A missing peace? The role of religious actors in countering terrorism

Despite the surge of scholarly interest in terrorism and counter-terrorism in the post-9/11 world, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the role of religious actors (especially faith communities and faith leaders) in combating the threat of terrorism. However, the resurgence of religiosity in contemporary politics should not be viewed as an inherently dangerous force. As Appleby has argued, a new secular-religious model of inter and intra-state diplomacy looms as a development with significant potential to resolve conflict and deny terrorist groups access to communities of support. By drawing on an Australian example, we argue that in societies that have a strong multicultural and multifaith character secular-religious diplomacy pitched at the national and sub-national level can play an important role in the formation of a flexible long-term counterterrorism strategy.

Intractable or indomitable? How indigenous policy actors issues alive and contested

This is a report on the Australian news media and indigenous policymaking 1988-2008 ARC Discovery Project.

Teaching and learning in the crucible: Actors with disabilities as experts preparing pre-service teachers to be inclusive educators

Dorothy Heathcote understood teaching and learning to take place in a kind of ‘crucible’ in which participants, who are both teachers and learners, contribute to the mix sometimes resulting in a radical transformation. This paper reports the ways Heathcote’s ideas have influenced both research and practice in the Teaching for Diversity workshop - a drama workshop that brings together pre-service teachers, teacher educators and actors from Fusion Theatre, a community-based theatre company for people with intellectual disabilities.

Thai cyber-actors : evidence of an Islamophobic effect

The long-standing Patani Muslim separatist resistance of Southern Thailand is not one that is well known, and its contemporaneous spill over onto the Internet even less so. The more radical Patani online propaganda is in fact symptomatic of the relocation of the struggle within the sphere of influence of global jihadism, distancing itself from the ethno-nationalism characteristic of a previous generation of fighters. New media propaganda, in particular Jihad 2.0, has opened a new sphere of influence to the Patani neojihadist movement, allowing the militants to expand their propaganda campaign to a wider audience, while reaching out to a younger Melayu public. While Jihad 2.0 has presented the resistance movement with new ways to diffuse its message, in a more innovative and appealing manner, it also has enabled it to engage with its audiences more interactively. Because the message is no longer linear, anyone can contribute to the dialectics of the struggle, which in fine results in the alteration and reshaping of its ideological discourse in unprecedented directions. Arguably the ‘glocalisation’ of Islamophobia within Thai culture has resulted in the alteration of the Thai cultural stereotype of the Muslim khaek ‘Other’, transforming the khaek into an evil violent Muslim, both in real and virtual worlds. This further leads to discriminatory attitudes and behaviours towards Muslims, which causes the hardening of the views of the online Patani community of support towards the Thais and possibly its radicalisation.

The janus face of new media propaganda: The case of Patani neojihadist YouTube warfare and its Islamophobic effect on cyber-actors

Surfing on the Internet 2.0 revolution, Patani 2.0 has allowed Patani neojihadist militants to access new competitive spaces and create their own imagined online community by penetrating new realms of the Internet. This article discusses the use of new media militant propaganda by Patani militants and how it is Janus faced. It further examines how the Patani 2.0 social interaction enabled by social media such as YouTube leads to group cohesion among certain actors and the formation of a collective identity that is clustered around the notions of Muslim victimization and defensive jihad; and how, at the same time, it reinforces antithetical identities and fosters group identity competition, where one religious group is often pitted against another. As a result, the Janus effect of Patani neojihadist YouTube online propaganda, while it primarily seeks to radicalize, also generates a reactionary, often virulent, anti-Muslim response from the movement's critics.

Impossible triangles: flat actors in telematic theatre

In fact, in this scene, both A and B are online. A is in a classroom at the University of Amsterdam in The Netherlands, and B is in a television studio at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia. The two locations are connected through video conference and, in each space, a local audience watches the local performer in the room, and the remote performer projected on a screen. The performers are captured in profile, and appear to be looking at computer screens in front of them but cannot actually see one another. The text is consciously banal, composed to replicate the broken rhythms and sequences, flattened tone and repetitions of scrolling words in a text box on a screen. Information about presence and absence (A or B is offline or online) is spoken as text. Although the two performers speak in accents that declare their different language/ cultures, the vernacular is generic 'internetslang'. The relatively monotonous and unpunctuated delivery of the textual rhythms is interrupted and counterpointed by a sound lag of nearly a second, and by a faint audio echo as one voice 'lands' in the second location. Its orchestration allows the sound fracture and dispersal in some moments. In other moments, the actors anticipate or absorb the gaps in transmission, driving the speech rhythms through so that the utterance 'arrives' precisely at the end of the prompt line.

The status and function of Inanimate 'object-actors' in cyborg theatre

 This practice-led research investigates the relationships between human and technological actors in theatre with specific reference to theatrical presence.The research proposes to advance knowledge in the fields of directing and theatre making by putting forward new strategies for directing actors who perform with computer-based technologies.

