Cultural and place identity : a study in Melbourne's western suburbs

This research explored the effect of cultural identity on the character of neighbourhoods in Melbourne's western suburbs. The study revealed that migrant cultural identity is expressed in neighbourhoods with diverse cultural groups although it was found to be shaped by the dominant perception of suburban character.

Sociology of cancer in men and women : sexuality, identity and body changes

Prostate and breast cancers are a common group of gender specific diseases that affect men and women respectively. This study explores the impact of the cancer and the social processes involved in re-establishing the self in the aftermath of cancer. The study's premise is that the self is an embodied social agent and that the body is the medium where illness is expresses and experienced by the embodied self.

Not waving but drowning : case studies in work identity of new university academics

Eight case studies of academics at a new multi-campus, multi-state Catholic university form the basis of the research. A particular focus is examining how the academics struggle to construct their work identity against the global higher education background of changing government policies, reduced funding and major shifts in thinking about the functions of universities; and also the background of within-university changes: its new research-orientation, its particular form of corporate managerialist administration.

Identity and marginality among Slavic Baptists in Victoria

Analyses the ethnic and religious identity of an immigrant community in the light of Professor Hans Mol's social-scientific theory of religion. Argues that the Baptist religious beliefs facilitate the identification process of Slavic Baptists within the Australian host society.

Culture, identity, health : Australian South Sea Islanders in Mackay

This research concerns the descendants of 19th century Kanaka labourers. Through innovative methodology, it examines their culture, identity and health. It has contributed to the official recognition of Australian South Sea Islanders, with significant implications for policies and services provided by State and Federal Governments, especially in health care.

First-year law students’ construction of professional identity through writing

While there is a considerable body of research on law student identity construction based on interviews and transcripts of classroom talk, there is very little work based on student written texts. In this article two letters of advice written by beginning law students are analysed, using Ivanic and Camps’s (2001) framework, as an example of identity formation. Legal identity is argued to be formed by students’ attempts to accommodate a dynamic, partial, practitioner role of provider of advice to the traditional analytic focus of the law student. The process of accommodation is evident in the language of the letters, which show disfluencies resulting from attempts to combine different roles into a coherent legal identity. Comparison with a professionally written letter suggests that, rather than seeking to shape a coherent position, lawyers are able simultaneously to hold incompatible perspectives, concealing the tensions by foregrounding some perspectives and backgrounding others.

Professional identity in the global sports entertainment industry : regulating the body, mind and soul of Australian Football League footballers

In this article we discuss the ways in which the professional identity of Australian Football League (AFL) footballers — in a physical, high body contact sport — is shaped by concerns to develop different aspects of the body, mind and soul of the young men who want to become AFL footballers. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s later work on the care of the self we argue that narratives of identity necessarily involve a struggle for the body, mind and soul of these young men. Foucault’s work enables us to identify and analyse how relations of power, forms of regulation and arts of governing interact in ongoing attempts to develop the professional footballer. The article explores these issues via an analysis of the rationalities and techniques that inform talent identification and player management practices; and risk management in relation to these practices and processes in the AFL.

Catching gender-Identity production in flight : making the commonplace visible

The purpose of this article is to develop and illustrate an approach for making the commonplace visible in a natural, as opposed to manipulated, social setting. The key research task was to find a way of capturing the ongoing production or enactment of the self that provides some insight into the way in which it is produced in a routine, matter of fact way. The article takes a number of steps to develop a research approach to the task. First, gender-identity was selected as a more specific aspect of self-production. Second, the concept of “flashpoints” was used to refer to a particular moment in the routine which achieves some significance or salience as a result of the participants seizing upon some otherwise unremarkable action or statement and twisting it to their purpose. In this study, the purpose was gender-identity creation. Primary school children in the classroom and their teachers were the participants of the study. Through the use of flashpoints, the article demonstrates how gender-identity production of these children can be caught in flight. The article concludes that this approach can be added to the researcher’s toolkit.

Cross-cultural assumptions about perception and identity in western socio-legal frameworks

Socio-legal analysis has relied heavily on Mnookin and Kornhauser's "bargaining in the shadow of the law" and Galanter's "litigotiation" concepts. These concepts provide a framework for examining the relationship between formal legal rules and other normative sources in out-of-court activity. In this paper we explore the extent to which these frameworks' Western assumptions about individualism, conflict and the rule of law would require adaptation if they were to be used to examine such phenomena in Chinese culture or in Australian-Chinese negotiations. In particular, we focus on the "difference" between: i) China and Confucian culture; and ii) Western society in terms of the Confucian principles relating to hierarchy, harmony, collectivism and face. These principles have fundamental implications for Chinese perceptions of appropriate dispute resolution behaviour. Western researchers who omit consideration of these perceptions and neglect the defining characteristics of Chinese identity will emerge with flawed projects.

Putting theory into practice : moving from student identity to teacher identity

As teaching is a highly skilled and complex profession, pre-service teachers’ need to develop a series of attributes for their practice in relation to pedagogy, content, student learning, classroom management and their ability to engage in reflection. Through reflective narrative, this article seeks to share how a tertiary music educator prepares her generalist primary pre-service teachers to engage, explore and experience music education within the Bachelor of Education (Primary) course at Unnamed University. It also presents one pre-service teacher’s experience of teaching music during her school placements in 2009 in what she calls ‘putting theory into practice’ moving from student identity to teacher identity. Although the ‘hands-on’ approach to teaching and learning on-campus and when on school placement provide pre-service teachers with knowledge, skills and understanding, the continued support of professional learning is well recognised and will be an ongoing process as pre-service teachers create their own professional identity.

Ko Un and the poetics of postcolonial identity

Ko Un is one of South Korea's most important writers of the past 50 years, and a poet whose work provides important insights into crucial linkages between language, identity and community. He lived through, chronicled and critically engaged most of the traumatic events his nation faced during the last century: a brutal colonial occupation by Japan; the division of the peninsula into communist North and capitalist South; an unusually devastating fraternal war; the integration of the divided peninsula into global Cold War politics; periods of authoritarian rule on both sides; and the more recent challenge to promote reconciliation. Some of these episodes challenged the very existence of Korea as a people, nation and state. Ko Un's poetry was part of a larger effort to regain a sense of being and national identity in the face of turmoil, war and globalisation. We argue that by engaging with these highly political issues Ko Un's work provides important clues about how to articulate notions of identity and community in a way that empathetically portrays other people and their identities. In doing so he offers an alternative to the prevailing inside/outside logic that often leads to problematic forms of nationalism.