"July 24, 2004" / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 297-319) / xix, 319 leaves : ill. (some col.), maps ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, School of Social Sciences, Discipline of Geographical and Environmental Studies, 2004

This thesis argues that through bringing together two branches of inquiry???the literary work of Katharine Susannah Prichard and Eleanor Dark and socio-feminist theory on health, contagion and the female body???the discursive body of the mother-figure in their novels serves as a trope through which otherwise unspoken tensions???between the personal and the political, between family and nation and between identity and race in Australian cultural formation???are explored. The methodology I use is to analyse the literary mother-figure through a ???discourse on health??? from a soma-political, socio-cultural and historical perspective which sought to categorise, regulate and discipline women???s lives to ensure that white women conformed to their designated roles as mothers and that they did so within the confines of marriage. The literary mother-figure, as represented in Prichard???s and Dark???s novels, is frequently at odds with the culturally constructed mother-figure as represented in political and religious discourses, and in popular forms of culture such as advertising, film and women???s magazines. This culturally constructed ???ideal??? mother-figure is intimately linked to nationalist discourses of racial hygiene, of Christian morality, and of civic and social order controlled by such patriarchal institutions as the state, the church, the law and the medical professions during the period under review. This is reflected in Prichard???s and Dark???s inter-war novels which embody unresolved tensions in a way that challenges representations of the mother-figure by mainstream culture. However, their post-war novels show a greater compliance with nationalist ideologies of the good and healthy mother-figure who conforms more closely with an idealised notion of motherhood, leading up to the 1950s. Through a detailed analysis of the two writers??? changing representations of the mother-figure, I argue that the mother-figure is a key trope through which unspoken tensions and forces that have shaped (and continue to shape) Australian culture and society can be understood.

This thesis argues that through bringing together two branches of inquiry???the literary work of Katharine Susannah Prichard and Eleanor Dark and socio-feminist theory on health, contagion and the female body???the discursive body of the mother-figure in their novels serves as a trope through which otherwise unspoken tensions???between the personal and the political, between family and nation and between identity and race in Australian cultural formation???are explored. The methodology I use is to analyse the literary mother-figure through a ???discourse on health??? from a soma-political, socio-cultural and historical perspective which sought to categorise, regulate and discipline women???s lives to ensure that white women conformed to their designated roles as mothers and that they did so within the confines of marriage. The literary mother-figure, as represented in Prichard???s and Dark???s novels, is frequently at odds with the culturally constructed mother-figure as represented in political and religious discourses, and in popular forms of culture such as advertising, film and women???s magazines. This culturally constructed ???ideal??? mother-figure is intimately linked to nationalist discourses of racial hygiene, of Christian morality, and of civic and social order controlled by such patriarchal institutions as the state, the church, the law and the medical professions during the period under review. This is reflected in Prichard???s and Dark???s inter-war novels which embody unresolved tensions in a way that challenges representations of the mother-figure by mainstream culture. However, their post-war novels show a greater compliance with nationalist ideologies of the good and healthy mother-figure who conforms more closely with an idealised notion of motherhood, leading up to the 1950s. Through a detailed analysis of the two writers??? changing representations of the mother-figure, I argue that the mother-figure is a key trope through which unspoken tensions and forces that have shaped (and continue to shape) Australian culture and society can be understood.

Australian rural women are stereotypically perceived as stoic, self-reliant, and used to handling adversity. Since this iconic portrayal of resilience is traditionally (and contemporaneously) located in the harsh countryside, it is surprising that there are few articles examining this environment, person, and resilience nexus. This thesis addresses this omission by exploring the development of resilience in two cohorts of single, older women, living on their own in rural Australia. Accordingly, an ethnographic study was conducted in a small Australian town in 2012. Documentary evidence, participant observation, and interviews captured the separate and intersecting environment and person related contributors to resilience, mediated and moderated through situational relations over time. The results revealed the persistence and reinforcement of rural historical cultural stereotypes about older women, and the systematic exclusion of younger women retirees who chose to move to the town but did not fit these embedded cultural norms. When confronted with a societal attitude that socially constrains their social identity and role, and boxes them in, the older old women pragmatically accepted their situation, and successfully adapted to their new circumstances. For them, resilience is a reactive response to regain and maintain equilibrium in their lives. Conversely, the late middle-aged retirees were boxed out from actively participating and contributing to the community; for these women, resilience is equated to resignation and endurance. And as there is a symbiotic relationship between a town and its residents, this community represents a constraining force, both in terms of its stalled response to sociodemographic and structural change, and its passive indifference to the older women as exemplars of resilience. In effect, the community exerts an oppressive, dampening effect on the women's agentic resiliency; thus contradicting the prevailing literature where resilience is widely portrayed as a positive and active agentic concept.

Abstract not available

"November 2004" / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 246-263) / xi, 263 leaves ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / A comparative study of the impact of international catalysts on women's entry into the national parliaments of Kenya and Australia and whether they have similar impacts on women's parliamentary recruitment in countries that have different terms of incorporation into the international system. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, School of Social Sciences, Discipline of Gender Studies, 2005