Martha Augoustinos
Biographic Data
| ID | 116207 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Martha Augoustinos |
| GIVEN NAMES | Martha |
| FAMILY NAME | Augoustinos |
| SIGNATURE | AUGOUSTINOS M |
| AFFILIATIONS | The University of Adelaide |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7212-1499 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 80 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 805 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 80 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1986 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 15 |
Marital Relationships After Migration
Migration creates significant life changes for migrants, influenced by various factors that differ among cultures. One area that undergoes significant change is marital relationships. Iranians, balancing tradition and modernity, navigate challenges and opportunities in migration. This review examines studies of post-migration experiences of Iranian migrants, focusing on marital relationships. Thematic analysis was employed to synthesize the data …
The Mental Health of Refugee and Migrant Youth after Settlement
Being of immigrant background is a risk factor for poor mental health among youth. In OECD countries such as Australia, Canada and the United States, both immigration and youth are a policy-focus as these countries are popular destinations for immigrants. The purpose of this study was to investigate the mental health of immigrant youth to better support their acculturation and mental health. This study compared the mental health of immigrant yout…
Fatalism, Evolution, and Interpersonal Attractiveness
The online communities of involuntary celibates, or incels, have garnered increased attention for their extreme misogyny and links to violent attacks against women. However, little is known about how (pseudo‐)psychological theories are used among the incel community to construct their identities and justify a worldview that centres on hatred against women. This study uses a critical discursive psychological approach to examine identity constructi…
Gender-based in-group social influence can lead women to view a hostile sexist attitude as less prejudiced and more true
Social influence processes by which women come to judge a hostile sexist attitude as relatively true and unprejudiced were examined. Based upon status characteristics theory, women's judgments were expected to be more strongly influenced by a man's than a woman's interpretation of the sexist attitude as true or prejudiced. Based upon self-categorization theory, women's judgments were expected to be more strongly influenced by a woman's than a man…
The Role of Acculturative Stress on the Mental Health of Immigrant Youth
Acculturation after settlement has been identified as a risk factor affecting the mental health of immigrant youth. Increasing rates of immigration and expanding populations of immigrant youth mean that addressing their mental is a priority. Acculturative stress is the stress-response resulting from the effects of multiple stressors that result from the need to acculturate. Among youth within the developmental stages of late adolescence and emerg…
“It’s important to manage our stress”
The COVID-19 pandemic has heightened existing concerns about mental health and illness in Australia. The news media is an important source of health information, but there has been little research into how advice about mental health is communicated to the public via the news media. In this study, we examined how advice about building and maintaining mental health was discursively constructed in the news media during the COVID-19 pandemic. A disco…
“I *know* all the things I should be doing …”
Mental ill-health was commonly oriented to by forum posters as an accountable or morally untoward state, indicating the societal pervasiveness of a discourse of personal responsibility for mental health. Such discourses are likely to contribute to the stigmatisation of those suffering from mental ill-health. There is a need therefore for future communications about mental health to be framed in a way that increases awareness of social determinant…
Lay perceptions of modern prejudice toward “White” and “Asian” people
We propose that part of the problem in combatting prejudice lies in people's dynamic understandings of what prejudice is. To examine this, we asked participants to rate the degree to which they perceived specific group‐relevant attitudes as prejudice. In Study 1, White participants perceived the attitudes as more prejudiced when the attitudes were targeted at Asian people than at White people and when expressed by an Anglo‐European speaker than b…
When are intergroup attitudes judged as free speech and when as prejudice? A social identity analysis of attitudes towards immigrants
Although anti‐immigrant attitudes continue to be expressed around the world, identifying these attitudes as prejudice, truth or free speech remains contested. This contestation occurs, in part, because of the absence of consensually agreed‐upon understandings of what prejudice is. In this context, the current study sought to answer the question, “what do people understand to be prejudice?” Participants read an intergroup attitude expressed by a m…
