Videos by Gina L Hawkes
Book Chapters by Gina L Hawkes
Routledge Handbook of Sport, Leisure, and Social Justice, 2024
Peer Reviewed Articles by Gina L Hawkes
Sport in Society, 2023
Football (rugby league) shares performative acts of service with faith and family that are signif... more Football (rugby league) shares performative acts of service with faith and family that are significant to diasporic Pasifika personhood in Australia. Drawing on two years’ ethnographic fieldwork, I argue that participating in rugby league, whether spectating or playing, shares performative acts of service in similar ways to practices within faith and family, and that this can help us understand the high levels of Pasifika involvement in rugby league far better than any narrative of ‘natural’ Pasifika masculinity or physicality. I draw on the Pasifika concept of vā (‘the space between’) to help make sense of the power and connections between ‘the three f’s’. The vā is a complex concept of relationality and service, and can be a helpful tool in understanding the importance of rugby league to Australian-based Pasifika people, particularly the sport’s inextricable connections to family, and the changing nature of faith for the rapidly growing second-generation Pasifika diaspora.
Land Use Policy, 2023
Context
The mobility of weeds, use of biological controls and spread of herbicide resistance mean... more Context
The mobility of weeds, use of biological controls and spread of herbicide resistance mean that weed management is a landscape-scale problem. Area-wide management (AWM) presents one approach for land managers, industry and government representatives to collaborate to manage weeds across public and private properties. Such an approach has been successfully used for other landscape-scale problems, such as managing animal and insect pests.
Objective
This study aims to identify what individual, community and institutional factors are associated with growers’ participation in collaborative weed management in three cropping regions of Australia.
Methods
Survey responses from 604 cropping growers from the Riverina (n = 218), Sunraysia (n = 200), and Darling Downs (n = 186) regions of eastern Australia were recorded between July and September 2021. Questions were designed to collect information on: socio-economic characteristics; the nature of farming operations; weed management concerns and beliefs; and individual and collaborative weed management practices, which constitute area-wide weed management (AWWM). Fisher’s Exact test was applied to assess differences between growers who do and do not work together with others to manage weeds. P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. The Boruta random forest function was used for feature selection and a random forest regression including the selected variables was then applied to determine the accuracy of the model that explains whether land managers collaborate with others on weed management.
Results and Conclusion
Almost all (95%) growers agreed that each land manager has a responsibility to the whole region to control weeds and 84% agreed that effective control of weeds requires land managers to work together. Yet only 24% of growers currently work with other land managers on weed management. Growers who are less likely to work with others to manage weeds are those who: are less concerned about herbicide resistant weeds spreading to neighbouring land; are unlikely to share information with other land managers about weeds; or who are unlikely to attend meetings about local weed issues. Supporting greater uptake of AWM of weeds in the future will require increased awareness and education about the spread of herbicide resistance, building of new networks among growers and other key stakeholders, and development of AWWM activities that are accessible to all land managers regardless of time and financial constraints.
Significance
This research demonstrates for the first time the limited extent of AWM of cropping weeds among growers in eastern Australia, and that AWWM is hindered by knowledge, network and access constraints.
Agricultural Systems, 2023
CONTEXT
Area-wide collaboration across private and public property boundaries can enhance the man... more CONTEXT
Area-wide collaboration across private and public property boundaries can enhance the management of weeds and minimise the spread of herbicide resistance. Yet we know little about the practices individual land managers engage in to achieve area-wide weed management (AWWM).
OBJECTIVE
This paper uses Social Practice Theory (SPT) as a framework to understand how cropping land managers engage with the practices of AWWM, and what the drivers and barriers are to their participation.
METHODS
30 qualitative interviews were undertaken with land managers in Australian cropping regions of the Darling Downs (Queensland), Gwydir (New South Wales), Riverina (New South Wales) and Sunraysia (Victoria). Thematic analysis of the interviews explored the three dimensions of SPT—meanings, materials, and competences—of AWWM and the interactions between these elements.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS
There is a value-action gap between growers' desire to participate in AWWM practices and their capacity to do so. The analysis reveals that narrowing this gap requires interventions at the points where the SPT elements intersect. It recommends beginning by leveraging existing commonalities between growers who already have a desire to participate in AWWM then scaling out by encouraging trusted agronomist networks to link diverse growers to facilitate collaborative weed management practices. There is also a role for government in supporting the development of leadership capabilities among growers, providing an enabling environment for agronomists to act as systemic facilitators and leading by example on public land.
