Dissonant discourses Othered voices from Australia's workworld 1994-2002 Amanda Pearce B.A., Dip. Ed., M.Ed. (TESOL), RSA Cert. TEFL, RSA Dip. TEFL, RSA Dip. TESL (Further, Adult and Continuing Education) [(• LIBRARY •)] A thesis submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the School of Social Sciences, Faculty of Arts, Victoria University, Victoria, Australia. March 2004 1 r FTS THESIS 331.620994 PEA 30001008599534 Pearce, Amanda, 1951- Dissonant discourses : othered voices from Australia's workworld, Abstract This thesis arose from a series of questions about a group of retrenched non- English speaking background (NESB) workers whom 1 interviewed in 1994-95 and again in 2002. NESB workers lost jobs in large numbers in the 1990-92 recession, but in the recovery period and as employment improved over the 1990s, the employment figures for particular groups remained comparatively poor. Yet there was little public and policy debate about the fate of these people as a group. The reason, I argue, lies in a discursive transformation that has occurred since the 1980s through the formation and implementation of policy in the areas of work; education and training; English language and literacy, race and ethnicity; and the role of the state. Through dominant .discourses that shape what it is possible to say, do and even think, NESB workers as a group have been constructed as 'other' and thereby marginalised and problematised. Through this process their exclusion from social citizenship - entitlements to employment, education and welfare - has been normalised. The discourses of neo-liberalism have dominated public policy since the mid 1980s. Using a Foucauldian conception of discourse and a social constructionist method, I delineate the major 'narratives' associated first with the neo-liberal discourses of neo-classical economics, human capital theory, globalisation and social contractualism, and then with dominant discourses relating to English language and literacy, race and ethnicity. These dominant discourses have constructed the participants in the study as deficient 'others'. I analyse the increasing dominance since the mid-1980s of these discourses in policy text, the narratives of some of those who implement policy, and material practices relating to work; education and training; English language and literacy, race and ethnicity; and the role of the state. From this analysis also emerge what I have called 'contending discourses' within policy. 2 I then examine the participants' discursive engagement with the narratives associated with dominant and contending discourses, both in the interviews and in their accounts of practice. This engagement is analysed first in general and then through five illustrative case studies. I find that the workers themselves use some of the dominant narratives. However, most narratives are acknowledged, critiqued and countered, often through drawing on the participants' own contending narratives: those of individual and social well-being, which is constructed in terms of equity, security , pluralism and social mutuality; what I term an 'industrial discourse' relating to work; and the discourse of the multilingual community of practice. I conclude that the dominant neo-liberal meta-discourses, moving into the terrain of existing inequality based on racist discourse, have normalised and legitimated the erosion of NESB retrenched workers' entitlements to social citizenship. NESB workers are 'othered' by discourses, instantiated in both linguistic and material policy practices, about age, ethnicity, language and literacy, credentials and work itself. This 'othering' increases the likelihood of unemployment; then they are further 'othered' as unemployed and unemployable social parasites. Thus the way that NESB workers are constructed within these policy discourses undermines the seemingly ameliorative initiatives that the policies instituted. Although these discourses are drawn upon by participants, they are often countered and transformed, as this group of workers resist the silencing of their voices that accompanies this 'othering'. In the process, discourses of a previous time survive - discourses of humanism and pluralism that found their high point in the texts of an earlier policy period and that construct language in terms of human identity, culture, and social well-being rather than in the disembodied, reductionist, instrumental way of the neo-liberal meta-discourse that has overwhelmed public life. 3 Contents Acknowledgements 7 List of acronyms 9 Chapter 1: Introduction 11 Chapter 2: Data sources and methods 22 Introduction 22 Interviews with retrenched NESB workers 23 Foucault's 'discourse' and some of its critics 25 Agency, dominance and contestation 31 Resistance and change 36 s Policy as discourse 39 The method of discourse analysis in this thesis. 