R Sharples
Biographic Data
| ID | 70209 |
|---|---|
| NAME | R Sharples |
| GIVEN NAMES | R |
| FAMILY NAME | Sharples |
| SIGNATURE | SHARPLES R |
| AFFILIATIONS | Western Sydney University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3374-9961 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 25 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 65 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 25 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2013 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Complex Religion, Conspiracy Theories, Misinformation, and Covid-19 in NSW, Australia
This article explores contemporary empirical evidence of the extent of the uptake of misinformation and conspiracy theories about COVID-19 with regards to religion in the New South Wales population in Australia. The data were collected through an online survey conducted in 2022 (N=5,276). Religious respondents tend to follow conspiracy theories, distrusting the recommendations of scientists and for some, resourcing information from religious lead…
Far-Right Hate Speaker Tours in Australia
This paper examines the speaking tours of international speakers who propagate far-right ideologies, the risks they pose to society, and the effective mechanisms available that can be employed to disrupt the dissemination of their message. Five tours that took place between 2015 and 2019 were analyzed through a case study approach. Data from public records, articles, media platforms, and websites were collected and analyzed using a coding framewo…
The Challenges of Volunteer Humanitarianism in Australia’s Neoliberal Context
In Australia’s neoliberal context, volunteers play a crucial role in refugee settlement but face significant challenges despite their intercultural skills. Neoliberal outsourcing of social welfare work to volunteers and NGOs not only undermines the altruistic essence of volunteerism but also transforms it into a tool for cost-cutting and social service privatisation. The undervaluation of volunteers’ work, due to difficulties in measuring their s…
Misinformation and Conspiracy Theories During the Covid-19 Pandemic in NSW, Australia and the Risks for Social Cohesion
Conspiracy theories are by no means new. However, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the risks and dangers associated with beliefs in conspiracy theories and misinformation intensified. Furthermore, while conspiracy theories are often attributed to marginal or fringe populations, the pandemic context saw the spread of such ideas more widely and with greater impacts. The latter includes fuelling major public disorders, political violence and/or widespr…
Racism Data in Australia
There are growing public discussions about racism in Australia with renewed government commitment to addressing it. Robust evidence and high-quality data are important for informing anti-racism. However, current data have serious limitations that impact our knowledge about the nature, prevalence and impact of racism in Australia. To examine the state and limitations of data on racism in Australia, we conducted a stocktake review of quantitative r…
Asian Australian's Experiences and Reporting of Racism During the Covid-19 Pandemic
Asian Australian’s Experiences and Reporting of Racism During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Island Detention and Seeking Asylum in the Asia-Pacific
Drawing on Bhasan Char and Manus Island as case studies, this article makes an argument for the concept of "grey sovereignty," which is understood as the suspension and/or manipulation of established state norms and obligations in order to contain and punish irregular migrants. The operationalization of grey sovereignty is discussed through three paradigms that can help to understand its purpose and practice: As sites of sovereign decline, violen…
The impact of stereotypical constructions of masculinity among the Rohingya population living in the Kutupalang Rohingya camp in Bangladesh
This research examined how stereotypical constructions of masculinity impact the Rohingya community living in the Kutupalang Rohingya camp in Bangladesh. The study was conducted immediately after the 2017 influx of Rohingya refugees into Bangladesh. A total of 28 in-depth interviews were conducted, comprising 16 Rohingya men and seven Rohingya women, and five humanitarian officials. The study also included two focus groups, one with Rohingya men …
Racist and Anti-diversity Attitudes as Predictors of Support for Political Violence among Supporters of Mainstream Political Parties
Although there are widespread concerns about support for political violence among people affiliated with mainstream political parties, this topic remains largely under-researched. This article examines the relationship between the respondents’ support for political violence and their endorsement of social and political positions that are highly divisive between the left and the right. We collected survey data from a sample of 4,019 respondents fr…
