The Australian aid program: dealing with poverty?

The Australian government's White Paper on aid provides a blue print for the Australian aid program for the next decade. While it ostensibly has a focus on poverty, it still sees economic growth and effective government as the path to poverty reduction. This article analyses and highlights the issues associated with this approach to poverty. These are: growing inequality and vulnerability, the rural–urban divide in poverty outcomes, and increasing social exclusion leading to increasing social and political insecurity. The article then examines the alternative policies adopted by the British aid agency, DFID, and concludes with some suggestions on how the practice of the Australian aid program can better match the goal of poverty reduction.     

Domesticated Landscapes: The Subsistence Ecology of Plant and Animal Domestication

Harvesting different species as foods or raw materials calls for differing skills depending on the species being harvested and the circumstances under which they are being taken. In some situations and for some species, the tactics used are mainly behavioral—that is, people adjust, or adapt, their own actions to fit the behavior and circumstances of the species they are taking. Under other circumstances and for other species, the skills and tactics used may call for greater environmental preparation or manipulation. Therefore, instead of trying to distinguish people today and in the past as either foragers or farmers, it makes sense to define human subsistence behavior as an interactive matrix of species and harvesting tactics, that is, as a provisions spreadsheet.     

TAXATION AND INTERNAL MIGRATION—EVIDENCE FROM THE SWISS CENSUS USING COMMUNITY‐LEVEL VARIATION IN INCOME TAX RATES*

ABSTRACT We investigate the relationship between income tax rate variation and internal migration for the unique case of Switzerland, whose system of determining tax rates primarily at the community level results in enough variation to permit analysis of their influence on migration. Specifically, using Swiss census data, we analyze migratory responses to tax rate variations for various groups defined by age, education, and nationality/residence permit. The results suggest that young Swiss college graduates are most sensitive to tax rate differences, but the estimated effects are not large enough to offset the revenue‐increasing effect of a rise in tax rate. The migratory responses of foreigners and other age‐education groups are even smaller, and reverse causation seems negligible.     

The journey as a transcultural experience for international students

An international two-year Erasmus Mundus MA, Transcultural European Outdoor Studies (TEOS), uses the journey as a central metaphorical concept, the “peregrinatio academica”, and experiential pedagogy. Students study human nature interactions through the lens of outdoor education and recreation while travelling for a semester at a time in three European countries: England, Norway and Germany. We argue that the transcultural concept is facilitated by the diverse nationalities of the student cohort and the concept and experience of the journey. Empirical evidence from student feedback, course discussions, and staff reflections is used to explore the ways in which the programme elucidates ideas of expert and Eurocentric knowledge of landscape and learning by valuing individual knowledge constructions and new research. Simultaneously, we argue that the typical European “gaze” on the “other” somehow is reversed as “others” gaze at European cultures, and, to some degree, contribute to destabilizing culturally taken-for-granted knowledge. This offers new opportunities for a more nuanced transcultural exploration of human nature interactions in diverse landscapes and cultures. We conclude that the knowledge and skills developed by this programme supports the development of “transculturalized” students with the enhanced capacity to shift between and discuss diverse positions and ways of viewing and knowing.     

Magnetic Gradient Survey of the Marpole Period Dionisio Point (DgRv-003) Plankhouse Village,Northwest Coast of North America

Architectural reconstructions of plankhouses are central to the study of household and community organization on the Northwest Coast of North America. However, the sample of substantially excavated houses is constrained by their size, stratigraphic complexity, and typically limited surface expression. We present the results of a magnetic gradiometry survey of the Dionisio Point site (DgRv-003) village, occupied ca. a.d. 500–700 on the coast of British Columbia, Canada. Survey of four house platforms reveals patterning of magnetic anomalies consistent with the structure of shed-roof houses, a design recorded ethnographically and identified archaeologically at the site. These results suggest a consistent pattern of spatial and, potentially, social organization of the households. The similarity of patterns suggests that magnetometry may be useful for guiding plankhouse excavations elsewhere on the Northwest Coast, providing a means for expanding our knowledge of houses without relying solely on traditional excavation methods.