Arena – Critical * Radical * Australia * Earth

2 Jun 2023

The dilemma for Australian First Nations people is that they are getting a foothold on sovereign claims within the nation, at the same time as the sovereignty that was to be divided is being given away as a whole package.

World’s biggest spying alliance issues warning about spying

Arena Online

Samuel Hume

1 Jun 2023

Unfortunately, the irony of “the world’s most complete and comprehensive” intelligence alliance issuing such warnings seems to have been lost on many Western commentators.

You’d Have to be Crazy to Work Here: The Precarity of the Workcover Scheme

Arena Online

Matt Rogers

1 Jun 2023

This indicates that the risk of psychological injury remains disturbingly high and a consequence of this is a loss of experienced workers in areas of the economy where staffing shortages are already endemic.

‘I can’t go on. I’ll go on.’: A review of Aaron Fa’Aoso’s So Far So Good

Arena Quarterly no.13

Kathleen Mary Fallon

Mar 2023

Why does Fa’Aoso tell his story now? The reason is a shame and stain on this country, and not one that many whitefellas in their midforties would have for writing their memoir: early death.

The Metaphysics of Planetary Hope: Exploring texts on faith and practice in a technocapitalist world

Arena Quarterly no.13

Ian Barns

Mar 2023

A new consciousness cannot be built solely on a better scientific understanding of the world; it must be rooted in a different ontology, a different conception of reality.

Gangsta Grannies and Taser Torments

Arena Online

Binoy Kampmark

24 May 2023

No Royal Commission could possibly deal with all the social and structural issues that afflict the treatment of the aged in a country where they are commodified and forgotten.

Which Family?

Arena Quarterly no.13

Emma Fajgenbaum

Mar 2023

US-based queer theorist Sophie Lewis returns the family to political critique by refurbishing arguments against it for a new generation, but ultimately offers the reader few resources to spotlight some pathway towards the future.

The Social State: The state as arena of struggle and lasting transformation

Arena Quarterly no.13

John Falzon

Mar 2023

As a condensation of social relations, the state is a key arena for the struggle between the neoliberal manufacture of despair and the grassroots harnessing of hope in transformative practice.

Behind the ‘Bali Bonk Ban’

Arena Online

Zacharias Szumer

18 May 2023

Is an anti-colonial movement or the creeping authoritarianism of vested interests behind Indonesia’s new moral code?

Artificial Intelligence of Vanity

Arena Online

Catherine Lo Bianco

18 May 2023

Lil Miquela is a software robot, but that doesn’t stop her followers from asking ‘What’s your skin care regime?’. Thanks to AI, even models will be out of a job.

From the Archive

Green Pathways to a People’s Future

Arena Quarterly no. 1

Adam Bandt

‘Fire’ may be an appropriate way to think and talk about the climate-change emergency, not just because we are literally dealing with a burning world but also because it does not bring with it the concerns associated with ‘rule by emergency’.

From the Archive

The Tip of the Democracy-Sinking Iceberg

Timothy Erik Ström

There is a curious and seldom-told backstory and parallel story to the high-profile Cambridge Analytica scandal, one that makes the notorious firm seem like the tip of the democracy-sinking iceberg.

On Sundressed: Fashion, Farming and Sustainability

Arena Online

Emma Wilkins

18 May 2023

By replacing its ‘take, pollute, discard’ model with one based on regenerative farming and clothes consumers can—and want to—wear every week for years, this self-destructive industry could do less harm—even good.

i-dolatry: The cult of autonomy is degrading the prospects for relationships

Arena Online

Mark Furlong

4 May 2023

What effect does a preoccupation with autonomy – with the i-me-my-mine – have on the prospects for ethical relationship and reliable attachment?

One Step in a Chain Reaction: how a Grassroots movement stopped nuclear in Australia

Arena Quarterly no.13

Dave Sweeney

Mar 2023

Australia would look very different if it wasn’t for sustained intergenerational effort to resist the nuclear option.

Outsourced Sovereignty: The US Mandarins Take Over Australia

Arena Online

Binoy Kampmark

4 May 2023

Is Australia becoming: a retirement village for servants of the US defence-security-intelligence complex?

That Bad Eminence: Genesis B, Paradise Lost and the dark politics of resentment

Arena Quarterly no.13

Robert DiNapoli

Mar 2023

Satan’s prefiguring of today’s hard- Right ‘great replacement’ paranoia would be just a delicious irony were the latter not turning the heads of so many susceptible souls in our time.

The Coming War: Speak up. Now.

Arena Online

John Pilger

2 May 2023

Within a few years, the cult of 'me-ism' had all but overwhelmed many people's sense of acting together, of social justice and internationalism.

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