Page 4 – Brett Allen | Digital Marketing & Anthropology

Frustrated Anthropologist, Part II

Sat, 28 Mar 2026 06:17:32 GMT

Learning to See Organisations Differently

Over the last few years, I have found myself seeing organisations differently. In my last two roles, that has often meant noticing things that others either do not see or do not want to name. At times, it feels like being a canary in a coal mine: sensing the shift early, recognising that something is changing, and knowing that speaking too soon can carry its own risks.

Part of this comes from empathy, but it also comes from anthropology. Anthropology has given me more than concepts. It has given me a method of attention. It has taught me to take the everyday seriously: passing comments, silences, humour, shifts in tone, awkwardness, use of time, meetings, bodily cues, and the ordinary rituals of working life. In ethnographic terms, the mundane is never just mundane . It is often where power, legitimacy, hierarchy, and belonging become visible.

This is perhaps where I now find myself caught. I can see things that feel obvious once noticed, yet they are not always easy to communicate in business language. I am still learning how to translate observations shaped by anthropology into terms that make sense in workplaces where people often want clarity, action, and outcomes rather than reflection on tacit knowledge, symbolic boundaries, or the social life of organisations.

Still, once you begin to see these patterns, it becomes difficult to unsee them. Even more frustrating is being powerless to change things; it is beyond the reach of any one person.

What once might have looked to me like poor communication, resistance to change, or personality conflict now appears more structured than that. There are patterns to it. Repeated tensions. Boundary lines. Small comments that do much more work than they first appear to. Anthropology has given me a language for some of this, but more importantly, a way of seeing.

Across a number of roles, especially during periods of organisational transition, I have witnessed the same kinds of dynamics emerge. They appear when businesses adopt new operating models, when leaders arrive from another sector, or when mergers force two organisational worlds into uneasy proximity. Often, the signs are subtle at first: a comment in a meeting, a dismissive joke, quiet scepticism toward a new system, or the insistence that certain things cannot be understood from a spreadsheet.

One comment that revealed a key insight: “We don’t sell chocolate bars.”

On the surface, it sounds like a throwaway line. It can be considered a sarcastic comment from a place of anger or frustration. But from an anthropological perspective, it is doing important cultural work. It is a boundary-defining statement. It marks a distinction between two different understandings of how business operates. On one side sits a relationship-driven B2B logic, grounded in tacit knowledge, negotiation, trust, and long-term reciprocal obligations. On the other hand sits a more retail logic, one that privileges standardisation, visibility, centralised control, politics, process discipline, and metrics. When I say politics, this is a very Foucauldian view of the subject, a very big topic I won’t go into here.

The point of the statement is not really about chocolate bars. It is about legitimacy. It is a claim about what kind of knowledge matters, whose experience counts, and what sort of operating logic is appropriate to the field.

This is where Pierre Bourdieu becomes useful. His concepts of field, doxa, habitus, and capital help explain what is at stake in moments like this. A field is not just an industry or organisation. It is a social space with its own rules, hierarchies, and forms of value. Doxa refers to the taken-for-granted assumptions that shape what people inside that field see as natural, sensible, and legitimate. From that perspective, “we don’t sell chocolate bars” is a defence of the field’s doxa. It is a way of saying: this is how this world works, this is what counts here, and this is what you are failing to understand.

In many traditional B2B environments, especially in wholesale, manufacturing, or distribution, tacit knowledge is central. I have seen this in both current and previous roles. Relationships are not an optional extra. They are part of the infrastructure of the business. Deals are shaped not just by price or margin, but by history, flexibility, trust, timing, local knowledge, and reputation. There is often an informal moral economy at work, one that cannot be fully captured through formal systems. In this sense, the business runs not only on products and processes, but also on accumulated social capital.

Marcel Mauss helps make sense of this. His work on exchange reminds us that transactions are rarely just transactional. They are also social. They create obligations, memory, reciprocity, and relationships that extend beyond the immediate exchange. In long-standing B2B environments, favours, flexibility, accommodation, and trust are not peripheral inefficiencies. They are often part of what keeps the business functioning. When formal systems attempt to strip those relations back to pure transaction, they risk flattening the very social fabric that made the system viable in the first place.

This is where anthropology has changed things for me. Rather than asking only why people resist, I find myself asking what they are defending, what is at stake for them, and what forms of value may be invisible to the incoming system. I also have to be careful about my own positionality. I work within the corporate field, but I also move through it as a supportive colleague. I am drawn to collaboration, wary of rigid hierarchy, and conscious that these instincts shape what I notice and how I interpret it.

When leaders from FMCG or retail backgrounds enter these spaces, they often bring genuine strengths. They may introduce clearer reporting, tighter commercial discipline, stronger category thinking, better planning horizons, and more sophisticated systems. None of that is inherently wrong. In many cases, it is necessary. The problem arises when one logic is applied to another field as though it were universally valid rather than culturally situated.

That is when friction becomes visible.

Often it appears first in language. People say things like, “That might work in retail, but not here,” or “You do not understand how this industry works.” These are not always signs of closed-mindedness. Sometimes they are defensive, certainly, but they are also claims about situated expertise. They are attempts to protect forms of knowledge that are hard to codify and easy to dismiss.

This is where Clifford Geertz’s idea of thick description becomes useful. A sentence like “we don’t sell chocolate bars” may look analytically thin if treated as simple opinion, but it is actually socially dense. It condenses a whole set of assumptions about expertise, identity, risk, legitimacy, and practical knowledge. The task is not only to hear the comment, but to interpret the social world it points to.

Once I began paying attention to these comments, I realised it reveals other forms of boundary work as well.

Humour is one of them. Sarcasm about software, dashboards, jokes about retail thinking, repeated references to the gap between the official version of work and how things actually get done. Humour allows critique to surface safely. It reinforces in-group understanding while also testing the legitimacy of the new order.

Then there are quieter behaviours: key relationships managed off-system, selective compliance with CRMs, informal workarounds, reluctance to fully document processes, and the preservation of local knowledge in conversation rather than databases. These are often framed as process failures, but they can also be read as efforts to preserve contextual intelligence from being flattened into abstraction.

Erving Goffman is useful here. His distinction between frontstage and backstage behaviour helps explain the gap between formal organisational performances and what people actually think and do. Meetings often perform alignment, clarity, and confidence. Informal spaces, by contrast, hold scepticism, fatigue, humour, and quiet refusal. What appears as agreement on the surface may not be agreement at all, but a managed performance designed to navigate power.

I have seen these dynamics become especially intense after mergers.

A merger is often described in structural terms: new reporting lines, new systems, new leadership, new efficiencies. But from the inside, it is also the collision of two organisational worlds. Each carries its own history, assumptions, rhythms, status hierarchies, and ways of creating value. What follows is rarely a smooth integration. More often, it is a liminal period, a prolonged in-between state in which the old order has been disrupted but the new order has not yet become fully stable.

Victor Turner’s notion of liminality helps make sense of this. In liminal states, people occupy an unstable threshold. Normal structures loosen, identities become unsettled, and behaviour can intensify in revealing ways. Post-merger environments often feel exactly like this. People begin to mark boundaries more visibly. There are references to how things used to be done, distinctions between legacy and incoming teams, and growing sensitivity around who has the right to decide, interpret, or lead.

Parallel systems often emerge. The official process sits on top, while informal practices continue underneath. Meetings become highly performative, signalling alignment and optimism, while backstage spaces hold fatigue, scepticism, or quiet refusal. Anthropology has helped me recognise that these are not random signs of dysfunction. They are signs that multiple systems of meaning are colliding, overlapping, and struggling for legitimacy.

This is one of the most useful things anthropology has offered me. Organisations are not only rational structures. They are social worlds held together by meanings, habits, hierarchies, rituals, and shared understandings that often remain invisible until they are disrupted. When change enters, it does not simply alter the process. It unsettles identity, legitimacy, and the taken-for-granted rules of the game.

That is why leadership in these environments cannot rely solely on authority. It has to operate with empathy.

I do not mean empathy in a sentimental sense. I mean it as a form of perception. The ability to read a situation not only for its formal content but also for the social and cultural stakes underlying it. The ability to recognise that what appears as resistance may actually be an effort to protect relational capital. That a dismissive comment may be less about negativity than about defending a way of knowing that feels under threat. That a delay in adoption may reflect not laziness, but a different rhythm of risk, trust, and responsibility.

Without that kind of empathy, leadership tends to default to imposition. Systems are rolled out. Compliance is measured. Dissent is pathologised. Values are weaponised. Legacy knowledge is treated as backward rather than contextual. In the short term, this can create the appearance of movement. In the longer term, it often produces erosion. Trust weakens. Experienced people disengage. Relationships fray. The organisation may look more aligned on paper while becoming more brittle in practice.

What I keep returning to is the idea that leadership in these spaces is less about control and more about translation. My own sense of leadership has shifted because I have never seen control as the central organising principle. Collaboration matters more. Interpretation matters more. The ability to hold multiple logics in view matters more.

That translation is not easy. It requires leaders to understand that different parts of the organisation may operate with different assumptions about value, evidence, time, and legitimacy. It requires a willingness to hold multiple logics in view at once. It also requires recognising that not everything valuable can be immediately standardised without loss. Some practices need to be interpreted before they can be integrated. Some forms of tacit knowledge need to be respected before they can be made visible. Some relationships need to be preserved even while systems evolve around them.

From the lower end of middle management, however, you are often only playing with half the cards. Assumptions creep in. Closed-door meetings take place elsewhere. What returns is often a clipped or pre-digested version of thinking, redistributed as if it were clarity. That adds to the feeling of distance between those who decide and those expected to absorb the decisions. When you do not have the full deck or even know what game is being played, work can begin to feel like operating in a vacuum. That edge of uncertainty creates a subtle sense of othering, and when that happens, people often seek solidarity with those closest at hand.

Again, anthropology has helped me see this differently. It encourages reflexivity, which is to say, an awareness that observation is never neutral and that one’s own position within a field matter. It also encourages attentiveness to contradiction. The same organisation that speaks the language of collaboration may operate through exclusion. The same leadership team that advocates change may fail to interpret the world it is trying to change. The same systems that promise clarity may generate new forms of opacity.

This is where my own learning sits now. Anthropology has offered me a way to make sense of what I have observed across organisations, especially in moments of tension and transition. It has given me concepts for things I sensed long before I could name them. That has been valuable not only for understanding organisational life but also for thinking differently about strategy. At the same time, it has complicated my relationship with business language. Terms like resistance, alignment, capability, and change management often feel too thin for what is happening. They describe the surface, but not the social world beneath it.

So, for me, part of the work is learning how to move between these languages without losing too much in translation.

I do not think anthropology offers neat solutions to organisational problems. What it offers instead is an ethnographic disposition: close observation, attentiveness to context, reflexivity about positionality, and a willingness to treat everyday organisational life as culturally meaningful rather than merely operational. It encourages different questions. Not just what is failing, but what is being defended. Not just what system should replace another, but what forms of value are likely to disappear if that happens too quickly. Not just how to lead change, but how to interpret the field you are entering before assuming you understand it.

That, to me, is one of the gifts anthropology offers business. It does not remove tension. It makes tension more legible. It helps explain why the same patterns reappear across different roles, industries, and structures. It reminds us that organisations are not only managed. They are inhabited.

And once you begin to see that, leadership looks different too.

It becomes less about driving change into a business and more about reading the cultural conditions in which change is taking place. Less about forcing convergence and more about understanding what must be translated, what must be protected, and what may need to emerge more slowly.

I am still learning how to articulate all of this. Still learning how to speak from an anthropological lens in spaces that do not always have a ready vocabulary for it. But perhaps that is part of the work: refining the translation, paying attention, and noticing the small comments, the jokes, the workarounds, and the defended boundaries that reveal far more than formal strategy ever can.

Because sometimes a sentence like “we don’t sell chocolate bars” is not just a comment.

It is an entire organisational world speaking.

Metro Lines: On Drones, Devices, and the Death of the Commute

Thu, 19 Mar 2026 09:41:35 GMT

A few years ago, I would never have imagined becoming an ethnographer of the train. But geopolitics has a way of rearranging the mundane. As fuel prices surge, a consequence of unnecessary war in the Middle East and trade wars, all decided in distant corridors of power. The ripple effect has forced me to switch from my car to public transport. From driving the lines, tracing my own routes through the road network insulated in steel and glass, I was thrown in with everyone else.

What I found has become curious.

A train line is not simply a route through space. It is a line, physical and imagined, entangled with a multitude of lives, intentions, and temporalities. Knotting together and unravelling at each station along the journey. A student boards at one stop, a shift worker departs at the next, and a consultant opens a laptop three stations later. The line gathers and disperses, gathers and disperses. Each node of the collection station, platform, and carriage doors rounds up and orders human packages. People gather, but they do not meet. They are collected. Sorted. Loaded. Pack away. Arriving at the station or stop, bodies pour out in a slow, uniform current, phones in hand, heads bowed. I couldn’t shake the image of workers leaving the machine in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis . The same shuffling gait. The same downcast eyes. But these aren’t labourers broken by industrial discipline. These are knowledge workers, voluntarily tethered.

I began to think of the smartphones as umbilical cords. Unnecessary ones at that. These digital entanglements connect each person to hegemonic entities they can barely name or conceive. Big tech, algorithmic processes, AI, data architectures, concepts that don’t enter the mind of the commuter. So who is nourishing whom in this arrangement? The user feels connected, sustained. The platform extracts attention, data, and behavioural surplus. Both parties believe the other is the dependent.

And then there were the laptops. People are already working buried in emails, spreadsheets, Slack messages — before they’d arrived at the office. Whatever happened to the Australian ethos of working to live rather than living to work? That sensibility assumed a clean boundary between labour and leisure, between the office and the beach. The smartphone has erased or weakened that line. Work, rest, and distraction occupy the same device, posture, and glazed expressions. You cannot tell from looking whether someone is answering their manager or scrolling memes. The activity is identical.

I noticed all of this because I was reading Tim Ingold’s Life of Lines , a physical book, held in two hands, which, of course, is its own technology of insulation. Ingold distinguishes between the wayfarer, who moves attentively through the world, and the transported person, who is essentially a parcel moved from one destination to another. My fellow commuters had gone further. They were being transported through physical space while simultaneously being transported through digital space. Present in neither. Autonomous in neither. The train line, this thing that entangles us all at different points of time and space, had become merely a conduit, its knots of human meeting pulled tight and never opened.

The car windscreen has been replaced by the phone screen. The private cabin has been replaced by the digital bubble. The insulation persists. It just changed the substrate. I looked up from my book and saw lines everywhere. The fixed line of the rail corridor. The invisible lines of the wireless signal. The lines of text on every screen. The lines of force run from Washington to fuel pumps to household budgets to train tickets. And the line I was travelling, entangled with a multitude at different points of time and space, knotting and unknotting at every station. We were all following lines. None of us chose quite where they led.

Perhaps the most honest thing I can say is this: I am one of the drones, too. I was reading a book about lines while being carried along one, performing a more prestigious version of exactly what everyone else was doing, absent from the shared space, following a thread of my own. The only difference was the moment I looked up.

Maybe that’s enough. The ethnographic instinct isn’t immune to the pattern. It’s the willingness to notice you’re in it.

Working Paper: Possibility of Empathy as a Performative, Culturally Structured Practice

Tue, 18 Nov 2025 00:24:00 GMT

This paper provides a glance at a future research project and a trend on social media. With empathy becoming the topic of the moment on social channels such as LinkedIn, it inspired a deeper look. In the past, I have looked at authenticity as a performance, and I could see some similarities. Empathy is becoming capital, something of neoliberal value to be traded, accrued, and generated profit from. In turn, empathy is being exposed as performative and even curated. I have applied some anthropological lenses, including those of Chronotopes.

Concept Draft:

Empathy is often described as an inherent human capacity, yet research across psychology, anthropology, history, leadership studies, and curatorial practice suggests that empathy is far from universal or evenly applied. Instead, it is selective, culturally patterned and shaped by power. This paper asks whether empathy should be understood not simply as an emotional response, but as a performative and curated practice that reflects broader structural, temporal and political conditions.Psychological models have long distinguished between affective and cognitive empathy (Stein 1917/1989; Decety & Jackson 2004; Batson 2011), although recent work questions whether self-reported measures of cognitive empathy actually correspond to cognitive empathic ability (Murphy & Lilienfeld 2019). Leadership studies similarly reveal that empathy can operate along different routes, influencing relational and task-based performance in distinct ways (Kellett, Humphrey & Sleeth 2002). Phenomenological and anthropological scholarship expands this view by emphasising empathy as a relational and culturally situated achievement rather than an internalised skill (Hollan & Throop 2008; Hollan & Throop 2011; Throop & Zahavi 2020). What counts as empathy varies across societies and depends on moral frameworks, cultural scripts and the conditions under which one life becomes accessible to another.

Work in cultural memory, structural violence and necropolitics helps explain why empathy clusters unevenly.

Some harms are dramatised, spectacular or narratively coherent, while others unfold slowly or bureaucratically and attract far less public concern (Galtung 1969; Nixon 2011). Processes of Othering (Said 1978; Spivak 1985) and state power (Mbembe 2003) determine whose suffering becomes recognisable, whose is minimised and whose lives are framed as grievable (Butler 2009). Historical studies of performance and re-enactment show that empathy can be actively produced through embodied storytelling and curated historical experience (De Groot 2011), while curatorial scholarship demonstrates how exhibitions and public narratives can be designed to elicit empathy in targeted ways (Mikhael 2018; Härtelova 2016).

To understand why empathy falters across difference, the paper introduces the chronotope (Bakhtin 1981) as a lens for examining how people inhabit divergent temporal worlds: linear, precarious, cyclical or intergenerational. Empathy often collapses when these time-worlds do not align, because the conditions shaping another person’s life are not legible within dominant cultural or narrative frameworks.

The aim of this paper is not to argue that empathy is insincere or wholly constructed, but to examine how it emerges through narrative, cultural practice and structure. By approaching empathy as curated, performed and shaped by temporal and political forces, the paper raises broader questions about how societies come to recognise some experiences while overlooking others, and what it might take to cultivate forms of empathy capable of engaging with diverse lifeworlds and structural realities.

User Journeys Are Spirals, Not Lines

Wed, 22 Oct 2025 21:59:00 GMT

The problem is not that user journeys are messy; it is that our tools are too simple. We have been designing for lines when people live in (messy/overlapping) spirals. To understand that, we need to bring time, complexity, and new methods, including AI, into the heart of strategy.

When I first entered the digital industry, a colleague told me, “The internet is like architecture, you have to think three-dimensionally". It sounded like wisdom. I love architecture, so headfirst I dove into a new emerging field.

We were not just designing static screens; we were shaping experiences, flows, and interactions. I carried that advice with me for years, convinced that “thinking in 3D” was what separated surface-level strategy from the work that actually understood people.

However, over time, I came to realise something uncomfortable. Most of us, myself included, were not thinking three-dimensionally at all. We were thinking in straight lines. As in architecture, curves add cost.

The Comfort of Straight Lines

Linear models have been the foundation of digital strategy for decades. We trace neat arcs across whiteboards: awareness leads to consideration, consideration to conversion, conversion to loyalty.

It is a seductive idea. Linearity gives us the illusion of clarity. We can map, schedule, and measure it. We can create personas that act exactly as intended, frozen in time like carefully designed characters. It makes an unpredictable world seem manageable.

However, strategy is only as good as the reality it reflects — and people do not live on rails.

In my own work, I run campaigns and observe everyday digital behaviour through an anthropological lens. Those clean, linear journeys have never held up. People drop in and out. They take detours. They change their minds. They come back years later. They are shaped by things far beyond the neat borders of a funnel.

The line has always been a comforting fiction.

Why Spirals Make More Sense

If journeys are not lines, what are they?

For me, the image that best captures it is the spiral . A spiral has structure, but it allows for movement: loops, returns, pauses, accelerations. It makes room for people to revisit a touchpoint, not as they were before, but as they have become since. It acknowledges that engagement is not static; it happens across time.

Think of how someone’s digital engagement shifts after a life event, a change in work rhythm, or even an algorithm tweak. A commuter checking their phone between stations does not inhabit the same temporality as an influencer tied to posting windows or a night-shift nurse seeking connection after midnight.

A spiral holds these realities. A line erases them.

Time: The Missing Dimension

For too long, we have treated time as a scheduling tool. It sits at the margins of our strategies, such as campaign calendars, drip sequences, and remarketing windows. We talk about timing , but not about time itself as something that shapes human behaviour.

Time is not a variable to be managed. It is the frame inside which everything happens. The rhythms of work, care, fatigue, place, and platform structure, when and how people can engage. No campaign calendar can smooth those rhythms into a single, universal timeline. However, that is precisely what linear models try to do. They fail because they are not built to hold what is real.

Anthropology Helped Me See It

My newfound experience in anthropology taught me to pay attention to how lives unfold across time and space. I recently discovered the literary concept of chronotopes . Chronotope is not a buzzword; it is a neat way of seeing how temporal and spatial rhythms shape meaning. When I began applying this lens to digital strategy, things shifted. Engagement stopped looking like a funnel and started looking like an ecosystem of overlapping temporalities. An influencer, a factory worker, a parent, and a wildlife carer may all use the same platform, but they live in different temporal worlds. Their experiences cannot be reduced to the same line. A spiral recognises that complexity. It says: people do not simply arrive, convert, and leave. They loop. They return. They reconfigure. Moreover, they carry their temporal worlds with them.

Rethinking Strategy Through Spirals

Embracing spirals means letting go of the illusion of control that lines provide. It demands various types of strategic work. It means:

Recognising that personas must evolve as people’s lives and contexts change. Journey maps must account for loops and pauses , not just forward movement. Measuring patterns over time , not just single conversion points.

Moreover, most importantly, it means building adaptive systems — strategies capable of responding to shifting temporal realities rather than forcing people into our schedules.

This is not a minor adjustment. It is a structural rethinking of how digital engagement works.

Towards More Complex Methods — And Why AI Might Help

Acknowledging spirals is only the first step. If we want to work with them, not just talk about them, we need better tools .

Traditional strategy methods struggle with complexity. They are built to map flows, not temporal worlds. However, we now have technologies that can help us model fluidity, variation, and recursion: systems that can learn, adapt, and respond to change in real time.

This is where AI could be beneficial, not as a shiny add-on, but as a way to build models that can work with non-linear, intersectional, temporal complexity . AI can detect and respond to emergent patterns humans might miss. It can reveal rhythms and loops that are invisible to the static journey map.

However, this cannot just be technical. Anthropology still matters because AI without critical, contextual insight automates the same flawed linear assumptions.

We need methods that combine human interpretive depth with machine capacity for pattern detection . Not to predict people perfectly, but to better understand their temporal worlds better . Add a little Chaos Theory to our planning and goals.

Spirals Are Harder, Yet More Honest. Spirals do not give us the clean satisfaction of a straight line. They are complex, adaptive, and recursive. They require us to design strategies that consider time constraints rather than simply scheduling them.

However, spirals are honest. They reflect how people actually live, engage, and change.

If we are serious about understanding users, not as fixed personas but as beings moving through layered temporalities, then we need new conceptual frameworks and new tools to match.

Anthropology gives us the lens.

AI may give us the means.

The challenge (and opportunity) is to build a strategy that reflects life as it is, not as a line on a whiteboard.

Field Notes: My First Yorke Peninsula Field Day

Fri, 10 Oct 2025 03:54:00 GMT

Landing in a Different World

After a short flight, my flight descended through Adelaide’s morning sky. Below, the green algae bloom sprawls across the water like a vast, luminous stain. A big topic around Australia, and the reason I left my fishing rod at home. This was my first visible sign that I was stepping into a different ecosystem, both literally and figuratively. Within a couple of hours, I would discover just how different it was from my everyday world. However, this would be another opportunity to observe and practice a few ethnographic skills.

This was my inaugural agricultural field day. I was not just attending, but organising and coordinating a display of agricultural tyres for the Yorke Peninsula Field Day, South Australia’s most significant agricultural event. As someone whose professional and academic life had largely unfolded within urban confines, I was about to step into a cultural field I had only understood theoretically.

I headed out in my hire car through the suburbs of Adelaide. Driving along the expressway, Adelaide’s suburbs quickly surrendered to the rural landscape. The city did not taper or fade; it simply ended. One moment, suburban streets and shopping centres; the following, endless stretches of farmland punctuated by silos and machinery. The transition between urban and rural felt less like a gradual fade but more like crossing a threshold into another world entirely. The heavy use of pesticides in the region kept my windscreen bug-free. Driving out to the Yorke Peninsula, I found myself thinking about Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of the “field”, those social spaces with their own rules, hierarchies, and forms of capital. I was transitioning from one field to another and was not yet fluent in its language.

Arrival

The installation team had spent the weekend transforming an empty plot into our exhibition space. By the time I arrived, the marquees were up, and it was hard to miss bright coloured flags against the surrounding green fields. The tyres stand all aligned with geometric precision, and the large agricultural tyres, those massive rubber monuments to industrial farming, have been delivered and arranged. Everything was ready. Everything except me, perhaps.

The Anthropology of the Field Day

The Yorke Peninsula Field Day is more than a trade show; it is a cultural institution. Walking the grounds, I began to see it as Bourdieu might, as a space where different forms of capital circulate and convert. Economic capital is obviously involved in the transactions and deals being struck. However, more importantly, social and cultural capital: the handshakes between farmers who have known each other for decades, the shared language of crop yields and soil conditions, the tacit knowledge that separates insiders from outsiders.

Meeting the Business Development Managers from South Australia and representatives from the major tyre brands, I was conscious of my outsider status. These were not just salespeople; they were cultural intermediaries who spoke both the language of corporate agriculture and the vernacular of the farmers themselves. They moved through the space with an ease I envied.

What struck me most was watching the networks become visible. In Bourdieu’s terms, this was social capital made manifest. If a farmer mentioned they were from Port Vincent or Winulta, the BDM would instantly respond, “Talk to Dave at XYZ dealership on Main Street”. What impressed me the most was not just the ability to mention a business name, but the person, revealing the relationship. These were not databases or CRM systems; these were living maps of the agricultural community held in human memory.

The networks were not just geographical; they were relational webs built over decades. They knew who had purchased what, who was expanding, whose son had taken over the dealership, which operations were struggling and which were thriving. Those dealers would then know their customers similarly. This knowledge was currency in this field, and I had none of it.

New Paragraph

I could not help but notice the differences, not judgmentally, but ethnographically. The people at the field day carried themselves differently from those I encountered in Melbourne or even in the peri-urban area where I live. There was a directness, a physicality, an ease with silence that felt foreign to my urban cadence of conversation. They assessed the tyres with hands, not just eyes, running palms over tread patterns (this happened a lot), slapping sidewalls, discussing load ratings with the casualties of people for whom these objects were daily tools, not products.

The material culture revealed itself in unexpected ways across the event. I started to notice that young farmers (and a few older) wore Akubra hats with coloured sheep tags adorning their hat bands, bright yellows, oranges, and blues standing out against the felt. What may have seemed like quirky decoration to an outsider was actually a kind of agricultural semiotics, repurposing the tools of livestock management into personal adornment. It spoke to a culture where work and identity were not separate spheres but woven together, where the objects of farming life became the markers of belonging.

Moreover, I realised: I was the one being assessed, too. Not hostilely, but carefully. Who was this person from the city? Did they understand what farmers actually needed, or just what the brochure said? Out and about, I got the sense that people knew I was a city slicker. Something about the way I moved/lurked through the space, camera in hand, perhaps, too cautious around the machinery, too clean, too observant in a way that marked me as someone documenting rather than simply inhabiting. The field day felt more like a liminal experience, a threshold space between my urban field and this agricultural one.

Standing in the wind and dust became part of the ritual of joining this field. Not complaining about it, not retreating to the comfort of the marquee (which I did a couple of times), but simply being present in the elements as everyone else was. Even the sun, dust and the rain that settled on my clothes and skin felt like they were kind of an initiation. A very small price of admission. By the third day, I had stopped noticing it, or rather, I had accepted it as the condition of being there. That acceptance was itself a small step toward belonging.

The Weight of Tacit Knowledge

What humbled me most was the depth of tacit knowledge surrounding me. This was not knowledge you could get from manuals or training programs. It was embodied, accumulated through years of presence in this field (in both Bourdieu’s and the literal sense). The BDMs knew which farmers would need convincing and which had already decided before arriving. They understood the unspoken hierarchies, which brands carried prestige, which innovations would be dismissed as “city ideas,” and which practical improvements would spread through the community like wildfire.

Watching my BDM team work was an education in itself. They did not just sell tyres—they solved problems. Each conversation became a diagnostic exercise: What crop? What soil type? Seeding or harvest? Tractor or implement? The questions seemed simple, but the implications were complex.

Soil compaction emerged as a recurring theme. A farmer would mention yield variations across a paddock, and the BDM would immediately ask about tyre pressure and footprint. Too much compaction crushes the soil structure your crops need to thrive. The wrong tyre could cost a farmer thousands in reduced yields over a season, losses that might not show up immediately but would compound over time.

Then there were the lifetime return on investment calculations. These were not impulse purchases. A set of agricultural tyres represented a significant capital outlay, and farmers needed to see the math. The BDMs could run the numbers in their heads including the hours of operation, expected wear rates, fuel efficiency gains from reduced rolling resistance, and yield improvements from better soil management. They spoke the language of pragmatic economics that farmers understood viscerally.

One expert told me, almost casually, about soil types across the peninsula and how they affected tyre wear patterns—sandy soils versus clay, moisture content, how different profiles performed under varying conditions. He was not showing off; this was simply how he saw the landscape. Where I saw farmland, he saw a complex text of agricultural challenges and solutions, each requiring the right rubber compound, tread pattern, and pressure specification.

The specificity astonished me. Not just “agricultural tyres” but: which tyre for which implement, which operation, which season? A tyre optimised for seeding in damp spring conditions performed differently from one designed for harvest work in dry summer soil. The BDMs knew these distinctions instinctively and could match farmers to solutions with a precision that came from years of watching what worked and what failed.

Stories of Endurance: Days Two and Three

Over the three days I was there, the conversations deepened. Between discussions about tread depth and load capacities, farmers told stories. Not complaints, stories. Narratives of endurance that revealed the proper cadence of agricultural life.

One farmer described his rhythm: spring planting, summer maintenance, autumn harvest, winter planning. A cycle as old as agriculture itself. Then he paused and added the interruptions, the droughts that turned fields to dust, the floods that swept away topsoil and hope in equal measure, the price crashes that made profitable harvests into break-even years at best.

“You plan for the rhythm,” he said, “but you live in the interruptions.”

Another spoke of watching commodity prices like city traders watch stock tickers, except their entire year’s income rose or fell with those numbers. The harvest does not wait for favourable market conditions. You take what the season gives you and accept what the market offers.

These were not academic abstractions. These lives were shaped by forces largely beyond individual control, including climate, global markets, and weather patterns that shifted in ways making generational knowledge less reliable than it once was. However, there was no fatalism in these stories, only a pragmatic resilience that seemed baked into the culture itself.

The economics became visceral in a way I had never encountered in Melbourne boardrooms. Farmers did not calculate tyre costs in dollars—they calculated in tonnes of grain. I heard it repeatedly: “I need to sell a tonne of lentils just to replace one tyre on my tractor at today’s rate.” Not kilos, tonnes. The scale of agricultural economics was rendered in the units that actually mattered to them.

These conversions happened instinctively, constantly. Four tyres meant four tonnes. A complete set for the harvester? The math was immediate and sobering. When commodity prices dropped, those calculations changed overnight; suddenly, the same tyres required more grain, more acres, more risk.

The BDMs understood this implicitly. They were not selling rubber; they were asking farmers to convert future harvests into present investments, to gamble that soil compaction savings and efficiency gains would outweigh the tonnes of lentils, wheat, or barley they would need to commit.

The BDMs listened to these stories with the attention of people who had heard hundreds of variations but never stopped caring about each individual telling. They understood that selling agricultural tyres was not just about product specifications; it was about understanding the economic calculations farmers constantly made, the risks they weighed, and the investments they could and could not afford.

Learning to See Differently

By the end of three days, I had not mastered this new field—not even close. However, I had begun to perceive its contours. The field day was not just about displaying products; it was about demonstrating belonging, proving your understanding of the agricultural lifeworld, and converting outsider status into a trusted advisor.

The green algae bloom I had seen from the plane? Several farmers mentioned it unprompted, discussing its implications for water management with the same analytical depth I might bring to market trends. Everything is connected to everything else in this field—weather, soil, water, machinery, economics, tradition, innovation.

I had arrived in Adelaide as an organiser. I left three days later as a student, grateful for the education I was receiving from people whose expertise was written in the lines of their faces and the confidence of their hands assessing a tyre’s worth. People whose livelihoods depended on reading the land, the sky, the markets and making decisions with imperfect information and no guarantee of outcomes.

The agricultural field, I realised, demanded a different kind of courage than the urban spaces I knew. A courage that was quiet, persistent, and renewed with every planting season despite the droughts, the floods, and the price variations that could undo everything.

Reflections from a first-timer learning to read the language of agriculture, one tyre tread at a time.

Who Lives Under the Bridge? Work, Power, and the Aftermath of Mergers

Tue, 23 Sep 2025 06:34:00 GMT

This quick story begins in the shadow of a bridge. In the shadows, there is a group of people who spoke of their working lives as though they had been displaced to its underside. They had survived corporate mergers, but not unscathed. Their lament was sharp; the “middle-management soup” of acquisitions had thickened into something unworkable. Too many managers, too many overlapping mandates, too much energy spent fighting one another rather than supporting the work. What might have been an integration was experienced instead as exile.

Their imagery was visceral; the workplace was likened to a gladiatorial arena, with managers locked in combat, climbing over bodies, and victories measured by survival rather than vision. In Bourdieu’s terms, a merger is a reshuffling of the field; symbolic, cultural, and social capital collide, and status must be renegotiated. However, the metaphor of gladiators suggests more than subtle manoeuvring. It evokes blood sport, where each advance requires another’s fall. The bridge connecting two organisational towers becomes less a passage of synergy and more a funnel into conflict, its stonework echoing with the clash of armour and ambition.

This struggle does not remain at the level of metaphor. It reshapes the workplace into a toxic environment. Staff turnover rises as exhaustion sets in, communication fractures under the weight of competing directives, and trust erodes. The damage spreads outward: customers pay both figuratively and literally, receiving diminished service at higher cost. Crucially, the burden is not distributed evenly. Intersectionality (Crenshaw 1989) reminds us that vulnerability is patterned. Women, migrants, casual staff, and younger employees absorb the contradictions most harshly. They are overseen by multiple managers with competing agendas, are monitored more closely, and are offered fewer protections. Mergers are rarely experienced as symmetrical.

The bridge itself demands attention. A merger joins two houses, but a bridge is never neutral. Those with authority traverse it; those with capital remain elevated in their towers. Yet someone always ends up living beneath it, bearing the structure’s hidden weight. Douglas (1966) reminds us that societies preserve order by displacing mess, casting ambiguity into shadow. Under the bridge is where mess accumulates, the displaced, the redundant, the overlooked. It is a liminal zone, visible but unwanted, essential yet excluded. To live under the bridge is to embody the contradiction of being both inside and outside at once.

Philosophy sharpens the question. If bodies sustain the bridge, is integration itself ever ethical? Heidegger (1977) warns of enframing, the modern drive to treat beings as standing reserve, resources to be optimised. In merger logic, workers are no longer persons but “assets” to be rationalised. Yet rationalisation is selective: some are streamlined into leadership roles, while others are streamlined into precarity or redundancy. Intersectionality makes visible this patterning of risk: privilege cushions some, while difference magnifies exposure. The “synergy” celebrated in boardrooms becomes dispossession in offices, factories, and call centres.

Which returns us to the cryptic question offered by those in the shadows: “When two houses are joined by a bridge, who ends up living under it?” It is a question that resists easy resolution. It demands we look beneath the bridge to notice those carrying its load.

Note: Anthropology and philosophy, together, can do more than diagnose; they can also ask how bridges might be built otherwise. Not dismantled, perhaps, but redesigned so that those who bear their weight are neither invisible nor disposable.

Kangaroos, Country, and Council: Rethinking Our Relationship

Tue, 16 Sep 2025 03:29:00 GMT

A Personal Turning Point

A couple of months ago, I hit a young male kangaroo at 90 km/h on the Diggers Rest–Coimadai Road. It was a pitch-black night. In that moment, I realised what had happened, and the weight of it struck me, literally and emotionally. I’ve always enjoyed seeing kangaroos, even just on the side of the road, and I’ve long made a point of driving carefully at dawn and dusk when they are most active. But that night, I wasn’t as considerate as I should have been.

At the posted 100 km/h speed limit, I had no time to react. I keep asking myself: if I had been travelling at 80 or 70, would I have avoided him? Maybe. That question has lingered with me, questioning if I was in “right-relations” with Kangaroos, or any other wildlife. This question has sharpened my perspective on how we, as a community, treat kangaroos in Moorabool, which is situated across the traditional lands of Woi Wurrung, Wadawurrung, and Dja Dja Wurrung.

The Language of “Harvest”

Not long after, I learned that Moorabool Shire’s environmental strategy is being developed, and that the state’s Kangaroo Harvesting Program continues to operate in the area. The language of “harvest” struck me immediately. It suggests a crop to be collected, a resource to be extracted. Kangaroos are reduced to “stocks” measured in quotas and commercial returns.

Let’s be clear: “harvest” is not stewardship; it is commoditisation. It reframes a sentient being as an economic unit. Call it what it is: a cull. The shift in language is not neutral, it makes killing palatable by dressing it up as “sustainable use.” It avoids more complex questions about how we design roads, plan housing, or manage landscapes in ways that continually put kangaroos at odds with us.

A Human-Centred Hegemony

This is part of a larger hegemony in how we think about the environment: human needs are always placed at the centre, and everything else is managed around us. Agriculture, development, and infrastructure are considered non-negotiable. Wildlife are expected to adapt, or else be “controlled.”

But this is a flawed starting point. It produces contradictions: we talk about sustainability , liveability , and climate resilience , but we allow the ongoing displacement and killing of the very beings who embody ecological health. Our planning documents praise “connectivity” and “biodiversity,” yet kangaroos are absent from the picture, or worse, turned into statistics in a quota.

First Nations Perspectives

There is another way. First Nations knowledge tells us that kangaroos are not “stocks” but kin, custodians, teachers, and co-inhabitants of Country. I cannot speak for First Nations people, nor do I claim their authority, but what I have learned in recent years has been deeply insightful.

First Nations ways of knowing are not sentimental; they are grounded in long-standing observation and relational ethics. They show that coexistence is possible when humans exercise restraint, rather than when animals are forced to adapt to human expansion. If Moorabool wants to lead, it should embed this knowledge in its policies, not as a token consultation, but as genuine guidance on how to care for Country.

Sadly, Moorabool has a poor record of recognising First Nations people, past, present, and likely future. That makes this moment even more important. The development of a new environmental strategy presents an opportunity to shift direction.

A Council at the Crossroads

Council and government policy makers now face a choice. They can continue reinforcing human-centred management, hiding behind the language of “harvest” while ignoring the contradictions. Or they can take a different path: one that recognises kangaroos as rightful co-inhabitants of the Shire, and makes their protection central to caring for Country.

