Shadows on the landscape: an inquiry into the value of some Australian places

In 1922, Australian places connected with a solar eclipse were of world‐historical significance as they were associated with empirical confirmation of Einstein's general theory of relativity. They also formed a major part of Australian national consciousness, although they have since reverted to lost geographies. An exploration of Australian reception of eclipse science leads to questions of official heritage construction and stereotypical national identity. An argument is presented for the importance of intangible heritage at national, communal, and individual levels. At the complex intersection between memory and identity, place value is investigated within wider social‐political formations with emphasis on participation across perceived boundaries of social class, gender, and ethnicity, including the valuable role of Aboriginal peoples.     

State parliaments' departure from the practice of standing orders: The evolution of Australian parliamentary practice

This article analyses the extent to which contemporary Australian state parliaments observe the procedures and practices of the British House of Commons and the potential reasons for departures from those procedures. It considers a recent example of significant divergence from House of Commons practice. In Western Australia's state parliament, the speaker exercised the casting vote on a motion of closure (a ‘gag’ motion). The article examines this procedural divergence for possible insights into the nature of, and reasons for, Australian departures from House of Commons practice.

本文分析了澳大利亚州议会在多大程度上遵循了英国下院的程序和惯例,以及偏离这些程序的可能原因。作者研究了最近一起偏离英下院惯例的事例。在西澳大利亚,议长会一锤定音,终结众声。本文研究了这一程序上的区别,探讨了澳大利亚议会异于英国下院这件事的本质和原因。     

Footsteps and memories: interpreting an Australian urban landscape through thematic walking tours

This article is concerned with the currently common deployment, under the rubric of cultural planning, of place‐making and local cultural heritage awareness projects. Such exercises sometimes seek to accommodate the impacts of de‐industrialisation and urban transformation by identifying and marking places of contemporary and historical significance, and interpreting them and their broader connections to people and to place. The article critically reflects upon a project conducted by the authors that developed two interpretive heritage walks in a large, working‐class suburb in Australia. This interpretive exercise afforded a valuable opportunity to investigate the contours of the place‐making process and its determinants. By tracing the development of the walks and their accompanying interpretive brochures, the article identifies and discusses a number of emergent key issues relating to social class, gender and ethnicity. In particular, it considers the interpretive opportunities and constraints presented by contracted cultural heritage research and its applications.     

Urban research and child-friendly cities: a new Australian outline

Recent public debates about Australia's children and young people have begun to acknowledge the direct impact of urban development on their health and well-being. This paper reviews a broad range of trans-disciplinary literature addressing child-friendliness in contemporary Australian cities, drawing particular attention to the fact that even some of the most recognised texts on children and young people in Australia still make few references in their analysis to the issue of place and neighbourhood. More specifically, the paper points to two particular research challenges confronting the ongoing study of young people's well-being in urban areas, including (a) the need for a more thorough analysis, both conceptual and applied, about how children and young people's well-being is affected by different urban forms and by the social and ecological variations that occur throughout cities; and (b) the focus on younger children needs to be complemented by a focus on adolescents and young adults who in turn need to be actively involved in confronting these challenges.     

Farmers and fields: developing a research agenda for post-medieval agrarian society and landscape

Abstract

This paper examines the discrepancy between the acknowledged historical importance of post-medieval rural society and the limited archaeological investigation and research on this theme. It considers developments in national research agendas in this field and the influences which have shaped them. There is a need to employ a more critical and analytical approach to landscape studies, giving consideration to the effects of perception, custom and attitude. Among the themes explored are the need for more interdisciplinary studies; for wider application of palaeoenvironmental and ecological analyses; and for a fuller understanding of regional differences. Throughout, the unique value of a specifically archaeological voice is emphasized.

The paper is based on a contribution to a seminar on research agendas for post-medieval archaeology in Britain, held by SPMA and hosted by the Society of Antiquaries of London in September 2002.     

