2015-16 Annual Review
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Institute for Culture and Society 2015-16 Institute for Culture and Society ANNUAL REVIEW 2015-2106 ANNUAL REVIEW Edited by Helen Barcham Contributors: Simone Casey, Cheryl D’Cruz, Kristy Davidson, Tulika Dubey, Christy Nguy, Emily-Kate Ringle-Harris and Liesel Senn. ISBN 978-1-74108-407-8 © 2016 University of Western Sydney ABN 53 014 069 881 CRICOS Provider No: 00917K DOI: 10.4225/35/5776063c655d8 URL: handle.uws.edu.au:8081/1959.7/uws:35927 2015–16 Institute for Culture and Society Annual Review, University of Western Sydney trading as Western Sydney University. This Annual Review is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International License. creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 Cover image: Berlin, Germany. The Institute for Culture and Society has a combination of established and emergent research partnerships with universities, cultural organisation and local government in Germany. This photo depicts one of our collaborators, Thomas Honeck who works on housing cultures. 2 Western Sydney University 2015-2106 ANNUAL REVIEW Table of contents INTRODUCTION Director’s Report Page 5 Manifesto Page 8 Research Programs Page 10 Strategic Initiatives Page 12 ESSAYS IN ENGAGED RESEARCH Uncertain Knowledge for Navigating Complexity Page 15 Creating Capacity for Human Development Page 21 RESEARCH Research Director’s Report Page 29 Young and Well Cooperative Research Centre Report Page 31 Research Staff Activity Page 35 Research Projects Page 51 Publications Page 63 Books by Institute Authors Page 72 Events Page 77 Media Page 79 Engagement Page 84 Teaching Page 87 RESEARCH TRAINING HDR Director’s Report Page 89 HDR 2015 Graduates Page 90 HDR List Page 91 HDR Publications Page 94 HDR Events Page 95 GOVERNANCE AND OPERATIONS Institute Manager’s Report Page 98 Committee List Page 99 APPENDICES Staff List Page 104 westernsydney.edu.au/ics 3 2015-2106 ANNUAL REVIEW INTRODUCTION Image taken at Parramatta River, New South Wales, Australia. 4 Western Sydney University 2015-2106 ANNUAL REVIEW Director’s Report Institutes come and go. They As we now approach a major review of the Secondly, the University policy has changed Institute for Culture and Society that asks us in relation to Institutes. We continue to be rise to flourishing intensities to project five-years into the future we have uniquely fortunate that we are located in a and wane into lingering been presenting ourselves with some basic university that continues to invest heavily banality. There have been some questions. What in the past has made for in humanities and social science research. good institutes and centres? What makes it However, the demands upon us are increasing, extraordinary examples of possible to be more than just very good? as are the strictures. For example, there are no research institutes, centres and more continuing Research–Only appointments schools — the Chicago School, Great institutes seem to have some common envisaged for the Institutes. Rather all new the Centre for Contemporary qualities. They take on difficult questions research appointments into the Institute will concerning the human condition and the fields have a School–based home and will be located Cultural Studies, and the in which they work. They draw postgraduate in the Institute as researchers for a defined Frankfurt School. Many once students into an ongoing collegial period. Or to give another example, we now strong or apparently glossy partnership with more senior researchers. have a very clear and limited budget envelope. They make explicit what they are trying Both of these changes have been unfolded institutes have fallen over, but on to do as a whole of Institute while staying with consistency and clarity, and they are the positive side there have been, open to difference, critique and alternative positive, but they do present new challenges. and continue to be, excellent viewpoints. They collectively pursue a common purpose. They boldly respond Thirdly, the world is in crisis. This is neither Institutes across the world. to the world around them, attempting to said flippantly or overdramatically. This change that world in positive ways — even crisis is not a just series of trouble spots or if that response is not under conditions of affected vulnerable constituencies, but rather their own choosing. It is these precepts a manifold crisis with intense contradictions. that we have been attempting to follow We experiencing intensifying globalisation across 2015, though with uneven success. of the rapacious, extractive kind (as well as of the hopeful kind), expanding urbanisation That phrase ‘the conditions not of our of the resource-consuming kind (as well choosing’ stands in for a multitude of as of