https://hdl.handle.net/2123/763 2026-06-04T18:14:10Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/35355 News Practices in Deep Media Convergence in China Nip, Joyce Y. M.; Su, Ting This chapter examines China’s state-led push for media convergence as a response to both the commercial pressures facing legacy media and the political challenges created by digital communication. It argues that convergence is not simply a technological or industrial reform, but part of a broader restructuring of the news sector around integrated digital platforms that combine information, services, and governance functions. Drawing on two cases, the chapter shows how this process blurs the boundary between journalism and other sectors, while reshaping market-oriented media’s relationship with the Party-state. One major consequence is the further weakening of critical journalism, as commercially oriented news organizations increasingly depend on collaboration with official institutions and state-aligned service provision. 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/35341 From mainstream to the margins: Regime-driven delegitimisation of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy critical journalistic norms Nip, Joyce Y. M. The enactment of the Hong Kong National Security Law on 30 June 2020 provides a case for examining how state power seeks to reconfigure journalistic norms and media legitimacy. Following the NSL, multiple pro-democracy critical news outlets, including Apple Daily and Stand News, ceased operations or were restructured, and senior staff members were prosecuted under national security-related charges. Soon after, former staff launched new, small-scale news outlets. Drawing on the concepts of legitimacy and delegitimisation, this article examines how legal and discursive power is deployed to redefine the boundary between mainstream and alternative journalism, relegating previously recognised pro-democracy critical journalistic norms to the margins. The analysis demonstrates how news media legitimacy is actively constructed through state intervention, and how “alternative media” emerges as an outcome of delegitimisation rather than oppositional intent. By conceptualising media closure and marginalisation as processes of legitimacy reordering, the article contributes to theoretical debates on alternative media and journalistic norms. 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/35277 Shadows From the Land Down Under (Dark Shadows in Australia) Potter, David This book chapter reconstructs a strange, formative encounter with Dark Shadows (1966-1971) in early-1990s Australia, when fragments of a cult gothic soap opera lodged themselves in a child’s imagination long before they could be named, contextualised, or fully understood. Moving between archival traces, remembered images, and literary echoes, it treats the show not as a text recalled after the fact but as a lived imaginative environment—one that quietly trained a sense of time, recurrence, parallel worlds, and haunted houses from the inside out. What emerges is an account of how a piece of mass television, encountered too early and half-accidentally, can hard-wire a lifelong way of thinking about narrative, memory, and other possible worlds. 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/35270 Queer Youth Articulating Wellbeing Through Reading and Writing Groups Gardiner, James In media, policy and research in Australia, queer youth have often been positioned as victims. This subject position has emerged in response to their very real disproportionate vulnerability, but tends to limit how these subjects are represented, by themselves and others. While alternative frameworks for understanding queer youth subjectivity, such as ‘queer thriving’, move beyond the victim, these can create new exclusions around what counts as an authentic, successful, or liveable queer life. This article explores the context for a mixed-methods research project with queer youth who participated in a reading and writing group. Using ethnography, semi-structured interviews and an action research approach, I investigate whether such groups offer practical possibilities for queer youth to make sense of and articulate their lives. Written while the field work is still underway, this article begins to reflect on how queer youth, through reading and writing together, might imagine, embody, and make visible under-explored modes of living ‘well’. 2023-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/35036 Submission to the NSW Parliamentary Inquiry into Data Centres Resnik, Tamar; Maalsen, Sophia; Nicholls, Rob; Nolan, Ellissa The University of Sydney, through the Net Zero Institute (NZI) and the Centre for AI, Trust and Governance (CAITG), welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the NSW Legislative Council Public Accountability and Works Committee inquiry into data centres in New South Wales. The University’s contribution focuses on how data centre development intersects with energy systems, water and land use, governance, urban planning, and Australia’s emerging AI and digital infrastructure landscape. Data centres, particularly those supporting AI workloads are rapidly becoming a defining infrastructure class. Their scale, intensity of electricity and water demand, locational impacts, and governance implications mean they now sit at the intersection of energy transition policy, planning systems, community outcomes, and national capability. The University of Sydney brings interdisciplinary expertise across engineering, energy systems, urban planning, environmental science, law, governance, and AI to inform evidence based policy responses. This submission outlines priority areas where research capability at the University of Sydney can support government to better understand cumulative impacts, manage risks, and design policy and regulatory frameworks that align data centre growth with emissions reduction, resource stewardship, social license, and long-term public value. 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/35011 Research Paper for Round Table: History and Contributions of the Round Table on Information Access for People with Print Disabilities Athavle, Pulkit; Liu, Yali; Zhou, Yuzhao; Van Bentum, Zoe This paper examines the history, development, and contributions of the Round Table on Information Access for People with Print Disabilities. Drawing on qualitative research, including interviews and document analysis, it traces the Round Table’s role in advancing accessible information practices across Australia. The paper highlights key achievements in advocacy, collaboration, and standard-setting, particularly in improving access to information for people with print disabilities. It also identifies ongoing challenges, including technological change, coordination across sectors, and gaps in accessibility implementation. The report concludes with recommendations to strengthen future efforts, emphasising collaboration, innovation, and sustained policy and institutional support. 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34995 Research Proposal for Disability Leadership Institute: Best Practice Disability Employment Data in Australia Deng, Yuji; Rao, Alisa; Hudson, Scott; Lin, Victor-David This paper outlines a research proposal developed for the Disability Leadership Institute (DLI) to examine barriers to leadership and career progression for people with disability in Australia. The project proposes a mixed-methods approach, combining a literature review with qualitative insights from stakeholders, to identify structural, cultural, and institutional factors shaping access to leadership opportunities. It situates disability leadership within broader frameworks of equity, inclusion, and representation, with particular attention to intersectionality. The proposal aims to generate policy-relevant recommendations to strengthen pathways into leadership and improve organisational practices, contributing to more inclusive and accessible professional environments across sectors. 