Vaughan Higgins
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 354119 |
|---|---|
| NOME | Vaughan Higgins |
| PRENOMES | Vaughan |
| SOBRENOME | Higgins |
| ASSINATURA | HIGGINS V |
| AFILIAÇÕES | Monash University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9350-1282 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 42 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 454 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 40 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 2 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 1997 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 10 |
Is climate risk perception enough? Empirical evidence from Australian farmers
This research contributes to debates regarding the disconnect between climate risk perception and actual adaptation strategies among farmers. This disconnect is particularly concerning in the context of increasing climate-related disasters affecting agricultural systems. We challenge the assumption of a direct link and explore alternative factors influencing adaptation behaviour. We investigate the role of climate risk perception, alongside socio…
Understanding the impact of identity and socio-economic factors on the adoption of soil conservation practices
Engaging Farmers in Biosecurity
Devolution of responsibility to farmers and farming industries is an increasingly prominent approach to governing biosecurity risks in countries such as the United Kingdom, Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia. However, at the same time, the practices through which farmers exercise increased responsibility are expected to align with centralised biosecurity standards. Research to date argues that the ongoing emphasis on compliance either conflicts w…
Digital technology and on-farm responses to climate shocks
Recent research into climate shocks and what this means for the on-farm production of food revealed mixed and unanticipated results. Whilst the research was triggered by a series of catastrophic, climate related disruptions, Australian beef producers interviewed for the study downplayed the immediate and direct impacts of climate shocks. When considering the changing nature of production under shifting climatic conditions, producers offered a com…
Deliberative assembling
Assemblage thinking is an increasingly influential approach in critical studies of food and farming, and particularly in research on new agri-food technology such as precision agriculture (PA). This research is important in highlighting the distributed forms of power and agency through which farming worlds are assembled, and what these engender for more sustainable and equitable farming futures. However, to date, there has been limited attention …
Frame alignment processes for locally useful agricultural soil research and extension
Farm advisors are recognised as playing an increasingly central role in facilitating interactions between scientists and farmers to improve local implementation of sustainable soil management practices and agricultural innovations more broadly. However, there has been limited scrutiny of what farm advisors do when faced with conflicting interpretations among actors over techniques or approaches for facilitating agricultural innovation. This artic…
Transforming the Australian agricultural biosecurity framework
The Australian government has transformed the national biosecurity framework by shifting from a quarantine to a shared responsibility approach. This reflects a move from centralised to network‐based governance. While network governance enables the development of private and public networks needed to enact a shared responsibility approach, it can sit in tension with this approach, which requires the sharing of risk and legitimacy across an array o…
A call to expand disciplinary boundaries so that social scientific imagination and practice are central to quests for 'responsible' digital agri-food innovation
This editorial introduces a special issue (SI) concerning quests for responsible digital agri-food innovation. We present our interpretations of the concepts of responsible innovation and digital agri-food innovation and show why they can and have been productively interrelated with social science theories and methods. First, each of the articles in this SI is briefly introduced and synthesised around three themes: (1) the need for a critique of …
Securitising uncertainty
Framing Agri-Digital Governance
Meso-scale actors - such as farm advisors and other extension agents - are increasingly recognised as playing a critical role in managing farmer uncertainty associated with smart farming implementation. However, there has been limited research to date on how these actors navigate smart farming implementation within specific industries or commodity sectors. This article applies theoretical insights from the technological frames literature to inves…
Framing sustainability
Devolved Responsibility and On-Farm Biosecurity
International efforts to prevent the spread of biological threats to agro-food production are increasingly being devolved from national governments to farming industries and farmers. Previous research has highlighted the farm-level and institutional challenges in engaging farmers in biosecurity. However, little is known sociologically about what farmers already know and do to manage disease risk, and specifically how they practice biosecurity. Th…
Assembling Neoliberalism
Vaughan Higgins and Wendy Larner. Assembling Neoliberalism Expertise, \nPractices, Subjects Edited by Vaughan Higgins Wendy Larner Assembling \nNeoliberalism Vaughan Higgins • Wendy Larner Editors Assembling \nNeoliberalism.
