Finding Soho

The Bonesetter’s Fee and Other Stories by Australian author Rashida Murphy is a collection of short stories that span a childhood in India and adulthood in Australia. The evocative stories in the first half of the book transport the Indian diaspora reader to a distant but still intensely familiar Indian landscape. They capture the unique cadences and life rhythms of a past era in that country. The interiority of homes and domestic landscapes features pre-eminently in the stories. Memory is a powerful trope in her writing. The domestic landscape that emerges through her writing is suffused with the joyous conviviality and haunting hostility of familial figures. The interior world of family lives takes the foreground in her stories while the outside world of the era looms quietly in the background. The characters’ beliefs, attitudes and behaviours form the prism through which the influences of the outside world on the domestic family universe can be observed and understood. The interfac...

Social media platforms, particularly Facebook, facilitate neighbourhood networking through pages and groups created for discussion about local issues. Around Australia, for example, many suburbs, towns and remote communities have Facebook pages and groups dedicated to neighbourhood networking.  Without exception, all of these have been created by people who've taken the initiative to start these groups where (perhaps) none existed before, and continue to be administered by these people and others who've volunteered to taken on the mantle of triaging requests to join the group and moderating discussions among members.  Effectively, these volunteers, who are performing a community service without receiving any remuneration for their work, become the de facto regulators of neighbourhood public sphere interaction.  Because social media can now be the only space where communities exchange information about local needs, issues, events and happenings (from the mundane to the ext...

Systems that govern economic transactions can be inherently opaque. While there is an expectation of transparency, the reality can be quite different, and the consequences of a lack of transparency can be significant. There is a cultural tendency to preserve the lack of transparency in economic transactions, and this is something that appears to be an inheritance of the pre-21st century political economy. For example, there is a tendency in the language of contractual laws to allow opportunities for the contravention of transparency obligations. This language is ingrained in the discourse of the professionals who manage these systems. The values attached to secrecy around economic transactions pervade the systems and create a culture where transparency is deemed to be something that needs to be 'managed'. For novices - people who have not properly interacted with these systems before - the sudden realisation that there are so many hitherto unknown nuances to transactions, which...

How does one understand the value of time for someone whose liberty has been curtailed for many years? In thinking about years of life and liberty lost, there are a number of crucial factors to consider for which we have no reliable measure except perhaps what know from our own experience - lost opportunity to grow into the world with your loved ones, develop an identity, nurture friendships, find love, explore the horizons of your world and beyond, learn complex things, experience ageing and physically, emotionally and intellectually changing over time, and so much more. How does one even estimate the value of lost time? It is almost impossible to do this. No belief or knowledge system can help one appreciate the value of lost time. So, given the impossibility of this task, do we have adequate ways of considering the value of lost time in building safeguards against gross errors in processes designed to impose confinement and confiscation of liberty? If so, how do we acknowledge and r...

What does the documentary series The Innocence Files teach us? There is a lot to learn about the challenges and flaws of justice systems and about the humanity and compassion of those who go against the grain to fight for the rights of people whose lives have been wrongly and unfairly destroyed by wrongful prosecution and conviction. There is a lot to learn about the seemingly superhuman capacity for patience and perseverance that some people demonstrate even in the face of the most trying of circumstances, where hope has been completely snatched away from them and even the absolute truth cannot save them. There is a lot to learn about the failings and ill will of people entrusted to protect people's rights and serve justice, and how flawed decision-making or malicious persecution can irreparably destroy innocent people's lives. But there is something that the documentary series cannot teach us at all, because it is impossible to fathom and almost impossible to articulate - tha...

Against a backdrop of increasing migration from Asia to Australia, the experience of Asian visitors and immigrants coming into Australia has changed over time; rather than disorientation, Asian migrants coming to Australia may experience a relatively more comfortable ‘settling in’. Drawing on existing networks and connections with established Australian residents (occasionally facilitated by family networks back home), new visitors and migrants can foster a sense of community fairly quickly and use support networks to gather information, manage the logistics of travel or settlement and participate in social events. The traditional pressures that attend physical relocation may thus feel less urgent and onerous, and the affective impacts of cultural adjustment may be less significant. Communities of settled migrants can provide a potentially helpful safety net or point of reference for newly arrived migrants, making these people feel like a part of an existing community and thus helping ...

