Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Reviewing Workplace Bullying: Strengthening Approaches To A Complex Phenomenon, Diana J. Kelly

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

Workplace bullying is a growing problem which is costly for organisations and individual targets. The costs for organisations include loss of productivity and increased insurance costs, as rising stress claims generate rises in premiums. Measuring the costs to individuals or the ethical capital of an organisation is much more difficult but just as important. This paper seeks to understand the research practices in bullying in order to identify potential needs for research and practice. After examining the nature and extent of workplace bullying, approaches to bullying are surveyed, revealing how different disciplines and professions investigate workplace bullying. The importance of …

Diasporic Spectrality: Minorities & Cultural Assertions In Canada, Australia And Beyond, Gerry Turcotte, Gaetano Rando

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

This paper provides a critical introduction to a special issue of Australian Canadian Studies 23(2) 2005 - "Diasporic Spectrality: Minorities and cultural Assertions in Canada, Australia and Beyond" - guestedited by Gerry Turcotte and Gaetano Rando. The paper discusses the selection of papers that produced a coherent, though not uniform, picture of minority interests that examine the complex ways culture is “asserted” in contemporary times, primarily in the Canadian context, but understood within the larger story of migration, plurality and diaspora. As we worked through the contributions we found not only that they represented a wide variety of fields — …

Salarymen Doing Queer: Gay Men And The Heterosexual Public Sphere In Japan, Mark J. Mclelland

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

This paper looks at the difficulties gay men in Japan experience in discussing their sexuality in the Japanese workplace.

Enemy Aliens: Gli Italoaustraliani E Il Secondo Conflitto Mondiale, Gaetano Rando

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

L’entrata in guerra dell’Italia rese molto problematica l’esistenza della comunità italoaustraliana che negli anni ’30 annoverava oltre 30000 unità ed era diventata la più numerosa collettività nonangloceltica del quinto continente. Le autorità australiane, ritenendo la presenza di tanti non-britannici una grave minaccia potenziale alla sicurezza della nazione, rinchiusero 4727 Italoaustraliani, quasi tutti uomini, in appositi campi di internamento indipendentemente dai titoli di cittadinanza o dalla fede politica. Quale conseguenza le donne e i bambini furono lasciati allo sbaraglio in un ambiente palesemente ostile, fascisti convinti e attivisti antifascisti furono rinchiusi nello stesso campo talvolta con esiti devastanti, i figli degli …

Inside Out: Queer Theory And Popular Culture, Mark J. Mclelland

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

This paper looks at the proliferation of gay characters and subtexts in late 1990s media.

The World Of Yaoi: The Internet, Censorship And The Global “Boys’ Love” Fandom, Mark J. Mclelland

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

This paper looks at the recent explosion of cultural concern over child sexual abuse and child pornography, particularly as it relates to the trading of such images via the internet. It is noted that legislation originally enacted to prohibit the sexualized representation of actual children has recently been extended to include fictional representations and in Australia includes text as well as graphics. Taking the online global fandom dedicated to ‘boys’ love’ (also known as yaoi) as an example, I argue that legislation prohibiting fictional accounts of ‘child’ sex-abuse is ill-conceived and potentially damaging to human rights and freedom of expression. …

Transient Workers Count Too? The Intersection Of Citizenship And Gender In Singapore’S Civil Society, Lenore T. Lyons

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

In November 2002, a group of Singaporean activists established a group called The Working Committee 2 (TWC2) to advocate for the rights of foreign domestic workers in Singapore. By limiting both its lifespan and the scope of its activities the TWC2 avoided the requirement that all NGOs formally register under the Singapore Registrar of Societies. At the end of its year-long campaign, however, the group signalled its intention to continue with its advocacy work. The new TWC2 (now called Transient Workers Count Too) was registered in August 2004. For some commentators, the TWC2 represents a new phase in the People’s …

Moving Beyond The Ob Markers: Rethinking The Space Of Civil Society In Singapore, Lenore T. Lyons, J. Gomez

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

In January 2004, prior to his appointment as Singapore’s third Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong gave a landmark speech to the Harvard Club of Singapore in which he outlined a new style of statesociety relations. Claiming that “I have no doubt that our society must open up further”, Lee emphasized that one of the important tasks facing the government was to “promote further civic participation, and continue to progressively widen the limits of openness” (Lee 2004). In his comments, Lee sought to signal a break between the ruling style of former Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong, and himself.1 In light …

