New collaborations in old institutional spaces: setting a new research agenda to transform Indigenous-settler relations

ABSTRACT

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people navigate the social and political order of the Australian settler state in ways that seek to increase their personal freedoms and political autonomy. For some groups this means seeking a firmer place within the social, political and economic life of Australia, and for others it means navigating away, towards a more distant relationship based in the resurgence of Indigenous nationhood. This navigation is composed of multifaceted and multidirectional relations between Indigenous Australians, settler Australians, and the settler state. As a discipline, political science must move beyond the study of settler institutions and begin to engage more comprehensively in research that considers the dynamics and structures of Indigenous-settler relations as a matter of priority.     

A critical review of entrepreneurial ecosystems research: towards a future research agenda

The entrepreneurial ecosystem (EE) literature has attracted much attention, especially in policy circles. However, the concept suffers from a number of shortcomings: (1) it lacks a clear analytical framework that makes explicit what is cause and what is effect in an EE; (2) while being a systemic concept, the EE has not yet fully exploited insights from network theory, and it is not always clear in what way the proposed elements are connected in an EE; (3) it remains a challenge what institutions (and at what spatial scale) impact on the structure and performance of EE; (4) studies have often focused on the EE in single regions or clusters, but lack a comparative and multi-scalar perspective and (5) the EE literature tends to provide a static framework taking a snapshot of EE without considering systematically their evolution over time. For each of these shortcomings, we make a number of suggestions to take up in future research on EE.     

Introduction: Ethnographies of Historicity

This article seeks to clarify the concept of “historicity” and how it might guide ethnographic research. The argument is developed with particular reference to the eight studies of historicity in diverse societies ranging from the Pacific to North America contained in this special issue. The authors contend that the standard Western concept of “history” is culturally particular and not necessarily the best tool for cross‐cultural investigations. Western history is generally predicated on the principle of historicism: the idea that the “past” is separated from the present. People around the world, including Western historians, recognize, however, that the past, present and future are mutually implicated. The notion of “historicity” is intended to open out the temporal focus to a “past‐present‐future”. Studies of historicity address the diverse modes through which people form their presents in world societies.     

Cross-border mergers/acquisitions: a review and research agenda

Cross-border mergers/acquisitions account for the bulk of contemporaryforeign direct investment. Their significance, which is reinforcingthe position of transnational corporations as the dominant institutionalforce in the global economy, is related to the nexus of processesimplicated in international economic restructuring. Cross-bordermergers/acquisitions are, therefore, important influences uponthe evolution of the space economy, but this perspective onmerger/acquisition activity has been neglected in academic research.This review makes connections between disparate literaturesto identify potential lines of enquiry and attempts to situatethese lines of enquiry within current research agendas in economicgeography. On a basic level, mergers/acquisitions create newcorporate geographies which represent valid objects of researchin the geography of enterprise tradition. However, these corporategeographies are set within the institutional context of social,economic, and political relations. Many of the most interestingresearch questions derive from these contextual relations whichare addressed with reference to issues of embeddedness at variousgeographical scales and also by linking these issues to aspectsof employment and territorial development.     

Ethnographies of terror

Cultural Survival Quarterly. Death and Disorder in Guatemala. Volume 7, number 1. Cambridge, MA: Cultural Survival, Inc., 1983. 53 pp. including 29 photographs, 8 tables, 1 map, and bibliography. $5.00 paper.

Cultural Survival Quarterly. Voices of the Survivors: The Massacre al Finca San Francisco, Guatemala. Occasional Papers of the Anthropology Resource Center, Number 10. Cambridge, MA: Cultural Survival, Inc., 1983. ii + 105 pp. including 5 photographs, 2 maps, and glossary. $5.00 paper.     

