Ideology,Environment and Legislation: South Australian Attitudes to Vegetation

The paper addresses one possible manifestation of the interface between geographical concerns and the law. A brief discussion about aspects of law, images, attitudes and ideology is presented. A broad historical survey of legislation from the South Australian Parliament pertaining to vegetation illustrates that elements of the law, statutes in this case, can be usefully applied to studying geographical problems such as environmental management. It is argued that geographers should more regularly make use of legal materials, concepts and issues in both research and teaching.     

Some notes on water supply in South India

This Article investigates the assertion by many Indian agronomists that methods of water management advocated by various Research Institutes are not being applied in the field. The sample village studies on the coastal plain around Madras and in the Cumbum Valley to the West of Madurai were carried out in 1969. Particular reference is also made to the Coimbatore Agricultural Research Centre in Tamilnad and the value of informed leadership in the villages of South India. “Although India can boast of her gigantic feats in the storage of water for irrigation and the distribution thereof in well planned channel systems, her performance in the actual application within the field continues to be outdated”. — (A. P. Bhattacharya¹).     

Defining life: the ethical context for human quality questions

The links between ethics, medicine and the law cannot readily produce appropriate criteria for human quality questions, largely because ethics are misconstrued where they are not excluded; but also because the science at issue is full of unknowns. The paper surveys issues in eugenics, abortion and euthanasia.     

Writing Gender into History and History in Gender: Creating A Nation and Australian Historiography

This paper reflects on the impact of gender in the writing of history by considering the reception of Creating A Nation, the first gendered history of Australia. It argues that while there has emerged an impressive volume of feminist history and with it has come an important acceptance of women's historical experience, the reception of ‘gender’ within the historical profession has paradoxically been ambivalent and ambiguous. This is the case because of an unease about feminist theory and its relevance to history. There also remains a prevailing belief that a gendered neutral historical place exists, to which historians can retreat.     

鞭辟入里钩深致远--吕建福《关于土族史研究中的若干问题》评介

2002年底,土族著名学者吕建福教授的专著《土族史》由中国社会科学出版社正式出版了.这无疑是20万土族人民文化生活中的一件大事.《土族史》的出版不但填补了这个高原民族没有自己史书的空白,更为重要的是,吕建福先生在前人研究的基础上,以扎实的历史学功底和科学严谨的研究方法,廓清了在土族族源研究上的迷雾,在总结吐谷浑说的基础上,通过可靠的文献资料,证实土族为鲜卑——吐谷浑的后裔.     

Gender and the Australian Parliament: Putting the Political Scientist into the Picture

This paper draws on a study of gender and politics in the Australian parliament in order to make a contribution to methodological debates in feminist political science. The paper begins by outlining the different dimensions of feminist political science methodology that have been identified in the literature. According to this literature five key principles can be seen to constitute feminist approaches to political science. These are: a focus on gender, a deconstruction of the public/private divide, giving voice to women, using research as a basis for transformation, and using reflexivity to critique researcher positionality. The next part of the paper focuses more specifically on reflexivity tracing arguments about its definition, usefulness and the criticisms it has attracted from researchers. Following this, I explore how my background as a member of the Australian House of Representatives from 1987 to 1996 provided an important academic resource in my doctoral study of gender and politics in the national parliament. Through this process I highlight the value of a reflexive approach to research.     

Giving women a voice on decision-making about water: barriers and opportunities in Laikipia,Kenya

In more than 75% of households around the world in which water needs are fulfilled by retrieving water, women are typically tasked with this critical responsibility. This is true in Kenya, and the challenges women in rural areas of the country face are compounded by a lack of reasonable access to safe water by 56.5% of rural households. More than 25% of the population must travel at least 30?minutes to collect water, and 70% of all diseases in the country are water-borne (Kameri-Mbote and Kariuki 2015). Given their role as the primary household decision-maker about water, women have an astute understanding of water availability, access, quality and household use, and women’s perspectives would enhance decision-making in groups that address water resource management. However, women have historically been marginalized from participation in such processes for numerous reasons related to lack of empowerment, leadership, and voice, and the practicalities of the demands on her time that prevent her from having discretionary time to devote to civic processes. In this study, we interviewed 153 women living in three different watersheds in the Laikipia region of central Kenya about their views on water resource management, and interest in participation in water resource user associations (WRUAs) as members and leaders. Our results are consistent with prior research in that marginalization of women from WRUA participation is steeped in entrenched normative beliefs and behaviors about women’s roles and her domestic responsibilities, a lack of money to participate, and a lack of time given her other responsibilities.     

Gender Equality in National Politics: The Views of Australian Male Politicians

Studies of gender and politics have typically been studies of women and politics. In contrast, this paper places men at the centre of its inquiry by drawing on interviews with 15 current federal male politicians. Of concern is exploring the ways in which men conceptualise the question of gender equity in the Australian parliament. Three frameworks are identified in the men's narratives. These are that the parliament is a masculinised space but that this is unavoidable; that the parliament is now feminised and women are advantaged; and that the parliament is gender neutral and gender is irrelevant. It is argued that collectively these framing devices operate to mask the many constraints which exist to marginalise women from political participation and undermine attempts to address women's political disadvantage as political participants. The paper concludes by highlighting the significance of the paper beyond the Australian context and calling for further research which names and critiques political men and their discourses on gender and parliamentary practices and processes.     

Nazi plans and Arab collaboration: New research about old questions

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Hagit Lavsky, Before Catastrophe, The Distinctive Path of German Zionism (Hebrew), Jerusalem, Magnes and Hassifriyah Hazionit, 1990, 292 pp.

Uri Bialer, Between East and West: Israel's Foreign Policy Orientation 1948–1956. (LSE Monographs in International Studies), Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1990, 292 pp., $35.00.

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Un grand rabbin sépharade en politique 1892–1923, Textes présentés par Esther Benbassa, Paris, Presses du CNRS, 1990, 261 pp., 130 F.

David Schaary, From Plain Zionism to Unity and Split in the Early History of General Zionism, 1929–1939 (Hebrew), Jerusalem, R. Mass, 1990, 294 pp.

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