A climate of control: flooding, displacement and planned resettlement in the Lower Zambezi River valley, Mozambique

In recent years, the potential role of planned, internal resettlement as a climate change adaptation measure has been highlighted by national governments and the international policy community. However, in many developing countries, resettlement is a deeply political process that often results in an unequal distribution of costs and benefits amongst relocated persons. This paper examines these tensions in Mozambique, drawing on a case study of flood-affected communities in the Lower Zambezi River valley. It takes a political ecology approach – focusing on discourses of human-environment interaction, as well as the power relationships that are supported by such discourses – to show how a dominant narrative of climate change-induced hazards for small-scale farmers is contributing to their involuntary resettlement to higher-altitude, less fertile areas of land. These forced relocations are buttressed by a series of wider economic and political interests in the Lower Zambezi River region, such dam construction for hydroelectric power generation and the extension of control over rural populations, from which resettled people derive little direct benefit. Rather than engaging with these challenging issues, most international donors present in the country accept the ‘inevitability’ of extreme weather impacts and view resettlement as an unfortunate and, in some cases, necessary step to increase people’s ‘resilience’, thus rationalising the top-down imposition of unpopular social policies. The findings add weight to the argument that a depoliticised interpretation of climate change can deflect attention away from underlying drivers of vulnerability and poverty, as well as obscure the interests of governments that are intent on reordering poor and vulnerable populations.

Managing artisanal and small-scale mining in forest areas: perspectives from a poststructural political ecology

Artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) is an activity intimately associated with social deprivation and environmental degradation, including deforestation. This paper examines ASM and deforestation using a broadly poststructural political ecology framework. Hegemonic discourses are shown to consistently influence policy direction, particularly in emerging approaches such as Corporate Social Responsibility and the Forest Stewardship Council. A review of alternative discourses reveals that the poststructural method is useful for critiquing the international policy arena but does not inform new approaches. Synthesis of the analysis leads to conclusions that echo a growing body of literature advocating for policies to become increasingly sensitive to local contexts, synergistic between actors at difference scales, and to be integrated across sectors.

Globalisation, food and health in Pacific Island countries

Pacific Island countries (PICs) are experiencing an epidemic of obesity and consequent chronic diseases. Despite investment in the development of National Plans of Action for Nutrition (NPANs) and interventions to promote healthy eating and physical activity, nutritional status appears to show little improvement. This paper presents a synthesis of the findings from two research papers that were prepared for a 2003 food safety and quality meeting in Nadi, Fiji. The findings indicate that although lifestyle behaviours might be the immediate cause of dietary imbalances, greater attention should focus on omnipresent influences of globalisation as a critical element of the nutrition transition in the Pacific. In particular, those aspects of globalisation mediated through the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreements that are placing pressures on food security and fostering increased dependence on imported food of poor nutritional quality. Rapid, significant and sustainable improvements in public health in PICs require interventions that can tackle these underlying contributors to ill health. There are opportunities to explore the use of food regulatory approaches to influence the composition, availability and accessibility of food products. Within the context of the WTO Agreements the legitimacy of food regulatory approaches will depend upon the case to demonstrate the relationship between the intervention and the protection of food security and public health nutrition. The challenges in realising these opportunities are: 1) to have the capacity to construct a case, 2) meet the technical and financial demands to administer and enforce regulatory approaches, and 3) to take advantage of opportunities available and to be able to fully participate in the international policy-making process.

A cross-national comparison of risk and protective factors for adolescent substance use : the United States and Australia

Purpose
To compare risk and protective factors that influence youth substance use in Australia and the United States. The two countries have different policy orientations toward substance use: Australia has adopted harm-reduction policies, and the United States has adopted abstinence-focused polices.