Remittance Income and Social Resilience among Migrant Households in Rural Bangladesh
This book examines how migrant remittances contribute to household social resilience in rural Bangladesh. Using a mixed methods approach, the authors show that remittances play a crucial role in enhancing the life chances and economic livelihoods of rural households, and that remittance income enables households to overcome immediate pressures, adapt to economic and environmental change, build economic and cultural capital, and provide greater ce…
A Place of Pain and Gain”
This article examines the relationship between place attachment and resistance during participatory planning of the Sengwe Tshipise Wilderness Corridor, located in southeast Zimbabwe, a region that falls within the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area. Field research was conducted from July to December 2013 using 69 semistructured interviews, seven focus-group discussions, and analysis of secondary data. By following the dominant narrati…
Ordering adoption
Harmonising devolved responsibility for biosecurity governance
Harmonisation of disease management practices across global space and the devolution of responsibility to a broader range of actors are two increasingly important approaches for ordering biosecurity governance. While these forms of ordering have been examined individually, the social science biosecurity literature provides limited insights into how they interact and interfere with one another, and the consequences for biosecurity implementation. …
Private agri-food governance and greenhouse gas abatement
Australia’s developmental trajectory
General support is given for Weller and O’Neill’s (2014) aim to question the influence of neoliberalism on political and economic change in Australia. However, their key proposition that Australia’s developmental trajectory has never been neoliberal in intent or outcome is challenged. Critiqued also is Weller and O’Neill’s use of a working definition of neoliberalism that fails to engage explicitly or sufficiently with theoretical perspectives on…
Neoliberalising rural environments
Payments for Ecosystem Services, neoliberalisation, and the hybrid governance of land management in Australia
Governing Biosecurity in a Neoliberal World
International trade poses a serious and growing threat to biosecurity through the introduction of invasive pests and disease: these have adverse impacts on plant and animal health and public goods such as biodiversity, as well as food production capacity. While international governmental bodies such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) recognise such threats, and permit governments to protect human, animal, and plant life or health, such measure…
Harmonising the Governance of Farming Risks
International governmental bodies, such as the World Trade Organisation, are an increasingly prominent feature of global agri-food governance. They are instrumental not only in the dismantling of trade barriers but also in the promotion of a range of rules and standards. These rules are aimed broadly at harmonising national policies and practices so that differences are reduced and free trade is enhanced. Harmonisation is a crucial aspect of mode…
Biosecurity, Trade Liberalisation, and the (anti)Politics of Risk Analysis
Biosecurity represents a rapidly growing area of social science inquiry. At the global scale, biosecurity measures adopted by national governments have often been represented as nontariff trade barriers, yet social scientists have paid little attention to the ways in which biosecurity concerns are rendered (at least ostensibly) compatible with trade liberalisation. We use Barry's notion of the 'antipolitical economy' to explore how techniques use…
Calculating the Social
Examining the increasingly powerful role of standards in the governing of economic, political and social life, this book draws upon governmentality and actor network theory to explore how standards an
Ordering adoption
Roll-out neoliberalism and hybrid practices of regulation in Australian agri-environmental governance
Building alternative agri-food networks
From risky to responsible
Re-discovering the social
Neoliberalism and natural resource management
Market instruments and the neoliberalisation of land management in rural Australia
Governing Biosecurity in a Neoliberal World
International trade poses a serious and growing threat to biosecurity through the introduction of invasive pests and disease: these have adverse impacts on plant and animal health and public goods such as biodiversity, as well as food production capacity. While international governmental bodies such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) recognise such threats, and permit governments to protect human, animal, and plant life or health, such measure…
Deliberative assembling
Assemblage thinking is an increasingly influential approach in critical studies of food and farming, and particularly in research on new agri-food technology such as precision agriculture (PA). This research is important in highlighting the distributed forms of power and agency through which farming worlds are assembled, and what these engender for more sustainable and equitable farming futures. However, to date, there has been limited attention …
Framing sustainability
Framing Agri-Digital Governance
Meso-scale actors - such as farm advisors and other extension agents - are increasingly recognised as playing a critical role in managing farmer uncertainty associated with smart farming implementation. However, there has been limited research to date on how these actors navigate smart farming implementation within specific industries or commodity sectors. This article applies theoretical insights from the technological frames literature to inves…
Private agri-food governance and greenhouse gas abatement
Payments for Ecosystem Services, neoliberalisation, and the hybrid governance of land management in Australia
Calculating climate
For most of last century, governments in Australia treated drought as a 'natural disaster', an event that could best be dealt with through public forms of financial assistance. However, following a Review of Natural Disaster Relief Arrangements in 1990, the official definition of drought was changed to a 'manageable risk' that farmers were seen to be able to predict and control through formal business planning techniques. Through the use of the l…
