Stories of Belonging: Amplifying Voices, Challenging Narratives (Part B)
In this critical response episode of Indaba, host Natalie Kivell convenes voices from Australia, Canada, Chile and Colombia to reflect on the previous Australia episode on relationality and storytelling. Joined by original panellists Chris Sonn, Sam Keast, Rama Agung-Igusti and Roshani Jayawardana, alongside Elizabeth Brunet, Angela Paredes Castro, Juan-Camilo Riaño-Rodriguez and Antonia Rosati, the conversation moves from what relationality means in the abstract to what it demands in practice. Contributors examine the storyteller as a catalyst for transformative action and culture as a site of resistance, before turning to harder questions the first episode left open: the power imbalances between institutions and communities, a community’s right to decline participation, and the largely unwritten ethics of “debonding” when a project ends but relationships continue. The episode closes on advice for graduate students doing long-term relational work within rigid institutional constraints — and a reminder that the responsibility for creating that space sits with those who hold power in universities, not with students.
Co-Hosts / Guests
Christopher Sonn bio (he/Him) was born and raised in South Africa and now lives and works on the lands of the Wurundjeri and Bunurong people of the Kulin Nation. He is a Professor of Psychology working as researcher with the Institute of Health and Sport and the Moondani Balluk Indigenous Centre. Chris have been working over the last few years on various topics related to experiences and meanings of community, identity, belonging, and displacement in the everyday. He is interested in creating responsive, antiracist, and decolonial community and liberation psychologies. He is a member of the Community, Identity and Displacement Research Network (CIDRN).
Sam Keast is of Anglo-celtic descent who grew up in Naarm (otherwise known as Melbourne, Australia). His work as an early career researcher and educator is shaped by critical-cultural, transdisciplinary scholarship and praxis that seeks to problematize subjectivities that are normalised by Euro-Western, neoliberal ideologies and that unsettle the authority of dominant forms of psychological knowledge. He is a member of the Community, Identity, and Displacement Research Network (CIDRN) and coordinates the website and other research communication strategies for the network. With an interest in creative methodologies and multimodality in research and knowledge translation/dissemination, he has led the development and design of the internationalcommunitypsychology.com website which is an archive to celebrate the history, work and people from the ICCP conference community.
Roshani Jayawardana (she/her) is a PhD researcher born in so-called Australia to Sri-Lankan-born parents. Growing up and navigating colonial institutions and spaces in Australia herself, as a young researcher she has an interest in understanding the experiences of children of migrants and third culture kids, and enabling them to make sense of their identities, sense of belonging and place. Her work utilises community-engaged methods and creative and audio vehicles to facilitate young people in voicing and propelling these negotiations through stories.
Related reading
Sonn, C., & Baker, A. (2016). Creating inclusive knowledges: Exploring the transformative potential of arts and cultural practice. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 20(3), 215–228. https://doi.org/10.1080/13603116.2015.1047663
Agung-Igusti, R.P., Sonn, C.C., Dau, A., Deng, E.E., Komba, G., Akoul, N., & Ruach, R.N. (2021). Colour Between the Lines: Self Determination and the Creation of Settings as Resistance to Structural Violence. Global Journal of Community Psychology Practice, 12(2), 1 – 19. Retrieved Day/Month/Year, (http://www.gjcpp.org/).
Sonn, C. C., Baker, A. M., & Agung-Igusti, R. P. (2021). Promoting Epistemic Justice: Community Arts, Identity and Belonging Among African Diaspora in Australia. In G. Stevens & C. C. Sonn (Eds.), Decoloniality and Epistemic Justice in Contemporary Community Psychology (pp. 141–157). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72220-3_8