Methods
Cross-sectional survey data were collected from independent samples of adolescents in the states of Maine (N = 16,861; 53% female, 7% Non-white) and Oregon (N = 15,542; 51% female, 24% Non-white) in the United States and Victoria in Australia (N = 8442; 54% Female, 11% Non-white) in 1998 (Maine and Oregon) and 1999 (Victoria). Chi-square tests, t-tests, effect size comparisons, and logistic regression analyses that accounted for age and gender were used to investigate cross-national similarities and differences in: (a) rates of cigarette, alcohol, and marijuana use; (b) levels of risk and protective factors; and (c) magnitudes of associations between risk and protective factors and substance use.

Results
More adolescents in Victoria reported using cigarettes and alcohol, whereas more of the U.S. adolescents reported using marijuana. Exposure to risk and protective factors was generally similar in the cross-national samples. However, adolescents in Maine and Oregon perceived handguns to be more readily available, reported more participation in religious activities, and were higher in sensation-seeking and social skills; and adolescents in Victoria had more favorable attitudes toward drug use and reported community norms and parental attitudes more favorable to drug use. Most of the risk and protective factors were strongly associated with substance use to a similar degree in Victoria, Maine, and Oregon. However, among adolescents in Maine and Oregon peer/individual risk and protective factors associated with social detachment were more strongly related to substance use, and among adolescents in Victoria, family protective factors were less strongly related to alcohol use.

Conclusions
Inter-country influences on youth substance use are generally similar despite different policy directions. Existing differences suggest that the abstinence policy context is associated with higher levels of illicit drug use and stronger relations between individual indicators of social detachment and substance use, whereas the harm reduction policy context is related to more cigarette and alcohol use, possibly from exposure to normative influences that are more tolerant of youth drug use.

The knowledge economy, the techno-preneur and the problematic future of the university

Knowledge economy policies are currently very powerful drivers of change in contemporary university approaches to research. They typically orientate universities to a national innovation system which both positions knowledge as the key factor of economic growth and sees the main purpose of knowledge as contributing to such growth. In this article, the authors explain the economic logic informing such policy interventions in university research and look at the conceptualisation of national innovation systems in various national and international policy sites around the world. Their interest is in what these particular sets of policies have in common, not in how they differ. They introduce three key themes of such systems and the academics they seek to produce. These themes are their techno-scientific orientation, network characteristics and commercial imperatives. The corresponding implied subjects are the techno-scientist, the knowledge networker and the entrepreneur. The authors make the case that evident in such constructions of the future of universities are some unacknowledged and under-acknowledged problems, one of which is a failure to recognise the power of the gift economies of academic culture.

An evaluation of a community aged care nurse practitioner service

Evaluation aims: An evaluation is presented that aimed to augment current understandings of the nurse practitioner role by investigating potential outcomes of a community aged care nurse practitioner (ACNP) service on clients and the health care team.

Background: In Australia, the nurse practitioner role is being implemented in a variety of health care settings and is characterized by extended practice: prescribing of medications, requests for diagnostic investigations, referral to medical specialists and admitting clients to inpatient facilities.

Design: An exploratory qualitative evaluation method through data collection by interview and thematic analysis was undertaken.

Method: All clients referred to the ACNP service between June and August 2003, and a convenience sample of health professionals, were invited to participate in individual semi-structured interviews.

Results: Findings suggested that an ACNP could provide a high quality of holistic nursing care and positively affect clients' physical and psychological symptom management, enhance clients' quality of life, assist with supplies, provide health education and assist with advocacy. Health professionals commented on effective collaboration with the ACNP service during their partnerships in client care provision.

Conclusions: Overall, the positive effects of the ACNP service on clients and the health care team support the full implementation of the role within the community setting.

Relevance to clinical practice: Funding support for the nurse practitioner role is a vital addition to consideration in the development of international policy on advanced practice nursing. Without adequate funding, the full benefits of the nurse practitioner role in clinical practice, as suggested by the findings presented in this evaluation, will be compromised.

Homework through the eyes of children : what does visual ethnography invite us to see?

