Suburban Melbourne Research Articles

The Spatial Geographies of Women Urban Runners

ABSTRACT Taking the northern suburbs of Melbourne, Australia, as a case study, we researched the running experiences of women through a feminist geography lens. Interviews with runners informed the design and interpretation of a spatial analysis of women’s running patterns in Strava Metro data. Our study showed how women runners are limited in where they run, and illuminated features of urban environments that can contribute to gendered limitations running women experience. Our approach took us beyond critiques of park management (e.g. lighting, toilets, trail surface), to eventually form findings about how urban form influences the spatial geographies of women runners. HIGHLIGHTS Women restrict where they run alone more than men do because of fear of being attacked by a man, avoiding isolated places in particular. Running is an activity in which women can feel at their most vulnerable in urban public space, as they are often alone, outside beyond daylight hours, and are seeking soft surfaced paths away from motor traffic, places where real-life passive surveillance is usually lower. Gendered differences in the use of urban space by runners can be observed in Strava Metro data. A key feature of women’s running route decision-making is that women will avoid and seek certain places based on how many other people they expect to be present there. Women runners benefit from urban forms which encourage high pedestrian activity, including medium-high urban density and pedestrian prioritised links to greenspaces that are separated from key traffic routes.

Traffic-Related Air Pollution and Childhood Asthma—Are the Risks Appropriately Mitigated in Australia?

Childhood asthma is a major health issue in Australia, and traffic emissions play a causative role. Two urban planning policies that impact children’s exposure to traffic emissions are considered in terms of the potential health risks to children in a Melbourne suburb with high truck volumes and hospital attendances for childhood asthma. Firstly, the health impact assessment component of the state planning approval of a major road project, and secondly, local government placement of childcare centres and schools in relation to freight routes. Three sources of air quality monitoring data were examined: (i) a Victorian EPA reference site; (ii) a site with planning approval for development into a childcare centre; and (iii) five sites within the boundary of the West Gate Tunnel Project, an AUD 10 billion road and tunnel project. The Australian Urban Research Infrastructure Network data was utilised to assess distances of childcare centres and schools from major truck routes. A range of cconcentration–response functions for childhood asthma (0–18 years) from international systematic meta-analyses and a smaller Australian cross-sectional study were applied to comparative elevations in fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) concentrations between the EPA reference monitor (used for project risk assessment) and local roadside data. It was found that comparative elevations in NO2 concentrations were associated with the following risk increases: developing asthma 13%, active asthma 12%, and lifetime asthma 9%. Overall, 41% of childcare centres (n = 51) and 36% of schools (n = 22) were ≤150 m to a high-density truck route. Truck emissions likely make a substantial contribution to childhood asthma outcomes in the project area. This study exemplifies how current practices may not be commensurate with guiding policy objectives of harm minimisation and equitable protection.

Healthy, family-friendly apartment kitchen design: a study of practice in Melbourne, Australia

This study explored constraints and opportunities in apartment kitchen design for family home cooking and dining. An online audit of 115 two-bedroom apartments in three Melbourne suburbs of Australia was conducted, with images collected from the audit guiding photo-elicitation interviews on the kitchen designs, with architects from firms involved in apartment complex design. Affordance theory provided a conceptual lens to thematically analyse the design process and outcome in relation to architectural practice. Based on previously developed criteria, results from the audit revealed that only 18 (16%) had adequate kitchen design for families with children across five features assessed, with four themes emerging from interviews that identified constraints and facilitators to kitchen design practice: “Limited policy standards”; Architect assumptions align with market-led preferences”; “Built environment and apartment typology constraints”; and “Small scale design opportunities”. Findings provide unique insights into architects’ perspectives on apartment design, deepening understandings of how to support healthy family home food preparation and dining.

‘The barrier has to be jumped out with this music’: Collaborative creation in an after-school community music programme

Contemporary research into community music programmes highlights diverse contexts for collaborative music making. This article contributes a case of the collaboration in music making to a growing literature on creative practice in community music initiatives led by major orchestras. The authors reflect on field research involving an after-school programme that provides free, classical instrumental music instruction to primary school-age students who would not normally have an opportunity due to their socio-economic circumstances. The Pizzicato Effect, run by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (MSO) in the City of Hume, Australia has operated in the northern suburbs of Melbourne since 2009. Through focus group interviews with students, family members and teaching artists, the researchers examined community experiences of accruing cultural capital in conditions of social inequality and multicultural practice. Using qualitative methods, the case study aimed to position respondents as experts in their own lives, who own their knowledge of their worlds. Collaboration was central to a model of improvisation developed locally by teaching artists and applied on site. Furthermore, improvisation took the programme in different directions to the El Sistema model of youth orchestra training in Venezuela, which had been the original source of inspiration for the programme.

