How game changers catalyzed, disrupted, and incentivized social innovation: three historical cases of nature conservation, assimilation, and women’s rights

We explore the impact of “game changers” on the dynamics of innovation over time in three problem domains, that of wilderness protection, women’s rights, and assimilation of indigenous children in Canada. Taking a specifically historical and cross-scale approach, we look at one social innovation in each problem domain. We explore the origins and history of the development of the National Parks in the USA, the legalization of contraception in the USA and Canada, and the residential school system in Canada. Based on a comparison of these cases, we identify three kinds of game changers, those that catalyze social innovation, which we define as “seminal,” those that disrupt the continuity of social innovation, which we label exogenous shocks, and those that provide opportunities for novel combinations and recombinations, which we label as endogamous game changers.

The Weight of Language and Action: Epistemic Stance, Methodological Action,and Theoretical Perspective in Knowledge Organization

Knowledge organization (KO) research is a field of scholarship concerned with the design, study and critique of the processes of organizing and representing documents that societies see as worthy of preserving (Tennis, 2008). In this context we are concerned with the relationship between language and action.On the one hand, we are concerned with what language can and does do for our knowledge organization systems (KOS). For example, how do the words NEGRO or INDIAN work in historical and contemporary indexing languages? In relation to this, we are also concerned with how we know about knowledge organization (KO) and its languages. On the other hand, we are concerned with how to act given this knowledge. That is, how do we carry out research and how do we design, implement, and evaluate KO systems?It is important to consider these questions in the context of our work because we are delegated by society to disseminate cultural memory. We are endowed with a perspective, prepared by an education, and granted positions whereby society asks us to ensure that documentary material is accessible to future generations. There is a social value in our work, and as such there is a social imperative to our work. We must act with good conscience, and use language judiciously, for the memory of the world is a heavy burden.In this paper, I explore these two weights of language and action that bear down on KO researchers. I first summarize what extant literature says about the knowledge claims we make with regard to KO practices and systems. To make it clear what it is that I think we know, I create a schematic that will link claims (language) to actions in advising, implementing, or evaluating information practices and systems.I will then contrast this with what we do not know, that is, what the unanswered questions might be (Gnoli, 2008 ; Dahlberg, 2011), and I will discuss them in relation to the two weights in our field of KO.Further, I will try to provide a systematic overview of possible ways to address these open questions in KO research. I will draw on the concept of elenchus - the forms of epistemology, theory, and methodology in KO (Tennis, 2008), and framework analysis which are structures, work practice, and discourses of KO systems (Tennis, 2006). In so doing, I will argue for a Neopragmatic stance on the weight of language and action in KO (Rorty, 1982 ; 2000). I will close by addressing the lacuna left in Neopragmatic thought – the ethical imperative to use language and action in a particular good and moral way. That is, I will address the ethical imperative of KO given its weights, epistemologies, theories, and methods. To do this, I will review a sample of relevant work on deontology in both western and eastern philosophical schools (e.g., Harvey, 1995).The perspective I want to communicate in this section is that the good in carrying out KO research may begin with epistemic stances (cf., language), but ultimately stands on ethical actions. I will present an analysis describing the micro and the macro ethical concerns in relation to KO research and its advice on practice. I hope this demonstrates that the direction of epistemology, theory, and methodology in KO, while burdened with the dual weights of language and action, is clear when provided an ethical sounding board. We know how to proceed when we understand how our work can benefit the world.KO is an important, if not always understood, division of labor in a society that values its documentary heritage and memory institutions. Being able to do good requires us to understand how to balance the weights of language and action. We must understand where we stand and be able to chart a path forward, one that does not cause harm, but adds value to the world and those that want to access recorded knowledge.

