Legitimising harm : A critical ethnography of gambling in a community

Abstract

This thesis reports on a community study which explored the relationship between a small rural community and its club based poker machines. That enquiry aimed to broaden the general research focus from the dominant conceptualisation of individual gambling pathology to a community-level analysis. The theoretical and epistemological stance was also shifted, away from positivism (with its focus on measurable cause/effects), towards a critical constructionist approach. Employing ethnography, the research comprised extended community engagement, observation, document analysis and 51 individual interviews. Critical theory was applied to issues of ideology, discourse and power associated with poker machine gambling within the macro sociopolitical and local community contexts. The study found that, despite significant opposition, poker machines inveigled their way into this community with the support of powerful economic and political forces and influential club members. Location of the machines within an established club embedded them within networks of community relationships. Disbursement of community benefit ensnared many community members as beneficiaries of poker machine losses and rendered them complicit in gambling harms. The research identified that at times community ideology and interests acted as a powerful force against the establishment and expansion of poker machine gambling. Conversely, community ideology and interests also acted to legitimate the presence and operation of poker machines and to suppress opposition. This reflects the complex and contested nature of the construct of community. Reproduction of dominant gambling discourses, including those which frame gambling harm as pathology and an issue of individual responsibility, operate to conceal and condone gambling harms. These discourses marginalise and disempower community members harmed by gambling, while legitimating the club’s deployment of poker machines. This has helped to maintain existing arrangements and to support the shared and powerful interests of the state, the gambling industry, and venues.Doctor of Philosoph