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Local government and community events in New Zealand: a case study of two neighbouring cities
Get PDFThe objectives for this research project were to examine the quality and type of support offered to community events through a case study of two neighbouring councils in the North Island of New Zealand; and to determine the impacts of events staged in the communities of both councils, including their influence on social capital building.
The study found that both councils are supportive of the delivery of events by both council and non-council event organisers. The councils are providing human, financial and physical capital to enable the output of events. Event impacts – specifically social and economic impacts – were considered to be positive in nature.
However, there is scope for greater strategic planning around community event delivery both by individual authorities and collaboratively, including the establishment of formal monitoring and evaluation systems. There is also scope to incorporate key lessons in regard to good practice, as identified by this study
Seventy Years of changes in China’s rural land system: Review, enlightenment and outlook
Get PDFThe paper introduces five stages of reforms to China’s rural land system since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China. From the process of China’s rural land policy and legislation, some conclusion may be drawn: reforms of the rural land usage system should be appropriate to its economic base and the will of the peasants should be respected. The paper indicates: in the near future, the peasant collective ownership of land will not change; foreseeably, land use pattern in China will be diverse; at the same time, China will focus more on sustainable and ecological use of land; The land rights and interests of the farmers and peasant collectives will be safeguarded better
The client-side project manager: A practitioner of Design
Get PDFSYNOPSISOur research adds to the client-side project management body of literature by demonstrating that these professionals display all the characteristics of Design Thinking Mentalities, Thinking Styles and Practices as identified by Hassi and Laakso (2011a) and that they utilize a broad range of the Design Thinking tools identified by Liedtka (2015) and Johansson-Sköldberg et al. (2013) when they deliver construction projects.RELEVANCE FOR PRACTICE/EDUCATIONOur findings indicate that client-side project managers should view their role differently to what has been traditionally accepted. The use of Design Thinking within the project management construct highlights that practitioners need to develop skills and tools that address, not just the compliance and control elements of project management, but also information gathering and problem solving techniques. This change of perspective creates opportunities for project managers to broaden their skill set in order to be able create further value in the Construction process.RESEARCH DESIGNOur research uses a Grounded Theory methodology to explore the ‘lived experience’ of client-side project managers to determine if they utilize Design Thinking when managing Construction projects. This is achieved by creating a framework from the work of Hassi and Laakso (2011a), Johansson-Sköldberg et al. (2013) and Liedtka (2015) to guide semi-structured interviews with a cohort of ten client-side project managers.MAIN FINDINGSOur research provides evidence of Design Thinking Mentalities, Thinking Styles, Practices and Tools being utilized by client-side project managers when delivering Construction projects. Our findings also identifies 15 project management tools used by client-side project managers when delivering Construction projects and highlight that the practice of client-side project management should not be viewed exclusively as part of the ‘Implementation’ process.RESEARCH IMPLICATIONSOur results support existing research on client-side project management and expand the Project Management body of literature by demonstrating how client-side project managers employ Design Thinking to handle poorly-defined projects
Ripples of Decolonisation in the Asia-Pacific
Get PDFThe process of decolonisation has had a profound effect on the structure of the international state system, including in the Asia Pacific. This article surveys the results of the decolonisation of the British, French, Dutch and Japanese Asian and Pacific empires. It also discusses the end of United Nations Trusteeships administered by the United States, Australia and New Zealand, as well as the governmental arrangements of other non-self-governing or dependent territories. With two Pacific territories, Bougainville (November 2019) and New Caledonia (August or September 2020), soon to vote on their political futures, it is timely to note that a process of self-determination does not always result in independence. The article shows that some territories have had their calls for independence ignored, while others enjoy high degrees of autonomy and self-government within nation states. In effect, this article, and the six papers included in this special edition, show that the process of decolonisation in the Asia Pacific has diverse economic, political and social impacts for sovereign states, as well as social and economic implications for individuals, including deportation, resettlement and ongoing struggles for self-determination. As such decolonisation was, is and will continue to be more than a political process. 
Reducing smoking in Australia: how to include Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people
Get PDFIssue addressed: Australia has succeeded in lowering the overall prevalence of tobacco smoking in the last four decades and has enjoyed a worldwide reputation for innovative policy. However, this success has not extended to Indigenous Australians.
Method: Narrative review and critique of literature from government, public health, health promotion, marketing and communication on smoking cessation in Australia.
Main points: We first consider the history of government anti-smoking measures including legislation and communication initiatives including advertising and sponsorship bans, health warnings and ‘no smoking’ rules affecting anti-smoking norms, culminating in the banning of branding and the advent of tobacco plain packaging. We also review the effects of excise increases and smoking cessation aids such as quit lines and nicotine replacement therapy. For each type of intervention, both population-wide and those specifically directed at Indigenous people, we consider the probable reasons for the failure to reach Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people or alter their smoking patterns, and make suggestions for improvements in interventions and their evaluation.
Conclusion: The history of anti-smoking initiatives in Australia suggests that community-based health initiatives are likely to be more effective in addressing Indigenous people and helping smokers to quit.
