Women's path-finding; recovery from substance use : a critical feminist study

Seven women shared recovery experiences from substance use: What adversely affected their lives as well as that which provided strength, resilience and openness to health and wellness. Academically this study exemplified emancipatory nursing practice: A grassroots relational approach promoting women’s health through awareness, self-discovery and ongoing engagement with the community.

Animals as disregarded pawns in family violence : exclusionary practices of feminist based refuge policies

Commonly agreed upon is the relationship between family violenceand violence toward nonhuman animals. Workers in the field of family violence also acknowledge that women may delay leaving a violent home due to loyalty to their nonhuman counterparts, and because refuge policies often do not allow them to accompany humans into safe shelter. The recent work of Clifton Flynn has indicated the relationship between nonhuman animals and human animals to be one of responsive interaction, with theoretical analyses most often based upon Goffman’s theory of symbolic interaction. Despite literature indicating the level of harm inflicted upon nonhuman family members in violent homes, and requests from women and children that they accompany them to safe shelter, refuge policies often negate the possibility of this occurring. This article critiques the feminist ideals on which refuge policies are based, and in doing so, argues that justice is denied to nonhuman animals. Their existence in the violent home is maintained by lack of choices available to their human counterpart, and is enforced by feminist ideals, which are ironically based upon equity. Unless feminist principles are challenged, nonhuman family members will continue to be denied justice in violent families where escape is the only option to ensure safety.

Constructions of education and resistance within popular feminist commentary on girls and sexualisation

We are currently witnessing a renewed vigour to ongoing concerns about the sexualisation of young women and girls in western popular culture. This paper takes up Angela McRobbie’s concerns that the commercial sphere has become a primary site for talking about, and educating, girls and young women (McRobbie, 2008). I first explore the growth in ‘expert’ commentary, on girls and sexualisation, drawing on the work of a number of commentators and authors from the USA, the UK and Australia, who have become ubiquitous media commentators on issues facing girls, including sexualisation. I then draw on feminist and education theory to explore the possible limitations of how education is conceived within this cultural site, particularly with respect to constructions of girls’ resistance. In the final part of the paper I show how girls’ resistance is complicated in postfeminist, neoliberal societies and I propose that education scholarship and practice must confront the ways in which girls’ resistance is bound up in their developing classed and raced identities.

Philosophy and the view from above in Alejandro's Amenabar's agora

 This paper examines the depiction of neoplatonic philosopher, geometer and astronomer Hypatia in Alejandro Amenabar's 2010 fil Agora.  The paper uses Pierre Hadot's work, and his arguments that ancient philosophy was conceived as a way of life, aiming at the ideal existence of the sage, and characterised by spiritual exercises.  The paper argues that Amenabar's film employs the technique of the view from above, one such spiritual exercise, wherein the agent relooks at his or life sub spaecie aeternitatis or 'from above', to frame Hypatia's life and death, and the end of the pagan epoch in Alexandria.

Philosophy has consequences! Developing metacognition and active learning in the ethics classroom

The importance of enchancing metacognition and encouraging active learning in philosophy teaching has been increasingly recognised in recent years. Yet traditional teaching methods have not always centralised helping students to become reflectively and critically aware of the quality and consistency of their own thinking. This is particularly relevant when teaching moral philosophy, where apparently inconsistent intuitions and responses are common. In this paper I discuss the theoretical basis of the relevance of metacognition and active learning for teaching moral philosophy. Applying recent discussions of metacognition, intuition conflicts and survey-based teaching techniques, I then outline a strategy for encouraging metacognitive awareness of tensions in students’ pretheoretical beliefs, and developing a critical self-awareness of their development as moral thinkers.

Feminist geography 30 years on : they came, they saw but did they conquer?

