Australia

Citation:

Marlowe, Jay M. 2012. “‘Walking the Line’: Southern Sudanese Masculinities and Reconciling One's Past with the Present.” Ethnicities 12 (1): 50-66.

Author: Jay M. Marlowe

Abstract:

This paper discusses an ethnographic engagement with Southern Sudanese men and their experiences of resettlement as refugees in Adelaide, Australia. They use the phrase ‘walking the line’ to convey the multiple challenges of reconciling one's past within the present contexts of life in a new host country. This geographic metaphor hints at the contested borderlands of masculinity, social relations and raising children that highlight the dynamic complexities related to gender and institutional power. The participant voices provide helpful perspectives on the endeavour of forging one's identity in forced migration and resettlement contexts.

Keywords: identity, masculinity, refugee, social relations, resettlement, Sudan

Topics: Displacement & Migration, Forced Migration, Refugees, Gender, Men, Masculinity/ies, Gendered Power Relations Regions: Africa, East Africa, Oceania Countries: Australia, South Sudan

Year: 2012

Citation:

Wadham, Ben. 2013. “Brotherhood: Homosociality, Totality and Military Subjectivity.” Australian Feminist Studies 28 (76): 212-35. doi:10.1080/08164649.2013.792440.

Author: Ben Wadham

Abstract:

In April 2011 a group of young male Australian Defence Force Academy Cadets conspired to prey upon an unsuspecting female colleague. Their plan was to broadcast one of their mates having consensual sex with an unsuspecting female cadet colleague for their viewing pleasure and fratriarchal bonding. The incident generated a strong and heated public debate about military culture and the ways soldiers behave. But it also marked a long end enduring history of such scandals that have developed into a reputation for the Australian Defence Forces (ADF) as obdurate and resistant to reform. Indeed, the ADF has consistently neutralised their responsibility for such practices by naming bad behaviour as merely the practices of a few bad apples. This paper unpacks the technologies of camouflage that the ADF and its military subjects' use to justify the role and place of militarism in contemporary Australian cultural relations. The paper focuses on the ideal of brotherhood and the way in which the Skype men, and the ADF as an institution, engage in forms of homosociality to naturalise the inherently violent disposition of the military. The practices and forms of fratriarchal bonding are implicated in the desire to generate and sustain a totalising masculinist economy that seeks wholeness and certainty at the expense of difference and otherness. These concerns are explored through the investigation of the sexual predation of six cadets and the manner in which the ADF accounts for its cultural practices.

Topics: Gender, Men, Masculinity/ies, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militaries, Militarism, Sexual Violence Regions: Oceania Countries: Australia

Year: 2013

Citation:

Alston, M. 2011. “Gender and Climate Change in Australia.” Journal of Sociology 47 (1): 53–70.

Author: M. Alston

Abstract:

Debate continues to rage as to the veracity of evidence around the permanence of climate change. There is no doubt that changes are occurring across the world and that these changes are causing significant social hardship, including food and water insecurity and large-scale movements of people. What is also emerging in research across the world is that these social impacts and adaptations are highly gendered. This article draws on several years of research on the Australian drought and more recent research on declining water availability in the Murray–Darling Basin of Australia. It notes the significant social impacts, particularly in remote and irrigation areas, and draws out the gendered impacts of these changes. The article argues for more sensitive rights-based social policy to address people who are under extraordinary stress during times of unparalleled change.

Topics: Environment, Climate Change, Gender Regions: Oceania Countries: Australia

Year: 2011

Citation:

Hepburn, Stephanie, and Rita J. Simon. 2013. HUMAN TRAFFICKING AROUND THE WORLD: HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT. New York: Columbia University Press.

Authors: Stephanie Hepburn, Rita J. Simon

Abstract:

An examination of human trafficking around the world including the following countries: United States, Japan, United Arab Emirates, Thailand, Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Colombia, Iraq, Syria, Canada, Italy, France, Iran, India, Niger, China, South Africa, Australia, United Kingdom, Chile, Germany, Poland, Mexico, Russia, and Brazil. (WorldCat)

Annotation:

Table of Contents:

Introduction

Part I: Work Visa Loopholes for Traffickers
1) United States
2) Japan
3) United Arab Emirates

Part II: Stateless Persons
4) Thailand
5) Israel & The Occupied Palestinian Territories

Part III: Unrest, displacement, and Who is in charge
6) Colombia
7) Iraq
8) Syria

