From the interpersonal to the internet: social service digitisation and the implications for vulnerable individuals and communities

In Australia, e-government is continuously re-defining service boundaries. While this may be good in the case of transactional interactions, for example the online submission of tax returns, it is less clear that interpersonal services, such as working closely with the long-term unemployed, are best delivered digitally. We consider the impact of social services digitisation on vulnerable communities drawing on an analysis of remote Aboriginal communities. Digital uptake affords great opportunities, but it also carries risks. Some communities have no digital infrastructure and in certain cases traditional face-to-face services have been curtailed, leaving those not online with reduced assistance. We find that concerns about the ‘digital divide’ are well founded. Problems generated by e-government flow across boundaries and appear left to the third sector to resolve with the state playing an even more diminished role in the lives of disadvantaged citizens.     

Governance,public policy and boundary-making

This symposium draws attention to innovative and emerging research in Australian public policy exploring the interplay of governance, public policy and boundary-making. Conceptually and substantively, boundaries are fundamental to understanding policy outcomes, yet remain overlooked and undertheorised. We aim to contribute to public policy debates, in Australia and beyond, by provoking further reflection on this theme, in particular, the distributive effects of boundaries in policy-making; the blurring of boundaries implicit to governance frameworks; the crossing of boundaries, especially by policy-officials within and between institutions; the construction of boundaries to separate and marginalise; and the existence of temporal–spatial boundaries that demarcate jurisdiction and authority. In short, the study of governance and public policy-making is marked by multiple different types of boundaries but the way in which boundaries get drawn and redrawn is also suffuse with political contestation meaning they raise crucial questions about the exercise of power.     

The Post-Colonial Constitutional Order of the Commonwealth Caribbean: The Endurance of the Crown and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council

ABSTRACT

Amongst Britain's former colonies the independent countries of the Commonwealth Caribbean represent something of an anomaly in so far as the majority of them remain constitutional monarchies and continue to retain the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) as their final appellate court, even though the region has had its own final appellate court – the Caribbean Court of Justice – since 2006. This is in marked contrast to Britain's former colonies in Africa and South Asia, the majority of which switched to republicanism soon after independence and at the same time abolished rights of appeal to the JCPC. This paper seeks to uncover the reasons for this anomaly by examining how the path that led to independence was shaped by a particular conception of Dominion status and by the willingness of nationalist leaders to embrace a dual identity: equal parts West Indian nationalist and Empire loyalist. It will also examine the phenomenon of the ‘postcolony’; being the persistence of the colonial order following the acquisition of constitutional independence. The paper has three aims. Firstly, to contribute to a better understanding of the impact of Dominion status and all that it symbolised in a region which is often overlooked in the scholarly literature on this topic. Secondly, better to understand the competing political forces that led three countries in the region to adopt republicanism, but inhibited its adoption elsewhere in the region. Thirdly, and finally, to enhance discussion of the complex nexus between republicanism and the abolition of rights of appeal to the JCPC where political and juridical considerations do not neatly align.     

Modern humans in Sarawak,Malaysian Borneo,during Oxygen Isotope Stage 3: palaeoenvironmental evidence from the Great Cave of Niah

During recent reinvestigations in the Great Cave of Niah in Borneo, the ‘Hell Trench’ sedimentary sequence seen by earlier excavators was re-exposed. Early excavations here yielded the earliest anatomically-modern human remains in island Southeast Asia. Calibrated radiocarbon dates, pollen, algal microfossils, palynofacies, granulometry and geochemistry of the ‘Hell Trench’ sequence provide information about environmental and vegetational changes, elements of geomorphic history and information about human activity. The ‘Hell’ sediments were laid down episodically in an ephemeral stream or pool. The pollen suggests cyclically changing vegetation with forest habitats alternating with more open environments; indicating that phases with both temperatures and precipitation reduced compared with the present. These events can be correlated with global climate change sequences to produce a provisional dating framework. During some forest phases, high counts of Justicia, a plant which today colonises recently burnt forest areas, point to fire in the landscape. This may be evidence for biomass burning by humans, presumably to maintain forest-edge habitats. There is evidence from palynofacies for fire on the cave floor in the ‘Hell’ area. Since the area sampled is beyond the limit of plant growth, this is evidence for human activity. The first such evidence is during an episode with significant grassland indicators, suggesting that people may have reached the site during a climatic phase characterised by relatively open habitats ∼50 ka. Thereafter, people were able to maintain a relatively consistent presence at Niah. The human use of the ‘Hell’ area seems to have intensified through time, probably because changes in the local hydrological regime made the area dryer and more suitable for human use.     

Concentrated Urban Poverty: The Case of Izmir Inner Area,Turkey

In Turkey, poverty has been a main subject of debates since 1960s. It used to be a serious problem for both rural areas and the big cities that gained migration. In Turkey and world-wide since the 1980s, however, there have been more research interests in the concentrated urban poverty, especially along with the increase in levels of impoverishment around the world. With the help of a case study in Izmir (Turkey), this paper aims to examine the process of concentrated urban poverty from different points of view in the literature. This is a case study developed at the peripheries of the traditional city centre—or inner areas—of the city of Izmir, Turkey. The paper, first, discusses the parameters of concentrated poverty according to the literature. Then it introduces the study findings of the author, which point out the macro-scale, micro-scale and ecological dynamics that are important in the development of concentrated urban poverty. The macro-scale dynamics suggest that poverty in inner areas of the city are related to the unbalanced development trends within the country, such as the overgrowth of metropolitan cities, economic restructuring processes, migration trends and the development of informal economy. The ecological dynamics address to the housing and job location preferences and invasion-succession processes in the city, which emphasize that socio-economic characteristics of inner areas of the city are different from those of other city parts. Micro-scale dynamics are related to poors' ability of developing solidarity relations among themselves, which is also related to the spatial characteristics of inner areas of the city, according to this study's findings.