Gender and place influences on health risk perspectives in northern Canadian Aboriginal communities

Developing a better understanding of the factors underlying health and environmental risk perspectives has been the focus of significant research in recent years. Although many previous studies have shown that perspectives of risk are often associated with gender, sociocultural variables and place, our understanding of the relationship between these factors and risk remains equivocal. A research study was undertaken to develop better insights into the understanding and perspectives of various types of health risks in two sets of northern Canadian Aboriginal communities – the Yellowknives Dene First Nation communities of N'Dilo and Dettah in the Northwest Territories and the Inuit communities of Nain and Hopedale in Nunatsiavut. Gender was found to have a limited overall effect on risk perspectives, consistent with other studies that found no gender differences in communities stressed by multiple and concurrent risks. Nonetheless, subtle gender differences were seen in the qualitative responses, with women focusing more on community impacts and mitigating actions. Threats to ‘place-identity’ associated with changes in traditional lifestyle and connection to the land were strongly associated with risk perspectives. These results reinforce the need to be cautious in making assumptions about the complex effects of community and personal attributes, such as gender and gender relations, in assessing the factors underlying risk views and concerns. They also suggest the importance of gathering multiple types of data (both quantitative and qualitative) in order to fully assess the effects of both gender and place. Ultimately, understanding risk in a northern context requires recognizing the unique circumstances and identities of northern Aboriginal peoples.     

Salutary Lessons: Native Police and the ‘Civilising’ Role of Legalised Violence in Colonial Australia

Over much of the nineteenth century, recurring problems of covert and opportunistic conflict between settlers and Indigenous peoples produced considerable debate across the British settler world about how frontier violence could be legally curbed. At the same time, the difficulty of imposing a rule of law on new frontiers was often seen by colonial states as justification for the imposition of order through force. Examining all the mainland Australian colonies from the 1830s to the end of the nineteenth century, this paper asks how this contradictory dilemma played out through deployment of ‘native police’ and the ‘civilising’ role of legalised violence as a strategy for managing the settler frontier. In light of wider debate about a humanely administered empire, Australia’s first native police force established in New South Wales in 1837 was conceived as a measure that would assist in the conciliation and ‘amelioration’ of Aboriginal people. In the coming decades, other Australian colonies employed native police either as dedicated forces or as individual assistants attached to mounted police detachments. Over time, the capacity they held to impose extreme violence on Aboriginal populations in the service of protecting pastoral investments came to reflect an implicit acceptance that punitive measures were required to bring order to disorderly frontiers.

By tracing a gradual shift in the perceived role of native police from one of ‘civilising’ Aboriginal people to one of ‘civilising’ the settler state itself, this paper draws out some of the conditions under which state-sanctioned force became naturalised and legitimated. It concludes that, as an instrument of frontier management, native policing reflected an enduring problem for Australia’s colonial governments in reconciling a legal obligation to treat Aboriginal people as subjects of the crown with a perceived requirement to bring them under colonial authority through the ‘salutary lessons’ of legalised violence.     

‘Sandplay,Clay and Sticks’: Multi-Sensory Research Methods to Explore the Long-Term Mental Health Effects of Childhood Play Experience

In this contribution we discuss the advantages of using multi-sensory methodologies in our study into the long-term mental health effects of different kinds of childhood play space. Working with a small group of young people aged 16–21 years old; we used a multi-method approach including practical workshops where the young people took part in a day of woodland activities and artwork sessions. We argue that use of such practical methodologies is particularly appropriate in research with teenagers and young adults, helping to overcome their self-consciousness and supporting their need to explore and articulate memories, feelings and ideas.     

Gendered Taskscapes: Food,Farming, and Craft Production in Banda,Ghana in the Eighteenth to Twenty-first Centuries

This article blends insights from gender, technology, and development studies with Ingold’s concept of taskscape to examine the interrelated nature of farming, food, and craft manufacture practices in Banda, Ghana during the last three centuries. We begin by comparing two ethnoarchaeological studies that were conducted separately by the authors, one that focused on food, and the other on ceramic production, preparation, and consumption. We use these data to analyze gendered taskscapes and how they have changed in recent decades with the introduction of new technologies and major economic and environmental shifts. Building on such insights, we analyze how taskscapes shifted in earlier centuries in Banda through archaeological remains of food and craft practice at the eighteenth- to twentieth-century site of Makala Kataa. Craft production cannot be fully understood without reference to food production, preparation, and consumption; thus, viewing these practices as interrelated tasks in a gendered taskscape yields insight into the rhythms of everyday life and highlights women’s often undervalued skills.     