Categorising anti-asylum Seeker Sentiment through a Regime of Securitisation
In this paper, we reveal three classes of asylum seeker sentiment in the Australian population. The first group are pro-asylum seekers who think Australians should help refugees, that government agencies should not be turning back boats carrying people seeking asylum, that immigration levels are low, and that current government policy is too tough. The second group are anti-asylum seekers who strongly disagree with helping refugees and people see…
Understanding Trust in Contemporary Australia Using Latent Class Analysis
In 2019, an online survey of 2,015 Australian residents examined the extent of trust of various groups and institutions. A Latent Class Analysis (LCA) of the results generated a typology of trust in Australia. The LCA uncovered four classes based on levels of trust as well as associated demographic profiles and attitudes. The four groups were: those that are very distrusting (15%); those that are largely unsure about how much they can trust vario…
Spaces of Solidarity
Exploring notions of activism and space as narrated by Karen displaced persons and refugees in the Thai-Burma borderlands, this book looks beyond refugees as passive victims or a ‘humanitarian case’. Instead, the book examines the active engagement the Karen have with their persecution and displacement and their subsequent emplacement in the borderlands. A key focus of the book is to look at this engagement in terms of spaces of solidarity – cons…
Chapter 5. ‘Symbolic Anchors of Community’
Social cohesion revisited
This paper examines the understanding of social cohesion by policymakers, practitioners and residents, with particular reference to migrant concentration areas in Sydney and Melbourne. Ten suburbs we focus on had a high proportion of Muslim Australian residents and were socioeconomically disadvantaged at the time of the 2016 Australian Census. The paper is based on 52 in‐depth, semi‐structured interviews, mainly with professionals delivering loca…
Asian Australians' Experiences of Online Racism during the Covid-19 Pandemic
Between 13 November 2020 and 11 February 2021, an online national survey of 2003 Asian Australians was conducted to measure the type and frequency of self-identified Asian Australians' experiences of racism during the COVID-19 pandemic. The survey also aimed to gauge the relationships between racist experiences and targets' mental health, wellbeing and sense of belonging. In this paper, we report findings on the type and frequency of online racis…
Promoting proactive bystander responses to racism and racial discrimination in primary schools
This study provides quantitative evidence of the potential of the SOAR program to improve the prosocial skills of students and their perceptions of the inter-racial school climate provided by their teachers. This program also provided qualitative evidence of the potential to promote teacher and student attitudinal and behavioural change. Further refinement and testing of the program in a large scale implementation trial is recommended
Segmenting anti-Muslim sentiment in Australia
Islamophobia is a global issue. Our nationwide survey of Australians, undertaken in 2015 and 2016, reveals the extent of this national calamity in Australia. But Islamophobia is not universal in its manifestation. Latent Class Analysis was used to develop a typology of Islamophobia in Australia. The results place Australians in four classes based on their perception of Islam: Islamophobes (13% of the population); those who are unsure about divers…
Disrupting State Spaces
The Australian government has spent over a billion dollars a year on managing offshore detention (Budget 2018-2019). Central to this offshore management was the transference and mandatory detention of asylum seekers in facilities that sit outside Australia's national sovereignty, in particular on Manus Island (Papua New Guinea) and Nauru. As a state-sanctioned spatial aberration meant to deter asylum seekers arriving by boat, offshore detention h…
Claiming 'anti-white racism' in Australia
This article explores the attitudes and beliefs of 38 people who made claims of anti-white racism in a national survey that measured the extent and variation of racism in Australia. Quantitative analysis of survey data reveals that those who make claims of anti-white racism are nearly twice as likely as the rest of population to hold negative views about cultural diversity and immigration, to identify 'out-groups', and to self-identify as racist.…
Spaces of Solidarity
Exploring notions of activism and space as narrated by Karen displaced persons and refugees in the Thai-Burma borderlands, this book looks beyond refugees as passive victims or a ‘humanitarian case’. Instead, the book examines the active engagement the Karen have with their persecution and displacement and their subsequent emplacement in the borderlands. A key focus of the book is to look at this engagement in terms of spaces of solidarity – cons…
