Gesturing elsewhere: the identity politics of the Balinese death/thrash metal scene

This essay explores the political significance of Balinese death/thrash fandom. In the early 1990s, the emergence of a death/thrash scene in Bali paralleled growing criticism of accelerated tourism development on the island. Specifically, locals protested the increasing ubiquity of Jakarta, 'the centre', cast as threatening to an authentically 'low', peripheral Balinese culture. Similarly, death/thrash enthusiasts also gravitated toward certain fringes, although they rejected dominant notions of Balinese-ness by gesturing elsewhere, toward a global scene. The essay explores the ways in which death/thrash enthusiasts engaged with local discourses by coveting their marginality, and aims to demonstrate how their articulations of 'alien-ness' contributed in important ways to a broader regionalism.

Journalism, History and the Politics of Popular Culture

I argue that a divergence between popular culture as “object” and “subject” of journalism emerged during the nineteenth century in Britain. It accounts not only for different practices of journalism, but also for differences in the study of journalism, as manifested in journalism studies and cultural studies respectively. The chapter offers an historical account to show that popular culture was the source of the first mass circulation journalism, via the pauper press, but that it was later incorporated into the mechanisms of modern government for a very different purpose, the theorist of which was Walter Bagehot. Journalism’s polarity was reversed – it turned from “subjective” to “objective.” The paper concludes with a discussion of YouTube and the resurgence of self-made representation, using the resources of popular culture, in current election campaigns. Are we witnessing a further reversal of polarity, where popular culture and self-representation once again becomes the “subject” of journalism?

Conference Report of the First Meeting of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association, 21-23 May 2009, Department of American Indian Studies, University of Minneapolis, Minesota, United States of America

Report provided back by Bronwyn Fredericks on her participation at the First Native American and Indigenous Studies Association Meeting held 21-23 May 2009 in Minnesota, United States of America.

21st Century politics : new faces/new spaces

Politics has been described as a man’s game and a man’s place. Further, the design of houses of politics also embeds this dominant masculine ethos. Traditional Chambers have been large with only limited seating arrangements ensuring that only privileged elite can participate and both officials and the public are located at some distance and separate from the elected officials. Such a Chamber ensures that Members need to face each other and the dominant interaction is adversarial. Within this system however, women have been able to carve out new spaces, or use existing ones in different ways, to become more involved with the mechanisms of parliament and provide alternative routes to leadership. In doing so, they have introduced elements of the private domain (nurturing, dialogue and inclusion) to the public domain. The way in which space is used is fundamental and its treatment has consequences for individuals, organizations and societies (Clegg and Kornberger 2006). Dale’s (2005) work emphasises the social character of architecture which recognises the impact which it has on the behaviours of individuals and nowhere is this more pertinent than the way the Australian Parliament House operates. This paper draws on the experiences of Australian parliamentarians to examine the way in which the new Australian Parliament House shapes the way in which the Australian political cultural norms and practices are shaped and maintained. It also seeks to explore the way the Members of Parliament (MPs) experience these spaces and how some MPs have been able to bring new ways of utilising the space to ensure it is more accommodating to the men and women who inhabit this building at the apex of Australia’s political life. In doing so, such MPs are seeking to ensure that the practices and processes of Australia’s political system are reflective of the men and women who inhabit this national institution in the beginning of the 21st century.

Recruiting local public relations professionals for global relations practice : a comparative analysis between Australian and Indian public relations recruitment advertisements

The aim of this exploratory study was to gain an insight into Asian and Western public relations practices by investigating them through job advertisements and thus reflecting on what organisations expect from the public relations professionals. Grunig's (1984) four models of public relations and the concept of relationships management were used as the foundation for this study. Australia was used to represent the Western region and India was used to represent the Asian region. Sample sets of public relations recruitment advertisements from both countries were examined against Grunig's one-way communication, two-way communication and relationship management attributes.

Politicizing mathematics education : has politics gone too far? Or not far enough?

In this chapter we tackle increasingly sensitive questions in mathematics education, those that have polarized the community into distinct schools of thought as well as impacted reform efforts.

Study of ICT adoption for building project management in the Indian construction industry

Building project management requires effective coordination and collaboration between multiple project members. It can be achieved through real time communication flow between all. In present scenario, it can be achieved through adoption of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). Construction industry primarily comprises small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Also, ICT adoption has been slow in the industry.---------- Research is required to assess the factors that affect ICT adoption at the three levels of industry, organization and people, with focus on SMEs. This paper discusses a component of the research undertaken to study these factors and issues in the context of Indian construction industry. A questionnaire survey was conducted and through quantitative data analysis the extent of adoption of formal Project Management processes, ICT adoption for these processes and factors including perception based factors affecting ICT adoption were studied. Results of data analysis includes identification of issues that require action at the three study levels.---------- The results can be generalized for other countries with due considerations, specifically for countries where the construction industry is similar to Indian construction industry in terms of working methodologies or for large countries.

Literacy and religion : the textual politics and practice of Seventh-day Adventism

This book explores the interrelation of literacy and religion as practiced by Western Christians in, first, historical contexts and, second, in one contemporary church setting. Using both a case study and a Foucauldian theoretical framework, the book provides a sustained analysis of the reciprocal discursive construction of literacy, religiosity and identity in one Seventh-day Adventist Church community of Northern Australia. Critical linguistic and discourse analytic theory is used to disclose processes of theological (church), familial (home) and educational (school) normalisation of community members into regulated ways of hearing and speaking, reading and writing, being and believing. Detailed analyses of spoken and written texts taken from institutional and local community settings show how textual religion is an exemplary technology of the self, a politics constituted by canonical texts, interpretive norms, textual practices, ritualised events and sociopolitical protocols that, ultimately, are turned in upon the self. The purpose of these analyses is to show how, across denominational difference in belief (tradition) and practice, particular versions of self and society are constructed through economies of truth from text, enabling and constraining what can and cannot be spoken and enacted by believers.