D W Riggs
Biographic Data
| ID | 69566 |
|---|---|
| NAME | D W Riggs |
| GIVEN NAMES | D W |
| FAMILY NAME | Riggs |
| SIGNATURE | RIGGS D W |
| AFFILIATIONS | Flinders University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0961-9099 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 153 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 483 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 153 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1969 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 12 |
A scoping review of podcasting in social work education
With over eight million series available on the two major platforms alone, podcasts are an important contemporary communication medium with a growing popularity in social work education. As social work continues to grapple with contemporary industry needs, student engagement, and the grand challenge of making the most of contemporary technology, podcasting offers one potential method to meet these challenges. This paper utilizes a scoping review …
Temporalities of Trauma
Foster carers raise children whose trauma backgrounds likely result in behaviours that are not simply challenging, but which can also result in vicarious trauma for foster carers. While a growing body of research has explored vicarious trauma among foster carers, to date research has not explored how temporal shifts produced by raising foster children can also compound vicarious trauma for foster carers. The present paper addresses this research …
Psychological wellbeing outcomes across genders in childhood and adolescence aged 8–18 years
Love, loss and animals
Exploring the impacts of animal companionship on the well-being of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, intersex, and asexual individuals in Australia
You know, they’re the safe space to go home to”
The challenges of using social media to recruit participants for research on LGBTQ people and animal companionship
Validating a Measure of Vicarious Trauma as Experienced by Foster Carers
Burnout, stress and fatigue are known contributors to foster placement breakdown, yet little is known about the prevalence and experience of vicarious trauma specifically among foster carers. This paper sought to develop and validate a measure of vicarious trauma among foster carers. In Study 1, we conducted qualitative interviews ( n = 28) and utilized a Delphi panel to develop 38 measure items. In Study 2, participants completed the new Vicario…
Beyond disenfranchized grief
Although there was a rapidly growing body of literature on human-animal relationships during the COVID-19 pandemic, little attention was given to accounts of animal death through and beyond COVID-19. This paper reports on two connected studies undertaken after the end of COVID-19 restrictions in the United Kingdom, here focusing specifically on animal companion loss. From an online survey of 667 participants, 354 responded to an open-ended questi…
Experiences of parental regret among Australian foster parents
To date, research on parental regret has focused exclusively on parental regret among those who have given birth or whose partners have given birth. While in the context of foster parenting attrition has been a consistent focus in research, regret that does not necessarily lead to attrition has less often been a focus. The present paper reports on a study that explored experiences of parental regret among a sample of Australian foster parents who…
Statement on the Importance of Sexuality and Gender Research
But isn’t that normal?’
While growing attention has been paid to the abuse of parents by their children, research to date has almost exclusively focused on parents who have birthed and/or conceived their child. Given that the trauma histories that foster children bring with them may result in abusive behaviours, it is vital to focus on the specific experiences of foster parents with regard to parental abuse. The research reported in this article involved interviews with…
Why Is the Chubby Guy Running
Since the late 2000s trans pregnancy has received increasing public and academic attention, and stories of the ‘pregnant man’ have become a media staple. Existing research has critiqued such spectacularization and the supposed tension between maleness, masculinity, and pregnancy that underpins it. Extending that work, this article draws on interview data from an international study of trans reproductive practices and analyzes participants' experi…
The whole system is designed to create more trauma than it solves
Foster carer experiences of vicarious trauma
Allegations of abuse in care
While it is vital that children are protected from abuse when placed in foster care, foster carers may also be subject to abuse allegations that are unfounded or unsubstantiated. Such allegations can have a significant impact on their wellbeing. Reporting on interviews with 28 foster carers, this paper explores how South Australian foster carers experience the care concern process. The care concern process is initiated when an allegation of abuse…
Embodied Experiences of Trans Pregnancy
Drawing on interview data from the international project 'Pregnant Men: An International Exploration of Trans Male Experiences & Practices of Reproduction' this article explores embodied experiences of transmasculine and nonbinary pregnancy. Moving beyond the spectacle of the 'pregnant man', our analysis builds on existing literature on gendered embodiment to develop a deeper understanding of corporeality and the lived, bodily complexities of tra…
