R Busbridge
Biographic Data
| ID | 20901 |
|---|---|
| NAME | R Busbridge |
| GIVEN NAMES | R |
| FAMILY NAME | Busbridge |
| SIGNATURE | BUSBRIDGE R |
| AFFILIATIONS | Australian Catholic University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5348-9335 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 24 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 149 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 24 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2013 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Mapping the ‘fringe’ in Australian local politics: Fringe political actors in the 2024 NSW and VIC local government elections
From the Three Rs to the “Culture Wars”? How Australians Perceive Local Government Action on Climate Change, Indigenous Reconciliation, and LGBTQIA + Advocacy
Australian local government has rarely been the domain where entrenched and polarising cultural disputes play out, and is instead most often associated with the “3Rs”: roads, rates, and rubbish. However, in recent years, a growing number of local councils from across Australia have taken exceptional and unprecedented steps, sometimes in defiance of state and federal governments, to address some of the country's most ideologically contentious issu…
The Three Rs and Beyond: Public Perceptions on the Role of Australian Local Government Today
Despite the growing consensus among local government scholars and practitioners that the sector has now moved beyond the 'Three Rs', there remains a trenchant perception in public debate that when local councils do more than provide the narrow range of local services to property they are overreaching.But to what extent are these views actually reflective of Australian public opinion?This article reports on the findings of a new national survey an…
Enhancing perceptions of employability amongst first-year arts students and implications for student belonging
Despite being a degree that leads to diverse employment in a wide range of industries, the Bachelor of Arts (BA) has long had a bad reputation when it comes to employment outcomes for graduates.The challenge of overcoming this disjuncture has significant implications for current and prospective BA students, especially with respect to attrition and student satisfaction.In this article, we examine whether interventions that highlight the profession…
Far-right translocalism: Towards a new research agenda
Changing the date: Local councils, Australia Day and cultures of national commemoration
In recent years, a small but growing number of Australian local councils have emerged as major actors in the movement to change the date of Australia Day by electing to replace or cancel local events held on 26 January. This article draws on Lyn Spillman's analysis of the 1988 Australia Bicentenary to make sense of these developments and their implications for cultures of national commemoration in Australia. For Spillman, the Bicentenary marked a…
Culture Wars and City Politics, Revisited: Local Councils and the Australia Day Controversy
Conflicts rooted in questions of morality and values—so-called “culture wars”—pose difficult questions for local governance. Yet, when it comes to culture wars, local governments can be as politically active as other levels of government. This article explores the role of local government in the culture war surrounding Australia’s national holiday, Australia Day. We draw on the pioneering work of Elaine Sharp on urban politics, culture wars, and …
The Localist Turn in Populism Studies
While the study of populism has typically focused on the national level, recent years have seen a growing body of research on populism’s local dimensions. Despite making important scholarly advances, this ‘localist turn’ has yet to develop a systematic account of how populism intersects with localism. In this research note, we broach this gap. By exploring how right‐ and left‐wing populisms conceptualize the ‘local’, as well as how localist senti…
Living in crisis: Introduction to a special section
[Extract] This special section began to take shape sometime in mid-2020. Much of Australia was then in lockdown, we were working from home, national borders were closed, and it was looking increasingly likely that the annual conference for The Australian Sociological Association (TASA) would not go ahead. At the time, the spread of COVID-19 within Australia was very limited, especially compared to much of the rest of the world. Yet the pandemic h…
How Local Governments Govern Culture War Conflicts
While local governments have traditionally been thought relatively powerless and unpolitical, this has been rapidly changing. Recent years have seen local governments jump headfirst into a range of so-called culture war conflicts like those concerning LGBTI rights, refugee protection, and climate change. Using the Australia Day and Columbus Day controversies as case studies, this Element rejuvenates research on how local governments respond to cu…
Messianic time, settler colonial technology and the elision of Palestinian presence in Jerusalem's historic basin
