Playing "Nordic": The Women of Niskavuori, Agri/Culture, and Imagining Finland on the Third Reich Stage

The theatrical censorship of the Third Reich considered the playwright's race and politics alongside the content of the drama. Given the political stigma of its "leftist" author, it is rather surprising that Hella Wuolijoki's Niskavuoren naiset opened in 1938 at the Staatliches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg. The play ran for fourteen performances before being closed by the Reichsdramaturgie, apparently at the instigation of Finnish critics. Yet this was not the end of the play's or its author's fortunes in the Third Reich, as the possibility of staging the play was raised several times over the next four years, coming to a close in 1942. Playing "Nordic" examines the ideological and theatrical background of this extended "cultural performance," as a means to reopening and reconstructing the work of the 1938 Die Frauen auf Niskavuori. Written by a Finnish, northern, "Nordic" author, and preoccupied with the dynamics of rural culture in an increasingly urbanized world, Niskavuoren naiset was understood in the Third Reich to illustrate and reinforce the racial, agri/cultural themes of Blut und Boden ("veri ja maa"). Playing "Nordic" examines this thematic relationship in three phases. The first phase uses archival materials to investigate the Reichsdramaturgie's understanding of the play and its author, and its ongoing discussion of Wuolijoki from 1937 to 1942. Play evaluator Sigmund Graff's description of Niskavuoren naiset as hamsunartig, or "Hamsun-esque," inspires the second phase of the dissertation, which first elaborates the meanings of Blut und Boden through a reading of contemporary "racial" theory and anthropology, and then assesses the representation of Finland within this discourse, one of the dominant cultural paradigms of the Third Reich. Imaging Finland for German audiences, the play stood among analogous, continued efforts to represent Finland and the rural life in the Third Reich, colored by Blut und Boden: art and agricultural exhibitions, essays and propaganda literature, mass demonstrations of the peasantry. This wider framework for the performance of "Finland" materializes the abstract or theoretical program of Blut und Boden in its everyday performed meanings; as such it provides the essential background for reading the Hamburg production of Die Frauen auf Niskavuori, which sustains the third and final phase. The German translation and the Hamburg photographic record are compared with the Helsinki premiere to assess the impact of Blut und Boden on the representation of Wuolijoki's play in the Third Reich. The journalistic critical response illuminates the effect that the dramatic complex of rural and racial values - generically identified as Bauerndrama in the Third Reich - had on the reception of the play; at the same time, both visual and critical documents also suggest possible moments of theatrical dissent in the Hamburg production. Playing "Nordic" undertakes a documentary and cultural reading of the changing theatrical meanings of Wuolijoki's Niskavuoren naiset as it crossed the frontier from Finland to the stage of the Third Reich. It also provides a model for the ways theatrical signification operates within a network of cultural and ideological meanings, suggesting the ideological work of theatrical production depends on, reinforces, and contests that tissue of values. Although Finnish criticism of Niskavuoren naiset has assumed the play's Blut und Boden resonance contributed to Wuolijoki's success in the Third Reich, this study shows a considerably more complex situation. This revealing production dramatizes the changing uses of plays in a politicized national and transnational context. As part of the framing of "Nordic" identity on the wider stage of the Third Reich, Die Frauen auf Niskavuori exemplifies the conjunction of concurrent - sometimes independent, sometimes interlocking - "racial" and national ideologies.

Ylirajaisia suhteita : Helsingin olympialaiset, Armi Kuusela ja ylikansallinen historia