Movements Across Space
The Thai–Burma borderlands is a site of political and social transformation. This transformation is informed by an interchange that occurs across the national border—people, ideas, culture, information, resources, and identity. This articulation of a borderlands space challenges the geo-political narrative of the state and the bounded nature of state mechanisms. In particular, the tendency of states to treat borders as static and stable and to us…
Racism in the sharing economy
To be Karen in the Thai–Burma borderlands
Current debates on Karen identity have tended to focus on the development of a nationalist construct of a pan-Karen community. This article moves beyond this notion to explore a Karen identity that is being recast in the form of a human rights discourse where the Karen construct, adapt, and reify the social aspects of their political identity in order to establish a claim to a political self, where they protest the persecution and discrimination …
Institutional Governance and Refugee Resistance
Displaced Karen constitute a complex array of actors in the Thai–Burma borderlands. Forms of governance meant to contain and control these actors are framed by practices of territorial sovereignty and bureaucratic processes of identification and resource allocation. This article examines forms of institutional governance through two broad authorities, the state (predominantly the Thai government) and the humanitarian aid apparatus. It argues that…
Beyond Forty Acres and a Mule
Beyond Forty Acres and a Mule, a collection of twelve essays, provides a potent counternarrative to the story of African Americans only as sharecroppers. These richly documented essays add depth and complexity to the little-known story of African American landowners, who struggled against not only racism but also social, economic, and political barriers (p. 30). African American farmers held significant amounts of land, and they used their status…
Asian Australians' Experiences of Online Racism during the Covid-19 Pandemic
Between 13 November 2020 and 11 February 2021, an online national survey of 2003 Asian Australians was conducted to measure the type and frequency of self-identified Asian Australians' experiences of racism during the COVID-19 pandemic. The survey also aimed to gauge the relationships between racist experiences and targets' mental health, wellbeing and sense of belonging. In this paper, we report findings on the type and frequency of online racis…
Claiming 'anti-white racism' in Australia
This article explores the attitudes and beliefs of 38 people who made claims of anti-white racism in a national survey that measured the extent and variation of racism in Australia. Quantitative analysis of survey data reveals that those who make claims of anti-white racism are nearly twice as likely as the rest of population to hold negative views about cultural diversity and immigration, to identify 'out-groups', and to self-identify as racist.…
Segmenting anti-Muslim sentiment in Australia
Islamophobia is a global issue. Our nationwide survey of Australians, undertaken in 2015 and 2016, reveals the extent of this national calamity in Australia. But Islamophobia is not universal in its manifestation. Latent Class Analysis was used to develop a typology of Islamophobia in Australia. The results place Australians in four classes based on their perception of Islam: Islamophobes (13% of the population); those who are unsure about divers…
Movements Across Space
The Thai–Burma borderlands is a site of political and social transformation. This transformation is informed by an interchange that occurs across the national border—people, ideas, culture, information, resources, and identity. This articulation of a borderlands space challenges the geo-political narrative of the state and the bounded nature of state mechanisms. In particular, the tendency of states to treat borders as static and stable and to us…
Racism in the sharing economy
Asian Australian's Experiences and Reporting of Racism During the Covid-19 Pandemic
Asian Australian’s Experiences and Reporting of Racism During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Categorising anti-asylum Seeker Sentiment through a Regime of Securitisation
In this paper, we reveal three classes of asylum seeker sentiment in the Australian population. The first group are pro-asylum seekers who think Australians should help refugees, that government agencies should not be turning back boats carrying people seeking asylum, that immigration levels are low, and that current government policy is too tough. The second group are anti-asylum seekers who strongly disagree with helping refugees and people see…
