Working from home: New media technology, workplace culture and the changing nature of domesticity. New media technologies are often marketed as liberating people from the workplace, providing flexibility in meeting work obligations. Communication technologies in particular make working from home increasingly possible: laptops, mobile phones and PDAs make any space a potential site for paid labour. This research studies the effect of new media technologies on how work is performed, where and by w ....Working from home: New media technology, workplace culture and the changing nature of domesticity. New media technologies are often marketed as liberating people from the workplace, providing flexibility in meeting work obligations. Communication technologies in particular make working from home increasingly possible: laptops, mobile phones and PDAs make any space a potential site for paid labour. This research studies the effect of new media technologies on how work is performed, where and by whom, to gauge their impact on the community more broadly. It also asks whether these new relationships to work raise the prospect of changing traditional attitudes to the work performed in and outside the home by men and women.Read moreRead less
Understanding pornography in Australia: public discourses and pornographic texts. This project will offer a detailed, large-scale analysis of the place of pornography in Australian culture. It will interview 300 producers and distributors of pornographic texts, and almost one thousand consumers of these texts. Using insights from this research into the ways in which pornography is understood by those involved with it in Australia, one hundred popular pornographic videos will be analysed to under ....Understanding pornography in Australia: public discourses and pornographic texts. This project will offer a detailed, large-scale analysis of the place of pornography in Australian culture. It will interview 300 producers and distributors of pornographic texts, and almost one thousand consumers of these texts. Using insights from this research into the ways in which pornography is understood by those involved with it in Australia, one hundred popular pornographic videos will be analysed to understand what is in them, and how they are used.
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Responding to Sexual Harm: An Australian Historical Criminology Approach . Despite sustained interventions from the 1970s onwards, sexual harm is a problem of enormous magnitude within Australia. The project focuses on contemporary histories of reform, aiming to understand how social, political, legal and cultural contexts have shaped experiences and conceptualisations of sexual harm. This project expects to generate vital knowledge on the impacts of recent historical reforms on diverse communit ....Responding to Sexual Harm: An Australian Historical Criminology Approach . Despite sustained interventions from the 1970s onwards, sexual harm is a problem of enormous magnitude within Australia. The project focuses on contemporary histories of reform, aiming to understand how social, political, legal and cultural contexts have shaped experiences and conceptualisations of sexual harm. This project expects to generate vital knowledge on the impacts of recent historical reforms on diverse communities, advance mixed methods and co-design approaches in historical criminology, and enhance Australia’s research capacity by training a new team of topic matter experts. By understanding the impacts of past reform, findings should provide significant benefits in informing future reforms and responses to sexual harm.Read moreRead less
Engaging Outsiders in Sport: Transforming Sport Event Legacy Planning . The project aims to investigate intersectional inequities in sport participation for girls, women and non-binary people in Queensland by working with them to envision legacies for the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Using a co-creation approach this project expects to identify how and what benefits can be achieved through legacy planning that engages with end-users who have historically been marginalised in sport. In doin ....Engaging Outsiders in Sport: Transforming Sport Event Legacy Planning . The project aims to investigate intersectional inequities in sport participation for girls, women and non-binary people in Queensland by working with them to envision legacies for the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Using a co-creation approach this project expects to identify how and what benefits can be achieved through legacy planning that engages with end-users who have historically been marginalised in sport. In doing so, the expected outcomes of the project include the development of evidence-based resources to improve engagement in sport and to build capacity and sustain meaningful change for communities and organisations.Read moreRead less
Far Right in Australia: Intellectuals, Masculinity and Citizenship. This project will investigate male-dominated far right groups in Australia by looking at their intellectual underpinnings. The sociological focus is on how core ideas inflect tropes of masculinity and the phenomena of weak citizenship. This moves beyond a simple stereotype of angry, disenfranchised young men; to grasp the radical right-wing thinking that motivates them, and informs their hate rhetoric and actions. Using multi-me ....Far Right in Australia: Intellectuals, Masculinity and Citizenship. This project will investigate male-dominated far right groups in Australia by looking at their intellectual underpinnings. The sociological focus is on how core ideas inflect tropes of masculinity and the phenomena of weak citizenship. This moves beyond a simple stereotype of angry, disenfranchised young men; to grasp the radical right-wing thinking that motivates them, and informs their hate rhetoric and actions. Using multi-methods, we will explore attitudes, and use of transnational far right ideas to 'imagine' Australia. The project will generate new knowledge of how bonds of citizenship have weakened amongst men who define themselves at the margins; yielding insights into how masculinity is actively utilised as a recruitment mechanism.Read moreRead less
