Prohibiting public drinking in an urban area: determining the impacts on police, the community and marginalised groups

With public drinking laws proliferating across urban areas over the past 15 years, this project evaluated the implementation of these laws, their effectiveness, and their impact on a range of target groups including police, residents, traders, local health and welfare workers, and potentially marginalised groups. Overview Public drinking laws have proliferated across urban areas over the past 15 years; however, there have been very few evaluations of their impacts and effectiveness. The purpose of this project was to evaluate public drinking laws across three diverse inner-urban local government areas (LGAs) of Melbourne: the Cities of Yarra, Darebin and Maribyrnong. The objectives of this project were to evaluate the implementation of public drinking laws, the effectiveness of these laws and the impact of these laws on a range of target groups including police, residents, traders, local health and welfare workers, and potentially marginalised groups. The evaluation produced equivocal findings in relation to whether public drinking laws reduced congregations of drinkers (with differing findings across municipalities) and there was no evidence that these laws reduced alcohol-related crime or harm. However, public drinking laws do make residents feel safer and improve the amenity of an area from the perspective of residents and traders. The evaluation found that public drinking laws often result in negative impacts to marginalised individuals and this requires more consideration in the implementation and enforcement of these laws. It is important that public drinking laws are carefully considered, implemented and enforced (with local council officers and police liaising collaboratively to respond to the needs of the individual community) and are coupled with community-specific social inclusion strategies

Equality Studies, the Academy and the Role of Research in Emancipatory Social Change

If people are structurally excluded from democratic engagement with research practice, they are precluded from assessing its validity in an informed manner. They are effectively disenfranchised from controlling the generation and dissemination of knowledge about themselves and/or the institutions within which they live and work. This issue is especially acute for marginalised groups and communities who are the subjects of so much social scientific research. Such research is frequently undertaken without the involvement of the groups or communities in question. The ownership of data gives researchers and policymakers power over the groups which may add to their marginalisation; there are now people who can claim to know you better than you know yourself. Without democratic engagement therefore, there is a real danger that research knowledge can be used for manipulation and control rather than challenging the injustices experienced. This paper analyses the role of research in relation to social change. It explores, in particular, the implications of utilising an emancipatory research methodology in the study of issues of equality and social justice. While recognising the difficulties involved in developing an emancipatory approach to research, it is argued that such an approach is analytically, politically, and ethically essential if research with marginalised and socially excluded groups is to have a transformative impact.

Use of Civil Society Organisations to Raise the Voice of the Poor in Agricultural Policy

This working paper examines how civil society organisations (CSOs) -- particularly those representing poor and marginalised rural people -- can inform and influence the processes of agricultural policy formulation and implementation. We summarise the role of different interest groups in shaping 'pro-poor' agricultural development and explain how poor people can gain 'voice' to express their views and shape policy processes in a meaningful way

Women's participation in education and training in New Zealand: is the 'learn while you earn' option accessible to all?

Strong education and training systems are viewed as a route to increased labour market participation for groups that have traditionally been excluded from, or marginalised in, the labour market. Engagement in the labour force for such groups has both individual and societal benefits. However, while this emphasis on an increased role for the state in education and training is encouraging, commentators have questioned the ability of 'Third Way' discourse to meet the unique needs of women, given the absence of explicit feminist dialogue in wider discussions on associated policy and practice. Informed by this critique, this article aims to evaluate changes in education and training policy and practice in New Zealand since 1999, in terms of the extent to which it enhances opportunities for women's participation in education and training

Reproduction of institutions through people’s practices: Evidences from a Gram Panchayat in Kerala

This paper analyses the dynamics of participatory institutions in Kudayathur Gram Panchayat in Kerala. It also explores how the different fields of society in panchayat internalised and reproduced these institutions through their actual practices. The study has adopted a relational methodology, linking the subjective stand point of individuals or groups, affiliated to institutions, with their objective position in the society. It has applied methods like in-depth dialogues with informants along with group discussions and document analysis. The study reached the conclusion that institutions in GP largely failed in achieving their objectives. Apathetic approach of the political parties, aversion of the middle and upper middle class groups towards public institutions, and inability of the marginalised groups in involving such institutions were the major hurdles in achieving their ideal objectives.participatory institutions; marginalised groups

A New Learning and Skills Landscape? The central role of the Learning and Skills Council