SIGNIFICANCE
Most of the research on collective management of weeds has focused on formal groups in grazing systems. This study provides new insights into how and why weeds are largely managed independently in cropping systems and proposes ways growers may be supported to adopt more collaborative practices to address this landscape-scale problem.
Invasive Plant Science and Management, 2023
There is limited documentation of cross-tenure collaborative weed management programs, and no con... more There is limited documentation of cross-tenure collaborative weed management programs, and no consistent set of metrics for evaluating their performance. In this study, 12 weed management practitioners in southeast Australia participated in a qualitative social research project to discuss and document examples of cross-tenure collaborative weed management and critically reflect on whether existing metrics are suitable for evaluating the performance of their programs. Analysis of focus group discussions, project documentation, subsequent reflections, and review of the literature reveal that weed management practitioners, in Australia and elsewhere, mostly rely on metrics that measure weed management inputs, such as herbicides, labor, and costs. Metrics used to evaluate social outcomes focus on benefits for individuals rather than social relationships or achievement of equitable outcomes. Social research on collaborative governance and social science methods more broadly, such as social network analysis and collective narratives, could be used by weed management practitioners to better evaluate and explain social–ecological outcomes over time.
Conservation Biology, 2022
Successful management of invasive plants (IPs) requires the active participation of diverse commu... more Successful management of invasive plants (IPs) requires the active participation of diverse communities across land tenures. This can be challenging because communities do not always share the views of scientists and managers. They may directly disagree, have alternative views, or be unwilling to manage IPs. Reviews of IP social science identify opportunities to better understand the role of cultural processes and everyday practices to address these challenges. To scale up and leverage the insights of existing qualitative social science IP research, we used meta-ethnography to unlock accounts and interpretations of lay perspectives. Meta-ethnography is a form of qualitative research synthesis increasingly used beyond its origins in health and education to produce interpretive syntheses of an area of research. In the 7 phases of meta-ethnography, we systematically identified and synthesized 19 qualitative articles pertinent to lay experience and knowledge of IPs in diverse settings. Action and meaning regarding IPs were influenced by 6 meta-themes in personal and social life: dissonance, priorities, difference, agency, responsibility, and future orientations. Through descriptions and examples of each meta-theme, we demonstrated how the meta-themes are higher level structuring concepts across the qualitative research that we analyzed and we retained grounding in the in-depth qualitative research. We characterized the meta-themes as leverage points and tensions by which we reframed lay people in terms of capacity for reflective IP management rather than as obstacles. The meta-ethnography synthesis shows how leverage points and tensions emerge from everyday life and can frame alternative and meaningful starting points for both research and public engagement and deliberation regarding IP management. These insights are not a panacea, but open up new space for reflective and mutual consideration of how to effectively navigate often complex IP problems and address conservation and social and livelihood issues in dynamic social and physical environments.
Sustainability, 2022
Herbicide resistance management is often understood as a decision for individual land managers, b... more Herbicide resistance management is often understood as a decision for individual land managers, but their decisions have far-reaching impacts for social-ecological systems. Area-wide management can reduce these impacts by supporting many land managers to cooperatively work towards a shared goal of reducing the spread of resistance. The aim of this research is to identify what support is needed for area-wide herbicide resistance management in cropping systems. Data was collected from 84 interviews with growers, public land managers and weed management advisors. Sixty-five interviews were conducted across three cropping regions of eastern Australia—Darling Downs (Queensland), Riverina (New South Wales) and Sunraysia (Victoria)—and 19 interviews were conducted with stakeholders beyond these regions. The majority (51%) of interviewees expressed concern about the spread of herbicide resistance, but only 14% described involvement in area-wide resistance management programs. Area-wide management was mostly reported to involve sharing information among stakeholders, rather than coordination or joint activities. Key barriers to participation were perceived to be the diverse agricultural industries in each region and the costs of participation. Future area-wide management program designs need to build working relationships among diverse stakeholders, clearly define the boundaries of the program and demonstrate the benefits that accrue from participation.
