School of Social and Political Sciences - Theses
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ItemFeels like home : young people's lived experiences and meanings of home(University of Melbourne, 2008)
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ItemFactors affecting the utilization of post acute care by the elderly in Singapore(University of Melbourne, 2007)
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ItemSelf-regulation : a conceptual frame for intervention with young offenders within the justice system in Singapore(University of Melbourne, 2006)
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ItemSelf-regulation : a conceptual frame for intervention with young offenders within the justice system in Singapore(University of Melbourne, 2006)
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ItemRegulating the risks of elder abuse in Australia : the changing nature of government responses(University of Melbourne, 2008)This thesis presents a policy analysis of Federal and State Government responses to elder abuse utilising three data sources, an extensive literature review, analysis of key government documents and interviews with expert stakeholders. Historical, sociological and criminological frameworks are used to explore contemporary responses to the abuse and neglect of older Australians. Modelling undertaken to estimate the current and projected scale of elder abuse predicted that there were 87,000 cases in 2007, that there would be 120,000 by 2017 and 200,000 by 2037. The ageing of the Australian population justifies the development of a more concerted and nationally co-ordinated strategy. Despite considerable contest between prevention and protection advocates, Australian Governments since the mid 1990s have adopted a fairly comprehensive and consistent policy framework involving prevention, investigation and case management, access to justice, legal and financial protections for older people without mental capacity, regulation and sanctions. This thesis argues that these six elements are likely to form the basis of future development and explores the utility of the responsive regulation thesis in such development. Several gaps in existing responses are identified, namely the lack of victim support services, the inadequate funding base, the low level of community and professional education and ambiguities about agency response responsibilities. Reforms needed over the next decade to address these gaps are identified.
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ItemThe many lives of the Goulburn River : sustainable management as ontological work( 2008)In this thesis I consider what it might be to do sustainable management of the Goulburn River, which meanders through the dry plains of northern Victoria, in Australia. This river touches many lives. It is celebrated as the "lifeblood" of local rural communities and the water supply for the "food bowl" of Australia. Economic development, social well-being, natural environment, and cultural heritage: a diverse array of community values and expectations are embodied in the contemporary management of the Goulburn River. The core theme of sustainable management with which I engage in this thesis is the integration of environment and development. Rather than evaluating sustainable management as more or less successful techniques, or as competing discourses, I interrogate sustainable management of the Goulburn River as ontological work. Using a material semiotic analytic, I tell of the many lives of what we call "the Goulburn River". These multiple river realities are emergent in particular orderings of routines, people, materials and narratives of river management and rural life. Through a series of historical narratives about post-settlement relations with the Goulburn River, I distinguish three modes of enacting river: utilitarian, ecological and sustainable. Utilitarian rivers proliferate throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, through an increasing array of rural industries that seek to progress the nation by improving mechanistic, under-utilised and deficient nature. Ecological rivers gain prominence in the late 20th century, amidst concerns that fragile, living, authentic nature is being threatened by human industry and requires protection. Amidst the recent antagonistic interferences between utilitarian rivers and ecological rivers, I identify the emergence of a new mode of enacting and relating rivers, that of sustainability. Utility and ecology are held in tension, I claim, in the contemporary vision for the Goulburn as sustainable or healthy working river. Through case studies of the sustainable management of the Goulburn River's frontages, flows and fish, I explore the ways in which river practitioners negotiate the ontological difference that is enacted in utilitarian and ecological rivers. Sustainable management, I contend, seeks to remake the relation between these river realities, to shift from an adversarial dynamic of competition to a more convivial dynamic of co-existence. Paddock and wildlife corridor; irrigation water and environmental water; trout fishery and native fish habitat: I argue that these utilitarian rivers and ecological rivers are made to intermingle by "cleaving" ontological difference. I distinguish a series of strategies through which these rivers are being drawn together whilst being held apart. This co-ordination and distribution of multiplicities produces ambiguous entanglements of rivers, which are invoked as sustainable or healthy working river. I thus identify sustainable management as holding together utilitarian rivers and ecological rivers in generative tension, thus sustaining ontological difference (albeit to varying degrees). In doing so, I confront the keen critiques of social science scholars about the vagueness of sustainability, and argue that we need to learn ways of living with ontological ambiguity.
