School of Social and Political Sciences - Research Publications
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ItemA continuum of harm: How systemic interactions can multiply and entrench complex disadvantage(Revolving Doors, 2021-02-17)Together, as academics and practitioners, we explore the interconnectedness of poverty, trauma and multiple disadvantage in one of Australia’s most disadvantaged postcodes, which we call ‘Redlands’. In showing how everyday encounters with adults in authority can cause harm, we take up the challenge to recognise the “impact of interactions with formal and informal social structures, institutions and processes upon the lives of children and young people” (Armstrong, 2004, p.110). We briefly review relevant literature on trauma, multiple disadvantage and social exclusion, outlining the Australian and local context to set the scene for our discussion. We explain how we use the concepts of therapeutic justice, social ecological theory, and the notion of a continuum of harm, as a framework for our analysis. We draw on our work and practice experience in Redlands, using case studies to show how everyday encounters with authority unfold in the lives of children and families living with poverty and trauma, and how they can elicit reactions that exclude and punish. We explain how these interactions can normalise experiences of exclusion within families, and how trauma and disadvantage can become embedded across generations. We also show how interactions with children and families can become positive, and how therapeutic intervention can interrupt these patterns. We conclude our discussion by highlighting the universal issues that Redlands illustrates, and the policy and practice implications of thinking and working through a therapeutic-ecological lens.
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ItemTowards a brighter future for low-income women(Brotherhood of St Laurence, 2021-04-19)The COVID-19 pandemic has been described as a women’s pandemic because of its unequal social and economic impacts. While there are some signs of recovery, the future remains uncertain, due to the unpredictability of outbreaks, uncertainty about the effectiveness of vaccines, and the complex global context. Some commentators are concerned that federal government policy is favouring austerity, which will hamper recovery and lead to increased unemployment and economic insecurity. There is also concern that proposed industrial relations legislation could undermine workers’ protections. The policy choices made will affect the lives of many, both now and into the future. Rather than austerity, investment is needed to build brighter futures for low income women and their families
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ItemPerjalanan Perempuan dalam Menggerakkan Perubahan: Aksi Kolektif Perempuan dan Pelaksanaan Undang-undang Desa di Indonesia.(The Australia-Indonesia Partnership for Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment (MAMPU), The University of Melbourne and Universitas Gadjah Mada, 2020-12-23)This peer-reviewed edited volume of women's life stories draws on detailed ethnographic research of village women's lived experiences and how they, individually and collectively, have taken action to influence village development in Indonesia's multi-level governance structure under the new Village Law in Indonesia. The analysis identifies the processes of women's empowerment, their involvement in grassroots women’s collective action, engagement with civil society organisations, and how women influence village institutions, policies, development spending and priorities, and new projects as well as social norms in communities. The analysis draws from detailed qualitative research, including in-depth interviews with women, conducted during long stays in a variety of villages in Indonesia. The individual stories reflect a feminist research approach in foregrounding women’s voices and draws out the complex processes that women go through and the barriers that they have to overcome to exercise voice and influence in village development. These life stories show how women navigate the constraints on gender inclusion and women’s empowerment. Through the analysis we see how change can happen in Indonesia, despite entrenched patriarchal norms and limited women’s representation in governance institutions and other structures of power and decision making. The volume is available in Bahasa Indonesia and English.
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ItemWomen’s Journeys in Driving Change: Women’s Collective Action and Village Law Implementation in Indonesia(The Australia-Indonesia Partnership for Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment (MAMPU), The University of Melbourne and Universitas Gadjah Mada, 2020)This peer-reviewed edited volume of women's life stories draws on detailed ethnographic research of village women's lived experiences and how they, individually and collectively, have taken action to influence village development in Indonesia's multi-level governance structure under the new Village Law in Indonesia. The analysis identifies the processes of women's empowerment, their involvement in grassroots women’s collective action, engagement with civil society organisations, and how women influence village institutions, policies, development spending and priorities, and new projects as well as social norms in communities. The analysis draws from detailed qualitative research, including in-depth interviews with women, conducted during long stays in a variety of villages in Indonesia. The individual stories reflect a feminist research approach in foregrounding women’s voices and draws out the complex processes that women go through and the barriers that they have to overcome to exercise voice and influence in village development. These life stories show how women navigate the constraints on gender inclusion and women’s empowerment. Through the analysis we see how change can happen in Indonesia, despite entrenched patriarchal norms and limited women’s representation in governance institutions and other structures of power and decision making. The volume is available both in English and Bahasa Indonesia.
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ItemMembuka Jalan untuk Pembangunan Inklusif Gender di Daerah Perdesaan Indonesia: Bunga Rampai Kajian Aksi Kolektif Perempuan dan Pengaruhnya pada Pelaksanaan Undang-Undang Desa [Forging Pathways for Gender-inclusive Development in Rural Indonesia: Case Studies of Women’s Collective Action and Influence on Village Law Implementation](The Australia-Indonesia Partnership for Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment (MAMPU), The University of Melbourne and Universitas Gadjah Mada, 2020-01-30)This peer-reviewed edited volume of case studies draws on detailed ethnographic research of how village women have influenced village development in Indonesia's multi-level governance structure under the new Village Law in Indonesia. The analysis identifies the processes of grassroots women’s collective action, civil society organisation support for village women and wider advocacy influence village institutions, policies, development spending and priorities, and new projects as well as social norms in communities. The analysis draws from detailed qualitative research, including in-depth interviews, focus group discussion, observations, and long village stays in a variety of villages in Indonesia. Each case study foregrounds women’s voices and draws out the complex processes by which women exercise voice and influence in village development and how they navigate the constraints on gender inclusion and women’s empowerment. Through the analysis we see how change can happen in Indonesia, despite patriarchal norms and limited women’s representation in governance institutions and other structures of power and decision making.