Southern theory and its dynamics for postcolonial education

This paper discusses how the exploration of social texts and historical contexts from the global 'South', as put forward in Raewyn Connell's study 'Southern Theory' (2007), can improve the theoretical tools used in postcolonial education analysis. Connell analyses a selection of excellent and compelling social theory texts written by scholars in Africa, India, Iran, Latin America and Australia to show how they challenge and counter the silences, distortions and plain lies of dominant Western social theory. These texts of the global South do not mince words in laying bare the role of the institutions and elites of the West in the destruction, dispossession, and bloodshed involved in creating the world in which we live, and in perpetuating its catastrophes. The texts also reveal intense debates between scholars over their conceptualisations of local, national and global society. My paper argues that this kind of work is of vital importance to postcolonial studies in education. It helps education scholars to uncover the problematic assumptions and distortions of dominant education thought, and understand different ways of seeing. Postcolonial educators could use this to help both students and teacher unlearn many of our taught perceptions of the world, whether in the global North or the global South. Developing a countervailing social theory in education would sharpen our questioning of the structures of schooling as they relate to society, and tease out new dimensions of postcolonial leadership for education.

A novella of ideas : how interactive new media art can effectively communicate an indigenous philosophical concept

How interactive new media art can effectively communicate an indigenous philosophical concept. The sophistication and complexity of the philosophical concept concerning relationships between land and people and between people, intrinsic to the laws and customs of Australian Indigenous society, has begun to be communicated and accessed beyond the realm of anthropological and ethnological domains of Western scholarship. The exciting scope and rapid development of new media arts presents an innovative means of creating an interactive relationship with the general Australian public, addressing the urgent need for an understanding of Indigenous Australian concepts of relationship to land, and to each other, absent from Western narratives. The study is framed by an Indigenous concept of place, and relationships between land and people and between people; and explores how this concept can be clearly communicated through interactive new media arts. It involves: a creative project, the development of an interactive new media art project, a website work-in-progress titled site\sight\cite; and an exegesis, a Novella of Ideas, on the origins, influences, objectives, and potential of creative practices and processes engaged in the creative project. Research undertaken for the creative project and exegesis extended my creative practice into the use of interdisciplinary arts, expressly for the expression of philosophical concepts, consolidating 23 years experience in Indigenous community arts development. The creative project and exegesis contributes to an existing body of Indigenous work in a range of areas - including education, the arts and humanities - which bridges old and new society in Australia. In this study, old and new society is defined by the time of the initial production of art and foundations of knowledge, in the country of its origins, in Indigenous Australia dating back at least 40,000 years.

Journalism Ethics : Arguments and Cases

Hirst and Patching's second edition of Journalism Ethics: Arguments and Cases provides a fully updated exploration of the theory and practice of ethics in journalism. The authors situate modern ethical dilemmas in their social and historical context, which encourages students to think critically about ethics across the study and practice of journalism. Using a unique political economy approach, the text provides students with a theoretical and philosophical understanding of the major ethical dilemmas in journalism today. It commences with a newly recast discussion of theoretical frameworks, which explains the complex concepts of ethics in clear and comprehensive terms. It then examines the 'fault lines' in modern journalism, such as the constant conflict between the public service role of the media, and a journalist's commercial imperative to make a profit. All chapters have been updated with new examples, and many new cases demonstrating the book's theoretical underpinnings have been drawn from 'yesterday's headlines'. These familiar cases encourage student engagement and classroom discussion, and archived cases will still be available to students on an Online Resource Centre. Expanded coverage of the 'War on Terror', issues of deception within journalism, and infotainment and digital technology is included.

