Kotla walks: performing locality

This film tells the story of the residents of Kotla Mubarakpur, an 'urban village' in South Delhi, focusing on the family of Sarita and Raman Bhardwaj, their friends and neighbours. The film tracks the imagination of the unofficial city forever in the process of breaking the topographic skin of the 'official' city of the Master Plan. It explores the ways in which the texture of urban spaces is woven into ideas of belonging, intimacy, friendship, ambition, and the desire to be 'here' but also somewhere else.

Beyond the kangaroo : an Australian studies reader for Chinese students

A selection of readings on contemporary issues in Australian society: on values, beliefs and customs.

Kurdungurlu got to drive Toyota : differential colonizing process among the Warlpiri

This thesis is based on fieldwork I carried out between December 1987 and June 1989 while living with the residents of a small Warlpiri Outstation Community situated ca. 75 km north-west of Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory of Australia. Colonialism is a process whereby incommensurate gender regimes impact differently on women and men and this is reflected in the indigenous response which affects the socialization of Western things. The notion of the indigenous KIRDA-KURDUNGURLU reciprocity is shown to be consistent with a gender system and to articulate all exchange relations as pro-creative social relationships. This contrasts with the Western capitalist system of production and social reproduction of gendered individuals in that it does not ascribe gender to biological differences between women and men but is derived from a land based social division between Sister-Brother. Social relationships are put under great strain in an effort to socialize Western things for Warlpiri internal use, I argue that the colonization of Aboriginal societies is an ongoing process. Despite the historical shift from a physical all-male frontier to the present day cross-cultural negotiations between Aborigines and Non-Aborigines, men still privilege men. The negotiation process for ownership of a Community Toyota is the most recent phenomenon where this can be observed. Male privilege is established by linking control over the access to the Community Toyota with traditional rights to land. However, the Toyota as Western object has a Western gender identity as well. By pitting women against men it engages people in social conflict which is brought into existence through an organisation of Western concepts based on an alien gender regime. But Western things, especially the Community Toyota, resist socialization because the Warlpiri do not produce these things. Warlpiri people know this and, to satisfy their need for Western things, they engage them in a process of social differentiation. By this process they can be seen actively to maintain the Western system in an effort to maintain themselves as Warlpiri and to secure the production of Western things. This investigation of the cultural response to Western influences shows that indigenous gender relations are only maintained through a socially stressful process of socializing Western things.

Clichéd gaze of the migrant on the Australian screen

The thesis takes up the question of the representation of the migrant on the Australian screen in terms of a specific set of concerns around the notions of stereotype and self-reflexivity. The stereotype is read as a self-referential image: hence, as a question of film spectatorship and identity; in short as an unconscious reflex or self image. The text of the thesis is in two parts: part one, comprises the production of the film ‘Italians at home’. It is the major component of research and text which, for this purpose, has been copied and submitted hereto on VHS video cassette. Part two, includes an analysis and discussion of the television documentary ‘The migrant experience’, and an exegesis, of the production, narrative and reception of the film ‘Italians at home’. The migrant experience is read and discussed as an exemplary text of dominant, stereotyped discourse of cultural difference; while ‘Italians at home’ is proposed as a parallel text and a self-reflexive reading and criticism of such a text. Both the television documentary and the film, deal with the representation and problematic of homogenised representations of ethnicity. In the case of ‘The migrant experience’, it is argued, that the figure of the migrant as other and self-image, functions as an object of Australian culture and discourse of national identity within a logic of representation of binary structures; while the film ‘Italians at home’, the question of self-referentiality is seen in terms of the viewing subject and a problematic of film representation; thus, the film attempts to make such signifying structures, visual codes and agreed assumptions of otherness visible, while, at the same time, attempting to displace them or pose them as a problem of representation or reading for the viewer.

Serving the community : a biography of two primary teachers in rural Victoria 1922-1970

This biographical history investigates the formative influences, motivations and professional lives of wife and husband Ellen Cahalane Jennings (nee Murray) and Joseph Kevin Jennings in the context of their career as employees of the Victorian Education Department.

Harajuku : urban stage-set Q & A

Harajuku is arguably one of the most exciting and vibrant fashion precincts of Tokyo. Through a series of questions and answers, Harajuku Urban Stage-Set captures the urban character of the precinct and the complexity of that unique place

Diary of a Maasai Village: The Prophet's Village. Part 1

The Prophet's Village examines the problem of maintaining enough cattle to supply milk and meat versus selling off cattle to raise money for maize, antibiotics and pesticides; cash is also needed to pay for legal fees for Rerenko, the Laibon's son.

The cathedral

In Port Louis, Mauritius, a young woman in search of her identity interacts with friends and family in a carefree manner until a stranger, a photographer, sees her dancing in front of the cathedral.