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The Tools of Owatatsumi »
Japan’s Ocean Surveillance and Coastal Defence Capabilities
Authored by: Desmond Ball, Richard Tanter
Publication date: January 2015
Japan is quintessentially by geography a maritime country. Maritime surveillance capabilities – underwater, shore-based and airborne – are critical to its national defence posture. This book describes and assesses these capabilities, with particular respect to the underwater segment, about which there is little strategic analysis in publicly available literature.
Since the end of the Cold War, Chinese oceanographic and navy vessels have intruded into Japanese waters with increasing frequency, not counting their activities in disputed waters such as around the Senkaku (Diaoyu) Islands and Okinotorishima where China and Japan have overlapping territorial claims. These intrusions have increasingly involved warships, including submarines, sometimes acting quite aggressively.
Japan maintains an extraordinary network of undersea hydrophone arrays, connected to shore-stations which are typically equipped with electronic intelligence (ELINT) systems, for monitoring, identifying and tracking submarine and surface traffic in its internal straits and surrounding seas. Some parts of this network are operated jointly with, and are of crucial importance to, the US Navy.
Japan’s superlative submarine detection capabilities would be of decisive advantage in any submarine engagement. But the relevant facilities are relatively vulnerable, which makes them very lucrative targets in any conflict. This introduces compelling escalatory dynamics, including the involvement of US forces and possible employment of nuclear options.
Aboriginal History Journal: Volume 38 »
Edited by: Shino Konishi
Publication date: January 2015
Volume 38 features a special section on Western Australian Aboriginal history. Clint Bracknell translates and contextualises nineteenth-century Noongar songs. Amanda Nettelbeck considers the role of magistrates and justices of the peace in the ‘frontier legal networks’ of the Pilbara and Kimberley regions. Anne Scrimgeour traces the changing approach to the administration of Aboriginal people in the twentieth-century north-west through the biography of Laurie O’Neill, a former mounted policeman and travelling inspector. Craig Muller studies the history of the Wongatha of the north-east part of the Goldfields. Muller finds that Elkin’s account of his brief 1930 visit to the region was used as evidence in the recent Wongatha native title case without sufficient historical contextualisation. Together, the papers draw on rich archival sources, complicate our understandings of the way in which Aboriginal lives were controlled in the past, and highlight Aboriginal voices and perspectives.
The other four articles exploring Aboriginal histories from other parts of Australia. Nicholas Brodie reconstructs the life of Dalrymple Briggs, a Vandemonian woman of mixed-descent. Noah Riseman examines the lives of three Aboriginal servicemen who all had media profiles as successful examples of assimilation. The other two articles examine different non-Indigenous accounts of Aboriginal people and culture. Marguerita Stephens critically examines discourses on Aboriginal infanticide in colonial Victoria. The history of tourist visits to Palm Island, an Aboriginal reserve in Queensland is the focus of Toby Martin’s article.
Aboriginal History Inc. is a publishing organisation based in the Australian Centre for Indigenous History, Research School of Social Sciences, The Australian National University, Canberra.
For more information on Aboriginal History Inc. please visit aboriginalhistory.org.au.
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Abbott's Gambit »
The 2013 Australian Federal Election
Publication date: January 2015
This book provides a truly comprehensive analysis of the 2013 federal election in Australia, which brought the conservative Abbott government to power, consigned the fractious Labor Party to the Opposition benches and ended the ‘hung parliament’ experiment of 2010–13 in which the Greens and three independents lent their support to form a minority Labor government. It charts the dynamics of this significant election and the twists and turns of the campaign itself against a backdrop of a very tumultuous period in Australian politics. Like the earlier federal election of 2010, the election of 2013 was an exercise in bipolar adversarial politics and was bitterly fought by the main protagonists. It was also characterised (again) by leadership changes on Labor’s side as well as the entry of new political parties anxious to deny the major parties a clear mandate. Moreover, the 2013 election continued the trend whereby an increasing proportion of the electorate chose not to vote for one of the main two political parties.
While the 2013 election delivered a clear victory to the Coalition in the Lower House, it simultaneously produced a much more mixed outcome in the Senate, where the Greens managed to record their largest ever representation and a new party, the Palmer United Party, initially secured three Senate positions at its first attempt (together with the election of Clive Palmer to a Queensland seat in the House of Representatives). With minor and micro parties also winning Senate seats amounting to a total of 18 Senators on the cross-benches, the Abbott government’s ability to govern and pass legislation was placed in some doubt. The 2013 election result suggested that far from ending the preceding tumultuous period of Australian politics, it merely served to prolong this era indefinitely.
