Journal articles on the topic 'Cameroon Development Corporation'

<p><em>Plantation agriculture under the Cameroon Development Corporation (CDC) registers an average annual turnover of over 50billion FCFA. The corporation is hailed as a major contributor to development in Cameroon. However, conceptualizing development in terms of inequality reduction through the increase in social benefits to disadvantaged groups paints a completely different picture of the corporation. Empirical work shows that although farm labourers are central to the corporation’s economic success, they are yet to fully benefit from the proceeds of plantation agriculture. The lack of significant improvements in residential and income standards of the multitude of the CDC farm labourers contradicts the view of the corporation as a “development” agent. The corporation has seemingly maintained a deplorable social responsibility record wherein farm labourers are the sacrificial lambs in the quest for increased economic output which is then proclaimed as “development”. This paper contradicts the praises sung by different authors to the CDC as an agent of development by giving an insight on the living conditions of a majority of the workers of this parastatal. It therefore looks beyond gross economic outputs by providing knowledge on what really trickles down to the underprivileged majority.</em></p>

The Cameroon Development Corporation (CDC) was created in 1946 and went operational in 1947 through the enactment of two important ordinances by the government of Nigeria. As an agro-industrial company, the principal objective at inception was the management of the ex-German plantations in Cameroon for the welfare of the workers in particular, and the inhabitants of Southern Cameroons in general. Curiously, the creation of the CDC coincided with a rising spirit of nationalism in the territory, culminating in the granting of independence by reunification with the Republic of Cameroon in October 1961. Considering that the end of British rule was accompanied by reunification, and not integration with Nigeria, the objective of this paper is to highlight the post reunification implications on the CDC. Even though it drastically reduced Nigerian domination of the plantations and offered the corporation greater access to seaport facilities in Douala, the article posits that the CDC suffered enormous setbacks at the end of the British trusteeship in the territory. Using qualitative historical designs, the finding of the study admit that the end of British rule provoked the suspension of Commonwealth funding, cancellation of banana trade preferences, tariff imbroglio, cross-territory security concerns, among the other constraints. However, the article concludes that the federal government equally embarked on a number of remedial measures which went a long way in mitigating the post-independence challenges faced by the CDC.KEY WORDS: Economic backlash, Cameroon Development Corporation, British rule and Southern Cameroons.

The Government of Cameroon's lack of priority for rural water supply has motivated rural communities to harness their internal capacity and networks for self-help community water supply projects. The emerging paradigm of joint water supply projects between communities in rural Cameroon and large corporations, with both parties as principal beneficiaries (unlike self-help projects where the principal beneficiary is the community), is examined. Our findings, based on the Mautu community and the Cameroon Development Corporation (CDC) joint project, suggest that this paradigm can be an attractive alternative for rural communities to gain access to piped water systems. However, to ensure long term performance of the rural community's distribution network, the more experienced corporate partner should negotiate a fair agreement, integrate capacity building for operation and maintenance, and include future growth and increased demand in the design of the community's network. Significant inequity during design of the supply to the two partners can lead to the dysfunction of the community system and trigger the perception of profiteering by the corporate partner resulting in subsequent vandalism. It is recommended that such joint partnerships be regulated and that local institutions working with rural communities should educate them on available support services.

The Cameroon Development Corporation has been severely affected by the armed conflict in the English speaking (North West and South West regions) part of the country that has been on for close to four years running. How then has the armed conflict in the North West and South West regions of Cameroon affected the Cameroon Development Corporation? How can the growth of the agro-industry be guaranteed? This study looks at the impact of the armed conflict in the North West and South West regions of Cameroon on the Cameroon Development Corporation. Making use of public policy theories, this study establishes a link between government defense strategies/sector development policies and agro-industrial development. The study results show that due to the armed conflict in the English speaking regions, the CDC has incurred major damages including: loss in human capital, drop in production capacity, heavy financial loss and equipment damages. The study results also reveal that, the survival of the CDC depends largely on strategic options to be taken at two separate levels including: political options by conflicting parties - the government and separatist fighters on the one hand, and on the other, options taken by the CDC at both managerial and technical levels. The study concludes that for the CDC to attain structural growth and development that will significantly contribute to the national economy, conflicting.

Globalization has united the world and enhanced the interaction between states, defined all economic, political, social and cultural differences. Today the corporate form is an omnipresent part of modern commercial life and is significant in the economic lives of states. The multinational corporation (or international or transnational corporation) is a business organization whose activities are located in more than two countries and is the organizational form that defines foreign direct investment. This form consists of a country location where the firm is incorporated and of the establishment of branches or subsidiaries in foreign countries. Multinational companies can, obviously, vary in the extent of their multinational activities in terms of the number of countries in which they operate. A large multinational corporation can operate in 100 countries, with hundreds of thousands of employees located outside its home country. When these companies expand, they mostly go for business purposes and forget the notion of protecting human rights which are fundamental for the growth and protection of the population especially in third world countries like Cameroon. It is left on home governments to ensure that these TNCs respect human rights through corporate social responsibility in the process of making profits which can be considered as the main goal of such corporations. There are three main categories of human rights provided in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights which these TNCs and other stakeholders must uphold or guarantee while carrying out their activities namely; first, second and third generation rights. This classification follows the historical development of human rights. The first generation consists of civil and political rights, the second generation rights consist of economic, social and cultural rights, and third category of human rights is closely associated to the rise of third world nationalism also known as solidarity rights. However, developing states like Cameroon find it difficult to regulate these corporations due to corruption, and the fear of political interference from TNCs since most of them are bigger in influence and finance than Cameroon. The respect of Human rights by TNCs will help increase productivity, hard-work and sustainable development because the respect of these rights encourages people to work in comfortable situations, take care of their families with proper pay, send kids to school, and gain access to modern facilities provided by these TNCs like schools, hospitals and good roads. It is however suggested that foreign developed countries and International organizations, should take charge of sanctioning TNCs which violate human rights in developing countries like Cameroon because they are in a better position to do so due to their economic and political power.

Purpose: During the Post-colonial period, the Western Powers intervened in African economies in different ways as strategies were put up to guarantee continues influence in Africa. Amongst such policies was the introduction of the Structural Adjustment Programs by the World Bank through the Bretton Woods Institutions which placed privatization as a precondition for giving out loans to developing countries. Following the economic crises that plagued Cameroon in the late 1980s and 1990s, she was pressurised by the Bretton Woods Institutions to privatise State Corporations as a pre-condition to benefit from loans. As a consequence, the Tea Estates of the CDC (Cameroon Development Corporation) was sold to a South African Consortium called Brobon Finex PTY Limited, which ran the tea sector under the name Cameroon Tea Estate (CTE) in 2002. This action bred negative consequences on the workers and the inhabitants of the surrounding areas who had benefitted significantly from the Corporation. The need to ascertain the degree of consequences of privatisation of the Tea Estates to the workers and its environs stimulated this research. All in all, this paper examines why privatisation that was meant to disengage state corporations from public to private ownership with the hope of enforcing efficiency ended up bringing misery and suffering to the people. Methodology: Using information from oral and written sources, and adopting both qualitative and quantitative research methodology, Findings: This paper came out with the findings that privatisation of the Tea Estates ushered in negative consequences on the people. Unique Contribution to Theory, Practice and Policy: The paper makes some recommendations that could be considered in future, when privatising state corporations especially those with direct contact on the population like guideline policies on buyers, creation of monitoring strategies to control the activities of buyers as well as the provision of support facilities to the new beneficiaries.

The agro-industrial sector in Cameroon remains an important part of the country’s life wire as it produces for both local consumption and export thereby bringing revenue to the country and contributing to the welfare of its citizens. While attention is often drawn to production, the role of labour and the subsequent exportation of raw materials, very little attention is accorded to the auxiliary activities of agro-industrial complexes such as the Cameroon Development Corporation (CDC) and the Societe Camerounaise de Palmeraies (SOCAPALM) towards the socio-economic advancement of the areas or neighbourhoods in which they carried out their operations. This paper accordingly, focuses on the contribution of two important agro-industries in Cameroon, the CDC and SOCAPALM, in the socio-economic welfare of the populations in the vicinities in which they operated. Using a historical method of analysis, it reveals that several persons or groups (non-labourers of the companies) benefitted, and in some instances, even more than the labourers, because of their proximity to the companies’ estates and installations.

Agro-Industries play crucial roles in population empowerment, rural development and the dynamics of communities in developing countries. The Ndu and Tole Tea estates in Cameroon are not exceptions. Created by the Germans, in 1928 the management of the estates was inherited by the British under the Commonwealth Development Cooperation and later transferred to the Cameroon Development Corporation (CDC) in 1947. These agro-industries now under private management since 2002 have been involved in tea production, transformation and commercialization in national and international markets. In the process of achieving these goals, the enterprises have been at conflict with the local populations and workers that carry out activities in the plantations. Even though, the estates have been at the forefront of rural development and livelihood transformation in the Northwest and Southwest Regions of Cameroon, their activities at different periods of Cameroon history have had several negative outcomes in the uplift of populations and promotion of development in the countryside. This study has as objective to investigate how the activities of these estates have contributed to the improvement of rural livelihoods and development in the study sites and emerging challenges. Data for production of this work is tapped from primary sources (field investigations) and secondary sources (literature on development, agriculture, and industrial geography). The findings of this study show that the estates have created job opportunities for the population, enhanced the incomes of host communities, improved the road infrastructure, health, water and electricity services of the rural population. On the other hand, the working conditions of population that operate in the estates have been precarious and marked by human rights violation through nonpayment of debts owed workers, wanton dismissal of workers without justification, landgrab and conflicts amongst others. This paper investigates into the development history of these enterprises.

