Past projects
Multiculturalism and governance
Evaluating arts policies and engaging cultural citizenship
Investigators
Nikos Papastergiadis, Audrey Yue, Rimi Khan, Ghassan Hage, Ramaswami Harindranath.
About
This Australian Research Council-funded Linkage Project examines the capacity of multicultural arts to promote a sense of belonging within Culturally and Linguistically Diverse communities. Through its study of arts policy, production and consumption at three levels of government it will generate a new framework for evaluating the significance of multiculturalism.
This is the first sustained project to focus on multicultural arts' impact in Australia's rapidly emerging growth corridor municipalities. It is also significant for developing a collaborative research methodology.
In collaboration with partner organisations City of Whittlesea, Creative Victoria, Office of Multicultural Affairs and Citizenship and the Australia Council, the study assesses how cultural citizenship takes place through cultural participation. In doing so it will develop cultural indicators and generate best practice models that will benefit policy professionals, arts organisations and multicultural advocates.
Cultural indicators survey
As part of the development of a measurement framework examining cultural participation and cultural citizenship, researchers from this project undertook a survey. The survey was available in English, Chinese and Arabic.
The data was stored and analysed by University of Melbourne researchers in keeping with the University's ethics requirements. For further information about the research, please see this web page or contact the Project Manager, email Rimi Khan.
Funding
Australia Research Council, Linkage Project
Partners
Australia Council for the Arts
City of Whittlesea
Office of Multicultural Affairs and Citizenship
Arts Victoria (2011-2014)
Period
2011-2015
Publications
Growing old and staying connected
Touch screen technology for ameliorating older people's experience of social isolation
Investigators
Frank Vetere, Lars Kulik, Jenny Waycott, Elizabeth Ozanne, Sonja Pedell.
About
Social isolation is experienced when people have limited contact with others. It affects many older people and is associated with a range of physical and mental health problems. It is, therefore, a significant health concern, particularly for an ageing population. This project investigates the use of novel technologies to prevent and to ameliorate social isolation experienced by older adults.
Funding
Australia Research Council, Linkage Project
Partners
Networked Society Institute (NSI)
Benetas
Period
2012-2015
Project web page
Aboriginal young people in Victoria and digital storytelling
Investigators
Professor Scott McQuire, Dr Fran Edmonds, Dr Richard Chenhall, Dr Michelle Evans, Ms Kimba Thompson, Ms Helen Simondson, Ms Christine Evely, Mr Jim Rimmer.
About
This was the first project to explore digital storytelling as a creative forum for supporting Victorian Aboriginal youth. An innovative collaborative design incorporating digital storytelling workshops and exhibitions will foster digital literacy and promote intergenerational dialogue among Aboriginal participants. A reflexive process of knowledge exchange between partner organisations and Aboriginal communities will develop protocols for supporting Aboriginal control of cultural knowledge in digital stories. The aim was to advance the social and emotional wellbeing of Aboriginal youth, while providing sustainable, culturally aware models for institutions collecting and displaying contemporary digital expressions of Aboriginal culture.
Funding
Australia Research Council, Linkage Project
Partners
Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI)
Sista Girl Productions
Victorian Health Promotion Foundation
Period
2013-2017
Avatars and Identity
Research Data Australia grant information
Investigators
Justin Clemens, Thomas Apperley, John Frow.
About
The avatar, a virtual representation of its user, is the key element of interface technology for everyday computer use in the twenty-first century. While specialist aspects of the avatar have received intensive attention from the technology industries and scholars, the focus of the work to date has been on the technical efficiency of the interface, rather than understanding the full social implications of its use. Through a historical, ethnographic and critical analysis of the role of the avatar, in consultation with industry, this project offers a unique opportunity to develop a wider perspective that will contribute to an understanding of the uses and policies for the digital economy.
Period
2014-2016
Transforming City Spaces: Street Art, Urban Cultures, Transnational Networks
Find an Expert grant information
Investigator
Alison Young
About
Why has an illicit activity become one of the most significant art movements of recent years? How did a subcultural practice once regarded as vandalism come to signify urban creativity? In what ways can street art contribute to the invigoration of cultural practices and city spaces? These questions are answered by means of an interdisciplinary approach combining comparative fieldwork with theoretical analysis, and drawing from urban studies, criminology, cultural theory and socio-legal studies. The project provides a grounded evaluation of street art’s potential to transform our understandings and experiences of urban spaces, cultural value, and transnational networks.
Period
2012-2017
Public Libraries in the Digital Economy
Bukit Panjang Public Library, Singapore. Image provided by Dale Leorke, all rights reserved.
Investigators
Professor Scott McQuire, Dr Dale Leorke, Dr Danielle Wyatt, with Sarah Slade (State Library Victoria)
About
Far from becoming obsolete with the advent of online archives, the public library has been highly successful in its adaptation to networked digital technologies and an increasingly digital culture. This project is one of the few studies to examine the public library beyond its four walls, and make an account of the expanded role it is playing in cities, communities and in broader governmental policies and agendas. Case studies have been drawn from the Queensland Library Network, from new library developments in Geelong and inner Melbourne, from Singapore, and from the State Library of Victoria as it embarks upon a major redevelopment to transition into the digital era.
Importantly, the research reveals the intersection of public libraries with the economic agendas of cities, as articulated in visions of the smart city, the creative city and the digital economy. How are these visions impacting upon the funding structures, governance models and traditional functions of public libraries? How are resources distributed between metropolitan, rural and regional libraries? And what kinds of tensions exist between the library’s increasingly economic mandate, and its historic role as a foundational institution of the modern public sphere?
Period
2015
Multicultural Youth Digital Citizenship
Multicultural Youth Digital Citizenship
Investigators
Audrey Yue, Dr Gilbert Caluya, Soo-Lin Quek, Edmee Kenny.
About
This project will survey Australian culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) youth's (16-26yo) engagement with digital technologies and its relation to civic practices of resilience and their parents' digital literacy.
Period
2017
Urban Digital Infrastructure
Children's active video games: family perceptions, users and negotiations
Find an Expert grant information
Investigator
Funded Projects
ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DE130100735)
About
This research project explored infants' and toddlers' use of mobile and touchscreen media in family life. It drew on ethnographic data from households focused on changing media environments, everyday encounters with and embodiments of mobile interfaces. This household research was accompanied by online data collection focused on the public context of, and cultural content shared about, young children's mobile media use on social media. Drawing these lines of inquiry together, this research explored the intersection of touchscreen interfaces, digital parenting, and commercial software design.
Period
2013-2018
Emerging Networks of Collaborative Exchange
Investigators
Bjorn Nansen, J. Kennedy, R. Wilken, Martin Gibbs, Michael Arnold, Tamara Kohn, J. Meese
About
The research aimed to deepen our understanding of the complexity, cultural significance and innovative potential of new sharing and exchange practices for Australian social and economic life, by focusing on local case studies of collaborative networks to capture and dissect the diversity of this emerging sector, to understand the actors participating in each network, the contribution of the technologies and their affordances, and the ways they are represented in the public and policy imagination.
This research was supported to date by a Melbourne Networked Society Institute (MNSI) Seed Funding Grant. It involved a collaboration with the City of Melbourne Smart City Office to co-produce a report on the Melbourne sharing economy; and was under consideration for an Australian Research Council Discovery grant.
Architecture, Art and Digital Place-Making
Transforming Housing: an affordable housing exposition for Melbourne
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Investigators
About
The key research question for this project is: How can a partnership approach between government, private and non-profit housing developers, investors and design / construction firms be enabled to support innovative and deliberative approaches to increase affordably housing supply and quality?
Period
2015-2018