Background The concept of “health security” is often used to motivate public health responses, yet the ethical values that underpin this concept remain largely unexamined. The recent Australian responses to COVID-19 serve as an important case study by which we can analyse the pre-existing literature to see what ethical values shaped, and continue to shape, Australia’s response. Methods We conducted a critical interpretive literature review of academic and grey literatures within key databases, resulting in 2,220 sources. After (...) screening for duplicates and relevance, we analysed ninety-six sources. Results First, risk and uncertainty are a leading focus, with a heavy concentration on risks to life and health. Second, free movement, safety, and security were recurringly emphasized, albeit narrowly focused upon the safety of the population. Third, legitimacy was a recurring theme, and it is here that discussions of “health security” figured highly. Conclusion Discussions of harm from government and associated official bodies fail to adequately distinguish between various senses of harm. Moreover, while the literature often discusses the balancing of rights, the steps involved in the weighing of these rights is rarely adequately explained and defended. We suggest that decision-makers should endeavour to clearly identify and defend the values undergirding their decisions in the public sphere. (shrink)

Reading and writing must be more than passive processes of mimetic display; rather, they should offer a platform for psychological transformations across race and gender. Thus literary sovereignty vis-à-vis ownership of creative expression and representations of self can be reclaimed. This essay offers close analysis of contemporary Australian Indigenous literature to explore the sovereignty of feminist psychologies. Does creative writing reflect a strengthening of female Indigenous psychologies, and how might this implicate race relations and the decolonization of textual (...) worlds? These questions are inspired by Alexis Wright's most recent novel The Swan Book where she writes about “the quest to regain sovereignty over [her] own brain.” This article will explore the term craziness in a metaphorical sense: looking at whether rejecting dominant white culture equates to psychological sovereignty, improved mental well-being, and better race relations in imaginary realms. Indigenous characters in Wright's The Swan Book and Marie Munkara's Every Secret Thing may appear “crazy” for living in a state of indifference, but paradoxically, it is this state of “craziness” or indifference that empowers them to find psychological peace and resist assimilation. Seeking psychological sovereignty means assuming a position so averse to patriarchy and colonization that it renders transformation in imaginary worlds, and urges transformation in the psyches of white readers too. (shrink)

Published in 2008, Slavoj Žižek’s Violence: Six Sideways Reflections provides critical insight into the structures of power which dictate our perception and comprehension of violence in society. In particular, Žižek’s conception of the distinction between the subjective and objective modes of perceiving violence is particularly illuminating. This paper utilizes Žižek’s distinction to recontextualize and reframe a classic of Australian theatre, David Williamson’s The Removalists. [i] This approach puts Žižek’s seminal work on violence to task, teases out new meanings from (...) Williamson’s text, and most broadly, explores new methods for understanding the playing out of violence on stage. (shrink)

Greek, Latin and Ancient History. Instead, after a good result in mathematics, I decided to pursue that instead. That left me with an extra subject to choose to fill up first year. What was this "Philosophy" on offer? I couldn't understand where there was something in the spectrum of knowledge for philosophy to be about. Biology was about cats, English was about language and literature, mathematics was about numbers (I was not yet philosophically smart enough to realise there was (...) a problem as to what numbers were, given that you can't observe them like cats.) But what topics were left over for philosophy? (shrink)

Trust has been identified as an indicator within Social Quality theory. As an important component of social quality, trust has become increasingly important in modern society because literature suggests that trust in a number of democratic countries is declining. Modern technologies and specialties are often beyond the understanding of lay individuals and thus, the need for trusting relations between lay individuals and organizations/individuals has grown. The purpose of the study was to examine the extent to which Australians (dis)trust individuals (...) and organizations/institutions. A national postal survey was conducted with 1,044 respondents recruited using the electronic white pages directory. Findings from multivariate analyses suggest that income, age, sex, and health status are associated with trust in groups of individuals and trust in organizations/institutions. The findings highlight populations where trust needs to be (re)built. Future government policy and practice should utilize these findings as a means of facilitating social quality. (shrink)

