Pecking orders : Power relationships and gender in Australian prison graffiti
- Authors: Wilson, Jacqueline
- Date: 2008
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Ethnography Vol. 9, no. 1 (2008), p. 99-121
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- Description: The article examines male and female inmate graffiti in a decommissioned Australian jail, a holding facility attached to the former Melbourne Magistrates Court. While male graffitists were preoccupied chiefly with personal identity, power and vengeance, the women used graffiti to build networks and alliances in order to cope with life inside. Their social structure, as expressed in the graffiti, is unusual in that, unlike the men, virtually all female inmates expected to be sent to one prison upon conviction; they thus treated the jail as a staging-ground for their arrival and continued survival in the main prison. Further aspects of the general condition of female inmates in the late 20th-century prison system are discussed. The article begins with observations on the political implications of attempting such research, and consequent tendencies for vulnerable historical voices to be silenced through regimes of de facto censorship. © 2008 Sage Publications.
- Description: C1
After the orphanage : Life beyond the children's home
- Authors: Wilson, Jacqueline
- Date: 2010
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Australian Historical Studies Vol. 41, no. 1 (2010), p. 119-120
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Prison : Cultural memory and dark tourism
- Authors: Wilson, Jacqueline
- Date: 2008
- Type: Text , Book
- Full Text: false
- Description: 2003006371
Retaining a foothold on the slippery paths of academia : University women, indirect discrimination, and the academic marketplace
- Authors: Wilson, Jacqueline , Marks, Genee , Noone, Lynne , Hamilton-Mackenzie, Jennifer
- Date: 2010
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Gender and Education Vol. 22, no. 5 (2010), p. 535-545
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- Description: This paper examines indirect discrimination in Australian universities that tends to obstruct and delay women's academic careers. The topic is defined and contextualised via a 1998 speech by the Australian Human Rights Commission's Sex Discrimination Commissioner, juxtaposed with a brief contemporaneous exemplar. The paper discusses the prevalence of women among casual and fixed-term academic workers, and the contrasting low numbers of women in senior academic positions. It is argued that the neo-liberal 'marketisation' of higher education, which still prevails, has fostered a number of indirectly discriminatory practices and conditions that substantially disadvantage women. A selection of studies of the problem are critiqued. It is argued that a broad statistical methodology is inadequate due to its tendency to 'homogenise' the academy and its component individuals, in the process giving scope for unjustified optimism among university policy-makers. A particulate approach is advocated, acknowledging the wide variation between and within universities, and the range of hidden difficulties individual women academics can face. It is concluded that despite apparent reforms over the past decade, the situation of women has improved little in practical terms.
- Description: 2003007854
Adolescent resistance narratives in a satirical schoolyard : The case of summer heights high
- Authors: Wilson, Jacqueline
- Date: 2009
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Journal of Australian Studies Vol. 33, no. 3 (2009), p. 305-316
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- Description: The Australian 'mockumentary' Summer Heights High depicts a fictional secondary school. Among the protagonists are archetypal adolescents - male and female - whose relationships with the institution and their peers may be interpreted as resistance narratives. Although purportedly satirical representations, the characters are depicted with striking realism; as such, it is argued, they may serve as models for analysis of the school environment. This article focuses on Jonah, an eighth-grader whose learning difficulties, literacy problems, and anti-social behaviour are entwined with his self-identification as an ethnic (Polynesian) outsider. His behaviours and attitude may be seen as a radically inarticulate expression of his own ethnic, social, and intellectual otherness. It is argued here that because of the mutually intractable and radically opposed natures of the traditional education institution and the 'Jonahs' with whom it must deal, only a paradigm shift in the system and perhaps society overall will 'save' such students. The article discusses alternative education models, and argues that current political pressures on schools and teachers to 'improve performance' miss the point and do more harm than good. © 2009 International Australian Studies Association.
Transgressive decor : Narrative glimpses in Australian prisons, 1970s-1990s
- Authors: Wilson, Jacqueline
- Date: 2008
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Crime Media Culture Vol. 4, no. 3 (2008), p. 331-348
- Full Text: false
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- Description: This article presents a number of examples of prison inmate graffiti photographed by the author in Australian decommissioned prisons. The images are examined with regard to aspects of the sociology and social psychology of the prison environment. Abiding themes of prison life are identified and discerned as factors contributing to the content of the graffiti. These include especially power relationships, sexuality, revenge, violence, boredom and the simple desire for some form of entertainment, however fleeting.