Leisure Studies: The Journal of the Leisure Studies Association UK, 2018
Pasifika men are significantly over-represented in Australia’s National Rugby League and their dr... more Pasifika men are significantly over-represented in Australia’s National Rugby League and their dramatic influx into the sport over the past 10–15 years has often been attributed to their ‘natural’ athleticism and other corporeal reasons invoking hyper-masculinity. Coupled with this discourse is the commonly accepted idea that these sporting opportunities are a good thing for Pasifika peoples. This paper considers both the damaging effects of the ‘hyper-masculine body’ and ‘sport-as-inherently good’ discourses, and addresses the positive potential rugby league has in transgressing various forms of oppression. Rather than arguing that sport is a positive force in society or outright challenging that assertion, I demonstrate how rugby league in Australia plays a paradoxical role in both reinforcing and challenging social values around race and masculinity. It can be a rare space for positive visibility and upward mobility for Pasifika and other Indigenous men, and a space of exploitation, degradation and racism; it can even save lives and destroy them. I argue that these complexities should be better understood before any moral claim is made about the positives or negatives of sport for marginalised peoples.
ab-Original: Journal of Indigenous Studies and First Nations and First Peoples’ Cultures, Jun 2017
National frameworks to guide universities on the ethical conduct of Indigenous research have emer... more National frameworks to guide universities on the ethical conduct of Indigenous research have emerged from a troubling history of ethically dubious inquiry in Australia. Although the development of such frameworks is commendable, we con- tend that institutionalizing them can have unintended unethical consequences. Through five personal vignettes, we share some of our research experiences where university ethics processes have resulted in neopaternalist, disrespectful, and therefore also unethical situations. These vignettes paint a picture of the challenges that arise when bureaucratic, neoliberal systems of legal accountability interact with systems of Indigenous custom, knowledge, and expectation. We argue that a greater focus on Indigenous knowledges in institutional frameworks would lead to more appropriate research behavior, better research outcomes, and fewer unethical situations.
Media articles by Gina L Hawkes
Thesis by Gina L Hawkes
RMIT University PhD Thesis, 2019
Pasifika men are significantly over-represented in Australian Rugby League with their dramatic in... more Pasifika men are significantly over-represented in Australian Rugby League with their dramatic influx into the sport over the past 20 years often being attributed to their “natural” athleticism and other corporeal reasons invoking hyper-masculinity. They are both glorified and demonised for these perceived qualities, and like other indigenous groups of men across the world, can be caught in a paradox of indigenous male athlete as ‘hero and dupe’ (Hokowhitu 2013: xvii). This thesis takes a decolonial approach to Pasifika rugby league in Australia by drawing on the Pasifika concept of vā – the spaces between – to challenge popular paradoxes and binaries such as indigenous/non-indigenous, hero/dupe, physical/intellectual, Pasifika/Australian, and masculine/feminine.
The vā is a space of active service, harmony, aesthetics, and connection, and I argue for its central role in mending the gaps between colonially separated categories for the Australian based Pasifika diaspora, particularly in rugby league which has vā-like qualities. Sport is often described as liminal, being betwixt and between reality and fiction, and as such shares similarities with Pasifika concepts of relationality where it is in the spaces that connect, rather than those that separate, where meaning is made. Sport has the power to both affirm and transgress off-field hostilities and traditions. It can be (and indeed has been) used as a colonising tool to “discipline the natives,” and at the same time it can be (and has been) used as an opportunity to beat the “master” at his or her own game.
Within these paradoxes are the most fruitful spaces – which I connect to the vā – and where in this thesis liminality gets a Pasifika makeover. I focus on the lived experiences, feelings and emotions of sport for the Australian Pasifika diaspora (and to a lesser degree New Zealand’s), exploring how Pasifika masculinity is framed and how this affects diasporic Pasifika peoples’ roles in “the three f’s” – family, faith, and football. Being a Pacific Islander in Australia is very different to being one in New Zealand or the United States of America. In Australia it is sports and sports media where most visibility and knowledge of Pasifika culture emanates and much of this is based on ideas around masculinity. Like the sea connecting Pacific Islands, diasporic Pasifika identities are made through connections to each other, to ancestral homelands and to their new homes and what they do there, including the playing and consuming of sports, which is, by no accident, itself betwixt and between.