Planting material or seed is the most determinant factor for oil palm productivity alongside agro climatological and management considerations. A study was conducted to determine the different varieties of oil palm planted in smallholders’ plantations, the distribution channels for oil palm seeds and all the actors involved in the seed trade sector in Cameroon. This is a bid to secure the supply of only improved planting materials to smallholder farmers. 230 oil palm smallholder plantations were surveyed and individual palms were subjected to varietal determination. The Chi-Square Test (c2) for Fixed Ratio Hypothesis (= 0.05) was used to determine whether the observed ratio deviates significantly from the Mendelian hypothesized genetic segregation ratio. Up to 65% of smallholder farms were found to be planted with poor planting material distributed in the different Mendelian ratios; 100% Dura, 50% Tenera and 50% Dura (1:1), 25% Dura, 50% Tenera and 25% Pisifera (1:2:1). The source of this poor quality planting material for these farms was deduced to come from private nursery entrepreneurs and workers of industrial plantations such as the Cameroon Development Corporation (CDC), Cameroon Palm Oil Company (SOCAPALM), Common Initiative Groups (CIG’s) and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGO’s). Farmers supplied by government services especially the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and some of its specialized development projects all received good quality material. Thus, this is the only means now available which can assure the distribution of seeds good quality seeds

Pesticides are widely used to reduce crop losses due to pests. This study (an initial part of a project on risk assessment and biomonitoring) deals with pesticide use patterns in the South-West, Cameroon. This descriptive and cross-sectional study was done using questionnaires randomly administered to 137 respondents. Twenty-one crops were recorded in the area with a total of 107 pesticides (60 active ingredients) used. Three illegally used pesticides were recorded (lindane, dimethoate and malathion). Application of pesticides in combination was quite common (42.3%). Pesticide application was mainly manual using a sprayer (96.4%) with 54% of users experiencing health problems post-application. Because of the lack of funding and training, 19.7% sprayed pesticides without protection. For the Restricted Entry Interval (REI), 43.1% entered the field in less than 12h after pesticide application. The correlation between the REI and the number of symptoms was negative and non-significant (R=-0.07, p≥0.05). The main place to store pesticides was the house (57.7%) with the exception of CDC where pesticides were kept in a pesticide store. Some respondents (54.7%) said they hadn’t received any training on pesticide application while 20.4 % of respondents failed to follow recommended doses. Surface water around farms was used by 62.1% of pesticides users for domestic purposes. Some farmers (46.7%) have once heard about pesticide related accident while 14.6% suffered from pesticide intoxication, the prevalence being significantly higher in males (p<0.05). Therefore, there is a need to regulate the pesticides sector, assess ecological risk and the bioaccumulation potential of these pesticides as well as their ability to hindrance water quality and biota.

This paper assesses the performance of the Cameroon Water Corporation (CWC) in delivering services after four decades of existence (1967-2013) and relates that performance to organization theories. It uses secondary data on services provision and primary data on users perceptions of the CWCs performance. The assessment is conducted using descriptive as well as inferential methods of data analysis. The paper observes that despite political, technical, managerial, and financial constraints that impaired the efficient delivery of drinking water and sanitation services in the country over the years, the company registered modest successes that attracted the financial support of domestic and worldwide development partners. However, more than half of the population is sceptical about better future services delivery by the CWC. Classical organization theory (COT) explains most of the failure in the operating environment of the CWC, while the formulations in modern organization theory (MOT) are found to be relevant to the improvement of water services. As a policy recommendation, the CWC should focus on MOT, while maintaining some aspects of COT to improve performance.

Media’s roles in exposing corruption is itemised in the CDC land restitution process in Fako Division of Cameroon, captioned as “The Land Grabbing Saga in Fako Division” by newspapers. Journalism in general and investigative reporting in particular, play a critical role in raising consciousness of and fighting against corruption. It is one of the most effective means of raising public consciousness about corruption. It is in this light that the researchers set out to investigate the actual role played by the media in reporting corruption in the CDC land restitution process. Two qualitative research methods were used to gather data. The first method, the qualitative content analysis, examined contents of four editions of CRTV Buea Press Club radio programme and also exploited contents of some newspapers and online media platforms on corruption in the CDC land restitution process. The second research method, in-depth interview, was used to gather data from some elites of Fako Division, members of the affected villages, journalists who reported on the corruption, some accused persons and CDC officials to ascertain media’s role in exposing corruption. The data reveal that the media played three roles in exposing corruption in the CDC land restitution process: giving information and creating awareness; public education; and prompting peers (other journalists) to also report on corruption. The elites and members of the affected communities attested that some of them were not aware of any corrupt practices until they heard about it on CRTV Buea Press Club and later followed it on newspapers and online media platforms. Findings also show that media investigative reports corroborated evidence to establish the occurrence of corruption in the restitution process. The media exposed this issue by naming and shaming those involved in the corruption (publishing their names and pictures). Amongst other things, this study recommends that the media should be considered as an important tool in the fight against corruption; those interested in exposing corruption in the media should be involved in investigative journalism that will enable them back their reports with documented evidence since corruption is a complex crime. Also, people in public offices should be compelled by law to make available information that is of public interest and good to journalists to enable them expose societal ills (like corruption), especially in public offices and spheres.

This study examines how the population of Limbe II council area perceives the Cameroon National Refining Company Ltd (SONARA) in terms of its business activities, its relationship with this major stakeholder group, its respect for environmental ethics, and the contribution of the company to the socio-economic development of the area. The population under study is the Limbe II council area, made up of 11 communities with 42300 inhabitants. Two methods of data collection are used: survey and qualitative content analysis of SONARA’s corporate policy documents. The questionnaire was administered to 330 respondents. Findings suggest that the Limbe Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC) is the most prominent social event sponsored by SONARA. FESTAC also projects SONARA’s image most, and best promotes inhabitants’ cultural values. Findings also indicate that for SONARA to gain improved reputation in Limbe II, the corporation should give priority to indigenes of Limbe II municipality in holiday jobs and recruitments. Respondents equally affirm that it is necessary for SONARA to sponsor cultural, educational, health and related activities in Limbe II municipality; pay royalties to the Limbe II Council; and sponsor political campaigns. Empirical evidence show a statistically significant linear relationship (p= 0.000) between SONARA’s satisfaction of Limbe II community needs and a positive reputation that the Limbe II community has about the company. This also implies that the company needs to carry out a re-appraisal of its community management plan for the host communities in order to ensure that only projects that are directly relevant to the needs of the host communities (as indicated by the inhabitants) are embarked upon.

Both the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) are being subjected to close scrutiny, but from different quarters. During the lead up to the British general election in 2015, the Cameron Conservative government issued a Green Paper, BBC Charter Review, July-October 2015, which broke new ground in terms of the scope of such an enquiry for its level of institutional criticism. Whilst ostensibly the document only purported to raise options for future change, and invited public submissions for consideration, there has been widespread concern about the possible serious intentions of the government for the corporation’s future. Though the ABC appears to be subject to much less vitriolic attack than its British counterpart, it too faces a range of threats and abuses. Paradoxically, such aggressive scrutiny comes at a time when both broadcasting corporations enjoy record audiences, continuing high levels of public trust, and on-line market leadership as a result their successful development of new digital platforms.

Both the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) are being subjected to close scrutiny, but from different quarters. During the lead up to the British general election in 2015, the Cameron Conservative government issued a Green Paper, BBC Charter Review, July-October 2015, which broke new ground in terms of the scope of such an enquiry for its level of institutional criticism. Whilst ostensibly the document only purported to raise options for future change, and invited public submissions for consideration, there has been widespread concern about the possible serious intentions of the government for the corporation’s future. Though the ABC appears to be subject to much less vitriolic attack than its British counterpart, it too faces a range of threats and abuses. Paradoxically, such aggressive scrutiny comes at a time when both broadcasting corporations enjoy record audiences, continuing high levels of public trust, and on-line market leadership as a result their successful development of new digital platforms.

This work was aim to evaluate the pathogenicity and the level of aggressiveness of ten strains of Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. elaeidis (Foe) on palm oil seedlings susceptible to vascular wilt. For this purpose, the radial growth, sporulation and the morphological characteristics of ten strains of Foe from the farm palm of the Cameroon Development Corporation (South-west) were studied in vitro. In addition, 500 oil palm seedlings susceptible to vascular wilt and aged 5 months were distributed in a randomized complete block device, and inoculated with said strains. External symptoms of Fusarium wilt were observed on those seedlings and the correlation between these parameters was also investigated. The data collected in prenursery did not establish a significant difference in the aggressiveness of the isolates. However, regarding the pathogenicity, 7 strains have shown a high pathogenicity. As for the radial growth, strain F presented fastest growth was 8.12 cm in diameter, unlike the strainI whose growth was the lowest is 3.98 cm in diameter. The C strain is one that is abundantly sporulated126,5x105spores/ml; however, isolates B and J do not sporulate. No correlation was detected between the different parameters. But, considering the results obtained, the F and I strains could be the most aggressive and can potentially be used to test the timber yard of the specialized Centre for oil palm research of La DIBAMBA to select the most resistant to vascular wilt.

Social policy development trajectories in post-colonial sub-Saharan African states deviate from those in highly industrialized countries. Recent research endeavours established broad patterns of global interdependencies dating back to colonialism. This article contributes to these efforts by presenting a case study of the dynamics animating social policy development in Cameroon. It examines the progressive evolution of global determinants and their impacts on Cameroon’s welfare system over three periods: (1) decolonialization and post-colonial restructuring in the mid-20th century, (2) structural adjustment in response to the 1980s’ debt crisis and (3) the contemporary era of market liberalization driven by accelerated economic globalization. The research draws on a mixed-methods approach involving a document analysis and a survey administered in 400 rural households. Findings indicate that horizontal interdependencies were predominant in the establishment phase of Cameroon’s national social insurance scheme, but eventually gave way to vertical interdependencies in the 1980s. Recent efforts to advance economic liberalization represent a return to horizontal transnational forces, given the growing influence of multinational corporations on the country’s social security landscape. The study reinforces existing research insights in showing that, unlike social protection in the global north, social policy dynamics in Africa tend to actively contribute to the marginalization of underprivileged groups.

