Evaluating Communication for Development : A Framework for Social Change

Evaluating Communication for Development presents a comprehensive framework for evaluating communication for development (C4D). This framework combines the latest thinking from a number of fields in new ways. It critiques dominant instrumental, accountability-based approaches to development and evaluation and offers an alternative holistic, participatory, mixed methods approach based on systems and complexity thinking and other key concepts. It maintains a focus on power, gender and other differences and social norms. The authors have designed the framework as a way to focus on achieving sustainable social change and to continually improve and develop C4D initiatives. The benefits and rigour of this approach are supported by examples and case studies from a number of action research and evaluation capacity development projects undertaken by the authors over the past fifteen years. Building on current arguments within the fields of C4D and development, the authors reinforce the case for effective communication being a central and vital component of participatory forms of development, something that needs to be appreciated by decision makers. They also consider ways of increasing the effectiveness of evaluation capacity development from grassroots to management level in the development context, an issue of growing importance to improving the quality, effectiveness and utilisation of monitoring and evaluation studies in this field. The book includes a critical review of the key approaches, methodologies and methods that are considered effective for planning evaluation, assessing the outcomes of C4D, and engaging in continuous learning. This rigorous book is of immense theoretical and practical value to students, scholars, and professionals researching or working in development, communication and media, applied anthropology, and evaluation and program planning.

A sustainable tourism development in Alacati, Turkey : (Re)invention of public space with clean energy

Although there is an increasing recognition of the impacts of climate change on communities, residents often resist changing their lifestyle to reduce the effects of the problem. By using a landscape architectural design medium, this paper argues that public space, when designed as an ecological system, has the capacity to create social and environmental change and to increase the quality of the human environment. At the same time, this ecological system can engage residents, enrich the local economy, and increase the social network. Through methods of design, research and case study analysis, an alternative master plan is proposed for a sustainable tourism development in Alacati, Turkey. Our master plan uses local geographical, economic and social information within a sustainable landscape architectural design scheme that addresses the key issues of ecology, employment, public space and community cohesion. A preliminary community empowerment model (CEM) is proposed to manage the designs. The designs address: the coexistence of local agricultural and sustainable energy generation; state of the art water management; and the functional and sustainable social and economic interrelationship of inhabitants, NGOs, and local government.

Taxonomy and palaeoecology of Quaternary faunas from caves in eastern tropical Queensland : a record of broad-scale environmental change

