feed you.” The real cost of undocumented labour in Australia,’Overland, 22 March. Online resource: https://overland.org.au/2019/03/we-feed-you-the-real-cost-of-undocumented-labour-in-australia/

Blackbirding

ABC Australia (2021) “Blackbirding descendants fight for Australian South Sea Islander recognition,” ABC, 25 August. Online resource: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GL731vwhW18

Archibald-Binge, E. (2021) ‘”They ruled our lives”: What impact has slavery had in Australia?,’ The Sydney Morning Herald, 10 January. Online resource: https://www.smh.com.au/national/they-ruled-our-lives-what-impact-has-slavery-had-in-australia-20200630-p557ht.html

Armbruster, S. (2021) ‘Stranded in Australia away from family, these Pacific seafarers face a difficult dilemma,’ SBS News, 25 November. Online resource: https://www.sbs.com.au/news/stranded-in-australia-away-from-family-these-pacific-seafarers-face-a-difficult-dilemma/573ba6f5-d363-4038-ad64-5d1294f13d6b

Christopher, E. (2021) ‘From the Caribbean to Queensland: re-examining Australia’s ‘blackbirding’ past and its roots in the global slave trade,’ The Conversation, 4 June. Online resource: https://theconversation.com/from-the-caribbean-to-queensland-re-examining-australias-blackbirding-past-and-its-roots-in-the-global-slave-trade-158530

Davidson, H. and C. Earl (2020) ‘The fruit pickers: inside Australia’s seasonal worker program – a photo essay,’ The Guardian, 17 October. Online resource: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/oct/18/the-fruit-pickers-inside-australias-seasonal-worker-program-a-photo-essay

Davis, E. (Waskam) (2017) ‘Australia’s hidden history of slavery: the government divides to conquer,’ The Conversation, 31 October. Online resource: https://theconversation.com/australias-hidden-history-of-slavery-the-government-divides-to-conquer-86140

Doherty, B. (2017) ”Full truth’: descendants of Australia’s ‘blackbirded’ islanders want pioneer statues amended,’ The Guardian, 24 August. Online resource: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/aug/24/full-truth-needs-to-be-told-descendants-of-blackbirded-south-sea-islanders-want-memorials-amended

Gregoire, P. and U. Nedim (2017) ‘”Sugar Slaves”: Australia’s History of Blackbirding,’ Sydney Criminal Lawyers, 29 September. Online resource: https://www.sydneycriminallawyers.com.au/blog/sugar-slaves-australias-history-of-blackbirding/

Hermant, N. (2016) ‘Seasonal farm workers receiving less than $10 a week after deductions, investigation reveals,’ ABC News, 25 February. Online resource: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-25/seasonal-farm-workers-receiving-as-little-as-$9-a-week/7196844

Marie, J. and S. Doole (2021) ‘Queensland mayor issues historic apology over blackbirding slavery of Pacific Islanders,’ ABC News, 30 July. Online resource: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-30/queensland-mayor-sorry-blackbirding-south-seas-slavery/100333302

In Episode 3 of Race in Society (video below), Associate Professor Alana Lentin and I lead a panel about how mainstream media create sensationalist accounts of the pandemic, and the proactive ways in which Aboriginal people and Asian people in particular lead their own responses. We spoke with Dr Summer May Finlay, a Yorta Yorta woman and Public Health Researcher at the Universities of Wollongong and Canberra. In our video below, she details how Aboriginal community controlled health organisations have effectively dealt with COVID-19 using social marketing campaigns. We also chatted with Dr Karen Schamberger, an independent curator and historian. She covers the history of Australian sinophobia (the fear of China, its people and or its culture), and how anti-Chinese racism plays out in media reports on racism and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Media and officials continue to blame racial minorities in a way that does not feature for white-majority communities, some of whom are boldly defying the lockdown. Why does this happen? Our Race in Society series provides broader cultural and historical context.

Summer May Finlay on culturally appropriate responses

In our Race and Society panel from 10 September 2020, Dr Summer May Finlay, discussed her co-authored article (with Dr Mark Wenitong), on the leadership of Aboriginal community controlled health organisations (ACCHOs) during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Summer details that each ACCHO has a Board of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people from their local community. She says there are over 140 ACCHOs around the country, who run over 300 clinics. The first was established in Redfern in 1971. Summer details how ACCHOs were established because these communities saw that their members were not receiving adequate healthcare, due to institutional racism.

Summer notes that as early as February 2020, the ACCHOs started promoting public health messages as the first infections were reported. This included basic principles of physical distancing, sanitisation, and wearing masks. This work began before the World Health Organisation officially declared the pandemic. ACCHOs recognised that their communities faced increased vulnerability, due to multiple chronic diseases, otherwise known as non-communicable diseases.

Summer says that ACCHOs were successful in preventing COVID deaths among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people due to swift delivery of culturally relevant messages, which were deployed across multiple channels, especially on social media.

“Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are huge up-takers of social media… We know how to actually engage, and we know each other, and we trust each other. And sometimes the government just has to get out of the way, and just allocate the funding to the ACCHO sector, to make sure that they can get on with the job of taking care of their communities, and the government can get on with the job of making sure that they’re funded adequately. But we also know that the ACCHO sector is heavily, heavily monitored. Largely, in my opinion, because of a mistrust in Aboriginal organisations that’s driven by racism.”

Karen Schamberger on sinophobia

Dr Karen Schamberger’s work has primarily looked at anti-Chinese riots during the Gold Rush period, in particular at Lambing Flat in 1860 to 1861. Karen describes that the riots began due to land and resources disputes; land which was originally taken from the Burrowmunditroy clan of the Wurundjeri Nation. At that time, New South Wales (which was then under British rule) had signed the Peking Treaty of 1860 with Qing dynasty China. Some politicians were reluctant to impose anti-Chinese immigration legislation after the riots. Media reports on the riots varied, but some focused on racist stereotypes, such as reports that Chinese migrants were misusing water, that they are unhygienic, and that they were sending earnings overseas instead of spending in the colony. The riots led to the establishment of the New South Wales Police Force, who enforced various anti-Chinese laws.

Karen says this history plays out in the current pandemic:

• In March 2020, at the start of the pandemic, the Australian government placed Chinese-Australians who’d been in Wuhan into offshore quarantine. At the same time, other returning Australians were allowed to disembark in Sydney, even though they arrived from infected cruise ships
• Chinese international students, along with other overseas students, were denied financial support
• The Asian Australian Alliance COVID-19 Racism Incident Report examined 410 reports of interpersonal racism between the 2nd of April and the 2nd of June 2020. Many of these racial insults focused on eating habits, and on Asians being carriers of disease. This echoes 19th century sinophobia in Australia
• Before travel restrictions came into force, businesses in the Sydney and Melbourne Chinatowns saw a drop in patronage
• Media reports focused on Chinese people’s eating habits and wet markets being the source of the virus, as well as false stories of Asian Australians stockpiling goods
• News stories use images of Asian Australians wearing masks to illustrate the pandemic, even when Asians are not mentioned.

Racial justice approach to media

Summer says that in order to take a racial justice approach to media reporting, we need a greater diversity of voices in journalism. In particular, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people talking about issues.

“We’ve just seen the report on the lack of diversity in mainstream media. And I think that is largely one of the issues that we face is there’s a lack of understanding of the importance of those voices. And also, that viewpoints may differ from white Australians.”

Summer says this was illustrated in reporting of the Black Lives Matter protests. Media stories incorrectly predicted that the marches would lead to increased COVID-19 cases, which did not eventuate. Summer argues that media is fixated on naming and shaming, blame, and a deficit discourse when it comes to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

“We need to have robust, diverse conversations that not just focus on what’s happening in our communities that may not be positive, but also looking at our strengths within our communities. Because you don’t get to be a population surviving colonisation for as long as we have if we are not a population of people with extensive strengths.”

Karen says that media reporting during the pandemic should focus on the structural reasons for the spread of the virus amongst essential workers, particularly those on temporary visas or those who are casually employed.

“Not being able to take paid leave or being subjected to unsafe working conditions is not just a problem for those workers, it also becomes a problem for the whole of society. And I think we need much more discussion around that in the public sphere. I also think that media reporting should work to counter stereotypes. So, rather than focusing on aspects when people of colour have done something wrong, we need to be much more mindful of people’s confidentiality and right to anonymity. And actually be tried in the courts rather than by media.”

References

Asian Australian Alliance, & Chiu, O. (2020). COVID-19 Coronavirus racism incident report. http://www.asianaustralianalliance.net

Finlay, S., & Wenitong, M. (2020). Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations are taking a leading role in COVID‐19 health communication. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, 44(4), 251–252. https://doi.org/10.1111/1753-6405.13010

SBS News. (2020, August 17). The lack of cultural diversity in Australian TV news has been revealed in a new report. SBS News. https://www.sbs.com.au/news/the-lack-of-cultural-diversity-in-australian-tv-news-has-been-revealed-in-a-new-report

In my previous DiverseScholar article, I showed why the study behind The New York Times Op Ed (claiming the end of sexism) was methodologically flawed and ideologically biased [Zevallos 2014]. I showed that a focus on an individual choice narrative to explain why women are disadvantaged in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) is fundamentally unsound when understood alongside the long-standing empirical evidence from the social sciences. Here, I will review several science controversies related to the editorial and institutional decisions within STEM. These patterns show that everyday interactions contribute to gender inequality, from the use of images, to dress, to the way distinguished women scientists are described in the media. I start with a selected timeline of events highlighting gender inequality in STEM.

Sexism Timeline in STEM

In March 2014, the Journal of Proteomics published a “graphical abstract” for a study about proteomics that involved a virtually topless woman holding coconuts over her breasts [D’Amato 2012]. Scientists took to social media to complain on the sexist imagery [STEM Women 2014]. Two of the study’s authors were also on the editorial board of the journal and refused to apologize, saying it was a bit of light-hearted science fun. Notably, Ceci and Williams are also on the editorial board of the journal where they published their study. There is a lesson here about objectivity and peer review.