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ItemWomen’s Collective Action and the Village Law: How Women are Driving Change and Shaping Pathways for Gender-inclusive Development in Rural Indonesia.(The Australia-Indonesia Partnership for Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment (MAMPU), The University of Melbourne, and Universitas Gadjah Mada, 2020)In 2014, Indonesia embarked on an ambitious agenda to devolve some authority for local development to village authorities through the Village Law, with budgets directly channelled to nearly 75,000 villages across the archipelago to implement local-level initiatives. The changes introduced under the Village Law provide a significant opportunity for women to increasingly influence village governance and development decisions so as to improve their wellbeing. Covering a range of sectors, places and contexts throughout Indonesia, this original peer-reviewed comparative research draws on multiple qualitative research methods and interviews with more than 600 people to explore if and how women’s collective action in different forms—both at the grassroots level and in more structured advocacy and support for village women from civil society organisations concerned with gender equity—has facilitated changes in the ways power is exercised and decision making operates in rural villages and districts to be more inclusive of women. These are types of change that can have profound impacts on the everyday lives of rural women in Indonesia. The research was conducted across a diverse range of regions from Sumatra, to Java, to Kalimantan, Sulawesi, and East and West Nusa Tenggara in nine provinces, 12 districts and 14 villages and the support of 15 civil society organisation partners in Indonesia focused on gender inclusion and women’s empowerment nationally and subnationally. The research has tended to capture in ethnographic detail and comparatively the voices and experiences of more vulnerable rural village women, women who have often experienced multiple-dimensions of poverty. The research shows how in different contexts and through different causal pathways, women have influenced structures of power and decision making, particularly those concerned with village development in Indonesia. The comparative analysis in this paper is also available in Bahasa Indonesia.
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ItemSubmission to the Australian Federal Government Taskforce consultation into the Disability Employment System, 2015.(Australian Federal Government, 2015)
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ItemPhysical Safety and Security: A proposal for internationally comparable indicators of violence( 2007)Violence impedes human freedom to live safely and securely and can sustain poverty traps in many communities. One of the challenges for academics, policy makers, and practitioners working broadly in programmes aimed at poverty alleviation, including violence prevention, is the lack of reliable and comparable data on the incidence and nature of violence. This paper proposes a household survey module for a multidimensional poverty questionnaire which can be used to complement the available data on the incidence of violence against property and the person, as well as perceptions of security and safety. Violence and poverty are inextricably linked, although the direction of causality is contested if not circular. The module uses standardised definitions which are clear and can be translated cross-culturally and a clear disaggregation of different types of interpersonal violence (not including self-harm) which bridges the crime–conflict nexus.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableThe corporatisation of Pine Gap(Nautilus Institute, 2015-06-24)The Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap, located just outside the town of Alice Springs in Central Australia and managed by the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), is one of the largest U.S. technical intelligence collection facilities in the world. The corporate presence at Pine Gap has expanded substantially in terms of both the number of companies involved and the total number of civilian contract personnel, and has changed significantly in functional terms, since the 1990s. It includes some of the major US aerospace and defence companies, such as Raytheon, Boeing, Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics, as well as major computer companies, such as IBM and Hewlett-Packard. It also includes an increasing number of ‘pure play’ companies, who focus almost entirely on contracts from the National Reconnaissance Office, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and National Security Agency (NSA), such as Scitor Corporation, SAIC and Leidos.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableThe Militarisation of Pine Gap: Organisations and Personnel(Nautilus Institute, 2015-08-13)Many Australians associate Pine Gap with the Central Intelligence Agency, and it probably remains the CIA’s most important technical intelligence collection station in the world. Yet Pine Gap is much more thoroughly militarised than in the past, with units of all four branches of the US armed forces now present, with close involvement in operations of the US military worldwide, including in Iraq and Afghanistan. The US military personnel now comprise about 66 per cent of the US Government employees (not counting contractor personnel) at Pine Gap. US military Service elements form a Combined Support Group (CSG). Through the 1990s, the growing Service presence supported Pine Gap’s primary (and during that period its sole) role, that of controlling and processing and analysing SIGINT collected by the NRO/CIA geosynchronous SIGINT satellites. Since then, the larger proportion of the CSG personnel have evidently been engaged in FORNSAT/COMSAT (Foreign Satellite/Communications Satellite) collection. Officially, they are engaged in Information Operations, Cyber Warfare and the achievement of Information Dominance. In practice, this involves monitoring Internet activities being transmitted via communications satellites, scouring e-mails, Web-sites and Chat Rooms for intelligence to support military operations, and particularly those involving Special Operations Forces, in Iraq and Afghanistan. They are undoubtedly key participants in NSA’s X-Keyscore program at Pine Gap.