Critical Reflections on Feminist Criminologies

This chapter provides an overview of the substantial and often neglected contribution of feminist theory and research to critical criminology. There are an array of feminist approaches to studying crime, violence and victimisation ( see Naffine 1997:29; Young 1996:34. this field of study has bourgeoned and diversified so much over the last decade that it would be a disservice to caricature it as simply "feminist". A range of influences and approaches from literary theory, jurisprudence, legal studies, cultural studies, postmodernism, neo-liberalism, post-colonialism and neo-Marxism are apparen across this large disparate body of work.

Literacy and religion : the textual politics and practice of Seventh-day Adventism

This book explores the interrelation of literacy and religion as practiced by Western Christians in, first, historical contexts and, second, in one contemporary church setting. Using both a case study and a Foucauldian theoretical framework, the book provides a sustained analysis of the reciprocal discursive construction of literacy, religiosity and identity in one Seventh-day Adventist Church community of Northern Australia. Critical linguistic and discourse analytic theory is used to disclose processes of theological (church), familial (home) and educational (school) normalisation of community members into regulated ways of hearing and speaking, reading and writing, being and believing. Detailed analyses of spoken and written texts taken from institutional and local community settings show how textual religion is an exemplary technology of the self, a politics constituted by canonical texts, interpretive norms, textual practices, ritualised events and sociopolitical protocols that, ultimately, are turned in upon the self. The purpose of these analyses is to show how, across denominational difference in belief (tradition) and practice, particular versions of self and society are constructed through economies of truth from text, enabling and constraining what can and cannot be spoken and enacted by believers.

The politics of literacy in David Almond and Dave McKean’s "The Savage" (2008)

Competency in language and literacy are central to contemporary debates about education in Anglophone nations around the world. This paper suggests that such debates are informing not just educational policy but children’s literature itself as can be seen in Almond and McKean’s The Savage. This hybrid text combines prose and graphic narrative and narration in order to tell the story of Blue, a young British boy negotiating his identity in the aftermath of his father's death. While foregrounding a narrative of ideal masculinity, The Savage enacts and privileges a formal and thematic ideal of literacy as index of individual agency and development. Almond and McKean produce a politicised understanding of language and literacy that simultaneously positions The Savage in a textual tradition of socio-culturally disenfranchised youth, and intervenes in that tradition to (perhaps ironically) affirm the very conditions previously critiqued by that very tradition. Where earlier authors such as Barry Hines sought to challenge normative accounts of language and literacy in order to indict educational policy and praxes, Almond and McKean work to naturalise the very logics of education and agency by which their protagonist has been disenfranchised. In doing so, The Savage exemplifies current approaches to education which claim to value social and cultural diversity while imposing national standardised testing predicated on assumptions about the legitimacy of uniform standards and definitions of literacy.

We’ve had the Redfern Park Speech and The Apology: What’s next?

What really changed for Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people between Paul Keating’s Redfern Park Speech (Keating 1992) and Kevin Rudd’s Apology to the stolen generations (Rudd 2008)? What will change between the Apology and the next speech of an Australian Prime Minister? The two speeches were intricately linked, and they were both personal and political. But do they really signify change at the political level? This paper reflects my attempt to turn the gaze away from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and back to where the speeches originated: the Australian Labor Party (ALP). I question whether the changes foreshadowed in the two speeches – including changes by the Australian public and within Australian society – are evident in the internal mechanisms of the ALP. I also seek to understand why non-Indigenous women seem to have given in to the existing ways of the ALP instead of challenging the status quo which keeps Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples marginalised. I believe that, without a thorough examination and a change in the ALP’s practices, the domination and subjugation of Indigenous peoples will continue – within the Party, through the Australian political process and, therefore, through governments.

