Cultural competence in supporting Cambodians recovering from conflict. This project will (1) reduce the impact of conflict for the next generation, a key to a healthy start to life and ageing well (2) guide interventions in regional settings (3) inform guidelines for refugee programs in Australia (4) highlight culture as redressing weakened traditional support structures of survivors of war in Australia and the region, supporting the Government's welfare reform and participation agendas (5) equi ....Cultural competence in supporting Cambodians recovering from conflict. This project will (1) reduce the impact of conflict for the next generation, a key to a healthy start to life and ageing well (2) guide interventions in regional settings (3) inform guidelines for refugee programs in Australia (4) highlight culture as redressing weakened traditional support structures of survivors of war in Australia and the region, supporting the Government's welfare reform and participation agendas (5) equip Australia to understand insecurities of globalisation and what survivors of war can be driven to do - unless their culture is used as an asset rather than a source of terror (6) enhance Australia's capacity to engage with its cultural environment (7) enhance capacity for AusAID to interpret itself to the rest of the world.Read moreRead less
Social Memory and Historical Justice: How Democratic Societies Remember and Forget the Victimisation of Minorities in the Past. We will analyse how the victimisation of minorities is publicly and collectively remembered in a range of countries, including Australia, New Zealand, Spain, the Ukraine, Austria, Germany, Peru, Chile and the USA. We will identify key factors that enable democratic societies to work towards historical justice. By exploring how memories are contested and how communities ....Social Memory and Historical Justice: How Democratic Societies Remember and Forget the Victimisation of Minorities in the Past. We will analyse how the victimisation of minorities is publicly and collectively remembered in a range of countries, including Australia, New Zealand, Spain, the Ukraine, Austria, Germany, Peru, Chile and the USA. We will identify key factors that enable democratic societies to work towards historical justice. By exploring how memories are contested and how communities actively negotiate the legacies of the past, we will address issues of crucial contemporary concern. The project will provide research training and international experience for a postdoctoral fellow and three doctoral students in an area at the cutting edge of the humanities and social sciences.Read moreRead less
From Local Stories to National Identity: Competing National Myths in Chinese Nativist Fiction. China's continuous and rapid economic upsurge means it will play an increasingly greater role globally but its influence in our region will even be greater. Understanding China is imperative for Australia, which can only be achieved through understanding the core Chinese social and cultural values. It is vital for Australian policy-makers to know how cultural identification within China functions and h ....From Local Stories to National Identity: Competing National Myths in Chinese Nativist Fiction. China's continuous and rapid economic upsurge means it will play an increasingly greater role globally but its influence in our region will even be greater. Understanding China is imperative for Australia, which can only be achieved through understanding the core Chinese social and cultural values. It is vital for Australian policy-makers to know how cultural identification within China functions and how the Chinese government uses culture (among other means) to hold the vastly different regions together. Cultural understanding demands an appreciation of literature, the importance of which in Chinese cultural life is often underestimated outside China.Read moreRead less
From Local Stories to National Identity: Competing National Myths in Chinese Nativist Fiction. The project investigates the creation, reception and significance of competing national myths in Chinese nativist fiction. It explores the paradox that nativist writers, on the one hand, are committed to the abstract idea of a single Chinese nation, while, on the other hand, they aspire to create distinctive local cultural identities. Why do regional literatures compete in identifying with the cultural ....From Local Stories to National Identity: Competing National Myths in Chinese Nativist Fiction. The project investigates the creation, reception and significance of competing national myths in Chinese nativist fiction. It explores the paradox that nativist writers, on the one hand, are committed to the abstract idea of a single Chinese nation, while, on the other hand, they aspire to create distinctive local cultural identities. Why do regional literatures compete in identifying with the cultural centre? How do different local tales represent the regional and the national? By answering these questions, this project will expand Chinese regional studies into the literary sphere and contribute to the theoretical understanding of Chinese cultural nationalism.Read moreRead less
Imagining Assimilation. The Australian Experience. The project will produce the first comprehensive cultural history of assimilation in Australia, with explanations of how this experience differed from other settler societies. This study is central to our understanding of Australia as a nation and to national development. Drawing on the concept of the 'social imaginary', the project will generate new readings of assimilation linked to broader issues in public debate. Sources will include officia ....Imagining Assimilation. The Australian Experience. The project will produce the first comprehensive cultural history of assimilation in Australia, with explanations of how this experience differed from other settler societies. This study is central to our understanding of Australia as a nation and to national development. Drawing on the concept of the 'social imaginary', the project will generate new readings of assimilation linked to broader issues in public debate. Sources will include official publications and works from the media, the arts and popular culture. Expected outcomes include a monograph, two articles, and a museum exhibition brief.Read moreRead less
Contact zones: activism, art and media in Italy, 1994-2006. This project will generate knowledge about recent activism, social change and contemporary art practices in Italy; it will add to Australia's international reputation as a centre of research on contemporary Italy; it will assist in facilitating cultural relations between Australia and Italy as already established in cultural and scientific bilateral agreements.
