School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences

Community managed organisations are integral to liberal democracy. They enfranchise the vulnerable, facilitate discourse, and uphold the social, civil, and political rights which assure the equality of worth and dignity inherent to citizenship and democratic process.
In return for delivering services which redress, relieve, and prevent hardship and suffering in the communities they represent, community managed organisations receive most of their funding from the Australian government.

Since the election of the Howard government in 1996, however, intensifying neoliberalism has sought to limit democratic discourse and replace the egalitarian exchange orientation underlying community services with a new competitive morality. Through progressively eroded funding tied increasingly to obligations for managerialisation, neoliberalisation has, over this period, pruned community services’ systems to meet the demands of competitive-bureaucracy, whilst limiting their capacity for advocacy and other activities.
Now faced with a new wave of neoliberal reforms, community managed organisations are mis-equipped for the competitive-market based funding environment of the National Disability Insurance Scheme and are struggling to make effective preparations. Whether – and how – community managed organisations survive competition, both with one another and with incoming for-profit providers, will have profound implications for Australian society.

This conceptual thesis integrates empirical and philosophical literature insights and suggests neoliberal transformational discourse has subverted worker narratives and effected an ontological assault upon them, which has relocated resistance within community organisations. It adopts a semiotic sensemaking approach to understanding community workers’ reconciliation of fundamental conflicts between this neoliberalisation of the welfare-state within which they are otherwise systematically and ontologically embedded.

This thesis contributes to the community and organisational development fields by presenting a visualised synthesis of prominent sensemaking and bricolage literatures, and proposes new insights for reunifying differences within the community sector and articulating values-consistent responses by which to survive – and perhaps redress – neoliberalism’s extremes.

This chapter discusses the dynamics of neoliberalization upon the welfare state, with specific attention upon the managerialization of welfare providers. Its premise is that non-profit and community run welfare services are integral democratic infrastructure and that neoliberalizing efforts  to  marketize  these  services  constitute  a  concerted  effort  to  restructure  modern democracy. Whilst written from a perspective grounded in an Australian context and cognizant that local contexts impart variations upon how (and to what extent) both the welfare state and subsequent neoliberalization have unfolded across jurisdictions, this chapter proceeds upon a discussion of neoliberalizing strategies of transformational discourse evident across Western nations.
The chapter opens with a brief overview of the Marshallian basis for citizenship and post-war democratic  norms,  before  discussing  major  contestations  upon  it  bound  within  divergent orientations to democracy. It focuses upon neoliberalism, in particular, as proceeding upon the realization of reformed political norms through means inconsistent with the functioning and  ideals  underlying  democratic  discourse,  and  embarks  upon  a  conceptual  synthesis that  draws  together  additional  literatures  relevant  to  further  exploring  these  dynamics.  It focuses in particular upon transformational discourse as a form of sensegiving that embeds performativity within welfare actors through a process of managerialization that ultimately disrupts  sensemaking  and  undermines  both  resistance  and  welfare  sector  advocacy.  The chapter then concludes by highlighting bricolage-based opportunities to reignite and reinforce community managed welfare services providers’ – also known as Third Sector Organizations (TSOs – see Onyx, 2000) – capacities for the preservation and facilitation of citizenship and the inclusive and representative democracy it proceeds upon.

Tension between individual and communal interests is endemic in neoliberal universities. As a group of 10 academics from a Business School in an Australian University, we employed the collective research method of memory-work to investigate how collegiality is experienced and learnt by academics. Although collegiality is employed to enable productivity and efficiency in the neoliberal university, our diverse yet intersecting experiences of collegiality diverged from this institutional construct. We shared and explored our memories of collegiality together during the COVID-19 pandemic and learnt how collegiality emerges through acts of care which produce feelings of support, visibility, and equality, thereby improving our wellbeing at work. We propose the concept of 'collective collegiality' as sitting alongside institutionalised notions of collegiality, representing a 'counter space' to performative notions of collegiality and enabling us to learn from each other how to navigate, survive, and even thrive, in the neoliberal academy. By enacting the lived experience of collective collegiality, we bring to light alternatives to neoliberal workplace ideals which may foster more organic, flexible workplaces and ways of working together.

