Challenging the authority of the autopsy in coronial investigations

The central purpose of this chapter is to address the tension between legal and medical discourses within the coronial/medico-legal system. In the context of a death investigation, medical expertise, manifest through the knowledge gained in an internal autopsy, is positioned as contributing the more valuable facts of the case, especially when contrasted with the evidence gathered at the scene of the death. We challenge this taken for granted understanding of medical knowledge in three ways: first, we examine the aspects of the history, philosophy and consequences of the processes by which the medical model gained its current dominance; second, we challenge the assumption that internal autopsy adds value to the death investigation, by utilising data from our own research in Australia; and finally, we engage with the debate about the purpose of a coronial/medico-legal investigation and role of an internal autopsy within that system.

The Authority of Influence : Women and Power in Burmese History

This book explores the relationship between gender and power in Burmese history from pre-colonial times to the present day and aims to identify the sources, nature and limitations of women’s power. The study takes as its starting point the apparent contradiction that, though Burmese women historically enjoyed relatively high social status and economic influence, for the most part they remained conspicuously absent from positions of authority in formal religious, social and political institutions. The book thus examines the concept of ‘family’ in Burmese political culture, and reveals how some women were able to gain political influence through their familial connections with powerful men, even while cultural models of ‘correct’ female behaviour prevented most women from attaining official positions of political authority. The study also considers how various influences – Buddhism, colonialism, nationalism, modernisation and militarism – shaped Burmese concepts of gender and power, with important implications for how women were able to exercise social, economic and political influence. The book explores how the effects of prolonged armed conflict, economic isolation and political oppression have constrained opportunities for women to attain power in contemporary Burma, and examines opportunities opened up by the pro-democracy movement and recent focus on women's issues and rights for women to exercise influence both inside Burma and in exile. Using an interdisciplinary approach that draws on feminist, anthropological and social science discourses, placing them within an historical framework, the author offers a broad understanding of how power is obtained and exercised in Burma in order to reassess historical representations of Burmese women and so provide a more comprehensive and inclusive understanding of power relations in historical and contemporary Burma.

'Pretend I was Mummy': Children's Production of Authority and Subordinance in Their Pretend Play Interaction During Disputes

Purpose – This chapter examines an episode of pretend play amongst a group of young girls in an elementary school in Australia, highlighting how they interact within the membership categorization device ‘family’ to manage their social and power relationships. Approach – Using conversation analysis and membership categorization analysis, an episode of video-recorded interaction that occurs amongst a group of four young girls is analyzed. Findings – As disputes arise amongst the girls, the mother category is produced as authoritative through authoritative actions by the girl in the category of mother, and displays of subordination on the part of the other children, in the categories of sister, dog and cat. Value of paper – Examining play as a social practice provides insight into the social worlds of children. The analysis shows how the children draw upon and co-construct family-style relationships in a pretend play context, in ways that enable them to build and organize peer interaction. Authority is highlighted as a joint accomplishment that is part of the social and moral order continuously being negotiated by the children. The authority of the mother category is produced and oriented to as a means of managing the disputes within the pretend frame of play.

Reflexive professionalism : reclaiming the voice of authority in shaping the discourses of education policy

The nature and value of ‘professionalism’ has long been contested by both producers and consumers of policy. Most recently, governments have rewritten and redefined professionalism as compliance with externally imposed ‘standards’. This has been achieved by silencing the voices of those who inhabit the professional field of education. This paper uses Foucauldian archaeology to excavate the enunciative field of professionalism by digging through the academic and institutional (political) archive, and in doing so identifies two key policy documents for further analysis. The excavation shows that while the voices of (academic) authority speak of competing discourses emerging, with professional standards promulgated as the mechanism to enhance professionalism, an alternative regime of truth identifies the privileged use of (managerial) voices from outside the field of education to create a discourse of compliance. There has long been a mismatch between the voices of authority on discourses around professionalism from the academic archive and those that count in contemporary and emerging Australian educational policy. In this paper, we counter this mismatch and argue that reflexive educators’ regimes of truth are worthy of attention and should be heard and amplified.

