Access relative to need for community conservation funding in Australia

ABSTRACT

In a climate of scarce resources for heritage preservation, there is a need to develop principles and methodology for assessing and responding to inequity within the conservation sector. This paper focuses on spatial, or geographic, barriers as one factor determining the accessibility of conservation services. While the case study focuses on the conservation and management of collections of cultural material in Australia, the methodology is globally relevant for advancing the equitable distribution of heritage and conservation resources according to need. Using a statistical analysis of the spatial distribution of 1323 local heritage conservation projects that have been funded by the National Library of Australia’s Community Heritage Grants Program from 1994 to 2017, this study provides a measure of the spatial equality of conservation in Australia. Spatial distribution analysis indicates that the majority of projects funded are located in major cities, with fewer projects funded in regional, remote and very remote areas. An ‘access relative to need’ approach is proposed to counter the current centralisation of the conservation industry. Of particular relevance for international readers is the potential for this methodology to frame studies of the impacts on heritage resulting from climate change and extreme weather events.     

Events,Social Memories,and Community in a Final Bronze Age Building’s Biography at Sant’Aniceto,Calabria, Italy

Archaeologists investigating Middle Bronze to Early Iron Age periods (1600–900 b.c.) in southern Italy often explore linkages between emerging inequality and foreign trade connections, establishing a coupled trope of “change emerges from external forces” and “waiting for civilization to arrive”. Based on excavations at the Recent/Final Bronze and Early Iron Ages (RFBA/IA, 1200–900 b.c.) site of Sant’Aniceto in Calabria, we offer an alternative narrative in which hierarchy and institutionalized inequality held little sway in this community. By employing a building biography approach, we examine the variety of ways people sustain their communities through the creation and value of difference (e.g., age, knowledge, or skill) that characterize daily life, even when political hierarchy is absent. Our research at Sant’Aniceto centers on understanding the locally-grounded experiences and lives of people by approaching social difference through the lens of the materialities of everyday life.     

Beautiful face,beautiful place: relational geographies and gender in cosmetic surgery tourism websites

Cosmetic surgery tourism is a significant and growing area of medical tourism. This article explores the gendered construction of cosmetic surgery tourism in different geographical locations through an analysis of destination websites in Spain, the Czech Republic and Thailand. We examine the ways in which gender and other intersections of identity interact with notions of space, place and travel to construct particular locations and cosmetic surgery tourist experiences. The relational geographies of skill, regulation and hygiene in discourses of cosmetic surgery risk are also explored. We conclude that accounts producing cosmetic surgery tourism as undifferentiated experience of ‘non-place’ fail to acknowledge the complex constructions of specific destinations in promotional materials targeting international consumers in a global marketplace.     

‘Working out’ for two: performances of ‘fitness’ and femininity in Australian prenatal aerobics classes

In this article, I consider the distinctly classed places/spaces in which affluent Australian pregnant women physically maintain their bodies through aerobics. The case study described is drawn from data obtained between 2006 and 2008 in a longitudinal study examining feelings about body image and ‘fatness’ in a sample of pregnant women in Melbourne, Australia. The ways in which pregnant bodies are disciplined within gym spaces are discussed through a case study of a prenatal fitness centre, FitForTwo, and drawing on narrative data of pregnant informants. FitForTwo is described as a primary site for the performance of ‘fit’ pregnancy and underscored by bodies that can be shaped, trained, moulded and modified. This case study is analysed against a backdrop of a growing Australian moral panics about ‘fighting’ maternal obesity. It adds to a body of feminist geographical and qualitative studies of pregnancy, bringing both a more sustained, longitudinal analysis than previously offered, and an Australian context that offers rich comparative material.     

Bafa Zon: localising World Heritage at Chief Roi Mata's Domain,Vanuatu

This paper critically examines local reactions and responses to the design and implementation of the buffer zone for a World Heritage property held under customary tenure, Chief Roi Mata's Domain (CRMD) in the Republic of Vanuatu. The primary goal is to consider the apparent contradictions and ambiguities inherent in the highly dynamic and contested process of rendering the globalised theory and praxis of buffering in a local context. Our case study brings to light some of the ways in which this process has enabled the landowning community of CRMD to rethink, and begin to remake, the buffer zone as an entity that incorporates both development and conservation concepts under the terms of the local idiom of bafa zon. Internal and external voices compete for influence in determining the local form and further evolution of the bafa zon at CRMD, and the first phases of this contested process are charted here. By supporting locally valued and accepted buffering measures, it may prove possible to realise simultaneously the objectives of World Heritage conservation and local economic development.     

Survive and Thrive: Field Research in Authoritarian Southeast Asia

The literature on field research methods has focused almost exclusively on the strategies available to scholars working in democracies. By comparison, there has been scant guidance for those working in authoritarian regimes. This is despite the distinct set of challenges that arise where civil liberties and political rights are not consistently or well protected. The purpose of this article is to address this deficit. Drawing on the region of Southeast Asia as a natural laboratory for comparative analysis, it offers guidance on how to successfully conduct archival research, carry out interviews and undertake participant observation under authoritarianism. The resulting conclusions are applicable to the pursuit of primary research by scholars at all career levels and in other regions of the world.     

Medical versus social work-places: constructing and compensating the personal support worker across health care settings in Ontario,Canada

This article explores the role of place in explaining variation in caregiver compensation. Using the labour category of Personal Support Worker (PSW) in Ontario, Canada, it contrasts wage rates across three health care settings: hospitals, long-term care facilities and private homes. An evaluation of current literature from disciplines spanning geography, gender studies, political science and sociology is combined with a critical analysis of policy documents and wage data to reveal that, despite holding similar qualifications and performing comparable job duties, hospital-based workers receive higher wages than home-based workers. I theorize that this wage disparity is partially attributable to the historical privileging of hospital settings in Canada, based on a medical-social continuum of health care valuation. Given that the hospital is constructed as a highly medical place, whereas the home is considered to be a social place, caregiving work enjoys greater financing protection in the former. I argue that these constructions stem from deeply gendered historical roots which view the marketplace as a male-dominated setting for productive waged labour, and the home as a female-dominated setting for unpaid social pursuits. Thus, when personal support services shift from public institutions into private homes, these activities become invisible to the state, and their provision beyond its purview. I conclude that the medical versus social nature of the duties performed by PSWs has become secondary to the medical versus social nature of the setting in which these activities take place. This has translated into lower wages for home-based PSWs, effectively resulting in wage discrimination.