Families with more than one trans person
ObjectiveTo examine how having more than one trans person in a family facilitates investments in or divestments from cisnormativity.BackgroundWhile there is now a robust body of literature on trans people's experiences with cisgender family members and vice versa, largely missing has been a focus on families where more than one person in the family is trans.MethodThis paper focuses on a subsample of 10 families from a large international qualitat…
Erasure and agency in sexuality and relationships education and knowledge among trans young people in Australia
Sexuality and relationship education (SRE) for trans young people is fraught with ongoing institutional and informational erasure, even as trans young people display considerable agency in navigating their SRE needs. This paper reports on a survey of 112 Australian trans young people, who shared their experiences of SRE (in terms of delivery and content), and their views on three story completion tasks where they were asked to respond to prompts …
Healing from intergenerational trauma
Addressing intergenerational trauma caused through the impacts of colonization requires healing processes that are specific to the experiences and needs of First Nations peoples. This paper details an evaluation of two Aboriginal healing camps held in South Australia in 2021 and 2022. The camps focused on supporting members of the Stolen Generations, through a combination of First Nations and western healing practices. This paper details the fram…
The Role of Animal Companions in the Bereavement Experiences of Australian Lesbians and Gay Men
All too often, humans who experience the death of a partner are directed towards other humans for support, ignoring the important role that animal companions play in the lives of many humans. For lesbians and gay men specifically - whose grief may be disenfranchised - animal companions may play a particularly important role. This paper reports on a secondary analysis of interviews with 10 Australian lesbians or gay men who had lost a partner due …
Exploring the Role of Migration Status in Pregnancy Loss Attributions, Experiences, and Support in Australia
While previous research has explored the impact of migration status on experiences and attributions about pregnancy loss, less common is comparative research examining similarities and differences between migrants and non-migrants. This paper reports on a cross sectional comparative study of 623 culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) or non-CALD people living in Australia. Participants completed a survey that asked about experiences of preg…
What are you doing to me?”
Too often when we think about agency, we think only about human actors.Increasingly, studies of animalhuman relationships have explored the agency of animals who live alongside humans.This paper explores the agency of animals during interviews with trans young people and their families.A focus on the agency of animals is important in this context, given the unique meanings often attributed to animals by trans young people, who often experience th…
Taking up the challenge
Debates in transgender, queer, and feminist theory
Transnormativity in the psy disciplines
The psy disciplines (i.e., psychiatry, psychology, psychoanalysis, and psychotherapy) have played a significant role in shaping understandings of transgender people's lives in ways that are transnormative (i.e., by emphasizing one particular account of what it means to be transgender). This article documents (a) how the rise of the psy disciplines created opportunities for transgender people to access treatment (but that such access often require…
An Evidence‐Based Model for Understanding the Mental Health Experiences of Transgender Australians
A growing body of empirical research has documented the mental health experiences of Australian transgender people. This research indicates three key factors that appear to play a role in determining outcomes for adult transgender Australians: (a) discrimination, (b) access to hormones and/or surgery, (c) community connectedness. Two theoretical frameworks clarify why these factors exist and how they can lead to either negative or positive mental…
Family support and discrimination and their relationship to psychological distress and resilience amongst transgender people
Background: Given the broader social contexts in which transgender people and their families live, the latter can be either an important source of support, or bring with them yet another source of discrimination. Although historically transgender people almost uniformly experienced discrimination from families of origin, recent research suggests that growing numbers of transgender people are supported by their families.Aims: The study reported in…
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…
Decompensation
To date, research that has drawn on Meyer's (2003) minority stress model has largely taken for granted the premises underpinning it. In this article we provide a close reading of how "stress" is conceptualized in the model and suggest that aspects of the model do not attend to the institutionalized nature of stressors experienced by people with marginalized identities, particularly lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals. As a counter…
The capacity of South Australian primary school teachers and pre-service teachers to work with trans and gender diverse students
Critical Kinship Studies