While debate continues over the role of the lawyer in society, this article notes that the recently amended professional conduct rules of both barristers and solicitors and the proposed draft National Law prioritise the duty to the court and the administration of justice. In addition, the Australian Learning and Teaching Council's threshold learning outcomes for legal education corroborate these obligations when they assert that the role of a lawyer includes a professional responsibility to promote justice in service to the (...) community. By referring to Australia's proposed regulatory framework and associated national professional conduct rules, and drawing upon the American Bar Association's Model Rules of Professional Conduct and a body of US literature that refers to lawyers as public citizens, this article will argue that Australian lawyers owe a duty to the public in their everyday dealings with clients. In doing so, this article will refer to some theories of citizenship; and what it means for lawyers, in a practical sense, to act as public citizens. (shrink)

We investigate the performance and risk of Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) equity funds in the Australian market and find no significant difference between the returns of SRI and conventional funds. In an extension to prior literature, we examine the impact of the number of positive, negative and total screens funds impose on performance and risk. We find little evidence of positive or negative screening impacting total return, but find weak evidence that funds with more screens overall provide better (...) risk-adjusted performance. Positive screening significantly reduces funds’ risk. However, negative screening significantly increases risk and reduces funds’ abilities to form diversified portfolios. (shrink)

A useful linkage can be made between recent literature on the philosophy and ethics of place and Australian work on education for place responsiveness. Place education, which holds a creative tension between deep experience and critical awareness, has a central role to play in any practical expression of an ethic of place. The way forward is suggested by Stefanovic's mediated iterative process for group work and the suspension of outcome orientation and judgement to allow the experience to speak (...) for itself prior to critical reflection for individual work. Malpas's philosophy of place and experience provides a framework for understanding the importance of narrative in structuring and being structured by place, and the significance of childhood place memories. Narrative emerges as a 'central organising principle' of place and identity, and can be viewed as both stories that connect us and stories that make us different. Place responsiveness work in Australia presents the opportunity for constructive intercultural dialogue and embedding new narratives of sustainability in place. (shrink)

This article raises the issue of growing inequalities in remuneration in Australia at a time of severe economic recession. The salary packages of the CEOs and senior managers of large Australian companies have been increased substantially in recent years often in spite of poor performance of the companies. At the same time real wages have either stagnated or, according to some researchers, have fallen in the same period. In addition unemployment has risen to unprecedented high levels (above 11%).The ethics (...) of such growing differentials are rarely addressed in the literature on compensation. It is mooted that the lack of ethical scrutiny affects staff morale and performance by non-managerial employees adversely. It tends to make a mockery of the philosophy of performance-based pay and the concept of appointment and promotion on the basis of merit. Without suggesting a widespread breakdown in norms and standards in Australia this article does question the quality of Australian management and raises the issue of appropriate corrections. Studies about the need for a new direction in management education and into the role of the Boards of Directors, their competence and functions have been conducted and others are in train. These suggest a preference for piecemeal reforms while, perhaps, more drastic measures are required. (shrink)

IntroductionEnabling education programs, otherwise known as Foundation Studies or Preparatory programs, provide pathways for students typically under-represented in higher education. Students in Enabling programs often face distinct challenges in their induction to academic culture which can implicate them in cases of misconduct. This case study addresses a gap in the enabling literature reporting on how a culture of academic integrity can be developed for students and staff in these programs through an educative approach.Case descriptionThis paper outlines how an educative (...) approach to academic integrity is implemented within the Enabling programs of two Australian universities.Discussion and reflectionThis case study reflects upon an approach which makes specific reference to the key elements of ‘support’, ‘approach’ and ‘responsibility’ as highlighted in Bretag and Mahmud’s seminal paper. The paper reports a reduction in misconduct cases at the two institutions suggesting a positive correlation between the interventions and students’ understanding of ethical academic practice. This study reflects upon practitioner experiences with academic integrity investigations to evaluate the effectiveness of this approach.ConclusionsThe authors show that it is possible to ensure academic integrity practices and values are upheld within a supportive learning environment appropriate to a students’ level of study. (shrink)

