Art as everyday practice: A study of gongfu tea in Chaoshan, China

This study explores the place of traditional Chinese tea culture in a society undergoing changes both culturally, with the rise of consumerism, and structurally, with the growth of a market economy and globalization. It does so by examining tea drinking in the Chaoshan region of eastern Guangdong Province. Chaoshan is the home of a style of preparing and drinking tea known as 'gongfu' tea, involving preparation of strong tea in small pots, and drinking repeated brews in small cups. As well as being an important part of the regional food and drink culture, gongfu tea has been adopted outside Chaoshan as a refined form of tea culture, and even represented outside China as an authentic 'Chinese tea ceremony'. It therefore provides an appropriate case study through which to examine both local practices and the processes through which local cultural objects are appropriated and transformed for use in other contexts. The study pursues two lines of inquiry. The first examines the development of a contemporary discourse representing Chaoshan gongfu tea as a manifestation of a continuous tradition dating back more than 1,000 years to the Tang Dynasty. I argue that, while tea has long been consumed in Chaoshan, this representation is not supported by historical evidence, and is an example of an invented tradition. The second line of inquiry is a study of contemporary gongfu tea-drinking practices, both among people born in Chaoshan, and among non-Chaoshan people who have taken it up as an acquired practice. Methodologically, the study uses sociological ethnography, in which the ‘field’ of research is not a specific locality but a field of inquiry defined by pursuing linkages relevant to the research questions. Findings are based on fieldwork involving semi-structured interviews with, and observations among, a snowball sample of 32 individuals plus one family that was treated, for analytical purposes, as a single unit. Fieldwork was conducted in four visits to the region between 2010 and 2017. The study found that, among people born in Chaoshan, gongfu tea is experienced as an integral part of everyday life, rather than a form of tea art. As a practice, it entails close attention to detail in preparing, serving and drinking tea, on the one hand and, on the other, a high level of creativity, rather than slavish adherence to a prescriptive model. People who have taken up gongfu tea as an acquired practice exhibit similar skills, but for them, gongfu tea is unlikely to be woven into the fabric of everyday life. Some people choose to cultivate additional knowledge and skills in order to enhance their gongfu tea practice as tea art. The study concludes by considering the relationship between Chaoshan gongfu tea as a cultural object created through discourse, and contemporary tea-drinking practices. I argue that the relationship is not as close as literary accounts imply. While each is informed by the other, neither is a mirror of the other, and each is a product of distinctive social processes: the discourse, by the activities of academics, entrepreneurs and others, each pursuing their own interests; tea-drinking practices, by the opportunities and constraints generated through economic and social processes emanating from the wider society

Preventive medical care in remote Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory: a follow-up study of the impact of clinical guidelines, computerised recall and reminder systems, and audit and feedback

Background Interventions to improve delivery of preventive medical services have been shown to be effective in North America and the UK. However, there are few studies of the extent to which the impact of such interventions has been sustained, or of the impact of such interventions in disadvantaged populations or remote settings. This paper describes the trends in delivery of preventive medical services following a multifaceted intervention in remote community health centres in the Northern Territory of Australia. Methods The intervention comprised the development and dissemination of best practice guidelines supported by an electronic client register, recall and reminder systems and associated staff training, and audit and feedback. Clinical records in seven community health centres were audited at regular intervals against best practice guidelines over a period of three years, with feedback of audit findings to health centre staff and management. Results Levels of service delivery varied between services and between communities. There was an initial improvement in service levels for most services following the intervention, but improvements were in general not fully sustained over the three year period. Conclusions Improvements in service delivery are consistent with the international experience, although baseline and follow-up levels are in many cases higher than reported for comparable studies in North America and the UK. Sustainability of improvements may be achieved by institutionalisation of relevant work practices and enhanced health centre capacity

Alcohol, communities and researchers: theorizing the relationships in an unstable mixture

The growing importance of local communities as sites for preventive alcohol-related initiatives has generated interest in the role of research associated with community action. To date, however, this has not led to a theoretically informed account because of a failure to account reflexively for researchers' own practices and the use of conceptually inadequate models of "community." this paper proposes an analytical framework, derived from the author's association with alcohol initiatives in several northern Australian towns and drawing on Bourdieu's concept of the social field. It is argued that the initiation of local action generates a complex social field in which stakeholders pursue their interests by mobilizing forms of capital: economic, social, political, and symbolic. Research, as well as the conveyance of valued information, is imbued with symbolic and political capital. The analysis concludes with four propositions relating to how, by whom and with what consequences research is likely to be utilized in these settings

Responding to Aboriginal substance misuse : a review of programs conducted by the Council for Aboriginal Alcohol Program Services (C.A.A.P.S.), Northern Territory