Prison expansion in the plains grasslands: Coloniality, ecological injustice and carceral sprawl

This article examines the politics of prison siting on contaminated land within an endangered ecosystem in Australia, contributing to the literature on carceral geography and the burgeoning field of abolition ecology. I argue that prisons materialise in the landscape through processes of dispossession, environmental degradation and value extraction that enclose Indigenous lands for caging populations cast as ‘surplus’ to settler racial capitalism. The primary focus is the interface between prisons and the Victorian Volcanic Plain grasslands at a site called Ravenhall, a former military testing site that has been remade as a ‘prisons precinct’ and native grasslands reserve on Bunurong country in the outer Western suburbs of Melbourne. I investigate the history, ecology and political economy of prison-building at this site, unearthing the assemblage of living and nonliving entities involved in the construction of carceral geographies, and the meaning-making that guides planning and conservation processes. Rather than simply protecting and enhancing the biodiversity of the plains grasslands, neoliberal conservation practices at Ravenhall facilitate carceral development by generating more visible and ‘substitutable’ natures to gloss over the socially and ecologically toxic realities of prisons. The analysis reinforces the role that carceral geographies play in reproducing structured racial-environmental vulnerabilities and the importance of challenging sprawling prison developments as part of decolonial, abolitionist and ecological justice struggles.

‘Just like being back in Ethiopia’: gender, ethnicity, and belonging in Footscray

ABSTRACT In this article, we examine the experience of migrant Ethiopian women in Footscray. Drawing on interviews with 14 Ethiopian women who have significant connections with Footscray, an inner city, gentrifying suburb in Melbourne, Australia, we elucidate their lived experience of navigating Footscray’s complex and layered public spaces. On one hand, the women experience a profound sense of belonging and comfort in central Footscray – feeling at home because of the Ethiopian population that spends time there, the Ethiopian shops, coffee houses, and through their use of shared public space. On the other, Ethiopian women experience insecurity and harassment in Footscray. Our paper demonstrates that the experience of ‘feeling comfortable’ is never settled and must continue to be negotiated in and through the experience of vulnerability and harassment.

Perceptions and Experiences of Inequity for Women of Refugee Background Having a Baby during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Melbourne, Australia.

Listening to What Matters is an exploratory descriptive qualitative study that aimed to (1) understand how women of refugee background in Melbourne, Australia experienced access to health information and maternity and/or early parenting care during the COVID-19 pandemic and (2) whether pandemic health directives had an impact on structural inequities for women of refugee background who received maternity and/or early parenting care during the COVID-19 pandemic. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 41 participants including 17 women of refugee background, who identified as belonging to the Karen, Assyrian Chaldean, Iraqi, Syrian, Afghan, Sudanese, or South Sudanese communities and 24 health and social care professionals who identified as providing pregnancy or early parenting care during the pandemic in the north western suburbs of Melbourne. Interviews with women were conducted in preferred languages by community researchers. Interviews with professionals were conducted in English by researchers. Reflexive thematic data analysis included constructivist positionality and a trauma and violence informed approach. The results reported in this paper include three themes, with four accompanying subthemes, as follows: theme (1), 'Structural inequities and the toll of the pandemic'; theme (2), 'Supportive infrastructure'; and theme (3), 'Cultural safety during the pandemic'. The results demonstrate that cumulative negative impacts such as unequal access to health information, family separation and isolation, inadequate household income, and mental and social health concerns had the potential to amplify pre-existing structural inequities for women of refugee background. Community engagement facilitated by bicultural workers, interpreters, and trusted care providers facilitated fast-paced, two-way communication that built capacity and health literacy for women who were unable to speak English and unfamiliar with the health care system and, improved experiences of care. More research is needed to understand how the intersectional cumulative impacts of structural inequities have affected maternal and neonatal health outcomes for women of refugee background during the pandemic, as well as any differences in maternal and neonatal health outcomes between Australian-born and refugee background women and babies.

