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‘My own sort of heaven’ »

A life of Rosalie Gascoigne

Authored by: Nicola Francis
Publication date: October 2024
Widely regarded as a major Australian artist, Rosalie Gascoigne first exhibited in 1974 at the age of fifty-seven. She rapidly achieved critical acclaim for her assemblages which were her response to the Monaro landscape surrounding Canberra. The great blonde paddocks, vast skies and big raucous birds contrasted with the familiar lush green harbour city of Auckland she had left behind. Her medium: weathered discards from the landscape. By her death in 1999, her work had been purchased for major public art collections in Australia, Aotearoa New Zealand and New York, and had been exhibited across Europe and Asia. Gascoigne’s story is often cast in simple terms—an inspirational tale of an older woman ‘finding herself’ later in life and gaining artistic acclaim. But the reality is much more complex and contingent. This biography explores Gascoigne’s achievement of her ‘own sort of heaven’ through the frame of the narrative she told once she had gained fame, using a series of interviews she gave from 1980 to 1998. It revolves around her frequently stated sense of feeling an outsider, her belief that artists are born not made, and other factors central to the development and impact of her work. Migrating to Australia from New Zealand in 1943, Gascoigne experienced the dramatic social changes of the 1960s and 1970s and benefited from the growth of cultural life in Canberra, a developing Australian art industry, and changing conceptions of aesthetic beauty.

East Asia Forum Quarterly: Volume 16, Number 3, 2024 »

Publication date: September 2024
ASEAN's rise as the cornerstone of regional diplomacy and security in the 1990s may have seemed improbable, but it was crucial. Today, a shifting regional geopolitical landscape challenges ASEAN’s relevance. Great power competition and waning global political commitment to multilateral arrangements threaten its role as East Asia’s 'steering committee'. This edition of East Asia Forum Quarterly explores how ASEAN can maintain its centrality, calling for proactive leadership and stronger regional cooperation.
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Human Ecology Review: Volume 28, Number 1 »

Publication date: September 2024
Human Ecology Review 28(1) features a Special Section from a collection of researchers in Nigeria, reflecting on the political and cultural influences on, and responses to, the unique social and environmental devastation of the oil-producing Niger Delta region. Across five articles and the introductory piece, the scholars address social and environmental justice and policy (Eni et al.); and examine the attempts to restore and clean up the landscape (I. Nwoma and Anyika). The focus then turns to ecoaesthetic responses in literary forms to the Nigerian landscape and cultures, with an ecocritical analysis of postcolonial ecology in Isidore Okpewho’s novel Tides (C. Nwoma); of traditionalism, modernity, and nature in Joe Ushie’s collection of poems, A Reign of Locusts (Kehinde and Egya); and concludes with an examination of the trauma of alienation from nature and homeland in Amaechi Akwanya’s collection of poems Pilgrim Foot (Onyemachi). Following the Special Section, Schooneveldt describes a methodology for reframing how we perceive the agency of other organisms; Warner refines and develops governance principles for assisted species migration; and Zhang and Guo explore informal institutions in China and their role in mediating pro-environmental behaviours.

Dick Watkins »

Reshaping Art and Life

Authored by: Mary Eagle
Publication date: September 2024
Dick Watkins belongs to the generation of artists whose careers were launched at the high-flying end of American-based Abstraction. Almost immediately he faced up to the abrupt end of the Modern era. Culture was no longer to be framed by ‘progress’. In 1970, taking stock of the situation, he announced that he was a copyist, there being no such thing as a new creation in art, shaped as it was by visual languages. Nor did he intend to limit his curiosity about the relation of art to life by restricting himself to a ‘personal’ style. There followed a long and passionately adventurous exploration into many subjects and styles, during which Watkins was often the first to signal changes taking place in Western culture. The result is that for half a century he has been a major, if controversial figure in Australian art. Format: Hardback

Aboriginal History Journal: Volume 47 »