Services and the New Economy: elements of a research agenda

In developing and advanced economies job creation continuesto be led by various services. A New Economy is being created,which is challenging the geography of the Old Economy. The OldEconomy has been dominated by corporations headquartered disproportionatelyin the ‘Global Cities’ and large agglomerations.The New Economy is being built around smaller enterprises distributedin a much more dispersed geography. The New Economy has jobcreation centered in services, but relies on the Old Economyfor physical capital and a portion of demand. The location ofbusiness activity in the New Economy can be much more contingenton the desires of entrepreneurs, and is far less tied to thecost-based logic that has shaped and reshaped the distributionof industrial capacity in the Old Economy. The New Economy reliesto a growing extent on telephonic-based networks for productionand delivery, but it also has leading-edge layers that requireface-to-face human contact in the production process. At thesame time the Old Economy is becoming ever more directed byproduction processes less tied to localized human skills, andin the process is shedding labor demands. The New Economy isexploding in its industrial composition, challenging researchersto define its new industries (such as establishments with only.com, .org, .gov, or .edu Internet addresses), and the extremelyrapid division of labor in unstandardized services such as managementconsulting and software engineering. The Old Economy is clearlyresponding to these developments in the New Economy, and restructuringis occurring globally. Research is needed speaking to these trends, and the primarypurpose of this paper is to issue a call for work of this type.The paper identifies priority needs from a theoretical perspective,as well as describes badly needed empirical work on the NewEconomy.     

Community-based Heritage Management: a case study and agenda for research

Heritage sites regarded as important are safely managed by the state, voluntary or private sectors but the majority of sites, despite statutory protection, remain unrecognised and without a role in their host communities. New schemes such as the Local Heritage Initiative in the UK aim to encourage communities to recognise their heritage assets and in managing them effectively to contribute to their preservation. With reference to the case of Nether Poppleton near York (UK), the present study explores the factors and conditions for effective community management displayed in one locality by groups who are successfully conserving and managing a diverse set of local heritage sites. Interviews and joint tasks enabled an analysis of the complex range of factors and conditions that can lead to a successful community-based initiative. Future research will determine the extent to which these factors, if applied to other sites, might produce the same results. The importance of this agenda is underscored by the increasing reliance on community-based heritage management in the UK and elsewhere.     

The High Court of Australia and political science: A revised historiography and new research agenda

The judiciary has not been the subject of sustained scrutiny within the political science discipline. The High Court plays a central role in the Australian political system, however, and the exercise of judicial power has far reaching consequences for the legislative and executive branches of government. This article presents a historiography of the study of the High Court by political scientists, using Helen Irving's ‘The Constitution and the judiciary’ as a foil. In order to foster cross-disciplinary study and research within the political science discipline, this article concludes by setting out a new research agenda for the future study of the High Court and the law by political scientists. This research agenda provides new insights into (among other topics) how judges exercise power and the changing relationship between the judiciary and the legislative and executive branches.

在政治学里,司法并不一直是审视的对象。不过,高等法院在澳大利亚的政治体系内扮演了关键的角色,司法权力对于立法和行政部门有着深远的影响。本文将政治学者对高等法院的研究做了历史的梳理,采用了海伦厄万的“宪法和司法”理论为参照。本文为将来政治学者研究高等法院及法律提出了新的研究课题,希望以此促进跨学科以及政治学科的研究。这些课题探讨法官如何行使权力,探讨司法与立法以及行政部门之间变动不居的关系。     

Digging women: towards a new agenda for feminist critiques of mining

This article addresses how a contemporary feminist perspective can problematise the ancient human endeavour of mining, and indicates which direction research on the interface between extractive industries and gender could usefully take. Feminist research has confronted masculinist discourses of mining by questioning the naturalisation of men as industrial workers, and by illustrating the gender-selective impacts of capitalist mining projects. The article probes the sources of these masculinist discourses of mining and reinterprets these critiques. Most importantly, by highlighting the diverse range of extractive practices that reflect different stages of surplus accumulation, it encourages a rethinking of mining itself as an area of feminine work. Finally, it makes tentative suggestions as to how the field of women and mining might be examined and addressed by contemporary feminists. A postcapitalist feminist critique of mining would hinge upon revealing women's agency in mining and revisit the conventional definitions of mining as industrial work and begin to see the feminine livelihoods in mining.     

