Institute of Australian Geographers

📢 Call for Papers – Trivial Pursuits or Moments to Resist Institutional Expectations? Passion Projects within the Academy | IAG 2025 Conference We’re excited to invite submissions for our session on Trivial Pursuits or Moments to Resist Institutional Expectations? at the Institute of Australian Geographers Conference 2025, hosted at the University of Newcastle, Mulubinba. Session by Jean-Louise Olivier, Dr. Malcolm S. Johnson and I. Whether through activism, art, speculative methods, or unconventional collaborations, we ask: Do passion projects resist academic pressures, or do they reinforce them? 📅 Submit your abstract here: https://lnkd.in/gTJuPin2 📩 For enquiries, contact us at: Jean-Louise.Olivier@uon.edu.au & Elizabeth.Murphy-May@uon.edu.au Looking forward to your submissions! #IAG2025

📢 Call for Papers – Counter Queer Geographies | IAG 2025 Conference We’re excited to invite submissions for our session on Counter Queer Geographies at the Institute of Australian Geographers Conference 2025, hosted at the University of Newcastle, Mulubinba. Session by Liz Murphy-May, Andrew Gorman-Murray, and I. We welcome contributions that are unapologetically queer, critical and also playful, irreverent and also generative, uncompromising and also joyous. 📅 Submit your abstract here: https://lnkd.in/gTJuPin2 📩 For enquiries, contact us at: Jean-Louise.Olivier@uon.edu.au & Elizabeth.Murphy-May@uon.edu.au Looking forward to your submissions! #IAG2025

This Women’s History Month we’re shining a spotlight on Routledge International Studies of Women and Place with our new blog: “Knowing one's place: Bringing untold stories to light in ‘The Routledge International Studies of Women and Place Series.’" Dr. Alanna Kamp, author of “Intersectional Lives: Chinese Australian Women in White Australia,” shares stories of her life along with some background on her book. Take a read: http://spr.ly/60490fLjL #WomensHistoryMonth

Last night at the Western Sydney University School of Social Sciences Student Awards Ceremony I was very fortunate to receive the Libero and Daisy Soldatić PhD Excellence Award for 2023. This prize is awarded for outstanding doctoral research performance through high quality and impactful research. A huge thank you to the late Libero and his wife Daisy for very generously sponsoring this award. Libero and Daisy were very proud of living in Western Sydney, and, as Daisy emphasised to me last night, very enthusiastic about the life changing potential of education. There is a picture below that shares their incredible story and Libero's legacy. I explained to Daisy and her family last night that I am a big believer in the lifechanging potential of higher education too. I came to university after becoming a single parent with a very small child. I never planned to go to university before that. I grew up working class, in a family who were struggling to live week to week, and none of my parents or siblings had been to university. I was diagnosed with ADHD in early primary and was told for most of my life that I would never succeed because I 'lacked focus', and 'didn't apply myself'. University wasn't somewhere that people from our family went anyway. After I became a single parent I knew I couldn't give my son the life I wanted to if I kept working as a gym manager and personal trainer in Blacktown. I needed to take a chance, and gain a qualification that would allow me to earn more money and work more child-friendly hours, and so at 24 I enrolled into university. Thanks to the many excellent staff and students I met at Western I was able to overcome adversity (including being homeless at one point) and finish my undergraduate degree. I undertook postgraduate study because a Subject Coordinator wrote in the comment box on Turnitin that they thought I was capable of further study. They asked me to meet for a coffee and encouraged me to participate in a Summer Research Scholarship and consider postgraduate study. I didn't even know what postgraduate study was at that stage, to be honest, but I followed the advice and did an internship with Jenna Condie and Garth Lean who later became my MRes and PhD supervisors. This award reflects the extensive support I received during my studies. It was supervisors, staff and peers who helped me to keep going and get through every time (and there were lots!) that it felt impossible. Every single day I am grateful to be able to work with many of the wonderful people who believed in and encouraged me. I'm so grateful that I get to give back by helping students to succeed in the same way, and to use my education and privilege to advocate for more support for vulnerable people including working holiday makers and international students. Some photos from last night are attached including me with Daisy and her family, and with my colleagues Alanna Kamp Anna Leditschke Kevin Dunn.

Congratulations to Dr Lauren Tynan who was awarded her PhD yesterday for her thesis "Kin and Country: Relational Research, Cultural Fire and Indigenous Futurities". It has been a great pleasure and privilege sharing in this journey with you. So immensely proud of all that you have achieved and excited to see what amazing things you go on to achieve. 🥳 🎉 🎓 🌟