Arts Design & Architecture

Publication Search Results

Now showing 1 - 10 of 14
  • (2020) Addo, Isaac
    Thesis
    A significant amount of research suggests that excess weight gain can increase the risk of developing some non-communicable diseases (NCDs), such as diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. In 2014, a screening project organised by the Western Melbourne Regional Development Australia noted that 68% of Australian residents of African ancestry were overweight, obese or morbidly obese, which was higher than the national average of 61.3%. Previous studies indicate that post-migration changes in dietary and physical activity behaviours may contribute to these weight-related issues. However, there is a dearth of research examining the factors associated with dietary and physical activity behaviours among Australian residents born in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Given the adverse health implications associated with excess weight again, it is important to investigate the dietary and physical activity behaviours of Australian residents born in SSA, to inform appropriate health promotion policies and interventions. This study examined factors associated with post-migration dietary and physical activity behaviours among Australian residents born in SSA. The study employed a mixed-method approach, comprising in-depth qualitative interviews and quantitative surveys. Using the Australian states of New South Wales and Victoria as the study setting, a quota sampling strategy was used to recruit 24 participants for the in-depth interviews, and a total of 253 respondents were recruited for the survey. Overall, the findings indicate significant changes in dietary and physical activity behaviours after participants settled in Australia. To a large extent, the post-migration changes in dietary and physical activity behaviours reflect less healthy behaviours and can put participants at serious risk of weight-related NCDs. Multiple interrelated factors, comprising acculturation, socio-demographic factors (e.g. age, duration of residence in Australia, rural or urban residency before immigration, and unemployment), environmental factors (e.g. availability and affordability of traditional African food and physical activity products), cultural factors (e.g. cultural beliefs about body sizes), and social-cognitive factors (e.g. attitudes and behavioural intention), were significantly associated with the reported changes in behaviours. It is, therefore, important to develop nuanced health promotion interventions to address the factors associated with the less healthy dietary and physical activity behaviours reported among this under-researched population.

  • (2021) Prankumar, Sujith
    Thesis
    Drawing on Karen Barad’s agential realism and the lens of citizenship, this thesis explores the lived experiences and attitudes of Lebanese, Indian and Anglo LGBTQ+ young adults living in Sydney, Australia. Data collection and analysis were based on qualitative in-depth narrative interviews (n=42) and optional follow-up photo-elicitation interviews (n=20). Participants’ responses, analysed abductively, were framed along broader themes of moral, cultural and sexual citizenship, each further contextualised using aspects of Barad’s theorising: diffraction, time and agency. The thesis has three main findings. First, ‘Australianness’ was predicated on a form of Whiteness that is linked to colonial history and disenfranchisement of First Nations peoples, with consequences for social participation, inclusion within LGBTQ+ communities, and sexual citizenship. Second, heteropatriarchal community values, material culture, religion and spatiotemporal geographies were found to be key factors that influenced young adults’ connection with their cultural communities. Third, the attainment of – or limits to – sexual citizenship and participation was found to be a collaborative endeavour created by an entanglement of formal and informal policies, everyday experiences and material factors. While intersections along the lines of ethnicity, gender, financial ability, locality, disability and so on influenced participants’ participation in domains of everyday life, employing a Baradian framework revealed that young people were far from passive subjects in their social environments and often found ways to explore various aspects of citizenship through an ever-evolving entanglement of agencies. The thesis concludes by arguing that key to the realisation of more just and promising futures and more embracing notions of youth citizenship is the attention paid to relations between belonging, hope and flourishing, which shape, and are shaped by, valences of moral, cultural and sexual citizenship.

  • (2021) Gardner, Kristy
    Thesis
    This study takes a deliberate strengths-based approach to identify the sources of sexual health information accessed by Aboriginal young people from one community in Western Sydney, and the role of technology in their information seeking. The research design draws on Aboriginal Ways of Knowing, Being and Doing (Martin & Mirraboopa, 2003) to position Aboriginal young people’s knowledge and experiences as central to the research as participants, peer interviewers and ultimately peer researchers. The research methods were qualitative; peer-led interviews with 23 Aboriginal young people in Western Sydney were conducted. Peer interviewers were selected in consultation with members of a local Aboriginal community. Three male and five female interviewers were selected to ensure that cultural expectations were met regarding the need to discuss issues around sexual health with a person of the same gender. The findings showed that participants used the internet to access information about physical symptoms because searching for information online allowed privacy. Participants then approached trusted sources, including those with whom they had formal relationships (doctors, teachers, counsellors) and informal relationships (family members, friends), to check that the information participants found online was correct and trustworthy. In this context young people used the internet as a triaging tool. The participants were also aware that their formal sources of help and advice, such as teachers, might have to undertake mandatory reporting if certain subject matter were discussed, although the parameters around this obligation and their understanding of which particular professionals were required to do so were not always clear. The research findings therefore have important implications for how sexual health education programs for Aboriginal young people living in urban areas should be targeted.