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ItemThe ethical foundations of restorative justice( 2008)Restorative Justice offers a promising new approach for dealing with crimes in modern societies. There has been a considerable amount of research on the topic, yet much of this work has been done with limited reference to the discussions in political philosophy and the philosophy of punishment. This neglect means that there are still significant theoretical challenges facing the theory behind restorative justice. This thesis places restorative justice within the larger philosophical context and develops the necessary framework for restorative justice as a theory of criminal justice. The thesis beings by examining traditional justifications for punishment, as given by consequentialists and retributivists. The consequentialist justifications fall prey to empirical questions regarding the effectiveness of punishment in achieving the aim of prevention and theoretical objections to consequentialist theories. Retributivism is able to avoid the problems that face consequentialist theories, but the justification for punishment that it offers fails to prove that punishment is always necessary, and it is particularly problematic in non-ideal societies. Thus, while punishment is permissible in response to crime, it is not an obligation. The first step in the argument for restorative justice is to examine two approaches to desert in responding to crime. The approach advocated treats desert as a fluid and relational concept based on the conception of social justice known as democratic equality. The thesis then identifies three crucial aspects to the accounts of restorative justice that have been given in the literature. These are the theories of personhood and crime that restorative justice relies upon and the role that punishment and retribution play in restorative justice. The thesis argues that reliance on a relational conception of personhood is unnecessary and advocates justifying restorative justice on the basis of the conception of social justice. The thesis then examines traditional theories of crime and compares them to the relational understanding offered by proponents of restorative justice. The relational understanding is advocated based on its ability to provide a single principle of criminalisation that relies upon the more general theory of social justice within liberal egalitarian society. The place of punishment and retribution in restorative justice is then examined. I argue that neither concept is necessarily included or excluded from such processes, but that there are legitimate reasons to be concerned about the coerciveness of restorative practices. The thesis concludes by examining the type of system that the theory advocated could support in the current social context. In light of the worries about the coerciveness of restorative proposals and the inappropriateness of a restorative response to all instances of crime a multifaceted system is advocated. This system would treat restoration as the preferred response, while providing responses in situations where restoration is not appropriate and where due process concerns require a more traditional approach. It is argued that such a system would be a significant improvement over current practices and more in line with the conception of social justice as democratic equality.
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ItemModels and consequence( 2008)The conclusion of an argument is a consequence of the premises if the truth of the premises guarantees the truth of the conclusion. This guarantee is often formulated as that the conclusion is true in every model where all the premises are true. Models are used to give precise, mathematical theories of consequence. The use of models has been central in a lot of the recent progress in logic. This thesis is a philosophical investigation into the connection between consequence and models. In this thesis I show that there are two central concerns that any model based theory of consequence must address: (1) What type of theory is it? What are the models intended to be? (2) What form does the theory take? How does the theory use the models in characterising consequence? Two particular types of theory are focussed on in the thesis. Interpretational theories take their models to be interpretations of the language under consideration. Representational theories take their models to represent the world as being a particular way. This distinction draws on the work of Etchemendy in [40]. I show that choices of this nature have significant effects on theories of consequence. On example of this is that nonclassical logics of these different types have different commitments regarding truth gaps and gluts. I also show that there are different subtypes of both interpretational and representational theories which depend how much of a model is considered significant for the interpretation or representation respectively. There are different forms or shapes that a theory can take. Theories which reduce consequence to truth preservation in all models - with no side constraints - suffer from a tendency to produce incorrect results. In [40] Etchemendy shows that this is the case for interpretational theories. I will show that this is the case for any theory with an unconditional form and that it is not primarily due to the theory's type. The most obvious alternative form of theory relies on the condition that the theory only provides an account of consequence if there are sufficiently many models. Conditional theories of consequence do not produce incorrect results in the way that unconditional theories do, but they are not guaranteed to provide any account of consequence.
