Outstanding Service to TASA Award 2014 TASA

Volume 27 Number 1

March 2015

TASA - Understanding our world, making a difference Outstanding Service to TASA Award 2014 Sharyn Roach Anleu

Matthew Flinders Distinguished Professor Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia Flinders University

In this issue Outstanding Service to TASA Award 2014

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Letter from the editors

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Distinguished Service to Australian Sociology Award 4 President’s letter

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Keynote: Cynical Sociology? No, Kynical Sociology!

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Keynote: Researchers must do more to arrest the poor Aboriginal human condition

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Southern notes #1

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Raewyn Connell Prize: 2014 Winner

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Stephen Cook Memorial Prize: 2014 Winner

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Postgraduate report

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Secondary teacher workshop reports

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Postgraduate completions

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Surprising perspectives? Palestinian refugees and the right of return?

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Secretary’s letter

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TASA Public Lecture 2014

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Apocalypse now? The global antibiotic crisis, resistant ‘superbugs’ and promoting cultural change in infection management in Australia

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‘Cultures of Authenticity’ Symposium

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The Sociology of Emotion and Affect Thematic Group Workshop: November 2014

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Health Sociology Review

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The value of health: TASA Health Symposium 2014

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TASA Migration Symposium 2014

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Challenging the discourses of the past through the exhumation of mass graves in Spain

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To be or to become?

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The invisibility of male victims of human trafficking 39 TASA Conference 2014: Postgraduate Scholarship Recipients

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Tweeting at Conferences: #TASA2015

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It all began with a ’phone call. In mid-1992. From (the late) Professor John Western. ‘Would I like to join the TASA Executive?’ I was flattered that the eminent professor from the University of Queensland had thought of me in these terms. I discussed this with a close colleague (well, really mentor, in the pre-mentoring days), Claire Williams, who advised that it would be a good idea, and opportunity to meet sociologists nationally. I had done my PhD in Connecticut and had been away from Australian sociology for five years. The national conference was being organised, by Flinders, Adelaide and UniSA to be held in Adelaide in December of that year. So I said yes. My first face-to-face TASA Executive meeting was December 1992, and I had become Secretary. Katy Richmond was President (and had been Secretary and Treasurer as well that year), my colleague Bill Martin became Treasurer. Jo Lindsay was the postgraduate representative. Thus began a long association with the TASA Executive and enterprise: only the position of Treasurer has eluded me! During this time, there were several key challenges, including amending the Constitution; shifting JoS to SAGE; and preparing bids to host the ISA Annual Congress, as well as the daily concerns of increasing the membership and managing the finances. Another ’phone call. This time from Professor Lois Bryson. I remember sitting on the bed feeding my new-born baby, Oliver, in 1994, and answering the ’phone: ‘Would I like to convene the Jean Martin Award?’ I said yes; I was honoured to be asked to undertake such an important role, although later I realised I had not appreciated the practicalities of dealing with the stack of PhD theses piled almost to the ceiling in my office, as I had to package and send them out to the Committee members via post. Those days have gone! Every time the annual conference is held in Adelaide, comes a different engagement with TASA. Following the 2000 conference, organized by Flinders, colleagues Bill Martin, Maria Zadoroznyj and I were awarded the editorship of the Journal of Sociology. This was a very rewarding insight in to Continued on p. 4

TASA Conference 2015 Cairns

Neoliberalsim and Contempory Challenges for the Asia-Pacific November 23-26, 2015

TASA’s 2015 annual conference will be held in Cairns, in Far North Queensland from 23 to 26 November 2015. The location makes this conference an ideal site for sociological conversations across the Asia-Pacific region, and will make a major contribution to strengthening regional networks in sociology. opportunities does neoliberalism present, and how does sociology respond to those challenges? Cairns is easily accessible from all Australian airports, and also hosts an international airport with regular flights to East and Southeast Asia, including direct links to Tokyo, Osaka, Guam, Port Moresby, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Singapore. Conference delegates can take advantage of the excellent tourist infrastructure in the Cairns CBD, and might like to extend their stay to explore more of North Queensland.

3rd TBC

With Keynote Speakers:

The conference theme is Neoliberalism and Contemporary Challenges for the Asia-Pacific. The theme is designed to appeal to academic and non-academic sociologists throughout the Asia-Pacific region. As a global structure, neoliberalism has impacted lives around the world in far more than an economic sense. In this conference, we seek to understand the global effects of neoliberalism, but especially the ways neoliberalism is experienced in different local contexts. The experiences of Australia and New Zealand are different from those of Asia and again of the Pacific. What challenges and

Professor Eva Cox

ProfessorVedi Hadiz More information at: this link Hosted by TASA, the Cairns Institute and the College of Arts, Society & Education at James Cook University

Letter from the editors

Sue Malta and Christopher Baker

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NEXUS March 2015

erhaps one of the strongest impressions of the 2014 Annual Conference hosted by the University of South Australia was that sociology in this country is as connected and feisty as it is diverse. The TASA conference was once again awash with substantive offerings from myriad sociological perspectives. In line with our personal vision to highlight the diversity of sociological endeavour in Australia, in this edition of Nexus we again seek to provide a glimpse into the array of research issues and that TASA members are engaging with as this, the 21st century, gathers momentum. This issue includes contributions from two of the conference keynote presentations: David Inglis argues the case for why ‘it’s time to completely rework how classical sociology is presented and taught’; and Lester-Irabinna Rigney provides his perspective on Aileen Moreton-Robinson’s call for sociologists urgently to do more to arrest the poor Aboriginal human condition. Importantly, this edition of Nexus celebrates and includes contributions from our worthy award winners: - TASA Award for Outstanding Service to TASA: Sharyn Roach Anleu - TASA Award for Distinguished Service to Australian Sociology: Riaz Hassan - Stephen Crook Memorial Prize for the best authored book in Australian Sociology: Fran Collyer - Raewyn Connell Prize for the best first book by an author in Australian Sociology: Shanthi Robertson - Jerzy Zubrzycki Postgraduate Conference Scholarship: Fiona Proudfoot - TASA Accessibility Conference Scholarship: Catherine Kowalski - TASA Postgraduate Conference Scholarships: Melissa-Jane Belle; Maria Davidenko; Mousumi Mukherjee and Joy Townsend. We commend these award winners to you. The new President of TASA, Katie Hughes, outlines the four key issues the TASA Executive is focusing on for 2015, designed to improve networking and communication. Joshua Roose, the new Secretary, reports on recent changes aimed at improving the membership experience while also improving the efficiency of administrative processes. Joshua also thanks all who have participated in the TASA survey, which was open to members from 9 to 20 March, 2015. This issue includes an article on Tweeting at the 2014 TASA conference (Robards and Graham); a reflection on the conference by a first-time participant (Peters); and an introduction to the new editorial team of Health Sociology Review (Bryant and Newman). It also features reports of the energetic initiatives of an array of Thematic Groups (Baker – Cultural Sociology; Bose – Migration, Ethnicity and Multiculturalism; Brosnan and Kirby – Health; McKenzie and Olson - Sociology of Emotion and Affect), as well as an insightful report on the antibiotics Public Lecture held in November 2014 (Kirby). In keeping with our vision to provide alternate perspectives on various events, the issue also provides three viewpoints of the inaugural Social Education Victoria (SEV)/TASA secondary teacher workshop held in 2014 (Osbaldiston; Zeeng and Fiford; Solis). Postgraduate completions are outlined as always and Christina Malatzky provides her first postgraduate report. This issue also includes a report from beyond Australia, with Bruce Curtis from the University of Auckland providing us with insights into New Zealand sociology and sociologists. Other contributions that we expect will stimulate both reflection and debate and which particularly highlight our endeavNewsletter of The Australian Sociological Association

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our to report on the diversity of sociological research being undertaken here, include pieces by PhD candidates – Sobhi Albadawi on the perspectives of Palestinian refugees, and Natalia Maystorovich Chulio on the exhumation of mass graves in Spain; and a reflection by postgraduate researcher Polina Smiragina on the invisibility of male victims of human trafficking. Of course, the production of a newsletter is necessarily a collective effort. We are appreciative of all those TASA members who have made contributions. We remain indebted to Sally Daly, Eileen Clark and Roger Wilkinson in particular for their dedication, competence and (thankfully) good humour. We look forward to reviewing the data from the TASA survey on how frequently members access Nexus, and to your suggestions and feedback to the editorial team. In the interim, we trust that you engage with and enjoy this issue. All hail the sociological perspective. The deadline for contributions to the second issue of Nexus for 2015 is 15 June 2015. Contributions can be sent to the editors: Sue or Christopher.

Outstanding Service to TASA Award Continued from p.1 the workings of Australian research and publishing, and a wonderful collegial activity that rises above day-to-day academic life. We published the first of the thematic issues. One of my strongest memories is my Presidential Address in 1998. The high-profile overseas speaker did not show up, but I did not know this until the day. The other speaker spoke for ten minutes; we had an hour and a half to fill. I could see that like all the high achieving students, the front row was full of professors and senior academics. I was also eight months pregnant. What to do? Finish up quickly and have more time for morning tea – but this was the opening plenary – or treat it like a lecture that could expand or contract to fill the time! I chose the latter, and the Address was later published in JoS. Undoubtedly, the highlight of being involved with TASA is getting to know and working together with other members of the Executive and the Association, and the greater understanding of Australian sociology that this fosters. It has also led to several enduring friendships. In closing, much of the work of TASA happened at home and on the weekends, and involved travel so I extend a large thank you to my family who have grown up with TASA in the background. Thank you TASA for awarding me this great honour; it is especially nice to receive it during the presidency of Associate Professor Jo Lindsay.

Distinguished Service to Australian Sociology Award Riaz Hassan Flinders University

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Newsletter of The Australian Sociological Association

hank you very much, Jo, for your gracious introduction. I would like thank The Australian Sociological Association’s Executive for the award. I feel very honoured. As a staff member of the Sociology Department at Flinders University for 35 years I had the good fortune of having very supportive past and present colleagues and I want to thank them for all their support over the years. I am also grateful to the Australian Research Council for supporting my research over the past three decades through several research grants. I am delighted to see TASA continuing to grow as a vibrant professional association dedicated to promoting sociology in Australia and sociological scholarship through its quality journals and various awards. I feel honoured that I have played a small role in promoting this mission. I wish the Association continuing success in its efforts to advancing sociological scholarship and supporting Australian sociologists. Thank you very much.

NEXUS March 2015

Thus began a long association with the TASA Executive and enterprise: only the position of Treasurer has eluded me! During this time, there were several key challenges.

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President’s letter Katie Hughes

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NEXUS March 2015

elcome to the first edition of Nexus for 2015. I’m delighted to be working with a team of energetic, optimistic and strategic colleagues on the TASA Executive and have no doubt that we will provide our members with good service, and the organisation with good governance, so we are in a position to increase our membership base, and the reach of sociology more generally. The TASA Executive is focusing on four key issues for 2015, all of which are designed to improve networking and communication. First, we are very pleased with the steady growth in TASA membership. We have more members in 2015 than ever before, but we have noted that there is a concentration of members in particular income brackets. In particular, there is a dearth of senior academics retaining their memberhip of the organisation, or becoming members if they are new to Australia. Membership of TASA is valuable to every sociologist whether they work outside academia or within it. There is access to thematic groups for research collaborations and networking, the Journal of Sociology whose impact factor rises annually, an annual national conference, public lectures, seminars and workshops, an e-list for brief and rapid communication about relevant developments in policy and higher education and many other ways to participate in sociological discussion with colleagues. However, we are interested in the ways in which our members perceive these activities and, in particular, the ways in which we may be able to improve them to order to attract increased senior membership. So in March, all TASA members were invited to complete an online survey which we hope will guide us in our plans for better services for our members. We will also get in touch with non-members and ask them to complete a survey about how TASA might better meet their needs. Secondly, the TASA Executive is very interested in increasing our networks and communication with our neighbours in the Asia–Pacific, and internationally. To this end, we have committed to send a TASA representative to the Asia–Pacific Sociological Association bi-annual conference, and to events hosted by the International Sociological Association . In this way, we will be a position to keep members up to date with international developments, and hopefully, to act as a conduit for those wishing to increase international contacts. To this end, we are delighted that the 2015 TASA conference is to be held at James Cook University in Cairns, which is accessible for our colleagues working in the Asia-Pacific. Entitled ‘Neoliberalism and contemporary challenges for the Asia-Pacific’ and with an impressive array of speakers from Australia and the Asia–Pacific, we hope this will be a rare opportunity for collegiality across borders. Thirdly, we have committed to an increased use of social media in TASA’s communications, which we anticipate will enable TASA members and interested others to connect with us and with sociology more generally. These avenues are visible on the revamped TASA website and we encourage you to use them. More generally, it is almost clichéd to say that we are living in an era with a good deal of international conflict, risk and uncertainty. Domestically, we have seen unprecedented political upheavals. These generate vigorous public conversations and debate in all sorts of fora with commentators from numerous disciplinary backgrounds offering insights into causes. There is no doubt that over the next 20 years the social upheavals caused by climate change, political unrest and growing levels of social inequality will require explanation and solutions. Currently, it is commonplace to hear such explanations and solutions from economists, experts in terrorism, scientists and criminologists but less commonly from sociologists. It is TASA’s aim to place sociologists at the centre of public debates of such social issues and in doing so, raise the profile of the discipline. We ask, for example, that TASA members contributing to The Conversation state their membership of TASA. We also provide an expertise guide on


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Award for Outstanding Service to TASA - 2015

the TASA website. With a growing voice in public conversations, we hope that sociology will increase its popularity as an essential tool of analysis, and encourage all our members to seize opportunities to engage publicly in debate. Finally, we are on the brink of even more significant legislative change in the Higher Education sector, in addition to the uncapping of places that led to uneven and uncertain preference flows for many universities. In addition to this, the increased market reach of private Higher Education Providers will further challenge some universities. While currently small in number, these providers may increase and confront significantly the traditional student cohorts of some metropolitan universities. At the time of writing, it is still unclear what the depth or the breadth of these legislative changes will be, but there seems little doubt that they will be almost uniformly challenging. 2015 will no doubt be an interesting year and I’m looking forward to working with the Executive to position sociology for the future, by promoting sociology in higher education, but also in policy and in public debate.

T his honour is accorded to a TASA member who has demonstrated an outstanding level of participation in and promotion of TASA over a number of years. There are many ways in which this can occur, but in all cases the quality of the service is the determining criterion, rather than the quantity alone. The Executive are calling for nominations for 2015, with nominations closing 31 May. If an award is to take place, it will be presented in November at the TASA annual conference in South Australia. Full details of the Award are available on TASAweb:

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Distinguished Service to Australian Sociology Award - 2015

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Nexus production team


Sue Malta & Christopher Baker Eileen Clark Roger Wilkinson & Sally Daly


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his award is made to a TASA member who has demonstrated outstanding, significant and sustained service to Australian sociology over many years. While not necessarily a lifetime achievement award, candidates for the Distinguished Service Award would usually be nearing the end of their careers. The Executive are calling for nominations for 2015, with nominations closing 31 May. If an award is to take place, it will be presented in November at the TASA annual conference in Cairns. Full details of the Award are available on TASAweb:

2015 Nexus Dates Issue 2 Contributor Deadline: June, 15 2015 Publication Date: July 2015 Issue 3 Contributor Deadline: October 15, 2015 Publication Date: November 2015

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Keynote: Cynical Sociology? No, Kynical Sociology! David Inglis University of Exeter

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The Kynical philosophers practised what they preached. They did not just say outrageous things against the dominant social order, they lived in equally outrageous and unconventional ways.

