Public folklore dialogism and critical heritage studies

Abstract

Public folklore’s dialogic engagement with communities incorporates methodologies for sharing representational and interpretive authority, collaborative programme development, mutually constructed modes of presentation and stakeholder participation in policy-making. While recognising that heritage interventions inevitably involve power asymmetries, public folklore seeks to mitigate and diminish these imbalances as it develops approaches to enable communities to present their culture on their own terms. This paper explores dialogic public folklore practice through community self-documentation projects, folklife festivals, government folk arts funding programmes and a project promoting places of local cultural significance. It provides examples of the integration of multiple roles of public folklorists as scholars, administrators, producers of folklore presentations and government heritage officers. Public folklore praxis achieved through the integration of these roles is seen as a potential model for critical heritage studies praxis for scholars who are advisors and researchers in intangible cultural heritage (ICH) initiatives. Critical heritage scholars involved with ICH can learn from how public folklorists engage with communities and foster cultural self-determination. For public folklorists, collaboration and increased dialogue with critical heritage scholars could foster greater awareness of hegemonic discourses, reconceptualisation of the social base of ICH and recognition of the pitfalls of fostering economic development through heritage.     

Public administration in the Australian Journal of Political Science: A review

This article reviews publications on public administration in the Australian Journal of Political Science (AJPS). A distinction needs to be drawn between public administration as a discipline and as a field of inquiry that engages specialists from several areas. The latter has been more significant in Australia in contrast to Europe and the United States. The questions discussed in the AJPS cover changes in the field and practice of public administration; the state and government; the structures of local government, public organisation and federalism; interfaces between public administration and other sectors and institutions; and issues with public sector reform and accountability. Despite the emphasis on governance in discourse and practice, the role of government continues to be central, and what emerges from experiments in new governance is that the authority of government and the significance of hierarchy (compared to markets and networks) very often remains pivotal.     

Property,Authority and Citizenship: Land Claims,Politics and the Dynamics of Social Division in West Africa

In the contemporary African context of rising competition and anxiety over access to land, neoliberal policy interventions designed to clarify property rights, broaden political participation and increase official accountability have frequently provoked rather than alleviated social and political conflict. Comparing case histories of local struggles over land and authority in selected rural areas in Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire and Bénin, this paper argues that in situations where access to land has been linked historically to claims on authority and social belonging, pressures to privatize or clarify ownership have intensified debates over citizenship and governance as well as over land claims per se. Ensuing struggles over land and entitlement have intersected with national as well as local economic and political dynamics, reinforcing ‘traditional’ hierarchies, contributing to the proliferation of formal and informal governing agents and institutions, and frequently disrupting or subverting open governance and sustainable resource use, rather than helping to create conditions for sustainable development and democratization.     

Shared heritage,shared authority,shared accountability? Co-generating museum performance criteria as a means of embedding ‘shared authority’

Abstract

This New Zealand case study presents insights from the perspectives of Māori and non-Māori museum stakeholders. It aimed to understand which activities and responsibilities mattered to stakeholders, in order to develop more meaningful accountability for their shared heritage. Using a participatory mixed method, the research explored how museum stakeholders assess their museum’s performance. Māori and non-Māori generated, sorted and rated 'possible performance statements’. A cultural analysis, using proprietary software, produced concept maps which illustrate differently nuanced museum constructs with different relative importance for constituent elements. Pattern-matching revealed divergent priority accorded certain museum activities, but also commonalities. Both cultural groups prioritised factors not generally featured in compliance-driven approaches to accountability reporting. For Māori, greatest importance was placed on care of taonga (‘treasures’), Māori-specific practice and engagement with Māori, while collections and staff were the key assessment factors for non-Māori. Incorporating stakeholder perspectives in a museum performance framework provides opportunities to report performance on dimensions which matter to wider communities. Where shared authority is taken seriously and stakeholders are involved, accountability becomes meaningful. This collaborative approach to performance framework development offers a tool for embedding the realities of shared authority into planning and delivering the museum’s activities and responsibilities.     