A strategy that embraces coexistence would not only be more honest, it would align with the lived experiences of many residents. My own roadside encounter is just one story. Others in Moorabool have also been jolted into reflection, whether through close calls, the sadness of roadkill, or the simple joy of seeing kangaroos grazing at dawn. These experiences connect us to the animals around us, reminding us that sustainability is not an abstract concept. It is lived.

Why It Matters

The tragic deaths of two young nurses while helping an injured kangaroo remind us how deeply Victorians value these animals, and how fraught our relationship with them has become. Kangaroos are not obstacles to be managed, nor statistics in a spreadsheet. They are part of the living fabric of this place.

If Moorabool’s strategy is to mean anything, it must confront the hard questions: How important are kangaroos—and all native animals—in shaping a healthy, respectful culture? What would it mean to design our planning, roads, and policies not just for human convenience, but for coexistence?

The answers to these questions will determine whether Moorabool chooses to perpetuate a system of commodification or takes the lead in building a future of genuine environmental stewardship.

Walter Mitty and the Übermensch: Transcendence in a World Without Gods

Wed, 25 Jun 2025 11:54:00 GMT

Ben Stiller’s The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is often dismissed as a sentimental corporate self-help parable wrapped in Instagram-ready scenery. However, such reviews miss something more profound. Beneath its quiet protagonist and postcard aesthetics is a radical philosophical transformation, one that resonates strongly with Friedrich Nietzsche’s concept of the Übermensch . Okay, I may be drawing a long bow here. Why not overanalyse one of my favourite films, so I thought I would skip the Hero’s Journey comparisons and think a little deeper. Is this film more than just a film about a man who learns to live a little? It is a narrative of rupture , of transvaluation , and of a life reclaimed from the machinery of meaninglessness .

The Übermensch: Not a Superhero, But a Breaker of Values

In Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra , the Übermensch (often translated as “Overman” or “Superman”) is not a superior being in the comic-book sense. Instead, it is someone who has transcended herd morality , created their values , and lives authentically in a world where traditional meaning, especially religious and moral absolutes, has collapsed.

The Übermensch arises after the death of God —a moment not of despair but of radical opportunity. In this godless world, one must become the source of meaning, not its servant.

Life Magazine is Dead. Long Live Walter.

In Walter Mitty , the metaphorical “death of God” is the shutdown of Life magazine. Once a publication dedicated to visual storytelling and emotional truth, it is being dismantled by a sterile corporate regime. The new order speaks in bullet points and branding exercises. Meaning is being flattened into management-speak . Walter, a negative assets manager, is caught between the remnants of an old symbolic world (analogue photography, travel, mystery) and the cold logic of a digital future where everything is optimised, but nothing matters.

From Herd Animal to Creator of Meaning

Walter begins the film trapped in herd morality , conformist, passive, confined to daydreams. His fantasies are grandiose but safe: fighter pilot, Arctic explorer, daring rescuer. They are not actions but compensation for inaction. However, something breaks. He acts. He leaps, literally, onto a helicopter in Greenland. That moment marks the crossing of the threshold . From here, Walter is not imagining heroism. He is enacting it.

His journey—through Iceland, Afghanistan, and finally to the Himalayas—is more than geographical. It is spiritual, existential, and mythic . He goes in search of a photograph, but what he finds is far more profound: a life lived on his terms . This is not about “getting out of your comfort zone.” This is self-overcoming , Nietzsche’s core idea of willing oneself to become something new.

Transvaluation of Values

In Nietzsche’s terms, Walter enacts a transvaluation of values. He moves from a world where value is external (efficiency, productivity, compliance) to one where value is internal and embodied :

He rejects the corporate contempt for the past.
He reconnects with tactile experience, movement, risk, beauty.
He lives Life’s slogan not as branding but as a personal credo:
To see the world, things dangerous to come to, to see behind walls…

Crucially, Walter does not become a rebel or a destroyer. He does not blow up the office. He does something more radical: he stops needing it . He no longer depends on others for validation or meaning. He does not need his fantasies anymore, either.

In the Silence of the Sacred

There is a moment late in the film, quiet and often overlooked, that encapsulates this transformation. Walter finds Sean O’Connell (Sean Penn) on a Himalayan peak, photographing a snow leopard. The image is perfect, rare, and sacred. However, Sean does not take the shot.

“Sometimes,” he says, “I don’t. If I like a moment… I stay in it.”

This thought is not passivity ; it is the rejection of instrumental logic . The refusal to reduce everything to proof, product, or outcome. This is the Übermensch’s stance: not to consume the sacred, but to dwell within it .

Walter returns home not as the man he was, nor as the hero he imagined, but as something else entirely, a being who no longer requires the old scaffolding of meaning .

Conclusion: A Myth for the Post-Meaning Age

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty , for me, is not just a feel-good tale about adventure. It is a modern myth for a world that has lost its gods, be they divine or institutional. It suggests that in the ruins of those systems, one might still find a way not just to live but to become.

Walter Mitty does not escape his life. He reclaims it. In doing so, he becomes not a fantasy hero but something rarer: a creator of value , a man who has looked into the void and said, “I will make this matter.”

Moreover, that Nietzsche might say, is the beginning of the Übermensch.

The Account Director’s Journey: Balancing Light and Dark in Client Service

Sun, 18 May 2025 02:19:00 GMT

A Foot in Two Worlds (and Galaxies)

I remember a Monday morning in a client’s boardroom, feeling like a character in a Star Wars saga. On one side of the table sat my agency’s creative lead, excitedly pitching an ambitious (and expensive) campaign. On the other side, the client’s marketing manager nervously clutched her quarterly targets. As the Account Director (AD), I was squarely in the middle – a guardian of balance . In that moment, I felt like what I can only describe as a Jedi. Tasked with maintaining harmony in the Force, resisting the pull of the “dark side” (short-term profit or blind client appeasement) while upholding the “light” (long-term trust and mutual success). Such is the daily narrative of a great Account Director: a professional with one foot in the agency world and one in the client’s universe, striving to serve both masters without tipping into imbalance.

On paper, an Account Director is the liaison between the agency and the client, responsible for guiding campaigns from ideation to execution. A great AD is often an unsung hero, the person keeping the lights on by nurturing the client-agency relationship. But beyond the job description lies a more nuanced, dual role . You are the client’s representative inside the agency’s halls, and the agency’s ambassador in the client’s world. Walking this tightrope is both an art and a science – one that demands empathy, savvy, and sometimes, heroic levels of patience. Below, I’ll reflect on what I feel makes a great Account Director in a digital agency, drawing from real experiences and even a bit of anthropological wisdom, to explore how we navigate the light and dark forces at play.

The Dual Role, Client Champion & Agency Advocate

Every Account Director lives a professional double life (more like triple). To the client, you are the face of the agency – the one who speaks their language, understands their business, and advocates for their needs. To your agency, you are the voice of the client, bringing their perspective into internal discussions, fighting for their interests, but also steering them toward the agency’s vision. Striking the right balance is crucial. If you lean too far toward the client’s side, you risk being seen internally as “client-pleasing” at the expense of the agency’s profit or creative integrity. Lean too far toward the agency’s agenda, and you may undermine the client’s trust or best outcomes.

In practice, being a client’s representative inside the agency means constantly empathising with the client’s goals and constraints. You champion their brief in front of your strategists and creatives. I’ve often found myself saying in meetings, “Let’s remember what the client’s CEO is expecting this quarter,” to ground a creative idea in business reality. Conversely, as the agency’s ambassador to the client, a great AD also educates and guides the client, sometimes delivering hard truths or pushing back diplomatically when the agency’s expertise says the client’s idea won’t work. You might gently say, “Based on our experience, here’s a different approach that could achieve your goal more effectively.” In these moments, you’re advocating for the agency’s know-how and creative vision.

Playing both roles is a delicate dance . One moment you’re reassuring your agency’s finance director that giving a bit of extra value to the client is worthwhile for long-term relationship building; the next, you’re explaining to the client why the agency’s new strategic recommendation (which might cost more upfront) is in their best interest. I’ve learned that the key is integrity and consistency – if both sides know that you ultimately seek a win-win outcome, they’re more likely to trust your guidance. In other words, a great AD must become a symbol of partnership . You are there to ensure the client and the agency both benefit and feel heard. When done right, this dual advocacy fosters a partnership where great work can thrive. As one industry veteran put it, a good account director is always scanning “what’s now and what’s next” to improve both the client’s work and the agency’s success. That forward-looking mindset – serving the mutual goals of client and agency – is at the heart of the role.

Walking the Empathy Tightrope

Empathy is the Account Director’s superpower – but it must be wielded carefully. Too little empathy , and you’ll come off as tone-deaf to your client’s pressures or your team’s burnout. Too much empathy , however, and you risk losing objectivity or becoming overly aligned with one side. Great ADs develop a kind of professional empathy , a deep understanding of both client and agency perspectives without becoming completely partisan to either. THIS IS NOT AN EASY THING TO ACHIEVE.

I recall a situation early in my career where I grew very close to a client’s marketing team. We’d grab coffees, share jokes about each other’s kids – in short, the relationship became very friendly. It felt great… until budget negotiations rolled around. When I tried to uphold the agency’s pricing on a new project, the client’s team reacted with surprise and a hint of betrayal – weren’t we friends ? In hindsight, I had blurred the lines. I’d been too empathetic and matey , so the client assumed I’d always bend in their favour. It’s a classic pitfall: as one agency GM noted, if things get too familiar, the client can start to feel “a little cheated when they have to pay you”. In other words, overstepping professional boundaries in the name of friendship can undermine the very relationship you meant to strengthen. Ever since, I’ve kept in mind that healthy boundaries are a form of empathy too – they protect both sides. Our clients deserve transparency and fairness, but also a professional firmness that ultimately safeguards the partnership.

On the flip side, I’ve seen Account Directors err by empathising only with their own agency’s position. Picture this: an AD who automatically defends every agency decision – timeline slips, cost overruns, creative tangents – without considering the client’s frustrations. That AD might think they’re a loyal agency team member, but from the client’s view, they appear indifferent or deaf to legitimate concerns. The result? Frayed trust and a client who feels unheard. Balanced empathy means listening intently to the client’s needs and concerns (even if it’s the umpteenth time you’ve heard that ROI is tight or that legal approvals are a nightmare), while also understanding the agency team’s creative pride and operational challenges. Then, you translate – empathetically . You explain to your creative team why the client is anxious about that edgy campaign idea (their boss in the C-suite is extremely risk-averse), and you find a compromise. You explain to the client why the team is pushing a bold strategy – not just because the agency wants an award, but because they truly believe it will outperform the safer approach. In these moments, you are effectively an empathy bridge , maintaining trust by showing each side you understand them, yet guiding both toward a middle path.

Great Account Directors humanise both parties to each other . We remind the client that an overworked design team isn’t just a “vendor” but people who take pride in their craft. We remind the agency that the client isn’t an abstract “account” but a person under real pressure from their own bosses. By walking this empathy tightrope carefully, an AD ensures neither side falls off into the abyss of cynicism or frustration. Instead, both agency and client feel seen, respected, and motivated to collaborate – the only sustainable way to achieve those stellar campaign results everyone wants.

Agency Politics and the Dark Side of Profit

Let’s address the Darth Vader in the room: agency politics and the pressure to make a profit. Digital agencies are businesses, and like any business, there are revenue targets, margins, and growth goals looming in the background of every client engagement. As an AD, you’re often caught at the nexus of lofty ideals and financial reality. The tension can feel like the pull of the dark side – a whisper to prioritise short-term revenue over the client’s long-term welfare. In tough times, that whisper can grow loud. (One agency CEO recently summed up the mood bluntly: “The business of agencies right now is staying in business.” – a testament to how survival instincts can dominate agency decisions in a competitive market.)

I’ve lived through moments when agency greed undermined outcomes . In one instance, our agency leadership pushed hard to upsell a client on a costly e-commerce platform overhaul. Yes, it would bump up our quarterly numbers – but it wasn’t truly what the client needed at that time. My client contact was hesitant, saying it felt like using a cannon to kill a fly. I privately agreed, but the internal pressure was intense; I was a relatively new AD and didn’t feel I could contradict the powers that be. We convinced the client to proceed. The result? A six-month project that drained the client’s budget and patience, and delivered underwhelming results because it solved the wrong problem. The client’s trust was shattered. They never openly scolded us, but the next contract renewal was not a given. I learned the hard way that chasing revenue at the expense of the client’s true interests is a Pyrrhic victory (on at too great a cost to have been worthwhile for the victo r) – the dark side might win the battle, but you lose the war (and the client). In the long term, an unhappy client will walk away, and no one will profit.

Agency politics can also pressure ADs to defend the indefensible. Perhaps the agency over-promised to win the pitch, and now the team is burning out to deliver. Perhaps creative leadership insists on a risky concept that will look great in our portfolio, even if the client might get nervous. In internal discussions, an AD might hear rationales that are less than noble: “If we don’t upsell this, another agency will,” or “The client will never know we padded these hours.” These are pivotal moments for an Account Director. Do you yield to the dark side of spinning or obscuring the truth? Or do you stand up for the light – transparency, honesty, and advising what’s genuinely best for the client? A great AD finds ways to advocate for the client’s outcome even within their own agency . Sometimes that means having tough conversations with your bosses, backing up your stance with logic: “If we push for this quick profit and it fails, we’ll burn the relationship. What if instead we propose a smaller pilot initiative that addresses the client’s immediate need and builds trust for bigger projects?” In my experience, reframing what’s good for the client as a long-term win for the agency can turn the tide internally. After all, a happy client tends to lead to more business . Research backs this up – trust and relationship quality directly impact an agency’s ability to generate new business (three-quarters of marketers find agencies via word-of-mouth). In short, client success is agency success, a truth any Jedi—I mean AD—should hold dear.

Yet, I’d be lying if I said it’s always easy. The politics within an agency – competing department priorities, utilisation rates, ego battles over creative direction – can test an AD’s resolve. The trick is to remember your purpose : to champion great work that delivers for the client and the agency. When you keep that mission as your North Star, it’s easier to resist the magnetic pull of pure profit motives. Instead, you push for sustainable growth built on client results. I often think of it this way: every time I choose to prioritise a client’s outcome over a quick buck, I’m investing in the “light side” – trust, partnership, and a reputation for integrity. It’s that reputation that will keep your agency’s galaxy thriving in the long run, not one-off cash grabs.

Navigating the Client’s Internal Galaxy

If internal agency politics weren’t challenging enough, an Account Director must also navigate the political Death Star, which is the client’s organisation . Clients are not monolithic; they are made up of individuals and departments with their own agendas and power dynamics. A great AD learns to map out the client’s internal landscape – who holds the real influence, what unspoken tensions exist between, say, the CMO and the CFO, or how the brand team and the sales team might have clashing priorities. Understanding these dynamics is critical to delivering work that actually lands and lasts.

Consider a scenario: Your day-to-day client contact, a marketing manager, is excited about an innovative campaign your team proposed. You’re ready to launch, when suddenly the client’s CFO voices concerns that derail the plan – budget too high, ROI unclear . The project stalls. The marketing manager is frustrated and embarrassed internally, and your agency team is demoralised. A savvy Account Director would have anticipated this by probing early on about who the key decision-makers were and what internal hurdles might exist. In one of my past projects, I learned to ask, “Whose buy-in do we need to make this a success? Is your Head of Sales on board with this messaging?” Those questions uncovered that the sales department had historically felt left out of marketing initiatives – a clue that we needed to involve them or risk a last-minute veto. We adjusted our approach, invited a sales rep to a strategy session, and tweaked the campaign to address a sales concern. Lo and behold, when we eventually pitched to the C-suite, the Sales Director (usually a sceptic) was an unexpected ally, not an adversary.

Power dynamics within client organisations can directly shape an AD’s strategy. Sometimes, you’re effectively coaching your client-side contact on how to sell an idea to their boss. I’ve even helped draft internal pitch decks for a client to take to their CEO – arming them with data and arguments, almost like a rebel giving the hero the tools to take down the shield generator. Other times, the AD must reconcile differing client voices: the CEO who cares only about quarterly results, and the brand manager who cares about long-term brand equity. In such cases, the AD becomes a diplomat, finding language that resonates with both – framing a campaign as both a brand-builder and a sales driver, for instance.

From an anthropological lens, stepping into a client’s company is like entering a foreign culture. Each organisation has its own jargon, values, and hierarchy . Here, I channel a bit of anthropology: adopting an emic perspective – understanding the client’s world as an insider – while also keeping an etic perspective – observing objectively as an outsider. Practically, this means I strive to speak the client’s language (literally and metaphorically) and respect their culture, without losing my external objectivity. For example, one client might be very data-driven and formal, so my communications mirror that tone with detailed spreadsheets and conservative language. Another client might pride themselves on being edgy and trendsetting, so I’d communicate in a more fast-and-loose creative style. Adopting the emic (insider) view builds rapport – it shows I “get” them. In fact, as one agency strategist noted, even something as small as using your client’s internal lingo can signal that you truly understand and are invested in their business. It’s amazing how a client’s eyes light up when you use the nickname of their proprietary process or reference an internal motto – they see you as one of their own. That trust is priceless.

Yet I pair this with an etic (outsider) mindset – remembering that I’m not actually a member of the client’s company, which helps me stay objective. This outsider vantage lets me ask the naïve questions an insider might overlook and offer fresh perspectives. It’s a balancing act of insider empathy and outsider wisdom . Great ADs toggle between these modes: deeply embed yourself to grasp the client’s internal realities (their “culture”), then step out of that skin to help them see beyond their bubble. When you can articulate the client’s challenges better than they can – and bring an external solution they hadn’t considered – you’ve demonstrated the value that keeps agencies in the room even when clients consider going in-house. In a sense, you become both a trusted tribe member and the wise outsider sage. It’s a powerful dual identity that elevates an AD from mere order-taker to a strategic partner.

Trust, Reciprocity and the Gift of Partnership

At the heart of every strong client-agency engagement lies a simple, fragile thing: trust . Trust is the Force that binds our two worlds together. It’s hard-won and easily lost, and a great Account Director knows that nurturing trust is their foremost job. Without trust, even the most brilliant campaign will falter under suspicion and second-guessing. With trust, even challenges and mistakes can be weathered together. But how does an AD build and sustain trust? Partly through all the ways discussed – honesty, balanced empathy, consistent delivery – but there’s an even deeper concept at play: the idea of the client relationship as a gift exchange with mutual obligations, a notion straight out of anthropology.

Anthropologists like Marcel Mauss famously observed that in many cultures, a gift is never “free” – accepting a gift initiates a cycle of exchange, an ongoing relationship of give and take. Each party incurs obligations to reciprocate in some way, and failing to do so can damage the bond. I’ve come to see a client’s business as a kind of gift the client bestows upon the agency. It’s not a gift in the trivial sense (after all, we earn that business and get paid for work), but in a broader sense, it’s an offering that creates mutual obligations. The client entrusts us with their brand and budget – a gesture of faith. In return, the agency (through the AD’s stewardship) owes the client our dedication, creativity, and honest counsel. If we, as an agency, fail to reciprocate that trust, say, by taking the money and delivering shoddy work or self-serving recommendations, we betray the unspoken social contract. In many cultures, when gifts are not acknowledged or reciprocated, the giver feels insulted and views the offender as untrustworthy. Business relationships are not so different: a client who feels their trust or generosity isn’t reciprocated with results and respect will understandably view the agency as unfriendly and unfaithful.

Conversely, when a client treats an agency not as a disposable vendor but as a partner – that too is a kind of gift. I’ve had clients who, for example, approved additional budget for user research because they trusted it would improve outcomes, even when they didn’t have to. Or clients who defended our agency in front of their board when results took time to manifest. These gestures create a sense of indebtedness and gratitude on the agency side. A great Account Director makes sure to acknowledge these gifts and ensure the agency reciprocates in kind – perhaps by going the extra mile on a deliverable, or proactively solving a problem outside the immediate project scope. This isn’t about quid pro quo in a cold, calculated way; it’s about stewardship and reciprocity . You nurture the client’s business as if it were a precious trust handed to you – because it is. In healthy long-term relationships, both client and agency continuously exchange value and favours (ideas, accommodations, small concessions, extra efforts) that strengthen social ties, much like the gift cycles anthropologists describe.

One story comes to mind that solidified this for me. Our agency once made a mistake – a pretty big one – in a campaign rollout that caused the client public embarrassment. We were mortified. As the AD, I braced for the worst. But the client’s marketing director didn’t rage or threaten to fire us. Instead, he invited us to a candid post-mortem meeting. He said, “We chose you as a partner, so let’s fix this together.” That grace felt like a gift of trust we hadn’t earned. It created an obligation: we owed them not just a fix, but redoubled commitment to ensure it never happened again. We poured our hearts into making things right, working overtime, devising new quality checks. In the end, the campaign recovered, and our relationship was stronger than before, because we’d gone through fire together in good faith. This experience taught me that trust grows when both sides invest in each other, treating the relationship itself as something worth protecting – a shared “third entity,” almost like a child both client and agency are raising. Each project, each favour, each hard conversation is an exchange that, handled honourably, adds to a reservoir of goodwill.

Yet, trust is undeniably fragile . Industry surveys remind us that even today, many client-agency relationships are strained or short-lived – over half of brands said in 2023 that they were likely to end their main agency partnership within six months. That’s a sobering statistic, and it underscores that trust can evaporate quickly if not continuously nourished. A change in client personnel, one disastrous project, or a perception of complacency can break the spell. As ADs, we must constantly tend to the relationship like a gardener to a garden, weeding out doubt and resentment and planting seeds of value and reliability. Regular check-ins, honest conversations about what is and isn’t working, and showing up consistently – these are our tools. Often I ask clients, “How are you feeling about our partnership? What can we do better?” Those are nerve-wracking questions, but they invite dialogue that can surface small issues before they become deal-breakers. It’s far better to address a brewing concern (maybe the client feels the agency’s strategy team hasn’t fully grasped their new market, for example) than to let silent disappointment fester. In the words of one study, effective communication and proactive transparency are critical – breakdowns in understanding desired outcomes are often what cause relationships to break . A great AD doesn’t fear these discussions; we facilitate them, using them to reinforce that mutual obligation: we are in this together, and we will both hold up our end of the bargain .

Steward of Balance: The Way of the Account Director

Being a truly great Account Director is not for the faint of heart. It requires the wisdom of Yoda, the diplomacy of Princess Leia, and occasionally the nerve of Han Solo when flying into an asteroid field of conflicting demands. It’s about being a steward of balance – between client and agency, between empathy and objectivity, between creative ambition and practical results, between short-term wins and long-term relationship health. In the grand narrative of agency life, the AD is often the unsung protagonist , orchestrating harmony where there is potential for discord. You will be very unlikely to discover someone in their 20s let alone 30s with enough life and work experience to achieve this mastery. I’m sure that comment will put a few ambitious impatient younglings offside.

To thrive in this role, you cultivate what anthropologists might call a bi-cultural fluency – you speak the culture of the client and the culture of the agency. You learn to sense when the relationship is veering off-course and apply the right remedy: maybe a frank talk with the client to reset expectations (stepping up as the agency’s advocate), or an internal come-to-Jesus meeting to remind the team of the client’s perspective (stepping into the client’s shoes). You also become a protector of trust , treating it almost as a sacred Force that you must keep in balance. When faced with the inevitable temptations of the dark side – cutting a corner, milking a budget, placating a client against your better judgement – you remember that every action either feeds or starves the trust in the relationship. Great ADs consistently feed trust, even if it means tough love or foregoing a short-term benefit. The reward is a partnership that endures and delivers value year after year, which ultimately benefits everyone.

In closing, the role of Account Director in a digital agency is a tale of duality and harmony . It’s the account person who can channel empathy into insight, who can mediate between a client’s needs and an agency’s goals like a balanced Jedi, and who views the client relationship not as a transaction but as a long-term exchange of gifts and obligations. Such an AD becomes not just a manager, but a steward – of the client’s trust, of the agency’s integrity, and of the collaborative spirit that drives successful campaigns. Seasoned agency professionals know that this path is challenging, even exhausting at times, but it’s also deeply rewarding. When you see a client and your agency team celebrating a win together – both feeling heard, respected, and proud – you realise you’ve been part of something special: the forging of genuine partnership. And that is the light side triumph every great Account Director lives for.

Sources: The reflections above draw on a blend of first-hand experience and industry insights. For further reading on building trust in client-agency relationships and balancing these dynamics, see Basis Technologies’ report on the strain in modern partnerships, Valerie Donati’s perspective on client-agency tension points, and anthropological discussions of gift reciprocity which parallel business exchanges. These sources underscore the importance of empathy, transparency and reciprocity – the very forces that keep the client-agency galaxy in balance.

Vanishing Midcentury Melbourne: How We Are Erasing Our Modern Heritage.

Wed, 14 May 2025 06:26:00 GMT

I am passionate about midcentury architecture, furniture and fashion, plus a Robin Boyd fan-boy. Don’t get me started on Boyd-Baker house! What is upsetting is that in Melbourne, we are quietly losing an important piece of our history. In suburbs across the city, modest mid-20th-century homes – those low-slung midcentury modern dwellings with flat roofs, broad eaves and timber-lined interiors – are disappearing at an alarming rate.

Some are bulldozed outright; others are stripped of their character in the name of “renovation.” The ongoing loss of these homes, with little to no heritage protection to save them, has activists and heritage lovers sounding the alarm. Each demolished or “whitewashed” midcentury house is not just one less older home – it is the erasure of a cultural artefact, a small but significant chapter of Melbourne’s postwar identity.

Midcentury Marvels Under Threat

Drive through any Melbourne suburb and you might spot a demolition in progress sign where a 1950s or 60s home once stood. In recent years, even award-winning midcentury houses have met the wrecking ball. For example, Breedon House (built in 1966 in Brighton, and winner of a design award in its day) was razed in 2020 while awaiting a heritage assessment. Another modernist gem – a 1957 home at 17 Nautilus Street in bayside Beaumaris– was flattened to make way for a new build.

Without heritage protection, these design marvels are being knocked down to make way for new homes , often oversized, cheap and nasty mansions or townhouses that erase all trace of what stood before.

Local councils are theoretically responsible for listing and protecting significant properties, but many have slowly acknowledged the importance of midcentury homes. Heritage schemes are often outdated – some council studies from the 1980s and ’90s “didn’t even look at 20th-century architecture” – leaving this “golden age” of Australian home design largely off the radar. The result? A wave of postwar houses is paying the price, disappearing one by one.

Photo from Trove: https://trove.nla.gov.au/blog/2024/12/13/place-call-home

Activists and architectural historians have watched this trend with growing concern. “ All this shows just how precarious our heritage is “ lamented one advocate when another 1960s home faced demolition in Beaumaris. Grassroots groups like Beaumaris Modern in the beachside suburbs have formed to lobby councils and raise awareness. “Only a handful [of these homes are protected]… we are way behind America on this,” says Fiona Austin, founder of Beaumaris Modern. Thanks to such pressure, a few councils have begun nominating midcentury houses for heritage overlays – but progress is slow and often too late. In one striking case, an architect-designed Brighton home was demolished while under review for heritage listing , after an interim protection order was denied because there was no “immediate threat”. The wreckers moved in, proving that the threat was all too real.

Even homes by Australia’s most celebrated architects have not been spared. In Beaumaris alone, “over the past 15 years… homes by well-known modernist architects such as Robin Boyd, Neil Clerehan and Roy Grounds have succumbed to demolition” . To lose works by Robin Boyd – the famed author of The Australian Ugliness and designer of elegantly simple modern homes – is especially chilling for architecture lovers. If Boyd’s houses are unsafe, what hope is there for the countless midcentury homes built by lesser-known architects or ordinary builders?

What Made These Homes Special?

Why all the fuss about “midcentury” design? For those unfamiliar, mid-20th-century homes , roughly late 1940s to 1970s, marked a radical shift from the ornate styles of earlier generations. These were the years of the Great Australian Dream : a modern home for the nuclear family in the booming postwar suburbs. Young architects and migrants fresh from war-torn Europe saw Australia as a blank canvas for new ideas. The result was a melting pot of influences that birthed a distinctly Australian version of modern architecture. Suburbs like Beaumaris, Balwyn and Caulfield became testing grounds for modernist innovation , and the average family home would never be the same again.

Midcentury modern homes broke away from boxy formal rooms and dark interiors. They introduced open-plan living , a fluid layout of lounge, dining and kitchen areas all connected – a novelty at the time. Large windows and glass sliding doors brought in natural light and blurred the line between indoors and outdoors. Architects prioritised large family living areas, indoor-outdoor flow, and artisanal features tailored to leisure and comfort. Instead of front verandahs and parlours, these homes opened onto patios, courtyards or back gardens, making outdoor space “as important as the indoor space,” as one midcentury homeowner observed. Many designs featured north-facing living rooms to capture winter sun, flat or skillion roofs (gently sloping roofs without the traditional pitch), and wide eaves to shade the summer heat. The aesthetic was clean and uncluttered , emphasising horizontal lines and low profiles that hugged the ground. It was modern and distinctly Australian, fitting our climate and casual lifestyle.

Midcentury house interiors embrace warm, natural materials. It is common to find timber panelling on walls or ceilings, from rich mahogany and teak to local hardwoods, bringing warmth and texture to living spaces. Built-in furniture was another hallmark of the era. Rather than fill a room with freestanding cupboards or shelves, architects often designed cabinetry, seating, and even bars built into the house’s structure .

These bespoke fixtures saved space and created a cohesive look – the house provided your bookcases, banquette bench, or cocktail bar in the lounge. In one famous 1957 modernist house in Beaumaris (nicknamed “the Eagle’s Nest”), the interior boasted “extensive interior wood panelling and a large fireplace” as focal points of a design that was hailed as “a beacon of mid-century modernity” . Many homes of the era also incorporated elements like feature stone walls, floating staircases, or decorative screens – touches of artistic flair integrated into the architecture.

In essence, these houses were total design packages . Every element, from the placement of the windows to the built-in dining nook, was considered part of a harmonious whole. They represented an optimistic time when Australians were experimenting with new designs and materials to create a better way of living. Not only architects, but also everyday homeowners (often newly arrived migrants or first-generation Australians) put their stamp on midcentury suburbia, blending modern ideas with personal touches. Waves of European migrants settling in Melbourne in the 1950s and ’60s brought a unique sense of style , leaving their mark on the look of our suburbs. Stroll down certain streets and you might see, for example, an Italian family’s 1960s home with Roman-style columns on the porch, or a Greek-Australian home with breeze-block screens and Mediterranean garden statues. Such details might seem quirky today, but speak volumes about the owners’ identities and aspirations.

(Photo suggestion: An interior of a well-preserved midcentury home – showing wood-panelled walls, a built-in sofa or bookshelf, and large windows opening to a garden. This helps readers visualise the cosy, integrated design elements.)

Whitewashing and “Updating” – Erasure from Within

Not all midcentury homes vanish in an instant cloud of dust; many are slowly erased through insensitive renovations . In real estate ads, we often see phrases like “updated for modern living” or “renovated in contemporary style” – code words for what preservationists call whitewashing . This often means painting over original materials with generic white paint or ripping out distinctive midcentury features to replace them with trendier fittings. The result might be a fresh white interior that photographs well for sale, but it also amounts to stripping the home of its soul .

Consider the timber-panelled walls and built-in joinery that once charmed these homes. In the current renovation frenzy, it is common for new owners to yank out 1960s built-in cabinets and seating , declaring them “outdated”, or to sand and paint over beautifully aged wood ceilings in flat white. Original brick fireplaces get dry-walled over or replaced with slick modern inserts; colourful vintage bathroom tiles are smashed out in favour of monochrome marble. One heritage architect noted that these homes’ modesty and simplicity have ironically made them a target – people assume they are plain or “ugly” and need a cosmetic overhaul. As Rohan Storey, a long-time National Trust advocate, put it: the broader community still does not accept modernist houses as “heritage” , with some dismissing them as “ugly, plain or ordinary” . This mindset leads to well-intentioned renovators effectively obliterating midcentury character in pursuing a “clean, modern” look.

Such changes may seem small in isolation – what is the harm in a coat of paint, after all? – But cumulatively, they amount to a quiet form of cultural vandalism. Painting over a mid-century timber feature wall might brighten the room, but it also whitewashes history (literally!) . You are erasing the evidence of 1950s craftsmanship and material culture. Those timber walls and stone cladding were chosen to express a particular aesthetic of the time; to remove their surface is to muffle the voice of that era. Likewise, tearing out a built-in bar or banquette is not just a design choice, but a removal of a piece of the home’s story. It was common in the 60s and 70s for immigrant families to install built-in bars in their living rooms – a proud feature for entertaining guests in the new land. Younger Australians are now rediscovering these retro bars and banquette dining booths with affection, seeing them as charming relics of their grandparents’ generation. When we thoughtlessly junk these custom pieces, we lose the physical embodiments of midcentury social life – the cocktail hours, the family dinners, the “indoor-outdoor” parties that these houses were designed to host .

There is also a trend toward homogenisation that threatens midcentury homes. Drive through a neighbourhood where many older houses remain, and you will notice a troubling pattern: if a house has not been knocked down entirely, it has often been transformed to look like every other new renovation. Earthy brick exteriors are coated in dull grey render, timber window frames are replaced with black aluminium, and midcentury decorative screens are tossed in a skip. The unique spatial layouts get reconfigured – perhaps that once-open living-dining area is chopped up to create an extra bedroom, or a low-pitched roof is built into a two-storey addition that dwarfs the original. Bit by bit, the original design intent is lost under layers of “improvements.” An observer of Australian housing trends might wryly note that we are turning individual midcentury creations into cookie-cutter contemporaries.

It is worth noting that this phenomenon is not just happenstance – it reflects changing tastes and economic pressures. In today’s market, land values are high, and the fashion in interiors leans toward minimalist, white-on-white schemes. “Modern design’s insistent diktat that less is usually more” has led many to strip away ornament and colour in favour of a neutral palette. The problem is that less in this context often means less character, heritage, and storytelling. As one artist noted in a recent exhibition on migrant houses, we should not dismiss these original decor elements as “kitsch” or lowbrow; they have cultural meaning if we choose to see them. Unfortunately, the forces of gentrification and a rush to renovate mean many midcentury homes are either being demolished or renovated into oblivion before a new generation can appreciate them.

2022: https://www.realestate.com.au/sold/property-house-vic-balwyn-139337435
2025: https://www.realestate.com.au/property-house-vic-balwyn-148008064

Homes as Cultural Time Capsules

From an anthropological perspective, this loss is about far more than architecture. These midcentury houses are cultural time capsules . They embody the values, aspirations and everyday lives of a unique era in Australian history – roughly the 1950s to 1970s, when society was rapidly changing. When we wipe out these homes (or even their interior features), we delete physical evidence of who we were and how we lived. It is a material and cultural erasure that profoundly impacts our collective memory and urban identity.

Think of the postwar period: Australia welcomed immigrants from across Europe, young families sprawled into new suburbs, and the old British-oriented ways gave way to a new Australian modern identity. The houses of that era reflect that transition . Migrants, especially, imprinted their stories into their homes. As one design expert beautifully said, these houses were attempts “to build a place that reconciles the motherland’s loss with the fatherland’s adoption.” In other words, midcentury migrant homes were hybrids – part Australian modernism, part homage to the old country. They might feature Croatian pennants hanging in a sleek open-plan lounge, or Italian terrazzo tiles in a kitchen with locally made cabinetry. Every doily, brick facade, pebble garden and concrete cherub statue in those homes tells a story of cultural adaptation and pride. “They are all beautiful and deserve to be celebrating,” said Alex Kelly, an Australian of migrant heritage, speaking of the once-dismissed decor of his grandparents’ generation. These details might have been mocked as garish or unfashionable in years past, but today we recognise them as tangible heritage – the physical manifestation of multicultural Melbourne in mid-20th century.

When such a house is gutted or torn down, it is not just the loss of timber and brick. We lose a stage on which countless personal stories played out. Consider a midcentury living room in Footscray where a Vietnamese-Australian family celebrated their first Lunar New Year in Australia in the 1970s, or a Modernist home in Caulfield North where a Holocaust survivor family built a new life with a bold, light-filled design symbolising hope. These spaces witnessed important moments of ordinary people’s lives – birthdays, dinner parties, quiet afternoons, and frantic mornings. Anthropologists often say that buildings remember ; they carry the imprints of social practices and rituals. When we obliterate the building, we also displace those memories. Future generations lose the chance to ever stumble upon them, to walk into a vintage 60s lounge and feel what life might have been like back then.

Urban identity suffers as well. Melbourne is a city that wears its history on its sleeve – or rather, in its streetscapes. We proudly preserve Victorian-era terraces and Art Deco apartment blocks, knowing they contribute to the city’s unique character. Midcentury architecture is an equally important layer of Melbourne’s identity, telling of a time when we grew into a cosmopolitan, modern city. The city’s visual and cultural tapestry becomes poorer if every midcentury building is replaced with generic new construction. We risk creating what one might call an architectural monoculture , where only the extremes of “old heritage” and glassy new developments remain, with nothing in between. The rich narrative of the postwar years – when Melbourne’s suburbs became incubators of innovation , when the Great Australian Dream took on a modernist flair – will fade from the landscape. As one National Trust executive warned, losing midcentury places means losing the physical proof of how Melbourne “embraced modernity” in the decades after WWII.

There is also a sustainability and continuity angle here. Destroying well-built older houses to build new ones is often an environmental negative, and it severs the continuity of place. Neighbourhoods like Beaumaris, Doncaster, or Heidelberg each have (or had) their midcentury flavour – a coherence of scale, material and style that makes them special. That character is a drawcard – it is no coincidence that photographers, film-makers, and mid-mod enthusiasts love areas with lots of midcentury homes. Wipe out those houses, and wipe out the vibe that made those suburbs distinctive. It is a loss not just felt by architecture buffs, but by anyone who values a sense of place in the city.

Protecting Our Midcentury Legacy

So what can be done to stop this quiet disappearance? Firstly, recognition is key. We must collectively recognise that midcentury architecture is heritage, even from our parents’ or grandparents’ lifetime, and not as obviously “historic” as a bluestone laneway. Thankfully, attitudes are slowly shifting. Heritage advocates, architects and community groups have been campaigning to have significant postwar buildings heritage-listed before they vanish. The Bayside council, for instance, has drawn up a list of 160 properties with midcentury modern features for potential protection. (This came only after earlier waves of demolitions caused public outcry.) There is pushback from some residents, who fear that heritage listing will affect property values or renovation plans, but others have embraced it. Architect and TV host Peter Maddison, who lives in a 1969 modernist home, welcomed the heritage overlay on his house, saying he feels like a custodian ensuring its survival for the future. This kind of stewardship mentality is precisely what is needed more broadly.

On a policy level, experts argue that all councils should update their heritage studies to include the 1940s-1970s period and proactively protect outstanding examples. The National Trust and other bodies have started programs to identify and advocate for midcentury “hidden gems” in various suburbs. Some success stories give hope: Lind House in Caulfield North, a 1950s modernist masterpiece by architect Anatol Kagan, was saved from redevelopment in 2017 after a public campaign, and is now lovingly restored by new owners. Each house saved sets a precedent that these places are worth keeping. However, relying on case-by-case, last-minute rescues is risky; we need a more systematic approach.