A day that unites the nation
National days often represent unifying narratives about nation-states. Recent calls for historical redress within settler-colonial nations, however, have been based on redefinitions of triumphalist historical narratives, incorporating darker histories of colonialisation’s ongoing effects. This has resulted in controversy about national days, especially in Australia (celebrated on the anniversary of British colonisation). Discussions about Austral…
Pandemic and prejudice
This study examined when the realistic threat of COVID-19 leads to prejudicial social distancing. American participants reported social distancing preferences from Chinese or Italian people (out-group target) after viewing increasing or decreasing COVID-19 case numbers (threat level) in China or Italy (threat relevance). On the Bogardus Social Distance Scale, there was support for a disease avoidance hypothesis: greater social distancing preferen…
Mental Wealth’ and ‘Mental Fitness’
In this study, we analysed how the concept of ‘mental health’ was discursively constructed in the news media in Australia during the first year of the COVID‐19 pandemic. An approach informed by critical discursive psychology was employed to analyse a sample of 436 print and online articles published in daily newspapers between January 1 and December 31, 2020. Three main interpretative repertoires were identified in the data. Together, these reper…
The cost of doing politics
Recent conversations prompted by the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements have put issues of workplace sexism, sexual harassment and sexual assault into the global spotlight. This paper examines how members of the Australian Liberal Party made sense of, and responded to, accusations by female Liberal MPs of bullying and intimidation in their party. Transcripts of media interviews identified by searching the ParlInfo database (between August and Septembe…
It's more than sadness
Depression has been the subject of increased awareness and concern in Australia, but there has been little research into how depression is constructed on mental health websites, which have become a major resource for mental health information among the general public. In this study, critical discursive psychology was employed to analyse the informational content of eight major Australian mental health websites concerning depression. Four interpre…
Breaking the silence on sexual harassment and assault
The Language of Derogation and Hate
Over the last decades, the use of explicit derogatory language (e.g., hate speech, slurs, micro-insults) has risen in many countries. We provide an overview on blatant language discrimination, including its psychological antecedents and consequences. After presenting a working definition of derogatory language and describing its prevalence, we discuss the social functions it serves and the role it plays in identity protection, in legitimizing gro…
Deal me in”
Hillary Clinton’s nomination as the first female presidential candidate to represent a major party in the 2016 US presidential election represented a key moment in US history. The focus on her gender during the campaign was intensified following the accusation by Republican Party nominee, Donald Trump, that Clinton was “playing the woman card”. The present article explores US media constructions of Clinton’s orientation to the topic of gender dur…
Closing the Gap
Policymaking is increasingly being recognised as a value‐laden process in which social problems are not simply identified and measured, but discursively produced. The current study examined how the problem of Indigenous disadvantage is produced within the original Closing the Gap policy framework, to identify underlying assumptions and problem representations. Bacchi's “What's the Problem Represented to be?” approach was used as the analytic fram…
That’s what they say in our language
This paper discusses the impact of negative media and political depictions of the South Sudanese community on the psychological health and well-being of women from the South Sudanese community in South Australia. Interviews revealed enduring experiences of racism and discrimination that had damaging effects on participants’ sense of identity, mental health, and hope for the future. Given the focus of media attention on South Sudanese youth, parti…
Caregiving work
A considerable evidence base exists demonstrating the high prevalence of family caregiving in the community; however, there is a paucity of in-depth research examining the impact of family caregiving on the living and employment needs of those providing this unpaid service. This study employed a qualitative interview design with purposive sampling to examine the experiences of family caregivers, in order to examine how family caregiving decisions…
Constructions of Primary Caregiving Fathers in Popular Parenting Texts