  • (2022) Newton, Giselle
    Thesis
    From the turn of the century, social attitudes have shifted away from secrecy and anonymity in donor conception in line with broader recognition that children have a right to accurate information about their identity and family. As such, some donor-conceived people are now growing up in families who disclose and discuss donor conception openly while others are unexpectedly learning of their donor-conceived status later in life. Yet, little empirical research has explored the array of actors, processes and technologies that shape experiences of belonging for donor-conceived people. This thesis reports on exploratory research of Australian donor-conceived adults’ experiences. The project adopted an innovative interdisciplinary approach, combining methods and analytic techniques from sociology, social semiotics and media studies to explore everyday social, linguistic and digital practices. Data comprise Hansard from a public hearing of a Senate Committee Inquiry into donor conception; a national online survey with sperm donor-conceived (n=90) and egg donor-conceived (n=1) respondents over 16 years of age; and semi-structured interviews with sperm donor-conceived adults (N=28). The research is also underpinned by vignettes of personal experience to reflexively foreground my own positionality as a donor-conceived person. Findings reveal the significant role that digital technologies play in donor-conceived people’s everyday lives. Donor-conceived peers used digital platforms to exchange experiential knowledge and negotiate meanings ascribed to their collective identity, to educate (prospective) recipient parents and the general public about their perspectives, to trace family members through direct-to-consumer DNA testing, and to strategise for increased recognition in legislation. In terms of family, participants navigated complex and dynamic familial (non) relationships and the lingering consequences of anonymity. However, donor-conceived people also found strategies to help them reckon with secrecy and silence, actively responding to social conditions and challenging the institutions of medicine and the law. Indeed, donor-conceived people drew on experiential and institutional knowledges to position themselves as an authority on donor conception as people with lived expertise. I argue that belonging, for donor-conceived people, is experienced across three planes: in relation to peers, family and the State. In doing so, this thesis underscores how everyday belonging is relational and processual, and achieved through a range of momentous events, everyday encounters and humorous artefacts.

  • (2022) MacGibbon, James
    Thesis
    HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is a recent, yet significant, development in HIV prevention. This mixed-methods research followed PrEP’s introduction in Australia, and examined how gay, bisexual and queer (GBQ) men in relationships have adapted to and incorporated PrEP in their sex practices, relationships, and everyday lives. As PrEP raises the prospect of having condomless sex both within and outside primary relationships without risking HIV infection, this research revisited the concept of negotiated safety (Kippax et al., 1997) to explore how HIV-negative GBQ men practice and negotiate safe sex in the era of biomedical HIV prevention. Quantitative data were collected in two national cross-sectional survey projects, The Gay Community Periodic Surveys (GCPS; 2013–2018) and the PrEPARE Project (2013–2021). The GCPS analysis showed a rapid shift away from relationship agreements in which condomless sex is only sanctioned between regular partners. The PrEPARE Project analysis found that men in relationships who used PrEP were more likely to have spoken and non-monogamous agreements, and to have partners that also used PrEP, compared to men in relationships who did not use PrEP. Qualitative data were generated using semi-structured, in-depth interviews conducted between January and August 2019 with 26 GBQ men in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth. Thematic analysis of these data identified new shared meanings and social practices that were enabled or mediated by PrEP, with an analytic focus on complexity, situatedness, contingency and relationality. Participant accounts illustrated diverse sexual practices and views about risk, but most participants adopted PrEP due to perceived HIV risk from casual sex rather than sex with their primary partners. PrEP complicated views about what counted as ‘safe sex’ and revealed changing understandings and practices of intimacy, pleasure, trust and risk. There was, however, an enduring narrative of individual responsibility to practice effective HIV prevention. Participants diverged in how they discussed and disclosed sexual practices with their primary and casual partners, revealing tensions about what disclosures were believed to be necessary or expected. Together, these quantitative and qualitative data collected as PrEP use became more common refocus attention on the practicality and complexity of relationship agreements among GBQ men.

