We wish to invite ERMeCC colleagues and Research Master students to an ERMeCC and Vital Cities and Citizens (VCC) co-organised lunch seminar taking place on Tuesday, 7th January 2020 from 12:00 – 13:00.
Please note that lunch and drinks will be provided. Additionally, if you are in contact with MA students working on related topics, please feel free to share this invitation with them.
Below you will find more information on this event, as well as a tentative calendar of lunch seminars for the remainder of the 2019-2020 academic year.
Lecture by Jolynna Sinanan
Organized by: ERMeCC + VCC
Location: T3-06
Date and time: Jan. 7th, 12:00 - 13:00 (lunch included)
Mobile media and mobile livelihoods in the Australian coal mining industry
The strong focus on international migration has had the unfortunate result that other kinds of population movement have received less attention. FIFO (fly-in, fly-out), DIDO (drive-in, drive-out) and BIBO (bus-in, bus-out) workers in the Australian resource extraction industry I the state of Queensland are an exemplary case study of ‘north-north’ professional migration of urban, middle class populations working in remote areas, which is often understudied because their relative wealth and access to resources are taken for granted (Baldassar, 2016; Miller, 2010; Olwig and Sorensen, 2002). Middle-income, mobile long-distance commuting workers in Western, developed countries have received far less attention in relation to media ecologies and social transformation and the consequent empirical and theoretical complexities are also underdeveloped (Baldassar and Merla, 2014; Madianou and Miller, 2012). The role of digital media in overcoming the burdens of distance has received much interest in migration scholarship. Yet, despite the obvious role digital media plays for transnational families, its significance in mediating the impact of long-distance commuting work on family relationships, gendered family roles, expectations and obligations is currently unknown.
This seminar brings together these areas of inquiry to explore how mobility and absence are common features of family life. This unfolding research offers an account connecting meanings and aspirations within contemporary Australian kinship of families in Queensland’s mining industry to how family members use digital media to make and maintain relationships. Digital forms are extensions of reciprocal exchanges between people and wider socialities that reveal how workers and their families navigate expectations, obligations, negotiations and regional identities. For mobile families, prolonged periods of absence characterises experiences of family and life projects, where security within the work force is often volatile and unpredictable.
Bio: Jolynna Sinanan is a Research Fellow in Digital Media and Ethnography at the University of Sydney. She has an interdisciplinary background in anthropology and development and her research focuses on digital media practices in relation to regionally comparative mobilities, family relationships, work and gender. Her books include Social Media in Trinidad: Values and Visibility (UCL Press, 2017), Visualising Facebook: A Comparative Perspective (Miller and Sinanan, UCL Press, 2017) and Webcam (Miller and Sinanan, Polity, 2014).