The Politics Of A Scientific Meeting: The Origin-Of-Aids Debate At The Royal Society, Brian Martin

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

The Royal Society of London held a scientific meeting in September 2000 focusing on two theories of the origin of AIDS, one that it occurred through "natural transfer" of immunodeficiency virus from monkeys or chimpanzees to humans and the other that it occurred through iatrogenic transfer via contaminated polio vaccines used in Africa in the late 1950s. This meeting was the culmination of years of public contention over the polio-vaccine theory. Several dimensions of the politics of science are revealed by analysis of this issue, including the power of scientific editors, the use of the mass media, decisions about selection …

Theme Unit Analysis: A Systemic-Functional Treatment Of Textual Meanings In Japanese, Elizabeth A. Thomson

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

According to Systemic Functional Linguistic (SFL) theory the structural shape of the clause in English is determined by the three metafunctions – ideational, interpersonal and textual (Halliday 1994:179). In Japanese, the situation is similar as far as ideational (Teruya 1998) and interpersonal (Fukui 1998) meanings are concerned. With respect to the textual metafunction, however, the situation appears to be different. Due to the presence of ellipsis, both anaphoric Subject ellipsis and formal exophoric Subject ellipsis (Hasan 1996), along with the operation of clause chaining, Japanese appears to organise textually over another kind of unit, the Theme unit. This paper will …

The Parkin Backfire, Brian Martin, I. Murray

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

In September 2005, the Australian government arrested and deported Scott Parkin, a visiting US peace activist. This caused a storm of protest and greatly stimulated community interest in nonviolent action and threats to civil liberties. The Parkin case shows how an injustice can backfire and how activists can use an understanding of backfire dynamics to be more effective.

A Politics Of Accommodation: Women And The People’S Action Party In Singapore, Lenore T. Lyons

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

For the first time since achieving Independence in 1965, women now make up more than 10% of parliamentary representatives in Singapore. While this figure still lags behind international benchmarks, it is a significant improvement on the last election in which women made up less than 5% of MPs. This article explores the factors that led to the increase in women’s parliamentary representation. I examine the attitudes of senior leaders within the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP), as well as recent constitutional reforms, including the introduction of the Nominated Members of Parliament (NMPs) scheme, and the creation of a Group Representative …

Snakes And Leaders: Hegemonic Masculinity In Ruling-Class Boys’ Boarding Schools, S. Poynting, Mike Donaldson

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

Recent events in a ruling-class boys’ boarding school college in Sydney prompted public discussion about “bullying.” Debate ranged between those seeing an endemic problem to be cured and those who saw minor, unfortunate, and atypical incidents in a system where bullying is under control. It is argued here that such a practice is inherent in ruling-class boys’ education. It is an important part of making ruling-class men. Using life-history methods with available biographical material, the article shows that ruling-class schooling of boys in boarding schools involves “sending away” and initial loneliness, bonding in groups demanding allegiance, attachment to tradition, subjection …

A Continuous Association …: Airaanz As A Scholarly Association , Diana J. Kelly

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

Over twenty years ago industrial relations academics in Australia and New Zealand formed a scholarly association as one means of strengthening their field of study. This paper considers the nature and effects of Association of Industrial Relations Academics of Australia and New Zealand on academic industrial relations in light of the changing context for universities and employment relations in Australia, on the one hand, and the broader literature on scholarly communities on the other hand. The paper concludes that the foundation ideals of AIRAANZ have served the scholarly community well.

Treated Timber, Toxic Time-Bomb: The Need For A Precautionary Approach To The Use Of Copper Chrome Arsenate (Cca) As A Timber Preservative, N. Lansbury, Sharon Beder

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

Timber preserved with Copper Chrome Arsenate (CCA) is ubiquitous in Australia. Wood, such as radiata pine, is treated with CCA to protect it from insects, rot and fungus. CCA-treated timber is commonly used on telegraph poles, decking, fencing, landscaping, vineyard stakes, picnic tables and in playgrounds. However the arsenic in CCA leaches out of CCA-treated timber and arsenic is toxic and can cause cancer in the long-term.

