Camouflage: how the visual arts and sociology make sense of the military

The military is the core institution of state sanctioned violence in Western liberal democracies. In the last decade or so the role of the military has changed and militarism has become an increasingly conspicuous aspect of public life. The idea of camouflage is used and developed to explore how collaboration between the visual arts and sociology can be used to denaturalise the taken-for-granted assumptions and beliefs about the military in Australian society. Camouflage is explained in its military utility, its psychological concept (Gestalt theory) the art camouflage movement and their developed techniques (eg Cubism, Dadaism), and in terms of deconstruction or sociological critique as a tool for making social relations that are culturally camouflaged visible

The cultural relations of water in remote South Australian towns

Water is an increasingly scarce resource and the decline in rainfall presupposes people and communities adapting to live in drier, and very different, social and environmental conditions. In rural and remote South Australia residents have always considered water a reflexive resource that requires them to consider their relationship to water and its availability and access. These are material concerns. Yet, lifestyle, identity, sense of place and community is profoundly shaped by the inclusion of ‘water’ in one’s habitus. ‘Water’ is also a social concern and its material management arises within cultural relations

The provision of water infrastructure in Aboriginal communities in South Australia

The provision of water supplies to Aboriginal people in South Australia, particularly to communities covered under the Commonwealth–State (South Australia) Bilateral Agreement is considered world class in terms of the suitability of the technology to the remoteness of many of the communities and the harsh arid environment. This article explores the history of domestic water supplies to these Aboriginal communities. The article begins with a brief outline of pre-contact Aboriginal technologies for the maintenance of water supplies and reflects on the continuity of these approaches through the early years of pastoralist and missionary settlement. This is followed by a description of the services offered by the state and federal governments since the late 1970s to the present

Whose Reconciliation? Conservative white Australian masculinities and their struggle for white Australia

New Delhi, Indi

What is whiteness? Authenticity, dominance, identity

Adelaide, S

Military Justice in Australia: An Overview

Melbourne, VI

The turn to whiteness: race, nation and cultural sociology

Sydney, NS

Mogan Hunts and Pig Nights: Military Masculinities and the Making of the Arms-Corps Soldier

Melbourne, VI