In 1952 Helsinki hosted the Summer Olympic Games and Armi Kuusela, the current “Maiden of Finland”, was at the same time crowned Miss Universe. In popular history writing, these events have been designated as a crucial turning point – the end of an era marked by war and deprivation and the beginning of a modern, Western nation. Symptomatically, both events were marked by Finnish women’s sexual relationships with foreign men. The Olympics were shadowed by a concern over Finnish women’s “undue friendliness” with the Olympic guests, and Armi Kuusela's world tour was cut short by her surprise marriage in Tokyo and subsequent emigration to the Philippines. This study is an inquiry into the Helsinki Olympics and the public persona of Armi Kuusela from the point of view of transnational heterosexuality and the constitution of Finnish national identity. Methodologically the two main components of the study are intersectionality, defined here as a focus on the mutual histories and effects of discourses of gender, sexuality, race and nation; and transnational history as a way of exploring the ways that both nations and sexual subjects are embedded in global relations of power. The analysis proceeds by way of contextual and intertextual readings of various sources. Part one, centering on the Olympics, involves a campaign mounted by certain women’s organizations before the Games in order to educate young women about the potential dangers of the forthcoming international event as well as magazine and newspaper articles published during and after the Games concerning the encounter between young Finnish women and foreign, especially “Southern,” men. It places the debates during the Olympics within the framework of wartime understandings of women’s sexuality; the history of the concept of decency (siveellisyys); post-war population policy; the intersectional histories of conceptions pertaining to race and sexuality; and finally, the post-war concerns over women’s migration from rural areas to the capital city and their potential emigration abroad. Part two deals with the persona of Armi Kuusela and the public reception of her world tour and marriage, based on material from both Finland and the Philippines (newspapers, magazines, advertisements, books and films). It examines the persona of Armi Kuusela as a figure of national import in terms of the East/West divide; the racialized images of different geographic climates and Oriental “Others;” the meaning of whiteness in the Philippines; the significance of class and colonial history for the domestication of sexual and racial transgressions implied by an unconventional transnational marriage; as well as the cultural logics of transnational desire and its possible meanings for women in 1950s Finland. The study develops two arguments. First, it suggests that instead of being purely oppositional to national discourses, transnational desire may also be viewed as a product of these very discourses. Second, it claims that the national significance of both the Olympics and the persona of Armi Kuusela was due to the new points of comparison they both offered for national identity construction. In comparison with the sexualized Southern men at the Olympics and the racialized Orient in the representations of Armi Kuusela’s travels and marriage, Finland emerged as part of the civilized North, placed firmly within the perimeters of Western Europe. As such, both events mark a “whitening” of the Finnish people as well as a distancing from their previous designations in racial hierarchies. At the same time, however, the process of becoming a white nation inevitably meant complying with and reproducing racial hierarchies, rather than simply abolishing them.

Kirjan tie lukijalle : Kirjakauppojen vakiintuminen Suomessa 1740 - 1860

Books Paths to Readers describes the history of the origins and consolidation of modern and open book stores in Finland 1740 1860. The thesis approaches the book trade as a part of a print culture. Instead of literary studies choice to concentrate on texts and writers, book history seeks to describe the print culture of a society and how the literary activities and societies interconnect. For book historians, printed works are creations of various individuals and groups: writers, printers, editors, book sellers, censors, critics and finally, readers. They all take part in the creation, delivery and interpretation of printed works. The study reveals the ways selling and distributing books have influenced the printed works and the literary and print culture. The research period 1740 1860 covers the so-called second revolution of the book, or the modernisation of the print culture. The thesis describes the history of 60 book stores and their 96 owners. The study concentrates on three themes: firstly, how the particular book trade network became a central institution for printed works distribution, secondly what were the relations between cosmopolitan European book markets and the national cultural sphere, and thirdly how book stores functioned as cultural institutions and business enterprises. Book stores that have a varied assortment and are targeted to all readers became the main institution for book trade in Finland during 1740 1860. It happened because of three features. First, the book binders monopoly on selling bound copies in Sweden was abolished in 1740s. As a consequence entrepreneurs could concentrate solely to trade activities and offer copies from various publishers at their stores. Secondly the common business model of bartering was replaced by selling copies for cash, first in the German book trade centre Leipzig in 1770s. The change intensified book markets activities and Finnish book stores foreign connections. Thirdly, after Finland was annexed to the Russian empire in 1809, the Grand duchy s administration steered foreign book trade to book stores (because of censorship demands). Up to 1830 s book stores were available only in Helsinki and Turku. During next ten years book stores opened in six regional centres. The early entrepreneurs ran usually vertical businesses consisting of printing, publishing and distribution activities. This strategy lowered costs, eased the delivery of printed works and helped to create elaborated centres for all book activities. These book stores main clientele consisted of the Swedish speaking gentry. During late 1840s various opinion leaders called for the development of a national Finnish print culture, and also book stores. As a result, during the five years before the beginning of the Crimean war (1853 1856) book stores were opened in almost all Finnish towns: at the beginning of the war 36 book stores operated in 21 towns. The later book sellers, mainly functioning in small towns among Finnish speaking people, settled usually strictly for selling activities. Book stores received most of their revenues from selling foreign titles. Swedish, German, French and Belgian (pirate editions of popular French novels) books were widely available for the multilingual gentry. Foreign titles and copies brought in most of the revenues. Censorship inspections or unfavourable custom fees would not limit the imports. Even if the local Finnish print production steadily rose, many copies, even titles, were never delivered via book stores. Only during the 1840 s and 1850 s the most advanced publishers would concentrate on creating publishing programmes and delivering their titles via book stores. Book sellers regulated commissions were small. They got even smaller because of large amounts of unsold copies, various and usual misunderstandings of consignments and accounts or plain accidents that destroyed shipments and warehouses. Also, the cultural aim of a creating large and assortments and the tendency of short selling periods demanded professional entrepreneurship, which many small town book sellers however lacked. In the midst of troublesome business efforts, co-operation and mutual concern of the book market s entrepreneurs were the key elements of the trade, although on local level book sellers would compete, sometimes even ferociously. The difficult circumstances (new censorship decree of 1850, Crimean war) and lack of entrepreneurship, experience and customers meant that half of the book stores opened in 1845 1860 was shut in less than five years. In 1858 the few leading publishers established The Finnish Book Publishers Association. Its first task was to create new business rules and manners for the book trade. The association s activities began to professionalise the whole network, but at the same time the earlier independence of regional publishing and selling enterprises diminished greatly. The consolidation of modern and open book store network in Finland is a history of a slow and complex development without clear signs of a beginning or an end. The ideal book store model was rarely accomplished in its all features. Nevertheless, book stores became the norm of the book trade. They managed to offer larger selections, reached larger clienteles and maintained constant activity better than any other book distribution model. In essential, the book stores methods have not changed up to present times.