There is a growing body of scientific evidence that timber treated with CCA poses a danger to both humans and the environment. As a result, authorities around the world are imposing tighter restrictions …

Neo-Liberal Think Tanks And Neo-Liberal Restructuring: Learning The Lessons From Project Victoria And The Privatisation Of Victoria's Electricity Industry, Damien Cahill, Sharon Beder

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

In 1990, neo-liberal think tanks the Institute of Public Affairs and the Tasman Institute collaborated with 13 employer associations to form 'Project Victoria' - a venture which outlined a neo-liberal agenda for the incoming Victorian (Coalition) Government. This article analyses Project Victoria and the privatisation of Victoria's electricity industry as a case study of the impact of neo-liberal think tanks. The analysis of Project Victoria highlights three main aspects of the impact of neo-liberal think tanks in contemporary Australia. First, neo-liberal think tanks are inextricably bound to the interests of business. Second, neo-liberal think tanks provide a broad framework within …

Corporate Propaganda And Global Capitalism - Selling Free Enterprise?, Sharon Beder

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

This chapter examines the way in which capitalism has been underpinned by a self-conscious propaganda campaign on the part of the world’s major corporate powers. Corporations have used a variety of propaganda techniques not only to dominate markets but also to attempt to monopolise the realm of ideas where dissent and alternate voices might be heard (Beder 2002; Ewen 1996). The rise of corporate propaganda since the 1970s has been particularly aimed at selling the idea of free, unregulated business enterprise and an accompanying policy agenda that facilitates the expansion and spread of global capitalism. Ideas associated with the maintenance …

Digging Your Own Grave, Sharon Beder

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

[Extract] The work ethic is one of the most neglected problems in society today, and at the root of many social ills and environmental problems. It’s at the heart of what I propose is a major environmental problem; there is too much production in affluent countries. All of the things we are producing day after day are not only creating a huge environmental impact - in terms of resource use, pollution, waste disposal and so on - but in order to get people to buy this huge amount of products, we are constantly bombarded with advertisements and marketing and turned …

Vampiric Decolonization: Fanon, 'Terrorism' And Mudrooroo’S Vampire Trilogy, Gerry Turcotte

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

[Extract] Long before the fact of Australia was ever confirmed by explorers and cartographers it had already been imagined as a grotesque space, a land peopled by monsters.1 The idea of its existence was disputed, was even heretical for a time, and with the advent of the transportation of convicts its darkness seemed confirmed. The Antipodes was a world of reversals, the dark subconscious of Britain. It was, for all intents and purposes, Gothic par excellence, the dungeon of the world. It is perhaps for this reason that the Gothic as a mode has been a consistent presence in Australia …

Embodying Transnationalism: The Making Of The Indonesian Maid, Lenore T. Lyons

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

Extract: Female domestic workers are emblematic of the increasing movement of peoples across national borders. The global economic and cultural flows associated with transnational migration play a significant role in shaping the construction of gender in both sending and receiving countries by creating new forms of subjectivity and community, and destabilising traditional national boundaries. The interplay between local expressions of gender relations, and macro-level global processes, is central to the processes of nation-building and nationalism. This paper examines the material and discursive practices that produce foreign domestic workers as ‘symbolic border guards’ (Armstrong) between ‘here’ and ‘there’, between ‘us’ and …

The End Of Indenture? Asian Workers In The Australian Pearling Industry, 1901–1972, Julia Martinez

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

The historical circumstances which led to the end of the indentured labor trade suggest that its abolition was only partially the result of humanitarian concern for the welfare of workers. It was the development of nationalism, both in sending and receiving countries, that prompted a rethinking of the racialized labor organization of indenture. In Australia, the introduction of the White Australia policy in 1901, with its restrictions on non-white immigration and employment, is usually thought to coincide with the abolition of the indentured labor trade. But the Australian pearl-shelling industry continued to employ indentured Asian workers up until the 1970s. …

Italo-Australians During The Second World War: Some Perceptions Of Internment, Gitano Rando

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

The entry of Italy into the second world war brought considerable disruption to the over thirty thousand strong Italian Australian community whose presence was seen by the Australian authorities as a serious potential threat to national security. About 4,700 mainly male Italian Australians were incarcerated in internment camps while women and children were left to fend for themselves in a highly hostile environment. Although a significant social-historical phenomenon, very few and at best highly partial studies (such as Bosworth and Ugolini 1992, Cresciani 1993, Martinuzzi O’Brien 1993, 2002, in press) have been produced on the subject. Many Italian Australians, however, …

Tales Of Internment: The Story Of Andrea La Macchia, Gaetano Rando

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

Relates the plight of one Italian migrant, Andrea La Macchia, who arrived in Australia in 1940 only to be caught up in the events following Italy's entry into the war by being interned for nearly three years. His story is placed in the general context of the internment experience.

