Defining national identity? Visiting the architectural spaces of the Museum of Scotland

National Cultures construct identities by producing meanings about the nation with which we can identify, meanings which are contained in the stories which are told about it, memories which connect its present within its past, and images which are constructed of it. A museum, the repository of a nation’s culture, which connects the past to the present through recounting stories about the artefacts of past cultures is clearly significant in representing the culture of a nation.

This paper explores the architectural spaces of the new Museum of Scotland, which opened in Edinburgh in November 1998. The museum has opened at a crucial time in Scottish history. The Scottish cultural renaissance is manifested in the increase in cultural production and call for Scottish cultural institutions. Parallel to this renaissance are political developments with the re-creation of a Scottish Parliament in 1999. When the idea of ‘Scotland’ is itself in a state of flux, the stories of the nation told in the museum, which attempt to give a sense of location, a connection between the individual and the nation are especially important.

Thus, issues of identity and ‘self’ are crucially important in understanding the contemporary museum. Within this, the relations between the production of these narratives and their consumption by the public are little understood. The majority of studies have concentrated, although not exclusively, on the production of museum displays, primarily with the "politics and poetics" of display. This paper analyses the relationship between producer and consumer within the Museum of Scotland, attempting to reconnect the forces of production and consumption. In doing so, it focuses primarily on the differing conceptions of the ability of the Museum to be able to narrate the nation.

Based on interviews both with museum staff and with visitors to the museum, it argues that an understanding of the relationship between the museum and Scottish national identity can only be considered through an understanding of the tension between the producers’ intentions and the way in which consumers conceptualise the museum as a space for "telling the nation".

Football's culture of intoxication : implications for health promotion

Objectives: The objective of this is article is to examine some of the strategies and interventions designed to encourage responsible alcohol consumption within Australian Rules football clubs.
Design: Qualitative research was undertaken with fans of four fans of football teams who compete in the South Australian National Football League (SANFL). In total, 93 interviews were conducted with male (80) and female (13) fans across these clubs. Interview data were thematically analysed with the assistance of the NVIVO software package. To elicit additional insight about the social meanings of drinking, researchers visited football games and a range of social functions.
Results: Analysis of the qualitative data suggests that formal interventions implemented by football clubs often prove ineffectual in encouraging responsible alcohol consumption, with more effective strategies aimed at dissuading heavy drinking being operationalized at an informal level by drinkers themselves through a number of ‘everyday’ or ‘lay’ strategies. Such strategies correspond to the broad analytical categories of ‘keeping safe’, ‘minimising damage’ and ‘taking charge’.
Conclusion: This focus on the role of lay strategies in informing health behaviours makes an important contribution to how we understand health promotion initiatives in relation to harmful drinking in sport and other contexts.

Restructuring teacher education, the national interest and globalisation

This paper argues that the repositioning of Asian countries as new 'centres' for world trade and commerce and the transformation of Australian society and economy to accord with this global consolidation, includes a general restructuring of all levels of Australia's 'education industry' and specifically the (re)forming of its initial teacher and professional-education programmes. The need for such reformation arises in part from the restructuring of the work of teaching based on a broader definition of the people and educational settings that are involved in the teaching/learning process, a reworking of this teaching/learning process, the higher status given to certain substantive areas of study, such as languages other than English, and the management of education along corporatist lines. This paper suggests further that teacher-education programmes should also provide students with the resources to critically analyse these changes, giving consideration to issues such as identity, the impact of new technologies on culture and learning, the use of language in promoting particular discourses, and the repositioning of education as a tool for economic reform.

Cultural landscapes : a bridge between culture and nature?