Cultural Marxism: Far-right conspiracy theory in Australia's culture wars
As a conspiracy promoted by the far-right, Cultural Marxism has gained ground over the past quarter century. In its dominant iteration, the US-originating conspiracy holds that a small group of Marxist critical theorists have conspired to destroy Western civilisation by taking over key cultural institutions. Yet what does such a conspiracy look like in a transnational context – and how are such conspiracy theories adapted for local use? In this a…
A multicultural success story? Australian integration in comparative focus
Australia is often held up as an exemplary multicultural society in cross-national comparisons, particularly in relation to the integration of immigrants. Yet, this 'grand narrative' of Australia's multicultural success risks an over-simplified picture of the dynamics of integration in Australia, obscuring dimensions on which Australia's performance is comparatively poor. Juliet Pietsch's Race, Ethnicity and the Participation Gap makes a valuable…
The Politics of Decolonisation and Bi-Nationalism in Israel/Palestine
Recent years have seen a revitalisation of decolonisation as a framework of analysis in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. This article maps changes in the meanings attached to decolonisation in the Israeli Israeli–Palestinian context, paying particular attention to the one-state paradigm. One-state proposals highlight bi-national realities in historic Palestine in order to lay out a decolonising vision grounded in equal civic rights. Many one-sta…
Israel-Palestine and the Settler Colonial 'Turn: From Interpretation to Decolonization
In recent years there has been a powerful resurgence of settler colonialism as an interpretive framework through which to understand the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Attached to the burgeoning field of settler colonial studies, this so-called 'turn' to settler colonialism has seen Israel-Palestine increasingly compared alongside New World white settler societies like Australia, Canada and the United States. In seeking to undercut the lens of exc…
The wall has feet but so do we: Palestinian workers in Israel and the ‘separation’ wall
While the Israeli-constructed wall in the occupied West Bank seemingly signifies a shift to a policy of separation, every year thousands of West Bank Palestinians legally and illegally cross its bounds into Israel for work. In this article, I explore the varying regimes of (il)legality and (im)mobility that have accompanied the construction of the Israel–West Bank separation wall, which decisively impact the lives of Palestinians who work in Isra…
Between continuity and change: Contemporary indigenous identities and Māori in Aotearoa New Zealand
This essay reviews three recently published books that chart the complexities of what it means to be indigenous today, focusing on the experiences of Māori in Aotearoa New Zealand. Exploring the everyday lives of urban-based Māori (Gagné), the development of an indigenous mediascape (Hokowhitu and Devadas), and the challenges associated with the regeneration of Māori tribal identities (Kawharu), the three books offer a robust depiction of Māori l…
On haunted geography: Writing Nation and Contesting Claims in the Ghost Village of Lifta
This essay explores the case of Lifta, a ‘ghost village’ located just outside of Jerusalem which has recently emerged as a poignant site of Israeli–Palestinian national contestation. The last remaining depopulated village from the 1948 Palestinian Catastrophe (al-Nakba), Lifta has been slated for ‘redevelopment’ since 2004: a plan that would see the village replaced by a luxury, Jewish-only residential and commercial complex. Employing the dual a…
A Rejoinder to Robert Cherry
Dialogue and Other 'Men's Business: Gender, Conflict and Multicultural Politics in the Diaspora
While the under-representation of women intergroup dialogue initiatives has been widely noted, there remains to date a lack of research investigating the possible reasons for this and its potential implications for dialogue practice. In this article, we explore a dialogue project held from 2009 to 2013 in Melbourne, which sought to bring into contact diaspora communities from situations of conflict in the homeland. Our project saw a similar lack …
Funding Pain: Bedouin Women and Political Economy in the Naqab/Negev
This contribution focuses on the experiences and voices of Palestinian Bedouin women surviving and challenging Israeli colonial policies while residing in their own land and, in particular, the Bedouin women of the Naqab living in unrecognized villages. Through interviews and focus groups, this study learns from and engages with the voices of Palestinian Bedouin women because colonized women's criticisms of the political economic apparatus are se…
Frontier Jerusalem: Blurred separation and uneasy coexistence in a divided city
