Online petitions in Australia: Information,opportunity and gender

This article compares offline and online petition signing in Australia, to examine whether online forms of political activity can mobilise citizens who would otherwise not participate. Using data from the 2010 Australian Election Study and a model of civic voluntarism comprising online and offline resources, the article presents several unexpected findings. First, women are significantly more likely than men to sign both written and e-petitions, and this will likely continue with the increasing circulation of e-petitions and corresponding decline in written petitions. Second, Australians from a non-English-speaking background are underrepresented in the signing of written petitions but not of e-petitions. Civic skills gained in the workplace and voluntary organisations positively predict both forms of petition signing, but language, gender and income do not constitute barriers to the signing of e-petitions. This article contributes to emerging evidence the internet can mobilise traditionally underrepresented groups to participate in political activity.

本文对澳大利亚脱线和在线请愿做了比较,以了解在线的政治活动能否动员起本来不参与政治的公民。笔者使用了2010年澳大利亚选举研究的数据以及比较在线与脱线资源的公民志愿行动模型,获得了若干意想不到的发现。首先,比起男子,妇女联署纸本及电子请愿书的可能性会大得多,这种情况会伴随着电子请愿的流行和纸本请愿的式微而继续下去。公民在工作单位以及志愿者组织那里获得的技能有助于他们积极参与两种请愿,而语言、性别、收入也不构成电子请愿的障碍。本文印证了互联网可以动员以往不大被代表的人群参与政治活动的说法。     

Class,capital, and identity in Australian society

Despite a comparatively ‘flat’ social structure and lack of obvious class-based cleavages, Australian society is stratified by objective, multidimensional measures of social class. Using data from a July 2015 survey of a random sample of Australian citizens, latent class analysis identifies six class types in Australian society, based on the distributions of cultural, social, and economic capital among respondents. The resulting classes are categorised as ‘precariat’, ‘ageing workers’, ‘new workers’, ‘mobile middle’, ‘emerging affluent’, and ‘established affluent’. The precariat is characterised by high numbers of retired pensioners, the ageing worker class the highest mean age, and the new worker class by its low rate of unemployment. The established middle class accounts for one quarter of the adult population, while the emergent affluent class has the youngest mean age, and the established affluent is the most advantaged. We also show Australians are acutely aware of their class identity.     

Sanitas per Aquas. Spas,Lifestyles and Foodways

Excavations in Bokerly and Wansdyke, Dorset And Wilts, 1888-91. By Lieutenant-General Pitt - Rivers, D.C.L., F.R.S., F.S.A., Inspector of Ancient Monuments in Great Britain, etc. With Observations on the Human Remains, by J. G. Garson, M.D. Vol. III. Printed privately. 1892. By E. Sidney Hartland.     

Dance arenas,dance events

Katrina Hazzard‐Gordon. Jookin’: The Rise of Social Dance Formations in African‐American Culture. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990. xiii + 226 pp. including bibliographic end notes and index. $24.95.

Jane K. Cowan. Dance and the Body Politic in Northern Greece. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990. xv + 252 pp. including references and index. $45.00 cloth, $14.95 paper.     

Commentary. The Diseases of Alexander the Great

The accompanying articles that speculate that Alexander the Great had a traumatic carotid dissection or congenital cervical scoliosis demonstrate the difficulties in retrospective diagnosis as a historical enterprise. The extant primary sources were written centuries after Alexander’s death and are ambiguous in their original languages, and even more so in translation. Thus we cannot be certain what illness Alexander actually had. Furthermore, anachronistic diagnosis removes Alexander from the medical context of this time, telling us little of historical significance about him. Such investigations also illustrate the more general limits that the absence of context imposes on the study of ancient history.     

"A World where Action is the Sister of Dream": Surrealism and Anti‐capitalism in Contemporary Paris

In discussing the lifestyle and practices of the Paris group of the contemporary surrealist movement, this paper contributes to debates within economic and political geography that seek to develop the imagining of alternatives to neoliberal globalisation through practices of resistance, and spaces of political and policy engagement. The everyday life of the surrealist movement, in combining creativity with progressive choices and radical economic practices that oppose capitalism, while intellectually investigating ideas of revolution, a different society and utopia, suggests a perspective that contributes to the imagining of such alternatives. This paper outlines the deeply embedded nature of surrealist activity in opposing capitalism and illustrates, as one member of the surrealist group suggests, in quoting Baudelaire, surrealism's insistence for a world in which "action is the sister of dream". The paper further contributes to discussion on the role of academics in facilitating spaces of political engagement.