Green bodies : training environmental educators

In this paper, we examine the “greening” of Outdoor & Environmental Education (OEE) students at an Australian regional university through three lenses: temporal, spatial & material. We are inspired by Grosz’ claim that “bodies are always understood within a spatial & temporal context, & space & time remain conceivable only insofar as corporeality provides the basis for our perception & representation of them” (1995, p. 84). As suggested by Grosz, these lenses are not discrete and, in the course of the paper, their intersections & reciprocity become apparent. We draw on interview responses & observations from a longitudinal cohort study undertaken by Preston in an attempt to trace the regulation and practice of “green” “outdoor Ed” subjectivities in the context of the materialities, time & spaces of this specific course. Grosz, E.A. (1995) Space, Time & Perversion: The Politics of Bodies, New York: Routledge

Dancing the building : movements between bodies and built structures

The thesis elucidates a process by which the layers of perceptions experienced by dancers when using the built environment were developed to create a shared group compositional language.  This study draws on the work of architects, artists and philosphers interested in documenting and analyzing our sensory and affective relations with the built environment.

Fruiting bodies

Managerial share ownership and discretionary accruals in Australia : do independent and executive directors have different incentives?

We examine the relation between managerial share ownership (MSO) and discretionary accruals in Australia. We find a positive relation between MSO and discretionary accruals up to a certain level of MSO followed by a negative relation (inverse U-shaped). We suggest that these unique results are a result of certain Australian institutional features that are markedly different to those in the US and the UK and imply that the ownership-discretionary accruals relation is context specific with the wider corporate governance systems influencing the theorised incentive effects. We also posit that executive directors and independent directors have different ownership-discretionary accruals incentives and report results consistent with this proposition.

Promoting fit bodies, healthy eating and physical activity among Indigenous Australian men : a study protocol

Background: Overall the physical health of Indigenous men is among the worst in Australia. Research has indicated that modifiable lifestyle factors, such as poor nutrition and physical inactivity, appear to contribute strongly to these poor health conditions. To effectively develop and implement strategies to improve the health of Australia’s Indigenous peoples, a greater understanding is needed of how Indigenous men perceive health, and how they view and care for their bodies. Further, a more systematic understanding of how sociocultural factors affect their health attitudes and behaviours is needed. This article presents the study protocol of a communitybased investigation into the factors surrounding the health and body image of Indigenous Australian men.
Methods and design: The study will be conducted in a collaborative manner with Indigenous Australian men using a participatory action research framework. Men will be recruited from three locations around Australia (metropolitan, regional, and rural) and interviewed to understand their experiences and perspectives on a number of issues related to health and health behaviour. The information that is collected will be analysed using modified grounded theory and thematic analysis. The results will then be used to develop and implement community events in each location to provide feedback on the findings to the community, promote health enhancing strategies, and determine future action and collaboration.
Discussion: This study will explore both risk and protective factors that affect the health of Indigenous Australian men. This knowledge will be disseminated to the wider Indigenous community and can be used to inform future health promotion strategies. The expected outcome of this study is therefore an increased understanding of health and health change in Indigenous Australian men, the development of strategies that promote healthy eating and positive patterns of physical activity and, in the longer term, more effective and culturally-appropriate interventions to improve health.

Oh yes, he is hot : female football fans and the sexual objectification of sportsmen’s bodies

The past decade has witnessed a growing focus on the study of women sports fans within the social sciences and related disciplines. Emerging from and responding to the historical marginalization of women in sport and the bias towards the male fan in literature on sports spectatorship, critical research on women spectators serves the valuable function of illuminating “women’s everyday experiences of being a sports fan” (Gosling 2007: 250). This chapter considers one aspect of women’s participation as followers of male sports, namely, the extent to which female fans partake in the sexual objectification of sportsmen. We aim to assess how looking at male athletes in sexually desiring ways impacts on the individual and collective construction of women’s gender and sports fan identities.

Managerial share ownership and operating performance : do independent and executive directors have different incentives?

We investigate the relationship between managerial share ownership (MSO) and earnings as a measure of operating performance in Australia. To mitigate potential earnings management, we also use discretionary accrual adjusted earnings as an alternative measure of performance. We document a negative relation between MSO and performance followed by a positive relation. We suggest that these unique results are an artefact of certain Australian institutional features and imply that the ownership–performance relation is context-specific, with the wider corporate governance systems influencing the theorised incentive effects. We also posit that executive directors and independent directors have different ownership–performance incentives. Our results are consistent with this proposition and suggest that independent directors may be immune to the theorised incentive alignment or entrenchment effects associated with share ownership.

The value of executive director share ownership and discretionary accruals

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relation between the value of executive director share ownership and discretionary accruals.

Design/methodology/approach – This study uses a dataset of 1,173 firm-year observations drawn from 188 Australian listed companies for the period 2000-2006. The analysis is based on multivariate regression analysis and ordinary least square models were used to investigate the relation between the value of managerial ownership and discretionary accruals. The issue of potential endogeneity is addressed by using a simultaneous equation system.

Findings – A negative relation is found between value of managerial share ownership and discretionary accruals at lower levels of value of ownership, which is consistent with the theorised incentive alignment that as the managers commit more resources to their firms, stakeholders impose less contractual constraints specified in terms of accounting numbers and managers make lower accrual adjustments. After a certain level of value of ownership is attained, a positive relations seen, consistent with increased discretionary accrual adjustments associated with stakeholders anticipating managerial entrenchment. Also, it is found that these results are driven by firms with income increasing, as opposed to income decreasing, discretionary accruals.

Practical implications – Shares and options are forming an increasing proportion of executive remuneration that continues to be the subject of much debate amongst regulators and in the media. Showing that the value of share ownership may be an effective internal governance mechanism to help align incentives adds to the debate and has policy implications.

Originality/value – The paper's primary contribution is finding that the value (as opposed to proportion) of share ownership, typically representing a sizeable proportion of managers' undiversified wealth, is a potentially direct driver of theorised incentive alignment and entrenchment effects associated with share ownership.

Racialised bodies encounter the city: 'long grassers' and asylum seekers in Darwin

The visibility of bodies of colour in public space can engender responses of anxiety, insecurity and discomfort in cities with white majority cultures. Such embodied responses that privilege the invisibility of whiteness have effects if they mark Aboriginal people and asylum seekers who arrive by boat as ‘out of place’ in public spaces of Australian cities. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in Darwin, I argue, however, that such white spaces are interrupted by habits of touch, multi-sensory events that contribute to fleshy moments of belonging for these racialised bodies that experience dispossession and displacement. Such belonging emerges from the intertwining fleshiness of bodies in a world where we affect and are affected by other bodies and things.

The paper explores two events held in public spaces of suburban Darwin, a weekly painting activity at a beach reserve that engages ‘Long Grassers’, Aboriginal people who live in open spaces, and a cooking session at a community centre that welcomes asylum-seeker families from a detention centre. Felix Ravaisson's philosophy of habit as virtue and spontaneous practice is a starting point for thinking about how haptic knowledges can provide a nuanced understanding of belonging, encounter and ethical engagement in a racially diverse white settler city.