Solicitors who commence a proceeding without authority act at their peril

In Nominal Defendant v Kisse [2001] QDC 290 a person suffered personal injury caused by a motor vehicle in circumstances where there was a cause of action to which the Motor Accident Insurance Act 1994 applied. The person died before taking the steps required under Pt 4 of the Act and before commencing litigation to enforce that cause of action. The decision also involved a costs order against solicitors on an indemnity basis, providing a timely reminder to practitioners of the importance of ensuring they have proper authority before commencing any court proceedings.

Is there such a thing as an “irrevocable authority”?

The Queensland Court of Appeal decision of FTV Holdings Cairns Pty Ltd v Smith [2014] QCA 217 analysed many issues concerning the enforceability of an “irrevocable authority” signed by clients directed to their solicitors regarding the payment of money to a third party. The action also drew those solicitors into the litigation as they acted contrary to that “irrevocable authority” by paying the money concerned directly to their clients but upon their clients’ later instructions. The result probably confirmed what many solicitors have believed to be the case for some time but which had never been considered in legal analysis in an appellate court. The facts of the case would be common to many day to day transactions.

Rendering to Caesar and God : St Paul, the natural law tradition and the authority of law

The question of the authority of law has occupied and vexed the literature and philosophy of law for centuries. Law is something that characteristically implies obedience, but the precise nature of law’s authority remains contentious. The return to the writings of the Apostle Paul in contemporary philosophy, theology and jurisprudence begs attention in relation to the authority of law, and so this article will consider his analysis and critique of law with a focus on his Epistle to the Romans. It argues that Paul’s conception of the authority of law is explained on the basis that the law is from God, it externally sanctions obedience by virtue of the civil authorities, and it convicts internally in conscience. This triad is justified by the law of love (‘‘love your neighbor as yourself’’), and will be explained in relation to the natural law tradition as well as converse ideas in positivism. Hence, considering the reasoning of Paul in relation to traditional jurisprudential themes and the law of love provides a useful alternative analysis and basis for further investigation regarding the authority of law and the need for its obedience.

Architecture, the body and authority in performance

This is a theoretical investigation seeking to learn more about architecture by looking at architectural practice through another discipline. In this research architecture is investigated by examining its relationship with bodies through performance and theatre set design. This thesis aims to build on existing architectural theory, in which an absence of discourse on the body has been identified, by analysing representations of architecture and the body in performance. The research specifically examines the relationship between the body, architecture and authority in performance through the analysis of several performance works.