Edited by: Crystal McKinnon, Ben Silverstein
Publication date: September 2024
This volume opens with Joakim Goldhahn, Sally May, and Jeffrey Lee’s study of renowned Badmardi artist Nayombolmi, best known for his rock art but here considered as an artist who produced a number of bark paintings for collectors in the 1950s and 1960s. They show us how his representation of public stories of Spirit or Ancestral Beings emerges from a negotiation between the artist, collectors, and dealers, shaping the forms in which he shared Badmardi story. The following two articles take up the theme of negotiation in contexts of segregation. Sam Furphy describes Yorta Yorta memory activism relating to Queen Elizabeth II’s visit to Yorta Yorta Country in 1954, considering memories of the fence that was erected to place Yorta Yorta people beyond the Queen’s view and prevent any direct relationship between peoples. Cameron Raynes continues to study segregation by considering the disastrous health impacts of the colour bar that excluded Aboriginal people of the Point Pearce Station from the nearby Wallaroo and Maitland Hospitals in the early-mid twentieth century. The next articles turn to relationships between Aboriginal people and colonists in Queensland. In a collaboratively written article, Alice Buhrich, Lewis Richards, Brian Bing, Jimmy Richards, Sharon Prior, Jenny Lacey, Tania Casey and Megan Mosquito narrate a history of past and ongoing Ewamian resistance to European invasion that stands in stark contrast to myths of Ewamian disappearance. Rebeka Manning and Sally Babidge read archives of Queensland pastoral stations for traces of Aboriginal women’s and girls’ domestic service, taking these hints as occasions for Aboriginal storytelling. The final article, co-authored by members of the Aboriginal History Archive Will Bracks, Coen Brown, Clare Land, Gary Foley, John Hawkes, Kim Kruger, Rochelle le Pere, Natasha Ritchie and Shannon Woodcock, describes the work of that archive to produce a historical understanding that can provide the basis for describing and enacting Aboriginal self-determination. The volume also includes a series of book reviews, as well as reflections on the life and work of Niel Gunson and Gordon Briscoe, two key figures in Aboriginal History whose influence is evident throughout these pages.

From Borders to Pathways »

Innovations and Regressions in the Movement of People into Europe

Edited by: Matthew Zagor
Publication date: September 2024
From Borders to Pathways: Innovations and Regressions in the Movement of People into Europe examines the evolution of European migration policy, offering a forward-looking analysis that extends beyond traditional border controls to innovative legal migration pathways. Contributors provide an in-depth exploration of the drivers shaping migration policies, including public opinion and the rise of populist discourses, the contrasting responses to various real and imagined migrant crises, and critiques of recent policy innovations such as refugee finance schemes, ‘safe legal pathways’, and migrant lotteries. Through interdisciplinary perspectives, the authors assess socio-political, legal, geo-political and cultural shifts to advocate for a more inclusive, humane and sustainable approach to migration. By challenging dominant narratives of deterrence, extraterritoriality and exclusion, this book advocates for policies that balance Europe’s myriad commitments, values and imperatives, highlighting the need for ethical frameworks that respect the dignity of migrants. Essential reading for policymakers, scholars and stakeholders, From Borders to Pathways offers a comprehensive reflection on the complexities of migration in Europe, signalling a paradigm shift towards cooperation, inclusivity, and shared responsibility in global mobility.

Made in China Journal: Volume 9, Issue 1, 2024 »

Publication date: August 2024
A new Chinese government textbook for university students, An Introduction to the Community of the Zhonghua Race (中华民族共同体概论), promotes President Xi Jinping's vision for governing the country’s diverse population. This approach shifts away from celebrating cultural differences—what the anthropologist Susan McCarthy once termed ‘communist multiculturalism’—and towards a Han-dominant identity, a form of racial nationalism inspired by sociologist Fei Xiaotong’s concept of ‘multiple origins, single body’ (多元一体). While the constitution of the People’s Republic of China as amended in 2018 guarantees minority rights and political autonomy through the framework of ‘minority nationalities’ (少数民族), the textbook suggests that Tibetan, Uyghur, Mongols, and other Indigenous groups should eventually assimilate into Han culture, raising concerns about the future of minority languages and traditions. Xi Jinping's new approach to national unity faced significant resistance from both minority and Han officials. Yet, this resistance only prompted an even more muscular response: revamping government departments, a harsh crackdown in minority-populated areas, and removing minority officials who oversaw ethnic affairs. In this issue of the Made in China journal, we ask contributors to reflect on the state of ethnic minority culture in the wake of Xi’s new ethno-nationalist order and explore what remains of cultural differences at the end of dreams of communist pluralism and ethnic autonomy.