NEXUS March 2015

t is often said that sociology is a cynical exercise. It looks at the world in a corrosive way. It reveals the nature of mystifications and things presented as real and apparently obdurate, which it shows to be in fact social constructions and ideological elaborations. It sees through appearances and reveals the bases of things in social relations and forms of power. What could be more cynical than that? That cynical impulse is part of the Enlightenment inheritance of sociology. The notion that one can cut through from the surface level of things to deeper realities is one taken from the Enlightenment philosophers, whose trenchant criticisms of kings and priests still animate the more cynical facets of sociology today. Another element of the Enlightenment that made its way into sociology was a swingeing sense of irony, both in terms of how opponents were derisively spoken of and represented, and also of how the questing actions of humankind were thought to have often highly ironic consequences, rebounding on actors in every kind of unexpected way. You only have to read a work of Enlightenment history like Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire to realise where sociology’s acute understanding of the unintended consequences of human actions came from. So in many ways sociology became a modern version of Enlightenment cynicism about the state of the world and the claims made by the powerful, as well as drawing upon the types of irony and ironic writing pioneered by the philosophers of the 18th century. In a peculiar way, when sociology has gone about its business, it has been embodying the cynical and ironic mode created by philosophers in France, Britain and elsewhere some 250 years ago. Of course a complex and contested terrain like sociology is never just a result of one source or tradition, as feminist and postcolonial critics would point out, but it remains the case that when sociology does what it does, looking at the world askance, it does so by enacting a cynical vision and using ironic forms of representation derived in large part from the Enlightenment. That is why, when I am told at parties, wedding receptions and other social gatherings, by people who are not sociologists, that sociology is just far too cynical, I usually endeavour to ruin the conversation by replying that sociology is usually not cynical enough. And more specifically, I tend to say at such times that today sociology is in danger of losing its cynical and ironic edge. I add that the kind of cynicism that animates what sociologists do risks becoming, because of institutional pressures, something resembling nihilism more than cynicism, at least as the latter can be more productively understood. Saying those sorts of things is usually a good way to end a polite conversation and ensure I am not invited again to such gatherings, which often counts as a blessed relief. What I have in mind is that cynicism is not in fact what it is commonly understood as being. A conventional understanding of cynicism thinks that it is a purely negative exercise and simply destructive of what it has in its sights. If cynicism were simply that, then when sociology is being cynical, it would be nothing other than a series of negative gestures towards the world. Taken to an extreme, cynicism tumbles into nihilism, which is violently aggressive, mostly very unproductive and often leads in a paradoxical way to resigned acceptance of the way the world currently happens to be. I don’t think that there is much mileage to be gained from nihilistic sociology – although I am tempted to develop such a weapon each time I have to listen to the neoliberal orthodoxies emanating from certain parts of the university and the whole apparatus of government today. Luckily, there is more to cynicism than simply negativity. As the German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk (1988) shows, the modern word ‘cynicism’ is very much a diminution of the original Greek word Kynic, and the ideas and actions to which it referred. In ancient Greece Kynicism was not just a philosophy, it was a way of life. The Kynical philosophers practised what they preached. They did not just say outrageous things against the dominant social order, they lived in equally outrageous and unconventional ways. Diogenes, one of the main Kynics, is said to have lived in a barrel, his pronouncements against conventional society so striking and so scandalous that even Alexander the Great was said to have come to visit him in his rather unusual habitation. And when the great emperor arrived in front


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of Diogenes’ barrel, the philosopher said something to the effect of ‘Get out of the way, you’re blocking the view!’. Such outrageous cheek was never just naughty for its own sake, nor was it an exercise in simple negativity. It was both an attempt to pull apart conventional ways of thinking and living, and endeavour to create something better, more honest and more true than were the standard pieties of the age that underpinned how people actually lived. Kynicism was therefore simultaneously negative and positive, destructive and productive, denying the world through negativity and ironic attack in order to create a better one. Modern cynicism is a much diminished remnant of the earlier Kynical impulse. I think that we find both Kynicism and cynicism in many of the great works of sociology. The pessimistic streak in German sociology, most spectacularly embodied in the writings of Max Weber, can be seen as cynicism heading towards nihilism, with some relatively feeble gestures towards a more positive vision of how society could be. That trend is counterbalanced by Marx, whose emphasis on capitalism’s creatively destructive capacities seems to be a direct ancestor of ancient Kynicism. Marx takes up an Enlightenment pen filled with fury and fervour against the powerful, but this is done with the aim of helping to bring into existence a better way of life for all, a truly Kynical combination of attack and degradation of the opponent together with a constructive will to make the world more truly liveable. Another great sociological cynic, Thorstein Veblen, cast a highly ironic gaze over the doings of the wealthy classes, and in doing so brought to bear what Adorno subsequently called the ‘evil eye’ upon pretentiousness and conspicuous forms of social display. But while Veblen was arguably mostly a cynic in the modern sense of the word, Marx was a Kynic, his critique of the ruling classes never being content merely to assail them for their cruelties and stupidities, but also aiming to abolish the existence of such classes once and for all, as a means of establishing a better social order. While the cynic ultimately accepts the way things are, at the same time as excoriating them, the Kynic’s activities are all geared towards the transcendence of the status quo. To this end, she uses all the tools available to her, both mocking humour and satire in a negative mode, and, in a markedly more positive register, joyful laughter embracing all the possibilities that life has to offer. But the positive and negative uses that Marx the Kynic made of humour and satire are barely touched upon in the teaching of his work and that of other classical thinkers, that happens today. Too often classical theory courses have had all the joie de vivre extracted from them, becoming far too dully routinized exercises – dutifully engaged in by teachers and grudgingly engaged with by students – ever to capture the humour, the vivacity, the anti-Establishment cheek of the Kynical impulses in what are now boringly labelled ‘the classics’. Far too often all the fun has been taken out, leaving a kind of grey shell that Max Weber may have thought typified modern life in general. Therefore it’s time to completely rework how classical sociology is presented and taught. The buoyancy and outrageousness of the Enlightenment philosophers and the likes of Marx and Veblen need to be rediscovered and communicated to a new generation of young people who might then actually find that these old guys are not only saying things that are still worthwhile, but are saying them in lively and often highly provocative ways. We need to recast the understanding of those who have been unfortunately framed as dull classics, showing that they were really not the dry-as-dust figures that now haunt the pages of textbooks, but rather were passionate and compelling people who sometimes spoke the most outrageous truths to and against the powerful. Peter Sloterdijk pointed out in the mid-1980s that a modern cynic is someone who privately does not believe in what they are doing, but they keep doing it anyway, because they feel that they have no choice. He was thinking of such people as government bureaucrats who know that the anti-welfare dependency rhetoric of their political masters is phoney and cruel, but they continue to enact the policies anyway, because they do not want to lose their jobs and end up on the streets themselves. Sloterdijk’s point seems, 30 years later, ever more like an accurate prediction. So much of what we do as sociologists involves paying lip service to the imperatives of the neoliberal university, whilst deploring quietly the way things are going. Such an institutional situation breeds a wholly destructive cynicism, which then can seep into the very pores of one’s being. The bracing cynicism of sociological thinking ceases to be the main kind of cynicism that animates one’s views. Instead structurally-induced cynicism starts to take over, perhaps leading even to the paradoxical situation of the sociologist feeling deeply cynical about sociology itself, its chances of survival in the neoliberal academy, and its possible future obsolescence. That is why this is an opportune moment to revitalise sociology through embracing not a cynical but rather a Kynical outlook. This should inform both how we think and how we live, and what and how we teach. The Kynic draws upon all the tools that laughter, satire and critique can muster, but does so in a way that is cheerfully positive, even while recognising the power that despair can have. The kynic’s

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So much of what we do as sociologists involves paying lip service to the imperatives of the neoliberal university, whilst deploring quietly the way things are going. Such an institutional situation breeds a wholly destructive cynicism, which then can seep into the very pores of one’s being.

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sociology is certainly not a soured or curmudgeonly exercise – those are the hallmarks of conservative satire and its paid hirelings who can be found on the likes of Fox News. The kynical sociologist, by contrast, sees through power and publicly says so, but does that in ways which embrace movement, change, social fluidity and the endless potentials that human history always seems to throw up, no matter how bad things otherwise seem. Sociological kynicism draws on the best of the earlier sociologists, but recognises their profound limitations too. She does so in a spirit of amused and amusing effervescence that —hopefully—communicates itself to others, most importantly a globalized generation of young people whose options are more limited than ever, but whose potential and energies are ever more brimming over. And if the kynical sociologist is ultimately brought down by power—and in the neoliberal university there is more than a chance of that—then at least people will say this of her: she went down fighting, laughing in the face of the enemies of a better society all the while.

Reference: Sloterdijk, Peter (1988) Critique of Cynical Reason, London: Verso

David Inglis is Professor of Sociology at the University of Exeter, UK. He writes in the areas of social theory, globalization, cultural sociology and historical sociology.

TASA Award for Outstanding Contributions to Teaching in Australian Sociology (NEW)

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his new award celebrates outstanding contributions to enhancing the pedagogy, practice or outcomes of teaching and learning sociology in Australia. It recognises contributions at the disciplinary level (rather than acknowledging excellence in teaching within the classroom or institutions).

Nominations close June 15, 2015

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TASA Honours Student Award: 2014 Winners

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Rohan Todd Sharni Spencer Michelle Esterhuizen Patrick Scolyer-Gray Allegra Schermuly Sam Teague Chelsea Van Deventer Georgiana Bingham Ruby Grant Michael Guthrie

Australian National University Deakin University: Flinders University La Trobe University Monash University Swinburne University of Technology University of New South Wales University of Queensland University of Tasmania Victoria University

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The kynical sociologist, by contrast, sees through power and publicly says so, but does that in ways which embrace movement, change, social fluidity and the endless potentials that human history always seems to throw up, no matter how bad things otherwise seem.

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he TASA Honours Student Award is available annually for the best Honours student in Sociology in each Australian university. Each winner receives a one-year student membership to TASA, making the student eligible for conference discounts, membership of thematic groups and copies of Nexus and the e-list. A warm congratulations is extended to the recipients of the 2014 TASA Honours Student Award: • • • • • • • • • •


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Keynote: Researchers must do more to arrest the poor Aboriginal human condition Lester-Irabinna Rigney The University of Adelaide

Note from the editors: This article was originally published in the online Indigenous newspaper ‘First Nations Telegraph daily update’ on Saturday 29 November 2014. This article was written to reflect the TASA 2014 Keynote address by Professor Aileen Moreton-Robinson, Queensland University of Technology.

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his week some big name thinkers spoke in Adelaide on the urgent need to bring change to the poor conditions of Aboriginal peoples and to stop violence against women. At the White Ribbon Day breakfast, Lieutenant General David Morrison AO issued an urgent “call to arms” to Australian men to reconsider their attitudes to women, while on the other side of town, Professor Aileen Moreton-Robinson called for researchers to urgently do more to arrest the poor Aboriginal human condition. Under-theorising the poor Aboriginal Human condition allows it to thrive. While I listened to General Morrison’s terrific speech online, I was fortunate to attend The Australian Sociological Association’s conference to hear Moreton-Robinson. The esteemed professor examined the Aboriginal human condition and the help and or hindrance of researchers in theoretical traditions including sociology and Indigenous critical ‘Race’ theory. Her diagnosis allowed the audience to ponder the following: Why does the poor human condition of Aboriginal peoples continue? Despite some success why do great differences in life opportunity remain? With violence against women and deaths in custody on the rise, what role should the discipline’s researchers in sociology and Indigenous critical ‘Race’ theory play in future proofing Aboriginal communities? While declaring up front she was not a sociologist, Moreton-Robinson stated more research is needed immediately for change and that under-theorising the poor Aboriginal human condition allows it to thrive. Now a researcher in traditional sociology investigates the complexity and breadth of our lives in today’s societies. Its more modern version, social theory, bridges disciplines as anthropology, gender, politics and crime. Politicians listen to traditional sociologists. Budgets and action then follow. For fast change in devastated Aboriginal communities researcher must lift their productivity. ‘Race’ and cultural difference and its bodily existence continue to remain largely on the outer borders of Australian sociology Professor Moreton-Robinson acknowledged disputes exist concerning both the legitimate limits of the discipline and what are common Australian sociological principles, and she argued that items like ‘race’ and cultural difference and its bodily existence continue to remain largely on the outer borders of Australian sociology compared with the United States and the United Kingdom. Eloquently the Professor outline how traditional sociology in Australia has largely ignored ‘race’ patriarchal dogma and Indigenous theorists who question the very foundations of Western subjectivity and injustice. In so doing, sociologists in Australia have deprived themselves of any logical basis for their own intellectual and professional existence. I agree with Moreton-Robinson that it would be difficult, and likely impossible, to improve the poor Aboriginal human condition when the ‘race’ subject or the colonised ‘object’ is under-theorised by members of The Australian Sociological Association. Moreover, it makes attainment of aspects of traditional sociological rationality questionable. Under-theorising the poor Human condition of Aboriginal peoples allows it to thrive. One of the reasons the Aboriginal condition is so bad is because our theorisation of new forms of racism is not adequate. As social scientists, we have underestimated the complexities of Australian racism. Challenging ‘race’ assumptions requires traditional sociologists to confront their discursive practices in order to elucidate and confront constructions of ‘raced’ differences.

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Challenging ‘race’ assumptions requires traditional sociologists to confront their discursive practices in order to elucidate and confront constructions of ‘raced’ differences.

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Impressively, Moreton-Robinson began to highlight how Indigenous Australian researchers using critical ‘Race’ theory are attempting to fill the blind spots of traditional Australian sociology. She then examined the steady growth of this small but emerging body of work. In this, she outlined how Indigenous Australian scholars in different ways and to varying degrees see themselves as carrying the heavy historical burden of freeing reason from itself. Respectfully and diligently, Moreton-Robinson praised this body of work and its intellectual contributions whilst highlighting its own hegemony, contradictions, and inconsistencies. For Moreton-Robinson, the poor Human condition of Aboriginal peoples must be arrested by theory. For me, the colonised ‘Aborigine’ and Australia’s modern ‘racism’ are still perceived as the ‘blind spot’ of theoretical and signifying processes in the Western academy. Future proofing Aboriginal advancement relies on theory, yet it least can afford to rely on the discursive practices of some academic disciplines.

Dr Lester-Irabinna Rigney is Professor and Dean Indigenous Education at The University of Adelaide.

"I'm a sociologist AND a footy fan!" Tipping competition

Journal of Sociology – Special Edition 2017

For those who are inclined towards AFL, the following footy tipping competition is available: “I’m a sociologist AND a footy fan!” If you are interested in belonging to this fun group, please email the organiser Sue Malta for the link. There are no prizes, only kudos to be won! All welcome.

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he Journal of Sociology is an international journal published four times a year by Sage. Each year the Editors invite expressions of interest from the international community of sociological scholars to be guest editors for a Special Edition of the Journal. Special Editions may address any sociological theme that is likely to be of interest to the Journal readership.

Papers featured in special editions are subject to the normal process of peer review. Selection of papers and coordination of the peer review process will be the responsibility of the Guest Editors. Papers may be selected either on the basis of invitation or via a general ‘call for papers’. Final copy for this special edition is due on 4 September 2016 and publication will be in March 2017.

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A 300-word summary of the special edition theme, including rationale, aims and objectives, and significance of contribution to contemporary sociological thinking and research

Contact details and brief biography for each Guest Editor

Please submit expressions of interest of no more than one A4 page in length to Dr Alphia PossamaiInesedy by Monday 15 June 2015. Expressions of interest should include the following information:

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Where appropriate, an indicative list of authors and papers to be featured in the special edition


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Dr Alphia Possamai-Inesedy Editor in Chief, Journal of Sociology University of Western Sydney School of Social Sciences Bankstown Campus LB 1797, South Penrith DC New South Wales Email: Click here


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Southern notes #1 Bruce Curtis Department of Sociology, University of Auckland

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his missive from the real Antipodes is rather Auckland-centric for which I apologise and promise to rectify next time round. I suppose I have to start on the downbeat and note the recent restructuring of the Faculty of Arts here at Auckland. This has meant, among other things, the end of the Department of Sociology. Sociology and Criminology are now programmes, the departmental office and the three professional staff previously located there are gone (part of an overlapping restructuring), a new layer of management has been created, and our budget has been reduced. Does this sound at all familiar to anyone? I guess we have been lucky insofar as, by my reckoning, we are the last Faculty of Arts to undergo restructuring in Australasia. In other news, student numbers in sociology remain very high, teaching and research is going gangbusters, and as is often the case sociologists do a lot of service for the university. So, if any higher ups are reading this: tick, tick, tick. Here are a few recent(ish) highlights (for me). First, I should mention that I have just returned from a remarkable talk by Melbourne-based Palestinian writer, Samah Sabawi. Scott Poynting and David Mayeda played significant roles in arranging this and her other speaking engagements in Auckland. The talk was packed out and particularly well attended by sociologists. In my opinion, Ms Sabawi demonstrated what sociologists might aspire to; an empirically realised and fine-grained analysis of the policies of apartheid Israel and the ways in which Palestinian self-determination continues to be stymied. Ms Sabawi pointed to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, and the International Criminal Court as means of internationalising the struggle and holding the Israeli state accountable. Second, New Zealand sociologists also go overseas. In late 2014, David Mayeda led a group of University of Auckland Students in a visit to Cambodia and Thailand to learn about contemporary slavery. David described the trip: During 2014, nine University of Auckland students (six from sociology, three from social work), two Auckland residents not attending university, and I fundraised and planned a two-week trip to Cambodia and Thailand where we learned first-hand about human trafficking and modern day slavery. Fundraising included film screenings, run-a-thons, and sausage sizzles at sporting events. Our team also met regularly to discuss concerns with volunteerism, our relative privilege in being able to go on this type of trip, and how we could learn about the issue ethically. Our trip took place from 15–29 November. In Cambodia, we first visited Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s densely populated urban capital city, before spending three days in the more rural city of Kampong Chong. Our time in Thailand was split between two of the country’s northern cities – Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai. Across these four locales, we met with organisational leaders from Western, Cambodian, Thai and Burmese ethnic backgrounds who ran intervention and rehabilitation centres and small businesses that combat contemporary slavery. Our team learned how corruption, poverty, and global and local demand fuelled this social ill. In Chiang Mai, we had the opportunity to meet with local law enforcement officers who explained how budgetary limitations and corruption hampered their efforts to reduce trafficking enterprises. We also learned of historical and macro forces that contribute to contemporary slavery in the region. In Cambodia, we visited the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum and Choeung Ek Killing Fields, reminding us of how the Khmer Rouge virtually wiped out Cambodia’s upper classes in the 1970s and setting the stage for many of Cambodia’s current social concerns. In Thailand, we learned how many of the country’s hill tribe populations experience statelessness, limiting their access to education and health care, and how poverty in neighbouring countries contributes to worker exploitation. A notable strength in our team was its ethnic diversity, including participants of Cambodian, Cape Verdean, Chinese, Filipino, Hawaiian, Indian, Japanese American, Korean, Māori, Pākehā, and Samoan

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Our team learned how corruption, poverty, and global and local demand fuelled this social ill.

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…we find ourselves having to assert the value of the social sciences in ever more strident terms as the national government and tertiary institutions increasingly fetishize the STEM subjects.