THE GROBIN DAVIS SITE: ARCHAEOGEOPHYSICS AND SETTLEMENT PATTERNS AT CADDO MOUND CENTERS IN SOUTHEASTERN OKLAHOMA

The Grobin Davis site (34MC253) is the best-preserved known prehistoric Caddo mound site in southeastern Oklahoma. The site, located along the Little River, consists of seven mounds arranged in a horseshoe configuration. Archaeological excavations at the site have been limited to a series of posthole tests and three 1-x-1-m units. Between November 2011 and February 2012, the Oklahoma Archeological Survey conducted geophysical survey of the bulk of the site, covering approximately 32,000 m² with a fluxgate gradiometer. This study provides important information about Caddo mound construction, settlement, and ceremonialism in southeastern Oklahoma and add to a growing body of literature on prehistoric Caddo community patterns.     

Decolonisation and mysticism in William Butler Yeats's The Celtic Twilight and The Secret Rose

Yeats's responsibilities as one of Ireland's most prominent artists commenced with his aspiration to make Ireland a nation. His writings incorporate the three phases of development that Frantz Fanon posited for all new nations. Although Fanon described his three phases of decolonisation well after The Celtic Twilight and The Secret Rose were compiled, Fanon's framework elucidates Yeats's writings. Yeats's use of mystical elements embodies Fanon's idea of the colonial binary, the negritude binary, and transnational consciousness. Yeats discovered the answers to decolonisation in mysticism. His insights about folklore when coupled with imagination brought about many mystical revelations that linked Ireland to mysticism of global dimensions. Yeats's insights moved Ireland beyond binaries and solely nationalistic thinking to encourage Ireland to develop a transnational consciousness, transcending postcolonial binaries to achieve nationhood.     

Working with Strangers in Saturated Space: Reclaiming and Maintaining the Urban Commons

The commons is increasingly invoked as a way to envision new worlds. One strand of commons research focuses at the local scale, on small groups in “traditional”, mostly rural societies; this research asks how commons are maintained over time. Another strand focuses on the commons at a global scale; this is political research that asks how commons can be reclaimed from a capitalist landscape. Here, I bridge these two approaches by theorizing the commons as reclaimed and maintained in the context of the city, through examining the experiences of limited‐equity housing cooperatives in Washington, DC. I argue that the urban commons is marked by two distinct traits: it emerges in space that is saturated with people, competing uses, and financial investment; and it is constituted by the collective work of strangers. The challenges of reclaiming and maintaining an urban commons are substantial, but the need for them is urgent.     

Children as community planners: embodied activities,visual-spatial thinking,and a re-imagined community

ABSTRACT

This qualitative research endeavor explored the role of embodiment as a pathway to visual-spatial thinking. The researchers relied on an interdisciplinary approach using geography and theater rooted in kinesthetic and empathetic embodied activities to facilitate visual-spatial thinking within the context of a community redevelopment project. The participants consisted of 14 elementary and middle school aged girls attending a Girls Inc. program within a low-income housing community. The researchers situated the findings using McCormack’s ([1998. Visual/Spatial Thinking: An Essential Element of Elementary School Science. Washington, DC: Council for Elementary School Science]; [2011. “Don’t Verbalize, Visualize!” NSTA WebNews Digest. Accessed June 15, 2016. http://www.nsta.org/publications/news/story.aspx?id=58298]) visual-spatial thinking typology and theories of embodiment. The findings revealed that the girls exhibited three types of visual-spatial thinking, which ranged from foundational to highly advanced ways of thinking about space, to include visual-spatial perception, memory, and creative thinking. The results also illustrate that embodied activities that engage sensorimotor functions through an interdisciplinary approach, can facilitate visual-spatial thinking.