A/Prof. Tess Lea, Department of Gender and Cultural Studies, University of Sydney

“Can there be good policy in regional and remote Australia? Wait, is that even a question?”

Abstract

This talk pulls together the threads of my ethnographic project ‘Can there be good policy? Tracing the paths between policy intent, evidence and practical benefit in regional and remote Australia’ which I have been pursuing in various ways for quite some years. The ethnography draws on case examples from infrastructure projects on Groote Eylandt, schooling efforts in the Victoria River Downs, a film collaboration with the Karrabing Indigenous Corporation from the Anson Bay region in the Top End, and the leadership dilemmas embedded within a community controlled health centre in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands of northern South Australia. The research had two elements—pursuit of that policy question, and pursuit of communication modalities for sharing any findings. This talk pushes into these research aims to explore the confusions that its experiments with modes of fieldwork and of communication inevitably generated. Matching my sense of policy’s inherent fragmentation with disjointed study sites, and the desire to suture the answers into a redemptive project either of critique or resolution, are some of the confounders to be discussed.

Bio

Tess Lea is Associate Professor in the Department of Gender and Cultural Studies at the University of Sydney. As an ARC Queen Elizabeth II Fellow, she is currently pursuing ethnographic research across housing, infrastructure, community development and education domains to explore the question “can there be good social policy in regional and remote Australia?” She has previously worked as a senior bureaucrat in the Northern Territory Departments of Health and Education, and operated as a ministerial advisor. Her work focuses on conditions of enduring racial inequality in Australia and the material and affective dimensions of how these conditions are reproduced and inhabited.

Where: Deakin University, Geelong Waterfront Campus, John Hay Building, Video Conference Room D3.321 (please note the non-standard room). A map of the campus can be found here: http://www.deakin.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0019/330364/waterfront.pdf. The session will also be video-linked to the Burwood Campus, room C7.06, via Virtual Meeting Point (VMP) 5223 9354.

When: Thursday, June 4, 5.00-6.50pm

All welcome. After the seminar, please join us for drinks/dinner at the Max Hotel, Gheringhap Street.

Deakin University Anthropology Seminar Series, May 7, 2015

Dr Geoff Boucher, School of Communication and Creative Arts, Deakin University

Abstract: According to Habermas, the industrialised democracies have become “post-secular societies,” defined as societies that have been through the experience of secularisation, but which have now, in light of the persistence of faith convictions, abandoned the expectation of the withering away of the Abrahamic religions. Against the background of a worldwide resurgence of political religion, reflected in the academic revival of political theology, the notion of the post-secular has triggered important debates around the constraints on religious mobilisation in multi-faith societies with secular states. In this context, despite his politically liberal insistence on the protection of democratic citizens from coercion based on faith convictions through the limitation of political religion to public debate only, Habermas surprisingly often lines up with neo-conservative positions on the permanence of traditional forms of religion and on civilizational unity. In this paper, I want to outline a sympathetic critique of the three positions that I think lead Habermas to these conclusions, and to examine how some proposed modifications might affect the question of the legitimate role of religious convictions in the public sphere.

Bio: Dr. Geoff Boucher is Senior Lecturer in Literary Studies at the School of Communication and Creative Arts, Deakin University. He works across continental philosophy, social theory and literary studies to investigate the constructive role of cultural innovation, especially in literary works, in the public sphere and in the cultural underpinning of democratic politics. His work includes research into psychoanalytic theory, particularly Lacanian psychoanalysis, and critical theories of society developed by the Frankfurt School and its associates. He is also an expert on the work of internationally celebrated philosopher Slavoj Zizek, and has engaged in debate in printed form with Zizek on several occasions.

Where: Deakin University, Geelong Waterfront Campus, Sally Walker Building, Seminar Room ad1.122. A map of the campus can be found here: http://www.deakin.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0019/330364/waterfront.pdf

The session will also be video-linked to the Burwood Campus, room C7.06, via Virtual Meeting Point (VMP) 5223 9354.

When: Thursday, May 7, 5.00-6.50pm

All welcome. After the seminar, please join us for drinks/dinner at the Max Hotel, Gheringhap Street.