This book draws together research on posthumanism and studies of kinship to elaborate an account of western human kinship practices. Studies of kinship have increasingly sought to critique the normative assumptions that often underpin how caring relationships between humans are understood. The categorisation of 'human' and 'kinship' is brought into question and this book examines who might be excluded through adherence to accepted categories and …
Anti-Asian Sentiment Amongst a Sample of White Australian Men on Gaydar
Indigenous Sistergirls’ Experiences of Family and Community
While increasing attention has been paid to the experiences of Indigenous sistergirls over the past decade there still remains a dearth of empirical research on the experiences of this diverse population of Indigenous people. This paper seeks to add to the small body of existing literature by reporting on a thematic analysis of existing media in which 18 sistergirls shared their experiences of family and community. The thematic analysis identifie…
Whole-of-school approaches to supporting transgender students, staff, and parents
In our work focusing on transgender people in the context of education we are constantly struck by how quickly discussions about transgender people shift to focus solely on transgender students. In
The management of accusations of racism in Celebrity Big Brother
The 2007 UK series of Celebrity Big Brother drew considerable attention to Britain as a result of the alleged racist bullying of Bollywood film star Shilpa Shetty by four British celebrity housemates. At stake in these allegations was any perception that Britain as a country promotes inclusivity and discourages racism. In this article, we examine, through an analysis of the exit interviews conducted with the four housemates in question, how accus…
On accountability
Writing about white middle-class queer subjectivities is a necessarily difficult task. Partly, this is because of ongoing debates over identity politics (and indeed post-identity politics), and partly because writing as a white middle-class queer always appears to invoke a particular ‘yes but’ (‘yes I am white and middle-class but I am also queer’). In this article I outline one way of engaging in a white middle-class queer praxis that takes into…
Challenging the monoculturalism of psychology
In this paper I employ the notion of a “socially accountable psychology” (Davidson, 1998 Davidson, G, 1998, 1998. In pursuit of social responsibility in psychology: A comment on Butler, Australian Psychologist 33 (1998, 1998), pp. 47–49.[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) to explore the whiteness of psychological epistemologies. I suggest that within a multicultural society psychology needs to develop an understandin…
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…
Family matters
This paper reports the findings of a qualitative Australian study where 13 transgender or gender diverse adults were interviewed about family relationships. The findings indicate the degree to which participants were concerned with protecting family members from the perceived disruption to family life that transitioning can bring about. Protecting family relationships, however, often occurred at the expense of the transgender or gender diverse pe…
Daughters and their mothers
Parenting and Australian trans and gender diverse people
Growing numbers of Australian trans and gender diverse people desire to become parents, yet many who do so experience a lack of support and recognition. This article reports on an online survey completed by 160 trans or gender diverse people. The survey included general demographic questions, in addition to questions related to (1) current parenting arrangements, (2) modes of family formation, (3) the desire to have children in the future, and (4…
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…
What makes a man? Thomas Beatie, embodiment, and ‘mundane transphobia’
Critical scholars have long examined the ways in which identity categories are forcibly written upon bodies through the functioning of social norms. For many marginalised groups, such critiques have been central to challenging pathologising understandings of identity categories, often by uncoupling bodies from identities. Yet despite this, normative accounts of embodiment are still forcibly written upon the bodies of many groups of people, albeit…
Experiences of Disenfranchised Grief Arising from the Unplanned Termination of a Foster Placement
When a child who has been in your primary care — a child whom you have loved, helped in times of need, comforted when upset and celebrated with in times of happiness — is taken from you unexpectedly, and when this care arrangement was thought to be long term, the sense of loss and grief is likely to be significant. Furthermore, the significance of this might be compounded if it is not adequately recognised. The findings reported by Damien W Riggs…
That's my job
Please note: Published version includes a French translation of the Abstract. “This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by \nTaylor & Francis in Community, Work & Family on 10 April \n2018, available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/ \nfull/10.1080/13668803.2018.1462763” \nThis manuscript version is made available under the CCBY- \nNC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ \nThis author accepted manu…
Gender differences in cisgender psychologists’ and trainees’ attitudes toward transgender people
