School of Social and Political Sciences - Research Publications
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ItemOlder workers and employment: managing age relations(CAMBRIDGE UNIV PRESS, 2005-05)This article reports the findings of research into the functioning of companies' and organisations' internal labour markets. Four case studies of Australian and United Kingdom public and private sector organisations have been undertaken with two principal aims: to elucidate the challenges and barriers to the employment of older workers, and to demonstrate the benefits to business and to older workers of age-aware human resource management policies. In each of the case-study organisations, age-related assumptions affected the management of knowledge and skills and the ways in which older and younger workers were employed. Managing age relations in organisations requires an understanding of the ways in which workers of different ages are perceived and how these associate with sub-optimal deployment. The article concludes by suggesting that policies directed at older workers alone will ignore the age and age-group dynamics that pervade workplaces. To promote the better deployment of younger and older individuals in rapidly transforming organisations, there is a need for policy makers, employers and employees to be attentive to the age-group relationships that currently inform workplace practices. Organisations cannot ignore these age dynamics, but should adopt ‘age aware’ rather than ‘age free’ practices. The recommended human-resources approach would attend to individuals' capabilities and not stereotype them by age.
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ItemAgeing and Learning in the European Union(Committee for Economic Development of Australia, 2005)
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ItemEngaging Naga nationalism(Economic & Political Weekly, 2005)
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ItemWhitlam turned focus on to Asia: It's time Labor looked to Whitlam's foreign record for inspiration(Fairfax Media Publications, 2005)
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ItemA network approach for researching partnerships in health.(Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2005-10-07)BACKGROUND: The last decade has witnessed a significant move towards new modes of governing that are based on coordination and collaboration. In particular, local level partnerships have been widely introduced around the world. There are few comprehensive approaches for researching the effects of these partnerships. The aim of this paper is to outline a network approach that combines structure and agency based explanations to research partnerships in health. Network research based on two Primary Care Partnerships (PCPs) in Victoria is used to demonstrate the utility of this approach. The paper examines multiple types of ties between people (structure), and the use and value of relationships to partners (agency), using interviews with the people involved in two PCPs--one in metropolitan Melbourne and one in a rural area. RESULTS: Network maps of ties based on work, strategic information and policy advice, show that there are many strong connections in both PCPs. Not surprisingly, PCP staff are central and highly connected. Of more interest are the ties that are dependent on these dedicated partnership staff, as they reveal which actors become weakly linked or disconnected without them. Network measures indicate that work ties are the most dispersed and strategic information ties are the most concentrated around fewer people. Divisions of general practice are weakly linked, while local government officials and Department of Human Services (DHS) regional staff appear to play important bridging roles. Finally, the relationships between partners have changed and improved, and most of those interviewed value their new or improved links with partners. CONCLUSION: Improving service coordination and health promotion planning requires engaging people and building strong relationships. Mapping ties is a useful means for assessing the strengths and weaknesses of partnerships, and network analysis indicates concentration and dispersion, the importance of particular individuals, and the points at which they will fragment. A narrative approach adds an assessment of whether the partnerships are being used and valued. The approach outlined here, which examines structure and agency as separate but related explanations, has much to offer in examining partnerships.
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ItemFrom syndicalism to Seattle: Class and the politics of identity(CAMBRIDGE UNIV PRESS, 2005-01-01)In the first half of the twentieth century the labor movement promoted the notion of separate working-class values and interests—evident for example in American and European syndicalism, British interwar Communism and Australian interwar Laborism—and was thus identifiable as a social movement. Like the new social movements of the 1960s and 1970s, this prewar identity politics successfully mobilized imagined political communities. By contrast, the retreat from emphasis on class difference and the turn to “equality of opportunity” politics, which Raymond Williams identified at midcentury and warned against, demobilized and weakened the labor movement. With class-based inequalities increasing from the 1970s, the decline of working-class identity politics ensured that the discrepancy between the objective importance of class and its subjective significance became especially marked. However, a newly forged identity politics of the world's economically exploited has recently reemerged in the movement against corporate globalization. From syndicalism to Seattle, we have witnessed the rise, retreat and resurgence of class identity politics.
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ItemRefusing to sing: Gender, kinship and patriliny in macedonia(Wiley, 2005-01-01)The issue of whether formal kinship structures and sentiments reflect the reality of social relations was of particular concern to specialists at the height of the kinship debates in the 1960s and 1970s, as it continues to be in some contemporary studies. So too, the classifications ‘patrilineal’ or ‘matrilineal’ have clearly been shown to be problematic given that there are multiple levels of discourse and relational and ideational realities in any given society. For many contemporary kinship specialists in fact no simple correlation can be made between type of descent system and actual social relations, especially relations between men and women. However, some anthropologists continue to argue that patrilineal kinship systems are somehow indicative of control or domination by men or, put inversely, of women's lack of power and authority. It is argued in this paper that even where the formal kinship structures and ideological discourses are dominated by agnation as appears to be the case in south Slav societies generally, and Macedonian in particular, this is not automatically mirrored in gender relations between men and women. In short, there is a long leap from patriliny to patriarchy.
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ItemBeyond appearances: Perspectives on identity in later life and some implications for method(OXFORD UNIV PRESS INC, 2005-05)Two areas of controversy are examined in this article, arising from contemporary debate on identity in later life. The first centers on whether adults are essentially similar regardless of age or whether different stages of life confer different life priorities. The second addresses the management of self in later life, with special attention being given to alternative interpretations of the relationship between interior and exterior experience. An increasing awareness of diversity in life-course patterns suggests that issues concerning uniformity, distinctiveness, and the uses of masquerade in intergenerational contexts should be revisited. Here, the influence of simple and complex states of mind is examined as a factor in intergenerational power, and the expression of agency in later life is discussed. These issues not only propel us forward in our understanding of gerontological phenomena, they also point to potential sources of research bias associated with specifically intergenerational contexts. Finally, suggestions are made with respect to research training.