RSSS Australian Research Council Success
Wednesday 1 December 2010
Several researchers within the RSSS have distinguished themselves in the recent ARC Discovery Awards, with total funding of just over $2.25 million granted to pursue a broad range of issues across a diverse field of topics.
 
Congratulations to:
  • Professor Jon C Altman, A/Prof Boyd H Hunter, Dr William G Sanders, Ms Kirrily Jordan (APD)
    From welfare to work, or work to welfare: will reform of the Community Development Employment Program help close the employment gap?
    Summary: This project seeks to improve Indigenous livelihood options through a comprehensive analysis of recent reform of the Community Development Employment Program (CDEP). In examining the impetus for change and tracking outcomes, it will greatly advance understanding of appropriate responses to seemingly intractable Indigenous development problems.
  • Dr Gregory A Barton, Mr Brett M Bennett (APD)
    Saving the world the first time: global climate theory and desiccation 1765‑1960
    Summary: Advocates of the world's first global climate theory asserted that deforestation caused desertification. Understanding how this theory, called desiccation theory, launched and guided the world‑wide environmental movement helps us to better understand the benefits and problems associated with our present‑day climate theory‑global warming.
  • Professor Keith M Dowding, Mr Aaron J Martin, A/Prof Edward S Adler, Prof Peter C John
    Policy agendas in the Australian Commonwealth Government
    Summary: Who leads the agenda: the government; the public or the media? Is legislation 'normal business' or a response to crisis? Does changing the government really change much? By systematically analysing legislation, the media and public opinion over a forty year period this project can answer these questions more thoroughly than ever before.
  • Professor Robert E Goodin, Dr Christian H Barry, Dr Gerhard E Overland, A/Professor Lea Ypi
    Benefiting from injustice
    Summary: 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.
  • Dr Shino A Konishi, Dr Maria L Nugent, Dr Tiffany S Shellam
    Exploring the middle ground: new histories of cross‑cultural encounters in Australian maritime and land exploration
    Summary: This project seeks to reinvigorate Australian exploration history by examining it through the lens of cross‑cultural encounters and relations. This will bring to the fore the experience of Aboriginal people who came into contact with explorers, as well as the experience of Aboriginal people who participated in exploration parties.
  • Professor Ann M McGrath, Professor Peter M Veth
    The two lakes project: a research history of Lakes Mungo and Gregory
    Summary:  This project investigates the history of research relations between scientists and Traditional Owners at Lakes Mungo and Gregory. Connecting recent histories of agency and reconciliation with deep time, it will produce a publicly accessible narrative that increases national understanding of significant stories in the peopling of our continent.
  • Dr Maria Nugent
    The Queen gave us the land: Aboriginal people's histories and memories of Queen Victoria
    Summary: Queen Victoria was an important figure for Aboriginal people during her reign from 1837 to 1901 and became a powerful symbol in their oral traditions. By examining these histories and memories, the study illuminates Aboriginal people's changing ideas about and relationship to the British Crown.
  • Professor Daniel Stoljar, Professor Frank Jackson
    Philosophical Progress
    Summary: Understanding the nature and possibility of progress in philosophy will shed light not only on philosophy as a funded research discipline within the university system in Australia, but also on the nature of research within the humanities and social sciences more generally.
  • Dr Carolyn Strange, Prof Christopher E Forth, Dr Rosanne Kennedy
    Family, violence and honour: the Walworth Murder
    Summary: Australian statistics confirm that violence within the family is an intractable problem. Real‑life narratives of spousal abuse and murder, including historical cases, provide compelling evidence of the causes and costs of family conflict. This project underlines the ways in which power asymmetries within families can become risk factors for violence.
Maria Nugent and Daniel Stoljar  have further distinguished themselves by being awarded Future Fellowships totalling just under $1.4 million:
 
Maria Nugent, “Remembering dispossession: interpreting Aboriginal historical narratives”
Summary: Since the arrival of the British, Aboriginal people have sought to make sense of their experiences of colonisation through telling powerful and memorable stories. This study not only reveals the richness of Aboriginal historical stories, but also models ways of using them in the telling of new Australian histories.
 
Daniel Stoljar, “Knowledge of consciousness”
Summary: This project explores and defends a new philosophical perspective on introspective knowledge and charts its connection to larger issues of human rationality and consciousness.
 
The Research School of Social Sciences join with its Director, Adam Graycar, in congratulating our colleagues on their achievements.