This article explores the emerging intersections between the shift towards higher quality food consumption in China and Chinese investment in overseas farmland. Based on an ethnographic study of a Chinese company acquiring one of Australia’s largest dairy farms, the article argues that the linkage between imported Australian milk and perceptions of safety and quality has served as a powerful driver of Chinese investment in overseas farmland—a linkage that has largely been overlooked by literature on China’s role in the (...) global land rush. Drawing on the notion of ‘quality imaginaries’, the paper shows how images of Australian farmland as natural, pure, and geographically isolated have been mobilized by the investor company to position itself as provider of fresh, premium milk in the Chinese market. While such place-based qualities constitute a prized advantage, ironically, they also present a looming risk as the investor company struggles to reconcile fresh milk’s perishability with the farm’s location at the ‘edge of the world’. Thus, the case study not only demonstrates how cultural meanings tied to food and eating shape the ways in which investors imagine land’s affordances and possibilities but also draws attention to land’s materiality as a factor that both facilitates and destabilizes investment in farmland. (shrink)

It is now common in health care for a diverse range of professions and disciplines to work together in regular and close contact. Thus, there are now calls in the literature for research that documents insights on the ethical dimension of multidisciplinary relationships. Recent Australian research has responded to this call by examining how a multidisciplinary team of health professionals define and operationalize the notion of ethics in an acute ward hospital setting. This article provides findings from the (...) research study that indicate that, although there is a shared conceptualization of ethics as "patient-centered care", there can be times of conflict and tension in determining what is best for the patient. The discussion begins to build an understanding of how a multidisciplinary mix of health professionals responds to ethical conflict and tension. The authors' hope and expectation is that, by keeping the research focus on what health professionals in a multidisciplinary team (MDT) actually do, rather than exclusively on how they philosophically think about ethical dilemmas, the insights can be translated into practical strategies that can be utilized to strengthen the process of ethical decision making within the health care system. (shrink)

Research about the Olympic Games has primarily focused on preparing athletes for competition. Less attention has been paid to the post-Olympic-phase and athlete well-being during this time. This study explored Australian Olympic athletes’ experiences following the conclusion of the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, including the factors that may have contributed to or challenged their well-being during this time. Eighteen athletes participated in semi-structured interviews and thematic analysis revealed that when Olympic performance appraisal met prior expectations, when athletes planned for (...) a return to work or study, and when support from a variety of sources was readily available, this positively influenced athletes’ well-being during the POP. When these factors were not in place, more challenging post-Games experiences were present, and well-being was compromised. The findings contribute to the broader literature on elite athlete well-being and at an applied level, may be used to inform targeted programs that focus on supporting athletes after an Olympic campaign. (shrink)

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to investigate the reasons behind unethical behaviour in the Australian Information and Communications Technology workplace. Design/methodology/approach – The study employed a qualitative research methodology. A total of 43 ICT professionals were interviewed during the month of February 2014 in six Australian capital cities. All interviews were conducted face-to-face and followed a semi-structured interviewing format utilising open-end questions and further probing questions. The purposive sample represented ICT professionals from large and small (...) organisations, government and private sector, different geographic locations, ages, genders, types of jobs and employment experience. Data analysis was completed with the help of QSR NVivo 10, a software package for managing qualitative data. Findings – Of the 25 reasons identified for unethical behaviour in ICT workplaces, 30 per cent of participants agreed on five major ones: pressure, bad management, greed, lack of respect towards ICT and communication issues. Practical implications – By focussing on the reasons behind unethical behaviour in the Australian ICT workplace, this article helps those identifying strategies for dealing with unprofessional behaviour to take into account the root causes of unprofessional behaviour. Originality/value – There is hardly any literature on reasons for unethical behaviour in the ICT workplaces. This article seeks to address this imbalance in the literature. Also, integrity systems in ICT are a new focus in collective, organisational ethics. Identification of and resolving unethical ICT workplace practice is an innovative contribution to the literature. (shrink)

