Thesis (M.Sc.) (Honours) -- University of Western Sydney, Macarthur, 1999. / A thesis presented to the University of Western Sydney, Macarthur, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science (Honours), March, 1999. Bibliography : leaves 117-125.

Thesis (M.Sc.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Geology and Geophysics, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 112-115).

Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Western Sydney, 2003. / A thesis presented to the University of Western Sydney in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Includes bibliography.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--School of Policy and Curriculum Studies in Education, Faculty of Education, University of Sydney, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print form.

Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Canberra, 2002. / Typescript (photocopy). "February 2002". Includes bibliographical references: (leaves 225-256).

The use of community consultation to address socio-environmental degradation is entwined with contested democratic principles polarising views of its role. I frame this problem by examining three democratic paradigms faced with two contemporary problems. The deliberative argument that preferences require enrichment with debate mediates between the liberal-aggregative view that preferences are individual, private and amenable to aggregation and the view that participation in public life is foundational. Viewing consultation as deliberative reconciles the liberal-aggregative view of consultation as the illegitimate elevation of unrepresentative minority groups with the participationist view that consultation constitutes a step towards participatory democracy. Theorists of social reflexivity, however, point to an elided politics of knowledge challenging technoscience's exemption from politically garnered consent. Also neglected by much democratic theory is how functional differentiation renders self-referential legal, political, technoscientific and administrative domains increasingly unaccountable. I employ Habermas' procedural theory that public spheres allow social irritations into the political domain where they can be encoded into laws capable of systemic interjection in response, along with a dialogic extension accommodating the politics of knowledge. I then use this procedural-dialogic deliberative understanding of democracy to elucidate the context and outcomes of the NSW State's consultative strategy. The NSW state, institutionally compelled to underwrite economic growth, implicating itself in that growth's socio-environmental side effects provoking widespread contestation. The resulting Environmental Planning and Assessment Act (1979) and its adjunctive consultative provisions helped highlight the socio-environmental degradation of the Hawkesbury Nepean River Catchment via Western Sydney's urban sprawl, politicising the region. The convenement of a consultative forum to oversee a contaminated site audit within the region facilitated incisive lay critique of the technoscientific underpinnings of administrative underwriting of socio-environmental degradation. The discomforted NSW State tightened environmental policy, gutted the EP&A Act's consultative provisions and removed regional dialogic forums and institutions. I conclude that the socio-economic accord equating economic growth with social progress is both entrenched and besieged, destabilising the political/administrative/technoscientific regime built upon it. This withdrawal of avenues for critique risks deeper estrangement between reflexive society and the NSW State generative of electoral volatility.

Thesis (PhD)--Macquarie University, Division of Society, Culture, Media & Philosophy, Department of Critical and Cultural Studies, 2004. / Bibliography: leaves 310-325. / Introduction -- School violence: a brief overview -- What's in a name?: constructing an institutional identity in an educational market -- The discipline of gentlemen -- Parent consumers: tactical manoeuvres and institutional strategies -- Making the papers: Trinity in the news -- Games of truth: "everyone has their spin" -- Conclusions. / This study integrates sociological theories of social class with poststructuralist theories of subjectivity, representation and consumption, to consider the complex ways in which the representational practices of institutions and individuals are implicated in the production of violence in schools. This work draws particularly on a case study of incidents of sexual violence which occurred at an elite private school in Sydney during 2000, in which four students were charged with a range of offences committed against younger peers over a period of months. The assault incidents received widespread media coverage and sparked intense public debate, in response to which a media strategies consultant was engaged by the school to liaise with members of the press. This study demonstrates the extent to which the interrelationships between systems of signification (in particular, written and visual texts) and other social systems, (for example, families, schools, and political economy) function in the constitution of subjectivities and the production of meaning, and takes as its focus the interrelationship and functioning of texts, discursive practices and social practices which pertain specifically to the assault incidents described above. Data are derived from a range of sources and genres, including promotional materials, personal and general correspondence, media reports, and interviews, necessitating a variety of qualitative analytic methods. Informed by critical post-structuralist theory, in particular the work of Bourdieu, Foucault, and de Certeau, this work considers questions pertaining to the operation of power within social institutions, with particular emphasis on the constitutive function of discourse. The analysis extends current conceptualisations of school violence through a post-structuralist interrogation of, and linking of violence to, educational consumption, which has predominantly been theorised according to sociological or economic models. The argument is made that the market ideologies which pervade contemporary social and educative practice, together with the representational practices and disciplinary regimes of schools, function in the constitution of social subjects who occupy multiple ambiguous subject positions in the patriarchal hierarchies which characterise the power relations and institutions under consideration, thus implicating institutions in the production of violence. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / vii, 325 leaves