Preparing a Nation? »

The New Deal in the Villages of Papua New Guinea

Authored by: Brad Underhill
Publication date: August 2024
Preparing a Nation?, based on extensive archival research, addresses perennial questions of Australian colonialism in Papua New Guinea. To what extent did Australia prepare Papua New Guinea for independence? And what were the policies and the ideologies behind colonial development, implemented after World War II? A key innovation of this book is to take these questions from policy desks in Canberra and Port Moresby to the villages of four administrative areas: Chimbu, Milne Bay, Sepik and New Hanover. How successful were Australian colonial planners in designing and implementing programs that could ameliorate the potential harm of market capitalism and develop ‘new’ socioeconomic structures that would combine a disparate people into an ‘imagined community’, capable of becoming an independent nation-state in the far distant future? Colonial intention is contrasted with Indigenous experience. Bradley Underhill explores an Australian governmental tendency to prioritise colonial control over Indigenous autonomy in circumstances where subjugated people do not necessarily fit within an expected narrative of compliant or westernised ‘native’. ‘I expect it will become the standard reference for its subject, which covers a pivotal aspect of Australia’s colonial administration.’ —Bill Gammage

Dregs »

Love and Monsters in Small Town New Zealand

Authored by: Laura McLauchlan
Publication date: August 2024
Girls who join dog packs, boys who gain strength from trees, men who love bodies with nobody in them: Dregs is a collection of tenderly-monstrous love stories, set in a shadowy small town of the same name. Based in South Canterbury, New Zealand, these lovingly disturbing fictions welcome the strange and other-wordly, while keeping an ethnographic eye trained on the classed, religious, gendered, racialised and species-based forces shaping this rural region of New Zealand’s South Island. While at times grotesque, these darkly loving, richly-illustrated tales offer new avenues for ethnographic research and shed new light on the region, giving voice and form to unspoken aspects of this antipodean rural idyll. Shaped by a deep respect for the monstrous feminine, regardless of the gender of the bodies in which such forces appear, Dregs: Love and Monsters in Small Town New Zealand is a product of both an anthropological sensibility and a trust that naming and finding ways to live well with our monsters is a vital aspect of living well in our times.

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Rebellion at Coranderrk »

Authored by: Diane Barwick
Publication date: August 2024
More than a century ago an Aboriginal community in Victoria campaigned for recognition of their right to occupy and control the small acreage they had farmed for 25 years. Others wanted to develop this tract. Government spokesmen denied that the occupants had inherited any rights to this land and declared that, anyway, they were not really Aborigines. This book is about the rebellion at Coranderrk Aboriginal Station between 1874 and 1886. It describes how Coranderrk families fought to keep their land. To explain why they fought I must begin with the years before, to show what this ‘miserable spadeful of ground’ meant to them, and how they came to be there. Finally, I sketch what ultimately happened. First published in 1998, 12 years after the death of its author Diane Barwick, Rebellion at Coranderrk was an attempt to rectify some of the injustices of the past two-hundred-plus years in Australia, and to prevent similar occurrences in the future. It remains acutely relevant. This book includes the names and images of people who are now deceased. ‘All Australians have good reason to be grateful to Diane Barwick.’ — H. C. Coombs ‘The painstaking research, the perceptive judgements of people and events, and the brilliant prose combine to produce a magnificent account of the Kulin and their European “administrators”. The book is simply packed with historical reinterpretation and vivid reconstructions of families and individuals.’ — C. T. Stannage ‘The author’s research found that Coranderrk is an excellent example of … an Aboriginal (farming) success story. It is very relevant to modern land-rights protests throughout Australia.’ — Canberra Times