Expectations and norms of fatherhood are evolving, with fathers now expected to be more involved in childcare. These changes have made it possible for a growing number of fathers to assume a primary caregiving role. Catering to these fathers, a growing number of books have been published focusing on primary caregiving fathers. The present article reports on a discourse analysis of nine such books. Four interpretative repertoires were identified, …
"Cross-group friendships, the irony of harmony, and the social construction of "discrimination
Cross-group friendships are often assumed to be a panacea to intergroup conflict. However, the irony of harmony hypothesis suggests that friendships can have negative consequences for collective action and social change. We complement this research with accounts of cross-group friendship, using interviews and focus groups with minority (African-Caribbean and/ or gay) and majority (White and/ or heterosexual) participants (n = 54). Participants re…
The Language of Social Inequality
“[It] does not explain everything … , nor does it explain nothing … it explains some things”
Despite advances in the representation of women in positions of leadership, gender-based inequalities persist. A particular dilemma for female leaders concerns whether to acknowledge, or avoid talking about, their experiences of gender and gender inequality in public life. Routinely, women who confront such discrimination experience social and personal repercussions; however, those who remain silent are often criticised for failing to support wom…
Dementia on Facebook
The Language of "Race" and Prejudice
During the past 20 years, there has been a burgeoning literature on racial discourse in Western liberal democracies that has been informed by several disciplines. This literature has analysed linguistic and discursive patterns of everyday talk and formal institutional talk that can be found in parliamentary debates, political speeches, and the media. One of the most pervasive features of contemporary race discourse is the denial of prejudice. Inc…
Constructions of racism in the Australian parliamentary debates on asylum seekers
The proliferation of the subtle and slippery nature of the new racism has made it increasingly difficult to define racism and to develop an effective anti-racist rhetoric with which to challenge it. To explore the implications of the new racism for anti-racist discourse, this article uses discourse analysis to examine the parliamentary speeches of politicians opposing Australia's new asylum-seeking laws for what these refugee advocates challenge …
Genocide or a Failure to Gel? Racism, History and Nationalism in Australian Talk
In a context of wide media attention to public debates about the social, political and epistemic entitlements of different groups within Australian society, an understanding of the rhetorical resources and the discursive work doen by differing constructions of `race', has become an important local issue. This article examines data from discussions between two groups of (non-indigenous) university students on a range of contemporary issues concern…
New racism, meritocracy and individualism
This article presents a discursive analysis of student talk on disadvantage and affirmative action from two focus group discussions on ‘race’ relations in Australia. Our analysis builds upon previous research in the discursive tradition on affirmative action and demonstrates how participants draw on resources, which construct affirmative action as largely problematic. Liberal principles such as individualism, merit, and egalitarianism were recurr…
Accusations and denials of racism
As Van Dijk (1992) has documented, one of the pervasive features of contemporary race discourse is the denial of prejudice. During the last 50 years, social norms against openly expressing racist sentiments has led to the development of ways of talking that present negative views of out-groups as reasonable and justified, while at the same time protecting speakers from charges of racism and prejudice. It goes without saying that a ‘prejudiced’ or…
Constructions of Australia in pro‐ and anti‐asylum seeker political discourse
Whilst there has been a proliferation of research on the role of nationalism in the exclusion of asylum seekers, less attention has been paid to how nationalism can be mobilised in accounts opposing, rather than supporting, harsh anti‐asylum seeker regimes. This paper compares the ways in which ‘Australia’ is constructed and used in parliamentary speeches on asylum seekers by both refugee advocates and those seeking harsher asylum seeker laws in …
Taking advantage' or fleeing persecution? Opposing accounts of asylum seeking
This paper discursively analyses advocates' explanations of asylum seeking in the 2001 Australian parliamentary debates. Previous research has mapped the negative discourses used to present asylum seekers as economic migrants 'taking advantage' of soft laws. This paper analyses how advocates oppose this rhetoric, re-categorising asylum seekers as potential refugees, and establishing Australia as legally and morally responsible for providing prote…
