Myths and absent signifiers in representations of Aboriginal identity in Australian cinema

This article examines how meaning is always articulated in the ideological and political structures of society. This becomes apparent when evidencing articulated Aboriginal representation in Australian cinema, which signifies a representation on screen expressive of the ideological and political structures of the historical time periods in which the films were produced. Meaning, which is the relationship between the signifier and its signified, includes both denotation and connotation. Specific connotators can load a sign with multiple meanings leading to a chain of connotations.  The connotations of Aboriginal identity in Australian filmic narratives are influenced by a chain of additional signified, those of: socio-cultural variables and dominant discourses. This article analyses these chains of connotations through an examination of myths and absent signifiers in filmic representations of Aboriginal identity. The films investigated are: Jedda (Charles Chauvel 1955), Walkabout (Nicolas Roeg 1971), Night Cries (Tracey Moffatt 1990) and Rabbit Proof Fence (Philip Noyce 2002).

Zonal banning and public order in urban Australia

In recent years, Australian governments of various ideological persuasions at local, state and territory and federal levels have introduced a range of zonal governing techniques to manage the flow of people in urban spaces. Zonal governance involves the identification and formal declaration of a specific urban geographic region to enable police and security personnel to deploy special powers and allied forms of surveillance technologies as a supplement to their conventional public order maintenance functions.

Despite the impetus towards open flows or movement within sovereign territories or larger territorial groupings, such as the European Union, considerable governmental effort has been directed towards the use of new forms of criminal law to re-territorialize urban space through new administrative, property law and regulatory measures. These low-level spatial demarcations introduce various supplementary police powers and discretionary procedures that enhance surveillance within a declared area to increase the level of contemporary urban security. Of particular concern is the legal right to ban or exclude “undesirable” individuals and groups from entering or using certain designated urban zones, to prevent antisocial or violent behavior usually associated with alcohol consumption.

To date, most discussion of the impact of banning and related surveillance measures focuses on illegal migration through ports of entry into sovereign nations and the commensurate burdens this creates for both citizens and non-citizens to authenticate their movements at national geographic borders. This logic is permeating more localized forms of regulation adopted by Australian local and mid-tier state and territory governments to control the movement of people in and out of major event sites and in the urban night-time economy.

A survey of recent reforms in the state of Victoria reveals how this new logic of mass-surveillance aims to promote greater levels of urban security while reshaping the conventional order maintenance functions of both the public and private police. This chapter describes these procedures and their impact in sanctioning the efficient screening of people to promote order in specific zones within the contemporary Australian urban environment, at the expense of more progressive and inclusive crime prevention initiatives. We focus on two exemplars of the intensification of surveillance through zonal governance techniques: ‘major events’ and ‘designated alcohol zones’.

Educational administration and the management of knowledge: 1980 revisited

This paper revisits the thesis of a 1980 paper that suggested a new approach to educational administration based upon the New Sociology of Education. In particular it updates answers to the six key questions asked by that paper: what counts as knowledge; how is what counts as knowledge organised; how is what counts as knowledge transmitted; how is access to what counts as knowledge determined; what are the processes of control; what ideological appeals justify the system. These questions were foundational in the development of a socially critical perspective and a cultural approach to educational leadership and administration.

Telling stories: my work as a literacy intervention teacher

This text is a “narrative inquiry” (Clandinin and Connelly, 2000) in which the author presents an account of her experiences as an English teacher working in an Australian public secondary school. The author explores the ways in which her beliefs as an English teacher conflicted with her role as a Literacy Co-ordinator/teacher and how — even though she may have consciously questioned and resisted performing certain ideological work, such as administering standardised tests and sorting students into remedial groups — there was still a sense in which government policies mediated her professional practice, transforming it into something with which she remained deeply at odds. The author's aim was not just to provide an empirical account of how students and teachers experienced these literacy initiatives, but to capture the dominant ideology that is shaping education at the current moment. This is done by examining the Victorian government school publication, Education Times, specifically to demonstrate how the rhetoric of this official publication shaped the author's professional practices and knowledge as an English teacher. Through this narrative the author interrogates taken-for-granted understandings about what counts as “knowledge” in an age of increasing accountability.