Out of time: The moral temporality of sex, crime and taboo

This paper discusses the relationship between law and morality. Morality does not necessarily coincide with the law, but it contributes to it. An act may be legal but nevertheless considered to be immoral in a particular society. For example, the use of pornography may be considered by many to be immoral. Nevertheless, the sale and distribution of non-violent, non-child related, sexually explicit material is legal (or regulated) in many jurisdictions. Many laws are informed by, and even created by, morality. This paper examines the historical influence of morality on the law and on society in general. It aims to develop a theoretical framework for examining legal moralism and the social construction of morality and crime as well as the relationship between sex, desire and taboo. Here, we refer to the moral temporality of sex and taboo, which examines the way in which moral judgments about sex and what is considered taboo change over time, and the kinds of justifications that are employed in support of changing moralities. It unpacks the way in which abstract and highly tenuous concepts such as ‘‘desire’’, ‘‘art’’ and ‘‘entertainment’’ may be ‘‘out of time’’ with morality, and how morality shapes laws over time, fabricating justifications from within socially constructed communities of practice. This theoretical framework maps the way in which these concepts have become temporally dominated by heteronormative structures such as the family, marriage, reproduction, and longevity. It is argued that the logic of these structures is inexorably tied to the heterosexual life-path, charting individual lives and relationships through explicit phases of childhood, adolescence and adulthood that, in the twenty-first century, delimit the boundaries of taboo surrounding sex more than any other time in history.

The probability archive : essence, uncertainty, and the ‘Olduvai imperative.’

Starting from a local problem with finding an archival clip on YouTube, this paper expands to consider the nature of archives in general. It considers the technological, communicative and philosophical characteristics of archives over three historical periods: 1) Modern ‘essence archives’ – museums and galleries organised around the concept of objectivity and realism; 2) Postmodern mediation archives – broadcast TV systems, which I argue were also ‘essence archives,’ albeit a transitional form; and 3) Network or ‘probability archives’ – YouTube and the internet, which are organised around the concept of probability. The paper goes on to argue the case for introducing quantum uncertainty and other aspects of probability theory into the humanities, in order to understand the way knowledge is collected, conserved, curated and communicated in the era of the internet. It is illustrated throughout by reference to the original technological 'affordance' – the Olduvai stone chopping tool.

The geometric modelling of social frames and contexts

How do humans respond to their social context? This question is becoming increasingly urgent in a society where democracy requires that the citizens of a country help to decide upon its policy directions, and yet those citizens frequently have very little knowledge of the complex issues that these policies seek to address. Frequently, we find that humans make their decisions more with reference to their social setting, than to the arguments of scientists, academics, and policy makers. It is broadly anticipated that the agent based modelling (ABM) of human behaviour will make it possible to treat such social effects, but we take the position here that a more sophisticated treatment of context will be required in many such models. While notions such as historical context (where the past history of an agent might affect its later actions) and situational context (where the agent will choose a different action in a different situation) abound in ABM scenarios, we will discuss a case of a potentially changing context, where social effects can have a strong influence upon the perceptions of a group of subjects. In particular, we shall discuss a recently reported case where a biased worm in an election debate led to significant distortions in the reports given by participants as to who won the debate (Davis et al 2011). Thus, participants in a different social context drew different conclusions about the perceived winner of the same debate, with associated significant differences among the two groups as to who they would vote for in the coming election. We extend this example to the problem of modelling the likely electoral responses of agents in the context of the climate change debate, and discuss the notion of interference between related questions that might be asked of an agent in a social simulation that was intended to simulate their likely responses. A modelling technology which could account for such strong social contextual effects would benefit regulatory bodies which need to navigate between multiple interests and concerns, and we shall present one viable avenue for constructing such a technology. A geometric approach will be presented, where the internal state of an agent is represented in a vector space, and their social context is naturally modelled as a set of basis states that are chosen with reference to the problem space.

