Pram mobilities: affordances and atmospheres that assemble childhood and motherhood on-the-move

The child-friendly city advocates for children's ‘right to the city’. Much of this advocacy focuses on the independent child, with little attention paid to the accompanied experiences of younger children, such as those travelling in prams. This paper draws on a material feminist perspective to help address this gap. We offer the concept of mother–child–pram assemblage to bring to the fore the corporeal dimensions of everyday pram journeys. By analysing sensory ethnographic materials collected with mothers and young children living in Wollongong, Australia, this paper highlights how the ‘affective affordances’ and ‘affective atmospheres’ of pram mobilities shape urban experience by reference to how motherhood and childhood are achieved on-the-move. We conclude with policy-relevant insights for the child-friendly city.     

Anti-Communism in Australian Immigration Policies 1947–54: The Case of Russian/Soviet Displaced Persons from Europe and White Russians from China

This article assesses the role of anti-Communism in Australia’s postwar immigration policy in the years before the Petrov affair, with particular reference to the entry of Russians and Russian-speaking Jews from Europe and China. Our discussion focuses on the Department of Immigration under Arthur Calwell and his successor, Harold Holt, and the security agency, ASIO. We conclude that policy in this sphere was essentially bipartisan, and that anti-Communism was an important but not overwhelming motivation, stronger than the desire to prevent entry of Nazis and war criminals but probably less salient in practice than concern to minimise the entry of Jews.     

Do silica phytoliths really wear mammalian teeth?

There is considerable literature suggesting that silica (opal) phytoliths cause dental enamel microwear in mammals. Much of this literature cites a single study from 1959 as evidence that silica phytoliths are harder than mammalian tooth enamel and so have the potential to cause dental microwear. No other studies using similar methodology have actually confirmed whether phytoliths are harder than dental enamel.