An integrated spiritual practice framework for use within social work

Social work continues to move towards the incorporation of spirituality within social work theory and practice, yet gaps remain at many levels. The current dearth of theorization of spirituality in social work has created a situation where individual social workers wishing to include spirituality in their practice are forced to rely on their own initiative and inventiveness, with no clear theoretical, practical, or ethical guidelines. This article presents the beginnings of an integrated spiritual practice framework which may help to address some of these concerns. This research scrutinized the proposed Integrated Spiritual Practice Framework (ISPF) through literature survey of three spiritual ideologies (Hinduism, Islam, and Buddhism) using the process of metatriangulation. The study found that each ideological perspective provided evidence and support for the structures and concepts of the ISPF. Through the analysis and theory building process, each ideology contributed greater understanding of components of the ISPF, resulting in a more sophisticated and developed framework for integrating spirituality within social work.

Thai cyber-actors : evidence of an Islamophobic effect

The long-standing Patani Muslim separatist resistance of Southern Thailand is not one that is well known, and its contemporaneous spill over onto the Internet even less so. The more radical Patani online propaganda is in fact symptomatic of the relocation of the struggle within the sphere of influence of global jihadism, distancing itself from the ethno-nationalism characteristic of a previous generation of fighters. New media propaganda, in particular Jihad 2.0, has opened a new sphere of influence to the Patani neojihadist movement, allowing the militants to expand their propaganda campaign to a wider audience, while reaching out to a younger Melayu public. While Jihad 2.0 has presented the resistance movement with new ways to diffuse its message, in a more innovative and appealing manner, it also has enabled it to engage with its audiences more interactively. Because the message is no longer linear, anyone can contribute to the dialectics of the struggle, which in fine results in the alteration and reshaping of its ideological discourse in unprecedented directions. Arguably the ‘glocalisation’ of Islamophobia within Thai culture has resulted in the alteration of the Thai cultural stereotype of the Muslim khaek ‘Other’, transforming the khaek into an evil violent Muslim, both in real and virtual worlds. This further leads to discriminatory attitudes and behaviours towards Muslims, which causes the hardening of the views of the online Patani community of support towards the Thais and possibly its radicalisation.

From colonialist to infidel : framing the enemy in Southern Thailand's 'cosmic war'

In the 1970s secessionists in Southern Thailand described the Thai state as "colonialist" constituted by "Siamese fascist officials"1 who had "illegally colonised Patani". The flavour of this discourse shows the importance of historical context in shaping the way resistance movements interpret their own struggles. In the case of the resistances groups in Southern Thailand, it reflects the influence of the wider international anti-colonial movement and its embrace of nationalism and socialism. Translating these concepts into a political agenda was complicated by the centrality of Islam in defining the grievances of the Patani Muslims. Islam was the reason they were considered marginal by wider Buddhist society and hence it was Islam that become a core identity marker and the fulcrum upon which the resistance movement grew. Merging the predominately secular themes of anti-colonialism with Islam was complex, and as a result for much of its existence the insurgency failed to define clearly an ideology beyond the general maxim of 'liberating the homeland' to create the Republic of Patani. By the onset of the twenty first century situation had changed and although the goal remained the same for many Thai Muslims it was based on firmer ontological ground. By defining itself in Islamist terms, the separatist movement managed to distance itself from the secular concepts that defined the Thai state ('nationalism') and which precluded support for its struggle from other states ('sovereignty'). The objective now is the creation of Al Fatoni Darussalam (Islamic Land of Patani) by "purging all Siamese infidels out of our territory to purify our religion and culture"2 (HRW, 2007: 45). In short, the shift in terminology indicates an ideological shift in the way the insurgents frame the conflict but also, more importantly, in their identification of the 'enemy'. 3 The 'liberation of the Republic' has now evolved into a 'struggle to liberate an Islamic Land'. From being a 'colonialist' and 'fascist' state, the Thai state has assumed the status of 'infidel'. The insurgents' embrace of Islamism as the organising principle of their resistance is progressively transforming the conflict into what Juergensmeyer has called a 'Cosmic War' (Juergensmeyer, 2003). This paper will further explore this ideological shift by analysing for the first time primary sources such as propaganda leaflets, interviews and insurgent interrogation reports that were collected during recent fieldwork in Southern Thailand between 2006 and 2008.

Southern Thailand : a cosmic war?