Sport often exists in a balancing act between possibilities for emancipation and oppression and can aid both simultaneously. This includes the emancipation of indigenous masculinity from an inferior position to hegemonic white patriarchal masculinity, and the oppression of other subaltern forms of masculinity and femininity, including homosexual and transgender masculinities, and women. By acknowledging both the powers and pitfalls of rugby league for Australia’s Pasifika diaspora, and drawing attention to how both often coexist within the perceptions and practices of Pasifika peoples, I shed light on the complexities of what sport brings to an indigenous peoples’ lives on an everyday level, both good and bad, and what sport offers in and of itself rather than as a means to an end. I demonstrate how rugby league in Australia plays a paradoxical role in both reinforcing and challenging social values around race and masculinity and I put forward suggestions for better ways of understanding. I argue that being indigenous away from home and on stolen land is different to being indigenous to the land one occupies, but that indigenous people share common experiences of colonisation.
This thesis takes an ethnographic, multidisciplinary and mixed-methods approach which draws on Pasifika methodologies and values, my anthropological background, my position as a white female researcher in a Pasifika masculine research topic, and a commitment to decolonial practices. Like the subjects of this thesis, the way it is written reflects a space between traditional academic paradigms, and decolonial, indigenous and Pasifika frameworks. I am just as interested in how to research diasporic Pasifika identity as I am on the subject of diasporic Pasifika identity. For this work to adequately engage with decolonial and indigenous practices, I question the role of research itself, considering the spaces and paradoxes between so-called objectivity in research, and Pasifika concepts of connection.
Rugby league is fast becoming a Pasifika majority-played sport in Australia, and this position comes with opportunities to refashion a colonially introduced national sport that is run and reported on by a majority white-male cohort and shape it in ways that better benefit Pasifika peoples. While rugby league can be accused of perpetuating limiting stereotypes and perceptions of Pasifika identity, it also offers a rare space for subaltern masculinities and indigeneities, such as those from the Pacific Islands, to thrive in the culturally valued arena of sports in Australia. The arguments in this thesis contribute to more accurate understandings of Pasifika personhood being just as expansive as Hau‘ofa’s Pacific geographic imaginings – Pasifika peoples are not just part of a ‘sea of islands’, they are part of a constantly changing global diaspora of emergent and creative identity practices. I contend that Pasifika identity is not merely reflexive or tied to particular cultural tenets, but rather is formative, emergent and creative.
Book Reviews by Gina L Hawkes
Pacific Affairs, 2020
In this theoretically detailed and ambitious ethnography on modern Fijian masculinity, anthropolo... more In this theoretically detailed and ambitious ethnography on modern Fijian masculinity, anthropologist Geir Henning Presterudstuen delves deep into theories of modernity and gender in urban Fiji to make a significant contribution to the growing field of masculinity studies set outside the global north.
Conference Presentations by Gina L Hawkes
NAISA 2019 conference paper, 2019
Pasifika men in Australia are both glorified and demonized for their perceived hyper-masculinity,... more Pasifika men in Australia are both glorified and demonized for their perceived hyper-masculinity, none more so in the public eye than in rugby league where they are highly overrepresented. Part of my recently completed PhD research grapples with what a decolonial approach to Pasifika rugby league in Australia might look like by using the Pasifika concept of vā - the spaces between - to challenge binaries such as physical/intellectual, masculine/feminine, and hero/dupe. Sport is liminal, often said to be 'betwixt and between' reality and fiction, which fits with Pasifika concepts of relationality, where it is that which connects and is between, rather than that which separates, where meaning is made. In this paper I introduce my conceptualization of the vā within key paradoxes of sport, gender and diasporic identity, and argue for its ability to counter the colonially introduced and still popular rhetoric of 'natural' Pasifika hyper-physicality and masculinity. Like the sea connecting Pacific Islands, diasporic Pasifika identities are made through connections to each other, to ancestral homelands and to their new homes and what they do there, including the playing and consuming of sports, which is, by no accident, itself betwixt and between.
Australian Anthropology Society conference 2016
Men of Pacific Island descent in Australian sports have gone from a near invisible minority to ma... more Men of Pacific Island descent in Australian sports have gone from a near invisible minority to making up nearly half of all players across junior and senior rugby football codes. Despite their prominent position, exploitation, misunderstandings and stereotypes remain rife. Drawing on my work with rugby-engaged Pasifika men in Sydney, I look at how 'hypermasculinity' discourse is used to both degrade and commercialise Pasifika rugby players, and I discuss the different ways Pasifika men and their communities engage with these stereotypes. By drawing on the recent and increasing body of literature on indigenous masculinities, I argue that the 'noble savage' stereotype persists in the commercialised 'hypermasculinity' of rugby football in Australia but that it is manipulated by Pasifika peoples in creative and diverse ways.
