Population growth and redistribution in Australia: 1911–1966

Concentration and redistribution indices are used to analyse the redistribution of population among the Australian states and territories, between 1911 and 1966. The relative importance of internal migration in this population redistribution is assessed. It is found that although the pattern of redistribution altered after the Second World War, the share of land and population held by each state came into closer agreement. Net internal migration was always small in comparison to natural increase and net international migration, but its role in population redistribution was far from insignificant.     

Land Privatization and Pastoralist Well‐being in Kenya

East African pastoralists have well‐developed systems of communal land management that have been challenged by recent demands from some pastoralists for land privatization. This article analyses the impact on household well‐being of privatizing land among a community of Samburu pastoralists in northern Kenya. Using longitudinal data from household surveys conducted in 2000 and 2005, trends in wealth, income, stratification and livelihood strategies are analysed comparing the privatized community and a community where land remains communally managed. Results indicate few significant differences in wealth and income between the privatized and communal areas, although cultivation has become an important additional strategy in the privatized community. Significant levels of wealth stratification are present in both communities but are mitigated to some extent by mobility across wealth quintiles over time. Wealthy and poor groups exhibit different livelihood strategies with wealthier groups relying more on livestock trade and home consumption while poorer groups depend on wage labour and trade for their income. Policy implications of this analysis include the need for development strategies specific to different wealth groups, greater investment in education and infrastructure, and more attention to employment creation in pastoral areas.     

Ghostly Voices: some Observations on Song‐Creation,Ceremony and Being in NW Australia

Wangga songs are given to songmen by ghosts in dreams. By singing these songs in ceremony songmen at Belyuen gain power over the ghosts of the recently dead and thereby conduct them away from human society. This paper argues that it is the replication not only of the melodies, rhythms and words of the ghost‐given songs, but also the voice of the song‐giving ghost itself that gives the singer his power. While the accumulation of spiritual power through the replication of the actions of the world‐creating ancestors has been widely discussed in the literature, dreamt song has been less closely examined. It is suggested that dreamt songs such as wangga play a role in facilitating adaptation to new patterns of residency and are thus a significant element in contemporary Aboriginal life.     

Social scientists and native title cases in Australia

Abstract

Recent legal developments in Australia have led the courts to reject the doctrine of terra nullius, which denied pre-existing Aboriginal rights to land ownership, and Aboriginal prior occupation and ownership of land are now acknowledged. However, in the absence of consent determinations the courts have to evaluate the justification for legally recognizing native title based on specific local evidence for continuities in the traditional customs and laws of Aboriginal claimants since British sovereignty. Much of the evidence for such continuities can come from the Aboriginal claimants themselves. However, proving the time, depth and relevance of these continuities and presenting them in a form that is considered acceptable by the courts has drawn upon the ‘expertise’ of academics. This paper considers the types of evidence that anthropologists, linguists, historians and archaeologists are able to present and makes some suggestions as to how this could be improved in the future.     

American and Canadian Environmental Federalism; A Game-Theoretic Analysis

To understand why environmental federalism is different in Canada and the United States, one might begin with the initial strategic realities that faced the Fathers of Canadian Confederation and the Framers of the Constitution of the United States. This essay examines federalism from a game-theoretic point of view, to integrate and expose the rational properties of the decision to federate and the logical entailments of that choice for environmental policy within two specific strategic contexts. Specifically, I suggest that American environmental federalism has arisen in response to the strategic reality of a Prisoner's Dilemma, while Canadian environmental federalism can be analyzed as an effort to regulate confrontations within a game of Chicken. In addition to the analysis of each federated structure, evidence from five case studies demonstrates the usefulness of games to the study of comparative federalism     

Air Services in Australia: Growth and Corporate Change, 1921–1996

The growth of Australian internal passenger airlines in the seventy-five years between 1921 and 1996 has been spectacular with 381 airlines having been part of this evolution. The end of 1996 saw 44 passenger airlines operating, but the nine that made up the two principal airline families performed 98 per cent of total passenger-kilometres. This paper considers the factors which have moulded the industry and the changes which have occurred in its corporate structure, especially those that led to the formation of the present duopoly. The growth of the industry has not resulted in marked spatial changes apart from a 48 per cent decline in the number of airports served since 1963–64. The proportion of total traffic passing through the busier airports has increased over the last thirty years.     

