Anastasia Kanjere
Academic and writer
Specialty Areas
About Me
Anastasia Kanjere is a white settler writer, activist and casual academic, born and raised on Wurundjeri country in so-called Melbourne.
She writes on race, gender, borders, motherhood, mental health and justice. Her PhD thesis, undertaken as a David Myers scholarship recipient at La Trobe University, analyses the interrelation between whiteness as an ideological sphere and discourses of innocence, and the implications of this link for anti-racist work and theory.
Other research interests include critical race and whiteness studies, critical border studies, continental philosophy, culture studies, motherhood, vulnerability and (in)security, and critical childhood studies.
Outside of the academy, Anastasia’s 2016 essay ‘The Trouble with Compassion’ was shortlisted for the Overland/NUW Fair Australia Essay Prize, and her memoir excerpt ‘The Lighted Door’ was shortlisted for the Scribe Non-fiction Prize for Young Writers. She sat on the panel ‘Mothering from the fringes’ at the 2016 Feminist Writers Festival and has participated in discussions on race, whiteness and decolonisation organised by The Two Chairs antiracism initiative and Dancehouse’s Conversation.Now series. She has spoken about her work and scholarship to community radio stations Joy FM, 3CR and The Wire. Other writing can be found in Going Down Swinging, The Pin, and Writing from Below.
