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Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of Queensland, 2007. / Includes bibliography.

Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of Queensland, 2006. / Includes bibliography.

Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of Queensland, 2006. / Includes bibliography.

Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of Queensland, 2006. / Includes bibliography.

Texte remanié de: Ph. D. th.--Melbourne. / Bibliogr. p. 231-259.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Queensland, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Queensland, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references.

[Abstract]This doctoral research explored Australian mothers’ unique, engaging, and predominantly enjoyable transitions to early motherhood. Their expectations, beliefs, and experiences were investigated using narrative and thematic analyses underpinned by a feminist, poststructural methodology. The 10 participants in this study were white, middle-class, heterosexual, partnered, and able-bodied women living in south-east Queensland and expecting their first child. In-depth ante- and postnatal interviews were conducted at the 2nd trimester of pregnancy and 8 months post-birth respectively. These women experienced the early motherhood journey as an unsettled period which necessitated the utilisation of four, often contradictory, maternal identities. The four identities, or voices, were Ideal Mother; Challenged, Practical Self; Extended, Spiritual Self; and Independent Self. This research has shown that becoming a mother for contemporary Australian women is simultaneously joyful, thrilling, confronting, depressing, constraining, and empowering. Thus, the transition to motherhood was a complex and chaotic experience which confronted their sense of self. Moreover, it is clear that young women are often under prepared for the paradoxes and intensity of their journeys. My thesis is that for these contemporary Australian women, becoming a mother necessitated drawing on four dominant, often contradictory voices or identities resulting in a complex transitional experience of individual and personal negotiation and integration. The complexity of this life-transition defies simple explanation and solution. Regardless, the findings suggest that all the stories of mothering need to be told to make them equally real, valid, valuable, and normal. Thus can we find and develop new and useful models of modern motherhood to enable policy makers and health practitioners to provide more informed, particular, and empathetic support for new Australian mothers, as well as strengthen future mothers for and feel positive about their mothering careers.

The fossil record of marsupial lions (family Thylacoleonidae) from Australian Oligo Miocene deposits is generally poor. Study of new material of this family collected from Oligo-Miocene limestone sediments of the Riversleigh World Heritage Area, northwestern Queensland adds significant new information about previously described species and also indicates a greater diversity of thylacoleonids during this period of geological time. Two new genera and five new species are described. Reassessment of the holotype of the type species of Priscileo, P. pitikantensis,indicates it shows stronger affinities to species of the genus Wakaleo than it does to Priscileo roskellyae. Priscileo is regarded here to be a junior synonym of Wakaleo. The cranium and lower dentition of Priscileo roskellyae show significant morphological differences from species of Wakaleo, and this species is referred to a new genus, Lekaneleo. Distinctive morphological differences are identified in the M3s of Wakaleo oldfieldi and W. vanderleueri, species previously distinguished only by relative size differences in their dentitions. Functional morphological assessment of postcranial remains of species of Wakaleo suggests that they were probably scansorial or arboreal, but does not support a previous hypothesis of a fossorial habit. Cladistic analyses of the interrelationships of marsupial lions support the referral of Priscileo pitikantensis to the genus Wakaleo. The monotypic genus Microleo is the sister-group to all remaining thylacoleonid taxa. Species of Lekaneleo are the sistergroup to a Wakaleo/Thylacoleo clade. Intraordinal relationships of thylacoleonids were also investigated. Phylogenetic analyses of the interrelationships of Diprotodontia that included representatives of all extinct vombatiform families as well as extant taxa were conducted employing cranial and dental morphological characters. These analyses provide support for the hypothesis that Thylacoleonidae are members of the suborder Vombatiformes. Two species of Wakaleo (W. oldfieldi and W. vanderleueri) present in Riversleigh deposits are also found at other localities - respectively, the Leaf Locality of central Australia (Kutjamarpu LF) and the Small Hills Locality of northern Australia (Bullock Creek LF) - and suggest age estimations of the relevant Riversleigh sites of early Miocene and late Miocene. The phyletic evolution of Wakaleo suggests that some Riversleigh deposits are probably late Oligocene in age.