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An Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to Parliament: what can Australia learn from other countries?
Get PDFThis is an edited version of a presentation to the Australian Institute for International Affairs on 16 May 2023. The authors explain the origins of the proposal for an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to the Australian Parliament and why the Voice should be enshrined in the Australian Constitution. They also compare how other countries ensure that Indigenous peoples’ interests are properly considered in the processes of government. They conclude by noting that the proposed Voice is a modest request by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders to be seen in the Constitution and heard in the democratic life of Australia
Toward a Petro-Developmental State? Merits and demerits of the Chadian rentier state.
Get PDFThe discovery of oil in Chad in the 1960s and its subsequent exploitation triggered the idea by international institutions that oil extraction would lead to sustainable development. Furthermore, Chad in tackling the resource curse would use rents to solve social, economic and security challenges on its territory. I argue that the state is the main actor in the resource curse, and its power derives rents from natural resources extraction. The curse emerges under local or international institutional pressures even if political outcomes are contextual and based on local norms. Drawing on theories of rentier state and developmental state, this paper seeks to critically explore local and international pressures that pull the state towards rentier behaviors resulting in poor local development outcomes.
 
A Question of Tone: The Mythological Barrier between Westerners and the Vietnamese Language and Culture
Get PDFLanguage, itself, as a source of communication, can also be a form of establishing an identity and setting barriers to communication. This article presents one example of such barriers in a major national language; that of the Vietnamese. The Vietnamese language is one of the markers of identity that Vietnamese often claim as the distinguishing feature of their culture, particularly its use of tone. As an assimilative culture changing rapidly with absorption into the global, urban economy, the Vietnamese language is now one of the only fixed identity markers of the Vietnamese. This may be why the Vietnamese now seek to establish it as a symbol and a barrier. This piece, by an American anthropologist, critically examines the Vietnamese perception of their language and its role among other identity markers in creating boundaries between Vietnamese and outsiders. 
From the Stands to the Arena of Social Movements: Post-2011 Football Terrace Chants in Tunisia
Get PDFThis paper discusses the evolution of social criticism reflected in the Tunisian Ultra groups’ football chants and investigates the Ultras’ involvement in social movements. To address this issue, we developed a database of mostly published Ultra songs found on social media which was analyzed using thematic analysis. Findings indicate that the Ultra phenomenon in Tunisia established its influence from the first decade of 2000, as a social pattern criticizing power, through confrontation of the regime inside the stadiums, and culturally through the production of a set of critically-loaded artistic expressions. We conclude that the extension of the circle of influence of Ultra groups is indicative of an overthrowing of cultural legitimacy standards but significantly is also reflective of the emergence of new social actors capable of redistributing power through their intense politicization of interactions that prior to 2011 had been mostly social
Visualized Trauma, Sensitized Resilience: Urban Art among the French Hmong Community
Get PDFVarious types of urban art emerged and prospered in recent decades when degenerating cities were embracing art as a marketing strategy. This urban-rejuvenation approach sheds less light on the agency and motivation of artists. This paper examines how ethnic artists represent traumatic memory, reflect nostalgia and mobilize individuals to collaborate with one other to build resilience. This study contributes to the literature that explores the agency and creativity of underrepresented minority artists in global society at large
Physical and Digital Placemaking in a Public Art Initiative in Camden, NJ
Get PDFThe process of placemaking entails the use of physical and digital representations of place. An understudied element of these representations is how users’ agency and interaction with physical and digital placemaking contributes to sense of place within a community. This research uses A New View - Camden, New Jersey (ANV) public art initiative as a case study to analyze how digital representation of space contributes to sense of place among community members in an urban setting. ANV’s social media reach and coverage is triangulated with data from interviews and focus groups from the 2019-2021 project period. The digital interactions with public spaces evoked meaning to experiences and places in Camden, in turn influencing perceptions of the place and willingness of community members to engage. A New View’s digital representations not only created opportunities for wider outreach and longer lasting experiences of placemaking that contributed positively to community, but also contributed to understanding of placemaking in urban public spaces, particularly during the COVID-19 global pandemic
