Reconceptualizing Dialogue in Environmental Public Participation

In this article we argue that the attempt to overcome technical dominance with democratic procedures has reduced communication to fair procedural rules that do not fully recognize the rhetorical functions of dialogue. The meaning generation process, although important, is not sufficiently accounted for in current participation theories and models. Here, we use Mikhail Bakhtin's dialogic perspective to explore a "sense-making" discourse that includes embracing differences, generating new meanings, and engaging in an open-ended dialogue. This mode of discourse works to construct understanding through a multi-voiced, ongoing struggle among perspectives. It intermingles with a problem-solving discourse focused on developing agreement among disparate views within democratic processes. These types of discourse have differing, yet complimentary goals and we see them as alternating throughout public participation to encourage long-term interaction and relationship building. We highlight techniques that illustrate some ways of encouraging a sense-making discourse and touch upon several lessons they provide for implementing this type of discourse within democratic models.     

Domestic espionage: David Park's Swallowing the Sun as Troubles thriller

David Park's standing as an author of finely observed works, in which individual frailties are pitted against larger scenarios of conflict and trauma, was recently acknowledged through his winning of the American Ireland Literary Award. His most recent novel, The Truth Commissioner, projects a model of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission onto a Northern Ireland setting, and won the 2009 Christopher Ewart Biggs Memorial Award. The novel this essay examines, Swallowing the Sun (2005), can be read as a re-working of the conventional Troubles thriller. In this novel, the traumas of domestic violence feed into and interweave with state violence in Belfast. Poverty and class inequities are highlighted as causes for both private and public conflict. David Park revises the Troubles thriller to suggest that the pressure to be quiet in the face of suffering is the real enemy to both individual and state welfare. Swallowing the Sun is a powerful challenge to established ideas about genre and context in Northern Ireland, and a moving work from a Northern Ireland author who has, until recently, been relatively overlooked.     

The diversity of identity: youth participation at the Solomon Islands Truth and Reconciliation Commission

In recent years, the transitional justice field has become increasingly concerned with ensuring meaningful participation from a wide range of actors. In response, a burgeoning scholarship has emerged, which aims to understand the interests and needs of these stakeholders, most notably women and children. Noticeably absent from this research is an examination of youth interests as distinct from children’s. Instead, the conflict identities of youth are most often conceived as inextricably tied to those of children. As a result, the narrow victim/perpetrator binary remains the dominant identity construction employed for understanding their involvement in conflict and transitional justice processes. Drawing on the case of the Solomon Islands Truth and Reconciliation Commission, this article reveals that youth are more than passive subjects in the reconciliation process. It demonstrates that the interactions of youth with truth and reconciliation commission processes allow youth to exercise agency, and thus challenge the dominance of the victim/perpetrator identity construct. The article thus proposes an alternative way of framing youth participation, whereby the identities of youth in transitional contexts are represented as diverse and malleable.     

Bone Diagenesis and Taphonomic History of the Paso Otero 1 Bone Bed, Pampas of Argentina

Samples of guanaco bone from an archaeological site in the Pampas of Argentina have been analysed to understand the diagenetic profile of the bone assemblages that characterized the taphonomic history of the site. Two archaeological occupations of Paso Otero 1 were investigated, encompassing similar landscape settings, climates, and depositional environments. The time span is a c. 2000 year period from c. 4800 to 2800 years . A total of 30 bone samples taken from both occupations were used to provide a preliminary characterization of the diagenetic pathways at the site. The parameters investigated provide a comprehensive account of how both mineral (hydroxyapatite) and bone protein (collagen) have been altered. In order to compare the two bone assemblages in terms of their diagenetic parameters, multivariate analyses were conducted. Results indicate two different diagenetic profiles in the site, % N being one of the variables that accounts for most of the variation in Paso Otero 1. The diagenetic analyses indicate that protein is less preserved in the bone assemblage from the middle stable landscape. Alternative interpretations of the diagenetic profiles are discussed in light of the taphonomic history of the site, and palaeoenvironmental information of the region. One hypothesis stresses the importance of the role of climate in defining the different diagenetic pathways, and the other the continued action of the combined diagenetic factors along time as the main explanation for the variability in the state of preservation of the bones in Paso Otero 1.     