Australian Association of Pacific Studies conference 2016
Too often western sports studies perpetuate racial stereotypes of Pacific men, focusing on either... more Too often western sports studies perpetuate racial stereotypes of Pacific men, focusing on either ‘flair’ or remittances. Sport is often mentioned in lists of crucial Samoan phenomena, alongside church and family for instance, and yet understanding is limited and stereotypes are rife. Using a critical anthropological methodology, I explore how sports are presently practiced and perceived by Samoan people in two postcolonial ‘global-north’ cities, to not only understand the nuances of sport in the diaspora, but the role of sport in the postcolonial world more generally. Using a transnational framework, I explore how sports, indigenous values, and western values intersect for Samoans abroad and how sport can both affirm and transgress cultural values. I hope to contribute to greater understandings of the unique and pertinent place the Pacific can play in understanding the global proliferation of sport, and help edge sport closer to being a well-understood and utilised bastion of diverse human
interaction.
Podcasts by Gina L Hawkes
SoundMinds Radio, 2016
We are used to seeing or playing sport without really thinking about the multiple sociocultural f... more We are used to seeing or playing sport without really thinking about the multiple sociocultural factors that take place in the game and on the field. Gina Hawkes (née Krone) delves into some of the most significant features of the most popular Australian sports. She analyses the concept of hypermasculinity looking at the physicality needed to practice AFL and Rugby, and how the body and minds of athletes have been portrayed and enacted according to different historical periods. In this episode we talk about the pedagogical strategies of the colonial project in Australia, and how globalised sports like Rugby are a useful case study to analyse issues such as masculinity, ethnicity and racism.
Newsletters by Gina L Hawkes
A short profile about my work on Pasifika masculinity and sports in Australia and Aotearoa, what ... more A short profile about my work on Pasifika masculinity and sports in Australia and Aotearoa, what led to it, and why it is important.
Uploads
Videos by Gina L Hawkes
Book Chapters by Gina L Hawkes
Peer Reviewed Articles by Gina L Hawkes
The mobility of weeds, use of biological controls and spread of herbicide resistance mean that weed management is a landscape-scale problem. Area-wide management (AWM) presents one approach for land managers, industry and government representatives to collaborate to manage weeds across public and private properties. Such an approach has been successfully used for other landscape-scale problems, such as managing animal and insect pests.
Objective
This study aims to identify what individual, community and institutional factors are associated with growers’ participation in collaborative weed management in three cropping regions of Australia.
Methods
Survey responses from 604 cropping growers from the Riverina (n = 218), Sunraysia (n = 200), and Darling Downs (n = 186) regions of eastern Australia were recorded between July and September 2021. Questions were designed to collect information on: socio-economic characteristics; the nature of farming operations; weed management concerns and beliefs; and individual and collaborative weed management practices, which constitute area-wide weed management (AWWM). Fisher’s Exact test was applied to assess differences between growers who do and do not work together with others to manage weeds. P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. The Boruta random forest function was used for feature selection and a random forest regression including the selected variables was then applied to determine the accuracy of the model that explains whether land managers collaborate with others on weed management.
Results and Conclusion
Almost all (95%) growers agreed that each land manager has a responsibility to the whole region to control weeds and 84% agreed that effective control of weeds requires land managers to work together. Yet only 24% of growers currently work with other land managers on weed management. Growers who are less likely to work with others to manage weeds are those who: are less concerned about herbicide resistant weeds spreading to neighbouring land; are unlikely to share information with other land managers about weeds; or who are unlikely to attend meetings about local weed issues. Supporting greater uptake of AWM of weeds in the future will require increased awareness and education about the spread of herbicide resistance, building of new networks among growers and other key stakeholders, and development of AWWM activities that are accessible to all land managers regardless of time and financial constraints.
Significance
This research demonstrates for the first time the limited extent of AWM of cropping weeds among growers in eastern Australia, and that AWWM is hindered by knowledge, network and access constraints.
