Dr. Bryan Smith

In Episode 52 Dr. Nicholas Ng-A-Fook interviews Dr. Bryan Smith a Lecturer in Humanities and Social Sciences education at James Cook University. His research looks at anti-racist and decolonising readings of humanities and social sciences education. Specifically, his work critically interrogates place, colonial and racialized logics in curriculum practice, and the convergence of history, geography, and citizenship education in re-imagining local and global places. His current line of work looks at the making of settler place and how everyday features of the urban landscape writes settler possession into the material and symbolic spaces of communities. We discussed the following: troubling his lived experiences as a white newcomer settler immigrant to Thul Garrie Waja (Townsville, Australia), memorial geographies of invasion, curriculum as invader, walking the stories of colonial ghosts, normalizing place renaming practices of settler communities, settler anxieties, critical toponomy, social studies, ethical responsibilities, and so much more.