School of Geography - Theses
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ItemChanging Vibes, Precarious Lives: The Experiences & Hardships of Melbourne 'Hospo-Workers' During the Covid-19 Pandemic( 2023)In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic engendered a series of economic and social crises along intersecting fault lines and through multiple spatialities. These crises impacted local and global economic flows, reshaped urban spaces, produced new (im)mobilities, and intensified the vulnerability and exploitation of precarious individuals and communities. This thesis seeks to explore how workers in Melbourne’s hospitality sector were impacted by the pandemic; how their work changed, the hardships they experienced as a result, and the tactics they developed to respond to these hardships. The thesis builds on pre-existing research on labour and precarity to affirm the affective nature of work, and the extent to which precarity has become a predominant condition of economic and cultural life. By conducting a series of in-depth qualitative interviews with individuals who worked in Melbourne’s hospitality sector during the pandemic, it expands geographic understandings of the cultural and economic geographies of hospitality and its labour-market. It also conceptualises how individuals identify and express affective attachment to hospitality work by developing a typology around respondents’ colloquial invocation of ‘hospo’ and ‘vibe’. This thesis also elucidates how respondents enacted a range of tactics which resisted oppressive and exploitive management strategies across embodied and digital spatialities. It concludes that, despite economic, emotional, social and embodied hardships experienced during the pandemic, ‘hospo-workers’ demonstrated individual and collective capacities for agency, enacting them in the hopes of destabilising the entrenched exploitation and flexibilisation of labour in the hospitality sector, and strengthening the networks of care and social connections that emerge amongst workers in Melbourne venues.
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ItemNot/ at Risk: A Case Study of Young Adult Perspectives on COVID-19 and Vaccination in Melbourne( 2021-12-07)Given the importance of vaccination in halting the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic across the globe, research on vaccine intention and hesitancy in specific place-based contexts is vital (Butter et al. 2021; Craddock 2000; Dubé & MacDonald 2020; Piltch-Loeb et al. 2021). Within Australia, studies exploring COVID-19 vaccine intentions both before and after the development of vaccines demonstrated varying results, meriting further analysis at a cohort level (Alley et al. 2021; To et al. 2021; Davis et al. 2021; Edwards et al. 2021). However, little research has explored young adult perspectives despite their increasing importance in the vaccine rollout, increased susceptibility to the delta variant, and higher risk of adverse effects from vaccination. To address this research gap, this thesis presents a case study of young adult experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic in Melbourne – the epicentre of the pandemic in Australia - and examines primary drivers and barriers towards vaccine intention as informed by broader socio-spatial and temporal contexts. A vaccine hesitancy-specific risk culture and healthism framework informs this study, predicated on vaccine decision-making reflecting an individual’s commitment to minimising personal risk and maximising health benefits (Peretti-Watel et al. 2015). Through semi-structured interviews conducted in July of 2021, this thesis explores the attitudes and beliefs of young adults during a critical period, as the delta variant presented an emerging threat, but vaccine access was still largely age-restricted. Two major themes emerged: COVID-19 risk perception among young adults was experienced at multiple scales, from the global to individual; and perceived marginalisation of young adults by a conservative government in the vaccine rollout was experienced through the lens of past vulnerability and potential future insecurity.
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ItemMuseums in the time of COVID-19: visitor participation and experience at Immigration Museum and Sovereign Hill( 2021)Immigration Museum, Melbourne and Sovereign Hill, Ballarat are two iconic sites of Victoria, the cultural capital of Australia. Tied together by their histories of immigration, I aim to decipher the socio-cultural impacts of these sites during the precarious time of COVID-19. Through the perspective of eight interview participants and their shared multimedia, I analyse the visitor experience during 2021. The research findings are organised around the central themes of representation, time, and culture: representation meaning static versus progressive representations of the world at these sites; time meaning the COVID-19 reflections on these sites; and culture meaning how these sites foster connection and creativity during a crisis. I argue that these museums are fundamental to our sense of state identity, provide an escape from reality, and transport us to both confronting and optimistic times. In providing an insight into these sites during the time of COVID-19, this research contributes to the emerging scholarship of place-making, identity, social media and community during a time of disconnect at museums globally.
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ItemCitizenship in crisis: international students, food insecurity and the COVID-19 pandemic in Melbourne( 2021)Between the months of March and December 2020, food insecurity emerged as key issue among the international student community of Melbourne. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in widespread job losses, and many international students - whose temporary migrant status rendered them with limited access to state support - experienced serious difficulties in accessing food. This thesis explores the nexus of citizenship and food insecurity in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic by drawing on 54 semi-structured, in-depth interviews with international students attending Victorian higher education institutions; 48 were conducted as a part of the Talking Hunger project on student food insecurity in Victoria and six were follow-up interviews. This research fills a gap in current qualitative work on the experiences of food insecurity among higher education students and adds to a growing body of literature concerning the dynamic nature of citizenship in moments of crisis. Theorising citizenship as the entitlements and responsibilities derived from membership to a community, I bring the practice and status elements of citizenship together in conversation with international students’ lived experience of food insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic. In doing so, I discuss participants’ reflections on the nature of their membership to formal institutions namely the state and education institutions within the context of an acutely felt and interconnected experience of COVID-19 induced food insecurity. Furthermore, I demonstrate how students engaged in novel practices of citizenship based in care, empathy and solidarity in responding to food insecurity. This thesis therefore makes a contribution to the literature on food insecurity and citizenship in moments of crisis.