Deaf education and underlying structures of power in communication

This article argues that claims of diversity in communication in deaf education are empty rhetoric when underlying structures of power are unexamined and remain unchanged. The field of deafness provides a powerful example of the way in which competing interests can be played out under the guise of choice of communication methods. Historically, teachers of the deaf have been divided about whether deaf children should be educated through speech or sign. However, recognition of the legitimacy of native sign languages has caused a shift in the debate to the linguistic basis of this communication and the way in which language policy privileges one cultural group and its method of communication over another.

It's not only rock and roll: rockumentary, direct cinema and performative display

The documentary form commonly referred to as rockumentary has become, since its inception in the early 1960s, a staple of American direct cinema. In keeping with its associations with observational direct cinema, rockumentary emphasizes showing over telling; that is, rockumentary privileges the visual capacities of documentary over patterns of exposition. While the ‘documentary display’ of rockumentary is comparable to certain features of  the early ‘cinema of attractions’ it exceeds such features in its focus on  performance. Typically, an emphasis within documentary theory on unmediated and unreconstructed access to the real as the basis of documentary film has not admitted a place for notions of performance before the camera. Rockumentary, with its relentless foregrounding of the performing body and the performance of musicians, revises this  understanding. This essay examines rockumentary within the context of direct cinema as a mode centred on a documentary performative display as it operates within selected works from the 1960s to the present. The film theorist Brian Winston has claimed that ‘[d]irect cinema made the rock performance/tour movie into the most popular and commercially viable documentary form thus far.’ The inverse of this assessment may be closer to the mark: the rockumentary turned direct cinema into a commercially and widely available form, one which the rockumentary has at times returned to and superseded in its scopic attention to performative display.

State sovereignty and migration control: the ultimate act of discrimination?

Nations zealously guard their borders and carefully vet migrants. This consigns many people to live in states not of their choice and often diminishes their opportunities and their level of flourishing. In some cases it is the difference between life and death. The practice of imposing migration controls is discriminatory. In fact it is the ultimate form of discrimination: 'super-discrimination.' There is no logical or moral reason why non-nationals of a state should not have the same opportunities and freedoms as nationals in that state. One of the most common forms of discrimination is race - treating a person differently simply because of their place of birth. This is one of the clearest and most repugnant forms of discrimination because the location where a person is born is of course merely a happy or unhappy circumstance over which the individual has no control. An accident of birth should not qualify a person for extra privileges or opportunities. The world is a fairer place if to the maximum extent possible luck is taken out of the process for allocating benefits and burdens - which ought to be distributed on the basis of merit and dessert. This paper examines whether there are sound reasons for restricting the flow of world-wide people movement. The main arguments in favour of this policy, relating to security and national building, are ultimately flawed. This exposes a tragic irony given the great efforts that many Western states - which typically have the strongest migration controls - make to stamp out discrimination at the domestic level, and the vast array of international law anti-discrimination instruments, loudly trumpeted by Western nations. This is hypocrisy nearing its finest. The substratum of sovereign states upon which available international law is built is inherently discriminatory and in fact is probably responsible for more harm as a result of the innately discriminatory immigration policies than results from the cumulative operation of all domestic discrimination. The world should move towards loosening migration controls. This would have an enormous number of humanistic benefits, not the least of which is largely eradicating world hunger and poverty.

Mothers and sons : using memory-work to explore the subjectivities and practices of profeminist men

In this chapter I will outline the application of memory-work to understanding the subjectivities and practices of profeminist men. Profeminism for men involves a sense of responsibility to our own and other men's sexism, and a commitment to work with women to end men's violence (Douglas, 1993). It acknowledges that men benefit from the oppression of women, drawing men's attention to the privileges we receive as men and the harmful effects these privileges have on women (Thome-Finch, 1992). The research was undertaken as my PhD thesis and it began with questions that have been a personal challenge in my search· to understand my place as a white, heterosexual man who is committed to a profeminist position 1. What does it mean to be a profeminist man? What is the experience of endeavoring to live out a profeminist commitment? What do these experiences tell us about reforming men's subjectivities and practices towards gender equality? I believe that men's subjectivity is crucial to the maintenance and reproduction of gender domination and hence to its change. The purpose of the research was thus to theorize men's subjectivities and practices to inform a profeminist men's practice and to enact strategies that will, in themselves, promote the process of change. So the research was driven by practical concerns as well as by the imperatives of intellectual inquiry.

