School of Social and Political Sciences - Theses
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ItemStitching spear-grass sinew and skin: crafting new social memories at the Koorie Heritage Trust( 2012)This thesis explores the relationship between the revival of Aboriginal craft practices and the crafting of social memory among artists at the Koorie Heritage Trust in Melbourne. ‘Koorie’, or ‘Koori’, is a collective term used to describe the Aboriginal people of south eastern Australia – an area made up of approximately thirty-eight discrete language groups. Although the languages themselves are no longer widely spoken, individuals identify with these bounded groups. Each of the language groups are tied to a specific region or ‘Country’, set of totems, and collection of creation stories, all of which contribute to how individuals identify themselves within the wider Koorie community. Since the mid-Nineteenth century, Koorie cultural practices had been systematically eroded by the pressures of European colonialism. Until the late 1960's and early 1970's, it appeared that the only craft practices surviving were to service tourism and the tastes and whims of white Australians. The 1970's saw the emergence of an Aboriginal cultural, political, and artistic movement which was the beginning of changing perceptions of what made aboriginal art 'authentic'. The Koorie Heritage Trust was established in 1985 in an effort to preserve, protect, and promote Aboriginal culture of south eastern Australia. This began with the establishment of a ‘Keeping Place’, where material culture could be collected, housed, and cared for in culturally appropriate ways. This thesis examines more recent examples of craft revival by Koorie artists, which include possum skin cloaks, kangaroo tooth necklaces, and grass baskets. Each of these items emerged from their creators’ bringing together of information sources through museum and archival records, the artists’ existing understanding of cultural practices, and their innate, intuitive, ‘Ancestral knowledge’. The exploration of these sites and means of cultural production requires the consideration of three central themes: the concept of time, which informs how the artists comprehend their past; knowledge, which is concerned with how these artists come to be proficient in their ‘know-how’; and finally, how this knowledge is understood to be embodied and enacted in the lived in world. This thesis demonstrates how, as these artists engage in the revival of craft practices, notions of time, knowledge and the role of the body transform, and so too does an understanding of social memory.
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ItemInside/Outside: migrants' construction of home in the domestic kitchen( 2012)This thesis explores the everyday lives of middle class, inner suburban first- and second-generation migrants to Melbourne through their activities in the kitchen. It speaks to current and past work on multiculturalism, food culture and identity in order to develop an exploration of the ways in which migrants create senses of belonging, self, and home in the contexts of cultural difference and diversity. It looks at the ways in which migrants use the kitchen as a space of becoming. It also addresses how a migrant constructs personal ideas of what it means to be Australian in order to place him or herself in relation to it. The process of migration often engenders both a fragmentation of identity and a fragmentation of sense of belonging - the ways in which migrants return to totalities of self through activities in the kitchen are the main focus of this thesis. Additionally, it shall be looking at the influence of the outside world on the home and how this affects the process of becoming that a migrant goes through in his or her new country. This process requires pragmatism with regards to identity construction and performance – a negotiation between the home and host nation and between the past and present. Migrants often use activities in the kitchen to creatively recreate the past and, in doing so construct a sense of ‘homeliness’. This involves developing and reaffirming networks and relations through which a migrant can develop a space in which to belong. Furthermore, it shall be exploring ideas surrounding individualism and agency in creating identity as well as how the negotiation between creativity and reproduction in producing meals speaks to the creativity of identity performance that exists within an individualist framework. Additionally it shall look at what happens when control over identity performance and self-representation on the part of the individual is lost.
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Item'West side' stories: visible difference, gender, class and young people( 2012)The impetus for this thesis emerged from my job as a youth worker and my dissatisfaction with the dominant ways in which young people are discussed and managed as ‘at risk’ and ‘disengaged’. I argue that, far from being disengaged, young people in Melbourne’s western suburbs are engaged in reading the power structures that influence their lives and have developed a range of strategies to operate within and against these classed, ‘raced’ and gendered structures. Throughout this thesis I contend that young people have agency (that is, the ability to act), and argue for young people to be recognised as astute social actors, from whom we can learn much about the way power operates and the strategies people use to live with social inequality. ‘West side’ stories explores how young people experiencing social disadvantage are ‘managed’ in public policy and how they are represented in academia. The qualitative research presented in this thesis problematises the dominant representations, by illustrating the ways in which visible difference, gender and class intersect and how these social divisions shape the lives of young people living in the west – a culturally diverse and economically disadvantaged region of Melbourne. It is argued here that whiteness is marked in the western suburbs and that Anglo-Saxon Australians are also visibly different because of their class location.
