Enlivened Geographies of Volunteering: Situated,Embodied and Emotional Practices of Voluntary Action

Abstract

Examining the everyday practices and feelings of volunteering, in particular their situated, emotional and embodied nature, serves to place the experiences of volunteers centrally in accounts of what matters in the doing of volunteering and goes beyond service provision or active citizenship. Using qualitative evidence from three collaborative research projects, we present enlivened geographies of volunteering which focus on: the situatedness of formal volunteering in place and the negotiation of local ‘moral economies’ of norms and expectations surrounding access to volunteering opportunities and the practices of volunteering; complex positionings of informal volunteering in biographies of social participation; and intersections of embodiment and emotions in experiences among environmental volunteers. We contribute to the development of social geographies which are ‘more-than-representational’ and argue that connecting insights on everyday practices of volunteering with wider policy and practice agendas requires a focus on the enduring, but also emergent and excessive nature of the spaces of doing volunteering, on the relational nature of volunteering, and on opening up debates in the networks of research-policy-practice which understand spaces of volunteering as entailing more than volunteering.     

Theatre sports in the Southern Ocean: engagement options for Australia in whale research protest action

In the great whaling debate, fuelled twice yearly by the annual International Whaling Commission meeting and the departure of the Japanese research fleet for the Southern Ocean, silliness knows no bounds. 2008 was no exception, as the Southern Ocean again became the location of protest action (sometimes provocative and potentially life-threatening) against Japanese scientific research vessels. The Japanese are accused of ‘whaling’ in a whale sanctuary off the Australian Antarctic Territory, yet this claim to sovereignty is not legally proven and therefore not universally accepted. The Rudd Labor Government bowed to significant pressure and sent its Customs vessel, the Oceanic Viking, to spy on the Japanese fleet and gather evidence for a possible ‘world court’ action. This paper examines what options were available to Australia to intervene in the protest action, to monitor the Japanese research and to take legal action in an international forum within the constraints of internationally defined diplomatic and legal boundaries. It concludes that the risk of attracting the wrath of the Japanese government and other Antarctic Treaty countries is great indeed and the Australian government must be careful not to step too far outside these boundaries.     

Grand Design on the Fringes of Empire: New Towns for British North America

There was an increasing elaboration of a town model introduced by British authorities to the new American colonies in the second half of the eighteenth century. The simplest versions, in Nova Scotia (from 1749), gave way to 'classic' Charlottetown (1768) and eventually to excesses in Ontario (ca 1790). The model and its elaboration are clarified, the circuitous route for the planning inspiration is traced, and an explanation is offered for the over-ambitious model bestowed on Ontario. Themes include late Renaissance ideas for new towns, the impact on colonial peripheries of a sophisticated imperial administration, 'landscape by committee,' and the diffusion of ideas.
Pendant la deuxième moitié du dix-huitième siècle, il y eut dans les nouvelles colonies américaines une elaboration croissante du modele urbain introduit par les autoritCs britanniques. Les expressions les plus simples de ce modirle, en Nouvelle Ecosse (de 1749), cédèrent au style « classique >> de Charlottetown (1768) et menirrent éventuellement aux excirs en Ontario (ca 1790). Nous clarifierons ce modele et son évolution; nous tracerons les multiples influences qui inspirerent cet urbanisme; et nous expliquerons le modele par trop ambitieux qui se manifesta en Ontario. Les themes de cet article incluent les idées sur les « new towns >> qui eurent cours vers la fin de la Renaissance; l'impact d'une administration impenale raffinee sur les périphéries coloniales; la fabrication « par comité>> du paysage urbain; et la diffusion des idtes.     

Limits reaffirmed: new wheat frontiers in Australia, 1916–1939

At the opening of the twentieth century, it was apparent that good agricultural land was getting scarce even in the New World. There was still a strong political need, especially in countries that owed their existence to an agricultural frontier, to open new land and increase farming population. During the 1920s, Isaiah Bowman in the United States devised what he called “scientific settlement”, a form of social planning. In the countries that had already embarked on extending their farm land, their initiative was something less than scientific settlement. As an illustration, South Australia and New South Wales legislated the resumption of certain pastoral areas for re-allocation as primarily wheat-based farmlands that would provide the heavier rural population sought by politicians. The need to reward soldiers for service in the First World War became a major stimulus to expansion. Whereas there was ample evidence of the unreliability of conditions in most of the areas chosen, the authorities dispatched settlers to relatively small properties and provided only disjointed and tardy support. When the new wheat frontier proved to be expensive and rife with failures, the authorities blamed the settlers. In the circumstances, however, the performance of the settlers was more praiseworthy than the weight of historical opinion has suggested. Even the soldier settlers, who were put at a disadvantage by the high cost of their land and interest, ultimately achieved a success rate comparable to that of civilian ‘closer’ settlers who generally had better land and easier terms of purchase.