Articulating Opposition: Population Management and Practices of Resistance

Join the Laureate Centre for History & Population to critically and creatively examine the concept of opposition

Articulating Opposition: Population Management and Practices of Resistance

This workshop invites researchers to critically and creatively examine the concept of opposition from a historical perspective, with a focus on its political, aesthetic, and institutional dimensions. As authoritarian tendencies intensify across global contexts, the category of opposition—its meanings, mediations, and mobilisations—demands urgent reassessment. From the suppression of dissent to the strategic invocation of ‘the people’ as a homogenous body, contemporary regimes increasingly rely on discourses of division, co-optation, and corporatist unity to manage populations and forestall genuine contestation. Crucially, rising authoritarianism is bound up with the history and politics of population—from immigration and labour policy to land, energy, and food governance, as well as anti-trans legislation and the broader biopolitics of sex, gender, and sexuality. These state strategies not only regulate bodies and social life but also delimit the conditions under which opposition can be conceived, organised, or enacted. This event will consider how opposition has been defined, resisted, framed, and refigured in diverse historical conjunctures, and will ask what remains possible under the sign of resistance.

Event Information
Workshop: 9:30 am - 4:00pm - UNSW, Morven Brown (C20), L3 Room 353 - Workshop
Drinks: From 4:30pm - The Shakespeare Hotel, Surry Hills

Program:
Click here to view the Workshop Program

For More Information:
For event enquiries or to discuss your access requirements, please email s.kennedy_bates@unsw.edu.au