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The Australian car manufacturing industry closed in the third quarter of 2017, bringing to an end 70 years of vehicle assembly as General Motors Holden, Ford and Toyota ceased large-scale production. This resulted in highly visible redundancies amongst the vehicle producers, and a more profound, but less noticeable, loss of employment within the supply chain. The likely impact on the affected communities will be profound, with northern Adelaide, the outer parts of Melbourne and the regional city of Geelong likely to bear witness to long-term worklessness for decades to come. This outcome, however, was not an inevitable consequence of market forces; instead, it was a product of the decisions of successive governments over more than 30 years, as well as the consequences of a global industry restructuring in the face of economic shock. This paper begins by situating the research within a new state spaces framework before sketching out the dynamics of the Australian car industry in the twentieth century, and moving on to consider the institutional and policy factors that contributed at the national level to change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the operation and subsequent failure of TiVo in Australia. Drawing on actor-network theory, we unpack the TiVo assemblage throughout our paper, and look at the various human, technical, and institutional interventions that constituted it and constrained its possible futures. This analysis will be conducted by tracing how TiVo attempted to establish itself as a viable social and technical assemblage and assessing its influence on “new locales of regulation, new practices, new ethical stances, and new institutions.” Our approach offers an inclusive analytical lens by considering how a collection of actors—large and small, human and nonhuman—were actively involved in assembling and disassembling the network required by TiVo for an ongoing presence in Australia. It also contributes to a growing body of work that outlines the usefulness of ANT to media studies scholarship. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The proprietors of almost 100 Chinese furniture factories in Australia went bankrupt during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. With a substantial stake in furniture production for decades following the gold rushes of the 1850s and 1860s, Chinese furniture factory operators were vilified and legislated against in a push for ‘White‐Australian’ industrial advancement. Historians have consistently concentrated on such campaigns when explaining Chinese‐Australian business failures of this period. Yet informed principally by their bankruptcy court testimony, this paper contends that Chinese furniture manufacturers went bankrupt largely because of economic difficulties and, thus, failures are not sufficiently explained by ‘White Australia’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gold‐seeking in the 1850s Australian gold rush provided opportunity for James and Maggie Hoey, a young Scottish couple, to pursue wealth, experience adventure, and escape some of the strictures of their United Presbyterian religious culture. They hoped that Providence would guide their paths to independence, prosperity, and eventual return to Scotland. Instead, they experienced repeated failure and suffering, becoming keenly aware of the absence of familiar avenues of support and solace. This article examines the gendered strategies family members developed to maintain or reclaim piety under unfavourable conditions on the goldfields. The disparity between their expectations and outcomes draws attention to the ways in which religious beliefs shaped individual response to suffering. The dogged, but ultimately futile, quest for gold undermined the capacity of James Hoey to fulfil his gendered roles, impacting upon his hope in, and assurance of, election to eternal life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]