- Description: 2003006370
Representing Pentridge : The loss of narrative diversity in the populist interpretation of a former total institution
- Authors: Wilson, Jacqueline
- Date: 2005
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Australian Historical Studies Vol. 36, no. 125 (2005), p. 113-133
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- Description: This article examines the proposed popular historical interpretation of the decommissioned Pentridge Prison, in the course of its redevelopment as a residential and commercial precinct. The interpretation is judged to have been 'appropriated' by a 'gatekeeper' group comprising former prison officers in partnership with the commercially motivated site owners. In the process, it is argued, a wide range of 'alternative' narratives are excluded from the prison's public history. Examples of such narrative options are presented, including that of the author, who identifies as a stakeholder in the interpretation of the prison. This narrative 'sampling' is done with a view to asking how the consequent broader interpretation can be conveyed to visitors to the site. 'The eternal questions that concern historians … are the ones with which we grapple endlessly. Whose history is being told? Whose history is left out? Whose collective memory should be celebrated? Whose is forgotten? Which past should be preserved? Which re-created?'
- Description: 2003002438
Racist and political extremist graffiti in Australian Prisons, 1970s to 1990s
- Authors: Wilson, Jacqueline
- Date: 2008
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: The Howard Journal of Criminal Justice Vol. 47, no. 1 (2006), p. 52-66
- Full Text: false
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- Description: Abstract: The article discusses graffiti found in Australian prison museums, in particular racist and extreme nationalist texts and images. The rise of prisoners' rights movements brought a concurrent reactive move to the political Right among prison officers. This enabled far-Right and racist elements among staff to become influential in a number of prisons. Similarities are noted between Australian prison graffiti and graffiti found in British prisons in the 1990s, as reported by the British Commission for Racial Equality (CRE). The CRE found that prisons in Britain fostered a culture of racism. Apparent motivations of Australian and British graffitists show much common ground including a sense of national dispossession, far-Right sentiment and social disaffection. It is concluded that the radically enclosed and violent nature of the prison exacerbates these issues, effectively promoting far-Right tendencies among prisoners and staff.
- Description: C1
- Description: 2003006368
Dark Tourism and National Identity in the Australian history curriculum
- Authors: Wilson, Jacqueline
- Date: 2011
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: Tourism and National Identities [electronic resource] : An International Perspective. p.
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Ellen Kelly
- Authors: Wilson, Jacqueline
- Date: 2005
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: Australian dictionary of biography Chapter p. 213-214
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- Description: 2003003467
Beyond the walls: Sites of trauma and suffering, forgotten Australians and institutionalisation via punitive 'welfare'
- Authors: Wilson, Jacqueline
- Date: 2013
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Public History Review Vol. 20, no. (2013), p. 80-93
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- Description: Women’s and children’s welfare and institutionalisation are a neglected area of Australian public history, and the historic sites which operated as carceral venues within that field today stand largely forgotten, in many cases derelict. The prime example of such sites is the Parramatta Female Factory Precinct (PFFP). In practice, Australian women’s and children’s welfare was strongly focused on a punitive approach, resulting in many thousands of vulnerable people suffering significant harm at the hands of their ‘carers’. These victims comprise the group known as the ‘Forgotten Australians’. The article discusses the nature of the relationship between the historic sites and the narratives of individuals who were victims of the system, whether actually incarcerated or merely threatened with such. As a form of case study, the author’s own story of State wardship and her encounters with the welfare system is employed to illustrate the connections between the ‘generic’ stories embodied in the sites, the policies underlying the system, and the nature of institutionalisation. It is argued that immersion in the system can induce a form of institutionalisation in individuals even when they are not actually incarcerated. The effective omission of women’s and children’s welfare and the Forgotten Australians from the forthcoming national Australian Curriculum in History is discussed, with a focus on the potential of the PFFP to be developed as a public history venue emphasizing its educational possibilities as an excursion destination, and a source of public information on the field from convict settlement to the present day.
Australian prison tourism : A question of narrative integrity
- Authors: Wilson, Jacqueline
- Date: 2011
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: History Compass Vol. 9, no. 8 (2011), p. 562-571
- Full Text: false
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- Description: The article discusses the special nature of prison tourism in Australia, given the nation's origins, just over two centuries ago, as a penal colony, and the significant role thus played by convicts in the development of Australian society. Prison tourism is also examined as almost the only type of 'dark tourism' widely undertaken within Australia. It is argued that a combination of prevailing social attitudes and the influence of certain stakeholder groups limit or skew the narratives inherent in former prison sites, with consequent negative ramifications for the historical and social integrity of the sites. (Author abstract).
