Buddhism and the formation of the religious body: a Foucauldian approach

Poststructuralist debates around the body have demonstrated how our knowledge of the body is constituted in specific cultural and historical circumstances and in the context of particular relations of power. This article develops this approach to the body in Buddhism and thus attempts to show how the body has been represented within different discourses in Buddhist texts. Implicit in this account is the remedying of the failure in some Buddhist scholarship to recognise different types of bodies (negative and positive) and to show how these aspects of the body, as enumerated by texts, operate together to constitute forms of identities capable of being constituted within different historical moments out of the pressure of new social and material changes. At the same time the body is seen as being capable of self modification in terms of that discourse. The term ‘body’ is used here in the sense that it implies not only a physical aspect (flesh, bones, liquids etc.), but that it is connected to various cognitive and emotional capacities as outlined in the khandhas (see below) explanation of the human constitution. The author's concern in his treatment of the body is to avoid the problems of psychological analysis, as this form of analysis often implies the existence of a psyche or soul along with the ideas of complete individual self-determination

Family Provision, The Family Farm and Rural Patriarchy: Three Actors in Search of a Play?

This article describes how rural claimants have had their claims dealt with under family provision legislation. This legislation provides that, where a testator does not provide adequate provision for the proper maintenance and support of certain dependants, the court in its discretion may make further provision out of the estate. As regards this legislation, this article concentrates on the expectations of farming sons who have worked on farms and who may expect to receive a major share of a family property. Their claim is compared against the claims of daughters and widows. The article contends that family provision legislation, which in many cases works to the advantage of farming sons, reflects forms of patriarchy which overlap with and incorporate rural ideas of labour and the place of women on farms.

Governance and Susceptibility in Conflict Resolution: Possibilities Beyond Control

Governmentality analysis offers a nuanced critique of informal Western conflict resolution by arguing that recently emerged alternatives to adversarial court processes both govern subjects and help to constitute rather than challenge formal regulation. However, this analysis neglects possibilities for transforming governance from within conflict resolution that are suggested by Foucault's contention that there are no relations of power without resistances. To explore this lacuna, I theorise and explore the affective and interpersonal nature of governance in mediation through autoethnographic reflection upon mediation practice, and Levina's insights about the relatedness of selves. The paper argues that two qualitatively different mediator capacities - technical ability and susceptibility - operate in concert to effect liberal governance. Occasionally though, difficulties and failures in mediation practice bring these capacities into tension and reveal the limits of governance. By considering these limits in mediation with Aboriginal Australian people, I argue that the susceptibility of mediator selves contains prospects for mitigating and transforming the very operations of power occurring through conflict resolution. This suggests options for expanded critical thinking about power relations operating through informal processes, and for cultivating a susceptible sensibility to mitigate liberal governance and more ethically respond to difference through conflict resolution

Service entities : can they operate below the radar of the ATO?

3 page(s

Testamentary promises, family provision and family farmers

12 page(s

The Market and social welfare in Australia : the creation of enterprise theology

Recently several governments have contracted with religious agencies to provide welfare services. For instance in the United States, George W. Bush has furthered the idea of "charitable choice" and the idea that churches should develop social welfare. In Australia, with the dismantling of the Commonwealth Employment Services (C.E.S.), contracts for the provision of "employment services" have been tendered out, with the result that the majority of services have been given to various religious agencies. This paper explores the significance of this development in the context of what I call enteTprise theology.29 page(s

Inheritance and divorce on the farm

"2001"Thesis (PhD)--Macquarie University, Division of Society, Culture, Media and Philosophy, Department of Sociology, 2002.Bibliography: leaves 300-386.Introduction -- Popular notions of work, economics and sexuality -- Australia as a transplant of Europe and the culture of liberalism -- Property and governance in rural Australia -- Governing at a distance: the role of trusts in structuring family life in rural Australia -- The changing nature of social welfare in Australia: from social entitlement to the "personal supervisory state" -- The social construction of rural inheritance -- The state and inheritance: testators' family maintenance legislation -- Divorce and the division of farming property -- Conclusion.This thesis studies family property law in rural Australia in the area of inheritance, divorce and social security. I analyse how legal notions of property are shaped by popular discourses which embody notions of work, sexuality and economics. -- This project builds on Foucault's lectures on governmentality and on the notion of Australia as a culture of liberalism. The notion of governmentality enables us to understand the role of government as utilising a complex set of assemblages, techniques and classifications to direct its citizens. My approach to liberalism is to regard it as a form of government which is constantly involved in a critique of excessive government. My approach is that liberalism should be understood as an art of government that seeks to indirectly shape the capacities of free subjects to achieve its purposes and goals. -- In detail, I argue three propositions. Firstly, I regard that the laws concerning rural family property are legal discourses which embody notions of work, sexuality and ideas of what I call popular economics. I examine how discourses of work operate in inheritance cases through notions of deservedness. For instance, work on farms by sons is seen to justify an inheritance while work by females is not so regarded. Likewise, in divorce cases, work by a husband in building up a property is rewarded in a property dispute while a wife's labour usually tends to be disregarded. -- I regard sexuality as a popular discursive formation which constructs women as dependants who do not make an economic contribution. Women in inheritance cases are seen as not needing support should they marry; they are regarded as having been provided for by their husband. Moreover, their labour is seen as non-deserving so as to not threaten male continuity of farming property. -- As regards economic discourses pertaining to work on farms, I argue (following Hirschman) that legal cases adopt notions of behaviour as "orderly", and "predictable" in assessing outcomes in divorce and inheritance cases. -- Secondly, liberalism as an approach to government shapes the activities of farmers, augmenting their own autonomy and independence in several ways. I argue that family property held through a family trust or company enables the family to secure their financial independence and maintain the long-term continuity of agrarianism. I also argue that the readjustment to liberalism circa 1900 readjusted notions of the family to make it more autonomous and independent. Likewise, in the divorce context I argue that recent Family Law Act cases viewed from a neoliberal perspective demonstrate that the family is being shaped by notions of self-help and financial independence. -- Thirdly, I regard law as operating as a disciplinary form of social cohesion in the sense that it incorporates popular and professional discourses and compiles facts in a genealogical manner. Implied in this approach is the argument that law as governance creates a form of legal knowledge about the family which excludes other accounts.Mode of access: World Wide Web.xii, 386 leave

Property and governance of the family farm in rural Australia

This article examines the social side of the property-holding relationship between rural families in rural Australia. I assume that property is a social relationship as well as form of technology. I argue that the technology of property is not neutral, but has social implications. My approach is to assume that settlers had various ideas of property. a core stratum of which was manipulated and governed by the state. At the same time the technical side of property, resting on the sciences of cartography, mapping and surveying, allowed the state to settle farmers on land in a controlled way to ensure productivity and social control. Thus. through stimulating ideas of freedom associated with property. the colonial state assisted the orderly development of the Australian continent.20 page(s

Buddhism and the formation of the religious body : a Foucaultian approach

29 page(s

Women and rural inheritances in Australia

15 page(s