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34993 Research Paper for Grattan Institute: Misinformation and Disinformation in Elections Braun, Hannah; Williams, Katelyn; Lenehan Choo, Olive; Karpinellison, Ondine; Pillai, Sameera Binod This report examines the role of misinformation and disinformation in democratic elections and their potential impacts on public trust, political debate, and electoral integrity. Through a literature review and international case studies of elections in the United States, United Kingdom, and Germany, the report analyses how misleading information circulates through both conventional and digital media channels. While evidence of direct effects on voting behaviour remains mixed, the findings suggest that widespread exposure to misleading information contributes to declining trust in democratic institutions and heightened political polarisation. The report also reviews international regulatory and policy responses and proposes reforms to strengthen resilience against misinformation in the Australian electoral context. 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34991 Research Paper for First Nations Economics: What Policies Are Needed to Support the Economic Participation of First Nations Women in Entrepreneurship and Leadership Roles? Villaca Parker, Carolina; Sutter, Eric; White, Mae; Rinsy, Shreya This report examines policy measures needed to strengthen the economic participation of First Nations women in entrepreneurship and leadership in Australia. Conducted in collaboration with First Nations Economics (FNE), an Aboriginal-led organisation focused on self-determination and economic sovereignty, the report analyses key policy initiatives including the National Agreement on Closing the Gap, the Women’s Economic Security Package, the Indigenous Procurement Policy, and Strong Women Strong Business. The study identifies intersectional barriers affecting First Nations women, such as limited access to capital, caregiving responsibilities, geographic isolation, and underrepresentation in leadership. It recommends more integrated policy approaches, improved gender-disaggregated data, and culturally grounded frameworks to support sustainable and inclusive economic empowerment. 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34990 Research Paper for Association of Children’s Welfare Agencies: Practice Frameworks for Working With Children and Families Who Need Support Saha, Bineeta; Burridge, Gillian; Simington, Isaac; Liu, Jiajin This report examines practice frameworks used across the Australian child protection and family support sector to identify common practice elements, guidance for working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families, and key factors influencing implementation. Reviewing fifteen government and non-government frameworks, the study finds broad alignment around principles such as child-centred practice, family-centred approaches, cultural responsiveness, and collaborative decision-making. However, frameworks vary significantly in their theoretical foundations, specificity of practice guidance, and implementation supports. The analysis highlights gaps in culturally grounded practice guidance and limited Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander–led design. The report identifies leadership, workforce development, collaboration, and system alignment as critical enablers of effective implementation. 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34864 Climate Migrants and the Origins of Swahili Society in Eastern Africa Dumitru, Ioana A.; Alders, Wolfgang; Kristiansen, Søren M.; Lupien, Rachel; Raja, Rubina; Sindbæk, Søren M.; Olsen, Jesper Climate extremes are often framed as triggers of societal crisis and collapse, yet human mobility frequently emerges as a resilient response. We show that climatic disruption destabilized inland farming systems in sixth-century CE eastern Africa, with compounding stress during the Late Antique Little Ice Age (LALIA). Using archaeological evidence, paleoclimate reconstructions, environmental models, and bioclimate simulations, we examine how these overlapping stressors reshaped settlement dynamics. Multi-proxy paleoclimate records document sixth-century CE hydroclimatic heterogeneity, with droughts and wetter intervals occurring asynchronously across the region. These conditions generated uneven ecological pressures, disproportionately affecting rainfed agricultural systems associated with inland Early Iron Age communities linked to the spread of Bantu-speaking farmers. By the late sixth to early seventh centuries CE, archaeological evidence indicates that some of these groups established the first sustained settlements along the eastern African coast, despite low suitability for rainfed cereal cultivation and exposure to climatic and environmental hazards unfamiliar to inland settings. This shift reflects the activation of long-standing mobility patterns within eastern African lifeways, expressed here as a more durable reconfiguration: permanent settlement in environmentally challenging coastal zones supported by subsistence diversification and access to marine resources. These developments laid the foundations for proto-Swahili communities and one of the Indian Ocean’s most enduring maritime traditions, demonstrating how climatic stress can catalyze social innovation. 2026-02-18T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34762 A 1980s cost-of-living crisis gave Australia a thriving arts program – could we do it again? Nantsou, Izabella The cost-of-living crisis is hitting the arts hard. Artists struggle to survive on poverty wages and audiences are getting priced out. This challenge is not unprecedented. In the 1980s, another cost-of-living crisis sparked a bold and imaginative model for embedding artists into the everyday rhythms of working life. This article reflects on the Art and Working Life program, an historic community arts program managed by the Australia Council for the Arts and the Australian Council of Trade Unions. It examines how the program responded to a previous cost of living crisis and the conditions necessary to revive such a program today. 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34661 Wheels Turning: Anthropological Solidarity, Engaged Buddhism, and a Return to the 1990s Edwards, Michael In the conventional histories of anthropology that we tend to tell, certain decades loom large: the 1920s, for example, or the 1980s. This article experiments with a comparative reading of a decade closer to our fraught present: the 1990s. With an eye to the discipline's current impasses, and with the benefit of some three decades' distance, I join others in beginning to historicize ’90s sociocultural anthropology, tracking its turns amid the cultural moods and political conditions of that moment. I do so by rereading this history obliquely, alongside the history of an adjacent intellectual and social formation, that of engaged Buddhism. Considering how anthropologists and engaged Buddhists grappled, through the 1990s, with a set of related questions—about interdependence, suffering, and engagement—reveals ethical ambitions and political shortcomings that continue to shape pressing debates in both fields today, not least about the promises and practices of solidarity. 