the positively transforming kind); complex contextualising conditions. abstracting digital mediation of the kind that Firstly, pressures for financialisation and enhances the attraction of ephemerality performativity measurement have entered and empty spectacle (as well as processes with a vengeance into every aspect of social offering new relations and connections), life, including academia. The emphasis on and fracturing cultural disembedding of the ERA outcomes, publications outcomes and kind that variously brings defensiveness, research income are amazingly intense for uncertainty and false certainties, as well us. The Watt Review of Research Policy and as forcing new reflexivities. We are caught Funding Arrangements in the Australian between a world of temporary jouissance, academic scene has recommended that fragile joy, world-weariness, and lassitude, impact be defined in terms of Category 2 and a world of new possibilities — if we and 3 funding. We take these seriously, even have the skill to engage with them. if our overriding emphasis remains firmly on quality, excellence and impact — where All of this means that we face some complex impact is defined in terms of engagement quandaries. We need to embed ourselves in in the world with positive outcomes rather the Schools of Western Sydney University that via input or even output factors. and encourage movement across boundaries, westernsydney.edu.au/ics 5 2015-2106 ANNUAL REVIEW while continuing to cultivate a distinctive, Quandary 2. Becoming an collegially bounded intellectual culture. We outwardly engaged but internally need to massively increase our external self-directed Institute research income, while maintaining an ≥ With an emphasis on developing emphasis on fearless research excellence that a ‘platform approach’ of methods, is not driven by research income. We need to tools and expertise for applying for intensify and focus our external engagement grants in assembled teams; and in a way that brings much to us, but at the ≥ With mechanisms for making our same time gives generously to our partners critical engagement much more explicit in a way that goes far beyond accounting for and active: for example debates over ‘return on investment’. the Powerhouse move to Parramatta, debates over current and emerging What then is a possible vision for what methodologies (with positions that are our Institute might look like in five-year’s distinctly ours), and debates over questions time? One version is simple to say. We of the human condition — Anthropocene; would hope to be a collaborative group of cultural literacy — with expressions of engaged researchers and administrators, cultural politics that are explicitly ours. working productively together to contribute fundamentally to knowledge about the human condition — local and global; to Quandary 3. Becoming a reciprocally develop the fields of research in which charged Institute, that both counts we are working; and to change the world the cost and responds generously. for the better. However, the quandaries ≥ With focussed engagement with a number that we face require detailed work. of deep, long-term and productive relationships; and Quandary 1. Becoming a bounded ≥ With a capacity to give extensively to but relatively open Institute others, including our non-academic ≥ With more movement between the Schools research partners. and Institute, based on a relatively small core group of continuing staff across These are no more than suggestions that all levels (no bigger than the Institute is pick up on the various discussions that we now), and a much larger group of what have had over 2015 and early 2016. Over we have been calling ‘Institute Fellows’; 2016 this dialogue will continue. ≥ With clear and well–understood criteria for being part of the Institute, which Professor Paul James includes a sensibility of engaged research ICS Director and collaborative team–building; and Western Sydney University ≥ With a common understanding of ourselves as engaged researchers, while maintaining vibrant disciplinary and methodological differences (we need those field-changing books on what is engaged research, what is cultural intelligence; what is good digital engagement). 6 Western Sydney University 2015-2106 ANNUAL REVIEW Image taken by ICS researcher Paul James of a protest for Catalan autonomy in Barcelona, Spain. westernsydney.edu.au/ics 7 2015-2106 ANNUAL REVIEW Manifesto The Institute for Culture The Institute’s engaged research is committed ABOUT US to making a positive difference in the world. The Institute is the largest dedicated research and Society researches It is engaged ethically and reciprocally with concentration of its kind in Australia. Located transformations in culture others. Our aim is to carry out innovative in Parramatta,