A space for conversations about people, places and human-environment relations, hosted by the Discipline of Geography and Planning at Macquarie University.
We are very pleased to share this article by Linda Kelly MPIA, planning Lecturer in the Discipline of Geography and Planning at Macquarie, on employability and recruitment trends in the planning sector, and what these mean for graduates at the start of their careers.
This article originally appeared in December 2022 in New Planner – the journal of the New South Wales planning profession – published by the Planning Institute of Australia. For more information, please visit: www.planning.org.au/news/new-planner-nsw
A Yr 10 student at Hornsby Girls High school, Suvarnika Ramisetty, discusses her involvement in Macquarie University during her Work Experience Period
This week, from the 28th Nov – 2nd Dec, I participated in my work experience placement in Macquarie University, where I was expected to shadow academics in the discipline of Geography and Planning, absorb research activity processes and aid in data entry and analysis. Prior to this placement, despite the research component being extremely daunting, I maintained an interest in the expansive fields of geography and science, being reflective of my future endeavours. Hence, I was extremely eager to engage in this experience in order to gain insight into the course of an Academic researcher, particularly within a university setting.
Monday
I began the week with Professor Sandie Suchet-Pearson, with me arriving about 10 minutes late trying to find ‘Wally’s Walk’ despite trekking across Wally’s walk for 20 whole minutes. I was first appointed with the arduous task of suggesting edits for a blog concerning researchers at Macquarie University and a few Gomeroi/Kamilaroi custodians. Despite my confusion over Sandie’s trust in me to help her, I started editing the blog while learning about how partnership with Indigenous Australians (as seen on Guinmaa in Moree) can help us see, think, comprehend, and provide greater access to Guinimaa. Following that, I sifted through some lengthy audio files to find quotes from Gomeroi/Kamilaroi custodian Uncle Phil that best supported the blog.
Simply editing the ‘Winaga-li Gunimaa Gali’ blog challenged some of my earlier assumptions regarding academic research, and encouraged me to consider the effort, time and travelling involved in academia. Even reading the names of everyone who contributed to the paper, made me realise the collaboration required in a research project in order to create exceptional results.
Tuesday
The following day, I worked with Dr Jessica McLean and developed my skills in data analysis, by learning how to manually code. I was astounded too when I realised that, when Jess said ‘coding’ she meant categorising qualitative data into outstanding information and common themes and NOT hacking away at a computer. Following this, I began coding and annotating nine interview transcripts from research on how people engage with social media, analysing common criticisms and reasons for enjoyment. I was particularly amused with the last interview, in which the interviewee decided to not answer any of the questions asked with more than one word. During this process, I was also introduced to two students on campus who were working on their PhDs, reassuring me that there were actually people other than teachers on site.
Through coding the data, I was able to acquire more insight into research methods and experience academic research through a different lens, which is the fun part before writing a 20 000 word report. Furthermore, analysing the data about Tik Tok and young people and how this relates to geographies, locales and the digital world, was firstly, much more fun than I anticipated and secondly, introduced me to yet another new branch of geography.
Wednesday
On Monday, I had also begun sorting through images taken in Bawaka, Yarramundi and Newcastle. The best images would later be featured in a photo book dedicated to Indigenous elder, Dr L Burarrwanga. On Wednesday I had completed selecting the most outstanding photos and deleting the not so outstanding. Sorting through the images was an immersive experience that allowed me to witness the fieldwork component of research, and to gain a new appreciation for the effort invested in academic processes. Later that day, I unleashed some of my inner chaos and creativity in snapfish, starting off the photobook.
A page from the photo book that Suvarnika worked on
Following that, I was fortunate enough to attend the staff’s End of November or Christmas party, where I devoured the best free food of my life and met a few academics, professors and students. Wednesday became one of my most memorable work experience days. In addition to the delicious food, I learned about why and how some people begin their PhD or Masters degrees, a process that you’re kind of assumed to know in high school. Through speaking with the staff and students, who were hugely amicable, I was able to gauge a timeline of a student’s life in uni as well as life in uni from the opposite lens, a professor. This ultimately provided me with a bit of security for the years to come.
