Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Cultural Industries And Cultural Policy: A Critique Of Recent Discourses In Regional Economic Development, Chris Gibson, Natascha Klocker

Natascha Klocker

The cultural industries (sometimes referred to as 'creative industries') are an increasingly common component of urban and regional economic development discourse, connected to an acknowledgement of the contribution of creativity to economic performance and, more generally, their power to transform images and identities for places. Such discourses have become more pervasive with a set of key books - most notably Charles Landry's The Creative City (2001), and Florida's The Rise of the Creative Class (2002) - that have become popular among both economic development planners and cultural policy makers. This paper seeks to intervene in the discourses established by these …

Academic Publishing As 'Creative' Industry And Recent Discourses Of 'Creative Economies': Some Critical Reflections, Chris Gibson, Natascha Klocker

Natascha Klocker

his paper continues recent discussions on the (geo)politics of the production of academic knowledges, in relation to the recent rise of narratives of 'the creative economy'. Creativity and the 'creative industries' are increasingly common components of urban economic development discourse, especially following the release of a set of key books - most notably Charles Landry's The Creative City (2000), and Richard Florida's The Rise of the Creative Class (2002) - that have become popular among economic development planners and cultural policy makers. This paper focuses on the traffic of these books, and their authors, beyond the Anglo-American core. It also …

The 'Cultural Turn' In Australian Regional Economic Development Discourse: Neoliberalising Creativity?, Chris Gibson, Natascha Klocker

Natascha Klocker

Regional economic policy-makers are increasingly interested in the contribution of creativity to the economic performance of regions and, more generally, in its power to transform the images and identities of places. This has constituted a 'cultural turn', of sorts, away from an emphasis on macro-scale projects and employment schemes, towards an interest in the creative industries, entrepreneurial culture and innovation. This paper discusses how recent discourses of the role of 'creativity' in regions have drawn upon, and contributed to, particular forms of neoliberalisation. Its focus is the recent application of a statistical measure - Richard Florida's (2002) 'creativity index' - …

Conceptualising Agency In The Lives And Actions Of Rural Young People, E. Robson, S. Bell, Natascha Klocker

Natascha Klocker

This chapter aims to build conceptually upon the accounts of young poopIe's actions in specific rural settings outlined in the proceeding chapters. like the wider body of ongoing reaearh on young people's everyday lives across the world, the foregoing chapters clearly demonstrate how the shift to viewing young people as individuals with the capacity to act and shape their own lives, i.e. to have agency, rather than seeing children simply 'adults in training' (Dunne 1980), passive and innocent dependants, or victims' has become firmly established in children's and youth studies. This volume illustrates some of the many ways in which …

An Example Of 'Thin' Agency: Child Domestic Workers In Tanzania, Natascha Klocker

Natascha Klocker

Child domestic works are children 'under the age of 18 who work in other people's households doing domestic chores, caring for children, and running errands, among other tasks' (UNICEF 1999:2). They can be paid in cash or kind and are employed by (and usually live in the homes of) adults who are not their parents. This chapter focuses on recent research centred on 'employing' three former child domestic workers (aged 14, 16 and 18) to be researchers and to undertake an investigation into CDW in the Iringa Region of Tanzania.

Diversifying Ethnicity In Australia's Population And Environment Debates, Natascha Klocker, Lesley Head

Natascha Klocker

Population–environment debates in Australia are at an impasse. While the ability of this continent to sustain more migrants has attracted persistent scrutiny, nuanced explorations of diverse migrant cultures and their engagements with Australian landscapes have scarcely begun. Yet as we face the challenges of a climate changing world we would undoubtedly benefit from the most varied knowledges we can muster. This paper brings together three arenas of environmental debate circulating in Australia—the immigration/carrying capacity debate, comparisons between Indigenous and Anglo-European modes of environmental interaction, and research on household sustainability dilemmas—to demonstrate the exclusionary tendencies of each. We then attempt to …

Who's Driving The Asylum Debate: Newspaper And Government Representations Of Asylum Seekers, Natascha Klocker, Kevin M. Dunn

Natascha Klocker

The welfare and future of asylum seekers in Australia have been very contentious contemporary issues. Findings based on content analysis of media releases in 2001 and 2002 reveal the unrelentingly negative way in which the federal government portrayed asylum seekers. While the government's negative tenor was constant during the study period, the specific terms of reference altered, from 'threat' through 'other', to 'illegality' and to 'burden'. The negative construction of asylum seekers was clearly mutable. Analysis of newspaper reporting during the same period indicates that the media largely adopted the negativity and specific references of the government. The media dependence …

Community Antagonism Towards Asylum Seekers In Port Augusta, South Australia, Natascha Klocker

