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Prof Suvendrini Perera

Image of Staff Member
    • Role:
    • Professor
    • Department:
    • Dept of Communication & Cultural Studies
    • Location:
    • Building 208 403
    • Telephone:
    • +61 8 9266 2706

Suvendrini Perera is a Professor in the Department of Cultural Studies, in the School of Media, Culture & Creative Arts. She completed her BA at the University of Sri Lanka and her PhD at Columbia University, New York.
Since coming to Australia she has published widely on issues of race, ethnicity and multiculturalism, refugee topics, critical whiteness studies and Asian-Australian studies.

Suvendi began teaching career at the City University of New York. She has combined her academic career with participation in policymaking in ethnic affairs and higher education. In 2003 she worked as a consultant to the NSW state government's Higher Education Directorate.

Research Interests

Borders and junctions in Asia and the Pacific; diaspora cultural studies; race, ethnicity and multiculturalism; refugees and asylum seekers;  histories of coexistence in multiethnic societies; critical whiteness studies; feminism and womanism; migrant and Aboriginal interconnections in Australia    

Research Projects

2005-9: "Junction Zones" on multiethnic coexistence in Australia's region. (ARC funded Discovery project)

 

Awards

Humanities award for Research Excellence (Best book) 2010 for Australia and the Insular Imagination.

Humanities Researcher of  the year (Best essay) 2009 for "The Gender of Borderpanic"

Publications

Books (Authored, Research)

  • Perera, S. 2009. Australia and the Insular Imagination: Beaches, Borders, Boats, and Bodies. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Book Chapters (Authored, Research Quality)

  • Perera, S. 2011. Torturous dialogues: Geographies of trauma and spaces of exception. In Interrogating Trauma, eds M Broderick and A Traverso, 31-45. London: Routledge.
  • Perera, S. 2010. A Tale of Two Islands: Violent Relatedness and the Struggle over Geography. In Change - Conflict and Convergence: Austral-Asian Scenarios, eds Cynthia vanden Driesen and Ian vanden Driesen, 310-320. New Delhi, India: Orient Blackswan Private Limited.
  • Perera, S. 2010. From Sovereignty to Sustainability: The Loops and Lineaments of Exclusion 2001-2010. In Enter at Own Risk, eds S Perera, G Seal and S Summers, 1-28. Perth, Western Australia: Black Swan Press.
  • Perera, S. 2010. The Fear of Small Things: Australia in The Arc of Insecurity. In Enter at Own Risk, eds S Perera, G Seal & S Summers, 161-185. Perth, Western Australia: Black Swan Press.
  • Perera, S. 2010. Uncivil Zones: Terror and Territoriality in the Geopolitical Shadowlands. In International Relations and States of Exception. Margins, Peripheries and Excluded Bodies, eds Shampa Biswas and Sheila Nair, 31-47. London: Routledge.
  • Perera, S. 2010. Introduction. In Living through Terror, eds S Perera and A Traverso, 1-7. London: Routledge.
  • Perera, S. 2009. Invested With Violence: Security, Values and Embodied Citizenship. In Beyond the Hijab Debates: New Conversations on Gender, Race and Religion, eds Tanja Dreher and Chris Ho, 222-234. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars.
  • Perera, S. 2008. 'I don't mind the headscarf but ...': Desperately Seeking Australian Cosmopolitanism. In As Others See Us: The Australian Values Debate, eds J V D'Cruz, Bernie Neville, Devike Goonewardene and Phillip Darby, 137-147. North Melbourne, Victoria, Australia: Australian Scholarly Publishing.
  • Perera, S. 2008. A Case of Mistaken Identities? Retelling Malaysia's National Story. In Overcoming Passion for Race in Malaysia Cultural Studies, eds David C L Lim, 13-27. Leiden, The Netherlands: Koninklijke Brill NV.
  • Perera, S. 2008. The Skins of Pearls: Remembering and Forgetting in Diaspora Narratives. In Transnational South Asians: the Making of a Neo-Diaspora, eds Susan Koshy and R Radhakrishnan, 271-290. New Delhi, India: Oxford University Press.
  • Perera, S. 2008. The Gender of Borderpanic: Women in Circuits of Security, State, Globalisation and New (and Old) Empire. In Women, Crime and Social Harm: Towards a Criminology for the Global Age, eds Maureen Cain and Adrian Howe, 69-93. Oxford, United Kingdom: Hart Publishing.
  • Perera, S. 2007. A Pacific Zone? (In)Security, Sovereignty, and Stories of the Pacific Borderscape. In Borderscapes: Hidden Geographies and Politics and Territory's Edge, eds Pre Kumar Rajaram and Carl Grundy-Warr, 201-227. Minneapolis, USA: University of Minnesota Press.
  • Perera, S. 2007. Our Patch: Domains of Whiteness, Geographies of Lack and Australia's Racial Horizons in the War on Terror. In Our Patch: Enacting Australian Sovereighnty Post-2001, eds Suvendrini Perera, 119-146. Perth, Western Australia: Network Books.
  • Perera, S. 2007. Acting Sovereign. In Our Patch: Enacting Australian Sovereignty Post-2001, eds Suvendrini Perera, 1-20. Perth, Western Australia: Network Books.
  • Perera, S. 2006. Il Genere Del Panico Da Confine. Le Donne Nei Circuiti Della Sicurezza, Dello Stato, Della Globalizzazione E Del Nuovo (E Vecchio) Impero. In Studi Sulla Questione Criminale - Studies On Criminal Issue, eds Dario Melossi, Giuseppe Mosconi, Massimo Pavarini, Tamar Pitch, 134-158. Roma, Italy: Carocci Editore S.p.a..
  • Perera, S. 2002. Having Trouble with the Law: Racialised Punishment and the Testimonies of Resistance. In Romancing the Tomes: Feminism, Popular Culture and the Law, 113-130. United Kingdom: Cavendish Publishing Limited.
  • Perera, S. 2001. Cricket, with a Plot: Nationalism, Cricket, and Diasporic Identities. In A Companion to Cultural Studies, eds Toby Miller, 510-527. Australia: Blackwell Publishing.