Analysis of fossils from cave deposits at Mount Etna (eastern-central Queensland) has established that a species-rich rainforest palaeoenvironment existed in that area during the middle Pleistocene. This unexpected finding has implications for several fields (e.g., biogeography/phylogeography of rainforest-adapted taxa, and the impact of climate change on rainforest communities), but it was unknown whether the Mount Etna sites represented a small refugial patch of rainforest or was more widespread. In this study numerous bone deposits in caves in north-east Queensland are analysed to reconstruct the environmental history of the area during the late Quaternary. Study sites are in the Chillagoe/Mitchell Palmer and Broken River/Christmas Creek areas. The cave fossil records in these study areas are compared with dated (middle Pleistocene-Holocene) cave sites in the Mount Etna area. Substantial taxonomic work on the Mount Etna faunas (particularly dasyurid marsupials and murine rodents) is also presented as a prerequisite for meaningful comparison with the study sites further north. Middle Pleistocene sites at Mount Etna contain species indicative of a rainforest palaeoenvironment. Small mammal assemblages in the Mount Etna rainforest sites (>500-280 ka) are unexpectedly diverse and composed almost entirely of new species. Included in the rainforest assemblages are lineages with no extant representatives in rainforest (e.g., Leggadina), one genus previously known only from New Guinea (Abeomelomys), and forms that appear to bridge gaps between related but morphologically-divergent extant taxa ('B-rat' and 'Pseudomys C'). Curiously, some taxa (e.g., Melomys spp.) are notable for their absence from the Mount Etna rainforest sites. After 280 ka the rainforest faunas are replaced by species adapted to open, dry habitats. At that time the extinct ‘rainforest’ dasyurids and rodents are replaced by species that are either extant or recently extant. By the late Pleistocene all ‘rainforest’ and several ‘dry’ taxa are locally or completely extinct, and the small mammal fauna resembles that found in the area today. The faunal/environmental changes recorded in the Mount Etna sites were interpreted by previous workers as the result of shifts in climate during the Pleistocene. Many samples from caves in the Chillagoe/Mitchell-Palmer and Broken River/Christmas Creek areas are held in the Queensland Museum’s collection. These, supplemented with additional samples collected in the field as well as samples supplied by other workers, were systematically and palaeoecologically analysed for the first time. Palaeoecological interpretation of the faunal assemblages in the sites suggests that they encompass a similar array of palaeoenvironments as the Mount Etna sites. ‘Rainforest’ sites at the Broken River are here interpreted as being of similar age to those at Mount Etna, suggesting the possibility of extensive rainforest coverage in eastern tropical Queensland during part of the Pleistocene. Likewise, faunas suggesting open, dry palaeoenvironments are found at Chillagoe, the Broken River and Mount Etna, and may be of similar age. The 'dry' faunal assemblage at Mount Etna (Elephant hole Cave) dates to 205-170 ka. Dating of one of the Chillagoe sites (QML1067) produced a maximum age for the deposit of approximately 200 ka, and the site is interpreted as being close to that age, supporting the interpretation of roughly contemporaneous deposition at Mount Etna and Chillagoe. Finally, study sites interpreted as being of late Pleistocene-Holocene age show faunal similarities to sites of that age near Mount Etna. This study has several important implications for the biogeography and phylogeography of murine rodents, and represents a major advance in the study of the Australian murine fossil record. Likewise the survey of the northern study areas is the first systematic analysis of multiple sites in those areas, and is thus a major contribution to knowledge of tropical Australian faunas during the Quaternary. This analysis suggests that climatic changes during the Pleistocene affected a large area of eastern tropical Queensland in similar ways. Further fieldwork and dating is required to properly analyse the geographical extent and timing of faunal change in eastern tropical Queensland.

Alcohol and other drugs in the Australian construction industry : a pathway for safety focused cultural change

Background: Anecdotal evidence from the infrastructure and building sectors highlights issues of alcohol and other drugs (AODs) and its association with safety risk on construction sites. Currently, there is no clear evidence on the prevalence and risk of AOD use among Australian construction workers and there is limited evidential guidance regarding how to effectively address such an issue. Aims: The current research aims to scientifically evaluate the use of AODs within the Australian construction industry in order to reduce the potential resulting safety and performance impacts and engender a cultural change in the workforce. A nationally consistent and collaborative approach across the workforce will be adopted. Methods: A national assessment of the use of AODs was conducted in participating organisations across three states. The World Health Organisation’s Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) was used to measure alcohol use. Illicit drug use, ‘readiness to change’, impediments to reducing impairment, feasibility of proposed interventions, and employee attitudes and knowledge regarding AOD was also measured through a combination of survey items and interviews. Through an educative approach and consultation with employers, employees, union groups and leaders in applied AOD research, this assessment was used to inform and support cultural change management of AOD use in the industry. Results: Results (n=494) indicate that as in the general population, a proportion of those sampled in the construction sector may be at risk of hazardous alcohol consumption. A total of 286 respondents (58%) scored above the cut-off cumulative score for risky or hazardous alcohol use. Other drug use was also identified as a major issue. Interview responses and input from all project partners is presented within a guiding principle framework for cultural change. Conclusions: Results support the need for evidence-based, comprehensive and tailored responses in the workplace. This paper will discuss the final results in the context of facilitating cultural change in the construction industry.

