The Popular Education Network of Australia (PENA) and Twenty-First-Century critical education

Drawing on the philosophies and writings of Paulo Freire regarding education as activism, this paper will explore the history and activities of the Popular Education Network of Australia (PENA). The network, founded in 2009, involves educators, academics and community workers, working together on issues relating to critical pedagogy and social change in schools, communities and adult education contexts. Two symposia have been organised on critical education in Australia. In 2010, ‘Teaching and Learning for Social Justice and Action’ was the inaugural gathering. In 2012, ‘Freire Reloaded: Learning and Teaching to Change the World’ featured a diverse range of workshops and Professor Antonia Darder as keynote speaker and observer. Through the perspectives and experiences of five academics involved in PENA, this paper will explore the group’s activities and reflect on the inspiration drawn from the work of Freire, Darder and others. Creating spaces for discussion of critical pedagogy affords opportunities for academics, educators, teachers and activists to reflect on their practice and also leads to further spontaneous networking and planning of action. In this paper we argue that there is continuing importance, in fact urgency, in producing places and spaces for conscientisation to occur, and for examples of critical education to be shared amongst 21st century educators.

The politics of Australia's withdrawal from Iraq

This article examines the complex matrix of public, political and policy debates that were brought to bear on Australia's decision to withdraw from Iraq. In analysing the ‘politics of withdrawal’ in Australia, this article identifies four dominant frames that served to polarise the issue along party-political lines and reduce the complexities of Australia's withdrawal to a set of simple polarities (such as ‘stay the course’ versus ‘responsible withdrawal’). Specifically, these frames obfuscated an assessment of the myriad challenges facing post-Saddam Iraq and the prospects for peace, security and development beyond Australia's withdrawal. Understanding the ways in which Australia framed its decision to disengage from Iraq is critical to further analysis of Australia's approach to current (or future) military draw-downs (such as in Afghanistan), as well as those conducted by other liberal democracies, such as the US and the UK.

Invertebrate diversity of the unexplored marine western margin of Australia: taxonomy and implications for global biodiversity

However derived, predictions of global marine species diversity rely on existing real data. All methods, whether based on past rates of species descriptions, on expert opinion, on the fraction of undescribed species in samples collected, or on ratios between taxa in the taxonomic hierarchy, suffer the same limitation. Here we show that infaunal macrofauna (crustaceans and polychaetes) of the lower bathyal depth range are underrepresented among available data and documented results from Australia. The crustacean and polychaete fauna (only partially identified) of the bathyal continental margin of Western Australia comprised 805 species, representing a largely novel and endemic fauna. Overall, 94.6% of crustacean species were undescribed, while 72% of polychaete species were new to the Australian fauna, including all tanaidaceans, amphipods, and cumaceans, as well as most isopods. Most species were rare, and the species accumulation rate showed no sign of reaching an asymptote with increasing area sampled. Similar data are likely for the largely unexplored bathyal regions. This leads us to conclude that the numbers upon which extrapolations to larger areas are based are too low to provide confidence. The Southern Australian and Indo-West Pacific deep-sea regions contribute significantly to global species diversity. These regions and bathyal and abyssal habitats generally are extensive, but are so-far poorly sampled. They appear to be dominated by taxonomically poorly worked and species-rich taxa with limited distributions. The combination of high species richness among infaunal taxa-compared to better known taxa with larger individuals, higher endemism than presently acknowledged because of the presence of cryptic species, the low proportion of described species in these taxa, and the vast extent of unexplored bathyal and abyssal environments-will lead to further accumulation of new species as more and more deep sea regions are explored. It remains to be tested whether ratios of 10 or more undescribed to described species, found in this study for the dominant taxa and for the deep Southern Ocean and the Indo-West Pacific, are replicable in other areas. Our data and similar figures from other remote regions, and the lack of faunal overlap, suggest that Appeltans et al.'s (Current Biology 22:1-14, 2012) estimate that between one-third and two-thirds of the world's marine fauna is undescribed is low, and that Mora et al.'s (PLoS Biol 9(8):e1001127. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001127, 2011) of 91% is more probable. We conclude that estimates of global species, however made, are based on limited data. © 2014 Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.

Deterrence policies and asylum seekers: the case of Australia

The basic tenets of the international refugee protection regime, set out in the UN's 1951 Convention and the 1967 Protocol, grant individuals the right to seek asylum, but do not provide for laws obliging signatory states to grant asylum. This inherent paradox allows signatory states ongoing manoeuvre to prevent would-be asylum seekers from accessing protection in their territories. To this end, countries of the global north have designed and implemented a range of measures aimed at deterring onshore asylum seekers - privileging border control over refugee protection. This paper examines the effectiveness of deterrence measures taken by Australia. It argues that deterrence measures and attendant political rhetoric are not only contrary to international humanitarian obligations, but obscure empirically grounded understandings of forced migration as a complex social phenomenon, and as such are problematic in terms of meeting their publicly stated objectives of stopping on-shore asylum seeking in the long term.

Problematic identities in women's fiction of the Sri Lankan diaspora

Watkins’ Problematic Identities examines nine novels by women writers of the Sri Lankan diaspora.

