Dresden as Opferstadt? : the politics of commemorating destruction, 1985-2005

Using public remembrance of the controversial WWII firebombing of Dresden as its case study, the thesis probes the politics of war memory and commemoration. It argues that before, during, and after Germany's reunification, Dresden was portrayed as a, if not the, leading paradigm of German wartime loss and suffering.

Assessing sustainability : a technical fix or a means of social learning?

The contextual nature of sustainability makes it extremely difficult to measure. Across the world each region has a specific environment and history that has shaped values and perceptions of the local community. In response, a wide range of tools has been developed that employ differing techniques to measure sustainability. These have a range of applications from global to site-specific scales. However, it is yet to be resolved whether assessments made using these tools reflect a technical focus with no close links to the knowledge and perceptions of stakeholders, community and management decisions, or whether the assessments reflect the knowledge and perceptions of local stakeholders and the community. In the southwest region of Victoria, Australia, a sustainability index called AIRS (An Index of Regional Sustainability) has recently been developed. This tool is based on indicators selected by stakeholders and considers relationships between the indicators. The aim of this paper is to report an ex-post evaluation of the AIRS sustainability assessment conducted at a subcatchment scale. The evaluation assesses AIRS's ability to assess regional sustainability and compares and contrasts the subcatchment assessments with the knowledge and perceptions of stakeholders and the community. A participatory approach that acknowledges key stakeholders was used for the evaluation process. Representatives from four stakeholder groups were interviewed to elicit their views of the AIRS assessment, its relevance, quality, applicability and priorities for future development. Strengths and weaknesses of AIRS are revealed and its contribution to social learning is highlighted.

Vietnam veteran as ventriloquist

Because of the shame and controversy surrounding the Vietnam war, a stifling of Vietnam veterans' voices resulted. This paper looks at how this came about, as well as the different ways veterans were regarded in society, and the concomitant affects of this on their psychological welfare. The many films dealing with these events are also discussed.

Messages from Long Tan, Vietnam: memorialisation, reconciliation, and historical justice

This article explores the changing ways in which Australians and Vietnamese remember and memorialize their involvement in the Vietnam War and how these processes intersect with notions of reconciliation and historical justice in postwar contexts. It uses the Battle of Long Tan of August 1966 as an entrée into these considerations and questions how heritage-making and memorialization processes can facilitate the achievement of reconciliation between parties formerly in conflict. Not surprisingly, the Australian and Vietnamese veterans of the battle and the two states, the Commonwealth of Australia and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, have different motivations for wanting to remember Long Tan. On the Australian side, a sense that reconciliation and atonement are needed is often reflected in official government and veterans’ statements about the war and Australia-Vietnam relations, in the memorialization process at Long Tan and in the involvement of Australian veterans groups engaged in local economic development and community building in Vietnam. On the Vietnamese side, where the Vietnam War played out as a civil as well as an international war, efforts by those who actively supported the former Republic of Vietnam based in Saigon in the south and among the overseas Vietnamese (Viet kieu) to memorialize their engagement in the conflict have been frustrated. The usefulness of the notion of seeking historical justice is therefore questioned in post–civil war situations where people are locked into fixed histories and are unprepared or unable to revisit and retell personal and collective memories and histories.

From Vienna to Yogyakarta: the life of Herb Feith

Herb Feith came to Australia as a Jewish refugee from Europe as it was on the bring of war in 1939 and went on to become an internationally renowned and passionate scholar of Indonesia. He died tragically in Melbourne in 2001. This engaging biography tells his own extraordinary story and traces his interest in Indonesia, his determination to establish networks of serious study of Indonesia and Southeast Asia and his commitment to peace activism.

The soviet occupation of Germany: hunger, mass violence and the struggle for peace, 1945-1947

This is a major new account of the Soviet occupation of postwar Germany and the beginning of the Cold War. Dr Filip Slaveski shows how in the immediate aftermath of war the Red Army command struggled to contain the violence of soldiers against German civilians and, at the same time, feed and rebuild the country. This task was then assumed by the Soviet Military Administration in Germany (SVAG) which was established to impose order on this chaos. Its attempt, however, intensified the battle for resources and power among competing occupation organs, especially SVAG and the army, which spilled over from threats and sabotage into fighting and shootouts in the streets. At times, such conflicts threatened to paralyse occupation governance, leaving armed troops, liberated POWs and slave labourers free to roam. SVAG's successes in reducing the violence and reconstructing eastern Germany were a remarkable achievement in the chaotic aftermath of war.

