Trade Liberalization and Export Performance in Bolivia

One of the anticipated gains from the trade liberalization policies adopted by many Latin American countries in recent years is improved export performance. In this article, the arguments on which this expectation is based are reviewed and the impact of trade liberalization on Bolivian manufactured exports analysed. The conclusion is that improved export performance is largely the result of a more realistic and more stable real exchange rate after 1985, while the trade policy reforms have had little impact. Certain deficiencies of Bolivia's export performance, such as the increased emphasis on primary and semi-processed products, and the lack of diversification in terms of both products and markets, are also noted.     

Custom and habit(us): The meaning of traditions and legends in early medieval western Britain.

This paper discusses some well–known legends and hagiographic stories, and explores the context of their production and consumption. From an examination of Welsh foundation legends and Cornish hagiographical accounts, we focus on the methods by which versions of history were used in the Middle Ages to provide a context for fundamental changes in the way in which society was organised. It is found that, far from abandoning traditional versions of history, accounts of the past were promoted that sought to couch newer territorial notions of organisation within existing constructions of identity and mediations with the past. In an examination of the production and reception of these popular stories, we attempt to relate the legends to the generation of communal identity and memory. Consequently, drawing on Bourdieu's notion of habitus, we argue that pre–existing beliefs and customs were an important part in the development of newer institutional structures. Rather than initiating new practices that had no grounding in any particular past, institutional developments gained social currency by being inherently grounded in existing facets of cultural identity. In essence therefore, changing societal and institutional structures were unintentionally couched in the language and understandings of existing structures, so that in many ways a concept of continuity was at the very heart of actual change.     

Freedom of Information and Democracy in Australia and Beyond

Freedom of Information laws (FOI) throughout Australia have been routinely studied by law and media scholars. These authors have revealed widespread challenges to functioning FOI regimens, which range from government hostility to public sector restructuring to globalisation. Nevertheless, analysts have only begun to fully appreciate and explore the symbolism of FOI. Access laws are situated at the very heart of state and citizen relations, and they are especially sensitive to broader assumptions about citizenship and democracy. This paper aims to explore this sensitivity through a contextual examination that is as much about democratic theory as it is about access law. Many of the deficiencies outlined by various studies, it is argued, can be best viewed as a cluster of concerns that relate to one major problem – a lack of popular sovereignty. Australian and global democracy must be viewed and conducted in a more generally robust manner in order to strengthen FOI.     

Family assemblages

Abstract

In this paper, we develop and extend the emerging concept of ‘family assemblages’ to theorise the bodies, objects, habits, spaces, technologies, discourses and affects that participate in family life. We argue that existing conceptualisations of the family tend towards anthropocentrism, a sundering of the world into active human subjects and passive non-human objects. Assemblage theory offers a means of overcoming this anthropocentrism in order to generate richer accounts of the more-than-human dynamics of family life. From this perspective, anything that participates in the action of family life can be considered a member of the family assemblage, establishing the ontological ground for a non-anthropocentric and relational view of the family. We elaborate these arguments with reference to ethnographic research on fathers’ mental health conducted in Melbourne, Australia. Our ethnographic material provides a rich empirical context for the development of the notion of family assemblages. We conclude by suggesting that the concept of the family assemblage is not simply a provocation to the human-centric assumptions that guide most studies of family life, but may also prove useful for human and health geographers already attuned to the materiality of family life.     

Marching to the Beat of an Imperial Drum: Contextualising Australia's Military Effort During the First World War

When war erupted in 1914, Britain embarked on its prewar plans of mobilising resources from its vast Empire, and created an imperial coalition which fought within a wider coalition with France, Russia and, later, the United States of America. This article examines the limited role performed by Australian naval and military forces within this wider imperial effort and assesses the extent to which Australian forces relied on British command, technology, and logistic support. It challenges common assumptions about Australia’s wartime performance, including the degree to which Australian forces and commanders contributed to tactical innovation and wider planning and operational thought.