Barbara A. Adkins

PhD Pedagogy and the Changing Knowledge Landscapes of Universities.

PhD supervision is increasingly embedded in frameworks that link research to issues of knowledge transfer involving the translation of knowledge to domains outside the university where it can be taken up and applied. This tends to require research that goes beyond traditional disciplinary boundaries and raises questions of the nature of knowledge relationships required in this context. This paper draws on the work of Basil Bernstein to identify the organisational, knowledge and interpersonal relationships that these changes now require, describing the nature of the work involved in weakening boundaries between disciplines and its implications for supervisor/student relationships. The paper then outlines the challenges this presents to universities, with specific reference to the humanities and social sciences, attempting to implement strategic programs reconciling pedagogic requirements with the quality, impact and completions they must attest to in order to secure public funding.

Community Participation, Rights, and Responsibilities: The Governmentality of Sustainable Development Policy in Australia

This paper explores how participative democratic principles, specifically, ideas of community participation in decision-making processes, are framed as community rights and/or responsibilities in sustainable development policy at different levels of government. In doing this, the paper examines the contribution of the governmentality perspective to an understanding of the nature of relationships involved in regulation through community. The paper first briefly reviews key tenets of ‘Third Way’ politics and the alternative view proffered by critiques from the governmentality perspective. It then turns to an analysis of how techniques of rights and responsibilities are implicit in the language of sustainable development policy at three levels: global (Agenda 21), national (Australian national policy-Australian national strategy for ecologically sustainable development), and regional (Queensland regional policy—Draft South East Queensland Regional Plan). Finally, we consider some implications of our application of a governmentality perspective for how we understand government, community and community participation, and sustainable development. In doing so, we argue that neither community, nor sustainable development, can be separated from the techniques of rights and responsibilities that enable ‘government at a distance’.

Ecologies of Innovation: Symbolic Aspects of Cross-Organizational Linkages in the Design Sector in an Australian Inner-City Area

Research on creative-industries clusters emphasizes both community and network dynamics in cross-organizational linkages and their role in fostering group and individual creativity and innovation. This article turns to an economic sociology framework, examining what is at stake in these collaborations and their embeddedness in broader social relationships. The authors report on a qualitative study of the linking and networking practices and rationales of the design sector collocated in an inner-city area in Brisbane, Australia. The study suggests that not only was the locale important in both community and network-level relationships but also that these should be understood in relation to symbolic representation in the field of design. The article argues that the innovative potential of interorganizational linkages should be understood in terms of layers of symbolic identifications at the level of the field of design, the symbolic community associated with the locale, and the “awareness space” of networks.

Stomp: an interactive platform for people with intellectual disabilities

For people with intellectual disabilities there are significant barriers to inclusion in socially cooperative endeavors. This paper investigates the effectiveness of Stomp, a tangible user interface (TUI) designed to provide new participatory experiences for people with intellectual disability. Results from an observational study reveal the extent to which the Stomp system supports social and physical interaction. The tangible, spatial and embodied qualities of Stomp result in an experience that does not rely on the acquisition of specific competencies before interaction and engagement can occur.

Information and Communication Practices: the Joint Concerns of Age and Gender in the Information Age

Objectives: To explore the extent to which gender differences appear in the choices of information and communication sources used by older men and women.

Digital technologies and musical participation for people with intellectual disabilities

Research on the aspirations of people with intellectual disabilities documents the importance of alternative zones of inclusion where they can assert their own definitions of ability and normality. This stands in contrast to assumptions concerning technology and disability that position technology as ‘normalizing’ the disabled body. This paper reports on the role of a digital music jamming tool in providing access to creative practice by people with intellectual disabilities. The tool contributed to the development of a spatio-temporal zone to enable aesthetic agency within and beyond the contexts of deinstitutionalized care. The research identifies the interactions between tools, individuals and groups that facilitated participants’ agency in shaping the form of musical practice. Furthermore, we document the properties of emergent interaction − supported by a tool oriented to enabling music improvisation − as potentially resisting assumptions regarding normalization.

Performing Traditional Knowledge using a Game Engine: Communicating and Sharing Australian Aboriginal Knowledge Practices

This paper challenges current practices in the use of digital media to communicate Australian Aboriginal knowledge practices in a learning context. It proposes that any digital representation of Aboriginal knowledge practices needs to examine the epistemology and ontology of these practices in order to design digital environments that effectively support and enable existing Aboriginal knowledge practices in the real world. Central to this is the essential task of any new digital representation of Aboriginal knowledge to resolve the conflict between database and narrative views of knowledge (L. Manovich, 2001). This is in order to provide a tool that complements rather than supplants direct experience of traditional knowledge practices (V. Hart, 2001). This paper concludes by reporting on the recent development of an advanced learning technology that addresses this

Public space as ‘context’ in assistive information and communication technologies for people with cognitive impairment

This paper examines emergent issues of ‘context’ raised by the application of information and communication technologies for people with cognitive impairment. The issue of the development and application of cognitive prostheses for this group provides an opportunity to examine assumptions and issues emerging from this area pertaining to understandings of the term ‘context’ in these applications. In this sense the paper takes these assumptions and issues as a point of departure for the development of a ‘problematic’ that can contribute to the study of the experience of cognitive impairment. The paper specifically addresses recent concerns about the lack of knowledge of these experiences in public spaces such as shopping centres, given that this is a critical site for the civic participation of this group. We argue that this participation should be understood in terms of the ‘meeting of two histories’: the history of contemporary requirements governing participation in public space and the habitus of people with cognitive impairment with regard to this participation. The paper proposes that the salience of cognitive impairment in these spaces turns on what it means for individuals to inhabit them as complex ‘Container Technologies’ (Sofia) and underlines the importance of understanding their efforts to attain a sense of normality (Goffman) in these contexts. We propose that this approach can inform research contributing to the development of a ‘pattern language’, informing applications that make cognition a system property in networks that operate between humans, machines and their contexts.

YOUTH THEATRE AND THE ARTICULATION OF CULTURAL CAPITAL Refocusing Bourdieu Through Ethnography

This study of working-class and middle-class youth theatre workshops examines the processes through which this cultural form is appropriated by different class groups. Whereas the middle-class workshop proceeded efficiently and harmoniously, the working-class group resisted a number of institutional constraints traditionally associated with play rehearsal and performance. The processes of such symbolic struggle in the working-class group appeared to differ from Bourdieus account of cultural domination. The article explores the explanatory contribution of the ethnographic case study to the analysis of the class basis of cultural tastes and practices and suggest that Bourdieus account of class relations would gain from inclusion of this level of analysis. The situated study of the youth theatre workshops suggests that at this level, there is possibly more scope for symbolic struggle between the classes than was found by Bourdieu.

Parents, services and system: an exploration of power dynamics in future planning among parent carers for people with disability

Abstract Interactions between services and families have significant implications for families planning for the future needs of a family member who has a disability. However, little research interrogates the implications of these relationships for parent carers’ agency in this planning. This qualitative study explored parents’ experiences with public and not-for-profit services during planning. Findings revealed varied and fluid power dynamics, with attempts by carers to shift to more productive power relations, which carried risks and costs. In a context characterised by systemic constraints, these shifts create an iterative planning process, and highlight the need to support parents to use power productively.