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/18949.7 Claims Submitted to the Multilateral Development Bank Accountability Mechanisms – 1994-2025 Park, Susan The dataset represents a summary depiction of grievance cases brought to the Accountability Mechanisms (AMs) of the seven Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) from 1994 to 2024. These are: the African Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the World Bank (International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/International Development Association) and the International Finance Corporation and Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (together comprising the World Bank Group) . Version 7 of the database is notable for the addition of the Asian Investment Infrastructure Bank. The Accountability Mechanisms were created to enable people adversely or potentially adversely affected by a project or program financed by the MDBs to take their concerns to the Banks for recourse. The Accountability Mechanisms generally do not stop the project or provide material reparations. They seek to stop or prevent harm and mitigate the negative aspects of a development project. The objective of the database is to be able to garner a quick qualitative snapshot of any given case, as well as to be able to aggregate quantitative data for each AM as a whole and to identify trends over time. Each of the grievance mechanisms has a specific name, which may have changed over time. It may also be comprised of more than one office with separate functions (i.e. consulting with affected people versus a compliance investigation). Most of the Accountability Mechanisms now have separate functions, with the consultation process also called problem solving. The compliance phase is to investigate whether the MDBs have complied with their environmental and social policies and whether this has led to harm. The Accountability Mechanisms are detailed below. Version 7 of the database is also notable for aligning the World Bank with the format of the other Accountability Mechanisms. The dataset includes cases received by the AMs from the beginning of each mechanism until 19th of September 2025. The last update for cases is 19th September 2025. 2025-12-02T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34525 Hearing Educator Perspectives: From ‘Evidence-Based Practice’ to Valuing the ‘Enriched Evidence-Based Practice’ of Education Brunker, Nicole Colleen; Hostrup, Michelle; Moller, Virginia; Boyd-Boland, Alison; Sciberras, Grant The intention of this discussion paper is to open conversation with educators to raise awareness to the problems of evidence-based practice, the value in their nuanced and complex work to rebuild teacher professionalism across the community, and provide support for educators to enrich their use of evidence to inform practice. In opening conversation on evidence-based practice, we sought to hear from educators to understand how their voices and experiences may be valued in moving forward in the use of evidence to inform schooling practice. 2025-11-20T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34511 “My Voice Was Discounted the Whole Way Through”: A Gendered Analysis of Women’s Experiences of Involuntary Mental Health Treatment Tseris, Emma; Bright Hart, Eva; Franks, Scarlett Although it is well established that women experience significant gendered oppressions when accessing mental health services, research exploring the impacts of involuntary mental health services is frequently conducted without attending specifically to gender. This article reports on a qualitative study that explored women's experiences of compulsory mental health treatment in Australia. In-depth interviews revealed substantial gendered harms experienced by women within involuntary mental health treatment settings. Themes identified were: involuntary treatment replicates the dynamics and tactics of gendered violence; treatment involves profound deprivation and losses, with potential implications across the lifecourse; mental health services disrupt and undermine mothering; and recovery is found outside of coercive mental health systems. The study reveals the heightened harms experienced by women within involuntary mental health contexts, as well as women's strategic resistances to psychiatric oppression. It demonstrates the relevance of a conceptual lens that is attuned to gender, in order to develop a deeper understanding of women's experiences of intersecting oppressions within involuntary mental health settings. Implications include the need for alliance-building across feminist and critical mental health movements, and the need for a much more robust engagement by the social work profession in challenging the widespread acceptance of involuntary mental health treatment. 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34481 Research Paper for Global Migration Lab (Australian Red Cross): Addressing Humanitarian Challenges and Protecting Migrants in the Global South Bibon, Phoebe Julien; Thomas Hiscox, Jessica; Campbell, Brianna; Zhang, Manjin This report, prepared for the Australian Red Cross Global Migration Lab, examines protection mechanisms for migrants in the Global South, focusing on Colombia, Mexico, Kenya, and South Africa. Through comparative analysis of domestic and regional policies, it evaluates how protection is understood and implemented across humanitarian, legal, and socio-economic contexts. The report identifies challenges including securitisation, irregular migration, and gender-based vulnerabilities, and highlights good practices such as regularisation schemes and regional cooperation. It concludes with recommendations to strengthen migrant protection through inclusive policy design, coordination between state and non-state actors, and rights-based approaches to migration governance. 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34480 Research Paper for Australian Human Rights Commission: Experiences of Pregnancy and Pregnancy Leave in the Workplace Herath, Singithi; Sami, Tamjid; Co, Tiffany; Hu, Wavie This report, prepared for the Australian Human Rights Commission, examines the experiences of pregnancy and parental leave in Australian workplaces since the Commission’s 2014 national inquiry. It assesses developments in legislation, workplace practice, and gender equality, identifying persistent barriers for pregnant employees and caregivers, particularly those from marginalised communities. Drawing on a human rights framework, it analyses gaps in protection and proposes reforms to expand access to paid parental leave, strengthen data collection, promote cultural change, and ensure equitable participation in the workforce. The report highlights international best practices to inform Australia’s ongoing policy and gender equality reforms. 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34479 Research Paper for Legal Aid NSW: Increasing Supports for Vulnerable People Leaving Custody Who Are at Risk of Reoffending Searle, Eleanor; Taylor, Jessie; Chiang, Lok Sum Samuel; Tangging, Nurhati This report, prepared for Legal Aid NSW, examines strategies to support vulnerable people leaving custody who are at risk of reoffending. It analyses throughcare programs across Australia and internationally, including in New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and Norway, to identify best practices for reducing recidivism. The research highlights barriers to reintegration such as housing insecurity, unemployment, and inadequate post-release support, and emphasises the effectiveness of holistic, individualised throughcare models. Recommendations include improved coordination of support services, better program evaluation, and increased access to stable housing and community-based rehabilitation to break cycles of disadvantage and reduce repeat offending in NSW. 