Transcript Networks of collaboration, webs of meaning The Greater

Researching Cultures
in Sydney’s West
Elaine Lally
Centre for Cultural Research,
University of Western Sydney
Greater Western Sydney
• 45% of Sydney’s
population
• Nearly 10% of
national
population
• 14 local
government
areas
• 6 campuses of
UWS
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University of Western Sydney
• Third largest
economy nationally
• Culturally diverse,
more than 100
nationalities
• World Heritage Blue
Mountains region,
Olympic venues, sites
of indigenous and colonial heritage
• Mission linked to the development of the region - a ‘university of the people’
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Centre for Cultural Research
• Flagship university research centre within the
College of Arts
• aims to address the cultural challenges and
contradictions of a 21st century world that is
increasingly globalised, diverse and
technologically mediated.
• Key to research mission is collaboration -- with
(not on) communities and organisations,
generating new knowledge in context, focussing
on problem-solving.
• Intersection of Cultural Studies with
Anthropology, Geography, History, Sociology
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Profile
• over 50 research projects during the last three
years
• many funded by highly competitive grants from
the Australian Research Council
• Research training through conventional thesisbased Masters and Doctorates, plus
professional Doctor of Cultural Research and
Doctor of Creative Arts degrees
• Regularly hosts visiting international scholars for
seminars and conferences as well as longer
visits
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Framing contexts
• culture as a vital dimension of social, political and
economic life in:
– communities - intercultural and intercommunal relations, global
movements, transnational experiences, and diasporic identities
– environments - natural and human worlds, politics of
sustainability, new technologies
– media - contemporary communications and forms of
representation, new modes of mediated citizenship
– institutions - governance, policy and practice, esp. in cultural
and creative organisations, cultural labour & economy
– cities - local-global relations in urban environments, cultural
planning and development, social & political dynamics of
everyday life.
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Current and recent projects
• Hot Science, Global Citizens: The agency of the museum sector in climate
change debates
• City After Dark: Governance & lived experience of urban night-time culture
• Struggling for Possession: Control and use of online media sport
• Digital Storytelling: Urban narratives of migration and sustainability of
community media in western Sydney
• Universal Design and Cultural Context: Accessibility, diversity and
recreational space in Penrith
• Cross-cultural 'larrikins' in a Neo-liberal world: ideology and myth in
postmodern Australia, Mexico and Brazil
• Culture Circuits: Exploring the international networks and institutions
shaping contemporary cultural policy
• Cultural Research for the 21st Century: Building cultural intelligence for a
complex world
• Complexity in the interface between telecommunications service providers
and consumers
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People
• Five professors:
– David Rowe (Director)
– Ien Ang (Distinguished
Professor, Founding Director)
– Kay Anderson
– Bob Hodge
– Meaghan Morris
(half-yearly)
– From 2010, Tony Bennett
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School-based researchers
• School of Humanities and Languages
– Brett Neilson, Greg Noble, George Morgan, James
Arvanitakis, Judith Snodgrass, Adrian Carton
• School of Communication Arts
– Juan Salazar, Hart Cohen, Kaye Shumack, Virginia
Nightingale
• School of Education
– Megan Watkins
• School of Social Sciences
– Deborah Stevenson, Robyn Bushell, Russell Staiff,
Stephen Tomsen
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Research fellows, project staff, others
• Research fellows
– Elaine Lally (SRF & Assistant Director), Fiona
Cameron, Fiona Allon (APDI), Cristina Rocha (APD),
Cameron McAuliffe, Greg Young
• Project based staff
– casual and contract appointments, approx. 20-30 (?)
• Adjunct fellows
– Helen Armstrong, Ned Rossiter, Zoë Sofoulis, Andre
Frankovits
• Administrative team
– Maree O’Neill, Tulika Dubey, Wayne Peake, Christy
Nguy, Victor Rahman
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Elaine Lally
• With UWS since 1997
• Assistant Director of CCR since 2001
• Background in IT, Anthropology, Cultural
Studies
• PhD on computers in the home (At Home
with Computers, Berg 2002)
• Current research across cultural aspects
of IT, cultural policy and administration
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http://www.culturalatlas.net.au
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Collaborative approach
• Not a centralised repository
• An infrastructure to ‘plug in to’
• Not just one point of view -- ‘official’ and
‘alternative’ perspectives
• Story-telling as a local policy and cultural
development tool
• Attribution of origin always clear
• Development of partnerships -- ICE, WSROC,
local councils, other community-based
organisations
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Art of Engagement -- arts-business collaboration
• Partnership between MCA, Casula
Powerhouse, Penrith Regional Gallery
• Customised arts activities through cultural
brokerage (Jock McQueenie)
• Three commercial partners -- Panthers,
SITA, Hammond Care
• Nine artists -- international, national,
regional
• 3Cs -- culture, community, commerce
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Our research project
• Ethnography of the C3 West initiative
• Focussing on:
– Collaboration
– Multi-disciplinarity and brokerage
– Inter-institutional negotiations and
temporalities
– Contemporary visual artists and innovation
– Networks and assemblages
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Thank you