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This article is about refugees’ and migrants’ dreams of home and family and stems from an Australian Research Council Linkage Grant, “A Hand Up: Disrupting the Communication of Intergenerational Welfare Dependency” (LP140100935), with Partner Organisation St Vincent de Paul Society (WA) Inc. (Vinnies). A Vinnies-supported refugee and migrant support centre was chosen as one of the hubs for interviewee recruitment, given that many refugee families experience persistent and chronic economic disadvantage. The de-identified name for the drop-in language-teaching and learning social facility is the Migrant and Refugee Homebase (MARH). At the time of the research, in 2018, refugee and forced migrant families from Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan constituted MARH’s primary membership base. MARH provided English language classes alongside other educational and financial support. It could also organise provision of emergency food and was a conduit for furniture donated by Australian families. Crucially, MARH operated as a space in which members could come together to build shared community.As part of her role, the researcher was introduced to Sara (de-identified), a mother-tongue Arabic speaker and the centre’s coordinator. Sara had personal experience of being a refugee, as well as being MARH’s manager, and she became both a point of contact for the researcher team, an interpreter/translator, and an empathetic listener as refugees shared their stories. Dreams of home and family emerged throughout the interviews as a vital part of participants’ everyday lives. These dreams and hopes were developed in the face of what was, for some, a nightmare of adversity. Underpinning participants’ sense of agency, subjectivity and resilience, Badiou argues (93, as noted in Jackson, 241) that hope can appear as a basic form of patience or perseverance rather than a dream for justice. Instead of imagining an improvement in personal circumstances, the dream is one of simply moving forward rather than backward. While dreams of being reunited with family are rooted in the past and project a vision of a family which no longer exists, these dreams help fashion a future which once again contains a range of possibilities.Although Sara volunteered her time on the research project as part of her commitment to Vinnies, she was well-known to interviewees as a MARH staff member and, in many cases, a friend and confidante. While Sara’s manager role implies an imbalance of power, with Sara powerful and participants comparatively less so, the majority of the information explored in the interviews pertained to refugees’ experiences of life outside the sphere in which MARH is engaged, so there was limited risk of the data being sanitised to reflect positively upon MARH. The specialist information and understandings that the interviewees shared positions them as experts, and as co-creators of knowledge.Recruitment and Methodological ApproachThe project researcher (Jaunzems) met potential contributors at MARH when its members gathered for a coffee morning. With Sara’s assistance, the researcher invited MARH members to take part in the research project, giving those present the opportunity to ask and have answered any questions they deemed important. Coffee morning attendees were under no obligation to take part, and about half chose not to do so, while the remainder volunteered to participate. Sara scheduled the interviews at times to suit the families participating. A parent and child from each volunteer family was interviewed, separately. In all cases it was the mother who volunteered to take part, and all interviewees chose to be interviewed in their homes. Each set of interviews was digitally recorded and lasted no longer than 90 minutes. This article includes extracts from interviews with three mothers from refugee families who escaped war-torn homelands for a new life in Australia, sometimes via interim refugee camps.The project researcher conducted the in-depth interviews with Sara’s crucial interpreting/translating assistance. The interviews followed a traditional approach, except that the researcher deferred to Sara as being more important in the interview exchange than she was. This reflects the premise that meaning is socially constructed, and that what people do and say makes visible the meanings that underpin their actions and statements within a wider social context (Burr). Conceptualising knowledge as socially constructed privileges the role of the decoder in receiving, understanding and communicating such knowledge (Crotty). Respecting the role of the interpreter/translator signified to the participants that their views, opinions and their overall cultural context were valued.Once complete, the interviews were sent for translation and transcription by a trusted bi-lingual transcriber, where both the English and Arabic exchanges were transcribed. This was deemed essential by the researchers, to ensure both the authenticity of the data collected and to demonstrate “trust, understanding, respect, and a caring connection” (Valibhoy, Kaplan, and Szwarc, 23) with the participants. Upon completion of the interviews with volunteer members of the MARH community, and at the beginning of the analysis phase, researchers recognised the need for the adoption of an interpretive framework. The interpretive approach seeks to understand an individual’s view of the world through the contexts of time, place and culture. The knowledge produced is contextualised and differs from one person to another as a result of individual subjectivities such as age, race and ethnicity, even within a shared social context (Guba and Lincoln). Accordingly, a mother-tongue Arabic speaker, who identifies as a refugee (Al-Hameed), was added to the project. All authors were involved in writing up the article while authors two, three and four took responsibility for transcript coding and analysis. In the transcripts that follow, words originally spoken in Arabic are in intalics, with non-italcised words originally spoken in English.Discrimination and BelongingAya initially fled from her home in Syria into neighbouring Jordan. She didn’t feel welcomed or supported there.[00:55:06] Aya: …in Jordan, refugees didn’t have rights, and the Jordanian schools refused to teach them [the children…] We were put aside.[00:55:49] Interpreter, Sara (to Researcher): And then she said they push us aside like you’re a zero on the left, yeah this is unfortunately the reality of our countries, I want to cry now.[00:56:10] Aya: You’re not allowed to cry because we’ll all cry.Some refugees and migrant communities suffer discrimination based on their ethnicity and perceived legitimacy as members of the host society. Although Australian refugees may have had searing experiences prior to their acceptance by Australia, migrant community members in Australia can also feel themselves “constructed in the public and political spheres as less legitimately Australian than others” (Green and Aly). Jackson argues that both refugees and migrants experiencethe impossibility of ever bridging the gap between one’s natal ties to the place one left because life was insupportable there, and the demands of the nation to which one has travelled, legally or illegally, in search of a better life. And this tension between belonging and not belonging, between a place where one has rights and a place where one does not, implies an unresolved relationship between one’s natural identity as a human being and one’s social identity as ‘undocumented migrant,’ a ‘resident alien,’ an ‘ethnic minority,’ or ‘the wretched of the earth,’ whose plight remains a stigma of radical alterity even though it inspires our compassion and moves us to political action. (223)The tension Jackson refers to, where the migrant is haunted by belonging and not belonging, is an area of much research focus. Moreover, the label of “asylum seeker” can contribute to systemic “exclusion of a marginalised and abject group of people, precisely by employing a term that emphasises the suspended recognition of a community” (Nyers). Unsurprisingly, many refugees in Australia long for the connectedness of the lives they left behind relocated in the safe spaces where they live now.Eades focuses on an emic approach to understanding refugee/migrant distress, or trauma, which seeks to incorporate the worldview of the people in distress: essentially replicating the interpretive perspective taken in the research. This emic framing is adopted in place of the etic approach that seeks to understand the distress through a Western biomedical lens that is positioned outside the social/cultural system in which the distress is taking place. Eades argues: “developing an emic approach is to engage in intercultural dialogue, raise dilemmas, test assumptions, document hopes and beliefs and explore their implications”. Furthermore, Eades sees the challenge for service providers working with refugee/migrants in distress as being able to move beyond “harm minimisation” models of care “to recognition of a facilitative, productive community of people who are in a transitional phase between homelands”. This opens the door for studies concerning the notions of attachment to place and its links to resilience and a refugee’s ability to “settle in” (for example, Myers’s ground-breaking place-making work in Plymouth).Resilient PrecariousnessChaima: We feel […] good here, we’re safe, but when we sit together, we remember what we went through how my kids screamed when the bombs came, and we went out in the car. My son was 12 and I was pregnant, every time I remember it, I go back.Alongside the dreams that migrants have possible futures are the nightmares that threaten to destabilise their daily lives. As per the work of Xavier and Rosaldo, post-migration social life is recreated in two ways: the first through participation and presence in localised events; the second by developing relationships with absent others (family and friends) across the globe through media. These relationships, both distanced and at a distance, are dispersed through time and space. In light of this, Campays and Said suggest that places of past experiences and rituals for meaning are commonly recreated or reproduced as new places of attachment abroad; similarly, other recollections and experience can trigger a sense of fragility when “we remember what we went through”. Gupta and Ferguson suggest that resilience is defined by the migrant/refugee capacity to “reimagine and re-materialise” their lost heritage in their new home. This involves a sense of connection to the good things in the past, while leaving the bad things behind.Resilience has also been linked to the migrant’s/refugee’s capacity “to manage their responses to adverse circumstances in an interpersonal community through the networks of relationships” (Eades). Resilience in this case is seen through an intersubjective lens. Joseph reminds us that there is danger in romanticising community. Local communities may not only be hostile toward different national and ethnic groups, they may actively display a level of hostility toward them (Boswell). However, Gill maintains that “the reciprocal relations found in communities are crucially important to their [migrant/refugee] well-being”. This is because inclusion in a given community allows migrants/refugees to shrug off the outsider label, and the feeling of being at risk, and provides the opportunity for them to become known as families and friends. One of MAHR’s central aims was to help bridge the cultural divide between MARH users and the broader Australian community.Hope[01:06: 10] Sara (to interviewee, Aya): What’s the key to your success here in Australia?[01:06:12] Aya: The people, and how they treat us.[01:06:15] Sara (to Researcher): People and how they deal with us.[01:06:21] Aya: It’s the best thing when you look around, and see people who don’t understand your language but they help you.[01:06:28] Sara (to Researcher): She said – this is nice. I want to cry also. She said the best thing when I see people, they don’t understand your language, and I don’t understand theirs but they still smile in your face.[01:06:43] Aya: It’s the best.