 Can I introduce you to the stage, Rosanna Stevens from the ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences and the title of Rosanna's talk tonight is, Now You See It. It might seem as though I've started speaking with a blank PowerPoint slide behind me, but there are actually a bunch of things on this slide. You just can't see them yet. To your right is a Ferrari. I drew myself in white. To your left is a soy latte in a white takeaway cup, and in the middle is a home, I drew myself in white, a home among the gum trees, lots of plum trees, clothes line up back, veranda out front, and an old rocking chair. It's interesting how you can't see things when the context they're surrounded by makes them seem invisible. Only this slide full of nothing is full of white stuff. You just needed help to see it. Here's something else you can't see. This slide is actually a black slide with a white rectangle pasted over the top of it. Over 200 years ago, white people arrived and settled over the top of already established Aboriginal life, and colonization happens today. The settled way we are encouraged to live, the ways we are encouraged to learn and consume, how often we are encouraged to wash. The ways we think about and use nature are actually pretty white. People who fit into this society are taught to think of it as normal and awesome, but if you don't fit in, whiteness is very visible because it can be depressingly inescapable. Aboriginal and black academics and activists are suggesting that one of the first steps toward creating a more equal and considerate society is for white people today to identify and understand the dominance of our culture. From there, we can challenge how in modern Australia, one way of life smothers another. But it's difficult to challenge something if you've been taught not to see it. Is a job white? Is a house white? Is organic gluten-free food white? If I fall into the vortex of cat videos on YouTube and I'm wearing my pyjamas, am I just procrastinating or am I white procrastinating? My research is about understanding what whiteness looks like and how it works. I'm collecting and analyzing Aboriginal accounts of feeling unwelcome, ignored and misunderstood in society, and from that material I'm piecing together a picture of white Australia that we can begin to debate. My thesis is a novel. The plot is a secret, but this conversation needs to be communicated well beyond the walls of a university. My hope is that research in this field will point toward a more equal, considerate and respectful Australia that is so much more than just white.