All at Sea. Rethinking fishers' identities in Australia

In fisheries a new ecological order is being created based upon conservation sciences. Bio-economic models of conservation sciences are being pursued globally in response to the crises generated by over-fishing. Drawing upon Haraway's concept of ‘cyborg politics’ we provide a material analysis of the gendered identities belonging to both the ‘old’ and ‘new’ orders. In this case study, empirical evidence is derived from observation and qualitative analysis of in-depth interviews conducted with trawlers, deckhands and managers of the Australian South East Trawl Fishery. We show how conservation sciences, framed within the New Right's economic policies, have prioritised performances of masculinity centred on managerialism over those of manual labour.

En pesquerías un nuevo orden ecológico se crea sobre ciencias de conservación. Modelos bíoeconómicos de las ciencias de conservación se persiguen global en reacción a la crisis generado de sobrepescar. Empleándose el concepto de Haraway del ‘político del ciborg’ proveemos un análisis material de las identidades de género que corresponden a los ordenes ‘viejos’ y ‘nuevos’. En este estudio de caso, la evidencia empírica se derivan de observaciones y análisis cualitativa de entrevistas profundas llevado a cabo con jabegueros, marineros de cubierta, y gerentes de la Pesquería Red Barredera de Sudeste Australia. Ilustramos como las ciencias de conservación, enmarcado dentro de las políticas económicas de la nueva derecha, han priorizado los representaciones del papel de masculinidad que se concentran en gerencialisma además de los masculinidades de labor manual.     

Morphological comparisons of metacarpal I for Australovenator wintonensis and Rapator ornitholestoides: implications for their taxonomic relationships

WHITE, M.A., FALKINGHAM, P.L., COOK, A.G., HOCKNULL, S.A. & ELLIOTT, D.A., 2013. Morphological comparisons of metacarpal I for Australovenator wintonensis and Rapator ornitholestoides: implications for their taxonomic relationships. Alcheringa 37, 1 - 7. ISSN 0311-5518.

Various comparisons of left metacarpal I of the Australovenator wintonensis holotype have been made with Rapator ornitholestoides. These specimens were identified as being morphologically more similar than either was to that of the neovenatorid Megaraptor namunhuaiquii. Owing to the poor preservation of A. wintonensis and R. ornitholestoides, distinct morphological separation between the two appeared minimal. The recent discovery of a near perfectly preserved right metacarpal I of A. wintonensis enables a direct and accurate comparison with R. ornitholestoides. Distinct morphological differences exist between the metacarpals of the two species. A re-evaluation of the age of the A. wintonensis holotype site (AODL 85 ‘Matilda Site’) with zircon dating reveals a maximum age of 95 Ma, 10 Ma younger than the Griman Creek Formation at Lightning Ridge, from which R. ornitholestoides was recovered. This age difference detracts from the probability that the specimens belong to the same genus.

Matt A. White? [fossilised@hotmail.com], School of Engineering, The University of Newcastle, Callaghan, New South Wales 2308, Australia; Peter L. Falkingham? [pfalkingham@rvc.ac.uk], Department of Comparative Biomedical Sciences, Structure and Motion Laboratory, Royal Veterinary College, London, UK; Alex G. Cook [alex.cook@y7mail.com] and Scott A. Hocknull [scott.hocknull@qm.qld.gov.au], Ancient environments, Queensland Museum, Hendra, Queensland, 4011, Australia; David A. Elliott [david.elliott@aaod.com.au], Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum of Natural History, The Jump Up, Winton, Queensland, 4735, Australia. ?Also affiliated with Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum of Natural History, The Jump Up, Winton, Queensland 4735, Australia. ?Also affiliated with Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Division of Biology and Medicine, Brown University, USA. Received 22.9.2012; revised 13.1.2013; accepted 17.1.2013.     

