Jessica McLean

Destroying the Joint and Dying of Shame? A Geography of Revitalised Feminism in Social Media and Beyond

Has feminist geography really lost all relevance? This paper examines what the revitalisation of interest in feminist thought and practice, especially in Australia, means for geography. We illuminate the trajectory of the feminist revitalisation in new media and beyond through developing a spatial analysis influenced by Rose and Fincher. Notions of paradoxical space and issue publics inform this reading of two pivotal moments in the feminist revitalisation: first, the creation of Destroy the Joint, a campaign launched and maintained in Facebook and Twitter spaces; and second, the Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillards speech against sexism and misogyny in Parliament in October 2012. Both these moments, coming from political and public spaces, received worldwide interest, and we critically examine the context and ramifications of these instances while situating the institutional processes surrounding them within the growing feminist revitalisation. In so doing, we argue that these Australian-based cases indicate a growing feminist movement that is open and multiply focused, connecting personal politics to public campaigning, and achieving material impacts. We conclude that developing a feminist geography of new media is a challenging task, as these spaces circumvent and renegotiate traditional spatial dimensions – including scale and place – through their dynamic networks. It is, nevertheless, a task worth doing.

From Dispossession to Compensation: a political ecology of the Ord Final Agreement as a partial success story for Indigenous traditional owners

ABSTRACT The recent digging of a new channel for water delivery to expand irrigation in the Ord provides a good opportunity for unearthing the native title agreement that allows for intensification of agriculture there. Initial irrigation development in this north-eastern Australian catchment did not include recognition of, consultation with, or distribution of benefits to Indigenous people impacted by dam creation and land flooding. Forming agreement between those affected by previous dispossessions, and associated accumulation of wealth via mining and irrigation, with those initiating such activities was an important and challenging process. The Ord Final Agreement (OFA), formalised in 2006, came from negotiations between Miriuwung and Gajerrong traditional owners and government and private interests. Through qualitative research, I dissect the context and content of the OFA to identify the strengths and weaknesses therein. While the agreement does allow for co-management of significant land- and waterscapes, it does not provide for Indigenous water rights, showing one instance of loose ends and missing links within the Ord.

Towards Closure? Coexistence, remoteness and righteousness in Indigenous policy in Australia

ABSTRACT The policy framework claiming to support Indigenous people in remote parts of Australia is in disarray with Commonwealth, state and territory governments proposing closure of remote communities on a range of economic and social policy grounds, but facing significant criticism on economic, environmental, social and cultural grounds. Western Australias proposal to close 150 remote communities, announced in late-2014, is reviewed and found to reveal a profound failure of geographical literacy.

The contingency of change in the Anthropocene: More-than-real renegotiation of power relations in climate change institutional transformation in Australia

The Anthropocene, as a notion and a discursive field, is generating productive academic and broader debate. In this article, I analyse the creation of a crowdfunded climate change institution in Australia – the Climate Council – as an instance of everyday activism in the Anthropocene, and partly a function of the more-than-real. The more-than-real refers to the digital space that bore the Climate Council’s creation, and situates this spontaneous climate change activism. The broader context of this transformation included an abnormally hot spring season, a turn to conservative federal government, and already-active social media spaces. As an exploratory case study that introduces an example of activism steeped in desire, this research situates mainstream climate change activism squarely within the Anthropocene notion, where a large group of disaffected individuals transformed an organisation that they perceived as valuable. This type of climate change activism can be read as a productive possibility of the Anthropocene, and unsettles narratives of inevitable environmental devastation, while simultaneously raising questions of whether the Anthropocene concept can or should include digital spaces. The discourses working in, through and around the Climate Council transformation in the more-than-real are read as a disruption of the Anthropocene that may generate productive possibilities.

Learning about Feminism in Digital Spaces: online methodologies and participatory mapping

ABSTRACT Collaborative online research offers opportunities and constraints for geographers. This article critically appraises a collaborative research process that we used to illuminate spatial and political dynamics of feminism contained within the online group ‘Destroy the Joint’ (DTJ). A mostly Australian initiative of over 74 000 Facebook members, DTJ aims to end sexism and misogyny in multiple ways. It operates as a meeting place, discussion forum, and umbrella organisation for numerous micro-campaigns that change in response to broader social, cultural and political contexts, and occur in online and offline spaces. We formed a collaborative research agreement with the moderators of DTJ to reflect on its work, asking participants to put themselves on a map and complete a survey. Participatory GIS and survey-based research operated in the real and the more-than-real spaces that contain paradoxical possibilities. We use the term more-than-real to highlight the excesses of digital spaces: the affect that social media generates, and is generated by, characterises the more-than-real, where extremes in productive and corrosive relations can permeate. Survey results showed diverse appreciations of DTJs multiple activist tactics (across seemingly ‘superficial’ and ‘meaningful’ interventions), and creative ideas for future campaigns. Mapping revealed both dispersed networks and urban activist concentrations. Nevertheless, after an initial peak of interest and enthusiasm for reflecting on DTJ, the reporting back of research findings to DTJ followers did not garner significant interest. This article tracks that collaborative research trajectory. Intentions to build a hybrid research collective were not realised because of how the more-than-real affords possibilities and limitations. The politics of ‘giving-back’ within the more-than-real are critically engaged with in this appraisal of an experimental online collaboration.

