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In modern times when we speak of a mobile lifestyle we think of backpackers, fruit pickers, tourists, bikies or people living in caravans. Some people, of course, deliberately choose such a lifestyle. In the context of the historical past, of the people who moved in and out of this place - Kalgoorlie (our conference venue) - one group in particular had a very mobile lifestyle, though not by choice. I refer to the Afghan camel drivers who came to Australia for economic reasons. They mostly arrived as single men and assisted the explorers in their expeditions, and contributed to the development of the infrastructure of the Australian outback. The camel drivers steered the camels, 'the ships of the desert', that carried water tanks out to the mining areas such as Kalgoorlie and Coolgardie and other areas where water was scarce. The camels also carried wool bales and boxes of merchandize from one part of Australia to another. And they carted sleepers for the construction of railway lines from Perth to Coolgardie, and materials for the development of the Overland Telegraph Line in South Australia back in 1870-1872. The mobile nature of the lives of the Afghan camel drivers never permitted them to stay in one place for long. The Afghans were predominantly Muslims. They retained their culture and religion in such a harsh lifestyle. In this paper I examine the pattern of their mobile lifestyle from 1860 to 1930 and discuss their identity when they were with other ethnic groups, conflict when they faced resistance and their outspoken nature when they were regarded as the 'other'. Finally, I consider their loyalty to their Australian employers (and explorers). This paper relies on both primary and secondary sources, including oral testimonies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tiffany Lee-Shoy is the Senior Policy Advisor on Cultural Development at Fairfield City Council in western Sydney. In this exchange with Tanja Dreher, Tiffany reflects on recent community development work using digital storytelling to create new 'listening spaces' for young Khmer-Australians and their parents and grandparents. The project, known as 'Fairfield Stories', involved training young people to use digital technologies to produce short documentaries about their lives to be screened, in the first instance, to family and friends. The project forms one part of Tiffany's wider commitment to developing citizens' media initiatives and civic engagement in Fairfield, one of the most culturally diverse Local Government Areas in Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we examine some of the ways in which different approaches to the idea of progress emerge alongside competing temporalities of sexual and gender diversity and belonging in the context of public debates and discussions on the Safe Schools Coalition review (February 2016). The public debates provided an important point-of-focus for understanding the contemporary setting of support for minorities in relation to cultural belonging and inclusivity in educational settings. The paper discusses the relationship between progress and temporality in its historical setting within Australian LGBTQ political history. We investigate three angles in which progress has been articulated in the Safe Schools debates: (1) disruptions to support as political setback to progress; (2) the view that safe support is necessary for the progress of LGBTQ ‘vulnerable’ youth within ‘developmental stages’; (c) the framing by conservative commentators that LGBTQ support curricula is a form of ‘progressive politics’ that undoes normative histories of neoliberal and conservative progress. Making use of the public debates around the Safe Schools curriculum to critique some of the ways in which progress on minority belonging for younger persons helps open the fields of meaning for alternative kinds of belonging that are produced through alternative cultural histories of marginalized subjects. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