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ItemRed hot hydropolitics: human and state security implications of water scarcity in Chile( 2012)The relationship between environment and security is generally approached from either a state security framework, in so far environmental problems are a source of intra-state or inter-state violent conflict, or from a human security perspective, focusing on the impacts of these problems on people’s livelihoods. To date, that I am aware, there is no research that considers the effects of an environmental problem on these two dimensions of security simultaneously. This thesis bridges this gap by studying the security implications of water scarcity in Chile. It examines the two main drivers of water scarcity, droughts and socioeconomic development, to determine the exposure and vulnerability of Chile to this environmental problem. Based on the work of the Copenhagen School, it develops a framework that disaggregates and locates the impacts of droughts in analytical levels and security sectors. Additionally, it develops a typology of environment related problems as security issues, according to the sectors and analytical levels affected. Through the application of this framework and typology this research determines that in Chile water scarcity is a source of human insecurity, because it alters the livelihoods and the access to livelihood resources for a significant part of the population. It is also a source of strategic insecurity, as it jeopardizes the generation of energy, affecting the overall capabilities of the country, and thereby limiting the policy options of the authorities and the potential to give material responses to any given crisis. Finally, water scarcity is a source of strategic vulnerability, since a neighboring country uses the subsequent energy insecurity as leverage in a long-lasting bilateral territorial dispute. This thesis uses the Regional Security Complex and the Hydropolitical Security Complex theories to assess the effects of water scarcity in the sub-system level. This research makes two relevant contributions to the security debate. First, an analytical framework that facilitates studying the security implications of droughts in any given nation-state. Second, it establishes a nexus between human and State security: if a non-traditional security problem, such as water scarcity, can become a source of State insecurity, then non-traditional security measures, originally aimed at improving human security, can be a source of State security. Although the context of this security analysis is Chile, a nation-state in which water is a relatively scarce resource and whose regional security complex is determined by patterns of enmity, two conditions that are not shared by every nation-State, the findings of this research are relevant nonetheless for the security debate, since it establishes that human and State security are not necessarily competing articulations, but two narratives with common fields in which they can strengthen each other.
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ItemHas accountability kept up with the use of coercive powers information?( 2012)Accountability has struggled to keep up with the use of information derived from the use of coercive powers (legislative powers conferred on government agencies permitting them to require the production of information in the form of oral evidence or documents). The collection and use of information derived from coercive powers has reflected a general trend in the pursuit of collective security towards the collection, dissemination and use of intelligence. However, unlike the collection and use of evidence, which must conform to high standards of reliability, intelligence can be taken from any source and its veracity is uncertain. Further, it is collected and used in an environment of secrecy. This trend presents a threat to individual rights and the efficient allocation of law enforcement resources, as illustrated in three case studies. The use of intelligence is far less amenable to traditional accountability mechanisms such as the courts. There are significant barriers to litigation. Where the courts do consider the use of coercive powers information they confine themselves to a consideration of whether there is constitutional and/or legislative power rather than considering merits. Judges are able to consider the use of coercive powers information in their personal capacity but this is not without controversy and they cannot test the veracity of that information. Further, legislative measures aimed at protecting human rights, privacy and granting access to information are ineffective due to law enforcement exemptions and exceptions. However, the pursuit of collective security must also involve effective accountability for the use of coercive powers information. That accountability is best provided by a multi-faceted and inter-related regime involving adequate controls (legislation, policies and procedures); routine, independent and informed oversight; review mechanisms and the fostering of a culture of compliance with the law and other controls. There is also the need to be able to test the veracity of coercive powers information at the point it is used for warrants and like authorities. These measures have been adopted to varying extents in relation to the use of coercive powers information. Accountability must keep moving in that direction if it is to be effective and enhance collective security.