Biosecurity, Trade Liberalisation, and the (anti)Politics of Risk Analysis
Biosecurity represents a rapidly growing area of social science inquiry. At the global scale, biosecurity measures adopted by national governments have often been represented as nontariff trade barriers, yet social scientists have paid little attention to the ways in which biosecurity concerns are rendered (at least ostensibly) compatible with trade liberalisation. We use Barry's notion of the 'antipolitical economy' to explore how techniques use…
Re-Figuring the Problem of Farmer Agency in Agri-Food Studies
Devolved Responsibility and On-Farm Biosecurity
International efforts to prevent the spread of biological threats to agro-food production are increasingly being devolved from national governments to farming industries and farmers. Previous research has highlighted the farm-level and institutional challenges in engaging farmers in biosecurity. However, little is known sociologically about what farmers already know and do to manage disease risk, and specifically how they practice biosecurity. Th…
Harmonising the Governance of Farming Risks
International governmental bodies, such as the World Trade Organisation, are an increasingly prominent feature of global agri-food governance. They are instrumental not only in the dismantling of trade barriers but also in the promotion of a range of rules and standards. These rules are aimed broadly at harmonising national policies and practices so that differences are reduced and free trade is enhanced. Harmonisation is a crucial aspect of mode…
Assembling restructuring
In the last 15 years the term 'restructuring' has been used by scholars from a wide range of disciplines to explain the economic and social changes experienced within Australia and other Western nations. While these analyses have been productive in accounting for restructuring in terms of the historical structural relations between fractions of capital and the state, this paper argues for an understanding of the more subtle ways through which pro…
Securitising uncertainty
Competitive Productivism and Australia's Emerging ‘Alternative’ Agri-food Networks
This paper advances the theoretical argument for moving beyond the conventional/alternative divide in the analysis of emerging ‘alternative’ agri-food networks (AAFNs). In order to understand how ‘place’, ‘nature’ and ‘quality’-based food networks emerge and develop, we argue that careful attention needs to be paid to the way in which specific political-economic environments shape the options available to farmers and consumers. Australia's ‘compe…
Government as a Failing Operation
This article argues that the failure of policies and programmes to achieve their desired effects is a constitutive part of projects of regulation, and is evident particularly in attempts to govern conduct 'at a distance'. Drawing upon concepts from the Foucaultian-inspired literature on governmentality, a Federal programme in Australia - the Rural Adjustment Scheme (RAS) - is examined and attention given to how its administration at a sub-nationa…
Harmonising devolved responsibility for biosecurity governance
Harmonisation of disease management practices across global space and the devolution of responsibility to a broader range of actors are two increasingly important approaches for ordering biosecurity governance. While these forms of ordering have been examined individually, the social science biosecurity literature provides limited insights into how they interact and interfere with one another, and the consequences for biosecurity implementation. …
Australia’s developmental trajectory
General support is given for Weller and O’Neill’s (2014) aim to question the influence of neoliberalism on political and economic change in Australia. However, their key proposition that Australia’s developmental trajectory has never been neoliberal in intent or outcome is challenged. Critiqued also is Weller and O’Neill’s use of a working definition of neoliberalism that fails to engage explicitly or sufficiently with theoretical perspectives on…
Online University Education
Throughout the world, universities are in the process of mixing ‘virtual’ and ‘traditional’ forms of course delivery in order to facilitate their move toward total ‘virtual’ learning environments. In the context of Australia, which provides the focus of this article, the move to online education is presented as inevitable in the face of increasing technological advances in information-communication technologies (ICTs) and the forces of globalizat…
Breaking down the divisions
Rural local government in Australia has long been acknowledged as an arena of political power, where certain individuals and groups benefit more than others (see McIntyre & McIntyre 1944, Oeser & Emery 1957, Wild 1974, Gray 1991a). However, little, if anything, has been documented on how changes in patterns of representation might alter local government power structures. This paper aims to add to sociological knowledge through an investigation of…
Assembling restructuring
In the last 15 years the term 'restructuring' has been used by scholars from a wide range of disciplines to explain the economic and social changes experienced within Australia and other Western nations. While these analyses have been productive in accounting for restructuring in terms of the historical structural relations between fractions of capital and the state, this paper argues for an understanding of the more subtle ways through which pro…
Governing the Boundaries of Viability
In the last thirty-five years, the economic viability of farmers both in Australia and internationally has assumed increasing political prominence with governments seeking to restructure agricultural industries. With reference to Australia, it has been argued increasingly by politicians, economists and farm organizations that some farmers have little prospect of survival, and require government assistance to exit the industry in the claimed inter…
Calculating climate
