Heritage Beyond Borders: Australian Approaches to Extra-National Built Heritage

The rights of the state to protect heritage within its borders, to ratify international conventions and to cooperate in bilateral engagements have been foundational concepts of heritage governance. Extreme circumstances may result in an intervention by non-state parties, but in times of peace it is typically the state that prevails. Drawing from recent efforts (2000s) of the Australian Federal Government to create a ‘List of Overseas Places of Historic Significance to Australia’, this paper explores the complications that can arise from the privileging of state authority in current approaches to heritage. This serves as a point of departure for considering the more widely applicable contradictions, limitations and loopholes of a global approach that favours the ‘state’ and the ramifications this might have for heritage diplomacy.     

Empathy at Knifepoint: The Dangers of Research and Lite Pedagogies for Social Justice Movements

In this paper, I discuss the ways I have fallen short as a participatory geographer and activist both in my teaching and research practices. I use three critical moments in the development of our PAR collective in Colombia to push debates in geography on participatory research and pedagogy further through reflection on my struggles in the streets and in the university. Additionally, I connect these experiences and previous discussions in participatory geographies with Orlando Fals Borda's discussion of sentipensar (a concept that engages feeling and thinking simultaneously). I draw attention to the Latin American origins of PAR philosophy by placing Fals Borda into dialogue with the protagonists of our social movement in Colombia including human rights activists, homeless drug users and sex workers. In a general sense, this paper is an examination of the challenges I have faced in the contact zones of PAR inside and outside the classroom.     

Building Community Self-Esteem: Advocating for Culture

Abstract

This published version of the 2019 David Buchan Lecture draws on personal lived experiences and public folklore work to explore the folklorist’s role in creating the conditions for cultures to thrive. Understanding those conditions to include community self-esteem nurtured by a sense of belonging, I ask what is our responsibility when we witness disruptions and inequities? Can we create change when we amplify the voices of a community? Reflecting on my work with refugee and immigrant women over four decades, this article offers a glimpse into the collaborative work of a folklorist who found her bearings in the opportunity, even the responsibility, to advocate for cultural equity in her community.     

Shattered Minds: Madmen on the Railways, 1860–80

Scholars have long pointed to stories of death and disaster on the railways as proof of profound Victorian anxieties about technology. And yet the traumatic crash was not the only anxiety revealed by sensational railway stories. In the 1860s, a surprising number of newspaper accounts emerged telling tales of ordinary men losing their minds on the railways. These stories were told and retold across the periodical press, exaggerating both the extent of the problem and the severity of the danger for the everyday traveller. Analysing a broad range of press accounts and government policy, this article traces a moral panic in the making. These stories reveal a great concern about the seeming fragility of the male mind when exposed to the modern, industrial world. As this article demonstrates, fears of madness were not limited to Lunacy Commissioners and alienists; they were in fact a staple of popular culture. If a railway journey was all it took to drive a seemingly sane man to madness, what did that say about the health of British manhood?     

Finding mobility: women negotiating fear and violence in Mexico City’s public transit system

Feminists have long known that a woman’s confidence, sense of possibility, aspirations, and personal growth depend on their ability to be mobile. Yet gender-based violence and sexual harassment against women commuters greatly limit those freedoms. How then should cities adapt in order increase women’s equal access to mobility? To address this question, this article looks at the case of Mexico City, investigating how women pursue mobility despite hostile and violent conditions that immobilize them. Based on women’s testimonies, comments made on online debate forums, and surveys among women commuters in Mexico City, this article maps the ways women cope with violence and harassment on public transportation. The analysis also pays particular attention to how women’s coping strategies are restructured through state interventions, including women-only transportation. The data reveals that gender-based violence in Mexico City’s public transportation limits women’s mobility and reinforces gender inequality. It also shows, however, that under the right circumstances women-only transportation can be used as a place to create a rights-based movement. The article concludes that Mexico City is an example where women-only transportation has played a role in changing the traditional gender norms which have reinforced violence against women commuters.     

Hermann Oppenheim's observations about music in aphasia

Hermann Oppenheim was influential in many areas of neurology, but his ideas about music are relatively unknown. In 1888, he published a paper that outlined how the assessment of music skills in patients with aphasia could lead to a better understanding of aphasia and language. Oppenheim conducted the first comprehensive music assessment as part of a neurologic examination and presented the first case series of music in aphasia. His paper was widely cited and had significant influence over the next 30 years. Although largely unrecognized as such, Oppenheim was an important historical figure in the study of music and neurology.