In the 1970s secessionists in Southern Thailand described the Thai state as "colonialist" constituted by "Siamese fascist officials"1 who had "illegally colonised Patani". The flavour of this discourse shows the importance of historical context in shaping the way resistance movements interpret their own struggles. In the case of the resistances groups in Southern Thailand, it reflects the influence of the wider international anti-colonial movement and its embrace of nationalism and socialism. Translating these concepts into a political agenda was complicated by the centrality of Islam in defining the grievances of the Patani Muslims. Islam was the reason they were considered marginal by wider Buddhist society and hence it was Islam that become a core identity marker and the fulcrum upon which the resistance movement grew. Merging the predominately secular themes of anti-colonialism with Islam was complex, and as a result for much of its existence the insurgency failed to define clearly an ideology beyond the general maxim of 'liberating the homeland' to create the Republic of Patani. By the onset of the twenty first century situation had changed and although the goal remained the same for many Thai Muslims it was based on firmer ontological ground. By defining itself in Islamist terms, the separatist movement managed to distance itself from the secular concepts that defined the Thai state ('nationalism') and which precluded support for its struggle from other states ('sovereignty'). The objective now is the creation of Al Fatoni Darussalam (Islamic Land of Patani) by "purging all Siamese infidels out of our territory to purify our religion and culture"2 (HRW, 2007: 45). In short, the shift in terminology indicates an ideological shift in the way the insurgents frame the conflict but also, more importantly, in their identification of the 'enemy'. 3 The 'liberation of the Republic' has now evolved into a 'struggle to liberate an Islamic Land'. From being a 'colonialist' and 'fascist' state, the Thai state has assumed the status of 'infidel'. The insurgents' embrace of Islamism as the organising principle of their resistance is progressively transforming the conflict into what Juergensmeyer has called a 'Cosmic War' (Juergensmeyer, 2003). This paper will further explore this ideological shift by analysing for the first time primary sources such as propaganda leaflets, interviews and insurgent interrogation reports that were collected during recent fieldwork in Southern Thailand between 2006 and 2008.

‘Neojihadism’ and YouTube : Patani militant propaganda dissemination and radicalization

This article examines the use of YouTube by the new generation of Patani 2. Muslim militants in their dissemination of propaganda and radical identity formation. These fighters have now brought their neojihadist war to the ‘Virtual’. Videos of Patani shuhada and Buddhist beheadings are regularly posted on YouTube, with the aim of legitimizing their ‘defensive jihad’. While most of the efforts in countering virtual terrorist radicalization have focused on jihadist websites, forums and blogs, very little attention has been paid to the relationship between the ‘YouTube effect’ and neojihadist violence. This article offers an analysis of the use of YouTube by the Patani Muslim insurgency in order to extract the ideological themes which enable us to understand the process of glocal neojihadist radicalization in southern Thailand.

Remaking asylum in post-war France, 1944−52

This article examines the steps by which asylum and the rights of refugees were remade in France after the Liberation. The legacy of the pre-1940 period, in which exclusive practices such as legislative prohibitions on refugees, expulsion and internment were the norm, resulted in the need, after the war, to restate and reaffirm republican prin- ciples. The article will examine the ideological assumptions that lay behind the postwar asylum debate, and address why it was necessary to place asylum so firmly within republican political culture

David Bowie: dancing with madness and proselytising the socio-political in art and life

A longstanding, successful and frequently controversial career spanning more than four decades establishes David Bowie as charged with individual agency. The notion of ‘agency’ here refers particularly to the ‘ability of people, individually and collectively to influence their own lives and the society in which they live’ (Germov and Poole, 2007: 7). That Bowie has influenced many lives is undeniable to his fans. He has long demonstrated an avid curiosity for the enduring patterns of social life which is reflected in his art. Bowie’s opus contains the elements of ideological narratives around sexual (mis)adventure, expressivity, and; resistance to ‘normative’ behaviour. He requisitions his audiences, through frequently indirect lyrics and images, to critically question sanity, identity and essentially what it means to be ‘us’ and why we are here. Here, in this context, ‘dancing with madness’ assumes an intimate relationship, even if brief, where ideas and emotions come passionately together for the purpose of creative expression much like the intertwining and energetic performance of the partner dance Tango. As such, ‘dancing’ is argued here to be an appropriate descriptor for how Bowie has engaged with creative cultural forms but not meant to be self-conscious nor indicate superficiality or ignorance. The idea of madness for its part is a theme in many of his compositions, for example the original album cover for The Man Who Sold the World (1971)  depicts an asylum and includes the song ‘All The Madmen’ and Aladdin Sane (1973)—a lad insane--are but two examples. This paper argues that Bowie’s frequently astute contemplations, manifest through his art over a period now spanning more than forty years, continues to draw fans of like mind to his work with the result that he has a legitimate claim to influence and affect.

