Research Quality Assessment and Geography in Australia: Can Anything be Learned from the UK Experience?1

The assessment of research activity in universities is now undertaken regularly in a number of countries, with resources then being allocated according to the results of those evaluations. Such an exercise (a Research Quality Framework – RQF) has recently been proposed for Australia. This paper suggests likely consequences of such an exercise for geography in Australian universities, given its current situation there, on the basis of experience with the Research Assessment Exercises undertaken in the UK since 1986.     

Complexity,Dynamism, and Agency: How Can Dialectical Biology Inform Geography?

Dialectical approaches, variously interpreted, have been advocated for by geographers for several decades. At the same time, critical environmental geography has recently become dominated by vital materialist strands of thought, the advocates of which have sometimes framed their own work in opposition to dialectics. Critics perceive two major problems with a dialectical framework; that it cements a nature–society dualism and that it insufficiently accounts for the agency or vitality of non‐human life. This paper seeks to address these criticisms by engaging with work by biologists who have been influenced by dialectical ideas. I outline two examples, Richard Lewontin and Richard Levins’ understanding of the way organism and environment mutually construct each other and research by Ivette Perfecto and John Vandermeer that offers a non‐dualist approach to wildlife conservation in agricultural ecosystems. The article discusses some of the ways in which these understandings might inform contemporary debates in political ecology.     

Consumption,Environmental Sustainability and Human Geography in Australia: a Missing Research Agenda?

‘Consumption’ is a central concept in the global environmental sustainability agenda. However, one important argument from Agenda 21 — that all social actors must now practise ‘sustainable consumption’— has been publicly and politically marginalised in high‐income countries such as Australia. Geographers potentially have a role in bringing consumption back onto the agenda by constructing a critical geography of consumption. Such research can help understand how the contextual use of natural resources is perceived and practised, and how consumption helps to shape contemporary social relations. This body of knowledge is vital for building sustainable development into everyday lives. Yet a focus on urban consumption perceptions and practices appears somewhat lacking in Australian geography. Ways forward can be drawn from international geography, such as in the United Kingdom where a substantial body of work has drawn a complex picture of contemporary consumption and environmental understanding. It has also challenged prevailing ‘ecological modernisation’ policy approaches, which ignore consumption's cultural facets. In sum, considering consumption in Australia can offer insights into cultural practices expressed through consumption; can challenge and add to European geographical literatures, and can also contribute to sustainability debates by offering alternatives to currently ineffective policy discourses.     

Sir Edward Grey,France, and the Entente: How to Catch the Perfect Angler?

ABSTRACT

This article will focus on the nine-year relationship between British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey and the French Ambassador at London Paul Cambon, principally during the years 1912 to 1914. It will show how the French perceived Sir Edward Grey himself, his foreign policy, and his understanding of the Entente. It will analyse the means by which Cambon in particular, and through him the French in general, sought to coax from the Foreign Secretary some form of Franco-British alliance. It will do so by analysing three things: first, what Paul Cambon hoped to obtain from Sir Edward Grey and how; second, the Anglo-German Haldane Mission in which Grey's manoeuvring got the better of Cambon; and third, the Grey-Cambon letters of November 1912, when Cambon got the better of Grey. More broadly the article might be seen as an example of how ambassadors seek to secure policies from the country to which they are accredited and how foreign ministers attempt to parry them.     

Best practice? Geography, learning and the institutional limits to strong convergence

According to many, we live in an age in which convergence betweenformerly distinct national ‘models’ is taking place.Central to this process is a learning dynamic in which bestpractices originating from within one model—Japan in the1980s, United States in the 1990s—are supposedly adoptedby firms elsewhere. This paper addresses two key questions concerningthis process. First, what are the actual mechanisms or processesthrough which this learning-driven convergence might occur?Second, what role do institutions play in shaping, influencing,or constraining firms' choice of practices and their abilityto ‘learn’? The paper examines eight specific channelsof convergence representing a continuum of opportunities forlearning-through-interacting. It then assesses critically arange of competing arguments about the role of institutionalinfluences at three different scales: the region, the nation-state,and the firm. It concludes that while regional and firm-levelarguments, on their own, do not provide an adequate explanatoryframework for understanding how firms' practices are determined,national level theory needs to be made supple enough to accommodatea significant role for regional institutions and the agencyof the firm.     