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34455 Discovery scenes without a Discovery Space on the Early Modern stage Fitzpatrick, Tim Dataset of all instances of 'discovery scenes' in Elizabethan, Jacobean and Carolingian plays. The data is searchable in terms of the characteristics of discoveries and the practicalities of staging them with only two entrance-points (one of which houses the discovery). The data is summarised (sheet 3) to elucidate the principal staging patterns. 2025-10-31T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34431 Maximising Learning and Teaching in Independent Schools: Moving ahead with Educational Neuroscience Kim, Minkang; Sankey, Derek; Li, Li; Webster, Greg Educational neuroscience is a relatively new speciality, within the overall discipline of education, that seeks to deepen understanding of how the human brain learns and develops, by applying insights generated in mainstream neuroscience and conducting neuroscientific research. It is founded on the recognition that all learning occurs in the brain and all development results from changes occurring in the brain. With a focus on maximising learning and teaching in independent schools, this Rapid Literature Review (RLR) identifies four main areas of quite recent neuroscientific research that are particularly applicable. This is research focussed on a) understanding the brain as a complex, dynamic system that self-organises through feedback; b) neural connectivity, synaptic plasticity and neuronal group selection; c) the neural interweaving of thought, feeling, and emotion; and d) the neurobiology of memory. Collectively, these four areas of research provide an image of the learning brain as complex, dynamic, highly variable, non-linear, and self-organising that is plastic (highly mouldable), embodied (inherently interconnected with the body, embedded (in multiple physical and social environments) emotional and predictive. In explicating the role of memory in learning, the RLR incorporates the notion of a dynamic, global neuronal workspace in the brain allows for massive non-linear interconnectivity between the brain’s attention system, perceptual system, motor system, value system, and long-term memory. Contrary to a widely held view in education, working memory is not just a short-term, temporary depository, rather it is primarily concerned with regulating the brain’s selective attention, so as to focus on what matters. Drawing on this body of research on how the human brain learns, the RLR posits six necessary conditions that are essential for maximising learning and teaching in schools. These require that each and every student is: 1) Paying attention and actively engaging with what they are learning 2) Repeating and rehearsing the object and contents of what they are learning 3) Monitoring their own errors and applying error feedback 4) Seeking and finding meaning and value in learning 5) Enabling positive and addressing negative emotions in learning and assessment 6) Thinking creatively, imaginatively, associatively, and analogically. Neuroscientific evidence regarding how brains learn strongly suggests that, in any given classroom or learning environment, in any given lesson, all should be in full play for maximal learning to occur. If any of these necessary conditions are missing, learning will be diminished. The relationship between the learning brain, pedagogical implications and high impact teaching is set out in a diagram, designed to be of practical use for teachers in schools. Central to the approach taken by this RLR, evidence-based teaching (EBT) is conceived as the explicit and judicious use of current neuroscientific evidence to inform the design of high-impact teaching strategies, tailored to enhance the learning outcomes of each and every student, in any given classroom, at any given school. EBT is therefore not a universal, rote application of educational theory to practice, nor is it a ‘cookbook’ approach to teaching strategies. Rather, it should combine the teacher’s understanding of the neuroscientific research evidence and their pedagogical knowledge and judgment, when teaching their students, in their classroom, consistent with the school’s values. 2025-10-22T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34410 INTRODUCTION The Holocaust and Human Rights: Transnational Perspectives on Contemporary Memorial Museums Barrett, Jennifer; Alba, Avril; Moses, Dirk Interrogates the global, and often controversial, phenomenon of Holocaust and human rights museums Spanning six continents—Europe, Australia, Africa, Asia, North America, and South America—this edited collection offers a comparative, transnational study of Holocaust and human rights museums that foregrounds the overlapping and often contested work these institutions do in narrating and memorializing histories of genocide and human rights abuses for a public audience. Museums that link the Holocaust with social justice, human rights, and genocide prevention have been founded in many countries—for example, the Kazerne Dossin Memorial Museum in Belgium, the Anne Frank House in the Netherlands, and the Johannesburg Holocaust and Genocide Centre in South Africa—making Holocaust and human rights museums a global phenomenon. It is not uncommon for these institutions to court controversy by linking the Holocaust to human rights issues in their locales and abroad. Some begin from a “Holocaust core” and extrapolate from this history to address broader concerns, while others integrate the Holocaust as “a” or, at times, “the” case study par excellence of human rights abuses. Other institutions that may not explicitly focus on the Holocaust continue to engage these representational practices to highlight other instances of genocide and human rights abuses. The case studies in this book illuminate the convergences between Holocaust and human rights museums in their demands for social justice and reparation, educational and activist purpose, design principles, and curatorial choices. But it also shows how these museums can also be sites of contestation around how stories of suffering, courage, and survival are told; whose stories are prioritized; and who is consulted. Although Holocaust museums were once the most influential form of representation of human rights issues in the international museum and heritage fields, they are now in dialogue—visually, spatially, methodologically—with museums and memorial sites concerned with human rights more broadly. Interrogating debates in both museology and Holocaust memory studies, this volume reveals how institutions dedicated to these concerns have become active and influential contributors to local, national, and transnational dialogues about human rights. 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34401 Research Paper for Australian Human Rights Commission: Access to Justice: What Experiences and Barriers do LGBTQIA+ Individuals Face when Seeking Legal Redress for Discrimination? Doundiyal, Ananya; Hamra, Zoe; Nguyen, August; Reynolds, Madeleine This report, for the Australian Human Rights Commission, investigates the experiences and barriers faced by LGBTQIA+ individuals in seeking legal redress for discrimination in Australia. Drawing on doctrinal analysis and a review of academic and grey literature, the paper identifies systemic shortcomings in anti-discrimination law, jurisdictional inconsistencies, and the enduring influence of historical prejudice on access to justice. It further examines how intersecting marginalities—such as race, disability, or refugee status—compound these barriers. The report proposes reforms to enhance cultural safety and equity in the justice system. 