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 | Biography |  |
Researcher: Sociology, Migration, Ethnicity, Transnational and Transracial Adoption, Family Studies, Race Willing is a sessional and guest lecturer in sociology at the School of Social Science, UQ.
Her teaching includes 'Introduction to Sociology', and the third year capstone course, 'Sociology: Current Issues and Debates', which includes topics such as migration, celebrities, media, image, identity and youth culture, sport, families and gender.
Committed to community engaged and socially inclusive research outlooks, her established and developing research interests combined spans issues of migration, ethnicity, family studies, and transnational adoption, and include theories of transnationalism, cosmopolitanism, critical race studies and queer theory.
Willing completed a PhD in Sociology at the School of Social Science at UQ. Her thesis explored Australian parents who adopt children from Asia and Africa. She also has a MA by Thesis, where she studied Vietnamese adoptees, and a BA in Communication (Film Major) from The University of Technology, Sydney. Willing was also a Rockefeller Fellow in the Humanities for the Vietnamese Diaspora project at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. She has also received a Medal in the Order of Australia (OAM) for her volunteer work with the Adopted Vietnamese International community.
She has published on the topic of transnational adoption, celebrity studies, cosmopolitanism and cultural diversity, issues of racism and heteronormativity, and also on the Vietnamese disapora. She also has extensive community experience in the area of adoption, and has also been invited to discuss her research and community experiences for the Attorney General's national advisory group on adoption in 2011, at the Australian Federal Government's 2020 Summit in 2008, at national and international conferences, and at various Queensland advisory groups and education sessions.
Willing is also currently a Research Fellow at Griffith University for an ARC Discovery Project 'Cosmopolitan Encounters' (2013 - 2015) exploring Australian encounters with cultural diversity in everyday environments, and is the Co-Convener of the Asian Australian Film Forum and Network (AAFFN).
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