Area-wide collaboration across private and public property boundaries can enhance the management of weeds and minimise the spread of herbicide resistance. Yet we know little about the practices individual land managers engage in to achieve area-wide weed management (AWWM).
OBJECTIVE
This paper uses Social Practice Theory (SPT) as a framework to understand how cropping land managers engage with the practices of AWWM, and what the drivers and barriers are to their participation.
METHODS
30 qualitative interviews were undertaken with land managers in Australian cropping regions of the Darling Downs (Queensland), Gwydir (New South Wales), Riverina (New South Wales) and Sunraysia (Victoria). Thematic analysis of the interviews explored the three dimensions of SPT—meanings, materials, and competences—of AWWM and the interactions between these elements.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS
There is a value-action gap between growers' desire to participate in AWWM practices and their capacity to do so. The analysis reveals that narrowing this gap requires interventions at the points where the SPT elements intersect. It recommends beginning by leveraging existing commonalities between growers who already have a desire to participate in AWWM then scaling out by encouraging trusted agronomist networks to link diverse growers to facilitate collaborative weed management practices. There is also a role for government in supporting the development of leadership capabilities among growers, providing an enabling environment for agronomists to act as systemic facilitators and leading by example on public land.
SIGNIFICANCE
Most of the research on collective management of weeds has focused on formal groups in grazing systems. This study provides new insights into how and why weeds are largely managed independently in cropping systems and proposes ways growers may be supported to adopt more collaborative practices to address this landscape-scale problem.
Media articles by Gina L Hawkes
Thesis by Gina L Hawkes
The vā is a space of active service, harmony, aesthetics, and connection, and I argue for its central role in mending the gaps between colonially separated categories for the Australian based Pasifika diaspora, particularly in rugby league which has vā-like qualities. Sport is often described as liminal, being betwixt and between reality and fiction, and as such shares similarities with Pasifika concepts of relationality where it is in the spaces that connect, rather than those that separate, where meaning is made. Sport has the power to both affirm and transgress off-field hostilities and traditions. It can be (and indeed has been) used as a colonising tool to “discipline the natives,” and at the same time it can be (and has been) used as an opportunity to beat the “master” at his or her own game.
Within these paradoxes are the most fruitful spaces – which I connect to the vā – and where in this thesis liminality gets a Pasifika makeover. I focus on the lived experiences, feelings and emotions of sport for the Australian Pasifika diaspora (and to a lesser degree New Zealand’s), exploring how Pasifika masculinity is framed and how this affects diasporic Pasifika peoples’ roles in “the three f’s” – family, faith, and football. Being a Pacific Islander in Australia is very different to being one in New Zealand or the United States of America. In Australia it is sports and sports media where most visibility and knowledge of Pasifika culture emanates and much of this is based on ideas around masculinity. Like the sea connecting Pacific Islands, diasporic Pasifika identities are made through connections to each other, to ancestral homelands and to their new homes and what they do there, including the playing and consuming of sports, which is, by no accident, itself betwixt and between.
Sport often exists in a balancing act between possibilities for emancipation and oppression and can aid both simultaneously. This includes the emancipation of indigenous masculinity from an inferior position to hegemonic white patriarchal masculinity, and the oppression of other subaltern forms of masculinity and femininity, including homosexual and transgender masculinities, and women. By acknowledging both the powers and pitfalls of rugby league for Australia’s Pasifika diaspora, and drawing attention to how both often coexist within the perceptions and practices of Pasifika peoples, I shed light on the complexities of what sport brings to an indigenous peoples’ lives on an everyday level, both good and bad, and what sport offers in and of itself rather than as a means to an end. I demonstrate how rugby league in Australia plays a paradoxical role in both reinforcing and challenging social values around race and masculinity and I put forward suggestions for better ways of understanding. I argue that being indigenous away from home and on stolen land is different to being indigenous to the land one occupies, but that indigenous people share common experiences of colonisation.
This thesis takes an ethnographic, multidisciplinary and mixed-methods approach which draws on Pasifika methodologies and values, my anthropological background, my position as a white female researcher in a Pasifika masculine research topic, and a commitment to decolonial practices. Like the subjects of this thesis, the way it is written reflects a space between traditional academic paradigms, and decolonial, indigenous and Pasifika frameworks. I am just as interested in how to research diasporic Pasifika identity as I am on the subject of diasporic Pasifika identity. For this work to adequately engage with decolonial and indigenous practices, I question the role of research itself, considering the spaces and paradoxes between so-called objectivity in research, and Pasifika concepts of connection.