This essay discusses fire as a significant factor shaping Australian social and cultural life. It focuses first on the climate-change induced emotions such as eco-anxiety and anger that can be tied with the Australian landscape, and then moves on to a discussion of the presence and function of fire in selected contemporary Australian poetry. The reflection on the poetics of trauma in the second part of the essay is accompanied by a discussion of solastalgia connected with land (...) dispossession as an experience of the First Nations expressed in the Aboriginal literature in English. (shrink)

As traditional organizations using their websites for eCommerce transactions are increasing at an exponential rate, privacy concerns of users are also on the rise. To gain an insight into these concerns, existing policies and legislation, we conducted the research reported in this paper, in 2003. To augment the literature synthesis, a multiple case study analysis was conducted, based on six large organisations in Australia. Our research findings suggested that in the Australian context, an online privacy policy on the (...) website which complies with the Privacy Act, supported by few best practices are reasonably able to address online privacy concerns. However, these findings are restricted in time frame, indicative and relevant in the Australian context. Nevertheless, we hope to stimulate academic research enquiry and discussion forums through this research. (shrink)

In Finnegans Wake, the uncouth portmanteau word "Janglish" suggests a jangled kind of English. Joyce, of course, lived and died before that other uncouth word, "globalization," rode the waves of cyberspace. By resorting to a dubious conceit, I use "Janglican" to invoke American letters on the tongue of writers like Junot Diaz, Amy Tan, Aleksander Hemon, Ha Jin, Jhumpa Lahiri, Chang-rae Lee, among many others (including this writer, who speaks every language with an accent, a literary feat of sorts.)There's no (...) conceit in my subtitle, which moots the central question of this essay: can we still speak of national literatures—say, of American or Australian literature—in the age of globalization? (Concepts germane to .. (shrink)

There are few issues that have been as vexing for the Australian healthcare community as the Australian governments policy of mandatory, indefinite, immigration detention. While many concepts have been used to begin to describe the many dilemmas faced by healthcare professionals and their resolution, they are limited, perhaps most fundamentally by the fact that immigration detention is antithetical to health and wellbeing. Furthermore, and while most advice recognises that the abolition of detention is the only option in overcoming (...) these issues, it provides little guidance on how action within detention could contribute to this. Drawing on the work of political theorists and the broader sociological literature, we will introduce and apply a form of action that has not yet been considered for healthcare workers within detention, resistance. We will draw on several examples from the literature to show how everyday resistance could be enacted in healthcare and immigration detention settings. We argue that the concept of resistance has several conceptual and practical advantages over much existing guidance for healthcare workers in these environments, namely that it politicises care and has synergies with other efforts aimed at the abolition of detention. We also offer some reflections on the justifiability of such action, arguing that it is largely consistent with the existing guidance produced by all major healthcare bodies in Australia. (shrink)

This article describes the place of Women's and Gender Studies programmes in Australian universities as a way of thinking about the place of feminism in the academy. It begins with a story of one such small programme at a time of stress and locates this story in an account of change in Australian universities over the last 20-plus years. The narrative traces a contradictory domain in which women, feminist scholarship and Women's and Gender Studies are enmeshed. The article (...) draws on feminist literature about Australian universities to argue that while neo-liberal university environments are clearly places where masculinist values prevail, the flows of power around individual Women's and Gender Studies programmes cannot be simply predicted. Women's and Gender Studies programmes are thriving in some universities (on a small scale). As well as institutional imperatives Women's and Gender Studies programmes are engaged by specific intellectual challenges and some of these are sketched with reference to the Australian context. Asserting the need for dedicated research and teaching that focuses on gender, the article concludes that Women's and Gender Studies programmes in Australian universities are energetic places for this to occur. It proposes an ambivalent optimism to describe its assessment of these programmes and their viability as future places of work for feminist scholars. (shrink)

