Past and present marine mammal hunting rates and abundances: dugong (Dugong dugon) evidence from Dabangai Bone Mound,Torres Strait

Dugongs (Dugong dugon) are a key food item and a totemic animal with major spiritual significance for Torres Strait Islanders of northeastern Australia. These marine mammals are officially classed vulnerable to extinction which has placed hunters under considerable internal (cultural) and external (bureaucratic) pressure to lower hunting rates dramatically to sustainable levels. But did Torres Strait Islanders hunt dugongs at much lower rates in the pre-colonial past? Excavation of a ritual dugong bone mound on Mabuyag island revealed the remains of 10,000–11,000 dugongs hunted between c. 1600 and c. 1900AD. The translated hunting rate of 33–37 dugongs per year is surprisingly high and challenging as this single site represents one-third of what conservation biologists argue is the current mean sustainable hunting rate for the entire Torres Strait archipelago. These data suggest that dugong abundance was much higher in the pre-colonial past and that current hunting rates are uncharacteristically unsustainable primarily due to an unprecedented dugong population crash and not increased post-contact hunting rates.     

Anthropology at the bottom of the pyramid

This article explores what anthropology has to say about contemporary business strategies for market expansion among poor consumers in Africa and Asia. Focusing on the activities of global consumer goods company Unilever in India, we show how anthropology can provide valuable insights into the hidden work and power relations involved in transforming an everyday commodity like soap into a composite object, what we call a 'social good', that is capable of simultaneously combating disease, tackling poverty and realizing value for shareholders.     

‘Never a Machine for Propaganda’? The Australian-American Fulbright Program and Australia's Cold War

Abstract

Some overlap in personnel between the Australian-American Fulbright board and those advising Menzies on anti-communist legislation and the 1951 referendum, including former Chief Justice J. G. Latham, raises questions about the politicisation of the Fulbright program over this period. A careful reconstruction of the Australian scheme's founding years reveals, however, that the program resisted becoming a simple instrument of Cold War foreign policy. This was thanks to careful groundwork laid by Evatt's Department of External Affairs, ensuring a measure of independence to the Australian board, and board member Latham's strategic defence of the program's educational goals when pressures were felt.