The Geography and Planning Christmas lunch
Thursday
On Day 4, I attended a Digital Intimacy conference with Dr Jessica McLean, with a mixture of trepidation and interest, having been given advice the day before on how NOT to fall asleep in a conference. On the contrary, the conference was quite refreshing and greatly contrasted my experiences on the first three days. Through the conference, I discovered more about Geographies and Localities, Sextech and Global Relatives. I was particularly captivated by how months or even years of research were being presented, which offered me deeper understanding into presenting PhD research as well as the procedures involved in academic research.
Friday
On my final, bittersweet day of work experience, I completed the photobook dedicated to Dr L Burarrwanga, adding my own creative flair. To round off the day, before getting lost in the stunning new Arts building for the final time, I began writing this blog and was able to reflect on my incredible experience at Macquarie University.
This last week has piqued my interest in academic research careers by exposing me to various unique topics and Macquarie’s outstanding Arts faculty. Despite the lack of students on campus, I was able to discern the processes involved in producing papers, revising PhD’s and presenting research. This allowed me to consider my future, while immersed in an amusing and surreal experience. Selecting a University for Work Experience provided me with invaluable insight into my near future, which, to be honest, seems rather daunting and scary. I am truly grateful for my time spent in Macquarie for this last week, and thank you to all the amazing staff and students.
Milena Bojovic, PhD candidate in the Discipline of Geography and Planning, reflects on her fieldwork experiences during and after the COVID-19 border closures, and the mixed emotions of transitioning from Zoom meetings to in-person interviews and multi-sensorial ethnography. This is the first in a small series of posts on fieldwork during the pandemic.
I began my PhD during the high times of COVID lockdowns and border closures but had high hopes that this wouldn’t last long and I would soon be on my way to my fieldwork visiting dairy farms in the beautiful South Island of Aotearoa New Zealand. However, this did not happen as soon as I anticipated. Towards the end of the first year of my PhD in 2021, I was growing antsy about how I would collect my primary data as travel was still not permitted even though my PhD clock was steadily ticking away. So, I began what most social researchers (and frankly, anyone with a laptop for a job) did during this time: I turned to Zoom.
There were pros and cons to this aspect of fieldwork. Firstly, it was much easier to set up a date and time to meet participants. I could easily record and save the audio file for later transcription without the worry of tech errors or background noise detracting from any potentially juicy quotes. After about 15 interviews I was getting in the real swing of things. Sometimes I interviewed two people in a day. Sometimes an interview went for 45 minutes and other times we scheduled a follow up interview because the original time slot just wasn’t long enough. By the time I had reached my 27th interview, I had all but given up on the desire to actually go away for in-person fieldwork because I felt these digitally mediated interviews told me enough about what I needed to know.
Fast forward to April this year, however, and my travel plans started to come to life – borders opened, flights were booked and about 12 different tabs for AirBnb options stared back at me every time I opened my browser. I was both excited but also, to my surprise, reluctant to go. I felt weird, uncomfortable and confused because I wasn’t sure how my research would translate in person, in the field(s).
This was partly because doing the interviews through Zoom had become more and more comfortable, easy and efficient. I had previously done a series of interviews for my Masters thesis and I remembered the awkward moments, like when I would wait at a café for the participant to arrive (and having no idea what they look like!), or entering peoples offices and offering wary smiles to their colleagues who had no idea why I was there, or visiting someone’s home and being unsure of the homely protocols (do I take my sneakers off when I get to the front door!?). It was these tiny nuances in social interactions that made me feel stifled about going into the field again.
With all that in mind, the somewhat disembodied nature of Zoom started to feel somehow better than actually meeting new people face to face. It was almost like my laptop became my safety blanket – interviewing from my apartment in my trackpants, treating the camera as a window into another world and meeting the pixels of people I knew I would probably never get to see in real life seemed quite ok. The gloom of Zoom no longer seemed to plague me and the necessity of leaving my comfort zone to go to the field in person seemed redundant.
Fast forward again – it is now late July and my laptop and I have travelled across the Tasman see to the South Island of Aotearoa for fieldwork, finally! I am sitting in my Airbnb, writing this reflection in earnest because I overcame so much of that worry and fear of research not panning out the way I imagined. If anything, it’s better than I imagined.
