School of Social and Political Sciences - Theses
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ItemClass, subjectivity, and the political in Pakistan: bridging the practice-theory divide in comparative political theory( 2019)In recent times, comparative political theorists have issued a call for pluralising political theory by going beyond the discipline’s primary reliance on the canon of western political thought. A key feature of this call has been to furnish new methods of studying non-western intellectual traditions with a focus on texts and their interpretation. This thesis supports the call for comparative political theorising but critically engages with methodological debates within comparative political theory (CPT). This thesis problematises the analytical focus on texts within CPT by challenging the predominance of textual scholasticism in comparative theorising. Consequently, this thesis argues for a greater focus within comparativist circles on real-world politics, practices, actions, protests, and lived experiences as tied to different subjectivities in post-colonial contexts. In particular, the thesis outlines, and makes the case for, a practice-based approach to CPT by drawing on fieldwork conducted amongst middle class lawyers in Pakistan who took part in the Lawyers’ movement (2007-2009). The thesis critically unpacks practices which underpin constructions of subjectivity within the Lawyers’ movement by drawing on stories, narratives, and lived experiences of lawyers who participated in the movement. Specifically, the thesis investigates meanings that lawyers attach to their participation in protests and delineates the limitations associated with idealisation of the rule of law, and subsequent imaginations of the political, in post-colonial Pakistan. The thesis concludes by outlining the contributions that a practice-based approach can make to the broader field of CPT by charting the advantages of going beyond binaries of ‘East’ and ‘West’ as well as ‘Western’ and ‘Non-Western’ to critically engage with relations of power that manifest themselves in real-world politics and constructions of the political in post-colonial settings.
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ItemWitch Camps in Northern Ghana: Contesting Gender, Development and Culture( 2019)This thesis examines the intersection between witchcraft and socio-economic development in Ghana. Scholars note that there has been an increase in witchcraft beliefs, practices and accusations in a number of post-colonial societies such as Ghana. This presents many challenges for how socio-economic development and modernity are understood and approached. The use of witchcraft to navigate, enhance and protect individual socio-economic circumstances is well-noted by many scholars not only in relation to Ghana but also a number of other societies, especially in parts of Africa. Debates in Ghana centre on cases of encampment of individuals, primarily women, who are accused of witchcraft. The thesis is based on an extended period of fieldwork in northern Ghana and the analysis of secondary data, including government reports and media accounts to highlight the divergent views and tensions associated with the so-called ‘witch camps’. The primary data collected involved participant observation during fieldwork in the Gnani witch camp, interviews with community members, staff of non-government organisations involved in providing services to camp communities and a number of government officials who are engaged at the local level with the camps. This thesis aims to provide a nuanced account of the divergent views of witchcraft and witchcraft accusations, as well as paying significant attention is also paid to the lived experiences of encamped women. Women, most of whom are elderly and poor, are disproportionately accused of practicing witchcraft and compelled to reside in witch camps due to ostracism, livelihood insecurity and in some cases threat to life. Understanding their life circumstances is especially important for highlighting the ways in which gender, age, socio-economic development, kinship and social relationships are implicated in witchcraft accusations. Overall, this thesis highlights the tensions between local realities and standardised development approaches that nominally include culture in their planning but ultimately view it as a barrier to development. The thesis argues for a rethinking of approaches to development that do not fully take into account the potential of culturally specific solutions to social inequalities. It also contributes to a better understanding of the limits associated with the neo-liberal paradigm of socio-economic development that is overwhelmingly promoted by government, NGOs, and external development actors and whereby local realities, experiences and understandings of development are rarely taken into consideration.