Grower group case study on new farming practices in the Herbert region, Australia

Growers working together have proven to be a successful method for improving the utilization of farm resources and accelerating the adoption of the Sugar Yield Decline Joint Venture principles (SYDJV). The Pinnacle Precision Farming Group was formed in 2004 with the aim to bring together the ideas, knowledge and resources of growers in the Herbert region. Along with their common interest in controlled traffic, minimal tillage and crop rotations, the grower group utilize a farm machinery contractor to provide some of their major farming operations. This paper provides an insight into the changes made by the Pinnacle Precision Farming Group and their journey to adopt the new farming system practices. This paper also details the changes made by the group machinery contractor and a comparison of the old and new farming systems used by a group member. A focus point of the document is the impact of the new farming system on the economic, social and environmental components of the farming business. Analysis of the new farming system with a legume crop rotation revealed an increase in the farm gross margin by AU$22 024 and, in addition, a reduction in tractor operation time by 38% across the whole farm. This represents a return on marginal capital of 14.68 times the original capital outlay required by the group member. Using the new farming system without a legume crop will still improve the group members whole of farm gross margin by AU$6 839 and reduce tractor operation time by 43% across the whole farm. The Pinnacle Precision Farming group recognize the need to continually improve their farming businesses and believe that the new farming system principles are critical for the long term viability of the industry. [U$1 = AU$1.19].

Cross-Border Insolvency Law

This new work provides a comprehensive and theoretically rich discussion of the law on cross-border insolvency. It engages with several current multi-billion dollar insolvencies such as those of Nortel Networks and Lehman Brothers to provide the reader with state of the art knowledge of the complex problems posed by transnational insolvency. As the number of transnational insolvencies grows due to prevailing economic conditions, practitioners are increasingly required to navigate the mass of legal rules applicable to cross-border insolvency situations. The associated challenges are heightened by the diversity of legal structures employed by modern business entities and a patchwork of costly, inefficient, and unpredictable national legal rules. The response has been a proliferation of international legal instruments such as the UNCITRAL Model Law and the the EU Insolvency Regulation, supplemented by judicial practice, adding further layers of complexity. Writing from an Australian perspective, the authors analyse this network of legal rules and subsequent case law. In addition, they explain the theoretical underpinnings of these rules in an accessible manner to build a solid foundation for practice, facilitate advanced reasoning, and enable the development of sophisticated arguments for law reform. Comparative case law from jurisdictions such as the United States and United Kingdom is also included. This book is highly relevant to insolvency practitioners faced with the recovery of assets located in different jurisdictions, transactional lawyers for whom knowledge of potential insolvency pitfalls is essential, and academics. It is invaluable for students at both undergraduate and postgraduate level seeking a sound understanding of this challenging area of law.

Disability in a Technology-Driven Workplace

New Internet and Web-based technology applications have meant significant cost and time efficiencies to many American businesses. However, many employers have not yet fully grasped the impact of these new information and communication technologies on applicants and employees with certain disabilities such as vision impairments, hearing problems or limited dexterity. Although not all applicants and employees who have a disability may experience IT-access problems, to select groups it can pose a needless barrier. The increasing dominance of IT in the workplace presents both a challenge and an opportunity for workers with disabilities and their employers. It will be up to HR professionals to ensure that Web-based HR processes and workplace technologies are accessible to their employees with disabilities. .

