Susan Ainsworth
Biographic Data
| ID | 211949 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Susan Ainsworth |
| GIVEN NAMES | Susan |
| FAMILY NAME | Ainsworth |
| SIGNATURE | AINSWORTH S |
| AFFILIATIONS | The University of Melbourne |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7989-6684 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 17 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 93 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 17 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2002 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
After the applause
Covid-19 has led to renewed public support for public services. Frontline workers symbolize a renewed ideal of public service ethos (PSE), though little attention has been paid to how the public managers delivering vital services interpret and mobilize PSE. We show how PSE is implemented by public managers reflecting their local contexts. We examine the theoretical roots of PSE and challenges by newer theories of public management before illustra…
“A bridge too far?” Ideas, employment relations and policy‐making about the future of work
Drawing on ideational perspectives, we examine how ideas about the future of work and the discursive forms they take contribute to policy‐making about employment relations and labor markets. Analyzing data from an Australian government Inquiry reporting on the future impact of technological and other work changes, we find that rather than being about these topics, the Inquiry focuses more on actors’ ideas regarding the present state of employment…
“Democracy is the Cure?”
From ‘sick nation’ to ‘superpower’
Anti-corruption knowledge and discourse emerged in the mid-1990s promoted by powerful international actors and organizations, mostly targeting countries in the ‘Third World’. In this paper, we seek to decolonize this knowledge and show how it influences the construction of national identity of former colonies. Our case is a country with a reputation as one of the most corrupt in the world: Indonesia. Long celebrated in the West for its economic g…
There's something about sustainability’
Sustainability is now among the hegemonic discourses used by government to construct problems and policy beyond the environmental domain. Detached from its origins, it functions as an ‘empty signifier’ whose flexibility and ambiguity can be harnessed in policy‐making and political debate. This article uses an Australian case study to show how sustainability discourse was mobilized to justify reversing a previous decision and raise the age at whic…
Beyond Whiteness
Contradictions concerning care
Surgery is a high‐status, distinctly embodied, profession, dominated by men and saturated with masculine ideals of individual heroism, manual skill and detachment. In this study, we focus on exploring how surgery both represses, but also requires, caring work, creating gendered contradictions for the women that enter its ranks. Based on interviews with eighteen female surgeons from Australia and New Zealand, we apply a ‘rationality of caring work…
Do Business Till He Comes
Religion and business are often seen as inhabiting separate social spheres, yet megachurches combine them in ways that reflect their context. Operating in a country’ that combines state control and growth-oriented economic pragmatism, New Creation and City Harvest churches in Singapore manage their church-building projects to fulfil both state regulatory’ and church organizational objectives. Each church in their own way uses the discourse and te…
What’s Age Got to Do With It? On the Critical Analysis of Age and Organizations
Age, as an embodied identity and as an organizing principle, has received scant attention in organization studies. There is a lack of critical appreciation of how age plays out in organizational settings, the material and discursive dynamics of age practices, how age discourses impact on the body, and how age and ageing intersect with other identity categories. This is curious since age works as a master signifier in contemporary society and is s…
‘We aim to provide excellent service to everyone who comes to church!’
The discourse and techniques of marketing have permeated many non-business areas of social life, including religion. In this paper, we explore the implications of this trend for the practice of the Christian church. Using two cases of mega-churches in Singapore, we show how marketing fosters a re-conceptualization of religion where religious organizations seek to build their ‘brands’ through diversified offerings. Marketing may enable religious o…
W omen Constructing Masculinity in Voluntary Firefighting
Within gender studies, research and theorizing have used archetypal ‘masculine’ occupations to explore how masculinity is accomplished and practised in social interaction. In contrast, little work has explored how masculinity is constructed in the voluntary sector. In this paper, we address this gap by exploring how masculinity is constructed and experienced by women volunteers who are active firefighters in rural and regional Victoria. Firefight…
A Blinding Lack of Progress’
In this study we explore how versions of organizational reality and gender are constructed in management discourse and whether such patterns change over time. Specifically, we examine management explanations and accounts of the gendered nature of their organizations through their commentaries on their affirmative action programmes. In Australia private sector organizations with 100 or more employees are required to report to government on their a…
Mind over body
We examine how physical and psychotherapeutic discourses regulate the identity work of older workers. We show that they have separate effects: physical discourse inferred that the loss of work for older workers would be permanent whereas psychotherapeutic discourse suggested that the solution to unemployment lay in the mind of older workers themselves. They also have combined effects through the notion of grief: older workers are expected to prog…
The Enterprising Self
The discourse of enterprise has permeated contemporary society with significant implications for government, organizations and individuals alike. In particular, enterprise prescribes an ideal identity, that of the `enterprising self'. This study examines the ability of the older worker to become part of this enterprise culture through the analysis of an Australian government inquiry. Our findings show that certain categories of identity—such as o…
Expectant Mothers and Absent Fathers
In this article we explore how the reluctance to introduce a national paid maternity leave scheme in Australia reflects gendered norms and constructions of parenthood and work. We report on the findings of a study of selected media texts that show how the public discourse that surrounded proposals to introduce such a scheme exhibited deep‐seated resistance to women who combine motherhood with continued attachment to the paid workforce. Using a mu…
Critical discourse analysis and identity
Critical discourse analysis (CDA) and other forms of discourse analysis are regularly used to study identity, but rarely do researchers systematically compare and contrast them with other theories to identify exactly what a discursive approach contributes. In this paper, we take the example of a particular identity – the older worker – and systematically compare the contribution of CDA with other approaches, including economics, labour market res…
The ‘Feminine Advantage’