Silence, Exile and Cunning: Concealment and Worship at the Holy Infant Jesus Church, Bangalore
Get PDFIn the context of escalating religious tensions in India, sites that still openly welcome practitioners of different belief systems or encourage a propensity for interreligious ritual engagement face a range of complex challenges. At the Holy Infant Jesus Church in Bangalore, there is a shrine set aside for people of non-Christian religions, both Hindu and Muslim, who view this deity as a jagrata or ‘awake’ god who responds to the ‘desire’ of the supplicant, granting boons and wishes. Despite the contemporary hardening of boundaries and the quest for religious purity, this site exhibits the persisting appeal of ritual engagement across religious boundaries. The consequence of such engagement is not always open connections or dialogue but rather concealment of syncretic practices from others in the supplicants’ communities. Against this background, this presentation explores the following questions: Is religion a site of interaction rather than of intra-communal withdrawal? Is religious synthesis an endangered mode of cosmopolitanism now threatened by multiple quests for religious purity? Why are some syncretic practices more resilient than others and how do people engaged in such practices make sense of what remains and what is lost
Women, ethnic minorities and local electoral success in Auckland, New Zealand
Get PDFThis article examines the extent to which Auckland Council candidates and elected members have reflected the diversity of the unitary city’s population since the amalgamation in 2010 of eight former local authorities. The findings confirm that electoral candidates have become more ethnically and gender diverse at the local board level, but city-wide the trend away from New Zealand’s traditional European, male and older local representatives has been less pronounced. Overall the research presents an optimistic picture of post-reform representation in Auckland local democracy. There has been a significant increase in representation of women and Pacific and Asian people. However, the ongoing challenges facing Māori to achieve fair and effective representation in Auckland raise questions about the efficacy of the Local Electoral Act 2001, as the Auckland Council persistently chooses to retain first-past-the-post voting for its electoral system
Pedagogy matters: A framework for critical community-engaged courses in higher education
Get PDFThis article describes specific pedagogical components of a community engagement project between students in a psychology course and youth at a juvenile justice centre (JJS). The purpose of the research was to illustrate how feminist and critical pedagogies can create reciprocal community engagement that provides a space for learning at both college and community sites. The researchers involved in this study included the professor of the Psychology of Women course, a senior college student who previously took the course, the JJS volunteer coordinator and an education professor. Together, they employed qualitative, single case study methodology in order to understand the complex social phenomena of this community-engaged course. The results demonstrate that lessons addressing social inequities are beneficial for youth in JJS and offer a way to alleviate the gap in gender-specific programming. They also create community and offer an empowerment lens. By explicitly focusing on the pedagogical choices of the partnership, this research contributes to an understanding of how critical community engagement can provide mutual benefits
Interpreting History Through Fiction: Three Writers Discuss their Methods
Get PDFIn ‘Interpreting History Through Fiction: Three Writers Discuss their Methods’, creative historical authors Thom Conroy, Joanna Grochowicz and Cristina Sanders engage in a conversation about the intersection of history and fiction. Arising from a session of the 2021 New Zealand Historical Association Conference entitled ‘Learning History Through Fiction’, the three-way dialogue interrogates the role of learning history from creative texts, navigates the fact/fiction balance in creative historical writing, explores concerns about the potential for harm in historical fiction, outlines the authors\u27 own motives for adopting a creative approach to history, and examines what Hilary Mantel calls the ‘readerly contract’ in historical fiction. The conversation does not seek consensus nor finality in the answers offered to the questions the authors have put to one another. Rather, the authors allow contradictions and disagreements to remain intact, thus conveying their collective sense of open-endedness regarding creative approaches to history. This open-endedness is intentional, as the answers that arise from dialogue are intended to be as provisional and contingent as the evolving genre of historical fiction itself
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