Urban Regeneration in the Brazilian urban policy agenda

This article aims to highlight the main arguments that sought to justify the incorporation and legitimization of Urban Regeneration in the urban policy agenda in Brazil. It shows how the convergence between different and even conflicting propositions related to urban development provided ideological support to the construction of discourses in which urban regeneration is portrayed as beneficial to society as a whole, and how recent international ideas on urban development were incorporated in urban policies of contemporary Brazil, considering our local socio-economic and political environment, planning tradition and regulatory frameworks. The focus will be on Rio de Janeiro and particularly São Paulo given the key role these two cities play in defining urban policy paradigms, guiding government agendas and exporting regulatory models to other parts of Brazil.     

Host economy impacts of transnational retail: the research agenda

The last decade has witnessed an acceleration of retail foreigndirect investment into a range of emerging markets across EastAsia, Central and Eastern Europe and Latin America, led by asmall cohort of food and general merchandise retailers fromWestern Europe, and to a lesser extent, North America. Whilethese investment flows have had profound developmental impactsin host economies, research in this area is still in its infancy.This article therefore maps out a detailed research agenda withrespect to the host economy impacts of transnational retailing.After setting the scene empirically and conceptually, the articleconsiders different dimensions of these impacts on retail competitiveness,supply chain dynamics, consumption practices and consumer/civilsociety, institutional and regulatory frameworks and, reciprocally,on the retail transnational corporations themselves. It concludesby calling for a concerted interdisciplinary research effortinto this important and understudied aspect of economic globalization.     

Contesting danger: a new agenda for policy and scholarship on Central Asia

Western geopolitical discourse misrepresents and constructs Central Asia as an inherently and essentially dangerous place. This pervasive ‘discourse of danger’ obscures knowledge of the region, deforms scholarship and, because it has policy implications, actually endangers Central Asia. This article identifies how the region is made knowable to a US–UK audience through three mutually reinforcing dimensions of endangerment: Central Asia as obscure, oriental, and fractious. This is evidenced in the writings of conflict resolution and security analysts, the practices of governments, the activities of international aid agencies and numerous lurid films, documentaries and novels. The article first establishes the tradition of inscribing danger to Central Asia, in both academic and policy discourse, from the colonial experience of the nineteenth century through to the post‐Soviet transition and subsequent considerations of the region in terms of the war on terror. It considers several examples of this discourse of danger including the popular US TV drama about presidential politics, The West Wing, the policy texts of ‘Washingtonian security analysis’ and accounts of danger, insecurity and urban violence in the Ferghana Valley. It is argued that popular policy and academic texts are relatively consistent across the three dimensions of endangerment. This argument is demonstrated through a discussion of how policy‐making and practice is informed by this discourse of danger and of how the discourse of danger is contested within the region. The example of urban violence in Osh, Kyrgyzstan and Jalalabad, Afghanistan in 2010 demonstrates how opportunities to mitigate conflict may have been lost due to the distortions of this discourse of danger. It concludes by raising the challenge to policy‐makers, journalists and academics to contest this western geopolitical discourse and provide better accounts of how danger is experienced by Central Asians.     

Wandering intellectuals: establishing a research agenda on gender,walking, and thinking

Building on a study of three women who practice walking-for-thinking as a part of their intellectual work, the analysis identifies potential themes for a future research agenda on gender, walking, and thinking. A particular focus is the subtle, daily, management of gendered expectations and ways in which walking, for these women, is a contribution to such management. We name this ‘walking away from expectations’ and identify three themes: walking away from others’ gaze, walking away from restlessness and domestic responsibility, and walking away as belonging. Walking emerges as a skilful way of creating the conditions to do one’s intellectual work and manage gendered expectations. Further, the meanings of silences about gender in the context of intellectual work and walking is discussed and questions for future research agenda are suggested.     

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.     