Female genital mutilation : legal, attitudinal and practical reform

Female genital mutilation (FGM) is a cultural practice common in many Islamic societies. It involves the deliberate, non-therapeutic physical modification of young girls’ genitalia. FGM can take several forms, ranging from less damaging incisions to actual removal of genitalia and narrowing or even closing of the vagina. While often thought to be required by religion, FGM both predates and has no basis in the Koran. Rather, it is a cultural tradition, motivated by a patriarchal social desire to control female bodies to ensure virginity at marriage (preserving family honour), and to prevent infidelity by limiting sexual desire. In the USA and Australia in 2010, peak medical bodies considered endorsing the medical administration of a ‘lesser’ form of FGM. The basis for this was pragmatic: it would be preferable to satisfy patients’ desire for FGM in medically-controlled conditions, rather than have these patients seek it, possibly in more severe forms, under less safe conditions. While arguments favouring medically-administered FGM were soon overcome, the prospect of endorsing FGM illuminated the issue in these two Western countries and beyond. This paper will review the nature of FGM, its physical and psychological health consequences, and Australian laws prohibiting FGM. Then, it will scan recent developments in Africa, where FGM has been made illegal by a growing number of nations and by the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights 2003 (the Maputo Protocol), but is still proving difficult to eradicate. Finally, based on arguments derived from theories of rights, health evidence, and the historical and religious contexts, this paper will ask whether an absolute human right against FGM can be developed.

Justice in Society

Australia has always made claims to being a just and fair society. It is a land of opportunity, where anyone can make it, and where mateship rather than class underpins social relations. Why is it, then, that our criminal justice system is host to the most disadvantaged and disenfranchised in our community? Why do certain groups of people continue to experience the worst forms of injustice in our society? And why do these injustices continue, despite numerous attempts by researchers and activists to address them? By exploring the ways in which we think about justice in the wider Australian society, this book considers these questions. As disciplines that have the most to say about justice and injustice, it analyses the contributions of political philosophy and sociology, and examines how their ideas have come to dominate discussion on issues ranging from asylum seeking to homophobic violence. By examining the shared assumptions about justice and injustice that underpin these discussions, this book also charts a course between and beyond these debates, and seeks to engage, challenge, and offer new possibilities for justice in Australian society. Relevant contemporary social issues like sex trafficking, homelessness, mental illness and Indigenous policing are examined throughout, placed in their historical, social and cultural context, and linked to local, national and global debates. Such analyses examine the broader implications of these criminological, social and legal issues for those excluded from justice in Australian society.

Militarism and International Relations : Political economy, security, theory, edited by Anna Stavrianakis and Jan Selby, Abingdon, Routledge, 2012, 212 pp., £80.00 (hardback), ISBN 978-0-415-61491-7

An engaging narrative is maintained throughout this edited collection of articles that address the issue of militarism in international relations. The book seamlessly integrates historical and contemporary perspectives on militarism with theory and relevant international case studies, resulting in a very informative read. The work is comprised of three parts. Part 1 deals with the theorisation of militarism and includes chapters by Anna Stavrianakis and Jan Selby, Martin Shaw, Simon Dalby, and Nicola Short. It covers a range of topics relating to historical and contemporary theories of militarism, geopolitical threat construction, political economy, and the US military’s ‘cultural turn’.

New media and the transformation of higher education

One set of public institutions that has seen growing discussion about the transformative impact of new media technologies has been universities. The higher education sector, historically one of the more venerable and stable areas of public life, is now the subject of almost continuous speculation about whether it can continue in its current form during the 21st century. Digital media technologies are often seen as being at the forefront of such changes. It has been widely noted that moves towards a knowledge economy generates ‘skills-biased technological change’, that places a premium upon higher education qualifications, and that this earnings gap remains despite the continuing increase in the number of university graduates. As the demand for higher education continues to grow worldwide, there are new discussions about whether technologically-mediated education through new forms such as Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are broadening access to quality learning, or severing the vital connection between teacher and student seen as integral to the learning process. This paper critically appraises such debates in the context of early 21st century higher education. It will discuss ten drivers of change in higher education, many of which are related to themes discussed elsewhere in this book, such as the impact of social media, globalization, and a knowledge economy. It will also consider the issues raised in navigating such developments from the perspective of the ‘Five P’s’: practical issues; personal issues; pedagogical issues; policy issues; and philosophical issues. It also includes a critical evaluation of MOOCs from the point of view of their educational qualities. It will conclude with the observation that while universities will continue to play a significant – and perhaps growing – role in the economy, society and culture, the issues raised about what Clayton Christensen and Henry Eyring term the ‘disruptive university’ (Christensen and Eyring 2011) are nonetheless pressing ones, and that cost and policy pressures in particular are likely to generate significant institutional transformations in higher education worldwide.