Self-sufficient Arguments in Political Rhetoric
This article focuses on the rhetorical and argumentative organization of a major political address by the Prime Minister of Australia on the topics of reconciliation and apologizing to the Stolen Generations of Indigenous peoples. The analysis documents the interpretative repertoires that were mobilized to argue around these sensitive, controversial issues in a public forum, in particular the deployment of discursive formulations of `togetherness…
Neoliberalism and nationalism
In this article, we build on previous critical discursive research concerning the deployment of nationalist rhetoric in the negative representation of asylum seekers to also consider the interplay between neoliberal and nationalist discourses regarding asylum seekers arriving by boat to Australia. Rather than arguing that neoliberalism and nationalism are incompatible (by virtue of the former being about internationalization and the latter about …
The psychic life of colonial power
Ongoing histories of racism in colonial nations such as Australia challenge us as academics to consider how we understand racism and its role in practices of both privilege and oppression. In this article we as two non‐indigenous people living in Australia attempt to work through issues of collective responsibility by focusing on what we believe are three key issues in the study of racism: 1) methodology and researcher subjectivity, 2) subjectifi…
Stereotype change and prejudice reduction
The present study reports an evaluation of an applied prejudice reduction intervention. Previous research has indicated that such programmes achieve limited success. The programme evaluated was an in‐house anti‐racist education programme aimed at reducing prejudice towards Aboriginal Australians. The target audience were employees of a large public service organization. Knowledge of, prejudice towards, and stereotyping of Aboriginal Australians w…
Apologizing for historical injustice
The recent apology by the Australian Prime Minister to Indigenous Australians demonstrates the increasing willingness of nation states to apologize for historical injustices. In this critical discursive analysis of Rudd’s apology, we analyse the pragmatic and linguistic features of the apology in light of recent research on political apologies as a generic type of discourse. We demonstrate how the act of offering and justifying an apology was acc…
Protecting the Nation
This paper analyses texts from the Australian print media that invoke nationalist discourse in the so‐called ‘Tampa crisis’ of 2001, which involved the boarding by Australian military troops of a civilian Norwegian shipping vessel (the Tampa) that had rescued a group of asylum seekers. In particular, we are interested in how military action was justified in public discourse against a group of civilians through the use of arguments relying in some…
Out of Africa
The words of political elites have the potential to play a significant role in the constitution and proliferation of racist discourse, especially when this discourse has the nuanced linguistic characteristics of ‘new racism’. This article examines the political rhetoric deployed in the articulation and defence of contentious government policy on Sudanese humanitarian refugee quotas in media interviews. Utilizing critical discourse analysis, we an…
Narrative and Silence
Journal Article Narrative and Silence: How Former Refugees Talk about Loss and Past Trauma Get access Teresa Puvimanasinghe, Teresa Puvimanasinghe School of Psychology, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Linley A. Denson, Linley A. Denson School of Psychology, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Adelaide Search for o…
Too black or not black enough’
The election of the first African‐American President of the United States, Barack Obama, has been widely recognised as an extraordinary milestone in the history of the United States and indeed the world. With the use of a discursive psychological approach combined with central theoretical principles derived from social identity and self‐categorisation theories, this paper analyses a corpus of speeches Obama delivered during his candidacy for pres…
Narratives from the neighbourhood
This paper examines how speakers deploy narrative devices in talking about Sudanese refugees. Particularly, we show how narrative constructions form an important basis for the advancement of accounts about integration problems into the local polity. We analyse talkback ‘phone‐in’ calls to a local Adelaide radio station that provide callers an opportunity to give accounts of events and social phenomena that concern them in their local settings. An…
Apologising to the stolen generations
Since the appearance of the Bringing Them Home report in 1997, text and talk about the appropriateness of a national apology for the past practices of forcible removal of Indigenous children from their families and communities have appeared on a regular basis in national and local print media, on television and radio, In organised community meetings, and also in everyday discussions between ordinary people. This paper employs a critical discursiv…