Climate change and reduction of emissions of greenhouse gases from ships : an appraisal

Article 2(2) of the Kyoto Protocol imposes an obligation only on certain developed countries, working through the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), to pursue the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from marine bunker fuels. The IMO recently took the initiative to adopt a new legal instrument for the reduction of shipgenerated greenhouse gas emissions. Some developing countries have suggested that the proposed IMO initiative should strictly adhere to Article 2(2) of the Kyoto Protocol and the principle of Common but Differentiated Responsibility (CBDR). Against this backdrop, this article intends to review the extent to which it is possible to propose an international legal instrument for the reduction of GHG emissions from marine bunker fuels which is applicable only to ships from developed countries considering the complex characteristics of the international shipping industry. This article also examines how far this approach is justifiable even within the framework of the CBDR principle.

Book Review : Criminological and Legal Consequences of Climate Change. Edited by Stephen Farrell, Tawhida Ahmed and Duncan French (Oxford : Hart Publishing, 272 pp.)

The book addresses a number of pressing social and environmental issues of global concern. It takes the reader on a socio-legal journal of climate change and explores a range of challenging and complex topics including renewable energies, emissions reduction, carbon trading, deforestation, migration and corporate governance.

Identifying and using ehealth phobias to implement communication protocols and change cultural and social behaviours in ehealth

Standardisation of validated communication protocols that aid in the adoption of policies, methods and tools in a secure eHealth setting require a significant cultural shift among clinicians

Living a managed community lifestyle : lessons from Queensland

Purpose - The paper aims to improve consumer awareness of the complexities of community living. It does this by clarifying how living in a managed community is different from a ‘traditional’ neighbourhood; and identifying matters that can become disputes Design/methodology/approach - The paper builds on research by other authors into strata scheme disputes by examining recent Queensland cases. Findings - Many disputes appear to result from a lack of understanding of the complexities of community living. Matters that should be able to be easily resolved are therefore escalated to formal disputes. Research limitations/implications - The paper considers law and cases from Queensland. The types of matters considered, however, are relevant for any managed community and therefore the research is relevant for all jurisdictions. The research will be of particular interest to jurisdictions looking to boost living density by increasing the development of managed communities. Practical implications - The research will assist in consumer transactions by providing guidance as to the matters to be considering prior to moving into a managed community. More informed decision making by prospective residents will lead to a decreased likelihood of disputes arising. Originality/value - The paper is an up-to-date consideration of the issues arising from community living. It highlights the benefits arising from increased consumer awareness of the complexities of community living and the potential for consumer education to reduce the number of disputes.

Synergies and goal conflicts for climate change policy and spatial planning

The purpose of this paper is to identify goal conflicts – both actual and potential – between climate and social policies in government strategies in response to the growing significance of climate change as a socioecological issue (IPCC 2007). Both social and climate policies are political responses to long-term societal trends related to capitalist development, industrialisation, and urbanisation (Koch, 2012). Both modify these processes through regulation, fiscal transfers and other measures, thereby affecting conditions for the other. This means that there are fields of tensions and synergies between social policy and climate change policy. Exploring these tensions and synergies is an increasingly important task for navigating genuinely sustainable development. Gough et al (2008) highlight three potential synergies between social and climate change policies: First, income redistribution – a traditional concern of social policy – can facilitate use of and enhance efficiency of carbon pricing. A second area of synergy is housing, transport, urban policies and community development, which all have potential to crucially contribute towards reducing carbon emissions. Finally, climate change mitigation will require substantial and rapid shifts in producer and consumer behaviour. Land use planning policy is a critical bridge between climate change and social policy that provides a means to explore the tensions and synergies that are evolving within this context. This paper will focus on spatial planning as an opportunity to develop strategies to adapt to climate change, and reviews the challenges of such change. Land use and spatial planning involve the allocation of land and the design and control of spatial patterns. Spatial planning is identified as being one of the most effective means of adapting settlements in response to climate change (Hurlimann and March, 2012). It provides the instrumental framework for adaptation (Meyer, et al., 2010) and operates as both a mechanism to achieve adaptation and a forum to negotiate priorities surrounding adaptation (Davoudi, et al., 2009). The acknowledged role of spatial planning in adaptation however has not translated into comparably significant consideration in planning literature (Davoudi, et al., 2009; Hurlimann and March, 2012). The discourse on adaptation specifically through spatial planning is described as ‘missing’ and ‘subordinate’ in national adaptation plans (Greiving and Fleischhauer, 2012),‘underrepresented’ (Roggema, et al., 2012)and ‘limited and disparate’ in planning literature (Davoudi, et al., 2009). Hurlimann and March (2012) suggest this may be due to limited experiences of adaptation in developed nations while Roggema et al. (2012) and Crane and Landis (2010) suggest it is because climate change is a wicked problem involving an unfamiliar problem, various frames of understanding and uncertain solutions. The potential for goal conflicts within this policy forum seem to outweigh the synergies. Yet, spatial planning will be a critical policy tool in the future to both protect and adapt communities to climate change.