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34399 Cultural representation in Evolve 1: A Critical Multimodal Study. Asiri, Yahya This research investigates the cultural representation in Evolve 1, an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) textbook designed for learners in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. While a plethora of studies have explored culture in EFL textbooks, few have adopted both multimodal semiotic and mixed-method approaches. This study analyzes cultural representation both linguistically and visually, combining quantitative measures with qualitative semiotic analysis to provide a more comprehensive understanding of how culture is represented in Evolve 1. The analysis draws on corpus-based methods for linguistic data and applies van Leeuwen’s (2008) social actor representation frameworks (for both visual and linguistic representation) alongside Martin and Rose’s (2007, 2008) tools for analyzing tenor, field, and genre. The study seeks to answer two central questions: (1) Who is represented in the Evolve 1 textbook? and (2) How are they represented? Findings show that although visual representation appears balanced quantitatively, closer analysis reveals the dominance of certain subgroups within cultural categories. Key disparities emerge in gender roles, family structures, and visual strategies across cultures. Notably, representations of MENA cultures tend to be dynamic and internally diverse, challenging simplistic or monolithic portrayals. This study contributes to ongoing efforts to ensure equitable and culturally sensitive representations in global EFL materials. References: van Leeuwen, T. (2008). Discourse and Practice: New Tools for Critical Analysis (1st ed.). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195323306.001.0001 Martin, J. R., & Rose, D. (2008). Genre relations : mapping culture. Equinox Pub. Martin, J. R., & Rose, D. (2007). Working with discourse : meaning beyond the clause (2nd ed.). Continuum. 2025-10-15T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34382 The Wound and The Word: Tracing Trauma in Rutilius Namatianus' De Reditu Suo and Sidonius Apollinaris' Epistulae Vahl, Jules Peter This thesis adopts literary trauma theory as an interpretive framework for analysing textual responses to the decline and fall of Rome. It focuses on two late antique authors, Rutilius Namatianus and Sidonius Apollinaris, who respectively witnessed the Gothic sack of Rome (410 CE) and the fall of the empire (476 CE). Chapter One applies Cathy Caruth’s theory of ‘traumatic amnesia’ to Rutilius’ De Reditu Suo, reframing the epistemological, ideological and environmental eccentricities of the poem as symptoms of Rutilius’ inability to articulate the trauma of 410. Only through devices of literary representation can he communicate the trauma lurking beneath his gilded view of Roman supremacy. Chapter Two applies Joshua Pederson’s competing theory of ‘speaking trauma’ to a selection of Sidonius’ later Epistulae. Unlike Rutilius, Sidonius is ready and willing to grapple with traumatic experience in real time, mounting a stubborn defence against the erosion of his culture by the barbaric Visigoths. Chapter Three examines how both authors combat the trauma of their times by surrounding themselves with aristocratic literary communities which perpetuate and immortalise Romanitas. In this way, both Rutilius and Sidonius ‘work through’ their traumatic experiences. 2025-10-08T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34339 Sharing Borschke, Margie In digital culture, sharing is a metaphor used to describe and explain a variety of digital practices, network infrastructures and associated values. It is closely aligned with social media where to share is to post, to speak, to listen, to upload, to download and with the sharing economy and the offer of access to goods and services via an online platform. Although sharing seems ubiquitous and constitutive of online culture and has a long history as a term in computing that dates to the mid-2Oth century, it is not until the late 2000s that its meaning shifts, conflating the distributive and communicative senses of the verb. Recognizing this shift offers insight into how in the 21st century moral ideals about altruism and free expression are linked to economic goals and why the age of sharing has also become a time of rising inequality, centralization of power and increasing commercialization of culture and social relations. 2025-09-29T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34336 Bucking the trend: Union renewal in democratic Indonesia Ford, Michele This chapter examines the strategies for union renewal that have underpinned the dramatic transformation in Indonesia’s labour movement since Suharto’s New Order regime ended in 1998. The chapter argues that neither the Varieties of Capitalism framework nor its Varieties of Unionism corrective adequately theorises the potential impact of a dramatic shift in opportunity structures on union strategy. Having outlined Indonesian unions’ advances since 1998, and the challenges they continue to face, this chapter assess the risks and benefits associated with the different strategies that have contributed to their growing influence. It concludes by reflecting on the fragility of those gains in the face of further volatility in their institutional context. 2019-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34335 The Politics of Cross-border Mobility in Southeast Asia Ford, Michele This Element explains how cross-border mobility defines diplomatic relationships between Southeast Asian states and social and political dynamics within the region's key destination countries. It begins by providing an historically situated discussion of bordering processes within the region, examining evolving historical conceptions of power and sovereignty, and processes of bordering in colonial and post-colonial times. It then turns to the political, environmental, and economic drivers of contemporary cross-border mobility before examining governments' efforts to manage different kinds of border-crossers and the tensions that these efforts give rise to. Having discussed the politics of cross-border mobility in host communities, the Element returns to the question of why consideration of bordering practices and cross-border mobility is necessary in understanding contemporary Southeast Asia. 2023-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34334 The Illegal as Mundane: Researching Border-crossing Practices in Indonesia's Riau Islands Ford, Michele; Lyons, Lenore Ways of studying illegal behaviour are important in the context of Indonesia, a country well known for its failure to deal adequately with the corruption that permeates every level of society. They are perhaps even more salient at the peripheries of the nation-state where government agencies struggle to contain the illegal practices that necessarily emerge where nation-states meet. This article reflects on our experiences conducting a decade-long study of an Indonesian borderlands that, while not initially focused on illegality, came – as a consequence of its ubiquity – to include it as a key construct. This experience led us to grapple not only with methodological questions about how to research illegality but also with assumptions about what illegality is and does. We argue that the only way to recognise and account for the quotidian nature of many kinds of illegal activity in the borderlands is to eschew an ethnography of exception in favour of an ethnography of the mundane. 