About the Lecturer: Prof. Gary Kreps is completing his 20th year on the faculty at George Mason University, where he currently serves as a Distinguished University Professor of Communication and Founding Director of the Center for Health and Risk Communication. Prof. Gary teaches courses concerning Communication Research, Health Communication, Risk Communication, Interpersonal Communication, Organizational Communication, Consumer-Provider Health Communication, Health Communication Campaigns, and Digital Communication.
Prior to joining the faculty at Mason, he had the pleasure of serving as the Founding Chief of the Health Communication and Informatics Research Branch at the National Cancer Institute (NIH), where he planned, developed, and coordinated major new national research and outreach initiatives concerning risk communication, health promotion, behavior change, technology development, and information dissemination to promote effective cancer prevention, screening, control, care, and survivorship.
Prof. Gary also served as the Founding Dean of the School of Communication at Hofstra University, Executive Director of the Greenspun School of Communication at UNLV, and in faculty and administrative roles at Northern Illinois, Rutgers, Indiana, and Purdue Universities.
The Far-right and Islamophobic hate: Lessons from the United Kingdom
Abstract:
This panel, bringing in leading global anti-racist activists challenging Islamophobia, will address the nature of Islamophobia in white supremacist hate. It will explore the drivers of Islamophobic hate, intersections with rise of fascism, and the threat to democracy.
Panelists:
Prof. Mohan J Dutta, Director, Center for Culture-Centred Approach to Research & Evaluation (CARE), Massey University.
Mohammed Owais, Director of the United Kingdom Indian Muslim Council (UKIMC)
Imam Waseem Razvi, Chair of the Alliance Against Islamophobia
Tuesday,23rd April 2024 @ 11am Palmerston North City Library, 2nd Floor- Heritage Space and Livestream on CARE Facebook & CARE YouTube channel.
The presentation explores how contemporary rhetorical scholarship helps us weave together symbolic, material and embodied understandings of museums.
Museums are powerful cultural and communicative institutions. Museums are often and correctly understood as institutions of Western modernity, central to colonialism and imperialism, and are a location of crucial contestations of the relations among past, present, and future. They are also powerfully effective and affective technologies of communication. Understanding how to engage museums as communicative institutions depends on a rich understanding of the modes of museal communication.
In this presentation Prof. Dickinson will trace the communicative and rhetorical modalities of museums. Drawing on my, and my colleagues, research on US American museums—with particular attention to the Buffalo Bill Center of the West—he will focus on the rhetorical nature of collection and display practices within museums. While many within museum studies have explored both collecting and display, rhetoric scholars bring field-specific questions and concerns to these practices, questions and concerns that can enliven us to the political consequentiality of museums. Contemporary rhetorical scholarship helps us weave together symbolic, material, and embodied understandings of museums.
Join us online on Tuesday 09 April 2024, 7pm for CARE’s Special Presentation on Palestine Solidarity and Ramadan with Dr. Fatima Junaid, Tayyaba Khan and Anthony Green.
A conversation around solidarity and the dissonance that Muslims are feeling during Ramadan and may feel at Eid as we keep seeing the Palestinian Genocide.
Supporting each other to keep going with the solidarity efforts and acknowledging that any effort is good as long as we are not silent. Please join us as we ponder on the question of what it means to have Eid in these times.
Below is a document prepared by Anthony Green for the online talk supported by CARE – Center for Culture-Centered Approach to Research and Evaluation.
A selection of some different perspectives on the uses of language and on ways of seeing – a few examples of texts and sources that may be of interest.
Dr. Fatima Junaid is an experienced consultant and educator working within public and private sector for over a decade. Dr. Junaid has done extensive research with marginalized communities including refugees, women, migrants and fishers’ communities. She focuses on developing mechanisms of support for better wellbeing outcomes. Currently she is a Senior lecturer at Massey University and a member of the several wellbeing (academic and professional) organisations. She also runs a social media support network group for Pakistani women in academia.
Founder and trustee of Khadija Leadership Network, the New Zealand (NZ) Peace Ambassador for the European Muslim League, former Director of Advocacy at the Office of the Health and Disability Commissioner, and a community development practitioner with over 15 years of experience having worked with the migrant and refugee communities in The Occupied Territories of Palestine, Australia, United Kingdom and New Zealand. Tayyaba currently sits on the governance board of Mixit & Belong Aotearoa. She is also a regular panellist on RNZ’s ‘The Panel’, and ‘The AM Show’.
