In response to a call for criminologists to consider the impact of former President Donald Trump’... more In response to a call for criminologists to consider the impact of former President Donald Trump’s presumed criminality, we analyze verbal-textual hostility (VTH) in Trump’s campaign speeches. Politicians have particular power and reach with their speech and their use of VTH is an important part of the trifecta of violence. Using a framework informed by linguistic theory and previous analysis of hate speech in recorded hate crimes, we present the categories of deprecation and denigration, and discuss their relationship to domination. In context, these forms of VTH enhance and serve as precursors to more violent speech and acts.
The experiences of academics with disability have received modest but growing attention internati... more The experiences of academics with disability have received modest but growing attention internationally, but virtually none in the Australian context. This article outlines research findings from a study examining their experiences at a large Australian university. The article uses a materialist framework to demonstrate how capitalist social relations shape and demarcate an ‘ideal university worker’, how disabled workers find it difficult to meet this norm, and the limited assistance to do so provided by managers and labour relations policy frameworks. The research findings point to a profound policy gap between employer and government disability policy inclusion frameworks and the workplace experience of academics. This breach requires further investigation and, potentially, the development of alternate strategies for workplace management of disabilities if there are to be inroads towards equity. JEL codes: Z13
Within Australian universities, neoliberalism has transformed education into a marketplace and pr... more Within Australian universities, neoliberalism has transformed education into a marketplace and product, where academic employees are regulated and controlled through metrics, productivity, and pressure to maintain and increase 'value'. In this environment, disabled academics face increasing barriers to workplace participation and meaningful inclusion. To explore the lived experiences of disabled academics, this article draws upon qualitative survey and interview data collected from disabled academics to consider the ways that the academy excludes and disables them. Specifically, we argue that the way time is regulated and managed within the neoliberal university is ableist, and fails to account for the crip temporalities by which disabled academics live their lives. The concept of crip and cripping time in relation to disabled academics opens up new ways of thinking, doing, and being that 2 are not constrained by normative (clock) time that marginalises disabled subjects. While we focus on an Australian context, the near-universalising 'logics' of normative time and neoliberal-ableism inherent to universities and societies more generally has implications for everyone. We argue that it is incumbent upon universities to rethink prevailing notions of time that currently elide the experiences and capacities of disabled academics.
Policing outside of the metropole is unlike what we have come to know about policing. The rural, ... more Policing outside of the metropole is unlike what we have come to know about policing. The rural, regional and remote (RRR) policing environment is shaped by environmental, organisational, community and criminality contexts that produce unique safety and security issues. This article examines these issues for RRR police and their families in Tasmania, Australia. Drawing on interviews with eight officers and observations of five officers in two districts, we find that both distance and isolation, and closeness (or propinquity), shapes the safety and security of RRR police. This article documents the individual strategies deployed by RRR officers to ensure their and their family's safety, the gaps in policy and practice, and the necessary changes to the work conditions, station security, and housing arrangements of RRR officers. Addressing a gap at the juncture of RRR policing and police safety and security, this research considers what can be done to enhance the capacity of RRR officers to remain in RRR deployments.
Sexual violence in southern Tasmania: Research report for Sexual Assault Service Tasmania, 2022
There is an absence of Tasmania-specific data around sexual violence, evidence critical to obtain... more There is an absence of Tasmania-specific data around sexual violence, evidence critical to obtain funding for local service provision. To address this gap, Sexual Assault Support Service (SASS) based in southern Tasmania—in partnership with the Tasmanian Institute of Law Enforcement Studies (TILES)—have conducted the first Tasmanian study of its kind giving communities in Tasmania a voice. This study considers the scale of sexual violence, its nature, barriers to seeking help, and potential solutions.
There is an absence of Tasmania-specific data around sexual violence, evidence critical to obtain... more There is an absence of Tasmania-specific data around sexual violence, evidence critical to obtain funding for local service provision. To address this gap, Sexual Assault Support Service (SASS) based in southern Tasmania—in partnership with the Tasmanian Institute of Law Enforcement Studies (TILES)—have conducted the first Tasmanian study of its kind Interviews were conducted with nine community members and 21 stakeholder participants. This paper summarises stakeholder perspectives on the scale of sexual violence, its nature, barriers to seeking help, and potential solutions.