The decline of floodplain vegetation along the Lower River Murray, South Australia, has evoked recommendations for ‘environmental flows’ to restore and maintain the health of the ecosystem. To assist managers to maximize benefits from environmental flows, this thesis considers the significance of water for germination and recruitment in key floodplain plant species. Three dominant species are considered, including two trees, river red gum (Eucalyptus camaldulensis) and black box (E. largiflorens), and an understorey shrub, tangled lignum (Muehlenbeckia florulenta). The soil seed bank was dominated by terrestrial annual native plants. Among 1400 seedlings, a single river red gum was found, and no black box or lignum, suggesting that these species do not contribute to the persistent soil seed bank and rely instead on aerial seed banks (serotiny). Sampling of the soil seed bank was continued to determine when seed fall might coincide with appropriate soil moisture conditions. Responses of the soil seed bank to varied water regimes were compared to determine requirements for seedling survival. The results indicated that species richness, rapidity of response and survival time were all promoted by sustained soil moisture. Stands of eucalypts in various states of health (from very stressed to very healthy) were monitored to identify seasonal patterns in bud crops, flowering, fresh leaves and volumes of seed released from the aerial seed bank. Distinct seasonal phenological patterns were apparent, and suggested alternating flowering among individual trees (biennial for red gum, bi-annual for black box), producing an annual peak in summer. Peak seed rain occurred in summer (December–March) in healthy trees for both red gum and black box, with light seed rain continuing throughout the year. Seed fall from stressed trees was much reduced. Stressed trees responded after a second watering event, with much more varied and extended annual seed fall patterns. Lignum showed a spring peak in flowering and seed production. There was a prolific response of flowering and seeding to rainfall, but few seedlings survived. Vigorous vegetative growth occurred in existing plants in response to rainfall and watering but no new cloned plants were found during the study. An investigation of chromosomes as a potential tool to appraise the balance between sexual and asexual reproduction in lignum proved inconclusive, although a previous report of octoploidy in lignum was confirmed. Seeds from all three species and lignum cuttings were tested for their responses to varied watering regimes, based on combinations of simulated rain and flood conditions. The optimal soil moisture for continued growth and survival in all seeds and cuttings was 10 25%, with moisture values <10% causing wilting and death. The results also suggested that red gum and black box seeds which germinate in water under flooded conditions need to be stranded onto moist soil at the water’s edge within 10 days, for the seedling to continue to grow. It was also concluded that germination on rain-moistened soil is a key supplementary mechanism for recruitment, particularly between irregular flood events. For greatest benefit, the timing of environmental flows should complement any seasonal rainfall and irregular flooding that may occur. Extension of suitable soil moisture conditions (10-25%) for as long as possible after >5 mm rainfall, or after over-bank flows, would increase chances for survival of seedlings. December is the most likely month for maximal benefit from watering in the Lower Murray Valley, for germination and recruitment, based on regional rainfall and flooding patterns. / http://proxy.library.adelaide.edu.au/login?url= http://library.adelaide.edu.au/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?BBID=1344528 / Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, 2008

Thesis (PhD)--Macquarie University, Division of Society, Culture, Media & Philosophy, Department of Anthropology, 2006. / Bibliography: p. 257-276. / Introduction: coming to Wilcannia -- Wilcannia: plenty of Aborigines, but no culture -- Who you is? -- Cultural values: ambivalences and ambiguities -- Praise, success and opportunity -- "Art an' culture: the two main things, right?" -- Big Murray Butcher: "We still doin' it" -- Granny Moisey's baby: the art of Badger Bates -- Epilogue. / Dominant society discourses and images have long depicted the Aboriginal people of the town of Wilcannia in far Western New South Wales as having no 'culture'. In asking what this means and how this situation might have come about, the thesis seeks to respond through an ethnographic exploration of these discourses and images. The work explores problematic and polemic dominant society assumptions regarding 'culture' and 'Aboriginal culture', their synonyms and their effects. The work offers Aboriginal counter-discourses to the claim of most white locals and dominant culture that the Aboriginal people of Wilcannia have no culture. In so doing the work presents reflexive notions about 'culture' as verbalised and practiced, as well as providing an ethnography of how culture is more tacitly lived. -- Broadly, the thesis looks at what it is to be Aboriginal in Wilcannia from both white and black perspectives. The overarching concern of this thesis is a desire to unpack what it means to be black in Wilcannia. The thesis is primarily about the competing values and points of view within and between cultures, the ways in which Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people tacitly and reflexively express and interpret difference, and the ambivalence and ambiguity that come to bear in these interactions and experiences. This thesis demonstrates how ideas and actions pertaining to 'race' and 'culture' operate in tandem through an exploration of values and practices relating to 'work', 'productivity', 'success', 'opportunity' and the domain of 'art'. These themes are used as vehicles to understanding the 'on the ground' effects and affects of cultural perceptions and difference. They serve also to demonstrate the ambiguity and ambivalence that is experienced as well as being brought to bear upon relationships which implicitly and explicitly are concerned with, and concern themselves with difference. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / xii, 276 p. ill

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Victoria University (Melbourne, Vic.), 2006. / Includes bibliographical references.