Women,gender and feminism in the Australian Journal of Political Science: A review

This review article, written for the fiftieth anniversary of the Australian Journal of Political Science (formerly Politics), analyses articles focusing on women, gender and feminism that were published in the journal. The analysis demonstrates that the study of gender is relevant to a broad range of fields, and methodological approaches used, in political science. It also demonstrates that political science knowledge is itself historically and socially constructed, reflecting both traditional social power relations and the influence of the social movements that challenge them. Consequently, key articles have drawn attention to the ways in which the frameworks of mainstream forms of political science were gender-biased and have sometimes continued to be so, particularly in terms of narrow constructions of the ‘political’. Such narrow constructions may still be contributing to some ongoing gaps in the literature, despite the important contributions made by work published in the journal.     

Ethno-geochemical and Phytolith Studies of Activity Related Patterns: A Case Study from Al Ma’tan,Jordan

ABSTRACT

Understanding Neolithic sites in southwest Asia is often difficult because of the lack of preservation of organic remains and the effects of various taphonomic processes that alter the original record. Here, we use an ethnographic approach to test the potential of using plant phytoliths and geochemistry to aid our interpretation of southwest Asian Neolithic sites. Our study of a recently abandoned stone and mud constructed village in Jordan, shows that for certain activity types, phytoliths and geochemistry can help distinguish different construction methods and functions, particularly for burnt areas, animal use areas and where there has been the addition of a specific construction material. For features constructed from the same source materials distinctions are more problematic. Geochemical and phytolith proxies were individually effective in distinguishing activity areas and construction materials, but signals were diminished when the statistical analysis was run on both forms of evidence combined. It is therefore recommended that the data from plant phytolith and geochemical analyses are subject to separate statistical tests and that the two sets of results are used in combination to interpret archaeological sites and their uses.     

A Pre-Lapita Structure at Apalo,Arawe Islands,Papua New Guinea

Stilt structures in the inter-tidal zone or over shallow water on fringing reefs are widely accepted as a feature of settlements of the Lapita cultural complex in Near Oceania. Claims for similar structures in a pre-Lapita context at the Apalo site in the Arawe Islands, New Britain, Papua New Guinea, have been queried on several grounds. Re-evaluation of the Apalo evidence, together with 10 additional AMS radiocarbon dates, establishes human activity associated with some form of structure and possibly with a ground stone axe about 400–500 years before the Lapita pottery occupation. The paucity of occupational refuse suggests a non-residential structure perhaps associated with water transport. Comparisons with the older Dongan midden site in the Sepik-Ramu basin suggest stilt structures were probably used there as well. An apparent shift in depositional processes between the pre-Lapita and Lapita use of Apalo could reflect changed sea conditions arising from increased ENSO activity.     

Can conditional cash transfers promote delayed childbearing? Evidence from the ‘Second Honeymoon Package’ in rural Maharashtra,India

In 2007 the District Health Services in Satara District, Maharashtra, India, undertook an innovative programme, ‘the Second Honeymoon Package’ (SHP), which aimed to reduce the rate of population growth by offering conditional cash transfers (CCTs) to newly married couples who agreed to postpone their first birth by two or three years. The approach differed from India's traditional family planning programme, based mainly on female sterilisation, by promoting ‘non-terminal’ contraceptive methods, such as condoms and pills. The SHP ended prematurely in 2010 without being fully evaluated, leaving unanswered the question of its impact and potential for scale-up.

This paper addresses this question by investigating the perceptions and experiences women and couples who participated in the programme, as well as the views of local health staff. We use quantitative data from a 2010 survey of 1355 SHP participants, in which the third author was involved, and new qualitative data from a total of 26 programme staff and participants, collected by the first two authors in 2015. Participants’ perceptions of the programme indicate that the SHP had many positive attributes, despite some major challenges. We conclude with recommendations for improving and scaling up programmes of this kind in India and elsewhere.     

Engaging with risk (or not): shared responsibility for biosecurity surveillance and the role of community gardens

Governance of risks to native flora and fauna and agriculture from disease and pests increasingly emphasises the importance of a ‘shared responsibility’ for biosecurity. Few studies, however, have examined factors that influence stakeholders' engagement with such risks and responsibilities, particularly in community, rather than agricultural, settings. In this paper, we focus on a group of stakeholders in a context of heightened regional biosecurity activity, in northern Queensland, Australia. We explore the role that community garden actors may or may not play in biosecurity surveillance. Through interviews with 16 community garden group leaders and local government representatives, we unpack external social factors that contributed to stakeholders' engagement, unengagement, or disengagement with and from biosecurity risks. These factors included institutional characteristics such as land tenure and the presence or absence of management policies and guidelines. However, we found that less formal institutional characteristics such as social networks played a greater role in shaping stakeholder engagement. Unengaged stakeholders were typically unaware of risks posed by plant pests and diseases and had limited network connections to relevant government agencies but expressed an interest in learning and participating in biosecurity surveillance networks. Disengaged stakeholders were more knowledgeable of biosecurity risks and had established network connections but expressed a low interest in or willingness to report a potential biosecurity threat. This case study provides insights into important social dimensions of governing risk among stakeholders and offers recommendations to improve stakeholder engagement within biosecurity surveillance networks.     

Modern and early-middle Holocene shells of the freshwater mollusc Unio, from Çatalhöyük in the Konya Basin, Turkey: preliminary palaeoclimatic implications from molluscan isotope data

Carbon and oxygen isotope ratios in the shells of the freshwater Unio mollusc yield information on the isotopic composition of the water in which the shell was formed, which in turn relates to climatic conditions prevailing during the bivalves’ life span. Here we analysed shells from one modern Unio, from a modern lake shore in Anatolia, and 4 subfossil Unio shells from Çatalhöyük (dated between 7200 BC and 5000 BC, Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods). Sequential carbon and oxygen isotope analysis along the surface of the shells provides information on seasonal or shorter-term variability of lake waters during the lifetime of the organisms. δ¹⁸O values of the modern shell are consistent with it being collected from a dammed portion of the Seyhan River that does not undergo intensive summer evaporation. This is in contrast to many of the surface water bodies in Anatolia which suffer extensive evaporation in the arid summers. δ¹⁸O values of the subfossil shells from the Çatalhöyük middens indicate that the bivalves came from lakes which evaporated extensively during the summer months but were replenished by high winter rainfall, suggesting that the subfossil shells lived in relatively small lakes or ponds. Stable isotope analysis along the growth of freshwater bivalves is one of the few methods for investigating seasonal water fluctuations in the past. These results may alter current interpretations on the environment of Çatalhöyük during the Neolithic, although more work is needed to confirm these initial findings.     

Preliminary U-series and Thermoluminescence dating of excavated deposits in Liang Bua sub-chamber,Flores, Indonesia

We report the results of a test excavation of deposits in a limestone cave sub-chamber located beneath the main chamber of Liang Bua, Flores, Indonesia; the discovery site of the small hominin species, Homo floresiensis. Well-preserved remains of extinct Pleistocene fauna and stone artefacts have previously been identified on the surface of a sediment cone within the sub-chamber. Our excavation of the deposits, at the base of the sediment cone in the sub-chamber (to 130 cm depth) yielded only a few fragmentary bones of extant fauna. Uranium/Thorium (U-series or U/Th) dating of soda straw stalactites excavated from 20 to 130 cm in depth demonstrates that the excavated sediments were deposited during the Holocene. Red Thermoluminescence (TL) dating of the sediments at the base of the excavation (130 cm depth) indicates these sediments were last exposed to sunlight at 84 ± 15 ka (thousand years), similar to red TL ages of cave sediments from the main chamber. Together, these results indicate that the surface faunal remains, which are morphologically analogous to Pleistocene finds from the main chamber excavations, were transported to the sub-chamber relatively recently from the main chamber of Liang Bua and probably originated from conglomerate deposits at the rear of the cave and from deposits around the front entrance. There is no evidence for hominin occupation of the sub-chamber, instead it seems to have acted as a sink for cultural materials and fossil remains transported from the surface via sinkholes. Despite the small number of finds from the test excavation, it is possible that more extensive excavations may yield additional transported cultural and faunal evidence at greater depths.     

Pies and essays: women writing through the British 1984–1985 coal miners' strike

During the 1984–1985 British miners' strike and in its immediate aftermath, women activists produced a series of publications involving creative writing, which sought to communicate the strike from their own perspective. The production and sale of publications were a practical activity in support of the strike and in defence of community. We argue that insofar as writing was also a means whereby the women who worked to make sense of themselves in an emergent situation for which there was no precedent, an analysis of such writing offers opportunities for a broader understanding of the strike. Writing enabled the women to affirm their class-based political loyalties while expressing the complexities and contradictions of gender relationships and roles. Writing as a reflexive act contributed to a clarification of those aspects of female lives which they valued, facilitated an expression of their emotional response to their experience of activism and enabled them to articulate a moral-political position within which they worked with ambiguity and contradiction. This article suggests that cultural texts of this type in themselves can only be properly understood in the context of structural and historical relations of power and that the context and conditions of production of writing are particularly pertinent to this process.