Geography in the field(s). Source: Milena BojovicPictures taken on one of my many road trips. Source: Milena Bojovic
Spending two years in lockdown and beginning a PhD entirely in front of a screen was hard and created habits of solitude and, at times, disenchantment. However, being able to leave the comforts of home, of trackpants and endless cups of coffee piled around my desk, has forced me to build my people skills, my self-confidence, and (re)learn to be comfortable with the sometimes-uncomfortable aspects of interviewing in person and meeting so many new people.
One of the most rewarding experiences thus far during this trip, that really crystalised a lot of my reflections about geography in the field(s), was when I was in a paddock with a farmer who explained to me how, the night before, the rains softened the soil causing mud to proliferate under the hooves of his cattle. But upon closer inspection, he showed me how the soil also showed us other weather patterns too because on that particular day when we were out in the field, the sun had been shining since the early morning so the next row of soil was less muddy and porous. Looking at the dirt of the fields in this way was fascinating to me – an appreciation of landscape that no amount of Zoom could tangibly show me or help me understand.
Visited a calving pen with the farmer, observed day-old calves drinking. Source: Milena BojovicConversations with a farmer reflecting on the landscape. Source: Milena Bojovic
While I still use Zoom all the time, travelling for fieldwork has renewed my passion for this project and my desire to learn more about landscapes, soils, waterways, and human-environment relations to all these different spaces and places. For this fieldwork trip, my researcher uniform has transformed from trackpants to gumboots as I experience research in the field(s) of the South Island of Aotearoa.
Here is the recording to Dr. Catherine Oliver and Dr. Amelia Morris’ recent GeoPlan seminar ‘Resisting the academic circle jerk’: precarity and friendship at academic conferences in UK higher education’. Many thanks again to Dr. Oliver and Dr. Morris for their insightful paper and generous discussion!
By Linda Kelly, Lecturer in Planning, School of Social Sciences, and students from GEOP3080 Urban Strategic Planning.
Introduction
My teaching this semester included convening a third-year unit in the Bachelor of Planning called Urban Strategic Planning. One of the things I enjoy about teaching this unit is the last few weeks that are conducted as student-led workshops. Students work in groups over a few weeks developing a concept plan for a courtyard space on campus. Their work includes understanding the site, conducting two consultation exercises with Macquarie students, developing guiding principles and then conceiving a plan. It is such a pleasure to see the students warm to this project, especially the ‘learning by doing’ aspect to the unit.
The early part of the semester focused on skills development leading up to the workshop weeks. These skills included strategic plan development, interpreting legislation, and field work observation and analysis.
At the beginning of the semester I asked for student volunteers to contribute to a blog about their learning experience in the unit. The following text represents an edited version of contributions from students Marana Conde, Jacob Smith, Lachlan Muir, Laura Zhou, Jack Li, Nikita Lange, Jake Tsagaris and Ali Ahmad.
Week 3: Metropolitan planning and careers in planning
This week our topic was metropolitan planning in Sydney, looking at its historical basis as well as the current plan, “A Metropolis of Three Cities”. We also had a guest presentation by Lena Corzo, Career Development Consultant from Macquarie, who was joined by a Macquarie alumni working in the profession to discuss what it’s like working as a planner and what employers are looking for from job candidates.
Marana and Jacob: In week three we were introduced to the history of metropolitan planning practice in Sydney. These processes have come to shape the landscape of the city and structure of successive metropolitan plans. The current Greater Sydney Region Plan is defined by a vision of three cities; the western parkland city, the central river city and the eastern harbour city with the objective of improving access for residents to jobs, education, health, and other important services.
This plan is governed by ten directives for new infrastructure and collaboration, liveability, productivity, and sustainability in Sydney. The plan’s aim is to utilise space effectively to address issues of equitable access across the city as it continues to grow. We were all extremely passionate about sharing our issues with Sydney’s public transport and the lack of sustainable transport options that are available, especially as a goal of the Plan is to live in a ’30 minute city’.
An insightful visit from Nathan Croft, a practicing planner in planning and development strategy, provided a hopeful and optimistic outlook towards our job prospects in the field of urban planning. He emphasised the wide variety of options and career paths that are open to us.