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ItemNo Preview Available‘Framing’ Negotiation: Participant perspectives on industry-Indigenous agreement-making in the resource extraction context( 2019)This thesis examines industry-Indigenous agreement-making with a focus on the diamond mine industry in Northern Canada. Agreement-making is posited as a platform for Indigenous voices and viewpoints, a mechanism to generate greater Indigenous autonomy in land and resource decision-making. To date, evaluations of agreement-making and its potential to engender autonomy, have mostly concentrated on parameters set by legal and policy architectures, and on outcome evaluation. Structural parameters and contextual factors at the meso political level are drawn into and inform negotiation as the ‘microprocess’ that shapes interaction and the outcomes produced. Despite this, insufficient attention is paid to parties’ engagement ‘on the ground’. This thesis helps to fill this gap. It contends that negotiation, namely parties’ actual interaction, is a critical site of agreement-making’s transformative potential. This study defines autonomy as agency and authorship within engagements. Arguably, ‘meaningful negotiation’ - being an equality of standing and opportunity for Indigenous voices and viewpoints - is required for this form of autonomy to be realised. ‘Meaningful negotiation’ must provide a generative platform in which parties can assert their values, understandings and practices and where these diverge, an ability to accommodate polysemy. The history of Indigenous-settler engagements reveals significant challenges in bringing about ‘meaningful negotiation’. Past settler-Indigenous engagements over land and resources have marginalised Indigenous peoples. These precedents reveal the imposition of Anglo-settler values, understandings and practices and unequal relations of power between these groups. Indigenous peoples have struggled to assert their autonomy through historic treaties and the formal recognition of international and domestic rights and recognition. Contemporary agreement-making has arisen to mediate ongoing settler-Indigenous conflict over land and resources. Proponents locate agreement-making within a valued ‘politics of recovery’ to contest and transform the status quo. Others, informed by settler-colonial and critical Indigenous theory, explicitly reject it as ‘redefining without reforming’. This thesis adopted a participant-based case study of the Impact Benefit Agreements of the diamond mining industry in the Northwest Territories, Canada. It examined the negotiation space through participant accounts, drawing on 28 qualitative interviews and primary and secondary document analysis. Its conceptual approach was informed by frame theory; ‘frames’ map where divergences arise and how these are mediated between the ‘sides’ negotiating. The study finds a number of factors worked to inhibit ‘meaningful negotiation’. This revealed itself as an inability to accommodate the most extreme points of divergence in values, understandings and practices. While some participants perceived the potential for greater autonomy within the negotiations of industry-Indigenous agreement-making, this proved contingent on the nature and scope of these divergences and their respective prospects for mediation.
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ItemMotherhood Statements: A discursive institutionalist analysis of the implementation of breastfeeding policy in Victoria( 2018)This thesis investigates the role of discourse in policy implementation in policymaking contexts characterised by few formal policy institutions. It does this by analysing the case study of the implementation of breastfeeding policy in the state of Victoria, using a discursive institutionalist framework specifically adapted for understanding policy implementation. Data about the case study was gathered through review of a corpus of breastfeeding policy documents and through semi-structured interviews with 19 key implementers of breastfeeding policy. The interview data was processed using a mixed deductive inductive coding approach based on grounded theory. The data was analysed through the lens of Schmidt’s (2008, 2011) discursive institutionalism, incorporating concepts from implementation theory. Several significant findings resulted from the data analysis. Firstly, it was found that in policymaking contexts with a few formalised policy institutions, discourse produces new institutions which mould how actors implement policy. The two types of new institution which have emerged in the Victorian breastfeeding sector are breastfeeding policy – an intertextual construct produced through the interrelationships of the mass of texts used by implementers – and the role descriptions of the non-public service actors involved in implementing breastfeeding policy. The findings showed these roles could be formalised, as in job descriptions of healthcare professionals, or informal, as in norms about being a good mother. Secondly, it was found that informal institutions are discursively arranged into relationships with each other, where one group defined by an institution is allowed to act in prescribed ways towards another group defined by an institution. The relationships between these groups are therefore power relations, and emerge out of attempts to solve the ‘problem’ of women failing to establish or maintain breastfeeding – a problem which is constituted by a conflict between individuals’ experiences and discursive ideals. As actors attempt to solve this problem, ideational structures proliferate in the form of narratives which explain the problem and proffer solutions to it. However, sometimes these narratives conflict with each other, producing additional discursive problems which must then be solved in turn. The most common solution to these problems involved prescribing courses of actions two institutionally defined groups may take with respect to each other. Further, it was found that, in addition to Schmidt’s (2008, 2011) identification of ‘communicative’ and ‘coordinative’ discourses, a ‘public’ discourse could be identified, where actors in the public sphere (who may be media figures or members of the public) speak to political actors about public policy, its purpose, and its effectiveness. This thesis is the first study to apply discursive institutionalism specifically to a problem of policy implementation. It therefore represents a new extension of critical policy theory into implementation studies. As detailed above, it generates a number of new findings about how policy implementation happens in institutional voids, which may also be applicable to other policymaking contexts. This thesis has also generated insights about how policy implementation happens that can form the basis of future theory-building of policy implementation as a discursive process.