'The incarcerated'
- Authors: Wilson, Jacqueline
- Date: 2012
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: Sociology: Antipodean Perspectives p. 455-459
- Full Text: false
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Pedagogies for the future: Leading quality learning and teaching in higher education
- Authors: Brandenburg, Robyn , Wilson, Jacqueline
- Date: 2013
- Type: Text , Book
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Educational Dissonance: Reconciling a radical upbringing
- Authors: Wilson, Jacqueline
- Date: 2013
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: Pedagogies for the future: Leading quality learning and teaching in higher education p. 125-139
- Full Text: false
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The tacit semantics of ‘Loud Fences’ : Tracing the connections between activism, heritage and new histories
- Authors: Wilson, Jacqueline , Golding, Frank
- Date: 2018
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: International Journal of Heritage Studies Vol. 24, no. 8 (2018), p. 861-873
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- Description: In 2015, in response to harrowing accounts of child sexual abuse at the hands of Catholic clergy in the town of Ballarat, a campaign of public support was launched in the form of coloured ribbons attached to the fences of institutions where the abuse had occurred. The “Loud Fence” campaign has become a global form of protest and commemoration. Institutions’ reactions were varied; some removed the ribbons, to find them promptly replaced, with attendant publicity. Thus was established a silent dialogue that encapsulated the contested nature of the ribbons’ symbolism, and exemplified, too, the campaign’s disparate implied audiences. The paper discusses the meanings of the Loud Fences in relation to divided community sensibilities and intangible heritage, as a performative mode of activism and of heritage-making. It considers ways in which the campaign challenges institutional cultures that stand as extant remnants of colonialism and as edifices of iconic institutional power. The Loud Fences campaign is characterised as a grass-roots quest, initially intended to show solidarity with disenfranchised victims of abuse, that has come to be seen as giving them a symbolic “voice” in the face of institutional denial. The paper touches upon the ways in which such campaigns, based on visual symbols and contested, yet unspoken, “dialogue”, can be historicised. © 2017,
Introduction : Prison tourism in context
- Authors: Wilson, Jacqueline , Hodgkinson, Sarah , Piche, Justin , Walby, Kevin
- Date: 2017
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: The Palgrave Handbook of Prison Tourism (Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology series) Chapter 1 p. 1-12
- Full Text: false
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- Description: The advent of a Handbook of Prison Tourism, and one of such depth and scope as this volume, is testimony to the extraordinary rise in scholarly interest in a field that barely a decade ago supported only a handful of researchers. It is testimony too, not only to the global ubiquity of former sites of imprisonment as tourist attractions, but also to the centrality of prisons, and the concept of incarceration as a dominant mode of administering justice that spans cultures and nations. In modern liberal democracies based on and notionally wedded to principles of individual liberty as core legal and societal precepts, it is unsurprising that imprisonment is regarded by many as a fair and just response to individuals’ transgression against society. In an age when many believe in the principle that “the punishment should fit the crime,” the imposition of a prison sentence for a variety of offenses rarely raises questions.
Sites of conscience: Remembering disappearance , execution, imprisonment, murder, slavery and torture
- Authors: Ashton, Paul , Wilson, Jacqueline
- Date: 2014
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: Silent system: Forgotten Australians and the Instititionalisation of women and children Chapter 5 p. 59-71
- Full Text: false
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Inclusive archives and recordkeeping : Towards a critical manifesto
- Authors: Evans, Joanne , Wilson, Jacqueline
- Date: 2018
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: International Journal of Heritage Studies Vol. 24, no. 8 (2018), p. 857-860
- Full Text: false
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- Description: Archival practices must now reflect both advances in information technology, and the ethos of inclusivity that assures that the subjects of records have full opportunity to participate in the memory-making process, and to ‘own’ the resulting records. This themed section presents four articles demonstrating various ways in which this is being done or could potentially be done, and why it is needed. The articles model new and innovative modes of archiving, closely collaborative approaches to ensuring that the ‘personal’ is included in the record, and ways in which the norms of historical practice, heritage and social memory can be transformed by new ways of thinking about and defining archival practices. © 2018,
Latent scrutiny : Personal archives as perpetual mementos of the official gaze
- Authors: Wilson, Jacqueline , Golding, Frank
- Date: 2016
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Archival Science Vol. 16, no. 1 (2016), p. 93-109
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- Description: This article examines the significance, in the lives of those who experienced out-of-home care as children, of the archived records of their institutionalisation. The affective ramifications of accessing the records as adults are discussed, with especial focus on the records' capacity to revive past suffering. Drawing on the work of Bruner (Crit Inq Autumn 1-21,1991, Consumption and everyday life, Sage, London, 1997) and MacIntyre (After virtue: a study in moral theory, University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, 1981), a 'narrative' model of the self is utilised to account for the negative effect of systemic flaws in the records' original composition. Such flaws, it is argued, have the potential to disrupt the individual's sense of self. Both the authors, who experienced out-of-home care as children, present their own experiences of accessing the records, as case studies. The records' manifold inaccuracies and inadequacies are interpreted in the light of prevailing welfare practices, in particular a highly damaging judgemental paradigm of gendered and moralistic assumptions of the inferior character of those in care. The authors conclude by arguing that research into the archives should involve the direct participation, as 'insider researchers', of those who experienced the matters contained in the records. Such participation is essential if the process of revealing and interpreting the archives is to maintain the dignity of the records' subject individuals, and ensure the integrity of the research. © 2015, Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.