Rugby league is fast becoming a Pasifika majority-played sport in Australia, and this position comes with opportunities to refashion a colonially introduced national sport that is run and reported on by a majority white-male cohort and shape it in ways that better benefit Pasifika peoples. While rugby league can be accused of perpetuating limiting stereotypes and perceptions of Pasifika identity, it also offers a rare space for subaltern masculinities and indigeneities, such as those from the Pacific Islands, to thrive in the culturally valued arena of sports in Australia. The arguments in this thesis contribute to more accurate understandings of Pasifika personhood being just as expansive as Hau‘ofa’s Pacific geographic imaginings – Pasifika peoples are not just part of a ‘sea of islands’, they are part of a constantly changing global diaspora of emergent and creative identity practices. I contend that Pasifika identity is not merely reflexive or tied to particular cultural tenets, but rather is formative, emergent and creative.
Book Reviews by Gina L Hawkes
Conference Presentations by Gina L Hawkes
interaction.
Podcasts by Gina L Hawkes
Newsletters by Gina L Hawkes
The mobility of weeds, use of biological controls and spread of herbicide resistance mean that weed management is a landscape-scale problem. Area-wide management (AWM) presents one approach for land managers, industry and government representatives to collaborate to manage weeds across public and private properties. Such an approach has been successfully used for other landscape-scale problems, such as managing animal and insect pests.
Objective
This study aims to identify what individual, community and institutional factors are associated with growers’ participation in collaborative weed management in three cropping regions of Australia.
Methods
Survey responses from 604 cropping growers from the Riverina (n = 218), Sunraysia (n = 200), and Darling Downs (n = 186) regions of eastern Australia were recorded between July and September 2021. Questions were designed to collect information on: socio-economic characteristics; the nature of farming operations; weed management concerns and beliefs; and individual and collaborative weed management practices, which constitute area-wide weed management (AWWM). Fisher’s Exact test was applied to assess differences between growers who do and do not work together with others to manage weeds. P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. The Boruta random forest function was used for feature selection and a random forest regression including the selected variables was then applied to determine the accuracy of the model that explains whether land managers collaborate with others on weed management.
Results and Conclusion
Almost all (95%) growers agreed that each land manager has a responsibility to the whole region to control weeds and 84% agreed that effective control of weeds requires land managers to work together. Yet only 24% of growers currently work with other land managers on weed management. Growers who are less likely to work with others to manage weeds are those who: are less concerned about herbicide resistant weeds spreading to neighbouring land; are unlikely to share information with other land managers about weeds; or who are unlikely to attend meetings about local weed issues. Supporting greater uptake of AWM of weeds in the future will require increased awareness and education about the spread of herbicide resistance, building of new networks among growers and other key stakeholders, and development of AWWM activities that are accessible to all land managers regardless of time and financial constraints.
Significance
This research demonstrates for the first time the limited extent of AWM of cropping weeds among growers in eastern Australia, and that AWWM is hindered by knowledge, network and access constraints.
Area-wide collaboration across private and public property boundaries can enhance the management of weeds and minimise the spread of herbicide resistance. Yet we know little about the practices individual land managers engage in to achieve area-wide weed management (AWWM).
OBJECTIVE
This paper uses Social Practice Theory (SPT) as a framework to understand how cropping land managers engage with the practices of AWWM, and what the drivers and barriers are to their participation.
METHODS
30 qualitative interviews were undertaken with land managers in Australian cropping regions of the Darling Downs (Queensland), Gwydir (New South Wales), Riverina (New South Wales) and Sunraysia (Victoria). Thematic analysis of the interviews explored the three dimensions of SPT—meanings, materials, and competences—of AWWM and the interactions between these elements.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS
There is a value-action gap between growers' desire to participate in AWWM practices and their capacity to do so. The analysis reveals that narrowing this gap requires interventions at the points where the SPT elements intersect. It recommends beginning by leveraging existing commonalities between growers who already have a desire to participate in AWWM then scaling out by encouraging trusted agronomist networks to link diverse growers to facilitate collaborative weed management practices. There is also a role for government in supporting the development of leadership capabilities among growers, providing an enabling environment for agronomists to act as systemic facilitators and leading by example on public land.
