Tribes and political representation: the case of post-war Iraq

 Ten years have passed since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, and the political scene in Iraq is still blurry. Iraq was promoted to be the democratic example in the Middle East. The US came to Iraq to “create” a democratic system that can be a model for other countries in the region. A major factor in creating such environment is by changing the radical centralised totalitarian regime with a weak state that can give more space to building the civil society in new Iraq (Looney, 2003). Nonetheless, the socio-economic and political indicators of the newly installed political “democratic” system point to notable failures. Apart from poor socio-economic factors, the new political elite has either misused democracy for personal, ethno-sectarian or partisan gains or abused the system to ensure their long lasting presence in the decision making arena. Corruption, disconnection from electorate, poor performance and carelessness of politicians and failing state service provisions have all made citizens question the feasibility of political participation in elections. The electorate seem to have lesser faith in the political parties and blocs whose legitimacy of representation  is at stake. Noticeably, tribes have stepped forward to mobilise people as a non-partisan and independent powerful social structure. They have been active in lobbying the state as well as encouraging their members for active participation. This paper discusses the extent to which Iraqi tribes are involved in political participation. It explores their roles in active citizenship and the way they represent and mobilise their  members. It also probes whether tribes have the influence on shaping the political trajectory in Iraq.

The silent witness: art as a mode of representation of voices and visions of how,as a woman, I build borders and bridges in enacting my identit(ies)

Feminist theorists unveil how women negotiate their identities within complex entanglements of social constructs such as race, ethnicity, religious belief and practices, cultural tradition, and values. Feminist artists use subjective experiences that shape representation and performativity in empowering women to have a ‘voice’. In this paper, I focus on ‘breaking silences’ through series of my artworks (as part of my PhD research) that represent self-narratives as subjectivities of life experiences, contingencies, and cultural shifts through migration transitions as new ways of figuration and reflection on such issues. I look through discourses of gender differences, nomadic subjectivity, and new ways of figurations (Braidotti 2011, 10) and the affect theory (Gregg and Seigworth 2010), and the concept of giving ‘voice’ (Berlant 2011). Such discourses frame how I interrogate and represent my gendered identities.

In the name of the Father : God in Lacan, Judaic or Christian?

This essay challenges the widespread notion that Lacanian psychoanalysis represents a 'Christianing' of psychoanalysis. It argues that Lacanian psychoanalysis brings to psychoanalysis a broadly "Averroist" attitude towards religion which develops out of and transcends Freud's position in Totem and Taboo. For Lacan, religious texts are an invaluable source of pre-psychoanalytic insight or another regal road into the champ Freudien: the dynamic of human beings' desire, in its co-conformity with language and Law. The text focuses on trying to decipher the missing content of the Names of the Father seminar: the seminar that "does not exist" (Miller, 2006) beyond its opening, esoteric and dramatic session. The force of doing this will be to show how much, and how fundamental, the things are that Lacan thinks the bible, and the first Abrahamic monotheism in particular, can teach us about human subjectivity and the instance of the Law that shapes it - insights which go to explain Freud's unmistakable attachment, despite himself, to the civilizational importance of his fathers.

The sexualised body : the cyborg

The word cyborg was created through an amalgamation of the terms cybernetics and organism. The expression was coined during a 1960s NASA conference to describe the internal technological modification of the body. This new term resonated within popular culture and was quickly embraced by science fiction, where the cyborg became a popular character. The image of the cyborg is often hyper-physical and hyper-sexual. The super sexualised woman who can shoot bullets from her breasts is a popular comic book cyborg representation. The Replicants from Riddley Scott’s Blade Runner are other examples of hyper human, super sexualised cyborgs. Increasingly, the future of our physicality is one that is intertwined with technology. Although the image of the cyborg is often exaggerated, it holds within it real future possibilities. This paper argues that cultural anxieties, in relation to the impact of technology on our bodies, can be identified through the cyborg image.

The imagined body – the cyborg

During a NASA conference in the 1960s, the term cyborg was created through an amalgamation of the terms ‘cybernetics’ and ‘organism’. Coined by concert pianist Manfred Clynes and research colleague Nathan Kline to describe the internal technological modification of the body. This new term resonated within popular culture and was quickly embraced by science fiction where the cyborg became a popular character. The image of the cyborg is often hyper-physical and hyper-sexual. The super sexualised woman who can shoot bullets from her breasts is a popular comic book cyborg representation. The Replicants from Riddley Scott’s Blade Runner and Arnold Schwaznegger’s role the Terminator are other examples where the technological and physical combination produces a terrifying hyper humans. Increasingly the future of our physicality is one that is intertwined with technology. Although the image of the cyborg is often an exaggerated character it holds within it real future possibilities. Consider the portable arm wrist communicator from the scifi classic Star Trek. The watch phone communication device was once an object of the imagination but now a reality in the personal mobile phone. This paper argues that through imagined imagery of the cyborg, future possibilities can be seen.

