Equity and Diversity Working Parties Forum
Details for the next forum will be updated closer to the date.
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2024 EDWP Annual Forum - Learn > Collaborate > Connect
Join us for our inaugural EDWP annual forum! The inaugural EDWP forum was held on 12 September for members and other equity, diversity and inclusion stakeholders from our SAGE, Rainbow Western, Ally and We-CALD networks.
The event included:
- An update on emerging equity, diversity and inclusion priorities and what is happening at Western.
- A keynote presentation from Dr Quah Ee Ling - a fire dragon feminist in the School of Humanities & Communication Arts (see full details and bio below).
- An engaging panel discussion featuring some innovative projects being implemented by EDWPs in their local areas with a focus on sharing challenges and pathways to success.
- A networking Lunch.
- Two facilitated breakout sessions to support them improve visibility of their EDWP in their local area, get to know other EDWP members and discuss emerging issues and future planning.
View the full Program.
Keynote Presentation: Women, Power and Myths of 'Intersectionality'
Intersectionality has become a buzz word in academic research, policy frameworks, community services and diversity practices. Feminist scholars have warned about the commodification and colonialisation of intersectionality framework for neoliberal regimes. Intersectionality, when corporatised and deployed to manage oppressions through representation and identity politics, only ends up keeping existing unequal power structures intact. In this keynote presentation, Dr Quah Ee Ling discusses the myths of ‘intersectionality’ and how women employees in Australian universities encounter these myths. Ee Ling’s presentation will be based on research findings from her recently completed project on Asian migrant women employees’ experiences with racism in Australian universities.
About the Speaker
Dr Quah Ee Ling (she/her) is a fire dragon feminist and Singaporean of Chinese-Hokkien and Indonesian-Peranakan heritage. The correct order of her name is surname (Quah) first followed by given name (Ee Ling). Ee Ling acknowledges her complicity, privileges and responsibilities living and working on unceded lands of First Nations peoples as a queer woman migrant-settler. She is Senior Lecturer & Convenor of Culture & Society, School of Humanities and Communication Arts. Ee Ling is the author of Transnational Divorce: Understanding Intimacies and Inequalities from Singapore (Routledge 2020) and Perspectives on Marital Dissolution: Divorce Biographies in Singapore (Springer 2015), and has a forthcoming book, Fire Dragon Feminism: Asian migrant women’s tales of migration, coloniality and racial capitalism (Bloomsbury).
