This thesis examines the question of the extent to which theories of citizenship, especially as developed in political liberalism, help to formulate an understanding of cultural diversity in relation to political stability and justice. Taking the recent debates over liberal and communitarian political philosophy as the object of inquiry, it explores the social and political character of multiculturalism and indigenous rights movements in Australia’s political culture. The principal aim is to establish that political liberalism provides appropriate political and ethical norms for adjudicating multicultural and indigenous rights claims. Thus, the exposition is twofold: first the thesis explores the concepts of justice as fairness as expounded in Rawlsian political liberalism. Second it applies the Rawlsian perspective to analyse the implications of multiculturalism and indigenous politics for the Australian liberal state. Interpreted in the light of the problems of contemporary patterns of pluralism, Rawls’ theory demonstrates the necessity and desirability of applying justice as fairness to the ‘special rights’ challenges confronting Western liberal states, including Australia.

This study concerned a primary health care approach to trachoma control in two Central Australian Aboriginal communities. The World Health Organization (WHO) has advocated that the best method to control trachoma is the SAFE strategy (Surgery, Antibiotics, Facial hygiene, and Environmental improvements), and this approach was adopted. / The communities, Pipalyatjara and Mimili, with populations slightly less than 300 each, are located in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara (AP) lands of Central Australia, in the northwest corner of the South Australia territory. At Pipalyatjara, a full SAFE-type intervention was undertaken, with the ‘E’ component designed and implemented by the NHC (Nganampa Health Council Inc.). At Mimili, only a SAF-type of intervention was implemented. / Baseline data was gathered for 18 months from March 1999 through September 2000 (five visits to Pipalyatjara and four at Mimili), and included determining trachoma prevalence levels using the WHO system, facial cleanliness, and nasal discharge parameters. A trachoma health program was implemented at the end of this period and a one-time dose of azithromycin was given in September of 2000. The chief focus of the study was children under 15 years of age. / Improvements in road sealing, landscaping, and the creation of mounds were started to improve dust control. Concurrently, efforts were made in the houses of the residents to improve the nine healthy living practices, which were scored in two surveys, in March 1999 and August 2001. Trachoma prevalence, and levels of facial cleanliness and nasal discharge were determined at 3, 6, and 12 months following antibiotic administration. / In children less than 15 years of age, the pre-intervention prevalence level of TF (Trachoma Follicular) was 42% at Pipalyatjara, and 44% at Mimili. For the 1-9 year age group, the TF prevalence was 47% and 54% respectively. For TI (Trachoma Intense), the pre-intervention prevalence was 8% for Pipalyatjara, and 9% for Mimili. The TF prevalence, adjusted for clustering, and using only individuals present at baseline and follow-up (3, 6, and 12 months post-intervention), was 41.5%, 21.2%, 20.0%, and 20.0% at Pipalyatjara respectively. For Mimili, the corresponding prevalence figures were 43.5%, 18.2%, 18.2%, and 30%. / In the 1-9 year age group, a lower TF prevalence existed between the pre-intervention and 12-month post-intervention points at Pipalyatjara compared to Mimili. The TF prevalence after the intervention was also lower for males compared to females, when the cohorts were grouped by gender, rather than community. It is posited that reinfection was much higher at Mimili within this age group, however, in both communities, there appeared to be a core of females whose trachoma status did not change. This is speculated as mainly being caused by prolonged inflammation, though persistent infection C. Trachomatis cannot be ruled out. / Facial cleanliness and nasal discharge continued to improve throughout the intervention at both communities, but at the 3-month post-intervention point no longer became a good predictor of trachoma. / It is not known whether the improvements in the environment at Pipalyatjara were responsible for the reduction in trachoma prevalence 12 months after the intervention, relative to Mimili.

There is considerable anxiety about teaching Australian history in schools. In part, such concern reflects the so-called "History Wars", which have been played out in museums and national commemorations, as well as history syllabuses and textbooks. Such concern also reveals a professional and pedagogical debate over the state of the subject in schools. This thesis problematises history education as a site of contested collective memory and argues that concern over "teaching the nation" is intensified and augmented by an educational discourse of "the child" that shifts the debate over the past to the future.

No description available.

