From global forests to local politics: unwrapping the boundaries within forest certification

Following decades of concern about unsustainable forest management practices, forest certification was developed in the 1990s to become an influential global forest governance approach. 25 years since its inception, forest certification is under attack, with questions raised regarding its legitimacy and efficacy in driving sustainable forest management. Recognising forest certification as a complex and dynamic boundary-spanning regime, understanding the impact of diverse boundaries on forest certification is essential to address escalating conflict and enable the improved design of forest certification systems. This paper empirically explores the implementation of a forest certification regime using a Forest Stewardship Certification pesticide derogation process. The case shows how competing boundaries place considerable pressure on the effectiveness and sustainability of the global certification regime. Embedded local interests and contested institutional claims hardened the boundaries between interests across the policy regime, weakening connections and hence weakening opportunities to find common solutions.     

John Howard and the ‘Anglospherist’ reshaping of Australia

The conceptual category of the Anglosphere never found explicit currency in John Howard's narrative when he was prime minister. While in office, he ostentatiously avoided ‘putting Australia into a particular sphere – Anglo or otherwise’. This article suggests instead that his endeavour to reshape Australia drew on an Anglospherist perspective. The reshaping of Australia he undertook when he won office rested on two pillars of Anglospherism: the rejection of multiculturalism and the alignment to countries with ‘shared values’ in Australia's external relations. The article traces how these two Anglospherist precepts found actual implementation in Howard's re-framing of ‘Australian multiculturalism’ and re-conceptualisation of ‘Australia's engagement with Asia’.

约翰·霍华德担任总理期间,英语圈的说法在他的叙述里并不通行。在他的官方官样文章里,他明确地避免把澳大利亚放进特定的圈子——英语圈也好,别的圈也好。霍华德在职的时候重塑澳大利亚的努力,其实是基于英语圈的视角。他赢得竞选时要重塑澳大利亚的事业,有两个英语圈的支柱：拒绝多元文化;对外关系中优先“持共同价值观”的国家。本文研究了霍华德如何将这两个英语圈思路落实到对“澳大利亚多元文化”的重新塑造、对“澳大利亚与亚洲关系”的重新思考中的。     

Geographic contributions to institutional curriculum reform in Australia: the challenge of embedding field-based learning

Abstract

In the context of continuing pressures from managerialist and neoliberal drivers of university reform in Australia, Macquarie University’s recent undergraduate curriculum innovation, based on “People,” “Planet,” and “Participation,” has resulted in the embedding and integration of experiential learning in its curriculum and institutional framework. Such an approach challenges academic and administrative staff, students, and partners in industry, the community and public sector settings, to engage and collaborate across significant boundaries. This article outlines the scope and nature of the curriculum reform, then considers the way geographers have both shaped and responded to the opportunities it created. In so doing, it proposes a number of challenges and recommendations for geographers who might seek to extend their longstanding commitment to field-based learning through similar reforms. In this regard, the discipline of geography and its tendency to engage with the “field” can offer much in fostering deeply transformative learning.     

Archaeology on Television, 1937

The birth of archaeologically themed television programmes is intimately linked to the birth of television itself. Yet little is known of the earliest broadcasts owing to both the fragmentary archival record and the longstanding hype surrounding later archaeology TV productions. This article examines two of the first such shows, likely the earliest in the English-speaking world for which records survive, focused on the British Iron Age site of Maiden Castle and on the reconstruction of prehistoric pottery. While noting the role of Mortimer Wheeler in their development, I also highlight several key women who produced the programmes, starred in them, and otherwise held critical posts in the establishment of professional archaeological practice in Britain, including Margot Eates, Ione Gedye, and Delia Parker — all based at London's Institute of Archaeology (IoA). These BBC TV broadcasts were specifically deployed to showcase the sites and methods of the burgeoning discipline of archaeology. More importantly, however, they were subtle players in the building of intellectual and institutional capital for both the IoA and the BBC. Augmented by other graphic media produced by the IoA itself, the earliest televised archaeology shows generated income, exposure, capacity, and clout for these two very different but pioneering organizations.     

What Is the Benefit of Community Benefits? Exploring Local Perceptions of the Provision of Community Benefits from a Commercial Wind Energy Project

Where community ownership of renewable energy projects is not feasible, there remains potential for residents to profit from locally sited projects through a ‘community benefits’ package from a commercial developer, usually as an annual cash payment to a community organisation. Despite support from policy-makers and developers for community benefit packages, the relationship between the benefit package and acceptance of renewable energy projects is not straightforward. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with local residents and other community actors near a wind development in central Scotland, this paper examines the ‘process’ and ‘outcome’ dimensions of the design and provision of community benefits, and considers how the relationship between these two dimensions affects local perceptions of the benefit of community benefits. Analysis of interviewees’ perceptions of the community engagement ‘process’ at the planning stage and the community benefit package ‘outcome’ reveals how a poorly defined engagement process, combined with a benefits package that is not deemed suitable for the needs of the community, can lead to negative perceptions of the project, even when these were initially positive. These findings have implications for renewable energy policy in Scotland, particularly as there is currently no legal obligation for developers to consult communities on community benefit arrangements.     