Week 6: Field trip to Canterbury
For the first time in over two years we went out into the field! Background for the trip was provided by planners from Canterbury-Bankstown City Council and we were joined on site by Emma Clinton, an Urban Renewal Specialist from the Council.
Lachlan: During week 6 we went on a field trip to Canterbury Town Centre where we met with Emma, an urban planner from the Canterbury Bankstown City Council. Emma provided the group with a background briefing and then guided the class on a walking tour of the Canterbury area. The purpose of this field trip was to build the foundation for our next assessment, which is focused on developing a strategic plan for the Canterbury Town Centre.
During the field trip we were encouraged to take photos of the site, make observations, and think critically about potential recommendations for the future. Emma led our group to different locations throughout Canterbury highlighting some key issues such as housing mix and affordability, active street frontages on Canterbury Road, the connectivity within and around the town centre including transport and open space, the centre’s identity, and its connection with the Cooks River.
The field trip was a very positive experience and provided myself and my peers the opportunity to visualise key planning issues in a real life setting and use the knowledge and skills we have developed during this course to provide a strategic plan for the area.
Week 9: Student-led workshops
This week marks the beginning of a four-week planning workshop exercise in which students work in groups. Workshops begin with a brief introduction and outline of the week’s expectations followed by student-led discussion and work.
Laura: Today’s workshop theme was working with kindness. I had to wonder, how does kindness apply to group work?
A good example of putting kindness into practice was in our approach to student absences. Unfortunately, not every member was present in the groups this week, for various reasons such as illness, or family obligations. We were encouraged to respond to this by being ‘flexible and showing kindness’ to all group members whether they were present or absent for this weeks’ group work. Group members that were present worked cooperatively on our project, contributing ideas where it will be beneficial to the group’s presentation.
One interesting thing that I learnt in the workshop was the purpose of a ‘mind-map’. In previous years, I have always completed mind-maps using a single colour, however, using different colours instead can attract our brains attention, and together with the use of short simple key words allows our mind to remember the context much easier.
Students visiting the site: Macquarie Theatre Courtyard
Week 10: Learning consultation practices
Part of the workshop exercise involves providing students with experience in doing a number of consultation exercises, both as leader and participant. This week’s workshop involved learning about small group interaction to encourage students’ ideas about the future use of a campus outdoor space.
Jack and Nikita: During class this week, discussions were oriented around the idea of consultation. We heard from Angie Radford, Co-ordinator Strategy and Place at Eurobodalla Shire Council, about the complexity of the consultation process. Angie highlighted the importance of “actually listening” to the community as a good form of consultation. This was important for us as students of planning to hear that we must always approach consultation with an openness to new ideas and knowledge.
The week also involved an activity that allowed us to engage with consultation in practice that worked towards our assignment. It allowed our individual groups to gain knowledge and insights of the site. Ultimately, the workshop provided our group with some critical aspects and information in relation to creating an interesting activity that could help us gain community feedback in the next workshop on how we could make this area more vibrant and active.
Small group consultation in Week 10 (left) and consultation on campus in Week 11 (right)
Week 11: Learning by doing
Trying to attract the attention of passers-by on a busy thoroughfare can be challenging. This week students embarked on a consultation exercise on campus to engage other students in their project ideas for the campus space.
Ali and Jake: This week we were given the opportunity to seek the ideas, perspectives and thoughts from other Macquarie University students about the existing Macquarie Theatre Courtyard.
Consultation is an extremely important process in any planning decision, as we have come to learn throughout the course of the unit. This week our group, Space Koalas, were assigned a one-hour time slot to be on Wally’s Walk to seek various ideas about students’ vision for the assigned area. Our group’s question was “How would you improve the MQ theatre courtyard space?”. One of the challenges that we were preparing for was to find people willing to stop and participate as the majority of students tend to walk by and not engage.
One highlight for this week was the realisation that a lot of people do actually care and give their time to you when you are doing a consultation exercise. Only a small handful of people didn’t stop whilst the majority did and we managed to receive a sufficient amount of feedback for our assignment. Some of the most interesting feedback we received included, a volleyball court, music studio, and a vegetable/herb garden.
