(De)Constructing Minorities and Freedoms Conference Registration

The (De)Constructing Minorities and Freedoms conference will be hosted by University of Canterbury's Department of Global, Cultural and Language Studies from 7 December-9 December 2022 at UC’s Ilam campus and at Ōnuku Marae (8 December only). This conference will be offered both face-to-face and online.

This international conference aims to study the interdisciplinary ties that regulate the two concepts of “freedom” and “minorities,” with an Oceanian perspective often as a starting (or end) point. The sociologist Epeli Hauʻofa, in his manifest Our Sea of Islands, observed in 1994 that “Oceania is vast, Oceania is expanding, Oceania is hospitable and generous, Oceania is humanity rising from the depths of brine and regions of fire deeper still, Oceania is us.” Lived Oceanian experiences, through their geographies, aesthetics, religions, poetics, and politics, offer a propitious backdrop to reconsider notions of minority/majority that this project, rooted in Aotearoa New Zealand, wishes to explore. Nonetheless, complex questions related to inclusion and exclusion, to equality and discrimination extend beyond Oceania. This conference will therefore include presentations and keynotes from academics and writers on topics both within and beyond the Pacific.