Barbara Pini

Interviewing men Gender and the collection and interpretation of qualitative data

This article describes the masculinities engaged by male leaders of an Australian agricultural organization, CANEGROWERS, during interviews with a young, female, doctoral student. The masculinities displayed involved the men emphasizing their heterosexuality, presenting themselves as powerful and busy, and positioning themselves as having expert and superior knowledge. It is argued that important in shaping the interview process was the gender focus of the research topic itself, as well as the gendered research context of CANEGROWERS. Thus, to understand the impact of gender on interviewing, we need to go beyond a simple focus on the gender of the interviewer and interviewee, and undertake a more sophisticated analysis which explores the intersection of the mediating influences of ‘who, whom, what and where’.

Focus groups, feminist research and farm women: opportunities for empowerment in rural social research

Abstract This paper uses data from a doctoral study examining womens involvement in the Australian sugar industry to argue that focus groups are a valuable method for feminist rural social research. Sixteen initial and follow up focus groups conducted with 80 women were not just valuable for the production of raw data, they were also valuable in addressing feminist research goals. Using extracts from the focus groups, four examples of their effectiveness as a feminist research method are examined. That is, focus group participation made what is invisible to many women visible; it enabled connections to be made between individual and collective experiences; it facilitated challenges to dominant beliefs; and it provided space for discussion and reflexivity about gender issues. The paper concludes by arguing that the potential of focus groups as an empowering strategy for participants is not just of importance to feminist scholars, but to all rural social researchers who are interested in engaging less hierarchical research relationships, in producing knowledge which is contextualised, and in contributing to political and social change.

Women‐only networks as a strategy for change? A case study from local government

Across both the private and public sectors one strategy that has been used to support women in leadership roles and to increase womens participation in leadership positions has been to establish formal female specific networks. This paper examines the efficacy of such a strategy through a case study of one such group – the Australian Local Government Womens Association. Data for the paper are drawn from interviews with the 19 female mayors in the Australian state of Queensland. Participants were divided in their views about the organization. One group expressed support for womens networking, a second group was critical of women organizing in such a way and a third group expressed ambivalence about the value of womens networks. This paper draws on these views to assess the transformative potential of womens networks. It concludes that women‐only networks have a valuable role to play in securing greater equity for women in management.

Class Contestations and Australia’s Resource Boom: The Emergence of the ‘Cashed-up Bogan’

This article examines the figure of the ‘Cashed-up Bogan’ or ‘Cub’ in Australian media from 2006 to 2009. It explains that ‘Bogan’, like that of ‘Chav’ in Britain, is a widely engaged negative descriptor for the white working-class poor. In contrast, ‘Cubs’ have economic capital. This capital, and the Cub’s emergence, is linked to Australia’s resource boom of recent decades when the need for skilled labour allowed for a highly demarcated segment of the working class to earn relatively high incomes in the mining sector and to participate in consumption. We argue that access to economic capital has provided the Cub with mobility to enter the everyday spaces of the middle class, but this has caused disruption and anxiety to middle-class hegemony. As a result, the middle class has redrawn and reinforced class-infused symbolic and cultural boundaries, whereby, despite their wealth, pernicious media representations mark Cubs as ‘other’ to the middle-class deservingness, taste and morality.

Mining Work, Family and Community: A Spatially-Oriented Approach to the Impact of the Ravensthorpe Nickel Mine Closure in Remote Australia:

While changes in work and employment practices in the mining sector have been profound, the literature addressing mining work is somewhat partial as it focuses primarily on the workplace as the key (or only) site of analysis, leaving the relationship between mining work and families and communities under-theorized. This article adopts a spatially oriented, case-study approach to the sudden closure of the Ravensthorpe nickel mine in the south-west of Western Australia to explore the interplay between the new scales and mobilities of labour and capital and work–family–community connections in mining. In the context of the dramatically reconfigured industrial arena of mining work, the study contributes to a theoretical engagement between employment relations and the spatial dimensions of family and community in resource-affected communities.

The ‘Feminine Revolution in Mining’: a critique

Abstract This paper presents an analysis of media reports of Australian women in mine management. It argues that a dominant storyline in the texts is one of gender change; in fact, a ‘feminine revolution’ is said to have occurred in the mining industry and corporate Australia more generally. Despite this celebratory and transformative discourse the female mine managers interviewed in the media texts seek to distance themselves from women/female identity/femininity and take up a script of gender neutrality. It is demonstrated, however, that this script is saturated with the assumptions and definitions of managerial masculinity.

Young people's aspirations for education, work, family and leisure

Young people are arguably facing more ‘complex and contested’ transitions to adulthood and an increasing array of ‘non-linear’ paths. Education and training have been extended, identity is increasingly shaped through leisure and consumerism and youth must navigate their life trajectories in highly individualised ways. The study utilises 819 short essays compiled by students aged 14–16 years from 19 schools in Australia. It examines how young people understand their own unique positions and the possibilities open to them through their aspirations and future orientations to employment and family life. These young people do not anticipate postponing work identities, but rather embrace post-school options such as gaining qualifications, work experience and achieving financial security. Boys expected a distant involvement in family life secondary to participation in paid work. In contrast, around half the girls simultaneously expected a future involving primary care-giving and an autonomous, independent career, suggesting attempts to remake gendered inequalities.

Factors Inhibiting Local Government Engagement in Environmental Sustainability: case studies from rural Australia

Abstract The literature on local government management of the environment in Australia has been limited in that it has typically focused on the urban sphere. In contrast, this paper places rurality at the centre of its inquiry. It uses data from 15 case studies of rural local governments in Australia to identify the main factors that inhibit natural resource management by rural councils. These barriers mobilise around four key themes: capacity, commitment, co-ordination and community. While many of the issues raised in this study of non-urban shires have been described in previous research, the paper argues that the geographic location of the areas under investigation aggravates barriers to engaging sustainability initiatives. It is contended that rural local governments need to be resourced accordingly to ensure that natural resource management at the local government level in Australia is not compromised.

Continuity or Change? Disability Policy and the Rudd Government

This article reports on shifts and continuities in policy relating to disabled people and the administrative apparatus of federal disability policy under the Rudd government (2007-10). It begins with a brief historical overview of disability policy in Australia. It then gives particular attention to highlighting the contentious and dramatic changes to disability policy which were instigated by the Howard government (1996-2007). Following this, attention is focused on the major developments in disability policy and administration with the election of the Rudd Labor government in 2007. Through this discussion, we demonstrate the ways the altered vocabularies, practices and instruments of the state have manifested in relation to disability policy in Australia, ultimately shaping opportunities for either inclusion or exclusion at the national level among disabled people.

Teachers and the emotional dimensions of class in resource‐affected rural Australia

In recent years, a ‘cultural turn’ in the study of class has resulted in a rich body of work detailing the ways in which class advantage and disadvantage are emotionally inscribed and embodied in educational settings. To date, however, much of this literature has focused on the urban sphere. In order to address this gap in the literature, this paper focuses on the affective evaluations made by teachers employed in rural and remote Australian schools of students’ families, bodies, expectations and practices. The central argument is that moral ascriptions of class by the teachers are powerfully shaped by dominant socio‐cultural constructions of rurality that equate ‘the rural’ with agriculture.