Authentic housing, authentic culture?: transforming a village into a 'tourist site' in Manggarai, eastern Indonesia

Since the publication of MacCannell’s The tourist (1976), the issue of ‘authenticity’ has been at the centre of tourism studies. Whilst early analysts broadly agreed with MacCannell’s thesis that tourism, by turning culture into a commodity, replaced real with ‘staged’ authenticity (ibid, 91-107), more recent work has shown ‘an increased awareness of the social construction and invention of both tradition and authenticity’ (Wood, 1992: 57). That is, authenticity is increasingly seen as a socially constructed concept, with criteria for judgement of ‘the authentic’ varying greatly between different actors. In addition, analysts are moving away from rather naive considerations of the ‘impact’ of tourism on pristine, pre-tourist culture, to an appreciation that not only does tourism create a ‘space for discussion’ of tradition (see both Adams and Picard, this issue), but that its ‘impact’ is always bound up with local cultural politics (Wood, 1992: 67-8). In this paper, I describe an Indonesian tourism project – the ‘discovery’ of an apparently ‘untouched’ village and its remodelling into a ‘tourist site’ – in which issues of ‘authenticity’ played a central part. As I shall show, both concepts of authenticity and perceptions of what objects, practices or other aspects of culture should be the focus of talk about authenticity varied between state officials, ambitious young men, ritual elders and other villagers. Not only does the project I describe have implications for pan-Indonesian discourses on ‘culture’ and ‘ethnicity’, it also raises issues concerning the ways in which local people distinguish between different kinds of visitors, and how ‘tourism’ can have a profound impact on local perceptions of place and identity, even in the absence of large numbers of visitors

Distributed data fusion algorithms for inertial network systems

New approaches to the development of data fusion algorithms for inertial network systems are described. The aim of this development is to increase the accuracy of estimates of inertial state vectors in all the network nodes, including the navigation states, and also to improve the fault tolerance of inertial network systems. An analysis of distributed inertial sensing models is presented and new distributed data fusion algorithms are developed for inertial network systems. The distributed data fusion algorithm comprises two steps: inertial measurement fusion and state fusion. The inertial measurement fusion allows each node to assimilate all the inertial measurements from an inertial network system, which can improve the performance of inertial sensor failure detection and isolation algorithms by providing more information. The state fusion further increases the accuracy and enhances the integrity of the local inertial states and navigation state estimates. The simulation results show that the two-step fusion procedure overcomes the disadvantages of traditional inertial sensor alignment procedures. The slave inertial nodes can be accurately aligned to the master node

The Immediate and Extended Effect of Diet and Exercise on Metabolic Flexibility

Metabolic inflexibility is an emerging physiological marker indicative of metabolic dysfunction and associated with type 2 diabetes (T2D) and obesity. Exercise is a potent stimulus to improve metabolic health, however, not much is known about the acute effects of exercise on metabolic flexibility (METFLEX). The purpose of this dissertation was study the time-course of diet and exercise and its effects on METFLEX. Three studies were conducted to investigate molecular and clinical aspects of diet and exercise and how these stimuli may alter the metabolic response to fuel. The first study was conducted on obesity-prone, Osborne-Mendel (OM) and obesity-resistant S5B/Pl (S5B) rats. This experiment investigated inherent differences in EE, metabolic rate, METFLEX and skeletal muscle markers of metabolism, lipid storage and lipid oxidation between OM and S5B, as well as HFD-induced strain differences in these parameters. The consumption of a HFD in S5B rats increased metabolic rate and EE and decreased metabolic rate and EE in OM rats. These strain differences were not due to the differences in activity or food intake. These results suggest that HFD-induced differences in metabolic rate and EE may be mediated by HFD-induced differences in pAMPK and PPARγ expression and lipid accumulation in the gastrocnemius muscle of OM and S5B rats. The second study was designed to investigate the effect of acute aerobic exercise at an intensity that maximizes the rate of fat oxidation (FATMAX) on glucose tolerance, insulin action, and metabolic flexibility (METFLEX) compared to acute aerobic exercise at the onset of blood lactate accumulation (OBLA) resulting in greater carbohydrate (CHO) oxidation. OBLA exercise appears to have deleterious effects on oral glucose tolerance and metabolic flexibility acutely, however, FM exercise does not confer improved METFLEX. These results suggest that predominate substrate utilization does not promote improved glucose tolerance and metabolic flexibility in young overweight men. The third and final study of this dissertation was designed to investigate the immediate and extended of a single bout of high intensity interval exercise (HIIE) on METFLEX and mitochondrial function. Participants were recruited with a family history (FmHx) of T2D (n=8) and without a family history of T2D (n=8). The extended effects (48 hours) work via the reduction fat oxidation by increasing resting fat oxidation rate and improving the suppression of fat oxidation in response to a mixed meal