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ethnic backgrounds. To this end, our team could relate culturally with Cambodian and Thai values stressing collectivity and family cohesion. Additionally, some team members could relate what they were learning in the Cambodian or Thai context to exploitation in their families’ home countries. Finally, our Kiwi Cambodian team member served as a translator while in Cambodia. Now back in Aotearoa New Zealand, our team reconvenes periodically while juggling our daily responsibilities. We hope to organize future activities that raise local consciousness towards this global concern. As you can see from these two mentions, David has significantly strengthened the already strong social justice focus of the Sociology and Criminology programmes here at Auckland. It is exciting to be working alongside someone with his commitment and skills. Third, New Zealand sociologists talk about New Zealand. In September 2014, Louise Humpage organised a symposium: ‘Progressive alternatives: politics, policy and practice’. The ever-generous Raewyn Connell gave the keynote, titled ‘The global South and social science: from colonialism to neoliberalism’. Over a dozen staff and students presented to a good sized audience. Some of the material was absolutely cutting edge. Avril Bell (Relating Indigenous and Settler Identities: Beyond Domination – Palgrave Macmillan), Louise Humpage (Policy Change, Public Attitudes and Social Citizenship: Does Neoliberalism Matter? – Policy Press) and Colin Cremin (Totalled: Salvaging the Future from the Wreckage of Capitalism – Pluto Press) made presentations coinciding with the release of their new monographs. The presentations plus an invited article from a group of activist students, who happily gingered-up their lecturers throughout the seminar, will form a special edition of New Zealand Sociology later in the year. I thought I’d leave the final words of this first round up to Steve Matthewman, who alongside heading the Sociology and Criminology programs has just been elected President of the Sociological Association of Aotearoa – New Zealand. Hail, chief: Kia hiwa ra! E nga hoa maha, e noho mai na i tena taha o te moana, tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa! Ko taku powhiri tenei ki a koutou: ki te haere penei mai koutou, me peka mai! Nau mai, piki mai, haere mai! I would like to take this opportunity to introduce myself and to offer cordial greetings to you all on behalf of our (former) Department and very much present national association. In terms of my academic work, I have grown increasingly interested in the sociology of disasters, although I retain research and teaching interests in social theory and science and technology studies. In terms of our association, our prime focus is on supporting graduate students. I would like that focus to remain, although I would also like to grow our membership and raise our national profile. Work is already underway on improving our web presence and I would like us to think about ways of enhancing our journal. We have been very well served by the current editorial team but I think that they could use some more support. We are lucky to have some very hard working individuals in the association. I would like a few more. I believe that we can really reinvigorate the organisation. Of course, another way in which we can do this is through much closer relations with our Australian colleagues. I feel that we are much stronger together, and that we have much to offer each other. Certainly, for sociologists of my generation (and those who are younger) our split from TASA really makes very little sense at all. As Bruce noted, we live in interesting times. The Sociology Department at Auckland was the last one in the country to be schooled, although Otago have taken a cue from Illich and deschooled. We have also had our administrative support scythed down and there are (a few) academic redundancies on the horizon. You will probably note further similarities. For example, we find ourselves having to assert the value of the social sciences in ever more strident terms as the national government and tertiary institutions increasingly fetishize the STEM subjects. University entry requirements are rising, which raises serious concerns for students from equity groups. And, were we not anxious enough, we are already beginning preparations for our next research assessment exercise, the Performance Based Research Fund (PBRF), which will take place in 2018 and which will give us an individualised score to note our worthiness. But as Bruce also noted, we remain in good heart. The sociology program at Auckland is the biggest in the Faculty’s entire history, and nationally our offerings still seem to be appealing to students, if not policy makers. As a national community we are politically engaged, research active and highly collegial. This year our national conference will be hosted by the University of Waikato, Hamilton, 9–11 December, to which you are all warmly invited. Were you to make the trip across the Tasman, the University of Otago is hosting the Agri-Food Research Network on 7–8 December (with graduate workshops on the 9th). I am also aiming to attend the TASA conference in Cairns this year. I shall look forward to catching up with as many of you as I can. And, if you find yourself in Auckland, do call in.


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Raewyn Connell Prize: 2014 Winner Shanthi Robertson University of Western Sydney

I am beyond thrilled to be the recipient of the 2013–2014 Raewyn Connell Prize for the best first authored book in Australian sociology. When I entered my book, Transnational Student–Migrants and the State: The Education–Migration Nexus, I was mostly just excited that it meant people would have to actually read it, because at that stage I think even my Mum was struggling to finish it. So that fact that the panel saw fit not only to finish reading the book, but also to award it this prize is very much beyond all my expectations and an incredible honour. It is particularly significant to me to have my work recognized by TASA with the Raewyn Connell Prize, because the book is based on data from an interdisciplinary PhD in International Studies, and was written and published while working in an interdisciplinary department (Global Studies at RMIT) and an interdisciplinary research institute (the Institute for Culture and Society at UWS). Because of this, although sociological methods and theories have always been the bedrock of my research, I have had an ongoing case of ‘imposter syndrome’ when it comes to the discipline. I think this award probably means I can now confidentially call myself a ‘real’ (albeit still interdisciplinary) sociologist! Also, as a young researcher, the influence of Raewyn Connell’s work, not only in contributing to the discipline internationally but in shaping the identity of our national discipline – in framing a distinctly Australian sociology – is an ever present inspiration. The fact that my book is forever linked to Raewyn’s name is in and of itself an unbelievably exciting thing. So in accepting this award, I have thought quite a bit about what the discipline of sociology has brought to the book. I think, ultimately, it was a sociological perspective that allowed me to make real meaning out of what was, at the time of the research, a niche aspect of immigration policy. A sociological lens allowed me to connect policy reform to the micro level of migrants’ everyday experiences and identities, and to the macro level of global economic and political change. It is the complex connections that exist between people’s everyday realities, states’ behaviours and the broader currents of globalisation and social transformation that continue to inspire my research beyond the book, and that my sociological imagination allows me to explore. I have also thought a lot about what TASA means, and the importance of organizations like TASA to early career researchers like me. I have been incredibly fortunate in my career to have excellent mentors, both formal and informal, who have provided not only strategic advice but also the more intangible support, the ‘quiet cheerleading’ I suppose, which is sometimes needed to push forward in an academic career. I did not think I could write a decent book, but people much wiser than me thought I could, and told me so, and without them I might never have even attempted it. So that, for me, is the crux of why institutions like TASA matter, because they create avenues for connection between early career and senior academics and they create spaces where we can celebrate, validate and acknowledge each other and challenge each other. And I hope as I move from the early to mid-career stage that I can begin to contribute more to these spaces. So I’m very, very grateful to TASA, for this prize and also for their ongoing work in making us all feel like ‘real’ sociologists, and I’m particularly grateful to the judging panel, for not only reading but enjoying my book, and for having so many kind words to say about it. These are words that I will go back to the next time I think ‘I can’t’ (which will probably be when I try to write the second book). I am also inordinately grateful to my colleagues at RMIT and UWS, whose encouragement and support has made a great deal of difference to the book and my career in general. I must also acknowledge my husband, Tristan Masters, probably one of the many long-suffering non-academic partners of academics. I think we all know that much of the emotional fallout of writing books gets swept up by these poor souls. He deserves at least half the prize money but will have to make do with just the glory of inclusion in this piece. I’m also happy to finish with the report that Mum has now, indeed, finished reading the book. She found a few typesetting and grammar errors but apart from that she thought it was alright.

2015 Jean Martin Award



The winner of the 2015 JMA Award will be announced at the conference dinner on Wednesday November 25th, 2015.

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Stephen Cook Memorial Prize: 2014 Winner Fran Collyer University of Sydney

On the occasion of being awarded the Stephen Crook Memorial Prize for my 2012 book Mapping the Sociology of Health and Medicine (Palgrave Macmillan, UK). The Australian Sociological Association Annual Conference, Adelaide, November 2014

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Sociology is what people say it is. Sociology is about the labels we place on ourselves and our work. As a result, the book focuses on the people who inhabited, and inhabit the field.

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lex Broom has kindly offered to receive the Stephen Crook Memorial Prize on my behalf, and read my message to you all. Thank you, Alex. I apologise for not being able to attend the TASA Conference this year. I believe I have only missed about two conferences since 1988,but while you all enjoy the warmth and comforts of dear old Adelaide at this 2014 TASA Conference, I am in the United States on sabbatical, a visitor to Northwestern University in Chicago, and have been here for several months. I am amidst the snow and ice. Yes, it is very cold. I find it very humbling to be given the Stephen Crook Memorial Prize for my 2012 book Mapping the Sociology of Health and Medicine (Palgrave Macmillan, UK). Previous prize winners are a very distinguished group, from Michael Pusey—the first to receive the Award—for his 2003 book The Experience of Middle Australia, through to the most recent, Rob White, in 2012 for his book Transnational Environmental Crime. For the award, I say a sincere thank you to the Chair—Professor Doug Ezzy— and the committee who were tasked with evaluating the books nominated for the prize. I would also like to thank the TASA Executive for overseeing and supporting the prize. Special thanks of course to Sally Daly who is always so helpful in the TASA office. I’d like to take this opportunity to say a few things about the prize, and then about the book. First things first. Between 2002 and 2005, I was a member of the TASA Executive and I suggested to my fellow members that we should have a book prize to remember and honour the life of Stephen Crook, the former president of TASA. At that time, it did not even cross my mind that one day I would be a recipient of the award. A very nice surprise indeed! I suggested the creation of the award for two reasons. First, I realised how much importance was being placed on awards and prizes in other disciplines and in other countries, and believed we were doing our members a great disservice if we did not have a range of awards they could compete for. This view was shared across the Executive, and it was not difficult to convince them of the need for this one when the news came of Stephen’s passing. Secondly, I wanted sociologists to remember Stephen Crook, or at least know something about him. Stephen was a significant part of Australian sociology during his too-few years with us in Australia. He was well-respected and very much liked. On a personal level, Stephen was the editor of the Journal of Sociology when I was a postgraduate student, and he helped me to have my first paper published. That is not something you forget easily –the publication of your first paper. Is it extremely satisfying to have an award of this calibre attached to my book, Mapping the Sociology of Health and Illness. Book sales are an indicator of the value placed on a book by the sociological community, another is a good book review, but an award from members of your professional community is something very public and very special. I should say something here about the book itself. Where did it come from? Since first coming across the philosophy and history of science as an undergraduate, and then discovering the sociology of knowledge (which made even more sense to me), I have developed a keen interest in the social basis of knowledge, and more latterly, in the formation of knowledge communities and the institutionalisation of disciplines. The book is about a particular field or sub-discipline, the sociology of health and medicine, but unlike many other books on the market, it is not a history of ideas, or at least, the history of ideas is not the focus. The book is instead a history of the discipline’s institutional formation and its ongoing development, chronicling the formation of its networks and groups, its professional organisations and specialised journals.


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The book is also a comparison of the sub-discipline in Australia, Britain and America, and this comparative approach shows us that in many ways, sociology is what people ‘do’. Sociology is what people say it is. Sociology is about the labels we place on ourselves and our work. As a result, the book focuses on the people who inhabited, and inhabit the field. Who are these people? What do they do? What do they call themselves? How do they differ from those in other countries who are otherwise quite similar? The main empirical data for the book is a quantitative analysis of a set of journal articles from the major international journals in the field of the sociology of health and medicine. These journal articles tell a story about changing fashions in theory, methodology and topics of interest since 1990 in each country. But in using the method of context, content analysis, where information about the authors and their institutions is also taken into account, we also get a story about the sociologists themselves – their different work places, their different interests and their different funding patterns. The book makes a number of important arguments. One of these is about the nature of disciplines. Rather than focusing on these as spheres of cognitive scholarship, a product of logical enquiry focused on a series of founding ‘classical’ texts, the disciplines are instead shown to be social ‘things’, produced through the political and social struggles of a series of determined and insightful human beings; often in dispute with one another and with members of other disciplines and with very different agendas. Another argument, related to the first, is that because disciplines are ‘social things’, the boundaries between disciplines vary enormously from one place, and one society, to another. Even though we might all use the term sociology, and identify with it, there are many different sets of ‘rules’ about who might identify as a sociologist and what they might legitimately study within the discipline. There are also profound variations in the placement of disciplinary boundaries between countries, so that the relations between sociology and other intellectual fields (such as epidemiology or psychology, for instance), can be hostile in some instances but co-operative elsewhere. Can you imagine being taught epidemiology or psychology in a sociology department? Well, while you could not do this in Australia, you can do it in some universities in the United States. This tells us that disciplinary boundaries are produced over time through social interaction, and shaped by specific configurations of a country’s political, economic and cultural structures. It tells us that the disputes we have between disciplines, and disputes we have within disciplines –whether these are about the need for sociology to professionalise or about the value of a particular approach or method – are all part of the on-going development of our discipline. We are all part of this because sociology is not just an abstract category, it is something we do, it is something we live. It is part of all of us. Finally, I will suggest that the book throws open a challenge to various myths about our past, myths about the history of sociology. Convention tells us that health and medicine was a late-comer to sociology, that it was not part of early theorising. Yet the historical archives tell us a different story, and show how the creation of a new distinction between the biological body and the social body through the 19th century became critical to the very formation of sociology as an academic discipline. This is a history that needs more investigation. Mapping the Sociology of Health and Medicine, I trust, begins that journey.

2015 TASA Jerzy Zubrzycki Postgraduate Scholarship

Click here



Applications for the 2015 conference scholarships close on September 7th, 2015

n annual prize awarded as one of the TASA Postgraduate Conference Scholarships for the best paper in the research areas of migration or cultural pluralism, or with the potential for contribution to public policy.

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This tells us that disciplinary boundaries are produced over time through social interaction, and shaped by specific configurations of a country’s political, economic and cultural structures.

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Postgraduate report

Christina Malatzky, Postgraduate Portfolio Leader

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ello and welcome to all TASA’s postgraduate members! I hope 2015 is treating everyone well. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Karen Soldatic, and the sub-committee for their hard work in 2014, which culminated in an impressive Postgraduate Day at TASA’s Annual Conference in Adelaide. Special thanks must also go to Brad West for his support and commitment to the Day. I think everyone enjoyed the program. Personally, it was an excellent opportunity to meet many of our current members, and to hear about the exciting research going on in the postgraduate space. For our new members, my role as the Postgraduate Portfolio Leader entails working with postgraduate members of TASA to identify how the organisation can best promote their interests. This includes what opportunities we can provide, and what capability building work we can engage in to support our postgraduates. It is my responsibility to take these ideas to the Executive, and advocate for their adoption. To assist with this work, we have a sub-committee comprising of postgraduate members of TASA, and myself. Currently, your sub-committee members are Ashlin Lee (University of Tasmania), Jennie Haarsager-Lieske (University of the Sunshine Coast), Laura Gobey (Deakin University), Ly Phan (University of Sydney), Monika Dryburgh (University of Melbourne) and Thomas Antwi-Bosiakoh (Macquarie University). We hold regular meetings to ensure that we push forward with our objectives throughout the year. It has been a busy start to 2015 for the sub-committee. We held our first meeting in January to begin planning for the year. First and foremost on our list is how to help facilitate more sustained and regular communication between our postgraduate members throughout the year. Having studied at a small regional campus, I understand that sometimes the PhD journey can be a lonely one, and on reflection, I am not sure that this is much different for students on central campuses! We want to develop ways for our postgrads to connect with each other as a source of support and engagement. How to do this without adding to the burden of postgraduate study is a challenge so we are keen to get your input – please email me your ideas! We are making inquiries into establishing a tab/blog/forum for the postgrads on the main TASA website, which may help us in this area. We are also having discussions about how best to use the funds allocated to the postgraduate portfolio for 2015. At the moment, the committee feels that in order to be more inclusive, we should allocate most of the funds to the production of an exceptional Postgraduate Day at the 2015 annual conference rather than hosting separate event/s. We would like this year’s Postgraduate Day to concentrate on the broader, foundational skills needed by all graduates and to continue the focus on diverse career pathways. We are currently investigating possible speakers to support these aims. We would welcome as much input as we can get, so please do not hesitate to reach out to myself or any of the postgraduate sub-committee members. Watch this space! Christina can be contacted on (03) 5823 4526 or via email


Click here

Subscribe to TASA’s YouTube Channel


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Secondary teacher workshop reports Editor’s Note: TASA held its inaugural Social Education Victoria (SEV)/TASA joint workshop last year. We are pleased to present three perspectives on this valuable undertaking. We first hear from the organiser, TASA’s Nick Osbaldiston (in conjunction with Sally Daly), followed by the perspectives of Augusta Zeeng and James Fiford from SEV who co-hosted the event. The final piece is from teacher participant Analia Solis, who reflects on the impact the workshop had on her awareness and teaching of sociology to students at the VCE level.