For most of last century, governments in Australia treated drought as a 'natural disaster', an event that could best be dealt with through public forms of financial assistance. However, following a Review of Natural Disaster Relief Arrangements in 1990, the official definition of drought was changed to a 'manageable risk' that farmers were seen to be able to predict and control through formal business planning techniques. Through the use of the l…
Re-discovering the social
Online University Education
Throughout the world, universities are in the process of mixing ‘virtual’ and ‘traditional’ forms of course delivery in order to facilitate their move toward total ‘virtual’ learning environments. In the context of Australia, which provides the focus of this article, the move to online education is presented as inevitable in the face of increasing technological advances in information-communication technologies (ICTs) and the forces of globalizat…
From risky to responsible
Mapping the Dynamics of New Forms of Technological Governance in Agriculture
This paper reflects on the conceptual issues involved in developing a methodology to study the role of computer-based technologies, and particularly farm planning and management software, in governing the practices of farmers. It represents the first stage of a larger project that explores how farm planning and management practices are governed through, and reconfigured by, such technology. In recent years, computer software has been encouraged b…
Government as a Failing Operation
This article argues that the failure of policies and programmes to achieve their desired effects is a constitutive part of projects of regulation, and is evident particularly in attempts to govern conduct 'at a distance'. Drawing upon concepts from the Foucaultian-inspired literature on governmentality, a Federal programme in Australia - the Rural Adjustment Scheme (RAS) - is examined and attention given to how its administration at a sub-nationa…
Re-Figuring the Problem of Farmer Agency in Agri-Food Studies
Roll-out neoliberalism and hybrid practices of regulation in Australian agri-environmental governance
Building alternative agri-food networks
Neoliberalism and natural resource management
Calculating the Social
Examining the increasingly powerful role of standards in the governing of economic, political and social life, this book draws upon governmentality and actor network theory to explore how standards an
Self-confessed troublemakers
This article provides an alternative lens for examining organizational deviance within the specific context of change, by drawing upon an interactionist approach. We focus specifically on labelling theory and argue that definitions of deviance can be constructed through social interaction regardless of the behaviour in which individuals engage. This study differs from current literature by shifting emphasis away from acts of norm-breaking and on …
Market instruments and the neoliberalisation of land management in rural Australia
Competitive Productivism and Australia's Emerging ‘Alternative’ Agri-food Networks
This paper advances the theoretical argument for moving beyond the conventional/alternative divide in the analysis of emerging ‘alternative’ agri-food networks (AAFNs). In order to understand how ‘place’, ‘nature’ and ‘quality’-based food networks emerge and develop, we argue that careful attention needs to be paid to the way in which specific political-economic environments shape the options available to farmers and consumers. Australia's ‘compe…
Working around ERPs in Technological Universities
This article explores the work-arounds through which an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software system is implemented within an Australian University. We argue that while resistance is significant, the process of working around a technology can have ambiguous effects in terms of how users-in this case academics-are governed and govern themselves. Drawing upon Andrew Barry's Foucauldian-inspired work on ''technological zones,'' we show how att…
Harmonising the Governance of Farming Risks
International governmental bodies, such as the World Trade Organisation, are an increasingly prominent feature of global agri-food governance. They are instrumental not only in the dismantling of trade barriers but also in the promotion of a range of rules and standards. These rules are aimed broadly at harmonising national policies and practices so that differences are reduced and free trade is enhanced. Harmonisation is a crucial aspect of mode…
Biosecurity, Trade Liberalisation, and the (anti)Politics of Risk Analysis
Biosecurity represents a rapidly growing area of social science inquiry. At the global scale, biosecurity measures adopted by national governments have often been represented as nontariff trade barriers, yet social scientists have paid little attention to the ways in which biosecurity concerns are rendered (at least ostensibly) compatible with trade liberalisation. We use Barry's notion of the 'antipolitical economy' to explore how techniques use…
Governing Biosecurity in a Neoliberal World
International trade poses a serious and growing threat to biosecurity through the introduction of invasive pests and disease: these have adverse impacts on plant and animal health and public goods such as biodiversity, as well as food production capacity. While international governmental bodies such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) recognise such threats, and permit governments to protect human, animal, and plant life or health, such measure…
Australia’s developmental trajectory
General support is given for Weller and O’Neill’s (2014) aim to question the influence of neoliberalism on political and economic change in Australia. However, their key proposition that Australia’s developmental trajectory has never been neoliberal in intent or outcome is challenged. Critiqued also is Weller and O’Neill’s use of a working definition of neoliberalism that fails to engage explicitly or sufficiently with theoretical perspectives on…
Neoliberalising rural environments
Payments for Ecosystem Services, neoliberalisation, and the hybrid governance of land management in Australia
Private agri-food governance and greenhouse gas abatement
Political science (32 obras) · Sociology (25 obras) · Economics (24 obras) · Business (21 obras) · Politics (17 obras) · Geography (15 obras) · Law (15 obras) · Agriculture (14 obras) · Corporate governance (14 obras) · Public relations (14 obras)