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:
The paper interrogates implied and explicit narrative aspects of the standard guided tour taken by tourists visiting the forrner Centre for the Criminally Insane, 'J Ward' (closed in 1991), in the Victorian country town of Ararat. Of particular note are tour guides' accounts of certain routine procedures of inmate management andcontainment, including the punitive administralion of 'shock' treatment, and anecdotal depictions of escape attempts by notorious prisoners, especially Garry David The reality of inmate experience is found to be grossly euphemised and historically distorted in the retelling, rendering intrinsically shocking and disturbing episodes entertaining and acceptable, even in some cases amusing. It is argued that this process, along with the sale, as souvenirs, of artefacts reportedly associated with an escape attempt, both commodifies the suffering of inmates and in some cases perpetuates the 'containment' imperative of those charged with their incarceration.
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:
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:
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:
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.
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.
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).
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.