In June 2014, ScienceAlert published a headless photo focused on a woman’s breasts for a story about a caffeine shaker, which they presented as a science story [Science Alert 2014]. It was not science. The scientific merit of the article was not only lacking but the science moderation on their social media was abysmal [Zevallos 2014e]. Sexist comments focused on the woman’s chest and questions about the science of the product went unanswered.

In July 2014, Science Magazine ran a special on HIV and AIDS; and, for their magazine cover, used the headless photo of transgender sex workers [Science 2014]. This editorial choice dehumanized both transgender women and sex workers, as well as evoking transphobic fear, by linking AIDS to transgender women in an exploitative way [Flox 2014]. The negative reaction online was swift [Roca 2014b]

In September 2014, Richard Dawkins launched a series of sexist tirades targeting women, downplaying the experience of rape and decrying the existence of “radical feminism” [Lee 2014] (a term that is about 30 years out of date). While this is not the first time Dawkins has been unabashedly sexist, the frequency of his rants have escalated. Not coincidentally, Dawkins is one of several high-profile academics and leaders of the atheist movement who advocate a sexist agenda against feminists within the movement [Oppenheimer 2014].

Read more on DiverseScholar. Cross-posted on my website.

In September 2014, the United Nations, the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, and The Rockefeller Foundation published a study on the representation of cisgender people on film. Here I report on the major findings and include some of my related social media posts.

The study conducted by Dr Stacy Smith, Marc Choueiti and Dr Katherine Pieper included 120 globally released movies in 11 major film regions: Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Russia, South Korea, United States, and the United Kingdom. The study included almost 5,800 speaking or named characters. The researchers find that, globally, only 31% of speaking roles in films are given to women and less than a quarter of films are centred on a woman protagonist (23%).

The study finds that girls and women are slightly better represented in the UK (38% of speaking roles), Brazil (37%) and Korea (36%). Women and girls’ representation in Germany (35%) and China (35%) is relatively worse, but gender inequality is even more entrenched in India (25%) and the USA and U.K. (24%). This is especially alarming since Hollywood is the biggest exporter of films globally and they are clearly leading in the wrong direction.

Only 28 films in the sample (23%) feature a woman or girl in the lead role or otherwise sharing the story with another main character. The study also considers the gender balance of film casts (where 45 to 55% of characters are women or girls). Only 12 films met this criteria (10%). When women characters are featured in the main storyline, they appear in highly femininised genres. For example: women feature in 33% of comedy roles; 34% of dramas; and 29% of animated movies, but they make up only made up 23% of characters in action/adventure films.

The study included 1,452 film makers and people working in key roles behind the scenes. Women make up only 7% of directors, less than 20% of writers, and 23% of producers. The UK (27%) and China (17%) are comparably better, while France, Japan, Korea, Russia, and the USA are below the industry average of 7%.

Around 60% of younger characters (children and teenagers) are boys while 40% are girls. While 34% of men are cast as characters aged 40 to 64 years of age, only 19% of women are depicted as middle aged characters. The researchers find this is especially problematic given that the younger women who do appear in films are highly sexualised.

Women are more than twice as likely to wear sexually revealing clothing (25% of women vs 9% of men). Women are more likely to be thin (38.5%) in comparison to men (16%). Women are also more likely to be partially or fully naked (24% women vs 11.5% of men). Women characters are also five times more likely to have their looks commented upon by others (13% vs less than 3%). Younger women are more likely to wear revealing clothing, but women across the ages of 13 to 39 years are equally likely to be sexualised.

There are some slight national variations with women in German, Australian, Indian and French movies relatively more likely to wear sexually revealing clothes in comparison to the UK, Russia, China and Korea. Japan, the USA, co-productions from the UK and USA, and Germany are more likely to feature thin women, while France and Russia are slightly below the national average in representation of body type. Regardless of the slight variations, “no matter the territory, female characters cannot escape the emphasis on physical appearance.”

The study did not do a cross-comparison of gender and race but it finds that 57% of characters are White; 33% are Asian; only 3% are Black characters; and 1.6% Hispanic/Latino/Spanish. Five percent of speaking characters are from other or mixed racial and ethnic backgrounds.

The researchers conclude that film representation is steeped in sexism:

“Gender inequality is rampant in global films. This was demonstrated by the percentage of female characters on screen, the lack of girls and women as leads or co leads in movies, and the few females behind the camera. Not one country is anywhere near representing reality; girls and women comprise fully half of humanity. Not a third. Not a quarter. Half.”

