Statebuilding and governance: the conundrums of legitimacy and local ownership

The chapter explores the role of legitimacy in statebuilding. It first explores the concept of legitimacy and why it matters for successful statebuilding; it surveys how international statebilding efforts have tried to strengthen the legitimacy of post-conflict states; and examines the practices of local ownership in statebuilding, and how they relate to legitimation efforts.

Food geographies I: relational foodscapes and the busy-ness of being more-than-food

The study of foodscapes has spread throughout geography at the same time as food scholarship has spearheaded post-disciplinary research. This report argues that geographers have taken to post-disciplinarity to explore the ways that food is ‘more-than-food’ through analyses of the visceral nature of eating and politics and the vital (re)materializations of food’s cultural geographies. Visceral food geographies illuminate what I call the ‘contingent relationalities’ of food in the critical evaluation of the indeterminate, situated politics of ‘feeling food’ and those of the embodied collectivities of obesity. Questions remain, however, about how a visceral framework might be deployed for broader critiques within foodscapes and the study of human geography. The study of food’s vital materialisms opens up investigation into the practices of the ‘makings’ of meat, food waste and eating networks. Analysis of affect, embodiment and cultural practices is central to these theorizations and suggests consideration of the multiple materialisms of food, space and eating. There is, I contend, in the more radical, ‘post-relational’ approaches to food, the need for a note of caution. Exuberant claims for the ontological, vital agency of food should be tempered by, or at least run parallel to, critical questions of the real politik of political and practical agency in light of recent struggles over austerity, food poverty and food justice.

Climate justice and the international regime: before, during and after Paris

With a focus on key themes and debates, this article aims to illustrate and assess how the interaction between justice and politics has shaped the international regime and defined the nature of the international agreement that was signed in COP21 Paris. The work demonstrates that despite the rise of neo-conservatism and self-interested power politics, questions of global distributive justice remain a central aspect of the international politics of climate change. However, while it is relatively easy to demonstrate that international climate politics is not beyond the reach of moral contestations, the assessment of exactly how much impact justice has on climate policies and the broader normative structures of the climate governance regime remains a very difficult task. As the world digests the Paris Agreement, it is vital that the current state of justice issues within the international climate change regime is comprehensively understood by scholars of climate justice and by academics and practitioners, not least because how these intractable issues of justice are dealt with (or not) will be a crucial factor in determining the effectiveness of the emerging climate regime.

Pasolini and Third World hunger: an approach to Cinema Novo through 'La ricotta'

Among the links between Pier Paolo Pasolini and Brazilian Cinema Novo, one of the most inspiring is the political approach to hunger and consumption. In this text, I analyse this topic to look at how some of the aesthetic ideas in Pasolini’s La ricotta (1963) can also be found in some of the most important films of Cinema Novo. In 'La ricotta' (1963), the irresistible need to eat of a subproletarian interacts and clashes with his responsibilities as an actor in a movie version of the Passion of Christ, so that the film creates a complex network of relations between film shooting, social differences, art, hunger, consumption, time and light, which turns the film set into a space for displaying political relations, differences, exploitation and revolution. The correspondences between these concepts and some aggression techniques of Cinema Novo are numerous and confirm the capacity of Pasolini’s film to project ideas on cinema and politics beyond its particular production context.

Avoiding the subject media, culture and the object

"This is a collection of inter-related essays on the postmillennial mediascape. Focusing on the neglected significance of the object within today's discourse networks, Avoiding the Subject extends the formal possibilities of cultural criticism by highlighting feedback loops between philosophy, technology, and politics. Students and teachers of visual culture, critical theory, cultural studies, film theory, and new media will find a wealth of ideas and insights in this fresh approach to the electronic environment."--BOOK JACKET.

Making modern lives: subjectivity, schooling and social change

Making Modern Lives looks at how young people shape their lives as they move through their secondary school years and into the world beyond. It explores how they develop dispositions, attitudes, identities, and orientations in modern society. Based on an eight-year study consisting of more the 350 in-depth interviews with young Australians from diverse backgrounds, the book reveals the effects of schooling and of local school cultures on young people's choices, future plans, political values, friendships, and attitudes toward school, work, and sense of self. Making Modern Lives uncovers who young people are today, what type of identities and inequalities are being formed and reformed, and what processes and politics are at work in relation to gender, class, race, and the framing of vocational futures.

Cultural equality and its soft power against terrorism

This book is a collection of papers originally presented at a workshop entitled 'After Nine Eleven: Ethics in the Time of Terror' hosted by Monash University on 24 June 2005. The workshop participants included members of the Ethics of War and Peace (EWAP) working group which was inaugurated at the first Oceanic Conference on International Studies in July 2004. EWAP provides a cross-disciplinary forum for scholars and non-academic professionals to exchange and debate ideas on topics including the ethics of armed intervention, the Just War, pacifist ethics, international humanitarian law, ethics in the military profession, and the relationship between law, ethics and politics.

The chapters within this book examine themes including 'lesser evils' and 'dirty hands' in the fight against terrorism, the ethics of intelligence gathering, humanitarian intervention, terrorism and the North-South divide, cultural equality as a response to terrorism, human rights and counterterrorism legislation, and the ethics of defending against 'bioterrorism'. 

Contributors include Alex Bellamy and Richard Devetak (University of Queensland), Baogang He (Deakin University), Christopher Michaelsen (Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe), Jeremy Moses (University of Canterbury), Christian Enemark and Hugh Smith (University of New South Wales, Australian Defence Force Academy).