[01:06:45] Sara (to Aya): yes, yes, people here are angels. This is the best thing about Australia.Here, Sara is possibly shown to be taking liberties with the translation offered to the researcher, talking about how Australians “smile in your face”, when (according to the translator) Aya talked about how Australians “help”. Even so, the capacity for social connection and other aspects of sociality have been linked to a person’s ability to turn a negative experience into a positive cultural resource (Wilson). Resilience is understood in these cases as a strength-based practice where families, communities and individuals are viewed in terms of their capabilities and possibilities, instead of their deficiencies or disorders (Graybeal and Saleeby in Eades). According to Fozdar and Torezani, there is an “apparent paradox between high-levels of discrimination experienced by humanitarian migrants to Australia in the labour market and everyday life” (30) on the one hand, and their reporting of positive well-being on the other. That disparity includes accounts such as the one offered by Aya.As Wilson and Arvanitakis suggest,the interaction between negative experiences of discrimination and reports of wellbeing suggested a counter-intuitive propensity among refugees to adapt to and make sense of their migration experiences in unique, resourceful and life-affirming ways. Such response patterns among refugees and trauma survivors indicate a similar resilience-related capacity to positively interpret and derive meaning from negative migration experiences and associated emotions. … However, resilience is not expressed or employed uniformly among individuals or communities. Some respond in a resilient manner, while others collapse. On this point, an argument could be made that collapse and breakdown is a built-in aspect of resilience, and necessary for renewal and ongoing growth.Using this approach, Wilson and Arvanitakis have linked resilience to hope, as a “present- and future-oriented mode of situated defence against adversity”. They argue that the term “hope” is often utilised in a tokenistic way “as a strategic instrument in increasingly empty domestic and international political vocabularies”. Nonetheless, Wilson and Arvanitakis believe hope to be of vital academic interest due to the prevalence of war and suffering throughout the world. In the research reported here, the authors found that participants’ hopes were interwoven with dreams of being reunited with their families in a place of safety. This is a common longing. As Jackson states,so it is that migrants travel abroad in pursuit of utopia, but having found that place, which is also no-place (ou-topos), they are haunted by the thought that utopia actually lies in the past. It is the family they left behind. That is where they properly belong. Though the family broke up long ago and is now scattered to the four winds, they imagine a reunion in which they are together again. (223)There is a sense here that with their hopes and dreams lying in the past, refugees/migrants are living forward while looking backwards (a Kierkegaardian concept). If hope is thought to be key to resilience (Wilson and Arvanitakis), and key to an individual’s ability to live with a sense of well-being, then perhaps a refugee’s past relations (familial) impact both their present relations (social/community), and their ability to transform negative experiences into positive experiences. And yet, there is no readily accessible way in which migrants and refugees can recreate the connections that sustained them in the past. As Jackson suggests,the irreversibility of time is intimately connected with the irreversibility of one’s place of origin, and this entwined movement through time and across space proves perplexing to many migrants, who, in imagining themselves one day returning to the place from where they started out, forget that there is no transport which will convey them back into the past. … Often it is only by going home that is becomes starkly and disconcertingly clear that one’s natal village is no longer the same and that one has also changed. (221)The dream of home and family, therefore and the hope that this might somehow be recreated in the safety of the here and now, becomes a paradoxical loss and longing even as it is a constant companion for many on their refugee journey.Esma’s DreamAccording to author three, personal dreams are not generally discussed in Arab culture, even though dreams themselves may form part of the rich tradition of Arabic folklore and storytelling. Alongside issues of mental wellbeing, dreams are constructed as something private, and it generally breaks social taboos to describe them publicly. However, in personal discussions with other refugee women and men, and echoing Jackson’s finding, a recurring dream is “to meet my family in a safe place and not be worried about my safety or theirs”. As a refugee, the third author shares this dream. This is also the perspective articulated by Esma, who had recently had a fifth child and was very much missing her extended family who had died, been scattered as refugees, or were still living in a conflict zone. The researcher asked Sara to ask Esma about the best aspect of her current life:[01:17:03] Esma: The thing that comforts me here is nature, it’s beautiful.[01:17:15] Sara (to the Researcher): The nature.[01:17:16] Esma: And feeling safe.[01:17:19] Sara (to the Researcher): The safety. ...[01:17:45] Esma: Life’s beautiful here.[01:17:47] Sara (to the Researcher): Life is beautiful here.[01:17:49] Esma: But I want to know people, speak the language, have friends, life is beautiful here even if I don’t have my family here.[01:17:56] Sara (to the Researcher): Life is so pretty you only need to improve the language and have friends, she said I love my life here even though I don’t have any family or community here. (To Esma:) I am your family.[01:18:12] Esma: Bring me my siblings here.[01:18:14] Sara (to Esma): I just want my brothers here and my sisters.[01:18:17] Esma: It’s a dream.[01:18:18] Sara (to Esma): it’s a dream, one day it will become true.Here Esma uses the term dream metaphorically, to describe an imagined utopia: a dream world. In supporting Esma, who is mourning the absence of her family, Sara finds herself reacting and emoting around their shared experience of leaving siblings behind. In doing so, she affirms the younger woman, but also offers a hope for the future. Esma had previously made a suggestion, absorbed into her larger dream, but more achievable in the short term, “to know people, speak the language, have friends”. The implication here is that Esma is keen to find a way to connect with Australians. She sees this as a means of compensating for the loss of family, a realistic hope rather than an impossible dream.ConclusionInterviews with refugee families in a Perth-based migrant support centre reveals both the nightmare pasts and the dreamed-of futures of people whose lives have experienced a radical disruption due to war, conflict and other life-threatening events. Jackson’s work with migrants provides a context for understanding the power of the dream in helping to resolve issues around the irreversibility of time and circumstance, while Wilson and Arvanitakis point to the importance of hope and resilience in supporting the building of a positive future. Within this mix of the longed for and the impossible, both the refugee informants and the academic literature suggest that participation in local events, and authentic engagement with the broader community, help make a difference in supporting a migrant’s transition from dreaming to reality.AcknowledgmentsThis article arises from an ARC Linkage Project, ‘A Hand Up: Disrupting the Communication of Intergenerational Welfare Dependency’ (LP140100935), supported by the Australian Research Council, Partner Organisation St Vincent de Paul Society (WA) Inc., and Edith Cowan University. The authors are grateful to the anonymous staff and member of Vinnies’ Migrant and Refugee Homebase for their trust in and support of this project, and for their contributions to it.ReferencesBadiou, Alan. Saint Paul: The Foundation of Universalism. Trans. Ray Brassier. Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 2003.Boswell, Christina. “Burden-Sharing in the European Union: Lessons from the German and UK Experience.” Journal of Refugee Studies 16.3 (2003): 316–35.Burr, Vivien. Social Constructionism. 2nd ed. Hove, UK & New York, NY: Routledge, 2003.Campays, Philippe, and Vioula Said. “Re-Imagine.” M/C Journal 20.4 (2017). Aug. 2017 <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/view/1250>.Crotty, Michael. The Foundations of Social Research: Meaning and Perspective in the Research Process. St Leonards: Allen & Unwin, 1998.Eades, David. “Resilience and Refugees: From Individualised Trauma to Post Traumatic Growth.” M/C Journal 16.5 (2013). Aug. 2013 <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/view/700>.Fozdar, Farida, and Silvia Torezani. “Discrimination and Well-Being: Perceptions of Refugees in Western Australia.” The International Migration Review 42.1 (2008): 1–34.Gill, Nicholas. “Longing for Stillness: The Forced Movement of Asylum Seekers.” M/C Journal 12.1 (2009). Mar. 2009 <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/view/123>.Graybeal, Clay. “Strengths-Based Social Work Assessment: Transforming the Dominant Paradigm.” Families in Society 82.3 (2001): 233–42.Green, Lelia, and Anne Aly. “Bastard Immigrants: Asylum Seekers Who Arrive by Boat and the Illegitimate Fear of the Other.” M/C Journal 17.5 (2014). Oct. 2014 <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/view/896>.Guba, Egon G., and Yvonna S. Lincoln. "Competing Paradigms in Qualitative Research." Handbook of Qualitative Research 2 (1994): 163-194.Gupta, Akhil, and James Ferguson. “Beyond ‘Culture’: Space, Identity, and the Politics of Difference.” Religion and Social Justice for Immigrants. Ed. Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo. New Jersey: Rutgers UP, 2006. 72-79.Jackson, Michael. The Wherewithal of Life: Ethics, Migration, and the Question of Well-Being. California: U of California P, 2013.Joseph, Miranda. Against the Romance of Community. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 2002.Myers, Misha. “Situations for Living: Performing Emplacement." Research in Drama Education 13.2 (2008): 171-180. DOI: 10.1080/13569780802054828.Nyers, Peter. “Abject Cosmopolitanism: The Politics of Protection in the Anti-Deportation Movement.” Third World Quarterly 24.6 (2003): 1069–93.Saleeby, Dennis. “The Strengths Perspective in Social Work Practice: Extensions and Cautions.” Social Work 41.3 (1996): 296–305.Valibhoy, Madeleine C., Ida Kaplan, and Josef Szwarc. “‘It Comes Down to Just How Human Someone Can Be’: A Qualitative Study with Young People from Refugee Backgrounds about Their Experiences of Australian Mental Health Services.” Transcultural Psychiatry 54.1 (2017): 23-45.Wilson, Michael. Accumulating Resilience: An Investigation of the Migration and Resettlement Experiences of Young Sudanese People in the Western Sydney Area. Sydney: University of Western Sydney, 2012.Wilson, Michael John, and James Arvanitakis. “The Resilience Complex.” M/C Journal 16.5 (2013). <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/view/741>.Xavier, Johnathon, and Renato Rosaldo. “Thinking the Global.” The Anthropology of Globalisation. Eds. Johnathon Xavier and Renato Rosaldo. New Jersey: Wiley-Blackwell Publishers, 2002.

According to the ABC television program Four Corners, “Parliament House in Canberra is a hotbed of political intrigue and high tension … . It’s known as the ‘Canberra Bubble’ and it operates in an atmosphere that seems far removed from how modern Australian workplaces are expected to function.” The term “Canberra Bubble” morphed to its current definition from 2001, although it existed in other forms before this. Its use has increased since 2015, with Prime Minister Scott Morrison regularly referring to it when attempting to deflect from turmoil within, or focus on, his Coalition government (Gwynn). “Canberra Bubble” was selected as the 2018 “Word of the Year” by the Australian National Dictionary Centre, defined as “referring to the idea that federal politicians, bureaucracy, and political journalists are obsessed with the goings-on in Canberra (rather than the everyday concerns of Australians)” (Gwynn). In November 2020, Four Corners aired an investigation into the behaviour of top government ministers, including Attorney-General Christian Porter, Minister Alan Tudge, and former Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the National Party Barnaby Joyce; entitled “Inside the Canberra Bubble”. The program’s reporter, Louise Milligan, observed: there’s a strong but unofficial tradition in federal politics of what happens in Canberra, stays in Canberra. Politicians, political staff and media operate in what’s known as ‘The Canberra Bubble’. Along with the political gamesmanship, there’s a heady, permissive culture and that culture can be toxic for women. The program acknowledged that parliamentary culture included the belief that politicians’ private lives were not open to public scrutiny. However, this leaves many women working in Parliament House feeling that such silence allows inappropriate behaviour and sexism to “thrive” in the “culture of silence” (Four Corners). Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who was interviewed for the Four Corners program, acknowledged: “there is always a power imbalance between the boss and somebody who works for them, the younger and more junior they are, the more extreme that power imbalance is. And of course, Ministers essentially have the power to hire and fire their staff, so they’ve got enormous power.” He equates this to past culture in large corporations; a culture that has seen changes in business, but not in the federal parliament. It is the latter place that is a toxic bubble for women. A Woman Problem in the Bubble Louise Milligan reported: “the Liberal Party has been grappling with what’s been described as a ‘women problem’ for several years, with accusations of endemic sexism.” The underrepresentation of women in the current government sees them holding only seven of the 30 current ministerial positions. The Liberal Party has fewer women in the House of Representatives now than it did 20 years ago, while the Labor Party has doubled the number of women in its ranks. When asked his view on the “woman problem”, Malcolm Turnbull replied: “well I think women have got a problem with the Liberal Party. It’s probably a better way of putting it … . The party does not have enough women MPs and Senators … . It is seen as being very blokey.” Current Prime Minister Scott Morrison said in March 2019: “we want to see women rise. But we don’t want to see women rise, only on the basis of others doing worse” (Four Corners); with “others” seen as a reference to men. The Liberal Party’s “woman problem” has been widely discussed in recent years, both in relation to the low numbers of women in its parliamentary representation and in its behaviour towards women. These claims were evident in an article highlighting allegations of bullying by Member of Parliament (MP) Julia Banks, which led to her resignation from the Liberal Party in 2018. Banks’s move to the crossbench as an Independent was followed by the departure from politics of senior Liberal MP and former Deputy Leader Julie Bishop and three other female Liberal MPs prior to the 2019 federal election. For resigning Liberal MP Linda Reynolds, the tumultuous change of leadership in the Liberal Party on 24 August 2018, when Scott Morrison replaced Malcolm Turnbull as Prime Minister, left her to say: “I do not recognise my party at the moment. I do not recognise the values. I do not recognise the bullying and intimidation that has gone on.” Bishop observed on 5 September: “it’s evident that there is an acceptance of a level of behaviour in Canberra that would not be tolerated in any other workplace.” And in her resignation speech on 27 November, Banks stated: “Often, when good women call out or are subjected to bad behaviour, the reprisals, backlash and commentary portrays them as the bad ones – the liar, the troublemaker, the emotionally unstable or weak, or someone who should be silenced” (Four Corners). Rachel Miller is a former senior Liberal staffer who worked for nine years in Parliament House. She admitted to having a consensual relationship with MP Alan Tudge. Both were married at the time. Her reason for “blowing the whistle” was not about the relationship itself, rather the culture built on an imbalance of power that she experienced and witnessed, particularly when endeavouring to end the relationship with Tudge. This saw her moving from Tudge’s office to that of Michaelia Cash, eventually being demoted and finally resigning. Miller refused to accept the Canberra bubble “culture of just putting your head down and not getting involved”. The Four Corners story also highlighted the historical behaviour of Attorney-General Christian Porter and his attitude towards women over several decades. Milligan reported: in the course of this investigation, Four Corners has spoken to dozens of former and currently serving staffers, politicians, and members of the legal profession. Many have worked within, or voted for, the Liberal Party. And many have volunteered examples of what they believe is inappropriate conduct by Christian Porter – including being drunk in public and making unwanted advances to women. Lawyer Josh Bornstein told Four Corners that the role of Attorney-General “occupies a unique role … as the first law officer of the country”, having a position in both the legal system and in politics. It is his view that this comes with a requirement for the Attorney-General “to be impeccable in terms of personal and political behaviour”. Milligan asserts that Porter’s role as “the nation’s chief law officer, includes implementing rules to protect women”. A historical review of Porter’s behaviour and attitude towards women was provided to Four Corners by barrister Kathleen Foley and debating colleague from 1987, Jo Dyer. Dyer described Porter as “very charming … very confident … Christian was quite slick … he had an air of entitlement … that I think was born of the privilege from which he came”. Foley has known Porter since she was sixteen, including at university and later when both were at the State Solicitors’ Office in Western Australia, and her impression was that Porter possessed a “dominant personality”. She said that many expected him to become a “powerful person one day” partly due to his father being “a Liberal Party powerbroker”, and that Porter had aspirations to become Prime Minister. She observed: “I’ve known him to be someone who was in my opinion, and based on what I saw, deeply sexist and actually misogynist in his treatment of women, in the way that he spoke about women.” Foley added: “for a long time, Christian has benefited from the silence around his conduct and his behaviour, and the silence has meant that his behaviour has been tolerated … . I’m here because I don’t think that his behaviour should be tolerated, and it is not acceptable.” Miller told the Four Corners program that she and others, including journalists, had observed Porter being “very intimate” with a young woman. Milligan noted that Porter “had a wife and toddler at home in Perth”, while Miller found the incident “quite confronting … in such a public space … . I was quite surprised by the behaviour and … it was definitely a step too far”. The incident was confirmed to Four Corners by “five other people, including Coalition staffers”. However, in 2017 the “Public Bar incident remained inside the Canberra bubble – it never leaked”, reports Milligan. In response to the exposure of Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce’s relationship with a member of his staff, Malcolm Turnbull changed the Code of Ministerial Standards (February 2018) for members of the Coalition Government (Liberal and National Parties). Labelled by many media as the “bonk ban”, the new code banned sexual relationships between ministers and their staff. Turnbull stopped short of asking Joyce to resign (Yaxley), however, Joyce stepped down as Leader of the National Party and Deputy Prime Minister shortly after the code was amended. Turnbull has conceded that the Joyce affair was the catalyst for implementing changes to ministerial standards (Four Corners). He was also aware of other incidents, including the behaviour of Christian Porter and claims he spoke with Porter in 2017, when concerns were raised about Porter’s behaviour. In what Turnbull acknowledges to be a stressful working environment, the ‘Canberra bubble’ is exacerbated by long hours, alcohol, and being away from family; this leads some members to a loss of standards in behaviour, particularly in relation to how women are viewed. This seems to blame the ‘bubble’ rather than acknowledge poor behaviour. Despite the allegations of improper behaviour against Porter, in 2017 Turnbull appointed Porter Attorney-General. Describing the atmosphere in the Canberra bubble, Miller concedes that not “all men are predators and [not] all women are victims”. She adds that a “work hard, play hard … gung ho mentality” in a “highly sexualised environment” sees senior men not being called out for behaviour, creating the perception that they are “almost beyond reproach [and it’s] something they can get away with”. Turnbull observes: “the attitudes to women and the lack of respect … of women in many quarters … reminds me of the corporate scene … 40 years ago. It’s just not modern Australia” (Four Corners). In a disclaimer about the program, Milligan stated: Four Corners does not suggest only Liberal politicians cross this line. But the Liberal Party is in government. And the Liberal politicians in question are Ministers of the Crown. All ministers must now abide by Ministerial Standards set down by Prime Minister Scott Morrison in 2018. They say: ‘Serving the Australian people as Ministers ... is an honour and comes with expectations to act at all times to the highest possible standards of probity.’ They also prohibit Ministers from having sexual relations with staff. Both Tudge and Porter were sent requests by Four Corners for interviews and answers to detailed questions prior to the program going to air. Tudge did not respond and Porter provided a brief statement in regards to his meeting with Malcolm Turnbull, denying that he had been questioned about allegations of his conduct as reported by Four Corners and that other matters had been discussed. Reactions to the Four Corners Program Responses to the program via mainstream media and on social media were intense, ranging from outrage at the behaviour of ministers on the program, to outrage that the program had aired the private lives of government ministers, with questions as to whether this was in the public interest. Porter himself disputed allegations of his behaviour aired in the program, labelling the claims as “totally false” and said he was considering legal options for “defamation” (Maiden). However, in a subsequent radio interview, Porter said “he did not want a legal battle to distract from his role” as a government minister (Moore). Commenting on the meeting he had with Turnbull in 2017, Porter asserted that Turnbull had not spoken to him about the alleged behaviour and that Turnbull “often summoned ministers in frustration about the amount of detail leaking from his Cabinet.” Porter also questioned the comments made by Dyer and Foley, saying he had not had contact with them “for decades” (Maiden). Yet, in a statement provided to the West Australian after the program aired, Porter admitted that Turnbull had raised the rumours of an incident and Porter had assured him they were unfounded. In a statement he again denied the allegations made in the Four Corners program, but admitted that he had “failed to be a good husband” (Moore). In a brief media release following the program, Tudge stated: “I regret my actions immensely and the hurt it caused my family. I also regret the hurt that Ms. Miller has experienced” (Grattan). Following the Four Corners story, Scott Morrison and Anne Ruston, the Minister for Families and Social Services, held a media conference to respond to the allegations raised by the program. Ruston was asked about her views of the treatment of women within the Liberal Party. However, she was cut off by Morrison who aired his grievance about the use of the term “bonk ban” by journalists, when referring to the ban on ministers having sexual relations with their staff. This interruption of a female minister responding to a question directed at her about allegations of misogyny drew world-wide attention. Ruston went on to reply that she felt “wholly supported” as a member of the party and in her Cabinet position. The video of the incident resulted in a backlash on social media. Ruston was asked about being cut off by the Prime Minister at subsequent media interviews and said she believed it to be “an entirely appropriate intervention” and reiterated her own experiences of being fully supported by other members of the Liberal Party (Maasdorp). Attempts to Silence the ABC A series of actions by government staff and ministers prior to, and following, the Four Corners program airing confirmed the assumption suggested by Milligan that “what happens in Canberra, stays in Canberra”. In the days leading to the airing of the Four Corners program, members of the federal government contacted ABC Chair Ita Buttrose, ABC Managing Director David Anderson, and other senior staff, criticising the program’s content before its release and questioning whether it was in the public interest. The Executive Producer for the program, Sally Neighbour, tweeted about the attempts to have the program cancelled on the day it was to air, and praised ABC management for not acceding to the demands. Anderson raised his concerns about the emails and calls to ABC senior staff while appearing at Senate estimates and said he found it “extraordinary” (Murphy & Davies). Buttrose also voiced her concerns and presented a lecture reinforcing the importance of “the ABC, democracy and the importance of press freedom”. As the public broadcaster, the ABC has a charter under the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Act (1983) (ABC Act), which includes its right to media independence. The attempt by the federal government to influence programming at the ABC was seen as countering this independence. Following the airing of the Four Corners program, the Morrison Government, via Communications Minister Paul Fletcher, again contacted Ita Buttrose by letter, asking how reporting allegations of inappropriate behaviour by ministers was “in the public interest”. Fletcher made the letter public via his Twitter