Actors and agency in academic language policy and planning

Nearly two decades have passed since Kaplan and Baldauf [1997. Language planning from practice to theory. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters] drew attention to the dearth of language policy and planning (LPP) in higher education. Despite the continuing inflow of English as an additional language students into Anglophone universities, and a boom in English-medium instruction policies in non-Anglophone tertiary institutions [Dearden, J. (2014). English as a medium of instruction: A growing global phenomenon. British Council], LPP research remains relatively underdeveloped in higher education. We suggest that current understandings of academic language policy and planning in higher education would benefit from contextualised analyses of actors and agency [Chua, C. S. K., & Baldauf, R. B. (2011). Micro language planning. In E. Hinkel (Ed.), Handbook of research in second language teaching and learning (pp. 936–951). New York, NY: Routledge; Zhao, S. H., 2011. Actors in language planning. In E. Hinkel (Ed.), Handbook of research in second language teaching and learning (Vol. II, pp. 905–923). New York, NY: Routledge; Zhao, S. H., & Baldauf, R. B. (2012). Individual agency in language planning: Chinese script reform as a case study. Language Problems & Language Planning, 36(1), 1–24]. In order to address this gap, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 10 academic language program planners at different universities across Australia. We examined how the micro-level processes of program development and implementation were both constrained and enabled by the participation of different actor groups, operating at different levels (micro, meso, macro) and each with their own capacity to influence change. We conclude by arguing that coherent university-wide language policies, formulated by decision-making bodies representative of a variety of stakeholder groups and sensitive to program implementation needs at the micro level, represent a step towards improving the current situation.

Evaluating social marketing’s upstream metaphor: does it capture the flows of behavioural influence between ‘upstream’ and ‘downstream’ actors?

Metaphors are powerful forms of communication that can both facilitate and constrain disciplinary discourse, so the choice of metaphor used to explain concepts of disciplinary importance should not be undertaken lightly. A single case study methodology involving an ‘upstream’ firm considering whether to manufacture products with environmental attributes was consequently used to test three previously unexamined assumptions associated with the upstream/downstream metaphor, a metaphorical distinction that continues to have sway within the social marketing discipline. Contrary to these assumptions, the flows of behavioural influence between ‘upstream’ and ‘downstream’ actors were found to be bidirectional (rather than unidirectional), interactive (rather than independent), and distinctive (rather than non-distinctive). These findings suggest the need for alternative models that can better reflect the complex, multidirectional relationships responsible for the emergence of many social issues.

Analysis of the corporate political activity of major food industry actors in Fiji

BACKGROUND: Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are the leading cause of mortality in Fiji, a middle-income country in the Pacific. Some food products processed sold and marketed by the food industry are major contributors to the NCD epidemic, and the food industry is widely identified as having strong economic and political power. However, little research has been undertaken on the attempts by the food industry to influence public health-related policies and programs in its favour. The "corporate political activity" (CPA) of the food industry includes six strategies (information and messaging; financial incentives; constituency building; legal strategies; policy substitution; opposition fragmentation and destabilisation). For this study, we aimed to gain a detailed understanding of the CPA strategies and practices of major food industry actors in Fiji, interpreted through a public health lens.

METHODS AND RESULTS: We implemented a systematic approach to monitor the CPA of the food industry in Fiji for three months. It consisted of document analysis of relevant publicly available information. In parallel, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 10 stakeholders involved in diet- and/or public health-related issues in Fiji. Both components of the study were thematically analysed. We found evidence that the food industry adopted a diverse range of strategies in an attempt to influence public policy in Fiji, with all six CPA strategies identified. Participants identified that there is a substantial risk that the widespread CPA of the food industry could undermine efforts to address NCDs in Fiji.

CONCLUSIONS: Despite limited public disclosure of information, such as data related to food industry donations to political parties and lobbying, we were able to identify many CPA practices used by the food industry in Fiji. Greater transparency from the food industry and the government would help strengthen efforts to increase their accountability and support NCD prevention. In other low- and middle-income countries, it is likely that a systematic document analysis approach would also need to be supplemented with key informant interviews to gain insight into this important influence on NCD prevention.

Level of implementation of best practice policies for creating healthy food environments: assessment by state and non-state actors in Thailand

OBJECTIVE: To determine and compare the level of implementation of policies for healthy food environments in Thailand with reference to international best practice by state and non-state actors.
DESIGN: Data on the current level of implementation of food environment policies were assessed independently using the adapted Healthy Food Environment Policy Index (Food-EPI) by two groups of actors. Concrete actions were proposed for Thai Government. A joint meeting between both groups was subsequently held to reach consensus on priority actions.
SETTING: Thailand.
SUBJECTS: Thirty state actors and twenty-seven non-state actors.
RESULTS: Level of policy implementation varied across different domains and actor groups. State actors rated implementation levels higher than non-state actors. Both state and non-state actors rated level of implementation of monitoring of BMI highest. Level of implementation of policies promoting in-store availability of healthy foods and policies increasing tax on unhealthy foods were rated lowest by state and non-state actors, respectively. Both groups reached consensus on eleven priority actions for implementation, focusing on food provision in public-sector settings, food composition, food promotion, leadership, monitoring and intelligence, and food trade.
CONCLUSIONS: Although the implementation gaps identified and priority actions proposed varied between state and non-state actors, both groups achieved consensus on a comprehensive food policy package to be implemented by the Thai Government to improve the healthiness of food environments. This consensus is a platform for continued policy dialogue towards cross-sectoral policy coherence and effective actions to address the growing burden of non-communicable diseases and obesity in Thailand.