DUREY A, WYNADEN D, THOMPSON SC, DAVIDSON PM, BESSARAB D and KATZENELLENBOGEN JM. Nursing Inquiry 2012; 19: 144–152 [Epub ahead of print]Owning solutions: a collaborative model to improve quality in hospital care for Aboriginal AustraliansWell‐documented health disparities between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (hereafter referred to as Aboriginal) and non‐Aboriginal Australians are underpinned by complex historical and social factors. The effects of colonisation including racism continue to impact negatively on Aboriginal health outcomes, despite being under‐recognised and under‐reported. Many Aboriginal people (...) find hospitals unwelcoming and are reluctant to attend for diagnosis and treatment, particularly with few Aboriginal health professionals employed on these facilities. In this paper, scientific literature and reports on Aboriginal health‐care, methodology and cross‐cultural education are reviewed to inform a collaborative model of hospital‐based organisational change. The paper proposes a collaborative model of care to improve health service delivery by building capacity in Aboriginal and non‐Aboriginal personnel by recruiting more Aboriginal health professionals, increasing knowledge and skills to establish good relationships between non‐Aboriginal care providers and Aboriginal patients and their families, delivering quality care that is respectful of culture and improving Aboriginal health outcomes. A key element of model design, implementation and evaluation is critical reflection on barriers and facilitators to providing respectful and culturally safe quality care at systemic, interpersonal and patient/family‐centred levels. Nurses are central to addressing the current state of inequity and are pivotal change agents within the proposed model. (shrink)

As a method of family formation, cross-border surrogacy is controversial and beset by risks of exploitation. This article extends the literature on surrogacy by examining the way Australian surrogacy promotion and information events represent cross-border surrogacy. It examines the emerging phenomenon of surrogacy events held by a not-for-profit surrogacy organization to promote cross-border surrogacy in Australia—a country that prohibits commercial surrogacy. The article draws on observations from a series of surrogacy events in Australia and online during the 2019–21 (...) time period. It examines the presentations given at these events by surrogacy facilitators, surrogate mothers, and intended parents. We observed four themes: (1) Intended parents are positioned as consumers, (2) the benefits of cross-border commercial surrogacy are highlighted relative to other methods of family formation, (3) the positive side of cross-border surrogacy is accentuated, and (4) reproductive rights are emphasized. These representations run counter to feminist framings of cross-border surrogacy as exploitative and risky. This paper understands that the framing of surrogacy that occurs at these promotion events to be neoliberal in nature. The conceptualization helps explain their consumerist peppiness and commodifying subjectivity. (shrink)

Few conundrums have captured and held the imagination of organizational researchers and practitioners as has the ‘happy productive worker’ thesis, or the proposition that ‘a happy worker is a good worker’. This thesis is revisited by investigating the impact of job-related affective well-being and intrinsic job satisfaction on Australian managers’ performance. Decades of research have been unable to establish a strong link be-tween intrinsic job satisfaction and performance. Despite mixed empirical evidence, there is support in the literature to (...) suggest that a relationship exists between affective well-being, intrinsic job satisfaction and managers’ performance. Affect has rarely been used as a predictor of managers’ job performance outcomes. Indicators of their affective well-being and intrinsic job satisfaction were shown to predict dimensions of their contextual and task performance. (shrink)

While human genetic research promises to deliver a range of health benefits to the population, genetic research that takes place in Indigenous communities has proven controversial. Indigenous peoples have raised concerns, including a lack of benefit to their communities, a diversion of attention and resources from non-genetic causes of health disparities and racism in health care, a reinforcement of “victim-blaming” approaches to health inequalities, and possible misuse of blood and tissue samples. Drawing on the international literature, this article reviews (...) the ethical issues relevant to genetic research in Indigenous populations and considers how some of these have been negotiated in a genomic research project currently under way in a remote Aboriginal community. We consider how the different levels of Indigenous research governance operating in Australia impacted on the research project and discuss whether specific guidelines for the conduct of genetic research in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities are warranted. (shrink)