Empowering secondary teachers to inspire secondary students: TASA and SEV creating the groundwork for future sociological imaginations Nick Osbaldiston James Cook University

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ne of the things that the Executive tried to do last year within the public relations portfolio was to build relationships with other organisations that were outside of our usual focus on universities. One group that TASA members such as Evan Willis have had a long association with is Social Education Victoria (SEV), which looks after secondary school teachers who deliver subjects in the social sciences. This includes sociology, taught at a considerable number of schools in Melbourne and regional Victoria (especially the Bendigo and Ballarat areas). Over the last few years, we have discussed with SEV what TASA could do to give them support. In the past, we have provided speakers for their annual conference/professional development day, but we were interested in exploring how, as an organization, TASA could assist further in regular workshops held specifically for sociology teachers. With this aim, we worked with SEV staff James Fiford (Executive Officer) and Augusta Zeeng (Projects Manager) to develop a workshop that would focus on delivering key discussion points in the curriculum for Year 11 and 12 students. In a one-day workshop held at the University of Melbourne, TASA members Karen Farquharson, Jo Lindsay, Dan Woodman and Kathryn Daley discussed their research with teachers and held discussions about various curriculum topics. Rather than providing detailed accounts of what each speaker addressed, I want to take a moment to reflect on the importance of events like these in the development of sociology. Firstly, I think we should acknowledge that teachers in secondary schools who deliver curriculum in sociology are potentially valuable partners in developing public support for our discipline. Victoria is one of the few places in Australia where sociology has such a significant place in the school system (Tasmania has long been a supporter of sociology, and University of Tasmania staff members do significant community outreach). We discovered that sociology teachers have great ideas on what it takes to enthuse students about the discipline and what innovative techniques can encourage participants to pursue sociology at university. For instance, a number of teachers said that they wanted to hear more from our Teaching Sociology Thematic Group about how they can contribute to the discussions on best approaches to learning within the discipline. Secondly, as we continued through the day it was obvious to me that while the teachers were very interested in the subject matter being discussed, as school teachers they were also motivated by a more pragmatic concern, how to make sociology interesting for their students. As the day progressed, I could see that teachers were not only making notes and asking questions on concepts but also critically engaging with the material being presented. It was great to watch because we did not simply deliver content but shared stories both ways about what works in teaching and what challenges there are. Finally, the day itself was successful from a cultural point of view. Being a cultural sociologist, I am always encouraged to see people relating to the discipline in groups through discussion and critical reflection. This is why I think so many people go to the TASA Annual Conferences, so that we can be among each other as ‘sociologists’. I believe that teachers within our discipline can benefit from more

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events like these, in that they can feel part of a wider disciplinary community. Perhaps through more events like these we may even see secondary school teachers participate in on our own conferences more often. I want to thank Sally Daly for her organization for this event, which would not have happened without her support; James Fiford and Augusta Zeeng from SEV for their continued discussions and support of TASA; Karen, Kathryn and Jo for giving up their time to be part of it; and Dan for helping us to find a room and delivering his own keynote address. I hope that we can continue this as a regular event not only in Victoria but perhaps in other parts of Australia as well.

An Organiser’s Perspective on the SEV-TASA workshop: Meet the Sociologists

Augusta Zeeng (Professional Learning Programs) & James Fiford (Executive Officer) Social Education Victoria

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ocial Education Victoria (SEV) was pleased to be able to work with TASA to facilitate the ‘Meet the Sociologists’ workshop held at the University of Melbourne in December last year. SEV is a professional teacher association that provides resources and support to teachers of VCE Sociology (and VCE Australian and Global Politics and F–10 Civics and Citizenship) and aims to create professional learning opportunities and resources to encourage teachers continually to evaluate and renew their understanding. Through events such as this SEV aspires to add to teachers’ professional toolboxes and increase their subject engagement. SEV believes it is important to facilitate the links between VCE teachers and practising sociologists and their research. SEV’s VCE Sociology teaching cohort looks at the broad categories of Youth, Family, Deviance, Crime, Australian Indigenous Culture, Ethnicity, Community, Social Movements and Social Change. Their students come from a number of settings – rural, regional and city-based, in secondary schools and adult education settings. These professional development events are a great opportunity for teachers who studied sociology at university to reengage with the discipline, expand their current teaching, and provide new and interesting ways of approaching how to teach the mandated content. For those teachers who may not have done sociology as an undergraduate discipline, these sessions provide networking opportunities with fellow teachers and sociologists to build knowledge and share resources. They also provide an indication of how sociology is working in practice in the tertiary sector (where their students may go on to study). SEV works hard to develop authentic links between teachers and academics, between theory and practice, between the curriculum and what is often called ‘real life’. This involves connecting schools, organisations and institutions, with the aim of offering students a more rounded approach to the subject while ensuring that teachers are continually engaged and renewed by accessing and participating in the academic rigour of the subject. Teachers find these sessions invaluable. Often they may be the sole teacher of their subject in their school, and these opportunities to develop networks, see the connection between theory and practice and further build their repertoire and ‘teacher toolbox’ are greatly appreciated. One attendee’s response to the event serves to demonstrate just how valuable these sessions can be.


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Secondary teacher workshop reports (continued) What workshop? Oh, THAT workshop! A teacher’s reflection on the SEV–TASA Workshop and its impact on teaching VCE Sociology Analia Solis, VCE Teacher, RMIT University

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ociology as a subject is relatively new to the VCE curriculum. In 2011, the curriculum was reviewed and in the new version, Sociology moved away from a social studies focus to one that emphasised social science. Concepts such as the sociological imagination, research methodology, theories, theorists and perspectives were incorporated. This change both excited and brought new challenges to teachers of sociology. Since its introduction, SEV, TASA and academics from Victorian universities have come together to provide valuable professional development for teachers of the new Sociology. When I was approached by SEV to write a reflective piece on my experience at ‘Meet the Sociologists’ workshop in December 2014, I agreed with excitement, followed soon by trepidation. My nervousness was primarily because I had had a month off over the summer and had lost all traces of my teacher focus… what workshop?? I looked back on the notes I had made at the workshop and on seeing these, I began to remember why it had been a valuable learning experience. What I remembered most was particular information delivered by each presenter. The points made were of practical relevance to my teaching and also allowed me to reconnect with the academic discipline of sociology. Space allows me to highlight only a few presenters. Many others also made valuable contributions. Dr. Dan Woodman’s presentation on Youth and generation: perspectives on social change in Australia looked at how the transition to adulthood has changed from generation to generation. This helped me to see: - how theorists position the category of youth - society’s relationship to young people - the changing definition of adulthood - that the contextual, and not only psychological and biological, factors of being young all require focus Although these insights may be obvious, it was the fresh delivery of them that allowed me to review my teaching and develop a research assignment for this year’s class. Kathryn Daley’s presentation on Young people’s pathways into problematic substance abuse highlighted for me the power of words or labels and the way this positions us to see young people and their personal contexts. As teachers, we often, we get ‘lost’ being busy, focusing on tasks to be completed, attending meetings and boxes that need to ticked. This can come across as a lack of empathy or compassion, but I think this is simply being ‘busy’. Her research, and in particular for me, her explanation of how the term ‘self-harm’ has shifted to ‘self-injury’, has certainly reminded me to be more observant and mindful of the personal contexts of students. Dr. Nick Obaldiston’s presentation on Teaching sociology showed us how to engage with everyday culture through the use of material culture such as music, humour, TV/film and photography. Much to my surprise, as I was drafting this reflection, I found that I had been doing just this, unconsciously, during my holidays. I listened to the music on my iPod differently, sat through the advertisements on TV, paid closer attention when visiting art exhibitions and so on. Now I am back at work, I have drawn on all of these observations and further insights and connections in my classroom delivery and activities. I am grateful to SEV and TASA for this learning opportunity.

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Postgraduate completions Ally Gibson

Title: Take ownership of your condition: social constructions of breast cancer within neoliberal Western society Institution: University of Queensland

Supervisors: Christina Lee, University of Queensland Shona Crabb, University of Adelaide Abstract: Understandings of breast cancer within Western society are shaped by neoliberal constructions of health and illness, specifically the ‘pink ribbon culture’. Through a feminist post-structuralist lens, this thesis provides a multimodal critical discourse analysis of the information and services on Australian breast cancer websites and a discursive analysis of 27 breast cancer accounts of women from minority backgrounds. Through discourses of individual responsibility, women are positioned, and position themselves, as both empowered and responsible for their health and illness. This approach obscures socio-economic factors that shape experiences and access to healthcare. This thesis presents a nuanced analysis of this illness culture, in terms of how it operates both on an institutional and individual level.

Title: The committed worker: class, gender and the value of childcare work.

Yarrow Andrew Institution: Monash University

Supervisors: Joel Windle, Adjunct Senior Research Fellow, Faculty of Education, Monash Uni versity and Assistant Professor, Centre for Social Sciences and the Humanities, Federal University of Ouro Preto, Brazil Jo Lindsay, Convenor of Sociology and Gender Studies, School of Social Sciences, Monash University Abstract: This thesis examines how childcare work is impacted by patterns of value associated with social class and gender. The research contributes knowledge about the lived experiences of workers, and their perceptions of the status and meaning of childcare work. It draws upon a feminist Bourdieusian theoretical framework to show how gendered and classed inequalities reinforce each other within the childcare field in Australia. I analyse what the views of this particular cohort of workers reveal about a distinctive form of women’s work, building on insights from feminist research on care work, reproductive labour and mothering, as well as cultural approaches to class analysis. I situate this analysis within the current political focus on childcare in Australia, and the high expectations for the field in remedying various forms of disadvantage. The central findings of the research are that childcare is significantly devalued, materially and culturally, and that workers contest this lack of value in ways that currently go unrecognised. I find that committed workers within the field invest in a form of expertise that differs from current dominant-class expectations of childcare work, and suggest that this expertise functions as a distinctive form of capital within Australian childcare settings.

New Thematic Group Sociology and Activism

The primary aim of the Social Activism Thematic Group is to provide a means of bringing together academics and non-academics interested in exploring the relation between sociology and social activism. For more details, please go to the Social Activism Thematic Group TASAweb page.

Thematic Group Funding


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The submission deadline for round 2 applications is September 1st, 2015 for projects in the first half of 2016.


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Maria Davidenko Title: The capitalisation of beauty: changes and continuities in Russian women’s beauty practices, 1970s–2000s Institution: La Trobe University

Supervisors: Carolyn D’Cruz Senior Lecture in Gender, Sexuality and Diversity, College of Arts, Social Sciences and Commerce Kerreen Reiger Honorary Associate, College of Arts, Social Sciences and Commerce Abstract:The thesis examines the impact of the fall of Communism in Russia on the interrelated constructs of femininity and beauty. While in the Soviet era notions of ‘femininity’ and ‘beauty’ were largely shaped by state policies, in the post-Soviet decades the state no longer holds the monopoly to define gender roles. In the new capitalist economy, women’s beauty practices continue to be closely linked to their identities as a wife, a ‘working mother,’ and a consumer, but they gradually reflect a new definition of the self, namely the self based on supposedly ‘free’ consumer choices, which subjects were personally accountable for. The analysis draws on individual and group interviews with 31 women aged 26–57 from Moscow; on Soviet/ Russian women’s magazines; and on websites of significant cosmetic companies. Theoretically, the study is informed by Michel Foucault’s work on disciplinary power and technologies of the self, by Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of field, capital and habitus and by works of feminist authors like Susan Bordo and Beverley Skeggs. Beauty is conceptualised as a type of capital that becomes primary for women, in the face of unequal gender relations. However, it is the women with the resources to invest in such ‘beauty’ capital who are best able to reap its benefits.

Erika Altmann Title: Multi-owned housing governance: owner committees and strata managers Supervisors: Max Travers, School of Sociology and Social Work, University of Tasmania

Keith Jacobs, School of Sociology and Social Work, University of Tasmania Michael Muetzelfeldt, formerly affiliated with Victoria University, School of Business and Law Abstract: This study considered the contractual relationships between strata managers and owner committees within multi-owned housing developments. The privatised governance structures within multi-owned housing developments have evolved into complex organisations that make consequential decisions affecting property owners. This thesis examines the relationship between strata managers and committees of management from a governance aspect. Issues of trust, participation, openness and transparency in this relationship are investigated. This approach highlights the strengths and weaknesses of externally sourced, contractual help within the strata environment. Using a combination of structuration theory and isomorphism, the thesis found that developers influence committees of management through their role in establishing these organisations, but that managers exercise agency while working within these structures. Policy recommendations include the need to address the lack of purchaser knowledge, the need for owners, strata managers and committees of management to understand trust, conflict and training issues and the need to address the complexities of the physical building.

Andrea Grant Title: Situating analysis of pest and disease import risk in Australian agriculture: towards a poststructural sociocultural theory of communicating biosecurity risk. Institution: Charles Sturt University



Supervisor: Margaret Alston, Head of Department and Professor of Social Work, Monash University Secondary Supervisors: Allan Curtis, Integrated Environmental Management, Charles Sturt University John Tulloch, Charles Sturt University Abstract: This thesis reflects on risk communication through a critique of participants’ knowledge, differently situated between governing ‘experts’ and ‘lay’ stakeholders, in a context of pest and disease

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import risk analysis. It explores the ethical–relational dynamics of communicating biosecurity risk between those involved in ‘elite’ roles of technical experts, governing officials and media reporters. I examine how substantive risk concerns and normative biosecurity issues are drawn together in our interview discussions to develop an intersubjective critique of communicating biosecurity risk. Rather than viewing expert risk analysis as an endpoint in delivering risk knowledge I conceive of risk communication as a continuation of inquiry processes. This research makes scientific uncertainty more amenable to analysis by exploring how technoscientific rationalisations are socioculturally constructed and subsequently opened up to critique. It contributes to an understanding of how we share knowledge and responsibility in the dynamics and effects of communicating biosecurity risk.

Marie Shepherd

Title: Power, care and knowledge: the co-construction of ‘good mothering’ in interactions between low-income mothers and Child and Family Health nurses Institution: University of Tasmania

Supervisors: Kristin Natalier, School of Social and Policy Studies, Flinders University Karen Willis, Associate Dean, Australian Catholic University Abstract: This research into the exercise of power by low-income mothers in routine interactions with expert Child and Family Health (CFH) nurses provides insight into how good mothering is negotiated in these very private exchanges that occur for nearly every mother in Australia. Low-income mothers, as a marginalised group in society, are often the focus of targeted intervention programs aimed at promoting good mothering. CFH nurses have a regulatory role which sits in tension with, and was shown to depend upon, their relational or pastoral caring role. From a Foucauldian perspective, the exercise of power is accompanied by resistance and new insight into resistance was revealed in the interactions. While many forms of resistance in such interactions have previously been shown to be concealed from nurses, in this research an overt resistance to nurses’ suggestions was prominent between mothers and nurses, particularly when they had a trusting and respectful relationship with each other. Resistance occurred, not separately and in opposition to the nurse but in negotiation with her. Both mothers and the CFH nurses balanced the dominant and hierarchal medico-scientific knowledge and recommended child rearing practices with the mothers’ contextualised and child specific knowledge and practices in resisting and redefining good mothering identity and practices.

Surprising perspectives? Palestinian refugees and the right of return? Sobhi Albadawi PhD candidate, Macquarie University

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y name is Sobhi Albadawi; I was born in the Al’Arroub refugee camp located in Hebron Governorate in the southern part of the West Bank. The camp was established by the United Nation Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) in 1949 when Palestinians were forced to leave their original villages by Jewish forces. I completed my sociology degree at Bethlehem University in Palestine. In 1998, I migrated to Australia and completed my Master’s degree in social policy from the University of Sydney, and obtained a second Master’s degree from the University of New South Wales in international law and international relations. I am the father of three children and I am now doing my PhD at Macquarie University about Palestinian refugees’ right of return. The idea for this research originated from my own experience and the experiences of my family and thousands of other Palestinian refugees living in refugee camps in Palestine and around the world. These experiences initially prompted an exploration into the literature on the Palestinian refugee question, and the growing importance of investigating the voice of Palestinian refugees and incorporating their views into a comprehensive settlement of the Palestinian–Israeli conflict.


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My study aims to examine Palestinian refugees’ views regarding right of return. More specifically, it explores the position of Palestinian refugees in relation to the Palestinian Liberation Organisation and its commitment to this fundamental principal. It also investigates the phasing out of UNRWA and its impact on the refugee question, and asks what the right of return, resettlement and compensation mean to refugees. My study involves a substantial survey of refugees living in the West Bank. In conducting this social research, I employed a self-completion questionnaire as a data collection method. This technique allowed respondents to answer questions by completing the questionnaire at their own convenience. Because of the sensitivity of the topic, I used convenience sampling. Participants were recruited from community centres, refugees’ local committee centres, United Nations offices located in each camp, and from health centres. I made preliminary contact with 20 centres and community agencies in the southern part of the West Bank. As a result, the data collection sites in this study included five Palestinian refugee camps in Bethlehem and Hebron in south Palestine. The total study sample included 1200 participants aged 18 to 75 years, of whom 55% were male. There are four substantive components of the study, outside the usual literature review, historical context and methodology chapters; these examine refugee attitudes to conditions in the camps, dismantling of UNRWA, and options for resettlement and compensation of refugees. A questionnaire comprising 130 items in five sections was developed to examine comprehensively the attitudes of Palestinian refugees regarding their right of return. The first section focused on the issue of right of return and the second section focused on the attitudes of Palestinian refugees in regard to resettlement and camp conditions. The third section focused on the issue of compensation, and the fourth section on UNRWA’s role. The final section was used to collect demographic information including age, marital status, and income, level of education, gender, and political affiliation. Scholars, researchers, negotiators, and social scientists from Jordan, Israel and Palestine have put forward a range of proposals to resolve the refugee issue. For Israel, the refugee problem is considered a threat to the existence of the Jewish state. In addition, many discussions in various settings around the world have been conducted in an attempt to develop a workable plan to better manage the plight of Palestinian refugees. Some of the projects and discourse positions have focused on resettlement and compensation. The multiplicity of views on how best to resolve the Palestinian refugee issue provided a framework for the development of the first focal point of this research, that is, what do Palestinian refugees think about the political proposals being put forward and what expectations and preferences do they have in relation to their right of return to Palestine? A number of quantitative studies have examined refugees’ views regarding the issues of right of return and compensation. None, however, has measured refugees’ perceptions of the impact the termination of UNRWA services might have on their right of return, current conditions in the refugee camps, and the current political climate within the Arab world. The importance of this study is that it takes place after the many significant events in Palestine and the Middle East. Indeed, in this study a range of political, economic and social factors have been addressed to ensure a comprehensive analysis. In addition, this study specifically targets refugee camps in the West Bank. In conclusion, my study was an attempt to give Palestinian refugees the opportunity to raise their voice and say what they want, rather than be told by others what they should have. In other words, the research and findings come to tell us how Palestinian refugees see the right of return, and in turn rejecting how others see it for them.

