Earthrise +50 : Apollo 8, Mead, Gore and Gaia

This article pivots from the 50th anniversary of Apollo 8, the first manned voyage to the moon, to reflect on the impact of ‘earthrise’ - seeing earth from lunar orbit - and to reflect on the vision’s meanings in an extended cultural history. The emerging anthropology of space considers the ‘overview effect’ of seeing the world and all of humanity all at once, and contemporary disciplinary debates over figuring and responding to ecological crisis similarly operate on a holistic scale. Whereas the Apollo 8 crew first saw the earth emerge sideways from behind a vertical horizon, the vision is conventionally depicted as the earth rising up above the moon’s flat horizon - a rotation indicative of a wider cultural turn in perspective. The article traces the wider impact of ‘earthrise’ through Al Gore’s portrayal of ‘holography’, Margaret Mead’s search for a ‘macroscope’, and a Pacific astronaut’s reminder of the cultural diversity of ways to live in equivalence on earth.PostprintPeer reviewe

EU-Pacific Climate Change Policy and Engagement : a Social Science and Humanities review

Report for EU Framework 7 funded ECOPAS (European Consortium for Pacific Studies), Deliverable D3.311, 2013.This short report provides an overview and review of EU-Pacific Climate Change Policy and Engagement from a Social Science and Humanities perspective. Alongside an outline of the historical background and contemporary mechanisms that frame EU- Pacific partnership relations in reference to climate change, this report provides an outline of the SSH research literature produced in respect of Pacific peoples responses to climate change, and across the academy more generally. Finally, this report provides a commentary on the characteristics of current discourses carried by policy and engagement, and an analysis of the distinctive features that the SSH perspective reveals and which emerge from a close understanding of Pacific peoples’ own concerns. The review suggests how EU-Pacific engagement might draw upon SSH research evidence and methods to better approach these emerging policy concerns.Othe

Pacific Climate Cultures

This edited volume examines the opportunities to think, do, and/or create jointly afforded by digital storytelling. The contributors discuss digital storytelling in the context of educational programs, teaching anthropology, and ethnographic research involving a variety of populations and subjects that will appeal to researchers and practitioners engaged with qualitative methods and pedagogies that rely on media technology

Understanding gender inequality actions in the Pacific : ethnographic case-studies & policy options

Countries/Region Paci c Island Countries in Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia: Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Palau, Samoa and Tuvalu. The Principal Investigator is: Dr Tony Crook, Director, Centre for Pacific Studies, University of St Andrews The Co-Investigators are: Ms Ramona Boodoosingh, Centre for Samoan Studies, National University of Samoa Professor Annelin Eriksen, Bergen Pacific Studies Research Group, University of Bergen Professor Sue Farran, Law School, University of Northumbria (& University of the South Pacific) Dr Fiona Hukula, National Research Institute of Papua New Guinea Dr Simon Kenema, Centre for Pacific Studies, University of St Andrews Dr Lynda Newland, Centre for Pacific Studies, University of St Andrews (& University of the South Pacific) Ms Angelina Penner, Bergen Pacific Studies Research Group, University of Bergen Mr Galumalemana Steven Percival, Centre for Samoan Studies, National University of Samoa Assistant Professor, Dr Manuel Rauchholz, Institute of Anthropology, University of Heidelberg Ms Emilie Roëll, Development Consultant Associate Professor Penelope Schoeffel, Centre for Samoan Studies, National University of Samoa Ms Tammy Tabe, Bergen Pacific Studies Research Group, University of BergenThe prevalence of violence against women in the Pacific region is among the highest in the world. Countries across the Pacific region have put in place policy strategies, legal frameworks and a raft of initiatives, but against their own and internationally accepted indicators there has been poor progress towards gender equality, despite the development cooperation efforts of many donors over several decades. What are the cultural contexts shaping the contemporary situation? Why is the current paradigm underpinning gender policy apparently ineffective in grasping the social actions that produce gender inequality in the Pacific?Publisher PD

Housing policy: a more coherent approach

Our current housing crisis has many facets. There are too few homes for everyone, those there are can be unaffordable, and intergeneration inequalities in housing costs and wealth are more pronounced that at any other time in the postwar era. Meanwhile home ownership is falling, while the insecure private rented sector has doubled in size since the turn of the century – and now accommodates almost 20% of households

The election campaign must address the housing crisis

The Government’s housing policy has been focussed on building 300,000 new homes a year. That target hasn’t been reached, and even if it had been, it would still not be enough to address the current housing crisis. Christine Whitehead and Tony Crook argue that the new Government should adopt a more coherent housing policy that focuses not just on building more homes but making better use of the existing housing stock

Improving the private rented sector : the impact of changes in ownership and of local authority policies.

