Diamond Dialogue method for the evaluation of personal well-being after a maternal health intervention in Lao PDR

This paper follows the genesis of an evolving tool to measure the impact of development interventions on personal well-being in non-literate and non-numerate communities. The Diamond Dialogue was adapted to evaluate the impact on women of the establishment of 17 one stop maternity waiting home/health promotion/income generating centres (Silk Homes) in Southern Lao PDR. The tool elicited data not accessible by research methods which assume literacy and numeracy and revealed that 86% of women who used the Silk Homes experienced substantial improvements in quality of life. The Diamond Dialogue can be modified to assess the outcomes of development interventions in a myriad of contexts.

Mana Taonga and the public sphere: a dialogue between indigenous practice and Western theory

Recent re-conceptualizations of the ‘public sphere’ facilitated a much needed shift in thinking about identity politics ‘from a substance … to a movement’ (Weibel and Latour, 2007). This laid the foundation for dissolving the ‘emanatist vision’ (Bourdieu, 1990) of self-explanatory and perpetual systems and structures towards the interrogation of actions and performances that simultaneously constitute and are affected by such wider socio-political realities. Most academic contributions, however, remain on a normative or theoretical level without offering empirical insights.

This article introduces Mana Taonga as an Indigenous Māori concept of cultural politics embedded in current museum practice at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (Te Papa). It creates a dialogue between Indigenous Māori practice and Western theory leading to a refined understanding of performative democracy within a museum as forum, or public sphere. The authors argue that a specific museum offers a particular place, space and empirical reality to interrogate seemingly universal concepts such as ‘culture’ and ‘politics’ by blending theoretical notions with an awareness of institutional contexts and practices.

24 tweets per second: a dialogue on Jorge Lorenzo’s On the Road by Jack Kerouac

Jorge Lorenzo Flores Garza’s On the Road by Jack Kerouac had its Australian premiere in July this year at the Walker Street Gallery in Melbourne. It screened as part of the ‘Outside the Outside’ series curated by Dirk de Bruyn and Glenn D’Cruz, and was introduced by Steven McIntyre.

On the Road by Jack Kerouac is the most recent work by Mexican filmmaker Jorge Lorenzo, whose previous 1/48” (2008) was listed in Cahiers du Cinéma’s top 10 most subversive films of all time. Somewhere between a book on a film, and a film of a book, Lorenzo’s work is an exact re-typing of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, made by threading a continuous roll of 35mm negative (like Kerouac’s original scroll) through a Olivetti typewriter.

Queer reparations: dialogue and the queer past of schooling

This article reflects on historical homophobia within educational practice and administration as an effort to consider how we might promote dialogue around the queer past of schooling. Along the way, it provides some discussion of the significance of archival knowledge in helping us to develop an understanding of the past while also providing resources for making sense of the contemporary moment. To develop my argument, I illustrate some examples of historical homophobia, through a brief discussion of some education administration practices in Australia, I then move on to briefly consider some of the implications of historical homophobia, and its effects in relation to educational research, practice and administration today. In the final section of the paper, I discuss some of the ways in which we might address the queer past of education through a cultural politics of queer reparation.

Researching feedback dialogue: an interactional analysis approach

A variety of understandings of feedback exist in the literature, which can broadly be categorised as cognitivist information transmission and socio-constructivist. Understanding feedback as information transmission or ‘telling’ has until recently been dominant. However, a socio-constructivist perspective of feedback posits that feedback should be dialogic and help to develop students’ ability to monitor, evaluate and regulate their learning. This paper is positioned as part of the shift away from seeing feedback as input, to exploring feedback as a dialogical process focusing on effects, through presenting an innovative methodological approach to analysing feedback dialogues in situ. Interactional analysis adopts the premise that artefacts and technologies set up a social field, where understanding human–human and human–material activities and interactions is important. The paper suggests that this systematic approach to analysing dialogic feedback can enable insight into previously undocumented aspects of feedback, such as the interactional features that promote and sustain feedback dialogue. The paper discusses methodological issues in such analyses and implications for research on feedback.

