Material Biographies: Identity, Meaning and Agency in the Cooke Daniels New Guinea Collections

Dispersed between museums in the UK and Australia, the Cooke Daniels collections comprise more than 2000 material objects, largely collected during the 1903-04 Daniels Ethnographical Expedition to British New Guinea. Led by William Cooke Daniels and Charles Seligman, the expedition continued the survey work begun by the 1898 Torres Strait Expedition, collating comparative material and visual data within the same evolutionary scientific framework. Often reducing people and things to abstractions in the interests of science (and colonialism), the expedition’s Cartesian position stands in ontological distinction to the sensate and relational worldview shared by New Guineans. Seeking a nuanced approach to questions of difference, the thesis conceives a copresent approach to relational biography that recognises moments of ontological displacement, from expedition empathy to New Guinean intentionality. Drawing on the work of Tim Ingold in particular, notions of ontological simultaneity and displacement (copresence) are the pivot around which stories from the collections emerge. Concentrating on expedition material from Central Province and colonial material, bequeathed to the expedition by Christopher Robinson, from Western and Gulf Provinces, PNG, stories explore how material things express identity, enact meaning-making and reveal agency. Patterned gourds, boards and modified skulls speak to the entanglement of scientific, colonial and Indigenous practices that make visible the formation of a complex and sometimes controversial collection. While stories can be projected onto things, copresent biographies materialise another view: the knowledge that arises through experiential engagement with people and things. In this way, collections remake themselves, revealing new stories – vital to our understanding of a shared past and shared futures. Relocating the Cooke Daniels collections at the centre of a shifting early twentieth century academic, political and cultural milieu, this first detailed study of the collections equally emerges as a pivot for new encounters and future stories

Computer-Based Interventions for Problematic Alcohol Use:a Review of Systematic Reviews

PURPOSE: The aim of this review is to provide an overview of knowledge and knowledge gaps in the field of computer-based alcohol interventions by (1) collating evidence on the effectiveness of computer-based alcohol interventions in different populations and (2) exploring the impact of four specified moderators of effectiveness: therapeutic orientation, length of intervention, guidance and trial engagement.  METHODS: A review of systematic reviews of randomized trials reporting on effectiveness of computer-based alcohol interventions published between 2005 and 2015.  RESULTS: Fourteen reviews met the inclusion criteria. Across the included reviews, it was generally reported that computer-based alcohol interventions were effective in reducing alcohol consumption, with mostly small effect sizes. There were indications that longer, multisession interventions are more effective than shorter or single session interventions. Evidence on the association between therapeutic orientation of an intervention, guidance or trial engagement and reductions in alcohol consumption is limited, as the number of reviews addressing these themes is low. None of the included reviews addressed the association between therapeutic orientation, length of intervention or guidance and trial engagement.  CONCLUSIONS: This review of systematic reviews highlights the mostly positive evidence supporting computer-based alcohol interventions as well as reveals a number of knowledge gaps that could guide future research in this field

Use of SMS texts for facilitating access to online alcohol interventions: a feasibility study

A41 Use of SMS texts for facilitating access to online alcohol interventions: a feasibility study In: Addiction Science & Clinical Practice 2017, 12(Suppl 1): A4