Understanding Isolation and Change in Island Human Populations through a study of Indigenous Cultural Patterns in the Gulf of Carpentaria

This paper presents a set of hypotheses to explain the cultural differences between Aboriginal people of the North and South Wellesley Islands, Gulf of Carpentaria and to characterise the relative degree and nature of their isolation and cultural change over a 10,000-year time-scale. This opportunity to study parallelisms and divergences in the cultural and demographic histories of fisher-hunter-gatherers arises from the comparison of three distinct cultural groupings: (a) the Ganggalida of the mainland, (b) the Lardil and Yangkaal of the North Wellesley Islands, and (c) the Kaiadilt of the South Wellesley Islands. Despite occupying similar island environments and despite their languages being as closely related as for example, the West Germanic languages, there are some major differences in cultural, economic and social organization as well as striking genetic differences between the North and South Wellesley populations. This paper synthesizes data from linguistics, anthropology, archaeology, genetics and environmental science to present hypotheses of how these intriguing differences were generated, and what we might learn about early processes of marine colonization and cultural change from the Wellesley situation.

The impact of leadership and change management strategy on organizational culture and individual acceptance of change during a merger

This article reports a longitudinal study that examined mergers between three large multi-site public-sector organizations. Both qualitative and quantitative methods of analysis are used to examine the effect of leadership and change management strategies on acceptance of cultural change by individuals. Findings indicate that in many cases the change that occurs as a result of a merger is imposed on the leaders themselves, and it is often the pace of change that inhibits the successful re-engineering of the culture. In this respect, the success or otherwise of any merger hinges on individual perceptions about the manner in which the process is handled and the direction in which the culture is moved. Communication and a transparent change process are important, as this will often determine not only how a leader will be regarded, but who will be regarded as a leader. Leaders need to be competent and trained in the process of transforming organizations to ensure that individuals within the organization accept the changes prompted by a merger.

Lessons from the National Mental Health Integration Program

Three projects were funded under the national Mental Health Integration Program (MHIP) in 1999, each of which employed a different model aimed at improving linkages between disparate parts of the mental health system. A national evaluation framework guided local evaluations of these projects, and this paper presents a synthesis of the findings. For providers, the projects improved working relationships, created learning opportunities and increased referral and shared care opportunities. For consumers and carers, the projects resulted in a greater range of options and increased continuity of care. For the wider system, the projects achieved significant structural and cultural change. Cost-wise, there were no increases in expenditure, and even some reductions. Many of the lessons from the projects (and their evaluations) may be generalised to other mental health settings and beyond.

Kurturawniaiwak (Badu) and the archaeology of villages in Torres Strait.

Despite more than 30 years of archaeological research, not a single detailed site report has ever been published for a village site in Torres Strait. This paper presents the results of small-scale excavations at the 700 year old village of Kurturniaiwak on Badu island in mid-western Torres Strait. It represents the first in an ongoing series of systematic excavations of village sites in this part of Torres Strait. Initial results support conclusions of major socio-cultural change for the region as recently proposed by McNiven, and indicate that a major reconfiguration of settlement-subsistence-ritual systems probably took place in western Torres Strait sometime between 600 and 800 years ago.

The changing nature and role of the head of department

There is little doubt that devolution of responsibility to schools and the growth of school-based management have impacted upon the role and workload of school leaders. Not only Principals have been affected by these changes as Welch (1996) argues that Principals of public secondary schools have passed responsibility down to Deputy-principals and to Heads of Department. As such, the Head of Department role, like other school administration positions, has undergone significant change. Of interest to this paper is the changing role of Heads of Department in secondary schools. This study reports on the findings of semi-structured interviews with eight Heads of Department from four public secondary schools and Principals from each of these schools in South East Queensland. Four years after the first set of interviews, two heads of department were reinterviewed. Both sets of interviews focused upon the role, change, and the importance of leadership. The research generated eight specific themes each of which was considered consistent with the nature of the role in a period of significant cultural change. These were the difference in perceptions regarding the Head of Department role, held by Principals and Heads of Department; Head of Department leadership in terms of a curriculum framed department or whole school leadership; how individuals perceived leadership, and how they learned of leadership; the impact of the changing culture upon the individual Head of Department; the growing influence of situational factors upon the role; the impact of managerialism; the changing nature of a secondary school department; and a growing and more complex workload, and the need for different skills. Furthermore, the findings pointed towards the need for effective change processes and a reconceptualized head of department role. The paper concludes with some implications for the ongoing professional development needs of Heads of Department.