Public Challenges and the Private Ways of State Archaeology: the Case of Greece

Abstract

Since its emergence Greek archaeology has been run exclusively by the state for political and economic reasons. The relevant legislation has always granted the Archaeological Service enough power to establish it as one of the most authoritative services in the public sector. I argue that the conditions under which archaeology is practised in Greece are increasingly changing. Agents operating at an international, national and local level are challenging the exclusive rights of the state in archaeological heritage management and demanding their views on protection are acknowledged. An overview of recently undertaken initiatives and research projects, as reported in the press and on websites, demonstrates an increasing demand for a more inclusive and public approach to the management of archaeological heritage. I also argue that Greek archaeologists are aware of the potential value of a public engagement with the discipline, but for different reasons — such as conservatism, bureaucracy and lack of means — do not act on it to the extent that they should. Finally, the paper confronts Greek state archaeology as an exclusive system of archaeological heritage management, and puts forward the importance of the local rather than the global public (i.e. tourism — where the emphasis of archaeological management in Greece currently lies).     

Research and Activism in Sámi Politics: The Ideas and Achievements of Karl Nickul towards Securing Governance for the Sámi

Abstract

Pacifist, land surveyor, friend of the Sámi people, scholar studying Sámi culture, Karl Nickul's (1900–1980) life work proves that the work of a public servant and researcher can be merged into a strong ethical stand to influence society. Nickul, an early initiator of Finland's peace movement, was by training and profession a land surveyor, who worked for the Finnish government making maps of Lapland and Petsamo in northern Finland in the 1920s and 1930s. Becoming acquainted with the Skolt Sámi, he began to study them and to take part in the official discussions about their status. With a project to preserve Skolt culture Nickul's paramount idea of Sámi governance began to grow. He actively pursued this idea after World War II through his activities in Sámi politics in Finland and in Sámi cooperative efforts in the Nordic countries. The dominant idea was that the Sámi culture was to be protected from outside pressures of settlement, and that the Sámi themselves should be allowed to determine their own identity and their own needs. The paper discusses and analyses Karl Nickul's personal development and involvement in various projects and activities to secure Sámi rights.     

The Sydney 2000 Olympics and Urban Entrepreneurialism: Local Variations in Urban Governance

Hallmark events are important redevelopment tools utilised by entrepreneurial governments. The features of these events are analogous to those of entrepreneurial urban governance. This study examined the local impacts of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games, particularly in relation to its social and political legacies, in three local government areas which hosted Olympic venues. It also investigated the nature of urban governance in Sydney, Australia, as it was manifested in the planning of the Sydney 2000 Olympics. Examples of entrepreneurialism in planning for the Olympics included the centralisation of planning powers, the increasing involvement of the private sector in government activities, and the relaxation of planning processes, resulting in reduced openness, accountability and public participation. Examples of resistance to the anti–democratic tendencies of entrepreneurialism were however evident in some areas, with managerial and democratic concerns remaining important to some local governments. Local community activism was imperative to achieving civic participation and ensuring commitment by local government to these managerial and democratic concerns. Activism also enabled some local communities to secure significant benefits from the Olympic Games.     

Public game funding in the Nordic region

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we explore the policies related to support structures surrounding national game industries, with focus on the three Nordic countries Finland, Norway and Sweden, and investigate what kind of context the Nordic welfare state model has provided for game development. The three cases illustrate how Nordic welfare state measures have interacted with the games industry over time. While the political ideals have been fairly similar, our study demonstrates how the objectives and practical means of state engagement have differed significantly. We argue that although the three countries all have support schemes of which game companies can take advantage, there are significant differences in the degree to which each individual country has organized government interventions and support. While the Finnish state has treated game development as an endeavour in business development, the regional Nordic game program and the Norwegian state has developed a cultural policy that primarily aims to protect the cultural heritage. The Swedish state has not established a tailormade policy directed towards game development but has a broad spectrum of general policies for supporting research and business development. We suggest that future research should investigate how the public funding is structured and how discourses are formulated around appeals for more public funding for the games industry.     