42 Terminology and data analysis. 49 Conclusion 52 Chapter 3: Globalising neo-liberalism: dominant discourses about work, education and the state 53 Introduction 53 The discourse of neo-classical economics 54 Human capital theory 62 Globalisation and 'the pathology of over-diminished expectations' 73 The discourse of social contractualism 77 Conclusion 84 Chapter 4: Dominant discourses about English language and literacy, race and ethnicity 86 Introduction 86 Narratives relating to English language and literacy 87 Narratives relating to race and ethnicity 98 All for Australia: narratives about English and employment 106 'White Australia' - then and now 110 The discourse of multiculturalism 112 The 'new conservatism' 114 Material practices associated with NESB immigrants and employment in Australia 116 NESB workers in the ' labour market' 119 Conclusion 127 Chapter 5: Policy discourses at work 130 Introduction 130 Policy discourses under Labor 1987-1996 131 Policy discourses under the Liberal-National Coalition 1996-2002 167 Conclusion 175 Chapter 6: Policy discourses in implementation 176 Introduction 176 Material practices under Labor 1987-1996: Working Nation and the NTRA 177 Material practices under the Coalition: Centrelink and the Job Network 181 Provider discourses under the Liberal-National Coalition 1996-2002 184 Conclusion 207 Chapter 7: Worker discourses engaging neo-liberalism 209 Introduction 209 Narratives relating to work 210 Narratives relating to education and training 245 JSJ Narratives relating to English language and literacy 252 5 Narratives relating to the state 261 Conclusion 273 Chapter 8: Case Studies 275 Introduction 275 Case study 1: Homayoun: 'Who benefit that?' 276 Case study 2: Alf: 'You cannot have your cake and eat it too' 281 Case study 3: Tome and Stoyna: 'Hike to work, not to go to school' 285 Case study 4: Nadia: 'I am born to look after people' 293 Case study 5: Phuong and Tram: 'My name was on the list' 300 Conclusion 309 Chapter 9: Implications of discursive engagement 311 Introduction 311 v Discourses of the policy context 312 The construction of the 'other' 317 Discursive engagement by workers 319 Contending discourses drawn on by workers 325 Implications 329 The future 336 Glossary 338 Appendices 341 Appendix 1: The original sample 341 Appendix 2: Sample interview data 349 Appendix 3: Unemployment in Australia and the western region 376 Appendix 4: Major areas discussed at interview 377 Reference list 379 6 Acknowledgements I thank all the participants in this study: the retrenched workers who gave me their time and shared their perceptions of this period of change, and the providers and community workers who spoke to me about their understandings. My academic supervisors were briefly Jenny Stephens and Dr Julie Stephens, and over the last three years Dr James Doughney of Victoria University. I would like to thank Jenny and Julie for getting me started. Particularly, I want to thank Jamie Doughney for his unstinting support, wise advice and practical assistance when I needed it most. Jill Sanguinetti provided crucial assistance at a point where I was starting out on a new direction. Staff and associated personnel at the following organisations provided me with invaluable information and assistance: Inner Western Region, Westgate and North Western Region Migrant Resource Centres; Community Jobs Program; Yes West; Employment Plus; Australian Greek Welfare Society; Maltese Community Council of Victoria; Melbourne's West Area Consultative Committee Inc.; Centrelink; Adult Multicultural Education Services (AMES); Victoria University; Uniting Church, Sunshine; Textile, Clothing and Footwear Union of Australia; Maribyrnong, Brimbank and Wyndham Councils; Western Region Health Centre; Djerriwarrh Employment and Education Services; Australian Red Cross; Australian-Polish Community Services Inc.; Workplace English Language and Literacy Program; Life After Bradmill Project; Westgate Community Issues Group; JobFutures. Many friends and colleagues have provided support over the time it has taken me to write this thesis, and have wisely allowed me to neglect them when I needed to write undisturbed. I would like to thank Lynn Beaton, Kate Dempsey and Jo Pyke for many collegial chats and their support and interest as I worked through my ideas. Jenny Cameron provided much-needed help with the bibliography. Wendy Owen helped me enormously with editing and pulling the thesis together; without her assistance I could not have finished writing it. My colleagues at the Centre for Educational Development and Support have allowed 7 me to take time to work uninterrupted, and I would