Professor Yin Paradies
Affiliation: Deakin University
Discipline: Sociology
Year elected: 2021
What initially drew you to your field of study?
When I started my first year of university, my parents told me that I needed to get a job. I ended up working as a Commonwealth government Indigenous cadet at the Australian Bureau of Statistics in the Indigenous health statistics section. That work in Indigenous health led to an interest in the social determinants of health, racism, in particular, then to anti-racism and cultural safety, decolonisation and Indigenous knowledges.
What role do the social sciences play in your work?
My critical social sciences training very much inform my work, particularly the tenets of reflexivity, power analysis, de-naturalisation of the taken-for-granted, explanatory symmetry and transformative praxis.
How would you describe your work at a dinner party?
I tell people that I teach and research Indigenous knowledges, decolonisation, racism, anti-racism, cultural safety and related topics. They usually want to talk about Indigenous knowledges as, often, they don’t know what that is.
What continues to motivate your work?
A good proportion of people find my work quite transformative. It has real impacts on how they experience and perceive the world and, as a result, they make changes in real life. I find this to be an honour and a privilege as well as a strong motivation to continue my work.
Where is your ‘happy’ place?
My happy place is the homestead where I live. A place that flows in waves of peaceful tranquility and as a hubbub of activity, encompassing the ebbs and flows of life.