Political Trust and Satisfaction with Democracy in Australia. Declining public support is one of the greatest challenges to democracy. In 2019, Australia recorded the lowest level of trust in politics on record. This project aims to understand the reasons for declining political trust and satisfaction with democracy in Australia. The project hopes to field the 2022-25 Australian Election Study to address these issues by surveying a representative sample of voters following the 2022 and 2025 Aust ....Political Trust and Satisfaction with Democracy in Australia. Declining public support is one of the greatest challenges to democracy. In 2019, Australia recorded the lowest level of trust in politics on record. This project aims to understand the reasons for declining political trust and satisfaction with democracy in Australia. The project hopes to field the 2022-25 Australian Election Study to address these issues by surveying a representative sample of voters following the 2022 and 2025 Australian federal elections, in addition to continuing a longitudinal survey started in 2016. The project wants to add to an unbroken series of publicly available data on Australian political behaviour since 1987, while also producing new insights into how individual opinions change over time.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE240100410
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$392,161.00
Summary
Child Citizens: Young People and Australian Democracy since 1945. This project provides a new account of Australian democracy from the perspective of children and young people. It tracks changes in children’s conceptions and practices of citizenship since 1945 to explain their contested status in contemporary politics. Far from simply being ‘citizens in waiting’, the project shows that young people have long been active participants in political and civic life and reveals how their citizenship c ....Child Citizens: Young People and Australian Democracy since 1945. This project provides a new account of Australian democracy from the perspective of children and young people. It tracks changes in children’s conceptions and practices of citizenship since 1945 to explain their contested status in contemporary politics. Far from simply being ‘citizens in waiting’, the project shows that young people have long been active participants in political and civic life and reveals how their citizenship claims have expanded across this period, alongside those of other marginalised groups. Its findings will add nuance to current debates about children’s political exclusion, with its social impact enhanced through the development of an online research portal and collaboration with the Museum of Australian Democracy.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE220100795
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$412,606.00
Summary
Message sticks: Long-distance communication in Indigenous Australia. Message sticks are marked wooden objects that were once used throughout Indigenous Australia to convey important information between communities. The intended outcome of this project is to answer a central question: What role did message sticks play in Indigenous long-distance communication? Drawing on archival evidence and original fieldwork in the Top End, the project aims to be the first empirically grounded study of message ....Message sticks: Long-distance communication in Indigenous Australia. Message sticks are marked wooden objects that were once used throughout Indigenous Australia to convey important information between communities. The intended outcome of this project is to answer a central question: What role did message sticks play in Indigenous long-distance communication? Drawing on archival evidence and original fieldwork in the Top End, the project aims to be the first empirically grounded study of message sticks as a practice. The project expects to define message sticks as a class of material culture, explain their communicative dynamics, generate new cross-cultural insights, and strengthen collaborations between research institutions, museums and Indigenous cultural organisations. Read moreRead less
The foundations of civil justice in Australia. This project aims to provide an in-depth historical account of the origins of our civil justice system in Australia. Judicial institutions and their practices were key to the founding of civil society in the Australian colonies. This project will produce new knowledge about the origins of our civil justice system. The project will trace legal reformist ideas in England, their dissemination across Britain's Empire and the impact these had on how judg ....The foundations of civil justice in Australia. This project aims to provide an in-depth historical account of the origins of our civil justice system in Australia. Judicial institutions and their practices were key to the founding of civil society in the Australian colonies. This project will produce new knowledge about the origins of our civil justice system. The project will trace legal reformist ideas in England, their dissemination across Britain's Empire and the impact these had on how judges and administrators in the Australian colonies crafted their judicial practices to provide speedy and effective access to civil justice. As well as scholarly writing, this project will provide a podcast and multi-media website that explains how civil trials worked in the mid-nineteenth century.Read moreRead less
The Rise of Decline in the Later Roman Empire. This project aims to examine the evidence for the decline of the Western Roman Empire. For over two centuries, historians have debated whether the Western Roman Empire was in decline prior to its political disintegration in the 5th century AD. This project takes a new approach by rejecting the notion that Late Roman decline can be empirically quantified. Instead, through the examination of historical, administrative, religious and literary texts it ....The Rise of Decline in the Later Roman Empire. This project aims to examine the evidence for the decline of the Western Roman Empire. For over two centuries, historians have debated whether the Western Roman Empire was in decline prior to its political disintegration in the 5th century AD. This project takes a new approach by rejecting the notion that Late Roman decline can be empirically quantified. Instead, through the examination of historical, administrative, religious and literary texts it will explore why the Late Roman elite often chose to present their own period as an age of decline. This project aims to test the hypothesis that references to economic, political and moral decline were often the result of fissures within Late Roman society prompted by radical structural reorganisation by a centralising imperial government and a newly empowered Christian Church.Read moreRead less
