School of Social and Political Sciences - Theses
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ItemThe Life of Human Rights: An Everyday Approach to Understanding Human Rights in an Australian Parliamentary Enquiry on the Involuntary Sterilisation of People with Disabilities( 2022)This research questions how ‘human rights’ are used in a parliamentary inquiry on the coercive or involuntary sterilisation of people with disabilities in Australia. Throughout three chapters, the thesis breaks down ‘human rights’ as a concept and as a practical approach in development programming. Chapter two delves into the multiple understandings of rights in the development literature and incorporates contributions from legal anthropology and the field of the social studies of science and technology to understand human rights in the development context. Chapter three proposes an “ethnography in the archives” as a methodological design that pushes disciplinary boundaries to understand the value of documents and arguments in how different stakeholders inside and outside of the development field engage with issues such as the coercive sterilisation of people with disabilities. Finally, chapter four offers an analysis derived from 82 documents presented in the parliamentary inquiry in Australia. This chapter shows this thesis’s main argument: That human rights differ from what this research calls ‘everyday rights’, which are the claims articulated by people drawing upon their lived experiences rather than human rights treaties or arguments. This argument sheds light on how development practice often faces a gap between what the stated outcomes are in terms of Human Rights-Based Approaches and the practical realities of rights claims.
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ItemEliciting societal preferences for non-health outcomes : A person trade-off study in the context of genetics( 2021)This thesis explores the willingness of Australians to trade-off health for the non-health benefits associated with a genomic test for a suspected genetic condition in a paediatric setting. This question is framed within an extra-welfarist approach to resource allocation in health policy that exclusively prioritizes health maximisation while systematically excluding non-health benefits. This practice is a value judgment which fails to account for the social costs and equity implications that excluding non-health benefits incurs. To test whether social preferences align with the health policy approach participants were placed in the role of a societal decision maker and asked to complete two iterative person trade-offs with four choices in each trade-off. A survey of 419 Australian participants, had participants trade-off families receiving the non-health benefits of a genomic test with adults receiving approximately one quality-adjusted life year (QALY) gain over four years for physical or mental health conditions. Results found that 78.9% of participants switched from their most preferred group when completing the physical health trading-off and 80.5% when completing the mental health trade-off. Using participants willingness to switch between groups as group sizes were adjusted a point of indifference was estimated. This gave a median estimated equivalence value of 1.54 genomic tests for each QALY gained, and a ratio of means estimated equivalence value of 1.29 genomic test for each physical health QALY and 1.37 genomic test for each mental health trade-off. Participants showed a clear willingness to trade direct health gains for non-health benefits under person trade-off conditions. This indicates a preference for the inclusion of non-health benefits in the assessment of health technologies to maximise social benefits and equity, in opposition to policy makers current utilitarian extra-welfarist approach of solely maximising QALY gains. Demonstrating a disconnect between policy makers preference and Australian’s preferences for maximising broader social welfare.
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ItemBigData: Can virtue ethics play a role?( 2015)Big Data is a term for masses of information that is usually heterogeneous, usually from multiple sources, in multiple formats and at a scale of at least terabytes, and often substantially larger. It may be a data stream, or an assemblage of exiting large, not necessarily homogeneous datasets; both often contain large personal data content and thus can invoke ethical issues. As a result of rapid disintermediation of wide areas of the economy and daily life, and the growing data and information intensity that has both enabled this and is creating many fresh forms of Big Data on a real time basis, it is important to ensure that the implications are understood by the communities affected. This had not occurred until recently in the areas of government surveillance (Mathews & Tucker, 2014), and when it did had a massive impact across the world. Expectations were changed (See Fig.1) and the emergent power asymmetries emphasized. Concerns over the ethical and power implications are now reverberating, with Australia moving to consolidate ever stronger asymmetric information powers over the community (http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/Bills_Search _Results/Result?bId=s969), and the term ‘Snowden Effect’ has now achieved currency (https://freesnowden.is/frequently-asked-questions/).