Distance, dialogue and difference : a postpositive approach to understanding distance education in Papua New Guinia

This study focuses on the experiences of a group of educators engaged in a professional development program by distance education in Papua New Guinea. The participants in this study have been keeping professional journals, for periods of up to three years, about their experiences of distance education. Their discourses have been used to form a ‘connected group’ of research participants, who use an action framework to focus on problematic issues surrounding distance education in Papua New Guinea. It is a piece of research, framed by critical theory, and characterised by participation, collaboration, reflexivity, reciprocity and empowerment. The process of the study is based in dialogue, and takes the view that research is constituted of a transformative perspective, which alters the way research participants understand the multiple realities in which they live and work, arid ultimately results in improvements in their lived experiences. The nature of the methodology privileges Voice' and a discourse of difference from each participant which contributes to the problematic nature of the study. The study has concerned itself, increasingly, with issues of power and control in the research process, and this has resulted in significant changes in the research as participants have become more conscious of issues such as distance, dialogue and difference. The study has evolved over a period of time in significant ways, and evidence is available that teachers in Papua New Guinea, despite structural and pedagogical barriers, are critically reflective and are able to transform their practice in ways which are consistent with social, cultural and political contexts in which they live and work. A number of 'local1 theories about research and distance education in Papua New Guinea are developed by the participants as they become informed about issues during the research. The practice of distance education and professional development, at personal and institutional levels, undergoes reconstruction during the life of the research and the study 'signals' other ways in which distance education and professional development may be reconstructed in Papua New Guinea.

Beyond Abrahamism : a fresh reading of the Tanakh traditions respecting Lot, Moab and Ammon

At the heart of this study is my interest in the way in which a religious community establishes its sense of identity and its boundaries in relation to other groups. I explore the case of Israel's attitude towards her eastern neighbours, the Moabites and Ammonites, as portrayed in Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible. Most commentary from the last one hundred years privileges one particular view of Moab and Ammon as traditional enemies of Israel. I aim to show the validity of readings of the biblical accounts that reveal a more complex relationship between Israel and her neighbours. Tanakh exhibits a dialectic between eirenic and hostile viewpoints. The stories of Abraham and Lot, who are presented as ancestors of Israel and of Moab and Ammon, to some degree represent Israel’s understanding of her neighbours. Conventional commentaries take for granted the accepted orthodoxy of Judaism, Christianity and Islam concerning Abraham and his significance in terms of faith and righteousness and blessing and covenant. As none of these notions is specifically linked to Lot at any point, he is treated as a pathetic figure and remains secondary in conventional commentary. Many commentaries denigrate the character of Lot, often in direct comparisons with Abraham. My reading of the texts of Genesis attempts to free the story of Lot from the constraints imposed by the way the story of Abraham functions. A careful reading of the Genesis account shows that Lot and Abraham exhibit similar elements of moral ambiguity, and Genesis contains no statement that condemns Lot on moral or religious grounds. Genesis 19, the single narrative in which Lot appears independently of Abraham, participates in the dialectic elsewhere in Tanakh. On the basis of a consistent pattern of action and speech throughout the first portion of Genesis 19, I advance my own original conception of the eirenic viewpoint of the narrator concerning Lot and his relationship to the divine. I attempt to demonstrate ways in which the story of Lot critiques or deconstructs the dominant ideology centred upon Abraham. My conception of the particular interests of the compiler of Genesis 19 is supported by several intertextual studies. These include the traditions of Sodom and of Zoar, the story of hospitality in Judges 19, the story of the deluge (Genesis 6-9) and stories of women who, like Lot’s daughters, act to continue the family line. In a treatment of the history of Lot traditions, I find evidence to separate the story of Lot from the work of the Yahwist. I consider whether the stories of Lot have a derivation east of the Jordan and whether the stories were of particular interest to the Deuteronomists. In the final chapter of this study, I focus on the main themes of the narratives concerning Lot and Abraham, and Moab and Ammon and Israel. The question of social boundaries arises in regard to many of these themes, such as the interaction of female and male, the role of wealth, the relation of city and country, kinship, and rights to land settlement. In this way, the treatment of Lot and Abraham in Tanakh and in subsequent traditions offers a perspective upon the formation of identity in the contemporary world of religious plurality.

"I tell ya who needs educatin’”: non-Indigenous cultural self-awareness and prisoner education.