Playing the gender card”
What is at stake for women who challenge sexism? In October 2012, Australia’s first female Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, delivered a speech in Parliament in which she accused the Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott, of sexism and misogyny. The speech attracted local and international media coverage, and sparked widespread debate about precisely what constitutes sexism and misogyny, and whether the accusation was justified. This study adopts a …
Race’ and the Human Genome Project
At the public announcement of the completion of a draft map of the human genome (June 2000), Craig Venter, Head of Celera Genomics and chief private scientist involved with the Human Genome Project, claimed that ‘race’ was not a scientifically valid construct. This statement, based on an analysis of the genomes of five people of different ethnicities, has not served to end the considerable discussion and debate surrounding the concept of ‘race’. …
Role of foster family belonging in recovery from child maltreatment
Research on foster care suggests that children who have experienced abuse are susceptible to a range of negative life outcomes. Such research also suggests that children removed into foster care can recover from abuse if given opportunities to develop healing relationships with caregivers. Drawing on qualitative data from a national research project on Australian foster carers, this paper explores how foster families enact forms of belonging that…
The minimal group paradigm
The minimal group paradigm (Tajfel, Billig, Bundy and Flament, 1971) has been influential in the study of intergroup relations. Thus far, most minimal group experiments have divided the subjects either into two groups, or have categorized them on two separate dichotomous dimensions in cross‐categorization experiments. This study examines the minimal group paradigm using three distinct and independent groups. Comparison of the results with three m…
What Constitutes 'Discrimination' in Everyday Talk? Argumentative Lines and the Social Representations of Discrimination
Most people agree that discrimination is wrong, but the boundary between 'discrimination' and 'not discrimination' is often highly contested in everyday practice. We explore the social representations of 'discrimination' as an object of study in qualitative interviews and focus groups with both minority (self-identified as BAME [Black, Asian, and minority ethnic] and/or gay men) and majority (self-identified as White and/or heterosexual) particip…
It will be hard because I will have to learn lots of English”
Educational experiences during childhood are critically important for development, but migrant children often experience unique challenges. To ameliorate these, extra training in English language – such as provided by the intensive English language programme in South Australia (IELP) – is frequently offered to children taking on English as an additional language. The present study aimed to examine the experience of transition into mainstream clas…
Brain health advice in the news
Advice relating to the prevention of cognitive decline and dementia has become commonplace in the media. This article explores how messages about brain health are constructed in a sample of Australian newspapers from 2009 to 2014. Drawing on insights from discursive psychology and conversation analysis, we identify some specific discursive practices used in the media to construct advice and manage issues of responsibility for brain health. Advice…
Psychiatric Inpatients' Attitudes toward Mental Disorder and the Tendency to Adopt a Sick-Role
The present study investigated the behavioural and attitudinal implications of subscribing to a medical conceptualization of psychiatric disorder. As expected, psychiatric inpatients who tended to perceive psychiatric disorder as an illness' were significantly more inclined to adopt a sick-role than patients who defined such problems in nonmedical (psychosocial) terms
The minimal group paradigm
The minimal group paradigm (Tajfel, Billig, Bundy and Flament, 1971) has been influential in the study of intergroup relations. Thus far, most minimal group experiments have divided the subjects either into two groups, or have categorized them on two separate dichotomous dimensions in cross‐categorization experiments. This study examines the minimal group paradigm using three distinct and independent groups. Comparison of the results with three m…
The Construction of Stereotypes within Social Psychology
This paper reviews the varying and contrasting ways in which stereotypes, as representations of groups, and stereotyping as an activity, have been constructed and understood within contemporary social psychology. These distinct theoretical approaches include the dominant social cognitive tradition, which views stereotypes as cognitive schemas that simplify reality, and self-categorization theory, which views stereotypes as psychologically valid r…
Racism and prejudice