Tissue engineered, biomimetic acellular matrices for expansion of hematopoietic progenitors

This thesis discusses a novel strategy for ex vivo expansion of human HSPC in a cell free culture system and it suggests methods to improve the functional properties of stromal cell derived ACMs to support ex-vivo HSPC growth.

"I feel I can no longer endure": Families and the limits of Commitment in Australia, 1914-1919

Civilian endurance has again become a significant issue in understanding the nature of the First World War, especially since so much emphasis has returned to questions of consent and commitment in making and sustaining the conflict. Fundamental to that enquiry is an acknowledgement of the reality and legitimacy of the sentiments that drove individuals and communities to support the war. By extension, this also implies a need to understand the limits of that commitment, and of the capacity to endure the strains of war. This chapter probes civilian endurance through an examination of Australian families’ experiences of war and separation. It argues that persistent anxiety over loved ones at the front consumed individuals’ emotional resources and, even among the most patriotic Australians, tested commitment to the war.

Expansion of human hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells on decellularized matrix scaffolds

Umbilical cord blood (UCB) is one of the richest sources for hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells (HSPCs), with more than 3000 transplantations performed each year for the treatment of leukemia and other bone marrow, immunological, and hereditary diseases. However, transplantation of single cord blood units is mostly restricted to children, due to the limited number of HSPC per unit. This unit develops a method to increase the number of HSPCs in laboratory conditions by using cell-free matrices from bone marrow cells that mimic 'human-body niche-like' conditions as biological scaffolds to support the ex vivo expansion of HSPCs. In this unit, we describe protocols for the isolation and characterization of HSPCs from UCB and their serum-free expansion on decellularized matrices. This method may also help to provide understanding of the biochemical organization of hematopoietic niches and lead to suggestions regarding the design of tissue engineering-based biomimetic scaffolds for HSPC expansion for clinical applications.

AHS classics: Australia and the First World War: the First World War in Australian history

This article introduces the first volume of AHS Classics: Australia and the First World War. It surveys the critical scholarship on the Australian experience of war, taking its cue from Ken Inglis' seminal article, ‘The Anzac Tradition’ (1965), and tracing the development of his challenge to Australian historians over the following five decades. It argues that the adaptability of the Anzac legend, and its assimilation of varied experiences of the First World War, requires both investigation and caution in the production of new histories of events almost a century distant.

The emergency powers in Bangladesh: means for subversion of the rule of law?

The Constitution of Bangladesh empowers the President to proclaim an emergency on the actual or imminent ground of war or external aggression or internal disturbance. However, the insertion of ‘internal disturbance’ in the Constitution as a ground for invoking emergency has provided the executive with the opportunity to proclaim all the five emergencies in Bangladesh on this vague ground for purposes other than that of securing the life of the nation. Furthermore, in the absence of any effective constitutional mechanisms for scrutinising the exercise of emergency powers and a time limit on the continuation of a state of emergency, some of the proclamations of emergency continued even after the alleged threat posed to the life of the nation was over to perpetuate the survival of the party in power by repressing any political threat to the regime. This Article, therefore, recommends for insertion in the Constitution of Bangladesh detailed norms providing for legal limits on the wide power of the executive concerning the proclamation, administration and termination of emergency with a view to ensure that emergencies can no longer be resorted to as the effective means of discarding the rule of law.

Cross-cultural encounters and 'difficult heritage' on the Thai-Burma railway: an ethics of cosmopolitanism rather than practices of exclusion

This chapter argues for the significance of embodied actions and their traces in the heritage landscape as traces of cross-cultural practices in the context of interpreting difficult heritage in places where the heritage of war is of significance for multiple stakeholders.

