Faculty of Education - Research Publications
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ItemRoutinized performances of belonging: Everyday practices and relationships in rural and regional areas during the pandemic(WILEY, 2022-08)Abstract The concentration of COVID‐19 cases and restrictions in metropolitan areas in 2020 resulted in a re‐emergence of the concept of the ‘rural idyll’ in Australia, with rural and regional areas coming to be associated with a safe and uninterrupted way of life. Implicit in this notion is the assumption that those living in rural and regional areas found their routines and experiences of belonging uninterrupted. We critique this narrative by drawing on qualitative longitudinal data collected from 2006 to 2020, which allows us to examine our participants' experiences of belonging in rural and regional areas both before and during the pandemic. We find that although our participants' experiences of belonging were largely undisturbed by the pandemic, this was not because their lives were not affected more broadly, but because their sense of belonging was established through everyday routines and practices that were maintained during the pandemic.
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ItemFormations of belonging in Australia: The role of nostalgia in experiences of time and place(WILEY, 2019-07)Abstract Although residential mobility has been studied at length, residential immobility has been addressed comparatively rarely. In this article, we draw on interviews conducted with 35 participants aged 38–39 in 2012 in Victoria, Australia, in which they were asked to reflect on their lives over the previous 20 years, focusing specifically on those who have remained in or returned to the areas in which they grew up. We focus on the role of nostalgia in the participants' experiences of and relationships with place, finding that far from signifying a purely, or even predominantly, melancholic experience their expressions of nostalgia held the power to enliven the present, even while anchoring them to the past. We contend that nostalgia can form an integral part of practices that reconcile continuity and change and produce feelings of familiarity and comfort, which buffer individuals against the uncertainties associated with wider contexts shaped by rapid social change.
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ItemEveryday social media use of young Australian adults(Informa UK Limited, 2021-10-21)Current research on young people’s social media use tends to revolve around notable and spectacular forms of usage, and usage by specific identity-based groups on specific sites. The everyday social media use of ‘ordinary’ young people and its theoretical significance for youth sociology is less often considered. This paper presents findings derived from longitudinal data collected from 446 young Australians about their social media use. Using Couldry’s (2012. Media, Society, World: Social Theory and Digital Media Practice. Cambridge: Polity Press) media-related practices as a dual methodological and conceptual lens, we examine how their social media practices are embedded in the broader social practices of Australian young people. In so doing, we seek to understand how media are used by young people as a tool or resource to navigate their everyday lives in changing social contexts, and suggest that this process is directly contributing to their active creation of a new experience of adulthood. We ultimately contend that the media-related practices that we identify demonstrate how young people experience and negotiate the power of social media in shaping their everyday practices, which affords an opportunity to account for media’s role in constituting the shifting social ontology experienced by young people.
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ItemThe new gendered labour of synchronisation: Temporal labour in the new world of work(SAGE Publications, 2019-10-19)Research considering how time is organised has shown that women tend to carry a disproportionate burden of coordinating the schedules of their households. However, little research has considered how these gendered inequalities may manifest in the context of the shift away from ‘standard’ work patterns and towards variable and non-standard hours. We address this question by using interview and digital data to consider how a selection of ‘ordinary’ Australian young adults in heterosexual partnerships manage and coordinate their time. We contend that even for middle-class young adults with relatively high employment security, increasingly complex working arrangements are shifting existing inequalities in gendered divisions of temporal labour in ways that heighten feelings of temporal insecurity. We conceptualise our findings as part of an intensification of the existing need to schedule and manage lives that is widely felt in the so-called ‘gig economy era’, even by those removed from gig work proper.
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ItemBelonging and the Self as Enterprise: Place, Relationships and the Formation of Occupation-Based Identities(WILEY, 2019-12-04)Research considering young adults’ experiences of place is characterised by two focal points: the relationship between place, education and employment; and immaterial aspects of place such as experiences of belonging and relationality. Previous research has worked across these focal points considering, for instance, how symbolic and immaterial factors and social ties can inform mobility choices and experiences. We extend this work by drawing on longitudinal qualitative data to show three ways that place attachment can be a part of the formation of contemporary occupation-based identities. Using the concept of the self as enterprise (Kelly 2013), we mark out this development as part of a broader generational shift in occupational identities. We ultimately find that some young adults can remain in or return to meaningful rural and regional places by developing an occupational identity or ‘personal brand’ informed by changing occupational demands and enabled by social ties linked to specific places.