The introduction of multiculturalism in Canada and Australia, 1960s–1970s

This article compares the emergence of a policy of multiculturalism in Canada and Australia between the 1960s and 1970s. It charts the rise of the policy in the two countries through the adoption of a philosophy of multiculturalism as the basis of their national identities. There is a distinction between philosophy and policy: a multicultural policy emerged out of a philosophy of multiculturalism. Furthermore, a philosophy of multiculturalism replaced the ‘new nationalism’ as the foundation of the national identities of both English‐speaking Canada and Australia. The abandonment of the White Canada and White Australia policies and the adoption of non‐discriminatory immigration policies in both countries were also of importance in the emergence of a policy of multiculturalism. There are many similarities in the Canadian and Australian experiences. However, the major differences are explained by the presence of the French‐Canadians in Canada and the early non‐British migration that Canada received in the late‐nineteenth century compared with Australia.     

Monitoring fluid chemistry in iron oxide–copper–gold‐related metasomatic processes,eastern Mt Isa Block,Australia

Most researchers in the Proterozoic eastern Mt Isa Block, NW Queensland, Australia, favour magmatic fluid and salt sources for sodic‐(calcic) alteration and iron oxide–copper–gold mineralization. Here we compare spatial, mineralogic and stable isotope data from regional alteration assemblages with magmatic and magmatic‐hydrothermal interface rocks in order to track chemical and isotopic variations in fluid composition away from inferred fluid sources. Tightly clustered δ¹⁸O values for magnetite, quartz, feldspar and actinolite for igneous‐hosted samples reflect high temperature equilibration in the magmatic‐hydrothermal environment. In contrast, these minerals record predominantly higher δ¹⁸O values in regional alteration and Cu–Au mineralization. This dichotomy reflects partial equilibration with isotopically heavier wallrocks and slightly lower temperatures. Increases in Si concentrations of metasomatic amphiboles relative to igneous amphiboles in part reflect cooling of metasomatic fluids away from igneous rocks. Variations in X_Mg for metasomatic amphiboles indicate local wallrock controls on amphibole chemistry, while variations in X_Cl/X_OH ratios for amphiboles (at constant X_Mg) indicate variable aH₂O/aHCl ratios for metasomatic fluids. Biotite geochemistry also reflects cooling and both increases and decreases in aH₂O/aHCl for fluids away from plutonic rocks. Decreased aH₂O/aHCl ratios for metasomatic fluids reflect in part scavenging of chlorine out of meta‐evaporite sequences, although this process requires already saline fluids. Local increases in aH₂O/aHCl ratios, as well as local decreases in δ¹⁸O values for some minerals (most notably haematite and epithermal‐textured quartz), may indicate ingress of low salinity, low δ¹⁸O fluids of possible meteoric origin late in the hydrothermal history of the region. Taken together, our observations are most consistent with predominantly magmatic sources for metasomatic fluids in the eastern Mt Isa Block, but record chemical and isotopic variations along fluid flow paths that may be important in explaining some of the diversity in alteration and mineralization styles in the district.     

The changing pattern of urban fertility in eastern Australia 1966–1976

The article seeks to enhance understanding of post-transitional demographic change by examining the working out at the local level of the macro-scale societal processes underpinning the recent cyclic oscillation in Australian reproductive behaviour. Variations in urban marital and overall fertility between 1966 and 1971 and between 1971 and 1976 are described and analysed. In general, inter-urban variability in both measures diminished greatly, as did the explanatory power of ecological differentials, suggesting widespread acceptance of the small family norm throughout the study-area. While the process of convergence was continuous for marital fertility, structural changes contributed to later divergence of overall fertility levels, in accordance with Alonso's cyclical model of change. The current low level of residual inter-urban variability suggests that little more may be gained from analyses of this type.     

Changing Patterns of Fiscal Interdependence: Social Financing and Expenditure in Belarus'

An American economist stationed in the former USSR, based on interviews and data gathering at different levels of the territorial-administrative hierarchy, examines the evolution of processes of budget formation and still pervasive income redistribution in Belarus'. Considerable attention is devoted to the functioning of mechanisms of allocating and redistributing expenditures and collecting revenues among urban rayons in Minsk city and among oblast-level units in Belarus'. A particular focus is documentation of the devolution of responsibility for social spending from the central government to local levels of authority, as well as mechanisms through which local governments attempt to respond to pressing human needs. 8 tables, 8 references.