A review conducted on behalf of the N.T. Drug and Alcohol Bureau, Department of Health and Community Services, and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, ATSIC.This review is concerned with the effectiveness of CAAPS intervention programs. After presenting an overview of the organisational structure of CAAPS in Chapter One, I examine the theories, ideas and models governing the CAAPS approach to substance abuse. This examination takes up Chapter Two. The next few chapters examine individual components of the CAAPS service delivery system. Chapters Three and Four focus on two major residential programs - the Daly River Five Mile Family program and the Gordon Symons Centre residential programs respectively. Chapter Five looks at the non-residential programs offered at the Gordon Symons Centre between 1987 and 1989. In Chapter Six the focus is on CAAPS' community-based field workers. In the final chapter, I attempt to draw together the threads of pervious chapters into an overall assessment of the effectiveness of the CAAPS system

The power of kava or the power of ideas? kava use and kava policy in the Northern Territory, Australia. by Peter d'Abbs

Throughout the 1980s, the use of kava in Aboriginal communities aroused considerable controversy, but was not subject to statutory controls. Since that time, however, a variety of legislative and regulatory mechanisms have been employed to control its supply and consumption. The author's purpose in this paper is to trace the emergence of these mechanisms, and the shifts in attitude and policy that underpinned them. The whole journal is a special volume on: The power of kava

Do individual liquor permit systems help Indigenous communities to manage alcohol?

Liquor permits were once used throughout Scandinavia and North America for managing alcohol, but largely disappeared in the late 20th century. Today, they are used in some Indigenous communities in Nunavut, Canada and the Northern Territory, Australia. This paper examines the extent to which liquor permits: (i) contribute to reducing alcohol-related harms in Indigenous communities; and (ii) offer a viable mechanism for managing alcohol in Indigenous communities.The study draws on published and unpublished international literature on liquor permit systems in Indigenous communities, and on field visits to northern territory (NT) communities.Apart from one anecdotal report, the study found no evidence that liquor permit systems in Nunavut communities have reduced alcohol-related problems. In the NT, they have reduced alcohol-related harms in some communities. However, management of liquor permit systems generates significant administrative demands in communities.Effectiveness of liquor permit systems is a product of five factors: permits themselves; agencies and procedures for issuing and managing permits; agencies and procedures for supplying liquor; enforcement of permit conditions, and the presence of other agencies-legal and illegal-affecting supply and consumption of liquor. Liquor permits continue to be valued by some Indigenous communities for managing alcohol. This study suggests that they can do so provided: (i) agencies administering permits have adequate support; (ii) controls over non-legal purchasing and consumption of liquor are effective, and (iii) the permit system is viewed in the community as legitimate, equitable and transparent

Volatile substance misuse: a review of interventions

[Extract] This review examines published and unpublished literature about interventions designed to combat volatile substance misuse (VSM), defined as the deliberate inhalation of a volatile substance in order to achieve a change in mental state. The review is an updated edition of one initially published by the Cooperative Research Centre for Aboriginal and Tropical Health as Petrol Sniffing in Aboriginal Communities: a Review of Interventions (d’Abbs & MacLean, 2000). Whereas the earlier review was restricted in scope to petrol sniffing, the updated review covers other forms of VSM such as inhalation of aerosol paints, and other settings besides remote Indigenous communities

A Licensed Club in Yarrabah?: managing rewards, minimising risks

In January 2008 the Gindaja Substance Misuse Aboriginal Corporation, a non-government rganisation based in Yarrabah Aboriginal community, north Queensland, approached the Alcohol Education and Rehabilitation Foundation (AERF) requesting a grant of just under $20,000 to enable Gindaja to commission an independent social impact study in relation to a proposal to establish a licensed club in Yarrabah

Aboriginal alcohol policy and practice in Australia: a case study of unintended consequences

This paper examines attempts by members of a remote Aboriginal community in the Northern Territory (NT), Australia, to control alcohol use, and the impact of policy decisions taken by national, territory and local governments on those attempts between 2007 and 2017. The Australian Government's main policy instrument for reducing alcohol-related harms from 2010 was the Alcohol Management Plan (AMP), officially defined as a plan, negotiated at a local community level with a high level of community input, for the effective management of alcohol use by the local community. The paper shows that the policy as implemented had the unintended consequence of undermining rather than enhancing the capacity of the community to act collectively in managing alcohol, largely as a result of the interactions of four sets of factors: (1) the policies as formulated; (2) actions taken to implement the policies, (3) the responses of those affected by the policies, and (4) the socio-ecological context in which these events occurred. The paper seeks to identify the processes through which these consequences were generated, and the implications for future policy-making, policy implementation and community-level initiatives for managing alcohol in Aboriginal communities