La poétique du roman historique de Eveline Hasler

À l'aide des tout derniers modèles narratologiques développés entre autres par Ansgar Nünning, nous nous penchons sur l'oeuvre d'Eveline Hasler, une voix phare de la littérature alémanique contemporaine. À partir d’un corpus de six romans, nous examinons de façon systématique sa poétique du roman historique au regard 1) des techniques narratives, 2) de la marginalité de ses personnages en société, 3) de la conception de l’Histoire, 4) de l'image critique qu'elle présente de la Suisse. Il en ressort un portrait très nuancé de l'oeuvre de Hasler, puisqu’elle allie un récit principalement réaliste, plutôt traditionnel, mais aussi inspiré du langage cinématographique, à des passages métahistoriographiques postmodernes, où une narratrice assimilable à l’auteure fait part au « je » de ses réflexions sur l'Histoire. Même si ces brefs passages relativement rares rappellent sans contredit la posture de l’historien, ils s’inscrivent toutefois dans la fiction, laquelle actualise le passé dans la perspective historique d’un lecteur contemporain. De fait, l’œuvre de Hasler se présente comme un jeu habile avec la liberté poétique et le souci de véracité historique, ce à quoi concourt l’imbrication de documents originaux en italique dans le roman. Par ailleurs, la question de la marginalité en société joue un rôle prépondérant chez Hasler, car tous ses personnages principaux sont autant de marginaux, de Außenseiter. Cette problématique montre entre autres les limites de l’Aufklärung, étant donné que ses tenants, les adversaires des marginaux, se targuent le plus souvent d’être motivés par la pensée éclairante pour mieux la pervertir. Il en résulte la mise à l’écart des individus dérangeants — la prétendue sorcière, le géant et les femmes qui remettent en cause l’organisation patriarcale. Or, certains marginaux de Hasler parviennent à s’arracher un espace de liberté dans la marge, au prix de leurs racines helvétiques. Ainsi, ces marginaux peinent à s’inscrire dans l’Histoire dite officielle, ce que Hasler tente de rectifier en leur redonnant une voix. Sur le plan individuel, la plupart d’entre eux expérimentent une évolution circulaire, puisqu’ils ne parviennent pas à sortir de la marge (sauf peut-être Henry Dunant). Cette impression de tourner en rond s’oppose à une conception de l’Histoire humaine qui se déroule en continuum, puisque les exclusions d’hier préfigurent celles d’aujourd’hui. Au-delà de cette mesure humaine du temps, l’horizon temporel de la nature s’inscrit pour sa part dans la permanence. Ainsi, Hasler développe une conception historique qui varie selon des points de vue coexistants. Cet amalgame est le plus souvent marqué par un certain pessimisme, comme le dénote la vie d’Emily Kempin associée au mythe d’Icare. Finalement, tous les acteurs historiques de Hasler appartiennent au contexte helvétique et en présentent une image assez rétrograde, laquelle se dévoile non seulement à travers la fictionnalisation des lieux, mais aussi par des références à trois symboles nationaux : les Alpes, le réduit helvétique et la légende de Guillaume Tell. Hasler fait le procès de ces mythes, associés à la liberté et à la sauvegarde de ce « peuple de bergers », en montrant que la Suisse n’apporte pas de solution originale aux défis de l’Occident.

Women and representation in local government : international case studies

Women and Representation in Local Government opens up an opportunity to critique and move beyond suppositions and labels in relation to women in local government. Presenting a wealth of new empirical material, this book brings together international experts to examine and compare the presence of women at this level and features case studies on the US, UK, France, Germany, Spain, Finland, Uganda, China, Australia and New Zealand. Divided into four main sections, each explores a key theme related to the subject of women and representation in local government and engages with contemporary gender theory and the broader literature on women and politics. The contributors explore local government as a gendered environment; critiquing strategies to address the limited number of elected female members in local government and examine the impact of significant recent changes on local government through a gender lens. Addressing key questions of how gender equality can be achieved in this sector, it will be of strong interest to students and academics working in the fields of gender studies, local government and international politics.

Prospects for women's legislative representation in postsocialist Europe: the views of female politicians

Research on women’s political representation in post-socialist Europe has highlighted the role of cultural and political factors in obstructing women’s access to legislative power, such as the prevalence of traditional gender stereotypes, electoral systems, and the absence of a feminist movement. Yet the role of women political elites in enhancing or hindering women’s access to political power in the region has so far remained uncharted. This article seeks to fill some of the existing gaps in this literature by examining the views of women politicians with regard to women’s political underrepresentation and their assessments of strategies for redressing this imbalance. Findings from the analysis reveal that although women politicians recognize gender inequalities in representation as a problem requiring intervention, how the problem is perceived, and the preferred measures to deal with it, is largely shaped by the social and cultural context in which these actors are embedded.