Benjamin, Anne South Sudanese Catholic communities have been a significant part of the Australian church for nearly two decades, yet it appears little has been published on their pastoral needs. This article responds to this gap in the literature and focuses on current pastoral needs of Australian Sudanese Catholics that emerged from a study recently completed for the Sydney archdiocese and Parramatta diocese. As such, it provides the pastoral context and offers a platform from which appropriate pastoral (...) initiatives might be developed. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to investigate the relatively neglected and under-theorized area of ethical mindsets in the Australian services sector. Employing a mixed-methods approach, quantitative data was collected through online survey of 66 items and qualitative data was collected by focus group interviews with 20 participants. An analysis of the survey data suggests that ethical mindsets exist, and the qualitative analysis allowed the identified components to be refined. This research potentially adds to developing business ethics literature (...) about ethical mindsets and contributes to the methodological debate about the efficacy of online surveys and the mixed-methods approach. (shrink)

Synthetic biology is a broad term covering multiple scientific methodologies, technologies, and practices. Pairing biology with engineering, synbio seeks to design and build biological systems, either through improving living cells by adding in new functions, or creating new structures by combining natural and synthetic components. As with all new technologies, synthetic biology raises a number of ethical considerations. In order to understand what these issues might be, and how they relate to those covered in ethics literature on synbio, we (...) conducted an interview study with practicing synthetic biologists affiliated with a synthetic biology centre in Australia. Scientists identified a range of ethical challenges germane to the field, including precarious employment, pressures from industry, gender inequity, and the negative effects of the hyping of synbio. These challenges differed markedly from those identified in the ethics literature, whose treatment of the harms and benefits of synbio remains largely speculative and abstract. In our discussion of the pragmatic, every day ethical issues synthetic biologists face, we illustrate how issues of waste or research integrity play pivotal roles in everything from lived experiences in the laboratory, to long-term research trajectories guiding the field. In a confirmation of the ethical relevance of our participant’s views on the field, we argue that the subjects they raise must be included in any ethical analysis of synbio as a field. (shrink)

Proactive corporate social responsibility (CSR) involves business strategies and practices adopted voluntarily by firms that go beyond regulatory requirements in order to manage their social responsibilities, and thereby contribute broadly and positively to society. Proactive CSR has been less researched in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) compared to large firms; and, whether SMEs are ideally placed to gain competitive advantage through such activity therefore remains a point of debate. This study examines empirically the association between three specified capabilities (shared vision, (...) stakeholder management and strategic proactivity), proactive CSR and financial performance in SMEs. Using quantitative data collected from a sample of 171 SMEs in the machinery and equipment sector of the Australian manufacturing industry, we find that all specified capabilities are positively associated with adoption of proactive CSR by SMEs, and that proactive CSR is, in turn, associated with an improvement in firm financial performance. Evidence of a fully mediating role for proactive CSR on the association between capabilities and financial performance presented in this study aligns with RBV theory that suggests adoption of value-creating strategies that make the most effective use of a firm’s capabilities is essential to financial success. The study contributes to the CSR literature by demonstrating a case for SMEs being able to maximise financial returns whilst proactively making progress towards CSR. (shrink)

People with dementia have commonly been excluded from research. The adverse impacts of this exclusion are now being recognized and research literature, position statements, and ethics guidelines increasingly call for inclusion of people with dementia in research. However, few published studies investigate the views of potential participants on taking part in research should they experience dementia-related cognitive impairment. This cross-sectional survey examined the views of people aged sixty and older attending hospital outpatient clinics about clinical research participation if they (...) had dementia and impaired decision-making ability. Over 90 percent of respondents were agreeable to participating in a wide range of research activities, such as cognitive testing, physical measurements, imaging procedures, and blood draws. For drug studies, however, agreement dropped to 60 percent. Altruism was a strong motivator for research participation. In regard to who should be involved in decisions about their participation in research during periods of incapacity, respondents mostly preferred the person they appoint as their substitute decision-maker for healthcare matters or a doctor or health professional on the research team. Over three-quarters expressed interest in making an advance research directive. The study findings are discussed in relation to law reforms in Australia that aim to strengthen respect and inclusion for people with impaired decision-making capacity, especially by providing frameworks for advance planning for research participation. (shrink)