Natascha Klocker

An overtly hostile response to asylum seekers was observed in questionnaire responses provided by residents of Port Augusta, South Australia in April 2002. A social construction approach to identity and representation was used to interrogate this antagonism within its social, cultural, political and geographical contexts. Asylum seekers were constructed as 'burdensome', 'threatening' and 'illegal', and opposition to them was set within the discursive framework of a 'Self/Other' binary. Enmity towards asylum seekers was articulated concurrently with overwhelming support for the Federal Government's exclusive and deterrence-oriented asylum policies. However, vehement opposition was expressed regarding the government's decision to construct Baxter Immigration …

Survival And Subversion In The Neoliberal University, Natascha Klocker, Danielle Drozdzewski

Natascha Klocker

Response to the Participatory Geographies Research Group's 'Communifesto for Fuller Geographies: Towards Mutual Security', September 2012

Doing Participatory Action Research And Doing A Phd: Words Of Encouragement For Prospective Students, Natascha Klocker

Natascha Klocker

No abstract provided.

Living Together But Apart: Material Geographies Of Everyday Sustainability In Extended Family Households, Natascha Klocker, Chris Gibson, Erin Borger

Natascha Klocker

In the Industrialized West, ageing populations and cultural diversity-combined with rising property prices and extensive years spent in education-have been recognized as diverse factors driving increases in extended family living. At the same time, there is growing awareness that household size is inversely related to per capita resource consumption patterns, and that urgent problems of environmental sustainability are negotiated, on a day-to-day basis (and often unconsciously), at the household level. This paper explores the sustainability implications of everyday decisions to fashion, consume, and share resources around the home, through the lens of extended family households. Through interviews with extended family …

Negotiating Change: Working With Children And Their Employers To Transform Child Domestic Work In Iringa, Tanzania, Natascha Klocker

Natascha Klocker

This paper documents the practical and action-oriented findings of an investigation into child domestic work undertaken in Iringa, Tanzania from 2005 to 2007. It provides an overview of the experiences of both child domestic workers and their employers, before discussing their suggestions for how child domestic working arrangements may be improved. The latter sections of the paper relate the attempts to regulate child domestic work that emerged from such dialogue. In providing detailed information on that process, the paper is positioned within the field of action research and resists the boundary frequently applied between academia and activism. It also moves …

Building On Our Strengths: A Framework To Reduce Racial Discrimination And Promote Diversity In Victoria, Y Paradies, L Chandrakumar, Natascha Klocker, M Frere, K Webster, G Berman, Peter Mclean

Natascha Klocker

Building on our strengths: a framework to reduce race-based discrimination and support diversity in Victoria has been developed through a partnership between the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation (VicHealth), the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission, the McCaughey Centre: VicHealth Centre for the Promotion of Mental Health and Community Wellbeing and the Onemda VicHealth Koori Health Unit. The McCaughey Centre and Onemda are both in the School of Population Health at the University of Melbourne.

Drawing on the best available evidence in Australia and internationally, this report outlines themes, strategies and priority settings for the development and implementation of activity …

Commentary: Career Progress Relative To Opportunity: How Many Papers Is A Baby 'Worth'?, Natascha Klocker, Danielle Drozdzewski

Natascha Klocker

How many papers is a baby ‘worth’? We were prompted to ask this provocative question by recent experiences, working on appointment committees and writing research grants in Australia, where provisions to quantify research track-records ‘relative to opportunity’ call for applicants to explain how fl uctuations in their publication outputs have been impacted by ‘career interruptions’ such as childbearing. In this age of the increasingly neoliberal university—where every activity, output, and impact is audited (Castree, 2000; 2006)—our commentary seeks to question how decision makers account (or not) for the career impacts of having children.

Conducting Sensitive Research In The Present And Past Tense: Recounting The Stories Of Current And Former Child Domestic Workers, Natascha Klocker

Natascha Klocker

In recent years, scholarship on children's work has increasingly incorporated the perspectives of working children. Although laudable, this shift toward children's inclusion in research has concentrated on those employed at the time of data collection. Former child workers have largely been overlooked as a source of information. This paper reflects on research conducted with current and former child domestic workers in Tanzania. The child domestic working experiences reported by those two groups diverged markedly: those who had already ceased employment reported far higher rates of dissatisfaction with child domestic work, and far more experiences of exploitation and abuse, than those …

Contemporary Racism And Islamaphobia In Australia: Racialising Religion, Kevin Dunn, Natascha Klocker, Tanya Salabay

Natascha Klocker

Contemporary anti-Muslim sentiment in Australia is reproduced through a racialization that includes well rehearsed stereotypes of Islam, perceptions of threat and inferiority, as well as fantasies that the Other (in this case Australian Muslims) do not belong, or are absent. These are not old or colour-based racisms, but they do manifest certain characteristics that allow us to conceive a racialization process in relation to Muslims. Three sets of findings show how constructions of Islam are important means through which racism is reproduced. First, public opinion surveys reveal the extent of Islamaphobia in Australia and the links between threat perception and …