Scalpel slaves or cyborgs? : cosmetic surgery and embodied identity

This thesis explores individuals' experiences of cosmetic surgery in Melbourne. The research conducted with recipients of cosmetic surgery is a complex and ambiguous practice simultaneously encompassing pain and pleasure, agency and constraint, empowerment and conformity. By providing a more nuanced representation of people's experiences of such surgery, the thesis envisions a subjectivity that may better account for individuals' active and lived relationship to their bodies.

Scientific proof that humans enjoy punishing wrongdoers: The implications for punishment and sentencing

Recent developments in brain science confirm that as a race we are in fact a punitive lot. Human beings actually derive pleasure from inflicting punishment on wrongdoers. We are wired in such a way that the part of our brain that reports pleasure is activated when we punish norm violators. This is even when punishment has no tangible or demonstrable benefits. However, we are not slaves lo our emotions. Another region of our brain 'kicks-in' if punishment becomes self-defeating, in that it conflicts with our other interests. The implications of this research for punishment theory and the practice of sentencing are discussed in this paper. The findings give qualified support to the theory known as intrinsic retributivism, but do not suggest it is the soundest theory of punishment. This is because we stop punishing when it comes at a cost to us. The good feeling that punishment invokes in punishers is another consequential consideration in favour of the utilitarian theory of punishment. However, it is not clear that the utilitarian calculus is necessarily affected by the findings. The main implication of the research findings relates to the relevance of public opinion to sentencing practice. The findings support the view that public sentiment, which seems to support increasingly tougher sanctions, can be curtailed of the public are informed that punishment comes of a cost to community.

Dwelling in the landscape: from Blairgowrie House to Portsea Palace

Ackerman begins his book "The Villa" (1995) with these words: 'A villa is a building in the country designed for its owner's enjoyment and relaxation .... [it] accommodates a fantasy which is impervious to reality.' He concludes: , ... the country, in exacting confrontations with the immanent brute forces and sensuous enchantments of nature, prompts inspired responses.' Blairgowrie House - the villa in the landscape - was built in the 1870s and the 'Portsea Palace' - a personal club med resort - in the late 1990s. The notion of an inspired response and the concept of dwelling poetically are manifestly absent in the Portsea Palace. Why?

This paper explores architecture and landscape - particularly 'domestic' architecture and coastal landscapes in Victoria's Nepean Peninsula. It looks closely at what architects mean when they say their design reflects place, relates to site, is climate specific, is close to nature, responds to the landscape, and/or is sensitive to the environment. Exemplars from different centuries are examined in their philosophical contexts and frames of reference. The complexities of the notion of place and identity, belonging, and dwelling (in the Heideggerian sense) are examined to identify the shift that has occurred over time as science and technology have ostensibly freed 'modern man' from 'a direct dependence on places' (Norberg Schultz). The alienation and loss that has eventuated - for humans and for the environment - will be critically analysed and assessed.

Is the Genuine Progress Indicator really genuine? Considering well-being impacts of exports and imports

The Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) is estimated as if nations operate within a closed economy. Therefore, in terms of coverage, the GPI is most analogous to Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Indeed, within the relevant literature, these two indicators are most often contrasted. However, consideration should be given to adapting the GPI, so it has more in common with Gross National Income (GNI). As with GDP, the GPI is concerned only with a particular physical location. Yet, it may be more effective if the GPI was freed from these physical boundaries in a similar manner to GNI. The GPI should be concerned more with the 'ownership' of the costs and benefits associated with economic growth than with the 'location' of those costs and benefits. Those that derive the most benefit from exploitation of the environment are often physically removed from the location of that damage. The GPI does not consider the net consumers of the negative externalities of environmental costs, merely the producers. Currently, however, the structure of the GPI allows a nation to enjoy, without penalty, the benefits of importing goods from countries which bear a disproportionately large cost of environmental degradation. This results in an overstatement of the real progress experienced by the county importing 'dirty goods'. This paper will investigate how certain GPI adjustments may be adapted to overcome this present shortcoming. However, the purpose of this paper is not only to empirically implement this new approach, but also to stimulate debate as to its potential merit.