The spaces of UK students’ unions: extending the critical geographies of the university campus

This article seeks to further our knowledge of the university campus by focusing on one particular aspect of most UK campuses: the students’ union. UK students’ unions have rarely been the subject of scholarly attention, despite them now occupying an important place within the higher education landscape. Nevertheless, in this paper we draw on a UK-wide study of students’ unions to explore, firstly, the role played by the buildings of the students’ union and, secondly, the ways in which aspects of the university’s campus influence union activity. We pay particular attention to the expansion of the university campus, in many institutions, from a single site to multiple sites, both within the UK and overseas. We contend that a focus on the materiality of the students’ union and the level of union activity (or inactivity) across various campus spaces can illustrate the values, ideologies and power relations that dominate contemporary British higher education.     

Lake Pedder's Loss and Failed Restoration: Ecological Politics Meets Liberal Democracy in Tasmania

The flooding of Lake Pedder in South West Tasmania for hydro-electricity in the early 1970s is recognised as one of the world's great ecological tragedies. The hope for its restoration, long held by some, has been given impetus by the activities of Pedder 2000, a nation-wide restoration lobby group founded in 1994. The legitimacy, feasibility and desirability of Pedder's restoration has been acknowledged, if not endorsed, by a recent federal inquiry. Restoration proponents see Pedder's recovery not only as a means of making amends for past follies, but as a new millennium project that offers hope to future generations. This paper reviews Pedder's inundation and the efforts towards its recovery, and finds little support for restoration in the absence of compelling economic and political benefit. This is cause to reflect, it is argued, upon the difficulties that ecological politics has encountered within Tasmania that saw Lake Pedder dammed in the first place.     

Frontier Stories： Periphery as Center in Qing History

Since at least the 1960s, the importance of the tremendous territorial expansion under Qing role to the modem history of China has been generally acknowledged. Indeed, one can say that the frontier story is one of the things that makes the Qing ＂Qing.＂ However, only in the last twenty years has the study of what is now termed the ＂borderlands＂ come into its own as a sub-field. This essay begins by describing some key concepts and terms in the study of the Qing frontier, including the Manchu wordjecen. It then raises the problem of narrative fiameworks, asking how we might best contextualize the growth of the empire, before going on to explore the implications of the discursive shift represented by the ＂New Qing History＂ and the extensive research on Qing borderlands associated therewith. A poem by the Mongol poet Na-xun Lan-bao provides the focus for a concluding discussion of a distinctive Qing frontier sensibility.     

Capitalizing on Women's Social Capital? Women‐Targeted Microfinance in Bolivia

Both social capital and microfinance are central to mainstream development interventions, and both are predicated on the need to recognize the importance of social factors in development. Microfinance institutions mobilize social capital in the form of a group guarantee, and aim to support the development of sustainable financial institutions and income generation. Women are targeted in part because of the effectiveness of their social capital as collateral. However, although social capital is assumed to support development and income generation, the precise dynamics involved in this are rarely explored. This article examines the construction of social capital and its relationship to income generation, based on a long‐term ethnographic study of village life in rural Bolivia and the microfinance institution operating there. The author examines the complexity and gendered contradictions implied in the way that social capital is generally viewed to support economic development. It is suggested that the way microfinance institutions use social capital to support sustainable financial institutions and income generation does not always reflect the way that women's networks support access to resources and ultimately, economic development.     

Earthworks: The geopolitical visions of climate change cartoons

This paper asks how climate change cartoons work to communicate geopolitical visions of time, space and power. I make the argument that visuality is integral to climate change communication in ways that are frequently paradoxical. Dominant visual forms of evidence and iconic images help to make climate change real while simultaneously impeding full understanding of the debates and issues around climate change. In this context, at a time when visuality and climate change discourse have become co-constitutive, the paper explores the capacity of political cartoons to effectively represent the geopolitics of climate change. The empirical focus is the data set of cartoons submitted in 2008 to an international political cartoon competition called Earthworks. The entries collectively represent different geopolitical visions of climate change. They also suggest a critical role for cartoons in climate change communication – not as purveyors of visual evidence of climate change but as effective forms of visual commentary on the relations of power and knowledge within which climate change communication and debates are located.