Prior to this activity we would have thought that with students’ busy schedules, no one would have stopped by and given us their time. This completely changed our perspective on public consultation and was comforting to experience.
Conclusion
Students gave their final presentations last week. A common theme in their concluding comments was how much they enjoyed the experience and appreciated the hands-on nature of the workshops. I am very proud of their achievements.
Associate Professor Emily O’Gorman’s book Wetlands in a Dry Land: More-than-human Histories of the Murray-Darling Basin (University of Washington Press, 2021) has received an international Nautilus Book Award of Silver in the category of “Ecology & Environment”.
Earlier this year Associate Professor Kate Lloyd asked Emily a series of questions about her book and the research behind it for use in teaching. Kate’s questions and Emily’s answers are below.
What are the aims and objectives of your book and the wider research project it emerged from?
To provide new perspectives on wetlands by revealing their socio-ecological histories and, in so doing, open up possibilities for new kinds of relationships with and futures for them.
To ground this in a case study of the Murray-Darling Basin.
To develop the new approach of more-than-human histories by bringing together concepts and methods in environmental history and more-than-human/multispecies studies.
What theoretical framework are you using and why?
The project developed a new framework of “more-than-human histories” by bringing together established and emerging approaches in environmental history and more-than-human/multispecies studies and extending them. This framework led me to develop some new concepts throughout the book like “imagined ecologies”. This concept built on previous work on “worlding” from multispecies studies, and the work of scholars like Donna Haraway, Anna Tsing and others, and by work in environmental history on socio-ecological watery spaces by Heather Goodall, Robert Wilson, and others.
My reasoning for this approach is that I found this allowed me to better explain the diverse and changing human and nonhuman relationships that have together co-constituted wetlands in the Murray-Darling Basin.
Emily O’Gorman in The Coorong (by Thom van Dooren)
How does this shape the methodology you have chosen for this project?
Moving between the past and present, and thinking about more-than human relationships meant I combined archival research with interviews and oral histories, as well as visits to particular wetlands (which then also often informed interviews and archival research). I approached these with the aim of reading/listening for multiple human and non-human voices and with the understanding that nothing is created in isolation, always in dynamic relation with multiple humans and nonhumans – even archives! And indeed our own experiences.
What is your positionality and how does this shape/guide your research approach?
In a few ways:
– I am not Indigenous and so in working with Aboriginal people in the Basin I needed to be aware of the cross-cultural dimensions of the research I was undertaking and to be attentive to the histories of colonisation I was discussing. It was incredibly important for me to listen.
– I am a woman and this influenced a range of aspects of my research, including working more with Aboriginal women in this instance than men as it was more culturally appropriate given the issues/topics/places/etc.
– I am an academic researcher who lives in the Greater Sydney region and in many ways an “outsider” in terms of the Basin’s politics (compared to those living there). This sometimes meant people were more willing to talk to me, and sometimes the opposite.
Can you share one important aspect of research ethics that has shaped this research project?
I was keen for reciprocal research relationships with the Aboriginal and other community groups I worked with and have initiated research with them that they would like prioritised.
Macquarie Marshes (by Emily O’Gorman)
What were the main findings of your research?
The approach of more-than-human histories does indeed lead to different sorts of histories of wetlands.
Far from being places that are purely “natural”, wetlands are deeply cultural. That wetlands are rich not only in diverse kinds of plants and animals but in human histories, and that dynamic, changing more-than-human relationships have together shaped the present state of these places.
That the way people use and value wetlands matters – it helps to shape worlds.
We are all still living with and grappling with the legacies of past relationships with wetlands.
That Aboriginal people need to be listened to more, including in wetlands management, and better formal avenues for their representation are needed.
How did you communicate them, and to whom?
I wrote a book! This then became a basis of national radio interviews, public talks, and so on, which provides an opportunity to discuss the research in different formats and to different audiences. I also did an interview for the New Books Network which reaches a broad international audience. I also did a range of academic talks and journal articles throughout the project.
I have also developed new projects along the way, including one focused on Country Classrooms that partially happen in wetlands.
Listen to Dr O’Gorman discussing her book here:
Interview on Late Night Live, Radio National Australia.