How CBO Forecasts Income

[Excerpt] Because federal receipts are determined to a great extent by taxes collected on individual and business income, this background paper focuses on how CBO projects income earned by individuals and businesses. It concentrates primarily on CBO's methodology as it pertains to those categories of individual and business income that are encompassed within the framework of the national income and product accounts, or NIPAs (see Appendix A for explanations). Using that framework for projecting income helps to ensure consistency with CBO's projections of the overall economy.

Stakeholder expectations for environmental assurance in agriculture: Lessons from the pastoral industry

This paper outlines the expectations of a wide range of stakeholders for environmental assurance in the pastoral industries and agriculture generally. Stakeholders consulted were domestic consumers, rangeland graziers, members of environmental groups, companies within meat and wool supply chains, and agricultural industry, environmental and consumer groups. Most stakeholders were in favour of the application of environmental assurance to agriculture, although supply chains and consumers had less enthusiasm for this than environmental and consumer groups. General public good benefits were more important to environmental and consumer groups, while private benefits were more important to consumers and supply chains. The 'ideal' form of environmental assurance appears to be a management system that provides for continuous improvement in environmental, quality and food safety outcomes, combined with elements of ISO 14024 eco-labelling such as life-cycle assessment, environmental performance criteria, third-party certification, labelling and multi-stakeholder involvement. However, market failure prevents this from being implemented and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. In the short term, members of supply chains (the people that must implement and fund environmental assurance) want this to be kept simple and low cost, to be built into their existing industry standards and to add value to their businesses. As a starting point, several agricultural industry organisations favour the use of a basic management system, combining continuous improvement, risk assessment and industry best management practice programs, which can be built on over time to meet regulator, market and community expectations.

Swimming against the tide? Australian labour regulation and the fissured workplace

In The Fissured Workplace, David Weil dissects the ways in which ostensibly ‘large’ American businesses have come to shed direct employees and instead source their labour needs through a ‘complicated network of smaller business units’. As he notes, this has increased the profitability of these ‘lead’ businesses, at the expense of those who (ultimately) work for them: Wage setting and supervision shift from core businesses to a myriad of organizations, each operating under the rigorous standards of lead businesses but facing fierce competitive pressures. Although lead businesses set demanding goals and standards, and often detailed work practice requirements for subsidiary companies, the actual liability, oversight, and supervision of the workforce become the problem of one or more other organizations. And by replacing a direct employment relationship with a fissured workplace, employment itself becomes more precarious, with risk shifted onto smaller employers and individual workers, who are often cast in the role of independent businesses in their own right.

Developing sustainable banana production systems: a case study from tropical Australia

The north Queensland banana industry is under pressure from government and community expectations to exhibit good environmental stewardship. The industry is situated on the high-rainfall north Queensland coast adjacent to 2 natural icons, the Great Barrier Reef to the east and World Heritage-listed rain forest areas to the west. The main environmental concern is agricultural industry pollutants harming the Great Barrier Reef. In addition to environmental issues the banana industry also suffers financial pressure from declining margins and production loss from tropical cyclones. As part of a broader government strategy to reduce land-based pollutants affecting the Great Barrier Reef, the formation of a pilot banana producers group to address these environmental and economic pressures was facilitated. Using an integrated farming systems approach, we worked collaboratively with these producers to conduct an environmental risk assessment of their businesses and then to develop best management practices (BMP) to address environmental concerns. We also sought input from technical experts to provide increased rigour for the environmental risk assessment and BMP development. The producers' commercial experience ensured new ideas for improved sustainable practices were constantly assessed through their profit-driven 'filter' thus ensuring economic sustainability was also considered. Relying heavily on the producers' knowledge and experience meant the agreed sustainable practices were practical, relevant and financially feasible for the average-sized banana business in the region. Expert input and review also ensured that practices were technically sound. The pilot group producers then implemented and adapted selected key practices on their farms. High priority practices addressed by the producers group included optimizing nitrogen fertilizer management to reduce runoff water nitrification, developing practical ground cover management to reduce soil erosion and improving integrated pest management systems to reduce pesticide use. To facilitate wider banana industry understanding and adoption of the BMP's developed by the pilot group, we conducted field days at the farms of the pilot group members. Information generated by the pilot group has had wider application to Australian horticulture and the process has been subsequently used with the north Queensland sugar industry. Our experiences have shown that integrated farming systems methodologies are useful in addressing complex issues like environmental and economic sustainability. We have also found that individual horticulture businesses need on-going technical support for change to more sustainable practices. One-off interventions have little impact, as farm improvement is usually an on-going incremental process. A key lesson from this project has been the need to develop practical, farm scale economic tools to clarify and demonstrate the financial impact of alternative management practices. Demonstrating continued profitability is critical to encourage widespread industry adoption of environmentally sustainable practices