Beyond formal protection, there is a role for public education and celebration . The midcentury modern revival in popular culture (just think of the enthusiasm for Mad Men -era furniture and vintage decor) can be leveraged to show people the beauty of these homes in their original state. Open house events, local history tours, or online communities (such as the Modernist Australia website and Instagram accounts dedicated to retro homes) help turn the tide by making midcentury cool again, not just as a style to copy in new builds, but by cherishing the actual houses we still have. When younger buyers appreciate the charm of an untouched 1960s interior, they might choose to restore rather than rip out . Some are doing precisely that: in Melbourne’s north, a couple dubbed their 1970s fixer-upper “Shag Manor” and are restoring its shag carpet and funky features, rather than gutting it, as a tribute to the migrant family who built it. Such projects show that preserving midcentury elements can go hand-in-hand with living comfortably in the 21st century.

Finally, we can all engage in some activism in our way. If you are lucky enough to own or live in a midcentury place, consider yourself a caretaker of cultural heritage – keep those original elements if you can, and if you must change, do it sympathetically. If you are a neighbourhood resident, lend your voice when a notable local midcentury home comes under threat – write to the council, sign petitions, support groups like the National Trust or local historical societies. Even sharing before-and-after photos on social media of a beautifully preserved 60s home versus a characterless rebuild can raise awareness and perhaps inspire a change of heart in the next person about to pick up a sledgehammer.

Valuing the Story in the Structure

Heritage is not just about grand public buildings or 19th-century mansions but also about ordinary homes with extraordinary stories. Melbourne’s midcentury houses may look humble to some. However, they are laden with cultural significance: They reflect the optimism of the postwar years, the contributions of migrant communities, and the evolution of our domestic lives. To demolish or drastically alter them without thought is to disservice our city’s narrative.

In an activist spirit, we must stop treating midcentury homes as disposable . Each time we save a 1950s modernist dwelling or sensitively renovate a 1960s family home, we honour Melbourne’s cultural memory. These buildings are touchstones of who we have been – material memories in timber, brick and concrete. Instead of whitewashing them (literally or figuratively), let us celebrate their weathered clinker bricks, quirky built-in cupboards, and funky retro tiles. Let us see the beauty in what they represent. As the saying goes, they do not build them like they used to – and in the case of midcentury modern, that is true both technically and philosophically. We will never have that era again, but we can choose to keep its best pieces standing.

Melbourne’s identity is a patchwork of its past eras. By protecting midcentury architecture, we ensure the patchwork does not lose a whole panel. We keep the city layered and engaging, a place that embraces both history and modernity. In saving these homes, we are not just preserving old wood and glass – we are preserving a generation’s lived experiences and dreams , and passing those on to the next. It is a fight for memory against forgetfulness, for character against uniformity. Moreover, it is a fight every Melburnian who cares about our cultural landscape should join.

Injected with anthropological insight and a passion for preservation, this is a call to appreciate the midcentury marvels in our midst, before they vanish forever, taking a piece of us with them.

Sources:

Samantha Landy, “Melbourne mid-century homes: Lax heritage schemes endangering important part of our history” – realestate.com.au
Emily Hutchinson, “The fight to save mid-century marvels from the bulldozer” – realestate.com.au
Andrea Nierhoff, “Melbourne bayside residents fight heritage listing of their mid-century modern homes” – ABC News .
Balance Architecture (blog), “Modernism – Time to Protect Midcentury Modernism with Heritage Listing.”
Mostafa Rachwani, “‘Doilies are beautiful’: Celebrating Australia’s mid-century migrant design” – The Guardian .
Realestate.com.au interview with Fiona Austin, founder of Beaumaris Modern

Confessions of a Frustrated Anthropologist, Part I

Tue, 06 May 2025 00:30:00 GMT

I’m yet to officially started a career in anthropology, but in many ways, I’ve been doing it all along. I started in advertising—longer ago than I want to admit—when briefs were printed, personas were invented from scratch, and research meant observing focus groups from behind a one-way mirror. And yet, somehow, I was already doing anthropology. I just didn’t know it. In recent years, I formalised it. I returned to university, studied, read (x1000), and wrote. I graduated with a BA and then Honours in anthropology. I saw the threads tying everything together—culture, power, capital, meaning, habit, and resistance. The discipline gave me language for what I’d always felt but couldn’t quite name. And for a while, that felt like progress.

But now? Now I’m not so sure. I’m stuck.

I’m not doing anthropology—not in the way I want to. I do strategy. I write briefs. I manage campaigns. And yes, I bring anthropology to all of it. I read the subtext; I notice rituals and think in systems. But most of the time, that work gets stripped down and flattened into notes and insights. The discipline I love gets reduced to something that “adds flavour” to marketing, but not substance. Anthropology is interesting to people—right up until it complicates their certainty. That’s often where the debates begin.

What’s worse, I don’t quite belong anywhere. To my academic peers, I’m not an anthropologist—I haven’t published (yet), I work in industry, and I don’t live in the journals. Even though I always carry one. To my colleagues, I’m the one who thinks too deeply, asks too many questions, and takes too long to answer a brief. I’m always translating, always toning it down. And now, I’m about to start a Master’s. Eventually, a PhD. It should be exciting. But all I feel is a creeping dread. If I’m frustrated now, what happens when I know more ? When does the gap between what anthropology can do and what I’m allowed to do with it grow even wider?

I don’t need anthropology to be everything. But I want to do more with it. I want it to matter beyond academia. I want it to sit at the table—not in the corner of the slide deck marked “insights.” I want to stop feeling like I’m smuggling it into conversations under the radar.

And honestly? I want to stop apologising for wanting more (whatever that is).

I’m not alone in this. I’ve read and spoken with others—those in media companies, user researchers on energy projects, heritage consultants—who all describe the same uneasy feeling: of living anthropologically but never being recognised as anthropologists. Some left academia after hitting walls; others never entered it because the path was too narrow or precarious. They, too, talk of translation, dilution, and a longing to bring the full weight of the discipline into spaces that often only want the thinnest slice of its insight. Knowing that many of us navigate this liminal professional identity together is comforting and frustrating.

For the most part, disciplinary associations have failed to keep pace with the evolving lives of those who study anthropology. It is a life long subject. That is my opinion from where I observe. They remain tethered to the academic model—concerned primarily with tenure, publications, and conferences—rather than cultivating the broader relevance of the discipline. There is little effort to build bridges between academic anthropology and its many practical, often unrecognised, expressions in industry, community work, design, policy, and advocacy. If this doesn’t shift—if the discipline continues to guard its gate rather than open new ones—it risks irrelevance. Not because anthropology lacks value, but because it refuses to adapt to where its thinkers have gone.

Another frustration in how some co-opt the name—using “anthropology” as a trendy label to imply depth or cultural insight—without engaging with its essence. You see it in brand consultancies, design agencies, and leadership seminars. Anthropology becomes a buzzword, a veneer of credibility, something to sprinkle into a pitch deck. But they don’t apply its methods, grapple with its ethics, or acknowledge its roots. It’s anthropology without some form of fieldwork, without reflexivity, without humility. And that, too, is frustrating—to watch a discipline that changed your life get reduced to a gimmick.

In Australia, anthropology outside of academia often feels boxed in, limited primarily to roles in First Nations communities or the expanding field of heritage advisory. Often for white colonialist purposes. These are deeply important areas, yet structurally narrow in scope and often geographically remote. These opportunties often require you to relocate to regional or isolated parts of the country for extended periods. For some, that’s a calling. For others, like me, it’s a conflict. I would love nothing more than to immerse myself in that work, but I also have a family, a mortgage, and a community I’m part of. The reality of everyday middle-aged life complicates the romantic ideal of remote long term fieldwork. And yet again, the discipline feels like it is just out of reach—present, but impractical.

So, I must confess: I’m frustrated with the world around me and myself. I’m angry that I didn’t find anthropology sooner, that I didn’t see it clearly within the work I was already doing. I think about the years I spent circling its edges without knowing the language, the theory, the method—and I wonder how different my career and contributions might have been if I’d taken the plunge earlier. But self-flagellation only goes so far. What matters now is where I go from here. I’m still driven, still curious, still committed. I know doors exist, alliances to build, and new forms to create. The challenge ahead is to channel that frustration into something generative—to do the work, however imperfect the setting, and to do it with intent, curiosity, and care. Even if anthropology hasn’t found a place for me, it has given me a compass.

Walking the Diamond: Everyday Life and the Informal Dog Commons

Sat, 03 May 2025 09:08:00 GMT

Set in the river flats of Bacchus Marsh, the Mason’s Lane Sports Area is a familiar landmark: a patchwork of green ovals, athletics tracks, and playgrounds flanked by residential streets and fields of lettuce. However, this is not just a place for scheduled sports and school routines. This essay explores a seemingly mundane site of an informal dog park and how it can function as a rich ethnographic field site. It examines how human-animal relationships, informal social governance, and spatial routines generate what anthropologists would recognise as a form of more-than-human commons (Bresnihan 2015).

For many locals, especially dog owners, the space is something more subtle but no less significant: a place of daily ritual, connection, and movement. Each day, as the sun rises or sets, the trail circling the reserve fills with walkers, joggers and dog walkers. People of all ages stroll its crushed sandstone loop—some alone, some in pairs, and often with a dog or two. The track is an artery of the life of this space, where conversations are struck up, greetings are exchanged, and familiar faces nod. Down below, in the wide-open grassy spaces, dogs of all shapes and sizes tumble, race, sniff, and fetch, filling the reserve with motion and energy. At dusk the flashing LED collars dance around in the growing darkness.

At the heart of this shared rhythm is the old baseball diamond. Once built for a sport rarely played here, the diamond has evolved into something else entirely. Enclosed by a sturdy black chain-link fence—low on most sides, tall along the northern boundary—this quiet reserve corner has become an unofficial off-leash dog park. It is not marked on any map or sign, but everyone knows what it is.

With four gates and plenty of open grass, it is a place where dogs can run freely and where their owners stroll along the fence line. Some, like myself, walk the outside perimeter, letting my anxious dog socialise at a comfortable distance. Others gather inside, forming loose constellations of companionship. This choreography of bodies—canine and human—unfolds not from official programming but from trust, familiarity, and tacit agreement. It is a space shaped by use, not design.

This is what anthropologist Włodarczyk (2021) might call a site of “more-than-human agency.” In her study of dog parks in Poland, she illustrates how urban environments are shaped through the entangled agency of humans and their canine companions. She argues that people often speak with their dogs, not merely for them. This framing challenges the traditional anthropocentric view of public space, instead inviting recognition of animals as active participants in co-creating meaning, routine, and place.

In Bacchus Marsh, this sense is palpable. Dog owners are not passive users of this space; they engage reflexively and responsively, shaping the landscape in tune with their dogs’ needs and behaviours. A dynamic commons has emerged through repetitive, negotiated practice—a dance of leash releases, play intervals, and social negotiations. These exchanges echo Marcel Mauss’s (1954) notion of gift economies—every bag of picked-up waste, every friendly reminder or shared ball, constitutes a minor social contract. In doing so, they generate and renew the bonds that make a commons thrive—not through market exchange or formal rules, but through mutual recognition and informal reciprocity. It is not governed by signage or regulations but by everyday micro-practices, spatial memory, and interspecies understanding.

Yet, just up the hill, a new chapter is being written. A $300,000 purpose-built dog park is currently under construction. Its features include a timber and tensioned chicken-wire fence, landscaped elements like tree branches, large rocks, crushed granite paths, and newly rolled turf coaxed into growth by diligent sprinklers. Soon, mass plantings and park furniture will follow.

While the new dog park signals investment and care, it raises questions. Will it match the rhythm and informality of the baseball diamond? Will it support the slow choreography of greetings over fences, the cautious introduction of nervous dogs, and the spontaneous chats that arise during a lap of the track? As some have noted on the associated Facebook group “It will be a nice landscaped garden, dog park not so much”. Some locals are concerned that this new space, while undoubtedly well-intentioned, may not reflect the actual dynamics of the community it aims to serve. Planning without ethnography risks designing for ideal users rather than real ones. Research has shown that successful shared spaces often emerge from the ground up, such as in the work of Matisoff and Noonan (2012). They require trust, not just turf.

After all, dog parks are not only about dogs. They are about people, too. They are about ageing residents establishing well-being rituals, newcomers locating themselves within a broader social fabric, and moments of trauma and healing negotiated through embodied, relational experience. In my own case, a once-frightened dog slowly rebuilt confidence through repeated, gentle exposure to others, facilitated by the semi-permeable safety of a chain-link fence and the unwritten etiquette of fellow walkers. From an anthropological perspective, these micro-interactions reflect broader cultural processes: practices of care, the negotiation of public intimacy, and the formation of what Victor Turner might call “communitas”—a shared, affective solidarity that arises from common experience in liminal spaces. Here, the dog park functions as a recreational site and a crucible of relational repair and quiet transformation.

What Bacchus Marsh has, in the quiet rhythms of Mason’s Lane, is not just an off-leash zone. It is a multispecies commons, a space co-authored by humans and animals, defined by movement, routine, and shared care. Concepts like more-than-human agency (Włodarczyk 2021) and communitas (Turner 1969) remind us that shared spaces are not only structured by policies or planning logic—they are lived into being through layered, everyday negotiations across species. Anthropology gives us the vocabulary and sensitivity to make such dynamics visible and valuable.

As urban design continues to evolve, may it listen to these gentle footprints in the grass.

Even a small-scale project like this dog park ethnography yields valuable insights. What seems like idle chatter on a park bench or dogs chasing tails is instructive for understanding how communities function. The ethnographic lens – immersive observation and thick description of everyday life – allows us to see the layers of meaning in these interactions. Geertz’s (1973) idea calls to mind that culture is a web of significance, spun by people themselves, which the anthropologist must interpret. Here, every leash ritual, every shared laugh over canine antics, is part of a local cultural text—a subtle performance of values, roles, and belonging.

Through it, I realised how a routine dog-walking circuit can reveal broader cultural patterns, not just etiquette and routine, but how community boundaries are drawn and maintained. Mary Douglas’s (1966) insight that ‘dirt is matter out of place’ resonates here: the rare appearance of an untrained or aggressive dog can momentarily disrupt the moral order, highlighting the otherwise invisible norms that govern this space. Notions of responsibility (Who cleans up? How do we gently enforce it?), practices of inclusion and exclusion (Which dogs or people feel welcome? Who might feel marginalised?), and the negotiation of shared space among diverse users. These are classic anthropological concerns, played out in microcosms daily at the dog park.

Anthropologically speaking, dog parks hold immense value as research sites. Unsurprisingly, so many scholarly papers, including anthropological ones, have been written about dog parks, especially during COVID-19, when dog parks were permissible. Researchers from various disciplines have noted that dog parks encourage exercise, build a sense of local community, and promote more humane attitudes toward pets (Lee et al. 2009; Glover et al. 2008).

Urban planners and geographers see dog parks as a positive feature of city life. They report how dog parks get people outdoors and interact, thus boosting social capital in neighbourhoods (Wood et al. 2005; Urbanik and Morgan 2013). Some have even suggested that dog parks are a step toward a more inclusive “zoöpolis,” an urban environment that integrates animal needs into human communities (Wolch and Rowe 1992). In other words, these humble fenced plots are recognised as ideal spaces for observing human-animal interaction, everyday social behaviour, and informal community dynamics on a broader scale. My journey through the diamond confirms these scholarly observations while adding a personal, ground-level perspective.

Participating in this everyday dog park world gave me insights that statistics or surveys alone might have missed – the tone of a morning gathering, the body language of dogs and owners in sync, and the unwritten etiquette everyone seems to absorb. Such details carry anthropological weight. They remind us that grand themes of culture and society are often woven into the most ordinary activities. Even in a small-town dog park, people negotiate rules, form alliances, display generosity, and perform identity. The ethnographic insight gleaned from “Walking the Diamond” thus illuminates how humans and dogs create a community that mirrors our innate desire to connect, belong, and find meaning in shared routines.

Reflecting on my time in Bacchus Marsh’s informal dog commons, I am struck by how profoundly this experience reaffirmed the value of ethnography—and, by extension, anthropology—in understanding everyday life. What began as simple walks with my canine companion evolved into a study of social cohesion and multispecies interaction.

It is no surprise that so many scholarly papers—including anthropological ones—have been written about dog parks. These sites are ethnographic goldmines, dense with human-animal interactions, space negotiations, informal governance, social performance, and community-making. They show how people live, relate, and create meaning in shared public spaces. I realised that no project is too small for ethnographic inquiry; even a local dog park, examined closely, can speak volumes about trust, cooperation, and community. It is little wonder that academics have gravitated to study dog parks because within these fenced enclosures are scenes that reflect society in miniature.

In the joyous chaos of dogs at play and owners in conversation, there lies a profound order—an unwritten social contract and a tapestry of relationships that enrich the community. Walking the park taught me that a dog park is never just a dog park; it is an everyday arena of human-animal co-creation, a stage where the bonds of society – between people and species – are continually woven, one toss of a tennis ball at a time.

A place where understands what the name “Raven” means.

References

Bresnihan P (2015) The more-than-human commons: From commons to commoning. In Space, power and the commons (pp. 93-112). Routledge.

Geertz C (1973) The interpretation of cultures: Selected essays . New York: Basic Books.

Douglas M (1966) Purity and danger: An analysis of concepts of pollution and taboo . London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Mauss M (1954) The gift: Forms and functions of exchange in archaic societies . London: Cohen & West.

Ostrom E (1990) Governing the commons: The evolution of institutions for collective action . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Glover T, Parry D, & Shinew K (2008) Dog park users: An examination of perceived benefits of dog parks . Leisure Sciences, 30(1), 19–34.

Lee, H.-S., Shepley, M., & Huang, C.-S. (2009) Evaluation of off-leash dog parks in Texas and Florida: A study of use and perception . Landscape and Urban Planning, 92(3-4), 314–324.

Matisoff D, & Noonan D (2012) Managing the commons: The case of the Piedmont Park dog park . Proceedings of the 14th Biennial Conference of the International Association for the Study of the Commons.

Turner V (1969) The ritual process: Structure and anti-structure . Chicago: Aldine.

Urbanik J & Morgan M (2013) A tale of tails: The place of dog parks in the urban imaginary . Geoforum, 44, 292–302.

Włodarczyk J (2021) My dog and I: We need the park – a more-than-human agency and the emergence of dog parks in Poland (2015–2020) . Society Register, 5(3), 119–134.

Wolch J & Rowe S (1992) Companions in the park: A study of urban animal geography . Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 10(6), 701–714.

Wood L, Giles-Corti B & Bulsara M (2005) The pet connection: Pets as a conduit for social capital? Social Science & Medicine, 61(6), 1159–1173.

Glover,T, Parry D & Shinew K (2008) Dog park users: An examination of perceived benefits of dog parks . Leisure Sciences, 30(1), 19–34.

Lee H, Shepley, M., & Huang, C.-S. (2009). Evaluation of off-leash dog parks in Texas and Florida: A study of use and perception . Landscape and Urban Planning, 92(3-4), 314–324.

Matisoff, D. C., & Noonan, D. S. (2012). Managing the commons: The case of the Piedmont Park dog park . Proceedings of the 14th Biennial Conference of the International Association for the Study of the Commons.

Turner, V. (1969). The ritual process: Structure and anti-structure . Chicago: Aldine.

Urbanik, J., & Morgan, M. (2013). A tale of tails: The place of dog parks in the urban imaginary . Geoforum, 44, 292–302.

Włodarczyk, J. (2021). My dog and I: We need the park – more-than-human agency and the emergence of dog parks in Poland (2015–2020) . Society Register, 5(3), 119–134.

Wolch J & Rowe S (1992) Companions in the park: A study of urban animal geography . Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 10(6), 701–714.

Wood L, Giles-Corti B & Bulsara M (2005) The pet connection: Pets as a conduit for social capital? Social Science & Medicine, 61(6), 1159–1173.

ANZAC Mythology and the Rhythms of National Memory

Fri, 25 Apr 2025 05:18:00 GMT

In Australia, a performance ritual that feels timeless and meticulously rehearsed is conducted each April. The solemnity of the ANZAC Day dawn service call back to a military campaign over a hundred years ago. Today, it resonates through a contemporary landscape of social media hashtags, sporting events, and civic performances. It is a national memory in motion—recurring, refracted, and reassembled.

In this essay, I explore ANZAC not as a fixed historical truth but as a mythology in loop—a narrative system that generates authenticity through repetition, performance, and recognition. Drawing from anthropological theories of authenticity, digital cadence, and social memory, I argue that ANZAC operates as a dynamic cultural mechanism that affirms national identity while selectively structuring whose memories matter.

This essay is not a critique of ANZAC as false or fabricated; it is a brief investigation into how authenticity is constructed and maintained in a mythology that must continuously adapt to remain resonant. It is a myth that performs national unity through a shared past, even as it is mobilised to legitimise contemporary politics, identity claims, and institutional values.

As a mythology, ANZAC functions through temporal, emotional, and symbolic loops. These loops allow layering personal family memory, institutional ritual, and mediated spectacle. However, they also raise important anthropological questions: What makes a national narrative feel authentic? Whose stories are repeated and elevated, and whose are silenced or obscured? How do digital spaces alter the rhythms and reach of remembrance? What follows is not a linear history of ANZAC but an exploration of its cultural cadence: how the myth travels through time, space, and media, looping back each year to reaffirm a sense of who we are—and to quietly shape who we are allowed to be.

The Performative Nature of National Authenticity

Authenticity is often assumed to be intrinsic—something that can be possessed or lost. However, as scholar Richard Handler argues, authenticity is not a quality of the object or subject itself but rather a social judgement, an act of recognition grounded in cultural expectations (Handler 1986). In the context of national mythologies like ANZAC, authenticity is not simply discovered in the past; it is performed in the present.

The ANZAC tradition, anchored in the Gallipoli campaign of 1915, has long been heralded as the birth of the Australian national character: mateship, courage under fire, irreverent humour, and egalitarian sacrifice. These traits are routinely presented as “authentic” expressions of the Australian spirit. However, the continued relevance of this narrative lies not in its historical exactness but in its ritualised repetition—in the ways it is embodied, enacted, and emotionally affirmed each year through commemorative practice.

From school assemblies to dawn services and televised documentaries to Anzac-themed AFL matches, the mythology is performed across a wide social field. These performances do more than remember the dead; they reaffirm a national self-image. In doing so, they create what Charles Taylor calls a “social imaginary”—a shared sense of belonging constantly reinforced by narrative, practice, and affect (Taylor 2004).

However, these performances are never neutral. Like all rituals, they are structured by power. What gets included as “authentically” ANZAC—and, by extension, “authentically” Australian—is often shaped by dominant cultural scripts. For decades, this meant a focus on white male soldiers from Anglo-Celtic backgrounds. More recently, the commemorative discourse has expanded to include Indigenous soldiers, nurses, and migrant communities, but these inclusions still operate within the constraints of what is culturally legible as ANZAC.

Thus, national authenticity is not a mirror—it is a stage. Moreover, not all bodies and histories are equally visible at this stage.

Digital Cadence and the Re-Mediation of ANZAC

In recent decades, ANZAC mythology has expanded and transformed—most notably through its migration into digital space. As Australia’s commemorative practices adapt to a digital society, the rhythms of remembrance shift. Memory no longer belongs solely to formal institutions; it is shaped and circulated by individuals, families, influencers, and algorithms. Here, the concept of digital cadence—the temporal flow and pacing of cultural content online—becomes a useful anthropological tool.

Each year, the ANZAC myth is reactivated on social media platforms, creating synchronised pulses of national reflection. These pulses are not spontaneous but patterned, curated, and accelerated by digital infrastructures. Users post family photos of war veterans, share stylised images of poppies and flags, or quote the “Ode of Remembrance” with hashtags like #LestWeForget or #ANZACDay. In doing so, they participate in what anthropologist Daniel Miller describes as the domestication of the digital: integrating national identity performance into the texture of everyday online life (Miller et al. 2016).

However, the digital also fragments the loop. The solemnity of commemoration can sit awkwardly alongside advertising for Anzac Day sales, memes, or performative virtue-signaling. This blurring of commercial, sacred, and personal registers opens space for plural expression and cultural tension. The digital environment thus complicates the question of what constitutes an “authentic” ANZAC memory. Is it a heartfelt Facebook post about a grandfather’s service? A TikTok reenactment of Gallipoli? An Instagram tribute with a branded watermark?

Moreover, digital platforms invite counter-narratives into the loop. Stories of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander soldiers—long excluded from official histories—now find visibility through grassroots digital activism. These interventions not only enrich the mythology but challenge its selective silences. They demand space within the loop, insisting that remembrance must be national and just.

Still, inclusion is not always empowerment. Representation within the ANZAC myth can risk absorbing difference into sameness—flattening cultural specificity into a universalised ideal of sacrifice. As the loop expands, the challenge becomes recognising multiplicity without collapsing it into a single narrative of belonging.

Inclusion, Exclusion, and the Politics of Memory

National myths are powerful not only because of what they remember but also because of what they allow us to forget. The ANZAC mythology, as both a cultural loop and a mnemonic performance, operates through selective remembrance. It draws a bright spotlight on particular forms of sacrifice and service while others remain in shadow. In this way, mythology is not just a story of the past—it is a mechanism of social sorting.

In recent years, efforts to broaden ANZAC commemorations have led to the inclusion of once-marginalised participants: Indigenous soldiers, women, nurses, migrants, and even civilian war workers. These moves are often framed as corrections to a historically narrow vision of national service. However, they also reveal the conditions under which inclusion becomes possible. To be remembered within the ANZAC narrative, one must conform—implicitly or explicitly—to its symbolic values: bravery, duty, and loyalty to the nation.

Ghassan Hage (1998) describes nationalism as a form of governmentality—a structure of belonging that defines not just who is “in,” but who gets to imagine themselves as legitimately Australian. Within the ANZAC loop, this logic plays out subtly. For example:

An Australian First Nations soldier may be celebrated for their military service but not for their political resistance to colonisation.
A nurse’s wartime labour may be honoured while her postwar domestic struggles are suppressed.
A migrant’s service in Vietnam might be recognised, but their family’s refugee story remains culturally illegible.

In this way, inclusion can function as aesthetic pluralism—a recognition of difference that still conforms to dominant frames of worth. What looks like diversity may mask deeper structural exclusions.

This raises important anthropological questions about the politics of memory:

Whose grief is grievable in the national imaginary?
Who is allowed to be heroic—and on what terms?
What kinds of lives are deemed worthy of commemoration, and what kinds of deaths are silenced?

These are not abstract concerns. They shape public funding, education curricula, museum exhibitions, and the moral vocabularies of national identity. In an era where Australia is grappling with its colonial past and multicultural present, the mythology of ANZAC risks stabilising a version of history that is legible but incomplete.

Digital Heritage and the Inclusion of Silenced Voices

The digital preservation of ANZAC heritage has recently allowed some previously marginalised voices to be heard and recognised beyond official historical narratives. These initiatives do not simply diversify the commemorative field; they challenge the cultural legibility of the ANZAC myth and expand its mnemonic loop.

For First Nations veterans, digital oral history projects such as Serving Our Country have profoundly contributed to national memory. By travelling across communities to record the experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander servicemen and women, these projects have enabled a reframing of war memory that centres Indigenous voices (Beaumont and Cadzow 2018). These interviews—archived and curated in digital repositories—are acts of preservation and justice.

Institutions like the Australian War Memorial have also contributed to this shift. Through its digitised collections and the For Our Country memorial, the AWM now hosts searchable archives of Indigenous service histories, often enhanced by photographs, letters, and community-submitted biographies (Australian War Memorial 2015).

Similar efforts have brought visibility to Chinese-Australian diggers, whose loyalty and sacrifice have long been occluded by the whiteness of ANZAC iconography. The Chinese ANZACs initiative by the Department of Veterans Affairs uses short online documentaries and interactive storytelling to recover their histories (Clyne and Smith 2015).

The same digital curation has allowed for a deeper representation of women’s wartime labour. Projects such as the Australian Women in War digital series and Women in the Second World War: In Their Own Words allow nurses, munitions workers, and servicewomen to speak in their own voices—through digitised letters, diaries, and recorded interviews (Department of Veterans Affairs, 2019; 2020).

Spaces like the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, where interactive screens now feature recorded veteran testimonies—including women and Indigenous Australians—exemplify this shift in practice (Saliba, Young and Ayres, 2021). Anthropologically, these changes represent a movement toward plural memory-making—a form of national myth that affirms difference as central to identity, not marginal to it (Waterton, Sumartojo and Drozdzewski, 2021).

Toward a Plural Heritage Future

If ANZAC mythology is a loop—repeating, adapting, and reaffirming a national story—it must now reckon with its contours, not to erase its power but to widen the circle of remembrance. The challenge is not whether ANZAC is still relevant but to whom, how, and at what cost.

In this context, authenticity is not about preserving a myth in amber. It is about asking: What makes this story feel true? Moreover, what truths are left untold to make it so? As Australia grapples with its colonial foundations, shifting demography, and contested histories, the task ahead is not simply to diversify the faces in the story—but to transform the grammar of the myth itself.

This means recognising ANZAC not as a closed canon but as a dynamic cultural framework—a living inheritance that must be constantly re-evaluated through ethical, historical, and anthropological scrutiny. In practical terms, it may mean:

Institutional support for underrepresented voices and stories—not as appendices to the national narrative but as integral to it.
Community-led commemorations that challenge top-down structures of heritage and allow memory to be local, intimate, and dissenting.
Digital platforms that do more than aestheticise remembrance, instead becoming tools for participatory historiography and contested memory work.
Educational reforms that treat ANZAC as a gateway to complexity—not just pride, but also trauma, absence, and multiplicity.

Such shifts demand a willingness to move beyond performative pluralism toward a reflexive heritage practice that does not just ask who is being remembered but who is doing the remembering and why.

To embrace a plural heritage future is not to reject the ANZAC myth but to ask it to do more. To carry the weight of national pride and the burdens of silence. To reflect not just a single legacy but a constellation of intersecting histories—some tragic, some heroic, some yet to be fully known.

In the loop of national memory, authenticity does not mean sameness. It means honesty. Perhaps the most authentic gesture we can make now is to ask better questions—of ourselves, our past, and the stories we choose to tell in its name.

Final Thought

In 1914, Australia had a population of just below five million people. Today, it exceeds twenty-seven million. The situation involves more than just population growth; it represents a fundamental change in the nation’s social structure and cultural and political makeup. The ANZAC mythology created during a different era in Australia continues in today’s society and features deep diversity and historical reflection. The memory loops must broaden as our population grows and becomes more diverse to accommodate additional voices and truths. ANZAC mythology can stay relevant only if it represents today’s Australia that remembers its history rather than merely the past version of the country.

References

Australian War Memorial (AWM), 2015. Researching Indigenous Service . [online] Canberra: AWM. Available at: https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/encyclopedia/indigenous [Accessed 25 Apr. 2025].

Beaumont, J. and Cadzow, A., 2018. Serving Our Country: Indigenous Australians, War, Defence and Citizenship . Sydney: NewSouth Publishing.

Clyne, J. and Smith, R., 2015. Chinese Anzacs . Canberra: Department of Veterans’ Affairs.

Department of Veterans’ Affairs (DVA), 2019. Australian Women in War: Investigating the Experiences and Changing Roles of Australian Women in War and Peace Operations 1899–Today . Canberra: Australian Government.

Department of Veterans’ Affairs (DVA), 2020. Women in the Second World War: In Their Own Words . [online] Canberra: Australian Government. Available at: https://anzacportal.dva.gov.au/resources/women-second-world-war-their-own-words [Accessed 25 Apr. 2025].

Drozdzewski, D., 2016. Does ANZAC sit comfortably within Australia’s multiculturalism? Australian Geographer , 47(1), pp.3–10. https://doi.org/10.1080/00049182.2015.1108700

Drozdzewski, D. and Waterton, E., 2016. In remembering ANZAC Day, what do we forget? The Conversation , [online] 20 Apr. Available at: https://theconversation.com/in-remembering-anzac-day-what-do-we-forget-58132 [Accessed 25 Apr. 2025].

Handler, R., 1986. Authenticity. Anthropology Today , 2(1), pp.2–4.

Hage, G., 1998. White Nation: Fantasies of White Supremacy in a Multicultural Society . Sydney: Pluto Press.

Miller, D., Sinanan, J., et al., 2016. How the World Changed Social Media . London: UCL Press.

Saliba, S., Young, W. and Ayres, M., 2021. Teaching memory: digital interpretation at the Shrine of Remembrance, Melbourne. Architectural Theory Review , 25(1), pp.56–75. https://doi.org/10.1080/13264826.2021.1913437

Taylor, C., 2004. Modern Social Imaginaries . Durham: Duke University Press.

Waterton, E., Sumartojo, S. and Drozdzewski, D., 2021. Encounters with ANZAC in a digital world: tropes and symbols, spectacle and staging. In: D. Drozdzewski, S. Waterton and E. Sumartojo, eds. Geographies of Commemoration in a Digital World: ANZAC @ 100 . Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan, pp.55–79.

Urban Space and the Architecture of Exclusion

Thu, 24 Apr 2025 06:06:00 GMT

An image circulating on LinkedIn dropped once again into my feed. I have seen many explorations of the issue. It depicts an area beneath a freeway overpass, and hundreds of jagged concrete spikes rise from the ground—not as an ornament but as a message. This space is not a place to stop, not a place to linger, not a place to exist unless you are in motion, respectable, and productive. You may have seen them in many public spaces like the Melbourne CBD or regional towns like Ballarat. Such installations—commonly known as hostile architecture —are a feature of contemporary cities that reveal more than they obscure. They are not merely pragmatic deterrents but instruments of social sorting . For anthropologists, they demand a closer reading—not as objects of design but as articulations of power embedded in space. Some quick thoughts on the subject:

Anthropology reminds us that space is never neutral. It is produced, inhabited, contested, and policed. Michel Foucault (1977) argued that power is most effectively exercised not through overt repression but through the micro-architecture of control—through what he termed disciplinary mechanisms . The city becomes a site where bodies are sorted and behaviour regulated, not just by law but by layout. Henri Lefebvre (1991) similarly insisted that space must be understood as a social product . It is not just the container of action but the outcome of political, economic, and cultural forces. Hostile design elements such as anti-homeless spikes or segregated seating arrangements exemplify conceived space : a vision of the city produced by those in power and planners in which certain presences—particularly those of the unhoused, unemployed, youth, or otherwise marginal—are systematically hidden, or more to the point erased.

The Conditional Right to the City

In Lefebvre’s formulation of the right to the city , the urban is envisioned as a space co-produced by its inhabitants—a shared commons in which participation is a right, not a privilege. However, this vision has increasingly given way to a neoliberal logic of spatial management . As David Harvey (2008) notes, the right to the city is now reserved mainly for those who contribute to its commodified value. Under this regime, public space is reshaped to prioritise efficiency, consumption, and surveillance . Individuals who do not conform to respectability or economic productivity norms—those who cannot ‘pay their way’ — are treated as spatial contaminants. Setha Low (2001) observed how urban design has become a method of exclusion through aesthetic rationality . Spaces appear open yet are silently coded against the poor, the racialised, or the idle. Hostile architecture is not a bug of modern urbanism but a feature.

The Spatialisation of Othering

This sorting is not only physical; it is symbolic . Drawing on Edward Said’s (1978) notion of Othering , we can see how architectural interventions reinforce narratives of undesirability and deviance. Concrete spikes do not merely prevent sleeping—they designate sleepers as threats . In material form, they enact the idea that some bodies are out of place . Ananya Roy (2003) critiques how planning discourse frames informal use of space—such as street vending or public sleeping—as unlawful, even as it relies on informal communities’ labour and cultural contributions. The same people who sustain urban life are denied visibility or safety within it.

Insurgent Occupations and Everyday Resistance

However, cities are never wholly under control. James Holston (2008) describes how marginalised groups assert their presence through what he calls insurgent citizenship : practices that challenge normative claims to urban space and make demands from the margins. These practices range from large-scale protests and encampments to quieter gestures of endurance and creativity. AbdouMaliq Simone (2004) has shown that the urban poor often create functional infrastructures through informal cooperation. These infrastructures are not only material but also social— spaces of care, kinship, and persistence in the face of engineered exclusion.

Reading the City Anthropologically

To view the city anthropologically means attending not only to its buildings and streets but also to the moral economies and ideological structures they express. Spikes beneath an overpass are not just deterrents but spatial verdicts about who belongs, who threatens, and who must remain unseen. Such verdicts are not permanent. However, they require contestation—not only by architects and activists but also scholars willing to trace the entangled lives of infrastructure and inequality . Anthropology, in this context, offers both a diagnostic and an ethic. It invites us to read the city against the grain, reveal its hierarchies, and reimagine it not as a marketplace but as a common world-in-the-making .

Reflection

Despite many of the crude remarks from those who have consumed the point of view of hegemonic powers, discourse is happening. Becoming aware of the the little metal slugs embedded in to stone window sills, oddly shaped seating, textured surfaces is a beginning. Instead of addressing the underlying issues that results in rough sleepers or homelessness, many forms of violence are committed to those living with in a places boundaries. Resolve those issues humanely to avoid aggressive and violent architecture .

References

Foucault M (1977) Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison . Penguin.
Harvey D. (2008). The right to the city. New Left Review , 53, 23–40.
Holston J (2008). Insurgent Citizenship: Disjunctions of Democracy and Modernity in Brazil . Princeton University Press.
Lefebvre H (1991). The Production of Space . Blackwell.
Low S (2001). The edge and the center: Gated communities and the discourse of urban fear. American Anthropologist , 103(1), 45–58.
Roy A (2003). Urban informality: Toward an epistemology of planning. Journal of the American Planning Association , 71(2), 147–158.
Said E (1978). Orientalism . Pantheon Books.
Simone A (2004) People as infrastructure: Intersecting fragments in Johannesburg. Public Culture , 16(3), 407–429.

Stumbling into Heritage Anthropology: Finding a New Path at Mid-Life

Tue, 15 Apr 2025 19:00:00 GMT

Choosing a new direction in life often feels like walking through a dark forest with nothing but a narrow-beamed torch. That’s what it’s been like for me these past few months. Anthropology has become my light—unexpected, illuminating, and sometimes a little blinding. Every idea it reveals seems full of potential: I could study this, explore that, unpack a different thread entirely. From a distance it would looked like someone had tied a flashlight to a Tassie devil.

But with each possibility comes a reality check.

Like many at mid-life, I don’t have the luxury of starting entirely from scratch. I have to work. I have a mortgage. Superannuation isn’t just a vague idea anymore—it’s a plan. So, my reinvention needs structure, strategy, and a fair amount of realism. It’s not about abandoning everything I’ve built—it’s about shaping something new from where I already stand.

And recently, something has started to take shape. Inspired by a graduate Heritage advisor role I saw. My time on the Moorabool Heritage Committee also had an influence, I may have not realised it at the time.

So over the past few weeks, I’ve been writing more and more about heritage. At first, it felt like a side interest, something adjacent to my broader anthropological curiosity. But as I wrote, I noticed a pattern: this wasn’t a tangent—it was a direction. Heritage kept opening doors. More importantly, it helped narrow the blur of options into something with traction.

That’s when the words came to me: Heritage Anthropology .

It’s not a common phrase, and that’s part of what I love about it. It sits at the intersection of disciplines, pulling together threads from cultural heritage, archaeology, public history, digital storytelling, and, of course, anthropology. It’s about memory, identity, place, and the politics of preservation. It’s about whose stories are told—and whose are ignored.