Prior research suggests that Corporate Environmental Performance enables businesses to build strong corporate image and reputation, thus leading to improved firm financial performance. However, studies relating to the relationship between CEP and firm risk are scarce. This research intends to bridge the gap in the literature by examining whether CEP helps firms to reduce their financial risk. Results of the Ordinary Least Squares regression with fixed effects provide strong evidence that environmental performance is negatively associated with firm volatility and (...) firm downside risk. The results are robust after controlling for moderating effects such as financial, institutional and environmental management. (shrink)

This article is framed by a wider interest in how literary careers are made: what mechanisms other than the personal/biographical and the text-centred evaluations of scholars influence a writer’s choices in persisting in building a succession of works that are both varied and yet form a consistently recognizable “brand.” Translation is one element in the wider network of “machinery” that makes modern literary publishing. It is a marker of success that might well keep authors going despite lack of sales or (...) negative reviews at home. Translation rights can provide useful supplementary funds to sustain a writer’s output. Access to new markets overseas might also inspire interest in countries and topics other than their usual focus or the demands of their home market. The Australian novelist and playwright Thomas Keneally achieved a critical regard for fictions of Australian history within a nationalist cultural resurgence, but to make a living as a writer he had to keep one eye on overseas markets as well. While his work on European topics has not always been celebrated at home, he has continued to write about them and to find readers in languages other than English. Poland features in a number of Keneally’s books and is one of the leading sources of translation for his work. The article explores possible causes and effects around this fact, and surveys some reader responses from Poland. It notes the connections that Keneally’s Catholic background and activist sympathies allow to modern Polish history and assesses the central place of his Booker-winning Schindler’s Ark filmed as Schindler’s List. (shrink)

Despite the extensive consideration the notion of informed consent has heralded in recent decades, the unique considerations pertaining to the giving of informed consent by and on behalf of Indigenous Australians have not been comprehensively explored; to the contrary, these issues have been scarcely considered in the literature to date. This deficit is concerning, given that a fundamental premise of the doctrine of informed consent is that of individual autonomy, which, while privileged as a core value of non-Indigenous (...) class='Hi'>Australian culture, is displaced in Indigenous cultures by the honouring of the family unit and community group, rather than the individual, as being at the core of important decision-making processes relating to the person. To address the hiatus in the bioethical literature on issues relating to informed consent for Aboriginal peoples, the following article provides findings from a two-year research project, funded by Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), conducted in the Northern Territory. The findings, situated in the context of the literature on cultural safety, highlight the difference between the Aboriginal and biomedical perspectives on informed consent. (shrink)

This paper reports on a project which examined current ethics education content at Griffith Business School and proposed a way forward for GBS to enhance itsethics education contribution. In so doing, the project also reported on likely elements of best practice and associated issues for consideration by any University seeking to enhance its ethics education. An abbreviated version of the literature review carried out to substantiate the recommended options is also included in this paper.

In this paper, I explore the ways in which settler-colonial states utilize the category of disability in immigration and Indigenous population regimes to redress settler-colonial anxieties of white fragility. As well documented within the literature, settler-colonial governance operates a particular logic of population management that aims to replace longstanding Indigenous peoples with settler populations of a particular kind. Focusing on the case of Australia and drawing on a range of historical and current empirical sources, the paper examines the central (...) importance of the category of disability to this settler-colonial political intent. The paper identifies the breadth of techniques of governance to embed, normalize and naturalize white settler-colonial rule. The paper concludes with the suggestion that the state mobilization of the category of disability provides us with a unique way to identify, understand and analyse settler-colonial power and the interrelationship of disability, settler-colonial immigration regimes and Indigenous people under its enterprise. (shrink)

