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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Is It Easy Being Green? On The Dilemmas Of Material Cultures Of Household Sustainability, Chris Gibson, Gordon R. Waitt, Lesley M. Head, Nick Gill Sep 2012

Is It Easy Being Green? On The Dilemmas Of Material Cultures Of Household Sustainability, Chris Gibson, Gordon R. Waitt, Lesley M. Head, Nick Gill

Nicholas J Gill

In the 1970s ‘greens’ were normally thought of as radicals because of their uncompromising political views about sustainability, non-violence, social justice and grassroots democracy. Sometimes greens were marginalised as ‘tree-huggers’ because of their affinity with the non-human world. Today, in popular discourse, ‘green’ provides the centre of sustainability gravity (Barr 2003). Green has become a definitive reflection of what individuals are to become as both consumers and citizens. It is easy, it is said, to be green. This is evident from product branding to categories used in government survey results to describe the ‘most acceptable’ household practices. But as green …


Trial By Fire: Natural Hazards, Mixed-Methods And Cultural Research, Christine Eriksen, Nicholas J. Gill, Ross A. Bradstock Sep 2012

Trial By Fire: Natural Hazards, Mixed-Methods And Cultural Research, Christine Eriksen, Nicholas J. Gill, Ross A. Bradstock

Nicholas J Gill

This paper considers the issues of research 'relevance' and 'use' to reflect upon a cultural geography research project on bushfire that did not begin with any specific aim of being useful to policy makers but which has garnered considerable and ongoing interest from a broad audience. It provides an example of how the integration of quantitative and qualitative research methods and data can enhance research into cultural aspects of natural hazards whilst simultaneously playing a key role in ensuring that the research results are of interest to a wide range of groups. Using a mixed-methods research approach was found to …


An Automated Land Subdivision Tool For Urban And Regional Planning: Concepts, Implementation And Testing, Rohan Wickramasuriya, Laurie A. Chisholm, Marjetta Puotinen, Nicholas Gill, Peter Klepeis Sep 2012

An Automated Land Subdivision Tool For Urban And Regional Planning: Concepts, Implementation And Testing, Rohan Wickramasuriya, Laurie A. Chisholm, Marjetta Puotinen, Nicholas Gill, Peter Klepeis

Nicholas J Gill

Simulation of the land subdivision process is useful in many applied and research areas. Planners use such tools to understand potential impacts of planning regulations prior to their implementation. While the credibility of both land-use change and urban growth models would be enhanced by integrating capabilities to simulate land subdivision, such research is lacking in the published literature. Of the few subdivision tools that exist, most are either not fully-automated or are unable to generate realistic subdivision layouts. This limits their applicability, particularly for high resolution land-use change models. In this paper, we present a fully-automated land subdivision tool that …


Slag, Steel And Swamp: Perceptions Of Restoration Of An Urban Coastal Saltmarsh, Nicholas J. Gill Jun 2012

Slag, Steel And Swamp: Perceptions Of Restoration Of An Urban Coastal Saltmarsh, Nicholas J. Gill

Nicholas J Gill

A community group, in conjunction with local government and industry, has been working on aquatic and terrestrial restoration at a Wollongong saltmarsh, previously diminished in size and degraded by harbour reclamation and an urban rubbish tip. Students evaluate restoration progress to date and devise some interesting potential directions.


Local Engagements With Urban Bushland: Moving Beyond Bounded Practice For Urban Biodiversity Management, Nicholas J. Gill, Gordon R. Waitt, Lesley M. Head Jun 2012

Local Engagements With Urban Bushland: Moving Beyond Bounded Practice For Urban Biodiversity Management, Nicholas J. Gill, Gordon R. Waitt, Lesley M. Head

Nicholas J Gill

Management of ecologically significant urban green space is likely to be increasingly governed by biodiversity policy frameworks. These frameworks tend to reproduce bounded thinking and strategies that separate green space from its context and characterise people as a disturbance. Like many green spaces these ecologically significant areas are highly valued by visitors and nearby residents. Green space is important for engagement with nature, social interaction, and for respite from daily life: it is strongly connected to surrounding areas and to the lives of people who live there. The dissonance between bounded management thinking and the role of green space in …


Land Management And Land Cover On Land Owned By Amenity Oriented Rural Landowners In Jamberoo Valley, Nicholas J. Gill, Laurie A. Chisholm, Peter Klepeis, Rohan Wickramasuriya, John K. Marthick Jun 2012

Land Management And Land Cover On Land Owned By Amenity Oriented Rural Landowners In Jamberoo Valley, Nicholas J. Gill, Laurie A. Chisholm, Peter Klepeis, Rohan Wickramasuriya, John K. Marthick

Nicholas J Gill

No abstract provided.