Israeli historical geography and the Holocaust: reconsidering the research agenda

The case of the Israeli historical geography demonstrates how nationalism affects academic research agenda. As in many other cases of nation-building, Israeli geographers have played an important role in the manipulation of landscapes and places to form a modern Jewish Israeli national identity. Their role in the construction of national consciousness expanded following the development of a territorial national conflict with the Palestinian Arabs. Despite the eighteen centuries of the pre-Zionist Diaspora, and the fact that more than a half of the Jews in the world live outside Israel, Israeli historical geographers almost totally neglect Diaspora lifestyles and spatialities and ignore the impact of the geographical imagination of Diaspora Jews on the (re)construction of Zionist territorial concepts and space. Following five decades of a Palestine/Israel-centered agenda, it is time for Israeli historical geographers to turn to the research of different spatial aspects of the Jewish Diaspora. This move should begin with the research of the spatial aspects of the concentration and annihilation of Jewish European communities during the Holocaust, and to more general spatial aspects of Nazism, as well as to the political and cultural geography of the Holocaust remembrance.     

Proclaiming place: Towards a geography of place name pronunciation

This paper provides a critical review of recent geographical scholarship on place naming and contends that aural aspects of naming have yet to be fully worked into the research agenda. To begin to address this gap in the literature, we consider pronunciation to be an important element of the cultural politics of place naming within post-colonial societies. In asserting links between speaking and naming we are contributing to recent scholarship in cultural geography that has moved beyond the visual to consider a wider sensory spectrum in the constitution of place. Our case material is drawn from Aotearoa/New Zealand where conservative reactions to sympathetic pronunciations of Maori names by media personalities are a frequent occurrence. By way of example, we interpret selected examples of unsolicited comment gleaned from newspapers during the period 1994-1999. We conclude that identity is at least in part narrated through place-referenced linguistic tactics such as pronunciation. Cet article se veut un inventaire critique des récents travaux académiques sur la toponymie et soutient que la question des aspects 'auditifs' du nom mérite davantage l'attention des chercheurs. Afin de remédier à ce manque dans la littérature existante, nous suggérons que la problématique de la prononciation constitue un élément important des débats culturels entourant l'attribution de noms de lieux, surtout chez les sociétés postcoloniales. En insistant sur les liens entre le fait de parler et celui de nommer, notre discussion s'inscrit dans les travaux récents en géographie culturelle allant au-delà du visuel afin de concevoir une gamme sensorielle beaucoup plus large en ce qui a trait à la conception du lieu. Nos données sont tirées de la Aotearoa/Nouvelle-Zélande où les réactions conservatrices sont fréquentes lorsque des noms d'origine Maori sont utilisés par des personnalités médiatiques. A titre d'exemple, nous interprétons des commentaires receuillis dans les journaux entre 1994-1999. Nous concluons que l'identité est en partie rattachée à des références toponymiques et linguistiques tactiques telles que la prononciation. Este papel da un análisis crítico de reciente erudición geográfica sobre el nombramiento de lugares y afirma que el aspecto auditivo del nombramiento todavía no forma uno de los asuntos de investigación. Para empezar a cerrar esta brecha en la literatura, consideramos que la pronunciación constituye un elemento importante en la política cultural del nombramiento de lugares dentro de las sociedades pos-coloniales. Al acertar vínculos entre el hablar y el nombrar contribuimos a erudición reciente en la geografía cultural que se ha ido más alláde lo visual para considerar un espectro sensorio más amplio en la constitución de lugar. La materia de nuestro estudio viene de Aotearoa/Nueva Zelanda donde son frecuentes las reacciones conservadores a pronunciaciones comprensivas de los nombres Maorí por personajes de los medios de comunicación. Como ejemplo, interpretamos ejemplos de comentarios no solicitados, recogidos de periódicos de los años 1994 a 1999. Concluimos que, por lo menos en parte, la identidad es narrada por tácticas lingüísticas que se refieren a un lugar, tal como pronunciación.