Mana Taonga and the public sphere: a dialogue between indigenous practice and Western theory

Recent re-conceptualizations of the ‘public sphere’ facilitated a much needed shift in thinking about identity politics ‘from a substance … to a movement’ (Weibel and Latour, 2007). This laid the foundation for dissolving the ‘emanatist vision’ (Bourdieu, 1990) of self-explanatory and perpetual systems and structures towards the interrogation of actions and performances that simultaneously constitute and are affected by such wider socio-political realities. Most academic contributions, however, remain on a normative or theoretical level without offering empirical insights.

This article introduces Mana Taonga as an Indigenous Māori concept of cultural politics embedded in current museum practice at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (Te Papa). It creates a dialogue between Indigenous Māori practice and Western theory leading to a refined understanding of performative democracy within a museum as forum, or public sphere. The authors argue that a specific museum offers a particular place, space and empirical reality to interrogate seemingly universal concepts such as ‘culture’ and ‘politics’ by blending theoretical notions with an awareness of institutional contexts and practices.

Using mobile media to create a more diverse public sphere in marginalised communities : how to mojo

Mojo is a new mobile journalism project in isolated Indigenous communities providing skills and mobile technologies to empower Indigenous people to create locally produced user-generated stories (UGS), from their own perspective. This paper explores the degree to which these practices and technologies can help create a more diverse cultural voice in remote Indigenous environments. Diversity is a central component of the broader principle of a robust marketplace of ideas and a catalyst for greater democratic representation. A lack of diversity of opinion from and about marginalized communities in Indigenous Australia has led to underrepresentation in a highly mediated Indigenous public sphere. In the mid-1980s the deployment of AUSSAT—the Australian communications satellite—led to an influx of Western media into remote communities, creating even greater marginalization of content at the source. This resulted in an under representation of local views and culture and a lack of exposure. This paper describes the empirical study—the technical practices and outcomes of mojos recording, editing and publishing complete UGS directly from their iPhones to the Internet. This practice has the potential to create more diverse media skills, representation and new job opportunities in local media. A making of NT Mojo video can be viewed at the following URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRmGACFJd Jo. Mojo stories can be viewed at the following URL: http://ntmojos.indigneous.gov.au

Literature as activism: interrogating the 21st century demise of the Arendtian political public sphere

This article explores Don DeLillo's literary activism through Arendtian perspectives to investigate what the demise of literature's relevance, specifically in a political context, may mean in the current era of an increasingly complex and conflicting 'web of human relationships'.  In that it is accepted that narrative has a particular ability to reveal insights as prelinguistic elements that are distinct from all we are able to access through our limited human perceptions, it remarks the Lacanian paradox that if being is in excess of language, then language is the medium by which this is accessed in the world. For DeLillo, writers may be under threat in a dynamic but destabilizing era, their art superceded by technology and fundamentalist terrorism, however, as suggested in Mao II, this renders the writer all the more necessary.  It is at the point at which the writer has nothing to say or is under duress to say noting, that a human crisis is reached. I ask, do current forms of political pressure to censure literature constitute a further diminishing of the Arendtian political public domain in which speech as action has primacy?

The Indian public sphere in social media era

The media in a number of Western countries, including Australia, could be forgiven for envying the growth of the Indian media in recent decades. In contrast to more mature media markets in Australia and elsewhere, the Indian media is surviving the onslaught of new media technologies including social media platforms available to news audiences as an alternative to traditional news media. However, despite the omnipresence and diversity of over 800 television channels, over 94,000 publications and hundreds of radio stations, the ‘commercial’ imperative of Indian news media has raised doubts about their capacity to meet the ‘ideals’ of the public sphere. This paper examines the Indian public sphere in terms of citizens’ increasing use of various social media platforms to express their anger, frustration and protest against the system of governance and corruption. It analyses the use of social media platforms by mainstream media, socio-political organisations and audiences alike during recent events such as the Mumbai terror attack in 2008; the anti-corruption movement in 2011; protests against a lack of safety for women in 2012–13; and the federal elections in 2014; to understand the implications for the public sphere in India. The paper outlines interplay between the mainstream media’s coverage of some of these significant events, and the audience conversations pertaining to these news events on various social media platforms. It explores the increased utilisation of social media platforms by youth and the middle class, who have often remained disengaged with governance in the country, as a sign of deepening democracy and widening public sphere in India, despite the ‘digital divide’ that still exists in the country.

