Editorial: The World is not Enough: The Impact of James Bond on Popular Culture
An introduction to the special issue "The World is not Enough: The Impact of James Bond Studies" by the editors: Jo Coghlan, Lisa J. Hackett, and Huw Nolan.
Indigenous Rights: NT Intervention and Income Quarantining
In November 2011, the Minister for Indigenous Affairs Jenny Macklin announced welfare changes for Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory.1 One of the measures announced was an extension of the 2009 Improving School Enrolment and Attendance through Welfare Reform Measures ('SEAM').2 In amending the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999, the Gillard government will link Aboriginal school attendance to welfare payments. For Aboriginal families in the NT, if your kids don't go to school, Centrelink can suspend income support and family parenting payments. For Frank Brennan, this is the 'nanny state on steroids.' He asks, 'who will be responsible for feeding the children whose parents have had their welfare payments suspended?'3 Intervention in the life of Indigenous people in the Territory is nothing new. In June 2007 the Howard government introduced the Northern Territory Emergency Response ('NTER') into 73 Aboriginal communities. This was the federal parliament's response to the findings of the NT Board of Inquiry into the sexual abuse of Aboriginal children.4 The 2007 NT Intervention granted the federal government direct control over selected Aboriginal communities for five years. The legal basis for the action was the territories powers contained within the Constitution. These powers allow the Commonwealth to legislate laws overriding territory sovereignty. Territory powers had been previously used by the Howard government to override the 1997 NT euthanasia laws and the 2006 ACT same-sex marriage laws.
Human Rights: The criminalisation of asylum seekers
There has been a raft of announcements from the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship Chris Bowen recently. They include the introduction of harsh amendments to character tests, the reintroduction of temporary protection visas ('TPVs')2 and the likely re-establishment of offshore detention on Papua New Guinea's Manus Island (closed since 2004). Even more-recent announcements have been the Malaysian solution and possibly a Thailand solution. Changes to how, where and under what legal regime Australia is processing asylum seekers has again been noted in a dissenting report from Amnesty International. Legally and morally they argue that Australia's refugee policies are 'going backwards fast'. Apart from changes to the character tests, again using TPVs to punish asylum seekers for protesting the condition in detention and the length of stay, as well as offshore processing, recent decisions to return failed asylum seekers to Afghanistan and the changes the government is making to the processing of asylum seekers who arrive by boat following last November's High Court judgment form the basis for Amnesty's criticism.
Conceptualizing (re)worked narratives of the American Family: From the American Dream to American decay in 'new' television
American television family dramas have long functioned for broadcast networks as a metaphoric framework to affirm the values of the American Dream. Since the 1990s, American cable television providers have challenged this long-held practice. Originally scripted programming, complete with large budgets, auteur freedom and not reliant on advertising revenue, delivered to audiences (re)worked family dramas that exposed the myth of the American Dream. It is suggested that in this shift, audiences were exposed to narratives of American decay predicated on a failing social, economic and political system. Evidence for this shift is examined in an analysis of six family dramas produced between 1997 and 2013. The aim of this analysis is to interrogate shifts as indicative of a new television landscape.
Diaspora Capital, Capacity Development and African Development: Role of Nigerian Migrants in Australia
This thesis examines the role of Australian-based skilled migrants from Nigeria in the capacity development of their country of origin. The dataset that formed the basis for the analysis was collected through semi structured interviews and surveys with two cohorts of skilled migrants. The first set of data is about the lived experiences of forty-five skilled migrants and two Nigerian diplomats in Australia. The trans-national activities, emotional ties, and social and professional networks that these sets of skilled migrants maintain across Nigeria and Australia are examined to ascertain their relevance for the capacity development of Nigeria through the transfer of professional skills. The second set of data consists of survey responses and semi- structured interviews obtained from twenty-two returned migrants who have gone back to Nigeria after their studies or employment in Australia. Underpinned by a qualitative approach to research design and a thematic approach to data analysis, the professional skills, and knowledge, economic, social, cultural and human capital of these skilled migrants are discussed as a form of migrants' social remittances and diaspora capital in the context of capacity development. Capacity development of Nigeria is discussed as an independent process that can be achieved with the contribution of migrants' diaspora capital. The thesis introduces the new concept of non-financial remittances, which marks its significance and contribution to research on migration and diaspora capital.
