I am a researcher in the fields of sociology and political economy, specialising in the intersection between neoliberal ideology, monopolies and information and communications technology (ICT). I completed my doctoral thesis The Imitation Economy: How AT&T's Contestability Doctrine Transformed the Neoliberal Project in 2021 at the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS). I am currently associated with the Climate, Society and Environment Research Centre (C-SERC) at UTS.
I began researching privatisation and corporatisation in 2012, when I co-founded the community group, Save BulliED aimed at preventing the closure of the Emergency Department of our local Bulli public hospital. I have a background in medical sociology, and started to research urgent care centres (the US model replacing emergency departments) and the impacts of privatisation on public health services in the Illawarra region. Unfortunately the group's campaign was not successful. I continued with my research, expanding it to include privatisation of social infrastructure nationally and internationally and examining the correlation between privatisation and transnational corporations. In June 2013 I went to Europe looking at privatisation and corporatisation, with Britain's National Health Service (NHS) of particular interest. In July 2014, encouraged by Professor Thomas Faunce from the Australian National University (ANU), I enrolled in a PhD. The thesis research brought my interests in neoliberal policies like privatisation and deregulation together with monopolisation through an exploration of contestable market theory invented by economists working for the US telecommunications giant AT&T in the 1970s. AT&T was the largest private monopoly in the world at that time. I give public talks on my research work and are currently engaged in writing a book from my thesis for a wider audience as well as writing for academic journals. I am a qualified librarian and horticulturalist with a special interest in Australian natives and urban garden habitats for wildlife. Dr Caroline Colton BA (UNSW) Dip Lib (UTS) PhD (UTS) Hort Cert 3yr (Ryde) |
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