Refereed Articles (Scholarly Journals)

  • Perera, S. 2010. Torturous Dialogues: Geographies of Trauma and Spaces of Exception. Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies 24(1): 31-45.
  • Perera, S, and Stratton, J. 2009. Introduction: Heterochronotopes of exception and the frontiers and faultlines of citizenship. Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies 23(5): 585-595.
  • Perera, S. 2009. White shores of longing: 'Impossible subjects' and the frontiers of citizenship. Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies 23: 647-662.
  • Perera, S. 2009. 'Living Through Terror: Introduction'. Social Identities: Journal for the Study of Race, Nation and Culture 15(1): 3-9.
  • Sheikh, M, Perera, S, and Macintyre, C. 2008. Preventive detention: the ethical ground where politics and health meet. Focus on asylum seekers in Australia. Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health 62: 480-483.
  • Perera, S. 2007. 'Aussie Luck': The Border Politics of Citizenship Post Cronulla Beach. Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Association Journal 3.
  • Perera, S. 2007. Scarred Geographies: War, Space, Postcolony. Borderlands - e-journal 6.
  • Perera, S. 2006. Race terror, Sydney December, 2005. Borderlands - e-journal 5(1): 1-21.
  • Perera, S. 2006. They Give Evidence: Bodies, Borders and the Disappeared. Social Identities: Journal for the Study of Race, Nation and Culture. 12(No. 6): 637-656.
  • Perera, S. 2005. Who will I Become? the Multiple Formations of Australian Whiteness. Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Association Journal 1: 30-39.
  • Perera, S. 2004. The Good Neighbour: Conspicuous Compassion and the Politics of Proximity. Borderlands - e-journal 3(3).
  • Perera, S. 2002. What is a Camp...?. Borderlands - e-journal 1(1): 1-12.
  • Perera, S. 2002. A Line in the Sea: Australia, Boat Stories and the Border. Cultural Studies Review 8(1): 11-27.
  • Perera, S. 2002. A line in the sea. Race & Class 44(2): 23-39.

Fully written papers (Refereed Conference proceedings)

  • Perera, S. 2005. 'They Give Evidence': Bodies, Borders and the Disappeared. University of Queensland Australian Studies Centre Conference, 24/11/2004. Brisbane, Queensland: Australian Studies Centre, University Of Queensland and National Centre for Australian Studies.