Land embodies power, wealth, and meaning, especially in Africa. Thus, analysing the dynamics of land access and their effects thereof requires and examination how land is accessed, the actors and institutions that mediate access and the strategies used by different groups to gain access and control. This paper is guided by the interactionist approach entwined around the theories of theory of ‘Power’ and that of ‘Access’. We explore how power relations and the institutional/regulatory frameworks enabled or constrained practices by which people gain access to land in Cameroon’s administrative division of Fako. The paper reveals that the fragmented and overlapping mosaics mechanisms of land governance and territorial control, have a direct impact on local people (Bakweri)’s realities including their agency to respond to changes in the politico-legal and social framework. These are not just arenas of negotiation but also of social disputes and conflicts. We agree in our analysis with several authors who have observed that access to land is often contested and conflictual as political and economic forces constantly transform land relations. In fact, in Cameroon, politico-legal institutions continue to exist in parallel with customary institutions. However, the issue arises when local actors try to secure their rights to natural resources by having their customary access claims recognized as legitimate property by politico-legal institutions.

This paper explores business strategies and policies put in place by multinational corporations to alleviate poverty in Africa with specific examples from Cameroon. The world's population is rapidly increasing and the rich people are getting richer, whereas the poor people are becoming even more marginalized. During the era of economic liberalization the belief was that the opening up of economies to multinational corporations could lead to economic growth and, subsequently, economic development. The activities of multinational corporations have witnessed a tremendous boom since the advent of the twenty first century, that is characterized with advances in information communication technology, and the flow of capital have been the main proxy for MNC activity. MNCs are mainly motivated by opportunities that increase their profits, and the most important factors for MNCs are market size and access to resources. Nevertheless, as markets are getting saturated and MNCs are looking for new opportunities, innovative business strategies have been developed to provide dividends to their shareholders while making sure the stakeholders and communities in which they operate also benefit. This paper explores some business models that MNCs have used to make their products available, affordable and accepted in poor markets that are mostly found in Africa on the one hand and corporate social responsibility initiatives implemented by MNCs to alleviate poverty in the continent on the other. The paper concludes that though the principal goal of MNCs is profit maximization, corporations are making an effort to see that the poor benefit from the activities of these giant companies. To get to this conclusion the paper relied on both primary sources and the exploitation of the already existing literature in books and journals. Given that the sector of activities of MNCs is vast, the paper laid emphasis on fast moving consumer goods companies (FMCGs) in Cameroon.

The purpose of this study is to examine how CSR is practiced by local businesses and their influence on environmental protection and sustainable growth in Cameroon. Grounded on the stakeholder theory, a multi-method data collection tool was used to collect data for qualitative analysis. A thematic content analysis was approached was used in this study to examine the CSR practices of 20 local businesses in Cameroon. Findings from the study revealed that the concept of corporate social responsibility is relatively new and local corporations are not fully equipped to address the needs of their stakeholders. Also, environmental concerns and community issues were not areas of concern to companies when adopting CSR strategies. Additionally, government intervention to enforce existing laws and regulations on environmental and social issues was lacking. The study implies that by neglecting environmental concerns local businesses are endangering the environment and failing to plan for sustainable growth. Besides expanding knowledge about the level of CSR awareness and practice in Cameroon by exposing the limitations of local companies in adopting CSR and the laxity of the government in enforcing the relevant laws and legislation. It is recommended, that to plan for sustainable development and environmental protection, the government should be more proactive in upholding laws and regulations related to environmental protection and businesses, being more ethical in their daily practices. CSR policies should also be codified to encourage and compel businesses on the need for environmental protection by requesting businesses produce mandatory CSR disclosures.

BackgroundPsoriatic Arthritis (PsA) affects multiple attributes of patient health; to assess treatment effectiveness a compilation of Patient Reported Outcomes (PRO) have been utilized. While useful, most of these were originally created for other diseases and only later validated or adapted for use in PsA. More recent efforts have focused on development of PsA specific PRO tools, with inclusion of patient input and relevance for use in both clinical research and clinical care (1).ObjectivesTo subject a broad set of currently used PROs to patient assessment, giving insight into usefulness in the clinic and informing efforts for optimization of PsA PROs.MethodsFour focus groups were conducted across three regionally-diverse areas in the United States from March 2016 to October 2016. Patients represented a range of disease history, symptoms, and severity. After trained facilitators encouraged open conversation about PsA, including symptoms, challenges and feelings about disease and treatment, patients reviewed 13 currently utilized PROs and rated relevance of these instruments to reporting their disease experiences on a 3 point scale of Relevant, Somewhat Relevant, and Irrelevant. Verbal discussion followed on the merits and challenges of each rated PROResultsPRO instruments ranged from overall global assessments to disease specific assessments (Table 1). The PROs received a variety of ratings, with Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy - Fatigue (FACIT-F) and Psoriatic Arthritis Impact of Disease (PsAID) judged as Very Relevant by the largest number of patients, followed by Health Assessment Questionnaire-Spondyloarthropathies (HAQ-S) and Pain VAS (Figure 1). Instruments receiving the most assessments of Not Really Relevant were Pt Global and PsA Quality of Life (PsAQOL). In the qualitative portion of the research, major patient critiques across PROs were the time frames listed on the questionnaires; some were too restrictive and disallowed reporting important recent disease activity. Preferences were for questions asked as ‘..since your last visit..’. Multiple participants also agreed that a visual tool allowing patients to circle specific joints to indicate pain would be useful.Table 1.Outcomes Instruments Assessed in the StudyToolAbbreviationTime Period QueriedPatient GlobalPt GANone SpecifiedPain Visual Analog ScalePain VASIn the past weekHealth Assessment Questionnaire-SpondyloarthropathiesHAQ-SOver the past weekShort Form - 36SF-36Different periods queried for different questions: Compared to a year ago; None Specified; Over the past 4 weeksFunctional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy - FatigueFACIT-FPast 7 DaysEQ-5D and EQ Visual Analog ScaleEQ-5D-5LTodayPsoriatic Arthritis Quality of LifePsAQOLNone specifiedPsoriatic Arthritis Impact of DiseasePsAIDDuring the last weekDermatology Life Quality IndexDLQIOver the last WeekPsoriasis Symptom InventoryPSILast 7 daysWork Productivity and Activity Impairment: General HealthWPAI:GHDuring the past 7 daysWork Productivity Survey - PsAWPS-PsALast monthBeck Depression InventoryBDI-IIDuring the past 2 weeksConclusionCurrently utilized PROs in PsA evaluating domains of fatigue, function, pain, and disease specific manifestations were all important regarding new therapeutic agents. However, some are more relevant than others to patients, most notably FACIT-F and PsAID, the latter being an important example of a patient-led and disease-specific development effort. Allowing reporting of items of concern without restrictive time periods is important to patients. These preferences and comments can be utilized to better understand the value of PROs in clinical settings to optimize patient-clinician communications.References[1]Gossec L, de Wit M, Kiltz U, et al. A patient-derived and patient-reported outcome measure for assessing psoriatic arthritis: elaboration and preliminary validation of the Psoriatic Arthritis Impact of Disease (PsAID) questionnaire, a 13-country EULAR initiative. Ann Rheum Dis 2014;73: 1012–9.Disclosure of InterestsPhilip J Mease Speakers bureau: AbbVie, Eli Lilly, Genentech, Janssen, Pfizer, Amgen, Novartis, UCB, Consultant of: AbbVie, Eli Lilly, Boehringer Ingelheim, Pfizer, Amgen, GAlapagos, Genentech, Janssen, Sun Pharma, BMS, Celgene, Novartis, UCB, GSK, Grant/research support from: AbbVie, Eli Lilly, Genentech, Janssen, Pfizer, Amgen, Galapagos, Novartis, Sun Pharma, BMS, Vibeke Strand Consultant of: Abbvie, Amgen Corporation, Arena, Aria, AstraZeneca, Bayer, Bioventus, BMS, Boehringer Ingelheim, Celltrion, Chemocentryx, Elsa, EMD Serono, Endo, Equilium, Flexion, Galapagos, Genentech / Roche, Gilead, GSK, Horizon, Ichnos, Inmedix, Janssen, Kiniksa, Kypha, Lilly, Merck, MiMedx, Novartis, Pfizer, Regeneron, Rheos, R-Pharma, Samsung, Sandoz, Sanofi, Scipher, Servier, Setpoint, Sorrento, Spherix, Sun Pharma, Swing, UCB, Daniel Furst Speakers bureau: Corbus, GSK, Sanofi, Consultant of: Actelion, Amgen, BMS, Corbus, Galapagos, Sanofi, Novartis, Pfizer, Grant/research support from: Actelion, Amgen, BMS, Galapagos, Sanofi, Roche/Genentech, Novartis, Pfizer, Evan Siegel Speakers bureau: AbbVie, Janssen, Eli Lilly, Novartis, UCB, Consultant of: BMS, AbbVie, Janssen, Eli Lilly, Novartis, UCB, Melissa Mcilraith Employee of: Past Employee of Abbott and Celgene, M Elaine Husni Consultant of: AbbVie, Amgen, Janssen, Novartis, Eli Lilly, UCB, Regeneron, M. Cameron Hay Grant/research support from: Novartis

This study was carried out in Fako Division of Cameroon’s South West Region with the objective of identifying the social and environmental problems created by Cameroon Development Corporation (CDC), the country’s largest agro-industrial cooperation which is next employer to the government. Fako Division was selected for the study because all the major settlements in the Division have been affected by activities of CDC. Methods of data collection were qualitative using interviews, focus group discussions, and direct observation in the workers camps and third party settlements. Results of the study indicate that despite the corporation’s contribution to employment; environmental and social problems attributed to the company’s activities remain the greatest cause for concern affecting other human activities in the affected settlements. Deforestation and destruction of the ecosystem, untreated effluent discharged into the environment, gaseous emissions, noise pollution and aerial sprays in plantations including problems of hygiene and sanitation were identified among major problems affecting human settlements in the affected areas. Furthermore poor housing conditions, congestions, inadequate disposal of sewage and waste have been identified as greatest sources of social and health problems affecting the workers camps. The study calls for government and its agencies to conduct environmental impact and social assessment studies where the impacts could be measured to ascertain the effects on the environment and populations affected by the activities of the corporation. KEY WORDS: Agro-industries, neighbourhood-settlements, Cameroon Development Corporation, social problems, environmental problems.