Computations of the flow past a still sphere at moderate reynolds numbers using an immersed boundary method

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Hopf solitons and area-preserving diffeomorphisms of the sphere

We consider a (3+1)-dimensional local field theory defined on the sphere S-2. The model possesses exact soliton solutions with nontrivial Hopf topological charges and an infinite number of local conserved currents. We show that the Poisson bracket algebra of the corresponding charges is isomorphic to that of the area-preserving diffeomorphisms of the sphere S-2. We also show that the conserved currents under consideration are the Noether currents associated to the invariance of the Lagrangian under that infinite group of diffeomorphisms. We indicate possible generalizations of the model.

Efeitos agudos do tabagismo sobre a modulação autonômica: análise por meio do plot de poincaré

FUNDAMENTO: O tabagismo altera a função autonômica. OBJETIVO: Investigar os efeitos agudos do tabagismo sobre a modulação autonômica e a recuperação dos índices de variabilidade de frequência cardíaca (VFC) pós-fumo, por meio do plot de Poincaré e índices lineares. MÉTODOS: Foram avaliados 25 fumantes jovens, os quais tiveram a frequência cardíaca analisada, batimento a batimento, na posição sentada, após 8 horas de abstinência, por 30 minutos em repouso, 20 minutos durante o fumo e 30 minutos pós-fumo. Análise de variância para medidas repetidas, seguido do teste de Tukey, ou teste de Friedman seguido do teste de Dunn foram aplicados dependendo da normalidade dos dados, com p < 0,05. RESULTADOS: Durante o fumo, houve redução dos índices SD1 (23,4 ± 9,2 vs 13,8 ± 4,8), razão SD1/SD2 (0,31 ± 0,08 vs 0,2 ± 0,04), RMSSD (32,7 ± 13 vs 19,1 ± 6,8), SDNN (47,6 ± 14,8 vs 35,5 ± 8,4), HFnu (32,5 ± 11,6 vs 19 ± 8,1) e do intervalo RR (816,8 ± 89 vs 696,5 ± 76,3) em relação ao repouso, enquanto que aumentos do índice LFnu (67,5 ± 11,6 vs 81 ± 8,1) e da razão LF/HF (2,6 ± 1,7 vs 5,4 ± 3,1) foram observados. A análise visual do plot mostrou menor dispersão dos intervalos RR durante o fumo. Com exceção da razão SD1/SD2, os demais índices apresentaram recuperação dos valores, 30 minutos após o tabagismo. CONCLUSÃO: O tabagismo produziu agudamente modificações no controle autonômico, caracterizadas por ativação simpática e retirada vagal, com recuperação 30 minutos após o fumo.

Salt-induced sphere-to-disk transition of octadecyltrimethylammonium bromide micelles

We have used surface tension measurements, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), dynamic light scattering (DLS), and cryo-transmission electron microscopy (cryo-TEM) to investigate the dynamic and structural behavior of octadecyltrimethylammonium bromide (C(18)TAB) micelles in water and NaBr solution. The surface tension data for fixed C(18)TAB concentrations of 25 mM and varied NaBr additions (0-50 mM) shows that the critical micelle concentration (cmc) increases after an initial decrease at 0.5 mM NaBr. This unusual effect has been explained using results from DSC and DLS. At low salt concentrations (below ca. 25 mM) the relaxation time distribution is bimodal with a dominant fast mode due to spherical micelles. Above ca. 35 mM NaBr disklike structures are favored and the relaxation time distribution is more closely unimodal. The postulated sphere-to-disk transition is supported by cryo-TEM micrographs. A pronounced increase in the micellar effective hydrodynamic radius (R-H) is observed as the NaBr concentration is increased above about 35 mM; below 35 mM the R-H of the spherical micelles changes Little with ionic strength.

Morphology and topography analysis of mesoporous titania templated by micrometric latex sphere arrays

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Sphere of influence and gravitational capture radius: a dynamical approach

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Composition of the first coordination sphere of Ni2+ in concentrated aqueous NiBr2 solutions by x-ray diffraction

Two concentrated solutions of NiBr2 have been examined by x-ray diffraction. The Fourier transformed scattering data indicate inner complex formation between Ni2 + and Br- ions. Average numbers of bonded bromide ions per nickel atom have been determined for each solution and the reliability of the complexation numbers as well as of the other structural parameters has been critically examined. © 1985 American Institute of Physics.