Public open space exposure measures in Australian health research: a critical review of the literature

Numerous studies have shown associations between public open space and a variety of health outcomes. Yet the extent to which firm conclusions and planning policy recommendations can be drawn from this body of work depends on how public open space availability has been measured and reported. Other researchers have highlighted potential issues with the way that public open space has been measured but have not systematically assessed the extent of this problem. This paper provides a comprehensive critical review of studies of public open space and health conducted in Australia to identify and compare public open space measurement and data treatment. Our analysis showed wide variation in how public open space was measured, as well as a lack of consistency in reporting public open space exposure measures and under‐reporting of measurement methods. We find that such tendencies limit how much these studies can be compared and contrasted with each other. The corollary of that finding is that without more detailed reporting of exposure measures, it will be difficult to establish an evidence base that informs planning for healthy, liveable environments. In response, we develop and present a checklist for reporting public open space exposure to address this challenge.     

Girlhood,participation and empowerment in Tanzania: climbing material and discursive walls

In this paper I reflect upon encounters with ‘young people’s participation’ during ethnographic research on girlhood and sexual agency with teenage girls in Tanzania. I argue that methodology which centralises participants’ experiences is particularly important in research on issues related to sex and sexuality, where young people’s voices are often disregarded or downplayed. However, such an approach might run up against a number of practical challenges. This paper draws on fieldwork conducted in two sites during 2014 and 2015 to show that attention to the networks of relationships within which young people are embedded and the structural conditions which might generate or obstruct sexual agency is essential for research which seeks to promote their meaningful participation.     

Neolithic dogs: A reappraisal based on evidence from the remains of a large canid deposited in a ritual feature

A canid skull and mandible, dated to the late neolithic, produced a series of measurements which indicate an animal significantly larger than any dog recovered from this period. The skull showed evidence of healed trauma with associated asymmetry. Metrical and morphological criteria have been applied to identify the remains as those of wolf Canis lupus, and the results of these tests are inconclusive. The possibility that the remains are of a large dog, Canis familiaris, is discussed, together with the implications that this may have for the archaeological consideration of this species.     

Biofuels and the politics of mapmaking

On a world scale companies and governments are acquiring tracts of land from rural communities across the developing world in what some describe as a global “land grab.” Yet looking into local settings reveals that negotiations and arrangements are often piecemeal and halting, with little resemblance to a coordinated seizure of land. Conflicting maps, overlapping territorial claims, and unclear acquisition processes are creating land disputes, mistrust, and ambiguity. Resulting cycles of contention are enabling companies to obtain—even appropriate—some land. Still, in at least some locales the process is doing more to undermine development opportunities for all parties.To probe into these local politics of mapmaking, this article draws on fieldwork from 2010 to 2011 in Tanzania's Rufiji District, located in the lower floodplain of the Rufiji River. Companies, one might surmise, should be able to exploit information asymmetries to wrest control of land from local villagers. Interviews, primary documents, and field observations reveal, however, that this is not occurring as much as one might expect along the lower Rufiji River. The politics of such land acquisitions, we argue, would seem to be better understood in terms of cycles of contentious politics, as an ongoing process in which movements and counter-movements vie for control through the strategic use of images, maps, and discourse.This research extends the understanding of the processes changing global agriculture and energy production by bridging the frames of the “politics of mapping” and “cycles of contention” to more fully reveal how and why control over land and resources is shifting in the global South.