Mobility and security: the perceived benefits of citizenship for resettled young people from refugee backgrounds

In recent decades, the meaning and value of formal state citizenship has shifted dramatically. In the same period, scholarship on citizenship has drawn attention to the proliferation of alternative forms of sub-, supra- and transnational citizenship, at times obscuring the ongoing importance of formal state citizenship. For refugees, however, formal state citizenship remains a critical and widely shared goal. Drawing on interviews with 51 young people from refugee backgrounds in Melbourne, Australia, this article explores the intersecting themes of mobility and security that were identified by participants as the most important benefits of acquiring formal state citizenship in the country of resettlement. In contrast to the insecurity of forced migration, formal state citizenship provides a privileged mobility that enables refugee-background youth to maintain and create transnational identities and attachments and to be protected while doing so, while also granting a secure status within the nation state and insurance against further displacement in an uncertain future. In offering these forms of mobility and security, formal state citizenship contributes to a sense of ontological security among refugee-background youth, providing an important foundation for building national and transnational futures.

Australian Property Institute Inc, Submission to the Productivity Commission on Intellectual Property Arrangements – Issues Paper

This submission responds to the document Intellectual Property Arrangements Issues Paper (Issues Paper) released by the Productivity Commission in October 2015 for public consultation and input by 30 November 2015. The API is grateful for the extension of time granted by the Commission to complete and lodge this submission. The overall need for an inquiry into intellectual property is supported by API. In particular it is noted with approval that the Commission states in its Issues Paper that it is to consider the appropriate balance between “incentives for innovation and investments, and the interests of both individuals and businesses in assessing products”.1 However, API is of the view that intellectual property in the area of real property presents a number of issues which are not fully canvassed in the abovementioned Issues Paper. Intellectual property embedded in valuation and other property-related reports of API members involves the acquisition of information which may possibly be confidential. Yet, when engaged in banks and financial institutions the intellectual property in such valuations and/ or reports is commonly required to be passed to the client bank or financial institution. In the Issues Paper it is proposed that there are seven different forms of intellectual property rights.2 It is the view of API that an eight form exists, namely private agreements. The Issues Paper, however, regards private agreements between firms as alternatives to intellectual property rights. The API considers that “secrecy or confidentiality arrangements”3 as identified in the Issues Paper form a much larger part of the manner in which intellectual property is maintained in Australia for the purposes of trade secrecy or more often, financial confidentiality...

Developing a dynamic regional brand - focus on flavour.

This project has delivered technical sensory language that accurately and precisely describes the flavour and texture of key seafood species to the seafood industry of the Eyre Peninsula. Industry members and producers have been trained on the sensory properties of their products and are equipped with knowledge of how to apply sensory language to their products for their customers. The seafood industry of the Eyre Peninsula has embraced the “Eyre Peninsula Seafood Flavour wheel” and is already using it in the promotion of their products. In addition local, national and international seafood producers and end-users have indicated a strong interest in the results and outputs of this project and the potential application of the seafood flavour wheel in their respective businesses.

Your fish. Your future. Queensland Fisheries Strategy 2009-2014

The Queensland Fisheries Strategy 2009-2014 sets the direction for the future of fisheries and aims to address some of the challenges impacting Queensland's fisheries both from within Australia and abroad. Every year in Queensland almost a million people fish for a living, for recreation, or for traditional and customary purposes. Countless others rely on sustainable fisheries as the focus of tourism and other businesses - but there are major challenges for the fishing sector. Fisheries resources are finite and under significant stress. Fisheries face challenges including the potential for over-exploitation by all fishing sectors, increasing consumer demand, a rising population, coastal development, the effects of climate change, biosecurity risks, import competition and rising production costs.

Leading Sheep III

Leading Sheep is a framework for supporting decision-making about technologies and practices to increase the profitability and productivity of the Queensland Sheep Businesses. Leading Sheep aims to achieve a high level of engagement with sheep businesses in Queensland to support their ongoing decision making processes about productivity and profitability.