Commemorating the colonial Pilbara: beyond memorials into difficult history

The colonial Northwest of Western Australia was a harsh frontier, where demands for Aboriginal land, labour and knowledge led to dispossession, loss of rights, massacre and generations encumbered with the colonial legacy. In the Pilbara, there are some rare attempts to engage with this difficult colonial history, mainly in the form of heritage site interpretation and heritage trails. Overall, the difficult colonial history of the Northwest is poorly represented. Colonialism and its legacy are not effectively commemorated, nor are distinct local cultural and civic attributes highlighted as ‘lessons from the past’. In this paper, we explore the memorialization and commemoration of the Northwest's traumatic colonial history and consider a history of how heritage has been represented across the landscape. We suggest that the affective heritage of the Northwest especially cross-cultural or multi-cultural sites and histories can provide a basis for commemorating difficult colonial history or violent events that are underrepresented in dominant heritage regimes.     

The identities and social roles of people with an intellectual disability: challenging dominant cultural worldviews,values and mythologies

Intellectual disability is commonly conceptualised as stigmatised identity with which one has to live. However, within the literature the notion of a damaged identity is contested. The aim of this research was to explore the social construction of intellectual disability, with an emphasis on the identities and social roles of people with an intellectual disability. Informed by a contextualist perspective, this research was conducted within a participatory framework. The co-researchers involved in this research were 18 members of an advocacy agency. Photovoice and conversational interviewing were used to collect data and causal layered analysis was used to deconstruct the data. Analysis of the interactions that emerged across the causal layers revealed a complex dynamic of worldviews which served to construct people with an intellectual disability as incompetent, inherently different and not quite human. For genuine, transformative change to occur, developing an awareness and understanding of social processes, such as dehumanisation, is crucial.     

Living Arrangements During Childrearing Years and Later Health of African American Mothers

Using longitudinal data from the Woodlawn Project (N= 680), this study examined how patterns of living arrangements among a community cohort of African American mothers were associated with later physical and emotional health. We identified eight patterns of stability and transition in living arrangements during the childrearing years. Health outcomes include SF‐36 Physical Functioning, SF‐36 Bodily Pain, depressed mood, and anxious mood. Specific patterns of living arrangements were related to later health, controlling for age, earlier health, education, and poverty. Poverty explained many, but not all, of the relationships between living arrangements and health. Findings underscored the benefits of social support and social integration and highlighted the negative effects of marital dissolution on health.     

‘Live to Work’ or ‘Work to Live’? A Qualitative Study of Gender and Work–life Balance among Men and Women in Mid‐life

Many contemporary studies of ‘work–life balance’ either ignore gender or take it for granted. We conducted semi‐structured interviews with men and women in mid‐life (aged 50 to 52 years) in order to compare their experiences of work–life balance. Our data suggest that gender remains embedded in the ways that respondents negotiate home and work life. The women discussed their current problems juggling a variety of roles (despite having no young children at home), while men confined their discussion of such conflicts to the past, when their children were young. However, diversity among men (some of whom ‘worked to live’ while others ‘lived to work’) and women (some of whom constructed themselves in relation to their families, while others positioned themselves as ‘independent women’) was apparent, as were some commonalities between men and women (both men and women constructed themselves as ‘pragmatic workers’). We suggest ways in which gender‐neutral theories of work–life balance may be extended.     

Changing structures: Necessary but not sufficient

Moves are afoot across the UK to change the mechanisms for managing local inter‐agency child protection policy and practice. This is being achieved through the development of Safeguarding Boards in England and Wales and guidance on Child Protection Committees that took effect from August 2005 in Scotland. Following our review of one Scottish Child Protection Committee (the SCPC), we are concerned that these changes focus almost exclusively on structure and pay scant attention to process and relationships. The study we undertook was an in‐depth evaluation of the functioning of the SCPC and used a range of qualitative methods. The main findings were that the size of the committee, its coverage of three local authority areas, and its patterns of working meant that some aspects of its work were highly developed and effective, such as the guidelines and multi‐agency training, while others, such as links with practice and the management of information systems, were poor. Considering these findings in the light of systems theory suggests that improving the effectiveness of child protection committees, and similar bodies, may need to be based on greater attention being paid to issues of authority, trust and negotiation among their members. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Muse Metasearch: Beyond Federated Searching

The Muse Metasearch Engine is not just federated search. This paper discusses search and finding issues, focusing on the complexities and difficulties of these processes, and then describes how Muse is the “middle ground of search.” Muse pulls together content from multiple databases, repositories, and search engines—the most critical factor in the success of “publishing” comprehensive content. The author then describes what is needed to provide a comprehensive metasearch publishing environment.