Latest Articles

The Pandemic Reader

Posted on by Dr Zuleyka Zevallos
Sticker on the window of a train, says: Please wear a mask on public transport

My work on ‘Pandemic, Race and` Moral Panic’ has been published in a new book, ‘The Pandemic Reader: Exposing Social (In)justice in the Time of COVID-19.’ Edited by Assistant Professor Mako Fitts Ward, Professor Jennifer A. Sandlin, Michelle McGibbney Vlahoulis, and Dr Christine L. Holman, the book explores the social and political impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The Pandemic Reader offers critical perspectives on the sweeping injustices intensified by COVID-19 and the resurgence of racialised state violence. It offers context, data, viewpoints and solutions to collectively teach, learn, and thrive. It takes up abolitionist teaching methodologies—focusing not only on the many ways the pandemic has exacerbated injustice, but also on how individuals and communities are healing, expressing vulnerability, and building community—to amplify intersectional racial justice strategies across learning spaces. This collection is a pedagogical intervention to locate how individuals and communities propel us forward through the multiple pandemics of 2020.”

Read more here.

Interview: The Folk Devil Made Me Do It

Posted on by Dr Zuleyka Zevallos
A large building at dusk is obscrured by trees and darkness. A lit sign says: PANIC

I’ve been interviewed by NPR’s Code Switch on the growing political backlash about critical race theory. I discuss my research on moral panics about race. A moral panic is a situation or group positioned as a threat to social values. On the surface, it may seem nonsensical to ban critical race theory from schools, as it’s only taught at specialist university courses. Dig deeper: moral panics have always mobilised against a specific issue, and then moves to scale back other civic rights from minorities or marginalised groups.

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Interview: Interracial Friendships

Posted on by Dr Zuleyka Zevallos
Two friends sit at a restaurant talking intently

Below is an excerpt from a new interview with me, by Santilla Chingaipe, published on ABC Life.

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Short Story

Posted on by Dr Zuleyka Zevallos

On 5 September 2025, I was awarded second prize in the adult category of the Melton City Libraries Short Story Competition. The competition received over 300 entries. My story, ‘The Foreboding,’ is a speculative fiction set in the near future:

An onyx ring has appeared on the outer corners of Dalia Quispe’s eye. As the darkness spreads, Dalia must fight her job’s human resources automated system to seek medical treatment. Meanwhile, her work threatens to drain more than her sight.

The competition judge was the imitable Alice Pung OAM. It is a profound honour to receive Alice’s feedback. Her books about Chinese Cambodian women in the Western suburbs of Naarm, Melbourne, have been nourishing and inspiring. (Alice signed my copy of Unpolished Gem!) My work similarly focuses on migrant women of colour from working class backgrounds, on the west of Wurundjeri Country. I explore alternate futures of family, work, and the environment. Below is part of Alice’s comments about my story.

‘I loved this story for its slight speculative fiction bent, its inventiveness. I admire how it builds an alternate world that is just convincing enough to seem real, but that has a few details that are off-kilter enough to unsettle the reader. The premise is so ambitious, yet the subtlety and attention to detail is there, saving it from becoming an outlandish Black Mirror episode to a disquieting and powerful satire on work culture.’

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Race at Work Within Social Policy

Posted on by Dr Zuleyka Zevallos
Hands of a person of colour typing on a laptop

My chapter ‘Race at Work Within Social Policy,’ has been published in the book, Critical Racial and Decolonial Literacies: Breaking the Silence, edited by Dr Debbie Bargallie and Dr Nilmini Fernando. Read an excerpt below.

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Critical Race Studies and Intersectionality Responses to COVID-19

Posted on by Dr Zuleyka Zevallos
People walking outside Central Station, Sydney, near a COVID-19 testing clinic sign

My latest book chapter, Critical Race Studies and Intersectionality Responses to COVID-19, is available online now. The hardback textbook forthcoming.

This chapter is published as part of the book, Overlapping Inequalities in the Welfare State. It’s edited by Dr Başak Akkan, Dr Julia Hahmann, Dr Christine Hunner-Kreisel, and Dr Melanie Kuhn, and published by Springer. Read the abstract and introduction sections below.

Abstract

Race is a pervasive system that categorises and stratifies people in ways that maintain institutional and systemic inequality. Race has impacted the evolving management of public health responses to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic around the world. In Australia, state governments imposed harsh policing of migrant and refugee working class people that were not applied to white middle class people. The Government failed to meaningfully engage Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in early public health planning, leaving communities who were at high risk from the virus to autonomously coordinate action without substantial state support. This chapter presents a case study of the webseries, Race in Society. The series featured Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander scholars and practitioners, and other people of colour researchers from Australia who examined public discourses of race and the pandemic. The chapter uses the concept of intersectionality to illustrate how the welfare state exercises multiple domains of power to maintain racial inequality, even during the public health crisis of COVID-19. This chapter provides guidance for educators and researchers on how to apply critical race perspectives into their own scholarship, teaching, and activism.

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Interview: Interracial Dating

Posted on by Dr Zuleyka Zevallos

Below is an excerpt from a new interview with me, by Lauren Ironmonger, published on Sydney Morning Herald. It covers Interracial dating in Australia.

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Public Harassment Prevention

Posted on by Dr Zuleyka Zevallos
Two figures walk from a brightly lit room into a neon blue corridor, where a man waits

My research has been published in Italian! Le Sociologie has translated my advice on how institutions can improve policies, practices and resources in response to public harassment of academics and researchers. Read ‘Sociologia Delle Politiche di Prevenzione Delle Molestie Pubbliche.’

Visibility, learning, and antiracism

Posted on by Dr Zuleyka Zevallos
A neon sign above a door in an indoor bar reads "Revolución"

I recently submitted my latest book chapter about how the sociology of race can enhance research methods. More on this in coming months. On 12 September, I will be speaking at an online panel ‘Risks of visibility in a forced spotlight.’ This is a conversation about how to deal with public harassment of researchers. I recently presented my research on improving outcomes for learners, at the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) conference. My other work has been featured on a national antiracism website, and in a couple of news articles.

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Education, Gender and Sexuality

Posted on by Dr Zuleyka Zevallos
A public sculpture in the Garden of Alexandria. Three gigantic books with a large rose in a dome

Today, I share a new book and two media citations of my research about education, masculinity, and heterosexism. The authors write from Australia, Indonesia, and Canada.

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Working on Social Change

Posted on by Dr Zuleyka Zevallos
Paste-up drawing on a wall, showing two women. One woman is sitting and holds an electric drill. The other woman stands and holds scales of justice

Happy New Year! Today I summarise my major projects for the past year, covering public health, vocational training, disability, technology, and gender equity.

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Friends, Diversity and Morality

Posted on by Dr Zuleyka Zevallos
People walking in Circular Quay, Sydney, with the Sydney Opera House in the background

Three new books cite my work on otherness, as well as my research on gender and sexuality. These works cover friendships, diversity and inclusion, and morality.

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