From resurgent racisms to longstanding Islamophobia from settler colonial refusals of First Nations voices to border politics and migration debates âfree speechâ has been weaponised to target racialized communities and bolster authoritarian rule. Unsettled Voices identifies the severe limitations and the violent consequences of âfree speech debatesâ typical of contemporary cultural politics and explores the possibilities to combat racism when liberal values underpin emboldened white supremacy. What kind of everyday racially motivated speech is protected by such an interpretation of liberal ideology? How do everyday forms of social expression that vilify and intimidate find shelter through an inflation of the notion of freedom of speech? Furthermore how do such forms refuse the idea that language can be a performative act from which harm can be derived? Racialized speech has conjured and shaped the subjectivities of multiple intersecting participants reproducing new and problematic forms of precarity. These vulnerabilities have been experienced from the sound of rubber bullets in the Occupied Palestinian Territories to UK hate speech legislation to the spontaneous performace of a First Nations war dance on the Australian Rules football pitch. This book identifies the deep limitations and the violent consequences of the longstanding and constantly developing âfree speech debatesâ typical of so many contexts in the West and explores the possibilities to combat racism when liberal values are âweaponizedâ to target racialized communities. This book was originally published as a special issue of Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies. . Language: English