Involving children in social research: balancing the risks and benefits. There is a growing consensus that children's involvement in social research is important, but considerable uncertainty remains around children's inclusion in research on 'sensitive' issues, reflecting concerns about how to balance children's protection with their participation. Key to this are deeply embedded assumptions and beliefs about children and childhood, especially concerning notions of capacity, agency, vulnerabili ....Involving children in social research: balancing the risks and benefits. There is a growing consensus that children's involvement in social research is important, but considerable uncertainty remains around children's inclusion in research on 'sensitive' issues, reflecting concerns about how to balance children's protection with their participation. Key to this are deeply embedded assumptions and beliefs about children and childhood, especially concerning notions of capacity, agency, vulnerability, dependency and the like. This project aims to better understand and address the tensions between the protection of children and their participation in research, and to explore how ethics committees, parents, other gatekeepers and children themselves manage and navigate these tensions.Read moreRead less
Benefiting from injustice. This project argues that people can acquire duties to compensate victims of injustice when they benefit from these injustices, even when they neither caused the injustices nor could have prevented them. We explore the implications of this argument for the treatment of colonised peoples, and for policies on climate change and international trade.
Vulnerability, autonomy and justice. Vulnerable people require assistance and care. But what are our responsibilities in relation to the vulnerable? And how can we provide assistance and care while avoiding stereotyping or paternalism? This research will advance ethical theory and be useful in solving practical problems in health research and policy.
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE120100320
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$375,000.00
Summary
Dignity and respect: a Kantian theoretical approach to practical rationality and human agency. A core component of living a fulfilling human life is having one's dignity practically acknowledged. This project will explore what dignity is, its philosophical basis and its practical implications for bioethics; the outcomes will be to improve our understanding of human dignity and to enhance Australia's international reputation in philosophy.
Cinematic Ethics: Exploring Ethical Experience through Film. This project develops a new interdisciplinary framework for understanding cinema’s unique power to evoke ethical experience via audiovisual means. Combining philosophy with film analysis, it moves beyond the prevalent view that cinema merely illustrates moral situations, and challenges the long-held suspicion toward film’s manipulative aesthetic power. This project proposes instead a model of cinematic ethics: an investigation of how c ....Cinematic Ethics: Exploring Ethical Experience through Film. This project develops a new interdisciplinary framework for understanding cinema’s unique power to evoke ethical experience via audiovisual means. Combining philosophy with film analysis, it moves beyond the prevalent view that cinema merely illustrates moral situations, and challenges the long-held suspicion toward film’s manipulative aesthetic power. This project proposes instead a model of cinematic ethics: an investigation of how cinema evokes ethical experience through emotional, cognitive, and aesthetic engagement. This project will advance the emerging interdisciplinary field of film-philosophy by highlighting film’s under-recognised potential to enhance ethical understanding, and thus to promote greater social awareness and intercultural communication.Read moreRead less
A constructive critique of the political approach to the philosophy of human rights. This project explores the many uses of human rights discourse in contemporary politics. It focuses on an increasingly popular 'political' approach that identifies human rights as grounds for action against states which violate these rights. This project has implications for how the Human Rights (Parliamentary Scrutiny) Act 2011 should be implemented.
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE140100348
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$346,449.00
Summary
The Changing Rights to Family Life in Australia: Biomedicine and Legal Governance in Globalisation. This project investigates the impact of globalisation and biomedicine on the constitution of family through a cultural study of legal processes. It compares two contrasting and currently contested cases in Australia (transnational surrogacy arrangements and family reunification in immigration) to study the biomedicalisation of parenthood, the role of reproduction in border politics and legal trans ....The Changing Rights to Family Life in Australia: Biomedicine and Legal Governance in Globalisation. This project investigates the impact of globalisation and biomedicine on the constitution of family through a cultural study of legal processes. It compares two contrasting and currently contested cases in Australia (transnational surrogacy arrangements and family reunification in immigration) to study the biomedicalisation of parenthood, the role of reproduction in border politics and legal transformations in governing 'family life'. The research will move beyond a critique of human rights, analysing justifications within legal doctrines, and exploring how the meaning of family is affected by science, capitalism and humanitarianism. Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE170100126
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$314,809.00
Summary
Groups as individuals: Group rationality and agency. This project aims to understand group rationality and to explore its implications for the design of public institutions. Some institutions act in a unified way despite members having diverse views. In such cases, the institution may seem to be an agent with its own beliefs, intentions and goals – but how does group rationality and agency affect the design and treatment of institutions? This project aims to develop a philosophical theory of gro ....Groups as individuals: Group rationality and agency. This project aims to understand group rationality and to explore its implications for the design of public institutions. Some institutions act in a unified way despite members having diverse views. In such cases, the institution may seem to be an agent with its own beliefs, intentions and goals – but how does group rationality and agency affect the design and treatment of institutions? This project aims to develop a philosophical theory of group rationality that allows institutions to qualify as rational agents without the group’s interests overriding those of individuals. Expected outputs include proposals for the design and legal treatment of groups to advance individual interests.Read moreRead less
The tensions for parents, educators and children in building a sustainable culture of ethical and respectful relationships early in life. This project will explore how parents, educators and primary age children understand sexual knowledge and develop skills in ethical and respectful relationships. This will involve analysing policy and curricula documents, interviews and focus groups with parents, educators and children from South Australia, Victoria and NSW.
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE140100878
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$394,605.00
Summary
The Other War: An investigation via documentary film into images of race and otherness in WW1 and their implications for Indigenous communities today.
. In 1915, German scientists began an immense task of wartime science designed to categorise 'the peoples of the world'. This ideological experiment involved Indigenous Australian and Pacific prisoners of war, and paved the way to post-war Nazi racial ideology. The sound, image and other cultural records captured during this wartime experiment ....The Other War: An investigation via documentary film into images of race and otherness in WW1 and their implications for Indigenous communities today.
. In 1915, German scientists began an immense task of wartime science designed to categorise 'the peoples of the world'. This ideological experiment involved Indigenous Australian and Pacific prisoners of war, and paved the way to post-war Nazi racial ideology. The sound, image and other cultural records captured during this wartime experiment are now listed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation. This project will use documentary film and will apply innovative and socially inclusive 'reconciling' research methodologies to repatriate significant Australian cultural records from this World War I prisoners of war archive. It will document a post-colonial chapter in the aesthetics of 'otherness', and describe an important history of indigenous involvement in the foundational Australian narrative of World War I conflict.Read moreRead less