account on the same day. The letter “posed 15 questions to the ABC board requesting an explanation within 14 days as to how the episode complied with the ABC’s code of practice and its statutory obligations to provide accurate and impartial journalism”. Fletcher also admitted that a senior member of his staff had contacted a member of the ABC board prior to the show airing but denied this was “an attempt to lobby the board”. Reportedly the ABC was “considering a response to what it believes is a further attack on its independence” (Visentin & Samios). A Case of Double Standards Liberal Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells told Milligan (Four Corners) that she believes “values and beliefs are very important” when standing for political office, with a responsibility to electors to “abide by those values and beliefs because ultimately we will be judged by them”. It is her view that “there is an expectation that in service of the Australian public, [politicians] abide by the highest possible conduct and integrity”. Porter has portrayed himself as being a family man, and an advocate for people affected by sexual harassment and concerned about domestic violence. Four Corners included two videos of Porter, the first from June 2020, where he stated: “no-one should have to suffer sexual harassment at work or in any other part of their lives … . The Commonwealth Government takes it very seriously”. In the second recording, from 2015, Porter spoke on the topic of domestic violence, where he advocated ensuring “that young boys understand what a respectful relationship is … what is acceptable and … go on to be good fathers and good husbands”. Tudge and Joyce hold a conservative view of traditional marriage as being between a man and a woman. They made this very evident during the plebiscite on legalising same-sex marriage in 2017. One of Tudge’s statements during the public debate was shown on the Four Corners program, where he said that he had “reservations about changing the Marriage Act to include same-sex couples” as he viewed “marriage as an institution … primarily about creating a bond for the creation, love and care of children. And … if the definition is changed … then the institution itself would potentially be weakened”. Miller responded by confirming that this was the public image Tudge portrayed, however, she was upset, surprised and believed it to be hypocrisy “to hear him … speak in parliament … and express a view that for children to have the right upbringing they need to have a mother and father and a traditional kind of family environment” (Four Corners). Following the outcome to the plebiscite in favour of marriage equality (Evershed), both Tudge and Porter voted to pass the legislation, in line with their electorates, while Joyce abstained from voting on the legislation (against the wishes of his electorate), along with nine other MPs including Scott Morrison (Henderson). Turnbull told Milligan: there’s no question that some of the most trenchant opponents of same-sex marriage, all in the name of traditional marriage, were at the same time enthusiastic practitioners of traditional adultery. As I said many times, this issue of the controversy over same-sex marriage was dripping with hypocrisy and the pools were deepest at the feet of the sanctimonious. The Bubble Threatens to Burst On 25 January 2021, the advocate for survivors of sexual assault, Grace Tame, was announced as Australian of the Year. This began a series of events that has the Canberra bubble showing signs of potentially rupturing, or perhaps even imploding, as further allegations of sexual assault emerge. Inspired by the speech of Grace Tame at the awards ceremony and the fact that the Prime Minister was standing beside her, on 15 February 2021, former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins disclosed to journalist Samantha Maiden the allegation that she had been raped by a senior staffer in March 2019. Higgins also appeared in a television interview with Lisa Wilkinson that evening. The assault allegedly occurred after hours in the office of her boss, then Minister for Defence Industry and current Minister for Defence, Senator Linda Reynolds. Higgins said she reported what had occurred to the Minister and other staff, but felt she was being made to choose between her job and taking the matter to police. The 2019 federal election was called a few weeks later. Although Higgins wanted to continue in her “dream job” at Parliament House, she resigned prior to her disclosure in February 2021. Reynolds and Morrison were questioned extensively on the matter, in parliament and by the media, as to what they knew and when they were informed. Public outrage at the allegations was heightened by conflicting stories of these timelines and of who else knew. Although Reynolds had declared to the Senate that her office had provided full support to Higgins, it was revealed that her original response to the allegations to those in her office on the day of the media publication was to call Higgins a “lying cow”. After another public and media outcry, Reynolds apologised to Higgins (Hitch). Initially avoiding addressing the Higgins allegation directly, Morrison finally stated his empathy for Higgins in a doorstop media interview, reflecting advice he had received from his wife: Jenny and I spoke last night, and she said to me, "You have to think about this as a father first. What would you want to happen if it were our girls?" Jenny has a way of clarifying things, always has. On 3 March 2021, Grace Tame presented a powerful speech to the National Press Club. She was asked her view on the Prime Minister referring to his role as a father in the case of Brittany Higgins. Morrison’s statement had already enraged the public and certain members of the media, including many female journalists. Tame considered her response, then replied: “It shouldn’t take having children to have a conscience. [pause] And actually, on top of that, having children doesn’t guarantee a conscience.” The statement was met by applause from the gallery and received public acclaim. A further allegation of rape was made public on 27 February 2021, when friends of a deceased woman sent the Prime Minister a full statement from the woman that a current unnamed Cabinet Minister had raped her in 1988, when she was 16 years old (Yu). Morrison was asked whether he had spoken with the Minister, and stated that the Minister had denied the allegations and he saw no need to take further action, and would leave it to the police. New South Wales police subsequently announced that in light of the woman’s death last year, they could not proceed with an investigation and the matter was closed. The name of the woman has not been officially disclosed, however, on the afternoon of 3 March 2021 Attorney-General Christian Porter held a press conference naming himself as the Minister in question and vehemently denied the allegations. In light of the latest allegations, coverage by some journalists has shown the propensity to be complicit in protecting the Canberra bubble, while others (mainly women) endeavour to provide investigative journalistic coverage. The Outcome to Date Focus on the behaviour highlighted by “Inside the Canberra Bubble” in November 2020 waned quickly, with journalist Sean Kelly observing: since ABC’s Four Corners broadcast an episode exploring entrenched sexism in Parliament House, and more specifically within the Liberal Party, male politicians have said very, very, very little about it … . The episode in question was broadcast three weeks ago. It’s old news. But in this case that’s the point: every time the issue of sexism in Canberra is raised, it’s quickly rushed past, then forgotten (by men). Nothing happens. As noted earlier, Rachel Miller resigned from her position at Parliament House following the affair with Tudge. Barrister Kathleen Foley had held a position on the Victorian Bar Council, however three days after the Four Corners program went to air, Foley was voted off the council. According to Matilda Boseley from The Guardian, the change of council members was seen more broadly as an effort to remove progressives. Foley has also been vocal about gender issues within the legal profession. With the implementation of the new council, five members held their positions and 16 were replaced, seeing a change from 62 per cent female representation to 32 per cent (Boseley). No action was taken by the Prime Minister in light of the revelations by Four Corners: Christian Porter maintained his position as Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations, and Leader of the House; and Alan Tudge continued as a member of the Federal Cabinet, currently as Minister for Education and Youth. Despite ongoing calls for an independent enquiry into the most recent allegations, and for Porter to stand aside, he continues as Attorney-General, although he has taken sick leave to address mental health impacts of the allegations (ABC News). Reynolds continues to hold the position of Defence Minister following the Higgins allegations, and has also taken sick leave on the advice of her specialist, now extended to after the March 2021 sitting of parliament (Doran). While Scott Morrison stands in support of Porter amid the allegations against him, he has called for an enquiry into the workplace culture of Parliament House. This appears to be in response to claims that a fourth woman was assaulted, allegedly by Higgins’s perpetrator. The enquiry, to be led by Kate Jenkins, Australia’s Sex Discrimination Commissioner, is focussed on “how to change the culture, how to change the practices, and how to ensure that, in future, we do have the best possible environment for prevention and response” (Murphy). By focussing the narrative of the enquiry on the “culture” of Parliament House, it diverts attention from the allegations of rape by Higgins and against Porter. While the enquiry is broadly welcomed, any outcomes will require more than changes to the workplace: they will require a much broader social change in attitudes towards women. The rage of women, in light of the current gendered political culture, has evolved into a call to action. An initial protest march, planned for outside Parliament House on 15 March 2021, has expanded to rallies in all capital cities and many other towns and cities in Australia. Entitled Women’s March 4 Justice, thousands of people, both women and men, have indicated their intention to participate. It is acknowledged that many residents of Canberra have objected to their entire city being encompassed in the term “Canberra Bubble”. However, the term’s relevance to this current state of affairs reflects the culture of those working in and for the Australian parliament, rather than residents of the city. It also describes the way that those who work in all things related to the federal government carry an apparent assumption that the bubble offers them immunity from the usual behaviour and accountability required of those outside the bubble. It this “bubble” that needs to burst. With a Prime Minister seemingly unable to recognise the hypocrisy of Ministers allegedly acting in ways contrary to “good character”, and for Porter, with ongoing allegations of improper behaviour, as expected for the country’s highest law officer, and in his mishandling of Higgins claims as called out by Tame, the bursting of the “Canberra bubble” may cost him government. References ABC News. “Christian Porter Denies Historical Rape Allegation.” Transcript. 4 Mar. 2021. 4 Mar. 2021 <https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-03/christian-porter-press-conference-transcript/13212054>. Boseley, Matilda. “Barrister on Four Corners' Christian Porter Episode Loses Victorian Bar Council Seat.” The Guardian 11 Nov. 2020. 10 Dec. 2020 <https://www.theguardian.com/law/2020/nov/12/barrister-on-four-corners-christian-porter-episode-loses-victorian-bar-council-seat>. Buttrose, Ita. “The ABC, Democracy and the Importance of Press Freedom.” Lecture. Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation. 12 Nov. 2020. 10 Dec. 2020 <http://about.abc.net.au/speeches/the-abc-democracy-and-the-importance-of-press-freedom/>. Doran, Matthew. “Linda Reynolds Extends Her Leave.” ABC News 7 Mar. 2021. 7 Mar. 2021 <https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-07/linda-reynolds-extends-her-leave-following-rape-allegation/13224824>. Evershed, Nick. “Full Results of Australia's Vote for Same-Sex Marriage.” The Guardian 15 Nov. 2017. 10 Dec. 2020. <https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/datablog/ng-interactive/2017/nov/15/same-sex-marriage-survey-how-australia-voted-electorate-by-electorate>. Four Corners. “Inside the Canberra Bubble.” ABC Television 9 Nov. 2020. 20 Nov. 2020 <https://www.abc.net.au/4corners/inside-the-canberra-bubble/12864676>. Grattan, Michelle. “Porter Rejects Allegations of Inappropriate Sexual Behaviour and Threatens Legal Action.” The Conversation 10 Nov. 2020. 