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Centre for Research on Social Inclusion
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Robyn Dowling
Robyn Dowling
Department of Human Geography
In general, my research focuses on the ways in which ideas and attitudes, especially about gender and class, are implicated in the building and living of suburban homes and neighbourhoods. Here, I focus on suburban neighbourhoods, suburban houses, and suburban women’s travel patterns. More specifically in relation to the proposed Centre, my research investigates processes of inclusion and exclusion in both regional and urban spaces. Through my previous interests in western Sydney I have demonstrated the importance of media in constructing this region as an excluded space, as well as the ways resident activities and narratives create places of inclusion. My recently-completed ARC project on geographies of home in suburban Sydney conducted a multi-dimensional (economic, cultural and social) analysis of suburban housing. It showed the processes that connect individuals to their homes, these homes to broader economic and social processes, and the importance of aesthetics and family in notions of home. My current research on the governance of urban social life (ARC application and RAACE scholarship) examines two of the key influences of the formation of neighbourhood ties – governance structures (of both planning and corporations) and processes of community formation within neighbourhoods in different parts of the city. These research interests fit comfortably within ‘Inclusion and Exclusion in Urban and Regional Spaces’.
Recent Publications
Books
2006 Blunt, A. and Dowling, R. Home, London : Routledge
Book Chapters
2005 Power, ethics and subjectivity in qualitative research in I Hay (ed) Qualitative Methods in Human Geography, second edition, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, in press (accepted 10/04)
Journal Articles
2005 Fagan, R. and Dowling, R. “Neoliberalism and suburban employment: western Sydney in the 1990s” Geographical Research, in press 43 (1): 71-81.
2005 McNeill, D., Dowling, R. and Fagan, F. “Sydney/Global/City: an exploration” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, (accepted 11/04)
2005 “Social and cultural geography in Australia ”, Social and Cultural Geography, in press (accepted 07/04)
2003 Mee, K. and Dowling, R Reading Idiot Box: films, reviews and the relationship between social worlds and cultural products, Social and Cultural Geography, 4, (2), 185-200.
Refereed Conference Papers
2003 Gendered and feminist geographies in Australia, Geography’s New Frontiers, Sydney: Geographical Society of New South Wales Incorporated.
2002 Lyth-Gollner, A. and Dowling, R The implications of household form, gender, and parenting cultures for car use and urban transport policy: a Sydney case study, Papers of the 25th Australasian Transport Research Forum Canberra, 2-4 October 2002, sect. 7.