This is the first paper from a project which is part of the Economic and Social Research Council’s Programme of research into “Teaching and Learning”. The project, entitled “The Impact of Policy on Learning and Inclusion in the New Learning and Skills Sector”, explores what impact the efforts to create a single learning and skills system (LSS) are having on teaching, learning, assessment and inclusion for three marginalised groups of post-16 learners. Drawing primarily on policy documents and 62 in-depth interviews with national, regional and local policymakers in England, the paper points to a complex, confusing and constantly changing landscape; in particular, it deals with the formation, early years and recent reorganisation of the Learning and Skills Council (LSC), its roles, relations with Government, its rather limited power, its partnerships and likely futures. While the formation of a more unified LSS is broadly seen as a necessary step in overcoming the fragmentation and inequalities of the previous post-16 sector, interviewees also highlighted problems, some of which may not simply abate with the passing of time. Political expectations of change are high, but the LSC and its partners are expected to carry through ‘transformational’ strategies without the necessary ‘tools for the job’. In addition, some features of the LSS policy landscape still remain unreformed or need to be reorganised. The LSC and its partners are at the receiving end of a series of policy drivers (eg planning, funding, targets, inspection and initiatives) that may have partial or even perverse effects on the groups of marginalised learners we are studying

Enabling identity: The challenge of presenting the silenced voices of repressed groups in philosophic communities of inquiry

This article seeks to contribute to the challenge of presenting the silenced voices of excluded groups in society by means of a philosophic community of inquiry composed primarily of children and young adults. It proposes a theoretical model named ‘enabling identity’ that presents the stages whereby, under the guiding role played by the community of philosophic inquiry, the hegemonic meta-narrative of the mainstream society makes room for the identity of members of marginalised groups. The model is based on the recognition of diverse narratives within a web of communal narratives that does not favour the meta-narrative. It reports on the experiences of moderators and students from weak and excluded sectors of society in two countries whose participation in communities of philosophical inquiry gave them not only a “voice” but also a presence and identity

Visualizing experience: using creative research methods with members of sexual and gender communities

This chapter argues that visual methods may be particularly appropriate for the study of non- heteronormative sexualities and genders, particularly the more marginal identities and practices which have tended to be pathologised in, and excluded from, past research. We focus here on three of these: bisexuality (attraction to more than one gender, or regardless of gender), trans (moving away from the gender which was assigned at birth), and polyamory (having multiple sexual and/or intimate relationships). Of course trans people may be heterosexual, or indeed of any sexuality, but have tended to be marginalised in many of the same ways as people from non-heterosexual sexualities, and are consequently included in this chapter for that reason. First we briefly overview the history of qualitative research on non-heterosexual sexualities and trans, arguing that qualitative methods, per se, do not prevent researchers from forming limiting understandings and problematic generalisations about such groups. Then we present an alternative to conventional interview/focus group discussion research involving the use of visual methods. We summarise key reasons why this may be particularly appropriate to the exploration of those in marginalised sexualities, genders and relationship forms, and then present three examples, based in our own research, of the ways in which such research provided data which confounded simple celebratory or critical conclusions about people in these communities. Finally, we summarise some methodological considerations which are of value to those considering the use of visual methods in their own research

Coloniser discourses in Capital Television nightly news, Waitangi Day 1996 : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Philosophy in Development Studies at Massey University

Coloniser's discourses which attempted to justify and redeem many of the devastating processes of colonisation around the world have been (re)constructed and repeated in Aotearoa since the 1840's. They include notions of 'progress', 'civilisation', 'social evolution', and the categorisation of bodies into 'races' and 'genders'. These discourses have shaped many of the identities of people living in Aotearoa as well as the political, economic and social developmental path of this country. In 1996 I argue many of these coloniser discourses are repeated and reinforced through the television current affairs and news coverage of Waitangi Day 1996. This being so I argue that imagery is a vital area for academic study because it is through images that we present ourselves to ourselves. Following Clifford and Foucault I approach the 1996 Waitangi Day television news coverage as (re)presentations and constructions of 'truth'. I argue these 'truths' always involve a (re)production of certain political, economic and social discourses at the expense of others. I use theorists such as Irwin, Evans, Dyer and hooks to explore and explain the ways in which different discourses and experiences, some of which may be called anti-colonial, are marginalised by coloniser discourses and journalistic conventions. Using a post structuralist discourse analysis I identify how discourses of 'race' and 'gender' are deployed in Wellington's Capital Television nightly news coverage on 1996 Waitangi Day. In this programme, which claims to present an unmediated 'truth' surrounding the events of 1996 Waitangi Day, I argue that certain voices and experiences are given legitimacy while others are silenced and marginalised. I conclude that generally it is European/New Zealand and male voices which are heard at the expense of Māori and women. I argue that those who do wish to highlight the legacy of colonial ideas in the television media, through legitimate protest, for example Māori sovereignty groups and Pākehā supporters, are marginalised as 'protesters' and 'stirrers' disconnected from their communities and from 'real New Zealanders' on this particular day