What Remains: Repatriating and Entombing a Canadian Unknown Soldier of the Great War in the Nation’s Capital

This article chronicles and contextualizes the creation of a Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Canada’s capital. In so doing, it traces the myriad considerations, as well as complexities — political, procedural, and practical — that abounded in bringing this major memorial installation into being, namely the repatriation, from a Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery in France, of a Canadian unknown soldier of the Great War and his ceremonial reburial in Ottawa. Moreover, it argues that the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, situated within an existing monumental space, functions, in the coinage of geographer Owen Dwyer, as an allied symbolic accretion to the National War Memorial.     

The role of accredited zoos in the recovery process for species at risk in Canada

Zoos and aquariums are responding to the worldwide biodiversity crisis through major conservation initiatives like captive breeding for assurance populations and reintroduction programs. These institutions also fundraise, offer education programs, and provide critical research on biodiversity. Through a case study inside three accredited Canadian zoos, this paper illustrates that zoos and their staff members are being incorporated into many official species‐at‐risk recovery efforts on provincial, federal, and international levels. Specifically, the zoos studied are involved in every stage of the recovery process, from providing valuable research and habitat analyses, to captive breeding animals for reintroduction, to writing recovery strategies and creating recovery policy for multiple jurisdictional levels. Zoo staff indicate that zoos are uniquely suited to conservation because zoos have space, expertise, apolitical status, and the ability to connect with the public. Overall, the paper suggests that zoos can significantly contribute to species‐at‐risk protection and recovery in Canada and beyond.     

Confronting a Disciplinary Blindness: Women,War and Rape in the International Politics of Security

Much of the debate surrounding the inclusion of women in the study of international politics, particularly in reflections of war, promotes passive representation. State-sanctioned images of non-combatant women in supportive wartime roles reflect, rather than confront, traditional conceptualisations of 'legitimate knowledge' and ways of knowing. Therefore, estimates that 30,000 women were raped during the war in Bosnia shocked the international community. Yet it shouldn't. War rape is as old as war itself. This article looks at why, and how, traditional forms of theorising about international politics fails to identify or vocalise the violent insecurities of women in domestic and international space, thus ensuring women's silence. It also draws on alternative ways of knowing to confront the tradition and to un/recover the experiences of women.     

New challenges for old commons: The role of historical common land in contemporary rural spaces

In Scotland, as elsewhere in Western Europe, many examples of historical common land have endured to the present day, but are under major pressure from the economic restructuring, socio-cultural recomposition and changing policy context that characterise contemporary rural change. For the crofting common grazings of Scotland, two particular challenges have arisen in the form of: (1) the growing difficulty of gaining sufficient livelihood contributions from traditional agriculturally-based activities; and (2) the increasing heterogeneity of rights-holders. This paper elaborates the findings of a recent survey, which sought to identify the main implications of these challenges for common grazings use and governance. An overall decline in levels of use of common grazings was identified, as well as decreasing involvement and investment in associated local institutions. This informs a discussion of the factors shaping the role of historical common land in contemporary rural spaces, an area neglected in the common property literature.     

The Hawke government and education 1983–1985

Education was a major component of the platform and performance of the Whitlam governments. Under Fraser, projects were abandoned and overall growth ceased. The needs principle for aid to non‐government schools was undermined by the emphasis on unrestricted access to alternatives to the State system. Pressure grew for schooling to reflect and service the needs of the market place.

The 1983 election campaign scarcely mentioned education although special interests ensured that traditional commitments were secured. Once in power, the Hawke government tended to ignore these and maintained constraints on education spending.

Naive attempts in 1983 to implement the policy of reducing grants to wealthy private schools resulted, by 1984, in a bruised and shaken Hawke government having to placate the powerful private school/Catholic bishops lobby with a generously funded ‘historic settlement’ of the State Aid debate. The Participation and Equity Program was introduced to increase participation in post‐compulsory education, particularly by disadvantaged groups. Initially the depressed state of tertiary education was not addressed by the Hawke government which continued the neglect characteristic of the Fraser years. Hawke was returned to office in 1984 on a platform which had as little to say about education as it had in 1983.

The rhetoric and practice of the Hawke government has tended to reflect a view of education which is highly economic and instrumental in orientation. A crude nexus is seen to exist between educational spending and productive employment, a view which excludes any concern for the social benefits of education or a longer‐term perspective about the value of intellectual endeavour. Labor's traditional ideals and objectives of widening access to education and hence social and economic power are in danger of being ignored. If economic considerations alone continue to dominate policy, the legacy of the Hawke government may well be a set of educational policies which are destined, on balance, to increase rather than reduce inequalities in our society.     

The Iron Butterfly and the Political Warrior: mobilising models of femininity in the Australian Liberal Party

Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and former Prime Minister Tony Abbott's Chief of Staff Peta Credlin have experienced very different political fortunes. Once the two most powerful women in the Australian Liberal Party, Credlin's political demise was mired in controversy, while Bishop continues to enjoy the support of her Party and the public. While there are many reasons for this, the article focuses on the gendered politics surrounding their experiences. Based on analysis of the media representations of Bishop and Credlin between 2011 and 2015, we argue that Bishop successfully negotiates gender politics by deploying the Iron Butterfly model of conservative femininity, while Credlin's fierce Political Warrior persona saw her pilloried.     

Matter in or out of place? Bicycle parking strategies and their effects on people,practices and places

This study explores what bicycle parking strategies tell us about the place of mobility objects in contemporary urban streetscapes. It examines the bicycle's liminality by combining approaches from practice theory with Mary Douglas' concept of ‘matter out of place’. Much research on cycling has concentrated on the bicycle in movement, yet in our research, based in four relatively high-cycling English urban areas, a common theme was concern about the bicycle when not in use. Bicycles at rest were perceived as threatened or threatening, risky or at-risk; affected by theft, vandalism, the weather, official and familial disapproval. In the study, we link this to the tenuous place of urban cycling in England; while bicycle ownership is widespread, everyday cycling remains marginalised and this shapes the place of the bicycle resting on city streets, in homes and in workplaces. Bicycles waiting for their owners are often ‘matter out of place’. This is seen within the context of broader motorised landscapes which have made driving easier through locating driving competences in the car itself, while comparable cycling competences remain on the outside—with the cyclist.