The CDEP scheme: Bureaucratic politics,remote community politics and the development of an aboriginal ‘workfare’ program in times of rising unemployment

This paper analyses the development of an Aboriginal ‘workfore’ program which operates in remote communities, the Community Development Employment Projects (CDEP) scheme, from its conception back in the mid 1970s through to the present day. It identifies a number of distinct periods in the development of the program; a period of debate surrounding its conception, an initial pilot period of operation beginning in 1977 in which the scheme endured both significant criticism and severe budgetary and administrative problems, a period of review and hesitation from 1980 to 1983 and a period of expansion and success since 1984. These changing fortunes of the CDEP scheme are explained through reference to three underlying forces which have contributed to the development of the program over the years; bureaucratic politics, Aboriginal community politics in remote areas and the the rising levels of unemployment in the Australian community more generally.     

Publications briefly noted

ONG JIN HUI, TONG CHEE KIONG and TAN ERN SER (eds). Understanding Singapore Society . Singapore: Times Academic Press, 1997. xxiv, 608 pp. US$29.00, paper.

MARIA MIES. Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale: women in the International Division of Labour . New Edition. Melbourne: Spinifex, 1999. xix, 272 pp. A$29.95, paper.

V. R. SAVAGE, L. KONG and W. NEVILLE. The Naga Awakens: growth and Change in Southeast Asia . Singapore: Times Academic Press, 1998. US$39.00, hardcover; US$29.00, paper.

ALAN LAWRANCE. China under Communism . London: Routledge, 1998. xii, 158 pp. US$15.99; £9.99, paper.

FREDERICK C. TEIWES with WARREN SUN. China's Road to Disaster: Mao, Central Politicians, and Provincial Leaders in the Unfolding of the Great Leap Forward , 1955–1959. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1999. xvii, 319 pp. US$27.50, paper.

ANDREW WALDER (ed). Zouping in Transition: the Process of Reform in Rural North China . Harvard Contemporary China Series, 11. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998. US$45.00; £29.95, hardcover; US$19.95; £13.50, paper.

J. A. G. ROBERTS. A Concise History of China . Basingstoke: Macmillan; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999. US$45.00, hardcover; US$16.95, paper.

NIELS MULDER. Filipino Images: culture of the Public World . Quezon City: New Day, 2000. 232 pp. P300 (US$45.00), paper.     

Commentary : Partication and representation in the 2002 ATSIC elections

This commentary updates earlier work on participation and representation in ATSIC elections. It adds analysis of the fifth round of ATSIC elections held in 2002 to those held in 1990, 1993, 1996 and 1999. It confirms and refines earlier findings relating to a number of different measures of participation and representation. It argues that overall voter turnout is reasonable given the voluntary nature of ATSIC elections. It discerns a distinctive geography of both voter turnout and candidate interest. It argues that women's participation in ATSIC elections as voters, candidates and in being elected as regional councillors is quite high, but that there is some falling away in women's election to the offices of commissioner and regional council chairperson. It notes some weakness in the representation of women as regional councillors in remote areas and an under-representation of councillors under the age of 35. It also discerns a distinctive geography in the election of Torres Strait Islanders to ATSIC regional councils. In all these instances, the commentary attempts to explain and understand the patterns of participation and representation, while also raising them as possible issues of concern for ATSIC. Explanations relate to ATSIC's program and service provision roles, different social meanings and types of Indigenous identity, the relative influence of European settlement norms on traditional patterns of Indigenous political behaviour, and the nature of public career life courses. The commentary suggests that the distinctive geographies and other patterns of participation and representation are both understandable and well entrenched, and are unlikely to change greatly in the future.     

Gender and Welfare Reform in Post‐ Revolutionary Mexico

This article discusses the impact a gender and woman's history conference had on the development of my own research and writing. ‘Las Olvidadas’ was a conference held at Yale in the Spring of 2001, and was the first in a series of Mexican women's and gender history conferences organised. My own research, on the gendered nature of the welfare state in Mexico, explores how class and race intersected with gender to produce a welfare system that, while particular to Mexico, also nevertheless had much in common with other Latin American countries. These conferences shaped both my views of gender, but also the importance of the transnational to historical research.     

Making children,making chiefs: gender,power and ritual legitimacy

"This article explores indigenous notions of power and chiefly legitimacy among the Ihanzu, a relatively small Bantu-speaking community located in north central Tanzania. Particular attention is paid to local ideas and ideals of gender...in an effort to show the complex ways in which gender categories, when combined, are powerful and capable of effecting transformations of different sorts.... It is suggested that the strategic combination of the cultural categories ?male' and ?female' provides the underlying transformative model both for sexual reproduction and for rainmaking." (EXCERPT)