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
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
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
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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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
Intimacy and Violence in Anglo Pacific Rim settler colonial societies. Violence and intimacy were both fundamental to the formation of settler colonial societies, yet we know surprisingly little of how they were connected. Through a large-scale collaboration of leading scholars, this project aims to produce the first transnational analysis of intimacy and violence as key, intertwined vectors in the development of settler societies across the colonial Anglophone Pacific Rim. Drawing out connectio ....Intimacy and Violence in Anglo Pacific Rim settler colonial societies. Violence and intimacy were both fundamental to the formation of settler colonial societies, yet we know surprisingly little of how they were connected. Through a large-scale collaboration of leading scholars, this project aims to produce the first transnational analysis of intimacy and violence as key, intertwined vectors in the development of settler societies across the colonial Anglophone Pacific Rim. Drawing out connections between the broad-scale dynamics of colonial rule and the violent and intimate domains of its implementation on the ground, the project aims to generate new comparative insights into the development of colonial settler cultures and create enhanced understanding of their legacies for western settler democracies today.Read moreRead less
Postwar Russian displaced persons arriving in Australia via the China route. This transnational project plans to study Russian and Russian-speaking Jewish refugees who came to Australia via the ‘China’ route (mainly from Harbin and Shanghai) after World War Two. In Australia, they coexisted with the former Soviet citizens ‘displaced persons’ of Russian, Ukrainian and Baltic nationality who reached Australia via Europe. Their pre-war experiences led many of the refugees to be strongly anti-Commun ....Postwar Russian displaced persons arriving in Australia via the China route. This transnational project plans to study Russian and Russian-speaking Jewish refugees who came to Australia via the ‘China’ route (mainly from Harbin and Shanghai) after World War Two. In Australia, they coexisted with the former Soviet citizens ‘displaced persons’ of Russian, Ukrainian and Baltic nationality who reached Australia via Europe. Their pre-war experiences led many of the refugees to be strongly anti-Communist, but a minority were not, and became subjects of interest both to the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) and the Soviet KGB. The project plans to investigate their trajectories of exile, migration and settlement, and the impact of this refugee experience on the development of Australian anti-communism in the 1950s.Read moreRead less
Russian Immigrants and Anti-Communism in Cold War Australia, 1946-1966. The project explores the experience of Russian immigrants in Australia during the Cold War. It examines the ambiguity and complexity of what it meant to be Russian at a time of heightened anti-Soviet and anti-Communist sentiment, when ‘Red’ and ‘Russian’ were often equated, and when ASIO took a keen interest in the Russian migrant community. The project will generate new knowledge in the fields of immigration and politics, b ....Russian Immigrants and Anti-Communism in Cold War Australia, 1946-1966. The project explores the experience of Russian immigrants in Australia during the Cold War. It examines the ambiguity and complexity of what it meant to be Russian at a time of heightened anti-Soviet and anti-Communist sentiment, when ‘Red’ and ‘Russian’ were often equated, and when ASIO took a keen interest in the Russian migrant community. The project will generate new knowledge in the fields of immigration and politics, by exploring the factors that influence political activism for newly arrived migrants and diasporas. Expected outcomes of the project include a deepened knowledge of Australia’s Cold War and immigrant politics, and important benefits for Australian understanding of migrants who carried significant political baggage.Read moreRead less
Serving in Silence? Australian LGBTI Military Service since 1945. This project aims to investigate how the Australian armed forces have grappled with changing social attitudes towards lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people from the end of World War Two until the present. The project plans to analyse why in some eras the Australian military has been an international leader in facilitating social change, while at other times it has lagged behind civilian norms. It aims to ....Serving in Silence? Australian LGBTI Military Service since 1945. This project aims to investigate how the Australian armed forces have grappled with changing social attitudes towards lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people from the end of World War Two until the present. The project plans to analyse why in some eras the Australian military has been an international leader in facilitating social change, while at other times it has lagged behind civilian norms. It aims to reveal the untold experiences of LGBTI personnel, the processes of change to policies and practices, and wider cultural shifts around sexuality and gender. The expected project outcomes will inform current debates about Australian Defence Force culture and wider questions about how institutions respond to social change.Read moreRead less
Violence on the Australian Colonial Frontier, 1788-1960. How many Aborigines and settlers were killed on the Australian frontier? Were they mostly killed in ones and twos or in mass killings? How can we know? These questions are of first national importance in understanding the past. This project takes a fresh approach to frontier violence by employing new analytical methods to investigate the complex array of sources to produce new estimates of casualties 1788 to 1960. The findings will be made ....Violence on the Australian Colonial Frontier, 1788-1960. How many Aborigines and settlers were killed on the Australian frontier? Were they mostly killed in ones and twos or in mass killings? How can we know? These questions are of first national importance in understanding the past. This project takes a fresh approach to frontier violence by employing new analytical methods to investigate the complex array of sources to produce new estimates of casualties 1788 to 1960. The findings will be made available in online maps and transform our understanding of the ongoing trauma of frontier violence that persists in Australian society today. Read moreRead less