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What’s in a name? Indigenist Standpoint Pedagogy shakes up our settler-colonial academic identities

2026-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: What’s in a name? Indigenist Standpoint Pedagogy shakes up our settler-colonial academic identities Authors: Wunderlich, N; Jeffries, P; Kilham, S; Ward, W; Peters, A; Allan, C Abstract: We examine our positionalities and standpoint in relation to the gift of ‘Gulbali ngurambang’, a Wiradjuri name for an Australian University research institute, collaboratively exploring how to honour the name’s ethics and philosophy in our individual research practices. Through Wakka Wakka Professor Jay Phillips’ Indigenist Standpoint Pedagogical Framework (ISP), we reflexively critiqued our positionality, agency and individual responsibility for anticolonial practice. We argue that gift giving and receiving provides settler-colonial universities deep challenges and opportunities to enact meaningful change against harmful power and research practices centred on Western Colonial norms. ISP supported us to deconstruct social, cultural, historical, and institutional forces aiding reproduction of colonial knowledges and values, reinforcing cultural dominance and risking tokenism and ‘blakwashing’ when there is an ontological rift in accepting First Nations names that hold philosophical significance. We write from a position of individual vulnerability, critical self-reflection and as a theorised case study to expose the process of ‘doing the work’ of decolonisation as an imperfect, collaborative, open learning process. We hope that other academics are inspired to practice ISP.

The discursive construction of sedition in contemporary Hong Kong

2026-09-27T00:00:00Z

Title: The discursive construction of sedition in contemporary Hong Kong Authors: Wong, KH Abstract: This article examines how sedition is discursively constructed in Hong Kong through legal and institutional discourse, particularly in relation to publications, and how these constructions reflect changing relationships between political authority, communication, and security across changing constitutional contexts. Drawing on Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), the study analyses three interconnected processes: the historical recontextualisation of sedition from a Crown-based constitutional framework into a post-handover sovereignty framework; the presuppositions of political authority, belonging, and loyalty embedded within contemporary sedition discourse; and the securitisation of publications and communicative practices. The analysis examines colonial and contemporary sedition-related legal provisions, together with official institutional discourse surrounding recent publication-related investigations. Through the discussion of the Sheep Village case and the 2026 bookstore investigation, the article demonstrates that sedition is not a fixed legal category but a discourse whose meaning changes according to broader constructions of authority and legitimacy. While colonial sedition law was embedded within a framework of loyalty towards the Crown, contemporary sedition discourse presupposes the legitimacy of the post-handover constitutional order and increasingly frames challenges to that order as forms of political disaffection or security risk. The article argues that the transformation of sedition in Hong Kong reflects broader struggles over constitutional identity, political belonging, and the boundaries of legitimate communication.

From Identity to Emotion: The Institutional Production of “Being Chinese” in Hong Kong Schooling

2026-09-10T00:00:00Z

Title: From Identity to Emotion: The Institutional Production of “Being Chinese” in Hong Kong Schooling Authors: Wong, KH Abstract: This article analyses how national belonging is constructed in post-2019 Hong Kong education policy through three official documents: the Citizenship and Social Development Curriculum and Assessment Guide (Secondary 4–6) (2021), the Curriculum Framework of National Security Education in Hong Kong (2025), and the Values Education Curriculum Framework (2026). Drawing on a historiographical approach to critical discourse studies, it examines how presupposition and affective evaluation operate as key mechanisms in the normalisation of national identity. The analysis shows that deictic and possessive formulations such as “our country” presuppose students’ inclusion within a Chinese national collective, rendering belonging implicit and taken-for-granted. In parallel, affective lexis associated with pride, obligation, and moral attachment constructs an explicitly evaluative orientation towards the Chinese nation. The article argues that national belonging is produced through a combination of presupposed inclusion and affective alignment. It contributes to scholarship on discourse and education in Hong Kong by extending analysis beyond political speech to curriculum policy, highlighting education as a central site of identity formation in the post-2019 policy landscape.

The Living Script. Proposing an Adaptive Practice in Humaira Bilkis’s Things I Could Never Tell My Mother (2022)

2025-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: The Living Script. Proposing an Adaptive Practice in Humaira Bilkis’s Things I Could Never Tell My Mother (2022) Authors: Firdaus, I Abstract: This paper examines Bangladeshi filmmaker Humaira Bilkis’s feature film, Things I Could Never Tell My Mother, through genetic criticism and screenwriting theories to propose the concept of the living script: a dynamic narrative framework that evolves in response to real-time discoveries, emotional shifts, and ethical dilemmas. Bilkis’s film exemplifies this process, weaving intergenerational dialogues and confessional sequences to negotiate complex cultural and inter-religious boundaries within Bangladeshi society. By analysing early drafts, directorial notes, and an interview with the filmmaker, the study reveals how Bilkis’s narrative adapts to the contingencies of production. This fluid approach embodies a self-reflexive negotiation between storytelling and cultural discourse, engages with core debates in documentary theory, and offers a symbolic dialogue from a Global South perspective. Ultimately, the concept of the living script provides an adaptive framework for understanding screenwriting as a site of negotiation between intention, collaboration, and reality, particularly in narrative films employing documentary aesthetics.