In 1916 the British took over part of former German Kamerun after the capitulation of the Germans to the joint Anglo-French contingent at the end of the First World War in Cameroon. The defeat of the Germans gave the British political control over their sphere of the territory but left an unclear scenario as far as the management of the plantations, the nerve-centre of the German economy, was concerned. Despite initially efforts at appropriating and restricting German ownership of the plantations, problems of technical and managerial knowledge, cost and disinterest caused the British administration to allow German presence and participation in the Southern Cameroon economy. This article examines the circumstances leading to the interruption and then resurgence of German economic control in British Southern Cameroons. It maintains that the overwhelming economic presence of German planters from 1924 to the end of the Second World War in 1945 emanated from a combination of auspicious conditions and British diplomacy to forgive and appease Germany in the interwar period. German implication in Second World War, however, gave the British reasons to re-appropriate the plantations and federate into the Cameroons Development Corporation (CDC) in 1946 for the primary benefit of the inhabitants.

Diseases are among the major causes of production losses in oil palm plantations. In Cameroon, certain soils of oil palm plantations are infested by Fusarium oxysporumf.sp.elaeidis, a soil borne fungus, causal agent of oil palm vascular wilt. The vascular wilt leads to the death or unproductiveness of oil palm. The magnitude of yield losses varies from one plantation to another. Hence, 20 strains of F. oxysporum were isolated: 19 from the Cameroon Development Corporation (C D C) vascular wilted blocks in the South West province and I from the Société Camerounaise des Palmeraies (SOCAPALM) Dibombari's block in the Littoral province. This study was aimed at assessing the pathogenecity of the strains. Two-month-old pre-nursery seedlings were inoculated with 5 x spores from each strain. They were splitted 8 months after inoculation to record internal symptoms of vascular wilt. The percentage of seedlings attacked varied widely from O per cent to nearly 50 per cent (mean = 18 per cent) . With regard to the variability in the pathogenecity of the strains studied, further work would consist of searching for the most aggressive among the 20 strains for the screening of oil palm planting materials to be supplied to oil palm growers in Cameroon Keywords: Pathogenecity, Fusarium oxysporumf.sp.elaeidis, vascular wilt, oil palm, Cameroon.

Cameroon is actually the only country in Africa where the basal stem rot (BSR) of oil palm caused by a soil-borne fungus, Ganoderma sp exists. It is the major disease that attacks the oil palm in the country next to Fusarium wilt which is believed to be endemic to Africa in the oil palm’s distribution area. In order to appreciate the incidence of the disease in relation to Fusarium wilt, a survey was carried out in the Mussaka oil palm section of the Cameroon Development Corporation, an Agro Industrial Plantation exploiting more than 15 000 ha of palms. In each plot, one row out of five (that is 20%) was surveyed and all the palms of the chosen row were carefully examined. Out of 5 139 palms inspected, 299 (5.81%) were affected by Ganoderma and 106 (2.06%) were dead due to Ganoderma infection. Palms affected or killed by Ganoderma showed sporophores. It was observed that affected palms are less or not productive and die in a short run. This will lead to reduction of up to 60 per cent of the number of palms in the plantation. Although the basal stem rot seems to affect old palms above 25 years, it can attack the new and young generation of palms to be planted in the same area if special care is not taken. Keywords: Oil palm, basal stem rot, vascular wilt, dead palms, resistant varieties.

Abstract Background Sexual and reproductive health is crucial to a normal and healthy female life. However, little interest has been placed on this subject particularly in the resource-limited settings of Cameroon. The study assessed the sexual and reproductive health of women in union, resident in the Cameroon Development Corporation (CDC) plantation camps, Cameroon. Methods This was a cross-sectional study carried out from December 2019 to February 2020 in which a multi-stage sampling was applied in two purposively selected CDC plantation camps (Tiko and Penda Mboko). Out of the 16 clusters making up the camps, 8 were randomly selected using simple balloting. The main street junctions of the sampled clusters were identified and a direction of sampling randomly chosen. All houses left to the data collectors were sampled for eligible participants (one participant per household) and data were collected using validated interviewer-administered questionnaires. The number of participants per cluster was proportionate to population size of cluster. Data was analysed using SPSS 16 and statistical significance was set at p < 0.05. Regression analysis was used to determine predictors of unmet need for family planning. Results Out of the 414 participants included, primary education was the highest level of education for a majority (43.0%). Most of the participants (44.7%) earned between 44.5–89.0USD/month. Relatively high proportions of some sexual and reproductive indicators like early sexual contacts (before 15 years) [87(21.0%)], grand multiparity [41(9.9%)], and abortion ≥ 3 [8(1.9%)] were recorded in the study. Two hundred and seventy-eight (278) participants (67.1%) [95%CI:62.4–71.7] used contraceptives and 90 (21.7%) [95%CI:17.9–26.0] had an unmet need for family planning with 3 major reasons for non-use of contraception among them being fear of side effects, discouragement from the partner, and lack of sufficient information on contraception. Of the different predictors of unmet need for family planning assessed, nulliparity/primiparity were protective for unmet need, and this was statistically significant (AOR = 0.284[0.086–0.934]). Conclusion The sexual and reproductive health of CDC plantation camp residents is poor, and a health intervention is needed to improve it.

