Indigenous blood and ethical regimes in the United States and Australia since the 1960s

Blood samples collected from members of indigenous communities in the mid-20th century by scientists interested in human variation remain frozen today in institutional repositories around the world. This article focuses on two such collections-one established and maintained in the United States and the other in Australia. Through historical and ethnographic analysis, we show how scientific knowledge about the human species and ethical knowledge about human experimentation are coproduced differently in each national context over time. Through a series of vignettes, we trace the attempts of scientists and indigenous people to assemble and reassemble blood samples, ethical regimes, human biological knowledge, and personhood. In including ourselves-a U.S. historian of science and an Australian anthropologist-in the narrative, we show how humanistic and social scientific analysis contributes to ongoing efforts to maintain indigenous samples. [indigenous, biospecimens, science, genomics, postcolonial, ethics, cryopreservation].

Neoconservatism as discourse: virtue, power and US foreign policy

Neoconservatism in US foreign policy is a hotly contested subject, yet most scholars broadly agree on what it is and where it comes from. From a consensus that it first emerged around the 1960s, these scholars view neoconservatism through what we call the ‘3Ps’ approach, defining it as a particular group of people (‘neocons’), an array of foreign policy preferences and/or an ideological commitment to a set of principles. While descriptively intuitive, this approach reifies neoconservatism in terms of its specific and often static ‘symptoms’ rather than its dynamic constitutions. These reifications may reveal what is emblematic of neoconservatism in its particular historical and political context, but they fail to offer deeper insights into what is constitutive of neoconservatism. Addressing this neglected question, this article dislodges neoconservatism from itsperceived home in the ‘3Ps’ and ontologically redefines it as a discourse. Adopting aFoucauldian approach of archaeological and genealogical discourse analysis, we trace itsdiscursive formations primarily to two powerful and historically enduring discourses ofthe American self — virtue and power — and illustrate how these discourses produce aparticular type of discursive fusion that is ‘neoconservatism’. We argue that to betterappreciate its continued effect on contemporary and future US foreign policy, we needto pay close attention to those seemingly innocuous yet deeply embedded discoursesabout the US and its place in the world, as well as to the people, policies and principlesconventionally associated with neoconservatism.

Ships, planes and automobiles – the perils and pluses of place - making in an outer Melbourne suburb

Building a new suburb is increasingly seen as creating a “place” as well as a set of houses and neighbourhoods. Developers view “place-making” as a way to differentiate one estate from another and to capture a market segment; planners see the practice as the basis of good master planning. Local governments too support the concept to give residents a sense of pride and identity. While usually seen as a contemporary exercise, imprinted on the blank slate of greenfield sites, the experience of at least one outer suburb suggests that place-making is as much historical as contemporary and may be both a welcome element of a community and a focus of disaffection. The example of Point Cook in Melbourne’s west offers a range of iconic “places” – historical and contemporary markers of identity and difference – which have formed both the basis of local pride but also tension. Thus the RAAF base, Point Cook Homestead and Werribee Mansion long pre-dated the expansion of the city but they have been embraced as centres of pride, historical achievement and as tourist attractions. In contrast, a massive pirate-ship playground built in the centre of a park by a developer as a marker of difference and centre of community attraction was widely appreciated before being burned to the ground! This paper will report on a sample of resident experiences of place-making in outer suburban Melbourne which highlights some of the local complexities of place-making.