TASA 2015 Postgraduate Conference Scholarships

Click here



The scholarships aim to support postgraduate participation at TASA annual conferences. The TASA Executive encourages postgraduate members to apply. It also encourages academic supervisors to promote the scholarships to their postgraduate students. Recipients of the prize will receive • registration for the annual conference in November in Cairns • Travel funding (see application form for available amounts by State) • a certificate for receipt of scholarship • a listing on the TASAweb scholarship page • an opportunity to write about receiving their scholarship for Nexus Applications for the 2015 conference scholarships close on September 7th

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Secretary’s letter6QHSBEJOHUIFNFNCFSTIJQFYQFSJFODF Joshua M. Roose

ear TASA members,

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Who would believe that we are already at the end of March? After a highly successful annual conference at the University of South Australia last November, I am pleased to have the opportunity to inform you on the following updates to your membership, as approved by the TASA Executive. These are designed to improve your membership experience while improving the efficiency of our processes (and in doing so, allowing us to allocate valuable time and resources to where they are needed most – building the field!).

Please see the following improvements:

• With the launch of the new website, TASA moved from a calendar year to an anniversary membership process (ie. someone signing up on April 12, 2015 will have a 12 month membership through to April 12, 2016). The expiry dates of active 2014 memberships were extended from December 31, 2014 to March 31st 2015; • The previous 10% discount on automatic membership renewals is no longer available. After your first membership renewal on the new site, all subsequent renewals will be automatic by default. During the renewal process, you will have the option of selecting manual renewal if you prefer; • If you selected automatic renewal on the old site, you will need to manually renew your membership this year and re-enter your credit card details on the new site. In explanation, your credit card details were encrypted on the old site (as they should be) and could not be migrated across to the new site; • Consumer Price Index increases on membership fees will now be applied from July 1 (previously January 1). This shift means that the fees will remain the same as they were in 2014 until June 30 this year; • The move to anniversary membership will not affect the number of Journal of Sociology (JoS) issues members will receive. Members will still receive 4 issues of JoS in their 12 months membership but they won’t all necessarily be in the same calendar year (eg. if someone joins in March they will get 3 issues for 2015 and the first issue of 2016; • Members can now ‘opt out’ of receiving the hard copy of JoS via the ‘My Account’ section of the membership profile. You would still have online access, though may wish to save the space on your bookshelf (or be environmentally aware); • Members now have online access to the Health Sociology Review. Other Taylor and Francis Sociology Journals will be available online soon – particularly useful for our non-institutionally affiliated members; • For a two-year trial period (2015 & 2016), all members can now join up to 4 Thematic Groups (TG). This is in direct response to the numerous request by members over the last 12 months to expand TG membership from 3 to 4. • The $100.00 minor scheme for incidental Thematic Group support is no longer available. The Executive reviewed requests over the last two years and found that fund was rarely utilised as all Thematic Group requests for funding targeted the large bi-annual scheme to hold public lectures, workshops and events. Further, the minor scheme was mostly accessed by groups for website hosting and this is now available via the new TASAweb hosting package, gratis. Conference There has been feedback from members that the day registration fees are discouraging attendance by people who can only engage in the conference for one day, including potential attendees (who may not be sociologists) invited by session conveners to be part of a panel or plenary. After some discussion, the TASA Executive agreed at their November 2014 meeting to reduce the day rate for a 2-year trial period (covering the 2015 and 2016 conferences). It will now be one third of full registration rate, plus 15%. Website Password Resets Please note that due to the development of a new bigger and better website, all passwords will need to be reset in order to access the member area. Passwords on the old site were encrypted and could not (and should not) be migrated over to the new site. Blog Our new website (tasa.org.au) now includes a blog. We are in the process of formulating a strategy around how to best showcase the excellent work our members do via the blog, including re-publishing (under the Creative Commons license) articles from The Conversation, extracting and highlighting content from Nexus, and potentially drawing in content from individual Thematic Group blogs. While we are working on this strategy, if you have an idea for a blog post, feel free to contact the Multimedia Portfolio Leader, Brady Robards (Email Brady). As always, be sure to let Sally Daly at TASA know when you publish articles in The Conversation, or elsewhere. Nexus With the migration to the new membership structure, the default setting for the receipt of Nexus is now ‘electronic’. To receive a hard-copy, you will need to modify this setting in your ‘My Account’ section of your membership profile before March 18. A shift to all electronic delivery is however increasingly desirable as it will help reduce our environmental footprint and will save considerable cost to TASA in printing the ever more expensive hardcopies. Transition to an all-electronic Nexus will also enable the adoption of a more dynamic and interactive platform, creating an accessible ‘living text’ document and thereby allowing all members a voice.


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Sociology Journal List Finally, I’d like to take the opportunity to forecast the development of a Sociology Journal List for use by members. This list would feature the title of the Journal, its sub-field within Sociology, a link to the website, citation and impact factor metrics and a short summary of their value to the field. This will be a valuable guide for scholars looking for places to publish their work and simultaneously assist scholars having to deal with the ERA process. If like me, you find yourself consistently having to refer to 2010 ERA journal rankings (A, B, C etc.) to highlight the quality of your work this will be of use. Further, we plan to forward it when complete, to the ARC for consideration. If you have any queries about how any of these changes might impact upon you, please contact the Executive member responsible for the area covered by your query, TASA Executive Officer Sally Daly or myself. Best regards, Joshua M. Roose TASA Secretary


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TASA Public Lecture 2014 Apocalypse now? The global antibiotic crisis, resistant ‘superbugs’ and promoting cultural change in infection management in Australia Emma Kirby University of Queensland

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ccording to most predictions, including that of the World Health Organization, if we continue our current rates of antibiotic use we are just decades from entering a post-antibiotic era. With superbugs proliferating and antibiotic options running out, we are about to face the ‘antibiotic perfect storm’. Infections that were previously easily treatable will become major threats to the Australian population. With few new antibiotics being developed, and none that can treat many of the highly resistant organisms that are developing, the most viable solution identified by experts is the careful and judicious use of antibiotics. Yet, in Australia, like other countries, antibiotic use continues like there is no tomorrow. The second TASA public lecture for 2014 took place on 17 September, at the State Library of New South Wales in Sydney, and was delivered by Associate Professor Alex Broom (University of Queensland). In his lecture, Broom outlined the threat to Australia of antibiotic resistance, the reasons why antibiotics continue to be misused, and discussed potential solutions for protecting antibiotics for future generations. Professor Broom’s lecture focused on the importance of a cultural change around antibiotics; a process, he argued, that must be driven by patients, communities and health professionals. In his opening remarks, Broom emphasised the harsh realities of antibiotic potency (or lack thereof) in contemporary hospital settings. He provided a ‘graphic content’ warning to the 90 attendees before showing a series of images illustrating the spread of a resistant infection in a recent patient case in a Queensland hospital. The patient, a middle-aged man who had merely stepped on a nail in his backyard, required a below the knee amputation in a matter of days. The shocking images highlighted the significance of seemingly minor events in everyday life within a context of increasingly limited antibiotic potential. Broom then provided a ‘brief history’ of antibiotic use, exploring the cultural impact of the discovery of antibiotics, particularly penicillin. From the significant reduction of infection-related fatalities during war, to addressing some of the more questionable activities of soldiers (syphilis, gonorrhoea), penicillin quickly became the solution to many of the private and government problems of a generation or two. However, it was not long before the rise of antimicrobial resistance became apparent. The current concerns with resistance should have come as no surprise, given that for many years we had ample warning of the potential for resistance. In his Nobel Prize speech in 1945, Alexander Fleming warned of the dangers for the ‘ignorant man’ of under-dosing (and thus exposing microbes to non-lethal quantities of the drug) resulting in resistance. Although Fleming was already aware of the potential for resistance at the point of discovery, what he probably did not realise was that the ‘ignorant man’ would be transformed perhaps into a ‘ignorant world’ where antibiotics would be used to the point of widespread resistance. The next part of the lecture focused on the financial and geopolitical contexts of contemporary antibiotic use, research and development, showing that on a global scale the situation is one of diminishing resources and the proliferation of resistance. Broom then turned his focus towards the use of antibiotics ‘on the ground’, to explore the social dimensions of the problem. His central argument is that antibiotics are used within a distinct social world, and that antibiotic use is strongly mediated by interpersonal relationships and social ties. As he said, ‘I argue for antibiotics to be seen as just as much a social problem as a matter of “control over drugs” or “medical work”’. He illustrated this point with the findings from his empirical work in hospital settings, raising a series of questions around how social relationships and social forces underpin antibiotic use in Australia. How do antibiotics make their way into an individual’s body and what social forces influence this process? What interpersonal, structural, political and economic influences come into play? He discussed the influence of interpersonal rela-

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tionships and social ties, including emotional issues around the desire to get better and the desire to practice safe medicine, with such dynamics further complicated by growing community scepticism toward antibiotics. Broom shared the findings from his team’s recent study of hospital doctors’ accounts of prescribing practice, revealing that much of their practice was shaped by (immediate) risk and (immediate) responsibility, rather than the threat of resistance. One social influence was the fact of being faced with a sick patient and feeling the need to pursue all options, immediately and with force. Another influence was the worry of blame and litigation if all options were not pursued immediately. There is the pressure of being given the power to act and then not acting, which is a sense of responsibility, and the additional pressure of having a reputation around the hospital as someone who acts, who is safe, and cares, rather than someone who takes risks. Essentially, as Broom argued, within the social world of the hospital the emphasis tends to be on short-term influences, which in turn minimise long-term considerations. In his analyses of projects focusing on the experiences not only of hospital doctors, but also of pharmacists, nurses and hospital management, Broom drew on a Bourdieusian approach to explore the relative influences on antibiotic use within the hospital (published in Social Science and Medicine, 2014). He concluded his lecture by returning to the ‘apocalyptic’ nature of the problem, quoting Dr Margaret Chan (Director General of the WHO), who has said: ‘A post-antibiotic era means, in effect, an end to modern medicine as we know it. Things as common as strep throat or a child’s scratched knee could once again kill’. The public lecture was followed by a lively panel discussion moderated by Professor Jon Adams (ARC Future Fellow, Professor of Public Health, University of Technology Sydney). The panel comprised experts in infection management and health services research: Professor Nick Graves (Director of the NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence in Reducing Healthcare Associated Infections, and Professor of Health Economics with a joint appointment in the Institute of Biomedical and Health Innovation, School of Public Health, Queensland University of Technology), Dr Tom Gottlieb (President of the Australian Society for Antimicrobials, Head of Infectious Diseases at Concord Hospital, and Clinical Senior Lecturer at The University of Sydney), Associate Professor Karin Thursky (a practising Infectious Diseases physician with appointments at Royal Melbourne Hospital and Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and Honorary Fellow with the University of Melbourne Medical School), and Dr Jennifer Broom (Senior Staff Specialist in Infectious Diseases, Sunshine Coast Health and Hospital Service, and Senior Lecturer, School of Medicine, The University of Queensland). The panellists shared their thoughts about a wide range of global and local issues, from strategies for new technologies to monitor/ manage antibiotic use within hospitals to the potential for accounting for the long term ‘cost’ of antibiotic use (and resistance) when determining an appropriate price for drugs.

Drinks and nibbles throughout the evening (thanks to TASA, particularly Sally Daly and Nick Osbaldiston for organising) helped to make the doom of global resistance to antibiotics slightly more palatable.

Reference: Broom, A., Broom, J., & Kirby, E. (2014) Cultures of resistance: a Bourdieusian analysis of doctors’ antibiotic prescribing. Social Science and Medicine, 110: 81–88.

You can watch the Public Lecture video on YouTube (thanks to Alphia Possamai-Inesedy for filming).

Publication Promotion

The panel discussion is also available to watch: Click here

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With superbugs proliferating and antibiotic options running out, we are about to face the ‘antibiotic perfect storm’. Infections that were previously easily treatable will become major threats to the Australian population.

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ASA Members are welcome to have their published works, such as new books and articles in The Conversation, for example, promoted using TASA’s e-list, Twitter handle, website and Nexus. If you would like to promote your published works, please email the details to Sally in the TASA Office.


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‘Cultures of Authenticity’ Symposium Claire Baker, PhD candidate University of New England

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uthenticity’ is a central idea in late-modern culture. To interrogate its contemporary meanings and applications, the Cultural Sociology Thematic Group organised the Cultures of Authenticity symposium at Flinders University city campus in Adelaide on 28 November 2014. The symposium was organised by the group conveners Dr Nicholas Hookway (University of Tasmania) and Dr Sara James (La Trobe University) and supported by TASA thematic group funding. Lisa Farrance (Victoria University) and Ramon Menendez Domingo (La Trobe University) received postgraduate scholarships enabling them to present at the symposium. The symposium featured 14 presentations from a mix of early, mid and senior academics, including a keynote presentation by Professor John Carroll. The symposium resulted in a special issue of MC Journal, edited by Drs Hookway and James (published online 18 March 2015). Eduardo de la Fuente started proceedings with a presentation in which he reflected upon ideas of place and culture in a survey of works that highlighted the difficulty of maintaining authentic experiences of culture in a globalising world of increasingly homogenised aesthetics. Brad West spoke on the dialogical remembering of the American war in Vietnam as a process of re-enacting nationalism in the modern age, a process by which the authentic war experience is mediated by the inauthentic tourist experience in a search for (authentic) meaning for the participant. Nick Osbaldiston drew a link between different forms of place-based rationalisation and ideas of the ‘authentic’ beach in his study of collective nostalgia, mobilised as a move against nature in the maintenance and defence of coastlines. The morning session thus highlighted the different conceptions of authenticity of place, and that the subjective interpretations of authenticity attributed to these spaces influence both the actions born of and the meaning drawn from these interactions in and with place. Steve Taylor opened the second session with a paper that drew upon understandings of authenticity within the context of religious innovation, where alternative worship based on elements of club culture work is an expression of genuine passionate worship, and how this feeling of authentic expression is made problematic when appropriated by the mainstream church. Extending the consideration of authentic cultural expressions through religious practise, Naama Carlin problematized the social marking, or the cultural (w)rites, of circumcision within Jewish communities and the effects this has for understandings of authentic religious identity. Ramon Menendez Domingo presented a qualitative study that considered cultural background and the effect this has on individual meanings of authenticity. Each of these presentations highlighted the central role of authenticity in religious and cultural identity and expression. John Carroll gave the keynote presentation and this remains an intriguing and thought-provoking memory of the day. Taking Shakespeare’s line ‘All the world’s a stage…’ as its centrepiece, Carroll’s presentation spanned a metaphysical sociology of art that interrogated the twin concepts of an authentic self as an indicator of moral character and virtue, and the notion of life as a pageant, itself an essential fabrication that enables reflection and access to deeper existential truths. Carroll outlined how the central modern sin can be understood as a lack of authenticity. His impressive reflection on the ways in which ideas of a ‘good’ authentic self, or indeed the existential conditions of being, have replaced notions of God in the humanist tradition provided a germane moment of reflection upon the deeper aspects of any consideration of authenticity. This use of dramaturgical analysis in turn provided an interesting backdrop to Marcus Maloney’s exploration of video games as a mode of narrative from which participants can draw authentic emotional experiences, despite the illusory nature of autonomy within the game world. Tim Graham furthered this observation of the illusion of authenticity online through his critical analysis of review and recommendation constructs in filtering information for decision-making acts. In a paper that highlighted the role of authenticity in music, Shai Diner presented an analysis of music types within the Columbian tradition. Each of these papers provided an opportunity to reflect on the way in which un-real or hyper-real (in some sense, then, inauthentic) spaces hold value in their ability to reveal the importance of authenticity to us. The final session of the day included presentations that looked at authenticity and gendered experience. Lisa Farrance spoke on the use of personas in the roller derby scene to empower participants

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toward an authentic embodied experience of themselves. Tamika Sharrad explored how female firefighters challenge notions of authenticity in a professional field marked, deeply and internally, by the male norm. The idea of self-branding through an appeal to authenticity to differentiate feminine identities on Tumblr was the central idea of Akane Kania’s blog-based presentation, and Annette Mallon reflected on the difficulties inherent in any authentic female identity performance given the gendered differences in physical safety and acceptability in today’s society. The papers presented throughout the day provided a wide-ranging field of reflection on cultures of authenticity. Authenticity was variously presented as something real or true; something particular to a place, a culture, a music, a tradition, a religion or to a self/ourselves when held within these social contexts. Ultimately, authenticity is positively valued and presented as analogous to virtue, present when what we observe is judged to hold with some ideal – whether this be an internal value of integrity or some external normative criterion. Crucially, the day revealed the insight held within John Carroll’s paper: that of the basic human need for the pageant (the inauthentic fabrication) as a mode of reflection upon the failings and accomplishments of our authentic character and our authentic experience in the search for authentic meaning. We all thank the Cultural Sociology Thematic Group leaders Sara James and Nicholas Hookway for organising such a valuable and thought-provoking symposium for the group.

The Sociology of Emotion and Affect Thematic Group Workshop: November 2014

Jordan McKenzie, University of New England Rebecca Olson, University of Queensland

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Each of these papers provided an opportunity to reflect on the way in which un-real or hyperreal (in some sense, then, inauthentic) spaces hold value in their ability to reveal the importance of authenticity to us.

