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Consulting the Past: Creating a National History Curriculum in Aotearoa New Zealand
Get PDFIn many countries, the development of national history curricula has been politically controversial, causing great public interest and concern. Such controversies tend to bring into tension diverse political, social and cultural voices and their interests in a nation’s history, expressing the historical consciousness of a society. At the extreme, ‘history wars’ emerge over what is prioritised for learning, and how it is learnt, especially when historical interpretations clash with political agendas. In this article we explore these ideas through the responses of different sectors to the development of Aotearoa New Zealand\u27s first national history curriculum. By looking at the responses of teachers, academic historians, politicians and the community at large, we attempt to explain why the debate so far has been professional rather than polemical, and why the country’s ‘history wars’ have only involved a few skirmishes at the edges of political debate
Ako: Learning From History?
Get PDFThis special issue of Public History Review has been edited by Fiona McKergow, Geoff Watson, David Littlewood and Carol Neill and serves as a sampler of recent work in the field of public history from Aotearoa New Zealand. The articles are derived from papers presented at \u27Ako: Learning from History?\u27, the 2021 New Zealand Historical Association conference hosted by Massey University Te Kunenga Ki Pūrehuroa.
The cover image for this special issue shows Taranaki Maunga viewed from a site near the remains of a redoubt built by colonial forces during the New Zealand Wars
South African urban youth responses to living in a world with COVID: Lessons from #Slam4urLife
Get PDFUsing poetry, visual art, songs, raps and sketches submitted to #Slam4urLife, a social media competition encouraging young people in South Africa to respond creatively to the COVID-19 pandemic, this article outlines young urban people’s responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa through four narratives: shock, loss, survival and activism. Resting on practices of engaged scholarship, it draws on knowledge bases and collaborations in and beyond the academy to contribute grounded research on arts-based social media competitions as an effective method for encouraging and amplifying the youth voice. It does this by creating digital public spaces in which young people can practise civic engagement in contexts where this cannot be done in physical public spaces. In doing so, the article contributes to the literature on community-based research and youth in African cities from the perspective of South Africa. It also argues the importance of art-based social media competitions in creating digital public spaces in which the youth voice can be encouraged, legitimised and amplified in so far as these kinds of digital spaces allow for a kind of civic engagement not always seen by young people in the physical public spaces of African cities
Impacts of municipal re-demarcations on service delivery in South Africa
Get PDFThis paper examines the implications of municipal re-demarcations on service delivery through a case study of the Collins Chabane and JB Marks local municipalities in South Africa. The former is the result of a merger of two rural areas that were carved out of adjoining municipalities. The latter was established following the amalgamation of the erstwhile municipalities of Tlokwe and Ventersdorp, including the major centre of Potchefstroom. Thus, the two case studies are quite distinct in terms of racial demographics and history. Between 1995 and 2016, South Africa witnessed a significant reduction in the number of its municipalities, from over 800 racially based local authorities to 257 democratically elected municipalities. This trend reflects a belief that smaller municipalities are inefficient and not financially viable. However this study’s empirical findings, which were mainly obtained through a survey, suggest that mergers do not necessarily lead to improved local government capacity or efficient service delivery. The paper recommends further consideration of alternative models that can improve service delivery efficiency through voluntary cooperation or other collaborative arrangements
Perspectives on local government’s place in federal systems and central–local relations
Get PDFTo expand on the themes identified by Tomas Hachard’s paper \u27Capacity, voice and opportunity: advancing municipal engagement in Canadian federal relations\u27, the Journal commissioned six personal ‘perspectives’ from a diverse group of other Commonwealth countries – Australia, India, New Zealand, Nigeria, South Africa and the United Kingdom. This replicated the model adopted in Issue 26 for Zack Taylor’s paper on \u27Regionalism from above: intergovernmental relations in Canadian metropolitan governance\u27. Similarly, the purpose was to establish a broader picture of issues and trends across the Commonwealth, rather than ‘review’ Hachard’s work
From Exclusion to Leadership : The Case of the Ethiopian Community in Israel
Get PDFIsrael comprises diverse groups (mostly Jewish), between whom the differences are sometimes greater than the similarities. This frequently leads to social exclusion and discrimination that damages the very basic sense of human security. Scholars agree that cultural misrecognition or exclusion has a deeply negative impact on a person’s mental well-being and sense of security. In this paper, we show how the case of the Ethiopian community in Israel reinforces the understanding that a cultural group’s experiences of exclusion and non-belonging undermine its members’ sense of personal security and has detrimental effects on their well-being. Groups however can sometimes change the course of development. We show that 40 years after the first wave of immigration (Operation Moshe), the Ethiopian community in Israel has chosen a track of change, in which it slowly moves from exclusion to leadership. This idea calls for further study
Chosen Trauma, Emotions and Memory in Movements: The Ogoni and Ijaw in the Niger Delta
Get PDFThis paper presents a critical analysis of ‘Chosen Trauma’ theory and its applicability to social movement responses to oil resource extractive activities in Nigeria. Volkan’s (1985, 1997, 2005) formulations on ‘collective calamity of groups’ ancestors, defined in terms of shared pains suffered at the hands of an enemy is explored using the case of Ogoni and Ijaw movement activities against the Federal Government and oil companies operating in the Niger Delta. The framing of traumas focuses on the role played by leaders of both groups in their protests against calamitous environmental problems resulting from the activities of oil companies in the region. For the Ogoni, the memory of trauma is adaptive to non-violence while, for the Ijaw it is a fluid construction between non-violence and violence. Volkan’s theory is analytically helpful, but at the same time demands refinement to better explain the nuances in these cases
Community-Engaged Research on Social Capital and Older Adults’ Health: Lessons Learned:
Get PDFMost adults in the United States prefer to age in their own homes and communities. However, many ageing-in-place models rely on expensive external services, negatively affecting access by lower socioeconomic status (SES) and other vulnerable groups. This article documents two pilot projects conducted by a community-academic partnership that examined associations between social capital, ageing in community, and health among older adults. The first project explored the association between social capital and health across community SES levels. The second project explored one type of social capital, timebanking, and its association with health. We highlight here our lessons learned from these community-engaged research (CER) projects: (1) Our partnership needed to improve our study design and data collection by enhancing our recruitment strategies, community site partnerships, survey instrument and data matching, and research team workload allocation issues. (2) We should have validated our instruments for use with older adults who had mild cognitive and visual impairments, acknowledged how community SES differences influenced our data collection, and included more research assistant support during our community meetings. (3) We would have benefited from protocol development for recording and responding to issues raised by participants. Our projects also led us to relational insights, such as reinforcing the need to foster clear communication across team members, involving community advisory boards earlier in the CER process, seeking network input on research strategies to meet older adults’ needs, and developing plans to sustain long-term relationships. We hope these lessons learned are useful to other community-engaged researchers
Urban Art and Cosmopolitanism: Re-imagining the Hybrid City through Art
Get PDFIn this special issue on urban art and cosmopolitanism, we explore emergent inquiry and explorations into the role of arts, artists and the reception of arts in the urban public space as cosmopolitan articulations, interventions and methodologies. Based on case studies we demonstrate how the hybrid city can be re-imagined by art interventions. However given the unprecendented pace of changes in cities across the globle more empirical investigations and theoretical reflections are needed to address the multi-faceted role of artists, arts and the reception of arts in the urban space
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