Creating “Community”? Preparing for Bushfire in Rural Victoria

The term “community” has a long and contested lineage in social analysis and debate. This lineage, however, is not generally recognized in policy and public debates on community and bushfire in Australia. “Community” is thought to be central to bushfire preparedness in Australia, especially in rural areas, but what “community” actually means in this context is vague at best. There is an ever‐present tension between the use of “community” as a reference to locality, a “sense of community” as experienced by residents, and the use of “community” as a rhetorical tool by governments and state agencies. We argue that a rigorous analysis of the concept of “community” is critical to an understanding of the processes involved in preparing for the challenges associated with disaster, in this case bushfires. These broader issues are supported by research (a series of surveys, interviews, and focus groups) carried out with residents living in (predominantly rural) bushfire‐prone areas in the state of Victoria, Australia. Ultimately, we assert that social participation and social networks are likely to be the crucial aspects of community that play a central role in effective bushfire preparedness.     

‘They More or Less Blended in with Society’: Changing Attitudes to European Migrant Workers in Post-war Lancashire

European volunteer workers have received comparatively little attention in the history of British post-war immigration, with greater coverage given to, for example, demobilised members of the Polish Resettlement Corps. This paper is based upon oral history interviews with a group of European immigrants, predominantly European volunteer workers, and local Lancastrians who started work in the Lancashire cotton industry between 1946 and 1951, and examines perceptions of how they integrated into British life in a variety of domains. The paper emphasises that ‘blending-in’ was context-dependent, with a sense of being welcomed and fitting-in applying to certain domains and in certain situations but not necessarily in others. It argues that migration fosters particular cultural attitudes and practices amongst both migrants and hosts as social identities are produced and reproduced, changed and challenged.     

Aging in the United Kingdom: a review of demographic trends,recent policy developments and care provision

"Although the U.K.'s population is not predicted to grow very much in the future, the population structure is changing and there is a shift towards a much older age distribution. The characteristics of demographic aging in the U.K. include a marked reduction in fertility rates, increasing rates of life expectation at birth..., increasing dependency ratios and variations in mortality and social class in old age. The U.K.'s demographic context has important implications for aged care policy and planning. This paper documents the demographic trends, reviews recent major policy changes and their impact on care provision, and discusses some of the emerging implementation issues that challenge the potential of such policies to meet the needs of an aging population."     

Reactions to Blake and Das Gupta’s “the fallacy of the five million women: A re-estimate”

This article reviews the methods used by Blake and Das Gupta (1972) to estimate need for contraceptive protection among single (never-married) and previously married women below the near-poverty line in 1966. More recent data than those used by Blake and Das Gupta to estimate coital activity and protection by contraception allow calculation of alternative estimates of the number of single and previously married women in need in 1966. To assess the relative accuracy of the two estimates, we introduce a validity check. Using vital data from the National Natality Survey and other sources, we calculate a birth rate and a pregnancy rate for low-income single and previously married women, using the two estimates of the number of women in need—i.e., the population at risk of these vital events. If the two estimates of the number in need of contraceptive protection are either excessively low or high, this should be apparent in the resulting birth and pregnancy rates.     

Difficult Data: Boundary Dynamics,Public Engagement and Bridging Technologies in a Science/Policy Controversy

In 2001, the New Zealand Ministry of Health (MoH) contracted the Institute of Environmental Science and Research Ltd. (ESR) to undertake a serum dioxin study to determine exposure (current and historical) to dioxins for residents living in close proximity to the former Ivon Watkins Dow chemical plant in Paritutu, New Plymouth. In the years that the plant had operated, a number of activist groups had organised in the community to ask the government to respond to their concerns about possible exposure and any links to adverse health effects. The members of these groups were angry and frustrated. They distrusted industry and the various government agencies involved, and felt that previous scientific studies had marginalised their concerns. This paper explores the processes that enabled ESR to work with the community to produce a robust scientific study. Key dynamics, lessons, methods and mechanisms critical to the success of this intervention are appraised. This paper offers theoretical reflection on boundary work between science, policy and community and focuses on the challenges in including local knowledge to produce ‘useable knowledge’ in this case.     

Socio-cultural representations of greentrified Pennine rurality

This paper examines the processes of change in two ‘rural’ environs of Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, associated with the in-migration and consumption practices of relatively affluent households. In doing so, we address the knowledge gap identified by Phillips (J. Rural Studies 9 (1993) 123) relating to the gentrification of rural locations. The term ‘rural greentrification’ is suggested to emphasise the varying cultural predilections of in-migrant households in the consumption of ‘green’ spaces. More specifically, a geography of greentrification is identified in the locale, which encompasses two socio-spatial relationships: ‘village’and ‘remote’. These are interpreted as distinct constructions of rural ‘habitus’ and thus exemplify the significance of Hebden Bridge as a special place, where the multiple appeals and meanings of different representations of greentrified Pennine rurality enable cultural and social differentiation. The findings reaffirm the value of viewing the rural as a socio-cultural construct, tied to place and time, which is specific to individuals and social groups.     

Three explanations of marital status differences in suicide rates: social integration, marital status integration, and the culture of suicide

Our first goal is to link empirical measures of three theoretical explanations of marital status differences to the variation in male and female standardized suicide difference coefficients SSDCs in 12 developed countries, circa 1960. We include predictors of Durkheim's social integration hypothesis, Gibbs and Martin's concept of marital status integration, and norms on suicide acceptability. All three are significantly related to variation in male and female SSDCs. The second goal is to examine how our empirical indicators impact age-specific differences in the male minus female SSDC--differences that vary by age in all 12 of our study populations. The strongest predictor of these differences is the male minus female difference in the percent married.     

A League of Gentlemen: The Institute of the Motor Industry

The article first examines how a Victorian discourse of gentlemanliness has been used by the professions to support a claim to moral and intellectual superiority. In Bourdieusian terms, this allowed an emerging professional class to accumulate a stock of cultural capital that differentiated them from entrepreneurship and commerce. However, there has been dramatic increase in occupational groups claiming professional status. This includes the use of signifiers of gentility and respectability such as charters, coats of arms and prestigious headquarters. The particular artefacts produced by the Institute of the Motor Industry (IMI), a professional body that represents car dealers and repair shops, are examined and related to Theodor Adorno’s concept of the culture industry wherein social markers have become manufactured effects that can be exchanged. They have thus been emptied out of meaning as a claim to gentlemanly status has been reduced to the possession of certain objects rather than a set of particular behaviours.