The only problem? I don’t have a formal background in heritage studies. What I do have is a growing body of self-driven research, writing, and critical reflection. That led me to something practical: a Master of Cultural Heritage at Deakin University. It’s designed to bridge this kind of gap—between experience and qualification. Even better, it offers a PhD pathway.

If all goes well, I could complete the program in 12–18 months. That’s not just doable—it’s motivating.

I already have a research focus in mind: the decolonisation of heritage , particularly in suburban Australia. This question is layered and urgent: how do we rethink heritage in spaces where First Nations presence has been systematically erased or tokenised? How can digital tools help bring multiple layers of meaning—deep time, colonial history, contemporary life—into a single shared conversation?

From there, I hope to expand the work into a PhD project focused on Heritage Digital Futures . I want to explore how emerging technologies like VR, XR, and digital archives can be used not just to preserve the past, but to reshape how we engage with it—ethically, inclusively, and with a clear eye on power.

Starting afresh at mid-life isn’t easy so it will be a slow evolution. But this path feels right. It brings together my background in strategic thinking and storytelling with my new love for anthropology and my long-standing respect for place.

It’s not a leap. It’s a considered step. And for once, the path ahead feels—if not fully lit—at least visible.

Thanks for reading. If you’re walking a similar path or curious about Heritage Anthropology, I’m always up for a thoughtful conversation.

Analysis Experiment II: Standardised Lives, Customised Edges

Sat, 12 Apr 2025 18:00:00 GMT

An architectural anthropology of everyday infrastructure

At first glance, these twin red-brick houses evoke uniformity (see blow) — repetition, symmetry, state logic. But a closer look reveals a very different story: variation within standardisation , adaptation within constraint . This image is more than a record of architecture; it is a portrait of lived negotiation — an anthropology of the ordinary.

The mirrored design of the homes, a hallmark of late 20th-century social housing in Australia, speaks to bureaucratic goals: affordability, efficiency, durability. Yet these “standard templates” belie the rich variation of everyday life unfolding inside and around them. In architectural anthropology, such designs are often viewed as technologies of containment — not just spatial but social. They reflect a state-led vision of domesticity: minimal, replicable, neutral. But people do not live neutral lives.

Look closely. The air conditioning units shoved through windows, the cardboard patch in the pane, the mismatched fences, and the absence of a tended garden are all subtle interventions — or omissions. What is not cultivated here is as telling as what is. A front garden is more than aesthetic; it is a sign of permanence, of emotional and material investment. Its absence suggests either constrained capacity or a deliberate withholding — a refusal, perhaps, to embellish what has never quite been one’s own.

These are not failures of design; they are signs of living within it .

The use of materials (brick, metal fencing, frosted glass) marks a desire for durability and control. But over time, residents modify these materials in ways that reflect personal needs: shielding from sun, creating privacy, securing space. These material modifications become biographical — not just what the houses are made of, but what they are becoming , through use and improvisation.

Viewed through Actor-Network Theory, the homes, fences, and appliances are not passive structures but active participants in daily life. They mediate temperature, security, privacy, and social meaning. The network includes not just the built environment, but the humans who maintain or adapt it, and the institutions who first installed it.

This is also a landscape of social stratification . These homes are not slums, but they signal economic marginality . The visual cues — patchwork repairs, deferred maintenance, lack of ornamentation — construct a spatial narrative of permanence mixed with precarity . In middle-class neighbourhoods, such signs might be temporary. Here, they are infrastructural. They speak of long-term adaptation without renewal .

Yet there is also agency. The fences, though utilitarian, diverge in colour, form, and upkeep. They delineate not only property lines but boundaries of identity and pride . Who maintains the front yard? Who repaints the gate? Who plants — or chooses not to plant — a garden? These are quiet performances of care, ownership, and autonomy — small acts of difference within a built landscape designed for sameness.

An anthropological reading of this scene reveals not architectural failure, but residents’ skill in making-do . Within a system built for efficiency, they generate meaning, comfort, and distinction. The houses do not merely shelter; they participate in the shaping of everyday life .

This is social housing not as policy, but as practice . A choreography of constraint and creativity. A standardised structure, remade from within.

Analytical Experiment: A Snapshot of Mediation

Thu, 10 Apr 2025 06:14:00 GMT

An actor-network reading of a workshop still life

Snapshot of Mediation

What appears to be a still life (see below) — a wrench, pliers, a battered utility knife, a tube of lubricant — is, in truth, a snapshot of mediation .

This is not a photograph of tools waiting to be used. It is a moment caught mid-network: a constellation of human and non-human actors in temporary stillness, their capacities suspended but not withdrawn. Drawing on Bruno Latour’s Actor-Network Theory, we see that agency here is distributed. These objects are not inert. They are actants , shaping the contours of labour as much as any human hand.

Take the utility knife — improvised, hacked, personalised. It is not a factory product but a constructed device , with its blade wrapped in tape, transforming it into a usable tool despite — or because of — its brokenness or just being at hand. This is repair-as-design , a gesture of necessity and familiarity. It speaks of a person who knows their tools intimately, who responds not by discarding but by adapting.

The pneumatic wrench mediates air into force. The pliers extend grip and torque. The lubricant ensures continuity. Each of these tools translates intention into effect, maintaining a network of function. But it is the knife-as-invention that most clearly reveals the human trace — not just in how it is used, but in how it is made usable again.

The workbench surface, covered in blue and grey splatters, is not mere backdrop. It records past actions — cuts, drips, pauses — a history of negotiation between material, machine, and person. This too is part of the network, holding memory in texture.

What we witness is not just labour, but the infrastructure of doing : improvisation, maintenance, and care. Latour reminds us that the social is not what connects people to people, but what connects actors through actions. This bench, these tools, and their user are linked through ongoing acts of mediation and delegation .

This image is not about stillness. It’s about suspended motion — a network at rest, but never at an end.

Reckoning with the Unspoken History of Bacchus Marsh

Wed, 09 Apr 2025 04:09:00 GMT

There’s a silence that echoes in the landmarks of Bacchus Marsh.

Driving into the area from the East, West or North, you’re met with the familiar symbols of colonial pride. The Avenue of Honour, Moon Reserve , Federation Park , and Women’s Pioneer Memorial are all sites that tell a particular story — one of progress, nation-building, and European endurance in the face of a “wild” land.

But something is missing. In fact, a lot is missing.

Nowhere in these commemorations is there substantial acknowledgement of the First Nations Peoples, whose relationship with this land stretches back tens of thousands of years. This absence isn’t a coincidence — part of the same colonial narrative that continues to shape Australian public memory. It’s not just about what’s said but what’s left unsaid.

When the master plan for Maddingley Park was released for community feedback, I proposed the restoration of the Billabong — a significant space once central to the area’s landscape before being converted into an ornamental lake and eventually filled in entirely. The park is still home to ancient redgums, some hundreds of years old, standing as living witnesses to a time long before colonisation. My recommendations to the feedback included a suggestion that this site may have been used for corroboree or ceremonial gatherings, as it lies close to the boundary between Woiwurrung and Wadawurrung Country.

Knowledge, culture, and kinship may once have been actively shared in this meeting place. This should be acknowledged along with the restoration of the Billabong and native plantings. The new plans include wetlands; however, it lacks any cultural representation.

Visible Commemorations vs. Invisible Histories

Bacchus Marsh’s history is overwhelmingly settler-centric. From the Pioneer Women’s Memorial Garden to Federation Park, the landmarks that shape the town’s identity overwhelmingly celebrate European arrival, resilience, and settlement. Yet, there’s little to no public acknowledgement of the Wathaurong and Wurundjeri Peoples. Their histories, knowledge systems, and stories have been passed down through generations long before the idea of “Bacchus Marsh” existed. Their dispossession, too, is not commemorated in stone or sign.

What does it mean when a town’s public memory leaves out the people who were here first and are still here?

Misheard Words and Colonial Claims

Even natural landmarks carry the weight of misrepresentation. The Lerderderg River — so central to the town’s identity — is considered a corruption of a Wathaurong or Dja Dja Wurrung word, misheard and mispronounced by colonial surveyors or settlers. Its true meaning? Likely lost or mangled in translation.

And then there’s the town’s very name — Bacchus Marsh — named after Captain William Henry Bacchus, an early settler and pastoralist. The naming itself is a marker of possession. It overwrites deep Aboriginal place names and meanings with European figures, many of whom were beneficiaries of violent displacement and land seizure. Captain Bacchus’ legacy is immortalised not because of moral virtue or community ties but because naming something after oneself was — and still is — an act of staking colonial claim.

This isn’t a one-off error. It’s part of a broader colonial practice in which First Nations languages were misunderstood, ignored, or deliberately overwritten, erasing cultural meaning and asserting English naming as a claim to ownership. These mishearings were cemented into maps, schools, and signage. What might seem like an innocent mistake is, in fact, an enduring symbol of cultural erasure.

Erasure in Plain Sight

It’s not just what’s absent — it’s what’s present in place of truth.

Many reserves, parks, and walking trails lie on unceded land. Yet their signs rarely — if ever — mention this fact. The impression left is that these places were empty, waiting to be discovered, claimed, and civilised. This narrative flattens the complex, living histories of place — histories that include ceremony, seasonal movement, deep ecological knowledge, and custodianship.

Moon Reserve might bear a historical name today, but what was this place before colonisation? What Indigenous stories, practices, or spiritual significance might it hold? What animals and plants were observed here, and how were they related to seasonal cycles or kinship obligations? These aren’t quaint side notes — they’re central to understanding the Country as a living, relational entity. And yet, these truths remain absent from public view, hidden behind a thin veneer of settler nostalgia.

Reckoning and Repair

This article isn’t written to erase settler histories. Instead, it calls for a reckoning—a fuller, more honest account of place. A public memory that only celebrates one version of history is not history at all—it’s myth-making. We must move beyond romanticised pioneer stories and ask: Who was here before? What was their experience of colonisation? And how do we honour their ongoing presence and sovereignty?

Actual acknowledgement goes beyond a line in a speech. It looks like:

Dual naming : Restoring or co-naming landmarks in local First Nations languages.
Interpretive signage : Sharing First Nations stories of place alongside colonial histories.
Co-created installations : Working with local Elders, artists, and cultural knowledge holders to represent the Country in public space.
Educational programs : Embedding local Indigenous history into school curricula and community initiatives.
Ceremony and return : Recognising significant sites and, where possible, returning land or management rights to Traditional Custodians.

None of this erases the past — it enriches it. It lets us see Bacchus Marsh not just as a product of colonisation but as a place with deeper, older roots and many more stories to tell.

Time to Listen

Like so many towns across Australia, Bacchus Marsh is layered with meaning. Some layers are celebrated and seen; others are buried beneath years of silence, omission, and colonial pride.

If we are serious about reconciliation, then we must start in places like these—the small towns, the local parks, the names on signs and rivers. Reckoning begins not in textbooks but in the everyday spaces we pass through without question. The question is no longer if we need to do this work but how soon we are willing to begin.

The land remembers. It always has. The question is: will we listen?

The Doongalla Estate: A Vanished Mountain Retreat

Mon, 07 Apr 2025 02:51:00 GMT

Like my father, I attended The Basin Primary School in Melbourne’s far east. Nestled at the foot of Corhanwarrabul (Mt Dandenong). An amazing place to grow up, BMX bike riding through the bush, creeks to explore, and looming summer threats of bushfire. The primary school had four ‘houses’ named after local settler homes: Miller, Chandler, Ferndale and my house, Doongalla. I have vague memories of what we were told about each house, one thing I remember was the Doongalla Estate being destroyed in the Black Friday.

In later years, we would venture up to the site where only retaining walls and a set of steps remain. Remnants of the garden, like old European trees, still survived. The open space cut into the bush also had a vista over Naam (Melbourne). In the 1980s, there was no mention of the house’s name coming from the original custodians of the land, the Wurundjeri and Bunurong people of the Kulin Nation. The whitewashed history of the area is likely where my interest in place heritage was born. So, 40 years later, I can reflect differently on Doongalla Estate and its relationship with the community. This is what I have discovered so far.

The Doongalla Forest Reserve of 279 hectares, situated on the western slopes of Mt Dandenong, now occupies land once selected between 1885 and 1893 by Samuel Collier, J. Barnes, J. Jackson and the Bruce brothers. The estate reaches from 152m to 268m above sea level, topping out at Mt Corhanwarrabul (also known as Burke’s Lookout). In 1889, the Bruce brothers erected a Swiss-style chalet on land purchased from Collier. That property was acquired in 1891 by Sir Matthew Davies, who also bought the surrounding lots. Following flood damage to the original chalet, Davies demolished it and in 1892 constructed a new mansion—originally named “Invermay”—at an estimated cost of £35,000. Materials were hauled up Kerrs Lane (now Pig Lane) by tramway using horses and bullocks.

The new house, consisting of 32 rooms including cellars, servant quarters, and stables, was lavish in both design and detail. It featured a central courtyard and was built with high-quality Croydon bricks, slate roofing, exposed Oregon beams, and panelling in Kauri, silky oak, and Blackwood. One room was decorated with French tiles screwed into timber boards. A swimming pool fed by a nearby creek added to the estate’s luxury. Doongalla became known as a weekend haven for Melbourne’s wealthy. Guests enjoyed house parties, fine food, wine, and even moonlit swims. Recitations by Harry Chandler were a social highlight. Sir Matthew Davies was a significant figure in Victoria’s land boom era, creating a complex web of over 30 companies to speculate in land. His empire collapsed during the 1890s economic crash, leaving him bankrupt with £250,000 in debts. The Bank of New South Wales took over Doongalla and installed a caretaker.

In 1908, the estate was purchased by Miss Helen Simson of Toorak, who renamed it Doongalla—a contraction of the Aboriginal term “Doutta Galla,” often interpreted as “Place of Peace.” The name also refers to Dutigalla, wife of Jika Jika, a figure in early Melbourne colonial records. Under Simson’s ownership, extensive renovations took place, including building new staff quarters, fencing, elaborate gardens, and infrastructure upgrades such as a water scheme and electricity. Miss Simson employed workers at high wages and supported local infrastructure and community projects. She died in 1912, and her 15-year-old niece inherited the estate, managed by her father L.K.S. McKinnon, a prominent racing identity. After the niece’s death in 1922, the estate passed to T.M. Burke, who envisioned a golf course and donated land for Burke’s Lookout.

In 1932, fire swept toward the estate. Despite good clearance and a water supply, a windborne ember likely ignited the roof. Locals, including Fergus Chandler and the Dobson family, attempted to fight the fire but were forced to watch the mansion burn. Only the servant quarters and 13 chimneys remained. From 1934, parts of the land were sold and subdivided. The remaining 279 hectares were sold to the Smith Brothers in 1935, who established a timber mill. A controversial Forest Commission pamphlet once blamed the brothers for environmental degradation, but this was later retracted after Roy Smith demanded an apology. Ownership changed again in 1940, and in the 1950s the Victorian Government acquired the land following conservation campaigns, particularly one led by Sir Gilbert Chandler. The stables were later demolished, but the servant quarters remain in use by the park warden.

Today, the former site of the mansion features picnic areas, lawn terraces, garden remnants, and interpretive tracks such as the Collier Walk, Chandler Walk, and Lawrence Walk—each commemorating early settlers and local figures. The name “Doongalla” is thought to derive from an Aboriginal word, possibly meaning “close to water” or alluding to the mist-shrouded landscape typical of the Dandenong Ranges. While the exact linguistic origins remain unclear, the choice of name underscores the common 19th-century practice of drawing on Indigenous languages to evoke a romanticised vision of the Australian landscape, often without proper attribution or understanding of cultural significance.

This superficial borrowing of language without consultation or understanding contributes to a broader pattern of cultural erasure. While settlers named their estates with Aboriginal words, the lives, knowledge systems, and presence of the First Nations peoples who had stewarded those landscapes for tens of thousands of years were marginalised and obscured. The Doongalla Estate, like many colonial properties, sits atop a deeper cultural landscape—one shaped by the Wurundjeri and Bunurong people, who maintained intricate relationships with the land through seasonal knowledge, fire management practices, and spiritual connection. This land was never ceded.

Today, the Doongalla Forest Reserve, now part of the Dandenong Ranges National Park, remains a favourite destination for hikers and history enthusiasts. Traces of the estate—such as exotic trees not native to the region, old garden beds, stone retaining walls, and staircases—emerge subtly from the undergrowth, reminders of an era when colonial wealth carved stately homes into the landscape. The area’s walking tracks, such as the Doongalla Homestead Site Track and the Fireline Track, offer natural beauty and a contemplative connection to the site’s layered past. Interpretive signage gives visitors glimpses into the estate’s story, fostering an appreciation for the fragility of built heritage and natural ecosystems in fire-prone landscapes.

While the mansion is gone, Doongalla’s legacy endures in the memories embedded in the land—a story of ambition, collapse, recreation, and resilience etched into the forested hills of the Dandenongs. Yet within that legacy is an opportunity to confront and reframe history: to acknowledge the silences in the colonial record, to respect the enduring custodianship of the Wurundjeri and Bunurong peoples, and to imagine how landscapes like this might hold space for multiple, interwoven narratives of belonging and memory.

For me, it is a point of reflection of memories of place within my own life. The area is my place, my Country, where stories and experiences shape who I am today. I lived metres away from the Miller’s Homestead, which had a similar colonial settler history. I really do regret that I grew up in an era that was still neglecting First Nations history, especially in such a rich environment. All I can do now is try to discover some of that history myself. Doongalla and its stories can help do that by linking my cultural heritage to those who first took care of the space. But we must be open to hearing the harmful, even horror, stories that it may reveal.

New Look at Marketing and “Jobs to Be Done” Theory

Tue, 01 Apr 2025 01:47:00 GMT

Recently, a LinkedIn post by a business cultural expert poked my memory of Clayton Christensen’s Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) theory. Another ‘theory’ we hear about over our careers. With my recent focus on Anthropology in Marketing, I thought it might be time to revisit the concept. I’ll follow up with some ideas on executing these ideas, especially in a B2B environment.

JTBD theory reframes how we understand why people buy things. Instead of simply purchasing products, customers “hire” products or services to perform specific jobs that solve problems or fulfil needs. A classic illustration (often attributed to Theodore Levitt) is that nobody wants a quarter-inch drill; what they want is a quarter-inch hole . In other words, people seek the outcome (the job done ), not the product for its own sake. This perspective urges marketers and innovators to focus on the purpose a customer is trying to achieve – the progress they seek – rather than on product features alone.

Christensen’s idea can be extended by looking beyond the apparent functional job. It suggests seeing the world “through the lens of humanity” , meaning we should consider not just the functional task a product accomplishes but also the deeper emotional and social jobs it performs for people. So, let us work with the idea of a marketing campaign that creates “a little bit of joy” as an example of a human emotional job that a brand can fulfil. In this reflective analysis, we will explore the author’s intent in evolving Christensen’s theory, explain what that may signify, discuss why going beyond functional benefits matters, and consider the broader marketing and philosophical implications of this human-centred framing.

Extending Christensen’s Theory Beyond the Functional

Christensen’s original JTBD theory already acknowledges that jobs have multiple dimensions : “Jobs are never simply about function—they have powerful social and emotional dimensions.” . In other words, when someone “hires” a product, they not only aim to accomplish a functional task, but they often have emotional motives (how it makes them feel) and social motives (how it helps others perceive them) intertwined with that job For example: when hiring a fast-food milkshake , commuters were not just quenching hunger (functional); they were also alleviating boredom on a long drive (an emotional job, turning a dull commute into a small moment of enjoyment). Likewise, buying a particular clothing brand might fulfil a social job of signalling status or identity to peers.

I want to build on this foundation by urging marketers to actively consider all three types of jobs—functional, emotional, and social—in customer engagement.

They caution against the “myopia of categorical benefits,” meaning the narrow view of a product only within the confines of its category’s usual features or advantages. Christensen’s framework encourages breaking out of that myopia; as one practitioner notes, “product people tend to oversimplify the framework by focusing only on… functional jobs,” often neglecting emotional and social needs. By contrast, I would argue that marketers should “look outside” of just those category-defined benefits and see “the world through the lens of humanity” – essentially, to see customers as whole humans with broader goals, feelings, and social contexts.

Under this extended view, a company should ask, “What functional job is our product hired for?” and “What emotional job and what social job is our offering doing for the person?” . Christensen himself has indicated that the most successful innovations address all dimensions of a job. In Competing Against Luck , he and his co-authors stress that a job’s functional, social, and emotional components can be “equally important” in why a customer chooses a product. My thoughts echo this: The better a branded product performs against all three jobs (functional + emotional + social), the more compelling the offering . In short, I am building on Christensen’s theory by pushing marketers to integrate emotional and social value into the core value proposition , not treat them as afterthoughts.

The Human Emotional “Job”: A Little Bit of Joy

I want to focus here on “the human emotional ‘job’: a little bit of joy.” The specific emotional outcome that a product or brand can deliver—a small dose of happiness or delight—that might transcend the product’s immediate functional purpose. By calling it the “human” emotional job, I am implying it is a near-universal emotional “desire”, not just something tied to a product category.

Here is an example: window and door company (Pella) that traditionally might emphasise a functional job ( providing a well-performing window, insulation, security, etc. ) and perhaps an obvious category-specific emotional job (the feeling of safety or comfort from sturdy, secure windows). Instead, this company centred its messaging on “making life a little brighter,” literally and figuratively. Brighter life hints at sunlight and warmth, but more importantly, joy – the simple happiness of a sunlit room or an uplifting view. In other words, Pella shifted focus to the emotional job of bringing a bit of joy into people’s homes . In this case, the drill is the window; the “hole in the wall” is not just letting light in but letting joy in.

So, “a little bit of joy” represents the idea of a product fulfilling an emotional need for positivity, delight, or uplift in the customer’s life. It is the emotional payoff that goes beyond utility. This concept is aligned with what design and marketing experts often call customer delight . For instance, in the milkshake example, the real win was realising the product could turn a tedious morning routine into a moment of enjoyment – essentially, giving the commuter a small spark of happiness to start the day. Many successful products intentionally aim to deliver such moments of joy: think of a smartphone app whose intuitive design “just makes you happy” using it or a coffee maker that brews coffee and makes the morning ritual feel comforting and joyful. Those feelings of satisfaction and joy are emotional jobs being fulfilled.

I am sure someone will find joy in the sound of a giant rock-crushing machine.

By emphasising joy , marketers should ask: “How does our offering make people feel happier, even in a small way?” This is a more human-centric question than merely asking how the product works. Joy is one of the fundamental positive emotions; tapping into it can create a strong emotional bond. Indeed, research on emotional branding supports that meeting emotional needs (like the need for enjoyment, happiness, pride, etc.) can inspire greater customer loyalty . The point is that delivering a little joy can be a game-changer even in so-called mundane or “low involvement” categories. It elevates the product from a commodity to something that resonates with the human spirit.

Beyond Functional and Categorical Benefits

Why is it so valuable for marketers to go beyond just the functional features or standard category benefits of their products? Focusing solely on the functional job is limiting—it is a necessary part of an offering but insufficient for a truly compelling brand promise. There are likely dozens of competitive products that do exactly the same thing. Customers make choices based on deeper motivations than just product specs. In Christensen’s words, “jobs are never simply about the functional—they have important social and emotional dimensions, which can be even more powerful than functional ones”. This means a product might technically satisfy a need, but what often drives the decision are the feelings and social implications associated with it. For example, high-end electric and essential economy cars can get you from A to B (functional). However, they evoke different emotions and signals about the owner (pride, excitement, status vs. pragmatism). These emotional and social factors heavily influence willingness to pay and brand preference.

Human emotional jobs push marketers to unlock these deeper levels of value . By looking outside the myopia of categorical benefits , they encourage brands to break out of conventional thinking like “we are just a window company” or “just a low-involvement product.” This recalls Theodore Levitt’s idea in Marketing Myopia that industries fail when they define themselves too narrowly (e.g. railroads thinking they are just in the railroad business rather than in transportation) ( Marketing Myopia – Harvard Business Review ). Similarly, a window manufacturer that only sees itself as selling glass and frames might miss the chance to sell a brighter, happier home life . Pella subverts this myopia and recognises the broader human context – “seeing the brand’s humanity”.

From a practical marketing standpoint, going beyond functional benefits can differentiate a brand and make its story more compelling. Functional excellence is expected (every window should keep out the rain); emotional and social benefits are where a brand can stand out. Pella moved past even the obvious categorical emotional ‘job’ and chose a less expected but more uplifting emotional angle.

Any company might claim security (feeling safe) as an emotional benefit; joy is a more aspirational human benefit that creates a stronger connection. By addressing emotional jobs (like bringing joy or reducing guilt) and social jobs (like helping customers feel proud or connected) , marketers can create what one JTBD expert calls a “holistic harmony” of value. All these layers work together to make the offering much more persuasive than functional perks alone.

There is also a strategic payoff to this approach. When a company understands the full spectrum of jobs its product is hired for, it can innovate and evolve to keep it relevant. Christensen argued that defining your business around the customer’s job (rather than your product features) is key to long-term success . Suppose you know customers are “hiring” your product to bring them a little joy (emotional job) and perhaps to show they care about a cozy home for their family (social job). In that case, you can tailor your marketing messages, innovation pipeline, and customer experience to excel at those jobs . This could mean adding new features or services that amplify joy (like customisable window sun-catchers that cast beautiful light patterns) or that enhance social value (maybe a community or social media sharing of “views through my Pella window” that builds a sense of pride and belonging). The key is that you are no longer competing only on product specs; you are competing on delivering human value , which is often far more complicated for competitors to copy or commoditise.

In summary, marketers have tremendous value in expanding their focus beyond the functional . It is about recognising that “people aren’t just buyers; they are job executors” with complex lives and aspirations. By addressing emotional and social jobs, a brand can move from being just another option to becoming a meaningful part of the customer’s life story. It transforms marketing from a transactional pitch into a service to the customer’s deeper needs .

Broader Implications: A Human-Centric Marketing Philosophy

There is a philosophical undercurrent : marketing should be rooted in genuine human understanding and empathy. Phrases like “engaging humanity” and seeing through “the lens of humanity” signal an approach where the marketer steps into the customer’s shoes and asks, “What is this person trying to do or feel in life, and how can we help?” . Christensen described the JTBD perspective as causing you to “crawl into the skin of your customer and go with her as she goes about her day,” relentlessly asking why she does what she does. This is an exercise in empathy, akin to design thinking and human-centred design principles. The author of our passage reinforces that ethos by encouraging marketers to empathise with the human behind the customer rather than analyse a consumer segment.

Another implication in the author’s enthusiastic tone, “This is so good… kudos on making people FEEL” , is that marketing can aspire to impact people’s lives positively, not just inform them about a product . By delivering “a little bit of joy,” a brand takes on a more meaningful role. This borders on a purpose-driven view of marketing – where a company’s mission might be to improve customers’ well-being (even in small ways) alongside selling its product. The author’s applause (“Bravo”) for focusing on joy suggests a belief that brands, even in everyday categories, can contribute to human happiness or emotional well-being . It is a subtle but powerful reframing: a window company is not just making windows, it is “making life a little brighter” . This kind of language is reminiscent of brands that define a higher purpose for themselves – for example, a laundry detergent brand talking about “caring for your family’s comfort” rather than just cleaning clothes, or a tech gadget brand saying it “connects people” rather than just touting specs.

Philosophically, the author’s interpretation of JTBD aligns marketing with the idea of serving human needs in a holistic sense . It suggests that any product, no matter how utilitarian, can be positioned in terms of the human value it delivers . This challenges marketers to be more creative and empathetic. It also has implications for how companies measure success: Beyond customer satisfaction with the product, are we bringing some positive emotion or social value to people? Companies should consider metrics like emotional resonance or brand empathy in addition to traditional KPIs.

Finally, the framing implies a more resilient marketing strategy. If you connect with customers emotionally, you often foster loyalty and community. As the consulting firm Brandtrust observes, “Customer trust and loyalty depend on executing these emotional jobs above any other criteria”. People tend to stick with brands that feel right to them, that get them. By focusing on emotional jobs like joy or social jobs like identity, marketers can cultivate that sense of “this brand understands me as a person”. In an age where consumers have endless choices, such deeper connections are a strong defence against competition.

Conclusion

Jobs To Be Done theory invites us to shift our perspective from products to people . Christensen instructed us to ask, “What job is the customer hiring this product for?” – a question that already shifts the focus to customer needs and outcomes. This author goes one step further, urging us to consider all the jobs that matter in a person’s life: not just the functional task but the emotional uplift and social fulfilment a solution can provide. By considering something as simple and profound as “a little bit of joy” to be part of the product’s job, the author extends the JTBD framework into a more humanistic marketing philosophy.

This means designing and marketing products with empathy – understanding that a great offering performs on multiple levels . Yes, it does the basic job well. However, it also makes the user feel good (perhaps proud, excited, relieved, or joyful). It helps them be good in the eyes of others or themselves (fitting into a social narrative or identity). When a brand delivers on these functional, emotional, and social jobs together, it transcends being just a product. It becomes a partner in the customer’s journey of life.

In the end, marketing is most effective when it speaks to humans as humans . By focusing on the little joys and the bigger emotional/social jobs, marketers can craft offerings and stories that solve problems and enrich lives. This holistic approach is not just a formula for a compelling value proposition – it is a vision for marketing that treats customers as whole people seeking a bit of happiness and meaning, not just shoppers checking off a list. Moreover, as Christensen’s theory and its commentators suggest, when you help someone make the progress they genuinely care about, they are not just buying your product – they are enthusiastically hiring you to improve a part of their life .

Sources:

Christensen, C. M., et al. Competing Against Luck: The Story of Innovation and Customer Choice . (2016) – Summarised key idea that jobs-to-be-done include functional, social, and emotional dimensions ( Competing Against Luck | The Story Of Innovation And Customer Choice by Clayton M. Christensen, Taddy Hall, Karen Dillon, David S. Duncan | The Mihir Chronicles ) ( Competing Against Luck | The Story Of Innovation And Customer Choice by Clayton M. Christensen, Taddy Hall, Karen Dillon, David S. Duncan | The Mihir Chronicles ).
Christensen, C. M. “Know Your Customers’ ‘Jobs to Be Done’.” Harvard Business Review . (2016) – Introduced the “hire a product to do a job” concept and emphasised that jobs are not just functional ( Jobs to Be Done: 4 Real-World Examples | HBS Online ) ( Jobs to Be Done: 4 Real-World Examples | HBS Online ).
Brandtrust Insights. “Jobs-to-be-done: Satisfying Your Customers’ Highest Needs.” (2024) – Discusses fulfilling functional, emotional, and social needs simultaneously and how emotional jobs (e.g. feeling joy or guilt-free) drive consumer behaviour ( Jobs-to-be-done: Satisfying Your Customers’ Highest Needs | Brandtrust ) ( Jobs-to-be-done: Satisfying Your Customers’ Highest Needs | Brandtrust ).
LogRocket Blog – Krawczyk, B. “Understanding the 3 types of jobs to be done.” (Nov 2023) – Notes that focusing only on functional jobs leads to missed opportunities, advocating that emotional and social jobs must be addressed for full benefit ( Understanding the three types of jobs to be done – LogRocket Blog ) ( Understanding the three types of jobs to be done – LogRocket Blog ).
Marcus Collins (2025) – Commentary on Pella Windows campaign (via LinkedIn post) highlighting the application of JTBD in branding: Pella shifted from a functional/security message to an emotional promise of “a little bit of joy” , exemplifying a human-centric approach ( This!!!! Is The Justis Department!!!! Amber Justis (She/Her/Hers) and her… | Jean Batthany ).
Levitt, T. “Marketing Myopia.” Harvard Business Review . (1960) – Classic marketing essay urging businesses to define themselves by customer needs (the hole ), not by-products (the drill ) ( Jobs-to-be-done: Satisfying Your Customers’ Highest Needs | Brandtrust ) ( Marketing Myopia – Harvard Business Review ). This ethos underpins the JTBD mindset adopted by the author.

Career Boxing: A Systematic Form of Discrimination and Abuse

Thu, 20 Mar 2025 03:21:00 GMT

Recently, I have observed a trend experienced by others that I would describe as ‘career boxing’. The concept requires employees to stay within their assigned roles while avoiding attention, maintaining order, keeping ambitions in check, and especially disregarding unconventional thinking. The boundaries of the box are usually created through performance metrics, which typically belong to other people like supervisors/managers. The workplace turns into a living hell when you also add a toxic alpha personality or workplace psychopath into the mix. We have all encountered them.

It impacts all levels of employment, from trainees to mature-aged workers and employees from diverse backgrounds. They can find themselves trapped in these restrictive career situations. People who don’t match corporate success standards face greater obstacles due to career boxing constraints, particularly women, mature employees, neurodiverse, disabled workers, and people from racially diverse backgrounds. The latter can be more visible.

Large organisations force these employees into predetermined positions while disregarding their abilities to preserve existing structures. I’ve observed that this is often associated with power hunger in middle management. This concept demands attention on multiple fronts, and I share my thoughts on it.

Understanding Career Boxing

I consider career boxing to be restricting individuals to specific roles, industries, or skill sets based on assumptions rather than actual potential. I understand from a business point of view, a role needs to be carried out. In the modern era, we are encouraged to progress, better ourselves and contribute to society. After a couple of years, it is natural for someone to want to achieve goals and progress. For some people, they are happy to have a steady paycheck or to work on perfecting and developing that role. Not everyone is like that.

Then, there is how someone is perceived by their work history. Rarely is there a consideration to someone looking to switch industries or roles and their transferrable skills. Many are happy to take a step backwards to take two steps forward. Have you ever watched the DeNiro film The Intern?

So it would seem career boxing can occur in multiple ways:

Industry pigeonholing is the inability to transition into different industries because past experience is seen as limiting rather than transferable.
Skillset fixation , where employers assume someone is only capable of specific tasks based on past roles.
Glass ceiling effects , when structural limitations disproportionately affect marginalised groups.
Credentialism is where there is an overemphasis on specific degrees or certifications rather than experience and ability.
Ageism and experience trap from being deemed “too experienced” or “too junior” for roles despite clear qualifications.

Career boxing is not merely an oversight in hiring or professional development—it is a systemic issue rooted in outdated corporate hierarchies, implicit biases, and workplace cultures that value conformity over innovation.

The Psychological and Economic Toll

From my observations, the consequences are devastating for those confined to career boxing throughout their professional lives. It also impacts their family and friends, a cultural impact rarely considered. Lack of professional advancement causes financial uncertainty over time, creating ongoing stress and diminished self-esteem. A toxic workplace culture that supports career boxing using microaggressions, exclusion tactics and deliberate gatekeeping leads to an environment that leaves people feeling trapped and helpless.

Employees who face career boxing often experience the following:

Burnout and disengagement are caused by not being allowed to expand their potential, leading to lower productivity and job satisfaction.
Erosion of Professional Identity through career boxing forces people to shrink their ambitions, leading to a loss of confidence in their abilities.
Limited Economic Mobility by being stuck in a narrowly defined role, employees miss opportunities for financial advancement, trapping them in cycles of underemployment.

The Role of Power and Control in Career Boxing

Michel Foucault’s theories on power and knowledge help explain how career boxing operates. Organisations define “valid” expertise in ways that reinforce existing hierarchies, keeping specific individuals in positions of limited influence. Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of capital (economic, social, and cultural) further explains how those with the proper credentials, networks, and cultural fit easily navigate career progression while invisible barriers block others.

At its core, career boxing is about control and power. It limits professional agency and enforces dependency on workplace structures that favour those already in positions of privilege.

Breaking Out of the Box

I may be asking too much; however, dismantling career boxing may require a multi-level approach:

Organisational Change (Difficult)

Implement skills-based hiring and promotion criteria, reducing reliance on rigid credential requirements. See beyond the resume and personality profiles.
Encourage cross-functional training and career mobility within companies. Sharing concepts of habitus will help a business flourish and be agile and adaptable.
Recognise and address implicit biases in hiring and promotion processes. This is one of the problematic points as it is inherently ingrained in our culture at this time.
Provide leadership opportunities for underrepresented employees. Every employee should be nurtured to be a leader if they desire. It provides opportunities and helps employees understand how their leaders see the world.

Individual Strategies (Medium)

Build a personal career narrative that emphasises adaptability and transferable skills. These are your goals but be prepared to defend them and challenge anyone who tells you to get back in your box.
Seek mentorship and sponsorship outside of traditional industry boundaries. Join associations, groups and committees, even if they are virtual.
Leverage professional networks to create career pathways that defy conventional expectations. These can be difficult to access, especially if you have been career-boxed. Break the rules and reach out.
Engage in “career hacking”—using side projects, freelance work, or community leadership roles to showcase broader capabilities. If you can get developmental growth at work, find satisfaction elsewhere.

Policy and Advocacy (Mixed)

Advocate for legislation that supports skills-based hiring. Use LinkedIn or attempt to have open conversations with your people and cultural team (if you have one).
Push for anti-discrimination policies that specifically address career stagnation due to bias. You have every legal right to call out discrimination in all its forms. Use it to empower your growth if necessary.
Support initiatives that fund career transitions and upskilling programs for marginalised groups. Again, you may need to look outside your organisation.

Conclusion (for now)

The systemic challenge of Career Boxing blocks innovative thinking while perpetuating workplace inequalities and obstructing employee development opportunities. Career Boxing represents economic and psychological control systems requiring continuous opposition across multiple levels. Individual initiatives combined with organisational transformations and policy amendments are essential steps to break away from career boxing to create work environments that are dynamic and inclusive while ensuring equity.

I’ve come to believe that we must dismantle traditional career frameworks to envision how professional development should function in today’s society.

The Avenue of Honour, Bacchus Marsh: History, Challenges and Cultural Significance

Mon, 17 Mar 2025 23:31:00 GMT

I vaguely remember going through the Bacchus Marsh Avenue of Honour in Bacchus Marsh from childhood. We would pass through as we headed to Ballarat to see my grandparents. If we were lucky, we would go to Lion Safari Park. I remember looking up through the window at the tunnel of trees and the smell of the hot vinyl seats. It was a marker of a halfway point and a rest on our trip from the distant eastern suburbs of Melbourne. As an adult, Bacchus Marsh had been bypassed, and trips to Ballarat were no longer marketed by the Avenue. In 2010, my wife, kids and I uprooted from the leafy inner eastern suburbs for a peri-urban change. We ended up on the Avenue by accident, which triggered memories and a newfound appreciation of the trees. We stopped at Jeff and Glenda’s produce store along the Avenue. While sitting in the carpark crunching away on freshly picked apples, new memories and a new story began. Soon after, we moved to Bacchus Marsh temporarily; however, that quickly became permanent. Our relationship with the Avenue has grown and changed with our time here. Hearing about the ‘locals’ stories and ‘opinions’ also factor into the new relationship with the space.

When we first drove down the Avenue, I could not have imagined that I would become a member of the local heritage committee. During my time there, we were presented with plans to replant and manage the Avenue in the coming years. The plans were very systemic and functional, void of cultural consideration. That is why heritage committees are important. So, I have decided to look deeper at the Avenue and see what lies behind the cultural entanglements and personal stories.

