ORCID Profile
0000-0002-4688-0838
Current Organisation
James Cook University
Does something not look right? The information on this page has been harvested from data sources that may not be up to date. We continue to work with information providers to improve coverage and quality. To report an issue, use the Feedback Form.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 2011
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 09-2014
Publisher: CSIRO Publishing
Date: 06-03-2021
DOI: 10.1071/RJ20077
Abstract: As governments and primary industries work to build the climate resilience of Australian agriculture, in idual producers are often called upon to implement strategies to become more adaptive in the face of drought. These strategies include infrastructural changes to agricultural businesses, changes to practices, and the adoption of new skills and knowledge. The transition towards greater drought adaptiveness will also demand broader cultural shifts in the way that drought is defined and approached as an issue facing primary producers. This paper presents the results of a discourse analysis conducted as part of social research exploring the cultural barriers to drought preparedness within the Queensland Government’s Drought and Climate Adaptation Program (DCAP). Focusing on media and government accounts, the analysis found two different ways of framing drought and its management in Queensland agriculture. The first, which is dominant in media accounts, emphasises the disruptive power of drought, presenting it as a profound difficulty for producers that is managed using endurance, hope and ingenuity. This frame adopts highly evocative discursive strategies oriented towards mobilising community sentiment and support for producers. The second, which is less prominent overall, downplays drought’s disruptive power and counters the emotionality of the adversity discourse by presenting drought as a neutral business risk that can be managed using rational planning skills and scientific knowledge. In discussing these two frames, this paper suggests strategies whereby drought adaptation frames might be made more powerful using more meaningful and emotive narratives that showcase it as a vital practice for ensuring agricultural livelihoods and rural futures in a changing climate.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 08-05-2018
DOI: 10.1057/S41599-018-0107-7
Abstract: The proliferation of digital technology has brought about rapid social and economic change, the consequences of which have not been evenly distributed. Older people, in particular, tend to be less engaged with digital technology and as a result, are said to be at risk of 'digital exclusion'. In this paper, we explore how digital technology is discursively linked to ageing and social and economic participation. The analysis is based on 38 interviews with representatives of industry, government and civil society asked to share their views of the opportunities and risks associated with age and participation in the context of rapid developments in digital technology. Using discourse analysis we identify two competing ways interview participants made connections between digital technology and its perceived effects on the economic and social participation of an ageing population. In the first, digital technology drives human progress as a ‘fix’ to some of the social and economic challenges associated with ageing but also demands a cautious approach to minimise unforeseen negative consequences. In the second, digital technology is a tool, whose development can be driven by humans in order to solve a range of problems, including economic and social participation in later life. We consider the implications of these two discourses, discussing the potential of each for achieving a sense of empowerment in the ageing community and addressing the challenge of lifelong participation.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 11-2010
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 06-08-2019
Abstract: This paper examines the use of predator fences for conservation in Australia. It argues that these major infrastructures for enclosure act as a form of ‘provocative containment’ in which particular forms of nature are not simply protected but made to happen. The primary focus is Newhaven, a property in remote central Australia managed by the Australian Wildlife Conservancy, a non-profit organization with the biggest estate of privately managed land for conservation in the nation. At Newhaven, the first stage of an ambitious and expensive predator fencing programme has recently been completed, with a second phase under construction that will see the property become the site of the largest feral cat-free enclosure on the planet. In analysing this significant material infrastructure, and the practices and discourses that the Australian Wildlife Conservancy deploys to both justify and attract funding for it, it is possible to see a new conceptualization of conservation emerging in which nature is not simply offered sanctuary but actively stimulated and simulated. The Newhaven fence is much more than a passive material boundary between desired and undesired life. It is a reality-generating device with complex and contradictory biopolitical effects. The concept of provocation highlights how the fence emerges as a deliberate intervention into the dynamics of life. We examine how this is done in four distinct ways: through the sociotechnical design and construction of the fence as ‘cat-proof’, by enrolling Indigenous labour and tracking skills to kill cats, through the use of ecological surveys and baselines to make some life calculable, and via the translocation of species in order to allow them to be both protected and flourish. Each of these practices is essential to making new natures at Newhaven through the complex dynamics of provocation and containment. The issue is: what sort of nature?
No related grants have been discovered for Gillian Paxton.