'This is not America': Cultural mythscapes, media representation and the anatomy of the Surveillance School in Australia

Schools have exhibited a demonstrable predilection for surveillance technologies in recent years. While much attention has been paid to the globalized diffusion of surveillance and security practices, in contrast, the ways in which artefacts of surveillance surface and take root unevenly internationally has not received much scholarly attention. Drawing on the media representation of emergent school surveillance technologies in Australia, this article seeks to illuminate how distinctive cultural dynamics interact with acceptability, reverence and rejection of surveillance apparatus in the educational context. Far from revealing homogeneity in the manifestation of surveillance practices, the findings show that cultural context and specificity are central to understanding the materiality of surveillance apparatus and regimes

Country Concepts and the Rational Actor Trap: Limitations to Strategic Management of International NGOs

Growing criticism of inefficient development aid demanded new planning instruments of donors, including international NGOs (INGOs). A reorientation from isolated project-planning towards holistic country concepts and the increasing rationality of a result-orientated planning process were seen as answer. However, whether these country concepts - newly introduced by major INGOs too - have increased the efficiency of development cooperation is open to question. Firstly, there have been counteracting external factors, like the globalization of the aid business, that demanded structural changes in the composition of INGO portfolios towards growing short-term humanitarian aid; this was hardly compatible with the requirements of medium-term country planning. Secondly, the underlying vision of rationality as a remedy for the major ills of development aid was in itself a fallacy. A major change in the methodology of planning, closely connected with a shift of emphasis in the approach to development cooperation, away from project planning and service delivery, towards supporting the socio-cultural and political environment of the recipient communities, demands a reorientation of aid management: The most urgent change needed is by donors, away from the blinkers of result-orientated planning towards participative organizational cultures of learning.Des critiques croissantes de l'aide au développement inefficace exigent de nouveaux instruments de planification des bailleurs de fonds, y compris les ONG internationales (ONGI). Une réorientation de la planification des projets isolés vers des concepts holistiques de la planification de l’aide par pays ainsi que la rationalité croissante d'un processus de planification orientée vers les résultats ont été considérés comme réponse. Toutefois, si ces concepts de pays - nouvellement introduites par les grandes OING eux aussi - ont augmenté l'efficacité de la coopération au développement est ouvert à la question. Tout d'abord, il y a eu l’impact des facteurs externes, comme la mondialisation de l'entreprise de l'aide, qui a exigé des changements structurels dans la composition des portefeuilles des OING vers la croissance de l'aide humanitaire à court terme. Cela était difficilement compatible avec les exigences de l'aménagement du territoire à moyen terme. Deuxièmement, la vision sous-jacente de la rationalité accrue de la planification, concentré sur les resultats, comme un remède pour les grands maux de l'aide au développement était en soi une erreur. Un changement majeur dans la méthodologie de la planification, étroitement liée à un changement d'orientation dans l'approche de la coopération au développement, qui n’est pas concentrer sur planification du projet et la prestation de services, mais qui soutienne l'environnement socio-culturel et politique des communautés bénéficiaires, exige une réorientation de la gestion de l’aide: Le changement le plus urgent est un changement par les donateurs eux-mêmes, qui devrait implanter des cultures de collaboration étroit avec les partenaires et la population locale

Against the epistemicide. : Itinerant curriculum theory and the reiteration of an epistemology of liberation

Echoing Ettore Scola metaphor “Bruti, Sporchi & Cativi”, this chapter challenges how hegemonic and specific (or so called) counter hegemonic curriculum platforms – so connected with Western Eurocentric Modernity – have been able to colonize the field without any prudency to “fabricate” and impose a classed, raced and gendered philosophy of praxis, as unique, that drives the field to an ideological surrealism and collective suicide. Such collective suicide framed by a theoretical timesharing unleashed by both dominant and specific counter dominant platforms that tenaciously controlled the circuits of cultural production grooms the field as a ghetto, flooded with rudeness, and miserable ambitions, a theoretical caliphate that wipes out any episteme beyond the Western Eurocentric Modern terrain, insolently droving to sewage of society the needs and desires of students, teachers and the community. Drawing from key decolonial thinkers, this chapter examines the way Western eugenic curriculum of modernity created an abyssal thinking in which ‘this side’ of the line is legitimate and ‘the other side’ has been produced as ‘non-existent’ (Sousa Santos B, Another knowledge is possible. Verso, London, 2007). The paper suggests the need to move a post-abyssal curriculum that challenges dominant and counter dominant traditions within ‘this side’ of the line, and respects ‘the other’ side of the line. The paper challenges curriculum studies to assume a non-abyssal position one that respects epistemological diversity. This requires an Itinerant Curriculum Theory (Paraskeva JM, Conflicts in curriculum theory: Challenging hegemonic epistemologies. Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2011), which is a commitment and a ruthless epistemological critique of every existing epistemology

Role of infochemicals in the interaction between cassava green mites and its fungal pathogen Neozygites tanajoae

The role of infochemicals in mediating interactions between herbivores and their foraging natural enemies, mainly predators and parasitoids, is well established, but very little is known about infochemical use in interactions between herbivores and their sit-and-wait pathogens. This paper reviews the role of infochemicals in interactions between the cassava green mite (CGM), Mononychellus tanajoa,and its fungal pathogen, Neozygites tanajoae. In a closed-dish test, herbivore-induced plant volatiles (HIPV) from cassava were found to influence conidia and capilliconida production of the fungus but the effect of HIPV varied between isolates. HIPV consistently promoted conidia production of one iso- late and capilliconidia production of another. Olfactory trials with one of the HIPV, methyl salicylate (MeSA), also pro- moted conidia production of the same isolate, but no effect was found on capilliconidia production. In contrast to the effect of HIPV, green leaf volatiles inhibited spore production, suggesting that the fungus uses HIPV to signal the pres- ence of hosts. The behaviour of the mite towards infective spores was investigated in a two-choice unit (discs with vs. without spores) and on detached leaves. Mites avoided the discs with spores, in particular for one isolate. Similar observations were made on detached leaves where more mites were found on leaf lobes without spores than on those with spores. However, mites did not avoid mummified infected mites that did not yet produce spores, suggest- ing that the fungus may profit from going unnoticed inside the live infected mite to reach densely infested patches