Unintended consequences: an examination of Australia's ‘historic policy shift’ on East Timor

The Howard government's foreign policy objectives concerning East Timor remain the subject of intense historical debate. Given that some Indonesians harbour suspicions about Australia's role in East Timor's independence, it is important to reflect on Australia's diplomacy throughout this period. This article draws on 15 interviews with former politicians and officials—including Prime Minister John Howard and Foreign Minister Alexander Downer—to argue that in 1998, Australia's foreign policy was focused on supporting Indonesia's democratisation process and maintaining the bilateral relationship. It was only when Indonesia moved towards a ‘special status’ of autonomy for East Timor that Australia reconsidered its own position. Although rarely acknowledged, Australia's policy shift actually precipitated outcomes that it had sought to avoid. As such, Habibie's decision to allow self-determination in East Timor can only be viewed as an unintended consequence of Australian diplomacy—independence was never the objective of Australian foreign policy.     

Digging in the Dark: The Underground War on the Western Front in World War I

Throughout the First World War, with the trenches largely static, the combatants tried to break the deadlock by tunnelling under one another’s trenches. The Tunnelling Companies of the British Royal Engineers were engaged in a bitter struggle against German Pioneers that left both sides with heavy casualties. A project to determine the location of one particular act of heroism in that underground war has resulted in the erection of a monument to the Tunnellers at Givenchy-lès-la-Bassée in northern France.     

Mimetic Structuration: Or,Easy Steps to Building an Acceptable Identity1

Since their settlement two millennia ago the Comoro Islanders have been subjected to a diversity of external influences that have provoked significant and often radical social change. This article develops the concept of mimesis to explain how the Comoros have deal with these influences, incorporating and developing them to create cultural and social structures that may appear eclectic but which have equipped the islanders to negotiate these changes quite effectively. As a result of their mimetic praxis, Comorians confront and manage influences both internal and external with the minimum of social upheaval, maintaining a society that is both highly heterogeneous and remarkably enduring.     

X-ray microtomographic imaging of charcoal

We assess the potential of X-ray microtomography as a tool for the non-destructive, three-dimensional examination of the internal structure of charcoal. Microtomographic analysis of a series of charcoals produced by the experimental pyrolysis of pine wood at temperatures from 300 and 600 °C in nitrogen only and in nitrogen mixed with 2% oxygen indicates that, despite substantial shrinkage, observed porosity, pore size and pore connectivity are all increased by pyrolysis and also by chemical oxidation. Analysis of a number of altered and unaltered archaeological and geological charcoals has demonstrated the capacity of the technique to identify and map the distribution of authigenic mineral contamination within charcoal fragments. The results are of significance to radiocarbon dating in that they provide insights into the mechanisms by which charcoal can be contaminated by extraneous carbon in the natural environment.     

Moving pictures: from ethnographic to autoethnographic documentary in the internationalization of the geography curriculum

Documentary films have often taken a pivotal role in strategies to internationalize (geography) curricula and classrooms, being used as a method of bringing the world to the classroom. These documentaries overwhelmingly take ethnographic form. Problematically, the documentary gaze is characteristically that of an outside film crew and narrator mediating relationships between the “subjects” of the documentary and the ways they are heard and seen. Yet other forms of documentary also exist, including those offering autoethnographic perspectives to viewers. Autoethnographic documentaries offer a highly promising resource for internationalization of the geography curriculum, providing careful, analytic, theoretically-informed understandings of documentarians’ own worlds – which may be in the next neighbourhood or on the other side of the planet. This paper reviews documentaries as curriculum-internationalizing learning-and-teaching resources before going on to examine the flaws of “traditional” ethnographic documentary in this endeavour. It makes the case for greater – though not necessarily exclusive – use of autoethnographic films in our work to educate global citizens and provides some preliminary resources for locating and evaluating this form of film. As such it contributes not only to critical pedagogy surrounding internationalization of the geography curriculum but also to filmic geography.     

An analysis of a Natchez gunflint assemblage from the lower Mississippi valley and its implications for eighteenth-century colonial economic interactions

Archaeological analyses of European lithic technologies in North America are often discussed anecdotally within the context of other material evidence of European occupations. In North America, the presence of gunflints manufactured in Europe, generally England (which became part of Great Britain in 1707) or France, is used as a marker for the influence of these European powers and as a reflection of from whom residents obtained their material culture. Gunflints were made in Europe and in North America (north of the Rio Grande) from the early 1600s to the late 1800s. Thus, gunflints from sites such as the Natchez Fort, Louisiana (AD 1729–1731) provide a unique avenue of analysis for understanding both continuity in lithic technologies and the interactions between indigenous and introduced technologies. We address methodological concerns in typifying historic lithic collections, specifically eighteenth-century gunflints, particularly as these concern sourcing and the implications of sourcing for eighteenth-century colonial interactions in the southeastern United States.     

Erosive osteoarthritis in a medieval skeleton

In human skeletons from archaeological sites, osteoarthritis is by far the most common disease found, but no case of erosive osteoarthritis has been described and we present here what we believe to be the first such case.     

The Devil is in the (Bio)diversity: Private Sector “Engagement” and the Restructuring of Biodiversity Conservation

Abstract: Intensified relations between biodiversity conservation organizations and private‐sector actors are analyzed through a historical perspective that positions biodiversity conservation as an organized political project. Within this view the organizational dimensions of conservation exist as coordinated agreement and action among a variety of actors that take shape within radically asymmetrical power relations. This paper traces the privileged position of “business” in aligning concepts of sustainable development and ecological modernization within the emerging institutional context of the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Global Environment Facility in ways that help to secure continued access to “nature as capital”, and create the institutional conditions to shape the work of conservation organizations. The contemporary emergence of business as a major actor in shaping contemporary biodiversity conservation is explained in part by the organizational characteristics of modernist conservation that subordinates it to larger societal and political projects such as neoliberal capitalism.