In this article I take a poem by Lisa Bellear as a starting point for theorizing the possibility of a renovated feminism. I argue that the rhetorical questioning of the poem performs a mode of intersubjectivity in which the addressee/reader reflects upon their whiteness. The poem drives directly into the dense affect that saturates the troubled zone of cross-racial relations in contemporary Australia. If this zone is characterized by white anger and anxiety, it is also a zone of intense `feeling' (...) for the indigenous poet. Jean-Luc Nancy defines literature as the act of the `opening [of] community to itself', that is, of communicating our being-in-common. The cross-racial encounter that Bellear brokers between an indigenous and a white woman through the performance of address in this poem is not entirely comfortable or governable. I discuss how my students find this poem so confronting, and the fact that this discomfort underlines the necessity for a pedagogy that accommodates what Spivak refers to as `moments of bafflement'. (shrink)

This article focuses on the question of John Kinsella’s invisibility in World Literature from the perspective of his International Regionalism. First, it compares the similarity and difference between Kinsella and Joseph S. Nye’s international regionalism, and pinpoints the development of Kinsella’s IR from Disclosed Poetics, Activist Poetics, Spatial Relations to Polysituatedness. Second, it concentrates on analyzing the background of Kinsella’s IR through three kinds of ideologies: veganism, anarchism, and pacifism, in order to mark the unique identity problem of Kinsella (...) – identity dilemma in-between pre- and post-nation as Australia. Third, it clarifies the reason why Kinsella is invisible in the World Literature canon as Emily Apter mentions in “On Translation in a Global Market,” in line with the question why Kinsella was mainly in the footnotes of Robert Dixon and Brigid Rooney’s Scenes of Reading: Is Australian Literature a World Literature. In conclusion, on the one hand, Kinsella’s IR about the World and Literature does not fit in the Center, or the Periphery, nor the Semi-Center & Periphery; on the other hand, Kinsella’s IR might more aptly be termed International Community-ism, because Kinsella’s World is built up by very small communities. (shrink)

von Behrens, Dierk Review of: Brief encounters: Literature and beyond, by Satendra Nandan, IVY Press International Publishers LPO Box 8069, ANU, Acton, 0200, ACT, Australia, 1st Edition, 2015, pbk. pp. 257, $ 20.00.

Background Parental refusal of routine childhood vaccination remains an ethically contested area. This systematic review sought to explore and characterise the normative arguments made about parental refusal of routine vaccination, with the aim of providing researchers, practitioners, and policymakers with a synthesis of current normative literature. Methods Nine databases covering health and ethics research were searched, and 121 publications identified for the period Jan 1998 to Mar 2022. For articles, source journals were categorised according to Australian Standard Field (...) of Research codes, and normative content was analysed using a framework analytical approach. Results Most of the articles were published in biomedical journals (34%), bioethics journals (21%), and journals that carry both classifications (20%). Two central questions dominated the literature: (1) Whether vaccine refusal is justifiable (which we labelled ‘refusal arguments’); and (2) Whether strategies for dealing with those who reject vaccines are justifiable (‘response arguments’). Refusal arguments relied on principlism, religious frameworks, the rights and obligations of parents, the rights of children, the medico-legal best interests of the child standard, and the potential to cause harm to others. Response arguments were broadly divided into arguments about policy, arguments about how individual physicians should practice regarding vaccine rejectors, and both legal precedents and ethical arguments for vaccinating children against a parent’s will. Policy arguments considered the normative significance of coercion, non-medical or conscientious objections, and possible reciprocal social efforts to offset vaccine refusal. Individual physician practice arguments covered nudging and coercive practices, patient dismissal, and the ethical and professional obligations of physicians. Most of the legal precedents discussed were from the American setting, with some from the United Kingdom. Conclusions This review provides a comprehensive picture of the scope and substance of normative arguments about vaccine refusal and responses to vaccine refusal. It can serve as a platform for future research to extend the current normative literature, better understand the role of cultural context in normative judgements about vaccination, and more comprehensively translate the nuance of ethical arguments into practice and policy. (shrink)