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ItemAttraction and christian conversion from 1842 to 1862 in the New Hebrides( 2001)Conversion to Christianity was remarkably rapid on Aneityum but almost non-existent on Tanna during the period from 1842, when white missionaries first came to Tanna, until 1862, when the second white mission to Tanna was finally rejected. Tannese resistance to conversion makes it clear that New Hebrideans were not passive under missionary. direction. On Aneityum, epidemics of European diseases ravaged the island before the white missionaries arrived and during the time that conversion occurred, but on Tanna only during times when missionaries were resident. On Tanna, missionaries stressed the wickedness of non-Christians as the cause of epidemics, and other scourges, that they said were induced by God, and this reinforced a Tannese interpretation that the missionaries were magicians manipulating their relationship with God to inflict their malice on the people, whereas on Aneityum the missionaries stressed the goodness of a God who would recompense Aneityumese in heaven for the sorrows they experienced in their earthly lives. On both islands, Polynesian missionary teachers were crucial to the conversion process because they prepared the way for the white missionaries. The white missionaries were Presbyterians on both islands, and although they followed different Presbyterian traditions, this cannot suffice as an adequate reason for the different outcomes on the two islands There were slight differences in political structure on the two islands, but again these were insufficient to explain the difference, because local leaders on neither island were influential - community decision making was by consensus, with leaders merely implementing community resolutions. The movement towards Christianity on Aneityum begun among the women and young people, with the local leaders last to convert. Finally, there is not sufficient evidence that attitudes to spirits were significantly different on the two islands. I will argue that converts were people attracted to Christians, and, furthermore, that the different conversion outcomes on the two islands were influenced by the characters of the different Christian missionaries who presented themselves to the islanders.
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ItemThe militarization of humanitarian assistance : an emerging crisis( 2005)Military forces are ramping up their involvement in 'humanitarian' action and in doing so are creating operational and ethical problems for humanitarian organisations and professionals who operate in an otherwise politically neutral environment. Using the current Afghanistan conflict (2001-2005) as a case study, the research focuses on the evolving nature of civil-military relations in peace-building operations, and how these relations became changed and altered after the Bush administration's newly declared war on terror. The study begins by seeking an understanding of how and why the military expanded their war effort to include the direct financing of "humanitarian" interventions. The result points to the need to better understand the military's current methods and ethos to `win the peace' and win the hearts and minds of the people. In turn, the study leads to the identification of a new military paradigm that is making its way into military doctrine. This expanded doctrine is leading to the possible amalgamation of government departments that will enable the military to lead nation-building missions around the world. It will also support the simultaneous execution of combat operations (destructive phase) with their nation-building operations (constructive phase). In Afghanistan, the US military's new multi-pronged strategy was manifested through the resurrection of a similar strategy used in Vietnam. Now called Provincial Reconstruction Teams, the military is using this tool to undertake armed `nation-building' activities. By choosing to operate in the arena normally occupied by NGOs and UN relief and development agencies, the military is grossly disturbing the neutral, non-partisan character of their work by, among other things, blurring the lines that distinguish civilian efforts from the politically motivated war effort. The research looks at how the military's intrusion affects the working environment and development approach of the humanitarian community. The study includes the position of the United Nations who are mediators between humanitarian agencies and the military, but are non-the-less challenged by this new military paradigm. By exploring the military's motivation for their new course of action and comparing it with the response from the humanitarian sector, the research identifies a number of key problems and conflicts, that have affected the relief and reconstruction effort in Afghanistan. As a result, an emerging crisis is identified and it's potential to exacerbate human suffering in new post-conflict environments is emphasised. The analysis concludes by identifying de-conflict options, recommending policies to the international community, and suggesting a way forward.