IntroductionFestivals, according to Chris Gibson and John Connell, are like “glue”, temporarily sticking together various stakeholders, economic transactions, and networks (9). Australia’s First Nations peoples see festivals as an opportunity to display cultural vitality (Henry 586), and to challenge a history which has rendered them absent (587). The 2017 Australia Council for the Arts Showcasing Creativity report indicates that performing arts by First Nations peoples are under-represented in Australia’s mainstream venues and festivals (1). Large Aboriginal cultural festivals have long thrived in Australia’s northern half, but have been under-developed in the south. Each regional happening develops a cultural landscape connected to a long and intimate relationship with the natural environment.The Far South East coast and mountainous hinterland of New South Wales is rich in pristine landscapes that ground the Yuin and Monaro Nations to Country as the Monaroo Bobberrer Gadu (Peoples of the Mountains and the Sea). This article highlights cross-sector interaction between Koori and mainstream organisations in producing the Giiyong (Guy-Yoong/Welcoming) Festival. This, the first large festival to be held within the Yuin Nation, took place on Aboriginal-owned land at Jigamy, via Eden, on 22 September 2018. Emerging regional artists joined national headline acts, most notably No Fixed Address (one of the earliest Aboriginal bands to break into the Australian mainstream music industry), and hip-hop artist Baker Boy (Danzal Baker, Young Australian of the Year 2019). The festival followed five years of sustained community preparation by South East Arts in association with Grow the Music, Twofold Aboriginal Corporation, the Eden Local Aboriginal Land Council, and its Elders. We offer dual understandings of the Giiyong Festival: the viewpoints of a male Yuin Elder wedded to an Australian woman of European descent. We acknowledge, and rely upon, key information, statistics, and photographs provided by the staff of South East Arts including Andrew Gray (General Manager), Jasmin Williams (Aboriginal Creative and Cultural Engagement Officer and Giiyong Festival Project Manager), and Kate Howarth (Screen Industry Development Officer). We are also grateful to Wiradjuri woman Alison Simpson (Program Manager at Twofold Aboriginal Corporation) for valuable feedback. As community leaders from First Nations and non-First Nations backgrounds, Simpson and Williams complement each other’s talents for empowering Indigenous communities. They plan a 2020 follow-up event on the basis of the huge success of the 2018 festival.The case study is informed by our personal involvement with community. Since the general population barely comprehends the number and diversity of Australia’s Indigenous ‘nations’, the burgeoning Indigenous festival movement encourages First Nations and non-First Nations peoples alike to openly and confidently refer to the places they live in according to Indigenous names, practices, histories, and knowledge. Consequently, in the mental image of a map of the island-continent, the straight lines and names of state borders fade as the colours of the Indigenous ‘Countries’ (represented by David Horton’s wall map of 1996) come to the foreground. We reason that, in terms of ‘regionality,’ the festival’s expressions of “the agency of country” (Slater 141) differ vastly from the centre-periphery structure and logic of the Australian colony. There is no fixed centre to the mutual exchange of knowledge, culture, and experience in Aboriginal Australia. The broader implication of this article is that Indigenous cultural festivals allow First Nations peoples cultures—in moments of time—to assume precedence, that is to ‘stitch’ back together the notion of a continent made up of hundreds of countries, as against the exploitative structure of ‘hub and region’ colonial Australia.Festival Concepts and ContextsHoward Becker observed that cultural production results from an interplay between the person of the artist and a multitude of support personnel whose work is not frequently studied: “It is through this network of cooperation that the art work we eventually see or hear comes to be and continues to be” (1). In assisting arts and culture throughout the Bega Valley, Eurobodalla, and Snowy Monaro, South East Arts delivers positive achievements in the Aboriginal arts and cultural sector. Their outcomes are significant in the light of the dispossession, segregation, and discrimination experienced by Aboriginal Australians. Michael Young, assisted by Indigenous authors Ellen Mundy and Debbie Mundy, recorded how Delegate Reserve residents relocating to the coast were faced with having their lives controlled by a Wallaga Lake Reserve manager or with life on the fringes of the towns in shacks (2–3). But as discovered in the records, “their retention of traditional beliefs, values and customs, reveal that the accommodation they were forced to make with the Europeans did not mean they had surrendered. The proof of this is the persistence of their belief in the value of their culture” (3–4). The goal of the Twofold Aboriginal Corporation is to create an inclusive place where Aboriginal people of the Twofold Bay Region can be proud of their heritage, connect with the local economy, and create a real future for their children. When Simpson told Williams of the Twofold Aboriginal Corporation’s and Eden Local Aboriginal Land Council’s dream of housing a large cultural festival at Jigamy, Williams rigorously consulted local Indigenous organisations to build a shared sense of community ownership of the event. She promoted the festival as “a rare opportunity in our region to learn about Aboriginal culture and have access to a huge program of Aboriginal musicians, dancers, visual artists, authors, academics, storytellers, cooks, poets, creative producers, and films” (McKnight).‘Uncle Ossie’ Cruse of Eden envisaged that the welcoming event would enliven the longstanding caring and sharing ethos of the Yuin-Monaro people. Uncle Ossie was instrumental in establishing Jigamy’s majestic Monaroo Bobberrer Gudu Keeping Place with the Eden Local Aboriginal Land Council in 1994. Built brick by brick by Indigenous workers, it is a centre for the teaching and celebration of Aboriginal culture, and for the preservation of artefacts. It represents the local community's determination to find their own solutions for “bridging the gap” by creating education and employment opportunities. The centre is also the gateway to the Bundian Way, the first Aboriginal pathway to be listed on the NSW State Heritage Register. Festival Lead-Up EventsEden’s Indigenous students learn a revived South Coast language at Primary and Secondary School. In 2015, Uncle Ossie vitally informed their input into The Black Ducks, a hip-hop song filmed in Eden by Desert Pea Media. A notable event boosting Koori musical socialisation was a Giiyong Grow the Music spectacle performed at Jigamy on 28 October 2017. Grow the Music—co-founded by Lizzy Rutten and Emily White—specialises in mentoring Indigenous artists in remote areas using digital recording equipment. Eden Marine High School students co-directed the film Scars as part of a programme of events with South East Arts and the Giiyong Festival 2018. The Eden Place Project and Campbell Page also create links between in- and out-of-school activities. Eden’s Indigenous students thus perform confidently at NAIDOC Week celebrations and at various festivals. Preparation and PersonnelAn early decision was made to allow free entry to the Giiyong Festival in order to attract a maximum number of Indigenous families. The prospect necessitated in-kind support from Twofold Aboriginal Corporation staff. They galvanised over 100 volunteers to enhance the unique features of Jigamy, while Uncle Ossie slashed fields of bushes to prepare copious parking space. The festival site was spatially focused around two large stages dedicated to the memory of two strong supporters of cultural creativity: Aunty Doris Kirby, and Aunty Liddy Stewart (Image 1). Image 1: Uncle Ossie Cruse Welcomes Festival-Goers to Country on the Aunty Liddy Stewart Stage. Image Credit: David Rogers for South East Arts, Reproduction Courtesy of South East Arts.Cultural festivals are peaceful weapons in a continuing ontological political contest (Slater 144). In a panel discussion, Uncle Ossie explained and defended the Makarrata: the call for a First Nations Voice to be enshrined in the Constitution.Williams also contracted artists with a view to capturing the past and present achievements of Aboriginal music. Apart from her brilliant centrepiece acts No Fixed Address and Baker Boy, she attracted Pitjantjatjara singer Frank Yamma (Image 2), Yorta Yorta singer/songwriter Benny Walker, the Central Desert Docker River Band, and Jessie Lloyd’s nostalgic Mission Songs Project. These stellar acts were joined by Wallaga Lake performers Robbie Bundle, Warren Foster, and Alison Walker as well as Nathan Lygon (Eden), Chelsy Atkins (Pambula), Gabadoo (Bermagui), and Drifting Doolgahls (Nowra). Stage presentations were technologically transformed by the live broadcast of acts on large screens surrounding the platforms. Image 2: Singer-Songwriter Frank Yamma Performs at Giiyong Festival 2018. Image Credit: David Rogers for South East Arts, Reproduction Courtesy of South East Arts.Giiyong Music and Dance Music and dance form the staple components of Indigenous festivals: a reflection on the cultural strength of ancient ceremony. Hundreds of Yuin-Monaro people once attended great corroborees on Mumbulla Mountain (Horton 1235), and oral history recorded by Janet Mathews evidences ceremonies at Fishy Flats, Eden, in the 1850s. Today’s highly regarded community musicians and dancers perform the social arrangements of direct communication, sometimes including their children on stage as apprentices. But artists are still negotiating the power structures through which they experience belonging and detachment in the representation of their musical identity.Youth gain positive identities from participating alongside national headline acts—a form of learning that propels talented individuals into performing careers. The One Mob Dreaming Choir of Koori students from three local schools were a popular feature (Image 3), as were Eden Marine student soloists Nikai Stewart, and Nikea Brooks. Grow the Music in particular has enabled these youngsters to exhibit the roots of their culture in a deep and touching way that contributes to their life-long learning and development. Image 3: The One Mob Dreaming Choir, Directed by Corinne Gibbons (L) and Chelsy Atkins (R). Image Credit: David Rogers for South East Arts, Reproduction Courtesy of South East Arts. Brydie-Leigh Bartleet describes how discourses of pride emerge when Indigenous Australian youth participate in hip-hop. At the Giiyong Festival the relationship between musical expression, cultural representation, and political positioning shone through the songs of Baker Boy and Gabadoo (Image 4). Channelling emotions into song, they led young audiences to engage with contemporary themes of Indigeneity. The drones launched above the carpark established a numerical figure close on 6,000 attendees, a third of whom were Indigenous. Extra teenagers arrived in time for Baker Boy’s evening performance (Williams), revealing the typical youthful audience composition associated with the hip-hop craze (Image 5).Image 4: Bermagui Resident Gabadoo Performs Hip-Hop at the Giiyong Festival. Image Credit: David Rogers for South East Arts, Reproduced Courtesy South East Arts.Image 5: A Youthful Audience Enjoys Baker Boy’s Giiyong Festival Performance. Image Credit: David Rogers for South East Arts, Reproduced Courtesy South East Arts.Wallaga Lake’s traditional Gulaga Dancers were joined by Bermagui’s Gadhu Dancers, Eden’s Duurunu Miru Dancers, and Narooma’s Djaadjawan Dancers. Sharon Mason founded Djaadjawan Dancers in 2015. Their cultural practice connects to the environment and Mingagia (Mother Earth). At their festival tent, dancers explained how they gather natural resources from Walbanja Country to hand-make traditional dance outfits, accessories, and craft. They collect nuts, seeds, and bark from the bush, body paint from ancient ochre pits, shells from beaches, and bird feathers from fresh roadkill. Duurunu Miru dancer/didjeriduist Nathan Lygon elaborates on the functions of the Far South East Coast dance performance tradition:Dance provides us with a platform, an opportunity to share our stories, our culture, and our way of being. It demonstrates a beautiful positivity—a feeling of connection, celebration, and inclusion. The community needs it. And our young people need a ‘space’ in which they can grow into the knowledge and practices of their culture. The festival also helped the wider community to learn more about these dimensions. (n.p.)While music and dance were at the heart of the festival, other traditional skills were included, for example the exhibitions mounted inside the Keeping Place featured a large number of visual artists. Traditional bush cooking took place near Lake Pambula, and yarn-ups, poetry, and readings were featured throughout the day. Cultural demonstrations in the Bunaan Ring (the Yuin name for a corroboree circle) included ‘Gum Leaf Playing.’ Robin Ryan explained how the Yuin’s use of cultural elements to entertain settlers (Cameron 79) led to the formation of the Wallaga Lake Gum Leaf Band. As the local custodian of this unique musical practice, Uncle Ossie performed items and conducted a workshop for numerous adults and children. Festival Feedback and Future PlanningThe Giiyong Festival gained huge Indigenous cultural capital. Feedback gleaned from artists, sponsors, supporters, volunteers, and audiences reflected on how—from the moment the day began—the spirit of so many performers and consumers gathered in one place took over. The festival’s success depended on its reception, for as Myers suggests: “It is the audience who create the response to performance and if the right chemistry is achieved the performers react and excel in their presentation” (59). The Bega District News, of 24 September 2018, described the “incredibly beautiful event” (n.p.), while Simpson enthused to the authors:I believe that the amount of people who came through the gates to attend the Giiyong Festival was a testament to the wider need and want for Aboriginal culture. Having almost double the population of Eden attend also highlights that this event was long overdue. (n.p.)Williams reported that the whole festival was “a giant exercise in the breaking down of walls. Some signed contracts for the first time, and all met their contracts professionally. National artists Baker Boy and No Fixed Address now keep in touch with us regularly” (Williams). Williams also expressed her delight that local artists are performing further afield this year, and that an awareness, recognition, and economic impact has been created for Jigamy, the Giiyong Festival, and Eden respectively:We believe that not only celebrating, but elevating these artists and Aboriginal culture, is one of the most important things South East Arts can do for the overall arts sector in the region. This work benefits artists, the economy and cultural tourism of the region. Most importantly it feeds our collective spirit, educates us, and creates a much richer place to live. (Giiyong Festival Report 1)Howarth received 150 responses to her post-event survey. All respondents felt welcome, included, and willing to attend another festival. One commented, “not even one piece of rubbish on the ground.” Vanessa Milton, ABC Open Producer for South East NSW, wrote: “Down to the tiniest detail it was so obvious that you understood the community, the audience, the performers and how to bring everyone together. What a coup to pull off this event, and what a gift to our region” (Giiyong Festival Report 4).The total running cost for the event was $257,533, including $209,606 in government grants from local, state, and federal agencies. Major donor Create NSW Regional Partnerships funded over $100,000, and State Aboriginal Affairs gave $6,000. Key corporate sponsors included Bendigo Bank, Snowy Hydro and Waterway Constructions, Local Land Services Bega, and the Eden Fisherman’s Club. Funding covered artists’ fees, staging, the hiring of toilets, and multiple generators, including delivery costs. South East Arts were satisfied with the funding amount: each time a new donation arrived they were able to invite more performers (Giiyong Festival Report 2; Gray; Williams). South East Arts now need to prove they have the leadership capacity, financial self-sufficiency, and material resources to produce another festival. They are planning 2020 will be similar to 2018, provided Twofold Aboriginal Corporation can provide extra support. Since South East Arts exists to service a wider area of NSW, they envisage that by 2024, they would hand over the festival to Twofold Aboriginal Corporation (Gray; Williams). Forthcoming festivals will not rotate around other venues because the Giiyong concept was developed Indigenously at Jigamy, and “Jigamy has the vibe” (Williams). Uncle Ossie insists that the Yuin-Monaro feel comfortable being connected to Country that once had a traditional campsite on the east side. Evaluation and ConclusionAlthough ostensibly intended for entertainment, large Aboriginal festivals significantly benefit the educational, political, and socio-economic landscape of contemporary Indigenous life. The cultural outpourings and dissemination of knowledges at the 2018 Giiyong Festival testified to the resilience of the Yuin-Monaro people. In contributing to the processes of Reconciliation and Recognition, the event privileged the performing arts as a peaceful—yet powerful truth-telling means—for dealing with the state. Performers representing the cultures of far-flung ancestral lands contributed to the reimagining of a First Nations people’s map representing hundreds of 'Countries.’It would be beneficial for the Far South East region to perpetuate the Giiyong Festival. It energised all those involved. But it took years of preparation and a vast network of cooperating people to create the feeling which made the 2018 festival unique. Uncle Ossie now sees aspects of the old sharing culture of his people springing back to life to mould the quality of life for families. Furthermore, the popular arts cultures are enhancing the quality of life for Eden youth. As the cross-sector efforts of stakeholders and volunteers so amply proved, a family-friendly, drug and alcohol-free event of the magnitude of the Giiyong Festival injects new growth into an Aboriginal arts industry designed for the future creative landscape of the whole South East region. AcknowledgementsMany thanks to Andrew Gray and Jasmin Williams for supplying a copy of the 2018 Giiyong Festival Report. We appreciated prompt responses to queries from Jasmin Williams, and from our editor Rachel Franks. We are humbly indebted to our two reviewers for their expert direction.ReferencesAustralian Government. Showcasing Creativity: Programming and Presenting First Nations Performing Arts. Australia Council for the Arts Report, 8 Mar. 2017. 20 May 2019 <https://tnn.org.au/2017/03/showcasing-creativity-programming-and-presenting-first-nations-performing-arts-australia-council/>.Bartleet, Brydie-Leigh. “‘Pride in Self, Pride in Community, Pride in Culture’: The Role of Stylin’ Up in Fostering Indigenous Community and Identity.” The Festivalization of Culture. Eds. Andy Bennett, Jodie Taylor, and Ian Woodward. New York: Routledge, 2014.Becker, Howard S. Art Worlds. 25th anniversary edition. Berkeley: U of California P, 2008.Brown, Bill. “The Monaroo Bubberer [Bobberer] Gudu Keeping Place: A Symbol of Aboriginal Self-determination.” ABC South East NSW, 9 Jul. 2015. 20 May 2019 <http://www.abc.net.au/local/photos/2015/07/09/4270480.htm>.Cameron, Stuart. "An Investigation of the History of the Aborigines of the Far South Coast of NSW in the 19th Century." PhD Thesis. Canberra: Australian National U, 1987. Desert Pea Media. The Black Ducks “People of the Mountains and the Sea.” <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fbJNHAdbkg>.“Festival Fanfare.” Eden Magnet 28 June 2018. 1 Mar. 2019 <edenmagnet.com.au>.Gibson, Chris, and John Connell. Music Festivals and Regional Development in Australia. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2012.Gray, Andrew. Personal Communication, 28 Mar. 2019.Henry, Rosita. “Festivals.” The Oxford Companion to Aboriginal Art and Culture. Eds. Syvia Kleinert and Margot Neale. South Melbourne: Oxford UP, 586–87.Horton, David R. “Yuin.” Encyclopaedia of Aboriginal Australia. Ed. David R. Horton. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press, 1994.———. Aboriginal Australia Wall Map Compiled by David Horton. Aboriginal Studies Press, 1996.Lygon, Nathan. Personal Communication, 20 May 2019.Mathews, Janet. Albert Thomas Mentions the Leaf Bands That Used to Play in the Old Days. Cassette recorded at Wreck Bay, NSW on 9 July 1964 for the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders (AIATSIS). LAA1013. McKnight, Albert. “Giiyong Festival the First of Its Kind in Yuin Nation.” Bega District News 17 Sep. 2018. 1 Mar. 2019 <https://www.begadistrictnews.com.au/story/5649214/giiyong-festival-the-first-of-its-kind-in-yuin-nation/?cs=7523#slide=2>. ———. “Giiyong Festival Celebrates Diverse, Enduring Cultures.” Bega District News 24 Sep. 2018. 1 Mar. 2019 <https://www.begadistrictnews.com.au/story/5662590/giiyong-festival-celebrates-diverse-enduring-cultures-photos-videos/>.Myers, Doug. “The Fifth Festival of Pacific Arts.” Australian Aboriginal Studies 1 (1989): 59–62.Simpson, Alison. Personal Communication, 9 Apr. 2019.Slater, Lisa. “Sovereign Bodies: Australian Indigenous Cultural Festivals and Flourishing Lifeworlds.” The Festivalization of Culture. Eds. Andy Bennett, Jodie Taylor, and Ian Woodward. London: Ashgate, 2014. 131–46.South East Arts. "Giiyong Festival Report." Bega: South East Arts, 2018.———. Giiyong Grow the Music. Poster for Event Produced on Saturday, 28 Oct. 2017. 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Tujuan dalam penelitian ini adalah untuk mengetahui Peran Komitmen organisasional yang terdiri dari komitment afektif, normative, dan kontinuan dan Kompensasi baik itu kompensasi finansial dan non-finansial terhadap Kepuasan kerja dengan moderasi Budaya organisasi sebagai variabel penguat atau memperlemah pada karyawan PT.PLN (Persero) Unit Induk Wilayah Kalimantan Barat. Sampel dalam penelitian ini adalah 200 orang karyawan dan data yang dapat di olah sebanyak 200 sampel. PT.PLN (Persero) Unit Induk Wilayah Kalimantan Barat. Data dianalisis menggunakan WrapPls 6.0 dan SPSS 16 untuk menguji Uji asumsi Normalitas dan Linieritas.Hasil penelitian ini menyimpulkan bahwa komitmen organisasi berpengaruh positif terhadap kepuasan kerja karyawan PT.PLN (Persero) Unit Induk Wilayah Kalimantan Barat. Kompensasi juag berpengaruh positif terhadap kepuasan kerja karyawan PT.PLN (Persero) Unit Induk Wilayah Kalimantan Barat. 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There is a moment in Al Gore’s 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth devised to expose the sheer audacity of fossil fuel lobby groups in the United States. In their attempts to address significant scientific consensus and growing public concern over climate change, these groups are resorting to what Gore’s film suggests are grotesque distortions of fact. A particular example highlighted in the film is the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s (CPE—a lobby group funded by ExxonMobil) “pro” energy industry advertisement: “Carbon dioxide”, the ad states. “They call it pollution, we call it life.” While on the one hand employing rhetoric against the “inconvenient truth” that carbon dioxide emissions are ratcheting up the Earth’s temperature, these advertisements also pose a question – though perhaps unintended – that is worth addressing. Where does life reside? This is not an issue of essentialism, but relates to the claims, materials and technologies through which life as a political object emerges. The danger of entertaining the vested interests of polluting industry in a discussion of climate change and its biopolitics is countered by an imperative to acknowledge the ways in which multiple positions in the climate change debate invoke and appeal to ‘life’ as the bottom line, or inviolable interest, of their political, social or economic work. In doing so, other questions come to the fore that a politics of climate change framed in terms of moral positions or competing values will tend to overlook. These questions concern the manifold practices of life that constitute the contemporary terrain of the political, and the actors and instruments put in this employ. Who speaks for life? And who or what produces it? Climate change as a matter of concern (Latour) has gathered and generated a host of experts, communities, narratives and technical devices all invested in the administration of life. It is, as Malcom Bull argues, “the paradigmatic issue of the new politics,” a politics which “draws people towards the public realm and makes life itself subject to the caprices of state and market” (2). This paper seeks to highlight the politics of life that have emerged around climate change as a public issue. It will argue that these politics appear in incremental and multiple ways that situate an array of actors and interests as active in both contesting and generating the terms of life: what life is and how we come to know it. This way of thinking about climate change debates opposes a prevalent moralistic framework that reads the practices and discourses of debate in terms of oppositional positions alone. While sympathies may flow in varying directions, especially when it comes to such a highly charged and massively consequential issue as climate change, there is little insight to be had from charging the CPE (for example) with manipulating consumers, or misrepresenting well-known facts. Where new and more productive understandings open up is in relation to the fields through which these gathering actors play out their claims to the project of life. These fields, from the state, to the corporation, to the domestic sphere, reveal a complex network of strategies and devices that seek to secure life in constantly renovated terms. Life Politics Biopolitical scholarship in the wake of Foucault has challenged life as a pre-given uncritical category, and sought to highlight the means through which it is put under question and constituted through varying and composing assemblages of practitioners and practices. Such work regards the project of human well-being as highly complex and technical, and has undertaken to document this empirically through close attention to the everyday ecologies in which humans are enmeshed. This is a political and theoretical project in itself, situating political processes in micro, as well as macro, registers, including daily life as a site of (self) management and governance. Rabinow and Rose refer to biopolitical circuits that draw together and inter-relate the multiple sites and scales operative in the administration of life. These involve not just technologies, rationalities and regimes of authority and control, but also politics “from below” in the form of rights claims and community formation and agitation (198). Active in these circuits, too, are corporate and non-state interests for whom the pursuit of maximising life’s qualities and capabilities has become a concern through which “market relations and shareholder value” are negotiated (Rabinow and Rose 211). As many biopolitical scholars argue, biopower—the strategies through which biopolitics are enacted—is characteristic of the “disciplinary neo-liberalism” that has come to define the modern state, and through which the conduct of conduct is practiced (Di Muzio 305). Foucault’s concept of governmentality describes the devolution of state-based disciplinarity and sovereignty to a host of non-state actors, rationalities and strategies of governing, including the self-managing subject, not in opposition to the state, but contributing to its form. According to Bratich, Packer and McCarthy, everyday life is thus “saturated with governmental techniques” (18) in which we are all enrolled. Unlike regimes of biopolitics identified with what Agamben terms “thanopolitics”—the exercise of biopower “which ultimately rests on the power of some to threaten the death of others” (Rabinow and Rose 198), such as the Nazi’s National Socialism and other eugenic campaigns—governmental arts in the service of “vitalist” biopolitics (Rose 1) are increasingly diffused amongst all those with an “interest” in sustaining life, from organisations to individuals. The integration of techniques of self-governance which ask the individual to work on themselves and their own dispositions with State functions has broadened the base by which life is governed, and foregrounded an unsettled terrain of life claims. Rose argues that medical science is at the forefront of these contemporary biopolitics, and to this effect “has […] been fully engaged in the ethical questions of how we should live—of what kinds of creatures we are, of the kinds of obligations that we have to ourselves and to others, of the kinds of techniques we can and should use to improve ourselves” (20). Asking individuals to self-identify through their medical histories and bodily specificities, medical cultures are also shaping new political arrangements, as communities connected by shared genetics or physical conditions, for instance, emerge, evolve and agitate according to the latest medical knowledge. Yet it is not just medicine that provokes ethical work and new political forms. The environment is a key site for life politics that entails a multi-faceted discourse of obligations and entitlements, across fields and scales of engagement. Calculating Environments In line with neo-liberal logic, environmental discourse concerned with ameliorating climate