清代江南的卫生观念与行为及其近代变迁初探——以环境和用水卫生为中心

The legislation on public health was almost vacant in traditional China; however, related concepts and activities of local governments and communities helped maintain ecological balance. Since the reigns of the Emperor Jiaqing and Daoguang, Jiangnan has witnessed drastic changes in her society and environment, and has saw the advent of western civilizations. Scholars advocated the government administration to deal with the public health, and thus transferred the public health from individual activities which were free from external influence and destitute of specialized management to systematic and organized conducts which were in charge of governments at various levels. Translated by Chen Dan from Qingshi yanjiu 清史研究 (Studies in Qing History), 2006, (2): 12–26     

Induced Cooperation in Housing Development: Comparing Housing Schemes in Four European Countries

In the development process of housing at a local level, several actors are involved. As a result, there is a need for coordination between the actors. The market can take care of this coordination. However, housing is generally considered to be, at least partly, the responsibility of the public sector. Leaving the development entirely to market forces is not an option for several reasons. But the other extreme, in which the public sector is entirely responsible for housing development is not considered a feasible option either. This paper investigates, using four case studies of housing development processes in different countries, what the role of the public sector, represented by the local planning authority, in such processes is, and how this can be put into effect. To that aim, the notion of 'induced cooperation' is introduced, as an approach for the local planning authority to pursue its housing and land use policy aims in an environment of mutual dependency.     

Chinese Independent Documentary Films: Alternative Media,Public Spheres and the Emergence of the Citizen Activist

This article argues that contemporary independent documentary filmmaking in China has been used as a tool by Chinese citizens to intervene in the public sphere and to provoke social change. I therefore propose to look at the phenomenon of Chinese video activism under the umbrella of alternative media. In particular, I take into consideration the “rhizomatic” media approach, which focuses on the interaction of alternative media with authority, the market and civil society. The case studies I present consist of several documentary projects completed between 2004 and 2010 that opened up spaces of dialogue between filmmakers and local authority, mass media and civil society. The paper claims that documentary films have an impact on audiences, whose members are consequently motivated to engage in discussion and action. I argue that activist video-making in China is reshaping the identity of urban citizens: through filmmaking, urban citizens claim their right to access information and demonstrate their will to participate and intervene in social issues.     

The costs of putting Valencia on the map: the hidden side of regional entrepreneurialism, ‘creative city’ and strategic projects

ABSTRACT

Strategic projects based on culture and sports have been one of the vectors of regional development since the 1990s. Accordingly, local and regional governments have drawn up entrepreneurial strategies to project their image internationally and foster investment and tourism. These developments have been described in Spain as ‘The Calatrava Model’ for putting a city/region on the map and for boosting tourism. However, from the study of the case of Valencia and four strategic projects (The Fifth World Meeting of Families, The America's Cup, Formula 1 and The City of Arts and Sciences), we will show how there is a hidden side to this paradigm, which boils down to an unsustainable, top-down system whose sole purpose is to gain and maintain political hegemony. We will also assess the medium and long term impacts of these projects in terms of: opportunity costs, snowballing debt, corruption, and an utter breakdown of democratic controls as a result of Valencia’s poor regional governance.     

Royal Scottish Geographical Society April 1948

ABSTRACT

Land use in Scotland's countryside is currently an issue of major public concern, largely because of a sea-change in agricultural policy which seemslikely to lead to the withdrawal of some land from agricultural use. In addition, there has been concern about the scale of upland afforestation, about land availability for housebuilding, and about claims on land for conservation and for rural development. This article provides an overview of these current landuse issues in Scotland.     

Physical Planning in Entrepreneurial Urban Governance—Experiences from the Bo01 and Brunnshög Projects,Sweden

Recent research has argued that urban policy has turned towards entrepreneurial forms of urban governance, resulting in a more fragmented and decentralized setting within which public policy is formulated and implemented. This implies that the context for public sector urban planning is also influenced by this “turn”. This article questions this “turn” by arguing that, in Sweden and in practice, forms of fragmentation and decentralization coexist with remnants of coherence and centralization. It focuses on two planning projects, one in Malmö and one in Lund. A case study approach is followed, using official documentation and expert interviews. The article indicates that public authorities and planners remain crucial in urban development projects as initiators of projects, when they bring in financial incentives or lease out the plots for development, or when they add to the project's political legitimacy and bring to the table different actors that would otherwise be less likely to join forces. It concludes by discussing how public sector urban planning is adjusting to the changes brought forward by entrepreneurial urban governance. The article contributes to the literature on how urban planning is adapting to changes in the context for urban governance.     