A Foucauldian Analysis of Power and Representation in an Attempt to Run a Photovoice Project with Youth

This project evolved out of a search for ways to conduct research on “others” in a way that does not exploit, stigmatize or misrepresent their experience. This thesis is an ethnographic study in leisure research and youth work and an experiment in running a photovoice project. Photovoice is a participatory visual method that embodies the emancipatory ideal of empowering others through self-representation. The literature on photovoice lacks a comprehensive discussion on the complexity of power and representation. Postmodern theorists have proposed that participatory methods are not benign and that initiatives are acts of power in themselves that produce effects (Cook & Kothari, 2001). A Foucauldian analysis of power is used to deconstruct the researcher’s practice and reflect on why and how youth are “engaged”. This project seeks to embrace the principle of working “with” others, but also work from a postmodern perspective that acknowledges power and representation as ongoing problems.

Investigating shape representation in area V4 with HMAX: Orientation and Grating selectivities

The question of how shape is represented is of central interest to understanding visual processing in cortex. While tuning properties of the cells in early part of the ventral visual stream, thought to be responsible for object recognition in the primate, are comparatively well understood, several different theories have been proposed regarding tuning in higher visual areas, such as V4. We used the model of object recognition in cortex presented by Riesenhuber and Poggio (1999), where more complex shape tuning in higher layers is the result of combining afferent inputs tuned to simpler features, and compared the tuning properties of model units in intermediate layers to those of V4 neurons from the literature. In particular, we investigated the issue of shape representation in visual area V1 and V4 using oriented bars and various types of gratings (polar, hyperbolic, and Cartesian), as used in several physiology experiments. Our computational model was able to reproduce several physiological findings, such as the broadening distribution of the orientation bandwidths and the emergence of a bias toward non-Cartesian stimuli. Interestingly, the simulation results suggest that some V4 neurons receive input from afferents with spatially separated receptive fields, leading to experimentally testable predictions. However, the simulations also show that the stimulus set of Cartesian and non-Cartesian gratings is not sufficiently complex to probe shape tuning in higher areas, necessitating the use of more complex stimulus sets.

Designing a safety management support system using open architecture databases: the requirements of information representation in the support of managers' risk-related decision-making

This research was conducted at the Space Research and Technology Centre o the European Space Agency at Noordvijk in the Netherlands. ESA is an international organisation that brings together a range of scientists, engineers and managers from 14 European member states. The motivation for the work was to enable decision-makers, in a culturally and technologically diverse organisation, to share information for the purpose of making decisions that are well informed about the risk-related aspects of the situations they seek to address. The research examined the use of decision support system DSS) technology to facilitate decision-making of this type. This involved identifying the technology available and its application to risk management. Decision-making is a complex activity that does not lend itself to exact measurement or precise understanding at a detailed level. In view of this, a prototype DSS was developed through which to understand the practical issues to be accommodated and to evaluate alternative approaches to supporting decision-making of this type. The problem of measuring the effect upon the quality of decisions has been approached through expert evaluation of the software developed. The practical orientation of this work was informed by a review of the relevant literature in decision-making, risk management, decision support and information technology. Communication and information technology unite the major the,es of this work. This allows correlation of the interests of the research with European public policy. The principles of communication were also considered in the topic of information visualisation - this emerging technology exploits flexible modes of human computer interaction (HCI) to improve the cognition of complex data. Risk management is itself an area characterised by complexity and risk visualisation is advocated for application in this field of endeavour. The thesis provides recommendations for future work in the fields of decision=making, DSS technology and risk management.

Sacred cows and crashing boars : ethno-religious minorities and the politics of online representation in Malaysia

Starting with the incident now known as the Cow’s Head Protest, this article traces and unpacks the events, techniques, and conditions surrounding the representation of ethno-religious minorities in Malaysia. The author suggests that the Malaysian Indians’ struggle to correct the dominant reading of their community as an impoverished and humbled underclass is a disruption of the dominant cultural order in Malaysia. It is also among the key events to have has set in motion a set of dynamics—the visual turn—introduced by new media into the politics of ethno-communal representation in Malaysia. Believing that this situation requires urgent examination the author attempts to outline the problematics of the task.

The minority report : disproportionate representation in Australia’s largest education system

The overrepresentation of students from minority ethnic groups in separate special education settings has been extensively documented in North America, yet little research exists for Australian school systems. To address this gap, we systematically analyzed 13 years of enrolment data from the state of New South Wales. Stark differences are seen in patterns of enrolment between Indigenous students, students from a Language Background Other than English (LBOTE), and non-Indigenous English speaking students. Moreover, these differences are increasing. While enrollments of Indigenous students in separate settings increased faster across time than did enrollments of Indigenous students in mainstream, enrollments of LBOTE students in mainstream increased faster than did enrollments of LBOTE students in separate settings.

