Protecting what is left after colonisation: embedding climate adaptation planning in traditional owner narratives

Climate change is disproportionally affecting Indigenous peoples' livelihoods across the globe. Despite this fact, climate adaptation planning and responses are not immediate concerns for most Indigenous people, whose key challenges are deeply embedded in colonial history. Through collaborative research centred on climate adaptation planning with the Yuibera and Koinmerburra Traditional Owner groups on the Great Barrier Reef Catchments, we demonstrate that Traditional Owners' primary concerns are in aligning the climate adaptation opportunity with their own strategies for Indigenous cultural renewal and survival. Their Indigenous identity generates a responsibility to protect cultural landscapes, sites, and their connections with these places. In this case study, to “protect what is left” of Indigenous material culture and socio‐cultural relationships emerged as the best approach to climate adaptation planning, providing both the decolonisation narrative and the means to strengthen their Indigenous practices. Planning for climate change adaptation is useful for Indigenous peoples when it supports decolonising, strengthens Indigenous customary practices, and recognises customary governance.     

Political participation in Australia: contingency in the behaviour and attitudes of citizens

This article explores the idea that a citizen's relationship with their polity is contingent on and liable to change under certain conditions. The assessment of the prospects for political reform requires an understanding of the contingent nature of political engagement. Drawing from a survey of a representative sample of Australians three insights emerge. First, although many Australian citizens are not directly engaged in political actions beyond voting most do present a ‘standby’ role that suggests potential to engage. Second, willingness to shift patterns of engagement may depend on general orientations towards the polity and we find extensive evidence of negative understanding of the political system as well as more positive endorsement of representative political practices. Our third finding is that citizens might be prepared to change their relationship with the polity depending on the kind of politics that is offered; hence providing a creative space for political reform.     

The Temporal Diffusion of Morality Policy: The Case of Death Penalty Legislation in the American States

The social learning theory of policy decisionmaking provides clear expectations for the temporal diffusion of policy through the American states (Gray, 1973; Rogers, 1995; Walker, 1969). But the diffusion of morality policy, with its technical simplicity, potential for high salience, and debate over basic moral values, may be driven by nonroutine decisionmaking. We hypothesize that morality policy will diffuse in patterns that depend on the purity of the morality debate surrounding it and the distribution of citizen values regarding it. We identify three distinctive temporal diffusion patterns for state death penalty policies that vary on these characteristics. We conclude that political decisionmaking driving some morality policy diffusion involves less policy learning, and more concern about majority public opinion, than does nonmorality policy.     

Mano size,stable carbon isotope ratios,and macrobotanical remains as multiple lines of evidence of maize dependence in the American southwest

While the level of agricultural dependence affects many aspects of human adaptation, estimating levels of dependence on maize through traditional archaeological techniques is problematic. Here we compare various measurements of manos (e.g., grinding surface area), macrobotanical evidence of maize use, and human collagen stable carbon isotope values from six regions of the American Southwest, encompassing 16 phases, as a means of assessing the power and limits of each approach for considering agricultural dependence. The analysis of each data class is considered separately, taking into account formation processes and arguments linking data and inferences. Correlations among the three data classes suggest that mano area and maize ubiquity can be considered ordinal measures of agricultural dependence, but Southwestern stable carbon isotope data have the analytical potential only to discriminate between little or no maize use and substantial maize use. The formation processes and linking arguments associated with each method must be considered when multiple lines of evidence are integrated in order to make sound behavioral inferences. Our results suggest that there were at least three patterns in the adoption of farming in the Southwest: early substantial use followed by continuous increasing maize dependence, initial intensive dependence with little change in later periods, and a long period of minor use followed by substantial dependence.     

