An agenda for Australian rural sociology: Troubling the white middle-class farming woman

2021 ◽  
pp. 144078332199983
Author(s):  
Barbara Pini ◽  
Laura Rodriguez Castro ◽  
Robyn Mayes

In reflecting on the last two decades of publications by Australian rural studies scholars in three major disciplinary journals, this article argues that the field of Australian rural sociology has failed to address racial inequality and class difference. While we note a burgeoning of feminist rural research challenging the historical emphasis on the white male farmer, this too has tended to occlude class and race, as is demonstrated in our analysis of the national ‘Invisible Farmer’ project. Accordingly, we point to a need to bring anti-racist work and scholarship to bear on our subdiscipline. In particular, we call for Australian rural studies scholars to engage with Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander scholarship to interrogate whiteness as a category of difference and to open a discussion about relinquishing settler power, including in the academy. We emphasise the need for actions to understand and challenge the continuing dominance and privilege of whiteness and the fundamentally classed colonial project in Australian rural studies.

Author(s):  
Emma K. Russell ◽  
Bree Carlton ◽  
Danielle Tyson

Women’s rates of remand, or pre-trial detention, have grown dramatically in Australia and the rates at which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women are incarcerated without conviction are particularly high. However, there is little research examining bail and remand practices and their relationship to social inequalities. This article presents findings from research on the drivers behind women’s increasing rates of custodial remand in Victoria—a jurisdiction that has significantly restricted access to bail through legislative reforms. Drawing on data derived from interviews with criminal defence and duty lawyers, we outline how bail and remand practices systematically disadvantage women experiencing housing insecurity and domestic and family violence (DFV), increasing their risk of becoming trapped in longer-term cycles of incarceration. Our analysis reinforces the need to move away from ‘tough on crime’ approaches to bail. It also highlights unintended consequences of DFV reforms, including further marginalising and punishing criminalised women who are victim-survivors.


Gateway State ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 146-181
Author(s):  
Sarah Miller-Davenport

This chapter asks why white, middle-class American women were so fascinated with all things Hawaiʻi in the two decades after statehood. It also looks at why Hawaiʻi's export market linked racial and ethnic boundary-crossing with women's self-fulfillment. The mainland marketing of Hawaiʻi offered a virtual version of the kinds of cross-cultural exchange taking place in Hawaiʻi itself, urging ordinary mainland women to envision themselves as liberated, globe-trotting cosmopolitans. Cookbooks and apparel manufacturers suggested that the acts of eating Hawaiian food and wearing clothes produced in Hawaiʻi could catalyze a new, more relaxed, racially enlightened worldview. Yet the mainland consumption of Hawaiʻi was also made possible by the expansion of racially segregated suburban developments, where racial liberalism could be performed without disrupting racial inequality.


2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 101-108

The analogy Simone de Beauvoir draws between “les femmes” and “des Noirs d’Amérique” is a key part of the intersectional critique of The Second Sex. Intersectional critics persuasively argue that Beauvoir’s analogy reveals the white, middle-class identity of The Second Sex's ostensibly universal “woman”, emphasizing the fact that the text does not account for the experiences of black, Jewish, proletariat or indigenous women. In this essay, I point to multiple instances in The Second Sex in which Beauvoir endorses a coalition between workers black and white, male and female. When Beauvoir writes on economic injustice, she advocates for an inclusive workers party where racial and sexual differences become immaterial as workers come together in a collective struggle. I thus propose that Beauvoir’s Marxism is an overlooked, yet important, counterpoint to the intersectional critique of The Second Sex.


2019 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amalie Dyda ◽  
Surendra Karki ◽  
Marlene Kong ◽  
Heather F Gidding ◽  
John M Kaldor ◽  
...  

Background: There is limited information on vaccination coverage and characteristics associated with vaccine uptake in Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander adults. We aimed to provide more current estimates of influenza vaccination coverage in Aboriginal adults. Methods: Self-reported vaccination status (n=559 Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander participants, n=80,655 non-Indigenous participants) from the 45 and Up Study, a large cohort of adults aged 45 years or older, was used to compare influenza vaccination coverage in Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander adults with coverage in non-Indigenous adults. Results: Of Aboriginal and non-Indigenous respondents aged 49 to <65 years, age-standardised influenza coverage was respectively 45.2% (95% CI 39.5–50.9%) and 38.5%, (37.9–39.0%), p-value for heterogeneity=0.02. Coverage for Aboriginal and non-Indigenous respondents aged ≥65 years was respectively 67.3% (59.9–74.7%) and 72.6% (72.2–73.0%), p-heterogeneity=0.16. Among Aboriginal adults, coverage was higher in obese than in healthy weight participants (adjusted odds ratio (aOR)=2.38, 95%CI 1.44–3.94); in those aged <65 years with a medical risk factor than in those without medical risk factors (aOR=2.13, 1.37–3.30); and in those who rated their health as fair/poor compared to those who rated it excellent (aOR=2.57, 1.26–5.20). Similar associations were found among non-Indigenous adults. Conclusions: In this sample of adults ≥65 years, self-reported influenza vaccine coverage was not significantly different between Aboriginal and non-Indigenous adults whereas in those <65 years, coverage was higher among Aboriginal adults. Overall, coverage in the whole cohort was suboptimal. If these findings are replicated in other samples and in the Australian Immunisation Register, it suggests that measures to improve uptake, such as communication about the importance of influenza vaccine and more effective reminder systems, are needed among adults.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Troy Walker ◽  
Claire Palermo ◽  
Karen Klassen

BACKGROUND Social media may have a significant role in influencing the present and future health implications among Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, yet there has been no review of the role of social media in improving health. OBJECTIVE This study aims to examine the extent of health initiatives using social media that aimed to improve the health of Australian Aboriginal communities. METHODS A scoping review was conducted by systematically searching databases CINAHL Plus; PubMed; Scopus; Web of Science, and Ovid MEDLINE in June 2017 using the terms and their synonyms “Aboriginal” and “Social media.” In addition, reference lists of included studies and the Indigenous HealthInfonet gray literature were searched. Key information about the social media intervention and its impacts on health were extracted and data synthesized using narrative summaries. RESULTS Five papers met inclusion criteria. All included studies were published in the past 5 years and involved urban, rural, and remote Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people aged 12-60 years. No studies reported objective impacts on health. Three papers found that social media provided greater space for sharing health messages in a 2-way exchange. The negative portrayal of Aboriginal people and negative health impacts of social media were described in 2 papers. CONCLUSIONS Social media may be a useful strategy to provide health messages and sharing of content among Aboriginal people, but objective impacts on health remain unknown. More research is necessary on social media as a way to connect, communicate, and improve Aboriginal health with particular emphasis on community control, self-empowerment, and decolonization.


1998 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-24

This article addresses Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health problems and critically investigates current government policies which are attempting to raise the health standards of these Indigenous people. Particular emphasis will be placed on the Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population, which, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics census in 1986, stood at just over 61,000 or 2.4 per cent of the State's population.


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