The remediation of the personal photograph and the politics of self-representation in digital storytelling

Over the past couple of decades, the cultural field formerly known as ‘domestic’, and later ‘personal’ photography has been remediated and transformed as part of the social web, with its convergence of personal expression, interpersonal communication, and online social networks (most recently via platforms like Flickr, Facebook and Twitter). Meanwhile, the Digital Storytelling movement (involving the workshop-based production of short autobiographical videos) from its beginnings in the mid 1990s relied heavily on the narrative power of the personal photograph, often sourced from family albums, and later from online archives. This paper addresses the new issues arising for the politics of self-representation and personal photography in the era of social media, focusing particularly on the consequences of online image-sharing. It discusses in detail the practices of selection, curation, manipulation and editing of personal photographic images among a group of activist-oriented queer digital storytellers who have in common a stated desire to share their personal stories in pursuit of social change, and whose stories often aim to address both intimate and antagonistic publics.

Capturing the 'authentic voice' : challenges and opportunities for voice and self-representation in two ABC storytelling projects

In recent years there has been a noticeable move by various public institutions, such as public service broadcasters and community media organisations, to capture and disseminate the voices and viewpoints of ‘ordinary people’ through inviting them to share stories about their lives. One of the foremost objectives of many such projects is to provide under-represented individuals and groups with an opportunity to express and represent themselves; as such, the capture and broadcast of ‘authentic voices’ is a central value. This paper discusses the notion of ‘authentic voice’, and questions the framing role of public media organisations in storytelling projects that aim to provide individuals with space for self-expression and self-representation. It considers the ways in which tensions arise on multiple levels when individuals are asked to express and represent themselves within projects and spaces that are managed by institutions. This paper begins by discussing the challenges and opportunities that arise within storytelling projects that are facilitated by public institutions and community media arts organisations, and that aim to amplify the voices of “ordinary people” (Thumim, 2009). It examines ways in which ‘voice’ is facilitated, curated, broadcast and distributed within such projects, particularly questioning the ways in which project facilitation and the curation of stories for public broadcast can both help and hinder the amplification of ‘authentic voice’. Furthermore, we seek to discuss how ‘authentic voice’ is defined, and what is involved in the process of amplification. The paper moves on to discuss a case study in order to demonstrate some of the tensions that are evident within a storytelling project that is managed by a public institution – Australia’s national broadcaster – and the ways these tensions impact upon the capture and broadcast of an ‘authentic voice’ for project participants. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s (ABC) ‘Heywire’ project is a storytelling competition and website that aims to ‘give voice’ to 16-22 year olds who live in rural, regional and remote parts of Australia. Looking at tensions that exist on organisational, political and philosophical levels within the Heywire project reveals a number of conflicts of interest and objectives between the institution and project participants. This leads us to question whether institutionally-managed storytelling projects can effectively support individuals to have an ‘authentic voice’, and whether struggles of aims and objectives diminish the personal benefits that people may derive from expressing and representing themselves within such projects.

Exploring sustainability in literature for the Australian curriculum : an annotated guide

The Australian Curriculum: English (AC:E) is being implemented in Queensland and asks teachers and curriculum designers to incorporate the cross curriculum priority of Sustainability. This paper examines some texts suitable for inclusion in classroom study and suggests some companion texts that may be studied alongside them, including online resources by the ABC and those developed online for the Australian Curriculum. We also suggest some formative and summative assessment possibilities for responding to the selected works in this guide. We have endeavoured to investigate literature that enable students to explore and produce text types across the three AC:E categories: persuasive, imaginative and informative. The selected texts cover traditional novels, novellas, Sci-fi and speculative fiction, non-fiction, documentary, feature film and animation. Some of the texts reviewed here also cover the other cross curriculum priorities including texts by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers and some which also include Asian representations. We have also indicated which of the AC:E the general capabilities are addressed in each text.

Capturing the ‘authentic voice’ : challenges and opportunities for voice and self-representation in two ABC storytelling projects

This paper discusses the opportunities and challenges that arise within storytelling projects that are facilitated by public service broadcasters and that aim to amplify the voices of ‘ordinary people’. In particular, it focuses on two of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s current life storytelling projects: ABC Open and Heywire.

Dismantling worker categories: the primary duty of care, and worker consultation, participation and representation, in the model Work Health and Safety Bill 2009

Late in 2009, the Australian Workplace Relations Ministers' Council endorsed the model Work Health and Safety Bill 2009, which is to be adopted by all Australian governments (federal, state and territory) from 01 January 2012. This paper describes and analyses two key sets of provisions in this model legislation. The first establishes a 'primary' duty of care imposed not on 'employers' but on persons conducting a business or undertaking, and owed to all kinds of workers engaged, directed or influenced by the person conducting the business or undertaking. The second encompasses broad duties on all persons conducting a business or undertaking to consult with workers who carry out work for the business or undertaking and who are directly affected by a work health and safety issue, and to facilitate the election of health and safety representatives representing all workers who carry out work for the business or undertaking. These provisions arguably make a significant contribution to solving a problem faced by occupational safety and health regulators around the world – modifying regulation to accommodate all forms of precarious work.