This article discusses the overlap of gender and age identity and its implications in a specific political context — a public inquiry into the problems facing the older unemployed. Using discourse analysis, it examines how ‘older worker’ identity is socially constructed in this setting. At the beginning of the inquiry, fundamentally gendered versions of ‘older worker’ identity were initially constructed, yet by its conclusion, female versions had…
Critical discourse analysis and identity
Critical discourse analysis (CDA) and other forms of discourse analysis are regularly used to study identity, but rarely do researchers systematically compare and contrast them with other theories to identify exactly what a discursive approach contributes. In this paper, we take the example of a particular identity – the older worker – and systematically compare the contribution of CDA with other approaches, including economics, labour market res…
The ‘Feminine Advantage’
This article discusses the overlap of gender and age identity and its implications in a specific political context — a public inquiry into the problems facing the older unemployed. Using discourse analysis, it examines how ‘older worker’ identity is socially constructed in this setting. At the beginning of the inquiry, fundamentally gendered versions of ‘older worker’ identity were initially constructed, yet by its conclusion, female versions had…
Mind over body
We examine how physical and psychotherapeutic discourses regulate the identity work of older workers. We show that they have separate effects: physical discourse inferred that the loss of work for older workers would be permanent whereas psychotherapeutic discourse suggested that the solution to unemployment lay in the mind of older workers themselves. They also have combined effects through the notion of grief: older workers are expected to prog…
W omen Constructing Masculinity in Voluntary Firefighting
Within gender studies, research and theorizing have used archetypal ‘masculine’ occupations to explore how masculinity is accomplished and practised in social interaction. In contrast, little work has explored how masculinity is constructed in the voluntary sector. In this paper, we address this gap by exploring how masculinity is constructed and experienced by women volunteers who are active firefighters in rural and regional Victoria. Firefight…
Expectant Mothers and Absent Fathers
In this article we explore how the reluctance to introduce a national paid maternity leave scheme in Australia reflects gendered norms and constructions of parenthood and work. We report on the findings of a study of selected media texts that show how the public discourse that surrounded proposals to introduce such a scheme exhibited deep‐seated resistance to women who combine motherhood with continued attachment to the paid workforce. Using a mu…
A Blinding Lack of Progress’
In this study we explore how versions of organizational reality and gender are constructed in management discourse and whether such patterns change over time. Specifically, we examine management explanations and accounts of the gendered nature of their organizations through their commentaries on their affirmative action programmes. In Australia private sector organizations with 100 or more employees are required to report to government on their a…
There's something about sustainability’
Sustainability is now among the hegemonic discourses used by government to construct problems and policy beyond the environmental domain. Detached from its origins, it functions as an ‘empty signifier’ whose flexibility and ambiguity can be harnessed in policy‐making and political debate. This article uses an Australian case study to show how sustainability discourse was mobilized to justify reversing a previous decision and raise the age at whic…
Contradictions concerning care
Surgery is a high‐status, distinctly embodied, profession, dominated by men and saturated with masculine ideals of individual heroism, manual skill and detachment. In this study, we focus on exploring how surgery both represses, but also requires, caring work, creating gendered contradictions for the women that enter its ranks. Based on interviews with eighteen female surgeons from Australia and New Zealand, we apply a ‘rationality of caring work…
Do Business Till He Comes
Religion and business are often seen as inhabiting separate social spheres, yet megachurches combine them in ways that reflect their context. Operating in a country’ that combines state control and growth-oriented economic pragmatism, New Creation and City Harvest churches in Singapore manage their church-building projects to fulfil both state regulatory’ and church organizational objectives. Each church in their own way uses the discourse and te…
The ‘Feminine Advantage’
This article discusses the overlap of gender and age identity and its implications in a specific political context — a public inquiry into the problems facing the older unemployed. Using discourse analysis, it examines how ‘older worker’ identity is socially constructed in this setting. At the beginning of the inquiry, fundamentally gendered versions of ‘older worker’ identity were initially constructed, yet by its conclusion, female versions had…
Critical discourse analysis and identity
Critical discourse analysis (CDA) and other forms of discourse analysis are regularly used to study identity, but rarely do researchers systematically compare and contrast them with other theories to identify exactly what a discursive approach contributes. In this paper, we take the example of a particular identity – the older worker – and systematically compare the contribution of CDA with other approaches, including economics, labour market res…
The Enterprising Self
The discourse of enterprise has permeated contemporary society with significant implications for government, organizations and individuals alike. In particular, enterprise prescribes an ideal identity, that of the `enterprising self'. This study examines the ability of the older worker to become part of this enterprise culture through the analysis of an Australian government inquiry. Our findings show that certain categories of identity—such as o…
Expectant Mothers and Absent Fathers
In this article we explore how the reluctance to introduce a national paid maternity leave scheme in Australia reflects gendered norms and constructions of parenthood and work. We report on the findings of a study of selected media texts that show how the public discourse that surrounded proposals to introduce such a scheme exhibited deep‐seated resistance to women who combine motherhood with continued attachment to the paid workforce. Using a mu…
A Blinding Lack of Progress’
In this study we explore how versions of organizational reality and gender are constructed in management discourse and whether such patterns change over time. Specifically, we examine management explanations and accounts of the gendered nature of their organizations through their commentaries on their affirmative action programmes. In Australia private sector organizations with 100 or more employees are required to report to government on their a…
Mind over body
We examine how physical and psychotherapeutic discourses regulate the identity work of older workers. We show that they have separate effects: physical discourse inferred that the loss of work for older workers would be permanent whereas psychotherapeutic discourse suggested that the solution to unemployment lay in the mind of older workers themselves. They also have combined effects through the notion of grief: older workers are expected to prog…
‘We aim to provide excellent service to everyone who comes to church!’