Social cohesion revisited
This paper examines the understanding of social cohesion by policymakers, practitioners and residents, with particular reference to migrant concentration areas in Sydney and Melbourne. Ten suburbs we focus on had a high proportion of Muslim Australian residents and were socioeconomically disadvantaged at the time of the 2016 Australian Census. The paper is based on 52 in‐depth, semi‐structured interviews, mainly with professionals delivering loca…
To be Karen in the Thai–Burma borderlands
Current debates on Karen identity have tended to focus on the development of a nationalist construct of a pan-Karen community. This article moves beyond this notion to explore a Karen identity that is being recast in the form of a human rights discourse where the Karen construct, adapt, and reify the social aspects of their political identity in order to establish a claim to a political self, where they protest the persecution and discrimination …
Racist and Anti-diversity Attitudes as Predictors of Support for Political Violence among Supporters of Mainstream Political Parties
Although there are widespread concerns about support for political violence among people affiliated with mainstream political parties, this topic remains largely under-researched. This article examines the relationship between the respondents’ support for political violence and their endorsement of social and political positions that are highly divisive between the left and the right. We collected survey data from a sample of 4,019 respondents fr…
Disrupting State Spaces
The Australian government has spent over a billion dollars a year on managing offshore detention (Budget 2018-2019). Central to this offshore management was the transference and mandatory detention of asylum seekers in facilities that sit outside Australia's national sovereignty, in particular on Manus Island (Papua New Guinea) and Nauru. As a state-sanctioned spatial aberration meant to deter asylum seekers arriving by boat, offshore detention h…
Institutional Governance and Refugee Resistance
Displaced Karen constitute a complex array of actors in the Thai–Burma borderlands. Forms of governance meant to contain and control these actors are framed by practices of territorial sovereignty and bureaucratic processes of identification and resource allocation. This article examines forms of institutional governance through two broad authorities, the state (predominantly the Thai government) and the humanitarian aid apparatus. It argues that…
Beyond Forty Acres and a Mule
Beyond Forty Acres and a Mule, a collection of twelve essays, provides a potent counternarrative to the story of African Americans only as sharecroppers. These richly documented essays add depth and complexity to the little-known story of African American landowners, who struggled against not only racism but also social, economic, and political barriers (p. 30). African American farmers held significant amounts of land, and they used their status…
Beyond Forty Acres and a Mule
Beyond Forty Acres and a Mule, a collection of twelve essays, provides a potent counternarrative to the story of African Americans only as sharecroppers. These richly documented essays add depth and complexity to the little-known story of African American landowners, who struggled against not only racism but also social, economic, and political barriers (p. 30). African American farmers held significant amounts of land, and they used their status…
Institutional Governance and Refugee Resistance
Displaced Karen constitute a complex array of actors in the Thai–Burma borderlands. Forms of governance meant to contain and control these actors are framed by practices of territorial sovereignty and bureaucratic processes of identification and resource allocation. This article examines forms of institutional governance through two broad authorities, the state (predominantly the Thai government) and the humanitarian aid apparatus. It argues that…
To be Karen in the Thai–Burma borderlands
Current debates on Karen identity have tended to focus on the development of a nationalist construct of a pan-Karen community. This article moves beyond this notion to explore a Karen identity that is being recast in the form of a human rights discourse where the Karen construct, adapt, and reify the social aspects of their political identity in order to establish a claim to a political self, where they protest the persecution and discrimination …
Movements Across Space
The Thai–Burma borderlands is a site of political and social transformation. This transformation is informed by an interchange that occurs across the national border—people, ideas, culture, information, resources, and identity. This articulation of a borderlands space challenges the geo-political narrative of the state and the bounded nature of state mechanisms. In particular, the tendency of states to treat borders as static and stable and to us…