change has increasingly focused upon the individual as an agent of self-monitoring, to both facilitate government agendas at a distance, and to “self-fashion” in the mode of the autonomous subject, securing against external risks (Ong 501). Climate change is commonly represented as such a risk, to both human and non-human life. A recent letter published by the Royal Australasian College of Physicians in two leading British medical journals, named climate change as the “biggest global health threat of the twenty-first century” (Morton). As I have argued elsewhere (Potter), security is central to dominant cultures of environmental governance in the West; these cultures tie sustainability goals to various and interrelated regimes of monitoring which attach to concepts of what Clark and Stevenson call “the good ecological citizen” (238). Citizenship is thus practiced through strategies of governmentality which call on individuals to invest not just in their own well-being, but in the broader project of life. Calculation is a primary technique through which modern environmental governance is enacted; calculative strategies are seen to mediate risk, according to Foucault, and consequently to “assure living” (Elden 575). Rationalised schemes for self-monitoring are proliferating under climate change and the project of environmentalism more broadly, something which critics of neo-liberalism have identified as symptomatic of the privatisation of politics that liberal governmentality has fostered. As we have seen in Australia, an evolving policy emphasis on individual practices and the domestic sphere as crucial sites of environmental action – for instance, the introduction of domestic water restrictions, and the phasing out of energy-inefficient light bulbs in the home—provides a leading discourse of ethico-political responsibility. The rise of carbon dioxide counting is symptomatic of this culture, and indicates the distributed fields of life management in contemporary governmentality. Carbon dioxide, as the CPE is keen to point out, is crucial to life, but it is also—in too large an amount—a force of destruction. Its management, in vitalist terms, is thus established as an effort to protect life in the face of death. The concept of “carbon footprinting” has been promoted by governments, NGOs, industry and individuals as a way of securing this goal, and a host of calculative techniques and strategies are employed to this end, across a spectrum of activities and contexts all framed in the interests of life. The footprinting measure seeks to secure living via self-policed limits, which also—in classic biopolitical form—shift previously private practices into a public realm of count-ability and accountability. The carbon footprint, like its associates the ecological footprint and the water footprint, has developed as a multi-faceted tool of citizenship beyond the traditional boundaries of the state. Suggesting an ecological conception of territory and of our relationships and responsibilities to this, the footprint, as a measure of resource use and emissions relative to the Earth’s capacities to absorb these, calculates and visualises the “specific qualities” (Elden 575) that, in a spatialised understanding of security, constitute and define this territory. The carbon footprint’s relatively simple remit of measuring carbon emissions per unit of assessment—be that the individual, the corporation, or the nation—belies the ways in which life is formatted and produced through its calculations. A tangled set of devices, practices and discourses is employed to make carbon and thus life calculable and manageable. Treading Lightly The old environmental adage to “tread lightly upon the Earth” has been literalised in the metaphor of the footprint, which attempts both to symbolise environmental practice and to directly translate data in order to meaningfully communicate necessary boundaries for our living. The World Wildlife Fund’s Living Planet Report 2008 exemplifies the growing popularity of the footprint as a political and poetic hook: speaking in terms of our “ecological overshoot,” and the move from “ecological credit to ecological deficit”, the report urges an attendance to our “global footprint” which “now exceeds the world’s capacity to regenerate by about 30 per cent” (1). Angela Crombie’s A Lighter Footprint, an instruction manual for sustainable living, is one of a host of media through which individuals are educated in modes of footprint calculation and management. She presents a range of techniques, including carbon offsetting, shifting to sustainable modes of transport, eating and buying differently, recycling and conserving water, to mediate our carbon dioxide output, and to “show […] politicians how easy it is” (13). Governments however, need no persuading from citizens that carbon calculation is an exercise to be harnessed. As governments around the world move (slowly) to address climate change, policies that instrumentalise carbon dioxide emission and reduction via an auditing of credits and deficits have come to the fore—for example, the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme and the Chicago Climate Exchange. In Australia, we have the currently-under-debate Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, a part of which is the Australian Emissions Trading Scheme (AETS) that will introduce a system of “carbon credits” and trading in a market-based model of supply and demand. This initiative will put a price on carbon dioxide emissions, and cap the amount of emissions any one polluter can produce without purchasing further credits. In readiness for the scheme, business initiatives are forming to take advantage of this new carbon market. Industries in carbon auditing and off-setting services are consolidating; hectares of trees, already active in the carbon sequestration market, are being cultivated as “carbon sinks” and key sites of compliance for polluters under the AETS. Governments are also planning to turn their tracts of forested public land into carbon credits worth billions of dollars (Arup 7). The attachment of emission measures to goods and services requires a range of calculative experts, and the implementation of new marketing and branding strategies, aimed at conveying the carbon “health” of a product. The introduction of “food mile” labelling (the amount of carbon dioxide emitted in the transportation of the food from source to consumer) in certain supermarkets in the United Kingdom is an example of this. Carbon risk analysis and management programs are being introduced across businesses in readiness for the forthcoming “carbon economy”. As one flyer selling “a suite of carbon related services” explains, “early action will give you the edge in understanding and mitigating the risks, and puts you in a prime position to capitalise on the rewards” (MGI Business Solutions Worldwide). In addition, lobby groups are working to ensure exclusions from or the free allocation of permits within the proposed AETS, with degrees of compulsion applied to different industries – the Federal Government, for instance, will provide a $3.9 billion compensation package for the electric power sector when the AETS commences, to enable their “adjustment” to this carbon regime. Performing Life Noortje Mares provides a further means of thinking through the politics of life in the context of climate change by complicating the distinction between public and private interest. Her study of “green living experiments” describes the rise of carbon calculation in the home in recent years, and the implementation of technologies such as the smart electricity meter that provides a constantly updating display of data relating to amounts and cost of energy consumed and the carbon dioxide emitted in the routines of domestic life. Her research tracks the entry of these personal calculative regimes into public life via internet forums such as blogs, where individuals notate or discuss their experiences of pursing low-carbon lifestyles. On the one hand, these calculative practices of living and their public representation can be read as evidencing the pervasive neo-liberal governmentality at work in contemporary environmental practice, where individuals are encouraged to scrupulously monitor their domestic cultures. The rise of auditing as a technology of self, and more broadly as a technique of public accountability, has come under fire for its “immunity-granting role” (Charkiewicz 79), where internal audits become substituted for external compliance and regulation. Mares challenges this reading, however, by demonstrating the ways in which green living experiments “transform everyday material practices into practices of public involvement” that (118) don’t resolve or pin down relations between the individual, the non-human environment, and the social, or reveal a mappable flow of actions and effects between the public realm and the home. The empirical modes of publicity that these individuals employ, “the careful recording of measurements and the reliable descriptions of sensory observation, so as to enable ‘virtual witnessing’ by wider audiences”, open up to much more complex understandings than one of calculative self-discipline at work. As “instrument[s] of public involvement” (120), the experiments that Mares describe locate the politics of life in the embodied socio-material entanglements of the domestic sphere, in arrangements of humans and non-human technologies. Such arrangements, she suggests, are ontologically productive in that they introduce “not only new knowledge, but also new entities […] to society” (119), and as such these experiments and the modes of calculation they employ become active in the composition of reality. Recent work in economic sociology and cultural studies has similarly contended that calculation, far from either a naturalised or thoroughly abstract process, relies upon a host of devices, relations, and techniques: that is, as Gay Hawkins explains, calculative processes “have to be enacted” (108). Environmental governmentality in the service of securing life is a networked practice that draws in a host of actors, not a top-down imposition. The institution of carbon economies and carbon emissions as a new register of public accountability, brings alternative ways to calculate the world into being, and consequently re-calibrates life as it emerges from these heterogeneous arrangements. All That Gathers Latour writes that we come to know a matter of concern by all the things that gather around it (Latour). This includes the human, as well as the non-human actors, policies, practices and technologies that are put to work in the making of our realities. Climate change is routinely represented as a threat to life, with predicted (and occurring) species extinction, growing numbers of climate change refugees, dispossessed from uninhabitable lands, and the rise of diseases and extreme weather scenarios that put human life in peril. There is no doubt, of course, that climate change does mean death for some: indeed, there are thanopolitical overtones in inequitable relations between the fall-out of impacts from major polluting nations on poorer countries, or those much more susceptible to rising sea levels. Biosocial equity, as Bull points out, is a “matter of being equally alive and equally dead” (2). Yet in the biopolitical project of assuring living, life is burgeoning around the problem of climate change. The critique of neo-liberalism as a blanketing system that subjects all aspects of life to market logic, and in which the cynical techniques of industry seek to appropriate ethico-political stances for their own material ends, are insufficient responses to what is actually unfolding in the messy terrain of climate change and its biopolitics. What this paper has attempted to show is that there is no particular purchase on life that can be had by any one actor who gathers around this concern. Varying interests, ambitions, and intentions, without moral hierarchy, stake their claim in life as a constantly constituting site in which they participate, and from this perspective, the ways in which we understand life to be both produced and managed expand. This is to refuse either an opposition or a conflation between the market and nature, or the market and life. It is also to argue that we cannot essentialise human-ness in the climate change debate. For while human relations with animals, plants and weathers may make us what we are, so too do our relations with (in a much less romantic view) non-human things, technologies, schemes, and even markets—from carbon auditing services, to the label on a tin on the supermarket shelf. As these intersect and entangle, the project of life, in the new politics of climate change, is far from straightforward. References An Inconvenient Truth. Dir. Davis Guggenheim. Village Roadshow, 2006. Arup, Tom. “Victoria Makes Enormous Carbon Stocktake in Bid for Offset Billions.” The Age 24 Sep. 2009: 7. Bratich, Jack Z., Jeremy Packer, and Cameron McCarthy. “Governing the Present.” Foucault, Cultural Studies and Governmentality. Ed. Bratich, Packer and McCarthy. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003. 3-21. Bull, Malcolm. “Globalization and Biopolitics.” New Left Review 45 (2007): 12 May 2009 . < http://newleftreview.org/?page=article&view=2675 >. Charkiewicz, Ewa. “Corporations, the UN and Neo-liberal Bio-politics.” Development 48.1 (2005): 75-83. Clark, Nigel, and Nick Stevenson. “Care in a Time of Catastrophe: Citizenship, Community and the Ecological Imagination.” Journal of Human Rights 2.2 (2003): 235-246. Crombie, Angela. A Lighter Footprint: A Practical Guide to Minimising Your Impact on the Planet. Carlton North, Vic.: Scribe, 2007. Di Muzio, Tim. “Governing Global Slums: The Biopolitics of Target 11.” Global Governance. 14.3 (2008): 305-326. Elden, Stuart. “Governmentality, Calculation and Territory.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 25 (2007): 562-580. Hawkins, Gay. The Ethics of Waste: How We Relate to Rubbish. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2006. Latour, Bruno. “Why Has Critique Run Out of Steam?: From Matters of Fact to Matters of Concern.” Critical Inquiry 30.2 (2004): 225-248. Mares, Noortje. “Testing Powers of Engagement: Green Living Experiments, the Ontological Turn and the Undoability and Involvement.” European Journal of Social Theory 12.1 (2009): 117-133. MGI Business Solutions Worldwide. “Carbon News.” Adelaide. 2 Aug. 2009. Ong, Aihwa. “Mutations in Citizenship.” Theory, Culture and Society 23.2-3 (2006): 499-505. Potter, Emily. “Footprints in the Mallee: Climate Change, Sustaining Communities, and the Nature of Place.” Landscapes and Learning: Place Studies in a Global World. Ed. Margaret Somerville, Kerith Power and Phoenix de Carteret. Sense Publishers. Forthcoming. Rabinow, Paul, and Nikolas Rose. “Biopower Today.” Biosocieties 1 (2006): 195-217. Rose, Nikolas. “The Politics of Life Itself.” Theory, Culture and Society 18.6 (2001): 1-30. World Wildlife Fund. Living Planet Report 2008. Switzerland, 2008.