In my comments below, I have focused on the study’s findings on depictions of women characters at work, particularly in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).

http://twitter.com/OtherSociology/status/514646178080624641

http://twitter.com/OtherSociology/status/514648083460677632

http://twitter.com/OtherSociology/status/514652491204423680

http://twitter.com/OtherSociology/status/514653504837664768

http://twitter.com/OtherSociology/status/514654306943778816

http://twitter.com/OtherSociology/status/513563799245553664

Beliefs: Case study of gender inequality and the environmental movement

In social science, the concept of belief describes a statement that people think is either true or false. Beliefs are deep rooted because they evolve from early socialisation. They are maintained tacitly through everyday interactions with our primary social networks like family, religious communities, and through close friendships with people from the same socio-economic backgrounds. Beliefs are hard (though not impossible) to change because there is a strong motivation to protect what we believe. Beliefs are strongly tied to personal identities, culture and lifestyle. Beliefs are harder to change in a short frame time because they’re interconnected to structures of power and inequality. Chipping away at one belief means re-evaluating all beliefs we hold about what is “true,” “natural,” and “normal.”

Beliefs are hard to justify objectively because they represent the social scaffolding of all we take for granted.

In this meaning, beliefs represent the status quo of what we’re willing to accept. If we ask people: Why do you think your belief is correct? They’ll often answer on “gut instinct” or they’ll defer to common sense. This is true because everyone knows it! For many people, belief is either an act of faith that does not need scientific proof, or otherwise, people find evidence for their beliefs everywhere they look, even though this does not include looking to empirical data. In many cases, however, people will also refer to authoritative texts to back up their beliefs, like religious teachings or news reports.

The key to understanding why beliefs are hard to shift comes down to one question: Who benefits from this belief? For example, when we ask: Are men and women fundamentally different? Someone who benefits from patriarchy and doesn’t want to lose their gender privilege will say: “Of course, men and women are different, look around you! Women act this way and they’re from Venus; men act that way and they’re from Mars.” A social scientist will bring up examples from other cultures where gender is organised differently. Still, the other person will see these examples as exceptions to their rules about gender.

Gender differences are used to justify inequality: women are more caring, so they’re better at raising babies; men are more rational, so they make better leaders. To think otherwise means restructuring our labour arrangements at home and work; it means rethinking social policy about how we remunerate jobs; it means changing the balance of power in the law, in education, in the media and so on.

When people don’t believe scientists on climate change or genetically modified (GM) foods or vaccinations, it comes down to their assessment of: What does this mean for me? What life changes are required of me? How does this scientific knowledge undermine my place in the world? In other words: how does this science support or threaten my values?

Values: Case study of the adoption and resistance of GM foods

Values are linked to one’s sense of morality. Where belief is something maintained at the individual level through agents of socialisation, values are more easily distinguished through their connection to broader social interests. Values relate to the standards of what individuals perceive to be “good” or “bad” in direct reaction to what our society deems to be “good” or “bad.” Values are shaped by cultural institutions like education and religion. Societies depend on shared values to maintain social order, which is why many societal values are often enshrined in law. Traditional societies appeal to values of authority like religion or authoritarian leadership. Christian capitalist societies appeal to values of individualism and economic rationalism. Social democratic societies are more secular and informed by humanist values. All of these underlying value systems impact on public values of science.

Still, values are contested, depending on whose social interest is being served.

Take for example GM foods. In Sweden, public consultation and scientific input is framed around best interests for public good. (Not without controversy.) Some Scandinavian laws will allow GM food to be grown in controlled areas because it benefits their national economy, but they won’t support imported GM foods. In countries like Peru, GM foods have been banned for 10 years because they mostly come from imported products. These products are deemed to be unsafe. At the same time, GM foods conflict with class struggles of the highly political Indigenous farming movement. Peru has a long history of mistreating Indigenous populations, but the national identity is firmly locked to agrarian innovation that stretches back to the Incan empire. Peru has also joined other Latin nations to wind down trade with the USA and increase trade with Asian nations. Resistance to GM foods serves a dual economic and political purpose of resisting cultural imperialism and supporting Indigenous farming movements. (Though Indigenous environmental protests are ignored in other areas, such mineral resources and specifically big oil.) The key here is the political economy of Peru (and Latin America more broadly) is informed by socialist values that resist capitalist interests. GM foods have publicly been positioned as part of this capitalist incursion.

In the USA the GMO public debate has been framed around commercial interests. This stems back to early industrial era and the plant patent act of 1930. The commercialisation of American agriculture goes back to the early 19th century, where many farming communities were self-sufficient. By the early 1920s differentiated crop varieties were already established. Trade associations arose as mass production started. With more money at stake, legislation steps in to formalise the production of seeds. Historical evidence shows that the law struggled to weigh up the commercial lobbying of large agricultural organisations (specifically the American Association of Nurserymen) versus the rights of small farmers. At this time, when economic rationalism was beginning to set precedents, commercial interests won out over collective interests. This isn’t simply a case of greed of corporations, this is about the political economy of early American society. American values were firmly tied to Protestant beliefs (sociologist Max Weber has detailed this thoroughly). In early American capitalism, it was God’s will that people should work hard and make as much money as possible, to ensure their place in heaven. The 1930 plant patent was fought heavily on moral and social grounds.