The 2013 campaign was one of the longest on record, arguably commencing when the besieged Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced the date for the election in late January 2013 – then over seven months away. This unconventional tactic overshadowed the election from that date onwards – providing a definite timeline for Labor infighting, influencing the largely negative tactics of the Opposition, and encouraging new parties to proliferate to contest the election. This volume traces these formative influences on the campaign dynamics and explains the electoral outcome that occurred (including the 2014 re-election for the Western Australian Senate seats ordered by the High Court). Abbott’s Gambit includes insightful contributions from academic experts, campaign directors and electoral watchers, political advisers and professional psephologists. Contributors utilise a wide range of sources and approaches, including the Australian Election Survey, to provide a detailed analysis of this important federal election.
Circulating Cultures »
Exchanges of Australian Indigenous Music, Dance and Media
Edited by: Amanda Harris
Publication date: December 2014
Circulating Cultures is an edited book about the transformation of cultural materials through the Australian landscape. The book explores cultural circulation, exchange and transit, through events such as the geographical movement of song series across the Kimberley and Arnhem Land; the transformation of Australian Aboriginal dance in the hands of an American choreographer; and the indigenisation of symbolic meanings in heavy metal music. Circulating Cultures crosses disciplinary boundaries, with contributions from historians, musicologists, linguists and dance historians, to depict shifts of cultural materials through time, place and interventions from people. It looks at the way Indigenous and non-Indigenous performing arts have changed through intercultural influence and collaboration.
Law and Democracy »
Contemporary Questions
Edited by: Glenn Patmore, Kim Rubenstein
Publication date: December 2014
Law and Democracy: Contemporary Questions provides a fresh understanding of law’s regulation of Australian democracy. The book enriches public law scholarship, deepening and challenging the current conceptions of law’s regulation of popular participation and legal representation. The book raises and addresses a number of contemporary questions about legal institutions, principles and practices:
How should the meaning of ‘the people’ in the Australian Constitution be defined by the High Court of Australia?
How do developing judicial conceptions of democracy define citizenship?
What is the legal right to participate in the political community?
Should political advisors to Ministers be subject to legal accountability mechanisms?
What challenges do applied law schemes pose to notions of responsible government and how can they be best addressed?
How can the study of the ritual of electoral politics in Australia and other common law countries supplement the standard account of democracy?
How might the ritual of the pledge of Australian citizenship limit or enhance democratic participation?
What is the conflict between legal restrictions of freedom of expression and democracy, and the role of social media?
Examining the regulation of democracy, this book scrutinises the assumptions and scope of constitutional democracy and enhances our understanding of the frontiers of accountability and responsible government. In addition, key issues of law, culture and democracy are revealed in their socio-legal context.
The book brings together emerging and established scholars and practitioners with expertise in public law. It will be of interest to those studying law, politics, cultural studies and contemporary history.
Name, Shame and Blame »
Criminalising Consensual Sex in Papua New Guinea
Authored by: Christine Stewart
Publication date: December 2014
Papua New Guinea is one of the many former British Commonwealth colonies which maintain the criminalisation of the sexual activities of two groups, despite the fact that the sex takes place between consenting adults in private: sellers of sex and males who have sex with males. The English common law system was imposed on the colonies with little regard for the social regulation and belief systems of the colonised, and in most instances, was retained and developed post-Independence, regardless of the infringements of human rights involved.
Now the HIV pandemic has thrown a spotlight, not altogether welcome, on the sexual activities of these two groups. In Papua New Guinea, a growing body of behavioural research has focused on such matters as individual sexual partnering, condom use and awareness of HIV. My work, however, has a different purpose. I chose the terms in the title to highlight a nexus which I believe exists between the criminal law and negative attitudes of society. At an international level, the argument has been put that decriminalising sex work and sodomy will facilitate HIV epidemic management, reducing the stigma and discrimination these groups encounter and making them easier to reach. I undertook my research therefore with the aim of gaining deeper understanding of the effects the current situation of criminalisation might have on the social lives of these criminalised people today, in the country generally and in Port Moresby the capital in particular, and whether these effects might provide evidence to support the argument for law reform.
This is a rich and well-researched study of the legal, social and moral issues surrounding the criminalisation of two forms of consensual sex…. A very impressive piece of work, it is extensively documented, relies on a wide range of material and makes a clear and coherent argument about the place of law in producing identities and exclusions…. The attention to change over time and the complexity of the ways in which sexual behaviour is enacted and punished is a particular strength of the book.
—Professor Sally Engle Merry, Anthropology, Law and Society, New York University
This book is an exceptional contribution to our knowledge of the nexus between the criminal law and negative attitudes of society, and what effects criminalization has on the social lives of prostitutes and males who have sex with males, and whether these effects might provide evidence to support the argument for law reform…. The author’s experience of Papua New Guinea allows her to comment in depth on such matters as the United Nations’ human rights approach to the HIV epidemic and their call to decriminalize all sexual acts between consenting adults…. She shows that criminal laws—with the help of the normative discourse of religion and media—underpin and legitimize high levels of stigma, discrimination and abuse of prostitutes and males who have sex with males…. The quality of the writing and general presentation are exceptional.