Action for change? Embedding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives in early childhood education curricula

This thesis focuses on non-Indigenous educators’ work around embedding Indigenous perspectives in early childhood education curricula. In place of reporting examples of ‘good’ educational practice, the study questions how whiteness and racism continue to operate in diversity work that is seen to be productive and inclusive. The thesis argues for a more comprehensive framework for embedding Indigenous perspectives in before-school contexts to support educators’ efforts. New strategies for professional development are also suggested to support changes in disciplinary knowledge and pedagogy.

No evidence for change in oviposition behaviour of Helicoverpa armigera (Hubner) (Lepidoptera : Noctuidae) after widespread adoption of transgenic insecticidal cotton

Cotton growing landscapes in Australia have been dominated by dual-toxin transgenic Bt varieties since 2004. The cotton crop has thus effectively become a sink for the main target pest, Helicoverpa armigera. Theory predicts that there should be strong selection on female moths to avoid laying on such plants. We assessed oviposition, collected from two cotton-growing regions, by female moths when given a choice of tobacco, cotton and cabbage. Earlier work in the 1980s and 1990s on populations from the same geographic locations indicated these hosts were on average ranked as high, mid and low preference plants, respectively, and that host rankings had a heritable component. In the present study, we found no change in the relative ranking of hosts by females, with most eggs being laid on tobacco, then cotton and least on cabbage. As in earlier work, some females laid most eggs on cotton and aspects of oviposition behaviour had a heritable component. Certainly, cotton is not avoided as a host, and the implications of these finding for managing resistance to Bt cotton are discussed.

Children as change agents for sustainability : an action research case study in a kindergarten

At a time when global consumption and production levels are 25 percent higher than the Earth’s sustainable carrying capacity, there are worldwide calls to find ways to sustain the Earth for this and future generations. A central premise of this study is that education systems have an obligation to participate in this move towards sustainability and can respond by embedding education for sustainability into curricula. This study took early childhood education as its focus due to the teacherresearcher’s own concerns about the state of the planet, coupled with early childhood education’s established traditions of nature-based and child-centred pedagogy. The study explored the experiences of a class of kindergarten children as they undertook a Project Approach to learning about environmental sustainability. The Project Approach is an adaptation of Chard’s work which is situated within a constructivist theoretical framework (Chard, 2011). The Project Approach involves in-depth investigations around an identified topic of interest. It has three phases: introductory, synthesising and culminating phase. The study also investigated the learning journey of the classroom teacher/researcher who broadened her long-held co-constructivist teaching approaches to include transformative practices in order to facilitate curriculum which embedded education for sustainability. While coconstructivist approaches focus on the co-construction of knowledge, transformative practices are concerned with creating change. An action research case study was conducted. This involved twenty-two children who attended an Australian kindergarten. Data were collected and analysed over a seven week period. The study found that young children can be change agents for sustainability when a Project Approach is broadened to include transformative practices. The study also found that the child participants were able to think critically about environmental and sustainability issues, were able to create change in their local contexts, and took on the role of educators to influence others’ environmental behaviours. Another finding was that the teacher-researcher’s participation in the study caused a transformation of both her teaching philosophy and the culture at the kindergarten. An important outcome of the study was the development of a new curriculum model that integrates and has applicability for curriculum development and teacher practice.