The use and abuse of 'community' and 'neighbourhood' within disability research: an exposé, clarification, and recommendation

Almost invariably in the disability literature, the terms 'neighbourhood' and 'community' are used as though they have some commonly understood meaning. They do not, and authors rarely offer a definition. This problem adds opacity to the literature describing people's living environment and the nature of their interaction with others living in the same area. This ambiguity becomes crucial to understanding when these terms are linked to other vague, but emotionally-charged words, such as 'inclusion' or 'integration'. This review presents some of the ways 'neighbourhood' and 'community' may be correctly employed. It also explores the theoretical basis for understanding how and why their use may be misleading. Finally, it is demonstrated that the assumed relevance of neighbourhood participation for life quality has been greatly exaggerated. We recommend that authors carefully define their use of these terms in order to facilitate understanding free from emotional bias.

Our girth is plain to see: an analysis of newspaper coverage of Australia's future 'fat bomb'

The news media plays an important role in making visible and shaping public understandings of health and health risks. In relation to overweight and obesity, it has been suggested that the media is more likely to engage in alarmist reporting in a climate in which it is taken for granted that obesity is an 'epidemic'. This study analyses Australian media coverage of a report on overweight and obesity, Australia's Future 'Fat Bomb': a report on the long-term consequences of Australia's expanding waistline on cardiovascular disease, by one of Australia's leading health and medical research institutes. Our study found that the report was consistently framed across media outlets as showing that Australia is the 'fattest nation' in the world, having overtaken the Americans. This is despite the fact that the Fat Bomb study did not include international comparisons and was based only on data from middle-aged Australians. Because reports of increasing rates of obesity had already been widely covered in the media, the press needed to find a new way of signifying the problem, which was provided by comments made by its lead author in publicising the report. Consistent with previous research, there was a notable absence of critical commentary on the study and a failure to test the claims of its lead author. We conclude that this reporting could have contributed to a policy environment in which the perceived threat of obesity is deemed to be so great that efforts to contain it may be subjected to less scrutiny than they warrant. © 2011 Taylor & Francis.

Trends in referral to outpatient cardiac rehabilitation in the Hunter Region of Australia, 2002-2007

BACKGROUND: Cardiac rehabilitation (CR) is an underutilized evidence-based treatment. We described trends in referral to outpatient CR (OCR) and the factors associated with referral. DESIGN: Cross-sectional survey data provided by Hunter residents aged 20 years or older discharged from public hospitals in the region between 2002 and 2007 with an OCR eligible diagnosis were extracted from the Hunter New England Heart and Stroke Register database. METHODS: Trends in referral were determined using the chi test for trend. Factors associated with referral were examined using multiple logistic regression. RESULTS: Sixty-five percent (4971 of 7678) of patients provided sufficient data for inclusion in the analysis. Approximately half of the patients reported being referred to OCR. No increase over time was observed. Factors associated with referral were age less than 70 years, male sex, being married, urban residence, at least one admission to the tertiary referral hospital for cardiology, at least one admission for acute myocardial infarction, revascularization, no admissions for congestive heart failure, a self-reported history of high cholesterol, and no history of stroke or atrial fibrillation. CONCLUSION: Access to this treatment of proven benefit remained suboptimal despite the provision of new programs and expansion of existing programs. Automatic referral, which is recommended in Australia, should be standard practice.

Shareholder class actions - a critical analysis of the procedure under Part IVA of the Federal Court of Australia Act

Part IVA of the Federal Court of Australia Act 1974 (C’th) governs the class action procedure, which has been available in Australia since March 1992. The procedure was not popular amongst the shareholders until in the late 1990s, and since then the number of shareholder class actions has steadily increased. Many of these shareholder class actions settled before a final court hearing. This article critically examines the class action procedure and in doing so, it highlights the current issues that contribute to a rapid rise in shareholder class actions. The article calls for reform to the class action procedure. It identifies areas for reform in an attempt to improve the position of the group members so that they can receive a better outcome than what they can get under the current class action model.

Louise Lightfoot and Rajkumar Priyagopal Singh: the first Manipuri dance tour of Australia, 1951

Manipur, a small state in the North-Eastern corner of India, is traditionally regarded as the home of gandharvas (the celestial dancers). Manipuri is one of the 11 dance styles recognized by the Ministry of Culture of India that have incorporated various key techniques mentioned in the ancient treatises like the Natya Shastra and Bharatarnava and has been placed under 'a common heritage' called Indian classical dance forms (shastriya nritya) - Bharata Natyam, Kathak, Kathakali, Kuchipudi, Manipuri, Mohiniyattam, Odissi, Sattriya, Chhau, Gaudiya Nritya, and Thang Ta. In 1951 Louise Lightfoot, the 'Australian mother of Kathakali' dance, visited the remote mountain state of Manipur to learn more about Manipuri dance. Soon she was successful in persuading and bringing eminent exponents of Manipuri dancing style Jagoi, Rajkumar Priyagopal Singh and Lakshman Singh, to tour Australia. Priyagopal, with the help of Lightfoot and their international tours, to some extent, de-provincialized and also popularized the Manipuri dance and paved the way for other dancers from North-eastern region of India in the International art world. Through this paper I attempt to highlight the contribution of Lightfoot in the promotion of Manipuri dance and in Australia. I here also engage explicitly with Priyagopal and Lightfoot's unusual dance collaboration and trace the historical journey and reception of a Manipuri dance in Australia. © 2014 © 2014 Taylor & Francis.