Power and Authority. Birgitta of Sweden and her Revelations

In the High Middle Ages female saints were customarily noble virgins. Thus, as a wife and a mother of eight children, the Swedish noble lady Birgitta (1302/3 1373) was an atypical candidate for sanctity. However, in 1391 she was canonized only 18 years after her death and became a role model for many late medieval women, who were mothers and widows. The dissertation Power and Authority Birgitta of Sweden and Her Revelations investigates how Birgitta went about establishing her power and authority during the first ten years of her career as a living saint, in 1340 1349. It is written from the perspectives of gender, authority, and power. The sources consist of approximately seven hundred revelations, hagiographical texts and other medieval documents. This work concentrates on the interaction between Birgitta and her audience. During her lifetime Birgitta was already regarded as a holy woman, as a living saint. A living saint could be given no formal papal or other recognition, for one could never be certain about his or her future activities. Thus, the living saint needed an audience for whom to perform signs of sanctity. In this study particular attention is paid to situations within which the power relations between the living saint and her audience can be traced and are open to critical analysis. Situations of conflict that arose in Birgitta s life are especially fruitful for this purpose. During the Middle Ages, institutional power and authority were exclusively in the hands of secular male leaders and churchmen. In this work it is argued, however, that Birgitta used different kinds of power than men. It is evident that she exercized influence on lay people as well as on secular and clerical authorities. The second, third, and fourth chapter of this study examine the beginning of Birgitta s career as a visionary, what factors and influences lay behind it, and what kind of roles they played in establishing her religious authority. The fifth, sixth, and seventh chapter concentrate on Birgitta s exercising of power in specific situations during her time in Sweden until she left on a pilgrimage to Rome in 1349. The central question is how she exercised power with different people. As a result, this book will offer a narrative of Birgitta s social interactions in Sweden seen from the perspectives of power and authority. Along with the concept of power, authority is a key issue. By definition, one who has power also has authority but a person who does not have official power can, nevertheless, have authority. Authority in action is defined here as meaning that a person was listened to. Birgitta acted both in situations of open conflict and where no conflict was evident. Her strategies included, for example, inducement, encouragement and flattery. In order to make people do as she felt was right she also threatened them openly with divine wrath. Sometimes she even used both positive persuasion and threats. Birgitta s power seems very similar to that of priests and ascetics. Common to all of them was that their power demanded interaction with other people and audiences. Because Birgitta did not have power and authority ex officio she had to persuade people to believe in her powers. She did this because she was convinced of her mission and sought to make people change their lives. In so doing, she moved from the domestic field to the public fields of religion and politics.

Authority files: Breaking out of the library silo to become signposts for research information

Authority files serve to uniquely identify real world ‘things’ or entities like documents, persons, organisations, and their properties, like relations and features. Already important in the classical library world, authority files are indispensable for adequate information retrieval and analysis in the computer age. This is because, even more than humans, computers are poor at handling ambiguity. Through authority files, people tell computers which terms, names or numbers refer to the same thing or have the same meaning by giving equivalent notions the same identifier. Thus, authority files signpost the internet where these identifiers are interlinked on the basis of relevance. When executing a query, computers are able to navigate from identifier to identifier by following these links and collect the queried information on these so-called ‘crosswalks’. In this context, identifiers also go under the name controlled access points. Identifiers become even more crucial now massive data collections like library catalogues or research datasets are releasing their till-now contained data directly to the internet. This development is coined Open Linked Data. The concatenating name for the internet is Web of Data instead of the classical Web of Documents.

Harnessing the fishery potential of man-made lakes for the partial commercialisation of Niger River Basin Development Authority, Minna, Nigeria

Niger River Basin Development Authority Minna (NRBDA) is one of the eleven river basins in Nigeria now undergoing transition towards partial commercialisation. In the light of this the need to be self-sustaining through exploration and exploitation of every possible areas along their operation to yield revenue cannot be over-emphasized. Therefore it is most pertinent to consider fisheries activities along their water bodies as one of the major sources of revenue by organising the local fishermen operating along the water into cooperative bodies and made to pay for fishing rights. Strategies to accomplish this objective is highlighted. The need to embark on aquaculture projects by construction of fish ponds at suitable sites along the reservoirs and developing the recreational potentials of their water bodies as sources of revenue is also stressed

Approval of systems of Biological Indication of Water Quality under the auspices of the Severn-Trent Water Authority, UK

In accordance with the plan for joint Anglo-Soviet scientific and technical collaboration on environmental problems, the comparative evaluation of systems of hydrobiological analysis of the surface water quality started in 1977 at the Regional Laboratory of the Severn-Trent Water Authority in Nottingham were continued in the spring of 1978. The investigations were carried out under the auspices of the Institute of Hydrobiology of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR. Hydrobiological and hydrochemical samples were collected by Soviet and British specialists from the Kiev reservoir and the rivers Dnieper, Sozh, Desna and Snov. The possible approved methods to be adopted were evaluated from the samples using the phytoperiphyton, phytoplankton, zooplankton and zoobenthos against a background of hydrochemical characteristics.