2020-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34333 ‘A Rustling Sound’: Voices of WWII Italian Detainees from The Multilingual Archive of Australia Alù, Giorgia National archives, libraries, and museums both expose and, directly or indirectly, collude with the military, legal, political, and rhetorical processes of exclusion that tend to obfuscate people’s subjectivities. In this article, official spaces assigned to preserve national memory are placed into dialogue with other archival sites of memory preservation and retrieval of family and community past. By looking at the connections between diverse documents related to Italian-speaking individuals who were prisoners of war and civilian internees in Australia, during World War II, the article investigates how this material can be used to question hegemonic discourses and counters the ‘monolingual paradigm’. Letters, diaries, and memoirs that account captivity and marginalisation during wartime offer cases of polyvocal texts as both creative and privileged sites of speech acts, discursive and material interactions where we can locate spaces of agency, connection and affect. 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34332 Regulating Recruitment and Contracting of Migrant Fishers from Indonesia Palmer, Wayne; Ford, Michele; Hasbiyalloh, Benni Historically, the processes in place to govern the recruitment and contracting of Indonesian migrant fishers have fostered situations of labor abuse and exploitation. The Indonesian government has introduced a new regulatory framework designed to meet international expectations that it creates rules and systems for recruiting migrant fishers in its territory. This article analyzes the state of play immediately before this new regulatory framework was operationalized, generating insights into practices around recruitment and contracting, and providing a baseline for future analysis of the new framework’s impact. 2023-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34331 Work/Care Regimes in the Asia-Pacific: A Feminist Framework Hill, Elizabeth; Ford, Michele; Baird, Marian This chapter illustrates surveys of the contemporary work/care regimes of countries in the Asia-Pacific. It highlights the role and importance of women in providing care for children and the elderly, whether it be in their place of origin or in the places to which they migrate. Economists use a U-shaped curve to hypothesise the relationship between women's labour force participation and stages of economic development. Women in the Asia-Pacific bear major responsibility for reproductive labour. In addition to measuring women's labour force participation, it is also important to evaluate the employment outcomes for women who enter the paid workforce. The majority of the literature on work/care regimes, particularly in a comparative perspective, is based on OECD economies. The dominance of the family as the locus of care reflects the ideology of gendered familialism that prevails in all countries of the Asia-Pacific. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book. 2017-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34330 Labour and Electoral Politics in Cambodia Ward, Kristy; Ford, Michele In 2013, the Cambodian People’s Party faced two major threats: a near loss at the ballot box in the national election and large-scale demonstrations by garment workers dissatisfied with the minimum wage. Unsurprisingly, the government responded by cracking down on the opposition, the independent media and civil society groups. Labour leaders were persecuted and legislation passed that undermined unions’ ability to organise and register. Less predictably, this crackdown was accompanied by an attempt to woo garment workers through policies that delivered tangible benefits to them as individuals. There was a marked shift in the party’s focus from its traditional rural constituency to the urban working class. In this article we examine how labour acts collectively to shape politics within authoritarian regimes. We do this by interrogating labour’s role at a time when the state was clearly shifting towards hegemonic authoritarianism. By re-assessing the 2013 and 2018 national elections through this lens, we demonstrate the bidirectional nature of state–labour relations even in authoritarian regimes. We conclude that, even where election results are largely predetermined, elections can provide opportunities for workers to strengthen their position by prompting shifts in not only in patronage but in policy. 2021-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34329 Power resources and supranational mechanisms: The global unions and the OECD Guidelines Ford, Michele; Gillan, Michael This article uses the power resources approach to analyse the Global Union Federations’ (GUFs) use of the specific instances mechanism associated with the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. While this mechanism has serious limitations, it has proved to be a useful tool when combined with public campaigns and the exercise of other power resources at multiple scales. This is so, we argue, because the fact that multi-national enterprises themselves operate across national boundaries creates an incentive to engage power resources at a supranational level, as well as within the countries where they, or their suppliers, are present. As this finding suggests, consideration of unions’ power resources benefits from deeper consideration of the multi-scalar and interrelated character of union action and of the role that intermediary coordinating organizations like GUFs play in supporting the exercise of power at the supranational level. 2021-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34328 Opening Australia's Multilingual Archive Loy-Wilson, Sophie; Vickers, Adrian; Alù, Giorgia This special issue asks what difference language and translation make to Australian history-making. 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34259 THE MOST IMPORTANT BOOK NEVER WRITTEN A Media History of Saul Kripke’s Scholarly Samizdat Borschke, Margie This article considers the significance of informal publication and circulation in the work of the philosopher Saul Kripke (1940-2022). It argues that everyday copying technologies (e.g. tape recording, photocopying) enabled academics in the 1970s and 1980s to create living documents whose private preservation and circulation maintained a community of interest and makes a case for understanding these technologies and techniques of reproduction as essential to the composition of Kripke’s ground-breaking published work. Kripke lectured a great deal, usually without notes, and was known to be reluctant to commit his ideas to print; this so-called samizdat preserved a space for the oral as the preferred mode of communication for philosophical discourse, connecting the modern tradition with the ancients, while the recordings, transcripts and photocopies archived Kripke’s ideas and secured access outside of institutional publishing channels 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34246 Politicizing the Minimum Wage: Wage Councils, Worker Mobilization, and Local Elections in Indonesia Caraway, Teri L.; Ford, Michele; Nguyen, Oanh K. Indonesia’s weak labor movement transformed local wage councils from institutions of wage restraint into institutions that delivered generous wage increases. This article argues that the arrival of direct elections created an opportunity for unions to leverage elections to alter the balance of power on the wage councils. Activating that leverage required increased contentiousness and coordination among unions. As unions mobilized around wages, conflict with capital intensified and produced disruptive protests that led incumbents to side with workers. Unions also developed innovative tactics to sustain momentum in nonelection years. As unions turned the wage councils in their favor, employers fought back by shifting the scale of the conflict to the national level; the result was the recentralization of wage setting and more modest increases. In a global context of ever weakening organized labor, the Indonesian case shows how weak unions can gain power by mobilizing politically at the local level. 