Financialisation of official development assistance

Official Development Assistance is a significant global enterprise. Organsiations engaged in funding and implementing ODA (the bilateral donors, multilateral organsiations such as the World Bank and IMF) have unprecedented political and economic influence over a large number of sovereign developing countries. This paper analyses if, and how financialisation impacts on development aid, and implications for effective aid policy agendas, drawing on and linking critical debate on finacialisation, and ODA. Subsequent to the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and the persistence of the European Monitory Crisis (EMC), specific needs of developing countries became increasingly sub-ordinated to political and ideological power relations between ‘real’ economics and financial economics otherwise known as financialisation. The paper finds ‘financialisation’ as the ideological, political and economic catalyst for economic growth potentially confusing long-term development to combat poverty, and a short term need to overcome the lack of financial capacity in developing recipient countries. Sustainable economic development requires developing countries to forsake the pursuit of financialisation and to re-delineate their national finance, trade and investment regimes, and re-state it in a balanced manner as to take into account their unique economic development needs rather that the donor agencies’ demands and to advance their own ‘real’ economies.

After Charlie: free speech and the political economy of communication

Three significant events at the start of 2015 have put freedom of speech firmly on the global agenda. The first was the carry-over from the December 2014 illegal entry to the Sony Corporation’s file servers by anonymous hackers, believed to be linked to the North Korean regime. The second was the horrible attack on journalists, editors, and cartoonists at the French satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo on 7 January. The third was the election of leftwing anti-austerity party Syrzia in Greece on 25 January.While each event is different in scope and size, they are important to scholars of the political economy of communication because they all speak to ongoing debates about freedom of expression, freedom of speech and freedom of the press. I name each of these concepts separately because, despite popular confusion, they are not the same thing (Patching and Hirst, 2014) . Freedom of expression is the right to individual self-expression through any means; it is an inalienable human right. Freedom of speech refers to the right (and the physical ability) to utter political speech, to say what others wish to repress and to demand a voice with which to express a range of social and political thoughts. Freedom of the press is a very particular version of freedom of expression that is intimately bound with the political economy of speech and of the printing press. Freedom of the press is impossible without the press and, despite its theoretical availability to all of us, this principle is impossible to articulate without the material means (usually money) to actually deploy a printing press (or the electronic means of broadcasting and publishing).Freedom of expression is immutable; freedom of speech subject to legal, ethical and ideological restriction (for better, or worse) and freedom of the press is peculiar to bourgeois society in that it entails the freedom to own and operate a press, not the right to say or publish on a level playing field. Access to freedom of the press is determined in the marketplace and is subject to the unequal power relationships that such determination implies.It is fitting to start with the Charlie Hebdo massacre because the loss of 17 lives makes this the most chilling of the three events and demands that it be given prominence in any analysis. No lives have been lost yet because Sony’s computers were hacked and the election of Syriza has not (yet) led to mass deaths in Greece.

Iran and the Shanghai cooperation organization : ideology and realpolitik in Iranian foreign policy

The Islamic Republic of Iran has pursued full membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). In doing so, Iran has appeared to be unfazed by the prospect of allying with Russia and China, two countries which have systematically suppressed their Muslim minorities for decades. Similarly, the SCO's Central Asian member states are led by individual leaders who are generally believed to rule in spite of their populations. As a result, Iran's eagerness to join the SCO may appear to contradict its self-promoted image as the champion of Muslim interests, but in reality it sits nicely within its overarching enmity for the USA. Indeed, the SCO is seen as a geopolitical counterweight to the USA. For Iran, this geopolitical opportunity overrides ideological imperatives, with the gap between ideology and geopolitics most evident under the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

North Korean human rights and the international community: responding to the UN Commission of Inquiry

Of all the difficult conversations to have with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) regime, the one over human rights has proven the most troubling for the international community. Once human rights issues are placed on the table, diplomatic efforts become quickly de-railed. Because of this, and because issues such as non-proliferation are seen as more pressing than human rights, there has been a conspicuous absence of any official, systematic response to the question of human rights violations in North Korea. Of course, most human rights campaigns experience some amount of politicisation. This is unsurprising, given the deeply political nature of the very concept of human rights. The North Korean human rights issue, however, suffers from this phenomenon more than most, tied up as it is with wider ideological battles that hark back to the circumstances of the division of the Korean peninsula. In this context, the 2014 report delivered by the United Nations (UN) Commission of Inquiry (COI) into North Korean human rights represents an effort to move above and beyond the politicisation of the issue and was largely successful in this regard.