Glen says, “current education is colonial; it ain’t ours. I tell ya who needs educatin’, wadjellas”. Glen is a Noongar man who, along with several other Aboriginal adults living in Western Australia, teaches me in a PhD research project about prisoner education from their perspective. His words pose a question for wadjellas like myself who are raised, taught and work in a white neo-colonial society. We have been raised in, taught in and work in a colonial system. As non-Aboriginal people we have unearned privileges which are often invisible and unacknowledged. How then to address the outcomes of this in a way that might lead to working co-operatively alongside Aboriginal people? What kind of ‘educatin’ could teach us about our own unacknowledged privilege and the disadvantage this can lead to for others? Is the standard cross-cultural awareness training enough?This paper shares some of the teachings of Glen and other participants in this research. It expresses the view that, ultimately, the usually unacknowledged legacy of colonisation and associated issue of denied Aboriginal sovereignty lies at the heart of much of the disadvantage experienced by Aboriginal people today when considering education and the prison system. Addressing gaps in non-Indigenous cultural self-awareness by learning from Aboriginal people is an important factor in improving their experiences of education.

Understanding the emerging contemporary public intellectual: Online academic persona and The Conversation

At its core, the power of the public intellectual is the capacity to make ideas move through a culture. This article looks at what kind of academic persona – that is, what kind of public self whose original status comes from intellectual work and thinking – navigates effectively through online culture and communicates ideas in the contemporary moment. Part of the article reports on a research project that has studied academic personas online and explores what can be described as ‘registers of online performance’ that they inhabit through their online selves. The research reveals that public intellectuals have to interpret effectively that online culture privileges what is identified as ‘presentational media’: the individual as opposed to the media is the channel through which information moves and is exchanged online, and it is essentially a presentation of the self that has to be integrated into the ideas and messages. From this initial analysis/categorisation of academic persona online, the article investigates the online magazine The Conversation, which blends journalism with academic expertise in its production of news stories. The article concludes with some of the key elements that are part of the power of the public intellectual online.

Segregation-of-duties conflicts in the insider threat landscape: an overview and case study

Many insider attacks originate from misuse of privileges granted by organizations to their internal employees, contractors or third-party service providers. A fundamental means of ensuring that conflicts of privilege cannot occur is to segregate role allocations in order to ensure that no individual can perform a task from beginning to end. In this paper, we provide background on insider attacks in connection with conflicts in Segregation of Duties, and present the current strategies for preventing and detecting such conflicts. To illustrate how a conflict can occur and what can result, we present an in-depth case study demonstrating a conflict in Segregation of Dutiesin an organization, along with the consequent fraud, and we discuss how it might have been prevented.

Religiosity, citizenship and belonging: the everyday experiences of young Australian Muslims

 Since 11 September 2001 Muslim Diasporas have emerged as objects of anxiety in Western societies. Underlying this (in)security-driven problematisation is the question of whether Muslims living in the West have the capacity to become fully active citizens while maintaining their religious beliefs, rituals and practices. This apprehension has prompted reactionary government programmes, particularly targeting young Muslims. Such responses fail to recognise the societal capacities that practising Muslims possess, including those informed by the ethical precepts of Islamic faith. This paper argues that it is timely to explore expressions of Islamic religiosity as they are grounded in everyday multicultural environments. The paper draws on survey data and interviews conducted with Muslims living in Melbourne, Australia. We take into consideration key variables of age and generation to highlight how young, practising Muslims enact citizenship through Islamic rituals and faith-based practices and traditions. The paper will draw from key findings to argue that these performances provide a foundation for exploring ways of ‘living’ together in a manner that privileges ethics central to Islamic faith traditions.

Resistance and reconstruction: older women talk about childhood sexual abuse

 This research explores personal stories of 16 Australian women aged 57 years and older who have experienced childhood sexual abuse. It privileges their views and examines how they managed the impact during their lives. The project contributes to professional knowledge by developing anti-ageist practices for social work and human services.

Achieving simple, secure and efficient hierarchical access control in cloud computing

Access control is an indispensable security component of cloud computing, and hierarchical access control is of particular interest since in practice one is entitled to different access privileges. This paper presents a hierarchical key assignment scheme based on linear-geometry as the solution of flexible and fine-grained hierarchical access control in cloud computing. In our scheme, the encryption key of each class in the hierarchy is associated with a private vector and a public vector, and the inner product of the private vector of an ancestor class and the public vector of its descendant class can be used to derive the encryption key of that descendant class. The proposed scheme belongs to direct access schemes on hierarchical access control, namely each class at a higher level in the hierarchy can directly derive the encryption key of its descendant class without the need of iterative computation. In addition to this basic hierarchical key derivation, we also give a dynamic key management mechanism to efficiently address potential changes in the hierarchy. Our scheme only needs light computations over finite field and provides strong key indistinguishability under the assumption of pseudorandom functions. Furthermore, the simulation shows that our scheme has an optimized trade-off between computation consumption and storage space.