Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Radical Academia: Beyond The Audit Culture Treadmill, Rowan Cahill, Terry Irving

Rowan Cahill

The pathos of radical academia: notes on the impact of neo-liberalism on the universities, especially the audit culture, the production-model, casualization, academic scholarship, academic writing, peer reviewing, and open access. The authors suggest ways scholars can be radical within, and outside, of neoliberal academia. Part I, 'Missing in Action' appeared as an Academia.edu session in May 2015, where it attracted many comments. Part II, 'What Can Be Done?' is the authors' response to these comments. The whole piece was posted on the Cahill/Irving blog 'Radical Sydney/Radical History' on 22 October 2015.

Global Governance: The Ideological Kenosis Of The West, Steven Alan Samson

Steven Alan Samson

No abstract provided.

Review Of David Horner,'The Spy Catchers: The Official History Of Asio, 1949-1963', Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2014, Rowan Cahill

Rowan Cahill

Critical review of the officially commissioned history of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) published in 2014.

Land Restitution, Traditional Leadership And Belonging: Defining Barokologadi Identity, Robin L. Turner

Robin L Turner

How do government policies and practices affect struggles over collective identity and struggles over land? Examining the interconnections among collective identity struggles, land struggles and state policies and practices in post-apartheid South Africa, this paper argues that the government's contradictory policies and ambivalent practices have aggravated collective struggles over the boundaries of belonging. Specifically, the differing definitions of community set forth in traditional leadership, land tenure and land restitution policies exacerbate existing divisions among ‘communities’ concurrently subject to these policies and create practical policy dilemmas for decision-makers. This paper illustrates the interplay between public policies and collective identity struggles through …

Does Patronage Still Drive Politics For The Rural Poor In The Developing World? A Comparative Perspective From The Livestock Sector, David Leonard, Jennifer Brass, Michael Nelson, Sophal Ear, Dan Fahey, Tasha Fairfield, Martha Gning, Michael Halderman, Brendan Mcsherry, Devra Moehler, Wilson Prichard, Robin Turner, Tuong Vu, Jeroen Dijkman

Robin L Turner

Is the analysis of patron–client networks still important to the understanding of developing country politics or has it now been overtaken by a focus on ‘social capital’? Drawing on seventeen country studies of the political environment for livestock policy in poor countries, this article concludes that although the nature of patronage has changed significantly, it remains highly relevant to the ways peasant interests are treated. Peasant populations were found either to have no clear connection to their political leaders or to be controlled by political clientage. Furthermore, communities ‘free’ of patron–client ties to the centre generally are not better represented …

Communities, Wildlife Conservation, And Tourism-Based Development: Can Community-Based Nature Tourism Live Up To Its Promise?, Robin L. Turner

Robin L Turner

This paper analyzes the opportunities and tensions generated by efforts to use conservationbased tourism as a catalyst for economic development. By exploring how historical legacies position actors and influence relationships between them, characterizing the nature tourism sector and its logic, and examining how liberalizing states are likely to engage with community-based tourism. I situate community-based nature tourism ventures in a broader political economic context. The paper draws from research on the Makuleke Region of Kruger National Park, South Africa to illustrate how these factors influence prospects for community benefit from protected area tourism. Like many other protected areas in Africa, …

Traditional, Democratic, Accountable? Navigating Citizen-Subjection In Rural South Africa, Robin Turner

Robin L Turner

Nearly two decades after South Africa’s democratization, questions of tradition and accountability continue to trouble the polity as more than 14 million black South Africans remain subject to state-recognized, so-called “traditional” leaders – kings, queens, chiefs and regents. This article deepens our understanding of contemporary governance by exploring the agency of these citizen-subjects through close examination of traditional leaders’ strategies and citizen-subjects’ mobilizations in four rural localities. These cases illustrate how citizen-subjects are working with, against and through traditional leaders and councils, hybrid organizations and independent groups to pursue community development and effective, accountable governance, and show how the present …

Volunteering For Development: Tensions Around Conducting Multi-Sited Ethnography With Volunteers, Nichole Georgeou

Nichole Georgeou

A scholarly and personal account of the ethical, and human issues and values involved in a specific example of ethnographic research and field-work, with wider research implications and relevance.

Dictators And Death: Casualty Sensitivity Of Autocracies In Militarized Interstate Disputes, Cigdem V. Sirin, Michael T. Koch

Cigdem V. Sirin