Reviews

The Modern Traveller to the Early Irish Church Kathleen Hughes & Ann Hamlin, 1997 Dublin, Four Courts Press pp. 134, ISBN 1.85182.194.5, £9.95 (pb)

In Search of Columba Lesley Whiteside, 1997 Blackrock, Dublin, Columba Press pp. 136, ISBN 1.8560.7180.4, £5.99 (pb)

A History of the Irish Working Class Peter Beresford Ellis, 1996 London, Pluto Press pp.378, ISBN 0.7453.1103.2, £40.00 (hb); ISBN 0.7453.0009.X, £15.99 (pb)

The Elizabethan Conquest of Ireland John McGurk, 1997 Manchester, Manchester University Press pp. xiii + 290, ISBN 0.7190.4959.8, £45.00 (hb)

Edmund Spenser: A View of the State of Ireland Andrew Hadfield & Willy Maley (eds), 1997 Oxford, Blackwell pp. xxvi +197, ISBN 0.63120.534.9, £35.00 (hb); ISBN 0.63120.535.7, £10.99 (pb)

Inventing and Resisting Britain: Cultural Identities in Britain and Ireland, 1685–1789 Murray Pittock, 1997 London, Macmillan pp.200, ISBN 0.333.65060.3, £42.50 (hb); ISBN 0.333.65061.1, £13.99 (pb)

Linen, Family and Community in Tullylish, County Down, 1690–1914 Marilyn Cohen, 1997 Dublin, Four Courts Press pp. 284, ISBN 1.85182.312.3, £45.00 (hb)

Remembrance and Imagination: Patterns in the Historical and Literary Representation of Ireland in the Nineteenth Century Joep Leerssen, 1996 Cork, Cork University Press in association with Field Day pp. 320, ISBN 1.85918.111.2, £15.95 (pb)

The Historical Dimensions of Irish Catholicism Emmet Larkin, reprint 1997 Washington, The Catholic University of America Press; Dublin, Four Courts Press pp. 138, ISBN 1.85182305.0, £9.95 (pb)

The Kingdom of the Ryans: The Irish in Southwest New South Wales 1816–1890 Malcolm Campbell, 1997 Sydney, University of New South Wales Press pp.210, ISBN 0.86840.191.9, A$34.95 (pb)

’This Dreadful Visitation’: The Famine in Lurgan/Portadown Gerard Mac Atasney, with a foreword by Christine Kinealy, 1997 Belfast, Beyond the Pale Publications pp. 126, ISBN 1.900960.02.8, £6.95 (pb)

A Death‐dealing Famine: The Great Hunger in Ireland Christine Kinealy, 1997 London, Pluto Press pp.200, ISBN 0.7453.1075.3, £40.00 (hb); ISBN 0.7453.1074.5, £12.99 (pb)

Culture, Conflict and Migration: The Irish in Cumbria Donald M. MacRaild, 1998 Liverpool, Liverpool University Press pp.237, ISBN O.85323.652.6, £30.00 (hb); ISBN 0.85323.662.3, £12.95 (pb)

Guns and Chiffon: Women Revolutionaries and Kilmainham Gaol Sinead McCoole, 1996 Dublin, Kilmainham Gaol Museum pp. 70, ISBN 0.7076.3870.4, £5.00 (pb)

Hanna Sheehy Skeffington: A Life Margaret Ward, 1997 Cork, Cork University Press pp.368, ISBN 1.85594.179.1, £45.00 (hb); ISBN 1.85594.187.2, £14.95 (pb)

’They Shall Grow Not Old’: Irish Soldiers and the Great War Myles Dungan, 1997 Dublin, Four Courts Press pp. 218, ISBN 1.85182.347.6, £17.95 (hb)

Rural Ireland, Real Ireland? Jacqueline Genet (ed.), 1996 Gerrard's Cross, Colin Smythe pp.245, ISBN 0.86140.385.1, £28.00 (hb)

Irish Playwrights, 1880–1995: A Resource and Production Sourcebook Beknice Schrank & William W. Demastes (eds), 1997 London, Greenwood Press pp.454, ISBN 0.313.28805.4, £75.95 (hb)

Wilde's Last Stand: Decadence, Conspiracy and the First World War Philip Hoare, 1977 London, Gerald Duckworth pp.256, ISBN 0.71562.737.6, £16.95 (hb); ISBN 0.71562.828.3, £11.95 (pb)

Yeats's Nations: Gender, Class and Irishness Marjorie Howes, 1996 Cambridge, Cambridge University Press pp. 250, ISBN 0.521.56362.3, £35.00 (hb)

Yeats and Women Deirdre Toomey (ed.), 1997 Basingstoke, Macmillan; New York, St. Martin's Press pp.448, ISBN 0.333698.16.9, £19.50 (pb)

