PANGAEA'S RETURN: TOWARDS AN ONTOLOGY OF INVASIVE LIFE

Invasive life has received much attention in recent years, being a prime example of the complex socio‐natural entanglements characterizing the present condition of the world. In this article we argue for an ontology of invasive life, consisting of three aspects. First, invasive life does indeed exist; second, it is deeply entangled with political action; and third, it has the capacity to produce new assemblages of socio‐natural phenomena. A recognition of these ontological premises opens up for analyses that go beyond the discussions of scientific moral judgement, and which will be a necessary part of reformulating the politics of human–nonhuman relations. The articulation of an invasive life ontology and its associated political project is inspired by, and vice versa serves as an introduction for, the following articles in this special issue, which address various aspects of these concerns.     

Applied anthropology anyone? (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

As a boundary‐straddling branch of knowledge, anthropology is a classically dangerous academic domain. But it is only “anti‐science” if one conceptualizes “science” perversely.     

Comparative policy agendas: a review essay

ABSTRACT

The two books that are investigated in this review essay consider new ways to explain policy processes by focusing on a spectrum of methodological approaches, theories, time periods and political systems. The first book examined investigates policy change in Australia and considers for the first time how relevant the Policy Agendas Project (PAP) is for the Australian political system. A recent contribution to the Comparative Agendas Project (CAP), the second book reviewed is a collection of comparative studies applying different methodologies and theories to analyse CAP datasets with the view to exploring how policy changes in a variety of political systems. Together these books showcase the best of PAP/CAP’s qualities to provide a common platform for cross-comparative policy change studies and standalone country-specific studies. These books are also an indispensable resource for Australian political scientists interested in the unique policy change dynamics in Australia.     

‘The Official Feast’: cultural tensions in U.K. carnival

Abstract

This paper reveals how U.K. street carnival is located within policy discourses that facilitate notions of creative economy, inter-place competition and the representation of institutionally-preferred versions of local, regional and national place-identity. The paper draws on ethnographic research within two community town carnivals and the professional Battle for the Winds carnival performances that launched the 2012 Olympic sailing at Weymouth. It considers the evolution of policy-driven carnival vocabularies that were designed to articulate preferred ‘Jurassic Coast’ and Olympic place identities for the south-west U.K. during 2012, and their effect on two vernacular, community street carnivals in East Devon and Dorset. The paper exposes the cultural tension between these vernacular events and the ‘official feast’ of Jurassic Coast and Olympic carnival, in terms of their performance of contradictory place-identities and contested notions of artistic community. It describes the popular challenge to aesthetic hegemony that these community carnivals presented during 2012. Finally, the author argues for a reassessment of the artistic value of vernacular carnivals, and affirms their status as a culture of resistance that creates alternative, sometimes inconvenient, symbolic constructions of community and place to those preferred by institutional actors operating within a neo-liberal discourse of inter-place competition.