At the same time as the Australian media was focusing attention on problems stemming from youthful binge drinking and was decrying a problematic national drinking culture, voluntary (and often philanthropic) campaigns oriented around temporarily giving up alcohol emerged. Although these temporary sobriety initiatives (TSI) originally positioned themselves as a solution to the problems being discussed, their popular appeal proved to be their alignment with larger currents of neoliberal governance in the fields of health, well-being, productivity and civic duty via philanthropy. This critical cultural history conducts a discourse analysis of TSI-generated materials and examines quantitative participant data to better understand how the initiatives framed themselves as a solution to the identified problems at the same time as they ever-more overtly pitched themselves to an already responsibilized segment of the population. The implications of these findings point to the larger role that TSI can play in addressing, in a non-regulatory way, both attitudes and behaviours among the majority of the population who are not considered problem drinkers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explores some recent issues impacting on Australia's public imagination of a national identity. Utilizing an analysis that draws on Foucault's concept of biopolitics as a mechanism of governance, the paper examines how notions of Australian national identity develop through distinct but discursively-related fields: (1) policies and public discourse on the Australian Commonwealth Government's promotion of fertility through the Baby Bonus scheme; (2) public debate and popular culture texts on global overpopulation and climate change; and (3) the movement of populations and peoples of Australia in terms of how policies of migration and responses to refugees inflect dialogue on national identity. Discussing these together through the framework of biopolitics, it is argued that governmentality in Australia is not only biased towards the production of particular types of Australian identity but particular types of Australian. Drawing predominantly on news discourses, the paper examines some of the ways in which the interface between these different fields and objects of biopolitical regulation can be understood through public sphere debate, popular cultural texts, and an assessment of the ways in which Foucault's biopolitical technologies continue to centre on national, neo-liberal issues and exclude concerns around global overpopulation, resource sustainability, and world climate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a commercial entertainment sector, the film industry in Australia presents an economically viable commodity, with AU$1087.5 million worth of box office revenue being made in 2009 (Screen Australia, http://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/gtp/wcboadmission.html, 2010). With such a significant audience to entertain, it is unsurprising that film provides an ideal avenue for the communication of music. Music is an important element in the feature film, being used to set a scene, emphasize a plot development or incite a given emotion from the viewer. Feature film music ranges from specifically composed score to pre-recorded popular music licensed into the film. Increasingly, the latter is being used in feature films - impacting on the budgets, marketing and sound personnel of a film in a myriad of ways (see Smith, The Sounds of Commerce, New York: Columbia University Press, 1998). Of these sound personnel, the music supervisor is arguably impacted upon the most, and this can be attributed to the music supervisor's role to ensure all music within the film soundtrack is cleared and used in accordance within the legal rights of the licensor. However, the music supervisor in the Australian film context extends far beyond such clearances, with such personnel deciding which tracks are selected for the film and even suggesting certain pieces to the director - thus playing a creative collaborative role in the production. This area of communication in the Australian feature film industry is largely overlooked or marginalized in academic research (see Coyle, Reel Tracks, Eastleigh: John Libbey, 2005, for some tentative research). This interdisciplinary paper contributes findings from interviews conducted by the author with Australian music supervisors throughout the period 2007-2009. It charts both formal and informal networks and communication modes between film and music industry personnel working within the Australian entertainment industry to show the complexity of industrial practices in the contemporary period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For much of its history in the twentieth century, television was conceived mostly in national terms. American television, British television, Australian television and so on were thought of as distinct systems, even if they frequently displayed significant degrees of overlap. Such a notion has always been a convenient simplification. Television exists at a series of different spatial levels and the nationwide tier is only one of these. Recent interest in the notion of media capital draws attention to the role played by broadcasting hubs in larger television formations, not only in the industrial sense of resource accumulation and density but also in terms of colonizing larger media environments. This paper addresses this matter in terms of the role that a Sydney metropolitan television service has played in the life of the Australian nation. It surveys the material and ideological dimension of this service as a means of further problematizing the connection of television and nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the aesthetics of pornography, in connection to the insights of consumers in Australia. An interview was conducted to 46 consumers of pornography to see whether their expertise in the topic could provide useful information for ongoing public debates about the genre and its effect on individuals and the society. Gender is the key issue in public and academic discussions about pornography because it is often assumed that one's gender will determine one's attitude towards pornography. Another issue that interviewees kept raising spontaneously, in relation to the quality of pornography, was the storylines.

Examines the ways in which the rituals associated to rave-derived outdoor dance communions affect the lives of its participants in Australia. Popularity of events based in a country given dance music's links with audio and visual technology; How events promoters and participants draw upon spiritual and cultural references; Ways on how aboriginal iconography are evoked by people of European racial origin.

Interviews Peter Abbott, the executive producer of the television program in Australia, Big Brother. Conceptualization of the program; Creation and executive production of the program; Key issues tackled in the program focusing on culture and society; Success of the program.