Breath, Breathing, and Australian anti-Asian Racism: Critical Collaborative Autoethonography as Anti-Racist Inquiry

Racialised violence against Asian communities, (re)illuminated and (re)amplified during events like COVID-19 and the 2021 Atlanta massacre, reflects global patterns of anti-Asian racism. In Australia, Asian communities face similar everyday racisms rooted in Orientalist fears of the invading Other. This critical co-constructed autoethnography by two Asian Australian educators examines the entanglement of anti-Asian racism and the metaphor of breath to interrogate the suffocating nature of Australia’s race relations. Through collaborative embodied vignettes, we explore how racism restricts belonging and movement, acknowledge entanglements with ongoing colonial violence against First Nations peoples, and seek solidarities through a politics of hope.