Civil society, democracy and the state in South Korea: a critical dialogue

This review will discuss Hun Joon Kim’s important work on political dissent in the Republic of Korea, The Massacres at Mt. Halla: sixty years of truth-seeking in South Korea (Massacres at Mt. Halla). This book tells the story of the six-decade-long grassroots campaign to establish a truth commission into the events around Jeju 4.3: a series of counterinsurgency actions against armed uprisings that resulted in the large-scale massacre of civilians as well as other atrocities. Political activism looms large in South Korea’s modern political history, making a major contribution to the evolution of democracy in that country. For decades, the main game, and the focus of most academic scholarship, was the establishment of full participatory democracy in the country. Yet, behind the scenes and on the peripheries, many lower profile battles have been fought and the fate of these struggles is in some ways the real test of democracy in South Korea (Republic of Korea or ROK). Drawing together a broad range of primary documentary and interview material, Massacres at Mt. Halla makes a number of important contributions to audiences in Korean Studies, International Relations, and transitional justice. Kim brings to English speakers an unprecedented insight into the uprising, counterinsurgency operations, and activist efforts to bring this chapter of South Korean history to light. Careful archival research is supplemented with detailed personal interview data, the majority of which is in the Korean language and thus previously inaccessible to a wider audience. The value here lies with a detailed narrative that traces grassroots activism from the days of authoritarian government through the varied challenges of a newly democratic nation. In its telling, this story illuminates the ways in which local activism can be derailed or suppressed in a tight security environment. In this case, the backdrop was a political environment strictly managed by the state on the grounds of a fervent anti-communist policy. Anti-communism was in fact the only state-sanctioned ideology, one which had the backing of the ROK’s powerful US military ally. As Kim’s research demonstrates in a clear way, any activism that could be perceived to deviate from this ideology was harshly dealt with. The dawn of progressive government in South Korea in 1997 brought an end to explicit ‘red-baiting’,1 as it was known, but did not overturn altogether the rigid anti-communist structures that had accompanied the development of the modern South Korean state. In the following discussion, I first provide a brief introduction to Kim’s book before focusing my attention in on what Massacres at Mt. Halla tells us about this interaction between national security discourse and civil society activism.

Designing a healthy food partnership: lessons from the Australian food and health dialogue

BACKGROUND: Poor diets are a leading cause of disease burden worldwide. In Australia, the Federal Government established the Food and Health Dialogue (the Dialogue) in 2009 to address this issue, primarily through food reformulation. We evaluated the Dialogue's performance over its 6 years of operation and used these findings to develop recommendations for the success of the new Healthy Food Partnership.

METHODS: We used information from the Dialogue website, media releases, communiqués, e-newsletters, materials released under freedom-of-information, and Parliamentary Hansard to evaluate the Dialogue's achievements from October 2013 to November 2015, using the RE-AIM (reach, efficacy, adoption, implementation and maintenance) framework. We also engaged closely with two former Dialogue members. Our findings update a prior assessment done in October 2013.

RESULTS: Little data is available to evaluate the Dialogue's recent achievements, with no information about progress against milestones released since October 2013. In the last 2 years, only one additional set of sodium reduction targets (cheese) was agreed and Quick Service Restaurant foods were added as an area for action. Some activity was identified in 12 of a possible 137 (9 %) areas of action within the Dialogue's mandate. Independent evaluation found targets were partially achieved in some food categories, with substantial variation in success between companies. No effects on the knowledge, behaviours or nutrient intake of the Australian population or evidence of impact on diet-related disease could be identified.

CONCLUSIONS: The new Healthy Food Partnership has similar goals to the Dialogue. While highly laudable and recognised globally as cost-effective, the mechanism for delivery in Australia has been woefully inadequate. Strong government leadership, adequate funding, clear targets and timelines, management of conflict of interest, comprehensive monitoring and evaluation, and a plan for responsive regulation in the event of missed milestones will be required if the new Healthy Food Partnership is to achieve its urgent public health goals.