In this presentation I will argue that in order to decolonise migration studies, scholars must not only acknowledge persisting imperial and colonial legacies, but also centre Indigenous sovereignty. This is particularly important for scholars who research about migration to settler colonial nations. Still too often First Nations are rendered invisible in migration scholarship. The complicity and implicated subjectivity of migrants in settler colonial societies, which is apparent in Indigenous and settler colonial scholarship, is still largely overlooked within migration studies. I will discuss some of the main methodological implications of centring Indigenous sovereignty in migration studies. These include: centring Indigenous perspectives, epistemologies and methodologies; recognising the entanglements of national, transnational, imperial and colonial histories; rejecting Eurocentric and Nation-centric approaches to the study of migration and mobility; avoiding any conflation of Indigenous struggles for sovereignty with white nationalism and nativism; developing community-informed and participatory approaches; decentring English and other colonial languages; and acknowledging the growing complexity and richness of contemporary identities, material realities, and decolonial struggles.

This event is presented in person and online. Zoom details below

About the speaker

Dr Francesco Ricatti is Associate Professor of Italian Studies at the Australian National University. He currently lives and works on Ngunnawal and Ngambri land. He is an historian of Italian migration to Australia, and his current research focuses on transcultural and decolonial approaches to migration studies, Australian history, and Italian transnational studies. He is a former President of Oral History Victoria, and a former Deputy Director of the Monash Migration and Inclusion Centre. His most recent book is Italians in Australia: History, Memory, Identity (Palgrave, 2018).

This series is spearheaded by the ANU Migration Hub hosted at RegNet, in collaboration with the School of Archaeology and Anthropology.

For online attendance, see Zoom details below

https://anu.zoom.us/j/86557701787?pwd=cnIreVB5eG8vNmlibWtHMjRKaEtIZz09
(Meeting ID: 865 5770 1787. Password: 836061)

Photo credit: By sebastianbourges on Adobe Stock