There is an absence of Tasmania-specific data around sexual violence, evidence critical to obtain... more There is an absence of Tasmania-specific data around sexual violence, evidence critical to obtain funding for local service provision. To address this gap, Sexual Assault Support Service (SASS) based in southern Tasmania—in partnership with the Tasmanian Institute of Law Enforcement Studies (TILES)—have conducted the first Tasmanian study of its kind. Interviews were conducted with nine community members and 21 stakeholder participants. between April and June 2022. This paper summarises community member perspectives on the scale of sexual violence, its nature, barriers to seeking help, and potential solutions.
Women’s police stations that are designed to receive victims of gender-based violence first emerg... more Women’s police stations that are designed to receive victims of gender-based violence first emerged in Latin America in the 1980s. In Argentina, these stations have unique aspects like multidisciplinary staffing that could guide responses elsewhere. Police responses to domestic and family violence (DFV) in Australia have continually failed victims and require much improvement. Responses combining police and other services are not completely alien to Australia, and are not too dissimilar from women’s police stations. We undertook a survey of Australian police (n = 78) to assess which aspects of Argentina’s stations could inform new approaches to DFV policing. Our survey finds that Australian police support some aspects of this approach to policing DFV, such as multidisciplinary stations (74%). There was significantly less support for stations staffed predominantly by women (19%). Combined with review of evaluations of Australian co-locational responses, research implications for practice suggest a broader trial of co-locational responses in Australia.
“We deal with very weird, like just strange, not always, policing matters”: Small town policing in rural, regional, & remote communities in Tasmania: The Police Perspective, Pilot Study Report
Tasmanian Institute of Law Enforcement Studies, Oct 10, 2021
Previous studies have demonstrated that physical activity (PA) promotes health and reduces risk f... more Previous studies have demonstrated that physical activity (PA) promotes health and reduces risk for non-communicable diseases. However, 55% of Australian women did not meet the recommended levels of PA in 2018-19. There remains a gap in knowledge regarding the individual, household, and neighbourhood barriers to physical activity between women from high and low socioeconomic suburbs. We conducted a mixed-methods study to ascertain subjective accounts of the socioecological reasons for different daily logistics, travel, and PA between these groups. In addition to daily mobility data collated from GIS iPhone apps, in-depth interviews were held with 16 women from the high (Ashgrove) and low (Durack) SEP suburbs in Brisbane. Interview data was analysed at the individual, social, and environmental levels to unearth resistance to PA via these thematic strata. Individual psychological barriers to being active that were unique to low SE suburbs included the 'lack of enjoyment' gaine...
Arc Centre of Excellence For Creative Industries and Innovation Creative Industries Faculty, Nov 1, 2013
Queer student activists are a visible aspect of Australian tertiary communities. This chapter exp... more Queer student activists are a visible aspect of Australian tertiary communities. This chapter explores the findings of interviews with eight queer student in which they discuss their understandings of queer student activism and the way they see the university setting shaping the production queer student media. The findings draw out two themes: visibility and access and participation. These discussions illustrate how the intersections of queer, student, activism, and their associated contexts, create a particular type of activism. This chapter thus contributes to queer history by demonstrating how one specific cultural subset does queer activism.
Creative Industries Faculty Institute For Creative Industries and Innovation, Dec 1, 2012
Australian queer (GLBTIQ) university student activist media is an important site of self-represen... more Australian queer (GLBTIQ) university student activist media is an important site of self-representation. Community media is a significant site for the development of queer identity, community and a key part of queer politics. This paper reviews my research into queer student media, which is grounded in a queer theoretical perspective. Rob Cover argues that queer theoretical approaches that study media products fail to consider the material contexts that contribute to their construction. I use an ethnographic approach to examine how editors construct queer identity and community in queer student media. My research contributes to queer media scholarship by addressing the gap that Cover identifies, and to the rich scholarship on negotiations of queer community.
