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Welcome to GR Online, a series of short-form articles that take aim at the moving target of contemporary culture as it’s whisked along the guide rails of innovations in digital media, globalisation and late-stage capitalism.

Moments in Vanuatu

Australian students live in the South Pacific and yet so much of Australia’s scholarship, and the daily deluge of our news and media, points us to places that are far distant – often Europe or North America. This study tour aimed to disrupt these flows of information and ideas from the north, and place our students here, where we all live, in the south.

By Kerrie Foxwell-Norton

Pride and punishment

Common understanding and usage of the word ‘trauma’ often confuses trauma with distress. Though trauma is often distressing, the two should not be conflated. Rather, trauma denotes an experience or event that has not been properly registered or processed due to its overwhelming of the nervous system

By Meera Atkinson

Fifty years and five hundred miles

This is a story of how those people you once knew so well, and saw so often, may have had their lives changed by their chance floating and rubbing up against each other. And it is a story which, in one small example, answers that most challenging of questions that teachers ask themselves: Did I make a difference?

By Bruce Elder

National identity and diversity

There are three key domains to a national identity: governmental, public and cultural. Each has distinctive features, and each capture something of what people mean when they discuss national identity.

By Geoffrey Brahm Levey

Smiling faces of integration

Right now, in the face of fear, it is much easier to use the well-worn trope of refugee and migrant ‘success stories’. This is the typical format used by governments and corporate campaigns, as well as media, showcasing those who have overcome hardships, found light in Australia and are now in some way contributing to the economy.

By Kavita Bedford

Alternative selves

My parents are hardwired to see potential everywhere, a trait that I inherited and which fuelled my compulsion to travel in adulthood. I am uncomfortable with the idea of living permanently in one place, and concerned about the fate of my personal and cultural identity when I consider other places to call home.

By Balli Kaur Jaswal

Suburban dreaming

I COMMEMORATED MY first day in Australia by taking an oversized bite of a Whopper Junior. Its salty blandness...

By Neha Kale

Looking for Magda

IN 2017, MORE than one hundred books were published telling the stories of Australians from non-English speaking backgrounds. They...

By Klaus Neumann

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