Are we missing opportunities? Understanding health behaviours associated with overweight in pregnancy

While maternal obesity, excess pregnancy weight gain and lifestyle behaviours are associated with future overweight for both mothers and babies, there is limited research on how best to intervene. An evidence base that identifies behavioural influences is crucial to the development of effective interventions. This thesis aims to gain an understanding of maternal behavioural outcomes of healthy eating, physical activity and gestational weight gain (GWG), the psychosocial influences on these and to examine differences according to pre-pregnancy weight status. The New Beginnings Healthy Mothers and Babies Study was a prospective observational study using the PRECEDE-PROCEED model of health promotion planning as a framework. A consecutive sample of 715 women was recruited. Height and weight were measured and women completed questionnaires at approximately 16 and 36 weeks gestation. This thesis presents three chapters of original research across four study domains. While healthy eating was widely regarded as important during pregnancy and had become more so, there was more variability in attitudes towards physical activity. Ninety-two percent of participants achieved the maximum knowledge score relating to the influence of nutrition on pregnancy. However, 8% and 36% respectively knew how many serves of fruit and vegetables should be consumed daily. Six percent of participants met the recommendations for fruit consumption, 4% achieved the recommended vegetable intake and 44% achieved sufficient physical activity. There were few differences between healthy and overweight women for measures of physical activity and healthy eating. Many predisposing, reinforcing and enabling factors with a positive influence on health behaviours were lower in women commencing pregnancy overweight and those factors with a negative influence on health behaviours were higher when compared to healthy weight women. Some of these antecedents to health behaviours that were different according to prepregnancy weight status were associated with diet quality and physical activity. While self efficacy was consistently associated with diet quality and physical activity for both weight groups, other associations between specific predisposing, reinforcing and enabling factors differed with behaviour and weight status group. These results highlight the complexity of supporting behaviour change in a one-size-fits-all approach. Sixty-four percent of participants gained weight outside of recommendations. Compared to healthy weight women, those women who were already overweight at the beginning of pregnancy were more likely to gain too much weight (30% vs 56%, p<0.001). Only 35% of participants reported their correct recommended weight gain. Excess GWG was associated with few predisposing factors, however, these were not consistent between prepregnancy weight status groups. Less than 50% of women reported sometimes/usually/always receiving advice from health professionals relating to healthy eating, physical activity or GWG. These results indicate that there are opportunities to improve the advice and support provided by health care professionals in the antenatal period. Evidence from this PhD research suggests that there is a need for effective prevention and management of excess weight in pregnancy. Effective management of this problem is likely to require a multidisciplinary approach with multi-level strategies. Importantly, the strategies may need to be tailored according to pre-pregnancy weight status. Collectively, the evidence derived from this thesis suggests that opportunities to support healthy lifestyles and prevent future overweight are being missed during pregnancy.