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ItemRethinking Women’s Agency and Empowerment: Insights from Agricultural Households in Northern Ghana( 2019)This thesis seeks to represent the voices of local women regarding the concept of ‘women’s empowerment’. Although it is a dominant concept in development discourse, and one that has been extensively researched, what constitutes empowerment from local women’s perspectives—and the implications for their agency and realisation of outcomes in their specific contexts—remains poorly understood. Through an exploratory case study of local women’s perspectives and experiences and non-governmental organisation (NGO) interventions in Northern Ghana, this thesis engages with the concept of ‘women’s empowerment’ and highlights important gaps in the ways this concept is deployed in the development sector. Specifically, this thesis draws from ten months of qualitative fieldwork in the Upper West Region of Ghana, using in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, participant observations and document reviews to contribute a contextual insight into local meanings and factors underpinning women’s notions and pathways to empowerment in Ghana’s agricultural sector. My findings show that both NGOs and local women conceptualise empowerment as a process of change and a progression from conditions of powerlessness to conditions of relative control in the socio-political, economic, nutritional and informational domains. However, while NGO interest in these domains is driven by neoliberal donor development goals and requirements, with a focus on evidence-based measurable change and visible agency outcomes, women’s understandings of empowerment as change in these domains are underpinned by their pursuit of ‘cultural projects’ linked to marriage, motherhood and building relations of solidarity motivated by spiritual and psychosocial gains. As such, rather than harnessing politico-economic attainments to transform the hierarchical (unequal) power relations in which they are embedded, women define their ability to choose agency pathways that enable them to realise such culturally meaningful goals as empowerment, even when this ostensibly re/produces their subordination. Juxtaposing women’s perspectives with those of the NGOs, I show that because women construct empowerment within pre-existing socio-religious and gendered discourses on power—as well as their historically communal patriarchal cultural context—their empowerment is closely associated with agency pathways that promote cohesive relationships and interdependent complementarities from which they derive meaning and purpose in their lives. Therefore, I argue that, despite convergence in perspectives and the infiltration of neoliberal ideals, local women’s notions and pathways to empowerment are complex and nuanced by the prioritisation of culturally constituted non-material wellbeing achievements, as opposed to the evidence-based politico-economic and gender equality agenda of NGOs empowerment projects. Further, I assert that, while the focus on macro-level indicators of change is important for policy action, for effective planning towards sustainable change, sensitivity to women’s local realities of power/lessness and recognising the value of cultural projects to their empowerment is crucial. This thesis foregrounds women’s voices and allows us to appreciate that women’s struggle for empowerment is one for a change that is socio-culturally defined and valued by women, no matter how insignificant, and irrespective of whether such change promotes gender equality or undoes gender power asymmetries, as advocated for in dominant empowerment frameworks. This thesis also enriches the literature on the significance of incorporating ‘cultural projects’ into empowerment conceptualisation and practice.
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ItemDigitally altered: making news in the 21st century( 2019)Audience research demonstrates that online news has become a dominant source of news in Australia, especially for people under 40 years of age. Australians now obtain their news from online sites – such as Yahoo!7 News and news.com.au – in preference to traditional newspapers. Such sites are very important to the future of news journalism, yet they are vastly understudied – especially in Australia. This thesis, based on a study of a major digital aggregated online news organisation in Australia, Yahoo!7 News, investigated the question: How can the study of an Australian aggregated news site (Yahoo!7 News) contribute to our understanding of digital aggregated news production? This research project collected data from observations at Yahoo!7 News, interviews with the Yahoo!7 newsworkers and a content analysis of the Yahoo!7 News site and the Yahoo!7 social networking platforms (i.e. Facebook and Twitter). The data indicates that there were three dominant issues at Yahoo!7 News related to the role of the newsworkers and newsroom practices, the production of news content and the newsworkers’ perceptions of their audience. Firstly, the newsworkers acted as gatekeepers, tightly controlling the outflow of news by limiting the involvement of the Yahoo!7 News audience with the content they generated. Secondly, success was perceived through a prism of the ‘race to be first’, which caused newsworkers to prioritise and value speed and immediacy. And, finally, the newsworkers felt that their roles as news producers were not as highly valued by the traditional journalists. This thesis will analyse and discuss the implications of the findings from Yahoo!7 News and contribute to extending our understanding of digital aggregated news production.
