Researchers in the Sociology Program have enjoyed considerable success in winning external funding to support their work. Current research projects are supported by grants from the Australian Research Council and from government, cultural, industry and community organisations.
Ongoing funded research projects are being conducted on the following topics:
Young injecting drug users,
embodied identities and social worlds: an ethnographic study.
Investigators: Dr Kevin McDonald,
Dr John Fitzgerald
This research explores the social experience of young injecting drug
users, mapping processes of initiation, the hidden drug experience,
and modes of maturing out of drug use. It focuses on analysing the trajectories
of young drug users in both rural and urban context, focusing on the
experience of embodied selfhood, social worlds and identities exploring
injecting use as a medium of relationship with the self and the other,
and mapping social networks and cultures of risk. It will develop key
implications for national and local drug policy in three critical areas:
prevention, harm minimisation and withdrawal.
Australian Research Council Discovery-Project Grant
Virtual Connections? Exploring Intimacies in Cyberspace.
Investigators: Dr
Millsom Henry-Waring, Dr Jo Barraket
Melbourne University Early Career Researcher Grant
Social connectedness and policy
development: modelling strategies and measures.
Investigators: Dr Jenny Lewis,
Dr Mark Considine, Dr
Jo Barraket
The project will build alternative models of connectedness to link together
community engagement, policy development and health.
VicHealth Research Grant
Hepatitis C and initiation
into injecting drug use in a rural setting.
Investigators: Dr John Fitzgerald, Dr
Kevin McDonald
Victorian Public Health Research Fund Grant
Defamation Law in Context: Australian and US News Production Practices and Public Debate
Investigators: Dr Andrew Kenyon, Dr Tim Marjoribanks. Research Fellow: Jason Bosland
Legal and media commentators claim Australian defamation law 'chills' media speech and limits public debate, especially compared to the US. This project examines how defamation risks are considered in media production practices under differing legal, institutional and social contexts in Australia and the US. It responds to important defamation law developments and media transformations. The project will:
- Produce qualitative data about media news production practices and products in Australia and the US
- Use the data to evaluate the role of defamation law in the media's contribution to public debate, and argue for optimal reforms to Australian defamation law.
Where commerce and culture
connect? Corporate governance and social capital in the global era:
the case of the AFL.
Chief Investigators: Assoc.
Prof. Ann Capling, Dr Tim Marjoribanks
This project investigates a central puzzle that confronts many community
organisations in the global era: how does an organisation sustain its
cultural core while negotiating the new challenges of commercial viability
and strategic governance? Increasingly, community organisations are
confronted with the logics of the market and corporate management. At
stake is their cultural identity, autonomy and their embeddedness in
local communities. Through a study of the 16 clubs of the Australian
Football League, this project aims to generate a new analytical framework
to evaluate organisations that seek to blend corporate governance and
community engagement in novel and innovative ways.
Australian Research Council Discovery-Project Grant
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