Ontology, sovereignty, legitimacy: two key moments when history curriculum was challenged in public discourse and the curricular effects, Australia 1950s and 2000s

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Matilda Keynes ◽  
Beth Marsden

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the ways that history curriculum has worked to legitimise dispossession through narratives that elide questions of Indigenous sovereignty, and which construct and consolidate white settler identity and possession.Design/methodology/approachThe paper uses two case studies to compare history education documentation and materials at key moments where dominant narratives of settler legitimacy were challenged in public discourse: (1) the post-war humanitarian agenda of fostering “international understanding” and; (2) the release and educational recommendations of the 1997 Bringing them Home Report.FindingsThe paper shows that in two moments where narratives of settler legitimacy were challenged in public discourse, the legitimacy of settler possession was reiterated in history curricula in various ways.Practical implicationsThis research suggests that the prevailing constructivist framework for history education has not sufficiently challenged criticisms of the representation of Aboriginal history and the history of settler-colonialism in the history syllabus.Originality/valueThe paper introduces two case studies of history curriculum and shows how, in different but resonant ways, curricular reforms worked to bolster the liberal credentials of the settler state.

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nell Musgrove ◽  
Naomi Wolfe

PurposeThis article considers the impact of competing knowledge structures in teaching Australian Indigenous history to undergraduate university students and the possibilities of collaborative teaching in this space.Design/methodology/approachThe authors, one Aboriginal and one non-Aboriginal, draw on a history of collaborative teaching that stretches over more than a decade, bringing together conceptual reflective work and empirical data from a 5-year project working with Australian university students in an introductory-level Aboriginal history subject.FindingsIt argues that teaching this subject area in ways which are culturally safe for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff and students, and which resist knowledge structures associated with colonial ways of conveying history, is not only about content but also about building learning spaces that encourage students to decolonise their relationships with Australian history.Originality/valueThis article considers collaborative approaches to knowledge transmission in the university history classroom as an act of decolonising knowledge spaces rather than as a model of reconciliation.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dagomar Degroot

<p>This keynote presentation introduces the sources, methods, and major findings of the History of Climate and Society (HCS), a recently-coined field that uncovers the past influences of climate change on human history. It begins by offering a brief history of the field, from the eighteenth century through the present. It then describes how HCS scholars “reconstruct” past climate changes by combining what they call the “archives of nature” – paleoclimatic proxy sources such as tree rings, ice cores, or marine sediments – with the texts, stories, and ruins that constitute the “archives of society.” Next, it explains how HCS scholars in different disciplines have used distinct statistical and qualitative methods, and distinct causal frameworks, to identify the influence of climate change in the archives of society. It explores how HCS scholars conceptualize the vulnerability and resilience of past societies by introducing some telling case studies, and explaining how those case studies have grown more complex as HCS matured as a field. It then emphasizes the enduring challenges faced by HCS scholars and how, in recent months, they have been identified and are beginning to be addressed. Finally, it describes how HCS has informed climate change policy and public discourse, before offering some key lessons that policymakers can learn from the field.</p>


2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 655-668
Author(s):  
Jessica Borge

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to show how early planned PR efforts at the British Family Planning Association [FPA] resulted in an epoch-making television appearance in November 1955, tessellating with current methodological debates in the history of PR.Design/methodology/approachThis paper uses a qualitative, micro-history approach and original archival document research conducted at Wellcome Collection, London and the BBC Written Archives Centre, Caversham, to reconstruct early PR activity at the FPA. It intercedes in debates on historiography, the diversification of the history of PR and the concepts of mediatization and advocacy in historical contexts.FindingsAttaining broadcast coverage for birth control issues was historically difficult and was made more so by Marie Stopes. The subject was commonly packaged into the less problematic issues of population and infertility. The FPA achieved explicit television coverage in 1955 after establishing a focussed PR plan to stage and exploit a silver jubilee event. This vindicated the FPA's mission, validated service users and created broadcast opportunities.Research limitations/implicationsResearch is limited by temporal scope (1870s–1950s), and reliance on document sources, footage of television programmes being unavailable. This paper has implications for the history of PR, contributing to the diversification of the field by suggesting an original approach to the intersection of public relations and social change.Originality/valueThis paper surfaces overlooked primary sources and is the first account of how birth control appeared as a topic on early British broadcast media.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-134
Author(s):  
Lok Hang Hui

PurposeThis paper explores the sensory experiences and cultural meanings of light in Japan in relation to Japanese changing lighting practices. It demonstrates that these sensory experiences and cultural meanings form an integral part of social life in Japan.Design/methodology/approachThis paper adopts a blended approach that combines historical research and ethnographic data in the research on the meanings of light. The findings are presented in three parts. Two of them describe the social history of light, and the third draws on ethnographic data collected in suburban Japan.FindingsThe findings suggest that light in Japan has maintained a close symbolic connection with certain positive values despite the changing lighting practices. For example, light is related to cleanliness in early historical records on candle-making. In post-war Japan, new light metaphors such as “bright family” were invented to accommodate new aspirations for modernity and progress. In the latest development, the moral dimension of light is emphasised. This is evident in the concerns on being seen as a “bright person”, a person with a cheerful personality. Light in this way is related to the sensory experience of feeling a “social weight”, the pressure for one to act according to social norms.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to our anthropological understandings of light. It also provides a local case study of Japan, supported by original ethnographic research conducted by the author.