This paper addresses the charge that narrative theory of identity lacks explanatory power and the further claim that for narrative theory to have such explanatory power, there would need to be an answer in the positive to the question: 'Is human reality (or some especially important dimension of it) itself narrative in nature' (Meyers 2004, 289). I claim that the dynamic creativity that is central to Merleau-Ponty's account of expressive cognition and the living body's ability to transform sedimented structure into new meaningful forms, is narrative in nature. I revisit Iris Marion Young's claims in her seminal paper 'Throwing like a Girl'. Instead of the focus being on the body 'exhibiting' an ambiguous transcendence, an inhibited intentionality, and a discontinuous unity with its surroundings' (Young 2005, 35), thus exhibiting oppression, I claim that this is a woman's bodily narrative, thus drawing attention to the way that the observed comportment and behaviour are already narrativised-are infused with meaning-and tell a story of gendering and oppression. This emphasises the ethical need to listen or attend to the authentic narrative and the way this tells a story of the world as well as the body-subject. The presentation of this narration as the 'natural' way of the female sex as weaker, both mentally and physically, and experiencing a childish will, is thus a re-configuration that erases the authentic narration of the body's expressive cognition.

Merleau-Ponty identifies an intertwined affective state of anxiety and courage, claiming that these are one and the same thing, as a fundamental characteristic of human existence. I argue that trust, understood as phenomenologically basic, is the unity, or the something beyond the singularly conceived states of anxiety and courage, and that trust itself cannot be conceived apart from these states. Merleau-Ponty says little, directly, about trust in his work, yet his focus on the fundamental precariousness of existence demands such an exploration. I explore how our ordinary day-to-day experience of existence of existence is related to an intertwined affective state of anxiety and courage and how trust is operative in affective depth, in order to understand how it is we come to speak of trust not only in terms of proximity and distance, emotional depth and extension across time, but most markedly, in terms of how we see someone and what it is like to be in relation to them.

There is a long history of utilising various facets of the arts in peace activism. Writing in Canada at the fin de siècle, author L.M. Montgomery's work contains numerous examples of her gender activism with her creation of peaceful societies for her female protagonists. As this was a time when women were not free to openly express dissatisfaction with their role in society, the arts were a method by which they could subtly share their views. While several authors consider Montgomery's subversive views on gender, few authors involve arts practice as part of their research. This paper will investigate Montgomery's building of strong, supportive female communities in her Anne series of novels. I will continue the culture of utilising creative arts to explore these gender dynamics by using an arts-based methodology to identify themes in Montgomery's work, resulting in a new musical composition that articulates the gender struggle. This work exemplifies how responding to gender dynamics through art continues, well beyond Montgomery's era, to provide a peaceful form of gender-based activism.

Canadian author L.M. Montgomery did not set out to write stories about romance. As she indicated in her journals, she wrote character-driven stories of young girls navigating their way through girlhood. However, she understood that the public, and her publishers, expected these girls to experience romance that culminated in marriage, following the societal traditions of the time. Montgomery managed this dichotomy by having many characters experience a suspended romance, delaying the romantic aspect of the relationship for as long as possible. Arts-based practice is a mode of analysis and offers the opportunity to find a new way of understanding and communicating Montgomery's type of suspended romance. Music is, in many ways, considered romantic, so it is an appropriate medium to communicate Montgomery's romantic narrative structures. This paper investigates Montgomery's use of suspended romance in her novels and how this delay provided her characters with time to develop other areas of their lives. An arts-based methodology was used to identify and analyse recurring themes in Montgomery's work, as the question is not can Montgomery's theme of romance be musically represented but how. The result of this creative experimentation is a new musical composition that articulates these suspended romances using six different musical devices. This creative work exemplifies the intertextual link that exists between Montgomery's work and new musical compositions.

This paper examines capital punishment and comparisons in practice in order to explore the proposition that capital punishment is a cruel and unusual punishment against a legal, moral, socio-cultural and human rights framework. In conducting research for this paper it was particularly difficult to connect with literature that gave equal regard to the topic because of the distinct imbalance that suggests Western implementation of capital punishment has some level of superiority over others. Western Human Rights groups and media consistently label countries like Saudi Arabia as ‘barbaric’ when applying capital punishment to its criminal offenders. Yet a closer analysis reveals that legal mechanisms are similarly applied to capital punishment cases. While they may differ slightly to Western practice, there are still a number of comparisons in practice; namely where due process is administered in accordance with judicial governance. State sanctioned capital punishment is intended to impose a swift and humane death of a criminal offender who has been tried and convicted by a legal judiciary. This paper argues that capital punishment in any form is representative of cruel and unusual punishment. There are no best standards for inflicting capital punishment, regardless of whether it is undertaken in either Western or non-Western society. The foundation of human rights is after all, premised on the inherent dignity and value of all human life.

