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James Arvanitakis

Bio

James Arvanitakis is a lecturer in the Humanities at the University of Western Sydney and a member of the University’s Centre for Cultural Research. James has worked as a human rights activist throughout the Pacific, Indonesia and Europe. A regular media commentator on ABC and 2JJJ, James’ latest book, The Cultural Commons of Hope, is due to be launched in May 2008.

James Arvanitakis's contributions:

Petrol prices and porn: why our political leaders need to do better

CPD fellow James Arvanitakis examines recent controversies that have dominated news headlines: petrol prices and Bill Henson's images, to find a lack of political vision and political courage runs deeply in both debates.


In Defence of Multilateralism

Is multilateralism back on the Australian governments’ agenda? What implications could this have for international security and stability and Australian democracy? CPD fellow James Arvanitakis and Amy Tyler examine multilateralism in a post-September 11 and post-John Howard world, examining Colombia as a case study for change.


Time to confront our citizenship deficit

Before we can reinvigorate Australian democracy we need to understand why citizens become disengaged, writes James Arvanitakis.


Maralinga 50 years on: ignoring the lessons of history

James Arvanitakis revisits a darkness at the heart of Australia’s past.


Reclaiming the Australian Commons

Australian state and federal governments may still be in love with privatisation, writes James Arvanitakis, but for Australian communities the relationship is getting cold. In ‘Reclaiming the Australian Commons’, Arvanitakis charts the enclosure of Australia's common wealth and calls for governments to re-draw the 'line in the sand' between commons and commodities


Time to stop ‘social engineering’ and teach the ‘truth’

Education should reflect the diversity of real life, says James Arvanitakis, and child-care centres are no exception. Noisy moralists should not impose their blind-spots on the rest of society by excluding books that feature same-sex parents.


Education as a commons: why we should all share in the picnic of knowledge

James Arvanitakis argues that education vouchers would result in a stratified school system, more focused on marketing to parents than providing quality education to students. Rather than answering the problems caused by partial commercialisation with more of the same, he says we should consider education as a commons. Governments should not only fund education properly, but also encourage and facilitate our contribution to the education commons - a resource which nobody owns but from which everybody benefits.


Those who gain the most should carry some of the weight

James Arvanitakis writes that companies who benefit from selling junk food to kids should also contribute to the costs of dealing with obesity. He proposes a tax on advertising to children, to be put towards the 'Active After-school Initiative' and school-based dieticians.



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