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fter successful midterm workshops at RMIT in 2012 and Flinders University in 2013, the Sociology of Emotion and Affect thematic group held their annual workshop at the University of Wollongong on 21 November 2014. The theme of ‘Emotions vs. Affect?’ was chosen with the intention to motivate discourse on the latter, where in previous years it has been the former that has attracted most of our attention. While the incorporation of emotion in sociological approaches (such as through dramaturgical theories, for example) has become increasingly common, the role of affect as a ‘pre-personal’ (see Seyfert, 2012) phenomenon that shapes social experience is still murky territory for many sociologists. Despite adopting the tone of a battle between the two concepts, the array of presentations reaffirmed once more that both emotion and affect are important dimensions of sociological analysis. As has been the case in previous workshops, the theme attracted papers from diverse fields both within and beyond sociology, and the theme of this year’s workshop certainly encouraged the interdisciplinary scope of the group. The event was supported by TASA, the Institute for Social Transformation Research (ISTR), and the Centre for Research on Men and Masculinities (CROMM) at the University of Wollongong. The workshop consisted of twelve presentations with keynote addresses from Professor Jack Barbalet (Hong Kong Baptist University) and Professor Rick Iedema (University of Tasmania). Barbalet delivered a paper that spanned decades of work on theories of emotion and incorporated his considered reflections on the role of affect. His influential contributions on the topic of macro theories of emotion were insightful and indelible to the varied audience of undergraduates, postgraduates and academics. Jack Barbalet is a key international figure in the sociology of emotion and his thorough account of the stages of development in the field perfectly set up the subsequent discussion of affect. Following Barbalet’s ‘big picture’ overview, Rick Iedema provided an enlightening perspective of emotions research outside of the academy. In his role as the research manager for the Agency for Clinical Innovation (NSW Ministry for Health), Iedema alludes to the need for new and original research methodologies capable of better capturing the unique qualities of emotion and affect. Iedema pointed to Sloterdijk’s notion of ‘spherology’ as a means to make sense of the complex and unsystematic phenomena of affective spheres, within which a great deal can be discovered about the experience of emotion in social life. A detailed discussion of this recent research can be found in ‘Research as Affect-Sphere: Towards Spherogenics’ (2015) by Rick Iedema and Katherine Carroll. Newsletter of The Australian Sociological Association

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The presentation of high quality research, however, was not restricted to the senior academics in the room. The workshop featured a number of excellent presentations from PhD candidates from all over the country. Consequently, the prize for the best submission from a PhD candidate resulted in ties for both first and third places. First place was split between Miranda Bruce (Australian National University) whose presentation was titled ‘Capture and Representation: Maintaining the Distinction between Affect and Emotion’ and Gil Hizi (University of Sydney) whose presentation was titled ‘Instant Affectivity and Recycled Messages: Exploring the Expression of Nationalism and Dehumanisation in the Israeli Society at Wartime.’ Third place was shared between Clare Southerton (Australian National University) and Tristan Kennedy (Flinders University). The organisers would like to congratulate those awarded prizes, and thank all of the PhD candidates for their efforts in sharing their cutting edge research. The idea that the sociology of emotion and affect is a new and exciting field is arguably an important part of the group’s identity and the quality of postgraduate research at this workshop demonstrated a promising future for the field. The convenors are currently in the process of drafting a proposal for a special issue of the journal based on the papers presented at the workshop and will make a call for papers in early 2015. The thematic group convenors plan to continue the tradition of holding vibrant and dynamic workshops of interest to PhD candidates and researchers from sociology and cognate areas in 2015. We plan to return to our previous timeline by holding a mid-year workshop in June, this time in Brisbane. After surveying thematic group members through our e-list in early December, the focus of the 2015 workshop was determined by popular vote: ‘Emotions at work: Identity, self and society.’ Further information on the workshop will be disseminated soon. Finally, the Sociology of Emotion and Affect thematic group convenors would like to take this opportunity to thank Roger Patulny for his dedicated and persistent work as a founding thematic group convenor over the last three years. This workshop in Wollongong was the final task for Roger before recently stepping down as the thematic group’s co-convenor. The continuing convenors, Rebecca Olson and Jordan McKenzie, are indebted to Roger for his contributions to the group, and we look forward to the bright future of this research area. References Iedema, R., & Carroll, K. (2015). Research as affect-sphere: towards Spherogenics. Emotion Review, 15(1), 67–72. doi: 10.1177/1754073914544477 Seyfert, R. (2012). Beyond personal feelings and collective emotion: toward a theory of social affect. Theory, Culture & Society, 29(6), 27–46. doi: 10.1177/0263276412438591.

Conference Scholarship for TASA Members with Disabilities

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his scholarship is an acknowledgement that members with disabilities incur additional costs when attending TASA Conferences. The aim of the scholarship is to help defray these additional costs and promote participation by members with disabilities in TASA Conferences.

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Recipients of the scholarship will receive • registration for the annual conference in November in Cairns • travel funding (see application form for available amounts by State) • a certificate for receipt of scholarship • a listing on the TASAweb scholarship page • an opportunity to write about receiving their scholarship for Nexus Applications for the 2015 conference scholarships will close on September 7th

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The presentation of high quality research, however, was not restricted to the senior academics in the room. The workshop featured a number of excellent presentations from PhD candidates from all over the country.

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Health Sociology Review

Joanne Bryant, University of New South Wales Christy Newman, University of New South Wales Editors in Chief

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Joanne Bryant

Christy Newman

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e are honoured and delighted to take up our new roles as joint Editors-in-Chief of Health Sociology Review, which began officially on 1 January 2015. As you may know, the beginning of our tenure also marks the handover of the journal from e-content Management to the international publishing house Taylor & Francis/Routledge, and a continuation of the successful relationship between TASA and the journal. It also comes with other benefits for TASA members, including free online access to Health Sociology Review and selected additional Taylor & Francis journals. We are grateful to Jo Lindsay and Deb King for their negotiation of these excellent arrangements with Taylor & Francis, and for securing a bright future for the journal. We are also keen to acknowledge the outstanding work of the previous editorial team Julie Henderson, Paul Bissell, Paul Ward, Samantha Meyer, Lana Zannettino and Louise Roberts. The journal will be administered from the Centre for Social Research in Health (CSRH) at UNSW Australia, but our editorial team members are based across Australian and international universities. Joanne Bryant, Christy Newman (Joint Editors-in Chief) and Peter Aggleton (Senior Editorial Advisor) are at the CSRH in Sydney. Of the Associate Editors, Sarah Maclean is based at the University of Melbourne (and is Book Review Editor), Peter Nugus at McGill University in Canada, and Fernando de Maio at DePaul University in the USA. We are honoured to include Fran Collyer in the team, from the University of Sydney, who will be acting as a Senior Editorial Advisor. The team members have a long association with TASA and most participate in thematic groups. Joanne Bryant, Sarah Maclean and Peter Nugus became members during their postgraduate studies. Fran Collyer has been a high profile participant in the Health thematic group, including serving as national convenor. Sarah Maclean was active in the Youth Sociology thematic group, co-convening the group between 2011–2013. Peter Nugus has a distinguished connection with TASA, winning the Jean Martin Award for the best PhD thesis in Australian sociology (2007–2009). Most members of our team have a history of involvement with Health Sociology Review as authors, reviewers and editors. Most notably, Fran Collyer was the Editor-in-Chief from 2004–2009 and during this time achieved the journal’s highest impact factor to date of 1.5, rivalling other social science journals for quality and citation. We are also honoured to include Peter Aggleton in our team, who has extensive international experience in the editing and production of high quality scholarly journals, and who currently holds the Chief Editor position for three journals: Culture, Health & Sexuality, Health Education Journal, and Sex Education. Health Sociology Review is one of only a small group of journals dedicated to publishing articles about the sociological aspects of health and illness and this means we have significant scope to build and strengthen the distinctive profile of the journal. Over the coming four years we hope to build the international reach of the journal while simultaneously strengthening the participation of Australian scholars, so that the journal can showcase internationally the high quality of Australian sociology. So, we invite you to submit your manuscripts, or to email or telephone us to discuss your manuscript ideas. Follow us on Twitter and look out for our blog, soon to be available on the TASA website, and the occasional update in Nexus. In the meantime, take advantage of your entitlement to free online access to Health Sociology Review. Download, read and cite (most importantly cite!) our high quality manuscripts. This is your journal and we want to showcase the outstanding health sociology work happening in Australia. Joanne Bryant email (02) 9385 6438 Christy Newman email (02) 9385 4717 Health Sociology Review website Twitter @HealthSocRev


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The value of health: TASA Health Symposium 2014 Caragh Brosnan, University of Newcastle Emma Kirby, University of Queensland Co-Convenors, Health Thematic Group

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NHS Clinic in London. What values underpin health care under neoliberalism? © Caragh Brosnan

Kathryn Dwan


he Health Thematic Group held a one-day symposium at the University of South Australia on 28 November 2014, called ‘The value of health: the refiguring of health and health care under neoliberalism’. The symposium drew on one of the key themes that ran through the TASA Conference held earlier in the week – the impact of neoliberalism on society – and set out to examine whether, why and how health and health care are being redefined amid neoliberal reforms, both in Australia and overseas. Around 30 people from across the country and several international visitors attended this lively event, including representatives from academia and public policy. Although neoliberal health reforms have been occurring for some years, it seemed timely to consider their meaning and impact in 2014. The year marked the 30th anniversary of Medicare, Australia’s universal health insurance scheme. Its predecessor, Medibank, had begun ten years earlier under the leadership of the late Gough Whitlam, providing free universal hospital care for the first time in Australia. Medicare extended coverage to GP visits. While Medicare’s birthday was celebrated quietly, the 2014 health policy headlines were dominated by the Coalition government’s attempts to introduce a $7 co-payment for GP visits and to channel the income raised into a ‘Medical Research Future Fund’. An emphasis on high-tech medicine at the cost of primary care raises questions over the value systems that have come to underpin our notions of good health and health care, and whose values they represent. Such reforms are not confined to Australia. The United Kingdom’s National Health Service underwent its largest reforms ever in 2013, along market-based lines, under the controversial Health and Social Care Act. Furthermore, the most pressing global health issue of 2014, the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, has been interpreted as the direct result of global neoliberal policies. These have undermined African health care systems and social infrastructure (e.g. through trade liberalisation) and allowed medical research to be driven by for-profit pharmaceutical companies. Consequently, drugs are developed only for diseases affecting very large numbers, or else are affordable only in wealthy countries (Hooker et al. 2014). The day’s six speakers discussed neoliberalism’s impact in a range of health care contexts, and considered the question of what can or should sociologists do to promote different ways of valuing health now and in the future. Setting the scene was first keynote speaker, Professor Fran Baum, Director of the Southgate Institute of Health, Society and Equity at Flinders University. She focused directly on the nexus between health and politics. She began by outlining the big picture of the social determinants of health, then went to on discuss findings from a study where she interviewed former Australian health ministers whose personal experiences and reflections unveiled the constraints and mechanisms behind health policy formation. She then discussed new research in the South Australian context, where community health services are being drastically cut, and outlined some of her activist work with the People’s Health Movement. Dr Ally Gibson (University of Queensland) presented a paper on the social constructions of breast cancer within neoliberal Western society, unpacking the ‘pink ribbon’ culture to consider the implications for the subjectivity of women dealing with the illness. Ally discussed discourses of individual responsibility and empowerment, consumerism and self-determination, arguing for a more nuanced (rather than celebratory) analysis of illness culture. Two papers explored the impact of neoliberalism on mental health care provision. Dr Merrilyn Crichton (Charles Sturt University) talked about the increasing push to promote eHealth options for mental health services and treatment in rural and regional Australia. She discussed the findings of a

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qualitative study into the commodification of health and social support that revealed a mixed response to eHealth for mental health. Dr Edgar Burns (La Trobe University) spoke on co-location and mental health provision, also focusing on regional/rural issues. He reviewed the concept of co-location in relation to joint service provision, addressing co-location as complex because of diverse mental health links around maternal wellbeing, farming, youth, substance abuse, unemployment, homelessness and aged care institutions. Dr Kathryn Dwan (Australian National University) compared the histories of general practice in Australia and the Netherlands – two countries with strong primary health care systems that have developed somewhat differently because of the contrasting relationships between the state, the medical profession and civil society in each country. Kevin White, Reader in Sociology at the Australian National University was the final keynote speaker. He injected controversy into the day by arguing that neoliberalism is a less useful concept than capitalism, and that the types of health inequalities we are seeing are reflections of continuing class differences rather than being a new phenomenon. He illustrated this with reference to research on the connection between health and dangerous, low-paid or precarious work, and he cautioned against a sociological focus on issues such as health-related choice and individualism under neoliberalism, which may mask persistent class-based health inequalities. The day concluded with a panel comprising Kevin White, Associate Professor Alex Broom (University of Queensland), Prof. Stephanie Short (University of Sydney) and Prof. John Germov (University of Newcastle) who discussed the positive and negative aspects of neoliberalism conceptually and in terms of real world implications for health and health care in Australia and beyond. Funding from TASA supported keynote speaker travel and two postgraduate bursaries. The Health Thematic Group convenors wish to thank all speakers and participants for helping make the day successful, TASA for supporting the event, and Dr Peter Gale and the University of South Australia for arranging the venue. Reference: Hooker, L. C., Mayes, C., Degeling, C., Gilbert, G. L., & Kerridge, I. H. (2014) ‘Don’t be scared, be angry: the politics and ethics of Ebola’, Medical Journal of Australia, 201(6): 352–354.

Fran Baum

Sociology in Action Award (NEW)

Panellists (L–R): Alex Broom, John Germov, Stephanie Short, Kevin White

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his award recognizes contributions to the practice of sociology outside of academic settings. It is conferred on a TASA member who has made an outstanding contribution to sociological practice in Australia. In this context, outstanding contributions to sociology in action highlight the value and impact of sociological methods and theories to society. This includes both broad social issues, as well as more focused issues for industry, government, business or community sectors. Nominations close June 15, 2015


TASA Migration Symposium 2014 Martina Boese Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology Co-convenor: Migration, Ethnicity and Multiculturalism Thematic Group

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The aim of the symposium was to bring together sociologists of migration, ‘race’ and multiculturalism with scholars from other disciplines to reflect on the conceptual and theoretical changes that have occurred over time in Australia’s migration scholarship.


n 11 November 2014, the Centre for Citizenship and Globalization at Deakin University hosted a symposium titled ‘Migration, ‘Race’ and Multiculturalism: controversies, approaches and future directions in Australia’ as part of a 2-day symposium on migration. The event was supported by the UNESCO Chair of Cultural Diversity and Social Justice and a $1,000 grant from TASA to the Migration, Ethnicity and Multiculturalism Thematic Group. Dr Vince Marotta and Dr Martina Boese designed the event, while the Organising Committee for the 2-day Symposium also included Prof Fethi Mansouri, Dr David Tittensor and Executive Assistant Cayla Edwards. Migration research:a case for self-reflection Migration research is sometimes accused of having conflicting weaknesses. It is seen as being theory-poor, lacking a unitary theoretical framework, and with insufficient self-reflection as a sub-discipline of sociology. However, the theoretical and disciplinary perspectives that have informed the study of migration, ‘race’ and multiculturalism in Australia attest to the multitude and diversity within this realm of scholarship. Australian studies and researchers have incorporated demographic analyses and political economy approaches alongside sociological and cultural studies approaches. There are Marxist and feminist intersectional accounts and those who adopt a transnational, Foucauldian, or a cosmopolitan perspective. More recently, studies have drawn on conceptual lenses of ‘everyday multiculturalism’, queer and sexual theory. The aim of the symposium was to bring together sociologists of migration, ‘race’ and multiculturalism with scholars from other disciplines to reflect on the conceptual and theoretical changes that have occurred over time in Australia’s migration scholarship. We also aimed to examine the impact of these theoretical and conceptual issues on our understanding of the politics and policies of migration in Australia and vice versa, and to investigate how the politics and policies of migration in Australia have influenced scholars’ conceptions and constructions of migration ‘problems’ and ‘issues’. Debates, discussion and controversies We invited eleven scholars at different stages of their careers – from well-established to newly emerging scholars in the field – to reflect on the theoretical and conceptual changes within Australian migration scholarship, the frameworks that have influenced them, the influence of overseas research, and their perspectives on future directions of research on migration and related areas. The day started with a session on migration, policies and politics. Jock Collins provided an informative overview of the range of Australian migration scholarship across different disciplines, which paid particular respect to the critical role and broad scope of Stephen Castles’ contribution to understanding the political economy and sociology of migration and settlement in Australia. Shanthi Robertson focused on more recent transformations in migration such as transcience and fragmentation, and the related conceptual shifts in migration scholarship that indicate a stronger focus on statuses and temporalities, blurring boundaries between public and private migration brokers, and new methods in researching the state. The next session on racism, nationalism and criminalisation brought together the perspectives of sociologists and criminologists who presented alternative lenses to researching and understanding processes of racialisation and criminalisation in Australia in an international context. Marie Segrave introduced criminological analyses of the border regime, illustrated by the examples of responses to human trafficking and unlawful labour migrants, and argued for the need to develop a better understanding of the increasing criminalisation-migration-security nexus. Karen Farquharson reflected on the lack of engagement with ‘race’ in much Australian scholarship on racism and encouraged us to conceptualise ‘race’ in ways that capture the similarities and the variations between different

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racialised systems around the globe. Scott Poynting provided a poignant analysis of the shifts in Australian and British processes of racist ‘Othering’ from a focus on Arab to Muslim ‘Others’, to which Australian scholarship had only responded with some delay. The first afternoon session considered the use of the concepts multiculturalism, transnationalism and cosmopolitanism as lenses through which to understand migration and settlement processes. Val Colic-Peisker reflected on the relationship of ‘capitalism and cosmopolitanism in a fearful nation’ and commented on the contradiction between the economic rationalism of Australia’s migrant intake and the ‘economic irrationalism’ of its border control and asylum seeker policies. Andrew Jakubowicz offered provocative observations on ‘coalition follies’, which highlighted the role of neoliberalism and social conservatism as critical influences on the trajectory of liberal multiculturalism as a political project in Australia. Nikos Papastergiadis took us on a journey from the ambience of Melbourne’s Federation Square as a popular zone of the arts precinct to the potential capacity of (ethno-)cultural precincts to offer a kind of ambient cosmopolitanism. The final session was dedicated to reflecting on theory and research on identity, intersectionality and hybridity. Anita Harris took hybridity to account, drawing on recent research on youth identities in new times, and suggested that the political capacity of the hybridity concept may have expired, with it becoming a strategy of containment of multicultural youth. Greg Noble drew our attention to the lived practices and sensuous experiences of settling in a new environment by drawing on the concept of a migrant’s ‘moral career’, illustrated by an in-depth account of a settlement process over time and space. Maria Palotta-Chiarolli concluded the day with her call to end the heterosexist orientation of multicultural policies, discourses, research, community spaces and services and attend to the multiple marginalities and sexual and gender diversities within contemporary multicultural realities. Alongside the speakers’ stimulating reflections and conceptual provocations, an engaged audience of around 50 participants ensured that lively discussions followed all the presentations. Enthusiastic feedback later suggested that the event was timely in opening up discussions on the role and future directions of migration research and theory in Australia.

