School of Social and Political Sciences - Theses
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ItemConsuming Asianness in Australia : identity, capital and class( 2004)In this thesis I aim to investigate the consumption of 'Asianness' in Australian society. I account for the actions of individuals and groups who, during the Keating era of government, acted upon the Keating rhetoric of engagement with Asia by exhibiting a desire for 'Asianness'. I use the term 'Asianness' to include all goods and knowledge that have, or are informed by, a distinctly Asian identity, including Asian art, spirituality, design, fashion, food and business practice. I argue that the consumption of 'Asianness' by such individuals and groups is a means to attain distinction; it is a marker of identity which has particular meaning and currency in Australian society. I investigate this phenomenon by firstly providing a genealogy of the idea of Asia in the Australian national psyche. Australia's relationship with Asia at the beginning of the nineteenth century was dominated by a mood of fear and hostility. However, amongst some members of the population an interest in Asia was exhibited. It is this dichotomy of fear and desire which is the hallmark of Australia's relationship with Asia. I argue that the idea of Asia at the turn of the century and beyond played an integral role in the construction of the Australian nation. It is important to document the history of the relationship between Asia an Australia before moving on to examine the shift in Australia's attitudes towards Asia during the Keating era. No longer feared or hated, Asia was perceived as desirable in a variety of ways. It is the refashioning of attitudes towards Asia, and therefore Australian identity, by the Keating government which is detailed in chapter two. I argue that under the discourse of multiculturalism in the 1990s 'Asianness' was conceived as a commodity to be consumed by the Australian public. Through a number of examples from national broadsheets and magazines I detail the pervasiveness of this consumption in everyday life. In answering the question of who consumes 'Asianness' in Australian society and why? I have found the work of Pierre Bourdieu to be instructive. Bourdieu allows us to explain why certain people consume particular goods and the motivation behind such consumption choices. I argue that the consumption of 'Asianness' is an activity which is indicative of a particular group in Australian society; the cosmopolitan class. Termed 'cosmo-multiculturalists' by Ghassan Hage (1998), this group of Australians came to prominence during the Keating era. It is through the consumption of 'Asianness' that this group distinguishes itself from others.
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ItemAustralian new left politics, 1956-1972( 2009)A study of the Australian New Left might not immediately appear pertinent to contemporary society. Adherents of New Right economics have been, until recently, unshakable in their global ascendancy over the past three decades. From Russia to Tanzania, discourses of neo-liberalism have become so deeply entrenched in world politics and trade that they have been adopted by the transitional states of Eastern and Central Europe, along with other less developed countries in the international system, despite the fact that all have very different cultural histories and levels of economic development. There have been few exceptions, with one example Hugo Chavez's Venezuela. The discrediting during the global oil crisis of the mid-1970s of the post-WWII orthodoxy of Keynesian economics, social democracy and the Welfare State has played its role in this paradigm shift. More pertinent to the radical left may be that the legacy of Soviet Communism's 'terrors and errors' still looms large in the consciousness of socialist thought, provoking disagreement over what can be salvaged from the cadaver of Marxist theory. The increasing specialisation and integration of world marketplaces since the 1960s has also led to questions over whether the notion of a working class - so essential to Marx's utopian revolution - still exists at all. The rise of 'identity politics' and the relativism of postmodernist thought, seen as at the cutting edge of academic theory since the 1970s, have represented further challenges to those desiring to rebuff the entrenched global logic of consumer capitalism. Capitalism is the only 'meta-narrative' left uncontested by postmodernists, while other ideologies - such as Marxism, feminism and even the discipline of history - are criticised for their failure to adequately address the realities of difference within the groups (i.e. workers, women) that they focus upon. This thesis re-examines a time when the left commanded a degree of mainstream popularity; when hundreds of thousands of Australians took to the streets to protest against the government, and when, however briefly, Marxist sympathisers constituted respectable numbers in academic circles, to ascertain what lessons, if any, might be learnt for 'socialist humanist' campaigns today. The anti-globalisation campaigns of the past decade and recent concerns regarding climate change represent hope as starting points for contemporary mass radicalism. Recently, I travelled beside a thoughtful and articulate man in his late fifties who had been a student at the University of Western Australia during the early 1970s. He had been acutely aware of radicals at other campuses such as Monash at this time, and laughed dismissively that student activists were still saying the same things nowadays. While my travelling companion was amused that contemporary student radicals continue to subscribe to what he sees as archaic and refuted ideas and philosophies, I believe that this constancy is due to the fact that New Left criticism remains highly applicable today.