Enhancing services to Australian children and families: linking workforce characteristics, job quality, and quality and outcomes in social services. This project aims to promote best practice in child and family welfare services, and to improve the industrial and social recognition of child and family welfare work in Australia. The CIs will construct an analytical framework for explaining the links between the nature and deployment of the child and family services workforce, service delivery sys ....Enhancing services to Australian children and families: linking workforce characteristics, job quality, and quality and outcomes in social services. This project aims to promote best practice in child and family welfare services, and to improve the industrial and social recognition of child and family welfare work in Australia. The CIs will construct an analytical framework for explaining the links between the nature and deployment of the child and family services workforce, service delivery systems and outcomes, and social policy regimes, with wider application to other personal social services. Judicious use of international comparison will assist identification of best practice. The project will inform policy and research in social service provision to vulnerable families, and the aged and disabled.Read moreRead less
Farmers of the Future: the Challenges of Feminised Agriculture in India. Neoliberal economic policies are fundamentally transforming the social landscapes of rural India, causing a deep agrarian crisis. The agrarian changes accentuate the unequal consequences for poor women and men in relation to: production (labour, tenure); livelihood and food security; access to and ownership of assets such as land and water and access to agricultural innovations and institutions. This multiscalar project inv ....Farmers of the Future: the Challenges of Feminised Agriculture in India. Neoliberal economic policies are fundamentally transforming the social landscapes of rural India, causing a deep agrarian crisis. The agrarian changes accentuate the unequal consequences for poor women and men in relation to: production (labour, tenure); livelihood and food security; access to and ownership of assets such as land and water and access to agricultural innovations and institutions. This multiscalar project investigates the causes and consequences of feminisation of agriculture in India’s transitioning economy in order to understand how gender roles and relations are being re-shaped in communities and households in diverse socioeconomic and cultural contexts and agro-ecological areas.Read moreRead less
A Critical Genealogy of Normality. The rather divergent ideas about normality that emerged in nineteenth-century medical thought continue to have a widespread cultural influence today. Cultural assumptions about what constitutes a normal body inform a wide range of medical practices and underpin the use of standardised testing to determine health or disability. They are also in play when doctors decide when to undertake preventative health measures and when to intervene surgically. A detailed un ....A Critical Genealogy of Normality. The rather divergent ideas about normality that emerged in nineteenth-century medical thought continue to have a widespread cultural influence today. Cultural assumptions about what constitutes a normal body inform a wide range of medical practices and underpin the use of standardised testing to determine health or disability. They are also in play when doctors decide when to undertake preventative health measures and when to intervene surgically. A detailed understanding of how bodily norms come to be established has an important role to play in both shaping medical ethics and in helping people make more informed choices about elective surgical procedures.Read moreRead less
Archiving Social Movements & Building Historical Literacy for a Digital Age. This project aims to investigate how the history of social movements has been collected, catalogued and curated by archives and museums. It is significant because it will make these histories available to form an equitable and inclusive civic culture. An expected outcome is an interdisciplinary approach producing new knowledge about citizens’ roles in shaping private and public collections, and about the use of these co ....Archiving Social Movements & Building Historical Literacy for a Digital Age. This project aims to investigate how the history of social movements has been collected, catalogued and curated by archives and museums. It is significant because it will make these histories available to form an equitable and inclusive civic culture. An expected outcome is an interdisciplinary approach producing new knowledge about citizens’ roles in shaping private and public collections, and about the use of these collections to shape memory and generate wider historical literacy. Benefits include providing insight into inclusive physical and digital collecting practices, which enables the project to address UNESCO’s goal of achieving greater access to decision-making about culture, heritage and the formation of social identities.Read moreRead less
Sexual well-being and ageing: a study of older Australian women. This research addresses important issues of ageism and sexism that together affect older women's health and well-being. The findings will inform the link between aging, sexuality and more general dimensions of health and well-being and advance our understanding of issues central to policy and services for older Australians.