Degree
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Law
Degree type
Higher Degree Research
Research project topic
Constructing subjectivities in neo-Colonial civil law
Research project
Sarouche is undertaking doctoral studies. His thesis is entitled:"Punishment, resurgence, and performativity: an exploration of constructing subjectivities in neo-Colonial civil law in Australia" and states:
In this project I aim to explore the ways the state punishes First Nations peoples in the Kimberley using civil law mechanisms, and the role that lawyers play in that process. I consider how First Nations peoples assert resurgent possibilities in response to the state, the role of legal practitioners working in the Kimberley, and my own role as a legal practitioner, and how that intersects with my identities as a Muslim, Afghan and Iranian. I seek to explore the literature around performativity, spatiality, and standpoint theories to contextualise the project.
Sarouche Razi is an interdisciplinary researcher and legal practitioner with expertise in the legal assistance sector, critical legal and pedagogical theories, police and state accountability, and decolonising the law.
He has worked primarily in legal service delivery in the community controlled and Aboriginal community controlled sector, and has been involved in significant court representation relating to historical injustices, and deaths in custody for First Nations Australians.
Sarouche volunteers as a pro bono lawyer at Kimberley Community Legal Services, works with the NSW Legal Assistance Forum, and continues to be involved in community radio broadcasting.
He is currently teaching the Prison Legal Literacy Course at the College of Law and is undertaking doctoral studies looking at civil law as a space of punishment of First Nations' peoples, and the role of legal representation in that space.
Significant research publications
- 2019: Klein, E, and Razi, S. “Contemporary tools of dispossession: The Cashless Debit Card Trial in the East Kimberley”, Journal of Australian Political Economy (Special Issue on Indigenous welfare policy), 82: 84-106
- 2017: Klein, E, and Razi, S, “The Cashless Debit Card and the East Kimberley”, Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research Working Paper, ANU, 121/2017, 1-18.
- 2015: Eggington, D, and Razi, S, “The Bogeyman in the Mirror: White Australia and the Proposal to Close Remote Communities in Western Australia”, Indigenous Law Bulletin, Vol. 8, No. 20, September/October 2015
- 2014: Barter, A, Razi, S, and Williams, V, “Why the caged bird sings: Issues with the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse” Indigenous Law Bulletin, Vol. 8, No. 13, July/August 2014