Today, these tensions around values and commercial interests often feature in GM food debates (see for example various highly emotive comments to our Science on Google+ Community). Invariably, people bring up Monsanto. I’m not a fan of Monsanto. In fact, I see them operating as a neo-colonialist corporate machine. Then again, I can accept that the practices of one entity do not nullify the potential benefits of GM foods altogether. I want to learn even more about the science and debate the findings robustly. Anti-science members of the public, however, cannot accept that scientific methodology of GM foods can be separated from commercial interests to help feed underprivileged people.

This is glaringly obvious when we have scientists discuss the not-for-profit scientific collective that have developed Golden Rice, a type of rice that is engineered to be rich in Vitamin A. In our Science community, we have people dismissing the potential benefits of Golden Rice, because they don’t believe that the science can remain commercially impartial. These people see only conspiracy and greed behind the motivations of scientists. Otherwise people argue that this technology is unsafe, though it’s been tested (though not without controversy over informed consent). People also get very angry that Golden Rice doesn’t address the social causes of poverty, such as corruption and social inequality. Golden Rice doesn’t claim to solve world poverty; it aims to address Vitamin A deficiency in developing regions.

People think that science should solve all the world’s problems, when in reality we tackle one aspect of one specific problem at a time.

Debates about GM foods are, in fact, a cultural battle over value systems. Are capitalist nations like America still deeply invested in individualistic values or can we move towards collective action? Scientists make the case that some GM food technologies represent a safe, relatively inexpensive way to address hunger. In order to accept this argument, the public needs to be able to trust that the science isn’t governed by commercial entities. How you see this depends on your values: are GM foods “good” or “bad”? A vocal section of the public is distrustful of science on GM foods. They think GM foods are bad. As I’ve shown this is both the outcome of history, culture and social changes. Different countries have different positions which influence whether people largely celebrate, decry or feel anxious about GM science.

In these cases, the science is used to draw very different conclusions. GMOs are either for or against the national interest. GMOs either support social change or they impede progress. Attitudes towards the science depends on the cultural and political interests of different social groups. What’s “good” or “bad” about GM foods depends on whose point of view best aligns with societal values.

Attitudes: Case study on perceptions of risk and trust

Attitudes are relatively stable system of ideas that allow people to evaluate our experiences. This includes objects, situations, facts, social issues and other social processes. While attitudes are relatively stable, they are more superficial than beliefs and less normative than values. Attitudes can be changed more easily than beliefs. Sometimes people will say one thing, especially if it’s socially desirable to do so, but in private they may not adhere to that attitude. Someone can say they support equality but they may not practice it at home. Often times, however, people are not always aware that their attitudes are contradictory.

In contrast to values, which are culturally defined, attitudes are interpersonal. We are constantly interpreting other people in relation to the situation we find ourselves in. Language, motives, emotions and relationships can change attitudes over time. Social context also matters: cultural beliefs and values can influence whether or not attitudes change.

Attitudes about science are shaped by many societal processes, such as education, class, ethnicity and so on. Yet the social science literature has overwhelmingly shown that attitudes towards science are connected to:

1. Whether or not people are willing to accept the risks associated with a particular scientific issue; and
2. Whether or not people trust scientists in general.

Trust is a multi-dimensional concept; that is to say, it is made up of many different characteristics and these change with respect to a given social group in a particular time and place. Psychologist Roderick Kramer provides an extensive review of the empirical research on trust (he covers studies from the 1950s to 1999). At the interpersonal level, we develop trust in another person based on a belief that they have an interest to live up to our expectations. They care about us, they need us, they have a legal or moral obligation to help us. Among individuals, trust is about behaviour and reciprocity: I’ve proven you can trust me because I have not let you down and because we both understand that our trust goes both ways.

Some individuals can be generally considered to be “high trusters” and others “low trusters,” depending on their personal biographies; their experiences with institutions of authority; and other socio-cultural factors. People who are generally predisposed to the idea of trust are more likely to be open to collective social action. The reverse is true of people with low trust.

While Kramer doesn’t make this connection, low trust and commitment to social action impact on the public’s trust in science. If I hold a strong belief about the world and science contradicts my view, I will need a high degree of trust in order to be open to the information. If I take on board this scientific view, I will be forced to act on it. This means changing the social order that benefits me currently. That’s a big investment. If I have high trust in another oppositional social institution like religion or my community leader who is supporting my current belief system, why should I trust science?

At the societal level, trust doesn’t always work in relation to direct interpersonal engagement. Kramer shows how some people in certain circumstances will trust authority figures based on their history. That is: I trust this organisation because they have a strong reputation and other big players endorse them. Others will trust due to someone’s category of authority (science, politics), their role (medical practitioner, priest), or a “system of expertise” (bureaucratic management).

People who trust an authority figure or an organisation’s motives are more likely to accept outcomes, even if they are negative. Trust will matter more when people have a lot to lose, such as when an outcome is unfavourable. For example, when science will lead to social change or some new technological impact that I don’t want because it threatens my beliefs, livelihood, culture, identity or lifestyle – this requires high trust.

