School of Social and Political Sciences - Theses
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ItemRemembering wartime rape in post-conflict Bosnia and Herzegovina( 2018)Remembering Wartime Rape explores the complicated history of rape during the Bosnian war (1992-1995) and the collective efforts of local populations to (dis)remember the painful legacies of violence over more than two decades since the close of conflict. The organised sexual assaults of more than 20,000 women and girls was a defining characteristic in the history of Bosnia’s bloody secession from the former Yugoslav federation and the memories of such violence continue to influence the post-war recovery of communities throughout the small Balkan state. The research draws on intimate accounts of women’s suffering over the four years of conflict as well as personal stories of survival in the aftermath of the violence to provide a thick description of the place of rape narratives in Bosnia’s post-conflict memoryscape. Ethnographic data was collected over an extended period of 21 months in the two key fieldwork locations of Selo and Gradić in the Republika Srpska. The distinctive political, economic, religious, and social contexts in each community produced different dominant mnemonic threads as well as many and varied ways of collectively managing the sensitive local histories of war rape. The public discourse on the subject is, thus, explored through different notional frames as they emerged organically in each site over the course of fieldwork. The dissertation specifically employs the theoretical schemata of public secrecy (Taussig, 1999) and its relevance to the sensitive task of memory making in the village of Selo, and the grey zone (Levi, 1989) and its bearing on the recollections of women concentration camp survivors in the town of Gradić. In adopting these two principal thematic frameworks, Remembering Wartime Rape focuses on the discursive processes through which memories of sexual violence from the recent conflict are selected, shaped, and institutionalised in each of the key communities. It questions the ways in which women survivors are represented or erased in the crafting of official histories and the consequences of such for fostering social solidarity and division among those with competing versions of the ‘truth’. In doing so, the research considers which elements of women’s experiences of rape are more easily remembered and which are excluded or deliberately ‘forgotten’, which are grieved, and which are valorised, what complex reality is simplified as a result, and what broader purpose these interpretations serve. The research concludes with a discussion of the importance of enhancing current methodologies to explore more thoroughly the limits and the possibilities for both collective and personal mourning and for re-imagining social worlds in the aftermath of an immense disruption such as war. In exploring the messiness of the Bosnian memoryscape two decades after the close of conflict, the dissertation refrains from any attempt to establish a singular metanarrative of war rape and, instead, seeks to evoke a sense of the ineffable experience of living alongside memories of sexual violence in their countless manifestations and of the meanings and creativity always inherent in both individual and collective approaches to suffering, survival, and post-war reconstruction.
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ItemThe youth of Panama: everyday negotiations of neoliberal development in an urban context( 2018)This thesis provides an ethnographic analysis of how young lower middle-class urban Panamanians navigate and negotiate neoliberal macro-economic transformations that have accelerated since the 1990s, from increasingly precarious and marginalised positions in society. Unlike much of Latin America which has gained global interest through the turn to centre-left and leftist governments in recent years, Panama has consistently adopted market-oriented policies following structural adjustments programs. Particularly under the administration of former right-wing president, Ricardo Martinelli, the nation has capitalised on its geographic position as a global and regional hub to market itself to the global community through economic goals that seek to attract flows of international capital and foreign investment. It has subsequently focused its attention on developing Panama as an ideal site for luxury tourism, residential migration, and for multinational corporation regional headquarters, leading it to often be described as the most cosmopolitan metropolis in Central America. In spite of this, Panama remains greatly overlooked by anthropologists as a site of study for urban neoliberal development. From within the deepening of Panama’s global market integration, young Panamanians have found themselves navigating the intricacies of everyday urban life within structural conditions that increasingly favour the interests of the international and national elite. Their experiences in this thesis thus emerge as precarious, as known certainties of everyday activities like travelling to and from work, utilising or simply having linguistic or racial autonomy, or transitioning from education into stable waged-labour, are slowly eroded in favour of free market ethics of competition, austerity, and self-responsibilisation. This thesis seeks to capture the more surprising and unexpected ways in which market-oriented policies take shape in the Panamanian context. It pays heed to many unintended consequences of these market-led reforms such as traffic congestion and growing racial divides, and it posits that young Panamanians in this study emerge as important prisms through which various neoliberally-related social ills in Panama City become apparent. At the same time, it elucidates how young Panamanians quietly resist neoliberalism from subject positions in society. It posits that Panamanian youth uphold and create particular values and cultural practices such as interdependence and togetherness, that work against the needs of the Panamanian state.
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ItemThe winegrowers of Geelong and their search for the things that count( 2018)In the past fifty years there has been a boom in small-scale wine production on the periphery of large cities in temperate Australia. Geelong, in the southeast of Australia, is no exception. Two things are interesting about this movement, in Geelong at least. Firstly, despite the fact that growing grapes and making wine is largely a rural enterprise, traditional farmers are conspicuous by their absence. Secondly, it is well known that vineyard and winery work is hard and the economic rewards limited, yet people continue to engage in the production of wine. In my research, I have sought to explain what it is that draws people from the city to make wine. Many of these people use the French term terroir when they talk about their wines although many find it difficult to explain exactly what it means. In my research I examine the French notion of terroir, and in particular, the problem of translating the term into English. I develop an argument that to understand what terroir means, and indeed, to understand what is at stake for small-scale wine producers around the large post-industrial city of Geelong, requires a recalibration of the mind. I argue that many of those wine producers exhibit a sensibility better spoken of in terms of poetry rather that science or economics. Having reached that conclusion, I go on to explore whether this sensibility, found in the notion of terroir might not already exist in Australia in an Aboriginal concept of Country. In the light of our current ecological crisis, I ask whether fostering this sensibility might ameliorate some of the problems emerging in the rural sector and give us all model for securing a future worth living.