Mapping the Geography of R&D: What Can We Learn for Regional Innovation Policy in the Czech Republic and Beyond?

Administrative regions do not necessarily correspond to areas that are homogenous in terms of innovation intensity. Although this has been recognized in the literature, quantitative evidence that explicitly considers this problem is rare. Using spatial exploratory analysis on detailed regional data derived from a census of R&D performers in the Czech Republic, we identify local spatial clusters of R&D activities and assess the extent of their (mis)match with administrative borders. Overall, the results support the arguments for regionalization of innovation policy. However, the existing policy units do not appear well suited for this purpose. On one hand, there is a need for policy coordination between multiple administrative regions. On the other hand, however, there are diverse patterns within them. Similar problems are likely to haunt the regionalization process in many other countries, which is alarming, as the regional accent of innovation policies becomes ever more vehement over time.     

Flogging Parsons? Australian Anglican Clergymen,the Magistracy,and Convicts, 1788–1850

In colonial Australian history the entanglement of clergymen, colony, and empire has made the Anglican clergyman one of the colonies' more controversial figures. Historical and popular understanding of this encounter has been overshadowed by the “flogging parson” and “moral policeman” traditions in Australian historiography. Centring on prominent parson‐magistrates such as the Reverend Samuel Marsden, prevailing interpretations have emphasized individual clergymen's efforts to inculcate convict discipline and deference. Examined collectively, however, a less negative and impressionistic picture of colonial clergymen emerges. In contrast with established views, this article demonstrates that parson‐magistrates consistently provided pastoral care and advocacy at the parish level, while as writers and activists they worked for the structural reform and eventual abolition of the convict system itself. Their collective efforts are the focus of this article, which in turn offers a fresh assessment of the encounter between clergymen and convicts in Australia before 1850.     

Expanding the Australian Empire?: The Australian Council for the World Council of Churches,the Menzies Government and the New Hebrides in the late 1950s

In the late 1950s the Australian Council for the World Council of Churches (AC‐WCC) inspired primarily by the Presbyterian Church, undertook a concerted campaign to pressure the Australian government to assume a greater role in the affairs of the New Hebrides. The AC‐WCC wanted the Australian government to take over the United Kingdom's role in the administration of the Anglo‐French Condominium. It was motivated to undertake this campaign by the dismal social and economic conditions in the islands, the neglect of the British and French colonial authorities, and their failure to offer the indigenous people a way forward to self‐government. The high point of the campaign was a meeting between Robert Menzies, the Australian prime minister and a delegation from the AC‐WCC in early 1958. As a result of this meeting Australian ministers and officials, for the final time, gave extended consideration to expanding Australia's empire in the South Pacific to include the New Hebrides. This article examines the AC‐WCC's campaign, explores the Australian government's response, and analyses the outcome of this important episode in Australia's involvement in the colonial territories of the South Pacific.     

Winning back more than words? Power,discourse and quarrying on the Niagara Escarpment

This paper explores the controversy and public hearing on the proposed extension of the largest limestone quarry in Canada, operated by Dufferin Aggregates at Milton, Ontario. The quarry constitutes an important source of construction material for the nearby Greater Toronto Area. However, the quarry is protected by the provincial Niagara Escarpment Planning and Development Act and located inside the UNESCO-designated Niagara Escarpment Biosphere Reserve. The proposal has therefore attracted considerable opposition from the public institution charged with its protection, the Niagara Escarpment Commission, as well as environmental groups and local residents. To make sense of the tensions, conflicts and outcome of the Dufferin case, we consult and apply several critical literatures. We see the conflict as part of a transformation of the countryside from a space of production to a space of consumption, where there is a shift in emphasis from resource extractive to scenic and ecological landscape values, and the displacement of productive classes, farmers and workers, in favour of a service class of professionals and retirees. Within this transformation, we identify a 'power geometry' of actor networks of different coalition groups that form allegiances and engage in struggles at different geographic scales. These actor networks operate within the set frames of a dominant development discourse and a popular environmentalist discourse that both include and exclude other ways of seeing and managing the escarpment.     