Transitions in U.S. Higher Education: implications for geography learning

In the United States, higher education institutions and structures governing higher education are going through dramatic change. The implications of new technology and changing modes of course structure, and evolving federal and state policies have the potential for significant impact on higher education. The historic federal mandates regarding university systems, including land-grants, and renewal of the U.S. Higher Education Act, for example, have impacts related to higher education regulations, performance expectations, accreditation, and student success. In addition, there are new research questions related to student learning. Several of the key themes impacting higher education also have implications and expectations for university geography programs. Geographers and geography programs in many universities are contributing toward addressing these changes in ways that contribute toward programs and universities that are more committed to new learning paradigms, as well as curricula that enhance engagement, concepts of sustainability, innovation, entrepreneurship, and efforts at more integrated scholarship, among others.     

Expanding Informal Education in Maritime Archaeology

This paper examines the work of the Hampshire and Wight Trust for Maritime Archaeology (HWTMA) in developing informal education approaches and initiatives. It introduces the aims and ethos of the HWTMA which focuses on embedding education and learning into all aspects of its work, before exploring ways in which its fieldwork and research programme are utilised to help deliver a range of educational opportunities to a diverse range of groups and individuals. There is a review of the possibilities for skill development through practical involvement which is illustrated with case study examples, followed by discussion of broader approaches, including publications, talks and exhibits. This review underpins discussion of a recent project ‘Maritime Archaeology Access and Learning Workshops’ which aimed to ‘educate the educators’, and has demonstrated the potential for this approach to make a significant contribution to increasing the profile of maritime archaeology within informal learning frameworks. The paper concludes by reviewing the experience of these regionally-based initiatives in relation to the expansion of maritime archaeology within the UK and suggests ways that lessons learned could be drawn upon in the development of emerging national approaches.

Local sustainability initiatives: innovation and civic engagement in societal experiments

ABSTRACT

Local sustainability initiatives are studied from two scholarly perspectives: the perspective of sociotechnical innovation, which relates to the capacity of bottom-up initiatives to contribute to the development of sociotechnical alternatives; and the perspective of civic engagement which relates to the capacity of citizens to organize themselves in order to pursue community goals. This paper argues that taking both these perspectives into account overcomes the problem of being too instrumental or the problem of neglecting the role of technology and innovation in local initiatives. The perspective of sociotechnical innovation presents different types of innovation pursued by local initiatives: the creation of new technology, the application of existing technology and the development of social innovation. Furthermore, innovations might diffuse over wider society by: replication, scaling up, and translation. In turn, civic engagement may take the shape of: the strengthening of social capital, the formation of social movements, and the substitution of functions and services. The insights from literature are illustrated and qualified by applying them in the context of concrete local initiatives. Finally, local initiatives will be portrayed as social contexts that are successful in gathering actors with different motivations and world views and that may contribute to the democratization of innovation.     

Outsourcing local democracy? Evidence for and implications of the commercialisation of community engagement in Australian local government

ABSTRACT

Participatory governance practices are enjoying popularity, not least in local government. This is driven by legislation that requires councils to undertake some of these processes; also by communities and practitioners – parties that derive income from participatory governance. An industry is emerging: one characterised by demand and supply, with frameworks, strategies and processes, training and conferences. This industry warrants investigation so that its impacts upon local democracy can be understood. Following a theorisation of local democracy and community engagement, the paper describes the community engagement industry, presenting evidence about council activities, providers and professional associations to establish that the commercialisation of engagement is a significant phenomenon in Australian local government. Possible risks to local governance and local democracy are explored.     

‘There is no better way to study science than to collect and analyse data in your own yard’: outdoor classrooms and primary school children in Bangladesh

ABSTRACT

The design and use of outdoor spaces for primary school teaching and learning has been given little consideration in the present context. The existing evidence base is mostly from western perspectives. In this study, an outdoor classroom was designed and built in a primary school in Bangladesh and used to teach children (n?=?30) their science curriculum. Multiple methods were used to investigate the impact of the outdoor classroom on students’ learning and engagement, including achievement tests, a questionnaire and focus groups with children and teachers. Children’s science scores were significantly higher after they had been taught outdoors, compared to indoors. Physical qualities of their outdoor classroom (lighting, acoustics, seating), in addition to greater enjoyment and active participation in learning likely explained improved attainment. Qualitative insights from children and teachers supported the quantitative findings. These results provide empirical support for building outdoor classrooms as an effective environment for teaching and learning.