Neither ‘family’ nor ‘corporate’ farming: Australian tomato growers as farm family entrepreneurs

For the past two decades there has been much debate about the future of family farming. The basic question on which this debate has turned is whether current pressures on family farm systems should be understood as symptomatic of a terminal condition, in which farmers are replaced progressively by corporate ownership; or whether family farms will persist as a social formation, albeit increasingly subsumed by off-farm interests. Using evidence from the Australian processing tomato sector, this article documents the changing social and economic formation of ‘family farming’. We argue that in this industry, the appropriate way to describe farmers is through the deployment of that a new category of farming; farm family entrepreneurs. This phrase is coined to describe the situation where family units remain at the social and economic heart of farm ownership and operation, but in the context where they relate to their land-based assets through legal and financial structures characteristic of the wider economy. As this article explores, this formation seems to represent an accommodating modus operandi for farm units within neo-liberal agricultural governance. Nevertheless, however, this duality of family-based structures and capitalist entrepreneurialism inevitably provokes a series of tensions, whose resolution requires a variety of organizational strategies to be put in place.     

Police Attendance at Child Protection Conferences: A Reappraisal

SUMMARY. We now have over 16 years experience of child protection arrangements that include the attendance of police officers at child protection conferences. This article attempts to review that experience and critically assess the police role at conferences in the light of the Department of Health's Working Together, Particular attention is paid to the nature of information made available by the police to child protection conferences.     

Colonialization and community: Implications for first nations development

First Nations' communities have been a major focus for the longhistory of colonial action in Canada. The results have beendisastrous for Native cultural, identity and pride. Four majorcommunity institutions – political, economic, religiousand educational and the family – have been devastated.This has robbed Aboriginal Nations of their identity and theirsense that they have the ability effectively to manage theirenvironments and has contributed significantly to their disadvantagedposition within Canada. If community development is to be utilized in First Nationscommunities, four objectives must be addressed: (1) strengtheningcommunity traditions and culture; (2) development of culturallyappropriate community-based organizations; (3) reflection onthe importance of land for local communities; (4) the forgingof links between local and national issues.     

Feminist collectives or private owners: both used media to advance lesbian goals

From the 1970s in Australia, feminist collectives published lesbian magazines that challenged gay male thinking, the women’s movement, and mainstream society. From the late 1980s such publishing ventures were increasingly undertaken by privately-owned publishing businesses. Responding to change around them, the political project for these private media ventures shifted from radical restructuring of society to promotion of lesbian community. Their publishers developed synergies with this developing community that expanded advertising revenues and distribution, and assisted the growth of both community and the publications. This led to greater readership reach and a range of relationships with mainstream businesses that further built community and made lesbians more visible.     

Not either/or but both/and: An Academic/field partnership in practice

Abstract

The relationship between academia and the field and between theory and practice is often characterised in both the literature and the everyday practice of social work as either one or the other. In this paper, the author argues for a constructive integration of both/and rather than either/or. The paper reports on a constructive organisational partnership between academia and a field of practice that supports a both/and view.     

阅读毛泽东文本：认识论问题

毛泽东的认识论并非严格意义上的经验主义,而是经验主义和理性主义的混合物。研究毛泽东的思想需要理论干预,应将其文本看作理论推演的实体,并关注文本中现有的理论主张、合乎逻辑的假设和建构方式及其相互间的关系以及这些关系的一致性和连贯性程度。     

The Management of Workplace Conflict: Contrasting Pathways in the HRM Literature

This paper reviews the human resource management literature on the management of workplace conflict. It suggests that workplace conflict is commonly viewed in the literature as a symptom of management failure: the notion that conflict may be intrinsic to the nature of work because employees and managers have hard‐to‐reconcile competing interests is given short‐shrift. At the same time, the paper identifies important differences in the literature, which the authors call ‘pathways’, about the best methods to manage problems at the workplace. It is argued that four contrasting pathways can be detected in the literature with regard to how organizations approach workplace conflict management practices. Each pathway is examined fully and their respective strengths and weaknesses are assessed.