This article challenges the moral ethic around the inequities of the Australian Defence Force (ADF) workplace and what should be every member's right, foremost as a civil right, to access fair and equal opportunity in their profession. It is a topical article that seeks to inspire discourse

The inconvenient truth of internally conducted Defence Inquiries – where officers act as judge and jury over complaints of bullying and harassment of soldiers and Defence civilians – is now commonly recognised within the Defence community as a foundation for institutional abuse.

The realisation comes with a recommendation that now is the time to investigate the link between abuse and suicide among soldiers and Defence civilians.

Gross National Happiness (GNH) is a central policy, symbolic of Bhutan, which gave rise to Educating for GNH (EGNH). In Bhutan, the school Performance Management System is the sole instrument used by the Ministry of Education to evaluate the performance of schools. To test the utility of the Performance Management System in fulfilling the intended goals of EGNH, two of its key subcomponents-the School Self-Assessment and School Performance Scorecards-were assessed through the lens of the theory of practice architectures. The theory describes what comprises social practices and how they are shaped by the social, cultural and political contexts in which they occur. Content analysis was carried out using Leximancer text-mining software. The findings showed that the sayings and relatings and their corresponding cultural-discursive and social-political arrangements were not as evident in the School Self-Assessment indicators as the doings and material-economic arrangements. The findings also indicated that both the School Self-Assessment's and the School Performance Scorecards' indicators focus more on assessing leadership than teaching. The authors present several suggestions to ensure a closer alignment with the goals of EGNH, to demonstrate a balanced focus on assessing teaching and leadership, and to represent all practice architectures proportionately. Implications of this study should inform the policy and practices of Educating for GNH values in Bhutanese schools. The methods of the study could be adapted to examine educational practices beyond those of Bhutan.

Gross National Happiness (GNH), a concept that is rooted in Buddhist philosophies, underpins a range of educational policies in Bhutan. The Educating for GNH (EGNH) initiative was launched a decade ago to promote GNH values throughout the school system. However, whether EGNH has been a success is still contested with evidence lacking to support either view. Several issues arising from the implementation and evaluation of this initiative remain unaddressed. The five pathways to the EGNH have not been effectively institutionalised. Principals and teachers still lack motivation and competency to infuse and integrate GNH values. More importantly, the Performance Management System (PMS) is questioned as a valid framework to monitor the primary purpose of providing adequate feedback into and trustworthy recommendations for promoting and improving GNH practices. Based on the review of literature and some anecdotal evidence, the authors present the Theory of Practice Architectures as a new direction for investigating EGNH practices in the Bhutanese schools as it provides the theoretical framing for interrogating and potentially transforming educational practices.

Gross National Happiness (GNH), a concept that is rooted in Buddhist philosophies, underpins a range of educational policies in Bhutan. The Educating for GNH (EGNH) initiative was launched a decade ago to promote GNH values throughout the school system. However, whether EGNH has been a success is still contested with evidence lacking to support either view. Several issues arising from the implementation and evaluation of this initiative remain unaddressed. The five pathways to the EGNH have not been effectively institutionalized. Principals and teachers still lack the motivation and competency to infuse and integrate GNH values. More importantly, the Performance Management System (PMS) is questioned as a valid framework to monitor the primary purpose of providing adequate feedback and trustworthy recommendations for promoting and improving GNH practices. Based on the review of literature and some anecdotal evidence, the authors present the Theory of Practice Architectures as a new d...

Hugh Brown is a PhD candidate at QUT's Creative Industries Faculty. He founded Musowiki as an indirect and unintended outcome of his research but it has proved to be highly informative. Sing with me, sing for the years Sing for the laughter, sing for the tears Sing with me, just for today Maybe tomorrow the good Lord will take you away.