The interrelationships between kitchen design and food practices for apartment dwellers in Melbourne, Australia: an exploratory study

ABSTRACT Apartment-living is on the increase, despite this, little is known about how it influences food practices. We explored the interrelations between apartment kitchen design and food practices using Photo elicited interviews and an inductive thematic analysis, with a diverse sample of twelve apartment-dwellers across four suburbs of Melbourne, Australia. Participants took 160 photographs representing their food practices to guide interviews. Three themes emerged from the interview analysis: ‘Choices’ which included participants’ cooking preferences, as well as their choice of apartment in which to prepare these meals; ‘Challenges’ which referred to the kitchen design barriers to home cooking including issues relating to storage, food preparation, washing up, ventilation, lighting and recycling and; ‘Changes’ which described the physical adaptations to kitchens and behavioural adaptations to food practices as a result of poor kitchen design. Based on these findings, using a socioecological framework, we describe the proximal and distal interrelationships between kitchen design and food practices; and discuss how these could be further researched to inform future apartment design policy.

Realising transitions for urban regeneration through statutory planning: the case of greyfield precinct renewal in suburban Melbourne

ABSTRACT The compact city agenda aims to deliver sustainable future urban form. However, as with all planning, there is contestation. While built form and housing have primacy, cities need space for hard and soft infrastructural systems, including natural systems that, until recently, have been taken for granted but are diminishing through poorly planned densification. Nowhere is this more evident than in the suburbs, where lot-by-lot redevelopment is significantly reducing open space and tree canopy. Infill developments are not producing the benefits expected from compact cities; they are increasing strain on the grey, blue, and green infrastructure. This paper highlights limited intent in local planning regulations to promote anything other than business as usual, which, in the Australian context, is single lots becoming 2–4 subdivisions. While planning schemes can regulate negative externalities, they do not consider this when taken as a whole, across a redeveloped neighbourhood predominantly consisting of housing, and are not using the redevelopment opportunities to build a more resilient future for local areas. This paper builds on the Australian greyfield literature by showing how statutory amendments can promote precinct scale development, working across multiple lots to deliver housing concurrently with greater levels of amenity for existing and future residents. KEY POINTS Infill housing development on single lots is reducing local amenity while not making the fullest use of the land for housing supply. Site assembly precincts are critical for higher yield, higher amenity, urban redevelopment. Strategic policy alone will not deliver the solutions; statutory mechanisms for doing so are critical. This paper presents a fully worked statutory response to the issue, highlighting the method for developing the scheme and the future work necessary for delivering site-assembly precincts at council level.

What is the risk of overcollecting for translocation? An opportunistic assessment of a wingless grasshopper

AbstractTranslocation is an increasingly used tool in conservation management, but there is a risk that source populations are overcollected. The risk depends critically on the detection probability and the source population size. We quantified this risk for a wingless grasshopper population in a patch of remnant habitat in suburban Melbourne that was condemned to be cleared for housing development. We collected ∼2000 grasshoppers in five samples spread over 1 month and used the results to estimate the initial population size (∼3400) with high confidence. Despite our perception of substantially depleting the population, we removed only an estimated 60%, and this relatively high fecundity (∼50 eggs per lifetime) annual species had recovered by the following year to near its original density. Wild‐to‐wild translocation is likely to be a low‐cost and effective strategy in the conservation of many invertebrates, and our findings highlight the feasibility of using natural source populations.

Assessment of the influence of an Australian native eucalypt, Corymbia maculata, on soil desiccation in a temperate climate

AbstractExpansive soils undergo significant moisture change under prevailing climate conditions, resulting in shrinkage and swelling in dry and wet months. Such seasonal movements of expansive soils can greatly affect the serviceability and performance of lightweight structures founded on shallow footing systems. The extent of movement may be exacerbated if trees are present since large amounts of water can be absorbed by the root system of trees, leading to localized settlement due to soil shrinkage. This study established a well-instrumented site that included a row of Australian native eucalypts located in an eastern suburb of Melbourne, Australia. A tree from this row was chosen for the monitoring of soil movements, soil moisture and suction over a period of 44 months. A sap flow instrument was used to monitor the transpiration and water uptake by the tree. The results showed that noticeable shrinkage settlement occurred at a radial distance of 7.8 m from the trunk of the tree, attributable in part to the increased water demand of the tree. This study promotes a better understanding of the process of expansive soil–tree root interaction. The field data presented can assist geotechnical engineers and practitioners with footing design in the presence of trees.