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ItemThe eschatology of the image( 2001)This research considers the visualisation of the dead body throughout forensic and aesthetic discourse. Weighted toward the photographic image of the dead, the thesis explores routines of framing and composition in forensic practices, and the maneouvres of aesthetic pieces, to more fully understand the ways in which images of the dead body endure in the living community. By examining interdisciplinary practices of representing the dead body in law, criminology, art and forensic medicine, the thesis engages with the conundrum of death and dead bodies in culture. The paradox identified is one of visibility and invisibility, of acknowledgement and denial, which constitutes cultural relations of remembrance and retrieval of dead bodies by way of the image. Of critical concern throughout is the problematisation of visual truth, which repeatedly gives rise to questions of indexation and faith in the sights and sites of the dead. Focussing on the imaging of the dead body in diverse cultural spaces (such as mortuaries and art exhibitions) highlights the way in which these bodies disappear, are indexed to 'evidence', and how cultural practices perform their return. In the panic and disquiet that erupts at the representation of the dead, there remain places of palliation and commemoration, filtered through both forensic and aesthetic pictures and practices. Rather than claiming the body for definite conclusion, the research argues towards the rupturing of the evidentiary. Correspondingly, of crucial importance is the levelling of critical room for forensic images to encourage alternative visions. That is, to outlive evidential concerns. In addition, by revising aesthetic documents created in spaces of formal summary (such as forensic mortuaries), the thesis embraces the aesthetic translation of the dead body for its clues of the real. This thesis traces the imaged dead body to establish a challenge - to reframe notions of evidence both in forensic address and aesthetic display.
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ItemConservative radicals: Australian neoconservatism and its intellectual antecedents( 1989)This study charts the rise of Australian neoconservatism. With reference to a range of influences which coalesced in the journal Quadrant, it is argued that the genesis of a new intellectual conservatism had its origins in the decade of the 1950s, and that it has reached its culmination in the contemporary phenomenon of neoconservatism. Correspondingly, it is contended that recognition of this evolution reveals the longstanding inadequacies of depictions of 'the right' in this country, and the wider implications of this for Australian critique. A preliminary chapter discusses the shortcomings of conceptual approaches to the topic of Australian conservatism, and indicates the ways in which they are challenged by the neoconservative evolution. Part I considers the components of an informal alliance which crystallized in the 1950s, gravitated towards the journal Quadrant, and lay the foundations for a new conservatism. It is argued that despite their disparity, important common ground existed between a Jewish-European component of Australian society, a Catholic component, and a group influenced by Sydney philosopher John Anderson. A focus on founding Quadrant editor James McAuley completes this discussion of neoconservative antecedents, and highlights both the commonality and diversity of sources from which the new conservatism would emerge. Part II traces the evolution of neoconservative critique with reference to some of its central and recurrent themes. It is shown that neoconservative concerns were prefigured in the early Cold War period, and that these have been heightened and amplified in the light of ensuing developments. Such themes include the depiction of a 'new class' within society, and the rise of an 'adversary culture'; both of which were given impetus by developments of the 1960s. Exploration of the continuity and character of this evolving critique also underlines the inadequacy of critical approaches to it. In this way, it is shown that the emergence of Australian neoconservatism simultaneously demands reappraisal of the ways in which Australian intellectual traditions are conceptualized.
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ItemStolen generations: the forcible removal of aboriginal children from their families: identity and belonging( 2000)Stolen Generations: 'Identity and Belonging' explores the ways in which members of the Stolen Generations have sought to make sense of, and establish their sense of belonging and negotiate their Indigenous identities. In order to appreciate the uniqueness of the Stolen Generation experience and the challenges faced by individuals in forging their places of belonging, understanding the climate and context in which members of the Stolen Generations lived in is vital. Members of the Stolen Generations were confronted with and have had to come to terms with the paradoxes of history. Members of the Stolen Generations were taken away by, and raised in the very cultures and systems that damaged their societies of origin, and which continued to stigmatise Aboriginality as inferior. Within this context of analysis, the research gives attention to the various ways in which Aboriginal individuals in non-Aboriginal care came to their earliest sense of their Aboriginality. This exploration acts as a commentary of the construction of Aboriginality within the wider non-Aboriginal context - the stereotypes, the racism and the ignorance that informed those opinions. The ensuing search for a fuller understanding of what Aboriginality means to those members of the Stolen Generations is a highly complex and challenging one. For those trying to re-establish their ties with their birth families and communities, the years of physical and cultural isolation make it difficult for individuals to unproblematically find their place/s within the Indigenous families and to negotiate their Indigenous identities. Added to this, the experience of finding places of belonging and acceptance are inevitably shaped and determined by the attitudes and responses of the Koori community towards members of the Stolen Generations. The phrase "bringing them home", which in many ways has become synonymous with the issue of the Stolen Generations, carries with it the assumption that those who were 'lost' simply make their way back home, back to a recognizable and pre-existing community that is ready to welcome these individuals with open arms. The present research draws attention to the fact for most, there is no simple and straightforward route 'home'. This research explores the complexity of this journey - giving careful attention to the ways in which this rupture from cultural heritage and family base poses challenges for those trying to find that 'home' or 'belonging place' and intricacies involved in the negotiation of those Indigenous identities.