Research shows that public trust in social institutions has long been in decline. In America, civic trust was high just after WWII due to the nature of the war, its impact on the economy and other social changes. Public trust declined in the late-1960s due to the Vietnam war and other conservative economic and political changes. Public trust is generally at half the rate it was in the mid-1960s for federal government, universities, medial institutions and the media. Specific incidents become exemplars for more distrust, such as political scandals. Progress in technology is also related to higher distrust. People who live in relatively affluent, technologically advanced societies are more likely to distrust science. Up until the mid-1990s, the media was people’s main information source, but it was also the most distrusted social institution. The reverse was true of scientists: university researchers were trusted as experts, but people were less likely to be listening to them because they didn’t have much exposure to scientists.

In some cases, we might think that distrust in science is about lack of knowledge. Being familiar with a person or institution can help to engender trust, but not always. Again, it comes down to beliefs, values and attitudes.

People who are highly knowledgeable on a particular area such as politics are more likely to spend a lot of time taking in and responding to world views that contradict their own. These people have an information bias that they do not readily recognise. They will see themselves as rational and impartial. They see that they are sceptics ready to weigh up evidence as it comes to hand. In fact, they spend more emotional energy arguing against conflicting information because these clash with their personal world views. They argue passionately because their attitudes align with their beliefs and attitudes.

Conversely, people who know little about a topic are more likely to accept new information to be true or unbiased, but they show a weak commitment to defending this new information. Paradoxically, if people don’t feel personally invested on a social issue, they will not act. This suggests that more information or education on a topic alone is not enough to improve how the public engages in science or democratic processes.

Bluntly put, more public discussion on science alone is unlikely to convince people to productively engage in scientific discussions.

Even amongst scientists, trust in science and risk perception is affected by sociological processes. A 1999 study of the members from the British Toxicological Society finds that women were more likely to have higher risk perceptions for various social issues in comparison to men. This ranged from smoking, to car accidents, AIDS, and climate change. Looking deeper, it was a specific sub-set of White men who were more likely to perceive a low risk for these social issues; those with postgraduate qualifications who earned more than $50K a year and who were conservative in their politics. They were more likely to believe that future generations can take care of the risks from today’s technologies; they believed government and industry can be trusted to manage technological risks; they were less likely to support gender equality; and they were less likely to believe that climate change was human-made (bearing in mind climate change science has since developed further). These men had a higher trust in authority figures and they were less likely to support equality and social change. Why? Because being in a position of relative social power, they had the most to lose from social change on environmental, gender and political issues.

So if beliefs and values are so seemingly immutable, and attitudes mask underlying motives that people are unaware about, how do we increase trust in science to improve the tangible outcomes of public outreach?

Moving Forward: A case for public science

Beliefs are tied to personal identities and social status. People defend beliefs on the grounds that what they believe is true, obvious or simply “a given fact” because they have been socialised to do so since birth. Beliefs are tied to social belonging and social benefits, so there’s a lot at stake in defending them. Beliefs about equality align with the environmentalist movement because addressing climate change requires full civic participation. The beliefs of environmentalists also overlap with feminists as both groups want to see change in the social order. Beliefs are shaped by social institutions, but they can also be restricted by material constraints.

Values are normative because they are linked to powerful social institutions. Some scientific innovations are perceived to be inherently “good” or “bad” depending on how vested social interests are understood. In some contexts, GMOs are seen as bad because people think scientists can’t be trusted to separate methods from commercial interests.

Attitudes are interpersonal. They depend upon social exchange with particular people, but attitudes also reflect hidden or contradictory ideas that people hold. Public trust in institutions has been eroded since the late 1960s in different ways in different societies. People don’t trust scientists because for much of our history, our knowledge has been kept within academia. Most of the time when science reached the public, it was been reported on by the media, which is itself a mistrusted, though widely consumed, source of information.

Changing attitudes on “hot button” scientific issues is hard because people who seek out these debates already have pre-existing beliefs. Sometimes people think they’re being sceptical of a corrupt or unjust system when they take an anti-science perspective, as with the case of GM foods.

Most people view themselves favourably when it comes to social, economic, political and scientific issues. They think they’re impartial and rational, when really they’re just defending their place in the world.

Sometimes people already have a high distrust of institutions like medicine and science because they’ve been marginalised or abused by systems of power. The history of medicine has many horror stories, especially in connection to unethical treatment of Indigenous groups, minorities, women and the mentally ill. Unfortunately, science cannot simply hatch these up to isolated incidents of yore, as these cases directly impact on present-day public mistrust of scientists.

Rather than dismissing the past, it is more useful for scientists to understand how historical and cultural relations affect how people perceive the scientific community.

Better public education on science is only part of the answer. As we see, even amongst highly educated scientists, those with greater social power will happily acquiesce to higher authority. They are willing to take more risks with science and technology, but they are less supportive of equality and progressive social change where this threatens their beliefs and social position.