Feminist geography emerged in Australia in the 1980s, spurred on by the local Women’s Liberation Movement and inspired by the academic activism emanating from England, Canada and the United States. Producing critical evaluations of male-dominated geography departments, curriculum and journals, feminist geographers proceeded to stake claims in each of these spheres while also substantially revising the content of geographical research. There were significant interventions into urban, social, cultural and economic geography, in environmental discourses as well as into the gendered research process. Having arrived, identified and addressed these issues, the discipline was critiqued and transformed over the 1980s and 1990s. Crucial to the strength of this critique were key individuals, the Gender and Geography Group within the Institute of Australian Geographers and the role played by journals such as Geographical Research and the Australian Geographer in providing spaces for feminist work. However, as the new century dawned, the agenda changed and the anger and urgency dissipated as the broader and university contexts altered. It was a period of consolidation, as feminist insights and approaches were focused on key subject areas – such as the home, identity and sexuality – and became more mainstream. But is this work and the presence of women in the academy an indication of success or of co-option? This paper will trace these various shifts – from the arrival to the mainstreaming of feminist geography - and analyse what might be read as a retreat from feminist politics and practice within the discipline in Australia. I will conclude by re-stating the case to advance a new feminist agenda in the face of continuing gender inequality within the academy, in Australia and across the globe.

The continued importance of a feminist analysis: gendered inequalities visible through a critique of Howard government policy on domestic violence

This paper argues that feminist analyses remain crucial to any critical analysis of social policy. From the outset, it needs to be said that we are not suggesting that other critical analyses are less important, such as anti-racist analysis, for example (Dominelli 2002a, 2002b). We also acknowledge the significance of intersectionality theory which identifies the ways in which race and racism may compound gender inequality to shape experiences of oppression or privilege (Mullings & Schultz 2006; Weber 2006). Having said this, in this paper we argue that feminist analyses remain as important as ever, in challenging dominant patriarchal/capitalist discourse currently informing social policy in Australia.

As a counter discourse, feminism puts women’s experiences and the unequal relationships of patriarchy at the forefront of analysis, highlights gender inequalities entrenched in social institutions and policy, and draws attention to the organisation of society along gender specific lines and the inequalities resulting from the relegation of women to the private sphere (Dominelli 2002a).

Specifically, we will demonstrate that the Howard government’s policy responses to the issue of family violence have reflected a renewed attack on previous gains made by women, and exemplify a neo-liberal, neo-conservative approach to social policy that demands a critical feminist analysis. Given the recent federal election, it seems particularly timely to reassert the importance of a feminist analysis of social policy and to direct the attention of the new federal government towards reversing recent trends to de-politicise violence towards women.

Feminist genealogical methodologies

This paper describes the multi-methodological approach employed in a partial, situated, contingent and interpretive feminist political analysis of Catholic mothers and daughters. The study draws on a number of sources including transcripts of mother- daughter interviews, autobiographical anecdotes, photographs, music, icons of Catholicism and poetry. It is argued in this paper that a feminist multi-methodological approach is valuable to feminist research as it disrupts the linear and logocentric construct of traditional social science research. Moreover, a multi-methodological and multi-sourced approach opens up sites so that the mothers and daughters in this study could be positioned within specific histories and contexts, and provided with a space so that as women they could reconstruct themselves as self-referential subjects.

‘The project cannot be approved in its current form’: feminist visual research meets the human research ethics committee

This article reflects on a university human research ethics committee’s unease regarding a feminist visual pilot study within the field of education. The small exploratory study proposed to explore a migrant mother’s production of her son’s identity through her family photograph collection. The committee requested substantial changes to the research design which centred primarily on their concerns regarding risk of harm to pre-existing relationships, and also issues of anonymity and consent. I consider the combined liberal individualist, utilitarian and positivist biomedical basis for the ethics committee’s discomfort with the proposed research which was to involve members of my family. I draw on my experience of the review process to critique the human research ethics committee paradigm which constructs the ideal researcher as an objective and disinterested observer, hinges on a weighing of risks and benefits, and considers humans to be independent and equal. I demonstrate how the blanket application of these values acts to problematise some kinds of research, and how these values can be inappropriate, incompatible and even destructive when applied to research proposals that are exploratory, visual, and/or involve the researcher’s family members as participants.