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Item'What's two years for the rest of my life?': interrogating the imagined futures of migrant domestic workers amidst present realities in Singapore( 2018)There has been growing concerns around the vulnerability of migrant domestic workers to labour exploitation and abuse while abroad. Much research attention has been focused on the way their capacity to resist coercion and mistreatment is stunted by the existence of hostile state policies within the host country. This study seeks to investigate another possible factor that may influence migrant domestic workers’ decisions concerning whether and how to resist unequal employer-domestic worker relations. This factor being their ‘imagined futures’, understood here as a desirable future that one imagines that they might or should have. A total of eighteen in-depth qualitative interviews with Filipino and Indonesian domestic workers and Singaporean employers were conducted over two months of fieldwork in Singapore. The findings from these interviews led to the overall conclusion of this study: Foreign domestic workers’ tendency to default to more subtle, individualised forms of resistance over overt, coordinated acts of contestation must be attributed not only to the presence of institutionalised forms of dominating power, but also to the more unassuming yet highly enticing disciplinary power of imagined futures. By taking a temporally informed analysis of migrant domestics’ everyday decision making in Singapore, this study contributes to a more nuanced account of the constraints and possibilities, limitations and benefits of resistance within the context of migrant domestic workers’ lives.
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ItemIncome support and its impact on durations of homelessness and long-term welfare reliance among newly homeless young Australians( 2015)While there is a substantial body of Australian and international research on pathways into homelessness, less attention has been directed to understanding young people’s pathways out of homelessness. This study explores the link between income support, homeless durations and longer-term welfare reliance among newly homeless young Australians using longitudinal data from the Centrelink administrative systems to follow 7,487 homeless people aged 16 to 22 years, from 2011 to 2014. We find that more young people from non-income support families claimed income support because they were homeless and their claims were more likely to succeed. A series of Cox duration models reveals three central findings. First, we found no evidence to support the hypothesis that access to income support increases homeless durations and delays young people returning home. Second, we find the unexpected result that of the 38.14% initially assessed to be homeless who later did exit homelessness, those granted benefits were more likely to go home than those refused benefits. Finally, we find a “state dependence effect” whereby those granted income support are significantly more likely to be receiving income support payments after three years, regardless of their homeless status. This suggests that the response to a claim of being unable to live at home should involve additional support services, for both those assessed as homeless and those assessed as being able to return to the family home, to avoid longer-term welfare reliance among both groups.
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ItemThe role of microfinance as a tool for economic empowerment of women in Lahore and adjoining rural areas( 2015)During the last three decades, the micro finance sector has witnessed immense growth, being seen as a tool for poverty alleviation and bringing financial sustainability through provision of micro loans to lower income groups in most parts of the developing world. However, researchers are widely divided on the efficacy of the contemporary micro finance model to achieve the desired goals including as a source of socio-economic empowerment for poor people, especially women. This research is undertaken to evaluate the impact of microfinance on women empowerment in Pakistan to determine how the provision of microcredit to women from lower income groups affected their lives and brought betterment or otherwise. More specifically it looks at whether women were able to enhance their income and control over assets, self-confidence, participation in household expenditures, decision making power and autonomy as outlined in the analytical framework of the ‘Virtuous Spiral’ presented by Mayoux. The research adapts a qualitative approach and is based upon semi-structured interviews and focussed group meetings, which leads to an examination of what motivated women to acquire micro loans, how these loans were used and what effects did these loans have in generating economic activity and increasing their income. The study has its limitations and is confined to slum/rural areas adjacent to the provincial capital of the Punjab province of Pakistan, Lahore, on account of its scope, time, resources, and budgetary constraints. The researcher is cognizant of the fact that these very constraints and limitations do not allow the researcher to thoroughly examine the above stated phenomena and the hypothetical framework in as much detail as required by the much larger scope of the contemporary micro finance model. However it can be expected that the research provides for a limited input regarding the impact of micro loans on the socio-economic status of poor women within their households in a male dominated society like Pakistan; a country ranked very low by international agencies in terms of gender equality and high on discrimination against women. The study concludes with the results in relation to the above mentioned questions and revisits the Virtuous Spiral framework.
