26/10/2025
REGISTRATION NOW OPEN
Dragon Tails 2025 conference
Brisbane, 27-30 November
We are excited to announce that registration is now open for the 8th Dragon Tails conference on Chinese Australasian history and heritage. With 30 papers from around Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand, and tours of Brisbane's Chinese heritage, this year's conference will be an exciting gathering of community and scholars.
Conference theme: Relationships
Location: George Williams Hotel, 317-325 George St, Brisbane
Convenors: Natalie Fong, Paul Macgregor & Karen Schamberger
Conference dates: Thurs 27 – Sun 30 November 2025
Thursday 27 - pre-conference tours and events
Friday 28 to Sunday 30 - conference proceedings
Website: www.dragontails.org.au
CONFERENCE OUTLINE - RELATIONSHIPS
Chinese people have been migrating to Australasia from the 19th century to today. They and their descendants had relationships with each other as well as non-Chinese people which ranged from being co-operative to having conflict. This year’s conference theme highlights the role of relationships in shaping the lives of Chinese Australasians as well as the world around them. Papers will explore relations between Chinese people within the same family, clan or district as well as relations with those outside the Chinese community, including agents who contracted them, employers, officials, and governments as well as with neighbours, First Nations people, customers and other business people.
Working the land and with animals as shepherds, gardeners, land-clearing, fishing and mining meant that Chinese people also developed particular understandings of their new environments, and relations with other species. Through the 20th and 21st centuries, students, skilled migrants, refugees and business-people arrived, not only from China and Taiwan, but also from South East Asia and elsewhere expanding the types and numbers of relations. Wherever people move, they bring their traditions, beliefs and politics all of which continue, break and create new relations.
To register:
www.dragontails.org.au