10 Dec. 2020 <https://theconversation.com/porter-rejects-allegations-149774>. Gwynn, Mark. “Australian National Dictionary Centre’s Word of the Year 2018.” Ozwords 13 Dec. 2018. 10 Dec 2020 <http://ozwords.org/?p=8643#more-8643>. Henderson, Anna. “Same-Sex Marriage: This Is Everyone Who Didn't Vote to Support the Bill.” ABC News 8 Dec. 2017. 10 Dec. 2020 <https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-08/same-sex-marriage-who-didnt-vote/9240584>. Heurich, Angelika. “Women in Australian Politics: Maintaining the Rage against the Political Machine”. M/C Journal 22.1 (2019). https://doi.org/10.5204/mcj.1498. Hitch, Georgia. “Defence Minister Linda Reynolds Apologises to Brittany Higgins.” ABC News 5 Mar. 2021. 5 Mar. 2021 <https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-05/linda-reynolds-apologises-to-brittany-higgins-lying-cow/13219796>. Kelly, Sean. “Morrison Should Heed His Own Advice – and Fix His Culture Problem.” Sydney Morning Herald 29 Nov. 2020. 10 Dec. 2020 <https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/morrison-should-heed-his-own-advice-and-fix-his-culture-problem-20201129-p56iwn.html>. Maasdorp, James. “Scott Morrison Cops Backlash after Interrupting Anne Ruston.” ABC News 11 Nov. 2020. 10 Dec. 2020 <https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-11-11/scott-morrison-anne-ruston-liberal-party-government/12873158>. Maiden, Samantha. “Christian Porter Hits Back at ‘Totally False’ Claims Aired on Four Corners.” The Australian 10 Nov. 2020. 10 Dec. 2020 <https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/tv/current-affairs/christian-porter-hits-back-at-totally-false-claims-aired-on-four-corners/news-story/0bc84b6268268f56d99714fdf8fa9ba2>. ———. “Young Staffer Brittany Higgins Says She Was Raped at Parliament House.” News.com.au 15 Sep. 2021. 15 Sep. 2021 <https://www.news.com.au/national/politics/parliament-house-rocked-by-brittany-higgins-alleged-rape/news-story/>. Moore, Charlie. “Embattled Minister Christian Porter Admits He Failed to Be 'a Good Husband’.” Daily Mail 11 Nov. 2020. 10 Dec. 2020 <https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8936197/>. Morrison, Scott. “Doorstop Interview – Parliament House.” Transcript. Prime Minister of Australia. 16 Feb. 2021. 1 Mar. 2021 <https://www.pm.gov.au/media/doorstop-interview-australian-parliament-house-act-160221>. Murphy, Katharine. “Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins to Lead Review into Parliament’s Workplace Culture.” The Guardian 5 Mar. 2021. 7 Mar. 2021 <https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/mar/05/sex-discrimination-commissioner-kate-jenkins-to-lead-review-into-parliaments-workplace-culture>. Murphy, Katharine, and Anne Davies. “Criticism of Four Corners 'Bonk Ban' Investigation before It Airs 'Extraordinary', ABC Boss Says.” The Guardian 9 Nov. 2020. 10 Dec. 2020 <https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/nov/09/abc-under-extreme-political-pressure-over-bonk-ban-investigation-four-corners-boss-says>. Neighbour, Sally. “The Political Pressure.” Twitter 9 Nov. 2020. 9 Nov. 2020 <https://twitter.com/neighbour_s/status/1325545916107927552>. Tame, Grace. Address. National Press Club. 3 Mar. 2021. 3 Mar. 2021 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJmwOTfjn9U>. Visentin, Lisa, and Zoe Samios. “Morrison Government Asks ABC to Please Explain Controversial Four Corners Episode.” Sydney Morning Herald 1 Dec. 2020. 10 Dec. 2020 <https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/morrison-government-asks-abc-to-please-explain-controversial-four-corners-episode-20201201-p56jg2.html>. Wilkinson, Lisa. “Interview with Brittany Higgins.” The Project. Channel 10. 15 Sep. 2021. 16 Sep. 2021 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyjkjeoO2o4>. Yaxley, Louise. “Malcolm Turnbull Bans Ministers from Sex with Staffers.” ABC News 15 Feb. 2018. 10 Dec. 2020 <https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-15/turnbull-slams-joyce-affair-changes-to-ministerial-standards/9451792>. Yu, Andi. “Rape Allegation against Cabinet Minister.” The Canberra Times 27 Feb. 2021. 1 Mar. 2021 <https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7145324/rape-allegation-against-cabinet-minister/>.

IntroductionTasmania hangs from the map of Australia like a drop in freefall from the substance of the mainland. Often the whole state is mislaid from Australian maps and logos (Reddit). Tasmania has, at least since federation, been considered peripheral—a region seen as isolated, a ‘problem’ economically, politically, and culturally. However, Tasmania not only cleaves to the ‘north island’ of Australia but is also subject to the gravitational pull of an even greater land mass—Antarctica. In this article, we upturn the political conventions of map-making that place both Antarctica and Tasmania in obscure positions at the base of the globe. We show how a changing global climate re-frames Antarctica and the Southern Ocean as key drivers of worldwide environmental shifts. The liquid and solid water between Tasmania and Antarctica is revealed not as a homogenous barrier, but as a dynamic and relational medium linking the Tasmanian archipelago with Antarctica. When Antarctica becomes the focus, the script is flipped: Tasmania is no longer on the edge, but core to a network of gateways into the southern land. The state’s capital of Hobart can from this perspective be understood as an “Antarctic city”, central to the geopolitics, economy, and culture of the frozen continent (Salazar et al.). Viewed from the south, we argue, Tasmania is not a problem, but an opportunity for a form of ecological, cultural, economic, and political sustainability that opens up the southern continent to science, discovery, and imagination.A Centre at the End of the Earth? Tasmania as ParadoxThe islands of Tasmania owe their existence to climate change: a period of warming at the end of the last ice age melted the vast sheets of ice covering the polar regions, causing sea levels to rise by more than one hundred metres (Tasmanian Climate Change Office 8). Eleven thousand years ago, Aboriginal people would have witnessed the rise of what is now called Bass Strait, turning what had been a peninsula into an archipelago, with the large island of Tasmania at its heart. The heterogeneous practices and narratives of Tasmanian regional identity have been shaped by the geography of these islands, and their connection to the Southern Ocean and Antarctica. Regions, understood as “centres of collective consciousness and sociospatial identities” (Paasi 241) are constantly reproduced and reimagined through place-based social practices and communications over time. As we will show, diverse and contradictory narratives of Tasmanian regionality often co-exist, interacting in complex and sometimes complementary ways. Ecocritical literary scholar C.A. Cranston considers duality to be embedded in the textual construction of Tasmania, writing “it was hell, it was heaven, it was penal, it was paradise” (29). Tasmania is multiply polarised: it is both isolated and connected; close and far away; rich in resources and poor in capital; the socially conservative birthplace of radical green politics (Hay 60). The weather, as if sensing the fine balance of these paradoxes, blows hot and cold at a moment’s notice.Tasmania has wielded extraordinary political influence at times in its history—notably during the settlement of Melbourne in 1835 (Boyce), and during protests against damming the Franklin River in the early 1980s (Mercer). However, twentieth-century historical and political narratives of Tasmania portray the Bass Strait as a barrier, isolating Tasmanians from the mainland (Harwood 61). Sir Bede Callaghan, who headed one of a long line of federal government inquiries into “the Tasmanian problem” (Harwood 106), was clear that Tasmania was a victim of its own geography:the major disability facing the people of Tasmania (although some residents may consider it an advantage) is that Tasmania is an island. Separation from the mainland adversely affects the economy of the State and the general welfare of the people in many ways. (Callaghan 3)This perspective may stem from the fact that Tasmania has maintained the lowest Gross Domestic Product per capita of all states since federation (Bureau of Infrastructure Transport and Regional Economics 9). Socially, economically, and culturally, Tasmania consistently ranks among the worst regions of Australia. Statistical comparisons with other parts of Australia reveal the population’s high unemployment, low wages, poor educational outcomes, and bad health (West 31). The state’s remoteness and isolation from the mainland states and its reliance on federal income have contributed to the whole of Tasmania, including Hobart, being classified as ‘regional’ by the Australian government, in an attempt to promote immigration and economic growth (Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development 1). Tasmania is indeed both regional and remote. However, in this article we argue that, while regionality may be cast as a disadvantage, the island’s remote location is also an asset, particularly when viewed from a far southern perspective (Image 1).Image 1: Antarctica (Orthographic Projection). Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons, Modified Shading of Tasmania and Addition of Captions by H. Nielsen.Connecting Oceans/Collapsing DistanceTasmania and Antarctica have been closely linked in the past—the future archipelago formed a land bridge between Antarctica and northern land masses until the opening of the Tasman Seaway some 32 million years ago (Barker et al.). The far south was tangible to the Indigenous people of the island in the weather blowing in from the Southern Ocean, while the southern lights, or “nuyina”, formed a visible connection (Australia’s new icebreaker vessel is named RSV Nuyina in recognition of these links). In the contemporary Australian imagination, Tasmania tends to be defined by its marine boundaries, the sea around the islands represented as flat, empty space against which to highlight the topography of its landscape and the isolation of its position (Davies et al.). A more relational geographic perspective illuminates the “power of cross-currents and connections” (Stratford et al. 273) across these seascapes. The sea country of Tasmania is multiple and heterogeneous: the rough, shallow waters of the island-scattered Bass Strait flow into the Tasman Sea, where the continental shelf descends toward an abyssal plain studded with volcanic seamounts. To the south, the Southern Ocean provides nutrient-rich upwellings that attract fish and cetacean populations. Tasmania’s coast is a dynamic, liminal space, moving and changing in response to the global currents that are driven by the shifting, calving and melting ice shelves and sheets in Antarctica.Oceans have long been a medium of connection between Tasmania and Antarctica. In the early colonial period, when the seas were the major thoroughfares of the world and inland travel was treacherous and slow, Tasmania’s connection with the Southern Ocean made it a valuable hub for exploration and exploitation of the south. Between 1642 and 1900, early European explorers were followed by British penal colonists, convicts, sealers, and whalers (Kriwoken and Williamson 93). Tasmania was well known to polar explorers, with expeditions led by Jules Dumont d’Urville, James Clark Ross, Roald Amundsen, and Douglas Mawson all transiting through the port of Hobart. Now that the city is no longer a whaling hub, growing populations of cetaceans continue to migrate past the islands on their annual journeys from the tropics, across the Sub-Antarctic Front and Antarctic circumpolar current, and into the south polar region, while southern species such as leopard seals are occasionally seen around Tasmania (Tasmania Parks and Wildlife). Although the water surrounding Tasmania and Antarctica is at times homogenised as a ‘barrier’, rendering these places isolated, the bodies of water that surround both are in fact permeable, and regularly crossed by both humans and marine species. The waters are diverse in their physical characteristics, underlying topography, sea life, and relationships, and serve to connect many different ocean regions, ecosystems, and weather patterns.Views from the Far SouthWhen considered in terms of its relative proximity to Antarctic, rather than its distance from Australia’s political and economic centres, Tasmania’s identity undergoes a significant shift. A sign at Cockle Creek, in the state’s far south, reminds visitors that they are closer to Antarctica than to Cairns, invoking a discourse of connectedness that collapses the standard ten-day ship voyage to Australia’s closest Antarctic station into a unit comparable with the routinely scheduled 5.5 hour flight to North Queensland. Hobart is the logistical hub for the Australian Antarctic Division and the French Institut Polaire Francais (IPEV), and has hosted Antarctic vessels belonging to the USA, South Korea, and Japan in recent years. From a far southern perspective, Hobart is