Can You Hear us Now? Voices from the Margin: Using Indigenous Methodologies in Geographic Research

Indigenous methodologies are an alternative way of thinking about research processes. Although these methodologies vary according to the ways in which different Indigenous communities express their own unique knowledge systems, they do have common traits. This article argues that research on Indigenous issues should be carried out in a manner which is respectful and ethically sound from an Indigenous perspective. This naturally challenges Western research paradigms, yet it also affords opportunities to contribute to the body of knowledge about Indigenous peoples. It is further argued that providing a mechanism for Indigenous peoples to participate in and direct these research agendas ensures that their communal needs are met, and that geographers then learn how to build ethical research relationships with them. Indigenous methodologies do not privilege Indigenous researchers because of their Indigeneity, since there are many ‘insider’ views, and these are thus suitable for both Indigenous and non‐Indigenous researchers. However, there is a difference between research done within an Indigenous context using Western methodologies and research done using Indigenous methodologies which integrates Indigenous voices. This paper will discuss those differences while presenting a historical context of research on Indigenous peoples, providing further insights into what Indigenous methodologies entail, and proposing ways in which the academy can create space for this discourse.     

New public management and welfare-to-work in Australia: Comparing the reform agendas of the ALP and the Coalition

Since the 1990s, the adoption of new public management (NPM) as a management philosophy has translated into multiple waves of reform in the employment services sector in Australia, namely Working Nation (1994–96), Job Network (JN: 1996–2009) and Job Services Australia (JSA: 2009–present). Each wave has sought to improve the preceding policy. In this article, we examine changes implemented during the Rudd/Gillard Labor governments. Using government policy documents and survey data from frontline employment services staff, we compare JSA to JN against five benchmarks. Our data indicate that JSA has generated modest improvement. JSA is also a system with less emphasis on strong forms of sanctioning. Our combined data suggest that policy actors operating under NPM conditions are indeed able to influence specific aspects of frontline practice, but they must spend great effort to do so and must accept new imperfections as a consequence.

1990年代以来,新型公共管理被作为一种管理哲学而被接受。这导致了就业服务部门的数次改革浪潮,即工作国（1994—96）、工作网（1996—2009）、澳大利亚工作服务（2009至今）。每波浪潮都力图改良此前的政策。本文考察了陆克文/吉拉德工党执政时期的变革。作者根据政府的政策文件、一线就业服务机构员工的调查数据等等,在五个基准点上将澳大利亚工作服务与工作网做了对比。根据我们的资料,澳大利亚工作服务这个系统带来的改进最小,也不大注重强有力的制裁。我们认为,实施新型公共管理的政策制定方的确能影响一线实践的某些方面,但他们还要花大力气,还要接受往后新的不圆满。     

Notes on women in the global city: Chicago

As the organizers of an event on women in the global city, we wanted to create a forum exploring the intersections of class, gender and other forms of inequality that fracture ‘global Chicago’. In the panelists' discussion of the intersections of struggles relating to housing, education and environmental justice in Chicago's particular version of the global city, we found evidence of lives disrupted by neoliberal trends, as well as possible sites to contest these disruptions. These struggles reverberate to shape a new urban vision, as the academics and activists assembled for our panel aim not just to work on the local issues of specific women, but to create a city in which work is well compensated, housing is affordable for everyone, schools educate all children well, all neighborhoods are safe both from crime and environmental pollutants, and everyone has the time to fully engage as active citizens of the city.     

Knives for the Slaughter – Notes on the Reform and Governance of Indigenous Reindeer Slaughter in Norway

Abstract

Drawing on historical records and ethnographic fieldwork, the present article examines the history of the so-called curved knife, or krumkniv, as a window on the governance and regulation of indigenous Sámi reindeer slaughter in Norway. Originally developed by scientific activists in the 1920s, in the context of a series of experimental field trials held at a farmstead in Røros, the knives were designed to combine efficiency and ease of use with the elimination of visible animal pain, thus bringing indigenous slaughter in line with the shifting aesthetic and moral concerns of the time. The innovation was highly successful, and the knives rapidly adopted as essential tools of the herding trade – to the point where today, most users disregard their origins. Moving forward to the early 21st century, the situation had shifted almost entirely: animal welfare activists now decried the same knives as a barbaric anachronism, while herders defended them as part of their cultural heritage. Historical narratives of moral progress articulated with other discourses to produce a homogeneous present moment of the state, a moment that threatened to exclude herders from participation in the ongoing nation-building project – constituting them instead as objects of intervention and reform, targeting the successes of previous reform. Herders, meanwhile, challenged such negative constructions by defining the knife as an indigenous tradition, invoking the international commitments of the state to preserve their cultural heritage. Comparing these two historical moments, the article draws out how the technical minutiae of slaughtering practice could operate both as an instrument of social engineering, and as an arena within which complex, large-scale issues – to do with matters such as social inclusion and participation, the value of history, the function and obligations of the state – could be settled, contested and redrawn.     