One example of the image of the cyborg representing possible human futures is the performance work Cyborpyg. Cyborpyg is a 40-minute contemporary dance work that integrates three dimensional (3D) animation and video media within the performance. Projected 3D animated prosthetic limbs appear to extend the dancers from within. These digital limbs integrate with dancer’s bodies transforming them into cyborgs. The animations are an extreme form of aesthetic modification reflecting the possible consequences of the integration of technology within the body. Cyborpyg also explores both utopic and dystipic themes within the cyborg paradigm. The dancing hybrid bodies perform magical feats not possible with an unmodified body. Feet twist into talons and flippers, eyes extend from the head, arms transform into robotic attachments. The dancer’s bodies also appear trapped in an unrelenting environment with prosthesis that appear to torture and inflict serious harm. This paper explores the idea that the imagined image of the cyborg reflects future possibilities for the human physicality.

The relationship between performing media and lives on stage

The purpose of this paper is to consider when technology and media’s use in theatre can be described as a co-player with actors on stage. This will be investigated specifically within the realm of ‘dramatic theatre’, which has historically been the domain of live human actors that play characters in a closed fictional world driven by a dramatic text.

The artist in a networked society

Artists are under pressure from two conflicting sets of sociocultural expectations. On the one hand, they are expected to conform to the historically grounded myth of the artist as heroic genius. On the other hand, they must meet the expectations of the state (plus ensure their own survival) as economic contributors. One way  that these conflicting pressures are managed by artists working within the traditional art world is by separating the creator from the labourer through the use of intermediaries such as dealer galleries, critics, publishers and agents. This allows the artist to symbolically distance themselves from the economic structures that allow them to continue to work. However, for those artists working outside of these systems of support, legitimization and representation, the positioning of the individual as ‘artist’ becomes a much more complex task.

The construction of artists persona in online spaces can be seen most clearly in those artists who operate outside of the traditional art world. Lacking the symbolic distance between the economic producer and the bohemian, mythical genius, these individual artists instead negotiate a place to stand in direct relation to  their audience of fans, followers and audiences. Using examples from a range of fringe, alternative or counter-culture creative practice, this paper investigates artistic persona by linking the artist myth, economic considerations, and networked society to explore current presentation strategies. 

Haptic-based color representation framework

In this paper we propose a novel technique to associate color RGB dimensions into other dimensions that can be explored Haptically. These dimensions will be the force, vibration and geometric representation. The color association between the color information and the other modalities will be called the Haptic-Color Palette. This is of great importance for visually impaired and color blind persons to get access to media in which colors play a great role, such as artwork. The proposed color conversion technique is based on the human perception and interpretations of colors.

The future of the past: digital media in Holocaust museums

This essay critically examines the implications of digital media for the remembrance of the Holocaust in contemporary museum spaces, a development that has seen fundamental shifts in thinking around agency, education and entertainment. Expanding existing discussions of this issue into the Australian context, the essay takes as its central case study the design and integration of interactive StoryPod screen media in Melbourne’s Jewish Holocaust Centre. Addressing both the limitations and potentialities of interactive digital technologies for facilitating visitor-viewers’ engagement with survivor stories, the analysis highlights that digital media can be used to complement and enhance – rather than replace – traditional artefact and photographic displays, and will play an integral role in the Holocaust museums of the future.