Controversy,uncertainty and the diverse public in cultural diplomacy: Australia–China relations

In the past few years, foreign policy tensions between China and Australia have become especially fraught. In some cases, this political situation manifests in the very diplomatic initiatives that were funded to help ease relations. This article considers a case study of a theatrical collaboration in the context of contemporary Australia–China relations to interrogate the value of our understandings of and evaluation frameworks for public diplomacy. This article argues that theories of cultural diplomacy and assessments of initiatives need to consider the multiple and competing objectives, diverse publics and controversial receptions that may be the outcomes of cultural diplomatic initiatives. It demonstrates this complexity in relation to Australia–China relations. Taking a cultural diplomatic initiative that sought to increase positive association for Chinese culture in the Australian public as a case study, it illustrates the range of differences that can be found amongst stakeholders, and the different roles that may be ascribed to cultural diplomacy. These interests, including those of different artistic and political stakeholders, as well as differences in the publics involved, are best segmented not only according to nation but also to subculture.     

Wine tourism development in South Africa: a geographical analysis

ABSTRACT

Wine tourism, which is growing and developing on a global scale, is widely considered a driver of economic and social development in rural areas. Limited job opportunities and unemployment are prevalent in most rural areas, particularly in South Africa. In 2015, the South African wine industry generated close to 300,000 direct and indirect employment opportunities. A geographical analysis of the development and current state of wine tourism in the region can assist in the country's efforts to develop a new strategy to enhance and preserve wine tourism in the future. Wine tourism development is analysed from a nodes, network and winescape perspective using the results from a national questionnaire survey. This mostly quantitative approach explains the wine tourism development over more than 40 years from a supply-side perspective including its wine tourism product portfolio and in terms of its physical footprint. Wine tourism development commenced from only three pioneer open cellar doors in 1971, to network formation of 21 wine routes and today boasting well-established wine tourism destinations. The Stellenbosch-Franschhoek-Paarl nexus emerges as South Africa's premier winescape, as being a well-established destination in its mature life cycle phase. Strong evidence of hierarchical differentiation between the wineries of the more established wine tourism regions has emerged. The impact of the wine tourism resorts on the smaller wineries has yet to be determined in the context of the resilience of the whole region. The development of wine tourism is also responsible for the transformation of rural landscapes and especially in the regions that have the most developed wine routes. These regions need higher-level protection (especially the cultural and natural resource bases) in the form of an ‘agricultural reserve’ or the declaration of a ‘national heritage site’.     

Three reflections on Revolution at Point Zero for (re)producing an alternative academy

Abstract

Revolution at Point Zero: Housework, Reproduction, and Feminist Struggle is a collection of Federici’s essays, her theorizations and research on feminist struggles to reconfigure social reproduction in ways alternative to capitalist relations. In this intervention, I present reflections on three experiences – teaching Federici’s work, being a graduate student and precarious academic worker, and engaging in rich and meaningful friendships – in order to offer a consideration for how Federici’s centering of social reproduction can provide lessons for resisting the neoliberalization of the academy, taking care of each other, and cultivating alternative and more just social relations. Federici’s work gives principles for how to live and resist together, principally because of her centering of social reproduction and the possibility of crafting an alternative set of social relations. In this intervention, I question and advocate for relationships, accountability, and a critical politics of social reproductive labor as being essential to such a struggle.     

Doing Research with Young People: Participatory Research and the Rituals of Collective Work

This is an exciting juncture at which to bear witness to the growing, multidisciplinary support for youth participation and more inclusive collaborative research practices in geography and the social sciences. Participatory action research and practice offers a promising new framework for researchers who are committed to social justice and change. The multiple benefits of engaging the perspectives of young people in research have served to challenge social exclusion, redistribute power within the research process and build the capacity of young people to analyze and transform their own lives and become partners in the building of more sound, democratic, communities. In this paper, I offer a broad overview of the principles of participatory research and reflect on my own experience of doing a participatory action research project with young people. Specifically, I will discuss a ‘collective praxis approach’ (a set of rituals and practices for sharing power within the research process), the role of the facilitator, and the processes of collective data analysis.     

Identifying foreigners versus locals in a burial population from Nasca, Peru: an investigation using strontium isotope analysis

During the several thousand years of human occupation in the Nasca drainage on the south coast of Peru, population movement into and out of the region impacted the formation and organization of society, as well as contributed to major cultural transformations. This study identifies foreign versus local individuals through the investigation of burial practices and strontium isotope analysis of human remains from the sites of La Tiza and Pajonal Alto dating from the Early Intermediate Period through the Late Intermediate Period (A.D. 1–1476). Of the ten samples analyzed, two individuals dating to the Middle Horizon were identified as foreigners. One of these individuals was buried in a new elite tomb type providing additional evidence that the Wari state incorporated Nasca into its realm. Two headless individuals, one dating to Middle Nasca with clear evidence of decapitation, and another dating to the Late Intermediate Period who was likely decapitated, were both locals. This suggests the practice of decapitation took place among local groups, and that the practice of decapitation and the use of heads as ritual items or trophies may have continued later in time than previously thought.