Speaker: Dr Makiko Nishitani (La Trobe).

Location: Blended, Burwood Corporate Centre in-person, and on Zoom

Register for Zoom attendance: https://deakin.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwpc-qhqj0qG9AjYZV1eUu4LjYjuMa5dsd8

SPEAKER

Dr Makiko Nishitani is a Lecturer in Anthropology in the Department of Social Inquiry and the Convenor of the Migration and Multiculturalism Research Cluster at La Trobe University. Her research specialises in migration and mobilities, immigration statuses, kinship, and gender. Her publications include the book Desire, Obligation and Familial Love: Mothers, Daughters, and Communication Technology in the Tongan Diaspora (2020, University of Hawai’i Press).

ABSTRACT

In a horticultural town in the North-West of Victoria, a stigmatised discourse around ‘farmers’ versus ‘pickers’ shapes the pathways of second-generation Pacific young people. For those whose parents are engaged in the region’s exploitative horticultural industry, the racialised conditions of these employment relations are played out among young people in their own social worlds. This includes, for example, Pacific young people being called “my pickers”, referring to their parents’ occupations as casual farmworkers, by children of Southern European farmers, a group who has come to hold significant economic power in the industry. Within this deeply racialised terrain, second-generation Pacific youth and their families seek different pathways and alternative careers. However, in a region where Pacific labour is stigmatised, and where Pacific young people confront entrenched racism, other pathways can be difficult to access. This stems in part from a lack of culturally appropriate resources around education and career development for Pacific young people and the acute challenges they face in the region. Furthermore, while other Pacific youths have had successful careers outside of the horticultural industry, these alternatives are difficult to uncover, not widely shared, and not heavily promoted in the community.

 This talk will report on a research project, The Pacific Role Models Project (2019–2021), which sought to make such positive experiences among Pacific young people visible, and to broaden opportunities for others in the process. The Project was built on sustained research partnerships between La Trobe researchers and key community organisations in the region since 2014, beginning with a successful ARC Linkage Project. In this most recent collaboration between La Trobe and the Pacific Islander Network, the team collated narrative interviews with young Pacific professionals and documented how people had navigated various career paths in a range of industries (e.g. medicine, IT, carpentry, engineering, law and beauty). The result was a collection of online resources for the community (http://www.pacificislandernetwork.org.au). This talk will reflect on this research process, outline some of the benefits and challenges of working with community organisations over a sustained period of time (including ‘co-design’ and data sharing), and discuss feedback from Pacific community members.