De novo assembly and characterization of the invasive Northern Pacific Seastar transcriptome

Invasive species are a major threat to global biodiversity but can also serve as valuable model systems to examine important evolutionary processes. While the ecological aspects of invasions have been well documented, the genetic basis of adaptive change during the invasion process has been hampered by a lack of genomic resources for the majority of invasive species. Here we report the first larval transcriptomic resource for the Northern Pacific Seastar, Asterias amurensis, an invasive marine predator in Australia. Approximately 117.5 million 100 base-pair (bp) paired-end reads were sequenced from a single RNA-Seq library from a pooled set of full-sibling A. amurensis bipinnaria larvae. We evaluated the efficacy of a pre-assembly error correction pipeline on subsequent de novo assembly. Error correction resulted in small but important improvements to the final assembly in terms of mapping statistics and core eukaryotic genes representation. The error-corrected de novo assembly resulted in 115,654 contigs after redundancy clustering. 41,667 assembled contigs were homologous to sequences from NCBI's non-redundant protein and UniProt databases. We assigned Gene Ontology, KEGG Orthology, Pfam protein domain terms and predicted protein-coding sequences to > 36,000 contigs. The final transcriptome dataset generated here provides functional information for 18,319 unique proteins, comprising at least 11,355 expressed genes. Furthermore, we identified 9,739 orthologs to P. miniata proteins, evaluated our annotation pipeline and generated a list of 150 candidate genes for responses to several environmental stressors that may be important for adaptation of A. amurensis in the invasive range. Our study has produced a large set of A. amurensis RNA contigs with functional annotations that can serve as a resource for future comparisons to other echinoderm transcriptomes and gene expression studies. Our data can be used to study the genetic basis of adaptive change and other important evolutionary processes during a successful invasion.

The role of internal action representations in motor development

This research suggests that internal ‘neural’ action representations may subserve the development of important motor functions and, where impaired or delayed, may be associated with atypical function. This knowledge provides critical validation of current motor control theories and is central to our understanding of the neuro-cognitive basis of motor development.

An Analysis of preschool children’s involvement in dramatic play.

The outcomes of this research revealed that dramatic play is a significant activity of children’s involvement while at preschool. Specifically, the findings show that educators have a crucial role to support children in dramatic play. The findings have implications for early childhood pedagogy, professional learning and pre-service training.

Elections and representations in local government: A Victorian case study

This article examines the application of different views of representation in the electoral systems at local government level: interest, corporate and mirror representation. The electoral framework underpins the process of representation, influencing both who are eligible to become voters and how their votes are collected and counted. The paper examines the  interrelationship between representation and the electoral framework in local government in Victoria. We use a historical analysis, and identify a long period of interest representation; a short, relatively recent period of corporate representation; and an attempt to introduce some elements of mirror representation. We conclude by arguing that local electoral reform needs to take into account the multiple meanings of representation.

A mechanism to end conflict in Aceh

On 15 August 2005, the Government of Indonesia and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) signed an agreement to end almost 30 years of conflict between them over claims to independence. After a series of failed ceasefires, this was the first comprehensive peace agreement, and contained within it the potential to settle the political and economic claims that fuelled a desire for separation in Aceh. The talks that led to the peace agreement followed the devastating tsunami of 26 December 2004, which killed over 100,000 people in Aceh, and an escalated military campaign by the Indonesian military against GAM forces. The talks were brokered by an international mediation organisation and supported by the European Union (EU). Despite some opposition within Jakarta, the talks were ultimately successful, producing an agreement that addressed many of the fundamental concerns of the Acehnese, especially around economic redistribution and local political representation. The EU agreed to monitor the agreement by sending a 200 strong Aceh Monitoring Mission (AAM), supported by monitors from ASEAN states. The main purpose of the AMM was to oversee the decommissioning of GAM weapons and the withdrawal of most Indonesian troops and police. It was thereafter expected to retain a smaller presence in order to monitor the implementation of other aspects of the agreement. The Aceh peace agreement faced a number of hurdles, including whether or not the Indonesian military would work to undermine the peace agreement, and over the continuing presence in Aceh of the military’s proxy militias. There were also concerns that the legislation required to secure aspects of the peace agreement might not be passed by the Indonesian legislature or would be diluted to the point that they would no longer be acceptable to GAM. However, as a politically negotiated agreement to end the conflict, the peace agreement was seen as establishing the model for peace in the region, and was touted by some observers as providing the basis for a model for peace in other parts of Indonesia’s sometimes troubled archipelago.

Of personalities and personae: a French victory for film producers and authors

The international medium of film poses many challenges for authors and copyright owners. So do the practices of the advertising industry. Each jurisdiction approaches these challenges differently. In a recent French decision three issues that are of interest in Australia were discussed – the copyright status of a literary or dramatic character, the use of such a persona in character merchandising, and the moral right of film directors to control the exploitation of the persona. This article examines the 2004 decision of the Paris Court of Appeal in the matter of the film “The Fifth Element”. It compares the protection offered to author and copyright owner under French law with the protection offered by Australian legislation and common law.