Post print (author accepted) manuscript made available in accordance with publisher copyright policy. 'This article may not exactly replicate the final version published in the APA journal. It is not the copy of record
Statement on the Importance of Sexuality and Gender Research
Toward Trans Reproductive Justice
This article draws on three Australian studies focused on views about fertility preservation among (1) parents of transgender and non‐binary children, (2) transgender and non‐binary adults, and (3) healthcare professionals working with transgender and non‐binary people. The first two studies were undertaken concurrently given the dearth of research on the topic in the Australian context, and the third study was then undertaken given a primary foc…
The Health and Well-being Implications of Emotion Work Undertaken by Gay Sperm Donors
As reproductive health clinics both within Australia and internationally continue to face a shortfall in the number of available sperm donors, so there exists a growing demand for men willing to donate to clinics. At the same time, and where an increasing number of countries move toward legislating for the release of identifying information about donors to children conceived of their sperm, fewer men report a willingness to act as donors. This ar…
"Moving Beyond English as a Requirement to"Fit In
This paper presents findings from research conducted in two primary schools in South Australia with New Arrivals Programs (NAPs). The paper draws upon two forms of data: questionnaires administered to teachers and ethnographic observations of children at play in the schoolyard. These data are used to examine two aspects of education for refugees and other migrants: (1) the assumption that English language acquisition is central to the “integratio…
Understanding history as a rhetorical strategy
this article seeks to demonstrate two of the rhetorical strategies that would appear to be evident in debates surrounding (and located within) Keith Windschuttle's book The Fabrication of Aboriginal History. Following a brief elaboration of the ideological nature of historical research, this article will suggest that both 'claims to objectivity' and acts of 'ontological imperialism' represent rhetorical strategies that are deployed to (a) manage …
Challenging the monoculturalism of psychology
In this paper I employ the notion of a “socially accountable psychology” (Davidson, 1998 Davidson, G, 1998, 1998. In pursuit of social responsibility in psychology: A comment on Butler, Australian Psychologist 33 (1998, 1998), pp. 47–49.[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) to explore the whiteness of psychological epistemologies. I suggest that within a multicultural society psychology needs to develop an understandin…
Projecting Threat
Locating control
This paper addresses some of the ways in which psychological constructs, which have been traditionally positioned as intra-psychic phenomena, may be more productively understood as local performances of intelligible 'healthy subject positions'. More specifically, it focuses on the cultural location of psychological epistemologies, and the assumptions of universality (based upon the normative subject position 'white middle-class heterosexual male'…
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…
Developmentalism and the Rhetoric of Best Interests of the Child
The foster care system in Australia has recently recognised the importance of encouraging lesbians and gay men to become foster carers. Whilst this may be seen as an important step towards overcoming social stereotypes that position lesbians and gay men as unfit parents, I propose that foster care public policy in Australia is shaped by a number of key assumptions that effectively exclude lesbian and gay foster parents. In particular, I focus on …
‘Serosameness’ or ‘Serodifference’? Resisting Polarized Discourses of Identity and Relationality in the Context of HIV
HIV promotion campaigns and common sense understandings of gay men’s identities and sexuality often depict gay men’s lives as being structured around serostatus. One outcome of this is that some gay men may feel the need to engage in practices, such as barebacking, with the intention of seroconversion. Such practices may be motivated by a desire to ‘overcome difference’, the assumption being that this is a useful way to relate to one another as g…
Queer(y)ing rights
Issues surrounding human rights occupy a particularly troubled location within colonial nations such as Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand as a result of their ongoing histories of dispossession and genocide. This is no less the case for queer rights campaigns within these countries, which have often failed to engage with the relationship between oppression based on sexuality, and oppression that results from racism. In this paper these issues ar…
Reassessing the Foster-Care System
In this essay, Riggs demonstrates how heterosexism shapes foster-care assessment practices in Australia. Through an examination of lesbian and gay foster-care applicants’ assessment reports and with a focus on the heteronormative assumptions contained within them, Riggs demonstrates that foster-care public policy and research on lesbian and gay parenting both promote the idea that lesbian and gay parents are always already “just like” heterosexua…
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…
Whiteness, Moral Authority and Knowledge Claims
Stephen Muecke's text Ancient and Modern represents a critical intervention into how non-Indigenous people in Australia understand, interact with and respond to the fact of Indigenous sovereignty