The thesis examines evidence on the impact which both local authority policy and changes in the ownership of private rented houses have had on physical conditions in the sector. Part 1 describes the research objectives and contains a literature review which provides a wider context for the research, by examining the size, role, conditions and landlords of private rented housing. It shows that its decline and poor conditions are due as much to the low demand of poor tenants and to discriminatory tax/subsidy policies as to regulation of the sector. Part 2 discusses the results of a linked survey of private rented properties, tenants and landlords done in Sheffield in 1979-80, shows that local authority policy did succeed in getting conditions improved, but that the type of landlord was important too. Part 3 discusses the results of a 1985-86 follow up survey of this panel which examines the scale of investment by landlords in the six years, their motives and the impact of this and local authority policy on physical standards. Part 4 reports the results of a 1987 survey of northern and midlands local authorities, shows that Sheffield's experience of new property dealers and property milkers is found elsewhere, analyses how authorities use their discretionary powers to improve physical structures and evaluates proposals to amend them. Part 5 summarises the research findings and shows how both the regulatory and the economic and financial framework has shaped investment in private renting in the 1980s and had consequence for standards. It then considers the likely consequences of deregulation, shows that on its own it will lead to neither a revival of private renting nor an improvement in physical standards. It enumerates desirable changes which would achieve both competitive returns for landlords and affordable habitable housing for tenants

Pacific Climate Cultures

This edited volume examines the opportunities to think, do, and/or create jointly afforded by digital storytelling. The contributors discuss digital storytelling in the context of educational programs, teaching anthropology, and ethnographic research involving a variety of populations and subjects that will appeal to researchers and practitioners engaged with qualitative methods and pedagogies that rely on media technology

«If you don’t believe our story, at least give us half of the money»: Claiming Ownership of the Ok Tedi Mine, PNG

Reports of poor crops, bad tasting water and stories of an ancestral connection with the Mt. Fubilan minesite at Ok Tedi have been reported by people in the Ningerum area since early 1984. In September 2000, a new generation presented a petition on behalf of the West Ningerum Pressure Association. The document had very carefully screened out any traces of customary explanation, and presented the case as if a manifest of poor crops, unfruitful trees, poor water, sparse river life, dried out foliage, and rocks now slippery with moss were the measurable effects of the mine wastes believed to be entering their river systems from underground. It also left out any trace of a tunnel used by spirits and the people who would trade with them and by which fecund water or blessings would flow into the landscape, and left out any trace of the second phase of claiming ownership over the entire mine deposit. This paper analyses these events in terms of regional concerns with revelation and concealment – as if a claim must necessarily comprise both as halves to an equation – and looks at how these concerns are presented in ownership negotiations which depend on eliciting sympathy and recognition of a claim, rather than putting demands into words.Depuis le début de 1984, des gens de la région de Ningerum font état de mauvaises récoltes, d’eau ayant un goût désagréable et d’histoires de liens ancestraux avec le site minier du mont Fubilan à Ok Tedi. En septembre 2000, une nouvelle génération présenta une pétition de la part de la West Ningerum Pressure Association. Le document avait soigneusement éradiqué toute trace d’explication coutumière et présenta le cas comme si les mauvaises récoltes, les arbres qui donnaient peu de fruits, la mauvaise eau, le peu de vie fluviale, le feuillage desséché et les rochers couverts maintenant d’une mousse glissante, étaient les effets mesurables des déchets miniers que l’on soupçonnait d’entrer dans leur système fluvial par des voies souterraines. Il omettait également toute trace d’un tunnel utilisé par les esprits et les gens qui commerçaient avec eux et par lequel de l’eau fertile ou des bénédictions s’écoulaient dans le paysage et toute trace de la deuxième phase de revendication foncière sur la totalité du dépôt de la mine. Cet article analyse ces événements en terme des préoccupations régionales, de révélation et de dissimulation – comme si une revendication devait comprendre les deux moitiés d’une équation – et étudie comment ces préoccupations sont présentées dans les négociations foncières, susceptibles d’éveiller la compassion et la reconnaissance d’une revendication, plutôt que d’être l’expression des demandes