Pleasures, perversities, and partnerships : the historical emergence of LGBT-police relationships

Relationships between LGBT people and police have been turbulent for some time now, and have been variously characterized as supportive (McGhee, 2004) and antagonistic (Radford, Betts, & Ostermeyer, 2006). These relationships were, and continue to be, influenced by a range of political, legal, cultural, and social factors. This chapter will examine historical and social science accounts of LGBT-police histories to chart the historical peaks and troughs in these relationships. The discussion demonstrates how, in Western contexts, we oscillate between historical moments of police criminalizing homosexual perversity and contemporary landscapes of partnership between police and LGBT people. However, the chapter challenges the notion that it is possible to trace this as a lineal progression from a painful past to a more productive present. Rather, it focuses on specific moments, marked by pain or pleasure or both, and how these moments emerge and re-emerge in ways that shaped LGBT-police landscapes in potted, uneven ways. The chapter concludes noting how, although certain ideas and police practices may shift towards more progressive notions of partnership policing, we cannot just take away the history that emerged out of mistrust and pain.

Beyond social justice agendas: Indigenous knowledges in pre-service teacher education and practice in Australia

The space and positioning of Indigenous knowledges (IK) within Australian curricula and pedagogy are often contentious, informed by the broader Australian socio-cultural, political and economic landscape. Against changing educational policy, historically based on the myth of terra nullius, we discuss the shifting priorities for embedding Indigenous knowledges in educational practice in university and school curricula and pedagogy. In this chapter, we argue that personal and professional commitment to social justice is an important starting point for embedding Indigenous knowledges in the Australian school curricula and pedagogy. Developing teacher knowledge around embedding IK is required to enable teachers’ preparedness to navigate a contested historical/colonising space in curriculum decision-making, teaching and learning. We draw one mpirical data from a recent research project on supporting pre-service teachers as future curriculum leaders; the project was funded by the Office of Learning and Teaching (OLT). This project aimed to support future curriculum leaders to develop their knowledge of embedding IK at one Australian university. We propose supporting the embedding of IK in situ with pre-service teachers and their supervising teachers on practicum in real, sustained and affirming ways that shifts the recognition of IK from personal commitment to social justice in education, to one that values Indigenous knowledges as content to educate (Connell, 1993). We argue that sustained engagement with and appreciation of IKhas the potential to decolonise Australian curricula, shift policy directions and enhance race relations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians .

Development and validation of a multilevel model for predicting workload under routine and nonroutine conditions in an air traffic management center

Objective: The aim of this study was to develop a model capable of predicting variability in the mental workload experienced by frontline operators under routine and nonroutine conditions. Background: Excess workload is a risk that needs to be managed in safety-critical industries. Predictive models are needed to manage this risk effectively yet are difficult to develop. Much of the difficulty stems from the fact that workload prediction is a multilevel problem. Method: A multilevel workload model was developed in Study 1 with data collected from an en route air traffic management center. Dynamic density metrics were used to predict variability in workload within and between work units while controlling for variability among raters. The model was cross-validated in Studies 2 and 3 with the use of a high-fidelity simulator. Results: Reported workload generally remained within the bounds of the 90% prediction interval in Studies 2 and 3. Workload crossed the upper bound of the prediction interval only under nonroutine conditions. Qualitative analyses suggest that nonroutine events caused workload to cross the upper bound of the prediction interval because the controllers could not manage their workload strategically. Conclusion: The model performed well under both routine and nonroutine conditions and over different patterns of workload variation. Application: Workload prediction models can be used to support both strategic and tactical workload management. Strategic uses include the analysis of historical and projected workflows and the assessment of staffing needs. Tactical uses include the dynamic reallocation of resources to meet changes in demand.