Ambivalent 'selves': Japanese women's diasporic experiences in Australian higher education

In an age of globalisation and internationalisation, how women learn to represent themselves in terms of their cultural, social and gender identities in the wider world is significant. A group of 17 Japanese women studying in postgraduate courses in three Australian universities were interviewed for part of this longitudinal project, and their case studies are presented in this paper to portray the women's lived experiences and interpret how higher education overseas affects their reconstruction of their 'selves' and traditional Japanese femininity. I set my analytic framework through a discussion of the forceful globalisation of higher education and discourses of identity and 'self', and then analyse the present status of Japanese women in contemporary Japan. I then provide excerpts of the women's narratives which indicate ambivalent 'selves' in transition. Two possibilities have arisen from their narratives to illuminate this ambivalence - one possibility is that women's positive experiences in Australia and their increased and diverse exposure to and experience of other cultures may influence cultural change such as the transformation of constructs of women at home, and challenge existing identity and femininity discourses in Japan. The second possibility is that negative aspects of their 'diasporic experiences' can also articulate other complex identity politics, such as Japanese women's 'double marginalisation' which means being both a woman and a member of an ethnic minority group, conflicts between the homogenisation of 'Asian women' and representations of 'new Japanese women', and their sense of belongingness to their original culture. These contradictory phenomena of identity formations within Japanese women have the potential to shift the debate and challenge current essentialist views of hegemonic homogenisation of regional identities.

Cattle, crops and clearing: Regional drivers of landscape change in the Brigalow Belt, Queensland, Australia, 1840-2004

Landscape change occurs through the interaction of a multitude of natural and human driving forces at a range of organisational levels, with humans playing an increasingly dominant role in many regions of the world. Building on the current knowledge of the underlying drivers of landscape change, a conceptual framework of regional landscape change was developed which integrated population, economic and cultural values, policy and science/technology. Using the Southern Brigalow Belt biogeographic region of Queensland as a case study, the role of natural and human drivers in landscape change was investigated in four phases of settlement since 1840. The Brigalow Belt has experienced comparable rates of vegetation clearance over the past 50 years to areas of tropical deforestation. Economic factors were important during all phases of development, but the five regional drivers often acted in synergy. Environmental constraints played a significant role in slowing rates of change. Temporal trends of deforestation followed a sigmoidal curve, with initial slow change accelerating though the middle phases then slowing in recent times. Future landscape management needs to take account of the influence of all the components of the conceptual framework, at a range of organisational levels, if more ecologically sustainable outcomes are to be achieved. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Voices of lay principals: Promoting a Catholic character and culture in schools in an era of change

This paper reports a qualitative study of the practice of leadership in Catholic schools to ascertain the perceptions of lay principals, who as positional leaders play a critical role in embracing and creatively rebuilding the Catholic vision of life within the reality that the Catholic school principalship is now a ministry of the laity. The methodology included semi-structured interviews, field notes, reflexive journals, direct observation, and document nalysis. The study examined both individual human behaviour and the structure of the social order in Catholic schools. The findings point towards successful leadership in Catholic schools being highly influenced by the cultural and spiritual capital that a principal brings to a school signifying a fundamental importance of appointing principals who are not only professionally competent but spiritually as well. In an era of unprecedented social, educational and ecclesial change, and with an ever widening role description, lay principals are challenged to redefine and re-articulate their Catholic character and identity, and will need to look for new ways to make this explicit. Embracing a new leadership paradigm of shared leadership, the preparation and on-going formation of lay principals were identified as critical for the continuance of the Catholic school’s distinctive mission in the future.