Preventing railway suicide: An open-systems perspective. Preventing railway suicide: An open-systems perspective. This project aims to develop an automated suicide risk detection system to reduce the incidence and impact of railway suicide, which has a devastating effect on victims’ families, station staff, train drivers, emergency workers, and bystanders. This project will use open-systems theory to develop two complementary information systems for more effective detection and reporting of suic ....Preventing railway suicide: An open-systems perspective. Preventing railway suicide: An open-systems perspective. This project aims to develop an automated suicide risk detection system to reduce the incidence and impact of railway suicide, which has a devastating effect on victims’ families, station staff, train drivers, emergency workers, and bystanders. This project will use open-systems theory to develop two complementary information systems for more effective detection and reporting of suicide risk; use these systems to investigate how different situational factors interact with different combinations of service interventions to influence suicide risk; and share the findings to reduce railway suicide in Australia and overseas.Read moreRead less
Mapping the Political Ecology of the Edible Birds’ Nests Trade in Indonesia. This study examines the origins and impacts of the rapidly emerging edible birds’ nests (EBN) trade for rural livelihoods and ecologies in Southeast Asia. A high-value Chinese delicacy, the EBN trade has surged across rural Indonesia and beyond. In partnership with the WWF and Tropenbos, our pioneering study investigates how rural producers negotiate the uneven social, economic and environmental influences of the EBN co ....Mapping the Political Ecology of the Edible Birds’ Nests Trade in Indonesia. This study examines the origins and impacts of the rapidly emerging edible birds’ nests (EBN) trade for rural livelihoods and ecologies in Southeast Asia. A high-value Chinese delicacy, the EBN trade has surged across rural Indonesia and beyond. In partnership with the WWF and Tropenbos, our pioneering study investigates how rural producers negotiate the uneven social, economic and environmental influences of the EBN commodity chain in the threatened Heart of Borneo, Indonesia, and the major urban trading centres of Jakarta, Singapore, and Hong Kong. The project offers novel insights into the trade’s sustainability across rural and urban regions of Asia and informs policy for poverty reduction and environmental management in the region.Read moreRead less
Juries, justice and citizenship. This project aims to expose the history of cultural and legal processes that for most of the twentieth century denied enfranchised Australian women the equal right to sit on juries. The project expects to provide new legal and historical understandings of structural gender and racial inequalities that persist today. The project will advance national and international knowledge by reconstructing the gender dynamics of historical court processes and documenting wom ....Juries, justice and citizenship. This project aims to expose the history of cultural and legal processes that for most of the twentieth century denied enfranchised Australian women the equal right to sit on juries. The project expects to provide new legal and historical understandings of structural gender and racial inequalities that persist today. The project will advance national and international knowledge by reconstructing the gender dynamics of historical court processes and documenting women’s struggles to overcome their exclusion. It will recover a previously unexamined aspect of legal history, and provide an important corrective to current understandings of the representativeness of Australian juries.Read moreRead less
Internet Timing for the Ages: Establishing the New Timekeeping System. All computers incorporate a software clock, essential to myriad software applications. An economic way to synchronize such clocks is over a network, however the approach the Internet currently depends upon is unreliable and vulnerable. This project aims to establish a new architecture for networked timekeeping, built on future-proofed fundamentals, that will for the first time address each of accuracy, reliability, and trust. ....Internet Timing for the Ages: Establishing the New Timekeeping System. All computers incorporate a software clock, essential to myriad software applications. An economic way to synchronize such clocks is over a network, however the approach the Internet currently depends upon is unreliable and vulnerable. This project aims to establish a new architecture for networked timekeeping, built on future-proofed fundamentals, that will for the first time address each of accuracy, reliability, and trust. The expected outcome is a national prototype, serving the public with accurate and trusted time, that will form the basis of the next generation timekeeping system for the Internet and the Internet of Things. Expected benefits include enhanced productivity across the digital economy, and resilience to GPS failures.Read moreRead less
Ayahs and Amahs: Transcolonial Servants in Australia and Britain 1780-1945. This project looks at female domestic care workers from India and China who travelled to Australia and elsewhere during the period of British colonialism. Accompanying colonial families along circuits of empire between Australia, Asia, and the UK over two centuries, these were extraordinarily mobile women. By exploring the historical experiences and cultural memories of these earliest global domestic workers, the project ....Ayahs and Amahs: Transcolonial Servants in Australia and Britain 1780-1945. This project looks at female domestic care workers from India and China who travelled to Australia and elsewhere during the period of British colonialism. Accompanying colonial families along circuits of empire between Australia, Asia, and the UK over two centuries, these were extraordinarily mobile women. By exploring the historical experiences and cultural memories of these earliest global domestic workers, the project aims to illuminate a broader transcolonial history of domestic work. Expected outcomes include a number of publications and a website; and the project offers the social and cultural benefits to be gained by advancing our historical understanding of the forgotten cross-cultural relationships that have shaped our world today.Read moreRead less