Sticking Points: Movement, Place, Connection.
Asian Australian Studies Research Network Annual Conference
Monday 16 and Tuesday 17 June 2026, University of Queensland, Meanjin/Brisbane |
Sticking point: “an obstacle to progress towards an agreement or goal.” – Oxford Dictionaries |
The Asian Australian Studies Research Network (AASRN) represents a collaborative space and shared project of exploring and co-creating ‘Asian Australian Studies’. Bringing together a diverse interdisciplinary cohort, last year’s (2025) conference ‘Solidarities’ generated renewed discussion of present and future orientations for Asian Australian studies amongst Australian and globalised struggles against settler colonialism, racial and intersectional injustices, and socio-economic instability. Continuing this momentum, the 2026 conference aims to deepen these discussions and connections in the AASRN community, with the theme ‘Sticking points’. ‘Sticking points’ is a prompt to think through productive points of friction or tension in Asian Australian identities and experiences, and the ways that they are represented or understood. Asian Australian represents a kind of ‘sticky subject’, to whom layers of meanings, narratives, and words have ‘stuck’ over time: traced back to the originating terms ‘Asian’ and ‘Australian’, and Pauline Hanson’s infamous ‘swamped with Asians’ speech which largely catalysed the use of ‘Asian’ in Australian public discourse; sideways, to closely associated ‘Asian American’ and ‘Asian diaspora’ identities; and between limited and lacking representations in media and popular culture. In everyday experiences of Asian Australian subjects, movement through place may be experienced as ‘sticky’ with the friction of coming up against whiteness, and being stopped or met with bodily resistance. The solidarities of Asian Australian bodies and identities can also be sticky, upheld by ways of ‘sticking together’ and ‘sticking by’ each other and other racialised groups. Our thinking and research about Asian Australian identities may be ‘sticky’ with our own personal attachments and experiences, as well as filled with points of theoretical tension and disciplinary (mis)alignment. And, last year’s conference discussion highlighted questions about the extent to which certain concepts, framings, and metaphors have ‘stuck’ in Asian Australian Studies itself, or remained fluid and shifting over time and generations. |
Theoretically, sticking points leads us to Sara Ahmed’s notion that “feelings may stick to some objects [and bodies] and slide over others” (2004, p. 8), generating racialised bodies and national publics. This concept gets to the heart of the overlapping publics, communities and circles of belonging – and their accompanying affinities and frictions – from which Asian Australian subjectivities emerge. Moreover, in an (inter)disciplinary field where mobilities play a foundational role in unpacking “identity formations…cultural allegiances and political connections” (Lo, 2006, p. 18), we use sticking points as a motif for thinking about stuckedness, Hage’s notion of the existential condition that celebrates “one’s capacity to stick it out rather than calling for change” (2009, p. 463) in times of crisis. Indeed, this inquiry takes place at a time of unprecedented global crisis and instability characterised by wars, genocides and threats to democracy. Violence against marginalised peoples has forced us to urgently reckon with the significance and weight of racial oppression, and the regimes of power that sustain and profit off of these oppressions.
How can we stick these ideas together, and where might we be stuck, in our contemporary articulations of Asian Australian studies? We invite papers and panels reflecting on Asian Australian experiences in relation to (but not limited to) the theme ‘Sticking Points’, including the following topics: |
- Tensions and dis/connections in Asian Australian identities
- Shifting (re)constructions of Asian Australian identities over time and generations
- Intersectional approaches to Asian Australian identities or experiences
- Diasporic and transnational connections
- Settler colonialism, decolonisation, and critical race theory
- Racism and racialisation
- Gendered perspectives
- Asian Australian media, popular culture, and art
- Legal frameworks and policies that impact Asian Australians
- Asian Australian engagement with different social institutions
- Personal orientations, positionings and creative pedagogies/practices
AASRN is open to people of all backgrounds, academic, professional, and otherwise, who are interested in critically interrogating how and why ‘Asian Australian’ identities are constructed, mobilised, and taken up, and ultimately exploring how Asian Australian knowledges and experiences can be recognised (without subjugation beneath either ‘Australian’ or ‘Asian’ categories). We especially welcome students and early career researchers, alongside those working in activism, community, and cultural sectors. We also invite presenters and attendees to critically reflect on the nature of their own personal orientations and positionings in relation to Asian Australian Studies. In doing so, we hope to foster discussions and social space in which Asian Australian perspectives and experiences are centred. |
This conference will be held at the University of Queensland on Monday 16 and Tuesday 17 June 2026. |
Abstracts are due Friday 6 March. Please submit your abstracts here. |
|