Supporting the public’s reflexive critical thinking is more important than simply pumping out science information.

Reflexive critical thinking

Sociologist Ulrich Beck argues that a general state of reflexivity might be part of the reason why people are so worried about technological and social risks in ways that are not especially productive.

Reflexive critical thinking is a methodology for knowing how to question information, as well as identifying and controlling for our personal biases.

How sociology can help

As Susanne Bleiberg Seperson and others have argued, sociology has a public image problem. The public doesn’t know what we do, let alone how we do it. We write in jargon. We are seen as too theoretical and not very practical.

The social sciences are well-poised to improve the public’s trust in science because our work is focused on the influence of social institutions on behaviour. We are not above critique on these grounds. My blog has regularly shown how even as we expand social knowledge of culture and inequality, Western social sciences can misappropriate minority cultures or exclude Indigenous voices.

Many of the anti-science critics are espousing cultural arguments without knowing it. This is where public sociology can really shine, by showing how inequality, social values and power affect how people engage with science.

Connect With Me

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This is the third and final post in a series covering the lead up to the 10^th anniversary of the September 11 attacks. This one focuses on news coverage; technology and social media issues; and media discourses about the so-called ‘Decade 9/11’ and ‘Gen 9/11’.

Most of the news focused on the heroism of the survivors and the rescuers. For example, The 7pm Project ran daily segments filmed in America such as this story about the New York Fire fighters. ABC News America interviewed Shelia Moody who survived the Pentagon attack. USA Today interviewed Lauren Manning who survived the attack at one of the Twin Towers. The View featured Marcy Borders who worked on the North Tower and whose dust-covered image was beamed around the world immediately after the attacks.

I read a lot of material from SBS World News Australia and ABC News Australia. Both hosted a series of special reports on the lead up to September 11 anniversary. I’ve blogged about one of the SBS features on the effects of September 11 on Australian-Muslims already. Abroad, Al Jazeera, the BBC, and CNN hosted specials on the ‘9-11 Decade’. I will briefly mention a couple of the reports that stood for me and which I’m still thinking about.

Lessons Learned: Metered Political Responses

On the 9^th of September, Michael Crowley from Time magazine argues that a decade after the September 11 attacks, terrorism does not play a ‘central’ part in American politics. He writes: ‘Residents of New York and Washington are fretting over reports that al-Qaeda may want to celebrate the tenth anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001, in its own deranged fashion. But our political system remains calm. And it’s worth pausing to reflect on that’. I don’t really agree that terrorism is not a central part of American politics, but the point about the Obama Administration not using September 11 Anniversary as political currency is indeed a good one to reflect upon.

Lessons Still Not Learned: First Responders in New York Have ‘primitive’ communication technology compared to teenagers with smart phones

On the 12^th of September, Anderson Cooper 360  reported that New York City first responders continue to struggle with poor communications tools. This was a major impediment to the efforts of rescue workers when the September 11 attacks first happened. Ten years later, the technology available to first responders ‘is still primitive’. Comm. Raymond Kelly from the New York City Police Department testified before a Senate Committee in February that: ‘a 16 year old with a smart phone has a more advanced communications capability than a police officer or a deputy carrying a radio. Given the technology that is available and the complexity of the threat that we face this is unacceptable’. The USA Senate Committee on Commerce is still struggling to secure a unified modern communication system for first responders.

Social Media Coverage: ‘Still Learning’

Also on the 12^th of September, The Buffer Blog shared the efforts of American Twitter user, Brian Austin, who tweeted the timeline of events from the September 11th Terrorist Attacks in a series of real-time tweets. TweetSmarter relayed author Martin Bryant’s analysis on a similar theme gone wrong for The Guardian newspaper in the UK. Writing on The Next Web, Bryant reported that The Guardian set up a separate Twitter account to tweet the events of the terrorist attacks in real time; a move that was heavily criticised by the Twitter community. The Twitter feeds for this account consequently stopped abruptly and there was no further tweets from that account.

The biggest difference between Austin’s and The Guardian’s similar idea is that The Guardian is a respected news service that people trust to deliver up to the minute reports on current events. People were offended by the motivations behind the Guardian’s separate account. By tweeting events from September 11 2001 in real time as if they were happening in 2011 seemed exploitative. The public backlash reinforces that the practices between traditional media services and social media are still being negotiated. ‘The Guardian may have made a mistake yesterday, but it shows that we’re still discovering all the nuances in context and timing that can affect the way we “read” Twitter’. They also featured media commentator Iain Hepburn’s blog, which offers good analysis about the importance of providing emotion and context to news tweets.