Part IV: Conflation
9) Canada

Part V: Conflicting Agendas
10) Italy
11) France

Part VI: Gender Apartheid
12) Iran

Part VII: Social Hierarchy
13) India
14) Niger
15) China

Part VIII: Muti Murder
16) South Africa

Part IX: Hard-to-Prove Criterion and a slap on the wrist
17) Australia
18) United Kingdom
19) Chile
20) Germany

Part X: Transparent borders
21) Poland

Part XI: Fear Factor
22) Mexico

Part XII: Poverty and Economic Boom
23) Russia
24) Brazil

Conclusion

*Each Chapter follows the following format with some variations:

Introduction
As a destination
Internal trafficking
Trafficking abroad
What happens to victims after trafficking
What happens to traffickers
Internal efforts to decrease trafficking

Quotes:

"Devestation from a natural disaster...creates a sudden high demand for low-wage and largely unskilled labor. Disruption of the traditional labor supply leaves room for illicit contractors to move in, and new workers can be brought in unnoticed." (19)

"There continue to be more criminal convictions of sex traffickers than of forced-labor traffickers [However, this number of individuals victimized by forced labor may be increasing]." (32)

"Many experts state that the yakuza (organized crime) networks play a significant role in the smuggling and subsequent debt bondage of women--particularly women from China, Thailand, and Colombia--for forced prostitution in Japan. Determining the exact extent of yakuza involvement is difficult because of the covert nature of the sex industry. Consequently, the yakuza are able to minimize people's direct knowledge of their involvement...The yakuza networks work with organized crime groups from other nations, such as China, Russia, and Colombia." (49-50)

Topics: Economies, Gender, Women, Men, Girls, Boys, International Law, International Human Rights, Multi-National Corporations, Rights, Human Rights, Women's Rights, Sexual Violence, Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, Sexual Slavery, Trafficking, Human Trafficking, Labor Trafficking, Sex Trafficking Regions: Africa, West Africa, Americas, Central America, North America, South America, Asia, East Asia, Middle East, Southeast Asia, Europe, Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Oceania Countries: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, France, Germany, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Niger, Palestine / Occupied Palestinian Territories, Poland, Russian Federation, South Africa, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States of America

Year: 2013

Citation:

Mayer, Tamar, ed. 2000. Gender Ironies of Nationalism: Sexing the Nation. New York: Routlege.

Author: Tamar Mayer

Abstract:

This book provides a unique social science reading on the construction of nation, gender and sexuality and on the interactions among them. It includes international case studies from Indonesia, Ireland, former Yugoslavia, Liberia, Sri Lanka, Australia, the USA, Turkey, China, India and the Caribbean. The contributors offer both the masculine and feminine perspective, exposing how nations are comprised of sexed bodies, and exploring the gender ironies of nationalism and how sexuality plays a key role in nation building and in sustaining national identity.

The contributors conclude that control over access to the benefits of belonging to the nation is invariably gendered; nationalism becomes the language through which sexual control and repression is justified masculine prowess is expressed and exercised. Whilst it is men who claim the prerogatives of nation and nation building it is, for the most part, women who actually accept the obligation of nation and nation building. (Amazon)

Topics: Gender, Masculinity/ies, Femininity/ies, Nationalism, Sexuality Regions: Africa, MENA, West Africa, Caribbean countries, North America, Asia, East Asia, Middle East, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Europe, Balkans, Southern Europe, Western Europe, Oceania Countries: Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Liberia, Sri Lanka, Turkey, United States of America, Yugoslavia (former)

Year: 2000

Citation:

Alston, Margaret. 2006. “Gender Mainstreaming in Practice: A View from Rural Australia.” NWSA Journal 18 (2): 123–47.

Author: Margaret Alston

Abstract:

This article focuses on gender mainstreaming in practice using the example of agriculture departments in Australia. Gender mainstreaming is a policy initiative adopted internationally following the Beijing women's conference in 1995 to address gender inequality. The move represents a policy shift from a focus solely addressing women's disadvantage to a broader attention to gender inequality. This article provides an historical overview of the move toward gender mainstreaming in the international environment, as well as a theoretical critique. Using the Australian case example, the shift of attention from rural women to gender mainstreaming in Australian agricultural departments appears to be taking place with little understanding of the concept of gender mainstreaming or its goals. It is further argued that recent moves by government departments of agriculture toward gender mainstreaming may have disadvantaged women. This article argues that, while in theory mainstreaming is a more successful way of addressing gender inequality, in practice it risks reducing attention to women unless changes occur in departmental cultures and gender mainstreaming accountability measures are introduced at international and national levels.

Keywords: gender mainstreaming, rural women, Australia, policy

Topics: Agriculture, Gender, Gender Mainstreaming, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality Regions: Oceania Countries: Australia

Year: 2006