Christopher Sonn
Victoria University, Australia
Christopher is a full-time Associate Professor. He teaches in areas of community, cultural and liberation psychology and qualitative social research methods. His research is in the area of sense of community, social identity, immigration, and intergroup relations.
A major focus of his research is on understanding non-dominant group responses to oppression, including racism. He has investigated the adaptation of different immigrant communities to Australia as well as the responses of Indigenous Australians to dominant group settings and stories. His focus is on understanding the multiple and often hidden resources and structures that groups develop to help protect valued cultural identities, to resist oppression, and to promote liberation.
Christopher was a Mellon Distinguished Scholar (2010) at the University of the Witwatersrand where he currently holds a Visiting Professor position. He was a Senior Visiting Researcher at the Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of Bologna in 2012 and visiting scholar at Pontificio Universidad de Catolica, Valparaiso, Chile in September 2016. He is a lead researcher on the international Apartheid Archive Project based in South Africa.
Christopher has written numerous articles and book chapters in the related fields of critical, community and liberation psychology on topics of migration, race and racism, whiteness studies, and creative and critical approaches to individual and community change.
Link to full CV and publications