In this essay, I explore the city of Jerusalem, which not only lies at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but is inextricably shaped by its developments. Nominally unified under Israeli sovereignty, Jerusalem nevertheless remains starkly divided between an Israeli west and an occupied Palestinian east and is best understood as a frontier city characterized by long-simmering tensions and quotidian conflict. With its future tied to the f…
It's Just Your Turn”: Performing Identity and Muslim Australian Popular Culture
Academic accounts of Muslim integration and inclusion in multicultural Australia are often at pains to emphasize that Muslim identity and Australian national identity are compatible with each other. While this political manoeuvre remains both important and relevant, it nevertheless chances reinscribing the very terms of debate it seeks to contest and worryingly aligns closely with prevalent governmental techniques to “domesticate” Muslim differen…
Performing colonial sovereignty and the Israeli 'separation' wall
As a structure that does not mark an actual border and is constructed primarily on occupied territory, the Israeli ‘separation’ wall is a unique space that functions as both border and borderlands. Here, I explore the wall as a performance of sovereignty which simultaneously constructs and de-constructs imaginings of the Israeli nation-state. On the one hand, I contend that the wall is a colonial production that draws a psychic line between a ‘ci…
Israel-Palestine and the Settler Colonial 'Turn: From Interpretation to Decolonization
In recent years there has been a powerful resurgence of settler colonialism as an interpretive framework through which to understand the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Attached to the burgeoning field of settler colonial studies, this so-called 'turn' to settler colonialism has seen Israel-Palestine increasingly compared alongside New World white settler societies like Australia, Canada and the United States. In seeking to undercut the lens of exc…
The Localist Turn in Populism Studies
While the study of populism has typically focused on the national level, recent years have seen a growing body of research on populism’s local dimensions. Despite making important scholarly advances, this ‘localist turn’ has yet to develop a systematic account of how populism intersects with localism. In this research note, we broach this gap. By exploring how right‐ and left‐wing populisms conceptualize the ‘local’, as well as how localist senti…
Cultural Marxism: Far-right conspiracy theory in Australia's culture wars
As a conspiracy promoted by the far-right, Cultural Marxism has gained ground over the past quarter century. In its dominant iteration, the US-originating conspiracy holds that a small group of Marxist critical theorists have conspired to destroy Western civilisation by taking over key cultural institutions. Yet what does such a conspiracy look like in a transnational context – and how are such conspiracy theories adapted for local use? In this a…
The Politics of Decolonisation and Bi-Nationalism in Israel/Palestine
Recent years have seen a revitalisation of decolonisation as a framework of analysis in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. This article maps changes in the meanings attached to decolonisation in the Israeli Israeli–Palestinian context, paying particular attention to the one-state paradigm. One-state proposals highlight bi-national realities in historic Palestine in order to lay out a decolonising vision grounded in equal civic rights. Many one-sta…
Culture Wars and City Politics, Revisited: Local Councils and the Australia Day Controversy
Conflicts rooted in questions of morality and values—so-called “culture wars”—pose difficult questions for local governance. Yet, when it comes to culture wars, local governments can be as politically active as other levels of government. This article explores the role of local government in the culture war surrounding Australia’s national holiday, Australia Day. We draw on the pioneering work of Elaine Sharp on urban politics, culture wars, and …
Messianic time, settler colonial technology and the elision of Palestinian presence in Jerusalem's historic basin
Funding Pain: Bedouin Women and Political Economy in the Naqab/Negev
This contribution focuses on the experiences and voices of Palestinian Bedouin women surviving and challenging Israeli colonial policies while residing in their own land and, in particular, the Bedouin women of the Naqab living in unrecognized villages. Through interviews and focus groups, this study learns from and engages with the voices of Palestinian Bedouin women because colonized women's criticisms of the political economic apparatus are se…
Performing colonial sovereignty and the Israeli 'separation' wall
As a structure that does not mark an actual border and is constructed primarily on occupied territory, the Israeli ‘separation’ wall is a unique space that functions as both border and borderlands. Here, I explore the wall as a performance of sovereignty which simultaneously constructs and de-constructs imaginings of the Israeli nation-state. On the one hand, I contend that the wall is a colonial production that draws a psychic line between a ‘ci…