Social justice and the study and practice of leadership in education : a feminist history

This historical sociology deconstructs the interrelationship between the theory and practice of the troublesome notions of leadership, social justice and feminism. First, it tracks marginalised groups' relationship to the field of educational administration and their claims upon the state. Mainstream approaches have been informed by theories, practices and politics that do not focus on the core educational work of teaching and learning, therefore sidelining social justice issues. Second, it maps feminist and critical theorists' alternative conceptualisations, for example, of democratic leadership, which dissolve artificial binaries between formal and informal leadership. Finally, it considers what this means for re-theorising leadership for social justice.

Competition law and policy : cases and materials

This book evaluates Australian competition law including the economics and politics that lay at its heart. This fully revised second edition draws together a comprehensive collection of material providing an excellent and up-to-date guide to Australian competition law.

'Cum together' : spectatorship, presence and La Fura Baus' XXX

Based on the Marquis De Sade's novel, Philosophy in the Bedroom, XXX, a controversial work by the Spanish Performance group La Fura Dels, has divided critics and audiences in Europe and Australia. On the one hand, the performance has been chastised for its lack of intellectual coherence and tedium. On the other hand, it has been lauded as a piece of innovative theatre that addresses the audience's senses through a variety of theatrical and multi-media devices in order to challenge their preconceptions about the connections between sex and politics in contemporary culture. Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, Stephen Dunne asks "Why is this so desperately-naughty show so dull to watch?"

This paper challenges Dunne's assessment of the performance by examining the relationship between the performers and spectators in terms of what Susan Melrose calls theatre's specular and somatic economies in order to analyse the specific ways in which XXX simultaneously challenges and confounds traditional notions of theatrical spectatorship.

Strength of faith and body image in Muslim and non-Muslim women

A questionnaire was completed by 98 Muslim and 91 non-Muslim Australian  women to examine the relationship between Islam and body image. Path analyses revealed that for Muslim women (but not non-Muslim women) strength of religious faith was inversely related to body dissatisfaction, body self-objectification, and dietary restraint. These relationships were mediated by increased use of modest clothing and by reduced media consumption. These results are consistent with the proposition that adherence to Islam can indirectly protect women's body image from appearance-based public scrutiny and from exposure to Western media.

Muslim - Christian relations and the third crusade : medievalist imaginings

This article takes as its starting-point the responsiveness of children's literature to socio-political events, considering how contemporary anxieties about relationships between Muslim and Christian individuals and cultures inform three historical novels set in the period of the Third Crusade (1189-92): Karleen Bradford's Lionheart's Scribe (1999), K. M. Grant's Blood Red Horse (2004), and Elizabeth Laird's Crusade (2008). In these novels, encounters between young Christian and Muslim protagonists are represented through language and representational modes which owe a good deal to the habits of thought and expression which typify orientalist discourses in Western fiction. In effect, the novels produce two versions of medievalism: a Muslim medieval world which is irretrievably pre-modern, locked into rigid pracices and beliefs against which individuals are powerless; and a Christian medieval world which offers individuals the possibility of progressing to an enhanced state of personal fulfilment. The article argues that the narratives of all three novels incorporate particularly telling moments when Christian protagonists return to England, regretfully leaving Muslim friends. The impossibility of  enduring friendships between Muslims and Christians is based on the novels' assumptions about the incommensurability of cultures and religions; specifically, that there exists
an unbridgeable gulf between Islam and Christianity.

Technology adoption : voices of teaching academics, educational designers and students

This folio presents three studies (a dissertation and two electives) which use qualitative case study methodologies to investigate technology adoption from three perspectives. Central to all three studies is the study context of Monash University. The Dissertation explores adoption of web-based learning and teaching approaches from the perspective of teaching academics as they incorporate these to facilitate their students’ learning. The study investigates teaching academics’ reasons for adopting these new technologies, the factors that influenced their adoption decisions, and the challenges they were confronted with, including the contributing factors that impacted on their adoption decisions. The study shows that while contextual factors such as power and politics of the school, department, faculty and the institution impact on adoption, supportive organisational infrastructures and policy frameworks are necessary to encourage adoption, including wider adoption. In turn, on going staff development, adoption of new work practices and being adaptive to changing work environments are key demands made on teaching academics as a result of adopting web-based teaching approaches. Elective 1, a smaller study, leads on from the dissertation and examines the impact of technology adoption on the evolving role of educational designers. The study identifies the educational designers’ role change in assisting teaching academics to move from more conventional forms of teaching to more technology based learner-centred collaborative models. An important aspect of the study is the managers’ perspectives of this role in a university that has adopted a strong flexible learning and technology policy. The findings show that educational designers now work as project managers in larger teams consisting of a wider range of professionals, their expanded role in introducing technology into learning designs, providing staff development in the area, and giving technical help including advice on copyright and intellectual property issues. Elective 2 explores student readiness to adopt these technologies for learning. The study is designed to achieve an understanding of three broad categories of learners from a first year design unit: (1) South East Asian and East Asian students, (2) all other international students, and (3) local Australian students are studied to examine their readiness for modes of learning that are flexible; their approaches to study in a creative discipline area; and their openness to using technology. Findings of the study are discussed under the key themes – dependence on the teacher and classroom environment, flexible learning and working alone, structure, communication and work patterns. The study concludes by discussing the possible cultural attributes that have an impact on the learning. The three studies found that the institution, its people, structures and processes must all adapt, evolve and grow in order to provide effective, engaging, student-centred web-based learning environments. Students in turn must be enabled to manage their study, make use of the technologies and maximise their learning experience. The findings revealed the stage of technology use reached at Monash University at the time of the study through the voices of the teaching academics, educational designers and students.

Experiences of the stolen generation : laws and inequalities

Examines the inequalities of the Aboriginal Australian and politics, government, history, legal status and the effects of Aboriginal institutions in Western Australia. The researcher found that the destruction and disappearance of documents, files and records greatly impacted the thesis.