Cultural landscapes are intended to increase awareness that heritage places (sites) are not isolated islands and that there is an interdependence of people, social structures, and the landscape and associated ecological systems. The paper explores whether the recognition of the 1992 World Heritage Cultural Landscape categories, the IUCN Protected Landscapes and the 2005 merging of cultural and natural criteria for World Heritage purposes have been effective in bridging the gap between culture and nature philosophically and in practice. With particular reference to opportunities presented in the Asia-Pacific region, where traditionally culture and nature are not regarded as separate, people are part of nature, the paper will further critically review the nature–culture link and its implications for North American-style national parks where cultural associations may not be seen to be necessary or even desirable. It suggests the imperative of highlighting and respecting in heritage nominations and inscriptions deep cultural associations of traditional communities with natural sites and implications for management to protect cultural and biological diversity and the need for thematic studies.

A cross-national study of teaching and learning in primary science classrooms

This presentation reports on the methodological issues confronting an Australian-German-Taiwanese team planning comparative video ethnographic research into primary science classrooms. The issues that will be canvassed include: the benefits of cross-cultural comparisons in providing perspectives on local practice, the theoretical justifications of such comparisons, selection of cases for comparison and possibilities for claiming cultural representativeness, the planning of appropriate data sets, the different comparative stories offered by different analytical frames, practical issues of communication and data sharing, and issues of entanglement of language and culture in the analysis.

Culture and violence in Iraq : bombing mosques and ethno-sectarian violence, 2006

Since the invasion of 2003, Iraq has suffered an extraordinary era of both heritage destruction and devastating spikes in violence. While cases such as the 2003 attacks on the Iraq National Museum and the Iraq National Library and Archive, as well as the systematic looting of Iraq’s sensitive archaeological sites, understandably caused outrage among scholars of heritage studies across the world, little attention has been paid to the destruction of Iraq’s many significant Islamic sites – particularly during the ethno-religious sectarian violence that raged across the nation in 2006-7. This paper presents the first results of a three year project funded by the Australian Research Council which aims to empirically test the assumption that a significant relationship exists between this spike in violence and the targeting of sites of Islamic heritage (mosques, shrines, etc.). To do this, the paper will compare and contrast the information in the world’s first database of heritage destruction (created by the author) and existing measures of violence in Iraq (such as the Iraq Body Count database). This will set the precedent for studies of both heritage and violence and enable policy formation towards the minimization of heritage destruction and spikes in violence during times of conflict.

Sickness ruins the complexion, breeding disappears without gold: culture and the i nterpretation of illness among the Minangkabau of West Sumatra, Indonesia

The interpretation of illness and its meaning to individuals and groups is largely a product of culture and is based on shared experience, historical significance, and the social function of individuals in the community. West Sumatra, like many parts of Indonesia, has experienced rapid development and modernization since the nation achieved independence in 1945 and is currently 12 years into Regional Autonomy, a dramatic shift in national administration from a highly centralized system to one which devolved authority to the level of district or municipal government. These changes have brought Indonesians into contact with an increasingly globalized culture and have put pressure on traditional institutions and practices. This is especially significant in the area of health, where considerable tension exists between the allopathic conceptualization of health (as espoused by health care professionals in the formal sector) and traditional interpretations of health that derive from a traditional cultural and linguistic frame of reference. This paper, based on fieldwork in the Indonesian region of Tanah Datar, West Sumatra, describes the impact of cultural and linguistic factors on the interpretation of illness among rural residents and elucidates the growing impact of multiple systems of meaning in local understanding of health.

Uni has a different language … to the real world: demystifying academic culture and discourse for students from low socioeconomic backgrounds

The Australian government has set ambitious targets for increased higher-education participation of people from low socioeconomic backgrounds. There is, thus, a pressing need to explore how best to empower these students with what they require to progress and succeed at university. The paper draws on a literature review and qualitative data from a national study in which 89 students from low socioeconomic backgrounds and 26 staff were interviewed. The paper argues that demystifying academic culture and discourses for these students is a key step institutions and staff can take in assisting students from low socioeconomic backgrounds to progress and succeed at university. A recurring theme to emerge from both the literature and interviews with students and staff was that teaching the discourse empowers and enables students to learn, has a positive impact on their sense of belonging and ultimately helps them succeed in higher education.