Geographic contributions to institutional curriculum reform in Australia: the challenge of embedding field-based learning

Abstract In the context of continuing pressures from managerialist and neoliberal drivers of university reform in Australia, Macquarie University’s recent undergraduate curriculum innovation, based on “People,” “Planet,” and “Participation,” has resulted in the embedding and integration of experiential learning in its curriculum and institutional framework. Such an approach challenges academic and administrative staff, students, and partners in industry, the community and public sector settings, to engage and collaborate across significant boundaries. This article outlines the scope and nature of the curriculum reform, then considers the way geographers have both shaped and responded to the opportunities it created. In so doing, it proposes a number of challenges and recommendations for geographers who might seek to extend their longstanding commitment to field-based learning through similar reforms. In this regard, the discipline of geography and its tendency to engage with the “field” can offer much in fostering deeply transformative learning.

Ecofeminism and rhetoric: critical perspectives on sex, technology, and discourse

reel. Perhaps if Dr Boltanski had begun by briefly telling us what he was interested in, his major questions and hypotheses, how he investigated those questions, and what he concluded (the material covered in Part III), and then progressed to his philosophical musings and justifications, readers could have made sense of it all. But given the current structure, it is likely they will become frustrated early on, not knowing where all this is going, and quit reading. And the text is hard going. The following sentence is typical:

‘We Don’t want it to be like that for her again’: gendered leadership and online feminism in Australian politics and planning

ABSTRACT Learning from women leaders in Australia has gained attention as a national political issue since the election of Julia Gillard as our first female Prime Minister in 2010. In parallel with her period in office, a growth in feminist action and practice has been evident, in institutions and interventions such as ‘Destroy the Joint’, a group that agitates for an end to sexism and misogyny in multiple spaces. This article examines shifts in gendered leadership and activism, in online and offline spaces, especially with respect to learning from women’s experiences in leadership, and we consider the implications of gendered politicking on planning issues. Drawing on empirical quantitative and qualitative data from an online survey of nearly 900 Destroy the Joint participants, this article looks at some impacts of national female leadership on Australian governance and what people believe should happen to achieve gender equality, in planning and political representation contexts. We argue that discourses of power and gender produced a challenging governance context for Gillard that undermined her leadership achievements but that this sexism also helped inspire growing and active feminist spaces that seek gender equality.

Action with(out) activism: understanding digital climate change action

Purpose A recent mainstream intervention in Australia involved the creation of a climate change communication institution, the Climate Council, from crowdfunding and support in social media. Such digital action invites further examination of supporters’ motivations. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the reported intentions and interests of the Climate Council’s supporters to gain a better understanding of mainstream climate change action in digital spaces. Design/methodology/approach This paper reports on a survey that was undertaken by the Climate Council with their Founding Friends that sought to understand their motivations for supporting the institution. The survey received over 10,000 responses. From four selected questions, the paper considers all of the quantitative responses while a random sample of 100 responses was taken from the qualitative data. Findings The data show that most Climate Council supporters were motivated to maintain an institution that communicates the impacts of climate change while a minority desired more political engagement by the institution. The results capture an example of action with limited conscious activism. Originality/value Digital spaces fundamentally need the interconnections between people in order to function, in a similar way to physical spaces. Nonetheless, the power of online action, in all its contradictory forms, should not be overlooked in considering the range of possibilities available to those interested in effecting meaningful social change. Even mainstream interventions, as presented in this paper, that seem to disavow climate change activism on the whole, can nevertheless produce institutional changes that defy national governance shifts.

Digging up Unearthed down-under: a hybrid geography of a musical space that essentialises gender and place

Hybrid geographies are well developed in studies of human–nature relations and environmental humanities, but less so in geographies of music and gender. In this article, we use hybrid geographies to frame our critical engagement with Australias triple js Unearthed, a publically funded website and radio station that presents new music. Hybrid approaches enable us to understand gendered power relations in music by deconstructing the ways power differences are built on cultural, social, spatial and technological relations. Engaging netnographic and mixed-method approaches we critique Unearthed as a democratic music cyberspace. We identify the limited constructions of gender and geographic location, some of which are unique to this online presence, while others are shared with broader musical spaces. We argue that the interactions between technology, artists, fans and the online spaces, as mediated by Unearthed, situate emerging artists in relation to gender, geography and genre, and thus constrain possibilities for a more democratic musical space. Unearthed manifests as a musical space where rurality is exoticised while urban origins are diminished, and hegemonic masculinities remain dominant. We suggest that the potential of Unearthed can be realised if gender and geographic hegemonies are recognised and otherness is de-essentialised.