Changing the date: Local councils, Australia Day and cultures of national commemoration
In recent years, a small but growing number of Australian local councils have emerged as major actors in the movement to change the date of Australia Day by electing to replace or cancel local events held on 26 January. This article draws on Lyn Spillman's analysis of the 1988 Australia Bicentenary to make sense of these developments and their implications for cultures of national commemoration in Australia. For Spillman, the Bicentenary marked a…
From the Three Rs to the “Culture Wars”? How Australians Perceive Local Government Action on Climate Change, Indigenous Reconciliation, and LGBTQIA + Advocacy
Australian local government has rarely been the domain where entrenched and polarising cultural disputes play out, and is instead most often associated with the “3Rs”: roads, rates, and rubbish. However, in recent years, a growing number of local councils from across Australia have taken exceptional and unprecedented steps, sometimes in defiance of state and federal governments, to address some of the country's most ideologically contentious issu…
A multicultural success story? Australian integration in comparative focus
Australia is often held up as an exemplary multicultural society in cross-national comparisons, particularly in relation to the integration of immigrants. Yet, this 'grand narrative' of Australia's multicultural success risks an over-simplified picture of the dynamics of integration in Australia, obscuring dimensions on which Australia's performance is comparatively poor. Juliet Pietsch's Race, Ethnicity and the Participation Gap makes a valuable…
Frontier Jerusalem: Blurred separation and uneasy coexistence in a divided city
In this essay, I explore the city of Jerusalem, which not only lies at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but is inextricably shaped by its developments. Nominally unified under Israeli sovereignty, Jerusalem nevertheless remains starkly divided between an Israeli west and an occupied Palestinian east and is best understood as a frontier city characterized by long-simmering tensions and quotidian conflict. With its future tied to the f…
Far-right translocalism: Towards a new research agenda
The wall has feet but so do we: Palestinian workers in Israel and the ‘separation’ wall
While the Israeli-constructed wall in the occupied West Bank seemingly signifies a shift to a policy of separation, every year thousands of West Bank Palestinians legally and illegally cross its bounds into Israel for work. In this article, I explore the varying regimes of (il)legality and (im)mobility that have accompanied the construction of the Israel–West Bank separation wall, which decisively impact the lives of Palestinians who work in Isra…
Dialogue and Other 'Men's Business: Gender, Conflict and Multicultural Politics in the Diaspora
While the under-representation of women intergroup dialogue initiatives has been widely noted, there remains to date a lack of research investigating the possible reasons for this and its potential implications for dialogue practice. In this article, we explore a dialogue project held from 2009 to 2013 in Melbourne, which sought to bring into contact diaspora communities from situations of conflict in the homeland. Our project saw a similar lack …
It's Just Your Turn”: Performing Identity and Muslim Australian Popular Culture
Academic accounts of Muslim integration and inclusion in multicultural Australia are often at pains to emphasize that Muslim identity and Australian national identity are compatible with each other. While this political manoeuvre remains both important and relevant, it nevertheless chances reinscribing the very terms of debate it seeks to contest and worryingly aligns closely with prevalent governmental techniques to “domesticate” Muslim differen…
It's Just Your Turn”: Performing Identity and Muslim Australian Popular Culture
Academic accounts of Muslim integration and inclusion in multicultural Australia are often at pains to emphasize that Muslim identity and Australian national identity are compatible with each other. While this political manoeuvre remains both important and relevant, it nevertheless chances reinscribing the very terms of debate it seeks to contest and worryingly aligns closely with prevalent governmental techniques to “domesticate” Muslim differen…
Performing colonial sovereignty and the Israeli 'separation' wall
As a structure that does not mark an actual border and is constructed primarily on occupied territory, the Israeli ‘separation’ wall is a unique space that functions as both border and borderlands. Here, I explore the wall as a performance of sovereignty which simultaneously constructs and de-constructs imaginings of the Israeli nation-state. On the one hand, I contend that the wall is a colonial production that draws a psychic line between a ‘ci…
Funding Pain: Bedouin Women and Political Economy in the Naqab/Negev