Thesis (MPhysio)--University of South Australia, 1998

PhD / In Australia, like most countries, circus has been an element, at times a very important element, in the mosaic that constitutes its popular culture. An outgrowth of the circus as recast in a modern form in London in the 18th century, an Australian circus profession has existed almost continuously since 1847. Australia’s circus entrepreneurs took the principal features of English, and later American, circus arts and management and reworked these features to suit their new antipodean context. The athletic, intellectually undemanding nature of its equestrian-based entertainments harmonised with the emerging patterns of modern Australia’s way of life. In time, Australia produced renowned circus artists of its own, even artists capable of reinvigorating the concept of circus in the very countries from which their art had been derived. Since their transience and labours, indeed their very existence, were somehow tangential and inconsequential to mainstream Australian society, Australia’s circus people did not attract tokens of recognition in story and verse as did shearers, drovers, diggers and other identities of the Australian outback. Their contribution to Australia’s social, economic and cultural development has been largely overlooked. Despite its pervasive role in Australia’s cultural life over more than 150 years, examples of academically grounded research into Australian circus are few. The primary aim of this study is to demonstrate the major themes evident in Australia’s circus history, in terms of society, enterprise and culture, between 1847 and 2006. None of these areas, of course, is exclusive of the others, especially the first and last named. These deliberations are framed within the broader influences and events apparent in Australian society and history. Implicit within this demonstration is the notion that circus, whatever its characteristics and merits as an artform, has been, and continues to be, a ‘barometer’ of social, economic and cultural change in Australia.

This thesis examines the question of the extent to which theories of citizenship, especially as developed in political liberalism, help to formulate an understanding of cultural diversity in relation to political stability and justice. Taking the recent debates over liberal and communitarian political philosophy as the object of inquiry, it explores the social and political character of multiculturalism and indigenous rights movements in Australia’s political culture. The principal aim is to establish that political liberalism provides appropriate political and ethical norms for adjudicating multicultural and indigenous rights claims. Thus, the exposition is twofold: first the thesis explores the concepts of justice as fairness as expounded in Rawlsian political liberalism. Second it applies the Rawlsian perspective to analyse the implications of multiculturalism and indigenous politics for the Australian liberal state. Interpreted in the light of the problems of contemporary patterns of pluralism, Rawls’ theory demonstrates the necessity and desirability of applying justice as fairness to the ‘special rights’ challenges confronting Western liberal states, including Australia.

[Abstract]: The incidence of cattle heat stress is a significant production and welfare issue for the feedlot industry. It is hypothesised that the presence and physical nature of feedlots causes significant microclimatic variations compared to the external environment.In order to test this hypothesis, data was collected using a series of automatic weather stations located in the external environment surrounding two Australian feedlots. Comparison of this data with regional Bureau of Meteorology sites was undertaken to verify the quality of these ‘control’ sites. To determine the climate within the feedlot separate automatic weather stations were placed within the cattle pens at each site, with one station located in an unshaded pen and one directly under an artificial shade structure within an adjacent pen.This dissertation reports the collection and analyses of detailed climatic data from the surrounds and within the cattle pens of these two Australian feedlots. The project also sought to determine microclimatic differences within the feedlot pen area that may be caused by the presence of the shade structures.It was found that the presence of a feedlot does create significant microclimatic variations. Specifically, it was determined that the albedo values of the feedlot pen surface are significantly lower (ranging from 0.13 to 0.19) than those of the external feedlot environment (typically 0.15 to 0.25). This is a result of the surface changes arising from the establishment of clay based manure covered pens. Under wet conditions the differences in albedo values were further increased. It was found that the short wave radiation reflection from the external feedlot environment was 4% greater than that from the unshaded feedlot pen surfaces under dry conditions and 10% greater under wet conditions. The increased adsorption of solar radiation by the feedlot pen surface created ground temperatures that were on average 2 to 4°C warmer than those of the feedlot surrounds. The re-radiation of heat from the pen surface was found to create warmer air temperatures within the feedlot pens compared to the external environment, particularly overnight. Between the hours of 4am to 6am it was found that on average the air temperatures of the shaded and unshaded feedlot pens were 0.7°C and 0.5°C warmer than the external feedlot environment.It was found that feedlot pen infrastructure and cattle significantly reduce wind speeds under a height of 10 metres. The average 2 metre wind speeds of the external feedlot environments were found to be 29% and 9% higher than those recorded in the unshaded pens at the northern and southern feedlots respectively.Shade structures within feedlot pens were found to be effective in reducing incoming solar radiation with the galvanised sheeting reducing incoming solar radiation by 76% and the shade cloth providing a 72% reduction. These reductions provided both lower ground temperatures and a significant reduction in radiant heat loads under the shade. It was determined that the environment under shade structures was more humid compared to that of the unshaded pens with humidity levels recorded being 8 to 12% higher. Shade structures also restrict horizontal wind movement with the 2 metre wind speeds in the shaded pens being on average 11% and 0.5% lower than those recorded in the unshaded pens for the Queensland and NSW feedlots respectively.Research has shown that microclimatic variations such as increased air temperatures, increased humidity and restricted air movement can have an adverse effect on cattle health. It is concluded from this project that in order to mitigate these effects a number of feedlot design concepts be implemented, and management practices should be adopted. Maintaining minimal quantities of manure on the pen surface will provide lower ground temperatures, dryer pen conditions and inhibit the re-radiation of heat and evapotranspiration from the pen surface. Adequate air flow should be maintained by siting feedlots in areas of suitable topography, and designing feedlot infrastructure and shade structures to maximise air movement. Shade structures need to aim at providing dryer pen surfaces to minimise humidity levels. Incorporation of these recommendations into feedlot design and management will assist in optimising the feedlot microclimate.