2019-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34245 Authoritarian Innovations in Labor Governance: The Case of Cambodia Ford, Michele; Gillan, Michael; Ward, Kristy Authoritarian states face a fundamental tension in managing labor conflict. Too much repression can be read as a violation of workers' human rights, but too little undermines their structures of control. In this article, we shift focus from the overt repression of workers and unions to consider how states manage labor dissent through governance reform. Using Cambodia as our case, we examine the government's use of a series of “authoritarian innovations” to reassert control over labor governance mechanisms once dominated by international actors. Through an analysis of the shifting terrain of reform in the areas of labor legislation, minimum wage-setting, and disputes resolution, we show how institutional pacification has contained labor in ways that have served to defend state legitimacy and protect accumulation. We conclude by discussing the implications of these novel tactics—which signal the state is neither static nor predictable—for our understanding of labor governance under authoritarianism. 2021-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34106 Misinformation and Digital Policy in Australia Flew, Terry; Nicholls, Robert; Zhao, He The circulation of misinformation and disinformation online during election campaigns has been identified as a major problem in Australia. This article was prepared for the Safer Internet Lab Snapshot series. 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34016 Platformization in the Digital Comics Industry – Leaving Comic Creators Behind Hercus, Zoe Webcomics have become an incredibly influential part of the comic industry. Traditional publishers look to webcomic platforms, where creators can establish an extensive following for their comics, to pick out successful titles to transition to print. These publishers are also trying their hand at the platform model, developing platform-like systems (PLS) to appeal to a digitally orientated readership. These movements afford platforms an immense amount of power to affect the comics industry. The ways they are shaping business directions and user expectations are consistent with the dynamics of platformization outlined by Poell et al. (2022). This thesis investigated the structures and mechanisms of webcomic platforms to determine how they engineer platformed effects and their ramifications for comic creators as a vulnerable group. Additionally, it assessed how these effects were reflected by digital comic PLS and how that affected their practice. Ten platforms and PLS, capturing a variety of industry players, were observed using a variation of Light et al. (2016)’s walkthrough method. The data captured from these observations was analysed using Braun and Clarke (2022)’s reflective thematic analysis approach. My findings revealed that the recommendation and sorting techniques of platforms and PLS demonstrate orientations towards newness, quantification (less so for PLS) and low-value exchange terms. These orientations were exaggerated by mechanics that encouraged habitual return, success based on metric logics, and comic monetisation that devalued the individual comic product. This was to the detriment of comic creators, whose efforts to support themselves via relationship- based crowdfunding were not sustained by platforms and PLS. The ways comic creators have become reliant on webcomic platforms to build a following, based on the entanglement of the print and digital comic industries, places pressure on them to weather these negative effects to seek success. 2025-06-22T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/33972 A Parallel Translation of Chiteiki (982) Stavros, Matthew This publication includes a complete and annotated English translation of Chiteiki 池亭記, presented in parallel with the original text. Chiteiki is a literary memoir written in 982 by Yoshishige no Yasutane 慶滋保胤 (c. 933–1002), a mid–level court official and celebrated member of the Kyoto literati. This brief text, written is Sino-Japanese (hentai kanbun 変体漢文), includes a rare, first-person account of the tectonic changes that were transforming Kyoto’s urban landscape during the late Heian period (794–1185). The narrative explains how the master-planned city, established in 794 and modeled on the great Chinese capitals of Luoyang and Chang’an, was undergoing a fundamental spatial reorganization. The western half of Kyoto’s urban grid had begun to deteriorate while the population clustered with dangerous and stifling density in the northeast. Development beyond the city’s northern and eastern boundaries threatened the natural environment and exacerbated the danger of perennial floods. 2025-06-06T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/33961 Policy-at-Risk: The Effects of Financial Conditions on the Conduct of Monetary Policy in Australia Deitch, Nathaniel The global financial crisis (GFC) of the late 2000s marked an important event in terms of changing attitudes towards prudential and financial regulation. However, it also demonstrated the close connectivity between financial conditions and macroeconomic performance. It is therefore important to understand the influence of changing financial conditions on the conduct of monetary policy by central banks, particularly how central banks respond to these changes. This thesis constructs a financial conditions index (FCI) for Australia to represent the state of financial conditions between 1976 and 2023. I use a two-stage regression model as part of a novel policy-at-risk (PaR) model to assess the effects of financial conditions on monetary policy first at the mean level, and secondly at different quantiles along the distribution of interest rate changes. I also assess the uncertainty associated with monetary policy over time by plotting the conditional distribution of the overnight cash rate (OCR) together with its fitted quantiles. The findings reveal that when the OCR is low relative to systematic policy, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) is less responsive to changes in financial conditions, resulting in smaller interest rate cuts. Conversely, the RBA reacts more strongly to financial conditions when the OCR is relatively high. 2025-06-02T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/33960 Technology, Materials, and Knowledge Transfer in Nuclear Proliferation Networks: Findings and Implications Hastings, Justin V; Stulberg, Adam N; Baxter, Philip This White Paper explicates policy analytical puzzles associated with illicit nuclear trafficking. Despite widespread appreciation of and research into the diffusion of sensitive nuclear materials, technology, and information, we lack systematic understanding of how different proliferation rings are organized and poised to leverage open logistical, political, and practical knowledge contexts to greater or lesser effect. Accordingly, this report presents a single framework for assessing the strengths and weaknesses of different types of logistical and knowledge networks for spreading sensitive nuclear-related material and practical know-how among state and non-state actors. Specifically, alternative logistical and social network approaches are applied to conceptualize different levels of operation among nuclear proliferation rings. This provides quantitative and qualitative methods to extract and operationalize variables— e.g. characteristics of the personnel within the networks, the structure of nodes and characteristics of the links between them, and nature of the landscape in which they operated -- that correlate with trends in illicit nuclear trafficking and nuclear weapons development. These insights are probed in critical cases of North Korean, Iranian, and Pakistani proliferation networks to account for the mixed pathways, timing, and overall effectiveness of acquiring nuclear-related technology from abroad and absorbing/diffusing experiential knowledge within respective national contexts. 