James Joyce, Ulysses , and the Construction of Jewish Identity: Culture, Biography, and ‘The Jew’ in Modernist Europe Neil R. Davison, 1996 Cambridge, Cambridge University Press pp.317, ISBN 0.521.55181.1, £35.00 (hb)

Sex, Nation and Dissent in Irish Writing Éibhear Walshe (ed.), 1997 Cork, Cork University Press pp.291, ISBN 1.85918.015.2, £40.00 (hb); ISBN 1.85918.014.0, £16.95 (pb)

Women and Irish Society: A Sociological Reader Anne Byrne & Madeleine Leonard (eds), 1997 Belfast, Beyond the Pale Publications pp. 573, ISBN 1.900960.03.6, £16.95 (pb)

Discrimination and the Irish Community in Britain Mary Hickman & Bronwen Walter, 1997 London, Commission for Racial Equality pp.312, ISBN 1.85442.200.6, £10.00 (pb)

Culture and Policy in Northern Ireland: Anthropology in the Public Arena Hastings Donnan & Graham McFarlane (eds), 1997 Belfast, Institute of Irish Studies pp. 240, ISBN 0.85389.690.9, £9.95 (pb)

Was Ireland Conquered? International Law and the Irish Question Anthony Carty, 1996 London, Pluto Press pp. viii + 203, ISBN 0.7453.0325.0, £40.00 (hb); ISBN 0.7453.0722.1, £12.99 (pb)

Sacrifice of Fools Ian McDonald, 1997 London, Vista pp. 286, ISBN 0.575.60059.4, £5.99 (pb)

Enchanted Journeys: Fifty Years of Irish Writing for Children Robert Dunbar (ed.), 1997 Dublin, O'Brien Press pp. 192, ISBN 0.86278.531.6, £8.99 (hb)

Grace Notes Bernard Mac Laverty, 1997 London, Jonathan Cape pp.278, ISBN 0.224.04429.X, £14.99 (hb); ISBN 0099.77801.7, £5.99 (pb)

The Bridal Suite Matthew Sweeney, 1997 London, Jonathan Cape pp. 49, ISBN 0.224.04328.5, £7.00 (pb)

Verbum et Verbum Micheál Fanning, 1997 Knockeven, Salmon Publishing pp.78, ISBN 1.8976.48898, IR£5.99 (pb)

Mutabilitie Frank McGuinness, 1997 London, Faber & Faber pp. 101, ISBN 0.571.19342.0, £6.99 (pb)

The Boxer Director, Jim Sheridan Universal Studios Inc., 1997

The Butcher Boy Director, Neil Jordan Geffen Pictures, 1997     

Does Morality Policy Exist? Testing a Basic Assumption

Does morality policy exist? A growing body of scholarship has examined the ways that the politics of so‐called “morality policy” (e.g., abortion regulation, same‐sex marriage policy, and capital punishment) differ from the politics of other types of policy. In this literature, morality policies are assumed to be distinctive in that they generate conflicts of basic moral values, do not lend themselves to compromise, and are widely salient and technically simple. Using an email survey of morality policy scholars and a telephone survey of just over seven hundred Illinois residents in 2005, we test this assumption. We find that citizen responses about these policies vary along three of these four characteristics, just as morality policy scholars predicted. Thus, morality policies do exist, as assumed by these scholars. Our analysis also suggests some potentially fruitful avenues for future research on morality policy and other policy typologies.     

Troubled kids? Locational disadvantage,opportunity structures and social exclusion

ABSTRACT

Young people growing up in poverty often have restricted access to out-of-school enrichment activities that are important for generating the soft skills that support post-school transitions. This paper compares young Australians’ accounts of their opportunity structures – their engagement with enrichment activities, their post-school aspirations, and their knowledge of routes to achieve them – in two suburb types – improver suburbs (close to the median on many indicators) and isolate suburbs (severely disadvantaged on most indicators). While young people in improver suburbs felt able to access facilities and networks in equally or more affluent neighbouring suburbs, young people in isolate suburbs felt excluded from neighbouring suburbs, and experienced more restricted opportunity structures than young people living in improver suburbs, even those who were themselves economically disadvantaged. The paper argues that this geographical experience of exclusion prevents many economically disadvantaged young people from accumulating knowledge and skills valued in post-school settings.