Racism in the sharing economy
Spaces of Solidarity
Exploring notions of activism and space as narrated by Karen displaced persons and refugees in the Thai-Burma borderlands, this book looks beyond refugees as passive victims or a ‘humanitarian case’. Instead, the book examines the active engagement the Karen have with their persecution and displacement and their subsequent emplacement in the borderlands. A key focus of the book is to look at this engagement in terms of spaces of solidarity – cons…
Promoting proactive bystander responses to racism and racial discrimination in primary schools
This study provides quantitative evidence of the potential of the SOAR program to improve the prosocial skills of students and their perceptions of the inter-racial school climate provided by their teachers. This program also provided qualitative evidence of the potential to promote teacher and student attitudinal and behavioural change. Further refinement and testing of the program in a large scale implementation trial is recommended
Segmenting anti-Muslim sentiment in Australia
Islamophobia is a global issue. Our nationwide survey of Australians, undertaken in 2015 and 2016, reveals the extent of this national calamity in Australia. But Islamophobia is not universal in its manifestation. Latent Class Analysis was used to develop a typology of Islamophobia in Australia. The results place Australians in four classes based on their perception of Islam: Islamophobes (13% of the population); those who are unsure about divers…
Disrupting State Spaces
The Australian government has spent over a billion dollars a year on managing offshore detention (Budget 2018-2019). Central to this offshore management was the transference and mandatory detention of asylum seekers in facilities that sit outside Australia's national sovereignty, in particular on Manus Island (Papua New Guinea) and Nauru. As a state-sanctioned spatial aberration meant to deter asylum seekers arriving by boat, offshore detention h…
Claiming 'anti-white racism' in Australia
This article explores the attitudes and beliefs of 38 people who made claims of anti-white racism in a national survey that measured the extent and variation of racism in Australia. Quantitative analysis of survey data reveals that those who make claims of anti-white racism are nearly twice as likely as the rest of population to hold negative views about cultural diversity and immigration, to identify 'out-groups', and to self-identify as racist.…
Spaces of Solidarity
Exploring notions of activism and space as narrated by Karen displaced persons and refugees in the Thai-Burma borderlands, this book looks beyond refugees as passive victims or a ‘humanitarian case’. Instead, the book examines the active engagement the Karen have with their persecution and displacement and their subsequent emplacement in the borderlands. A key focus of the book is to look at this engagement in terms of spaces of solidarity – cons…
Chapter 5. ‘Symbolic Anchors of Community’
Social cohesion revisited
This paper examines the understanding of social cohesion by policymakers, practitioners and residents, with particular reference to migrant concentration areas in Sydney and Melbourne. Ten suburbs we focus on had a high proportion of Muslim Australian residents and were socioeconomically disadvantaged at the time of the 2016 Australian Census. The paper is based on 52 in‐depth, semi‐structured interviews, mainly with professionals delivering loca…
Asian Australians' Experiences of Online Racism during the Covid-19 Pandemic
Between 13 November 2020 and 11 February 2021, an online national survey of 2003 Asian Australians was conducted to measure the type and frequency of self-identified Asian Australians' experiences of racism during the COVID-19 pandemic. The survey also aimed to gauge the relationships between racist experiences and targets' mental health, wellbeing and sense of belonging. In this paper, we report findings on the type and frequency of online racis…
The impact of stereotypical constructions of masculinity among the Rohingya population living in the Kutupalang Rohingya camp in Bangladesh
This research examined how stereotypical constructions of masculinity impact the Rohingya community living in the Kutupalang Rohingya camp in Bangladesh. The study was conducted immediately after the 2017 influx of Rohingya refugees into Bangladesh. A total of 28 in-depth interviews were conducted, comprising 16 Rohingya men and seven Rohingya women, and five humanitarian officials. The study also included two focus groups, one with Rohingya men …
Racist and Anti-diversity Attitudes as Predictors of Support for Political Violence among Supporters of Mainstream Political Parties