Gender equality in national politics : the views of Australian male politicians

Studies of gender and politics have typically been studies of women and politics. In contrast, this paper places men at the centre of its inquiry by drawing on interviews with 15 current federal male politicians. Of concern is exploring the ways in which men conceptualise the question of gender equity in the Australian parliament. Three frameworks are identified in the men's narratives. These are that the parliament is a masculinised space but that this is unavoidable; that the parliament is now feminised and women are advantaged; and that the parliament is gender neutral and gender is irrelevant. It is argued that collectively these framing devices operate to mask the many constraints which exist to marginalise women from political participation and undermine attempts to address women's political disadvantage as political participants. The paper concludes by highlighting the significance of the paper beyond the Australian context and calling for further research which names and critiques political men and their discourses on gender and parliamentary practices and processes.

The politics of 'dirt' in "Dirty Jobs"

Commercial television, particularly when associated with cable networks and global distribution, is often criticised for presenting us with a sanitised view of the world. This is particularly true when it comes to American programs which are targeted for their cliché Hollywood happy endings, idyllic families who lead overly materialistic lifestyles. This political denigration of TV is a complaint about how programs offer us an escape from the harsher, dirtier realities of life. But if we take the metaphor of dirt more seriously, it’s possible to find some interesting political meanings attached to its use on cable television. Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe is a reality-documentary style program about dirty, hazardous, strange or unconventional jobs. It uses the concept of dirt to address some significant taboos about class within America television culture.

Gender and political leadership : moving beyond stereotypes

This short paper suggests that the categories of ‘transformational’ and ‘transactional’ leadership styles ( see Burns 1972) may provide analytical purchase on the question of whether current women leaders have radically different styles and approaches to the earlier second wave feminist generation. The two cases chosen for this paper are the senior women in the Labor and Liberal Parties – Julia Gillard and Julie Bishop. The evidence – explored below – indicates there are strong transactional qualities to both women leaders.

The politics of media policy [Review]

"The Politics of Media Policy opens with a highly insightful analysis of how to do media policy studies in original and significant ways. Unfortunately, by anchoring its empirical analysis closely to a desire to expose the hidden machinations of neo-liberal ideology, it loses focus the more that it moves out of the dominant terrain of political economy in the study of media ownership. Des Freedman has pointed to important new directions in media policy studies, but has unfortunately only got half way to developing a new synthesis for understanding the relationship between policy institutions and broader ideas." -- from author's personal website

Pleasure Consuming Medicine : The Queer Politics of Drugs By Kane Race [Review]

The queer studies field works to deconstruct dominant western discourses which cast gay men as hedonistic partygoers. Concurrently it examines the real social ramifications for some gay men for whom partying, illegal drugs and casual sex is an everyday reality. Another reality of gay male culture is HIV/AIDS and the legal prescribed medicines which accompany these conditions. Pleasure Consuming Medicine: The Queer Politics of Drugs explores these realities and the discourses surrounding them. Exploring the embodiments of illegal and prescription drug users, this book problematises the binary between prescription medicine use, where drug use is configured as a matter of consumer choice, and 'illicit' drug use which is heavily policed and condemned. Returning to the gay community it reviews community approaches to safe sex and drug use, and individual practices, to demonstrate alternative approaches to condemning drug usage.

Pleasure Consuming Medicine : The Queer Politics of Drugs By Kane Race [Review]

The queer studies field works to deconstruct dominant western discourses which cast gay men as hedonistic partygoers. Concurrently it examines the real social ramifications for some gay men for whom partying, illegal drugs and casual sex is an everyday reality. Another reality of gay male culture is HIV/AIDS and the legal prescribed medicines which accompany these conditions. Pleasure Consuming Medicine: The Queer Politics of Drugs explores these realities and the discourses surrounding them. Exploring the embodiments of illegal and prescription drug users, this book problematises the binary between prescription medicine use, where drug use is configured as a matter of consumer choice, and 'illicit' drug use which is heavily policed and condemned. Returning to the gay community it reviews community approaches to safe sex and drug use, and individual practices, to demonstrate alternative approaches to condemning drug usage.