In view of the rise of racist rhetoric in Australian public life in recent years, this paper reviews psychological research on racism and prejudice as they are expressed at every level of society from government policy to the intrapersonal sphere. It draws on evidence arising from social, developmental, clinical, and community psychology. The mental health system is used as an exemplar to analyse the operation of institutionalised racism, and som…
Ideology, False Consciousness and Psychology
Marxist social theory and, in particular, Marxist notions of ideology have never been popular within psychology. Recently, however, the Marxist notion of false consciousness has begun to make appearances in mainstream psychological journals. In this paper I argue that this notion has been misappropriated by those who construct it simply as a psychological-cognitive phenomenon located in individuals' heads, rather than as a socially emergent produ…
Genocide or a Failure to Gel? Racism, History and Nationalism in Australian Talk
In a context of wide media attention to public debates about the social, political and epistemic entitlements of different groups within Australian society, an understanding of the rhetorical resources and the discursive work doen by differing constructions of `race', has become an important local issue. This article examines data from discussions between two groups of (non-indigenous) university students on a range of contemporary issues concern…
Understanding Prejudice, Racism, and Social Conflict
PART ONE: PREJUDICE AND RACISM: DEFINING THE PROBLEM 'KNOWING' THE EXPERIENCE Prejudice, Racism and Social Psychology - Martha Augoustinos and Katherine J Reynolds The Changing Nature of Racism - Iain Walker From Old to New? Boongs, Bigots, and Bystanders - Darren Garvey Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Experiences of Racism and Prejudice and their Implications for Psychology in Australia PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT, SOCIALIZATION AND PERSONALITY Developm…
Stereotype change and prejudice reduction
The present study reports an evaluation of an applied prejudice reduction intervention. Previous research has indicated that such programmes achieve limited success. The programme evaluated was an in-house anti-racist education programme aimed at reducing prejudice towards Aboriginal Australians. The target audience were employees of a large public service organization. Knowledge of, prejudice towards, and stereotyping of Aboriginal Australians w…
Stereotype change and prejudice reduction
The present study reports an evaluation of an applied prejudice reduction intervention. Previous research has indicated that such programmes achieve limited success. The programme evaluated was an in‐house anti‐racist education programme aimed at reducing prejudice towards Aboriginal Australians. The target audience were employees of a large public service organization. Knowledge of, prejudice towards, and stereotyping of Aboriginal Australians w…
Apologising to the stolen generations
Since the appearance of the Bringing Them Home report in 1997, text and talk about the appropriateness of a national apology for the past practices of forcible removal of Indigenous children from their families and communities have appeared on a regular basis in national and local print media, on television and radio, In organised community meetings, and also in everyday discussions between ordinary people. This paper employs a critical discursiv…
Self-sufficient Arguments in Political Rhetoric
This article focuses on the rhetorical and argumentative organization of a major political address by the Prime Minister of Australia on the topics of reconciliation and apologizing to the Stolen Generations of Indigenous peoples. The analysis documents the interpretative repertoires that were mobilized to argue around these sensitive, controversial issues in a public forum, in particular the deployment of discursive formulations of `togetherness…
Race’ and the Human Genome Project
At the public announcement of the completion of a draft map of the human genome (June 2000), Craig Venter, Head of Celera Genomics and chief private scientist involved with the Human Genome Project, claimed that ‘race’ was not a scientifically valid construct. This statement, based on an analysis of the genomes of five people of different ethnicities, has not served to end the considerable discussion and debate surrounding the concept of ‘race’. …
Projecting Threat
The psychic life of colonial power
Ongoing histories of racism in colonial nations such as Australia challenge us as academics to consider how we understand racism and its role in practices of both privilege and oppression. In this article we as two non‐indigenous people living in Australia attempt to work through issues of collective responsibility by focusing on what we believe are three key issues in the study of racism: 1) methodology and researcher subjectivity, 2) subjectifi…
New racism, meritocracy and individualism