Health Inequalities and People with Learning Disabilities in the UK

This briefing paper will assist Primary, Acute and Specialist NHS Trusts in fulfilling their responsibilities. In this report we summarise the most recent evidence from the UK on the health status of people with learning disabilities and the determinants of the health inequalities they face. Later in the autumn, IHaL will be producing a briefing for GP Commissioning Consortia and PCTs on practical commissioning actions to help address the issues identified in this report

Contested statelessness in Sabah, Malaysia: irregularity and the politics of recognition

UNHCR’s current #IBelong campaign presents stateless people as uniquely excluded, emphasising the need for legal solutions to their situation. Such approaches to statelessness sidestep both the complexities of lived experience, and the wider politics of state recognition. In response, this article utilises ethnographic data from Sabah, Malaysia, and theorisations of the grey areas between citizenship and statelessness, to argue for the fundamental connection between statelessness and irregularity. Such a connection is central to understanding both the everyday lives of potentially stateless people, and Sabah’s public discourse on statelessness as a mirage obscuring the problems of ‘illegals’ and ‘street children’

The power of paradoxes in teaching

Paradoxes challenge conventional assumptions and can be profoundly shocking – so Catherine Allerton puts them at the heart of her course on children and youth. She explains why, and how students respond

Impossible children: illegality and excluded belonging among children of migrants in Sabah, East Malaysia

This article makes a case for attending to the specificities of child illegality in migrant contexts. This is not simply because children have been left out of previous accounts, but also because their status as minors makes both their citizenship and their illegality different to that of adults. The analysis is based on research with children born to migrants in the state of Sabah, East Malaysia. I argue that such children are configured as Sabah’s impossible children, and that this configuration influences their experiences of illegality and exclusion in distinctive ways. From a young age, children are aware of document ‘checking’ raids and, as ‘foreigners’, are unable to attend Malaysian schools. However, informal documents from learning centres, as well as age and contingent circumstances, may give them a temporary, ‘liminal’ legality. Finally, given that irregular migrants experience both exclusion and inclusion in a host nation, the article describes children’s urban forms of belonging. These forms of inclusion demonstrate children’s engagement with Sabah as a home, as against their political construction as an impossible problem

A Retrospective Cohort Study comparing Retention and Viral suppression between Co-morbidity Adherence Clubs and HIV-Only Adherence Clubs in Cape Town, South Africa

In South Africa, there is an increasing population of those with both Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and one or more non-communicable diseases (NCDs). This is thought to be due to a number of factors, including both the successful Antiretroviral Therapy (ART) programme (which has increased the life-expectancy of those with HIV) and the increasing prevalence of NCDs (due to an aging population, lifestyle changes and urbanisation). This co-morbid population has been shown have poor health outcomes especially in terms of adherence (due to pill burden, multiple appointments etc). There are currently very few models of integrated care for those with both HIV and NCDs, despite well-documented potential benefits of this approach for both the patient and the health system (in terms of efficiency). One such model of care, the co-morbidity adherence clubs (for those with both HIV and hypertension and/or diabetes), was implemented in 2016 in South Africa and this study aims to compare the key outcomes of retention and viral suppression between these clubs and the established HIV-only adherence clubs. Part A is the study protocol which lays the foundation for the need for this research, and explains how the research will be conducted. Part B forms the literature review which gives a summary of the existing literature and provides context for the dissertation. Part C is the manuscript, presenting the analysis of the retrospective cohort study, and includes a discussion on the implications of key findings. The study sample comprised 602 HIV-positive adults (501 from the HIV-only club model and 101 from the co-morbidity club model). The overall female proportion was 70.3% and the median age was 38 years. The results showed that there was no difference in the proportion of those retained (84.2% vs 85.6%, p=0.703) or the proportion who were virally suppressed (97% vs 97%, p=0.999) in the co-morbidity club compared to the HIV-only club. In multivariable logistic regression models, adjusted for age, sex and duration on ART, there was no significant difference in retention (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 0.75 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.38, 1.47) or viral suppression (aOR 0.98 95% CI 0.23, 4.14) by club model. The most common reason for loss of retention from the HIV-only club was non-attendance whereas for the co-morbidity club it was being sent back to clinic for high blood pressure. This study provides early evidence of comparable short-term patient outcomes between HIV-only and co-morbidity club models and provides reassurance that co-morbidity clubs can be implemented without affecting the outcomes of HIV care. It also provides early promise that, whilst the differential reasons for loss of retention by club model merit further investigation, patients with HIV and hypertension and/or diabetes can safely be managed in co-morbidity clubs