Please join us this Wednesday for the first Contemporary Cultures & Societies seminar for Semester 2, 2015.  I have also attached an updated seminar program for the semester.  This series is convened by the Anthropology and Development Studies programs at the University of Melbourne, but many of the seminars are likely to be of more general interest.  Everyone is welcome, so please forward this message – and the attached flyer/list – to anyone you think might be interested.  I have also attached an updated seminar program.

(If you know anyone who would like to be added to the mailing list for these seminars, please ask them to contact me at [email protected])

Date/time:   12 August, 5:15-6:45pm

Venue:          Old Arts Theatre D
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Feminist Political Ecology and the Economics of Care: ­ In search of Economic Alternatives

Wendy Harcourt (Erasmus University, The Hague)

Since the recent financial crisis in 2008 analytical and practical alternatives to the capitalist economy have seen a revival not only in different practices but also in theory. Especially under the umbrella term of “degrowth” alternative modes of economic experience and thinking have found a new life. The ideas linked to the concept of degrowth or post-growth are putting into question the coupling of economic growth and social welfare, which is foundational for the capitalist economy. Real life experiences suggest that this coupling is a fiction. To put it bluntly, economic growth does not remedy social inequality and it is no guarantee for individual and social well-being.

Feminist analysis has made important contributions to critiques of capitalism and the debate about what constitutes a good life. Core to this analysis is the economic and social value of social reproductive work done by women, in the paid care sector as well as in the private sphere of families and interpersonal relationships. To date, it is troubling that the conceptual frameworks of economic alternatives that combine green and non-capitalist approaches have failed to deal explicitly with gender issues around care. They neither take into account the importance of care work in the private sphere nor do they reflect critically on the gendered character of work as a whole. The symbolic order of masculinity and femininity that legitimizes gender hierarchies remains beyond their conceptual reach.

In her talk, Wendy Harcourt suggests how feminist political ecology presents alternatives to the capitalist economy that take feminist issues about social reproduction and care as central to environmental and economic alternatives.

Wendy Harcourt is Associate Professor at the International Institute of Social Studies of the Erasmus University, The Hague. She received the 2010 Feminist and Women’s Studies Association’s Prize for her book Body Politics in Development: Critical Debates in Gender and Development (2009). She was editor of the journalDevelopment from 1988 to 2011 and has published 10 edited collections that latest of which is Practicing Feminist Political Ecology: beyond the green economy with Zed Books. Her writings and research as a feminist political ecologist and post development scholar explore critical approaches to global development, feminist theory and sexual health and reproductive rights.

Click here to see the rest of the stunning images.

You are cordially invited to attend the next ethno-forum which will be held at 3.30pm on the 14th of August. Please note that this ethno-forum will be held in room 519 of the John Medley Building.

The theme of the ethnoforum is‘Development Ethnography? Concerns and constraints of qualitative development study’

Development studies and ethnographic techniques have a problematic connection, with significant qualitative research used to justify development interventions and with the development community funding and enabling much ethnographic work. This month we will consider the relationship between these fields of study, practice and employment. Tamas Wells will reflect on his work in Burma, considering how he negotiated working in an environment of close developer friends who were engaged with his academic practice.Matthew Gmailifo Mabefam will consider the transition from development professional to development academic. While neither of them describe their work as ethnographic, both examine the implications of long-term involvement in communities where the researchers’ presence can address or exacerbate power inequalities.

Tamas Wells

My research is exploring narratives of democratization in Myanmar, looking specfically at the Burmese democracy movement and its Western donor supporters. I had previously lived in Myanmar for seven years – working in the aid sector – and returning to do ‘research’ I felt as though the tools of traditional political ‘science’ (eg surveys) would miss the nuances of political thinking that I had come to perceive during my time living there. While I am not using the term ‘ethnographic’ in describing my methodology, I was attracted to participation, informal interaction and extended interviews as a way of building more nuance in describing meanings given to democracy in Myanmar. But this also raised the question for me of whether research or ethnography can be ‘switched on’ when returning to a familiar place, language and community? Research is inevitably shaped by previous experiences and relationships in that place. But is there also something different in intentionally exploring a research question.

Matthew Gmailifo Mabefam

My research explored how marriage arrangements affect educational attainments of girls in Bolni Ghana. It has been argued that every child has the right to education but many parents will still not enroll their girls in school or enroll them initially but withdraw them as they advance higher in the midst of efforts made by stakeholders. I did field work and engaged with the community members in FGDs, community forums, In-depth interviews as well as key informant interviews. The study found that marriage arrangement decisions both by parents and girls themselves had negative effects on girls’ education. In this presentation, while I reflect on issues of development both as an academician and development practitioner, I will also highlight some challenges I encountered in collecting data from this community as a native.