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ItemAustralian Development Scholarships and their place within diplomacy, education and development( 2012)This thesis is concerned with critically exploring the meanings, outcomes and values to development and diplomacy that are made by educational scholarships. By using the Australian Development Scholarships (ADS) to demonstrate, it presents the argument that tertiary scholarships fail to meet their development objectives, but do have a role to play in Australia’s diplomatic portfolio. The thesis presents a detailed case study of the AusAID funded ADS within the Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) program of the Australian Government. The ADS are the Australian Government’s biggest single investment in the education sector of ODA, despite commitments to Basic Education through the Millennium Development Goals. The program reaches across the globe, bringing students from Africa, South Asia, South East Asia, the Pacific and Latin America to study in Australian tertiary institutions. The findings of this research highlight the problems and challenges of the ADS program. The program is difficult to assess in terms of efficacy or the empowerment of individuals, organisations and institutions who have participated the program. Barriers to access, particularly for minority groups and women are inherent in the program. Also critiqued is the role of the ADS in selecting, and perpetuating existing ‘elites’ within recipient countries, highlighted by the increasing focus of the ADS program on selecting, training and nurturing leaders within those countries. However, powerful individual success stories allow critiques of the program to be pushed aside, and so the allocation of funds to ADS continue to grow. The ADS program does have value, however, in a diplomatic context. It’s ‘soft power’ potential is significant, and a reassessment of the scholarships program by the Australian government could allow AusAID to focus Australia’s ODA to more demonstrably successful programs, whilst allowing the diplomatic community to exploit the potential of the scholarship program more effectively. The greatest benefits to be gained from the scholarship program are diplomatic, with development outcomes a potentially positive side effect. The ADS, and indeed international education more broadly, needs to be looked at primarily in facilitating individual capacity building and securing regional and global positionality, a “soft power” diplomatic effort rather than an effective element of Australia’s ODA.
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ItemPre-emption and prevention after 9/11: evaluating the Bush Doctrine’s challenge to international law on the use-of-force( 2012)This thesis focuses on the 2001-2004 period in examining the international legal basis of the Bush Administration’s jus ad bellum – or specific use-of force encompassing prevention/pre-emption – paradigm in the global war on terror, popularly known as the “Bush Doctrine.” The thinking and elements relating to this paradigm in U.S. and international legal and policy communities predates the World Trade Center and Pentagon terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001. However, it was the events of 9/11 that crystallised much of this thinking, at least in the minds of the Administration and, most importantly, the President. Through a series of incremental and ad hoc decisions and measures taken in the aftermath of 9/11, the Administration gradually laid out an international legal paradigm on the right to use military force in the global war on terror. In essence, this thesis will assess the extent the Bush Administration during 2001-2004 – in the domain of the U.N. Charter jus ad bellum regime – sought to overhaul or overturn the rules governing the use-of-force regarding its strategy of prevention/pre-emption.
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ItemVorsprung durch Technik?: selling Britons the new Germany( 2011)German reunification and the Federal Republic’s post-reunification emergence as one of the Europeans Union’s two most economically and politically powerful states has presented unique challenges for British public opinion and government policy. This thesis investigates to what extent German post-war cultural diplomacy has facilitated and fostered acceptance of these developments. Faced with unprecedented political challenges in the aftermath of the terrifying reign of the Third Reich and its genocidal prosecution of World War II, Germany set about rehabilitating its international standing in the years after 1945. In the shadow of the Cold War in Europe, the German states that emerged out of the 1949 partioning became satellites of their respective superpower masters. It was the largely unexpected end of this “serfdom” in 1989 that presented the first major test of international opinion on the prospect of a re-emergent Germany. British attitudes and policy in particular were challenged by this development and it provides a useful milestone from which an assessment of German cultural diplomacy in the preceding four decades can be made. The thesis provides an outline of German cultural diplomacy initiatives in the post-war era and is rounded off with a background consideration of theoretical aspects of contemporary cultural diplomacy.