not a regional Australian capital but a global polar hub. This alters the city’s geographic imaginary not only in a latitudinal sense—from “top down” to “bottom up”—but also a longitudinal one. Via its southward connection to Antarctica, Hobart is also connected east and west to four other recognized gateways: Cape Town in South Africa, Christchurch in New Zealand; Punta Arenas in Chile; and Ushuaia in Argentina (Image 2). The latter cities are considered small by international standards, but play an outsized role in relation to Antarctica.Image 2: H. Nielsen with a Sign Announcing Distances between Antarctic ‘Gateway’ Cities and Antarctica, Ushuaia, Argentina, 2018. Image Credit: Nicki D'Souza.These five cities form what might be called—to adapt geographer Klaus Dodds’ term—a ‘Southern Rim’ around the South Polar region (Dodds Geopolitics). They exist in ambiguous relationship to each other. Although the five cities signed a Statement of Intent in 2009 committing them to collaboration, they continue to compete vigorously for northern hemisphere traffic and the brand identity of the most prominent global gateway. A state government brochure spruiks Hobart, for example, as the “perfect Antarctic Gateway” emphasising its uniqueness and “natural advantages” in this regard (Tasmanian Government, 2016). In practice, the cities are automatically differentiated by their geographic position with respect to Antarctica. Although the ‘ice continent’ is often conceived as one entity, it too has regions, in both scientific and geographical senses (Terauds and Lee; Antonello). Hobart provides access to parts of East Antarctica, where the Australian, French, Japanese, and Chinese programs (among others) have bases; Cape Town is a useful access point for Europeans going to Dronning Maud Land; Christchurch is closest to the Ross Sea region, site of the largest US base; and Punta Arenas and Ushuaia neighbour the Antarctic Peninsula, home to numerous bases as well as a thriving tourist industry.The Antarctic sector is important to the Tasmanian economy, contributing $186 million (AUD) in 2017/18 (Wells; Gutwein; Tasmanian Polar Network). Unsurprisingly, Tasmania’s gateway brand has been actively promoted, with the 2016 Australian Antarctic Strategy and 20 Year Action Plan foregrounding the need to “Build Tasmania’s status as the premier East Antarctic Gateway for science and operations” and the state government releasing a “Tasmanian Antarctic Gateway Strategy” in 2017. The Chinese Antarctic program has been a particular focus: a Memorandum of Understanding focussed on Australia and China’s Antarctic relations includes a “commitment to utilise Australia, including Tasmania, as an Antarctic ‘gateway’.” (Australian Antarctic Division). These efforts towards a closer relationship with China have more recently come under attack as part of a questioning of China’s interests in the region (without, it should be noted, a concomitant questioning of Australia’s own considerable interests) (Baker 9). In these exchanges, a global power and a state of Australia generally classed as regional and peripheral are brought into direct contact via the even more remote Antarctic region. This connection was particularly visible when Chinese President Xi Jinping travelled to Hobart in 2014, in a visit described as both “strategic” and “incongruous” (Burden). There can be differences in how this relationship is narrated to domestic and international audiences, with issues of sovereignty and international cooperation variously foregrounded, laying the ground for what Dodds terms “awkward Antarctic nationalism” (1).Territory and ConnectionsThe awkwardness comes to a head in Tasmania, where domestic and international views of connections with the far south collide. Australia claims sovereignty over almost 6 million km2 of the Antarctic continent—a claim that in area is “roughly the size of mainland Australia minus Queensland” (Bergin). This geopolitical context elevates the importance of a regional part of Australia: the claims to Antarctic territory (which are recognised only by four other claimant nations) are performed not only in Antarctic localities, where they are made visible “with paraphernalia such as maps, flags, and plaques” (Salazar 55), but also in Tasmania, particularly in Hobart and surrounds. A replica of Mawson’s Huts in central Hobart makes Australia’s historic territorial interests in Antarctica visible an urban setting, foregrounding the figure of Douglas Mawson, the well-known Australian scientist and explorer who led the expeditions that proclaimed Australia’s sovereignty in the region of the continent roughly to its south (Leane et al.). Tasmania is caught in a balancing act, as it fosters international Antarctic connections (such hosting vessels from other national programs), while also playing a key role in administering what is domestically referred to as the Australian Antarctic Territory. The rhetoric of protection can offer common ground: island studies scholar Godfrey Baldacchino notes that as island narratives have moved “away from the perspective of the ‘explorer-discoverer-colonist’” they have been replaced by “the perspective of the ‘custodian-steward-environmentalist’” (49), but reminds readers that a colonising disposition still lurks beneath the surface. It must be remembered that terms such as “stewardship” and “leadership” can undertake sovereignty labour (Dodds “Awkward”), and that Tasmania’s Antarctic connections can be mobilised for a range of purposes. When Environment Minister Greg Hunt proclaimed at a press conference that: “Hobart is the gateway to the Antarctic for the future” (26 Apr. 2016), the remark had meaning within discourses of both sovereignty and economics. Tasmania’s capital was leveraged as a way to position Australia as a leader in the Antarctic arena.From ‘Gateway’ to ‘Antarctic City’While discussion of Antarctic ‘Gateway’ Cities often focuses on the economic and logistical benefit of their Antarctic connections, Hobart’s “gateway” identity, like those of its counterparts, stretches well beyond this, encompassing geological, climatic, historical, political, cultural and scientific links. Even the southerly wind, according to cartoonist Jon Kudelka, “has penguins in it” (Image 3). Hobart residents feel a high level of connection to Antarctica. In 2018, a survey of 300 randomly selected residents of Greater Hobart was conducted under the umbrella of the “Antarctic Cities” Australian Research Council Linkage Project led by Assoc. Prof. Juan Francisco Salazar (and involving all three present authors). Fourteen percent of respondents reported having been involved in an economic activity related to Antarctica, and 36% had attended a cultural event about Antarctica. Connections between the southern continent and Hobart were recognised as important: 71.9% agreed that “people in my city can influence the cultural meanings that shape our relationship to Antarctica”, while 90% agreed or strongly agreed that Hobart should play a significant role as a custodian of Antarctica’s future, and 88.4% agreed or strongly agreed that: “How we treat Antarctica is a test of our approach to ecological sustainability.” Image 3: “The Southerly” Demonstrates How Weather Connects Hobart and Antarctica. Image Credit: Jon Kudelka, Reproduced with Permission.Hobart, like the other gateways, activates these connections in its conscious place-branding. The city is particularly strong as a centre of Antarctic research: signs at the cruise-ship terminal on the waterfront claim that “There are more Antarctic scientists based in Hobart […] than at any other one place on earth, making Hobart a globally significant contributor to our understanding of Antarctica and the Southern Ocean.” Researchers are based at the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS), the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), and the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD), with several working between institutions. Many Antarctic researchers located elsewhere in the world also have a connection with the place through affiliations and collaborations, leading journalist Jo Chandler to assert that “the breadth and depth of Hobart’s knowledge of ice, water, and the life forms they nurture […] is arguably unrivalled anywhere in the world” (86).Hobart also plays a significant role in Antarctica’s governance, as the site of the secretariats for the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) and the Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels (ACAP), and as host of the Antarctic Consultative Treaty Meetings on more than one occasion (1986, 2012). The cultural domain is active, with Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG) featuring a permanent exhibit, “Islands to Ice”, emphasising the ocean as connecting the two places; the Mawson’s Huts Replica Museum aiming (among other things) to “highlight Hobart as the gateway to the Antarctic continent for the Asia Pacific region”; and a biennial Australian Antarctic Festival drawing over twenty thousand visitors, about a sixth of them from interstate or overseas (Hingley). Antarctic links are evident in the city’s natural and built environment: the dolerite columns of Mt Wellington, the statue of the Tasmanian Antarctic explorer Louis Bernacchi on the waterfront, and the wharfs that regularly accommodate icebreakers such as the Aurora Australis and the Astrolabe. Antarctica is figured as a southern neighbour; as historian Tom Griffiths puts it, Tasmanians “grow up with Antarctica breathing down their necks” (5). As an Antarctic City, Hobart mediates access to Antarctica both physically and in the cultural imaginary.Perhaps in recognition of the diverse ways in which a region or a city might be connected to Antarctica, researchers have recently been suggesting critical approaches to the ‘gateway’ label. C. Michael Hall points to a fuzziness in the way the term is applied, noting that it has drifted from its initial definition (drawn from economic geography) as denoting an access and supply point to a hinterland that produces a certain level of economic benefits. While Hall looks to keep the term robustly defined to avoid empty “local boosterism” (272–73), Gabriela Roldan aims to move the concept “beyond its function as an entry and exit door”, arguing that, among other things, the local community should be actively engaged in the Antarctic region (57). Leane, examining the representation of Hobart as a gateway in historical travel texts, concurs that “ingress and egress” are insufficient descriptors of Tasmania’s relationship with Antarctica, suggesting that at least discursively the island is positioned as “part of an Antarctic rim, itself sharing qualities of the polar region” (45). The ARC Linkage Project described above, supported by the Hobart City Council, the State Government and the University of Tasmania, as well as other national and international partners, aims to foster the idea of the Hobart and its counterparts as ‘Antarctic cities’ whose citizens act as custodians for the South Polar region, with a genuine concern for and investment in its future.Near and Far: Local Perspectives A changing climate may once again herald a shift in the identity of the Tasmanian islands. Recognition of the central role of Antarctica in regulating the global climate has generated scientific and political re-evaluation of the region. Antarctica is not only the planet’s largest heat sink but is the engine of global water currents and wind patterns that drive weather patterns and biodiversity across the world (Convey et al. 543). For example, Tas van Ommen’s research into Antarctic glaciology shows the tangible connection between increased snowfall in coastal East Antarctica and patterns of drought southwest Western Australia (van Ommen and Morgan). Hobart has become a global centre of marine and Antarctic science, bringing investment and development to the city. As the global climate heats up, Tasmania—thanks to its low latitude and southerly weather patterns—is one of the few regions in Australia likely to remain temperate. This is already leading to migration from the mainland that is impacting house prices and rental availability (Johnston; Landers 1). The region’s future is therefore closely entangled with its proximity to the far south. Salazar writes that “we cannot continue to think of Antarctica as the end of the Earth” (67). Shifting Antarctica into focus also brings Tasmania in from the margins. As an Antarctic city, Hobart assumes a privileged positioned on the global stage. This allows the city to present itself as central to international research efforts—in contrast to domestic views of the place as a small regional capital. The city inhabits dual identities; it is both on the periphery of Australian concerns and at the centre of Antarctic activity. Tasmania, then, is not in freefall, but rather at the forefront of a push to recognise Antarctica as entangled with its neighbours to the north.AcknowledgementsThis work was supported by the Australian Research Council under LP160100210.ReferencesAntonello, Alessandro. “Finding Place in Antarctica.” Antarctica and the Humanities. Eds. Peder Roberts, Lize-Marie van der Watt, and Adrian Howkins. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. 181–204.Australian Government. 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Introduction The term ‘resilience’ is on everyone’s lips - from politicians to community service providers to the seemingly endless supply of self-help gurus. The concept is undergoing a renaissance of sorts in contemporary Western society; but why resilience now? One possible explanation is that individuals and their communities are experiencing increased and intensified levels of adversity and hardship, necessitating the accumulation and deployment of ‘more resilience’. Whilst a strong argument could made that this is in fact the case, it would seem that the capacity to survive and thrive has been a feature of human survival and growth long before we had a name for it. Rather than an inherent characteristic, trait or set of behaviours of particularly ‘resilient’ individuals or groups, resilience has come to be viewed more as a common and everyday capacity, expressed and expressible by all people. Having researched the concept for some time now, we believe that we are only marginally closer to understanding this captivating but ultimately elusive concept. What we are fairly certain of is that resilience is more than basic survival but less than an invulnerability to adversity, resting somewhere in the middle of these two extremes. Given the increasing prevalence of populations affected by war and other disasters, we are certain however that efforts to better understand the accumulative dynamics of resilience, are now, more than ever, a vital area of public and academic concern. In our contemporary world, the concept of resilience is coming to represent a vital conceptual tool for responding to the complex challenges emerging from broad scale movements in climate change, rural and urban migration patterns, pollution, economic integration and other consequences of globalisation. In this article, the phenomenon of human resilience is defined as the cumulative build-up of both particular kinds of knowledge, skills and capabilities as well as positive affects such as hope, which sediment over time as transpersonal capacities for self-preservation and ongoing growth (Wilson). Although the accumulation of positive affect is crucial to the formation of resilience, the ability to re-imagine and utilise negative affects, events and environmental limitations, as productive cultural resources, is a reciprocal and under-researched aspect of the phenomenon. In short, we argue that resilience is the protective shield, which capacitates individuals and communities to at least deal with, and at best, overcome potential challenges, while also facilitating the realisation of hoped-for objects and outcomes. Closely tied to the formation of resilience is the lived experience of hope and hoping practices, with an important feature of resilience related to the future-oriented dimensions of hope (Parse). Yet it is important to note that the accumulation of hope, as with resilience, is not headed towards some state of invulnerability to adversity; as presumed to exist in the foundational period of psychological research on the construct (Garmezy; Werner and Smith; Werner). In contrast, we argue that the positive affective experience of hopefulness provides individuals and communities with a means of enduring the present, while the future-oriented dimensions of hope offer them an instrument for imagining a better future to come (Wilson). Given the complex, elusive and non-uniform nature of resilience, it is important to consider the continued relevance of the resilience concept. For example, is resilience too narrow a term to describe and explain the multiple capacities, strategies and resources required to survive and thrive in today’s world? Furthermore, why do some individuals and communities mobilise and respond to a crisis; and why do some collapse? In a related discussion, Ungar (Constructionist) posed the question, “Why keep the term resilience?” Terms like resilience, even strengths, empowerment and health, are a counterpoint to notions of disease and disorder that have made us look at people as glasses half empty rather than half full. Resilience reminds us that children survive and thrive in a myriad of ways, and that understanding the etiology of health is as, or more, important than studying the etiology of disease. (Ungar, Constructionist 91) This productive orientation towards health, creativity and meaning-making demonstrates the continued conceptual and existential relevance of resilience, and why it will remain a critical subject of inquiry now and into the future. Early Psychological Studies of Resilience Definitions of resilience vary considerably across disciplines and time, and according to the theoretical context or group under investigation (Harvey and Delfabro). During the 1970s and early 1980s, the developmental literature on resilience focused primarily on the “personal qualities” of “resilient children” exposed to adverse life circumstances (Garmezy Vulnerability; Masten; Rutter; Werner). From this narrow and largely individualistic viewpoint, resilience was defined as an innate “self-righting mechanism” (Werner and Smith 202). Writing from within the psychological tradition, Masten argued that the early research on resilience (Garmezy Vulnerability; Werner and Smith) regularly implied that resilient children were special or remarkable by virtue of their invulnerability to adversity. As research into resilience progressed, researchers began to acknowledge the ordinariness or everydayness of resilience-related phenomena. Furthermore, that “resilience may often derive from factors external to the child” (Luthar; Cicchetti and Becker 544). Besides the personal attributes of children, researchers within the psychological sciences also began to explore the effects of family dynamics and impacts of the broader social environment in the development of resilience. Rather than identifying which child, family or environmental factors were resilient or resilience producing, they turned their attention to how these underlying protective mechanisms facilitated positive resilience outcomes. As research evolved, resilience as an absolute or unchanging attribute made way for more relational and dynamic conceptualisations. As Luthar et al noted, “it became clear that positive adaptation despite exposure to adversity involves a developmental progression, such that new vulnerabilities and/or strengths often emerge with changing life circumstances” (543-44). Accordingly, resilience came to be viewed as a dynamic process, involving positive adaptations within contexts of adversity (Luthar et al. 543). Although closer to the operational definition of resilience argued for here, there remain a number of definitional concerns and theoretical limitations of the psychological approach; in particular, the limitation of positive adaptation to the context of significant adversity. In doing so, this definition fails to account for the subjective experience and culturally located understandings of ‘health’, ‘adversity’ and ‘adaptation’ so crucial to the formation of resilience. Our major criticism of the psychodynamic approach to resilience relates to the construction of a false dichotomy between “resilient” and “non-resilient” individuals. This dichotomy is perpetuated by psychological approaches that view resilience as a distinct construct, specific to “resilient” individuals. In combating this assumption, Ungar maintained that this bifurcation could be replaced by an understanding of mental health “as residing in all individuals even when significant impairment is present” (Thicker 352). We tend to agree. In terms of economic resilience, we must also be alert to similar false binaries that place the first and low-income world into simple, apposite positions of coping or not-coping, ‘having’ or ‘not-having’ resilience. There is evidence to indicate, for example, that emerging economies fared somewhat better than high-income nations during the global financial crisis (GFC). According to Frankel and Saravelos, several low-income nations attained better rates of gross domestic product GDP, though the impacts on the respective populations were found to be equally hard (Lane and Milesi-Ferretti). While the reasons for this are broad and complex, a study by Kose and Prasad found that a broad set of policy tools had been developed that allowed for greater flexibility in responding to the crisis. Positive Affect Despite Adversity An emphasis on deficit, suffering and pathology among marginalised populations such as refugees and young people has detracted from culturally located strengths. As Te Riele explained, marginalised young people residing in conditions of adversity are often identified within “at-risk” discourses. These social support frameworks have tended to highlight pathologies and antisocial behaviours rather than cultural competencies. This attitude towards marginalised “at risk” young people has been perpetuated by psychotherapeutic discourse that has tended to focus on the relief of suffering and treatment of individual pathologies (Davidson and Shahar). By focusing on pain avoidance and temporary relief, we may be missing opportunities to better understand the productive role of ‘negative’ affects and bodily sensations in alerting us to underlying conditions, in need of attention or change. A similar deficit approach is undertaken through education – particularly civics – where young people are treated as ‘citizens in waiting’ (Collin). From this perspective, citizenship is something that young people are expected to ‘grow into’, and until that point, are seen as lacking any political agency or ability to respond to adversity (Holdsworth). Although a certain amount of internal discomfort is required to promote change, Davidson and Shahar noted that clinical psychotherapists still “for the most part, envision an eventual state of happiness – both for our patients and for ourselves, described as free of tension, pain, disease, and suffering” (229). In challenging this assumption, they asked, But if desiring-production is essential to what makes us human, would we not expect happiness or health to involve the active, creative process of producing? How can one produce anything while sitting, standing, or lying still? (229) A number of studies exploring the affective experiences of migrants have contested the embedded psychological assumption that happiness or well-being “stands apart” from experiences of suffering (Crocker and Major; Fozdar and Torezani; Ruggireo and Taylor; Tsenkova, Love, Singer and Ryff). A concern for Ahmed is how much the turn to happiness or happiness turn “depends on the very distinction between good and bad feelings that presume bad feelings are backward and conservative and good feelings are forward and progressive” (Happiness 135). Highlighting the productive potential of unhappy affects, Ahmed suggested that the airing of unhappy affects in their various forms provides people with “an alternative set of imaginings of what might count as a good or at least better life” (Happiness 135). An interesting feature of refugee narratives is the paradoxical relationship between negative migration experiences and the reporting of a positive life outlook. In a study involving former Yugoslavian, Middle Eastern and African refugees, Fozdar and Torezani investigated the “apparent paradox between high-levels of discrimination experienced by humanitarian migrants to Australia in the labour market and everyday life” (30), and the reporting of positive wellbeing. The interaction between negative experiences of discrimination and reports of wellbeing suggested a counter-intuitive propensity among refugees to adapt to and make sense of their migration experiences in unique, resourceful and life-affirming ways. In a study of unaccompanied Sudanese youth living in the United States, Goodman reported that, “none of the participants displayed a sense of victimhood at the time of the interviews” (1182). Although individual narratives did reflect a sense of victimisation and helplessness relating to the enormity of past trauma, the young participants viewed themselves primarily as survivors and agents of their own future. Goodman further stated that the tone of the refugee testimonials was not bitter: “Instead, feelings of brotherliness, kindness, and hope prevailed” (1183). Such response patterns among refugees and trauma survivors indicate a similar resilience-related capacity to positively interpret and derive meaning from negative migration experiences and associated emotions. It is important to point out that demonstrations of resilience appear loosely proportional to the amount or intensity of adverse life events experienced. However, resilience is not expressed or employed uniformly among individuals or