Author's intent and translation : some Runyankore culture-bound expressions

This thesis explores the movement of the author's intent in the process of translating expressions (originally oral) deemed to be culture-reflecting. The author's intent can be freed from the bondage thrust upon a text through particularities of culture, linguistics and genre in the process of translation. These elements constitute the toolkit used by the author to deliver his/her intent. A translation owes it's existance to the original text with it's intent and this element should be preserved through the translator's assumption of authorial powers.

Bloods, Crips and Southern Cross Soldiers: we are all gangbangers now!

This paper presents findings from the author's PhD thesis exploring violent youth subcultures in Australia. It addresses whether growing uncertainties around issues of cultural identity and belonging in an era of risk has produced more defensive models of DIY youth culture at a local scale. Theoretically, the author examines whether globalisation has unsettled normative youth subject positions associated with the nation-state, problematising conventional logics of youth cultural formation (i.e. which view questions of race and racism through a white/black, mainstream/subculture binary). As Beck (1992;1999) argues, the de-bounding influence of globalisation has led to an ambivalent set of relations where forms of youth identity have become freed from the nation-state and class based forms of community and must be self-organised. In particular, he argues that this has produced cosmopolitan subjects and social movements as well as ‘counter-modern’ subjects and cultures. This paper applies Beck’s theories alongside theories focused on global/local influences on youth culture to an ethnographic study of two violent youth subcultures in Australia, these being the white ‘patriotic’ youth formation which emerged in the Cronulla riots and youth gang formations in Melbourne’s western suburbs. In doing so the author examines the extent to which violent youth subcultures in Australia can be regarded as strategic responses intended to restore forms of collective cultural belonging at a local scale vis a vis ‘the global’ and its destabilizing influences.

Semantic shock: David Bowie!

David Bowie embodies certain identity positions that are alien, alternative, and transgressive via metaphor and alter-egos that render him essentially strange. This chapter argues that by using metaphor and metonym throughout his visual and sonic creations, David Bowie has been largely freed from the constraints of merely describing the world; his use of metaphor and metonym have afforded possible reevaluations of the world, in new ways, by breaking the association between language and things. His own sonic and visual assemblage have allowed fissures to be created; new and multiple meanings rendered possible and valid, with his work going beyond both the creator and viewing/listening-body. Using Sara Ahmed’s (2004) social philosophies of trauma and scarring, the chapter argues that what David Bowie’s work frequently does is ‘re-open wounds’ and reminds us of the scars; asking us to notice their existence, to become more aware, in the first instance. But then, offers a means to negotiate their healing.

The 'thin descriptions' of the secondary analyses of PISA

The heavy hammer methods of OECD and PISA in influencing policy through the rankings and through its policy advice are well documented. This speculative paper explores the more subtle and perhaps deeper implications of the development of the PISA database, and of the secondary analysis that is performed using this database. Speculating with concepts from Science and Technology Studies, this paper suggests that PISA deflates “ontologically luxuriant objects” into “ontologically impoverished objects” through standardization and simplification. Freed from their moorings and translated into inscriptions, these ontologically impoverished objects are promiscuous, freely combining with other such objects across spaces and times in different ways to produce lessons for policy and practice. In this paper, I suggest that, while these promiscuous relations may produce mathematically defensible assertions, such findings may be ontologically absurd. Using data from interviews with measurement and policy experts, as well as published secondary analyses, this paper ventures some speculative ideas about how we might understand the PISA database and the use of this database in secondary analysis. The paper argues that secondary analysis is not merely a mathematical or technical exercise but a sociotechnical one, and that, given its influence and reach, it attempts to open up the black boxes of the PISA database and the practices of secondary analysis, and make them available for wider sociological and philosophical examination and critique.