Of Law, Lawlessness, and Sovereignty : Multinational Peacekeeping and International Law

Laws of war have been carefully defined by individual nations’ own codes of law as well as by supranational bodies. Yet the international scene has seen an increasing movement away from traditionally declared war toward multinational peacekeeping missions geared at containing local conflicts when perceived as potential threats to their respective regions’ political stability. While individual nations’ laws governing warfare presuppose national sovereignty, the multinational nature of peacekeeping scenarios can blur the lines of command structures, soldiers’ national loyalties, occupational jurisdiction, and raise profound questions as to which countries’ moral sense/governmental system is to be the one upheld. Historically increasingly complex international relations have driven increasingly detailed internationally drafted guidelines for countries’ interactions while at war, yet there are operational, legislative, and moral issues arising in multinational peacekeeping situations which these laws do not address at all. The author analyzes three unique peacekeeping operations in light of these legislative voids and suggests systematic points to consider to the end of protecting the peacekeepers, the national interests of the countries involved, operational matters, and clearly delineating both the objective and logical boundaries of a given multinational peacekeeping mission.

Uma avaliação ex-ante do impacto sobre a capacidade tecnológica da localidade acolhedora das empresas que aderiram ao regime automotivo brasileiro e os seus desdobramentos estaduais : o caso da instalação da General Motors do Brasil em Gravataí, Rio Grande do Sul

Esta tese discute três temas: políticas públicas, gestão tecnológica, e setor automotivo. Tendo por objetivo abreviar o ciclo de absorção e desenvolvimento de tecnologia, um volume expressivo de recursos tem sido transferido do setor público para o setor privado através do que é denominado de Política Pública Indutora (PPI). Os governos pretendem, assim, atrair aquelas empresas tecnologicamente mais capacitadas, na expectativa de que transfiram para a localidade onde se instalam o conhecimento que detêm. No Brasil, um dos setores-alvo deste tipo de política tem sido o automotivo, circunstância observada em diferentes momentos da história. Efetivamente, o Regime Automotivo Brasileiro pretende não apenas acelerar o desenvolvimento do país, mas também promover uma significativa transferência de tecnologia. A análise das PPI, por ser de extrema importância, é bastante influenciada e dificultada quer por seus defensores, quer por seus destratores, que as veêm sob os aspectos de sucesso ou não; mas, não bastasse essa dificuldade, há também o elevado conteúdo ideológico que sustenta as argumentações, que faz com que a avaliação se perca num quadro inconclusivo. Afinal, estas iniciativas são benéficas ou não para o país e para as economias regionais? Finalmente, a eficácia, e portanto o acerto desta estratégia só pode ser avaliado expost facto, quando já comprometidos, quiçá irremediavelmente, os recursos públicos. Por essa razão, este estudo desenvolve uma análise ex-ante das políticas públicas do tipo indutoras, fazendo uso de um modelo compreensivo que permite uma análise longitudinal, captando assim, as mudanças no ambiente. Entre outras, procurou-se responder à seguinte questão: é possível, hoje, inferir quanto à contrib uição, se positiva ou negativa, que o Regime Automotivo Brasileiro e os seus desdobramentos estaduais trarão à capacidade tecnológica no entorno da empresa atraída? O problema e a questão de pesquisa foram abordados, predominantemente, sob um enfoque qualitativo, e o método escolhido foi o estudo de caso. Com o auxílio do modelo proposto foi analisada e avaliada a potencialidade de aumento na capacidade tecnológica induzida pela instalação da unidade montadora da General Motors do Brasil, em Gravataí, Rio Grande do Sul. Ao final conclui- se que os benefícios previstos pelo Regime Automotivo Brasileiro, no que diz respeito a capacitação tecnológica local, dificilmente serão atingidos pela instalação de novas empresas automotivas ou a modernização das existentes.

Em luto e luta: construindo a memória da FEB

O presente trabalho procura investigar como se configura atualmente o campo da disputa memorial sobre a participação da Força Expedicionária Brasileira (FEB) durante a Segunda Guerra Mundial. Para isso, foi preciso levar em conta não apenas os sujeitos políticos que atuam nesse processo – entre outros: Estado, Exército, Associações de veteranos e sociedade – como também as flutuações e apropriações de memória das quais se valem. As memórias traumáticas que os veteranos guardam desse episódio ganham voz através das diversas modalidades da escrita de si – com destaque para os diários, as correspondências e entrevistas – e remetem à noção do dever de memória na luta por reparação e reconhecimento.