Imagining neighbourhood-based community : an autoethnography

This research is an autoethnographic investigation of consumption experiences, public and quasi-public spaces, and their relationship to community within an inner city neighbourhood. The research specifically focuses on the gentrifying inner city, where class-based processes of change can have implications for people’s abilities to remain within, or feel connected to place. However, the thesis draws on broader theories of the throwntogetherness of the contemporary city (e.g., Amin and Thrift, 2002; Massey 2005) to argue that the city is a space where place-based meanings cannot be seen to be fixed, and are instead better understood as events of place – based on ever shifting interrelations between the trajectories of people and things. This perspective argues the experience of belonging to community is not just born of a social encounter, but also draws on the physical and symbolic elements of the context in which it is situated. The thesis particularly explores the ways people construct identifications within this shifting urban environment. As such, consumption practices and spaces offer one important lens through which to explore the interplay of the physical, social and symbolic. Consumer research tells us that consumption practices can facilitate experiences in which identity-defining meaning can be generated and shared. Consumption spaces can also support different kinds of collective identification – as anchoring realms for specific cultural groups or exposure realms that enable individuals to share in the identification practices of others with limited risk (Aubert-Gamet & Cova, 1999). Furthermore, the consumption-based lifestyles that gentrifying inner city neighbourhoods both support and encourage can also mean that consumption practices may be a key reason that people are moving through public space. That is, consumption practices and spaces may provide a purpose for which – and spatial frame against which – our everyday interactions and connections with people and objects are undertaken within such neighbourhoods. The purpose of this investigation then was to delve into the subjectivities at the heart of identifying with places, using the lens of our consumption-based experiences within them. The enquiry describes individual and collective identifications and emotional connections, and explores how these arise within and through our experiences within public and quasi-public spaces. It then theorises these ‘imaginings’ as representative of an experience of community. To do so, it draws on theories of imagination and its relation to community. Theories of imagined community remind us that both the values and identities of community are held together by projections that create relational links out of objects and shared practices (e.g., Benedict Anderson, 2006; Urry, 2000). Drawing on broader theories of the processes of the imagination, this thesis suggests that an interplay between reflexivity and fantasy – which are products of the critical and the fascinated consciousness – plays a role in this imagining of community (e.g., Brann, 1991; Ricoeur, 1994). This thesis therefore seeks to explore how these processes of imagining are implicated within the construction of an experience of belonging to neighbourhood-based community through consumption practices and the public and quasi-public spaces that frame them. The key question of this thesis is how do an individual’s consumption practices work to construct an imagined presence of neighbourhood-based community? Given the focus on public and quasi-public spaces and our experiences within them, the research also asked how do experiences in the public and quasi-public spaces that frame these practices contribute to the construction of this imagined presence? This investigation of imagining community through consumption practices is based on my own experiences of moving to, and attempting to construct community connections within, an inner city neighbourhood in Melbourne, Australia. To do so, I adopted autoethnographic methodology. This is because autoethnography provides the methodological tools through which one can explore and make visible the subjectivities inherent within the lived experiences of interest to the thesis (Ellis, 2004). I describe imagining community through consumption as an extension of a placebased self. This self is manifest through personal identification in consumption spaces that operate as anchoring realms for specific cultural groups, as well as through a broader imagining of spaces, people, and practices as connected through experiences within realms of exposure. However, this is a process that oscillates through cycles of identification; these anchor one within place personally, but also disrupt those attachments. This instability can force one to question the orientation and motives of these imaginings, and reframe them according to different spaces and reference groups in ways that can also work to construct a more anonymous and, conversely, more achievable collective identification. All the while, the ‘I’ at the heart of this identification is in an ongoing process of negotiation, and similarly, the imagined community is never complete. That is, imagining community is a negotiation, with people and spaces – but mostly with the different identifications of the self. This thesis has been undertaken by publication, and thus the process of imagining community is explored and described through four papers. Of these, the first two focus on specific types of consumption spaces – a bar and a shopping centre – and consider the ways that anchoring and exposure within these spaces support the process of imagining community. The third paper examines the ways that the public and quasi-public spaces that make up the broader neighbourhood context are themselves throwntogether as a realm of exposure, and considers the ways this shapes my imaginings of this neighbourhood as