This article presents a discursive analysis of student talk on disadvantage and affirmative action from two focus group discussions on ‘race’ relations in Australia. Our analysis builds upon previous research in the discursive tradition on affirmative action and demonstrates how participants draw on resources, which construct affirmative action as largely problematic. Liberal principles such as individualism, merit, and egalitarianism were recurr…
Social Representations and Identity
Learning Difference
This paper explores some of the relationships between the ways in which (White) dominant group children learn about racial differences and the ways in which difference is represented within gay and lesbian families. Research in the latter area has typically provided two dominant (though contrasting) accounts of difference within gay or lesbian families: (1) that children of gay or lesbian parents will have a better understanding of difference; an…
Constructions of racism in the Australian parliamentary debates on asylum seekers
The proliferation of the subtle and slippery nature of the new racism has made it increasingly difficult to define racism and to develop an effective anti-racist rhetoric with which to challenge it. To explore the implications of the new racism for anti-racist discourse, this article uses discourse analysis to examine the parliamentary speeches of politicians opposing Australia's new asylum-seeking laws for what these refugee advocates challenge …
The Language of "Race" and Prejudice
During the past 20 years, there has been a burgeoning literature on racial discourse in Western liberal democracies that has been informed by several disciplines. This literature has analysed linguistic and discursive patterns of everyday talk and formal institutional talk that can be found in parliamentary debates, political speeches, and the media. One of the most pervasive features of contemporary race discourse is the denial of prejudice. Inc…
Protecting the Nation
This paper analyses texts from the Australian print media that invoke nationalist discourse in the so‐called ‘Tampa crisis’ of 2001, which involved the boarding by Australian military troops of a civilian Norwegian shipping vessel (the Tampa) that had rescued a group of asylum seekers. In particular, we are interested in how military action was justified in public discourse against a group of civilians through the use of arguments relying in some…
Constructions of Australia in pro‐ and anti‐asylum seeker political discourse
Whilst there has been a proliferation of research on the role of nationalism in the exclusion of asylum seekers, less attention has been paid to how nationalism can be mobilised in accounts opposing, rather than supporting, harsh anti‐asylum seeker regimes. This paper compares the ways in which ‘Australia’ is constructed and used in parliamentary speeches on asylum seekers by both refugee advocates and those seeking harsher asylum seeker laws in …
Taking advantage' or fleeing persecution? Opposing accounts of asylum seeking
This paper discursively analyses advocates' explanations of asylum seeking in the 2001 Australian parliamentary debates. Previous research has mapped the negative discourses used to present asylum seekers as economic migrants 'taking advantage' of soft laws. This paper analyses how advocates oppose this rhetoric, re-categorising asylum seekers as potential refugees, and establishing Australia as legally and morally responsible for providing prote…
Genes and families in the media
Many critics have previously examined the ways in which the pervasive construction of the family in Western nations – that of the heterosexual nuclear family – is normalised and naturalised in a range of contexts. This paper examines discourses of genetics and the ‘family’ in a series of UK newspaper articles, many of which are non-normative family forms, including families who have used assisted reproductive technologies, and lesbian and gay par…
“Children Out of Place”
The provision of foster care in Australia has a long and contested history. These histories, along with current media representations of foster care, shape the ways in which the general public understand foster care. Importantly, and where such representations are primarily negative, it is likely that foster care will not be considered a viable option for many people seeking to engage in community work or to care for children. This paper provides…
Representations of the stem-cell cloning fraud
The meteoric rise of Professor Wu Sook Hwang who had claimed to have successfully cloned embryonic stem cells in two landmark papers published in Science (2004, 2005) came to an abrupt end when it was discovered that the findings reported in both papers had been deliberately fabricated. Given the heightened expectations associated with therapeutic-cloning advances and their potential for alleviating a range of illnesses, this recent case of scien…
Sociology (61 works) · Psychology (58 works) · Political science (57 works) · Social Psychology (41 works) · Gender Studies (37 works) · Law (35 works) · Politics (33 works) · Gender Studies (28 works) · Law (25 works) · Social and Intergroup Psychology (20 works)