communities. Some respond in a resilient manner, while others collapse. On this point, an argument could be made that collapse and breakdown is a built-in aspect of resilience, and necessary for renewal and ongoing growth. Cultures of Resilience In a cross continental study of communities living and relying on waterways for their daily subsistence, Arvanitakis is involved in a broader research project aiming to understand why some cultures collapse and why others survive in the face of adversity. The research aims to look beyond systems of resilience, and proposes the term ‘cultures of resilience’ to describe the situated strategies of these communities for coping with a variety of human-induced environmental challenges. More specifically, the concept of ‘cultures of resilience’ assists in explaining the specific ways individuals and communities are responding to the many stresses and struggles associated with living on the ‘front-line’ of major waterways that are being impacted by large-scale, human-environment development and disasters. Among these diverse locations are Botany Bay (Australia), Sankhla Lake (Thailand), rural Bangladesh, the Ganges (India), and Chesapeake Bay (USA). These communities face very different challenges in a range of distinctive contexts. Within these settings, we have identified communities that are prospering despite the emerging challenges while others are in the midst of collapse and dispersion. In recognising the specific contexts of each of these communities, the researchers are working to uncover a common set of narratives of resilience and hope. We are not looking for the ’magic ingredient’ of resilience, but what kinds of strategies these communities have employed and what can they learn from each other. One example that is being pursued is a community of Thai rice farmers who have reinstated ceremonies to celebrate successful harvests by sharing in an indigenous rice species in the hope of promoting a shared sense of community. These were communities on the cusp of collapse brought on by changing economic and environmental climates, but who have reversed this trend by employing a series of culturally located practices. The vulnerability of these communities can be traced back to the 1960s ‘green revolution’ when they where encouraged by local government authorities to move to ‘white rice’ species to meet export markets. In the process they were forced to abandoned their indigenous rice varieties and abandon traditional seed saving practices (Shiva, Sengupta). Since then, the rice monocultures have been found to be vulnerable to the changing climate as well as other environmental influences. The above ceremonies allowed the farmers to re-discover the indigenous rice species and plant them alongside the ‘white rice’ for export creating a more robust harvest. The indigenous species are kept for local consumption and trade, while the ‘white rice’ is exported, giving the farmers access to both the international markets and income and the local informal economies. In addition, the indigenous rice acts as a form of ‘insurance’ against the vagaries of international trade (Shiva). Informants stated that the authorities that once encouraged them to abandon indigenous rice species and practices are now working with the communities to re-instigate these. This has created a partnership between the local government-funded research centres, government institutions and the farmers. A third element that the informants discussed was the everyday practices that prepare a community to face these challenges and allow it recover in partnership with government, including formal and informal communication channels. These everyday practices create a culture of reciprocity where the challenges of the community are seen to be those of the individual. This is not meant to romanticise these communities. In close proximity, there are also communities engulfed in despair. Such communities are overwhelmed with the various challenges described above of changing rural/urban settlement patterns, pollution and climate change, and seem to have lacked the cultural and social capital to respond. By contrasting the communities that have demonstrated resilience and those that have not been overwhelmed, it is becoming increasingly obvious that there is no single 'magic' ingredient of resilience. What exist are various constituted factors that involve a combination of community agency, social capital, government assistance and structures of governance. The example of the rice farmers highlights three of these established practices: working across formal and informal economies; crossing localised and expert knowledge as well as the emergence of everyday practices that promote social capital. As such, while financial transactions occur that link even the smallest of communities to the global economy, there is also the everyday exchange of cultural practices, which is described elsewhere by Arvanitakis as 'the cultural commons': visions of hope, trust, shared intellect, and a sense of safety. Reflecting the refugee narratives citied above, these communities also report a positive life outlook, refusing to see themselves as victims. There is a propensity among members of these communities to adapt an outlook of hope and survival. Like the response patterns among refugees and trauma survivors, initial research is confirming a resilience-related capacity to interpret the various challenges that have been confronted, and see their survival as reason to hope. Future Visions, Hopeful Visions Hope is a crucial aspect of resilience, as it represents a present- and future-oriented mode of situated defence against adversity. The capacity to hope can increase one’s powers of action despite a complex range of adversities experienced in everyday life and during particularly difficult times. The term “hope” is commonly employed in a tokenistic way, as a “nice” rhetorical device in the mind-body-spirit or self-help literature or as a strategic instrument in increasingly empty domestic and international political vocabularies. With a few notable exceptions (Anderson; Bloch; Godfrey; Hage; Marcel; Parse; Zournazi), the concept of hope has received only modest attention from within sociology and cultural studies. Significant increases in the prevalence of war and disaster-affected populations makes qualitative research into the lived experience of hope a vital subject of academic interest. Parse observed among health care professionals a growing attention to “the lived experience of hope”, a phenomenon which has significant consequences for health and the quality of one’s life (vvi). Hope is an integral aspect of resilience as it can act as a mechanism for coping and defense in relation to adversity. Interestingly, it is during times of hardship and adversity that the phenomenological experience of hope seems to “kick in” or “switch on”. With similarities to the “taken-for-grantedness” of resilience in everyday life, Anderson observed that hope and hoping are taken-for-granted aspects of the affective fabric of everyday life in contemporary Western culture. Although the lived experience of hope, namely, hopefulness, is commonly conceptualised as a “future-oriented” state of mind, the affectivity of hope, in the present moment of hoping, has important implications in terms of resilience formation. The phrase, the “lived deferral of hope” is an idea that Wilson has developed elsewhere which hopefully brings together and holds in creative tension the two dominant perspectives on hope as a lived experience in the present and a deferred, future-oriented practice of hoping and hopefulness. Zournazi defined hope as a “basic human condition that involves belief and trust in the world” (12). She argued that the meaning of hope is “located in the act of living, the ordinary elements of everyday life” and not in “some future or ideal sense” (18). Furthermore, she proposed a more “everyday” hope which “is not based on threat or deferral of gratification”, but is related to joy “as another kind of contentment – the affirmation of life as it emerges and in the transitions and movements of our everyday lives and relationships” (150). While qualitative studies focusing on the everyday experience of hope have reinvigorated academic research on the concept of hope, our concept of “the lived deferral of hope” brings together Zournazi’s “everyday hope” and the future-oriented dimensions of hope and hoping practices, so important to the formation of resilience. Along similar lines to Ahmed’s (Happy Objects) suggestion that happiness “involves a specific kind of intentionality” that is “end-orientated”, practices of hope are also intentional and “end-orientated” (33). If objects of hope are a means to happiness, as Ahmed wrote, “in directing ourselves towards this or that [hope] object we are aiming somewhere else: toward a happiness that is presumed to follow” (Happy Objects 34), in other words, to a hope that is “not yet present”. It is the capacity to imagine alternative possibilities in the future that can help individuals and communities endure adverse experiences in the present and inspire confidence in the ongoingness of their existence. Although well-intentioned, Zournazi’s concept of an “everyday hope” seemingly ignores the fact that in contexts of daily threat, loss and death there is often a distinct lack of affirmative or affirmable things. In these contexts, the deferral of joy and gratification, located in the future acquisition of objects, outcomes or ideals, can be the only means of getting through particularly difficult events or circumstances. One might argue that hope in hopeless situations can be disabling; however, we contend that hope is always enabling to some degree, as it can facilitate alternative imaginings and temporary affective relief in even in the most hopeless situations. Hope bears similarity to resilience in terms of its facilities for coping and endurance. Likewise the formation and maintenance of hope can help individuals and communities endure and cope with adverse events or circumstances. The symbolic dimension of hope capacitates individuals and communities to endure the present without the hoped-for outcomes and to live with the uncertainty of their attainment. In the lives of refugees, for example, the imaginative dimension of hope is directly related to resilience in that it provides them with the ability to respond to adversity in productive and life-affirming ways. For Oliver, hope “provides continuity between the past and the present…giving power to find meaning in the worst adversity” (in Parse 16). In terms of making sense of the migration and resettlement experiences of refugees and other migrants, Lynch proposed a useful definition of hope as “the fundamental knowledge and feeling that there is a way out of difficulty, that things can work out” (32). As it pertains to everyday mobility and life routes, Parse considered hope to be “essential to one’s becoming” (32). She maintained that hope is a lived experience and “a way of propelling self toward envisioned possibilities in everyday encounters with the world” (p. 12). Expanding on her definition of the lived experience of hope, Parse stated, “Hope is anticipating possibilities through envisioning the not-yet in harmoniously living the comfort-discomfort of everydayness while unfolding a different perspective of an expanding view” (15). From Nietzsche’s “classically dark version of hope” (in Hage 11), Parse’s “positive” definition of hope as a propulsion to envisaged possibilities would in all likelihood be defined as “the worst of all evils, for it protracts the torment of man”. Hage correctly pointed out that both the positive and negative perspectives perceive hope “as a force that keeps us going in life” (11). Parse’s more optimistic vision of hope as propulsion to envisaged possibilities links nicely to what Arvanitakis described as an ‘active hope’. According to him, the idea of ‘active hope’ is not only a vision that a better world is possible, but also a sense of agency that our actions can make this happen. Conclusion As we move further into the 21st century, humankind will be faced with a series of traumas, many of which are as yet unimagined. To meet these challenges, we, as a global collective, will need to develop specific capacities and resources for coping, endurance, innovation, and hope, all of which are involved the formation of resilience (Wilson 269). Although the accumulation of resilience at an individual level is important, our continued existence, survival, and prosperity lie in the strength and collective will of many. As Wittgenstein wrote, the strength of a thread “resides not in the fact that some one fibre runs through its whole length, but in the overlapping of many fibres” (xcv). If resilience can be accumulated at the level of the individual, it follows that it can be accumulated as a form of capital at the local, national, and international levels in very real and meaningful ways. 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