From left: Nikos Papastergiadis, Maria Palotta-Chiarolli, Greg Noble, Andrew Jakubowicz, Jock Collins, Val Colic-Peisker, Nana Oishi, Karen Farqharson, David Tittensor, Anita Harris, Scott Poynting, Shanthi Robertson, Vince Marotta, Martina Boese, Marie Segrave, Nicole Oke, Loretta Baldassar.

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The views and opinions expressed in the articles in this newsletter are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of TASA. In no event shall TASA or any of its affiliates or content providers be liable for any damages whatsoever, including but not limited to any direct, indirect, special, consequential, punitive or incidental damages, or damages for loss of use, profits, data or other intangibles arising out of or related to the use, inability to use, unauthorised use, performance or non-performance of this newsletter, even if TASA has been advised previously of the possibility of such damages and whether such damages arise in the contract, negligence, tort under statue, in equity, at law or otherwise.


Challenging the discourses of the past through the exhumation of mass graves in Spain Natalia Maystorovich Chulio University of Sydney

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fter finding my grandfather’s memoirs of his life, I discovered that there were many mysteries in my own family unknown to me. Reading about the teenage experiences of war and the impact they had on my grandfather’s life influenced my research topic. I originally envisioned that my study would be on historic memories of the Civil War and the recent explosion of memory politics in Spain. I found it striking that many Spaniards like my grandparents had hidden their experiences and trauma from their own children, leaving it to the third generation to attempt to recover these personal memories in order to incorporate them within the collective memory of the nation. I wrote to La Asociación por la Recuperación de la Memoria Histórica (ARMH –The Association for the Recuperation of Historic Memory) in Ponferrada with the intention of conducting an ethnographic study of their work. This led to my involvement with a team who conduct exhumations of mass graves from the Spanish Civil War and Franco dictatorship. I have found the experience to be one of the most rewarding in my life. The ability to talk with victims, activists, professionals and academics in the field has been most enlightening. Since working with ARMH I have discovered that on my father’s side of the family, we have missing relatives taken under the cover of nightfall by ethnic Croatians in the former Yugoslavia to be killed. Given there is little hope that we will ever locate my grandmother’s family, my research has taken on new meaning for me. I hope to assist in recuperating their missing, something I cannot do for my grandmother. The local exhumation movement seeks to recover, identify and rebury victims of the Spanish Civil War and Franco dictatorship and it emerged as a challenge to the prevailing dominant discourses regarding the defeated victims. The bodily recovery of victims and the public testimonies told at the gravesites provide stark imagery while incorporating a historical context of the past, which has remained socially, politically, institutionally and legally silenced for almost 80 years. This movement was initially a grass roots operation that commenced in response to the Spanish state’s failure to provide the necessary institutional and legal support to investigate past political crimes. The social movements have used transitional justice discourses and mechanisms to challenge the state’s choice of impunity to manage the transition to democracy. This has forced symbolic and legal changes; however, the recent global financial crisis coupled with a change in government has severely hindered the expansion of the movement. Given the contentious and disputed nature of the period, those undertaking the exhumation of mass graves encounter varying responses from support to outright hostility and institutional impediments. This has been the experience of groups such as ARMH in their attempts to recuperate the missing and their personal histories during interactions with the social, political, institutional and legal fields. On 19 July 2014 we exhumed the remains of Perfecto de Dios. The digging was done manually using archaeological digging tools and we took care to ensure that the remains were not moved or damaged during the process. Once the skull was revealed the process of removing the terrain commenced, slowly archaeologically, to ensure that any evidence was not tampered or inadvertently removed. Meanwhile, soil was sifting to ensure that any teeth or small bones were not lost in the process of revealing the skeleton. The materiality of the body and its symbolic capital allows for the construction of a particular type of narrative to be constructed of the past. The dead body is a ‘political object’ that allows for the construction of worlds of meaning. Its importance lies not the physical concreteness of the remains but how we think about the body socially through culturally relative understandings (Verderey, 1999). During the exhumation process, it is common for people to approach the site and talk about the past as they recall it. It provides a catharsis for traumatic memories suppressed through fear, dictatorship and later democratic transition in the form of the Amnesty Law, to be released and discussed. On this day, various people attended to provide testimony about the events that had occurred in 1950.

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They pointed to buildings and stated the Civil Guard were in the bar having a drink, when Perfecto, his mother and their companion crossed the town. The local townsman and Camilo discussed what had happened in the town the day Perfecto de Dios was killed. It was interesting that both men sought to confirm their version of the past. Camilo held a photograph of his brother as they constructed a new narrative of Perfecto’s life as a hero who had turned back to save his mother from the Civil Guard. He was not only a guerrilla fighter who had been killed in the crossfire but a son and brother. This personalises the individual and allows for witness to view him in a different light. Once the remains were revealed and the injuries were visible, the lead archaeologist assisted the victim’s brother to enter the gravesite. This part of the process was to provide information regarding what evidence had been found and how this linked to the information located during the investigative process. This included a discussion of the evident marks on the skeleton from projectiles that had entered the skull and other parts of the body. The process of explaining the history of the case and how violence is confirmed through the marks left on the bones enables the creation of a new narrative of the past. This ruptures the discourses of the Francoist regime as the fragility of the victim allows empathetic understanding of the individual as a victim of violent repression. The ‘dead body is meaningful not in itself but through culturally established relations to death and through the way a specific person’s importance is…construed’ (Verderey, 1999: 28). This new meaning contradicts the placement of Perfecto de Dios as a criminal by the military court, as the fragility of his remains are brought to the forefront. The local exhumation movement challenges the prevailing dominant discourses of the vanquished through the construction of new narratives of the past. The bodily recovery of remains and the stories told at the grave provide an incontestable truth. Through the production and the dissemination of images exposing trauma and suffering from the exhumation of mass graves, a new narrative is created contradicting these old discourses. Representations within the media, of death and suffering provide a wide-ranging audience, making that which was silenced public. While these narratives have successfully challenged the old discourses, they have not led to significant legal and political change. While the Spanish state remains unaccountable for the actions of the past these victims remain in a precarious position whereby they cannot realise their right to know.

Photos taken by Óscar Rodriguez (La Asociación por la Recuperación de la Memoria Histórica)

TASA Sociologist Outside Academe Scholarships

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his scholarship seeks to encourage the participation of sociologists working outside academe (in areas such as private industry, government and non-government organisations, and private contract and consultancy work) with The Australian Sociological Association (TASA). The TASA Executive would like to encourage non-academic members who have conducted applied research or written sociological papers on their work to apply for the scholarship. Applications for the 2015 conference scholarships close on September 7th, 2015


Julie Peters

To be or to become?

The University of Sydney

Polina Smiragina, Postgraduate Researcher

The invisibility of male victims of human trafficking

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The way in which the human trafficking discourse was put together has created the pervasive assumption that the definition of human trafficking is synonymous with sexual exploitation of women and girls.

Deakin University

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By the end of the conference my head was spinning. I see the people and the work as very important for social justice, politics, economics, ability, race, gender and sexuality diversity …

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he human trafficking discourse has been on the human rights agenda for quite some time. This has culminated in progressive research that has initiated the development and implementation of policies, instruments and projects aimed at addressing the harms that accompany violations to individual rights. It has also led to the formation of mechanisms and institutions aimed at assisting the victims of human trafficking. The first and main universal instrument that attends to all aspects of trafficking in persons today is the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (The Trafficking Protocol). This was adopted on 15 November 2000 and came into force on 25 December 2003. The Trafficking Protocol was adopted with the aim to prevent trafficking, punish the traffickers and protect the trafficked. Even though the protocol was developed as a tool that ideally should prevent all possible forms of human trafficking and protect all possible victims, some sections of the protocol were designed in ways that contradict this assumption. Particularly, the protocol emphasises assistance to women and children and neglects men. One of the factors that has stirred my interest is its association with trafficking of women and children for the purpose of sexual exploitation. The way in which the human trafficking discourse was put together has created the pervasive assumption that the definition of human trafficking is synonymous with sexual exploitation of women and girls. This assumption has shaped the way that many anti-trafficking actors address the issue, and has become a hindrance to identification and assistance to victims of other forms of exploitation and of different genders. There is an indirect implication in the Trafficking Protocol that men are secondary addressers when it comes to assistance and protection of victims of human trafficking. This indirect implication is seen first and foremost in the name of the protocol, where it is directly stated that this protocol is to protect, supress and punish trafficking in persons, especially women and children; and then throughout the protocol where women and children are highlighted as especially vulnerable. The following sections of the protocol identify women and children as a group that requires special consideration. Men are not indicated in the protocol as a group potentially vulnerable to human trafficking. In fact, the words man, men and male do not appear in the Protocol at any point. The only way of seeing that possible male victims are also addressed in the protocol is through the words human and person(s). These terms are not defined through gender. Human is equated with the term ‘mankind’ and one of the meanings of person is the bodily form of a human being or an individual character (Webster, online, date accessed: 06/02/15). Thus, it is evident that men are not disregarded in the Protocol, they are simply not given special consideration. However, men as well as women are subjected to forms of exploitation that constitute human trafficking. Despite this, programs aimed at assisting male victims of human trafficking are either invisible or do not exist, whereas many human rights organisations have made assistance and aid programs available to female victims. The 2012 International Labor Organization Estimate of Forced Labour estimates that 20.9 million people today are victims of forced labour (sexual and labour exploitation), of which women and girls constitute 55%, and men and boys, 45%. This number, 45% of 20.9 million, is too big to be invisible. Taking an advocacy /participatory worldview, my research addresses important social issues, namely alienation, suppression, oppression, gender discrimination and gender inequality towards a group of people (male victims of human trafficking) who have been exploited for different purposes and by different means. In accordance with the Trafficking Protocol these men fall under the definition of victims of human trafficking, but they face discriminatory conduct on the part of the law enforcement, assistance and aid organisations and donors. Thus, they may not have access to support services, specialised

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’ve known of TASA for years, but 2014 was my first conference. I’m getting close to submitting my thesis and was wondering what real sociologists actually did. It might seem odd that my thesis is substantially in sociology and I’m asking that question. I understand my stream, but my undergraduate degree was a science major in genetics and I’ve been working off campus. This all means that I do not have a feel for the breadth of sociology. I also wanted to meet the people, the sociologists, rather than just read their papers, so off I headed to the University of South Australia. The postgraduate day was certainly valuable for me, both on the importance of having a publishing strategy and the social networking. A number of people I met in the speed dating session became people I continued to connect with over the next few days. The Keynote speakers helped me connect with some of the major issues in sociology today. I was able to recognise how the topics were relevant for me. For example, even though I very much agreed with Prof. Moreton-Robinson’s urge for a critique of whiteness, I left thinking that we also need a critique of heteronormativity. Prof. Walby left me believing in the importance of having ongoing sociological critique of economics, a subject itself I find deadly boring but far too important to be left to economists. For example, I discovered how a financial crisis was used as an excuse to invent a fiscal crisis, which differentially negatively impacted on women and the poor. I was certainly feeling distressed after the session on neoliberalism and education, again seeing the importance of a sociological critique of education and the neoliberal agenda. I was fascinated by David Inglis speaking on ‘Sociology as Irony’, the difference between kynicism and cynicism. It helped me see more clearly how irony, kynicism and satire can be used politically and academically. As someone who has used humour to get across stressful ideas, I am now more encouraged to use it in my work. As a closet utopian, I was very keen to get to Peter Beilharz’s keynote on ‘Modernity’s Utopia’. I was certainly left thinking how relative utopia is and how hard I will have to work on my personal utopia. Because I was trying to get an overview of sociology, I went to as broad a variety of concurrent sessions as I could. I was certainly impressed by the variety of work and the people. Papers I heard included those on the beauty economy in Russia, male bonding with infants, face and shame in China, humour in prison work, loyalty training in the military, homonormativity, same sex older women’s relationships, negotiating families with three or more parents, asking whether trans is a healthy variation of gender, belonging versus becoming. I also co-presented in two sessions. I found this a great way to get to connect with people. It meant that during the breaks people came up to me to continue the conversation. There is, however, one, how shall I put it, controversial topic I believe needs to be discussed, and for the record, my position is that I believe it is the right of all sociologists to be able to dance as if no one is watching. I went to the dinner, danced and chatted and I had a great time. By the end of the conference my head was spinning. I see the people and the work as very important for social justice, politics, economics, ability, race, gender and sexuality diversity – in broadening the normative, and broadening the groups included. In my day-to-day life I’m often embarrassed about being such an idealist but being so impressed with so many of the people I met at TASA, I felt I could be a sociologist and I did get on the web site and join. My main problem was how to choose which special interest groups to join. I guess if you are working in particular fields, that choice is easy. I certainly realised I could not be active in all the groups I was interested in, but I suspect that will become clearer as I move into the next stages of my life post-thesis. After the conference, I still cannot see a clear path to becoming a “sociologist” and maybe that’s the point – putting the focus on becoming rather than being one.

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rehabilitation centres, shelters, aid programs and corresponding institutions. This research is intertwined with a political agenda and focuses on the needs of a marginalised group of individuals (male victims of human trafficking). Being advocacy research, this study aims to advance an agenda for change, in the long run, to improve the lives of male victims of human trafficking by highlighting the instance of male trafficking as a genuine challenge to contemporary society. The aim of my research is to identify the causes and consequences of the invisibility of male victims of human trafficking by doing a thorough analysis of male trafficking discourses using concepts of masculinity and victimisation, and Pierre Bourdieu’s cultural capital, incorporated into the grounded theory method. This study will address the types of exploitation men are subjected to, programs and policies designed specifically at assisting men and boys who have become victims of human trafficking, the assistance provided to male victims of human trafficking and the ways in which the international criminal justice system responds to male Trafficking.

TASA Conference 2014: Postgraduate Scholarship Recipients Jerzy Zubrzycki Postgraduate Scholarship Fiona Proudfoot University of Tasmania

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t was a great honour and a delightful surprise to be the first PhD candidate from the University of Tasmania to be awarded the prestigious Jerzy Zubrzycki Postgraduate Conference Scholarship for 2014. I would like to take this opportunity to thank TASA and the scholarship selection panel for generously awarding me the scholarship, which provided me with the opportunity to attend my first TASA conference. I would also like to thank the Australian National University’s School of Sociology for establishing and supporting this prize in honour and recognition of Professor Jerzy Zubrzycki’s outstanding contribution to Australian sociology and to public policy in areas of migration and cultural pluralism. My first TASA conference proved to be a great experience where I was inspired by keynote presentations and intrigued with the vast scope of research conducted within our sociological community. It also provided me with the unique opportunity to engage and network with other sociologists in Australia and the UK. My TASA paper was based on preliminary findings from my research on Understanding cultural differences at the frontline of social housing. In my presentation, I explained the theoretical model I have developed to explore how housing practitioners construct and understand cultural differences and the role this plays in shaping their professional interactions with Indigenous tenants. Three major categories were identified through thematic analysis: Racialised Dichotomy, Homogeneity and Recognition. These categories reflect different positions on a continuum of racialised understandings based on what the interview data suggested about how respondents understood cultural differences and similarities, the value they attached to these and the narratives they employed to define racial categories. The Dichotomy category was constructed by respondents’ discourses and ideologies of ‘us’ and ‘them’. This binary construction focused on the alterity of ‘them’– Indigenous Australians – while the category of ‘us’ remained undefined and nameless, but was the invisible norm by which all other cultures were measured. The Homogeneity category was constructed and defined by discourses and ideologies of equality and sameness. Underpinning these constructions were notions of a collective humanity with equal opportunities and access to the ‘hierarchical distribution to social, political, economic and cultural resources’ (Habibis & Walter 2009: 2). These discourses did not recognise racialised privilege or, conversely, marginalisation, and so determined Indigenous experiences of discrimination and exclusion as an individual problem rather than a racialised and societal one. The Recognition category was defined by respondents’

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discourses and ideologies that positively acknowledged racial diversity. In Recognition respondents also recognised the power relationships that existed and the need to address these within service provision. These findings suggest there is a need for housing practitioners to improve the understanding of themselves as possessors of White privilege and the way this may impact on their Indigenous tenants through their exercise of discretionary power. They signal that further work is required to develop culturally responsive training programs, developed by Indigenous people, in order to foster deeper understandings of Indigenous knowledge, perspectives, norms and behaviours and the interplay between these and Euro-Australian cultural practices and the structures that support them. It is only through the development of these understandings that housing practitioners will be able to promote better housing outcomes for Indigenous tenants.