What are the Limits of Social Inclusion? Indigenous Peoples and Indigenous Governance in Canada and the United States

ABSTRACT

Contemporary debates about poverty and its mitigation often invoke the idea of social inclusion: the effort to increase the capacities and opportunities of disadvantaged populations to participate more fully in the economy, polity, and institutions of developed societies. While practical outcomes have been inconsistent, this idea has been prominent in the social policies of both Canada and the United States. Both generally see themselves as liberal democracies committed to building socially inclusive societies, and both have adopted policies in support of that goal. However, we argue in this article that social inclusion, as presently conceived, fails to comprehend or address the distinctive situation of Indigenous peoples in both of these countries. Our critique focuses on four aspects of social inclusion as applied to Indigenous peoples: the external conception of needs, the individualization of both problems and solutions, the favoring of distributional politics over positional politics, and the conditionality of inclusion. We argue that both Canada and the United States need to reconceive social inclusion in ways that address these issues and that a more capacious conception of federalism may hold the key.     

‘Youthful futures? Aspirations,education and employment in Asia’

ABSTRACT

In this editorial article we frame how young people in Asia are reworking rapidly changing socio-economic, cultural conditions and constraining political structures to create possible successful futures and achieve their aspirations. We critically engage with interdisciplinary debates that conceptualise youth futures and provide an overview of current literature on this topic. Using the intense dynamism of the contemporary Asian region as a lens, we examine the complexities of education and employment landscapes young people are attempting to navigate or avoid; and highlight the implications this has for understanding the nexus between education and employment. Finally, this special issue highlights work by Asian and Asia-based scholars and is part of an intellectual project to make Asian young people more visible within Geography, Anthropology and related disciplines. The collection serves as a showcase of inter-disciplinary scholarship focusing on the complexities of young Asian lives in relation to education and employment.     

中国福利彩票事业的发生与发展

为了解决中国社会福利事业发展面临的资金困乏难题 ,1 987年中央政府批准发行了中国社会福利有奖募捐券 ,筹措资金 ,专款用于民政福利事业。历经探索 ,“有奖募捐”改成“福利彩票” ,逐渐与国际接轨。十几年来 ,中国福利彩票为我国的社会福利事业做出了重要贡献 ,但同时也面临着法律规制和管理体制等方面的问题急需解决     

Secular Façade,Neoliberal Islamisation: Textbook Nationalism from Mubarak to Sisi

Beneath the secular veneer of official rhetoric, nationally unified school textbooks provide a striking image of the Islamist message promoted to young people in Egypt. While distorting the struggles and complexity of Egyptian history and heritage, the textbooks construct patriotic devotion and a form of docile ‘neoliberal Islamism’ as the route to national renaissance. They present a notion of ideal citizenship where personal piety, charity and entrepreneurship are the proposed solutions to ‘Egypt's problems’. However, to actually relieve its ‘problems’, the regime has relied on religious associations for the provision of social services, depended on significant foreign assistance and periodically activated anti‐western nationalism. This article details textbook constructions of national identity and citizenship in the late Mubarak era and reflects on whether the 2011 uprising proves their failure in securing his legitimacy. It describes key changes since 2011 and explores whether the Sisi regime is offering alternative formulas of legitimation.     

‘All mucked up’: sharing stories of Yolŋu–Macassan cultural heritage at Bawaka,north-east Arnhem Land

From the eighteenth-century Macassan traders from the Indonesian Island of Sulawesi made regular visits to northern Australia, where with the help of Yol?u, Indigenous Australians living in north-east Arnhem Land, they collected trepang (sea cucumber) for trade. Along with sharing language, technology and culture, the Macassans and Yol?u involved built relationships that are celebrated today in Yol?u art, songs and stories. While the trepang trade had officially stopped by 1906, resonances of this complex relationship continued and still continue today. This paper shares a number of stories told by one particular Yol?u family about this heritage and reflects on the ways in which for Yol?u, the tangible heritage (artefacts), intangible heritage (stories) and the land itself are locked in a symbiotic relationship where each depends on the others to define their existence. Looking after, or protecting this heritage, is therefore about attending to place, and the nature, storytellers, objects and stories contained within it.     

‘I am not a feminist but…’: women’s activism in post-1991 Albania

Abstract

This article examines the shape organized women’s activism took in Albania after the fall of the communist regime. It also analyses how gender and feminist studies have positioned themselves within the higher education system, the relationship between media and feminism and the new alternative spaces of women’s activism and feminist resistance to gendered power relations. The analysis follows the longue durée of the fraught relationship of debates around feminism during and after the fall of Communism starting with the communist top-down ‘women’s emancipation model’ as well as the lack of bottom-up women’s activism, the post-1991 neo-liberal frame and the generalized post-1991 stigma about ‘emancipation’, ‘equality’ or ‘feminism’, along with the need to resist post-1991 hierarchical gender regimes.     

Franz Boas and Friends? Not Really

Blackhawk, Ned, and Isaiah L. Wilner. 2018. Indigenous Visions: Rediscovering the World of Franz Boas. New Haven: Yale University Press.

The editors of this volume proclaim their intention to demonstrate the revolutionary influence of Indigenous thinkers on the ideas of Franz Boas, but the work falls far short of their aim. Despite the inclusion of a number of interesting contributions dealing with remarkable individuals, with one exception none of the fourteen papers attempts to make such a case.