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ItemMatters of Death: The Life of Altars in Contemporary Japan( 2019)This thesis examines transforming material relations with the dead in contemporary Japan focused on one artefact of Japanese death culture, the Buddhist altar or butsudan. Butsudan are complex material artefacts with deep histories of religious symbolism that have been a key site for ancestor veneration, Buddhist practice, and connecting with the dead in Japanese homes for many generations. They are also an unstable technology of mediating the dead in Japan. Once present in the vast majority of households, butsudan sales have seriously declined and traditional artisan products are being replaced by modern, fashion-conscious, and secular designs. The progressively marginal position occupied by butsudan in Japanese religious and family life has contributed to a growing sense of unease, if not crisis, within the religious goods industry and temple Buddhism. Decline occurs against a broader backdrop of transformation to Japanese death traditions, precipitated by demographic changes, secularisation, and economic stagnation. In an age of “precarity” (Allison 2013), in which the socio-religious structures once relied upon to secure a good death have significantly weakened, how do relations with the dead proceed? This thesis traces the dynamics by which artefacts of mediating the dead like butsudan emerge, circulate within religious and funerary economies, come to mediate intimate exchanges between the living and the dead, and ultimately fall into disuse. I draw on ethnographic fieldwork with artisans, retailers, consumers, and clergy, including several months working in Buddhist goods companies in Tokyo, Osaka, and Toyama. Attending to the rich details of material practice at the altar, I further elucidate modes of necrosociality beyond memorialisation, in particular, kuyo or veneration, as they operate in contemporary Japan. I suggest that kuyo requires an investment in material forms, either altars or their growing alternatives, which make the absent dead present, facilitating acts of care that are also practices of disposal and disconnection. The contemporary form of butsudan emerges out of collaborative efforts to care for the dead, which are increasingly reliant on commercial actors and which must be balanced with considerations of convenience, economy, and personal taste. The five main body chapters of this thesis trace the life course of butsudan, through sites of their crafting, retail, encounter, disposal, and innovation. This structure illuminates the mutability, and ultimately mortality, of necromaterial forms, which I argue is an increasingly significant factor in how people navigate relationships with the dead in Japan today.This thesis thus contributes to our broader understanding of how absence through death is made sensorially present through the life and death of material culture.
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ItemConsultation, Research and Policy Development; Lessons from the Deafblind Community about Co-Creating a More Inclusive World( 2019)This thesis reports on the exploration of good practice approaches to consultation, research, policy and service development with Deafblind people. Given the exploratory nature of the study, a multi-phased and multi-modal programme of research was conducted that incorporated both qualitative and quantitative components. The majority of the research programme utilised qualitative methods. The literature was surveyed to ascertain an understanding of the state of the science in the field of Deafblindness in regard to current consultation, research, policy and service development guidelines and practices with Deafblind people and the professionals who support them. The review of the literature sought to determine if there was evidence of a distinct Deafblind culture and community and if so, how this might interact with and affect the social inclusion/exclusion of Deafblind people. Moreover, the literature search investigated whether any co-creation, co-design or emancipatory research involved Deafblind people and the impact of associated complexities and barriers that arise from working with sign language interpreters and other gatekeepers of access to knowledge, such as the professionals in the field of Deafblindness. The review of the literature revealed that the state of the science in the field of Deafblindness is largely still in its infancy and that there is a paucity of literature regarding good practice approaches to consultation, research, policy and service development. To date, research has predominantly focused on biomedical issues and allied-health interventions designed to address barriers to everyday communication on an individual basis. There is a limited literature internationally, and even less in Australia in regard to engaging Deafblind people in community conversations and other forms of inclusive or indeed emancipatory research methodologies, that would enable Deafblind people to contribute to policy and service developments.What little literature there is, was found to be based on semi-structured surveys and post hoc narrative accounts. There was limited evidence of any larger scale community consultation process with the Deafblind community. Consequently, the questions that this research programme asked were: 1) What is current accepted