  • (2022) Aung, Htein Linn
    Thesis
    With widespread access to combination anti-retroviral therapy (cART) and HIV suppression, life expectancy among people living with HIV (PLHIV) is increasing more than ever. According to UNAIDS, there were 8.1 million older PLHIV (i.e., 50 years of age and over) in 2020 globally. Although HIV-associated dementia has become rare in the cART era, mild neurocognitive impairments remain prevalent among PLHIV (~30% in virally suppressed). With aging, there is an increasing concern that HIV may precipitate neurocognitive abnormal aging because HIV is associated with increased markers of aging (e.g., immunosenescence and hyper-coagulopathy) and multiple age and HIV-related comorbidities (e.g., cardiovascular diseases). Importantly, these comorbidities occur at an earlier age and at a higher rate among PLHIV compared to age-matched HIV-negative persons. Earlier, more severe and more rapidly progressing neurocognitive impairment would have major public health consequences for the millions of PLHIV and the healthcare system. The overarching aim of this PhD thesis is to determine whether having chronic stable HIV infection and suppressive ART is associated with abnormal cognitive aging including premature cognitive aging (HIV and age synergistically/addictively lead to much lower cognitive performance at a younger age compared to controls), accentuated cognitive aging (HIV and age synergistically/addictively lead to much greater prevalence and severity of neurocognitive impairment), and/or accelerated cognitive aging (HIV and age synergistically/ addictively lead to much more rapid progression of neurocognitive impairment). To address these questions, we used a range of scientific methodologies including a systematic review, and several types of advanced statistical analyses using national and international longitudinal cohort data. First, to contextualise the potential public health consequences of cognitive aging in PLHIV, we conducted a narrative review of the burden of established dementia risk factors among PLHIV. We identified that the burden of several major dementia risk factors is much greater among PLHIV than in the general population. Second, we conducted the first-ever systematic review evaluating the current evidence for premature, accentuated and accelerated cognitive aging among PLHIV. We determined moderate evidence for premature cognitive aging and strong evidence for accelerated cognitive aging, while accentuated cognitive aging had not been optimally assessed. Lastly, addressing the previous literature major limitations (low sample size, cross-sectional study design, low proportion of older PLHIV, and inadequate controls/norms), we quantified the profiles of cognitive aging in four longitudinal studies of PLHIV. We demonstrated robust trends for premature cognitive aging among PLHIV compared to age-matched HIV-negative persons. We also demonstrated that older PLHIV had a higher risk for both neurocognitive impairment and neurocognitive decline compared to younger PLHIV, while controlling for normative age effect. These results are indicative of both accentuated and accelerated aging, although our research identified the need for longer-term studies using very large sample size to assess these trends especially in PLHIV older than 70+. Based on these findings, we discussed implications for clinical practice and future research directions.

  • (2022) Cama, Elena
    Thesis
    Dating and hookup platforms have become a popular tool for seeking romantic and sexual relationships. While there are numerous benefits to making connections online, popular media and academic literature have begun to document how these platforms are implicated in the perpetration of sexual harms. Drawing on feminist and queer understandings of sexual violence and technology, this thesis provides a mixed-methods examination of sexual harms experienced in the context of online dating. Data collection included an online survey (N=527) and in-depth interviews (N=25) with adult Australians who use dating and hookup platforms. Findings indicate that experiences of safety and sexual harms and their impacts in the context of dating and hookup platforms can be complex and varied, with many experiences diverging from legal and normative understandings of sexual violence. Participants documented a range of harms, including unwanted requests for sex, unsolicited sexual images, harassment based on gender, sexuality, and race, and unwanted sexual experiences, among others. These harms were gendered and intersectional, with women and sexuality diverse participants disproportionately affected. Minimisation and normalisation of sexual harms appeared to be common, due to the sexualised nature of these platforms and largely unquestioned acceptance of a ‘hookup’ culture in online dating. Cisnormative and heteronormative discourses of gender, sexuality, sexual behaviours, and sexual violence were both (re)produced and resisted by participants, illustrating how socio-cultural and sexual norms may become inscribed within digital platforms, and alternatively how these platforms may be co-opted to resist or reject these norms. Existing reporting and response options from platforms to these harms were viewed as inadequate, with participants calling for greater transparency and accountability in reporting processes and tangible consequences for perpetrators of harmful behaviours. This thesis concludes with recommendations as to how platforms, law enforcement, and communities could better prevent and respond to these harms.