—Laura Zimmer-Tamakoshi, Truman State University (retired)
Diversity in Leadership »
Australian women, past and present
Edited by: Joy Damousi, Kim Rubenstein, Mary Tomsic
Publication date: November 2014
While leadership is an over-used term today, how it is defined for women and the contexts in which it emerges remains elusive. Moreover, women are exhorted to exercise leadership, but occupying leadership positions has its challenges. Issues of access, acceptable behaviour and the development of skills to be successful leaders are just some of them.
Diversity in Leadership: Australian women, past and present provides a new understanding of the historical and contemporary aspects of Indigenous and non-Indigenous women’s leadership in a range of local, national and international contexts. It brings interdisciplinary expertise to the topic from leading scholars in a range of fields and diverse backgrounds. The aims of the essays in the collection document the extent and diverse nature of women’s social and political leadership across various pursuits and endeavours within democratic political structures.
Fiji: A Place Called Home »
Authored by: Daryl Tarte
Publication date: November 2014
Few people have been in the unique position of being able to observe and record the dramatic changes that have taken place in the islands of Fiji over the past 80 years than fourth-generation citizen, Daryl Tarte. He writes emotively, in great detail, about his personal experience of growing up on a remote island during the colonial era, when races were segregated, and white people lived an elite existence.
Following independence, he has been personally involved with many of the key economic, political and social activities that have evolved and enabled the nation to progress during the 20th century. These include the sugar industry, tourism, commerce and industry, religion, the media, women and of course, the coups.
His observations into the complexities of leadership in these areas of national development are fascinating and perceptive. Much of the story is told through the eyes of the many people of all races with whom he has interacted.
Fiji is made up of over 300 unique islands. Tarte has been to many of them, and in a final chapter he gives an insightful commentary of how different they all are.
In the Eye of the Beholder »
What Six Nineteenth-century Women Tell Us About Indigenous Authority and Identity
Authored by: Barbara Dawson
Publication date: November 2014
This book offers a fresh perspective in the debate on settler perceptions of Indigenous Australians. It draws together a suite of little known colonial women (apart from Eliza Fraser) and investigates their writings for what they reveal about their attitudes to, views on and beliefs about Aboriginal people, as presented in their published works. The way that reader expectations and publishers’ requirements slanted their representations forms part of this analysis.
All six women write of their first-hand experiences on Australian frontiers of settlement. The division into ‘adventurers’ (Eliza Fraser, Eliza Davies and Emily Cowl) and longer-term ‘settlers’ (Katherine Kirkland, Mary McConnel and Rose Scott Cowen) allows interrogation into the differing representations between those with a transitory knowledge of Indigenous people and those who had a close and more permanent relationship with Indigenous women, even encompassing individual friendship. More pertinently, the book strives to reveal the aspects, largely overlooked in colonial narratives, of Indigenous agency, authority and individuality.
For more information on Aboriginal History Inc. please visit aboriginalhistory.org.au.
The Plant Detective's Manual »
A research-led approach for teaching plant science
Authored by: Gonzalo M. Estavillo, Ulrike Mathesius, Michael Djordjevic, Adrienne Nicotra
Publication date: November 2014
If global challenges in food production and the impact of ever-declining biodiversity are to be tackled, every country will need plant biologists who have a deep understanding of plant morphology, physiology and genetics, and how these interact to affect plant function in changing environments. These scientists will also need the capacity to use an effective and powerful set of technologies and research strategies. To prepare and inspire our students to become that next generation of researchers and to instill a meaningful involvement in research we created an integrated set of laboratory investigations that we felt truly reflected the mysteries of plant biology and puzzle-solving processes that we had encountered in our research experience. Rather than a set of unconnected experimental activities, we created a series of closely related experiments that focused on solving ‘mysteries’ in the life of the plant Arabidopsis thaliana (thale cress). The activities charge students with finding the ‘suspect’ gene responsible for the specific phenotypes of an unknown Arabidopsis mutant, which are encountered when they expose the plants to different environmental stresses. This, we hoped, would give keen but inexperienced student scientists a realistic taste of the joys (and frustrations!) of plant science research.
Although thrilled by numerous university and national awards for our innovative teaching, we have been most excited by the interest in our ideas and experimental approaches from other plant science educators in Australia and overseas, who are also seeking to improve their plant biology curriculum and attract more students to plant sciences. We are thus proud to present this manual as a gift to our colleagues worldwide. Here you will find a detailed collection of state-of-the-art procedures in plant biology, as well as background information on more commonly used techniques, and tips for class preparation. The concepts and methods we present can be adapted to meet the specific needs and expertise of the teaching staff, and provide inspiration for scaling up for larger audiences, or simplifying for more junior classes. Through this publication, we hope to support our teaching colleagues in making a significant impact on improving the learning experience of plant biology students worldwide, and hope that we will motivate and inspire a new generation of plant detectives.