Originally from the UK, he worked as a teacher of English and Literature, first in the UK and then, for eighteen years in Singapore. In the six months’ period after the mosque attacks, and again in the 2020 “anniversary,” he served as spokesperson for the Muslim Association of Canterbury
His writings include books commissioned by Muis (Majlis Ugama Islam Singapura, Singapore’s Islamic Council), dealing with all aspects of the development and work of that body: its history, mosque-building programme, Hajj organisation, and more. His own work includes a history of how people travelled by sea from Southeast Asia to journey to Mecca for the Hajj. His interest is in people’s stories, particularly of those who are “unsung” – what the poet Brian Patten called, “the loose change history spent without caring.”
Image by Palestinian photographer Hosny Salah, currently living in Palestine Gaza Strip
Through her responses to a series of wide-ranging questions, Dr. Samah Jabr, Head of the Mental Health Unit within the Palestinian Ministry of Health, gives essential insights into the ways to understand Palestinian mental health before, during, and after catastrophe and genocide. By invoking the principle of “observing and learning” from Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, Dr. Jabr challenges western pathologizing and individualizing around mental health, and offers a community-centered and liberatory alternative framework.
CARE AIRP Workshop: To censor or not to censor: how should we deal with online hate?
Abstract: Violent, extremist, and hateful content has real impacts both in the online and offline world. In this workshop we ask you to put your thinking hats to discuss the best ways to deal with it. Real life examples will be provided, and you will be asked to look at each scenario from a different perspective to understand the complexity of dealing with content that might or might not be illegal but can be damaging in various ways.
Tue, 22nd Aug – 7 PM | Facebook PREMIERE
CARE In Conversation with Anjum Rahman & Prof. Mohan Dutta
Abstract: Aotearoa New Zealand is a colonised land, and this informs our understanding of our history and contemporary times. Islamophobia is also the product of global colonisation while Muslims have historically also been colonisers in other countries. This lively conversation will cover complex and challenging issues to provide a better understanding of the drivers of Islamophobia internationally and locally.
Wed, 23rd Aug – 12 PM | Mezzanine Floor, Central Library
CARE AIRP- Public Talk: Islamophobia after the Christchurch Terrorist Attacks: has the State done enough?
There were 44 recommendations in the Royal Commission report on the Christchurch mosques attacks. This Public Talk explores government actions to date, with a critical review of what has been achieved, where the gaps are, and what are the implications for other communities currently being targeted. Will the government response protect us from further terrorist attacks? And if not, what more needs to be done?
Thurs, 24th Aug – 12 PM | BSCB1.08 COMMS Lab
CARE AIRP White Paper Launch – Online warfare: who, why and how
Abstract: Targeting small and vulnerable populations is an age-old technique for creating fear used by political and state actors, as well as those seeking to profit from outrage and insecurity. This CARE White Paper will focus on the failure of the government of Aotearoa New Zealand to respond to other states, extremist groups and influencers targeting minorities. Our national security system is aware of the way groups are strategically targeted, and also understand the impact. Yet there appears to be no coordinated and effective strategy to protect those targeted. Solutions are presented, with a call on the government and all political parties to act urgently.
Anjum Rahman is the founder of the Inclusive Aotearoa Collective Tāhono. She is a chartered accountant with over 25 years’ experience, working with a range of entities in the commercial, farming and not-for-profit sectors.
She also commits to various volunteer roles in the community. She was a founding member of the Islamic Women’s Council of New Zealand, an organisation formed in 1990 to bring Muslim women together and represent their concerns, and is currently the media spokesperson. She has also been a founding member and trustee of Shama, Ethnic Women’s Trust, which supports ethnic minority women through its social work service, life-skills classes and community development. She has worked in the area of sexual violence prevention both as a volunteer and as part of Government working groups. Anjum is a Trustee of Trust Waikato, a major funder in the Waikato Region.
Anjum has been an active member of the Waikato Interfaith Council for over a decade, a trustee of the Trust that governs Hamilton’s community access broadcaster, Free FM. She is a member of international committees dealing with violent extremist content online, being the co-chair of the Christchurch Call Advisory Network and a member of the Independent Advisory Committee of the Global Internet Forum for Countering Terrorism. She is also a member of the Charities and Not for Profit Commitee of Chartered Accountants Australia New Zealand.
A talk by Prof. Mohan Dutta on Colonial Divide & Rule
In this insightful lecture, Professor Mohan Dutta critically analyzes the colonial divide and rule strategy, examining its historical implementation and its enduring relevance in contemporary contexts. He elucidates how this strategy has been employed to exert control over colonial subjects and draws connections to present-day scenarios. Professor Dutta illustrates the perpetuation of this divide and rule tactic through strategies aimed at fragmenting Maori communities, separating them from ethnic migrant groups. Moreover, he delves into the transformative process of decolonization, emphasizing its role in fostering connection and unity among diverse communities.