TASA Conference 2014: Postgraduate Scholarship

Melissa-Jane Belle

University of Tasmania

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was thrilled to be a recipient of a TASA postgraduate scholarship in 2014 and am sincerely grateful to all involved in the award. Receiving the award enabled me to take up the amazing opportunities offered by the 2014 Annual Conference. Attending my second TASA conference allowed my engagement with the members of the Health thematic group and face-to-face meetings with researchers whose interests I share. This was an ideal forum for me to discuss my work and be encouraged by the ideas of individuals whose sociological minds I have admired since I was an undergraduate. The sincere and generous interest shown in my current project and career aspirations was nothing short of inspirational. The intellect and passion of speakers on a variety of topics across the keynote addresses, plenary sessions and concurrent presentations greatly stimulated my thinking, and I was also able to participate in Health Day on 28 November. The scholarship was awarded for my paper ‘Temporal boundary work: professional identity construction of critical care nurses in Tasmania’ which draws on data from a focused section of my PhD. The aim of the study is to explore how critical care nurses construct professional identity in their everyday practice. This is in response to a relation between lack of clear professional identity, worker dissatisfaction, reduced work performance and staff retention rates amid the current nursing staffing ‘crisis’, and my own personal interest as a one-time practising nurse. My paper innovatively draws on the concept of temporal rhythms to explain the influence of the temporal dimensions of shift work on critical care nurses’ professional identity construction. The paper was well received by members whose interests lie in the sociology of professions, particularly in the provision of health services, and I was grateful for their positive feedback and suggested theoretical direction. My participation at TASA 2014 and Health Day was a rewarding experience not only for these reasons, but also for the welcoming attitude extended to me by members of the TASA Executive and Health Thematic Group convenors. This attitude contributed to my increased confidence as a researcher and was invaluable to extending my professional network. Once again I thank TASA because my 2014 Conference experience was only made possible by its recognition of my work and the awarding of this scholarship.

TASA Conference 2014: Postgraduate Scholarship Joy Townsend

University of New South Wales

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was so happy when I found out I’d been offered a scholarship to attend TASA 2014 in Adelaide. I would like to thank TASA and the 2014 TASA conference team for the great opportunities my time in Adelaide provided. This was my first sociology conference and for a student like myself who works mostly from home, off campus, it was a fantastic opportunity to meet and network with other postgraduate students, and to also join in conversations with academics much further along the research journey than myself.


The paper for which I was awarded the scholarship was titled ‘Young women’s stories of pornography, sexual learning and sexual subjectivity formation’. It drew on qualitative research I had conducted in my Honours year with young women whose partners consume pornography. The paper tells the stories of two young women and the very different ways they experience, understand and respond to their partners’ pornography consumption. Two key questions are raised: Is pornography a reference point for young people’s informal sexual learning? How does pornography influence these young women’s sexual subjectivities? It concludes with a discussion of the simultaneous value and danger of pornography as a resource for informal sexuality education and sexual subjectivity formation. Presenting that paper at TASA 2014 was the most confident I have felt when presenting my work. In my stream (Families Relationships and Gender B) I could really hear for the first time how the ‘voice’ of my research differed to others presenting on young women’s sexuality and/or pornography. This was a real confidence booster and it provided me with further clarity regarding the direction of my PhD project. I also received some helpful feedback, including a great reference to help me unpack and theorise objectification. Other conference highlights for me included Lia Bryant’s Postgraduate Day session on memory work, and Professor Sylvia Walby’s keynote address was a demonstration of sheer intellectual brilliance. The plenary session ‘Multicultural Queer’ was my most favourite session of all. It was inspiring to hear the first hand stories of young, multicultural queer Australians who have faced significant barriers to come out, and the work they are now doing through the Australian GLBTIQ Multicultural Council to help others who find themselves in the same isolated situations they were once in.

For Mousumi with best wishes for future South–South cooperation in the realm of knowledge. Raewyn Connell

TASA Conference 2014: Postgraduate Scholarship Mousumi Mukherjee University of Melbourne

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uring a conversation at the 2013 TASA conference dinner about my research related work, Raewyn Connell wrote the above note on her book – Southern Theory: the global dynamics of knowledge in social sciences. It was the highlight of my first TASA conference experience. I had already met and heard Connell speak at the University of Melbourne few months prior to the 2013 TASA conference. Listening to Connell and meeting her again at TASA was an intellectually illuminating moment. My PhD research supervisor, Prof. Fazal Rizvi, suggested that I should participate in the 2013 TASA conference held at Monash University in Melbourne. My co-supervisor, Prof. Julie McLeod, suggested I should read Southern Theory, because I was swimming in the middle of a large pool of ethnographic data gathered from a globally networked old school in India, built during British colonial times. Just as ‘inclusive education’ appeared as the main theme out of the data, Rabindranath Tagore’s name and work also surfaced. His work appeared in historical archival sources on the school’s work. There were references to Tagore also in several interviews with retired school Principals, teachers, students, parents and ethnographic encounters in the field during cultural events organised by the students. However, Tagore is known more as a poet than a theorist of education. Tagore’s work for education reform during the early 20th century is common knowledge among those who live in the region, but his educational experiments and relational humanist philosophy remained outside the mainstream education system even after Independence. Engaging with Tagore theoretically for data analysis, along with established Northern theorists, was a risky intellectual proposition. Will the academy accept such a work? This question dominated my mind, even though multiple scholars from diverse disciplinary backgrounds have been engaging with Tagore recently, not in an orientalist way as a mystic poet of the East, but as an organic intellectual and education reformer. Reading Raewyn Connell’s work along with that of Argentine semiotician, Walter Mignolo, gave me the necessary intellectual resources to engage theoretically with Tagore’s humanist philosophy of education and the relational model of schooling he established during colonial India. It was useful for both analytic and hermeneutic engagement with data gathered from the field. Now I am at the final stages of working on my thesis for submission. I convey my gratitude to the TASA Conference organising committee for the generous scholarship and the wonderful opportunity to share my work with the TASA community during the 2014 annual conference at the University of South Australia in Adelaide. I am also deeply grateful to my research supervisors at the University of Melbourne for their mentoring and encouragement to explore non-dominant alternative epistemology and ‘philosophy of context’ (Peters

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2012). It has been intellectually a very enriching experience to engage with the TASA community. I would strongly encourage other students to participate in TASA annual conferences and to apply for a postgraduate scholarship.

TASA Conference 2014: Postgraduate Scholarship

The capital of beauty at work: Russian women’s negotiation of unspoken rules

Maria Davidenko La Trobe University

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s a postgraduate student who was no longer on scholarship but still contemplating the next step after PhD, I really appreciated the opportunity to receive financial support to attend the TASA conference. It was my first time at TASA because throughout my candidature I tried to go to conferences in Europe because of the regional focus of my study (Russia). I appreciated the scope of topics covered by the presenters, from roller derby to breakups in non-heterosexual families in Australia to population control policies in India. Another feature of the conference that appealed to me is that sociologists at different stages in their careers and in various sectors (academia and beyond) could mingle, discussing presentations they had heard, their own research or the prospects of future collaborations. I would definitely recommend any young research to apply for the scholarship, particularly when coming close to the end of the candidature because it is hard then to secure any travel/conference grants from universities. The application process is not overly complicated but it does push you to formulate your ideas earlier and prepare a full draft of the paper, which I found a great motivator. The need to submit a short statement detailing the benefits I expected to gain from attendance encouraged me to think more strategically about the purpose of conference attendance and about a journal to which the paper I presented could be submitted.

TASA Conference 2014: Accessibility Scholarship

Catherine Kowalski Deakin University

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am extremely grateful to have been awarded an accessibility scholarship for the TASA 2014 Conference. As most academics know, postgraduate students face many challenges throughout the duration of their candidature, which can often be difficult to navigate. These challenges are often compounded for people living with disability. The accessibility scholarship enabled me to attend the TASA 2014 conference in Adelaide so that I could present and discuss my PhD thesis among my peers and colleagues. This was invaluable because discussing my topic with other interested people was empowering and gave me more confidence in my abilities as a PhD candidate and as a researcher. In discussions with others, I also realised the importance of my research and the ways it fits into the realm of sociology, and the broader implications of real-world application of my research. Throughout TASA 2014 I was able to engage with other academics whose research was both exciting and innovative. As a PhD candidate it was inspiring to learn about the different areas of current research and the different methodologies used to collect, collate and disseminate data. Attending the Postgraduate Day was a great opportunity to meet other students and industry professionals, who gave us some excellent advice and tips to build and enhance our professional skills, particularly in terms of publication. During Postgraduate Day I was also lucky enough to win a ticket to the TASA 2014 conference dinner, which was a lovely occasion to socialise with many of the wonderful people I had met over the course of the conference. My heartfelt thanks goes to TASA for this opportunity to attend the 2014 conference in Adelaide, as well as to the person who kindly donated their dinner ticket to raffle amongst the postgraduates. It was such a fantastic experience. I look forward to attending TASA 2015 in Cairns.


Tweeting at Conferences: #TASA2015 Brady Robards, University of Tasmania Tim Graham, University of Queensland

T he 2014 Conference saw our busiest Twitter ‘backchannel’ ever. We had 132 accounts contributing 1417 tweets to our combined conference hashtag, #TASA2014. Tweets ranged from summaries of and responses to what was being said in papers, plenaries and keynotes, through to meta commentary on the broader conference, as delegates tweeted about heading to and arriving in Adelaide, played ‘conference bingo’ during the conference, and carried on discussions after the conference had ended. There were even tweets from people not present at the conference, asking questions for more information and expressing their wishes to be physically present. The total ‘reach’ of #TASA2014 tweets was approximately 96,000 people (i.e. the number of followers of user accounts who were involved in the ‘backchannel’).

Figure 1: ‘Wordcloud’ generated from the #TASA2014 tweets

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What went on in the backchannel? With all the TASA2014 activity on Twitter, we decided it would be interesting to do some data mining. Over breakfast at the hotel, Tim mined the Twitter feed for any tweets mentioning #TASA2014. With the resulting data, he was able to apply computational methods to generate visualisations and extract hidden patterns and insights. The first step involved extracting keywords from the tweets and generating a ‘wordcloud’ to get a general ‘feel’ for the overall text (see Figure 1). As you can see, the topic of conversation on the Twitter backchannel was focused around those key areas of our discipline like gender, class, race, work, and education. The keynote speakers also feature prominently. The prominence of words like child, birth, austerity, violence, cancer, Facebook, and digital, give us a sense of the kind of things people

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Tim Graham

were tweeting about and thus the kinds of things being spoken about during the conference. The wordcloud was well received and requests started coming through to see some network analysis of the data. Using Social Network Analysis methods, Tim constructed a retweet network from the data, revealing the ‘who’s who’ of the backchannel (Figure 2). In this network, nodes (circles) represent users, and edges (lines) indicate whether one or both of the users have ‘retweeted’ each other using the #TASA2014 hashtag. Aside from its aesthetic charm, this visualisation also provided interesting insights into the networked sociality of the Twitter backchannel. An interesting outcome was the performative effect this had on the backchannel activity. The volume of #TASA2014 tweets spiked sharply that morning, and subsequent keyword analysis began to reflect the fact that people were often talking about the analysis itself! This seemed to open the door to an interesting sociological inquiry.

Figure 2: Retweet network of #TASA2014 activity


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What does it add? Tweeting at conferences can add a new layer to the conference experience. First and foremost, Twitter allows conversations to operate alongside and in conjunction with the conversations taking place in person. For example, presenters can tweet links to full papers or other articles that further develop what they are saying in their spoken papers (for the advanced users, even scheduling tweets to be sent out while they are speaking!) and the audience can ask questions or raise points that they do not have time to do within the confines of question time. Second, conference tweeting allows a whole other audience of people who are not able to attend the conference to join in. They might not get the full experience of being at a conference, listening to papers, and participating in all the social events that go on in the conference margins, but they can get the gist of things and make connections that may have otherwise been unavailable to them. Travel, accommodation, and registration can often represent serious barriers to participation for many: sociologists without (or


with little) institutional support, PhD students, or even those who do not classify themselves as sociologists (and there were quite a few at our last conference!) but who are nonetheless interested in peeking into the world of TASA. It may be that observing an ‘active backchannel’ that is filled with interesting conversations and topics actually encourages people along to the next conference. Third, beyond all the serious dimensions that we’ve covered above, Twitter can also just be a bit fun. There is pleasure to be had in idle banter and swapping jokes, and Twitter is useful for that too. What challenges does it present? One of the critiques regularly mounted against using Twitter during conferences is that it can be disruptive, both for the audience and the speaker. The good news is that if you feel Twitter is disruptive as a user, it can be easily silenced or managed by switching off notifications on the device you use to Tweet (smartphone, tablet, laptop) or only using it outside sessions. From the speaker’s perspective, looking out at an audience to see people present glancing at their devices may also be disconcerting, but we want to create a convention whereby this does not imply disengagement. Instead, it can bring a new kind of engagement beyond listening and taking notes. Those audience members may be sharing your research with hundreds of interested followers. Indeed, 23 users who took part in #TASA2014 had a follower count of over 1000, with one user having over 13,000 followers. The second issue is the persistent and searchable nature of Twitter. What you say on Twitter can hang around, be shared to wider audiences, but also taken out of context. You can set your account to private in order to control who sees your tweets, but the accounts that contributed to our #TASA2014 backchannel are public – tweets from private accounts do not show up in the backchannel. This is good for fostering a wider conversation, but it is also important to remember the persistent, searchable, and visible nature of the medium. Conclusion As we move further into the ‘digital age’, sociology needs to continue to be involved in discussing, critiquing, and better understanding the role technology plays in our lives. Over the past few years, a consideration of ‘the digital’ has clearly emerged in many of the streams at the annual TASA conference. This has been especially pronounced in the cultural sociology stream that has started to dedicate full sessions to digital sociology, but increasingly the digital must be considered in all areas of our discipline. Beyond the scholarly attention we pay to the digital, reflecting on the digital dimensions of our own practice is also crucial, which is why we put this short piece together to reflect on how Twitter was used at our 2014 conference. We hope that Twitter continues to grow and supplement our annual conferences. There are pros and cons to using Twitter, but at least in our experience, the value it adds far outstrips the negatives. See you at #TASA2015! Brady Robards is a Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Tasmania, researching how young people use and thus produce the social web. Brady is also the Multimedia Portfolio Leader on the TASA Executive for 2015–2016. You can find Brady on Twitter: @bradyjay


Brady Robards


Twitlonger Twitlonger allows users to submit tweets longer than the allowed 140 characters (Click here).

Twuffer Twuffer allows the Twitter user to compose a list of future tweets, and schedule their release (Click here).

Tweeting Tools

Tweeting Tips

Tim Graham is a PhD Candidate at the University of Queensland, researching how ‘choice’ is shaped on the web. You can find Tim on Twitter: @timothyjgraham

PRT: Please retweet RT: Retweet MT: Modified tweet MRT: Modified retweet

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F2F: Face-to-Face b/c: because b4: before

Some Tweeting Terminology • • • •

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Nicholas Hookway University of Tasmania

risin

g

Kristin Natalier Flinders University

Welcoming

Sharing

Theresa Petray James Cook University TASA2015 CoConvener

Theorising

Roberta Julian 2005-2006 TASA President

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Co

nnec tin

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Nick Osbaldiston James Cook University

Fun

Sharing

sing

g

nga g i n g

E

ori The

Welcoming

Farida Fozdar University of Western Australia

Sharon Roach-Anleu 1997-1998 TASA President

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tin Collabora

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Allegra Schermuly 2014 Honours Award Winner Monash University

Sha

Helen Forbes-Mewett Monash University

ring

Sha

n n e c tin

John Germov 2002-2004 TASA President

Fun ng orki Netw ing oris Collaborating The 2014 TASA Conference Fun

o The

Jo Lindsay 2013-2014 TASA President

Debra King 2011-2012 TASA President

Fun

ng

g

ring

Sha

Fun

Engaging

in oris The

Bruce Cohen Auckland University

ecti n Con

Brad West TASA2014 Convener University of South Australia

tive

Katie Hughes Current TASA President

ng

Net w o rki

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bora a Coll Net

wor kin

Jessica Terruhn Auckland University

Welcoming


Host the 2016 TASA Conference: Call for Expressions of Interest

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e are seeking expressions of interest for hosting the November 2016 TASA Conference.

The annual conference is a key event for sociologists to present their research and network with peers, attracting over 400 participants each year. Hosting the conference is an ideal opportunity for a university or department to showcase their achievements, and promote their strengths. Alternatively a collective of sociologists from universities in a particular city or region may wish to use the conference to highlight the benefits of sociology to a broader audience. TASA uses the services of a professional conference organiser to provide continuity in processes and assist in organising the administrative side of the conference. The intellectual input into the conference is provided by the Local Organising Committee, which will select the theme, invite guest speakers, determine the format and maintain overall responsibility for the success of the conference. The Local Organising Committee is also expected to appoint a media liaison who is responsible for engaging with the press about the conference generally and about specific papers which will be of interest to the public. In 2012, TASA introduced a reinvestment initiative in the form of a teaching release grant, to be made available to the hosting university in the 12 months preceding the Conference. This is a sum of up to $15,000 to relieve the Local Organising Committee from some of their usual teaching duties. This amount is to be repaid to TASA from the conference profits. Any remaining profits will be split evenly between the host university and TASA. Expressions of interest are due to the TASA office ([email protected]) on or before Friday 3rd July 2015. In preparing an expression of interest, please refer to TASA’s Conference Hosting Application Guidelines. For more information on hosting TASA’s 2016 Conference, including preliminary inquiries, please contact TASA Vice-president:

Dr Dan Woodman: email

www.tasa.org.au

TASA YouTube Channel: Click here