- Title
- An Australian Rules for radicals? Community activism and genuine empowerment
- Creator
- Harrison, Tim
- Date
- 2015
- Type
- Text; Thesis; PhD
- Identifier
- http://researchonline.federation.edu.au/vital/access/HandleResolver/1959.17/97190
- Identifier
- vital:10173
- Abstract
- This thesis seeks to develop a critical understanding of the impact of a particular Community Renewal project on the residents. The Wendouree West Community Renewal was part of a broader Victorian state government intervention, Neighbourhood Renewal, which worked ‘on’ communities identified as disadvantaged. The study investigated the experiences of key residents, along with those of the author, during the period 2001-2013. The main contention is that Wendouree West Community Renewal project colluded with the welfare sector to impose a hegemonic and alien set of understandings on the community. This study is passionate; it takes a stance that is unashamedly political, ideological and partisan. Its key premise is that government interventions of this kind are damaging to communities like the one investigated. The Wendouree West experience promoted a three-fold residualisation: at the level of a ‘breaking down’ of local economies; an undermining of formal and informal education at a community level; and a manipulation of understandings of place, belonging and community that resulted in the imposition of a fake ’aspirational community’ in Wendouree West. The impact of this three-fold residualisation was a deep stigmatisation of Wendouree West as a ‘non-place’ (Auge, 2008), enabling its ultimate ghettoisation, both within the broader context of the regional city of which Wendouree West forms a small part, and within the understandings of residents themselves. This thesis represents struggle at a number of levels: the struggle of the residents to push back against a hegemonic intervention; the struggle of a scholar to make sense of his own role within the action; and the struggle of how to represent the residents’ stories in ways that are powerful and ‘truthful’ within the context of a PhD thesis. ii The ‘critical hope’ of this work is that the residents are able to push back against this program through acts of resistance and that community organising, in the style of the American radical Saul Alinsky, may represent a possible longer term means for empowerment and self-determination.; Doctor of Philosophy
- Publisher
- Federation University Australia
- Rights
- Copyright Tim Harrison
- Rights
- Open Access
- Rights
- This metadata is freely available under a CCO license
- Subject
- Community activism; Empowerment; Community renewal project; Wendouree West; Government intervention
- Full Text
- Thesis Supervisor
- Professor John Smyth
- Hits: 1413
- Visitors: 1612
- Downloads: 255
| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details Download | SOURCE1 | Australian Digital Thesis | 3 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |