Dr Mammad Aidani
Williamson Research Fellow
- Telephone:
- 8344 3665
- Email:
- maidani@unimelb.edu.au
- Fax:
- (+61 3) 9347 7731
- Location:
- Rm 202, 137 Barry St
Australian Centre, Carlton VIC 3053
Academic Profile (click on the link for more information)
Biography
Mammad is an interdisciplinary scholar with a background in socio-linguistics, philosophy, literature, and psychology. Mammad completed his Bachelor of Arts Degree at the University of Queensland in Australia. He majored in Italian language and culture, and philosophy. He completed a Masters Degree in socio-linguistics at the University of Melbourne. His MA thesis focused on second language acquisition and identity construction of Persian speaking migrants in Australia. Mammad is fluent in Persian and Dari (Afghan) languages.
In 2007 he completed a PhD ‘Displaced Narratives of Iranian migrants and refugees: Constructions of Self and the Struggle for Representation’, in the School of Psychology at Victoria University, Australia. The thesis is a phenomenological study of displacement and its narrative representation of relations between place and identity. It situates the storied nature of Iranian displacement in three historical settings: the 1979 revolution, the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988), and 9/11 2001. This doctoral study contextualizes the narratives of Iranian migrants and refugees within these historical periods to draw out discourses of representation in the social production of historical memory, and the connection between historical events and their lived experiences.
Mammad is also a playwright and was the Director of Creative Writing at Footscray Community Arts Centre. During his period at Footscray Community Arts Centre he worked with youth, migrants and refugees, on participatory theatre projects. These theatre performances enabled these diverse community groups to appear in public with their stories without shame. Mammad’s plays have been performed both in Australia and overseas.
His play An Idiot Amongst Us (1996) was shortlisted for the Green Room Award for best play and production. A Few Steps Not Here Not There (2001) was shortlisted for the Green Room Award category of outstanding writing, directing and acting.
His play Mother Dust had its first reading in May 2004 at the Nuffield Theatre, UK. It was also performed at the experimental theatre Green Room Theatre in Manchester in 2006 and in 2007 was staged at the Contact Theatre, Manchester.
Research
Mammad is intrested in the interdisciplinary dialogue between phenomenological method and theories of meaning, social suffering and embodiment, displaced narratives of Iranian and Middle-Eastern migrants and refugees, Persian literature, Iranian cultural and religious identities in the West, belonging and the political imagination and ‘Otherness’ as a key phenomena of Middle Eastern narratives in contemporary Australian society.
Mammad has conducted research and teaching at Lancaster University, UK. He conducted a small research project on South Asian youth and identity construction in North West England.
Current Research Project
Mammad is conducting research on Afghani, Kurdish and Iranian men’s narratives of displacement and exile in Australia. This research is comparative in nature and examines how displacement and trauma structures and mediates social interaction and association with Australian society as well as their place of origin.
Teaching
Mammad has taught at The University of Melbourne, La Trobe University, Victoria University, and Lancaster University, UK. He taught in disciplines ranging from migration and refugee studies, creative writing, screenplay, theatre, philosophy and social psychology.
Research Supervision
Mammad is open to research proposals in the areas of displacement studies, cosmopolitanism, Middle Eastern life narratives both in oral and written forms that examine the identity and displacement. He is also intrested in arts (visual, autobiographical writing and theatre) and phenomenological-based research that examines questions of self, identity, otherness and belonging.