There's more to landscape than meets the eye: towards inclusive landscape assessment in resource and environmental management

Consideration of aesthetic values in resource and environmental management in North America emerged in the 1960s. It soon became enshrined as 'visual resource management', which emphasized a singular visual notion of aesthetics and an expert‐based approach to assessment. This paper challenges this dominant view. An empirical research study is presented in which a broader conceptualization of the landscape aesthetic and a participatory methodology for assessment were developed and used to explore the landscape experiences of inhabitants of the Cariboo region of British Columbia. Themes, categories and ideas of landscape experience grounded in participant perspectives revealed a richness of landscape and can be seen as an opportunity to supplement and enrich current landscape assessment and 'visual' management. More importantly, this conceptual and methodological reorientation in understanding landscape aesthetic sensibilities both reflects and supports the shift in current thinking within resource and environmental management more generally, from technocratic, state‐centred, expert‐based approaches to locally responsive (place‐based), participatory and inclusive approaches for dealing with environmental concerns and resource‐development issues .     

The IGY and the ice sheet: surveying Antarctica

This paper considers the significance of the International Geophysical Year (IGY) for the development of new knowledge of the shape of the Antarctic bed surface and the ice sheet that covers it. It also situates the Antarctic geophysical work done during the IGY within a longer history that begins in the immediate post-WWII period and extends up to the 1970s. The paper pays particular attention to the US IGY seismic traverses, which were the centrepiece of US IGY activities in Antarctica. We argue that these traverses should be understood as part of a broader set of geopolitical, military and governmental strategies that the USA pursued through the IGY and afterwards. In this sense we agree with other students of Cold War science who suggest that the IGY was far from being the beginning of the end for geopolitics in Antarctica. Instead we demonstrate that US scientific activities in Antarctica during the IGY and after were a form of geopolitics in themselves.     

Radio Ministries: Religion on Australian Commercial Radio from the 1920s to the 1960s*

This article examines the first forty years of religious broadcasting on commercial radio in Australia, a subject largely neglected by historians of Australian religion and the media. It reveals the diversity of religious broadcasting on Australian commercial radio, the ambiguities of the regulatory framework within which it operated, the influence of American religious broadcasting in Australia, and the challenges confronting religious broadcasters, particularly in the decade between the introduction of television and the emergence of talkback radio. The article concludes in the second half of the 1960s, when religious programming faced mounting commercial pressures, as well as a new opportunity in the shape of “talkback” radio.     

Australian approaches to countertrade: State and firm responses

Countertrade (or barter trade) has become an important element of the international political economy in the past 15 years, and is said to typify the emergence of neo‐mercantilist tendencies in the international system. The implications for Australia arising from this alteration in the ‘rules of the game’ with respect to the international system are profound. This article explores how the Australian government, and Australian‐based firms, have responded to the emergence of countertrade. We demonstrate that in the absence of government leadership on the issue, firms have developed their own coping mechanisms of dealing with countertrade.     

Electoral and partisan influences on Australian fiscal policy from Menzies to Hawke

I examine the controversial questions of whether or not partisanship and electoral motives shape the fiscal policies of Australian governments. I also extend the partisan model of policy choice for the Australian case. Specifically, using time‐series data for the financial years 1962–63 through 1989–90,1 explore partisan and electoral influences on the overall fiscal stance and the personal income transfer payments of the Commonwealth government Results indicate that, net of the influences of inertia in the policy process and of variations in economic forces, partisanship and elections play significant roles in determining both overall fiscal policy and income transfer outlays. Analyses reveal that fiscal policies become more expansionary across the electoral cycle while Labor and coalition governments have large but diminishing partisan effects cm policy over their terms in office.     

Gendered mobilities in the making: moving from a pedestrian to vehicular mobility landscape in Shimshal,Pakistan

Although feminist geographers understand gender and mobility as mutually constitutive social processes, few studies explain how gender relations are constituted in particular mobility contexts, and how and why they shape mobility patterns in specific socio-spatial circumstances. We address these questions in an analysis of gendered mobilities in Shimshal, Pakistan, which until recently have taken shape in the context of a pedestrian mobility regime. The gender and mobility relationship has transformed as vehicular mobilities have replaced pedestrian mobilities with the construction of the Shimshal road. To demonstrate empirically the co-constitution of gender and mobility, we analyze aspects of socio-spatial context that have shaped gendered pedestrian mobilities, followed by those associated with the new vehicular mobility regime that are modifying gender relations in Shimshal. Shifting gender relations reshape corporeal mobility patterns. Road infrastructure has enhanced men’s and youth’s outbound travel as wage earners and students, respectively. These mobilities have reshaped women’s capacity to move, constraining their mobility beyond the village. As prosperity becomes contingent on outbound movement, men’s and youths’ social horizons and mobilities are expanding, while women’s compromised access to mobility as a social resource produces new mobility hierarchies and gendered exclusions.