Bridging the divide between studies on disaster risk reduction education and child-centred disaster risk reduction: a critical review

There has been a recent increase in the body of knowledge related to children and disasters. These studies converge into three main fields of research: the impact of disasters on children and their psychological recovery, the integration of disaster risk reduction (DRR) into the education sectors and children’s participation in DRR. This article provides a literature review of the two latter fields of research where the focus is on reducing disaster losses and building resilience prior to a disaster. Overall, 48 studies are critically reviewed and compared in relation to the strengths and weaknesses of their aims, methods, locations of research, impact, and outcomes. The review identified a number of differences between the two fields and significant opportunities for linking the two approaches, sharing lessons and knowledge. Based on the review, recommendations for further research are outlined.     

Australia’s relations with the European Community in a historical perspective: an elusive partnership

ABSTRACT

In 2015, Australia and the European Union successfully negotiated a Framework Agreement. This agreement is an essential step in establishing a stronger Australia–European Union partnership and achieving closer bilateral cooperation. For years, negotiating such an agreement had proved impossible. In the 1970s, successive Australian governments showed interest in enhanced collaboration with the European Community, but the political climate for closer relations was far from encouraging. This article explains why this was the case. In doing so, it also explores how the Whitlam and Fraser governments envisaged, framed and developed Australia’s ties with the European Community in the 1970s, and asks whether a more positive approach on their part could have led to a stronger relationship. Based on recently declassified government files, this article shows that although both Whitlam and Fraser fully grasped the importance of the European Community as an emerging international actor and were willing to deepen Australia’s ties with it, significant constraints existed against enhanced bilateral cooperation. With the Common Agricultural Policy still a considerable challenge to Australian economic interests and with the European Community focused mainly on the management of its internal market, broader political considerations were inevitably relegated to the margins of Australia–European Community consultations.     

ASEAN as a “Rules-based Community”: Business as Usual

Abstract

In establishing the ASEAN Economic Community, ASEAN political elites emphasised their commitment to the rule of law. The definition of the rule of law adopted in the ASEAN Charter mirrored UN reforms that recognised the rule of law as interlinked with democracy and human rights. This commitment raises questions, given the various tactics employed by the grouping’s authoritarian and post-authoritarian regimes to silence dissent. This article critically assesses this apparent shift in regional governance. It first maps the inclusion of rule of law rhetoric in agreements since ASEAN’s foundation, and then examines the form and implementation of dispute settlement mechanisms. It finds that dispute settlement mechanisms have consistently retained the scope for protracted political and bureaucratic negotiation between disputing parties, and “opt out” clauses that enable their contingent application. These findings undermine claims regarding the development of a “rules-based community”, and indicate the continuation of rule by law rather than rule of law. The emphasis placed on ASEAN’s rule of law reforms by elites suggests, then, the rebranding of this political project in support of the ASEAN Economic Community so as to create confidence for investors in the region’s juridical environment.     

‘I call the people.’ Church bells in fourteenth-century Catalunya

Bells were an inescapable part of fourteenth-century urban life. They signalled the hours of the day and times for prayers; they warned of tempests and enemy armies; they heralded masses, funerals, and deaths. The pealing of bells brought men, women, and children together, choreographing communal behaviour in time and space. Bells echoed the vox Domini, calling out the deaths of holy men and women, celebrating the working of miracles. The ubiquitous presence of bells reflected the omnipresence of God in the medieval world. Their echoes transformed private moments into collective experiences, elevating the mundane into the miraculous. Scholars have rarely examined the religious aspects of bells, looking instead at their more practical side, especially their utilisation as markers of time and the allegedly concurrent rise of mercantile culture. This article approaches bells from the viewpoints of those men and women who heard them and wanted them rung. Focusing on sources from Christian clerics, we see that medieval men rang the bells with clear, but many possible, purposes in mind. By marking time and prayers, Christian church bells helped to create and facilitate communities within dioceses, spurring and choreographing their actions. During funerals, bells broadcast private moments, giving them communal significance. The transformative, creative function of bells is clearest in their role in miracles. In Manresa, the vision experienced by a few became a community affair when the church bells gathered the people; the bells transformed an ordinary day into one where the people, as a community, received divine favour. Finally, with the deaths of holy persons, the tolling of bells transformed private, even anonymous deaths, into moments of wonder as God’s hand touched the world.The pealing of bells defined Christian communities in the Mediterranean and, at the same time as rulers and elites throughout the region were seeking to control minority groups, those same groups were seeking to exercise control over the sounds within their own communities. Through the pealing of bells, churchmen across Catalunya sought to direct the thoughts and prayers of their listeners. When the Christian clerics of Catalunya rang their churches’ bells, they had specific aims in mind, yet, as the evidence demonstrates, the pealing of the bells never meant just one thing. This article demonstrates that there is much more to understanding medieval bells than knowing ‘for whom the bell tolls’; we have to look at the listeners as much as the ringers in order to understand their cultural significance in medieval Europe. This article is a first step in how such a study could be begun.     

