Funding Body:
Australian Research Council (Linkage Grant) and
VicHealth - Victorian Health Promotion Foundation (Industry Partner)

Timeline:
July 2003 – August 2006

Description:
This project will examine the full impact of cultural activities such as arts events, festivals and commemorations on the sustainability of communities. Most contemporary evaluation of community activities tends to assess single events out of context. By contrast, this project will comparatively examine specific communities in depth, and across multiple activities. The project will generate a broad empirical foundation, hitherto unavailable, for developing an analytical understanding of the relationship between community building and individual wellbeing. It will develop a model for understanding the real effects of cultural practices, enabling governments and funding bodies to assess how best to support communities.

Negotiating Local/Global Tensions: Globalisation and Community Sustainability

Chief Investigator:
Prof. Paul James
Partner Investigators:
Dr Kate Cregan, Dr Kim Humphery, Dr Yaso Nadarajah, Mr Peter Phipps, Dr Chris Scanlon (recipients January 2004-June 2005, Dr Karen Malone, Prof John Martin)
Researchers
Ms Julie Foster-Smith, Mr Hariz Halilovich, Dr Chris Shepherd, Mr Julian Silverman

Funding Body:
RMIT University, VRII funding

Timeline:
January 2004–December 2006

Description:
This longitudinal research project into ten communities around the globe, will determine if and how communities are negotiating the transformations wrought by globalisation. The concept of “community sustainability” provides a frame for these investigations. Although usually considered in relation to environmental concerns, we will extend “community sustainability” to explore the contribution that cultural practices make to strengthening communities. The project will generate a broad empirical foundation of use to governments and funding bodies in assessing how best to support communities, durable links between communities, researchers, and government, and information sharing arrangements to empower communities to enact their own sustainability goals.

Globalization and Community Sustainability, Hamilton

Chief Investigator:
Dr Yaso Nadarajah
Community Project Facilitators
Mrs Cicely Fenton, Ms Vicki Finch, Ms Terri Nicholson
Research Fellows
Dr Martin Mulligan, Professor Paul James
Research Assistants
Ms Gloria Martinez

Funding Body:
The Handbury Trust

Timeline:
2003-2008

Description:
This project has been funded for three years by the Handbury Trust and the Globalism Institute’s Local-Global Project.

RMIT University's involvement with the region goes back a long way to when students came for outdoor teaching in cultural, environmental and field study tours. Formally established in 1996, the RMIT University and Southern Grampians Shire community partnership engaged through a common goal of building intercultural exchanges and international linkages at a time when both groups were beginning to understand the enormous implications of economic globalisation and environmental degradation. This partnership enabled the development of several programs and projects.

The current research project involves a group of individuals working together as a social, emotional, purposeful, and analytic network including researchers both from RMIT and the region. This research project focuses on understanding how communities are negotiating transformations wrought by globalization, especially through the regional setting. A Critical Reference Group (CRG) provides a reflective forum and reference base for the project.




Consuming the Globe

Chief Investigators:
Dr Kim Humphery and Prof. Paul James

Funding Body:
RMIT Research Infrastructure Funding

Description:
The study aims both to trace the rise of three multinational retailers in Australia over the last decade and to qualitatively explore how a selected study group of people have responded to the presence of the ‘global shop’. For many Australians one of the most obvious signs of ‘globalisation’ is the local presence of the international retailer, a presence that has invoked a varied set of responses nationally. Concentrating both on people’s use and their avoidance of ‘international’ retail spaces, this pilot project has two integrated phases. Phase One will develop a series of case-studies tracing the rise of particular global retailers in Australia over the last decade. Phase Two, utilising a qualitative methodology, will investigate how people are responding to this phenomenon. The purpose of the study is thus threefold. Firstly, it will provide a much-needed analysis of the recent globalisation of Australian consumer culture through a specific focus on international retailing. Secondly, it will document how people interpret and respond to these socio-economic changes, grounding the concept of globalisation within everyday social and cultural concerns. Thirdly, it will facilitate the detailed design of a broader, qualitative/quantitative study of global consumption in Australia.