Misconceptions of the Deaf: Giving voice to the voiceless

 The Deaf usually do not see themselves as having a disability; however, discourses and social stereotyping continue to portray the Deaf rather negatively. These discourses may lead to misconceptions, prejudice and possibly discrimination. A study was conducted to identify the challenges members of the Deaf community experience accessing quality health care in a small Island state of Australia. Using a qualitative approach, semi-structured interviews and focus groups were conducted with service providers and the Deaf community. Audist discourses of deafness as deficiency, disability and disease remain dominant in contemporary society and are inconsistency with the Deaf community’s own perception of their reality. Despite the dominant constructions of deafness and their affect on the Deaf’s experience of health service provision, many Deaf have developed skills, confidence and resilience to live in the hearing world. The Deaf were pushing back on discourses that construct deafness as a disempowering impairment

“I Do Hope That It'll Be Maybe 80/20”: Equality in Contemporary Australian Marriages

One in three Australian marriages ends in divorce (ABS, Parental Divorce). While such statistics may be interpreted to mean that marriage is becoming less significant to Australians, many Australians continue to invest heavily in marriage as a constitutive mode of subjectification. Recently released first-wave data from a longitudinal study being conducted with seven thousand high school students in Queensland indicates that the majority of high schoolers expect to get married (Skrbis et al. 76). Significant political attention and debate in Australia has centred on the issue of marriage “equality” in relation to legislating same-sex marriage. Many accounts problematise marriage in Australia today by focussing on the current inequities involved in who can and cannot legally get married, which are important debates to be had in the process of understanding the persistent importance of marriage as a social institution. This paper, however, provides a critical account of “equality” in contemporary heterosexual marriages or heteronormative monogamous relationships. I argue that, far from being a mundane “old” debate, the distribution of unpaid work between spouses has a significant effect on women’s spousal satisfaction, and it calls into question the notion of “marriage equality” in everyday heterosexual marriages whether these are civil or common law relationships. I suggest that the contemporary “Hollywood” fantasy about marriage, which informs the same-sex marriage movement, sets up expectations that belie most people’s lived realities

"Keeping It Real": Representations of Postnatal Bodies and Opportunities for Resistance and Transformation

Contrary to popular understandings of academia, the work of academics is intrinsically community driven, because scholarly inquiry is invariably about social life. Therefore, what occupies academic scholarship is in the interest of the broader populace, and we rely on the public to inform our work. The findings of academic work are simultaneously a reflection of the researcher, and the public. The research interests of contemporary cultural and social researchers inevitably, and often necessarily, reflect issues and activities that they encounter in their everyday lives..

TASA Working Document: Responses to contingent labour in academia

This document is primarily speaking to those academics who have some say over the employment, management and support of contingent academic staff (even if such responsibilities are not formally recognised by their institutions). However, we are not suggesting that this is an ‘us and them’ issue, nor should our approach be interpreted as an oppositional understanding of different institutional positions. The strength and vibrancy of sociology as a discipline is dependent on a common interest and commitment to advocating for and building sustainable academic practice

Improving inclusion in rural health services for marginalised community members: Developing a process for change

Australia’s mainstream health services located in rural contexts are mandated to provide health care to the entire local population. However, complex power relations embedded and reflected within the cultures of mainstream generalist health services are excluding the most marginalised residents from health care. This paper argues that unless inclusion in rural, generalist mainstream health services is improved, the health experiences of these residents will not substantially change and Australia will continue to report significant health differentials within its population. The concept of culturally inclusive health care is difficult for Australian mainstream generalist health practitioners to engage with because there is limited understanding of what culture is and how it operates within diverse communities. This makes it challenging for many in mainstream health institutions to begin deconstructing how it is that exclusion occurs. Frequently, ‘culture’ is assigned to ‘Others’, and there is little recognition that all people, including White, mainstream Australians, are cultural beings, and that health disciplines, services and systems have particular cultures that make assumptions about how to be in the world. Consequently, current approaches to the provision of culturally inclusive health care are not shifting the power relations that (re)produce exclusion. In this paper, we outline a new interdisciplinary methodology that operationalises Foucault’s concepts of power, resistance and discourse within a Participatory Action Research (PAR) design and utilises Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) processes to respond to these power relations and provide health institutions with a process to improve their inclusivity, specifically for Australia’s most marginalised residents. It is suggested that employing this new methodology will promote a different way of thinking and acting in health institutions, producing a deconstructed process for health services to adapt to improve their inclusivity

Abnormal Mothers: Breastfeeding, Governmentality and Emotion Amongst Regional Australian Women

Australia’s apparently poor rates of breastfeeding are a frequent feature in mainstream news reports. Underpinning these discussions is the breast is best discourse, which implies that not breastfeeding is indicative of bad motherhood. Alongside this dominant discourse is the persisting construction of breastfeeding as a private, corporeal act. This article examines the governing gridlock formed by these two dominant discourses, analysing interview data gathered from mothers in regional Western Australia about their complex experiences with breastfeeding. I aim to highlight how the governance of these breastfeeding discourses disguises the various ways in which women’s choices about breastfeeding are constrained. While these discourses may govern women in different ways, combined they represent a cultural paradigm clash which silences women about their difficulties with breastfeeding—the challenges women encounter in negotiating breastfeeding in contemporary daily life—both as a corporeal act and because of its corporeality. I argue that to avoid making women who do not breastfeed feel abnormal, this clash needs to be challenged in—and by—the wider Australian populace