Unhelpful Fixer? Canada,the Euromissile Crisis,and Pierre Trudeau's Peace Initiative, 1983–1984*

ABSTRACT

This article provides the most rigorous international history to date of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau's 1983 peace initiative, one of Canada's major foreign policy ventures of the Cold War, examining both Trudeau's motives and the reception of his initiative among Canada's allies. Drawing on newly declassified sources in Canada, it uncovers the two-track strategy behind this initiative, aiming to mobilise Western European leaders to exert pressure on the Reagan Administration on the one hand, while quietly urging European allies to call for a review of NATO strategy on the other. Based on previously unavailable archival materials from seven different countries, this article also reveals how the Canadian initiative was received by the world leaders Trudeau sought to win over. It reassesses the Canadian initiative, revealing that it borrowed heavily from existing proposals from other countries, and that NATO leaders viewed the initiative as a mere electoral ploy to help Trudeau win re-election rather than a serious project to ease East–West tensions. This article concludes that with this initiative Canada was not in fact playing the role of a ‘helpful fixer’ and that the initiative constituted part of a wider and understudied trend in government responses to the ‘Second Cold War’.     

The Women,Peace and Security agenda and Australian leadership in the world: from rhetoric to commitment?

What is the ‘Women, Peace and Security agenda’ and why is it relevant now for Australia? During 2013–14, Australia is a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and, with a growing foreign military, peacebuilding and aid presence around the world, the country must play a role in preventing conflict, in protecting women and girls from violence before, during and after conflict, and in encouraging the participation of women in these peace and security decisions in order to create the structural, gender-equal conditions for lasting peace. This article highlights the promises made by Australia during the campaign for the Security Council seat. It evaluates the credibility of the campaign commitments by assessing Australia's foreign policies and overseas aid spending on women and peacebuilding in Asia and the Pacific; exploring the avenues for government-funded research on women, peace and security issues to influence government policies and programs; and taking stock of the government's record of engaging with civil society in developing and carrying out its National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security. The article suggests concrete actions that would allow Australia to fulfil its promises and progress its international leadership on the major pillars of the Women, Peace and Security agenda.     

Can the Subaltern Woman Run? Gender,race and agency in colonial missionary texts

This article challenges the contention that it is not feasible to trace the agency of subaltern female subjects in colonial documents without at the same time distorting and even violating that very agency. Taking as its prism a letter written by a male Danish missionary chronicling a young Pariah woman’s escape from missionary control in early 20th-century South India, it argues that while a search for authentic, autonomous agency is a highly dubious endeavour, relinquishing attempts to recover the acts and interventions of persons at the bottom of social hierarchies is equally problematic. Suggesting a reading ‘along as well as against the grain’, the article tracks the ways in which the subaltern woman’s agency has been simultaneously recorded and denied, and argues for the necessity of probing both the possibilities and impossibilities presented by this type of a source.     

Can we share an us-feeling with a digital machine? Emotional sharing and the recognition of one as another*

ABSTRACT

To share an us-feeling means to acknowledge one another. Can we share such a feeling with an extreme form of the other, for instance with a digital machine? The answer that is given in this article is ‘no’. Relevant tests like the Turing Test are based on a third-person perspective, whereas a second-person perspective would be needed.     

The Information Research Department,British Covert Propaganda,and the Sino-Indian War of 1962: Combating Communism and Courting Failure?

Britain's post-war interventions in former colonial territories remain a controversial area of contemporary history. In the case of India, recent releases of official records in the United Kingdom and South Asia have revealed details of British government anti-communist propaganda activity in the subcontinent during the Cold War period. This article focuses attention on covert or unattributable propaganda conducted in India by the Foreign Office's Information Research Department (IRD). It specifically examines the 1960s: a time between the outbreak of the Sino-Indian border war in 1962, and the Indian general election of 1967, when IRD operations peaked. The Indian government welcomed British support in an information war waged against Communist China, but cooperation between London and New Delhi quickly waned. Britain's propaganda initiative in India lacked strategic coherence, and cut across the grain of local resistance to anti-Soviet material. The British Government found itself running two separate propaganda campaigns in the subcontinent: one focused on Communist China, and declared to the Indian government; and a second, secret programme, targeting the Soviets. In this context, Whitehall found it difficult to implement an integrated and effective anti-communist propaganda offensive in India.