 
Collect, Save, Adapt: Making and Unmaking Ex Situ Worlds
Get PDF‘Putting the right species back in the right place’: expressed in the words of Bruce Pavlik, the Head of Restoration Ecology at the Millennium Seed Bank at Kew Gardens in a fundraising clip for the Breathing Planet Campaign, the work of biodiversity repositories seems straightforward. A simple matter of renewing the colonial and capitalistic capture of nature by exhausting its diversity in collecting, and then of reinserting species, suspended in the form of genetic information, into the neat spaces their disappearance or almost-dispappearance has left in their original ecosystems, the redemptive value of biodiversity repositories seems unquestionable. ‘There is no technological reason why any species should go extinct’, the clip goes on.The cryopreservation of genetic material in seed banks and ‘frozen zoos’ is often and justifiably understood as genetic-fetishistic suspension, several times removed from animal lives in actual habitats; I propose however to read them as world-making devices in their own right too, more entangled and entangling than they might present themselves to be. Collecting and saving are two mandates that have effects both on the species whose genetic information is banked and on the natures that are made possible or impossible through the projects delineated by biodiversity repositories; but they have also been implicated in a third such mandate, the assisted adaptation of species to anthropogenic climate change (be it the plan for ‘chaperoned assisted relocation’ proposed by the Missouri Botanical Garden or the ‘cultivation of marginally hardy taxa’ proposed at the Arnold Arboretum). How are biodiversity repositories an active intervention into the shaping of natures both inside and outside, and what are the consequences of what happens within the apparatus of these repositories for wider understandings of landscapes and species under threat? How linked is the suspension of metabolic processes and evolutionary potential and the understanding of Earth as manageable, perhaps even terraformable? What do they contribute to conservation biology’s biopolitical and cultural shaping of individuals, species, ecosystems suspended and remade through the different uses for which biodiversity repositories can be put to work
Exhibiting Extinction: Martha and the Monument, Two Modes of Remembering Nature: Martha and the Monument, Two Modes of Remembering Nature
Get PDFWhether stuffed remains in a museum case, inscribed tombstone, or stone wall perched on a cliff, memorials to extinct animals are timestamps representing human-animal relationships at particular moments in time. This essay analyzes the rhetoric and imagery of historical extinctions as seen in these memorials to understand the ways people struggled to understand the loss. Through examination of memorials to extinct species in U.S. museums, parks, and zoos my research has revealed a continuous struggle to identify the personhood of animals, define human-animal interactions, and locate human responsibility for environmental change.
While each memorial mimics remembrance practices used for humans and human events, they differ in their acknowledgement of the individuality and the agency of its extinction which, in turn, often denies agency to the animal. Steeped as they are in Romantic-era notions of wildness, these memorials can be read as parables of environmentalism, but in their conceptualization of the animal, they instruct us in the varieties of human-animal interactions and representations within the environmental movement at different times and places, making them more complex spaces than their simplicity suggests. While memorials present only a slice of the story, the memories they create and reinforce become part of the cultural ways of dealing with extinction that is often more popular and more poignant than historical narratives documenting their declines. At its core, my research adds to the literature on constructions of Nature in American culture by connecting 19th-century declension narratives with 20th-century extinctions, and problematizes the American ideology of abundance
There is Buffalo Ecocide: A Meditation upon Homecoming in Buffalo Country: A Meditation upon Homecoming in Buffalo Country
Get PDFA Meditation upon Homecoming in Buffalo Country
Green site practices and environmental performance: how project complexity moderates the relationship
Get PDFThe characteristics of a project that makes it hard to understand, predict, and manage its general behavior despite the availability of required information relating to the project dynamics is referred to as project complexity. A good knowledge of project complexity at the construction phase of a project, as well as a well thought out plan to manage complexity will determine how proficiently construction projects are planned, managed, and executed in an environmentally friendly manner. The level of complexity of construction projects to a large extent determines the performance or otherwise of the projects with regards to achieving specific environmental standards. At construction sites, the effects of adopting green site practices on environmental performance is largely dependent on the level of complexity inherent in the project’s construction processes. This study investigates the moderating effects of project complexity on the relationship between various green construction site practices and environmental performance of construction projects. A survey was conducted on class A contractors in Nigeria and 168 usable responses were received. The data were analyzed using the partial least squares structural equation modelling technique. The results show that project complexity moderates the relationship between waste management and environmental performance, and the relationship between materials management and environmental performance. But project complexity does not moderate the relationship between energy management and environmental performance. The study provides important theoretical and practical information for construction managers in understanding the dynamics involved in managing of projects with different degrees of complexity, while adopting certain green site practices with the aim of delivering projects with high degree of environmental performance
Evaluating the relationship between communication management practices and project outcomes: a case study of Eswatini (Swaziland) construction industry
Get PDFCommunication management is viewed as an imperative factor associated with performance improvement in construction projects. In Eswatini, it is established that projects experience poor project delivery associated with poor communication management practices. This study seeks to elucidate communication management practices informed by local culture and relate it to project outcome. A questionnaire survey of practitioners registered with Eswatini construction industry council was adopted for the study. Data was collected from 66 respondents. Principal axis factoring established nine practices namely; information technology, communication technology, communication skills and competence, communication management plan, teamwork, clear channels within organisation’s structure, project brief requirement management, project brief risk requirement management and context of environment as being key factors to project positive outcome. Spearman’s rho established that a relationship exists between project outcome and three practices namely; information technology, communication management plan and clear channels within organisation’s structure. The findings present key empirical evidence of the communication management practices that relate to project outcome in Eswatini. The study contributes on communication management practices in Eswatini and its relation on project outcome. Limitation of the study conclude that results and analysis cannot be generalised. However, the findings from the research provides opportunities for extensive further research recommendations to assess, refine and understand the effect of the variable’s communication management practice to project outcome
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