2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ferdinando Fasce ◽  
Elisabetta Bini

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the presence and influence of US advertising in Italy between the early 1950s and the mid-1970s. Design/methodology/approach – The purpose of this paper is to examine the presence and influence of US advertising in Italy between the early 1950s and the mid-1970s. Findings – The paper argues that there is a need to further qualify and deconstruct the notion of “Americanization” by integrating the now well-established notions of “hybridization” and “mediation” with more specific attention to the competing “hearts and souls”, the different strategies and discursive practices that different individual actors (American, British and Italian) operating within the Italian advertising business tried to instil into goods and consumers and the economic and cultural results that they achieved. Originality/value – This is the first research on the history of Italian advertising that fully places it within a transnational and comparative perspective using so far unpublished records, aiming at moving beyond traditional, eastbound Americanization frameworks through a detailed empirical investigation.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ray Yep

Purpose This paper aims to uncover the trajectory of the anti-corruption effort of the Hong Kong colonial Government by identifying its general approach of denial in the pre-War years. It highlights the path-dependence nature, as well as the path-creation logic of the policy process of anti-corruption reform and the anxiety of the colonial administration in maintaining trust of the local population in the post-War years. These insights should enhance the general understanding of the nature of colonial governance. Design/methodology/approach This paper is primarily based on archival materials available at the British National Archives and Hong Kong Public Records Office. Findings The paper intends to go before the “Great Man narrative” in explaining the success of the anti-corruption effort in colonial Hong Kong. Whilst the colonial government was fully aware of the endemic of corruption and the substantial involvement of European officers, she was still cocooned with the misguided belief that the core of the administration was mostly “incorruptible”. The Air Raid Precaution Department scandal in 1941 was, however, a powerful wake-up that rendered the denial and self-illusion no longer defensible. The policy ideas of the 1940s did shape the Prevention of Corruption Ordinance 1948 and other related reforms, yet they were not immediately translated into fundamental changes in the institutional set-up of the anti-graft campaign. The limitations of these half-hearted measures were fully exposed in the coming decades. The cumulative effects of the piecemeal anti-graft efforts of the colonial government over the first century of rule, however, did path the way for the “revolutionary” changes in the 1970s under Murray MacLehose. Originality/value This is a highly original piece based on under-explored archival materials. The findings should have a major contribution to the scholarship on the nature of colonial governance and the history of anti-corruption efforts of Hong Kong.


2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Kurniawati Kurniawati

The aim of this article is to find out what philosophy behind the education curriculum in Germany,its system and structure especially on history curriculum to be compared with Indonesia”s experience.Traditionally the German educational system is strongly influenced by the tradition of naturalistichumanism - specifically those of the Humbold philosophy regarding as Bildung. History Education is acompulsory subject that is given to students from grade 6-10 as much as two hours of lessons per week,while in grade 10-12 or 13 lessons, history is no longer a compulsory subject. In grade 6-9 curriculum isbased on chronological history revolves around the history of Western Civilization, in grade 10 historylessons relating to contemporary history in the 20th century, while in grade 11-12 / 13 history lessonfocused on the history of modern Europe and non- European history.


2008 ◽  
Vol 43 (6) ◽  
pp. 1385-1419 ◽  
Author(s):  
SU LIN LEWIS

AbstractIn the 1920s and 1930s, the Modern Girl emerged in advertisements, cinema and public discourse all over the globe. While she was implicated in nationalist projects of social reform in post-war Britain and Japan, in multicultural, port-city environments such as Penang, the Modern Girl was central to a discourse of ‘cosmopolitanism’. Lively debates about the Modern Girl in Penang's English press wrestled with the tensions between cultural authenticity, diversity and modernity. Male and female readers of the Straits Echo, from different ethnic backgrounds, engaged with each other in a shared public space about issues ranging from education and politics to women's liberality and fashion. The Modern Girl thus represents a new way of looking at the history of colonial Malaysia in the interwar period: one not focused on ethnic nationalism and communalism, but on a shared, multi-ethnic mode of belonging rooted in the globalist environment of the late colonial port-city.


2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 4-6

Purpose Reviews the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoints practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies. Design/methodology/approach This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context. Findings The history of business is littered with storied examples of entrepreneurs who, as the phrase goes, “got rich quick”. Perhaps they “got lucky” with an inheritance or some good fortune, or rode the wave of a boom in a particular industry, or simply had remarkable prescience or insight to take advantage of market conditions. However, it happened, stories of overnight successes never fail to entice and delight would-be entrepreneurs, dreaming that they themselves might be millionaires this time next year. Originality/value The briefing saves busy executives and researchers’ hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.


2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 218-233 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Musolff

The metaphorical categorization of social and political adversaries as “parasites” has an infamous history in public discourse: For two centuries it has been routinely used for the purpose of racial and socio-political stigmatization. In cognitive accounts, the parasite-metaphor has usually been treated as an example of semantic transfer from the biological to the social domain. Historically, however, the scientific uses cannot be deemed original or primary, as their emergence in the 17th and 18th centuries was preceded by a much older tradition of religious and social meanings. The paper charts the main traditions of diachronic variation in the discourse history of the parasite-metaphor anddiscusses the implications of its findings regarding the assumption of “uni-directionality” of metaphorization processes, which has been a central tenet of cognitive analyses. In conclusion, we ask whether metaphors in political discourse might fruitfully be viewed as a “parasitic” form of communication.


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