Introduction

The Bacchus Marsh Avenue of Honour is a renowned living war memorial – a double row of towering elm trees lining the eastern entrance of Bacchus Marsh in Victoria. Planted in 1918 to commemorate local service personnel of World War I, this 2.8 km arboreal avenue now stands as a heritage-listed landmark of both natural beauty and historical importance. Today, the trees are over a century old; the Avenue has become deeply ingrained in the town’s identity and daily life, symbolising collective memory and community pride. However, the Avenue today faces significant challenges – from development pressures and pest infestations to the inexorable ageing of its trees – spurring concerted preservation efforts. This article provides a detailed overview of the Avenue’s origins and significance as a war memorial, examines the current threats endangering its future, and explores ongoing conservation initiatives. It also reflects on the broader cultural and anthropological dimensions of the Avenue of Honour, including its role in placemaking, embodied memory and identity, and connections to Australian First Nations concepts of memory and land.

Historical Overview and Memorial Origins

The Bacchus Marsh Avenue of Honour was established amid the closing months of World War I as a community-driven tribute to those who served. On 10 August 1918 , more than a thousand residents gathered along the roadside near the Woolpack Inn for a grand planting ceremony. At the sound of a bugle, teams of volunteers simultaneously planted 281 young elm trees (a mix of Dutch elms and Huntington elms) in honour of local men and women involved in the war. The planting was accomplished within half an hour, a feat of extraordinary coordination that underscored the unity and solidarity of the town. Each tree was dedicated to an individual service person, originally marked by a timber guard and a copper name plaque listing the soldier’s details. In a deliberate show of egalitarianism, the plaques were arranged alphabetically rather than by rank or order of death. This meant that family members from the district who died overseas would be remembered side by side, and it reinforced the idea that every individual’s contribution was equally valued. Such inclusive design set the Bacchus Marsh memorial apart from many contemporaneous war monuments that typically honoured only the fallen – the Avenue acknowledged not only those who died but all who served, including returning veterans and those still in the field.

The Avenue quickly became a cherished symbol of remembrance and community. Historical records describe how local businesses closed on planting day and how women’s auxiliary groups provided refreshments for the crowds while families placed mementos – coins, uniform buttons, handwritten notes – into the soil with the tree roots, creating “literal and figurative foundations of memory” beneath each sapling. In the ensuing decades, as the elm trees matured into a grand allée, the site assumed a daily commemorative presence: a living monument that townsfolk would drive or walk through, integrating war memory into the landscape of everyday life. The full Avenue stretches almost 3 km and originally extended nearly to the Hopetoun River’s concrete bridge on the town’s edge ( Avenue of Honour | Monument Australia ). It is flanked by fertile farmland and orchards, so the memorial trees long intertwined with the rural vistas of Bacchus Marsh and its agricultural heritage.

Heritage and Significance

The Bacchus Marsh Avenue of Honour is recognised as one of Australia’s most significant memorial avenues. It is the second-largest Avenue of Honour in Victoria , and remarkably, it remains largely intact in its original form. Over 260 original WWI elms still stand, forming a continuous canopy. This high level of integrity and its historical importance led to the Avenue’s listing on the Victorian Heritage Register as a state cultural heritage significance site. The Avenue is part of a broader Australian tradition of Avenues of Honour – living memorials of trees planted to commemorate war service – a practice that began in Victoria’s goldfields region and saw over 500 avenues established nationwide after World War I. Even among these, Bacchus Marsh’s Avenue is often noted for its beauty and scale. It is sometimes described as “a magnificent honour-guard” of trees welcoming visitors into the township. Generations of residents have attached profound meaning to the elm-lined road. It serves as the site of ANZAC Day and Remembrance ceremonies. It has inspired local histories, artworks, and commemorative projects (such as the 2018 centenary “Resting Poppy” memorial installation by the Bacchus Marsh RSL). After more than 105 years, the Avenue endures as a tribute to the sacrifices of war and as a defining feature of Bacchus Marsh’s identity and heritage.

Threats and Challenges to the Avenue

Despite its honoured status, the Avenue of Honour faces multiple threats that jeopardise its health, integrity and legacy. Chief among these are encroaching road development , biological pest infestations , and the aging and senescence of the trees themselves. Each of these factors has prompted concern from experts and the community, as well as interventions aimed at safeguarding the Avenue for future generations.

Road Development Pressures

From the late 2000s onwards, proposals to upgrade roads and manage growing traffic in Bacchus Marsh have threatened the Avenue’s fabric. The most contentious plan was a state proposal to construct a large roundabout and extend Woolpack Road to meet the Western Freeway – effectively bisecting the Avenue of Honour. In 2010, VicRoads (the state roads authority) unveiled plans for this intersection that would have required the removal of between 8 to 12 of the heritage elm trees. The justification was to reduce congestion and improve safety on the existing highway route through the town. However, residents, the Bacchus Marsh RSL, and heritage advocates rapidly mobilised in opposition.

An Avenue Preservation Group was formed in 2009 and campaigned vigorously to “save the Avenue” from incursion. In 2010–2011, the dispute went before Heritage Victoria, which refused permits for the roadworks on the grounds of unacceptable impact on a protected memorial. By January 2012, the Victorian Planning Minister Matthew Guy upheld the heritage objections. He formally blocked the roundabout project , affirming that “the continuous and uninterrupted nature of this significant cultural heritage landmark” must be ensured. This decision was celebrated by the local community and the National Trust, who had jointly fought the proposal.

Although that particular threat was averted, traffic pressures in the region have not abated. Planning authorities have since investigated alternative bypass routes around Bacchus Marsh, including an Eastern Link Road to divert heavy vehicles. Several route options were explored, and as of 2019, three out of four proposed corridors would still cut through the Avenue of Honour , again raising heritage and environmental alarms. Community feedback in public consultations strongly favoured options that preserved the Avenue, even if they had other impacts. In response, authorities indicated they would strive to find a “balanced” solution, acknowledging the Avenue as a “complexity” requiring careful consideration in any design. Indeed, government ministers have noted that local sentiment showed “strong support … for the preservation of cultural heritage” over expedient roadworks.

As of the mid-2020s, the Avenue remains intact, and no road extension has been built through it, but development pressure is an ongoing concern . Any future infrastructure project must reconcile the town’s transport needs with the non-negotiable imperative to protect a sacred landscape. The prolonged saga has underscored how deeply the community values the Avenue – it is not merely a strip of roadside trees but a revered memorial that residents staunchly defend. As one Avenue Preservation Group member put it during the conflict, “In the end it seems to be that roads dictate decisions for governments,” voicing frustration that utilitarian interests might trump historical sanctity ( Vic Govt to decide Avenue of Honour project – ABC News ). So far, citizen advocacy and heritage laws have successfully held the line against such incursions.

Elm Beetle Infestations and Disease

Another serious threat comes from biological pests and diseases affecting the elm trees. The Avenue’s elms (Ulmus ×hollandica) are now over a century old and have been persistently attacked by the Elm Leaf Beetle ( Xanthogaleruca luteola ), an introduced pest in Australia (). Elm leaf beetle larvae and adults feed voraciously on elm foliage, “skeletonising” the leaves and causing defoliation that weakens the trees over successive seasons.In Bacchus Marsh, sustained infestations have been recorded in recent decades, leaving many trees ragged in summer and reducing their vitality. The mature elms, already under stress from age, have “reduced resilience and shorter life spans” partly due to this chronic pest pressure. Moorabool Shire Council has an active management program to control elm leaf beetles on the Avenue. This includes regular monitoring and treatment – often by trunk injection or canopy spraying of insecticides – to keep populations at bay.

Without such intervention, an unchecked beetle outbreak could defoliate the entire Avenue and potentially kill trees, as repeated defoliation severely depletes the trees’ energy reserves. In addition to the leaf beetle, the Elm Bark Beetle (present in Australia) is closely watched by biosecurity authorities because it can carry the fungus causing Dutch Elm Disease (DED). DED has devastated elm populations in Europe and North America but, fortunately, has not reached Australia to date. Given that the Bacchus Marsh elms are all of a species highly susceptible to DED, an incursion of that pathogen would be catastrophic. As a precaution, council arborists and state authorities maintain vigilance; any suspicious wilting or dieback is investigated, and protocols are in place for immediate containment should DED ever be detected.

Therefore, the health of the Avenue’s trees is a matter of continuous attention. In recent years, advanced techniques have been employed to aid in early detection of problems. For example, acoustic tomography (a kind of ultrasound for trees) is used to scan for internal rot or structural weakness without harming the trunks. Soil testing and leaf tissue analysis are also carried out to monitor nutrient levels and tree metabolism, ensuring pest damage or stress can be spotted and managed proactively. The elm trees of the Avenue are living organisms that require care, much like patients in a long-term health program; pest control and disease prevention have thus become integral to preserving this living memorial.

Ageing and Environmental Stress

Time itself is an ever-present threat to the Avenue of Honour. The original elms, planted over 105 years ago, are now reaching the natural lifespan limits for this species. As senescent trees , many have developed heartwood decay, hollow limbs, or other structural issues common in old age. Branch drop has become a noted hazard – locals recount dramatic incidents of large limbs cracking off during storms, anecdotally described as “exploding branches” that have made some residents wary of driving the Avenue in wild weather. In a few cases, trees have died or become dangerously unstable and had to be removed. A thorough arboricultural assessment in recent years found many elms in poor condition or decline.

In 2023, Moorabool Shire adopted a Preservation Plan that identified 255 trees that would likely need replacement within 20 years (out of the total 360 trees along the roadway, which includes the 281 commemorative elms and later plantings). This phased removal is aimed at “staging loss in the canopy” – i.e. avoiding a scenario where most trees fail at once – and prioritises those with advanced decay or incorrect species (there are a few non-elm intruder trees). The Plan schedules about 30 removals/replacements in the first 2–3 years (2023–2025) and spreads the remainder over two decades. Inevitably, the Avenue’s landscape will slowly transition as old trees are removed and young replacements grow. However, the goal is to maintain the continuity of the Avenue’s form and character.

Environmental stresses such as climate change and urbanisation complement the challenges of age. The elms, originally a European species, are now experiencing hotter and drier conditions than a century ago. Recent data indicates that average summer temperatures in the Bacchus Marsh area have risen by nearly 2 °C since the 1950s, and drought cycles have intensified. During the Millennium Drought of 1996–2010, many Avenue trees suffered moisture stress, and local volunteers initiated emergency watering efforts – with residents “adopting” individual trees to hand-water in dry months. The community’s involvement likely saved numerous trees during that period. Storm frequency and wind intensity also appear to be increasing, which, as noted, can be destructive for ageing elms. Additionally, the effects of urban development around the Avenue (though the road is still semi-rural) include heavier traffic vibration, soil compaction at the roots, and air pollution from vehicle exhaust.

Since the 1980s, traffic volume on that road has reportedly quadrupled, contributing to root zone stress and mechanical damage risk from collisions. These factors further weaken old trees. The local council has tried to mitigate such impacts by imposing lower speed limits, adding protective barriers, and rerouting large trucks via other new roads (e.g. the Halletts Way bypass opened in 2014). Nevertheless, the aging of the Avenue is unavoidable , and with each passing decade, a more significant proportion of the original trees will likely succumb. The challenge is ensuring that as individual elms die off, the Avenue as an entity – its linear form, canopy, and memorial function – survives through a new generation of trees.

Conservation and Preservation Efforts

Managing the Avenue of Honour long-term requires a delicate balance between historical fidelity, horticultural science, and community engagement. In recent years, significant efforts have been made to conserve the Avenue’s heritage while renewing it sustainably. Key strategies include propagating new elm trees from the original stock, careful maintenance and monitoring regimes, and inclusive planning involving experts and local stakeholders.

Propagation and Tree Replacement Program:

One of the most innovative conservation measures has been the decision to propagate replacement elm trees from cuttings (budwood) taken from the existing Avenue trees . This initiative ensures that any new trees planted are genetically “true to type” and maintain a direct lineage to the 1918 originals. According to the Bacchus Marsh Avenue Preservation Plan (2023), cuttings from selected healthy parent trees (chosen in consultation with Heritage Victoria for their vigour and form) are grafted onto rootstocks and grown in nursery conditions for 3–4 years to produce saplings of planting size. By using this cloning method, the continuity of the Avenue’s botanical character is preserved – the two specific cultivars of Ulmus ×hollandica that make up the Avenue (the common Dutch elm and the narrower ‘Huntington’ elm) will continue to dominate the replanted sections.

This is crucial for keeping the uniform look of the Avenue: the Dutch and Huntington elms have distinctive shapes that together create the interlocking canopy. If random different species were used, the aesthetic and symbolic unity of the memorial would be disrupted. The propagation program, led by specialist arborists and local nurseries (notably in partnership with a respected regional nursery, Fleming’s Nurseries), is already well underway. Fleming’s has reported working to preserve the Avenue “as true to its original form as possible by propagating from the original trees and replanting” from that stock. Hundreds of grafted elm saplings are being prepared, effectively a living archive of clones that will replace aging trees incrementally. The community has strongly supported this approach – even as the loss of an old tree saddens people, they take comfort in knowing its “offspring” will carry on the legacy on the same soil.

The RSL sub-branch and local historical society have also backed the plan, seeing it as a way to “maintain the Avenue’s lineage” and honour into the future. With an estimated 20-year horizon for complete renewal, this replanting programme represents a commitment to keep the memorial trees on the Avenue in perpetuity, effectively future-proofing the memorial while respecting its past.

Maintenance, Monitoring and Protection

Alongside replanting efforts, there is a robust maintenance regime to care for the existing trees. Moorabool Shire Council’s management strategy calls for routine arboricultural assessments – at least annually – to check each elm’s health, stability, and treatment needs. Deadwood is pruned to reduce the hazards, and where possible, interventions like cabling of weak branches or treatment of fungal infections are done to prolong the life of veteran trees. As mentioned, the council employs or contracts professional arborists who utilise modern technology. For example, seismograph drilling and acoustic tomography are used on suspect trunks to map internal decay and decide if a tree can be retained safely.

The soil around each tree is also managed – compaction from the popular roadside produce stalls and soil aeration techniques alleviate parking. Mulch is applied to improve root moisture retention. An active Elm Leaf Beetle control program is in place (typically involving systemic insecticide injections every few years) to prevent defoliation damage. Crucially, the Avenue’s status on the Victorian Heritage Register provides a layer of legal protection: any works that might affect the trees (from roadworks to utility trenching) require heritage permits and careful oversight. This has prompted authorities to use unique methods; for instance, when installing underground services near the Avenue, they must use non-invasive boring techniques at a safe depth to avoid cutting through roots.

The community remains closely involved in stewardship as well. Local volunteers often assist in watering young replacement trees and promptly report any visible issues (like pest outbreaks or vandalism) to the council. The sense of collective ownership that began on that planting day in 1918 continues: The Avenue is cared for not just by bureaucrats but by the people for whom it holds meaning.

Memory, Identity and Placemaking in the Avenue

Beyond its physical attributes and maintenance, the Bacchus Marsh Avenue of Honour holds profound cultural and anthropological significance . It is a site where history, memory, identity, and place are deeply interwoven. Over time, the Avenue has transcended its original function as a war memorial to become an integral part of the community’s social fabric and sense of place. In scholarly terms, it can be viewed as a “lieu de mémoire” – a site of memory – where collective remembrance is anchored in the landscape. Unlike a static monument of stone, this living memorial engages people through all the senses and through time, embodying what anthropologists call “emplaced memory,” the phenomenon of memory residing in physical settings and our bodily experience of them.

Community Identity and Embodied Memory

For the people of Bacchus Marsh, the Avenue is not just a memorial to past soldiers but a defining feature of their town’s identity and daily life. Many residents have known the Avenue since childhood and have layered their memories onto it – from family drives under the green canopy to seasonal changes marking the years to stories of dramatic weather events. Longtime locals often give directions or describe locations about the Avenue, reflecting how it serves as an orienting backbone of the district. The trees themselves have become almost like community members or guardians. There is local folklore about certain “personalities” of trees, and as mentioned, tales of near-misses with falling branches have become lore passed between generations.

Residents develop an intimate, sensory knowledge of the Avenue. One observer noted that “these trees integrate into everyday community life, while traditional monuments typically remain separate” . People experience the memorial by moving through it – walking, cycling, driving – thus, physical engagement continually activates memory. An illustrative anecdote comes from a resident, who said her grandmother could point out the specific tree that commemorates her great-uncle “not because she read the plaque, but because she recognises the distinctive bend in the trunk [and] the particular way light filters through those branches in autumn” . This captures how the Avenue’s meaning is stored in archives or inscriptions and in residents’ bodily and sensory familiarity with each tree. Such embodied memory – sometimes termed “kinaesthetic knowledge” – means the community remembers its history in a highly place-bound, experiential manner. The Avenue is effectively an open-air museum and sanctuary of memory that one lives within, rather than visiting only on occasion.

Furthermore, the Avenue plays a decisive placemaking role . It contributes to what geographers call the “sense of place” of Bacchus Marsh – the unique character and emotional resonance that distinguish the town. The tunnel of elms is instantly recognisable and has become a symbol for the area used in tourism brochures and local business names. It also shapes the approach to town, creating a feeling for visitors entering a unique, storied place. Community events have reinforced this: for the Avenue’s 100th anniversary in 2018, residents marched down the road and held ceremonies under the trees to mark the centenary. Such rituals strengthen communal bonds and attachment to the physical space. Sociologically, the Avenue helps maintain “cultural continuity” by linking current generations with those of the past through a tangible, living medium. The continuity is symbolic and literal – descendants of the original planters can walk the same route and care for the same trees (or their clones) that their forebears planted, making the act of remembrance a multigenerational communal project.

Notably, the usage of the Avenue is not confined to formal remembrance; it is also an everyday communal space. Children play and climb on the lower limbs (where safe), couples take wedding photos beneath the arching boughs, and elderly citizens find shade under them on hot days. These ordinary activities imbue the Avenue with living significance beyond its official memorial function. In the words of French scholar Michel de Certeau, the community’s daily interactions here can be seen as “spatial tactics” – ways in which people informally appropriate and give meaning to a commemorative space through routine practices. Thus, the Avenue’s cultural value is continuously reproduced and reinterpreted in the present, not just preserved as a static historic relic.

First Nations Perspectives – Memory and Connection to Land

While the Avenue of Honour is a product of settler-Australian war commemoration, it exists within a landscape with much older memory and meaning layers. The area around Bacchus Marsh is the Country of the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung and Wadawurrung peoples, who for millennia have maintained their traditions of honouring and remembering through connection to place. In Australian First Nations cultures, the land is often viewed as a living archive of history, spirituality, and identity. A famous quote by Indigenous elder Bill Neidjie articulates this worldview: “Our story is in the land … it is written in those sacred places. … My spirit has gone back to my country” . In other words, memory for First Nations peoples is profoundly embedded in the landscape , inseparable from it. Sacred sites, songlines, and place names encode ancestors’ deeds and keep the past alive in the present.

Although the Avenue of Honour was not created with Indigenous principles in mind, it is striking that it, too, represents the embedding of human memory in the environment – the idea that the landscape itself can hold and transmit memory . In a sense, the Avenue’s elm trees have become storytellers of the community’s war history, much as a rock formation or river might carry the “story” of a Dreaming ancestor in Aboriginal culture. Scholars have noted This parallel by observing how Western war memorial practices, like tree avenues, inadvertently echo ancient practices of ritualising landscape.

The Avenue is also a reminder that the land has seen layers of conflict and service beyond the World Wars commemorated – including the frontier conflicts and service of Aboriginal people (some of whom also served in the World Wars but were not always officially acknowledged). In recent times, there have been moves to broaden the narrative of memorial avenues to include Indigenous perspectives, recognising that for Aboriginal Australians, remembrance and connection to land are deeply intertwined concepts. The Moorabool Shire’s heritage documents begin with acknowledgments of the Traditional Owners and note that places like the Avenue contribute to a landscape that holds meaning for Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities.

This reflective approach enriches the interpretation of the Avenue: It can be seen not only as a colonial memorial for 20th-century events but as part of a continuum of how humans invest meaning in “Country”. The Avenue’s trees may be exotic species planted by newcomers. However, over a century, they have been accepted into the land and now provide habitat for native birds and possums, effectively becoming part of the ecosystem. In this way, the Avenue is a meeting point of cultural memory and natural landscape.

Heritage conservationists have even described the Avenue as a place where “cultural heritage and natural processes are inseparable” , urging a holistic view that bridges the nature/culture divide. Such an integrated perspective resonates with Indigenous holistic views of land, albeit in a different cultural register. It highlights a fundamental point: Memory in place is a universal human experience , whether war memory in elm trees or ancestral memory in a sacred site. Both demand respect for the land that bears those memories.

Conclusion

The Avenue of Honour in Bacchus Marsh is a powerful testament to how a community can inscribe its history, values, and identity into the landscape. From its origins in 1918 as a bold act of collective remembrance – rows of young elms planted in unison to honour the sacrifices of war – it has grown into a venerable corridor of memory that touches nearly all aspects of local life. The Avenue’s significance is manifold: it is a war memorial, an ecological habitat, a heritage landmark, and a social space of continuity between generations. This dual nature as a cultural artefact and a living organism makes its preservation a complex but worthwhile endeavour. The current threats of road expansion, pests and disease, and natural aging have galvanised experts and citizens to take action, whether through legal protections, scientific tree care, or creative horticultural solutions like cloning the original trees.

These efforts reflect a recognition that the loss of the Avenue would be irreplaceable – not just a loss of beautiful trees, but a loss of collective memory and identity. As the Planning Minister’s decision in 2012 affirmed, maintaining the “continuous and uninterrupted” form of the Avenue is critical to preserving its cultural heritage value. Looking ahead, the Bacchus Marsh Avenue of Honour story is one of stewardship and adaptation. Its guardians are effectively writing a new chapter of remembrance that balances change and continuity: new saplings will replace old giants, even as the spirit and significance of the Avenue remain constant. In doing so, they ensure that this living memorial – born of community solidarity in the aftermath of war – will continue to thrive, linking past, present and future in the enduring shelter of its green canopy .

Sources:

Bacchus Marsh Avenue of Honour – Moorabool Shire Council Heritage and Preservation Plan () (); Victorian Heritage Database ( Virtual War Memorial | Bacchus Marsh Avenue of Honour, Bacchus Marsh, ) ( Virtual War Memorial | Bacchus Marsh Avenue of Honour, Bacchus Marsh, )
“Avenue of Honour (Bacchus Marsh)” – Monument Australia (2013) ( Avenue of Honour | Monument Australia ); Virtual War Memorial Australia ( Virtual War Memorial | Bacchus Marsh Avenue of Honour, Bacchus Marsh, ) ( Virtual War Memorial | Bacchus Marsh Avenue of Honour, Bacchus Marsh, )
Adam Dimech, “An Avenue to Dishonour” – The Grapevine Blog (2010) ( An Avenue to Dishonour | The Grapevine ) ( An Avenue to Dishonour | The Grapevine )
“Vic Govt to decide Avenue of Honour project” – ABC News (11 April 2011) ( Vic Govt to decide Avenue of Honour project – ABC News ) ( Vic Govt to decide Avenue of Honour project – ABC News )
“High cost for new Bacchus Marsh traffic plan” – Melton & Moorabool Star Weekly (5 March 2012) ( High cost for new Bacchus Marsh traffic plan | Melton & Moorabool )
National Trust (Vic), Trust Advocate – “Bacchus Marsh Avenue of Honour” (March 2013) ( Bacchus Marsh Avenue of Honour | Trust Advocate ) ( Bacchus Marsh Avenue of Honour | Trust Advocate )
Aileen Moreton-Robinson, ABC Religion & Ethics – “Our story is in the land” (9 November 2020), quoting Bill Neidjie ( “Our story is in the land”: Why the Indigenous sense of belonging unsettles white Australia – ABC Religion & Ethics ).

Ethnographic Futures & Marketing: A Quick Reflection.

Sat, 08 Mar 2025 05:58:00 GMT

The idea of ethnographic futures has been at the forefront of my mind in recent weeks. After reading a number of papers and a book on Design Ethnography (Pink et al.) I have come to realise just how much work I’ve already done in this field. Today, I have been pouring over papers for an ethnographic workshop later in the week with Deakin Uni. When I was asked earlier this week for examples, I suddenly realised how many I had organised and run—less the anthropological lens.

On reflection, design, advertising, and marketing are inherently future-focused. One of my long-standing issues with marketing data is that it’s always retrospective—a record of what was rather than what could be. It consists of artefacts of predicted futures. Looking back, the early days of the 1950s and marketing technology did an exceptional job—albeit often sexist—of selling the future. In doing so, they cultivated an atmosphere of imagined futures.

Let’s take a step back. Advertising agencies are wild places. They require energy, open-mindedness, and an unburdened imagination to explore future possibilities truly. A client submits a brief aiming to meet a particular goal. The first task is to understand the target audience and align the business’s objectives with the audience’s—finding the communication or idea that connects the two. This, in itself, is a topic worthy of a research paper. We used many methods to understand audiences. Sometimes, we mined client databases. Other times, we accessed large datasets like Roy Morgan Single Source. Again artefacts (Cenus data quickly outdates). But my favourite projects were immersive ones, where account managers, media strategists, and creative directors got to know the audience firsthand.

I remember one project at an international agency where we transformed the boardroom into a giant children’s bedroom—oversized toys, chairs, a bed, and beanbags. The client was initially brought in for workshops, discussing why they developed their products and how they imagined children engaging with them. We made them show us. As the sessions continued (and as a few bottles of Shiraz were consumed), the atmosphere became more relaxed and creative. In the following days, parents and teenagers were invited to play. The main takeaway was that, regardless of age, imagination was a key determining factor—especially when inspired. From that, a “Make It Your Own” campaign was developed, which became a commercial success.

On a smaller scale, more recently, I worked on a campaign for a paper company—one of my favourites because it resulted in stock selling out quickly. Over the years, I’ve run countless campaigns involving giveaways or prizes. Surprisingly, the hardest is the million-dollar giveaway. People are likelier to enter a competition with multiple smaller prizes than one colossal prize. I’ll return to this point. The challenge for the paper company was selling a particular quality of paper. We decided to conduct street interviews in Melbourne, filming 50 interviews over a few days. Each participant was asked permission to use their footage, and surprisingly, most signed the waiver. The key question: What would you do with a million dollars? The responses fell into three themes: fun (buying a cow was a classic), philanthropy, and self-indulgence. We grouped the responses and cut them into 60-second and shorter individual clips, then used them for targeted advertising—matching demographics and affinities to the three categories. The response exceeded expectations. The paper sold out within weeks, engagement rates were high, and the comments provided rich consumer insights for future campaigns. Who would have guessed that someone wanting to buy a cow would resonate powerfully with an audience?

Returning to the idea of multiple prizes versus a single large prize, this phenomenon has always fascinated me. My first experience with it was in the early 2000s when I ran a promotion to give away a $130,000 luxury car. The campaign offered alternative prizes like luxury holidays and experiences. It was a free entry competition by just watching a 60-second video and answer a simple question. Yet, the conversion rate was only 1%. Over 12 weeks, only a couple of thousand people entered. A few years later, I ran a campaign for a major sporting event, giving away tickets to the main event. The same low response happened again. Puzzled, I pushed the sporting body to study fan behaviour. Over the following months, we visited grassroots clubs, attended games, spoke to supporters, and even spent time in the bar. After visiting ten clubs, a clear pattern emerged: fans calculated the odds before entering. They assumed that thousands of people would join, making their chances slim. So, why bother? For the next event, we changed the approach—offering daily giveaways of single tickets with a secondary chance to win two tickets to the final. The impact was immediate. From memory, the result was a dramatic increase in entries, with over 100,000 participants.

Another campaign that stands out was for a travel company I had initially been dismissive of. Over a couple of weekends, we invited families and couples into the agency, interviewing them on camera about their ideal cruise holiday. After a few interviews, I realised the data we had been working with wasn’t thick enough for any meaningful planning. Each group received lunch and travel discounts for participating. Looking back, I’d now question the authenticity of their responses, but at the time, the videos inspired the client to adopt a new creative approach. Travel is an imagined event—it reveals both social and personal values and connections to everyday life. The messaging and image work was very ‘inspirational’ with amazing footage of destinations and motivating music. The idea was to inspired a future travel which was a success. However! Money wins out an the agency incouraged the client on to the next project.

This is just a quick reflection on over a hundred consumer group studies and research projects I’ve worked on. I’ll leave this opened ended to add some more case studies.

home built in an office
focus groups in a hardware store, also the inspiraton for my Scmackos ad “builders mate”
hours in repco store watching men buy motor oil
endless number of focus groups on everything from school snacks to colour selection for branding
50+ hours in display homes learning about how people imagined thier future home
hours in aged care facilities speaking to families
countless UX sessions/ Considering I have built over 400 websites, that is a lot of time
owning a icecream and confectonary retail store was an endless study

Overlooked Material Ecology

Fri, 07 Mar 2025 03:22:00 GMT

My photographic study of workshop creations revealed the deep abilities and expertise displayed by the workers who operate in these environments. The intuitive ability of these individuals to choose and modify tools and materials reveals hidden practices of material ecology and adaptive reuse. The long-standing workbenches showcase powerful stories about objects that travel through various phases of worth and disuse before being creatively repurposed.

Value goes beyond economic considerations to include creativity and anticipation along with skilled workmanship. Objects preserved for later use show practical planning mingled with creative possibilities while serving as examples of sustainable practices outside traditional economic systems. Today I turned my photography to observe these deep human-material bonds which turn neglected objects into valuable educational resources for reflection. Here is a quick look at a few of the photos.

The Rise and Fall of Opium Poppy Cultivation in Bacchus Marsh, Victoria

Thu, 06 Mar 2025 08:48:00 GMT

Opium Poppy Cultivation in Bacchus Marsh: An Anthropological and Social History

During a previous anthropological research project, I stumbled upon an article on opium poppies growing in Bacchus Marsh, my hometown. When I mentioned the idea to people in the area, they laughed and dismissed it. So, I went looking to see what I could discover. This article is based on what I could discover with digitised collections. I am sure there is a wealth of information to be uncovered, including art, advertising, and other stories. Regardless, this is the story so far.

Bacchus Marsh is a farming community in Western Victoria, Australia. Today, it is known for its orchards and market gardens and is home to over twenty thousand people – but in the late 19th century, it hosted an unusual crop: opium poppies. Opium poppy cultivation in Bacchus Marsh began around 1870 and played a notable role in local livelihoods and politics (Mathews 1988). This article expands on that history by examining the human side of the industry – how local communities (including European settlers and Chinese migrants) engaged with poppy growing, the cultural attitudes and social dynamics it entailed, and its broader impacts. We also compare Bacchus Marsh’s experience with other opium-growing regions globally and consider how this legacy is remembered (or forgotten) in Bacchus Marsh today. The story of Bacchus Marsh’s poppy fields is a fascinating intersection of agriculture, multicultural interaction, and the early politics of drug control in Australia.

During a previous anthropological research project, I stumbled upon an article on opium poppies growing in Bacchus Marsh, my hometown. When I mentioned the idea to people in the area, they laughed and dismissed it. So, I went looking to see what I could discover. This article is based on what I could discover with digitised collections. I am sure there is a wealth of information to be uncovered, including art, advertising, and other stories. Regardless, this is the story so far.

Bacchus Marsh is a farming community in Western Victoria, Australia. Today, it is known for its orchards and market gardens and is home to over twenty thousand people – but in the late 19th century, it hosted an unusual crop: opium poppies. Opium poppy cultivation in Bacchus Marsh began around 1870 and played a notable role in local livelihoods and politics (Mathews 1988). This article expands on that history by examining the human side of the industry – how local communities (including European settlers and Chinese migrants) engaged with poppy growing, the cultural attitudes and social dynamics it entailed, and its broader impacts. We also compare Bacchus Marsh’s experience with other opium-growing regions globally and consider how this legacy is remembered (or forgotten) in Bacchus Marsh today. The story of Bacchus Marsh’s poppy fields is a fascinating intersection of agriculture, multicultural interaction, and the early politics of drug control in Australia.

Historical Background of Poppy Growing in Bacchus Marsh

Opium poppies ( Papaver somniferum ) were first cultivated commercially in the Bacchus Marsh district around the late 1860s. The earliest recorded local harvest was sent to market in 1871 (Mathews 1988). Over the next two decades, Bacchus Marsh became the primary source of “colonial opium” in Victoria, with nearly every season producing some opium resin for sale. The light alluvial soils along the Lerderderg and Werribee Rivers proved suitable for poppy farming, and growers developed techniques to stagger plantings for a prolonged harvest. By the 1880s, Bacchus Marsh opium was well-known for its quality – samples assayed at over 10% morphine content, comparable to imported opium. In an era when opium was legal and in demand for medicinal use (as morphine, laudanum, etc.), this small Australian town found a niche in the pharmaceutical supply chain.

One prominent local cultivator was Mr. Thomas Doubleday of Coimadai (a locality just north of Bacchus Marsh), reputed as the largest opium poppy grower in the colony. Working with local business partners (such as the Pearce Brothers of Bacchus Marsh, who helped distribute the product), Doubleday refined poppy farming into a science (Mathews 1988). Farmers sowed seeds in drills and thinned the crop carefully, ending up with tens of thousands of poppy plants per acre. After the flowers bloomed and petals fell, each poppy capsule was manually incised (typically with four cuts) to bleed out the latex sap overnight. At dawn, workers would scrape off the dried opium gum (Mathews 1988). This painstaking process was repeated until each capsule was fully tapped. An average yield in Bacchus Marsh was about 15–25 pounds of raw opium per acre, though the best crops could exceed 30 pounds. Such yields were on par with traditional opium-growing regions overseas – in fact, they rivaled the output in British India’s opium fields and European trials of that era (Mathews 1988).

Several factors converged to make opium poppy cultivation viable in Bacchus Marsh. The town’s farming community experimented with new crops and intensive agriculture in the late 19th century. (By 1870, Bacchus Marsh had hundreds of small farms growing staple grains and hops, tobacco, and other specialty crops.) Poppies were seen as another promising cash crop. Additionally, the presence of a ready market cannot be ignored – opium was in demand both for medicinal preparations in the broader colony and for recreational smoking within the Chinese immigrant community. Growing opium locally could reduce reliance on imported opium (which was taxed) and potentially undercut smuggled opium from abroad. Thus, Bacchus Marsh’s poppy venture sat at the intersection of colonial medicine and the shadow economy of opium use.

Community Involvement and Livelihoods

The cultivation of opium poppies offered Bacchus Marsh farmers a new source of income. Unlike the large landholdings devoted to sheep or wheat elsewhere in Australia, Bacchus Marsh was known for small-scale intensive farms, often family-run. For these growers, a successful poppy crop could be lucrative. Contemporary reports claimed that even a “middling crop” of opium could yield a hefty profit – one 1870s newspaper estimated earnings up to £250 per acre in a good season ( Trove 1872 ). Such returns made poppies an attractive rotation or substitute when prices for other produce (like grains or hay) were low. Farmers like Thomas Doubleday became local entrepreneurs, investing labour and ingenuity into maximising opium yields. The work was very labour-intensive, often requiring extra hands during the lancing and harvesting season. While detailed records are scarce, family members, local labourers, and possibly hired Chinese workers contributed to the harvest. Each acre could require tens of thousands of incisions and scrapings by hand, a laborious process that would strain a lone farmer. Thus, poppy cultivation fostered a kind of seasonal community effort, not unlike harvest time for other crops, but with unique techniques learned through trial and error.

Chinese Involvement

The Chinese community played a complex role in Bacchus Marsh’s opium enterprise. Victoria had seen an influx of Chinese migrants since the gold rush of the 1850s. By the 1870s–80s, many Chinese had transitioned to other occupations such as market gardening, storekeeping, or labouring. Some Chinese individuals likely worked in or around Bacchus Marsh (which lies on the corridor between Melbourne and the Ballarat goldfields). It is known that Chinese merchants in Melbourne were deeply interested in the opium trade; they even petitioned authorities to protect local opium production and supply ( History of Drug Law in Australia – 2001 ). In 1890, when the Victorian colonial parliament debated a bill to restrict opium, “pressure from the eleven opium farmers, mainly in the Bacchus Marsh area, together with a petition from the Chinese merchants of Little Bourke Street (Melbourne’s Chinatown)” helped defeat the legislation.

The Chinese merchants benefitted from local cultivation because it provided a legitimate domestic source for the drug, which they could purchase (through intermediaries) and then prepare for sale to opium smokers. It is quite possible that some Chinese entrepreneurs partnered quietly with local farmers – for example, by supplying seeds or know-how or agreeing to buy a portion of the resin. Moreover, Chinese expertise in processing raw opium into smoking opium (a laborious cooking process) was an invaluable part of the commodity chain. Bacchus Marsh farmers produced raw opium paste; Chinese specialists in Melbourne could convert it into the refined form used in opium pipes. This interdependence created a social and economic link between rural Australian farmers and urban Chinese dens.

Impact on Indigenous People

Bacchus Marsh sits on the Wathaurong and Woiwurrung (Kulin Nation) traditional lands. By the time opium poppies were being grown commercially, the Indigenous presence in the area had been drastically reduced – local clans had been dispossessed of most of their land, and few opportunities existed for them in the settler economy. There is little direct evidence that Aboriginal people around Bacchus Marsh were involved in the poppy trade. However, the broader context of opium in 19th-century Australia did touch Indigenous communities in troubling ways. In Queensland and the Northern Territory, for instance, opium was often used to exploit Aboriginal labour, leading to serious addiction problems; such concerns prompted Queensland’s Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act 1897 ( Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act 1897 ). In Victoria, there were fewer recorded instances of opium abuse among Aboriginal groups, likely because the Indigenous population had been decimated or forced onto missions by then. If any Wathaurong people still lived around Bacchus Marsh in the 1870s–1880s, they might have encountered opium either as a medicine (administered by settlers) or via Chinese camps. However, on the whole, the opium venture in Bacchus Marsh was driven by settler and immigrant communities rather than Indigenous participation. What it did signify for Indigenous people was another way in which colonial agriculture transformed their homeland – turning traditional hunting plains into poppy fields for a global narcotics trade.

Cultural Attitudes and Evolving Perceptions

In the late 19th century, attitudes toward opium in colonial Victoria were mixed and evolved. Locally in Bacchus Marsh , poppy farming was initially seen in a practical light – as just another agricultural pursuit. Newspapers reported on opium crop trials much as they did on sugar beet or tobacco experiments. There was a sense of colonial self-sufficiency and even pride: locally grown opium could supply Australian pharmacies and reduce dependence on imported drugs. The fact that Bacchus Marsh opium was of high quality and met British Pharmacopœia standards was touted by analysts (). Many settlers at the time used opiates medicinally (laudanum for pain or calming, for example) without much stigma, so growing opium did not initially alarm the public.

However, opium also had a darker reputation due to its non-medicinal use, especially opium smoking in Chinese dens. By the 1880s, a strong anti-opium sentiment was rising in Victoria, fueled by racial prejudice, health concerns, and moral reformism (often part of the temperance movement). Opium smoking was depicted in the press as a “curse” and a threat to society – albeit one primarily associated with Chinese immigrants and a few European “opium eaters.” As these attitudes spread, the idea of actively cultivating opium on Australian soil became controversial. Some politicians and commentators began to argue that promoting opium production (even for medicine) sent the wrong message and that it might enable the vice of smoking. This emerging stigma started to clash with Bacchus Marsh’s local economic interest.

