School of Social and Political Sciences - Theses
Permanent URI for this collection
Search Results
1 - 2 of 2
-
ItemA voice for animals: the creation, contention & consequences of the modern Australian animal movement, 1970-2015( 2015)During the unrest and upheaval of the 1970s and at a time when social movements were struggling for liberation and justice, a fresh wave of animal activism emerged in Australia. From the rearing of pigs and poultry in intensive farms, the slaughter of Australian sheep and cattle in the Middle East and South East Asia, the use of animals in research, the shooting of native waterbirds, to the consumption of meat, across Australia the modern animal movement consistently contested the politics and culture of how animals were used and exploited. Engaging with diverse approaches to studying social movements, exploring previously unexamined archives, and through interviews with current and former leading activists, this thesis offers the first major historical study of the creation, contention, and consequences of animal activism in modern Australian history. Through an account of the ideas of animal rights and by analysing other dynamics and processes, this thesis tells the story of how ordinary people were inspired to take action and create the modern animal movement. By exploring the development and performance of a wide variety of protest methods, such as lobbying, direct action, civil disobedience, open rescue, undercover investigations, and lifestyle activism, this thesis reveals the often innovative and provocative ways in which activists made their claims and challenged the status quo. In doing so, this thesis also examines a set of complex and conflicting outcomes, for the animal movement affected the political agenda, policy, industry, media and communication, and the very fabric of society. Over time, activists influenced and pluralised Australian politics, society, and culture, although not necessarily in the ways they desired. Ultimately, through narrating and analysing the modern animal movement, this thesis reveals how and why ordinary people engaged in politics and activism, and uncovers the extent and limits of the changes they stimulated.
-
ItemImagining the Australian nation: settler-nationalism and aboriginality( 1999-11)The thesis examines different forms of Australian setter-nationalism, and their impact upon settler/indigenous relations. I examine the way that the development of specific forms of settler national consciousness has influenced the treatment of, thought about, and feeling towards the indigenous as a people or peoples. I claim that discourses of the nation operate, in an ongoing way, as shaping forces in everyday and public policy responses to the collective situation of Australia's indigenous peoples, and to the perception of their place in Australian society. The first part of the thesis provides a theoretical framework for understanding Australian settler-nationalism, drawing upon major theories of nationalism, postcolonialism and psychoanalysis. I provide a historical and political analysis of white Australian nationalism, emphasising its racist underpinnings, and its influence upon governmental policies of biological absorption and assimilation. The second part of the thesis analyses relations between settler Australia and indigenous peoples from the 1960s to the present. Drawing upon psychoanalysis, especially that of the British object-relations school pioneered by Melanie Klein, and many contemporary discourses of the nation, I develop an account of two specific modes of settler-nationalism, which I term assimilationist and indigenising. I examine the way that these different modes have influenced and shaped public debates on Aboriginal land rights and the movement for Aboriginal Reconciliation. The major political phases studied include: the events leading up to and surrounding the passing of the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976; the Hawke Labor Government’s attempt, between 1983 and 1986, to introduce national Aboriginal land rights legislation; what can be broadly characterised as the period “after Mabo”, including the political activity stirred by the High Court’s historic Mabo decision of 1992, the passing of the Native Title Act 1993, the Wik decision of 1996, the rise of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party, and the Native Title Amendment Act 1997; and the period of the Government process of Aboriginal Reconciliation from 1991 to the present.