There Is a Lot More to Transplantation Surgery Than the Surgery Itself: The "Other" Sir Peter John Morris, AC, FRS.

There Is a Lot More to Transplantation Surgery Than the Surgery Itself: The "Other" Sir Peter John Morris, AC, FRS.

The Vienna Room: A Melbourne Interior by Maggie Edmond, 2018

ABSTRACT The subject of this paper is a living-room designed by Melbourne architect Maggie Edmond for her own use. Labelled on the plan Vienna Room, it forms part of a 2018 renovation of Edmond’s inner-city house in the Melbourne suburb of Carlton. Contextualised within recent studies of Australian interiors that use innovative forms of research and publication – exhibition, house biography, illustration – and referencing the work of Edward Hollis and Mario Praz, the paper employs the methodology of thick description, with some reference to iconology. This mode of research foregrounds the writing of the author/viewer as a locus of meaning, rather than, say, an imposed theoretical proposition. The room is treated as a pictorial device in which, it is argued, the architect’s arrangement of paintings, furniture, books, and decorative objects can be understood as a “family album,” a staging of personal and family heritage. The approach suits the aims of the paper which are, on the one hand, to explore the application of thick description to architectural interiors and on the other, to suggest how the Vienna Room might reflect back on Edmond’s practice as a founding partner of one of Melbourne’s most celebrated architectural firms, Edmond and Corrigan.

Children’s Classroom Experiences in Building Peer Relationships

This study examines a child’s personal experiences with peer relationship building in the classroom and is guided by Vygotsky’s cultural historical concepts of the social situation of development and cultural tools and Hedegaard’s (2012) model for learning and development. Hedegaard’s (2012) dialectical—interactive approach was adopted to analyse the data for this study which was gathered using digital video observations of a grade one classroom within the western suburbs of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia over a five week period. This paper explores the strategies used by children that enables them to balance their desire for peer relationships while remaining within what is considered acceptable behaviours by their teachers within the classroom. It is argued that it is important for schools to continue to strive to find the balance between institutional demands while creating social situations that foster peer relationships.

Ukrainian Community Archives in Victoria, Australia: A Stocktake

Contemporary research increasingly recognizes the role of community archives in preserving evidence of the pasts of identity groups, validating their historical experience, and thus furthering the goals of social justice and equality. Such values underlie the Association of Ukrainians in Victoria (Australia) Archival Project, which the present article places into the broader context of Ukrainian community archival collections in the state of Victoria. Data obtained through interview have enabled a descriptive survey of such collections, which are found to be concentrated in a handful of “archival clusters” in suburban Melbourne and regional Victoria. The most typical contents of the collections—records of the proceedings and activities of community secular and religious organizations—reflect the dominant role in the community’s life of organizations established by post-World War II immigrants. The collections constitute a rich resource for research into the part of the community encompassed by these organizations, even if, as a rule, at least at present, they are not well ordered or described. They are less revealing of the experience of immigrants who arrived later or were less inclined to join community organizations. Lack of resources, both human and material, confronts the mainly volunteer officeholders who are responsible for the organizations’ archives. In consequence, collections are often inadequately and sometimes unsafely housed, and in general only informally organized; finding aids or descriptions of them are seldom available. Initiatives taken by some organizations suggest that there is growing awareness among community activists of the potential value of archives for showing and interpreting the community to itself and to others.

Rhythmanalysis as methodology for understanding the social complexity of school spaces

This paper reports on Henri Lefebvre’s methodological approach of 'rhythmanalysis' as a productive tool to understand the complex social constructions of school spaces. Schooling is founded on relationships. These relationships exist in multi-directional and multi-layered ways between teachers, students, school leadership, parents and carers, the school and local community, and official Departments of Education; but also between education policy, official curriculum, and official assessment regimes; and between the material spaces of schools such as school buildings, classrooms and outdoor spaces. These relations are complex and multidimensional, and are characterised by movement. This paper reports on the methodological approach of a recent ethnographic study in a secondary school in suburban Melbourne, Australia that investigated the complex socio-spatial relations that shape teachers’ intercultural work at this school. This paper reports on the nature of relations in school spaces across three domains - conceived, perceived and lived space - and identifies the kinds of rhythms these produce. I argue that this approach enables education researchers to examine in close detail the complex and mobile nature of relations that shape teachers' work in local settings, and may better inform a situated approach to curriculum and policy development.