2025-06-02T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/33959 The Essence of Friendship: A Generous Interpretation of Aristotle Ritchie, Isabel This paper revisits Aristotle’s account of friendship in The Nicomachean Ethics. I argue that Aristotle’s broad, detailed framework offers us a cogent characterisation of friendship that contemporary philosophical accounts are often lacking. Aristotle provides a foundational understanding of what friendship is, how it is created, and why it can take different forms. Yet, the theory is often dismissed in light of its seemingly contradictory or confusing elements. By addressing key concerns about Aristotle’s argument, such as the ‘perfect’ nature of essential friendships, and the number of friends one should maintain, I show that a charitable reading of Aristotelian philosophy continues to offer relevant insights that are applicable to modern thought and discourse. 2025-06-02T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/33908 Does the composition of credit matter for Australian monetary policy transmission? Doherty, Sophie The composition of credit is rarely discussed when quantifying the role of credit in Australian monetary policy transmission. As the share of household and business credit has changed, it is important to understand whether the composition will matter for monetary policy transmission. I use a SVAR model to quantify the sensitivity of household and business credit to monetary policy finding relatively symmetric responses for all components. However, the SVAR model fails to account for the changing share of household and business credit. Implementing a DSGE model with credit, I construct three compositions representative of Australia’s credit composition since 1992. Household credit is shown to be more sensitive to a tightening of monetary policy as the share of household credit increases, as has occurred in Australia. Meanwhile, a business-dominant composition will propagate monetary policy shocks to investment and output. Furthermore, a shock to borrowing constraints implies the gradual change in credit composition will impact Australia’s financial stability more broadly as business credit has the strongest relationship with macroeconomic variables. As the share of business credit has gradually declined, the effectiveness of monetary policy transmission through credit to key macroeconomic variables may have decreased. 2025-05-14T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/33759.2 What's the Evidence A study on Teacher Quality Roberts Parker, Kathryn; Lawson-Jones, Anne; Simpson, Alyson; Hartley, Shani The White Paper is an evidence-informed and evidence-generating provocation designed to promote deeper understanding of teachers’ work by proposing a holistic measure of teacher quality. The WtE team have written this paper as a public statement summing up our work to-date, to provide evidence of the complexity involved in being a teacher. As an important part of the paper, we also indicate the work yet to be achieved if the status of the profession is to be improved. We are keen to continue the discussion with education stakeholders in the future. 2025-03-31T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/33890 The state of the discipline: Australian sociology and its future Collyer, Fran; Williams Veazey, Leah Debates about the state of Australian sociology have raged for as long as sociology has existed in Australia. Concerns about the discipline’s future may be inevitable for a critical, reflexive discipline, but to those entering the discipline, it is neither instructive nor productive to be subjected to lingering disciplinary anxieties. After more than fifty years, it is time to take stock of the differing visions of sociology, and examine the arguments about the health, or otherwise, of Australian sociology. To advance this debate, we consider the signs and benchmarks of a ‘successful’ sociology as expressed in The Australian Sociological Association magazine, NEXUS, and key writings from Australian sociologists. We suggest that much of the disagreement over the status of sociology derives from the way ‘disciplines’ and ‘success’ are defined. Regarding sociology to be an heterogeneous, multi-modal, social institution and practice, we propose a way forward in our efforts to represent ourselves. 2023-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/33828 The Man Who Dreamed Tomorrow: The Life and Times of J W Dunne (Review-Essay) Potter, David A review-essay for Nabokov Online Journal about 'The Man Who Dreamed Tomorrow: The Life of J. W. Dunne' (2024) by Guy Inchbald, the first full-length book on the influential British aeronaut and time philosopher John William Dunne (1875–1949). It explores Vladimir Nabokov’s engagement with Dunne’s books—especially 'An Experiment with Time' and 'The Serial Universe'—in both his dream diary and fiction. Dunne emerges as a feverish prophet of multidimensional time, whose unique blend of pseudoscience, prophetic vision, and imaginative brilliance clearly informed the writing of Nabokov’s 'Ada, or Ardor' (1969). 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/33798 Transforming Professional Practice: Learning From Country Burgess, Cathie; Golledge, Claire; Smallwood, Reakeeta; Clough, Belinda; Harwood, Valerie For some time, the Learning from Country (LFC) framework has been successfully implemented in teacher education at the University of Sydney. Evidence from a longitudinal study (2018-2022) on the transformative impact of LFC on preservice teachers in developing culturally responsive teaching practices is contained in various academic and non-academic reports (cf. Burgess et al., 2022a,2022b; Coombes et al, 2024; Thorpe et al. 2021; Thorpe et al, 2024 , and Appendix AARE Blogpost, Centre for Professional Learning). This project allowed an interdisciplinary team from the Sydney School of Education and Social Work (SSESW), Susan Wakil School of Nursing and Midwifery (Sydney Nursing School [SNS]), and the Sydney Business School to apply the framework within nursing degrees to see if it was transferable to other professional education and training contexts. This is a report into the findings of that project. 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/33771 Research Paper for Australian Human Rights Commission (Disability Discrimination Commissioner): Disability Discrimination in Air Travel Chen, Andy; Shanmugakani, Harshini; Chiang, Lok Sum Samuel; Lam, Tiffany Passengers with disabilities in Australia face persistent barriers to air travel, with complaints rising by 78.6% in the past decade. Issues include mobility aid mishandling, inconsistent assistance animal policies, and discriminatory security screening. Despite obligations under the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, current policies fail to ensure equitable access. This report critiques the Aviation White Paper’s shortcomings and recommends four key reforms: establishing an enforcement authority, creating an independent ombuds scheme, launching a national rights-awareness campaign, and embedding accessibility officers in airlines and airports. These measures aim to enhance accessibility, protect passenger rights, and align Australia with global best practices. 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z