It suddenly occurred to me yesterday how normal I find the experience of living among people from so many different cultures and countries. I went to a Greek restaurant and knew exactly what to order and how to pronounce it correctly. I did it almost unconsciously and the transaction was over quite quickly because I was so precise. (I became conscious of this because the customer before me was asking about every item and still trying to figure out what to order.) But later on, I thought to myself, how did I become this person who knows all this information? Because I didn't grow up in this setting. But now the experience is so familiar and so ingrained, I can't imagine life otherwise. The person that I was before would look upon me now and find it odd that I am familiar with the cultures, objects and tastes of so many different ethnicities and nationalities. But to the person that I am now, that is ordinary. There are so many ways in which I and so many others who have experien...

TW: self-harm This is an incredibly sad report. The tragic circumstances surrounding this man's death are heartbreaking. But it is clear that he was someone who was determined to seek help. He was an ABI survivor who underwent post-acute rehabilitation and expressed his intentions to persevere and live his best life in a succinct and powerful way. He was determined to continue to heal and recover. And, from the brief glimpse into his life that this report offers, it is apparent that he was engaging with mental health professionals in order to persevere with his recovery. It is sad that he experienced the crisis and desolation that led to his death. It sounds like he was courageous, willing and able to seek help when he needed it most. This tragic story indicates that mental health and psychiatric nursing has the potential to contribute in a powerful way to securing and safeguarding lives at critical moments. Rehabilitation care too is such an important field. This is where people ...

 “We have seen that imagining an act engages the same motor and sensory programs that are involved in doing it. We have long viewed our imaginative life with a kind of sacred awe: as noble, pure, immaterial, and ethereal, cut off from our material brain. Now we cannot be so sure about where to draw the line between them. Everything your “immaterial” mind imagines leaves material traces. Each thought alters the physical state of your brain synapses at a microscopic level. Each time you imagine moving your fingers across the keys to play the piano, you alter the tendrils in your living brain. These experiments are not only delightful and intriguing, they also overturn the centuries of confusion that have grown out of the work of the French philosopher René Descartes, who argued that mind and brain are made of different substances and are governed by different laws. The brain, he claimed, was a physical, material thing, existing in space and obeying the laws of physics. The mind (or t...

How does one manage biographical confusion?  The past is a different country - they do things differently there. LP Hartley was absolutely spot-on.  It can be difficult to explain biographical transitions and new roles - at what point did one stop working on one thing and then start on another? How did that come about? When did one start to retrain? These are all difficult to encapsulate in a brief profile.  In the past, people's career choices rarely evolved. Now, changing career or disciplinary pathways appears to be quite common. But one has to manage this well because the confusion that may be generated may be quite detrimental to one's interests.  I don't think that anyone needs to explain why they shifted gears. Everyone should have the freedom to shift gears when they are able to do so and do it at their own pace. But it can be challenging to rationalise this for others.  There are so many people today who are retraining later on in life. They may have al...

The COVID-19 pandemic has upended life in a lot of ways. Its impact on a lot of people's lives has been enormous.  A lot of people are in distress. A lot of people are angry - angry about the pandemic's effects on their lives, and the restrictions that have been imposed.  And some of it is, seemingly, being channeled into aggression against random strangers in public places.  While it's neither particularly important, given all that's happening right now, nor something that can be quantified, there is some palpable aggression in the air and this is sometimes manifesting as racially-charged aggression.  There was some media coverage of racist incidents in various places, including Melbourne, early on in the pandemic. Since then, there hasn't been much information about such incidents.  However, I have seen some (what I suppose is) racially-charged aggression.  I've come across racist graffiti and vandalism.  I've come across some road rage that may pote...

Among other factors, one factor that distinguishes health services research in developed countries from health services research in developing countries is that the former uses a strong implementation science framework to drive and measure quality improvement. There is a strong emphasis on measuring and assessing service delivery and the implementation of initiatives. Busy clinicians don’t always have the time to measure and assess service delivery, or to undertake implementation research. Healthcare managers can help to do this work but the discipline of healthcare management does not really exist outside developed countries. It has also been quite enlightening to see how qualitative research methods and approaches are used in healthcare research (for example, to understand patient experiences or clinicians’ perspectives on barriers to and enablers of quality improvement) in developed countries. Sometimes, systems-related quality improvement initiatives can make a huge difference, ev...

Is there space for reflection in this increasingly crowded and fast-paced world? The world seems to be hurtling towards a crowded and busy future, and I feel, increasingly, like I'm falling behind. This is because I am becoming increasingly aware of the importance of reflection and connection with the present. I have experienced a powerful disruption that has forced me to reconsider my disconnection from family and community, from a sense of being embedded in the lives of my loved ones - I have experienced something that has made me very conscious of the fact that time is limited. And, whenever I become engrossed in the minutae of day-to-day living, and planning for the future, I slip back into an unreflective mode, oblivious to the passing of time and the passing of opportunities for connecting with those who matter. This is not enough. 

