As an artist working with the female model, this practice-led research examines concepts of alterity and subjectivity while challenging the dominant role of male subjectivity in the western world. It revolves around the relationship between myself and the female subject, a specific woman who within the context of my work epitomises but at the same time transcends womanhood. This undertaking suggests that my representations of her body grow out of a dialectical tension between the feeling that the female other has almost become a metonymic extension of myself, and the awareness that such a feeling is at the same time illusory. The practical component of my investigations takes the form of body-themed box assemblages which are reminiscent of polyptychs, tabernacles and reliquaries. However, the sacred images which form part of these ecclesiastical items are replaced with others showing close-ups of the fragmented bodies of the model and myself. While this kind of profane artefact acts as a receptacle for our bodies which are broken down and enshrined together with other objects, it constitutes part of an ongoing process whereby the relationship between myself and the female figure is metamorphosed, re-shaped, and re-visioned. The significance of these creations is meant to extend beyond their artefactual existence and become mediums through which I re-visit female sexuality and eroticism and assess them within a spiritual context, albeit in the circumscribed framework of a particular woman. The artefact s ultimate objective is to appease my innate desire to access the other via a self-reflexive process which involves both mirroring and distancing at one and the same time. This process also includes an exploration into the spiritual with the aim of exploiting that which is other in the western theological tradition, namely God and the Divine. The gaze is also deeply involved in this exploration of the other. In fact, while our bodies are subjected to a re-visitation and trans-valuation in parts through multiplication and fragmentation, the gaze is in the process broken down into a series of glances which originate from myself, the viewer or the female subject. This process questions and disrupts the dominance of the male gaze, and its associated precepts, in Western visual culture. Finally, by correlating the model s body with the divine, my artefacts seek to give this woman, as an embodiment of the true other, a trans-corporeal identity. Rather than seeking to exert control over the other, they provide a pious space wherein the self and the other are able to encounter each other in a manner that initiates an equitable relationship, unhindered by presumptive knowledge. This is aided by the aesthetics and dynamics underlying the box assemblage which, while expressing gender fluidity and encouraging disengagement from preconceived dogmas a sort of reverse cognition also enhances the experience of its deific symbolism.

Representations of the Other in Contemporary Australia is a thesis consisting of a novel, Brother Nation, and an exegesis in a separate volume. Brother Nation is set in Australia at the beginning of the twenty-first century, a time of great political and social change. The novel explores ambiguities in issues of race, crime and moral justice through the eyes of an adolescent who comes of age amidst a chain of disturbing events. Omar Assaf is a sensitive sixteen-year-old with a problem—he needs to lose his virginity. However, like most boys his age, he is anxious and naive about matters of sex and love. When a young female friend, Belle, rejects his romantic overtures, Omar is crushed. He rapidly falls under the corrupting influence of his older brother, Sam, and Sam’s motley band of miscreant friends. Fuelled by drugs, alcohol and pornography, the boys roam the migrant suburbs of southwest Sydney, alleviating their boredom and frustration by flirting with crime, cruising in cars and pursuing girls. However, Omar soon learns that being involved with Sam and the boys has dangerous consequences. In compensating for his sense of emasculation, Omar finds himself taking part in a series of attacks, including a betrayal of Belle. Though ambivalent about and at times sickened by his complicity, Omar realises much too late that he and his brother have entered a theatre where their fate will be determined by broader, more powerful forces than he could ever have imagined. The exegesis charts the creation of Brother Nation via the author’s movement from a mode of autopoiesis to allopoiesis, through the practice of narrative research. That is, the essay is structured to illustrate how the process of researching the novel resulted in the production of knowledge external to the creative work itself. In doing this I discuss the genesis of the idea to write the novel, the basis and modes of my narrative research, the style of the finished work in relation to the genre of the ‘faction’ or ‘non-fiction novel’, and the internal and external conflicts that arose in relation to the representation of demonised Arabic Other characters in the story. I also contextualise the work in relation to other relevant fiction and non-fiction texts that address similar subject matter, and make a case for holding a non-essentialised notion of cultural identity regarding my own speaking position. In particular, this exegesis investigates problematic questions in relation to representations of contemporary characters with an immigrant Other background; and, via the framework of Bakhtinian theories of dialogism and heteroglossia, considers the extent to which seemingly incompatible moral viewpoints can be coherently instantiated in fiction through a multiplicity of characters’ voices. / v. 1 [Novel]: Brother Nation -- v. 2 [Exegesis]: Representations of the Other in contemporary Australia. / Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Humanities, 2007

The aim of this study is to analyze whiteness in textbooks for civics. The study is executed through a text analysis of two textbooks in civics for upper primary school in Sweden. In this approach a postcolonial theoretical framework is used which is thoroughly presented, after which resulted in two analytical models. One model was used to identify binary dichotomies, while the other consisted of five questions that aimed to highlight patterns regarding whiteness in the textbooks. One of the most important contributions of the postcolonial theory was the visualization of the links between historical colonialism and contemporary societal problems such as various forms of racism and discrimination. On these grounds, the theory was chosen. The result showed a partly problematic presentation in the textbooks.