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ItemInsights of the Regional Security Complex Theory towards understanding the role of exogenous factors in regional security: the South China Sea dispute and Southeast Asia( 2016)This thesis investigates the benefits of using the Regional Security Complex (RSC) theory, an analytically eclectic approach, towards understanding the role of external factors in Southeast Asian security relations, particularly in light of the escalation of the South China Sea dispute since 2012. The thesis focuses on answering how does the RSC theory explain the role of exogenous factors in regional relations in Southeast Asia? Through the lens of the RSC theory, this research finds that the main role of the South China Sea dispute, as the primary exogenous aspect, has been to expand Southeast Asia’s regional boundary. As a result, this has provided states in the region with a wider amount of policy options to achieve national and regional security. Meanwhile, Southeast Asia remained a multipolar, anarchic, and thick security regime. Furthermore, it is evident that the role of exogenous aspects towards regional security is conditioned by the region’s endogenous processes. In the case of Southeast Asia, the region’s endogenous norms of ASEAN unity and peaceful resolution have thus far constrained any detrimental impacts of the South China Sea dispute towards regional amity.
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ItemTaking Indigenous culture into account: a critical analysis of an early childhood education program for disadvantaged families( 2016)Early childhood education and care (ECEC) has gained significant policy attention in Australia as a key to closing the Indigenous education gap prior to the commencement of formal schooling. Yet, Indigenous Australians still attend formal ECEC at lower rates than their non-Indigenous peers. The Home Instruction Program for Parents and Youngsters (HIPPY) is a combined home and centre based ECEC program that works with disadvantaged children and families (including Indigenous Australians) to prepare children for their first year of school. The HIPPY Australia program teaches parents how to be their child’s first educator through the provision of structured educational activity packs that parents undertake with their child over a two year period. Using a mixed methods approach combining content and critical discourse analysis, this research critically analysed the compatibility of HIPPY with Indigenous Australians. Quantitatively, this thesis examines the extent to which the forty-five HIPPY Australia activity packs aligned with traditional Indigenous learning approaches. Qualitatively, cultural compatibility was analysed by examining the assumptions about Indigenous parents and families implicitly inherent in the HIPPY Australia activity packs. It was found that the four and five year old HIPPY Australia activity packs had minimal alignment with Indigenous Australian learning approaches and favoured the use of particular Indigenous learning approaches over others. The critical discourse analysis of the HIPPY program highlighted the manner in which the program privileges Western knowledges over Indigenous knowledges. In this way, the HIPPY program is used as a social policy intervention tool to correct the undesirable behaviours of Indigenous parents and families who do not adhere to Western educational and parenting norms. Deficit-based assumptions regarding the knowledge and skills that disadvantaged families brought to the HIPPY program were also found to be prevalent which limited parent autonomy in educating their children. The findings have implications for engaging Indigenous parents, children and communities in the HIPPY program. In order to improve the cultural compatibility of HIPPY with Indigenous Australians, the HIPPY program should be tailored to local Indigenous contexts through a participatory, community-based approach. This would enable local Indigenous communities to exercise self-determination through the adaptation of the HIPPY program to suit their needs. Future research should focus on obtaining Indigenous parents’ and communities’ views regarding the cultural compatibility of the HIPPY program with Indigenous Australians.
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ItemThe Millennium Development Goals: a gendered critique within the context of climate change( 2014)This minor thesis applies a gendered lens to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) within the context of climate change. This was done in order to examine the degree that the MDGs will be affected by climate change as well as whether the current Development paradigm has in fact contributed to the process of climate change. A wide expanse of literature has been examined, focusing on several case studies. The finding of this thesis was that because the MDGs are designed to operate within the current capitalist system, the structural inequity and polluting methods of production and consumption which contribute to climate change and compound poverty are not questioned. Critiquing this is particularly significant at this moment as the Development sector moves from the era of the MDGs to the era of Sustainable Development.
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ItemA failed innovation?: General practitioners in community health centres( 1993)This paper seeks to examine central policy and practice issues arising out of the presence of doctors in community health centres. The community health program was shaped by the Whitlam era and there were great hopes for its success in delivering new forms of health services. Integral to it was the presence of G.P.'s working from community health centres. The research aims at discovering whether or not community health has successfully incorporated G.P.'s into the program. (From Introduction)