Much academic work concerned with social and cultural processes in Australia takes as its field of inquiry how the lives of Aboriginal Australians have been changed and impacted on by colonisation. Rarely has scholarship attempted to uncover some of the ways Aboriginality and Aboriginal people have become integral in the shaping of the lives of non-Aboriginal Australians. Ths thesis takes to heart the challenge of subjecting oneself and one's own social and cultural position to the rigours of sociological scrutiny and sets out to examine how crucial Aboriginality and Aboriginal people have been in shaping the lives, identities and economies of non-Aboriginal Australians. Drawing on the work of Homi Bhabha the thesis argues that ambivalence, whch underlies much of colonial discourse, can have a tremendously disruptive and unsettling effect on the authority, identities and everyday social lives of non-Aboriginal people. The thesis explores something of the diversity of this ambivalence by focusing attention on five groups of people (One Nation Supporters, retired tourists, 'alternative lifestylers', governmental workers and early colonists); two historical moments(early colonial times and the late 1990s); and two regions (the south-west and Kimberley of Western Australia). The thesis argues that one of the effects of ths ambivalence is that the social worlds of non- Aboriginal Australians are often subjected to challenge and change. In early colonial times many 'settlers' were tom between the will to colonise and economic and cultural reliance on the efforts and knowledge of Aboriginal people. More recently, One Nation supporters attempt to distance themselves from Aboriginal people by constituting them as the barbaric and parasitical other. At the same time, Hansonites indirectly position Aboriginality as central to their own identity and political future. Another group, retired tourists, regularly perpetuate old colonial tropes and publicly express their disdain of Aboriginal people. At the same time, these people yearn for and engage in social practices otherwise associated with Aborigrnal culture. Behind both groups' public attacks on Aborigines as cannibals and the 'Aboriginal Industry' as spongers lies a deep political and cultural reliance on Aboriginality. Romantics and others who aspire to consume and mimic Aboriginal culture are likewise regularly ambivalent and contradictory in their treatment of Aborigmality. It is arguable that many are selfinterested and seek to plunder Aboriginal cultural. However, the very romance that prompts their mimicry can and does act to unsettle the certainty of non-Aboriginal dominance. This prompts people to re-examine their identities and social practices. Ambivalence and complexity is also central to the lives of those involved in the business of Aboriginal governance. On the one hand, these people are clearly implicated in the government and regulation of Aboriginal people. On the other hand, liberal discourse on fairness and equality of opportunity force governmental workers to increase their contact and reliance on Aboriginal people. This often has the effect of provoking changes in non-Aboriginal people's personal and working lives. The thesis concludes that the engagement of colonial discourse with Aboriginalities inevitably leads to an ambivalence that disables the monolithic dominance of non-Aboriginal Australians. In a range of ways this ambivalence can and does produce conditions whch undermine and transform the cultural lives and identities of non-Aborignal Australians.

Imagined Geographies: Women's Negotiation of Space in Contemporary Australian Cinema is an exploration of the nexus between gender and locale in films from the last decade, 1988-98. This thesis examines the way meaning is made through the negotiation of diverse geographies by central female protagonists in a selection of recent Australian feature films. The films I analyse were predominantly produced by female writers and/or directors. In the context of Australian Cinema, locale is an area much talked about but little theorised. It is an issue which remains in the background of much scholarship and is often tangential to many arguments but rarely constructed as a central concern. Where it is foregrounded, as in Ross Gibson's work, it is reduced to the significance of landscape or 'natural locations' rather than examining the diversity of its manifestations. Two notable but related spatial shifts have occurred in Australian cinema of the 1990s. The first is a change in industrial practice. Female artists are now creating spaces for themselves in mainstream feature filmmaking - spaces traditionally occupied by men. This trend is away from constructions of a distinctly feminist cinema or counter-cinema which was identifiable in the 1970s. Second, there is a shift in the character of on-screen space. The presence of growing numbers of women writers, directors and producers in the Australian film industry is shifting the cinema's focus away from traditional 'masculine' topographies - the pub, the prison and the outback - thus allowing explorations of other spaces and visions to develop. I am arguing therefore that there is a feminization ofspace occurring in Australian cinema. In this thesis I investigate representations of so-called traditional 'feminine' or domestic domains. The place of the gendered body and embodiment in films is a central concern and is theorised in the first chapter. As we move through the thesis chapters, sexed bodies enacting gender in a variety of ways and in different zones - the car, the house, the suburb and the country town - will be explored. Through these analyses I examine the methods some film directors employ to problematize space in such a way that their work overcomes the limitations of its previously dominant representations. This thesis is primarily an attempt to open up the field of criticism to acknowledge the diversity of locales which exist within the rich tapestry of Australian Cinema.