Straying Beyond the Well-worn Path: Fighting for Racial Justice and Planetary Justice

ABSTRACT

This paper traces my intellectual journey in Australia as a first-generation migrant woman of colour inspired by Sara Ahmed’s politics and ethics that lets ‘strangers’ live and belong. I rethink co-occurring events such as the Black Lives Matter Movement, climate change and the Covid-19 pandemic to highlight the everyday lives of black and brown bodies including Indigenous peoples, migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. From a view ‘down under’ I argue that while a toxic ethos and acts of impunity sanctioned by institutional norms that privilege whiteness produces dehumanisation, trauma and death, bodies of colour fail to disappear. Rather than assume the position of passive subjects, they sail against the flow of whiteness, call out unjust acts and stir trouble in their struggle for justice. Through risk, adventure as well as audacious performances they emerge as ephemeral bubbles of energy that challenge national and planetary cultures of being and belonging when they stray from the well-worn path.

KEYWORDS:

• Whiteness
• home
• belonging
• Black lives
• Covid-19
• climate change

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Michele Lobo

Dr Michele Lobo is a Lecturer in Human Geography at Deakin University. Her research explores race, encounter and belonging in human and more-than-human worlds. She serves as Editor, Social & Cultural Geography, Reviews Editor, Postcolonial Studies and Council Member, Institute of Australian Geographers.