앨리스 풍의 『그녀의 아버지의 딸』

This paper explores Alice Pung’s postmemoir Her Father’s Daughter in terms of the theories of postmemory, as Pung inherits and writes about her father’s memory and testimony. Instead of using the first person narrator, Pung’s postmemoir fluctuates between the third person perspective of herself and that of her father, and contrasts her father’s memory of the Cambodian Killing Fields with her peaceful life in the western suburbs of Melbourne. Likewise, Pung's postmemoir combines fragmented and conflicting narratives rather than assigning a single authoritative voice to an individual who has experienced or is assumed to have experienced the events, and rather than chronologically arranging the events. It is because Pung, herself, did not experience the traumatic events herself, but grew up with their after-effect; that is to say, she indirectly but deeply engaged in “dismemory,” a memory that her father tried to forget and he kept secret from his children. However, these memories are transmitted between the generations, and the daughter finally digs into her father’s secrets and searches for the postmemory in the second generation, as well as in her identity as an Asian-Australian of Chinese-Cambodian descent. Pung's postmemoir does not seem to succeed in fully representing her father’s ‘unspeakable’ memories or ‘the vacuum of testimony.’ Nevertheless, the fact that Pung as an inheritor of postmemory accepts her father's traumatic experience with empathy and imagination is significant in that Pung's postmemoir evokes the ethics of 'the pain of others' by utilizing alternative narratives rather than dramatically embodying the traumatic experience.

Using ethnography to understand the lives of street sex workers

This article examines the value of using ethnographic methodology in research with women involved in street sex work in an inner-city suburb of Melbourne, Australia. The aim is to draw attention to the importance of three fundamental elements of this type of research with marginalised populations: 1) researchers’ immersion into the field over a sustained period of time, 2) ethical considerations about informed consent for people with cognitive impairment as a result of chronic drug use, and 3) reflexivity and positionality in qualitative research. Data collected from two and a half years of ethnographic fieldwork, including participant observation and semi-structured interviews with women involved in street sex work, emphasises the importance of adopting these participatory methods to ensure authenticity, rigour and credibility of research findings with marginalised populations.

Count Me In: a sports participation intervention promoting inclusion for young people from migrant backgrounds in Australia

Participation in organized sports can provide a wide range of health and social benefits and, for young people from migrant and minority ethnic groups, can act as a critical mediator of inclusion and belonging. These population groups have relatively low participation rates however, with recognized barriers including costs, transport, culturally determined gender norms, culturally inappropriate club environments, a lack of knowledge and understanding of sports ‘systems’ and competing family priorities. Count Me In (CMI) was a mixed-methods, participatory action research project designed and implemented in the northern suburbs of Melbourne, Australia between 2017–2019 to address these barriers. Key elements of the intervention included employment of bicultural community support coordinators, partnerships with clubs and community-based organisations, encouragement of volunteering and development of resources. This paper reports the qualitative results of the study and discusses the effectiveness and impacts of the Count Me In model for addressing participation barriers.

Understanding occupants’ behaviour, engagement, emotion, and comfort indoors with heterogeneous sensors and wearables

We conducted a field study at a K-12 private school in the suburbs of Melbourne, Australia. The data capture contained two elements: First, a 5-month longitudinal field study In-Gauge using two outdoor weather stations, as well as indoor weather stations in 17 classrooms and temperature sensors on the vents of occupant-controlled room air-conditioners; these were collated into individual datasets for each classroom at a 5-minute logging frequency, including additional data on occupant presence. The dataset was used to derive predictive models of how occupants operate room air-conditioning units. Second, we tracked 23 students and 6 teachers in a 4-week cross-sectional study En-Gage, using wearable sensors to log physiological data, as well as daily surveys to query the occupants’ thermal comfort, learning engagement, emotions and seating behaviours. Overall, the combined dataset could be used to analyse the relationships between indoor/outdoor climates and students’ behaviours/mental states on campus, which provide opportunities for the future design of intelligent feedback systems to benefit both students and staff.