practice in arranging events for, and consulting with people who are Deafblind; 2) How best can sign language and interpreter services be prepared for involvement in consultation and research activities, and more specifically as part of a World Café consultation, and; 3) What knowledge, skills, tools and resources are needed when planning a World Café consultation for people who are Deafblind? The need to engage the lived experiences of Deafblind people and the professional gatekeepers of knowledge creation and transfer in the field of Deafblindness emerged as significant issues that posed multiple challenges. The need for good practice guidelines in regard to how to conduct research and policy consultation with this community emerged as a key priority for both Deafblind people and the professionals providing their support services. Subsequently, a phenomenological approach was used to explore the lived experience of Deafblind people and the professional perspectives of those who provide direct service to this group. The topic of inquiry was explored using a multimodal approach that included individual interviews, World Cafe focus groups and online surveys. The investigation took the form of fourseparate but interconnected studies that enabled Deafblind people and the professionals in the field to participate in the research, and also to contribute to the development of a good practice framework by evaluating the research process. The four studies were: Study 1) Preparing for inclusive consultation, research and policy development -insights from the field of Deafblindness; Study 2) Working with Deafblind people to develop a good practice approach to consultation and research activities; Study 3) Co- creating a more inclusive world - lessons from professionals in the field of Deafblindness, and; Study 4)Navigating research, policy and consultation processes involving people with diverse communication and support needs - insights from Deafblind sign language interpreters. The overall findings and recommendations were: 1) World Café methodology can be tailored to be a culturally safe, valid and trustworthy approach to seeking the experiences, opinions, skills and expertise of the Deafblind community; 2) World Café facilitators should seek to gain close relationships with CALD and disability groups by becoming insiders to the community, and culturally immersed in them over an extended period of time; 3) The Deafblind community could benefit from ongoing exposure to the epistemological perspective of Appreciative Inquiry at the level of consultation, research, policy, service delivery and clinical contexts; 4) Interpreters and professionals in the field of Deafblindness could benefit from training in research methodology and theory. Academics seeking to research the Deafblind community should obtain skills, knowledge and experience with Deafblind culture, community and sign language; 5) The Deafblind community could benefit from co-creating and designing research workshops that seek to inform, educate and train community members in theory, methodology and projects that have real- world/practical applications, and; 6) The “I Learn Share Model” could be extended to include Appreciative inquiry, co-creation, co-design and emancipatory principles by promoting a critical and participatory consciousness within the Deafblind community of “we inquire, we share, we learn, we create, we design and we implement”. This research has demonstrated that the inclusion of, and engagement with Deafblind people in the generation of new knowledge for the purposes of research and policy development is possible. The programme of research documented in this thesis demonstrates how this can best be achieved in ways that are scientifically robust and culturally appropriate.
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ItemCeasefires as Statebuilding( 2019)Current academic and applied research on ceasefires overwhelmingly focuses on their capacity to halt violence or ability to lead to a peace agreement. This thesis takes a broader view by arguing that ceasefires are rarely only a “cease fire”. Rather it reconceptualises ceasefire agreements as the codification of a certain military and political state of affairs during wartime. The fact of their codification and the power-dynamics they represent creates a particular type of wartime order that recalibrates relationships and contestations for power and authority on the ground. Illustrated with examples of ceasefires from the Syrian civil war, this dissertation uses key informant interviews with Syrians with first-hand knowledge of ceasefires and conflict and humanitarian specialists to argue that ceasefires have the ability not only to affect violence but other statebuilding dynamics such as governance institutions and economic networks, property and citizenship rights and authority over diplomacy and security. The core of the thesis comprises four peer-reviewed journal articles that think through these different statebuilding implications of ceasefires in civil war. As such, the thesis has relevance not only for academia but also for peace and policy-makers. This is because if we move beyond seeing ceasefires as simply a military tool to better understanding the diverse effects they can have on the ground, we can better manage the negotiation process and power dynamics inherent in any presumably post-conflict environment.