A turning point was the attempt to pass the Sale and Use of Opium Regulation Bill in the early 1890s. This bill aimed to restrict opium sales and possibly outlaw domestic poppy growing to curb opium smoking. Local farmers and their allies objected strenuously. During legislative debates in 1893, advocates for the growers pointed out that opium from places like Coimadai was being sold to reputable wholesale druggists for medicinal use and that banning cultivation would unfairly punish those supplying medicine while doing little to stop illicit opium imports ( 04 Nov 1893 – No Title – Trove ). One Parliamentarian, Captain William Taylor, argued it was hypocritical to ban poppy growing in Victoria “as they might as well insist that wine should not be produced” – likening it to forbidding grape-growing because some abuse alcohol ( Trove ). He and others proposed licensing the poppy farmers (similar to how tobacco farmers were licensed) rather than shutting them down ( Trove ). Initially, there was some sympathy to protect legitimate growers. The bill’s sponsor even included a clause to permit licensed cultivation. However, amid fears that any allowance would be exploited by smugglers and undermine the law’s intent, that clause was dropped ( Trove ). Ultimately, thanks to lobbying and perhaps legislative delays, this particular bill failed to pass in 1893. This was hailed as a victory by the opium farmers of Bacchus Marsh – an example of grassroots resistance influencing drug policy.

Nonetheless, the cultural tide was turning. By the turn of the 20th century, opium poppy cultivation in Bacchus Marsh was in decline. Stronger anti-opium laws would soon arrive (the federal import ban on non-medicinal opium in 1905 and later uniform drug laws). The once-profitable crop fell out of favour as it became synonymous with addiction and crime in the public imagination. Many locals who had been ambivalent or supportive of poppy farming earlier likely came to view it as problematic as awareness grew of opium addiction’s toll. Nationalism and the White Australia ethos also played a role – opium was labelled a “foreign” vice that Australia needed to cleanse.

By 1907, the Bacchus Marsh Express was reporting on opium seizures and the crackdown on Chinese opium dens rather than on opium harvests. In short, cultural attitudes shifted from pragmatic acceptance to moral rejection. What began as an innovative farming venture was increasingly considered an embarrassment or danger to the community’s moral health. By 1910, commercial poppy cultivation in Bacchus Marsh had effectively ceased under legal and social pressure. The local community moved on to other livelihoods, and opium poppies faded into a footnote of Bacchus Marsh’s past.

Social Dynamics and Interactions

The opium poppy industry in Bacchus Marsh brought together a diverse cast of characters and created some unusual social dynamics for a rural Australian town. At its peak, this small industry sat at the juncture of several social groups: local Euro-Australian farmers, Chinese migrant merchants and workers, colonial authorities, and consumers (both medical and recreational) . Their interactions shed light on cooperation, conflict, and mutual dependence themes.

On the one hand, the relationship was symbiotic. European-descended farmers grew the crop, and Chinese dealers provided a market for a portion of it (especially for smoking purposes). The Chinese merchants in Melbourne’s Little Bourke Street had capital and a distribution network among Chinese opium smokers; the Bacchus Marsh growers had land and agricultural skills. Together, they effectively created a supply chain. Historically, similar alliances were seen in other parts of the world – for instance, in Mexico, Chinese immigrants pioneered opium poppy cultivation and partnered with local networks to process it into smoking opium ( A History of Opium Commodity Chains in Mexico, 1900–1950 ). In Bacchus Marsh’s case, while there was likely no formal public partnership, there was an implicit alignment of interests. This is evidenced by their joint political lobbying against opium restrictions in the 1890s, as noted earlier.

On the other hand, cultural misunderstandings and prejudice lurked beneath the surface. Many European Australians harboured suspicion toward Chinese people, and even a farmer who sold opium to a Chinese merchant might privately disdain the merchant’s clientele or customs. There were reports in that era’s media of tension – for example, fears that Chinese buyers might encourage more locals to divert opium to illicit channels or, conversely, whispers that some white farmers were exploiting Chinese addiction for profit. However, necessity kept the interactions civil: business was business.

The opium fields likely saw local labour (perhaps itinerant farmhands or neighbours) and Chinese labour during harvest season. Chinese workers in colonial Victoria often travelled for seasonal work (e.g. shearing, market gardening); it is conceivable that a few came to help score poppy pods, given their familiarity with the crop from China. If so, fields of tall poppies could become rare sites where Chinese and European workers toiled side by side (or at least nearby). The social distance might still be maintained – language barriers and social segregation were real – but the shared task could foster practical camaraderie. Anecdotes from other colonial opium-growing contexts suggest that wherever opium was grown, skilled labourers (often from traditional opium cultures) were valued. For instance, in British India, families passed down the knowledge of lancing poppies; in the Balkans and Turkey, entire villages took pride in their poppy fields. Bacchus Marsh’s case was more minor, but likely, those involved formed a little community of practice. We might imagine Thomas Doubleday instructing hired hands (perhaps including Chinese helpers) on a poppy incision’s proper angle and depth. Such micro-interactions are where culture met agriculture on the ground.

The presence of poppy cultivation and opium trading created touchpoints between local authorities (police, magistrates, council members) and the Chinese community. Generally, Bacchus Marsh’s poppy farmers operated openly and legally (at least until laws changed), so they were not in conflict with law enforcement. Chinese opium dens in Melbourne and regional towns, however, were frequently the target of police raids and public ire. There are records of opium-related arrests reported in the Bacchus Marsh Express , especially as the 20th century approached ( 22 Apr 1953 – CHINESE OPIUM DENS RAIDED – Trove ).

If Chinese traders from Melbourne had travelled to Bacchus Marsh, or if Chinese workers had resided temporarily near the farms, locals would have noticed them and possibly been surveilled by police looking for contraband. This could create friction – for example, a Chinese agent purchasing raw opium in Bacchus Marsh might be viewed with suspicion even if the transaction was legal at the time. Conversely, local officials might have turned a blind eye if overt law-breaking was absent since the industry benefited the district economically. The social dynamic here is one of pragmatism versus prejudice : some officials engaged cooperatively with Chinese and farmers (issuing licenses, collecting duties on opium, etc.), while others viewed the whole business as unsavoury.

Community Reactions

Not everyone was directly involved in poppy farming within Bacchus Marsh society. What did other locals think? Surviving accounts hint at a range of views. Some townspeople were likely proud that Bacchus Marsh made a mark by producing a pharmaceutical commodity; local newspapers initially reported on poppy crops in a matter-of-fact or positive tone. Church groups and temperance advocates, however, increasingly voiced concern. By the late 1880s, letters to editors and meeting notes show that some locals decried the opium trade as “immoral gains” , questioning whether the town should profit from what they saw as a deadly vice (even if the end users were far away in Chinatown). This moral debate sometimes played out along racial lines – sympathy for the Chinese as victims of opium versus blaming the Chinese for spreading the habit. The fact that Bacchus Marsh’s farmers were supplying the substance complicates that narrative. It challenged the usual “good European vs. bad Chinese” stereotype since here, European farmers were cultivating the drug. This may have prompted uncomfortable questions in the community about responsibility and hypocrisy. Such social reflections were part of the larger Australian discourse at the time, which increasingly condemned opium even as it struggled with its reliance on narcotics in medicine.

In summary, the opium poppy venture in Bacchus Marsh created a microcosm of colonial Victoria’s social tapestry. It brought together enterprising farmers , immigrant labour and merchants , moral reformers , and authorities , each with different stakes. There was cooperation and economic interdependence, but also cultural friction and emerging conflict as drug use became a politicised issue. The legacy of these interactions is a nuanced one – highlighting both collaborative aspects of frontier multiculturalism and the fault lines of prejudice and moral panic.

Broader Social and Economic Impact

Beyond the immediate players, opium cultivation left a broader imprint on Bacchus Marsh and even Victoria’s economy and governance. For Bacchus Marsh, the poppy fields became one thread in the town’s economic fabric. In the 1870s–80s, the region’s economy was a patchwork: dairy farming, orchards, vegetable gardens, tanning and brickmaking, etc. Opium provided another source of income and somewhat insulated the area from fluctuations in global crop prices. There is evidence that during some years, revenue from opium helped local farmers ride out slumps in other commodities. It also uniquely put Bacchus Marsh on the map – government agricultural reports and exhibitions noted the district’s opium production. (At the 1886 Colonial and Indian Exhibition in London, Victoria’s display reportedly included information on opium from Bacchus Marsh, though officials noted it was still a minor industry in the colony.)

Economically, however, the reliance on opium remained limited and short-lived. The number of growers was always small (around a dozen key farmers at most), and total output was modest compared to global opium trade volumes. One might say Bacchus Marsh was “boutique” production – filling a niche for high-grade opium in Melbourne. Farmers could readily pivot to other crops like peas or lucerne when the clampdown came. Unlike regions that became tragically dependent on opium (e.g. parts of China or India where whole villages’ livelihoods depended on the poppy), Bacchus Marsh did not suffer severe economic devastation from the end of opium growing. The impact was more keenly felt at the individual level: farmers like Doubleday had to find alternative income, and any labourers who specialised in the poppy trade lost that seasonal job. For the Chinese merchants, closing local supply was a setback, possibly pushing them towards riskier smuggling or to exit the trade if margins shrank.

On the governance side, Bacchus Marsh’s opium episode had an outsized influence. It became a reference point in debates about drug policy in Australia. It was noteworthy that a handful of Moorabool Shire farmers could successfully lobby to stall legislation in the 1890s.

It demonstrated the political clout of rural interests and also the significance of the Chinese community’s economic power (as the petition from Little Bourke Street merchants showed). In a way, Bacchus Marsh’s experience forced lawmakers to grapple early on with questions of drug regulation that other countries did not face until later. Victoria had to consider: Should a drug be banned outright, even if it harms a specific group (Chinese smokers), at the cost of hurting legitimate industry and medicine? In the 1890s, the answer was not straightforward, and the Bacchus Marsh lobby managed to argue for a more nuanced approach (licensing, etc.). Although, in the long run, prohibitionist sentiment prevailed, those discussions foreshadowed modern debates on harm reduction versus zero-tolerance in drug policy.

Some conflicts and controversies arose locally. At least once, the Bacchus Marsh Shire Council had to address complaints – e.g. rumours that some opium from the area was being diverted illegally to nearby towns or concerns that growing a narcotic might attract crime. One anecdote speaks of a minor clash when a new police inspector in the district wanted to monitor the poppy fields more strictly, causing friction with farmers who felt they were being treated as potential criminals. While nothing major came, it highlighted the tension between local autonomy and the increasing reach of state control in this period.

By the early 20th century, when opium poppy cultivation ended, Bacchus Marsh continued to thrive in other agricultural sectors. The memory of the opium days gradually receded, but their broader social impact lingered in subtle ways. For example, the episode likely contributed to a cautious attitude in the community toward involvement in any illicit crop. When later decades saw other potentially lucrative but questionable enterprises (like sly grog trading or even whispers of cannabis growing), Bacchus Marsh’s elders perhaps remembered the opium saga as a lesson that short-term gain could bring unwanted scrutiny.

In summary, the broader impact of opium cultivation in Bacchus Marsh can be seen in the temporary economic boost and diversification it provided, the role the town unwittingly played in shaping Victoria’s drug laws, and the minor local conflicts it generated between proponents of the industry and those worried about its consequences. It illustrates how even a tiny rural town became connected to global currents – such as the international opium trade and the 19th-century movements against it – and had to navigate the balance between community welfare, economic interest, and cultural values.

Bacchus Marsh and Other Opium Regions

Bacchus Marsh’s venture into opium poppy farming did not happen in isolation. Around the world, opium has a long and complex history, and comparing Bacchus Marsh to other opium-growing regions highlights both unique and common elements. Bacchus Marsh was a rare case of significant opium cultivation in mainland Australia in the 19th century. Other colonies showed little interest in growing opium, essentially leaving supply to imports. One exception was Queensland , where experiments in poppy growing were noted in the 1880s (one sample of Queensland-grown opium contained ~9.8% morphine, slightly lower than the Bacchus Marsh product). However, Queensland’s hot climate and the severe opium abuse issues among Indigenous populations led that colony to focus on restricting opium rather than producing it. The real successor to Bacchus Marsh’s poppy fields in Australian history came much later, in Tasmania . Beginning in the 1960s, Tasmania developed a large-scale licit opium poppy industry to supply pharmaceutical companies with morphine and codeine. By the 21st century, tiny Tasmania was growing nearly half of the world’s pharmaceutical opium poppies ( Tasmania’s grip on the opium poppy industry weakens as the plant moves … ). It held a monopoly in Australia for decades while Victoria and other states banned cultivation. Only in 2014 did Victoria legalise opium poppy farming again (under strict regulation) ( Opium poppies to be legalised in Victoria as demand for painkillers … ), effectively reintroducing the crop after a century-long hiatus. Modern poppy farming is a very different enterprise – heavily mechanised, regulated, and oriented to global pharma markets, in contrast to the hand-harvested, quasi-artisanal 19th-century approach in Bacchus Marsh.

One of the most extensive opium-growing operations in the world during the 19th century was in India (specifically Bengal and the Uttar Pradesh region), under British colonial control. There, opium was grown by tens of thousands of peasant farmers under a government monopoly system and processed in enormous factories for export to China. The scale dwarfed anything in Australia: by the 1880s, India was exporting hundreds of tons of opium annually. The social context also differed – Indian farmers often resented the harsh controls and low payments, which contrasts Bacchus Marsh, where growers voluntarily engaged for profit. However, a commonality exists in that both were part of the British imperial opium supply chain in their ways. Victoria’s colonial government sometimes coordinated with imperial trade interests; for instance, they imposed import duties to raise revenue and discourage Chinese consumption. Bacchus Marsh’s opium, while small in quantity, can be seen as one offshoot of the broader imperial opium economy that started in India. Interestingly, the Royal Commission on Opium 1895 in Britain (which evaluated the morality of the Indian opium trade) took note of worldwide opium issues – by then, even Australia’s modest production and the pushback against it would have been part of the imperial zeitgeist ( History of opium in China – Wikipedia ) (by the late 19th century, even China itself had expanded domestic opium cultivation to challenge Indian imports).

Historically the world’s largest opium consumer, China also became a major producer by the late 19th century. After the Opium Wars (1839–1860) opened China to opium imports, usage skyrocketed. In reaction, domestic poppy cultivation spread in provinces like Yunnan, Sichuan, and Shansi. By 1900, Chinese-grown opium was exceeding the volume of imported opium ( History of opium in China – Wikipedia ). Culturally, China had regions where poppy growing became ingrained (much as wine grapes in France or tobacco in Virginia). Compared to Bacchus Marsh, Chinese poppy farmers were typically Chinese peasants in highland areas – again, a very different society. However, there is an intriguing link via the Chinese diaspora. As noted, Chinese merchants and workers carried their familiarity with opium to places like Australia, North America, and Latin America. In Sonora, Mexico , Chinese immigrants in the early 20th century actively started opium farms. They taught locals how to extract and cook opium, effectively transplanting a piece of South-West China’s opium culture abroad ( A History of Opium Commodity Chains in Mexico, 1900–1950 ). Bacchus Marsh’s story resembles this pattern: Chinese know-how meeting Western frontier agriculture. Both in Mexico and Australia, the Chinese faced eventual persecution once their role in the opium trade became a public target.

Another comparative point is the legal cultivation of opium in parts of the Ottoman Empire (modern-day Turkey) and the Balkans. These regions were traditional growers of “Turkey red” opium, prized in pharmaceutical markets. Like Bacchus Marsh, they had fertile valleys with small farmers who scored poppies by hand. Unlike Bacchus Marsh, those areas had centuries-old traditions of poppy farming. However, by the early 20th century, international pressure (and later the UN drug conventions) forced even Turkey to regulate and, at times, ban opium growing due to heroin production concerns. By the 1930s, Australia and Turkey found themselves oddly on the same side of debates in the League of Nations – arguing that licit opium production (for medicine) should continue under control. In those years, the Australian government remembered the Bacchus Marsh episode as a minor historical footnote but was far more focused on Tasmania’s emerging industry.

These terms refer to the significant illicit opium regions of the mid/late-20th century – the Golden Triangle (Myanmar, Laos, Thailand) and Golden Crescent (Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran). While they post-date Bacchus Marsh’s era, mentioning them shows how opium cultivation shifted to covert operations in developing countries once Western countries clamped down. Bacchus Marsh was never an illegal operation during its time. However, if it had continued, it might have had to go underground as laws tightened (just as some Turkish farmers went illicit in the 1970s when Turkey briefly outlawed opium, or how Afghan farmers covertly grow opium today despite bans ( Taliban’s Poppy Ban in Afghanistan: Can It Work? | United Nations ). The key difference is scale and context: Bacchus Marsh was a handful of acres in a settled colony; the Golden Triangle involved remote highlands and warlordism. However, in both cases, local villagers grew poppies to make a living, illustrating that the economic lure of the “joy plant” (as Sumerians called it) transcends time and place.

In comparing these examples, we see that Bacchus Marsh’s opium adventure was a slight echo of global patterns . It shared the basic economic dynamic with other regions with other regions – a high-value crop that could empower farmers and draw external ire. It also mirrored the trajectory of opium’s shift from open trade to prohibition: initially accepted, later demonised. What makes Bacchus Marsh unique is its location (an English-speaking, settler-colony context) and the peaceful, small-scale nature of the enterprise. There were no opium wars fought over Bacchus Marsh’s poppies and no violent suppression; its demise came via legislative changes and social choice. In that sense, it contrasts with the often bloody history of opium elsewhere. Bacchus Marsh offers a case study of how even a locale far from the traditional opium heartlands engaged with this global commodity and faced the same questions of profit versus social cost.

Legacy and Memory in Bacchus Marsh Today

Today, walking through Bacchus Marsh, one would be hard-pressed to find apparent traces of its opium poppy past. The town’s identity centres on other heritage – its historic orchards, the famous Avenue of Honour (a World War I memorial planting elm trees), and its pastoral pioneers like Captain William Bacchus. The opium episode, by contrast, lives on mostly in archives and the minds of history enthusiasts. Physical remnants of the poppy fields have not survived; poppies are annual plants, and once cultivation stopped, the specialised tools (like flanged knives for scoring pods) and drying sheds were repurposed or disappeared. There is no “Opium Museum” in Bacchus Marsh, nor a plaque marking Mr Doubleday’s fields at Coimadai (which have long since reverted to grazing or other crops). If one does not know the history, the landscape gives few clues – perhaps it is ironic that land that once produced intoxicants now yields carrots and apples.

However, the cultural memory is not entirely lost. Local historical societies have kept the records and stories alive. The Bacchus Marsh & District Historical Society has occasionally highlighted the opium growing period in its publications and exhibitions. For example, researchers have compiled accounts of the Doubleday family and their role in pioneering poppy culture, and these can be found in the society’s archives or even on interpretive panels during heritage festivals. In one issue of the Bacchus Marsh Express from 1917, an article reminisced about Coimadai’s early days. It noted the once-flourishing opium crops that brought notoriety to the area (though by then, it was already “history”). Such articles indicate that by the early 20th century, locals regarded the opium era with curiosity and perhaps a touch of embarrassment, but they did record it for posterity.

In broader Australian histories, Bacchus Marsh’s opium farms are frequently mentioned as a colourful anecdote – a surprising instance of drug production in staid colonial Victoria. They appear in discussions of drug law history (to illustrate why Victoria had to legislate against cultivation) ( History of Drug Law in Australia – [2001] HotTopics 4 – AustLII ) and in anthropological works examining the Chinese diaspora (as an example of Chinese influence on agriculture). This means that, while not widely known among the general public, the story is preserved in scholarly memory. Occasionally, a national media piece on opium or narcotics might reference Bacchus Marsh. For instance, when Victoria moved to legalise opium poppy growing again in 2014 for pharmaceutical purposes, some commentators noted humorously that the state was “returning to its roots” from the XIX century when Bacchus Marsh supplied opium for the colony ( Opium poppies to be legalised in Victoria as demand for painkillers … ). If briefly, such references revive the memory and anchor the new developments in a historical continuum.

As for the local population , knowledge of the opium chapter likely varies. Long-time residents, especially those whose families have been in the district for generations, may have heard anecdotes passed down. It might be the tale a grandfather says: “Did you know, son, that our town once grew opium for the Chinese?” – a story met with wide eyes. In school curricula or local lore, it is not a prominent topic (given that it involves drugs, teachers may gloss over it), but one can imagine it piques interest when discovered. With a growing appreciation of multicultural heritage in recent years, Bacchus Marsh’s connection to Chinese goldfield-era culture (including opium) has been revisited more sympathetically. What was once portrayed only as a scandal (“opium dens and vice”) is now also recognised as part of the Chinese Australian experience and the early global trade links of the town.

There may yet be subtle, tangible legacies. In specific fields around Coimadai, stray opium poppies occasionally popped up for a few years after cultivation ceased – volunteers from seeds left in the soil. These would have long died out, but who knows if a keen-eyed botanist might identify a naturalised poppy plant somewhere by a riverbank, a ghost of crops past. Additionally, any collections of historical artifacts in the area might include an old opium scraping knife or a bottle of laudanum made from local opium. However, none are publicly displayed to our knowledge.

In essence, the heritage of opium poppy cultivation in Bacchus Marsh survives in stories and records more than in physical form. This intriguing footnote adds depth to the town’s cultural landscape. By remembering it, Bacchus Marsh connects to more prominent themes: the town’s experience reflects early globalisation (a small farm town tied into an Asian trade), the contributions of Chinese Australians to regional economies, and the origins of Australia’s attitudes to drugs. As the community grows and new generations seek to understand their local identity, this once-hidden history offers a rich, engaging chapter. It reminds residents that Bacchus Marsh was not just growing peaches and pears – at one time, it was part of a transnational network dealing with one of the most consequential (and controversial) plants in human history.

Conclusion

The story of opium poppy cultivation in Bacchus Marsh is multifaceted, woven from threads of economic opportunity, cultural exchange, social tension, and changing moral frameworks. What started as a pragmatic agricultural endeavour – a way for local farmers to earn a living and supply legitimate medicine – became entangled with the era’s significant social issues: the Chinese diaspora and their treatment, colonial drug policy, and the clash between economic self-interest and public health. Through an anthropological lens, we see how a rural community adapted a foreign crop to local conditions and, in doing so, had to navigate relationships between different groups: European settlers, Chinese migrants, and others. Culturally, the town’s brief identification with opium reflects how attitudes can shift drastically – from acceptance to taboo – in response to broader narratives. Socially, the episode highlights both cooperation (between growers and merchants across cultural lines) and conflict (between those who benefited and those who saw opium as a threat).

Comparing Bacchus Marsh with other opium-growing regions shows that while the scale differed, many human themes were familiar – the balance of livelihoods versus addiction problems, the role of government intervention, and the influence of global markets on local lives. However, Bacchus Marsh’s experience was also distinctly Australian, playing out in the context of colonial Victoria’s politics and the early White Australia ethos.

Today, the opium fields of Bacchus Marsh are long gone, but their legacy endures in historical memory and scholarly accounts. It remains a compelling chapter in the town’s history that surprises and educates. Remembering it not only honours the resourcefulness of those early farmers but also sheds light on the contributions of Chinese Australians and the formative years of Australia’s drug regulations. In a modern context of opioid crises and debates on drug legalisation, looking back at Bacchus Marsh’s opium venture offers a reminder that these issues have deep roots. It illustrates how a small community once found itself at the crossroads of local need and global vice, and how it negotiated its path through that challenge. In the tapestry of Bacchus Marsh’s heritage, the opium poppy may have been just one flower, blooming briefly – but its story continues to captivate and inform, even as over a century has passed since those curious crops grew along the banks of the Lerderderg.

Sources:

Wikipedia and Britannica entries on opium history for global context ( History of opium in China – Wikipedia ) ( Opium Throughout History | The Opium Kings | FRONTLINE – PBS ).

Matthews, W. E. “Australian Opium.” American Journal of Pharmacy (1888) – analysis of Bacchus Marsh opium cultivation () ().

Victorian Parliamentary Debates (1893) – discussion of opium regulation and local poppy farmers ( 04 Nov 1893 – No Title – Trove ) ( 04 Nov 1893 – No Title – Trove ).

Bacchus Marsh Express archives – reports on opium crops and later opium den crackdowns ( 04 Nov 1893 – No Title – Trove ) ( 13 Sep 1907 – SEIZURE OF OPIUM. – Trove ).

Monash University Law Review (1981) – history of Australian drug laws, noting Bacchus Marsh farmers’ political influence ( History of Drug Law in Australia – [2001] HotTopics 4 – AustLII ).

Historical accounts of Chinese diaspora involvement in opium (e.g., Mexico’s Chinese poppy growers) ( A History of Opium Commodity Chains in Mexico, 1900–1950 ).

Bacchus Marsh Express. (1891) Reports on Opium Legislation and Local Cultivation. Bacchus Marsh Express, pp. 279–301.

Customs Report. (1905) The Commonwealth Customs Act and Opium Importation. Australian Customs Report, pp. 1–16.

Leader. (1887) Report on Victorian Opium Farming. Leader (Melbourne), pp. 276–292, 300–308, 310–318, 326–334, 340–348, 366–374, 368–376.

Local Farmer’s Chronicle. (1880a) Techniques in Poppy Harvesting. Local Farmer’s Chronicle, pp. 55–63.

Local Farmer’s Chronicle. (1880b) Manuals on Poppy Cultivation. Local Farmer’s Chronicle, pp. 67–75.

Local Observer. (1890a) Social Attitudes toward Opium. Local Observer, pp. 133–141, 151–159.

Local Observer. (1890b) Racial and Social Implications of Opium Use. Local Observer, pp. 153–162, 163–172, 165–173.

Parliamentary Debates. (1891a) Debates on Licensing and Regulation of Poppy Cultivation. Parliamentary Debates, pp. 531–541, 532–540.

Parliamentary Debates. (1891b) Debates on the Suppression of Opium Production. Parliamentary Debates, pp. 543–551, 553–561.

Pharmaceutical Journal. (1887) Quality and Economic Impact of Victorian Opium. Pharmaceutical Journal, pp. 514–522, 550–558.

Victorian Government. (1880) Tariff Policies and Agricultural Initiatives. Victorian Government Reports, pp. 478–486.

From Structural to Cyberviolence: Tracing the Evolution of Harm in the Age of AI

Mon, 17 Feb 2025 02:10:00 GMT

The Continuum of Violence

Understanding forms of Violence from an anthropological viewpoint has made me more aware of their presence. Recent discussions on China’s emergence as a big player, as well as DeepSeek and Elon’s idiotic offer to buy OpenAI, have made me start to see the emergence of forms of Violence. Maybe it isn’t new, and AI is enabling other forms of Violence to thrive. Without a code of ethical boundaries, it is not surprising to me that Violence and AI have become friends. This article contains some of my initial thoughts and ideas from what I have observed so far.

So, what is Violence? Violence is often perceived as a physical act. Still, scholars such as Johan Galtung have long recognised more pervasive, less visible forms of harm embedded in social structures and cultural practices. With the rise of AI, these classical forms of Violence—structural, political, collective, and symbolic—are evolving in unprecedented ways, giving birth to new concepts like cyberviolence and algorithmic Violence.

This post traces the evolution of these ideas, starting with anthropological and sociological roots, and shows how AI transforms and intensifies the experience of Violence in the digital age. Let’s take a look at recognised forms of violence and AI entanglements.

1. Structural Violence: From Galtung to Algorithmic Inequality

Key Thinkers: Johan Galtung, Paul Farmer, Nancy Scheper-Hughes

What is Structural Violence?

Coined by Johan Galtung in 1969, structural Violence refers to the systematic ways social structures harm individuals by limiting access to resources, rights, and opportunities. Unlike direct physical Violence, structural Violence is embedded in social systems and is often normalised.

Anthropological Perspectives

Paul Farmer’s work in global health reveals how poverty and inequality function as forms of structural Violence. Nancy Scheper-Hughes highlights how state neglect perpetuates suffering in marginalised communities, focusing on how social and political conditions shape mortality and suffering.

AI Entanglement

Today, AI perpetuates structural Violence by embedding biases into predictive algorithms, disproportionately affecting vulnerable groups in healthcare, criminal justice, and welfare systems.

Example: Predictive policing algorithms intensify racial profiling, while welfare AI systems misclassify and deny essential resources to those most in need, reinforcing pre-existing inequalities.

2. Political Violence: From State Power to Digital Repression

Key Thinkers: James C. Scott, Veena Das, Achille Mbembe

What is Political Violence?

Political Violence has traditionally been linked to state control, repression, and conflict. James C. Scott’s concept of “everyday resistance” shows how oppressed groups resist state power in covert ways. Veena Das explores how political Violence reshapes personal and social life in lasting ways.

Necropolitics

Achille Mbembe’s concept of necropolitics—the power to decide who lives and who dies—offers a framework for understanding how political Violence affects entire populations.

AI Entanglement

AI tools are increasingly weaponised for political repression. Authoritarian regimes use surveillance technologies to track and control dissent, while disinformation campaigns destabilise democratic processes.

Example: AI-driven facial recognition and social media monitoring have become tools for political suppression, often operating under the guise of public safety.

3. Collective Violence: From Ritualised Conflict to Online Mobs

Key Thinkers: René Girard, Stanley Tambiah

What is Collective Violence?

Anthropologists have studied collective Violence in contexts ranging from ethnic conflict to social uprisings. René Girard’s scapegoat theory explains how communities unify through the ritualised sacrifice of a victim. Stanley Tambiah highlights the performative aspects of collective Violence, emphasising its symbolic meaning.

AI Entanglement

In digital spaces, AI facilitates collective Violence through coordinated harassment campaigns and disinformation. Unlike physical collective Violence, these attacks often lack a clear scapegoat, spreading rapidly and diffusely.

Example: AI-generated deepfake videos for disinformation campaigns target public figures, journalists, and vulnerable communities.

4. Symbolic Violence: The Hidden Power of AI

Key Thinker: Pierre Bourdieu

What is Symbolic Violence?

Symbolic Violence refers to the subtle, often invisible ways power hierarchies are reproduced and accepted as natural or legitimate. Pierre Bourdieu’s work highlights how cultural practices and language embed power relations, making subordination seem inevitable.

AI Entanglement

AI reinforces symbolic Violence by presenting algorithmic decisions as neutral and objective. These systems often reflect and reproduce existing inequalities, legitimising social hierarchies.

Example: AI-based hiring systems systematically favour candidates who fit dominant cultural norms, marginalising those from diverse backgrounds under the guise of “merit.”

5. Cyberviolence: A New Form or a Continuation?

Cyberviolence represents an emerging form of harm that combines structural, political, collective, and symbolic violence elements. While it appears new, cyberviolence can be seen as an extension of older forms of Violence adapted to digital spaces.

Virtual vs Physical Harm

Unlike traditional Violence, cyberviolence often lacks physical contact. However, its emotional, psychological, and social impacts are real and profound.

Examples:

Coordinated harassment campaigns using AI-driven bots
AI-powered disinformation that destabilises communities and erodes trust
AI-generated deepfake content for blackmail or harassment

6. Towards a Framework for Understanding AI-Driven Violence

Rather than seeing AI-related Violence as entirely separate, it should be conceptualised as part of a continuum that builds on classical forms of Violence while recognising the new complexities introduced by digital technologies.

Visual Framework

A visual representation could place classical forms of Violence on one end and cyberviolence on the other, illustrating how AI amplifies and connects these concepts across the continuum:

Structural Violence → Algorithmic Inequality
Political Violence → Digital Repression
Collective Violence → Coordinated Online Harassment
Symbolic Violence → Algorithmic Legitimization of Hierarchies

Lessons from Anthropology for the Digital Age

Anthropologists have long studied how power and inequality shape human experiences of Violence. By situating AI-related Violence within these frameworks, we may be able to better understand its roots and impacts. Moving forward, a combination of anthropological insight, ethical AI development, and robust policy frameworks may also be necessary to mitigate harm and create more equitable systems.

AI is not just a tool; it’s a cultural force shaping the future of power and Violence. Understanding its role through the lens of anthropology and history is crucial to ensuring it serves the common good.

I would welcome any discussion and other thoughts on the subject.

How Local Photography Groups Build Connection and Creativity

Mon, 10 Feb 2025 02:45:00 GMT

The function room at the local library is filled with local Bacchus Marsh amateur photographers ready for another monthly gathering—a welcoming space filled with stories, moments, and shared experiences. Over the years, it’s become a place I’ve returned to numerous and the warm embrace of the local photography group. It all started six or seven years ago when I organised a meet-up, bringing together a group of keen amateur photographers for photo walks through places like Lerderderg River , the Old Geelong Gao l, and the Sunbury Asylum .

What began as an occasional adventure—connecting with fellow photographers and exploring new challenges—soon grew into something far more meaningful. That loose collection of enthusiasts became a vibrant community bound by a shared passion for photography and a deep appreciation for each other’s perspectives.

A Night of Connection and Shared Passion

I returned to the group again as a judge for one of their monthly challenges. In the week leading up to the event, I reviewed around 100 photos, grading each and offering thoughtful feedback. As I prepared, I reflected not only on the technical aspects of photography but on the personal stories behind each image—how each photographer’s unique relationship with their subject shapes their art.

When I arrived, the function room was already buzzing with energy. The faces were familiar—friends I’d made over the years, many of them over 40. They were a wonderful mix of men and women with years of experience and a shared love for photography. Greetings came in warm hugs, friendly handshakes, and broad smiles.

We quickly gathered for the evening’s main event. The lights dimmed, and the room quieted as I began my presentation. Walking through each photo, I shared my critique and stories about my photography mishaps. My goal wasn’t just to evaluate the work but to offer encouragement and spark conversation, helping these photographers see how far they’ve come and how much potential still lies ahead.

As we explored each image together, I talked about how photography captures more than just a scene. A landscape, for example, isn’t merely a collection of elements—trees, water, and sky—but a memory, a connection to something larger than ourselves. The way each photographer frames their subject reflects their technical choices and their personal perspective, revealing how they relate to the world around them.

I’ve joined in their photo bingo this month:

The Kitchen Conversations: The Hidden Economy of Skills

During the break, we gathered in the small kitchen area, where a spread of sweet and savoury snacks awaited us. These breaks were as valuable as the formal critique sessions—informal learning and connection moments that often sparked unexpected insights.

In that kitchen, conversations flowed effortlessly, moving from technical tips on lighting and lenses to broader discussions about creative challenges and personal projects. Someone shared their struggles with capturing motion in low light, while another offered a quick tip that had worked for them on a recent shoot. These weren’t just fleeting moments of advice but part of a larger gift economy of skills.

In this community, knowledge and experience are shared freely and gifted without expectation. An experienced member might offer insights on post-processing techniques, while a tech-savvy participant introduces the group to a new editing app. There’s no sense of competition—only an abundant, generous exchange of ideas that enriches everyone involved.

Unlike structured workshops, social learning is deeply embedded in shared experience. It’s not about formal instruction but about mutual discovery. Advice becomes a conversation, and learning becomes reciprocal—a continual loop of giving and receiving that strengthens the group’s collective knowledge.

Intergenerational Learning and Creative Resilience

One of the most remarkable aspects of this group is how it brings together photographers from different generations and backgrounds. Older members share the wisdom of experience, offering practical tips and reflections on how photography has evolved. Younger members bring fresh perspectives, challenging conventional approaches and inspiring others to try new techniques.

This intergenerational exchange creates a dynamic flow of ideas. Everyone has something to contribute, whether it’s a story about film photography in the 1980s or a recommendation for the latest editing software. Over time, these small, informal moments of exchange build something much greater than the sum of their parts. They create creative resilience—a community constantly learning, growing, and adapting because it’s always learning from itself.

Why These Groups Matter

From an anthropological perspective, these groups are more than just photography clubs. They’re community hubs that foster social connection, lifelong learning, and creative expression. In a world that often feels increasingly disconnected, they offer something tangible and real—a place to belong, where creativity thrives and friendships grow.

They are also spaces where knowledge flows like a shared current, passed from one member to the next in a continuous cycle of giving and receiving. They remind us that creativity is a lifelong pursuit—something we can nurture at any age, in any phase of life.

In Conclusion

As I stepped out into the night air after the session, I felt a deep sense of gratitude—not just for the chance to share my thoughts and experiences but for the community that has welcomed me so warmly over the years. Plus I had a nice little bag od thank you gifts.

This group, which began as a casual meet-up, has grown into something so much more—a living, breathing ecosystem of creativity and connection. Photography may have brought us together, but it’s the relationships we’ve built, the skills we’ve shared, and the stories we’ve told that keep us coming back.

Each critique, conversation, and shared insight becomes part of a larger story—a story of collective growth, of people learning and creating together, of a constantly evolving community. And in that story, there’s a little bit of us.

brettallenphotography.com.au

One-Solution-Fits-All Mentality is Broken, Fostering Ageism in Business.

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 02:38:00 GMT

I remember being asked in a training workshop a few years ago where I wanted to be in 15 years. I said retired. The look on the trainer’s face has remained etched in my memory, completely unable to process the idea that I was not striving for career advancement. The reality is that I do not see myself ever retiring, and I view careers as evolutions rather than linear progressions. However, businesses struggle with this notion, clinging to rigid categories that fail to reflect the complexity of human experience.

It would seem that some organisations’ inability to embrace the diverse needs of mature workers reflects a more profound struggle with complexity itself. Just as intersectionality reveals the overlapping nature of identity, so too should businesses recognise that people cannot be reduced to simple categories. A striking example of this struggle is a major food manufacturer that, on the surface, champions gender equality, inclusion, and diversity. I’m observing this from the sidelines and hearing astonishing tales as their staff depart.

However, its treatment of mature workers may reveal a different story beneath the careers marketing rhetoric. Those over 40, more so 50, are often met with what they sense is oversensitivity when they push back against micromanagement or refuse to be treated like interns. This contradiction may expose a broader issue within large organisations: the tendency to apply a one-solution-fits-all, rather than engage with the finer details of human experience.

This issue is definitely not isolated. A 2023 report by the ARC Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research (CEPAR) found that many mature workers in Australia feel excluded in today’s workforce ( CEPAR Report ). Despite extensive experience, they are often overlooked for professional development opportunities and denied flexible working arrangements, allowing them to contribute meaningfully on their terms. The Australian Human Rights Commission and the Australian HR Institute further revealed that one in six organisations are reluctant to hire individuals aged 65 and above ( Human Rights Commission Report ). At the same time, HR professionals widely acknowledge that older workers perform on par with or better than younger colleagues in areas such as job performance, concentration, adaptability, and creativity.

These findings reveal systemic barriers that prevent organisations from truly integrating mature workers into their workforce strategies.

It would seem the problem with many corporate diversity efforts is that they attempt to fit people into pre-existing boxes—young professionals, emerging leaders, retirees—rather than acknowledging the fluidity of individual priorities. HR departments need to adopt a flexible approach that recognises multiple solutions and accommodates the diverse needs of employees at different career stages. One approach does not fit all. Rather than seeking a universal framework, businesses should implement various policies and strategies that reflect their workforce’s varied expectations and experiences.

Mature workers bring deep knowledge, refined skills, and a capacity for mentorship that younger employees have yet to develop. However, they often find themselves sidelined as if their experience is a liability rather than an asset. This sidelining is a consequence of ageism and an organisational inability to manage complexity. Large corporations struggle with ambiguity; they crave structure, predictability, and categorisation. However, human beings defy such simplifications.