The discourse and techniques of marketing have permeated many non-business areas of social life, including religion. In this paper, we explore the implications of this trend for the practice of the Christian church. Using two cases of mega-churches in Singapore, we show how marketing fosters a re-conceptualization of religion where religious organizations seek to build their ‘brands’ through diversified offerings. Marketing may enable religious o…
W omen Constructing Masculinity in Voluntary Firefighting
Within gender studies, research and theorizing have used archetypal ‘masculine’ occupations to explore how masculinity is accomplished and practised in social interaction. In contrast, little work has explored how masculinity is constructed in the voluntary sector. In this paper, we address this gap by exploring how masculinity is constructed and experienced by women volunteers who are active firefighters in rural and regional Victoria. Firefight…
What’s Age Got to Do With It? On the Critical Analysis of Age and Organizations
Age, as an embodied identity and as an organizing principle, has received scant attention in organization studies. There is a lack of critical appreciation of how age plays out in organizational settings, the material and discursive dynamics of age practices, how age discourses impact on the body, and how age and ageing intersect with other identity categories. This is curious since age works as a master signifier in contemporary society and is s…
Do Business Till He Comes
Religion and business are often seen as inhabiting separate social spheres, yet megachurches combine them in ways that reflect their context. Operating in a country’ that combines state control and growth-oriented economic pragmatism, New Creation and City Harvest churches in Singapore manage their church-building projects to fulfil both state regulatory’ and church organizational objectives. Each church in their own way uses the discourse and te…
Beyond Whiteness
Contradictions concerning care
Surgery is a high‐status, distinctly embodied, profession, dominated by men and saturated with masculine ideals of individual heroism, manual skill and detachment. In this study, we focus on exploring how surgery both represses, but also requires, caring work, creating gendered contradictions for the women that enter its ranks. Based on interviews with eighteen female surgeons from Australia and New Zealand, we apply a ‘rationality of caring work…
There's something about sustainability’
Sustainability is now among the hegemonic discourses used by government to construct problems and policy beyond the environmental domain. Detached from its origins, it functions as an ‘empty signifier’ whose flexibility and ambiguity can be harnessed in policy‐making and political debate. This article uses an Australian case study to show how sustainability discourse was mobilized to justify reversing a previous decision and raise the age at whic…
“Democracy is the Cure?”
From ‘sick nation’ to ‘superpower’
Anti-corruption knowledge and discourse emerged in the mid-1990s promoted by powerful international actors and organizations, mostly targeting countries in the ‘Third World’. In this paper, we seek to decolonize this knowledge and show how it influences the construction of national identity of former colonies. Our case is a country with a reputation as one of the most corrupt in the world: Indonesia. Long celebrated in the West for its economic g…
“A bridge too far?” Ideas, employment relations and policy‐making about the future of work
Drawing on ideational perspectives, we examine how ideas about the future of work and the discursive forms they take contribute to policy‐making about employment relations and labor markets. Analyzing data from an Australian government Inquiry reporting on the future impact of technological and other work changes, we find that rather than being about these topics, the Inquiry focuses more on actors’ ideas regarding the present state of employment…
After the applause
Covid-19 has led to renewed public support for public services. Frontline workers symbolize a renewed ideal of public service ethos (PSE), though little attention has been paid to how the public managers delivering vital services interpret and mobilize PSE. We show how PSE is implemented by public managers reflecting their local contexts. We examine the theoretical roots of PSE and challenges by newer theories of public management before illustra…
Political science (16 works) · Sociology (16 works) · Law (12 works) · Aesthetics (7 works) · Gender Studies (7 works) · Psychology (6 works) · Public relations (6 works) · Gender Diversity and Inequality (5 works) · Gender Studies (5 works) · Law (5 works)