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ItemConsuming trust: herbal food and drink and its place in contemporary China( 2011)Deeply grounded in the traditional notions of health and medicine, herbal food and drink have been used in China for centuries. Being part of its ‘traditional’ approach to well-being, however, the consumption of herbal food and drink is increasing in contemporary Chinese society and further reflects various meanings and perceptions relating to individual's engagement with modernity and their places in the rapidly changing social and cultural context. This thesis investigates the meanings of herbal food and drink in contemporary China and the extent to which it is reinvigorated by, and reflective of, the rapidly changing circumstances that the country finds itself in. By drawing on results of fieldwork in China across ten cities/ regions, the thesis identifies and relates consumption patterns in association with herbal food and drink with meanings attached to modernity, well-being, and both collective and individual Chinese identity. The findings of the research revealed a recurrent reference by people to ‘trust’, ‘intimacy’, and ‘natural’, which are not only grounded in the particular Chinese cultural imagination in relation to food, but, more importantly also indicative of how people’s perception on the contemporary cultural and social context and their place within it. To this end, the argument presented in this thesis is that the symbiotic relationship between ‘trust’, ‘intimacy’ and herbal food and drink is a resource for people to cope with anxieties brought on by rapid change in contemporary Chinese society because of the inherent links people make between herbal food and drink and notions of stability, tradition and their ‘unique’ Chinese identity. Given that there has been a series of food scandals in the past decade, coinciding with China’s policy of opening up to economic development, that a ‘moral panic’ over food safety emerged , it is not surprising that perceived risks of health are connected to much broader and significant concerns relating to the modern condition. Moreover, continual reference to the well-being of the body, ‘trust’, ‘intimacy’, and the ‘naturalness’ of herbal food and drink have been excessively employed as a kind of coping strategy for the anxieties that contemporary life poses for people as they navigate rapid change by drawing on the familiar and trusted symbols of balance and well being that are traditionally associated with Chinese food. That is, the call for well-being and a ‘balance’ of body is symbolic of a call for a similar kind of balance in life in a rapidly changing society and embeds with political economy implication. To reiterate, the linkage between knowledge and practice of herbal food and drink with ‘traditional’ Chinese culture is extensive, and, at the individual level, demonstrates a lived-experience associated with a particular way of being, identity and family belonging. Further, the prosperity of the herbal industry is indeed built on exploiting such close associations with intimacy, trust and continuity. As such, the interplays among tradition and modernity, collective and individual identities, and the patterns of herbal food and drink are enormous. This study on herbal food and drink can contribute to a better appreciation of how consumption serves as a linkage between agency and structure, between that in the hands of people to navigate, challenge or reject such as what they consume as opposed to that which lies beyond their influence.
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ItemBehaviour in public with mobile phones( 2010)People can be seen in public making or receiving calls on mobile phones in ways that cause problems for those around them. Yet, many of those who would ordinarily be deemed to be misbehaving can appear unconcerned, leaving others to deal with the consequences of their behaviour. On the other hand, some are very careful about how they use mobiles, turning them off or putting them on silent for meetings or important occasions. What is it that is going on here? Is the behaviour we see in public with mobile phones an extension of existing pre-mobile behaviour, or is there something new happening, possibly brought on by the adoption of this new technology? To engage with these, and related issues, this thesis asks two central questions. First, how does the adoption of mobile phone technology affect behaviour in public? Second, how does symbolic interactionism, and in particular the work of Goffman, help us to understand behaviour in public with mobile phones? As suggested by this second question, the thesis is grounded in the work of Goffman and other prominent symbolic interactionists. In addition, this thesis engages with more recent research, such as that undertaken by Wajcman (2010) Rettie (2009), Licoppe (2004) and Geser (2006, 2004), which brings new perspectives to behaviour with mobile phones in public. That research challenges the fundamental elements of interaction analysis of being encounters in time and place to being encounters in time only (Rettie) or person to person (Licoppe, Geser). The empirical basis of the thesis is grounded in qualitative field work, which consisted of in-depth qualitative interviews with 14 subjects who were regular train commuters in Melbourne, observations of behaviour in and around trains, and analysis of diaries kept by the 14 interview participants. Interviewees were asked to maintain diaries over a two week period to record their impressions of use of their mobile phones in public. Observations of user behaviour both on trains and around train stations were also carried out at discrete intervals. This research argues that the adoption of mobile phone technology can influence behaviour in public by making instances of interaction more complex than would have been the case before the adoption of mobile phone technology. The significance of this research is that it describes the impact on behaviour in public of the loosening of the twin anchors of the definition of the situation, from being interaction in time and place to being solely in time. From a symbolic interactionist perspective, this thesis extends recent research (Wajcman, 2010, Rettie, 2009, Licoppe, 2004, Geser, 2006, 2004) by tracing some of the practical impacts on behaviour in public enabled precisely by the nature of mobile phone technology, thereby providing evidence for current debates about the impact of mobile phones on society. The key overall themes in this research are that, first, the structure of interaction analysis for mobile phone use in public is defined by time, rather than time and place, second, the continued relevance of Goffman for analysing behaviour in public and third, the importance of micro-sociological research in understanding the impact of mobile phone technology on society.