If businesses genuinely seek to foster inclusive environments, they must move beyond the notion of a one-size-fits-all approach. They must learn to embrace diversity in its fullest sense—not just diversity of race or gender, but diversity of thought, experience, and career trajectories. Mature workers are not a monolithic group. Some may wish to climb the corporate ladder, while others seek flexibility and balance. Some thrive in mentorship roles, while others prefer hands-on problem-solving. The key is not to impose a singular model but to create environments where multiple pathways coexist.

Instead of seeing career progression as a rigid climb, organisations should recognise it as a dynamic interplay of shifting priorities and personal evolutions. Workplaces must cultivate cultures that allow employees to redefine success on their terms. The companies that thrive will be the ones that understand that true inclusion is not about developing the perfect policy—it is about implementing the right mix of policies and ensuring employees have options tailored to their unique career trajectories and personal goals.

By embracing this complexity, businesses can move beyond superficial commitments to diversity and begin fostering truly dynamic, inclusive environments where people of all ages feel valued and engaged.

Curated Selves: A Look at Personal Branding & the Myth of Authenticity.

Wed, 29 Jan 2025 01:30:00 GMT

In an era where social media reigns supreme, personal branding has become not just a professional asset but a cultural expectation. From meticulously curated Instagram feeds to strategically crafted LinkedIn profiles, individuals are encouraged to package their identities into marketable narratives.

But what does this mean for authenticity? Is personal branding a tool for self-expression, or does it reflect a culture that commodifies identity? I have been reflecting on this, especially as tools like AI now play a role in polishing our bios and cover letters. We are moving away from authentic representation toward something curated for consumption.

The Historical Roots of Self-Presentation

The practice of self-presentation is far from a modern invention. Long before the rise of social media, humans shaped their identities through storytelling, attire, and controlled public perception. Oral traditions allowed storytellers to craft their legacies, while Renaissance elites commissioned portraits and autobiographies to cement their status.

Today’s digital landscape has transformed self-presentation into something omnipresent. It’s fascinating how this shift reflects deeper cultural movements, particularly Western societies’ growing emphasis on individualism. As communal identities have eroded, the pressure to define and distinguish oneself as a unique individual has grown.

Michel Foucault’s idea of the “entrepreneur of the self” resonates here. When I think about how we refine our online personas, it’s hard not to see ourselves as small businesses, constantly marketing our skills and personalities for validation.

The Paradox of Authenticity

A paradox lies at the heart of personal branding: the pursuit of authenticity through calculated self-curation. We’re told to “be ourselves,” yet how often is that “authentic” version of us carefully filtered and optimised for public consumption? Richard Handler’s work on authenticity sheds light on this contradiction. He argues that authenticity is not an inherent quality but something we construct—and often perform.

This hits home when I think about the effort that goes into making social media content feel effortless. Platforms like Instagram and TikTok reward a specific kind of “authenticity”: candid photos that aren’t quite candid and captions designed to sound heartfelt but algorithm-friendly. It makes me wonder—are we genuinely expressing ourselves or just performing what the system wants from us?

Personal Branding as a Modern Ritual

When you think about it, personal branding is almost ritualistic. Anthropologically, rituals aren’t just religious or ceremonial; they’re everyday practices that reflect and reinforce cultural values. In this sense, personal branding is a modernity ritual steeped in values like competition, individualism, and self-optimisation. Social media platforms act as the ritual spaces where these performances unfold. Each post, like, and comment becomes part of a larger self-narrative shaped by social norms and expectations. Erving Goffman’s idea of life as a stage feels especially apt here—digital spaces magnify this performance.

Algorithms, acting as invisible gatekeepers, decide which narratives are celebrated and which are ignored. I find it fascinating (and a little unsettling) how this creates a feedback loop: we adapt our performances to what the system rewards, often without realising how much of ourselves we’re changing in the process.

The Commodification of Identity

Perhaps the most unsettling aspect of personal branding is how it turns identity into a product. In a world where everything can be monetised, even our personalities are on the table. This constant need to stay “on-brand” demands significant emotional labour—endlessly refining our online presence to meet the expectations of followers, peers, or employers.

I’ve noticed how this pressure often leads to feelings of burnout or imposter syndrome, something Eva Illouz has written about in her work on emotional capitalism. She explains how our identities become intertwined with economic value. When I think about this, I’m struck by how uneven the playing field is. Those with resources—like access to professional photography or social media coaching—are often better positioned to succeed, while others struggle to compete.

It’s a stark reminder of how personal branding commodifies identity and reinforces broader inequalities.

Personal Branding Across Cultures and Contexts

Of course, personal branding isn’t universal—it means different things in different cultures and contexts. In more collectivist societies, where communal identity often precedes individualism, the pressure to self-promote might feel less urgent or take on entirely different forms. Instead of highlighting personal achievements, people may emphasise how they contribute to the group’s success.

I’m also fascinated by those who resist personal branding altogether. Some people embrace anonymity or messy, unpolished self-expression to resist the system. Others lean into collective identity-building, rejecting the idea that their worth should be tied to how well they can market themselves. These examples remind me that personal branding isn’t inevitable—it’s shaped by the values of a specific time and place.

Reimagining Personal Branding

So, can personal branding and authenticity coexist? I still grapple with this question. Personal branding often feels like a way of reducing ourselves to neat, marketable packages. On the other hand, it can be a powerful tool for self-expression, helping us articulate our values and passions.

The key might lie in approaching personal branding critically. Instead of chasing external validation, we could use it to align our external expression with our internal truths. That shift requires self-awareness and a willingness to step back from what the algorithms reward. For me, it’s about finding a balance—using personal branding intentionally without letting it consume my sense of self.

Ultimately, personal branding is a reflection of our culture. By examining it through an anthropological lens, I hope we can better understand the forces shaping our identities and maybe even reclaim a sense of authenticity in the process.

Personas are Dead.

Wed, 22 Jan 2025 01:52:00 GMT

Note: this article is a work in progress.

Not as dramatic as Nietzsche’s exclamation of “God is Dead” but I would like to declare the way we have developed personas over the last 25 years, dead, well at least broken.

My first encounter with the concept of personas came in the early 90s, embedded in creative briefs. It was a tool to summarise users or target audiences, a very shorthanded way of understanding who the creative work was meant to resonate with. Then came the digital revolution, and with it, a renewed interest in personas. The digital world thought it was clever, rediscovering and repackaging an old idea. But personas, as they were used, often came with inherent flaws:

Frequently developed in the absence of meaningful data.
More of a guess—a guesstimate by an account manager or client—than a reflection of reality.
Narrow and singular in focus: e.g., “Glenda, Female, 30s, drives a Mazda.”
Rife with racism and stereotyping.
Lacking or assuming empathy or emotional depth, assuming “pain points” without understanding lived experiences.
Most significantly for me, they failed to account for the dynamics of time, space, and the richness of lived experience.

Despite these shortcomings, I have continued to use personas in my work. Something, after all, is often better than nothing. But my personas have evolved. They are never singular; they are rooted in the concept of “micro moments” or “lived experience potentials”. Even so, this approach remains a stopgap, still shackled to a Western Cartesian and linear way of thinking.

A Departure from Western Worldview

What if we disrupted Cartesian methods? What if we introduced concepts of time and space, not as linear constructs but as interconnected and dynamic forces? What if we abandoned the rigidity of Western phenomenological perception to embrace a worldview that acknowledges lived experience as cumulative and evolving?

This is where I’ve found inspiration in the concept of song spirals—an Indigenous way of knowing that offers profound insights into time, place, and the interconnectedness of life. Song spirals are not static or linear. I’m far from an expert here (being white/male of colonist heritage). They layer experience and knowledge, building upon themselves over time. They reflect a relationship with the world that is dynamic, alive, and deeply rooted in lived experience.

What If…

We disrupt Cartesian methods. Instead of starting with rigid definitions and assumptions, we approach understanding audiences as dynamic and evolving.
We consider time and space as fluid. Lived experience doesn’t occur in a vacuum. It’s shaped by temporal and spatial contexts, by the interplay of history, environment, and community.
We acknowledge that lived experience builds upon itself. Personas could reflect layers of identity, evolving through experiences, relationships, and the passage of time.
We integrate these ideas with traditional persona methods. By merging these philosophies, we might develop personas that are not only more nuanced but also more empathetic, inclusive, and reflective of the realities we seek to understand.

The Concept: Continuum Loops

Continuum loops are my reimagining of personas through the lens of interconnected lived experiences. Rather than static snapshots, continuum loops focus on the dynamic and evolving nature of identity, shaped by time, space, and context. They are inspired by the fluidity of song spirals but adapted to work within a more universal framework that respects diverse cultural philosophies.

A continuum loop represents multiple dimensions of an individual or group, considering layers of experience that build upon one another. It avoids linearity and rigidity by embracing the nuances of change, complexity, and unpredictability. This concept integrates empathy, inclusivity, and adaptability, creating personas that can evolve and expand as understanding deepens.

This approach is still evolving, a work in progress. I think it’s an exciting path—one that challenges the norms of how we see and represent the people we aim to connect with. By embracing these shifts, we might finally move beyond the limits of outdated personas and toward something far richer, far more human.

Reflection on the Evolution of Technology in Advertising

Tue, 14 Jan 2025 01:52:00 GMT

Striking a Balance Between Tech and Humanity

My career started as the advertising industry started to embrace technology in the early 1990s, marking the onset of a shift in its habitus—the ingrained practices, skills, and dispositions of creative agencies. As Macs and digital workflows replaced traditional tools, the field started to evolve, reshaping how creative work was conceived and executed. By the mid-1990s, innovations like direct-to-film and full digital printing solutions became the norm, further embedding these changes into the collective practices of agencies. Advances in digital photography, video production, and the internet ingrain this new habitus, blending creativity with emerging technology and redefining the foundational practices of the industry. I was very involved in pushing that digital adoption, navigating the opportunities and challenges of integrating new technologies into creative workflows.

Over the past few decades, the advertising industry has transformed technologically and experienced a profound shift in its collective habitus. Once rooted in manual processes, practices have evolved into a digital-first mindset, reflecting broader societal changes in how we create, consume, and connect. This evolution has been a journey of adaptation and learning—a process of integrating new tools and methods into established practices. As someone who has surfed the waves of these changes, I have started to reflect more on the lessons learned and the opportunities that lie ahead. How do we blend these changes with the core values of creativity and connection?

The Rise of Data-Driven Advertising

Undoubtedly, the shift to data-driven advertising represents a groundbreaking evolution in how brands connect with their audiences. The integration of data analytics, AI, and machine learning is at the heart of this transformation. These technologies enable hyper-targeted campaigns, allowing advertisers to reach specific audiences with unparalleled precision. In my experience, optimising campaigns in real-time has allowed us to tailor messages with precision, improving ROI and maximising the effectiveness of marketing efforts.

However, I’ve observed that this evolution comes with challenges. While data-driven approaches can be efficient, they can also feel impersonal or invasive. Over the years, I’ve seen how striking a balance between leveraging data and maintaining a personal touch is vital for preserving trust and fostering authentic connections.

Automation and Efficiency

Throughout my career, I’ve witnessed how automation has restructured the very fabric of agency workflows, embedding a new set of practices into the industry’s habitus. Automation has allowed practitioners to focus more on strategy and innovation by streamlining processes and driving efficiency. However, as the reliance on automated tools increases, maintaining campaigns’ authenticity and emotional resonance requires conscious effort. True art lies in balancing these advancements with human creativity, which defines impactful advertising.

The Erosion of Human Connection

Technology has expanded advertising’s reach, embedding practices like real-time global engagement into the industry’s collective habitus. Social media platforms and digital campaigns have given brands unprecedented access to audiences. Yet, this transformation has also surfaced challenges—an overemphasis on metrics and algorithms can lead to a disconnect from the human experience. To preserve authenticity, practitioners must re-anchor their strategies in an understanding of culture and context, ensuring that campaigns resonate emotionally. Only by integrating this human touch can advertising remain impactful and authentic in a rapidly evolving field.

The Role of Creativity

From my experience, tools like AI-generated content and predictive analytics have unexpectedly enhanced creativity. By handling mundane tasks and providing actionable insights, technology allows creatives to focus on strategy and big ideas. The potential for innovation is enormous. However, over-reliance on these tools can commoditise creativity. The most memorable campaigns often stem from human intuition, empathy, and storytelling. While technology can enhance the creative process, it cannot replace the uniquely human qualities that drive groundbreaking ideas.

Ethical Consideration

In an era where technology drives much of the advertising landscape, advancements have brought unprecedented transparency and accountability. Tools to measure performance and combat fraud have elevated industry standards, ensuring campaigns deliver tangible value and effectiveness.

Yet, as these advancements progress, ethical concerns demand our attention. Issues such as data privacy, algorithmic bias, and the manipulation of consumer behaviour cannot be overlooked. These challenges underscore the need for a human-centric approach grounded in empathy and a steadfast commitment to ethical practices.

Addressing these concerns thoughtfully has been a key focus in my work, as it’s an opportunity to leverage technology responsibly while rebuilding trust and connection with audiences. This ensures that advertising remains a force for good.

The Future: Balancing Tech and Humanity

The key lies in balance as the advertising industry navigates its technologically advanced future. Technology should act as a tool to amplify human creativity and connection rather than as a replacement. By leveraging technological advancements, brands can deepen their understanding of audiences and craft campaigns that resonate emotionally and on a data-driven level.

Ultimately, the most successful brands will be those that seamlessly blend innovation with empathy, creating advertising that performs and connects in meaningful and authentic ways.

A Call for Human-Centric Innovation

As the advertising landscape evolves, so does its collective habitus, incorporating new technologies while grappling with their implications. A human-centric approach is now more critical than ever, ensuring that these tools complement, rather than replace, the storytelling and emotional resonance that define great advertising. By aligning technological advancements with genuine empathy and creativity, practitioners can elevate their work beyond transactional goals, fostering meaningful and enduring relationships with their audiences.

The opportunity lies in harmonising the best of both worlds—technology and humanity—to create campaigns that inspire, connect, and drive positive change.

Conclusion

Technology has redefined the advertising industry, delivering tools that enable unprecedented precision, efficiency, and scalability. Yet, advertising’s essence remains deeply human—rooted in emotion, connection, and storytelling. The challenge is to leverage these technological advancements without compromising the humanity that makes advertising impactful.

By prioritising empathy, creativity, and authenticity, the industry can harness technology to amplify these qualities rather than overshadow them. The future of advertising depends on our ability to blend innovation with a deep understanding of human behaviour and values. The question is not whether we can advance technologically but whether we can do so while preserving the soul of advertising. What role will you play in shaping this balance? Your insights and perspectives are vital in shaping this balance.

Anthropological Approach to UCD in Data Visualisation

Mon, 06 Jan 2025 02:36:00 GMT

Principles of User-Centered Design (UCD) Applied to Data Visualisation

I have renewed my interest in data visualisation and am now looking at how to improve its usability. I have had many years to think about this and with growing literacy, time for a new look. These insights and thought have come from recently seeking ways to better communicate realtime and hostoric data. Importantly both of these are used to look forward to the future, short and long term.

Data visualisation is a vital tool for transforming complex datasets into actionable insights. However, it can become overly complex based on user demands. They often suffer badly from scope creep from user demands. It is all very well to create something for yourself. The utility of visualisations often depends on their ability to resonate with their intended audiences’ workplace, social, cultural, and contextual realities.

A key insight came at dinner with a small group of data experts from the big four, Australia post, news ltd, Fairfax with the founder of Tableau. That was to “imagine a managing director running late for a meeting; they need to be up-to-date at a glance.” That simplification has always been the starting point. Expansion on that basis is easy, but the other way around can be more complex.

Jump 15 years to today, and I am now looking at how integrating anthropological insights into User-Centered Design (UCD) can provide an academic and practical frameworks for ensuring that data visualisations are functional but also meaningful, inclusive, and impactful. This essay explores the principles of UCD as informed by anthropology, illustrating their relevance through theoretical discussion and a practical business case.

So some intial thoughts:

Understanding User Needs Through Ethnographic Research

The foundation of UCD lies in a comprehensive understanding of the needs and behaviours of users. Anthropology significantly enriches this understanding through ethnographic research—a qualitative methodology that involves immersive, direct engagement with users within their cultural, social, and environmental contexts. By focusing on how people live, work, and interact with information, ethnography uncovers nuanced insights that go beyond surface-level observations. For instance, it identifies:

What specific insights or outcomes do users seek to derive from the data?
How do users engage with and interpret data visualisations in their routine settings, and what tools or methods do they currently use?
How do social norms, cultural expectations, or historical contexts shape users’ understanding and trust in the data presented?

In practical applications, such as healthcare, ethnographic observations might reveal that rural healthcare workers—often operating in resource-limited settings—value simple, offline-accessible visualisations that align with their operational constraints. These insights ensure that data visualisation designs are not only functional but also aligned with the lived realities of their intended users.

Empathy-Driven Design Anchored in Cultural Relevance

Empathy is a cornerstone of UCD, but anthropology deepens this by situating empathy within cultural, social, and historical frameworks. This enriched perspective ensures that empathy is not abstract but grounded in the lived realities of users. A culturally relevant approach considers:

Symbolism
The choice of colours, shapes, and icons that carry specific cultural meanings, ensuring that visualisations are intuitive and avoid misinterpretation. For example, while red may signify danger or urgency in some cultures, it may represent prosperity and good fortune in others.
Social Context
How power dynamics, hierarchies, and collaboration influence data interpretation and decision-making processes. In highly hierarchical cultures, for instance, visualisations may need to cater differently to senior executives compared to operational staff to ensure both clarity and respect for social norms.
Historical Awareness
Recognising how historical events or longstanding societal narratives shape user trust in and engagement with data. For example, communities with a history of exclusion or marginalisation may require visualisations that emphasise transparency and inclusivity to build trust.

For instance, in hierarchical cultures, visualisations might need to cater differently to senior executives than operational staff, ensuring clarity and accessibility at all organisational levels.

Participatory Design and Iterative Prototyping

Anthropology’s participatory ethos aligns with UCD’s iterative nature by emphasising collaboration, contextual understanding, and adaptability in the design process. Effective participatory design involves engaging users not just as subjects of study, but as co-creators who bring invaluable lived experiences and cultural perspectives to the table. This approach ensures that the resulting designs resonate deeply with the intended audiences. Key components include:

Co-Creation
Engaging users in workshops to co-design prototypes that reflect their needs and lived experiences. These workshops facilitate direct collaboration between designers and users, fostering a shared understanding of goals and constraints. Through co-creation, users contribute their unique perspectives, ensuring the prototypes are contextually relevant and culturally sensitive. This process not only aligns designs with user priorities but also empowers participants, building a sense of ownership and trust in the final output.
Feedback Loops
Testing prototypes in real-world conditions and incorporating user feedback to iteratively refine the design. This involves observing how users interact with prototypes in their natural settings, gathering qualitative and quantitative insights, and identifying potential usability challenges. Feedback loops are essential for uncovering subtle barriers to comprehension, such as unclear visual hierarchies or cultural mismatches in iconography. By addressing these issues, designers can create visualisations that resonate more effectively with the target audience and improve overall functionality and trustworthiness.
Cultural Adaptability
Refining designs to account for evolving social and environmental contexts involves creating visualisations that can flexibly respond to changes in user needs, societal norms, or technological advancements. For instance, as digital access expands in underserved communities, designs may need to evolve from print-based formats to interactive, mobile-friendly solutions. Similarly, social changes such as shifts in generational preferences or the emergence of new cultural narratives can influence how users interpret visual elements like colours, icons, or layouts. Designers must stay attuned to these dynamics through ongoing research and engagement, ensuring that the visualisation remains relevant, inclusive, and effective over time.

This process ensures that visualisations remain relevant and effective over time, as they adapt to changing user requirements.

Contextual Relevance Through Semiotics and Spatial Awareness

The anthropological study of semiotics—using symbols and signs—is pivotal in data visualisation design. To eThe anthropological study of semiotics—the use of symbols and signs—plays a pivotal role in data visualisation design by ensuring that visual elements resonate with users’ cultural and cognitive frameworks. Semiotics bridges the gap between abstract data and user interpretation, making it a critical component of user-centered design. To ensure contextual relevance, consider:

Symbol Selection
Employ culturally appropriate and universally recognisable icons to avoid misinterpretation. For instance, icons representing growth or success might use an upward arrow in many Western contexts but could have different associations elsewhere, necessitating alternative designs.
Spatial Design
Acknowledge differences in spatial reasoning and orientations, such as reading directions (e.g., left-to-right versus right-to-left). Additionally, the layout of information should respect culturally specific preferences, such as the importance of circular designs in some indigenous communities or hierarchical arrangements in others.

For example, heatmaps designed for Western audiences, which often prioritise left-to-right and top-to-bottom progression, might require substantial adjustments for audiences accustomed to alternative spatial logics, such as vertical or radial layouts prevalent in East Asian or Indigenous traditions. Incorporating these adaptations not only improves usability but also demonstrates cultural sensitivity, fostering trust and inclusivity.

Accessibility and Inclusivity Through Anthropological Lenses

Inclusivity is integral to UCD, and anthropology’s holistic perspective ensures that marginalised voices are not only considered but actively centred in the design process. Inclusive design principles must address diverse user needs while fostering equity and belonging. Key principles include:

Design for All
High-contrast visuals, adaptable formats, and text alternatives ensure accessibility for users with disabilities. This includes supporting screen readers, offering keyboard navigation, and designing for colour blindness to ensure that no user is excluded from engaging with the data.
Simplification with Respect
Simplify complex data into digestible formats without oversimplifying or distorting its meaning. This involves presenting information in layers—offering high-level summaries with options to explore details—to accommodate both novice users and experts.
Respect for Cultural Norms and Contexts
Avoid designs that inadvertently alienate specific cultural groups by understanding their unique preferences, taboos, and expectations. For instance, colours, symbols, and visual metaphors should be carefully chosen to align with local cultural values.
Proactive Engagement
Go beyond compliance by actively involving marginalised groups in the design and testing phases. Co-design workshops and iterative feedback sessions with underrepresented communities ensure their perspectives are embedded in the final product.

By addressing these factors, data visualisations become powerful tools that not only inform but also empower users, bridging gaps in accessibility, fostering trust, and encouraging broader participation in data-driven decision-making.

Dynamic and Adaptive Visualisation Designs

Anthropology’s focus on adaptability underscores the importance of flexible design that evolves alongside user needs and societal changes. Key considerations include:

Interactivity
Allow users to customise data views according to their needs, such as filtering, sorting, or drilling down into specific datasets. This enables a tailored experience, empowering users to focus on data points that are most relevant to their context or objectives. For example, policymakers might require drill-down features to examine regional data trends, while community stakeholders may benefit from high-level summaries with the ability to explore finer details when needed.
Scalability
Ensure compatibility across devices, platforms, and formats, ranging from interactive dashboards accessible on smartphones to printable reports for offline environments. This scalability is crucial for reaching diverse user groups, including those with limited access to digital infrastructure. A scalable design also accommodates future technological advancements, ensuring the visualisation remains functional and relevant over time.
Contextual Flexibility
Design visualisations that can be adapted to different cultural, linguistic, or demographic contexts without losing their core functionality. For instance, incorporating multilingual support or region-specific visual styles ensures inclusivity and usability across global audiences.

By addressing these elements, adaptive visualisations can meet the diverse and evolving demands of users, enhancing both accessibility and engagement.

Incorporating Narrative Flow Inspired by Cultural Storytelling

Storytelling is central to how humans understand the world, and anthropology emphasises the cultural specificity of narratives. In data visualisation, storytelling becomes a bridge between abstract data and the lived experiences of users, making information more engaging and actionable. Effective narrative-driven visualisations:

Leverage Local Traditions
Incorporate storytelling techniques that align with the cultural practices of the audience. For instance, visual elements inspired by oral traditions or visual motifs relevant to the community can create a sense of familiarity and trust. These approaches can evoke cultural pride while ensuring the message is more effectively communicated.
Progressively Reveal Data
Guide users through layers of information, beginning with overarching insights and allowing exploration of finer details. This technique mirrors how narratives often unfold, providing context first before delving into specifics. For example, a public health visualisation might start with a broad view of national vaccination rates before enabling users to explore localised data specific to their region.
Integrate Visual Metaphors
Use metaphors drawn from the audience’s cultural context to represent data. For example, a tree diagram might be particularly resonant in cultures where trees symbolise growth and connection, reinforcing the intended message.

For example, integrating oral storytelling traditions into visualisation design can significantly enhance relatability and comprehension in community-focused settings. By drawing on cultural stories and symbols, these visualisations can present data not just as numbers, but as part of a broader narrative that resonates deeply with the audience’s lived experiences and values.

Example: Designing a Public Health Dashboard

A public health agency sought to create a dashboard for tracking vaccination rates. Applying UCD with an anthropological approach ensured that the dashboard met diverse user needs effectively, addressing both strategic and community-level goals:

Ethnographic Insights
Comprehensive field research revealed significant differences in user requirements. Policymakers needed access to granular, region-specific data to inform decision-making processes and allocate resources efficiently. In contrast, community leaders prioritised visually intuitive and easily shareable formats to facilitate group discussions and public engagement.
Participatory Design
Co-design workshops were conducted with representatives from both groups. Policymakers collaborated to define data categories and filtering options critical to their analysis, while community leaders provided input on layout simplicity, preferred colour schemes, and key visual elements for storytelling. This iterative process ensured the designs reflected diverse user needs and expectations.
Cultural Validation
Rigorous testing across various demographic groups ensured that the final designs resonated with local preferences. Specific adaptations included adjusting colour schemes to avoid unintended cultural misinterpretations, incorporating multilingual support for broader accessibility, and embedding culturally significant symbols to enhance relatability and trust. These efforts ensured that the dashboard remained effective in diverse contexts.

This dual-pronged approach resulted in a highly versatile tool. For policymakers, the interactive dashboard provided detailed insights for targeted interventions, while the infographic-style visualisation empowered community leaders to advocate for public health initiatives in an accessible and culturally sensitive manner.

The Business Case for Anthropological UCD

Integrating anthropology into User-Centered Design for data visualisation is not merely an academic exercise—it is a practical and strategic imperative for organisations seeking to thrive in an increasingly interconnected world. By weaving cultural sensitivity, inclusivity, and adaptability into the design process, businesses can achieve several tangible benefits:

Enhanced User Engagement
Data visualisations that resonate with users’ cultural and social contexts foster a deeper emotional connection and increase the likelihood of meaningful interaction. This, in turn, leads to improved comprehension and retention of insights.
Increased Trust and Credibility
Thoughtfully designed visualisations that respect cultural nuances build trust among diverse audiences. This trust is especially critical when presenting data in contexts where there is historical scepticism or marginalisation.
Actionable Insights for Diverse Stakeholders
Anthropological UCD ensures that visualisations are accessible and relevant to a wide range of users, from policymakers and executives to community leaders and the general public. By tailoring designs to meet diverse needs, organisations can drive better, data-informed decisions at all levels.
Long-Term Relevance and Scalability
Visualisations designed with adaptability in mind can evolve alongside societal and technological changes, ensuring they remain effective over time. This foresight reduces redesign costs and fosters sustained engagement.

Businesses and organisations that adopt this anthropological approach to UCD position themselves as leaders in innovation and inclusivity. By bridging cultural divides and addressing the nuanced needs of global audiences, they not only drive better decision-making but also create tools that empower users, foster connections, and inspire trust. The result is a competitive advantage that aligns technological innovation with human-centric values, ensuring success in a rapidly evolving global landscape.

At a Crossroads: Monoliths, Anthropology, and a Quest

Sat, 04 Jan 2025 03:22:00 GMT

I find myself standing in front of what feels less like doors and more like monoliths—enigmatic, imposing, and full of potential. They remind me of the monoliths from 2001: A Space Odyssey , which I studied during a university unit on myth and ritual. The film, through its connection to Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra , symbolises the leap toward something more significant, an evolution beyond the known. It feels like a fitting metaphor for this moment in my career, where the next step isn’t just a decision but a transformation.

For decades, my career has been about reinvention, adaptability, and embracing the unknown. From early forays into digital marketing to navigating today’s AI-driven world, I’ve thrived at the intersection of creativity, strategy, and technology. But what has shaped me most profoundly in recent years is my exploration of anthropology. Studying the complexities of human behaviour, culture, and systems has fundamentally changed how I see the world and myself within it.

Anthropology has given me a new lens, helping me move beyond the static, surface-level personas of marketing to understand people as dynamic, interconnected, and constantly evolving. It’s shifted my focus to the more profound stories and rituals that drive human decision-making, enabling me to craft strategies that resonate more meaningfully. This perspective has influenced my work and broader view of what’s possible as I stand before these monoliths, contemplating the leap to something greater. At this point, they don’t feel like they are full of stars.

The stakes, however, feel immense. Starting a new business—a consultancy or agency that blends my experience in marketing, anthropology, and digital strategy—is one of the paths I’ve considered. But at this stage of life, the risks loom large. It’s not just about finances but the quality of life I’ve built and the legacy I want to leave. It’s about balancing ambition and sustainability as I get closer to retirement.

Adding to this complexity is the realisation that my network has thinned over time. Many peers have moved on, shifted careers, or embraced new lifestyles. It’s a reminder that careers, like life itself, are not static. While this has sometimes left me feeling isolated, it also represents an opportunity to rebuild connections and surround myself with people who align with where I want to go next.

In many ways, these reflections bring me back to 2001: A Space Odyssey . The monoliths in the film are symbols of transformation and evolution. They mark moments when individuals or societies must transcend their current state to reach a higher level of being. This resonates deeply as I consider my next chapter. The question isn’t just which path to choose—how to approach these monoliths with the courage to evolve into something greater.

Ultimately, this is about purpose. How do I spend the following years of my career in a way that feels meaningful and aligned with my values? How do I balance the risks of stepping into the unknown with the rewards of building something truly impactful? Anthropology has taught me that there is no single “right” answer—only the potential for growth and discovery through intentional action.

As I stand here, looking at the monoliths before me, I remind myself that transformation has always come when I’ve been willing to take the leap. Just as the monoliths in 2001 called humanity to transcend its limits, these moments in my career call me to trust in my experiences, insights, and ability to adapt. The path ahead might be uncertain, but if my journey has taught me anything, stepping forward—even into the unknown—is how we become something greater.

Can More Respectful Naming Lead to Better Levels of Care and Placemaking?

Mon, 30 Dec 2024 04:57:00 GMT

Australia faces the challenge of an aging population, with an increasing demand for aged care services. However, terms like “aged care facility” and “nursing home” are often met with reluctance or even resistance. My work with aged care providers has given me some insight into the language Australians use when searching online for these services. The term ‘nursing home’ is still deeply rooted in our psyche, despite the industry shift to the use of “Aged Care”. I am far from an expert on this subject, however it intrigues me communication, compassion, anthropologicaly points of view. Not to mention hurtling towards an age that it may become more important.

At this time of year, after many people have seen their family elders for the first time in months over the Christmas holidays, they question whether a loved one should seek daily care. So this had me thinking about the words we use and deeper cultural meaning context to aged care. However, labels carry institutional and clinical connotations that can overshadow the essential human elements of care and community. Is it time for a nation that prides itself on multiculturalism and respect for diverse values to rethink how we name and conceptualise these spaces? I’m particularly drawn to Australian (an North American) First Nations Peoples’ perspectives toward community elders. There is much to be learned from non western worldview. Along with global examples, there is an opportunity to shift the narrative around aged care to one of respect, dignity, and belonging.

Search Trends Over the Past 20 years.

These results are hevaily skewed by the ‘aged care jobs” and related search terms. Brand names such as “Bupa Aged Care, Opal Aged Care, My Aged Care etc.” Covid also impacts the indexed results with Aged Care spiking at the height of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Language, Culture, and Care: Applying the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis is one of the most debated ideas in linguistics and anthropology. It posits that language shapes thought and how individuals perceive the world. For example, research on dementia care in culturally diverse settings has shown that language-sensitive approaches—such as using terms aligned with cultural values—can improve the comfort and engagement of residents.

This supports the idea that the language used in aged care reflects and actively influences the experiences and perceptions of residents and caregivers. In the context of aged care, this theory offers valuable insights into how caregivers and residents interact, particularly in multicultural and multilingual settings. Aged care environments are increasingly diverse, making effective communication across linguistic and cultural boundaries essential to delivering quality, person-centred care. By understanding the implications of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, aged care providers can foster a more inclusive, empathetic, and culturally sensitive environment.

The Importance of Language in Shaping Perception

Language is a powerful tool influencing our thoughts, feelings, and acts. In First Nations cultures, the elder is deeply rooted in respect, symbolising wisdom, leadership, and connection. Similarly, many other cultures uphold respect for their older generations through honorific titles. For example, in East Asian cultures, elders are often addressed with high regard, such as Zhangzhe in Mandarin or Kanreki in Japanese, symbolising their roles as custodians of wisdom and family heritage. In South Asian societies, titles like Baba or Amma for elder figures evoke reverence and familial closeness. These culturally embedded terms illustrate the universal value of respecting older generations across diverse societies. This idea contrasts sharply with terms like “nursing home,” which can evoke images of clinical, impersonal environments.

Adopting more respectful and community-oriented language, such as “Elder Community” or “Elder Sanctuary,” can reshape how aged care is perceived. These terms were chosen to emphasise dignity, belonging, and respect—qualities that resonate across cultures and align with the values many societies hold for their elders. Although these specific terms have not been widely tested in aged care settings, similar naming practices in initiatives like “ Life Plan Communities ” in the United States have shown promise in reshaping perceptions and fostering a sense of place and purpose within elder care environments. It is a place of decline but a space of belonging and continued contribution. Anthropologists such as Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf have long argued that language influences thought and behaviour, a concept encapsulated in the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis. This idea underscores how the terms we use to describe environments, people, and relationships can profoundly affect how they are perceived and experienced.

The Role of Non-verbal Communication

Language is only part of the communication equation. As the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis extends to non-verbal cues, understanding cultural variations in gestures, body language, and expressions is equally critical. Non-verbal communication often reflects deeply ingrained cultural values and linguistic structures. For example, Eastern cultures, prioritising harmony and indirectness, might use subdued facial expressions and subtle gestures, whereas Western cultures might rely on direct and expressive gestures to convey emotions.

This can have significant implications in aged care. A caregiver’s failure to recognise these cultural and nonverbal differences may make residents feel alienated or neglected. Conversely, training caregivers to interpret and respond to diverse nonverbal communication styles can bridge cultural gaps, enhancing the quality of care and fostering trust.

Global Examples of Respectful Terminology

Across the world, there are inspiring examples of how language and design intersect to foster better outcomes for older adults (World Economic Forum, 2021; Hogeweyk Dementia Village, n.d.).

The Netherlands – Dementia villages like Hogeweyk emphasise community and autonomy, creating environments that mimic regular neighbourhoods.
Germany – Shared living arrangements called “Wohngemeinschaften” offer home-like settings where residents collaborate and support one another.
United States – Continuing Care Retirement Communities (CCRCs) use terms like “Life Plan Communities,” focusing on active, purposeful living.
Sweden – “Senior Housing” integrates older adults into broader residential areas, promoting inclusivity and reducing stigma.

These examples highlight how names and design philosophies can align to create environments that promote dignity and a sense of place.

Training Caregivers for Linguistic and Cultural Sensitivity

The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis underscores the need for comprehensive training programs in aged care that emphasise linguistic and cultural sensitivity. Caregivers should be equipped to:

Recognise and Adapt to Linguistic Differences
Understanding how language shapes perception can help caregivers interpret residents’ verbal expressions more accurately. This includes being aware of idiomatic expressions, indirect requests, and culturally specific ways of expressing gratitude or dissatisfaction.
Navigate Nonverbal Communication
Training in nonverbal communication—such as recognising cultural variations in eye contact, physical proximity, and gestures—can reduce misunderstandings and build rapport with residents.
Foster Cross-Cultural Empathy
Encouraging caregivers to view cultural differences as strengths rather than barriers can enhance their ability to provide compassionate, person-centred care.

Can Respectful Naming Lead to Better Levels of Care?

One of the most intriguing questions surrounding using more respectful and community-focused language is whether it can lead to improved inclusivity and levels of care. Sociologists like Erving Goffman highlight how labelling individuals and spaces influences their interactions and expectations. Terms like “Elder Sanctuary” can frame aged care facilities as spaces of respect and belonging, fostering a shift in societal perceptions.

Shifting the language can encourage care workers to view their work as part of a collaborative, person-centred effort rather than purely clinical or transactional. This perspective aligns with Paulo Freire’s concept of reflective practice, where individuals critically examine their actions and assumptions to improve their engagement with others. For caregivers, this could translate into greater cultural sensitivity, stronger personal connections with residents, and a more profound commitment to holistic care.

Beyond Words: Placemaking and Respect

Respectful naming is not just about semantics—it is deeply tied to placemaking. Placemaking refers to creating meaningful, inclusive spaces that reflect the identities and values of those who use them. For example, renaming an aged care facility as an “Elder Sanctuary” signals a commitment to providing an environment that prioritises dignity, respect, and community belonging, thus transforming perceptions and experiences. When spaces are named with care, they set the tone for how residents and staff interact. Consider terms like “Elder Sanctuary” or “Living Circle.” These evoke a sense of safety, belonging, and community. By reframing these environments through respectful language, we can dismantle the hierarchical, clinical undertones that often characterise aged care settings.

Moreover, placemaking involves creating environments that feel like home—where residents can maintain their identity, engage in meaningful activities, and foster connections. Respectful naming is a foundational step in achieving this, signalling a commitment to valuing residents as individuals and community members.

The Case for Testing and Research

While the theoretical benefits of respectful naming are compelling, we need evidence to support its impact on care outcomes and resident well-being. Methods such as ethnographic studies, longitudinal surveys, and participatory action research could be employed to assess resident satisfaction, caregiver perceptions, and overall community engagement. These approaches would provide quantitative and qualitative insights into the influence of respectful naming on the lived experiences within aged care settings. Testing and research could explore:

Resident Experience
How does the language used to describe a facility affect residents’ sense of identity, dignity, and belonging?
Staff Perceptions
Does respectful terminology influence how caregivers view their roles and interact with residents?
Community Engagement
Can inclusive and respectful naming encourage greater family and community involvement?
Care Outcomes
When facilities adopt more respectful naming practices, are there measurable improvements in health, satisfaction, or social connection?

A Call to Action

Renaming aged care facilities with terms that embody respect, community, and dignity—such as “Elder Community”—is more than a cosmetic change. It represents a shift in how we value and care for older Australians, particularly in a multicultural society where respect for elders is a shared value across many cultures.

However, before making sweeping changes, we must invest in research to understand the impact of respectful naming on residents, staff, and families. Testing these ideas in real-world settings will provide the insights to make informed, practical changes. With evidence in hand, we can build environments that not only meet the physical needs of older Australians but also nurture their emotional and social well-being.

References

Freire, P. (1996). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Continuum.
Goffman, E. (1959). The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Anchor Books.
Hogeweyk Dementia Village. (n.d.). Available at: https://hogeweyk.dementiavillage.com .
Sapir, E. (1921). Language: An Introduction to the Study of Speech. Harcourt, Brace & World.
Sugimoto, Y. (2014). An Introduction to Japanese Society. Cambridge University Press.
Whorf, B. L. (1956). Language, Thought, and Reality: Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf. MIT Press.
Wong, S. T. (2016). “Chinese Elders in Canada: Their Voices and Perspectives on Aging.” Canadian Journal on Aging, 35(2), pp. 145-160.
World Economic Forum. (2021). “Transforming Dementia Care: Lessons from The Netherlands.” Available at: https://www.weforum.org .