William Forster And The Critique Of Democracy In Colonial New South Wales, Gregory C. Melleuish

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

The introduction of what have termed 'democratic' regimes into mid nineteenth century Australia in the form of the granting of responsible government to the Australian colonies has been treated in recent times as an unproblematic process. The quasi-official version of political development in the colonies, as found in the Discovering Democracy civics education programme sponsored by the Commonwealth government and expressed in the textbook written for the programme by Dr John Hirst, is that this was the first stage on the road to 'real' democracy in Australia, the final stage of which will be the establishment of an Australian republic. …

Private Schooling As A Way Of Life, Anthony Ashbolt

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

Warning become self-fulfilling prophecies in the hands of a mass media trained in the art of disguising publicity as news. For many years, news about public or private schools or both, has often signalled doom, on the one hand, and infinite variety and riches, on the other. The story is familiar, so familiar as to be tiresome. Lazy journalists, ever at the ready for a slightly new angle, beef up the latest statistics and, quelle surprise, another front page news item emerges. Thus the Sydney Morning Herald educational writers tell us once again of the drift towards private schools.

Latham Had It Right, Anthony Ashbolt

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

While Tony Blair's war on civil liberties has been checked by the British Parliament, Labor in Australia fails to challenge the threat to democracy which the terrorism legislation represents. Instead, Kim Beazley is happy to declare that Labor is with Mr Howard in "the war on terror". That is somewhat remarkable, given that Mr Howard sees the invasion of Iraq as part of "the war on terror".

Antipodean Wanderer In The Mediterranean, Melissa Boyde

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

The opening image of the writer as a young girl in Australia putting together jigsaw pieces to form an image of antiquity is a metaphor for what happens in Diana Wood Conroy’s book The Fabric of the Ancient Theatre. Midday. The car drove off and I was left alone at the site of old Paphos. The place seemed oddly familiar – perhaps the light reminded me of the jigsaw puzzle of the Mediterranean coast that I had so obsessively put together as a child, and then scattered to be reassembled again. The book gathers together a range of experience, reading, …

Myths, Traditions And Mothers Of The Nation: Some Thoughts On Efua Sutherland’S Writing, Tony Simoes Da Silva

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

Focusing in some detail on three of her plays, this paper addresses the work of Efua Theodora Sutherland, arguably one of Ghana’s foremost literary figures, and one of Africa’s most influential dramatists. Specifically, the paper proposes that in spite of a considerable body of critical work devoted to her writing, she remains surprisingly little known outside the specialist fields of African literature, and indeed even theatre. I will then seek to relate this assertion to her status as a woman writer in Africa, and to the challenges her conflation of traditional African cultural forms and Western dramaturgy create. Sutherland incorporates …

Review - Perry Anderson, Marxism And The New Left, Anthony Ashbolt

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

Perry Anderson is a towering figure in the annals of contemporary Marxism. As such, he deserves a special sort of intellectual history, one that engages and illuminates and challenges. Blackledge only succeeds in a partial and rather unsatisfactory way. In a sense this is a book in two parts, even though it is not divided as such. The first deals with the Anderson of the 1960s and 1970s, the second with Anderson’s later developments. The first part is very dry and somewhat confused intellectual history, the second has a few acute observations about the shifts in Anderson’s thinking. I suspect …

Inverse Invasions: Medievalism And Colonialism In Rolf Boldrewood's 'A Sydney-Side Saxon', Louise D'Arcens

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

Rolf Boldrewood’s forgotten 1894 novel, A Sydney-Side Saxon, merits reexamination as a fascinating nineteenth-century medievalist vision of Australian national identity. The novel’s vision of pastoral Australia depends on idiosyncratic notions of Saxon and Norman ethnicity derived from Scott’s Ivanhoe. While Scott’s portrait of post-conquest England dramatizes the ethnic and political conflict between Norman conquerors and subjected Saxons, Boldrewood consistently presents Norman and Saxons as two complementary sides of an English ‘type’ that is perfectly fitted to achieve the colonial settlement of Australia. Boldrewood’s racialized vision of England’s medieval past informs not only his novel’s celebration of colonial meritocracy in Australia, …