Making Space for Energy: Wasteland Development,Enclosures, and Energy Dispossessions

This paper analyzes why and how wasteland development narratives persist through an evaluation of wasteland development policies in India from 1970 to present. Integrating critical scholarship on environmental narratives and enclosures, I find that narratives of wastelands as “empty” spaces available for “improvement” continue because they are metaphors for entrenched struggles between the government's shifting visions of “improvement” and communities whose land use practices contradict these logics. Since the 1970s, “improvement” has meant establishing different types of tree plantations on wastelands to ostensibly provide energy security. These projects have dispossessed land users by enclosing common property lands and by providing forms of energy incommensurate with local needs, a trend I term “energy dispossessions”. Factors enabling energy dispossessions include the government's increased attempts to establish public–private partnerships to carry out “improvement” and a “field of observation” constructed to obscure local livelihoods. Unveiling these logics will help to problematize and contest future iterations of wasteland development.     

The Wrong Terms of Reference

Abstract

Agriculture in Alaska is beginning to expand. The approach used to facilitate this expansion may serve as an example for other regions where the pressure for development stems from public interest groups. Alaskan agricultural development is tied to the disposal of government-owned land. If agriculture is to develop according to the United States farm production model, then large quantities of agricultural land must be sold to private citizens. Past federal policy in Alaska has not led to this outcome and thus the present-day development efforts spring from state government leadership. This has led to the recent undertaking of three state agricultural projects which have in common low cost land, low cost financing, and planning by people trained in agricultural disciplines. The pivotal aspect of agricultural development efforts in the state of Alaska is the successful transfer of research and technology to private sector farmers. If this can be accomplished, then Alaskan agriculture is likely to flourish.     

A Strategy for Industrial Archaeology in the Black Country

Abstract

Remains from Britain's industrial past are being lost daily. Much has gone already, often with its importance unrecognised. This applies no more so than in the Black Country where a joint local authority/university initiative set about addressing the problem by identifying, through Local Area Surveys, significant remains from the industrial period. Arising from this, Dudley MBC's 'Strategy for Industrial Archaeology' now allows important sites to be flagged throughout the planning and development process and, with public involvement and the imaginative use of existing controls, a degree of protection is afforded. It is hoped that the approach described below will form the basis of discussion and encourage similar initiatives elsewhere.     

Biros,Books and Big‐men: Literacy and the Transformation of Leadership in Simbu,Papua New Guinea

This article examines local strategies used to build leadership roles and enlist public support in a newly literate Papua New Guinean highlands rural community. The ethnographic evidence presented shows how the relationship between literacy and local ideas about modernisation and development has facilitated a shift in patterns of local political structures. When literacy is viewed as an unequally distributed and novel resource with inherently modernist connotations it becomes evident why male villagers in a contemporary highlands village endeavour to acquire and exploit it in rivalry with others. And while individual villagers market their reading and writing proficiency as a means to bolster their reputations within the existing socio‐political system, this has significance for traditional leadership and authority patterns, given that village leaders have traditionally been unschooled and therefore do not possess these highly regarded skills. To illustrate these processes I examine the political careers of two prominent villagers with particular attention to their respective claims to head two competing village‐based development projects. An analysis of the agendas they use to legitimate their authority roles in these projects makes clear how the quest to be seen to be literate has become a constitutive component of a prospective leader's repertoire of skills.     

公地制度中财产权利的公共性

公地制度中,无论土地还是权利,都可以用"common"一词来表示,这说明它们都具有"公共"的性质。公地制度下财产权利的公共性,既表现于公地共同体在对外关系中,集体地拥有和行使财产权利;又表现于共同体成员之间土地财产的混合,以及全体成员行使财产权利方式的集体性。