Autobiographical Avatars: testimony and emerging technologies of life narrative. Australian research has led to new ways of thinking about the ethical, social and political work of these autobiographical genres. This project builds on a national reputation for excellence in this scholarly field, and it promotes writing across the fields of literary studies, and creative and professional writing which are areas of particular strength at the institutional location of this project. Some case stud ....Autobiographical Avatars: testimony and emerging technologies of life narrative. Australian research has led to new ways of thinking about the ethical, social and political work of these autobiographical genres. This project builds on a national reputation for excellence in this scholarly field, and it promotes writing across the fields of literary studies, and creative and professional writing which are areas of particular strength at the institutional location of this project. Some case studies selected for this project involve people, nations and polities with which the Australian government is engaged in long-term diplomatic, political and military engagements - Iraq and Afghanistan, for example.Read moreRead less
Globalizing Indigeneity: Indigenous Cultural Festivals and Wellbeing in Australia and the Asia-Pacific. Indigenous communities in Australia (and elsewhere) suffer from extreme disadvantage. Northern Australia and many other places in the region, face a demographic time-bomb of alienated, self-destructive and culturally-disoriented youth. This manifests as violence in places like Wadeye, Palm Island and Port Moresby. Cultural festivals are one of the few consistently positive spaces for indigenou ....Globalizing Indigeneity: Indigenous Cultural Festivals and Wellbeing in Australia and the Asia-Pacific. Indigenous communities in Australia (and elsewhere) suffer from extreme disadvantage. Northern Australia and many other places in the region, face a demographic time-bomb of alienated, self-destructive and culturally-disoriented youth. This manifests as violence in places like Wadeye, Palm Island and Port Moresby. Cultural festivals are one of the few consistently positive spaces for indigenous communities to assert a more constructive view of themselves both intergenerationally, and as part of their struggle for respect as distinct cultures in the broader national community. Cultural festivals also provide a rare space for novel intercultural accommodations to be negotiated on indigenous terrain.Read moreRead less
Women's NGOs, the United Nations and expanding civil society: a feminist critique, with reference to four UN member countries. Feminist non-governmental organisations have placed women's human rights concerns on the international agenda, but they are also increasingly expected to tailor themselves both to international bureaucracy and a domestic political role by becoming primary providers of what has become known as "social capital". Human rights remain important for women, but new strategies ....Women's NGOs, the United Nations and expanding civil society: a feminist critique, with reference to four UN member countries. Feminist non-governmental organisations have placed women's human rights concerns on the international agenda, but they are also increasingly expected to tailor themselves both to international bureaucracy and a domestic political role by becoming primary providers of what has become known as "social capital". Human rights remain important for women, but new strategies are needed to ensure government accountability for transforming the rhetoric of women's rights into reality. This project will examine these issues as faced by feminist NGOs in Australia, France, Pakistan and Haïti, to identify issues in common and suggest strategies for furthering the international feminist human rights project.Read moreRead less
Discovery Indigenous Researchers Development - Grant ID: DI0882245
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$170,648.00
Summary
Reconciliation game: Australian Football in the new South Africa. An understanding of the role sport has played in shaping settler/native relationships will enable Australia to support the development of enduring and meaning football contacts with post-Apartheid South Africa. These will be built on appraisals that admit a similar colonial inheritance to sport in South Africa. Recent embrace of Indigenous Australian participation in Australian Football indicates the possibility of reconciliation ....Reconciliation game: Australian Football in the new South Africa. An understanding of the role sport has played in shaping settler/native relationships will enable Australia to support the development of enduring and meaning football contacts with post-Apartheid South Africa. These will be built on appraisals that admit a similar colonial inheritance to sport in South Africa. Recent embrace of Indigenous Australian participation in Australian Football indicates the possibility of reconciliation and the potential for positive sporting interchange with post-Apartheid South Africa. This study examines how reconciliations through Australia - South Africa sporting dialogue can not only be promoted but realised in terms of developing sustained and socially meaningful engagements. Read moreRead less