Sydney Spotlight with Dr Sophie Chao
My favourite thing about my role is…
Fostering interdisciplinary dialogue on critical social and environmental issues of our times. I’m trained as an anthropologist, but I thrive best in research environments where different fields of knowledge come into meaningful conversation. I’m deeply privileged to be part of such conversations at the University, because they constantly challenge me to question what we take for granted and to collectively reimagine other ways of being in and understanding the world.
At the moment I am working on…
Several different and interconnected projects. These include a book on hunger and food sovereignty in West Papua, a DECRA project on human-kangaroo relations in Australia, and multiple collaborative initiatives on the enduring impacts of plantation capitalism on landscapes and lifeforms globally. I've also started some preliminary research in Timor-Leste. Here, I'm investigating labor and gender injustices in an open-air landfill and learning from waste-pickers who are eking out a precarious existence in the midst of capitalist consumerism's material and toxic afterlives.
These projects are important to me because…
They bring me to rethink what justice means across different socio-cultural, historical, political, and ecological contexts, how justice manifests for both human and non-human beings, and what it might take to expand the scope of justice to encompass not just people but also ecosystems, landscapes, plants, animals, and more. All of these projects also bring me into direct interaction and relation with communities who have their own theories and concepts about what it means to live justly in more-than-human worlds. Attending to the significance of such grassroots theories and concepts cross-regionally and comparatively is both inspiring and humbling.
I’ll be speaking to some of these ideas at the 2024 Iain McCalman Lecture, hosted by the Sydney Environment Institute (SEI), where my talk will explore what we can learn from Indigenous philosophies and practices of “multispecies” mourning in an epoch of large-scale ecological destruction.
The SEI team is great at…
Fostering the kinds of interdisciplinary conversations and collaborations that the problems of the contemporary world demand – whether it be in the context of food insecurity, climate change, multispecies justice, or decolonial research methodologies.
Most importantly, the SEI team creates platforms and avenues for engagement across staff and student communities, and also well beyond with industry, government partners, and local communities. It is this expansive understanding and practice of collaboration that I find unique to SEI and the diverse ecology of thinkers SEI brings into its fold.
One of my most memorable moments at Sydney is…
Meeting SEI’s Deputy Director – Academic, Professor Danielle Celermajer. We first encountered each other in early 2019, when I’d just begun a Postdoc at the University. As a budding researcher and newcomer to the institution, that very first conversation with Danielle – a world-leading intellectual but also an incredibly generous and radiant being – was what truly brought home to me the unique role and contributions played by the SEI in creating spaces for interdisciplinary debate on environmental relationships and futures. I have had the immense pleasure to continue learning from and thinking with Danielle since that first meeting – from organizing events and recording podcasts, to co-editing special issues, and more broadly seeking out ways to further spread the work and contributions of the SEI in and beyond the University. Danielle will be hosting the Iain McCalman lecture in March, and I’d invite everyone to join us, either in the Great Hall or online.
My favourite place to go on campus is…
The Courtyard Café. It’s where I most often encounter my colleagues and students, find nourishment in their collegial presence, and fuel myself with that much needed cup of espresso at 3 pm! I also love walking around the campus as a whole – in fact, a lot of my meetings take the form of “walkshops” around this beautiful setting, meandering with peers through the alleyways and Quad, and losing ourselves to rich and dynamic conversations that, much like our footsteps, often take us into unexpected directions.
Something that might surprise people about me is…
That I spend most of my non-working hours on my kayak. I’ve picked up this activity in the last year or so, and I find no greater joy than in paddling up and down the creeks and rivers close to my home near the Kuring-Gai Chase National Park. There is something deeply meditative and soothing about learning to read the textures of the bodies of water that hold me, attuning to the sounds and movements of the bush, and feeling a kayak shore up on a sandy beach to the laps of rippling wavelets. I’d encourage anyone who doesn’t mind getting a bit wet to try it!