Although there are widespread concerns about support for political violence among people affiliated with mainstream political parties, this topic remains largely under-researched. This article examines the relationship between the respondents’ support for political violence and their endorsement of social and political positions that are highly divisive between the left and the right. We collected survey data from a sample of 4,019 respondents fr…
Categorising anti-asylum Seeker Sentiment through a Regime of Securitisation
In this paper, we reveal three classes of asylum seeker sentiment in the Australian population. The first group are pro-asylum seekers who think Australians should help refugees, that government agencies should not be turning back boats carrying people seeking asylum, that immigration levels are low, and that current government policy is too tough. The second group are anti-asylum seekers who strongly disagree with helping refugees and people see…
Understanding Trust in Contemporary Australia Using Latent Class Analysis
In 2019, an online survey of 2,015 Australian residents examined the extent of trust of various groups and institutions. A Latent Class Analysis (LCA) of the results generated a typology of trust in Australia. The LCA uncovered four classes based on levels of trust as well as associated demographic profiles and attitudes. The four groups were: those that are very distrusting (15%); those that are largely unsure about how much they can trust vario…
Racism Data in Australia
There are growing public discussions about racism in Australia with renewed government commitment to addressing it. Robust evidence and high-quality data are important for informing anti-racism. However, current data have serious limitations that impact our knowledge about the nature, prevalence and impact of racism in Australia. To examine the state and limitations of data on racism in Australia, we conducted a stocktake review of quantitative r…
Asian Australian's Experiences and Reporting of Racism During the Covid-19 Pandemic
Asian Australian’s Experiences and Reporting of Racism During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Island Detention and Seeking Asylum in the Asia-Pacific
Drawing on Bhasan Char and Manus Island as case studies, this article makes an argument for the concept of "grey sovereignty," which is understood as the suspension and/or manipulation of established state norms and obligations in order to contain and punish irregular migrants. The operationalization of grey sovereignty is discussed through three paradigms that can help to understand its purpose and practice: As sites of sovereign decline, violen…
Far-Right Hate Speaker Tours in Australia
This paper examines the speaking tours of international speakers who propagate far-right ideologies, the risks they pose to society, and the effective mechanisms available that can be employed to disrupt the dissemination of their message. Five tours that took place between 2015 and 2019 were analyzed through a case study approach. Data from public records, articles, media platforms, and websites were collected and analyzed using a coding framewo…
The Challenges of Volunteer Humanitarianism in Australia’s Neoliberal Context
In Australia’s neoliberal context, volunteers play a crucial role in refugee settlement but face significant challenges despite their intercultural skills. Neoliberal outsourcing of social welfare work to volunteers and NGOs not only undermines the altruistic essence of volunteerism but also transforms it into a tool for cost-cutting and social service privatisation. The undervaluation of volunteers’ work, due to difficulties in measuring their s…
Misinformation and Conspiracy Theories During the Covid-19 Pandemic in NSW, Australia and the Risks for Social Cohesion
Conspiracy theories are by no means new. However, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the risks and dangers associated with beliefs in conspiracy theories and misinformation intensified. Furthermore, while conspiracy theories are often attributed to marginal or fringe populations, the pandemic context saw the spread of such ideas more widely and with greater impacts. The latter includes fuelling major public disorders, political violence and/or widespr…
Complex Religion, Conspiracy Theories, Misinformation, and Covid-19 in NSW, Australia
This article explores contemporary empirical evidence of the extent of the uptake of misinformation and conspiracy theories about COVID-19 with regards to religion in the New South Wales population in Australia. The data were collected through an online survey conducted in 2022 (N=5,276). Religious respondents tend to follow conspiracy theories, distrusting the recommendations of scientists and for some, resourcing information from religious lead…
Sociology (21 works) · Political science (19 works) · Law (16 works) · Migration, Refugees, and Integration (14 works) · Gender Studies (13 works) · Psychology (10 works) · Law (8 works) · Politics (8 works) · Racism (8 works) · Gender Studies (7 works)