Appropriate or appropriate? Strategic considerations when representing indigenous culture in communication design and branding

Appropriate, ethical, respectful depiction and referencing of Indigenous visual iconography has become an important issue around the world - especially when designers and their clients choose to visually represent national identity. This chapter for the book titled, agIdeas Research, Design for Business, highlights the need for governments, the private sector and the design community to show leadership in regard to appropriate representation and engagement with Indigenous knowledge. It is a sensitive area where guidance is needed to assist designers and their clients to engage appropriately with Indigenous culture when required.

Australia’s strategic culture: constraints and opportunities in security policymaking

 This article draws on fourth generation strategic culture debates to show the gap between the rhetoric of Australian defence and the more modest reality. Our analysis shows that these limits derive from tensions between national strategic culture and organizational strategic subcultures. There are serious debates in the nation regarding the preferred course of the Australian military and security policy. This article frames these debates by examining the ‘keepers’ of Australia's national strategic culture, the existence of several competing strategic subcultures, and the importance of norm entrepreneurs in changing defence and national security thinking. Strategic subcultures foster compartmentalization, constraints, and bureaucratic silos that narrow national conceptions of security threats and opportunities, and impinge on the formation of coherent foreign and defence policy in relation to the Asia-Pacific region. This analysis shows that a distinct national strategic culture and organizational strategic subcultures endure beyond individual governments, placing potential limits on Australia's interface with other Asia-Pacific strategic cultures in the future.

Creating a space and place for culture bearers within tertiary institutions: Experiencing East African dance songs in South Africa

This paper highlights the intersections between formal and informal African music and dance within a tertiary setting. Reflective practice, journaling and survey data within case study methodology provide a snapshot of the teaching and learning that took place at North West University in South Africa in October 2012. I argue for the inclusion of informal pedagogy of indigenous musics within the formal context of university courses. The experience provided a pathway to connect local community and university to celebrate the rich diversity of African music and culture. The teaching and learning experiences served as onsite professional development for tertiary students, music staff and myself.

Culture and corporate voluntary reporting: a comparative exploration of the chairperson's report in India and New Zealand

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the cultural underpinnings of accounting practices through a comparative analysis of India and New Zealand, using the chairperson's report, which is increasingly becoming one of the most important segments of the corporate annual report.
Design/methodology/approach – The annual reports of Indian and New Zealand companies from 2001 to 2005 were selected to investigate the extent and nature of information disclosure in their chairperson's report. “Content analysis” is the main methodological orientation of the paper.
Findings – The paper argues that, contrary to propositions based on Hofstede's cultural framework, Indian companies provide more disclosure in their chairperson's report than their New Zealand counterparts. This leads to the conclusion that voluntary disclosure, more generally, is a complex phenomenon and cultural variables alone may not be sufficient predictors of the voluntary disclosure practices of a country.
Originality/value – Using India and New Zealand, two countries with significant cultural differences, according to Hofstede's typology, the paper extends the literature by focusing on the chairperson's report, a more recent accounting phenomenon which is gaining popularity across the globe.

Were the National Socialists a Völkisch Party? Paganism, Christianity, and the Nazi christmas

A trend in studies about National Socialism and religion in recent years argues for a deliberate distinction between the Nazi Party (NSDAP) and the antisemitic völkisch movement of nineteenth-century Germany. This article challenges that contention. Several researchers have published comprehensive studies on the heterogeneous nature of Christian responses to the Nazis, but a comparable approach looking at how the Nazis viewed religion has not yet been undertaken. A study of the latter type is certainly necessary, given that one of the consistent features of the völkisch movement was its diversity. As Roger Griffin has argued, a “striking feature of the sub-culture . . . was just how prolific and variegated it was . . . [T]he only denominator common to all was the myth of national rebirth.” In short, the völkisch movement contained a colorful, varied, and often bewildering range of religious beliefs.