What: ‘Development Ethnography? Concerns and constraints of qualitative development study’

When: Friday August 14th, 3:30 – 5pm

Where: Room 519, John Medley Building, University of Melbourne, Parkville Campus

Please join us for drinks and dinner after the event. If you have any questions please contact Tom: [email protected] or Bibiana:[email protected]

The 2015 annual conference of the Australian Anthropological Society (AAS) will be hosted by the Anthropology Programme at the University of Melbourne from 1-4 December. This year’s conference “Moral Horizons” will address moral pluralities both within anthropological practice and in the rapidly evolving world the discipline researches.

Championing Australian seafood industry and calling for balanced debate on management issues. What a legend. Makes me wish I’d become a marine biologist, too. TJK

Portarlington fisherman Peter Jenkins and son Ben’s family business will be progressively shut down by the state government over the next eight years. A leading maritime anthropologist fears the mental and physical challenges facing commercial fishers during this time are being ignored. See page 9 for more.

Maritime anthropologist, Tanya King says while the health and well-being of farmers’ remains in the spotlight, the challenges facing commercial fishers has been largely ignored.

Dr King, a Seafood Industry Victoria board member and senior lecturer at Deakin University who has been working on Australian commercial fisheries for more that 15 years, said the plight of our farmers was often described in a sympathetic tone by our politicians but commercial fisher mental health was not afforded the same recognition and support, either financially or in terms of political oratory.

Dr King’s concerns come in response to the state government’s plan to phase out commercial netting in Port Phillip and Corio Bay.

She said the government’s $20 million buyback of the more than 40 commercial fishing licences for the bay was not due to concerns about the environmental health of the fishery but in an effort to promote the region as a “recreational fishing mecca”.

Dr King said the state government’s tendency to conflate its issues and management in policy left commercial fisher and their particular concerns virtually invisible.

“The key difference between the two groups of primary producers is that farmers can own private property, while fishers invest in a resource that is publically owned and therefore subject to government control and strategizing,” she said.

“Australian farmers struggling to cope with climate change have been valued, being offered assistance packages, subsidies and loans in order to keep their businesses afloat.

“In contrast, fishers who are working sustainably in a healthy resource are being told that they are dispensable, and this negative judgement of their role in our society is detracting significantly from their wellbeing.”
Dr King said research published in leading international journal, Marine Policy, and led by Deakin University, presented findings on the physical and mental health of this other primary industry, which reported “widespread anecdotal accounts describing very poor physical and mental health within the fishing industry, including suicide and attempted suicide”.

She said reflecting on the restricting of a lobster fishery, one fisher reported, “The mental health is big”.

“When they did changeover (to management arrangements) in crayfishing, within a two-year period there were six successful suicides and 18 attempted suicides.”

Dr King said this account add
ed to those of other stress-related problems facing fishers around the country, including substance abuse, domestic breakdown, social withdrawal, shaking, sleeplessness and nightmares.

She said despite the efforts of public health campaigns by groups such as beyondblue, “fishers were particularly reluctant to seek and even discuss mental health issues, and indicated that while there was an industry-wide concern, there remained a stigma attached to poor mental health”

Professor Michael Herzfeld, Harvard University

“Crypto-Colonies in Europe and Asia: Dignity and Defiance in Political Hotspots”

Professor Michael Herzfeld is Ernest E. Monrad Professor of the Social Sciences in the Department of Anthropology at Harvard University. Before moving to Harvard, he taught at Vassar College (1978-80) and Indiana University (1980-91), where he served as Associate Chair of the Research Center for Language and Semiotic Studies, 1980-85, and as Chair of the Department of Anthropology, 1987-90. He has also taught at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (1995), Paris, at the Università di Padova (1992), the Università di Roma “La Sapienza” (1999-2000), and the University of Melbourne (intermittently since 2004), and has held a visiting research appointments at the Australian National University and the University of Sydney (1985), at the University of Adelaide, and at the Université de Paris-X (Nanterre) (1991).

His major general research interest is currently the comparison of the forms of historical experience among Greek, Italian, Thai and other cultures. He has written extensively on anthropological and semiotic theory, narrative, metaphor and symbolism, the ethnography of southern Europe, local politics, and nationalism.

For more information: http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~anthro/social_faculty_pages/social_pages_herzfeld.html

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, 6 August, 5.00-6.50pm

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

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.