  • (2022) Sudewo, Anindita
    Thesis
    In recent years, major changes have affected the national response to HIV with people who inject drugs in Indonesia. These include changes in international HIV funding, the dissolution of the National AIDS commission, and a “war on drugs” declared by the Indonesian president in 2015. Set in this national context, this thesis examines the production of HIV risk for men and women who inject drugs in Indonesia; the factors that influence their engagement in harm reduction and HIV testing, treatment and care services; and the everyday strategies and actions instigated by people who inject drugs to enhance health and wellbeing. This study adopted a qualitative study design, and involved in-depth interviews with 36 men and women who inject drugs, and 10 key informants in community-based organisations (CBOs) and government health services. Key findings pertain to the production of HIV risk for people who inject drugs within micro-level social and physical spaces, influenced by macro-level stigmatising community values and criminalising policies; socio-ecological influences that inhibit their engagement in harm reduction and HIV services, including insular lifestyles associated with drug use and stigmatisation within interpersonal relationships with families and friends; the loss of critical community-based support services; and the shift of HIV care to formal government health services perceived as unsafe, with operations constrained by national policies. Yet, people who inject drugs also demonstrate a range of strategies – with support of people in injecting networks, families, CBOs and health services – that enable them to navigate and negotiate restrictive social, physical and policy environments to seek health and wellbeing. This thesis contributes to an emerging scholarship in social science approaches to public health in Indonesia. It draws on an analytic framework that recognises the interpersonal, institutional and contextual influences on people’s health and wellbeing, as well as the important action that HIV affected communities take to enhance their own lives in challenging contexts. The conclusions argue for the adoption of HIV and harm reduction practices and policies that cater to the complex lives of people who use drugs, and help overcome their everyday experiences of criminalisation and stigmatisation that produce risk and inhibit engagement in appropriate support services.

  • (2022) Madden, Annie
    Thesis
    People who use drugs have been participating in high level drug policy settings for decades, but little critical work has been done to interrogate ‘drug user representation’ in these highly politicised contexts. The aim of this thesis was to open up this terrain and make a scholarly contribution to understandings of both the theoretical underpinnings and the practices of ‘drug user representation’ in these policy settings. Having done decades of ‘drug user representation’ in these same settings, this thesis provided a unique opportunity for me to critically interrogate the practices involved, their underlying assumptions and the effects of these ‘ways of doing things’ for ‘drug user representation’. This research draws on a range of critical perspectives informed by the “ontological turn” including scholars working across disciplines in poststructuralism, critical feminism, Science & Technology Studies (STS) and posthumanism approaches. A qualitative study design was employed to examine ‘drug user representation’ in high level policy settings (such as the United Nations, Commission on Narcotic Drugs) drawing on documentary sources and semi-structured interviews (n=42) with participants engaged in and involved with ‘drug user representation’ within Australia and internationally. The ontopolitical orientation of the research allowed for a critical focus on questions of representation, performativity, power, and resistances underpinned by a reflexive approach consistent with this orientation. This research shows how, alongside increasing calls for greater involvement of people who use drugs in drug policy processes, dominant discourses and other drug policy practices are constantly working to enact drug user representatives as illegitimate political subjects, even before they get to the ‘policy table’. Despite these negative subjectification, discursive and material effects for ‘drug user representation’, the realities being produced through drug policy practices are not pre-determined and singular but emergent, multiple, and therefore, inherently political, and open to the possibility of being done differently. In the context of these ethico-political implications, this research considers how a greater commitment to caring for ‘drug user representation’ as a neglected and under-valued doing might open up new possibilities for ‘drug user representation’ – what it is and what it might become.

  • (2022) Overton, Kristen
    Thesis
    Addressing antimicrobial resistance (AMR) as a purely medical problem fails to recognise the sociological factors that drive the misuse of antimicrobials. Antimicrobial use is shaped by the local social, cultural, political and economic context. There is now widespread recognition that addressing AMR requires an understanding of the social factors that underpin our use and prescription of antimicrobials. Sociological and anthropological explorations of the global antimicrobial crisis have thus far disproportionately focused on economically wealthier nations. This is despite the recognition of economically poorer nations as sites of considerable, escalating, and often unregulated, antimicrobial use. This thesis examines the social dynamics of antimicrobial use in the Indian context through ethnographic observations and 100 qualitative interviews with doctors, community health practitioners, pharmacists, pharmacy employees and community members in Hyderabad, India. Using a constructivist grounded theory approach to data collection and analysis, the focus is on gaining an understanding of how enduring and emerging inequalities, infective risk and uncertainty, labour risks and precarious work, improvisation and self-medication, and informal and formal pharmaceutical economies shape antimicrobial use in India. Using a critical sociological lens, I explore: the dynamics of biopolitics and risk; the pharmaceuticalisation of everyday life and the vested interests therein; the economies of healthcare and antimicrobial use, including commodification and privatisation; and the vulnerability and structural violence associated with the use of antimicrobials. Knowledge of the social dynamics driving antimicrobial use can then in the future be used to inform policies and programs aimed at optimising antimicrobial use in India, appropriately tailoring them to context, rather than continuing with pan-national approaches that do little to accommodate considerations of the Global South.