Sport in Transition: Emerging Trends on Culture Change in the Anthropology of Sport

Historically, within anthropology, sport has been perceived as an inconsequential form of entertainment spectacle, seemingly at variance with, and secondary to, broader political and social discourses. An analysis of these four works, however, provides an opportunity to explore shifting representations surrounding issues of culture change and identity production within the anthropology of sport, with an emphasis on three inter-related themes:

1. theories and methodologies for representing the intersections between culture change and sport;

2. historical shifts in modes of representation and writing within anthropological sports studies, and

3. representations of identities within sport.

     

Gendered images of the German nation: the Romantic painter Friedrich Kersting and the patriotic‐national discourse during the Wars of Liberation

ABSTRACT. The article analyses the oeuvre of Friedrich Kersting (1875–1847), a now largely forgotten Romantic painter, and other gendered images of the German nation that were created among his circle of friends but also in the wider context of the patriotic‐national discourse during the Prussian Wars of Liberation. The paper combines the findings of art historical research with those of history and cultural studies. In so doing, it deconstructs gendered images of the nation in the patriotic‐national discourse during the Wars of Liberation and their political importance during that time. The main focus of the analysis is the interrelationship between visual imagery, discursively formed patriotic‐national concepts in the topical literature, cultural practices and individual experience.     

Organisational Capacity for Engaging with Indigenous Australians

Community capacity building is a common goal for programmes and policies involving Indigenous peoples, but it relies heavily on organisational capacity to work effectively in intercultural settings. This paper reviews the organisational capacity of the senior leaders of Australian Red Cross and institutional efforts to build a culturally appropriate and respectful organisation. It reports results from a survey of the organisation's leadership team and follow‐up interviews undertaken in 2010, reviews the challenges facing the organisation in working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, and considers institutional progress in building internal capacity to lead change in working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. The paper concludes with discussion of wider implications of this research.     

The outsiders: the European neighbourhood policy

In May 2004, the European Union acquired not just ten new member states but several new neighbours. At about the same time, it began to flesh out a European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) to bring some order to the EU's relations with its old and new neighbours and to ensure that the newly enlarged EU would be surrounded by a 'ring of friends'. The ENP is also supposed to stave off further enlargement to eastern Europe. However, several problems with the ENP are evident. It requires much of the neighbours and offers only vague incentives in return, making it unlikely that the ENP can meet its core objectives. Furthermore, the ENP is ambiguous about where the EU's borders will end, and it is already apparent that such ambiguity is not helping to foster reform in eastern Europe. Either the EU should say 'no' to further enlargement, so the ENP becomes the framework for relations with the neighbour for the foreseeable future, or it should say 'yes' to eventually letting in a specified number of neighbours which then move out of the ENP.     

What Has the Geography of Sleeping Arrangements Got to Do with the Geography of Our Teaching Spaces?

As geographers we are used to researching and teaching about those other than ourselves and it is timely to turn our gaze on the social and spatial practices of our own teaching spaces. One particular teaching space is the overnight geography field trip, a context in which geography fieldwork is ostensibly the main focus for two or more consecutive days. Teaching spaces such as classrooms and field trips, like all social spaces, are imbued with spoken and unspoken assumptions about sexuality, gender and 'race'. Geography field trips are one site in which to examine how social space is constituted via spoken and unspoken assumptions and how these assumptions shape field trip participants' understandings of themselves within these spaces. Simultaneously, field trips offer a site for the consideration of the socio-spatial relations of the reproduction of contemporary geographic knowledge. This article is one response to what Jon Binnie identified as an urgent need for geographers to understand how geography is being taught. Although sleeping arrangements are 'not formally notified' as part of fieldwork activity, the author demonstrates how sleeping arrangements conveyed important messages about sexuality, gender and cultural practices during seven overnight field trips held by two universities and two high schools in New Zealand. The concern is how apparently mundane arrangements such as the organisation of sleeping might reveal the ongoing hegemonic social and spatial relations of teaching and learning geography, as these are shaped by sexuality, gender and 'race', so that we might be better informed to challenge and change these practices.     

Fear of Scandalous Knowledge: Arguing About Coherence in Scientific Theory and Practice

Helen E. Fisher. The Sex Contract: The Evolution of Human Behavior.New York: William Morrow, 1982. 253 pp. $13.50.     

Not Learning from the Past: Adaptive Governance Challenges for Australian Natural Resource Management

Australia's governance arrangements for natural resource management (NRM) have evolved considerably over the last 30 years. The impact of changes in governance on NRM planning and delivery requires assessment. We undertake a multi‐method programme evaluation using adaptive governance principles as an analytical frame and apply this to Queensland to assess the impacts of governance change on NRM planning and governance outcomes. Data to inform our analysis includes: (1) a systematic review of 16 audits/evaluations of Australian NRM over a 15‐year period; (2) a review of Queensland's first‐generation NRM plans; and (3) outputs from a Queensland workshop on NRM planning. NRM has progressed from a bottom‐up grassroots movement into a collaborative regional NRM model that has been centralised by the Australian government. We found that while some adaptive governance challenges have been addressed, others remained unresolved. Results show that collaboration and elements of multi‐level governance under the regional model were positive moves, but also that NRM arrangements contained structural deficiencies across multiple governance levels in relation to public involvement in decision‐making and knowledge production for problem responsiveness. These problems for adaptive governance have been exacerbated since 2008. We conclude that the adaptive governance framework for NRM needs urgent attention so that important environmental management problems can be addressed.     

'Professionalising' Participation: From Rhetoric to Practice

Local government is increasingly seeking to encourage young people's participation in local government planning and decision-making. This paper examines the relationship between professionals in local government and the young people who are the focus of local government participatory initiatives. We argue that whilst the move towards developing participation initiatives is welcome, there is a need to adopt a process of critical reflection with regard to these initiatives. The case of one New Zealand city is examined where young people express their views on the effectiveness or otherwise of their council's participation initiatives. Our findings suggest that whilst well intentioned these initiatives have had limited success in facilitating meaningful participation and perhaps the participation process as currently practised is in urgent need of review.     

Travels with feminist historical geography

We explore in this essay the relatively uneven "travels" of feminist historical geography within the academy in order to highlight the realized and potential intellectual productivity that can result from bringing together a feminist and historical approach to understanding place and space. We outline in what ways much of feminist geography is already historical and in what ways much of historical geography is already feminist, and then turn to a discussion of the unevenness of these intellectual journeys. We conclude by suggesting challenges for future research in feminist historical geography.     

A third millennium kiln from the Oman Peninsula

In 1970–71 a pottery kiln was excavated by a Danish expedition led by K. Frifelt at Hili in what is now part of Al Ain in the United Arab Emirates. The kiln and its contents, which date from the second half of the third millennium BC, are important additions to our knowledge of prehistoric ceramic production in the Oman Peninsula.