Excited to share this piece by Linda Kelly, planning Lecturer in our Discipline of Geography and Planning, on the challenges planning students faced completing their degrees during a pandemic and developing alternative skills during difficult times.
This article originally appeared in New Planner – the journal of the New South Wales planning profession – published by the Planning Institute of Australia. For more information, please visit: www.planning.org.au/news/new-planner-nsw
We were so fortunate to have Associate Professor Natascha Klocker present her research on Hope and Grief in the Human Geography Classroom today. Here’s a link for a video recording of her zoom talk and audio-only recording if you missed it.
Across the world, people worried about the impacts of climate change are seeking creative and meaningful ways to transform their urban environments. One such approach is known as “quiet activism”.
“Quiet activism” refers to the extraordinary measures taken by ordinary people as part of their everyday lives, to address the climate emergency at the local level.
In the absence of national leadership, local communities are forging new responses to the climate crisis in places where they live, work and play.
As we outline in a book released this month, these responses work best when they are collaborative, ongoing and tailored to local circumstances.
Here are three examples that show how it can be done.
Climate for Change: a Tupperware party but make it climate
Climate for Change is a democratic project in citizen-led climate education and participation.
This group has engaged thousands of Australians about the need for climate action — not through public lectures or rallies, but via kitchen table-style local gatherings with family and friends.
As they put it:
We’ve taken the party-plan model made famous by Tupperware and adapted it to allow meaningful discussions about climate change to happen at scale.
Their website quotes “Jarrod”, who hosted one such party, saying:
I’ve been truly surprised by the lasting impact of my conversation amongst friends who were previously silent on the issue – we are still talking about it nine months on.
Climate for Change has published a “climate conversation guide” to help people tackle tricky talks with friends and family about climate change.
EnviroHouse is a not-for-profit organisation based in Western Australia committed to local-scale climate action through hands-on community education and engagement projects, such as:
facilitating workshops on energy efficiency
visiting schools on request to provide sustainability services
collecting seeds to grow thousands of she-oaks, paperbarks and rushes along the eroded Maylands foreshore in Perth
teaching workshops on composting, worm farming and bokashi techniques to community members
giving talks on sustainable living
running a home and workplace energy and water auditing program.
collaborates with a wide range of artists, art professionals, and scientists to produce compelling programs for change. Through festivals, events and interventions, we invite those who live, work and play in the arts to join us.
This group aims to create a space which brings together artists and the public to work, think and talk through the implications of climate change.
Why quiet?
Quiet activism raises questions around what it means to be an activist, or to “do activism”.
While loud, attention-grabbing and disruptive protests are important, local-scale activities are also challenging the “business as usual” model. These quiet approaches highlight how ordinary citizens can take action every day to generate transformative change.
There is a tendency within climate activism to dismiss “quiet” activities as merely a precursor to bigger, more effective (that is, “louder”) political action.
Everyday local-scale activities are sometimes seen as disempowering or conservative; they’re sometimes cast as privileging individual roles and responsibility over collective action.
However, a growing range of voices draws attention to the transformative potential of small, purposeful everyday action.
UK-based researcher Laura Pottinger emphasises that these everyday practices are acts of care and kindness to community — both human and non-human.
Her interest is a “dirt under the fingernails” kind of activism, which gains strength from a quiet commitment to practical action.
Researcher Laura Pottinger argues that a kind of ‘dirt under the fingernails’ activism gains strength from a quiet commitment to practical action. Shutterstock
Climate action, here and how
The climate crisis has arrived and urgent action is required.
By creatively participating in local climate action, we can collectively reimagine our experience of, and responses to, the climate emergency.
In doing so, we lay the foundation for new possibilities.
Quiet activism is not a panacea. Like any other form of activism, it can be ineffective or, worse, damaging. Without an ethical framework, it risks enabling only short-lived action, or leading to only small pockets of localised activity.
But when done ethically and sustainably — with long-term impact in mind — quiet activism can make a profound difference to lives and communities.
Here’s the zoom recording of Prof Anoma Pieris’ (with Lynne Horiuchi) GeoPlan seminar ‘The Architecture of Confinement: Incarceration Camps of the Pacific War‘. We are so grateful to Prof Pieris for sharing her expertise on the geographies of camps today!
groundwork 