This thesis is important because it examines the lived experiences of Nigerian diaspora members in Australia, trans-migrants and return migrants who have returned to Nigeria after spending extended periods of time studying and working in Australia. The diaspora capital of these diaspora members and returned migrants is examined in terms of their contributions to capacity development through their transfer of skills for the capacity development of Nigeria. Diaspora capital in the context of this study is defined to have an encompassing meaning that entails several benefits that the Nigerian diaspora own and can be used to contribute to capacity development of Nigeria. This thesis looks beyond the argument of the negative effects of brain drain of skilled migrants by highlighting the idea that financial and social remittances can compensate for brain drain and migration of skilled migrants in developing countries. The diaspora option to enhance capacity development, migrant's social networks and trans-national activities are suggested as countervailing trends that may mitigate the negative effects of skilled migration from the homeland.
The framework of analysis for the study is built around Bourdieu, Putnam and Coleman's idea of social capital theory to examine migrants' bonding, bridging, linking and digital social capital and their effects on social network formation transfer of professional skills and capacity development. The research findings highlighted six major themes that include diaspora capital, modes of professional skills transfer and challenges that impede the use of diaspora capital for capacity development. Based on these analyses, the thesis argues that social networks, professional networks and transnational activities of skilled migrants such as professional visits to Nigeria, virtual online activities and volunteering can counter-balance the negative effects of brain drain and the exodus of skilled migrants on the capacity development of Nigeria. The study found that there are several inefficiencies and structural weaknesses that hinder the optimal utilisation of the skills of these groups of skilled migrants for capacity development. In the concluding chapter, the thesis provides policy recommendations on how the Nigerian government might more fully harness and utilise the skills of the Nigerian-born migrants of the diaspora.
Rebranded Pauline Hanson: A Party of Policy or Protest?
The title of this chapter comes from David Marr’s ongoing interest in Pauline Hanson: an interest I share, having watched her rise in 1996, contemplated what happened to her during her years in the political wilderness, and watched her successful return to politics in 2016. More broadly, the idea of looking at Hanson and Hansonism through the prisms of policy or, alternatively, protest is interesting. It changes how one thinks about her, her Party, its minor electoral successes, and its major electoral failures. Examining Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party (PHONP) as a party of policy focuses our attention upon its impact on the legislative agenda, in both 1996 and 2016. Alternatively, in considering PHONP as a party of protest, its positions are stripped of the pretense of seeking change and instead become mere rhetoric.
The Canberra Bubble: A Toxic Gender Culture
According to the ABC television program Four Corners, "Parliament House in Canberra is a hotbed of political intrigue and high tension … . It's known as the 'Canberra Bubble' and it operates in an atmosphere that seems far removed from how modern Australian workplaces are expected to function."
The term "Canberra Bubble" morphed to its current definition from 2001, although it existed in other forms before this. Its use has increased since 2015, with Prime Minister Scott Morrison regularly referring to it when attempting to deflect from turmoil within, or focus on, his Coalition government (Gwynn). "Canberra Bubble" was selected as the 2018 "Word of the Year" by the Australian National Dictionary Centre, defined as "referring to the idea that federal politicians, bureaucracy, and political journalists are obsessed with the goings-on in Canberra (rather than the everyday concerns of Australians)" (Gwynn).
Australia and Asia - Refugee Practices and Policies
The demise of the old European empires and the rise of the modem nation state meant that masses of people were displaced by the new boundaries and new principles of the nation state. Mass migration, forced or voluntary-a consequence of the nationalist or ethnic makeup of many new states-created the modern refugee. Refugees are people who have been forced to leave their homelands because of a well-founded fear of persecution or a threat to their survival or that of their immediate families. International laws were developed to protect those not protected by their own governments or who came under threat because of the actions and policies of their own governments. The conviction that the international community has a duty to protect refugees was recognised by the League of Nations. When the United Nations replaced the League in 1945 it accepted the collective obligation of states to take responsibility for those fleeing persecution or danger. Accordingly, the UN General Assembly in 1946 adopted a resolution that laid the foundations for international refugee protection laws.
Six Feet Under: A Gothic Reading in Liminality, Death and Grief
Death is no longer considered a social taboo. News coverage reports death on a daily basis. Literature, art, film, and television have a long history of portraying death. Disciplines ranging from anthropology, sociology and social welfare conceptualise death at an individual and community level in terms of ritual and power. Yet, how death and grief are performed is still largely shaped by social conventions. The critically-acclaimed HBO series Six Feet Under (2001-2005) uses Gothic tropes to challenge many of the social conventions that shape how individuals perform death and grief. Set in a Los Angeles funeral home run by the Fisher family, death is voiced by the episodic dead, while the complexities of grief are voiced by the families who come to the funeral home to arrange burial services. The Fishers themselves experience death and grief in the pilot episode. At each turn, normative understandings of how death and grief are performed are challenged. While there are conventional Gothic tropes evident in Six Feet Under, notably the dead occupying liminal spaces, it is via a California Gothic trope that the fragility of the American middle class family and its precarious existence in the dystopian American suburb is explored, underpinning the discursive power of the series.
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