The Impact of Opportunity: Reflections of a TASA 2024 Bursary Recipient by Jenna Harb.
From 2019-2023, my PhD research employed a multisited ethnography to examine how humanitarians in Lebanon adapt to overlapping and ongoing crises. I conducted participant observations, online and in-person interviews, and content analysis on two of Lebanon’s major humanitarian programmes: digitised cash assistance to refugees (e-cards) and emergency response to the Beirut Port explosion. I presented a chapter from my PhD research at the TASA annual conference in Perth in one of the Migration, Ethnicity, and Multiculturalism (MEM) sessions. This chapter examines how efforts to deliver cash-based assistance to refugees creates conditions for, and is restricted to, what sociologist Anthony Dimario calls “palliative governance.” This refers to stopgap measures and improvisations that moderate the risks of harm and postpone death in the face of governance failures. By focusing on palliative governance in Lebanon’s humanitarian context—which is saturated with crises, transnational interventionism, and migration governance—I uncover different spaces and mechanisms of poverty governance that have not yet been highlighted in domestic and US- and European-centric research. In doing so, my research hopes to expand understandings of the governance of impoverished and precarious groups.
My experience at TASA was incredibly valuable to developing my skills and knowledge base as an ECR. By presenting my research to a group of experts, I was able to gain feedback that enabled stronger connections to other work on migration and strengthening my analysis. I also received incredible questions from the audience, which generated reflection on different sociological aspects that I would not have been possible without TASA attendees. Such engagement is invaluable to improving the quality, analytic rigour, and contributions of my paper, which better enable me to publish this work in a sociological journal. This is absolutely necessary for an aspiring sociologist like myself, who relies on publications to help attain an ongoing role at a university. Given I am now applying for jobs at universities in NSW, the support and encouragement I received at TASA to help me publish this piece was therefore critical to my career prospects.
Furthermore, attending TASA was an incredible opportunity to network with scholars from all around Australia. Few events have such a large pool of both early career and established sociologists. My experience of networking was immensely positive, enabling me to meet new people and to catch up with colleagues who I haven’t seen in ages. The social events at TASA supported this networking, which made making connections much easier. In doing so, I have expanded my academic network and grown my capacity to engage in cross-Australia collaborations and writing.
In addition, TASA's conference enabled unparalleled access to a range of research projects, papers, and subfields of sociology. From cultural sociology, to critical Indigenous studies, to gender and sexualities, I learned how a number of scholars study important societal issues that impact us all. One of the most interesting panels I attended was on the sociology of health. Although health is not my area of expertise, I learned of intriguing frameworks, methods, and findings that I could apply to my own research on welfare systems in the Global South.
Presentation by Sophie Lewis, “Buying time: terminal prognosis, temporal uncertainty, and the costs of incurable cancer”
I’m incredibly grateful that The Australian Sociological Association granted me a travel bursary so that I could attend this year’s conference in Perth. As an aspiring sociologist, I look forward to TASA’s annual conference every year. However, attending an out of state conference tends to be unfeasible due to my precarity as an ECR and the contemporary state of funding in Australia’s education sector. My funding as an ECR is quite limited, and more recently, my research funding has been completely scrapped due to budget cuts and restructuring at my university. Without TASA’s support, I would not have been able to attend this year’s conference. I am incredibly grateful to TASA for giving me this invaluable opportunity and for supporting its early career scholars.