Whilst the notion of children’s rights and an entitlement to express their views and participate as global citizens is threaded throughout the international policy field, children’s perspectives on the near ubiquitous practice of homework, and its effects on their daily lives and learner subjectivities, remain under-researched. Drawing on the Bourdieuian concepts of practice, habitus, capital and field, this article develops a cross-cultural analysis of homework practices in Australia, Denmark and Britain to make visible the embodied habitus and agentic possibilities shaping the reproduction of educational advantage and disadvantage for variously located students. Using video data generated by children in primary schools, the article explores children’s visual representations of their compliance and resistance to homework’s regulatory functions. It demonstrates the affordances of visual ethnographic methods as a form of participatory research with children which foregrounds students’ experiences and opinions and makes visible the inclusionary and exclusionary effects of homework on children in diverse socio-cultural settings.

The place of birth in Kafa Zone, Ethiopia

In this qualitative study, I used an ethnographic approach to provide an understanding about the place of birth in rural and semiurban Kafa Zone, Ethiopia. I interviewed women about birth at home and asked what would happen if there were serious problems and a woman was taken to a health facility. The development of health services aimed at reducing maternal mortality implies that the place of birth must change from home to health facility, but the distance from international policy to its implementation is vast and the pathway is not a direct, linear route.

A proposed definition of the engineering methodology

BACKGROUND An adequately concise and accurate definition of the profession of engineering that can simultaneously encompass a majority of the profession and be reasonably understood by a majority of society arguably remains as an elusive goal yet to be attained.While numerous definitions of the profession exist they tend to describe specific methods or approaches deployed in the practice of engineering rather than be suitably descriptive of the profession of engineering.The lack of an adequate, accurate and relevant definition of the profession of engineering has, and continues to, present disadvantages to the profession. While acknowledging this problem the profession continues to rely on existing inadequate, inaccurate, or irrelevant definitions of itself as it struggles to attain the degree of awareness, recognition, and appreciation of its significant benefits that directly impact society and the individual.Accordingly in many countries the choice of engineering as a career path often ranks below other profession choices such as medicine, law, and management - especially with adolescent girls. Also the relevance and role of professional engineering in socio-economic and socio-political contexts is often undervalued or neglected – especially in national and international policy discussions and development.PURPOSETo provide a clear, concise, and accurate definition of the profession of engineering that is acceptable for most, if not all, major stakeholders.METHOD A review of historical and contemporary definitions of professional engineering is provided. Using Koen’s definition of the engineering method in conjunction with Shulman’s set of characteristics common to professions a more generic definition is derived that seeks to simultaneously accommodate the homogenous multi-disciplinary attributes of professional engineering as well as accommodate the discipline specific attributes.RESULTS A proposed definition of the engineering methodology has been developed. A background introduction and justified derivation is provided for the proposed definition.CONCLUSIONS The limitations and inadequacies of historical and contemporary definitions of professional engineering have been considered. Using Koen’s definition as a basis a more generic multi-disciplinary and more contemporary definition is derived and presented. The goal of the proposed definition of the engineering methodology is to provide a more concise, more accurate, and most importantly a more comprehensible definition of the profession of engineering for the purpose of being applied to all major stakeholders of the profession.

The G20’s role in legitimating global capitalism: beyond crisis diplomacy?

The rising profile of the G20 in the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis has led to various forms of concern about the legitimacy of this forum. While debates about the legitimacy of the G20 are important and ongoing, they overlook the important observation that the G20 is also attempting to perform a key role in legitimating global capitalism. This role of legitimating global capitalism emphasises the importance of the G20 to act, and be seen to act, to normalise global capitalism, to strengthen global economic governance, and also facilitate a political consensus with regard to key policy issues. This essay critically examines the role that the G20 plays in legitimating global capitalism and contends that the G20 is not just a technical forum of international policy-making but also a political forum for creating and performing visible responses to problems which are seen to be socially responsive.

From capital surges to drought: seeking stability for emerging economies

Includes bibliography

Macroeconomic cooperation for uncertain times: the REDIMA experience

Includes Bibliography