What turns anyone into a ‘cog in the machine’ of repressive state violence, and how does this happen? The philosopher Hannah Arendt investigated this after the Holocaust. How does a person become a weapon of the state, executing actions and inflicting violence (ostensibly legitimately) on behalf of the state, particularly when they know that the victims are innocent (for want of a better word) fellow citizens who have come together to fight for justice. I know that a lot of people would like to claim that they would be immune to the process if they found themselves in that position; that they would resist the state’s demands and injunctions, and not become a tool of repressive violence. But can one really choose to resist at the crucial moment? Can we suddenly break free from the conceptual, physical and economic bonds that tether us to everything that we know as good, true and worthy of obedience? Sure, maybe there were people - in many different historical contexts - who fully belie...

I would like to write an article aimed at academics, and readers who are interested in education and (particularly) higher education. The academic publishing model is staid and exploitative. Writers and their universities are charged exorbitant fees for the privilege of being published. But there is little, if any, editorial support in the process and, as a result, the quality of the work may not be perfect. Most publishers have outsourced their production work to external operators, often in India and the Philippines, to reduce labour costs. This process has been accompanied by a decimation of the role of the editor, who would otherwise play the role of a guardian of quality. This is egregious, particularly in light of the fact that the academic publishing industry is so profitable. Scholars who have English as a second language may not have the flair of the best writers, and may need time to improve the minor language errors that may mar their work. Everything that goes online n...

Using technology that’s nascent and fallible requires an extra level of patience and willingness to relinquish attachments to expectations of perfection and smooth sailing.  Humans are hard-wired to expect routine and tried-and-tested performance. And it’s not easy for us to contend with the uncertainty of system dropouts.  When the expected routine is interrupted, we confront our ingrained fearful reactions to breakdown and failure. Technology compels us to surrender, howeve r unwillingly, to failure. In this way, the event of technical or technological failure is a powerful circuit breaker of our neural circuitry.

How a society treats its weaker and sicker members is a pretty good indicator of its development potential. An underdeveloped country that has a culture of support for social security can potentially quickly and equitably utilise aid and resources to improve quality of life, whereas countries that have a dominant culture of hostility towards weaker citizens and residents are likely to struggle with improvement of quality of life, even with external support. There’s a link between culturally-informed ‘emotional’ attributes (solidarity vs hostility) and socio-economic wellbeing.

Eurovision can teach us a fair few things about life. These are things that we already know but Eurovision helps dramatise the lessons in an inimitably glorious way. Style over substance It is a truth universally acknowledged, that Eurovision is more about pomp, glitz, glamour, pyrotechnics and performance than it is about music per se. It is about exuberance, mirth, irreverent satire, celebration and deep emotion. Happy and cheerful songs; saucy songs; lugubrious songs; bellicose screeches; plaintive cries of longing and loss – Eurovision gives us all genres and emotions. Some of the songs that are performed are absolutely amazing, and there can be little doubt that the singers performing them are virtuosos. But, at Eurovision, performative virtuosity trumps musical virtuosity. Exceptions notwithstanding, performance is paramount. Eurovision is a riotous conflagration of colour and (this year especially) a pyromaniac’s wet dream. Eurovision’s performative and aes...

Some thoughts on the FB ‘scandal’. Privacy is such a fraught concept. If millions of people make their political opinions and preferences known on FB, is it really surprising that this data can be (and is) harnessed? If private corporations have created a business model that is based on the harnessing of user preferences, should politics be exempt? Is it OK for FB to use my data to show me ads for a movie, for example, but not for a politician? User agreement is another interesting piece of the puzzle here.  In this instance, they key contention is that Cambridge Analytica didn't even seek the consent of the people involved (friends of users of the relevant app could have had their data harvested). This is a clear example of a breach of privacy.  But many people appear to be angry more broadly about the fact that their data was used for political purposes.  Of course most people think that they have not explicitly consented to their data being used as part of a po...

Cultural differences between Australians and Americans can extend to and visibly play out in performance spaces. Australian audiences can expect performers to be ‘relaxed’, and to engage them in a jokey, jovial or even blasé manner. Australians might appreciate some self-deprecating humour and like artistes to not take themselves too seriously. They might giggle loudly during breaks in the music to provoke the performer on stage, for example - generally in a good natured way. Americans, on the other hand, can be much more earnest, serious, passionate and intense about their work and perhaps life in general. They might find the Aussie vibe slightly disconcerting. I’m not suggesting that Aussies are unserious. They are very focused and dedicated but appreciate good humour and a self-deprecating disposition, especially in performers and public figures. American performers tend to engage with audiences in a more earnest way. In general, for most of my life, I have also been an earnest and...