community. The final paper develops a theory of imagined community, as a process of comparison and contrast with imagined others, to provide a summative conceptualisation of the first three papers. The first paper, chapter five, explores this process of comparison and contrast in relation to authenticity, which in itself is a subjective assessment of identity. This chapter was written as a direct response to the recent work of Zukin (2010), and draws on theories of authenticity as applied to personal and collective identification practices by consumer researchers Arnould and Price (2000). In this chapter, I describe how my assessments of the authenticity of my anchoring experiences within one specific consumption space, a neighbourhood bar, are evaluated in comparison to my observations of and affective reactions to the social practices of another group of residents in a different consumption space, the local shopping centre. Chapter five also provides an overview of the key sites and experiences that are considered in more detail in the following two chapters. In chapter six, I again draw on my experiences within the bar introduced in chapter five, this time to explore the process of developing a regular identity within a specific consumption space. Addressing the popular theory of the cafe or bar as third place (Oldenburg, 1999), this paper considers the purpose of developing anchored relationships with people within specific consumption spaces, and explores the different ways this may be achieved in an urban context where the mobilities and lifestyle practices of residents complicate the idea of a consumption space as an anchoring or third place. In doing so, this chapter also considers the manner in which this type of regular identification may be seen to be the beginning of the process of imagining community. In chapter seven, I consider the ways the broader public spaces of the neighbourhood work cumulatively to expose different aspects of its identity by following my everyday movements through the neighbourhood’s shopping centre and main street. Drawing on the theories of Urry (2000), Massey (2005), and Amin (2007, 2008), this chapter describes how these spaces operate as exposure realms, enabling the expression of different senses of the neighbourhood’s spaces, times, cultures, and identities through their physical, social, and symbolic elements. Yet they also enable them to be united: through habitual pathways, group practices of appropriation of space, and memory traces that construct connections between objects and experiences. This chapter describes this as a process of exposure to these different elements. Our imagination begins to expand the scope of the frames onto which it projects an imagined presence; it searches for patterns within the physical, social, and symbolic environment and draws connections between people and practices across spaces. As the final paper, chapter eight, deduces, it is in making these connections that one constructs the objects and shared practices of imagined community. This chapter describes this as an imagining of neighbourhood as a place-based extension of the self, and then explores the ways in which I drew on physical, social, and symbolic elements in an attempt to construct a fit between the neighbourhood’s offerings and my desires for place-based identity definition. This was as a cumulative but fragmented process, in which positive and negative experiences of interaction and identification with people and things were searched for their potential to operate as the objects and shared practices of imagined community. This chapter describes these connections as constructed through interplay between reflexivity and fantasy, as the imagination seeks balance between desires for experiences of belonging, and the complexities of constructing them within the throwntogether context of the contemporary city. The conclusion of the thesis describes the process of imagining community as a reflexive fantasy, that is, as a product of both the critical and fascinated consciousness (Ricoeur, 1994). It suggests that the fascinated consciousness imbues experiences with hope and desire, which the reflexive imagining can turn to disappointment and shame as it critically reflects on the reality of those fascinated projections. At the same time, the reflexive imagination also searches the practices of others for affirmation of those projections, effectively seeking to prove the reality of the fantasy of the imagined community.

Standing brave in the face of rapid curriculum change : EAL/D teachers speak about critical literacy and its place in senior English teaching

Critical literacy (CL) has been the subject of much debate in the Australian public and education arenas since 2002. Recently, this debate has dissipated as literacy education agendas and attendant policies shift to embrace more hybrid models and approaches to the teaching of senior English. This paper/presentation reports on the views expressed by four teachers of senior English about critical literacy and it’s relevance to students who are from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds who are learning English while undertaking senior studies in high school. Teachers’ understandings of critical literacy are important, esp. given the emphasis on Critical and Creative Thinking and Literacy as two of the General Capabilities underpinning the Australian national curriculum. Using critical discourse analysis, data from four specialist ESL teachers in two different schools were analysed for the ways in which these teachers construct critical literacy. While all four teachers indicated significant commitment to critical literacy as an approach to English language teaching, the understandings they articulated varied from providing forms of access to powerful genres, to rationalist approaches to interrogating text, to a type of ‘critical-aesthetic’ analysis of text construction. Implications are also discussed.