'Murphy, Do You Want To Delete This?' Hidden Histories And Hidden Landscapes In The Murchison And Davenport Ranges, Northern Territory, Australia., N. J. Gill, A. Paterson, M. Kennedy Jun 2012

'Murphy, Do You Want To Delete This?' Hidden Histories And Hidden Landscapes In The Murchison And Davenport Ranges, Northern Territory, Australia., N. J. Gill, A. Paterson, M. Kennedy

Nicholas J Gill

[Extract] During Easter in 2000 we (AP and NG) were in Central Australia during heavy rainfalls and flooding. Roads were cut and we were stuck in Tennant Creek. We decided to review documents held by the local museum. This included material used in the late 1970s to compile a general history of Tennant Creek, the only such work of which we are aware. It was interesting to note that in one case the author had written to a pastoralist they had recently visited, and included a section describing the role of Aboriginal people at their station. In brackets after this …


Environmental (Re)Education And Local Environmental Knowledge: Statutory Ground-Based Monitoring And Pastoral Culture In Central Australia, Nicholas J. Gill Jun 2012

Environmental (Re)Education And Local Environmental Knowledge: Statutory Ground-Based Monitoring And Pastoral Culture In Central Australia, Nicholas J. Gill

Nicholas J Gill

Ground-based monitoring of rangeland condition is common in Australian pastoral administration systems. In the Northern Territory, such monitoring is officially seen as a key plank of sustainable pastoral land use. In the NT and elsewhere, these monitoring schemes have sought to increase participation by pastoralists. Involvement of pastoralists in monitoring is theoretically an educative process that will cause pastoralists to more critically examine their management practices. Critical perspectives on the relationship between rangelands science/extension and pastoralist knowledge systems and concerns, however, suggest that pastoralists’ reception of such monitoring schemes will be influenced by a range of social contexts, including the …


Is It Easy Being Green? On The Dilemmas Of Material Cultures Of Household Sustainability, Chris Gibson, Gordon R. Waitt, Lesley M. Head, Nick Gill Jun 2012

Is It Easy Being Green? On The Dilemmas Of Material Cultures Of Household Sustainability, Chris Gibson, Gordon R. Waitt, Lesley M. Head, Nick Gill

Nicholas J Gill

In the 1970s ‘greens’ were normally thought of as radicals because of their uncompromising political views about sustainability, non-violence, social justice and grassroots democracy. Sometimes greens were marginalised as ‘tree-huggers’ because of their affinity with the non-human world. Today, in popular discourse, ‘green’ provides the centre of sustainability gravity (Barr 2003). Green has become a definitive reflection of what individuals are to become as both consumers and citizens. It is easy, it is said, to be green. This is evident from product branding to categories used in government survey results to describe the ‘most acceptable’ household practices. But as green …


The Contested Domain Of Pastoralism: Landscape, Work And Outsiders In Central Australia , N. J. Gill Jun 2012

The Contested Domain Of Pastoralism: Landscape, Work And Outsiders In Central Australia , N. J. Gill

Nicholas J Gill

Extensive cattle grazing has long been the dominant land use in Central Australian rangelands. Today, however, the pastoral landscape is increasingly fractured and contested by indigenous and environmentalist claims on land. Pastoralists in Central Australia are responding to environmentalist claims by reasserting territory. Territory is being constructed with reference to to particular forms of social nature and social space. Identities of insider and outsider have developed. These identities commonly correspond to pastoralists and others, such as conservationists and government, but the place specific nature of pastoralists' environmental knowledge has the potential to render pastoralists as outsiders as well. Moreover, as …