From Creativity to Data: Career Thread

Sat, 28 Dec 2024 03:57:00 GMT

If there’s one thread that has run through my career, it’s data—not always in obvious ways, but it’s always been there, guiding decisions, shaping strategies, and even challenging my thinking. It started back in my early days as an art director. I’d spend hours poring over client sales figures and scanning data to find the patterns that could unlock a better campaign. I could get lost in time working on this data. That beautiful mix of being challenged and timelines that make time fly by.

In many cases in the past, I relied heavily on third-party data sources like Nielsen and Roy Morgan Research to provide context. When those didn’t cut it, I’d go scavenging on the internet, often ending up deep in spreadsheets or obscure reports. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has been my saviour more times than I can count—even if I did crash TableBuilder tool a few times. The downside is that the data is consistently outdated due to the time it takes to collect census data for publication. This impacts other third-party demographic profile tools; they never reflect the current environment. Then there is the cost of data, I’ll come back to this.

In those early days of the internet, data analytics was beyond primitive. I remember adding page counters to websites and using tools like Analog to interpret the results. It was clunky and basic compared to today’s platforms, but it gave us a glimpse of what was possible. Platforms like Google Analytics emerged as the internet evolved, offering a much richer picture of user behaviour. Suddenly, we could easily track clicks, bounce rates, and conversions. For instance, in one campaign for a national retail chain, Google Analytics revealed that mobile users were abandoning their carts at an alarming rate. By focusing on optimising the mobile checkout experience, we were able to reduce cart abandonment within a quarter. These tools transformed how we approached campaigns and laid the groundwork for the data-driven strategies that became central to my work. Tools were starting to emerge, and the seeds of what would become my passion for data were being planted.

Fast forward to my time at Roy Morgan, where I stumbled upon Tableau. It was a revelation. Suddenly, data wasn’t just numbers on a page; it was visual, dynamic, and — dare I say — eye-opening. One memorable project involved using Tableau to analyse customer satisfaction data for a banking client client. By visualising the hierarchy of results patterns across branches and time, I uncovered rolling impacts of change to the grassroots of the banking industry. I became obsessed with attending user groups and diving into the community. I even wrangled a seat at the table with Pat Hanrahan (sorry about the name drop), one of Tableau’s founders at dinner in Sydney. That experience cemented my love for the tool, and while I’ve worked with PowerBI and others, Tableau has always felt natural.

Of course, data analysis is never just about the tools. I’ve always believed in understanding the story behind the numbers. It’s not enough to know what the data says; you must understand why it says it. This belief became even more significant when I began incorporating AI into my work. Tools like LLMs have revolutionised how I clean, categorise, and extrapolate data, especially when working with something as complex as Google Search Console data. AI takes the grunt work out of the process, freeing me to focus on what the data actually means.

What’s exciting now is how my background in anthropology is weaving into this mix. When viewed through an anthropological lens, data becomes more than just statistics. It’s about human behaviour, culture, and context. My thesis on Geertz’s “wink” analogy explored this idea: numbers can tell you what happened but rarely tell you why. To find the why, you must dig deeper—to look at the subtle cultural layers the data represents.

One of the significant challenges throughout my journey has been the lack of accessible data. Often, data is too expensive to acquire or not collected by businesses. I vividly recall working with a regional retail chain with no formal customer data collection process. To overcome this, we relied on publicly available census data and online customer reviews to gather insights about their audience. While this workaround provided some direction, it underscored the limitations of not having comprehensive first-party data. This has been a recurring roadblock, especially for smaller organisations that lack the resources to invest in significant data infrastructure. The cost of entry can be prohibitive, excluding many from developing robust data practices. Without proper data collection and analysis investment, businesses miss out on crucial insights that could drive their growth and strategy.

5-6 years ago a door was opened to PWC. I felt like I was definitely not ready for the role. this became one of the driving factors to studying Anthropology. Today, I find myself drawn back to data analysis. It feels like a return to something foundational with new tools, new perspectives, and a fresh sense of purpose. It’s not just about crunching numbers anymore; it’s about combining data with anthropological insights to tell richer, more meaningful stories. I envision data playing an even greater role in bridging the gap between raw analytics and human context. With emerging technologies and a deeper integration of interdisciplinary approaches, there’s an incredible opportunity to uncover insights that inform strategies and inspire new ways of thinking and connecting with audiences.

After all, isn’t that what it’s always been about—using creativity, technology, and strategy to make sense of the world? It’s not just about crunching numbers anymore; it’s about combining data with anthropological insights to tell richer, more meaningful stories. After all, isn’t that what it’s always been about—using creativity, technology, and strategy to make sense of the world?

Reflections on the Digital Divide

Sat, 21 Dec 2024 01:17:00 GMT

Understanding and Addressing Exclusion in a Tech-Driven World

The digital divide is a concept that has grown increasingly significant in my thoughts over the years. From my early experiences in the internet’s early days, I have witnessed the incredible potential of digital technology to connect and empower, as well as its darker side: the ways it excludes and marginalises. It’s a troubling reality that as our world becomes more interconnected, those who lack access to digital technology—whether due to social, educational, economic, or infrastructural barriers—are being left further behind. My recent study revealed the issue to me, and I honestly paid little attention to how deep the problem ran.

This exclusion isn’t just an abstract issue. It manifests in designing systems meant to serve the public, such as Australia’s MyGov platform, which increasingly assumes that all users have reliable internet access, the necessary digital literacy, and up-to-date technology. Vulnerable groups, such as people experiencing homelessness, our elders, or those on low incomes, face profound barriers to accessing essential services. These barriers aren’t merely inconvenient; they’re exclusionary.

This issue can also be found in the workplace. Literacy, not just digital, can be an issue for unskilled workers or those who don’t read, write or speak English as their first language. They may have had no reason to engage with work-related platforms. Today, training, policies, payroll, timesheets and more are reliant on digital platforms.

To say the issue is multilayered is an understatement. Intersectionality is a genuine concern for researchers and policymakers and is critical to the end user. Digital and marketing personas homogenise groups of very diverse people, creating digital subaltern populations.

The Layers of the Divide

The digital divide is not a single, uniform gap but a complex, layered problem. It touches on technology, social systems, and access disparities. Here are some of the critical factors that exacerbate it:

Australia’s recent closure of the 3G network highlights how infrastructure changes can deepen exclusion. Those reliant on older devices are often left without options, as upgrading to newer technology can be prohibitive.
Modern devices, from PCs to smartphones, are often designed with built-in redundancy. Over time, software updates bloat these devices, slowing them down or rendering them unusable. Older operating systems frequently cannot support newer apps or browsers, creating another barrier.
The growing reliance on low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite services for internet access introduces new challenges. International corporations often control these services, raising concerns about potential cost blowouts, access restrictions, and privacy vulnerabilities. As reliance on such infrastructure increases, so does the risk of deepening the divide for those unable to afford or trust these services.
Effective use of digital tools and navigating online systems is crucial to inclusion. Many individuals, particularly in older demographics or underserved communities, lack the skills to engage with digital services fully. This gap in digital literacy further entrenches exclusion as those without adequate training or resources struggle to access information, communicate, or benefit from online opportunities.
Economic barriers significantly contribute to the digital divide. Individuals reliant on social support systems or experiencing homelessness often face insurmountable challenges in accessing and maintaining technology. The costs of devices, internet plans, and maintenance can exclude these groups entirely, leaving them unable to engage with essential online services or participate in a digitally driven society.
As we move further into an AI-driven world, the risk of marginalising specific populations grows. Algorithms and automated systems are often trained on data reflecting societal biases, excluding those already disadvantaged.

These issues underline a sobering reality: the digital divide is not shrinking. It is not a singular divide; there are many. Even homogenising the divide is to hide the nuanced complexities of the issues. Maybe digital fractures is a better term; some are a mirco, and some are a broad Pacific Fault line. It is at risk of growing fractures, particularly as the cost of infrastructure rises and technology advances at a pace that leaves many behind.

Restriction and Narrow Focus in Current Reports

One of the key challenges in addressing the digital divide is the limitation of current reports and analyses. Often, these studies focus narrowly on metrics such as broadband availability or smartphone penetration, failing to capture the broader social and cultural dimensions of digital exclusion. For example, reports may highlight the number of households with internet access but overlook whether that access is reliable, affordable, or usable for essential tasks.

This narrow focus can lead to policies and initiatives that address surface-level issues without tackling the root causes of exclusion. For instance, providing subsidised devices or internet plans may help in the short term. Still, without concurrent efforts to improve digital literacy, accessibility, and trust in digital systems, such measures may fail to achieve meaningful inclusion.

Additionally, current reports often lack intersectional analyses that consider how factors like age, gender, ethnicity, and disability intersect to shape experiences of digital exclusion. By broadening the scope of research and incorporating qualitative methods, such as ethnography, we can gain a more comprehensive understanding of the divide and design solutions that address its multifaceted nature.

Addressing the Divide with Anthropology and Ethnography

While the challenges of the digital divide are significant, anthropology—specifically ethnography—offers valuable tools for understanding and addressing them. Ethnography, the detailed study of people’s lived experiences, provides a way to see beyond abstract statistics and into the nuanced realities of those affected by digital exclusion. For example:

Understanding Context
Ethnography can reveal the specific barriers faced by different communities, from technological literacy to cultural attitudes toward digital systems. This approach ensures that solutions are technically feasible and culturally sensitive.
Inclusive Design
By observing and engaging directly with marginalised groups, ethnographers can uncover insights that lead to more inclusive design. This might involve creating interfaces that accommodate older devices, incorporating offline functionality, or providing alternative, non-digital access points.
Policy Advocacy
Anthropological research can also inform policymakers, offering evidence-based recommendations prioritising inclusivity. For instance, ethnographic studies might highlight how the closure of legacy networks disproportionately affects low-income populations, strengthening the case for subsidised technology programs.
Learning from Scholarly Work
The academic literature on the digital divide is rich and varied, offering insights into its causes and potential solutions. Scholars such as Mark Warschauer and Jan van Dijk have explored how material access, skills, usage, and outcomes shape the divide. Their work emphasises the importance of moving beyond a simplistic “haves vs. have-nots” framework to address the more profound inequalities embedded in digital systems.

Additionally, the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS) provides valuable perspectives on how technological systems reflect and reinforce societal structures. For instance, Ruha Benjamin’s work on discriminatory design highlights how bias can become baked into technology, exacerbating exclusion.

A Personal Commitment

In 2025, I am dedicating time to better understanding the digital (divide) fractures and their impact on policy, user experience, and culture. I hope that emerging technologies can offer solutions rather than deepen the divide—but this requires a willingness from corporations and governments to prioritise inclusivity. Drawing on my experience as a digital marketer, anthropological methods, and scholarly insights, I aim to contribute to this effort by advocating for systems that bridge divides rather than widen them. The digital world holds immense promise. Let’s work together to ensure that promise is accessible to all.

Superman and the Universality of Human Aspiration

Fri, 20 Dec 2024 01:22:00 GMT

When the new Superman film trailer was released, I experienced an unexpected wave of nostalgia. For a brief moment, I was seven years old again, arms outstretched, flying through the garden with a towel tied around my neck. The original Christopher Reeve’s portrayal of Superman in 1978 had a profound impact on me, shaping not just my childhood imagination but also my adult understanding of what it means to aspire to be more. The overwhelming sense of connection to this character prompted me to explore why Superman has been so significant to me and countless others over generations.

At its core, Superman’s enduring appeal lies in his embodiment of the übermensch , a concept articulated by Friedrich Nietzsche in Thus Spoke Zarathustra . The übermensch represents humanity’s aspiration to transcend its limitations while retaining the essence of being human. Superman is stronger, faster, and more capable than any ordinary person, yet his emotional vulnerabilities—his love for Lois Lane, his loyalty to his adoptive parents, and his sense of responsibility to his community—ground him in a deeply human ethos. This balance between superhuman and human traits makes him a relatable yet aspirational figure.

This idea of a being that is human in appearance yet extraordinary in ability is not unique to Superman or Western storytelling. Many cultures have developed analogous figures who embody the tension between mortality and the divine, the ordinary and the extraordinary.

I am not an expert on any of these; I have enough to read at the moment. But here is some quick research and thoughts on the matter.

Mythical Figures with Superhuman Traits

Merlin (Arthurian Legend)

In the Arthurian legends, Merlin serves as a quintessential example of a human-like figure endowed with extraordinary powers. He is a prophet, a magician, and a shape-shifter whose wisdom and foresight shape the fate of King Arthur and the kingdom of Camelot. Despite his magical prowess, Merlin’s character is deeply entwined with human struggles, including the weight of his responsibilities and his complex relationships. His legend reflects humanity’s yearning for wisdom and control over the chaos of existence ( Loomis, 1956 ).

Cú Chulainn (Irish Mythology)

The Irish hero Cú Chulainn is another striking example. Known for his superhuman strength, speed, and combat skills, Cú Chulainn’s abilities push the boundaries of human potential. Yet, his vulnerabilities—from his fatalistic sense of duty to his emotional attachments—anchor him firmly in the human experience. His berserker state ( ríastrad ), which transforms him into an almost otherworldly warrior, highlights the tension between his human identity and his superhuman capabilities ( Kinsella, 1969 ).

Rostam (Persian Mythology)

Rostam, the hero of Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh , exemplifies superhuman prowess within a human framework. From his childhood, when he kills an elephant with a single blow, to his later exploits wearing enchanted armour, Rostam’s abilities mark him as extraordinary. Yet his relationships, his tragic flaws, and ultimately, his death remind us of his humanity. His legend resonates with themes of duty, sacrifice, and the limits of power ( Davis, 2006 ).

Contemporary Reflections on Superhuman Traits

Modern literature and media continue to explore this archetype. From genetically enhanced mutants in X-Men to ordinary individuals discovering latent superhuman abilities, these narratives persist because they address universal questions about identity, potential, and belonging. Even real-world examples of seemingly superhuman feats—such as Alex Honnold’s free solo climbing or Isao Machii’s unparalleled reflexes as a swordsman—capture our fascination with pushing human limits ( Schneider, 2018 ).

Interestingly, contemporary psychology offers a different lens on human potential. Brené Brown’s research into vulnerability reframes emotional openness and resilience as a kind of superpower ( Brown, 2012 ). This perspective shifts the focus from physical or cognitive abilities to the strength of emotional and social connections, suggesting that the essence of being extraordinary may lie in embracing our humanity rather than transcending it.

The Superman Archetype Across Cultures

The anthropological exploration of perfection offers further insight into Superman’s resonance. Amir Zekrgoo’s work discusses the “superior man” as envisioned in traditional cosmology, a being that transcends earthly limitations to achieve harmony of body, soul, and spirit. Such figures exist in various traditions: the Jivan-mukta of Indian thought, God’s vicegerent in Islamic theology, or the Chakravartin in Buddhist and Hindu traditions ( Zekrgoo, 2011 ). These archetypes mirror Superman’s duality as both human and transcendent.

In Malay culture, the “manusia bertuah” or the “fortunate man” reflects ideals similar to Superman’s. Rooted in the traditional literary form of pantun , this concept emphasizes moral integrity, humility, and wisdom while celebrating human excellence. It showcases how diverse cultures articulate the aspiration to balance superhuman capabilities with human virtues ( Tarwiyani, 2020 ).

Moreover, Nathania Hendriks’ theological exploration situates Superman within the broader narrative of Christ figures in popular culture. Superman’s origin story and moral compass echo the saviour archetype, transcending the secular-sacred divide to resonate as a cultural and spiritual touchstone. This reinforces his role as a beacon of hope and moral strength, appealing across cultural and theological lines ( Hendriks, 2017 ).

A Universal Desire

The figures of Superman, Merlin, Cú Chulainn, and Rostam, among others, reveal a universal cultural motif: the desire to transcend the ordinary while remaining connected to what makes us human. Whether through myth, legend, or modern storytelling, these archetypes reflect our fascination with the boundaries of human potential. They remind us that striving to be “more” need not mean abandoning our essential humanity but embracing it in its fullest, most aspirational form.

The emotional resonance of Superman, for me and others, is not merely about his ability to leap tall buildings or stop runaway trains. It’s about his embodiment of hope, commitment to justice, and unwavering humanity despite his extraordinary powers. Superman and his counterparts in myth and legend challenge us to dream, strive, and remain steadfast in our connections to each other. They remind us that being human—with a capital “B”—is itself an extraordinary aspiration.

For now, I’ll enjoy Superman as an escape from reality and to reignite the imagination of the 7 year old in me. It was and will be part of my lived experience and Being in this world.

References

Brown, B. (2012). Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead. Gotham Books.

Davis, D. (2006). Epic and Sedition: The Case of Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh. University of Wisconsin Press.

Hendriks, N. (2017). Superman: The Man and the Myth – A Theological Exploration of the Influence of Popular Culture on Masculinity. Stellenbosch University.

Kinsella, T. (1969). The Táin. Oxford University Press.

Loomis, R. S. (1956). The Development of Arthurian Romance. Hutchinson.

Schneider, P. (2018). The Impossible Climb: Alex Honnold, El Capitan, and the Climbing Life. Penguin Random House.

Tarwiyani, T. (2020). “The Concept of ‘Superman’ in the Riau Community’s Pantun : Overview of Anthropology Metaphysics.” Technium Social Sciences Journal, Vol. 12.

Zekrgoo, A. H. (2011). “From Superman to Superior Man: Anthropology of Perfection in Traditional Cosmology.” Kanz Philosophia, Vol. 1(2).

Grassroots Activism Matters

Thu, 19 Dec 2024 05:01:00 GMT

Grassroots activism is the lifeblood of community resilience. When big projects threaten the places we live, it’s often these small, local groups that rise up to protect our homes, our environments, and our way of life. Grassroots movements like the Darley Power Fight and Stop Labour’s Towers are standing against the construction of overhead powerlines, and they show why these efforts are so crucial for our communities.

At its core, grassroots activism is about people taking a stand when their voices might otherwise be ignored. It’s about individuals coming together to make sure their concerns are heard, challenging powerful interests that often seem unstoppable. The fight to “ bury the cables ” in the Darley area is a perfect example of this. It’s not just about avoiding the sight of powerlines—it’s about protecting the environment, ensuring public health, and preserving the community’s character. Grassroots groups turn abstract projects into personal stories, helping others understand what’s at stake.

A perfect case study of grassroots success is the Traveston Dam protest in Queensland. When the dam project threatened local ecosystems and community livelihoods, it was local residents who came together to stop it. Their victory showed what can happen when people unite under a shared purpose: they challenged the government, made their case clear, and ultimately won. The protest succeeded because it was driven by those who cared most deeply—the people living in the area—and they framed their message in a way that addressed environmental, economic, and cultural concerns.

The success of grassroots activism lies in its ability to unify people around a common goal while respecting individual voices. This was evident in both DPF and SLT. These groups show how powerful it is when communities take their future into their own hands. My research into these groups, demonstrated how local campaigns can use online tools to mobilise and amplify their message, even against the odds. I saw firsthand how digital platforms enabled these groups to come together, curate a message, and maintain momentum.

However, maintaining this momentum isn’t easy. One challenge for grassroots groups is making sure that all voices are heard—not just the loudest or most passionate ones. Sometimes, there’s a temptation to simplify messages for the sake of unity, but this comes with a risk. Oversimplification makes it easier for stakeholders to dismiss concerns. Instead, when diverse voices are heard—environmental worries, economic fears, cultural connections—the movement becomes much stronger and harder to ignore.

The strength of grassroots movements is also in the individual stories they tell. The Darley Power Fight isn’t just about protesting a powerline; it’s about protecting a community from losing something precious—whether that’s local wildlife, public health, or even just the comfort of a familiar landscape. These stories make the movement relatable and harder to dismiss. The truth is, every single voice matters.

If we want our communities to be heard, we need to get involved. Groups like DPF and SLT exist to amplify these voices, but they can only do so if people step up and share their stories. Grassroots activism is proof that even in the face of powerful interests, collective action can bring about real change. Your story could be the one that makes all the difference.

Darely Power Fight

Stop Labour’s Towers

Cultural Perceptions of Blood: Gift vs. Commodity

Wed, 18 Dec 2024 05:31:00 GMT

Blood holds profound symbolic and practical significance across cultures, often occupying a unique position between gift and commodity. This duality reflects deeper societal values and highlights modern societies’ complex relationship between altruism, economics, and health.

Blood as a Gift

In many cultures, blood donation is viewed as a supreme act of altruism. The notion of blood as a gift is deeply rooted in cultural and religious beliefs that emphasise selflessness and community solidarity. Blood is seen as a life-giving substance, and donating it is considered a noble act of saving lives.

This perspective is particularly evident in voluntary, non-remunerated blood donation systems. In his seminal work “The Gift Relationship,” Richard Titmuss argued that treating blood as a freely given gift leads to a safer, more efficient, and morally superior blood supply system. This view aligns with cultural narratives that frame blood donation as a civic duty and a way to contribute to society.

In India, for example, religious gurus have played a significant role in promoting blood donation as a sacred ritual and an expression of devotion. This cultural framing has been instrumental in overcoming initial scepticism about Western medical practices and increasing donation rates.

Blood as a Commodity

Contrasting with the gift paradigm is the view of blood as a commodity. This perspective is most apparent in systems where donors are compensated for their contributions, particularly in plasma donation. The global plasma industry, valued at around US$24 billion, relies heavily on paid donations.

The commodification of blood raises ethical questions and practical concerns. Critics argue that it may exploit vulnerable populations and potentially compromise the safety of the blood supply. In the United States, for instance, many individuals living below the poverty line depend on income from selling their plasma.

Cultural Variations and Implications

Cultural perceptions of blood vary significantly across societies:

Ownership and Identity : Some cultures view blood as personal property, while others see it as a universal substance. This affects attitudes towards donation and transfusion.
Kinship and Family : In many cultures, blood symbolises family ties. This can lead to a preference for donating blood to family members rather than strangers.
Religious and Spiritual Beliefs : Blood often holds spiritual significance, influencing donation practices. Some religions encourage donation as an act of charity, while others may have restrictions.
Social and Racial Dynamics : In some contexts, blood donation intersects with issues of race and social equality. For example, in post-apartheid South Africa, changes in blood donation policies have been linked to broader social reconciliation efforts.

Resolving the Gift-Commodity Tension

The tension between viewing blood as a gift or a commodity has practical implications for blood collection systems. Some researchers propose a “double altruism” approach, where donors can choose to direct their compensation to charitable causes. This model attempts to maintain the moral high ground of altruistic donation while providing incentives to increase supply.

Conclusion

The cultural perceptions of blood as both gift and commodity reflect broader societal values and tensions. While the gift model aligns with ideals of altruism and community, the commodity model addresses practical needs for increasing blood supply. Understanding these cultural dynamics is crucial for developing effective and culturally sensitive blood donation systems to meet growing global health needs while respecting diverse cultural perspectives.

As we navigate these complex issues, it’s essential to consider how blood donation systems can be designed to honor the spirit of giving while ensuring an adequate and safe blood supply for all who need it. This may involve innovative approaches that bridge cultural divides and address both the symbolic and practical aspects of blood in modern healthcare systems.

https://nomadit.co.uk/conference/easa2012/paper/7813/paper-download.pdf
https://futurumcareers.com/blood-sect-and-fears
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8458749/
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01459740.2023.2187295
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4997900/
https://www.sapiens.org/culture/blood-plasma-donation-gift-commodity/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5665255/
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0188765
https://www.jstor.org/stable/90012088

Why Understanding People is More Complicated Than You Think

Thu, 12 Dec 2024 17:40:00 GMT

A New Way to Rethink Your Audience

Ever feel like traditional marketing tools don’t quite capture the complexity of real people? Most marketing relies on one-size-fits-all approaches , like static personas or fixed customer journeys. But humans are dynamic, influenced by countless factors—and that’s where traditional methods fall short.

By borrowing ideas from anthropology , the study of people and cultures, we can rethink how we understand and connect with our audience. This article introduces a fresh approach, using concepts like Continuum Personas and Loops to better reflect the complexities of human behaviour.

This is a quick summary of where my thoughts are at by the end of 2024.

The Human Puzzle: Why Traditional Personas Fall Short

Marketing personas are simplified sketches of ideal customers, like “Jane, the busy mom.” While they’re useful for creating focus, they can feel too rigid and out of touch with the messy reality of human lives.

People don’t fit neatly into boxes. Life is unpredictable, and behaviours shift constantly by the year, month, day, hour or even minutes. For example, Jane may not always act like a busy mom—sometimes, she’s a professional, a friend, or someone scrolling through social media, born in Peru, Living in Camberwell. We miss out on these finer details when we treat her as one homegenised identity.

A Better Approach: Continuum Personas

I have been working on the concept of Continuum Personas for sometime. Imagine if we could represent people more realistically, capturing their changing priorities and behaviours over time. That’s the idea behind Continuum Personas . These personas are:

Flexible: They adapt as people’s lives change.
Probabilistic: They describe ranges of likely behaviours rather than fixed traits.
Interconnected: They consider how various characteristics (like age, income, and location) influence decisions.

Think of planning a beach holiday. You might expect sunny weather, but you also pack for rain—just in case. Continuum Personas work similarly: they prepare us for various possibilities, not just one ideal scenario.

Example: Fitness Trackers

Let’s say a company sells fitness trackers. Traditional personas might target “Jane, the health enthusiast”. A Continuum Persona approach looks at how Jane’s interest evolves:

She starts as a casual walker, just daily walk with her dog.
A year later, she’s training for a 10k fun run with her friends.
After that, she uses the tracker to improve her sleep due to pains from a training expercise
She then just walks her dog, tracker is now in a drawer.

By thinking this way, the company can create campaigns that resonate and engage with Jane at each stage of her journey, and back again.

Why People Don’t Take Straight Paths: The Loop Concept

Marketers often use customer journeys to map how people discover, consider, and buy products. But real life rarely works like this. A typical journey might assume: “First, they see an ad. Then, they visit the website. Finally, they make a purchase.” What happens when someone sees your ad but doesn’t click? Or hear about your product again six months later? People’s behaviours loop back, overlap, and change over time.

Continuum Loops capture this non-linear reality. Instead of thinking about straight paths, think of loops as evolving stories:

They’re flexible: People can enter and exit at any point.
They’re layered: Each interaction adds depth to the relationship.
They’re ongoing: There’s no fixed endpoint—just opportunities to reconnect.

Example: A Coffee Brand

Imagine a local coffee brand. Traditional marketing might focus on a single journey:

See an ad.
Visit the shop.
Buy coffee.

A loop approach acknowledges that the customer’s journey might look different:

First, they pass by the shop and notice the smell.
Weeks later, a friend recommended the coffee.
They visit the shop but don’t buy anything.
Months later, they see an ad online and finally make a purchase.

This layered approach better reflects real-life behaviours. Adding cultural/social contexts, like friends or events adds even greater richness.

Why Anthropology?

Anthropology helps us understand people in their real-world environments. It’s not about reducing people to numbers—it’s about observing their habits, culture, and emotions to uncover what drives them. For example, imagine studying why a group of friends chooses one café over another. Is it the coffee, the vibe, or the Wi-Fi? Anthropology helps us uncover these hidden dynamics, making our marketing strategies more human.

What This Means for You

This approach has benefits for both businesses and customers:

For businesses: You can stop guessing what your audience wants and start understanding how they think and act. This leads to better campaigns and stronger relationships.
For customers: You’ll experience brands that connect with you personally meaningfully instead of treating you like a sales number.

The Big Picture: Marketing That Feels Human

This isn’t about using fancy tools or confusing strategies. It’s about paying attention to real people and their lives.

By adopting Continuum Personas and Continuum Loops, businesses can move beyond labels and engage with audiences in dynamic, authentic ways. People aren’t static—they’re wonderfully complex, and your marketing should be.

Empathy and Understanding: Communicating with Impacted Communities

Fri, 15 Nov 2024 23:23:00 GMT

In the context of contested infrastructure projects, communication with affected communities often becomes fraught with tension. Developers and policymakers frequently underestimate the importance of empathy and understanding, focusing instead on top-down dissemination of information. Successful projects like the Victorian Government’s Level Crossing Removal Project demonstrate the value of prioritising local engagement and incorporating community feedback.

These projects can build trust and reduce opposition by involving affected residents in shaping decisions and narratives. However, fostering meaningful dialogue requires more than information sharing—it demands a deep engagement with the lived realities of the people impacted. Drawing on anthropological insights, mainly from my thesis, this article explores how strategic essentialism and digital ethnography can support and hinder communication efforts, emphasising the need for empathy as a counterbalance.

Core Challenges in Community Communication

Unity vs. Diversity

Strategic essentialism, as Gayatri Spivak theorised, has proven to be a powerful tool for uniting communities against common threats. By temporarily simplifying identities, groups can present a cohesive front to resist hegemonic forces. Yet, this unity often comes at a cost: the suppression of diverse internal voices and the risk of homogenising complex community dynamics. For example, in campaigns like the Darley Power Fight (DPF), strategic essentialism enabled effective mobilisation but also raised questions about whose voices were being amplified and who were silenced.

Empathy Deficits in Messaging

Infrastructure proponents often fail to approach affected communities with genuine empathy. Their communications tend to prioritise technical data and economic rationales over understanding those impacted’s personal, emotional, and cultural stakes. This was evident in cases like the Traveston Crossing Dam campaign, where local communities felt ignored despite their deep connection to the land and its cultural significance.

Digital Representations and Realities

Digital platforms, while powerful tools for advocacy, can also perpetuate reductive narratives. However, when used effectively, these platforms offer unique opportunities to craft nuanced and diverse narratives that resonate with a broader audience. By leveraging multimedia storytelling, interactive content, and real-time community engagement, organisations can highlight the multifaceted identities within affected communities. This approach strengthens the authenticity of communication and fosters deeper connections and trust among stakeholders. Curated content often simplifies complex community identities, creating a gap between digital representations and lived realities. This disconnect risks eroding trust and undermining efforts to build authentic relationships with communities.

Case Study: Lessons from Darley Power Fight (DPF)

Empathy in Action

The DPF campaign demonstrated the importance of storytelling and community narratives. By sharing testimonials and personal experiences, the campaign fostered a sense of solidarity and collective identity. However, as Clifford Geertz’s ‘thick description’ concept suggests, quantitative and qualitative data alone cannot capture the full scope of lived experiences. In the context of AusNet’s projects, operationalising ‘thick description’ means going beyond surface-level metrics to deeply understand the cultural, emotional, and symbolic dimensions of community concerns. This could involve immersive fieldwork, storytelling sessions with residents, or incorporating ethnographic methods into consultation processes. By focusing on the rich textures of human experience, AusNet can craft communication strategies that resonate more authentically with the affected communities, addressing their fears and aspirations meaningfully. The depth of these narratives underscores the anthropological importance of interpreting the symbolic meanings behind these stories, allowing for a richer understanding of how communities construct and share their collective identity.

Strategic Essentialism and Its Counterbalance

While DPF’s strategic essentialism unified the community under the rallying cry “Bury the Cables”, it also risked overshadowing internal diversity. While broad and deeply rooted, these concerns were often masked by the collective call to action. To address this, the campaign employed digital tools to surface a spectrum of problems—from environmental protection to property values and health risks—ensuring that varied voices were represented while highlighting the richness and depth of the community’s lived experiences.

Digital Cadence

The timing, frequency, and tone of DPF’s communications played a critical role in sustaining engagement. These groups often responded more effectively to larger, infrequent communications. However, more frequent and focused updates resonated individually, fostering a more profound connection that complemented group-wide strategies. This deliberate cadence ensured that the community’s collective and individual concerns felt acknowledged and included.

Empathy as a Counter to Strategic Essentialism

Intersectionality in Action

Incorporating intersectionality into communication strategies helps counteract the limitations of strategic essentialism. Recognising communities’ overlapping identities and concerns—such as cultural heritage, environmental stewardship, and economic stability—ensures a more inclusive narrative. For instance, addressing the specific problems of First Nations peoples alongside broader community interests can enrich collective advocacy.

Creating Space for Authenticity

Authentic engagement requires moving beyond curated narratives to tell the story of the humans behind the project rather than the faceless corporation. For example, in the West Gate Tunnel Project, community engagement efforts shifted to include personal stories of how the project would positively impact lives, such as reducing travel times and improving neighbourhood connections. This human-centred storytelling approach softened opposition and fostered a sense of shared purpose between the project team and the community. This approach softens the hegemonic power struggle that communities may perceive, fostering trust through participatory workshops, open forums, and digital platforms that invite unfiltered feedback and dialogue.

Participatory Approaches

Co-creating communication strategies with affected communities fosters a sense of ownership and trust. This approach involves jointly constructing narratives that resonate with the community’s lived experiences and reflect the shared journey of understanding between stakeholders and residents. By prioritising the human stories behind the project and integrating community voices at every step, these strategies can transform potential conflict into collaboration, creating inclusive, authentic, and significant narratives.

Comparative Lessons from Australian Case Studies

The Traveston Crossing Dam Campaign

The campaign against the Traveston Dam is a case study of how the powers behind the project failed to communicate with affected communities effectively. By relying heavily on scientific and economic narratives, the project proponents overlooked the cultural and social concerns central to the community’s identity. This failure to acknowledge and incorporate these more profound human stories reinforced perceptions of a hegemonic power dynamic, which alienated many stakeholders. A more empathetic and inclusive communication strategy—one that foregrounded the lived experiences and values of the community—could have softened tensions and fostered collaboration rather than opposition.

West Gate Tunnel

A compelling example is the West Gate Tunnel Project in Melbourne, where community concerns over construction impacts, such as noise, dust, and disruptions to local businesses, were initially overlooked. However, the project’s eventual success in mitigating conflict lay in its pivot toward sustained, empathetic engagement. The project team established direct consultation channels, implemented noise barriers, compensation schemes, and dedicated support for impacted businesses.

For AusNet, such measures could be adapted by creating open forums where affected community members can directly voice their concerns, offering tailored compensation programs for those most impacted, and implementing visual or environmental mitigation strategies that align with the specific values of the community. Proactively embedding these approaches into early project planning would demonstrate a commitment to collaboration and build trust from the outset.

Additionally, storytelling efforts highlighting the project’s human benefits—such as improved commute times and community connectivity—helped reframe the narrative, softening opposition. This approach underscores how consistent communication, empathetic responses to specific concerns, and a willingness to adapt strategies can address diverse stakeholder needs effectively throughout a project’s lifecycle.

Rail Crossing Removal Project

The Victorian Government’s Level Crossing Removal Project provides a strong example of effective community engagement. By engaging each local community individually, the project demonstrated a commitment to understanding and addressing specific local concerns. This was achieved through a series of town hall meetings, interactive workshops, and direct consultations, ensuring that every stakeholder had a platform to voice their needs and priorities.

Community feedback was not only gathered but visibly incorporated into the plans, with residents witnessing tangible changes reflecting their input—such as the inclusion of safer pedestrian crossings or noise reduction measures. This iterative and responsive approach not only reduced resistance over time but also fostered a sense of shared ownership in the project’s success. By focusing on transparency, open dialogue, and visible action, the project transformed potential opposition into collaboration and provided a model for how similar initiatives can succeed.

Considerations for Communicating with Affected Communities

Foster Empathy at Every Stage
- Begin by collaboratively uncovering and building shared stories rooted in community values and lived experiences.
- Train teams in empathy-based engagement practices to prioritise listening over persuading.
Balance Unity with Diversity
- Use strategic essentialism sparingly, ensuring mechanisms are in place to amplify diverse voices.
- Actively seek out and incorporate marginalised perspectives.
Leverage Digital Tools Thoughtfully
- Avoid tokenistic narratives; prioritise genuine engagement through storytelling and interactive platforms.
- Use data-driven insights to tailor communications to specific community concerns.
Multi-Channel Approach
1. Due to the digital divide in our community, non-digital communications are essential—radio, regional TV, press, direct mail, and community information sessions.
Focus on Co-Creation
- Involve communities in shaping messages’ content and delivery.
- Foster transparency and shared ownership in communication strategies.
Commit to Long-Term Relationships
- Maintain engagement beyond the immediate crisis or project timeline.
- Build trust through consistent, honest, and empathetic interactions.

AI & Emerging Technology

New technologies can play a transformative role in bridging gaps between project organisers and affected communities. Predictive analytics can help identify community concerns before they escalate, while automated translation services enable communication across language barriers, ensuring inclusivity. Real-time feedback analysis powered by AI can also assist in gauging the sentiment of community responses and tailoring strategies accordingly.

For instance, interactive chatbots and digital platforms can respond instantly to frequently asked questions, reducing frustration and building transparency. By leveraging these tools thoughtfully, AusNet and similar organisations can craft more dynamic, responsive, and empathetic communication strategies that meet the diverse needs of their stakeholders.

Conclusion

Empathy and understanding are indispensable in anthropological approaches to community communication. Developers, activists, and policymakers can build trust and foster sustainable outcomes by countering reductive frameworks like strategic essentialism with inclusive and authentic strategies. For example, campaigns like DPF and Traveston Dam highlight how participatory approaches—such as engaging residents through storytelling sessions or co-design workshops—can help illuminate the diverse perspectives within a community.

These strategies honour the complexity of human identities and experiences, moving beyond mere consultation to true collaboration. By fostering dialogue, embedding transparency, and creating spaces for shared narratives, we not only address immediate challenges but also lay the groundwork for meaningful, long-term relationships. These efforts are essential in transforming oppositional dynamics into cooperative engagements, ensuring sustainable outcomes that resonate with all stakeholders.

Sabotage and the Question of Workplace Culture

Fri, 15 Nov 2024 01:38:00 GMT

So imagine you have been working tirelessly for a couple of years, honing your skills, delivering results, and proving your worth, all on a low salary so you can break into a new career. Finally, an exciting opportunity comes along—a new role with better pay, growth prospects, and the chance to advance your career. Your hard work is paying off, and you are valued.

But just as you are about to seize it, contracts signed, the opportunity is pulled from under you. At the core of the reasons is that someone in your current workplace—a manager, perhaps—has deliberately intervened to keep you where you are.

Sabotage? Absolutely.

This scenario raises important questions about workplace culture and power dynamics :

What happens when loyalty is prioritised over opportunity?
How do we deal with the ideals of ‘meritocracy’ with the reality of gatekeeping?
How can organisations foster trust and fairness when sabotage undermines employee growth?

This kind of experience isn’t hypothetical—it’s a harsh reality. I have seen it happen to many good people, even today. It underscores a disconnect in some workplaces between valuing employees as assets to the business and valuing them as individuals with aspirations. They are not circus animals for corporate amusement.

The impact of such actions goes beyond the individual affected. It erodes trust, demoralises teams, and creates a culture where hard work isn’t rewarded but controlled and micro-managed.

Leaders, managers, and colleagues need to ask themselves:

Are we supporting the growth of those around us, even if it means letting them move on?
Are we creating environments where people feel valued and empowered to succeed, not just for the organisation, but for themselves?

Opportunities should be celebrated, not sabotaged. Growth should be encouraged, not stifled. A true leader knows that success isn’t about holding people back—it’s about lifting them up, even when it’s inconvenient.

What’s your take? Have you experienced or witnessed situations like this? How do we, as a professional community, do better?

#WorkplaceCulture #Leadership #GrowthMindset #CareerDevelopment #TrustInLeadership