Project SAMPHIRE: Crowd Sourcing Maritime Archaeology data off Scotland's West Coast

Perhaps the greatest barrier to effective management of underwater cultural heritage is the lack of data on the nature and location of offshore archaeological resources. This is a problem shared with terrestrial archaeology, but is particularly acute due to the limitations of survey techniques in the underwater environment. In Scotland <15% of known ship losses from the last 200 years have been located and the record is far less comprehensive for earlier periods, verging on a near total data gap. Most known archaeological sites in Scottish waters have been discovered through large-scale sonar survey of relatively low resolution and a considerable bias has been introduced in the archaeological record; this has favored the discovery and documentation of larger and more recent, often upstanding, metal shipwrecks. This article presents the methods and results from a three-year project designed to reduce this bias by demonstrating large-scale prospecting for maritime archaeology through a community-based crowd-sourcing approach. Project SAMPHIRE (the Scottish Atlantic Maritime Past: Heritage, Investigation, Research and Education Project) was geographically focused on the west coast of the Scottish mainland and was undertaken between 2013 and 2015, resulting in a large number of new archaeological discoveries, including shipwrecks, aircraft, and other material of a much more varied nature than what is typically found through large-scale hydrographic surveys.     

Citizen Participation,Process, and Transparency in Local Government: An Exploratory Study

This study had two purposes. First, it empirically examined the relationship between citizens' participation in administrative policymaking phases and their perception of government transparency. Second, it investigated how citizens' use of both offline and online participation channels and their involvement in different phases of policymaking (i.e., agenda setting, implementation, and evaluation) were related to their assessment of transparency in government. A 2009 survey of residents of Seoul, South Korea, was used to test the study hypotheses. Using two‐stage least squares estimate techniques, the study found that citizens involved in any citizen participation programs are more likely than those not involved to positively assess transparency in government. With regard to the relationship between participation channels and transparency, citizens who used offline participation channels were more likely than nonusers to perceive enhanced transparency in local government. However, their use of online participation channels had limited effect on perceptions of transparency. Finally, participation in two phases of the policy process, agenda setting and evaluation, positively affected citizens' assessment of transparency in government.     

Christological Foundations for Political Participation: Women in the Global South Building Agency as Risen Beings

This paper draws upon the theologies of Jon Sobrino and Engelbert Mveng to construct a social ethics of participation for those who have been marginalized by corrupt political and economic institutions, focusing on the agency of women in Sub-Sahara Africa. In light of the philosophy of political participation in developing countries, I examine Sobrino's insights that the victims of the evil of this world have to live as risen beings, I consider the African Theologian Engelbert Mveng's concept of anthropological pauperization, and argue that it makes a difference to consider historical events that influence the contexts in which we view the victims. I also argue that both Sobrino and Mveng provide foundations for political participation of the victims, but there is a need to reinforce the agency of the victims, and their own ability to come down from the cross and live as risen beings. Such agency suggests the need for reinforcing the political participation of the victims. Finally, I supplement Mveng's thoughts with the cultural features of the African philosophy of Ubuntu — related to African Humanism — to show that Ubuntu, as well as Mveng, reinforce Sobrino's claims.     

The complexity of aspiration: the role of hope and habitus in shaping working-class young people’s aspirations to higher education

In this paper, I explore how working-class young people in Leicester hope and plan for their futures as they consider the possibility of attending university. I respond to Pimlott-Wilson’s [2011. “The Role of Familial Habitus in Shaping Children’s Views of Their Future Employment.” Children’s Geographies 9 (1): 111–118] call for further research to investigate how individual dispositions and habitus affect how young people hope and aspire towards the future. I do this in three ways. First, I empirically test Webb’s [2007. “Modes of Hoping.” History of the Human Sciences 20 (3): 65–83] hope theory to understand how aspirations are formed on an individual and societal level. In doing so, I critically question what is understood by the term ‘aspiration’. This allows me to question what it means for young people to ‘raise aspirations’ towards university. Second, I explore how a spatial analysis can contribute towards an understanding of how habitus, hope and aspirations interlock to shape young people’s futures. Third, I argue that hope can be regarded as a form of capital which in turn influences habitus.     

Cultural participation in Europe: shared problem or shared problematisation?

Europe has a ‘problem’; it is becoming a ‘less cultural continent’ as fewer Europeans are ‘engaging in cultural activities’. This conclusion has been reached due to the findings of the latest cross national cultural participation survey. This paper questions the existence of this ‘problem’ and instead suggests that there is a shared problematisation across Europe sustained by common discursive archaeology that employs various discursive strands in relation to a dominant institutional discourse. The argument is that the ‘problem’ of ‘non-participation’ legitimates a ‘solution’ that predates its emergence: the state subsidy of arts organisations. The paper recaps the comparable problematisations that the researchers have previously identified in the policy texts of their respective countries. It progresses to consider three distinct but interwoven discursive strands upon which the problem representation in both countries, and potentially across Europe, appears to rely.