SIGNIFICANCE
Most of the research on collective management of weeds has focused on formal groups in grazing systems. This study provides new insights into how and why weeds are largely managed independently in cropping systems and proposes ways growers may be supported to adopt more collaborative practices to address this landscape-scale problem.
The vā is a space of active service, harmony, aesthetics, and connection, and I argue for its central role in mending the gaps between colonially separated categories for the Australian based Pasifika diaspora, particularly in rugby league which has vā-like qualities. Sport is often described as liminal, being betwixt and between reality and fiction, and as such shares similarities with Pasifika concepts of relationality where it is in the spaces that connect, rather than those that separate, where meaning is made. Sport has the power to both affirm and transgress off-field hostilities and traditions. It can be (and indeed has been) used as a colonising tool to “discipline the natives,” and at the same time it can be (and has been) used as an opportunity to beat the “master” at his or her own game.
Within these paradoxes are the most fruitful spaces – which I connect to the vā – and where in this thesis liminality gets a Pasifika makeover. I focus on the lived experiences, feelings and emotions of sport for the Australian Pasifika diaspora (and to a lesser degree New Zealand’s), exploring how Pasifika masculinity is framed and how this affects diasporic Pasifika peoples’ roles in “the three f’s” – family, faith, and football. Being a Pacific Islander in Australia is very different to being one in New Zealand or the United States of America. In Australia it is sports and sports media where most visibility and knowledge of Pasifika culture emanates and much of this is based on ideas around masculinity. Like the sea connecting Pacific Islands, diasporic Pasifika identities are made through connections to each other, to ancestral homelands and to their new homes and what they do there, including the playing and consuming of sports, which is, by no accident, itself betwixt and between.
Sport often exists in a balancing act between possibilities for emancipation and oppression and can aid both simultaneously. This includes the emancipation of indigenous masculinity from an inferior position to hegemonic white patriarchal masculinity, and the oppression of other subaltern forms of masculinity and femininity, including homosexual and transgender masculinities, and women. By acknowledging both the powers and pitfalls of rugby league for Australia’s Pasifika diaspora, and drawing attention to how both often coexist within the perceptions and practices of Pasifika peoples, I shed light on the complexities of what sport brings to an indigenous peoples’ lives on an everyday level, both good and bad, and what sport offers in and of itself rather than as a means to an end. I demonstrate how rugby league in Australia plays a paradoxical role in both reinforcing and challenging social values around race and masculinity and I put forward suggestions for better ways of understanding. I argue that being indigenous away from home and on stolen land is different to being indigenous to the land one occupies, but that indigenous people share common experiences of colonisation.
This thesis takes an ethnographic, multidisciplinary and mixed-methods approach which draws on Pasifika methodologies and values, my anthropological background, my position as a white female researcher in a Pasifika masculine research topic, and a commitment to decolonial practices. Like the subjects of this thesis, the way it is written reflects a space between traditional academic paradigms, and decolonial, indigenous and Pasifika frameworks. I am just as interested in how to research diasporic Pasifika identity as I am on the subject of diasporic Pasifika identity. For this work to adequately engage with decolonial and indigenous practices, I question the role of research itself, considering the spaces and paradoxes between so-called objectivity in research, and Pasifika concepts of connection.
Rugby league is fast becoming a Pasifika majority-played sport in Australia, and this position comes with opportunities to refashion a colonially introduced national sport that is run and reported on by a majority white-male cohort and shape it in ways that better benefit Pasifika peoples. While rugby league can be accused of perpetuating limiting stereotypes and perceptions of Pasifika identity, it also offers a rare space for subaltern masculinities and indigeneities, such as those from the Pacific Islands, to thrive in the culturally valued arena of sports in Australia. The arguments in this thesis contribute to more accurate understandings of Pasifika personhood being just as expansive as Hau‘ofa’s Pacific geographic imaginings – Pasifika peoples are not just part of a ‘sea of islands’, they are part of a constantly changing global diaspora of emergent and creative identity practices. I contend that Pasifika identity is not merely reflexive or tied to particular cultural tenets, but rather is formative, emergent and creative.
interaction.