Tomorrow’s Country: Practice-oriented principles for Indigenous cultural fire research in south-east Australia

First Nations peoples are revitalising diverse cultural fire practices and knowledge. Institutional and societal recognition of these practices is growing. Yet there has been little academic research on these fire practices in south-east Australia, let alone research led by Aboriginal people. We are a group of Indigenous and settler academics, practitioners, and experts focused on cultural fire management in the Victorian Loddon Mallee region. Using interviews and workshops, we facilitated knowledge sharing and discussion. In this paper, we describe three practice-oriented principles to develop and maintain collaborations across Aboriginal groups, researchers, and government in the Indigenous-led revitalisation of fire on Country: relationships (creating reciprocity and trust), Country (working with place and people), and power (acknowledging structures and values). Collaborations based on these principles will be unique to each temporal, social, cultural, and geographic context. Considering our findings, we acknowledge the challenges that exist and the opportunities that emerge to constructively hold space to grow genuinely collaborative research that creates change. We suggest that the principles we identify can be applied by anyone wanting to form genuine collaborations around the world as the need for social–ecological justice grows.     

Toronto's Health Department in action: influenza in 1918 and SARS in 2003

This article compares the Toronto Health Department's role in controlling the 1918 influenza epidemic with its activities during the SARS outbreak in 2003 and concludes that local health departments are the foundation for successful disease containment, provided that there is effective coordination, communication, and capacity. In 1918, Toronto's MOH Charles Hastings was the acknowledged leader of efforts to contain the disease, care for the sick, and develop an effective vaccine, because neither a federal health department nor an international body like WHO existed. During the SARS outbreak, Hastings's successor, Sheela Basrur, discovered that nearly a decade of underfunding and new policy foci such as health promotion had left the department vulnerable when faced with a potential epidemic. Lack of cooperation by provincial and federal authorities added further difficulties to the challenge of organizing contact tracing, quarantine, and isolation for suspected and probable cases and providing information and reassurance to the multi-ethnic population. With growing concern about a flu pandemic, the lessons of the past provide a foundation for future communicable disease control activities.     

Blurred lines: the home front,the battlefront,and the wartime relationship between citizens and government in the Republic of Vietnam

In the Republic of Vietnam, the blending of the home and battle fronts shaped the relationship between citizens and their government. Civilians viewed the national government as the institution responsible for various forms of social welfare related to the war and the resulting militarisation of non-combatants’ lives. An examination of citizens’ letters to its ministries shifts the focus from questions of political legitimacy to citizens’ expectations of their government. The role of gender in family and social structures also shaped how Vietnamese civilians perceived their war experiences and their relationships to the government.     

国外旅游扶贫研究进展

在相关概念辨析的基础上,对国外旅游扶贫理论、实践模式、效果、研究方法、相关国际组织的作用进行了综述。国外旅游扶贫形成了较为系统的理论体系与研究框架,为旅游实践提供了理论支持。从研究内容看,自然旅游、遗产旅游、农业旅游、社区旅游是旅游扶贫的主要方式;从扶贫效果看,旅游扶贫对当地经济有较大的促进作用,但需要合理的规划与操控才能可持续。旅游扶贫研究方法以宏观的定量研究为主,研究案例呈现地理集中性。今后应加强城市贫困问题、精准旅游扶贫及中国旅游扶贫案例的研究。