This contribution focuses on the experiences and voices of Palestinian Bedouin women surviving and challenging Israeli colonial policies while residing in their own land and, in particular, the Bedouin women of the Naqab living in unrecognized villages. Through interviews and focus groups, this study learns from and engages with the voices of Palestinian Bedouin women because colonized women's criticisms of the political economic apparatus are se…
Frontier Jerusalem: Blurred separation and uneasy coexistence in a divided city
In this essay, I explore the city of Jerusalem, which not only lies at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but is inextricably shaped by its developments. Nominally unified under Israeli sovereignty, Jerusalem nevertheless remains starkly divided between an Israeli west and an occupied Palestinian east and is best understood as a frontier city characterized by long-simmering tensions and quotidian conflict. With its future tied to the f…
On haunted geography: Writing Nation and Contesting Claims in the Ghost Village of Lifta
This essay explores the case of Lifta, a ‘ghost village’ located just outside of Jerusalem which has recently emerged as a poignant site of Israeli–Palestinian national contestation. The last remaining depopulated village from the 1948 Palestinian Catastrophe (al-Nakba), Lifta has been slated for ‘redevelopment’ since 2004: a plan that would see the village replaced by a luxury, Jewish-only residential and commercial complex. Employing the dual a…
A Rejoinder to Robert Cherry
Dialogue and Other 'Men's Business: Gender, Conflict and Multicultural Politics in the Diaspora
While the under-representation of women intergroup dialogue initiatives has been widely noted, there remains to date a lack of research investigating the possible reasons for this and its potential implications for dialogue practice. In this article, we explore a dialogue project held from 2009 to 2013 in Melbourne, which sought to bring into contact diaspora communities from situations of conflict in the homeland. Our project saw a similar lack …
The wall has feet but so do we: Palestinian workers in Israel and the ‘separation’ wall
While the Israeli-constructed wall in the occupied West Bank seemingly signifies a shift to a policy of separation, every year thousands of West Bank Palestinians legally and illegally cross its bounds into Israel for work. In this article, I explore the varying regimes of (il)legality and (im)mobility that have accompanied the construction of the Israel–West Bank separation wall, which decisively impact the lives of Palestinians who work in Isra…
Between continuity and change: Contemporary indigenous identities and Māori in Aotearoa New Zealand
This essay reviews three recently published books that chart the complexities of what it means to be indigenous today, focusing on the experiences of Māori in Aotearoa New Zealand. Exploring the everyday lives of urban-based Māori (Gagné), the development of an indigenous mediascape (Hokowhitu and Devadas), and the challenges associated with the regeneration of Māori tribal identities (Kawharu), the three books offer a robust depiction of Māori l…
Israel-Palestine and the Settler Colonial 'Turn: From Interpretation to Decolonization
In recent years there has been a powerful resurgence of settler colonialism as an interpretive framework through which to understand the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Attached to the burgeoning field of settler colonial studies, this so-called 'turn' to settler colonialism has seen Israel-Palestine increasingly compared alongside New World white settler societies like Australia, Canada and the United States. In seeking to undercut the lens of exc…
The Politics of Decolonisation and Bi-Nationalism in Israel/Palestine
Recent years have seen a revitalisation of decolonisation as a framework of analysis in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. This article maps changes in the meanings attached to decolonisation in the Israeli Israeli–Palestinian context, paying particular attention to the one-state paradigm. One-state proposals highlight bi-national realities in historic Palestine in order to lay out a decolonising vision grounded in equal civic rights. Many one-sta…
How Local Governments Govern Culture War Conflicts
While local governments have traditionally been thought relatively powerless and unpolitical, this has been rapidly changing. Recent years have seen local governments jump headfirst into a range of so-called culture war conflicts like those concerning LGBTI rights, refugee protection, and climate change. Using the Australia Day and Columbus Day controversies as case studies, this Element rejuvenates research on how local governments respond to cu…
Messianic time, settler colonial technology and the elision of Palestinian presence in Jerusalem's historic basin
Cultural Marxism: Far-right conspiracy theory in Australia's culture wars