Australian queer student activists' media representations of queer
Creative Industries Faculty, 2010
Queer student activists are a visible aspect of Australian tertiary communities. Institutionally ... more Queer student activists are a visible aspect of Australian tertiary communities. Institutionally there are a number of organisations and tools representing and serving gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, intersex and ‘otherwise queer identifying’ (GLBTIQ) students. ‘Queer’ is a contentious term with meanings ranging from a complex deconstructive academic theory to a term for ‘gay’. Despite the institutional applications, the definition remains unclear and under debate. In this thesis I examine queer student activists’ production of print media, a previously under-researched area. In queer communities, print media provides crucial grounding for a model of queer. Central to identity formation and activism, this media is a site of textuality for the construction and circulation of discourses of queer student media. Thus, I investigate the various ways Australian queer student activists construct queer, queer identity, and queer activism in their print media. I use discourse analysis, participant observation and semi-structured interviews to enable a thorough investigation of both the process and the products of queer student media. My findings demonstrate that queer student activists’ politics are grounded in a range of ideologies drawing from Marxism, Feminism, Gay Liberation, Anti-assimilation and Queer Theory. Grounded in queer theoretical perspectives of performativity this research makes relatively new links between Queer Theory and Media Studies in its study of the production contexts of queer student media. In doing so, I show how the university context informs student articulations of queer, proving the necessity to locate research within its social-cultural setting. My research reveals that, much like Queer Theory, these representations of queer are rich with paradox. I argue that queer student activists are actually theorising queer. I call for a reconceptualisation of Queer Theory and question the current barriers between who is considered a ‘theorist’ of queer and who is an ‘activist’. If we can think about ‘theory’ as encompassing the work of activists, what implications might this have for politics and analysis?
After Sex? On Writing since Queer Theory, edited by Janet Halley and Andrew Parker [Review]
M/C Reviews, 2011
In its earliest and simplest form queer theory proposes that sexual identity is not essential, bu... more In its earliest and simplest form queer theory proposes that sexual identity is not essential, but socially constructed, and understandings of identity, gender and sexuality are constructed differently at different times and in different places. Queer theory aims to ...
Re-theorizing the progress of women in policing: An alternative perspective from the Global South
Theoretical Criminology
Women’s entry into policing, a traditionally masculine occupation, has been theorized almost enti... more Women’s entry into policing, a traditionally masculine occupation, has been theorized almost entirely through a liberal feminist theoretical lens where equality with men is the end target. From this theoretical viewpoint, women’s police stations in the Global South established specifically to respond to gender violence have been conceptualized as relics from the past. We argue that this approach is based on a global epistemology that privileges the Global North as the normative benchmark from which to define progress. Framed by southern criminology, we offer an alternative way of theorizing the progress of women in policing using women’s police stations that emerged in Latin America in the 1980s, specifically those in the Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Queensland University of Technology Centre for Justice Research Report Series , 2022
Responding to domestic and family violence (DFV) requires multi-agency integrated response and po... more Responding to domestic and family violence (DFV) requires multi-agency integrated response and police acknowledge it is not something they can address alone (Mundy and Seuffert 2021; Reuland et al. 2006), yet it is task taking a considerable portion of police time. National and international evidence shows integrating specialist DFV workers into police stations to support victims and provide connection to services while working alongside police can improve the quality of police response, and potentially save lives.
The purpose of this collaborative project between Domestic Violence Action Centre (DVAC), Queensland Police Service (QPS) and Centre for Justice, Queensland University of Technology (QUT) was to conduct an evaluation of an innovative pilot to improve the policing of DFV, through the co-location of a Domestic Violence Specialist (DVS) worker at Queensland Police station, Toowoomba. This report will assess how this co-location model between DVAC and the QPS host station meets DVAC co-location objectives, and recommendations 76 and 78 from the Not Now, Not Ever report (Special Taskforce on Domestic and Family Violence in Queensland 2015: 226, 233). The Women’s Safety and Justice Taskforce (2021: 585) recommendations also noted the importance of evaluating new responses to DFV, such as these.
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Papers by Jess Rodgers
The purpose of this collaborative project between Domestic Violence Action Centre (DVAC), Queensland Police Service (QPS) and Centre for Justice, Queensland University of Technology (QUT) was to conduct an evaluation of an innovative pilot to improve the policing of DFV, through the co-location of a Domestic Violence Specialist (DVS) worker at Queensland Police station, Toowoomba. This report will assess how this co-location model between DVAC and the QPS host station meets DVAC co-location objectives, and recommendations 76 and 78 from the Not Now, Not Ever report (Special Taskforce on Domestic and Family Violence in Queensland 2015: 226, 233). The Women’s Safety and Justice Taskforce (2021: 585) recommendations also noted the importance of evaluating new responses to DFV, such as these.