Reassessing the Foster-Care System
In this essay, Riggs demonstrates how heterosexism shapes foster-care assessment practices in Australia. Through an examination of lesbian and gay foster-care applicants’ assessment reports and with a focus on the heteronormative assumptions contained within them, Riggs demonstrates that foster-care public policy and research on lesbian and gay parenting both promote the idea that lesbian and gay parents are always already “just like” heterosexua…
The blighted germs of heterosexual tendencies’
This paper argues for an understanding of Freud's ‘queer’ contributions to social psychology, and posits the ongoing utility of psychoanalysis for developing social psychological approaches to understanding both same‐sex attracted identities and heteronormativity. Through an elaboration of two key areas of Freud's work, namely his implicit critiques of heteronormativity and his explicit support for the rights of those who do not identify as heter…
Lesbian mothers, gay sperm donors, and community
As Australian reproductive health continues to be shaped by legal and social heterosexism, lesbian women seeking to conceive are often reliant upon gay men to act as known donors. As previous legal cases demonstrate, this can result in contestations between donors and recipients that result in negative well-being outcomes for both parties, and which highlight the limitations of coalitionism within gay and lesbian communities. Using data collected…
“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…
Attitudes Toward Parenting in a Lesbian and Gay Community Convenience Sample
This study sought to measure attitudes of lesbians and gay men toward lesbian and gay parents. Participants (126 gay men and 139 lesbians from 5 Australian states) were given one vignette featuring either a lesbian, gay, or heterosexual couple parenting a 16-year-old child. They rated the vignette parents in terms of their parenting competencies and suitability as parents. Findings suggest that overall, lesbian and gay parents were rated more pos…
Institutional Stressors and Individual Strengths
In response to the current shortfall in the number of registered foster carers in Australia, many agencies are now actively recruiting lesbians and gay men as foster carers. Importantly, however, this move towards recognising the role that lesbians and gay men may play as foster carers has on the whole not been supported by laws or policies specifically aimed at protecting such carers. Additionally, findings from a national research project on fo…
The Health and Well-being Implications of Emotion Work Undertaken by Gay Sperm Donors
As reproductive health clinics both within Australia and internationally continue to face a shortfall in the number of available sperm donors, so there exists a growing demand for men willing to donate to clinics. At the same time, and where an increasing number of countries move toward legislating for the release of identifying information about donors to children conceived of their sperm, fewer men report a willingness to act as donors. This ar…
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…
Negotiating Foster-Families
Foster care systems across Australia are widely recognised as being ‘in crisis’. Problems of both supply (a lack of appropriate placements for children) and demand (increasing numbers of child protection notifications) are central to this crisis. Addressing these problems requires an approach to social work practice that encourages greater support for existing foster carers, and that in so doing, helps to attract new carers to the system. One of …
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Queer Psychology
This exciting and engaging textbook introduces students to the psychology of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer lives and experiences. It covers a broad range of topics including diversity, prejudice, health, relationships, parenting and lifespan experiences from youth to old age. The book includes 'key researcher' boxes, which outline the contributions of significant individuals and their motivations for conducting their research in their o…
Representing 'Australian Land
This article examines how Indigenous Australians' claims to their land are represented in the mainstream, non-Indigenous Australian media. In so doing, the article explores the common tropes available to non-Indigenous Australians in relation to Indigenous ownership of land, and in particular the native title system. It is argued that whilst initial land claims are discussed in detail within the media from a variety of perspectives, subsequent In…
The management of accusations of racism in Celebrity Big Brother
The 2007 UK series of Celebrity Big Brother drew considerable attention to Britain as a result of the alleged racist bullying of Bollywood film star Shilpa Shetty by four British celebrity housemates. At stake in these allegations was any perception that Britain as a country promotes inclusivity and discourages racism. In this article, we examine, through an analysis of the exit interviews conducted with the four housemates in question, how accus…
Sociology (116 works) · Psychology (109 works) · Political science (74 works) · Social Psychology (72 works) · Gender Studies (68 works) · LGBTQ Health, Identity, and Policy (54 works) · Social Psychology (50 works) · Medicine (43 works) · Reproductive Health and Technologies (43 works) · Law (40 works)