As a conspiracy promoted by the far-right, Cultural Marxism has gained ground over the past quarter century. In its dominant iteration, the US-originating conspiracy holds that a small group of Marxist critical theorists have conspired to destroy Western civilisation by taking over key cultural institutions. Yet what does such a conspiracy look like in a transnational context – and how are such conspiracy theories adapted for local use? In this a…
A multicultural success story? Australian integration in comparative focus
Australia is often held up as an exemplary multicultural society in cross-national comparisons, particularly in relation to the integration of immigrants. Yet, this 'grand narrative' of Australia's multicultural success risks an over-simplified picture of the dynamics of integration in Australia, obscuring dimensions on which Australia's performance is comparatively poor. Juliet Pietsch's Race, Ethnicity and the Participation Gap makes a valuable…
Culture Wars and City Politics, Revisited: Local Councils and the Australia Day Controversy
Conflicts rooted in questions of morality and values—so-called “culture wars”—pose difficult questions for local governance. Yet, when it comes to culture wars, local governments can be as politically active as other levels of government. This article explores the role of local government in the culture war surrounding Australia’s national holiday, Australia Day. We draw on the pioneering work of Elaine Sharp on urban politics, culture wars, and …
The Localist Turn in Populism Studies
While the study of populism has typically focused on the national level, recent years have seen a growing body of research on populism’s local dimensions. Despite making important scholarly advances, this ‘localist turn’ has yet to develop a systematic account of how populism intersects with localism. In this research note, we broach this gap. By exploring how right‐ and left‐wing populisms conceptualize the ‘local’, as well as how localist senti…
Living in crisis: Introduction to a special section
[Extract] This special section began to take shape sometime in mid-2020. Much of Australia was then in lockdown, we were working from home, national borders were closed, and it was looking increasingly likely that the annual conference for The Australian Sociological Association (TASA) would not go ahead. At the time, the spread of COVID-19 within Australia was very limited, especially compared to much of the rest of the world. Yet the pandemic h…
Changing the date: Local councils, Australia Day and cultures of national commemoration
In recent years, a small but growing number of Australian local councils have emerged as major actors in the movement to change the date of Australia Day by electing to replace or cancel local events held on 26 January. This article draws on Lyn Spillman's analysis of the 1988 Australia Bicentenary to make sense of these developments and their implications for cultures of national commemoration in Australia. For Spillman, the Bicentenary marked a…
The Three Rs and Beyond: Public Perceptions on the Role of Australian Local Government Today
Despite the growing consensus among local government scholars and practitioners that the sector has now moved beyond the 'Three Rs', there remains a trenchant perception in public debate that when local councils do more than provide the narrow range of local services to property they are overreaching.But to what extent are these views actually reflective of Australian public opinion?This article reports on the findings of a new national survey an…
Enhancing perceptions of employability amongst first-year arts students and implications for student belonging
Despite being a degree that leads to diverse employment in a wide range of industries, the Bachelor of Arts (BA) has long had a bad reputation when it comes to employment outcomes for graduates.The challenge of overcoming this disjuncture has significant implications for current and prospective BA students, especially with respect to attrition and student satisfaction.In this article, we examine whether interventions that highlight the profession…
Far-right translocalism: Towards a new research agenda
Mapping the ‘fringe’ in Australian local politics: Fringe political actors in the 2024 NSW and VIC local government elections
From the Three Rs to the “Culture Wars”? How Australians Perceive Local Government Action on Climate Change, Indigenous Reconciliation, and LGBTQIA + Advocacy
Australian local government has rarely been the domain where entrenched and polarising cultural disputes play out, and is instead most often associated with the “3Rs”: roads, rates, and rubbish. However, in recent years, a growing number of local councils from across Australia have taken exceptional and unprecedented steps, sometimes in defiance of state and federal governments, to address some of the country's most ideologically contentious issu…
Political science (22 works) · Sociology (22 works) · Law (16 works) · Politics (15 works) · Political economy (10 works) · History (9 works) · Migration, Refugees, and Integration (9 works) · Gender Studies (8 works) · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies (8 works) · Colonialism (7 works)