CIJ Insights vol.1: Navigating a Year Marked With Uncertainty
Welcome to CIJ Insights, a new series where members of the CIJ team share their thoughts, feelings, ideas, and advice on topics relevant to the justice sector and those who work in it. Our first instalment comes from none other than Associate Director Elena Campbell.
Team of four researchers sitting around a table with laptops open, having a discussion.
As we embark on 2025, many working in the areas of advocacy, research and community-based services are already feeling the weight of the working year, if they had a break at all. Overshadowing this, a collective anxiety is palpable across posts on this and other platforms – people overwhelmed about where to focus; how to think about anything else; and what to contribute when faced with a violent reversal of progress on multiple fronts and, on some, the unravelling of fundamentals that had never occurred to us (or at least to me) were in question.
Decimation of international aid and of national data security; dismissal of the rights of a whole people to a homeland and for the constitutional rights of others; mass deportation of some communities and disregard for the bodily autonomy of others – the worst possible of our collective angels have stepped unabashedly into the spotlight both in the US and, now emboldened, increasingly at home.
Important to accept is that Trump is an expression of a larger phenomenon occurring worldwide – and acknowledging this is not to excuse or ignore the almost unimaginable narcissism and disdain the global and US population alike that is emanating from the White House. Nonetheless, it’s equally vital to accept that this won’t be just a blip. Parochialism and isolationism are rising at a national, community and even individual level and, as this occurs, diversity, equity and inclusion become positioned as a threat.
It’s a tired and tedious trope – the concept that recognising the rights of those marginalised by systems and structures is ‘special treatment’, rather than an indication of our shared humanity – one which ultimately protects us all. Further, both curious and chilling is watching on a global scale what studies have demonstrated occurs individually – that the extension of opportunity to others becomes interpreted by some as the removal of their own seat at the table.
This misconception of inclusion and voice is obviously manipulated in an entirely conscious way by those pursuing office, profit, or otherwise to ‘wedge’ others calling for progress. That makes those efforts even more sickening – when the rights of the least powerful, including those not yet at voting age, are callously used as political leverage, including in a calculated push to incarcerate young children and to undermine gender-affirming care.
We may know this at a cognitive level, yet it’s still been breathtaking to see the speed at which those on the path to regression have taken a dizzying array of orange-tinted emissions floating across the Pacific as licence to push their own agendas. As this dystopian saga unfolds around the globe – a sequel to the one that has played out in the US for some time – those working in research and law reform therefore have a particular challenge and responsibility.
The responsibility is to keep developing and effectively communicating evidence about why inclusion matters and why punitive justice responses are counterproductive. That part doesn’t change, although the bar is already difficult to clear when ‘justice’ is notoriously one of the least evidence-based areas of government policy.
The challenge is compounded, however, when the shift increasingly occurring around the globe includes a movement away from valuing or believing evidence of any kind. We’ve seen that gather pace in response to COVID-19 and become stubbornly and inexplicably entrenched in response to the accelerating climate catastrophe. If certain voting populations and leaders are prepared to ignore evidence about what will directly impact their own children (and is already doing so), how likely are they to believe and act on evidence in an area which they feel only applies to ‘others’?
The answer to that and other questions currently feel a little elusive. To avoid spiralling, I’m currently taking encouragement from those seeking to go high when others go low – those pointing not only to evidence and certain legal safeguards that we have in Australia but also to the many, many people, communities, workplaces and leaders who still value inclusion – who voted for change, who work to implement it, who quietly get on with the job. Although I wasn’t looking for it from a formal occasion, I was also encouraged by a recent visit to RMIT from the Governor-General of Australia who, through actions and words that exemplified humanity, reminded us that her term in office is going to be defined by ‘care’.
That particular word felt like a strangely radical concept in the current environment – yet care for our clients, communities and colleagues will need to be a defining characteristic over the course of the next few years. This means shelving the almost inevitable territorialism that develops in every sector which competes for government funding, whether that be service provision or research. Although debates about the merits of particular approaches may play out at a seemingly intellectual level, they drain our emotional energy and time, as well as distract us from the main game. Similarly, divisions can be used as leverage by those seeking to undermine the fundamental premise of our collective work.
While many of us feel overwhelmed by the shifts occurring across Australia and around the globe, therefore, there are steps we can take – even in our own seemingly limited spheres – for human rights, for self-determination and for diversity, equity and inclusion in 2025.
Clearly, we must get on with our work to support those in increasing need and those feeling additionally vulnerable. Equally, we need to build and bank evidence, including by drawing on and honouring lived and living expertise, as well as the grace and generosity of those who share it. Part of our efforts will also require prioritisation of shared goals, not disputes; and a modelling of behaviours that we want to see elsewhere. In other words, we need to celebrate our collaborations – both within our workplaces and across partnerships – that, in our focus on the end goal, we can sometimes take for granted.
Most of all we need to maintain our clarity of sight and to plant our feet more firmly – steadying each other so that we don’t relinquish ground or lose direction. So that, when the opportunity comes, we’re not picking ourselves up, we’re simply moving forward again.
CIJ Staff Insights vol.1
Written by Elena Campbell
Published 14 February 2025