Behind the buzzwords: ‘Decade 9-11’ and ‘Generation 9-11’

Most of the major news outlets named their special reports commemorating the September 11 anniversary ‘Decade 9-11’ or ‘The 9/11 Decade’. This includes ABC News Australia; Al Jazeera; The Interpreter; The Guardian; The Atlantic; Reuters Global News Journal; and New York magazine, which posed a somewhat enigmatic question: ‘The 9/11 decade is now over. The terrorists lost. But who won?’. The ‘Decade 9/11’ catch phrase may seem an appropriate way of classifying American politics, given the 9-11 attacks were one of the most significant political events in recent American history, but it got me thinking about whether or not this term is useful sociologically. I would argue probably not, since it silences other major events such as the global financial crisis that led to a recession in the USA (and elsewhere), as well as other major public events, like Hurricane Katrina, which highlighted deficiencies in political planning for natural disasters.

Professor Tim Dunne and Dr Matt McDonald, two senior International Relations academics from The University of Queensland, have a forthcoming publication: ‘Remembering and Forgetting the 9/11 Decade’. It will be published in the Australian Literary Review. I hope they take a critical look at this discourse. In a press release advertising a recent roundtable discussion on the same topic Professor Dunne says: ‘The War on Terror has defined the first decade of this century… Its catalyst, 9/11, did not have to happen, nor did the character of the responses… While future 9/11s are possible, so is a more just and law-governed world’. Although I hate the use of the phrase ‘future 9/11s’, I look forward to reading more.

Several news outlets also ran with Andrea Elliott’s ‘Generation 9-11’ article published in the the New York Times on the 8^th of September. The story examined the impact of the September 11 attacks on the lives, religious identities and life choices of young American Muslims. Elliott reports that the increased negative scrutiny on Muslims since the September 11 attacks has led some young Muslims to turn away from their religion, while others experienced a ‘spiritual and civic awakening’. One American-Muslim filmmaker says that Muslim youths ‘were already accustomed to being ambassadors “of all things Muslim”’, but, Elliott argues, after of the terrorist attacks, ‘the children of Muslim immigrants became the first line of defence against a stream of queries by non-Muslims’. The findings of two sociologists, Lori Peek, from the Colorado State University and Louise Cainkar, from Marquette University, are cited in the report. Their research finds that many younger Muslims changed their career paths in response to the anti-Muslim backlash. Rather than pursuing engineering and medicine as their parents had done, they went on to study journalism and political science.

A similar topic came up again on the 12^th of September on SBS World News Australia Television. Reporter Katrina Yu covered the ‘Youth Support Network Q&A Session: 9/11 – Ten Years On’, held in Auburn, New South Wales. A group of young Muslims shared their experiences growing up in Australia under the shadow of the September 11 attacks. Yu says these youths represent ‘A whole generation growing up with what they say is anti-Islamic sentiment’. Yu reports that the discussions were not ‘all negative’, with the youth saying that the events of September 11 prompted them to ‘ask more questions about the world, [and] engage with politics and religion’. You can watch the video below.

Another SBS report from the 8^th of September,  which I blogged about earlier, covered a similar theme. The SBS vox pop featured Australian-Muslims saying that one of the positive outcomes of September 11 attacks was that it forced some Muslims to become more politically aware about their religion. One man says that since the events of September 11, Muslims have been more explicit in showing other Australians that Islam is a religion that advocates peace. He says: ‘We couldn’t hide our beliefs… Among so many bad things [that happened since 9/11], for me this was a good thing that happened. It really cleared us of who we are’.   Another woman said: ‘It gave us a bit more of a push. It made us to go and to meet more people and to show that this is not Islam. That Islam doesn’t teach us the kind of violence that has taken place here. And we are peaceful people’.

Numerous studies show that some young Muslims have chosen to take up the role of educating non-Muslims about their religion since the September 11 attacks. For example, I interviewed a group of young, well-educated Muslim women in 2001 who saw the Muslim headscarf (hijab) as a ‘flag for Islam’, also in response to the negative stereotypes about Islam which had intensified since the September 11 terrorist attacks.[i] These women believed that wearing the hijab meant they literally wore the responsibility to educate other Australians that their religion is peaceful and to dispel myths and stereotypes about Islam. This can be seen as a very positive exercise that supports the spirit of multicultural respect of other religions and cultures. Then again, members from other religious groups, such as Christians, are not held publicly accountable as individual ambassadors of their religion in Australia. The symbolic practice of expecting individual Muslims to be public educators about their faith exemplifies the extent to which Muslims are constructed as outsiders, or as ‘the Other’ of mainstream Australia.

10^th anniversary of September 11 Media Coverage: The Wrap Up

The Australian and international English-language coverage in remembrance of the September 11 attacks focused on themes of survival and heroism. Time magazine highlighted that the Obama administration’s political discourse on terrorism was relatively restrained despite the high terrorism threat alert leading up to the anniversary. Ten years after the attack, technological advances exemplify that communication problems persist for first responders, while traditional media still has much to learn about how to use social media meaningfully when covering public tragedies. The ‘Decade 9-11’ and ‘Generation 9-11’ discussions lend ongoing support to idea that the September 11 attacks continue to define the social and political identifications of Muslims in Australia and America. At the same time, these terms are not being used in a critical manner that deconstructs this narrative, and so they are likely to exacerbate the social marginalisation of Muslims.

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