Barbie was the largest worldwide film release of 2023, dominating the box office with over $1 billion in earnings (PRNewswire). The reported marketing budget was over $150 million, which was greater than the $145 million spent on making the film (Adekaiyero). While marketing and public relations (PR) differ in approach and goals, the overall goal for Barbie was evident in the campaign: get fans excited for the film release. The number of collaborations, events, and advertisements executed for the Barbie campaign was extensive, with the convergence of traditional and digital media interplaying seamlessly. The vast majority of PR and marketing professionals were talking about the campaign as a superior example for the field to follow for the purposes of fuelling a passionate target audience. This article examines the public relations strategies that heightened fan interest in Barbie and reaffirms Barbie as a cultural icon. By analysing the most noteworthy components of the Barbie campaign that were highlighted in articles and PR blog posts, valuable insights are shared regarding how audience participation cultivates the success of cultural phenomena. These insights underscore the symbiotic relationship between PR practitioners and fans. PR’s Role in Barbie The film industry recognises the pivotal role PR plays in getting people to the theatre, especially in a post-COVID-19 world where it is estimated that only eight percent of US citizens go often to the theatres as of 2022, with over half never going to the movie theatres (Statista Research). Another factor that has affected movie-going trends is the accessibility of streaming services. A poll from HarrisX found that two-thirds of US adults prefer to wait for movies that premiere in theatres to be released on streaming (Maglio). It’s also becoming clear that the ‘Barbenheimer’ opening weekend is a box office standout, as 2024 box office numbers are predicted to drop by over one billion dollars (D’Alessandro). This was determined by the movies that have come out as of March 24, with anticipated titles like Madame Web and Argyle tanking, and Dune: Part Two being the best thus far with an $80 million at the box office (Carras). That is less than half of what Barbie made on opening weekend at $162 million (Fischer). Evidently, the hype around ‘Barbenheimer’ is a topic that continues to be investigated, as reports of fan anecdotes and fan made content continue coming out (D’Alessandro). Before ‘Barbenheimer’ became the plan for fans, the PR for Barbie started before production began. Presumably, those outside of PR and marketing professions assume that trailers are the starting point for promoting a film, but it starts at the beginning of the film’s creation, when rumours and press releases come out revealing who is going to work on the project (Qiang). At the 2021 CinemaCon, Warner Bros made the announcement that a live-action Barbie movie would come to theatres in the summer of 2023 (Soares). The film’s director and main star, Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie, were signed onto the project in 2020, and the full cast list was shared in 2022, which built excitement with fans because of the names attached to the project indicating the star power interest (Murphy). Pre-production is key in starting to build excitement for any movie, but how Barbie approached pre-release with its trailers continued to build the mystery surrounding the movie’s plot. The first teaser trailer was released as part of the series of trailers ahead of Avatar: The Way of Water (2022) – a highly anticipated sequel since Avatar broke all-time box office records in 2009 (Soares; Romano). Then, on 4 April 2023, character posters were released alongside the second trailer, which still didn’t reveal much about the plot, but did incorporate snippets of dialogue that were indicative of a more PG-13 sense of humour (Soares). The character posters quickly became the Internet’s new favourite meme because of the taglines that gave some insight into the Barbies and Kens in the movie (Hudgins). Joining in on the trend didn’t require Photoshop; Warner Bros. partnered with PhotoRoom to create the interactive barbieselfie.ai generator, which was used over 13 million times since it was released on April 3 – a day ahead of the character posters (Barr). In PR and marketing campaigns, earned media success is the goal, meaning that the social media buzz happens organically. Movie trailer spots and particular partnerships, as sometimes partners will pay to collaborate more on one side of the deal, are examples of paid media, which is most of what the marketing budget supports. In an interview with Variety, Josh Goldstine, Warner Bros. president of global marketing, used the terms ‘earned media’ and ‘paid media’ to talk about the different elements of the Barbie campaign (Rubin). These terms are rooted in the public relations lexicon of the PESO (paid media, earned media, shared media, and owned media) model, and evolve as multimedia channel opportunities expand (Detrich). Understanding where media types fit in the PESO Model ensures that a PR campaign has a holistic approach in reaching its target audience, or rather, ‘publics’, as a way of identifying consumers as co-creators (Pieczka). For context, the PESO Model was coined by Gini Detrich in 2014, and it became popularised because it is a comprehensible, yet high-level framework categorising converged media (Brandpoint). Applying this model helps better understand the strategy and goals of PR, marketing, and advertising campaigns, and in the case of Barbie, figuring out where certain campaign comments fit in the model allows outsiders a means to ascertain the audience mapping. The terms ‘audience’ and ‘publics’ are often treated as synonymous in describing a group of consumers, but in the PR field, the key difference is that the former is passive in receiving PR messages, while the latter describes having an active response (Knighton and Wakefield). Having “an active response” means being invited or motivated to take action as part of two-way communication (Knighton and Wakefield), and fans can use social media to voice their excitement and participate in unplanned trends, with ‘Barbenheimer’ being a prime example. Appealing to fans as the intended public of the Barbie campaign was crucial. The selfie AI generator was only the beginning in a series of earned media efforts. Barbie had over one hundred brand deals licenced before the movie was released in late July, with the licencing for products ranging from clothing brands to entertainment and lifestyle (Addley). All of the pink collaborations reignited Barbiecore as a fashion trend (Dockerman). Mattel having multiple partnerships enabled the notice around Barbie to have a life of its own as fans (Rubin). Essentially, the role of PR in Barbie aligns with what Barbie represents, which is to give the public a combination of empirical and imaginative thought to take action (Pieczka), or in other words, ‘you can be anything’ with Barbie. Fig. 1: PESO model of Barbie campaign milestones. Fan Engagement: All Things Barbiecore Fan engagement is becoming an increasing focus of contemporary PR campaigns. The idea of what a “fan” is can vary but we have an inherent idea or assumption of what it means based on our standpoint, and academic definitions tend to revolve around being an “enthusiast” or “cultist” and “follower” (Hills). The research on the intersection of public relations and fandom is growing, as the need to better understand fandom audiences is pertinent to ideas of what being a fan means as an identity. Academic works that specify the relationship between fandom and public relations are actualised in two editions co-edited by Hutchins and Tindall (2016; 2021). The current state of PR theories does not recognise fan motivations that occur within fandom, meaning that two-way communication has altered the responses that are gathered from target audiences (Hutchins and Tindall). In the case of Barbie, the earned media response is indicative of great success, such as having over 7 million social media mentions in 2023 and over 227 million engagement actions (Galliot). Conversation surrounding ‘Barbiecore’ outfit ideas alone saw over 11 million views on TikTok (Smith). For movies, generating fan engagement is an obvious need. There are instances in the entertainment industry wherein movie fans or television fans mobilise out of passion to see certain ideas or wants fulfilled (Fraser and Buckler). The 2023 Writers Guild of America Strike taught the industry and the public many things about writing, wages, and AI, and how the strike relates to fan passions is that fans want to see quality, authentic writing, which AI cannot achieve (Lawler). The reveal of Greta Gerwig being part of Barbie as co-screenwriter and director made fans confused, yet excited, since Gerwig is well-known for feminist-centric movies (Dockterman). Fans love to support passionate creators who put thoughtful effort into the stories and characters, and with creating the first-ever live-action Barbie movie, the high feels to fill in were massive. Barbie has been around for sixty-five years and is one of the most recognisable toys on a global scale with 99 percent awareness (Weitzman). Though having over one hundred brand deals for promoting the movie can garner great fan appeal, having those deals does not promise success without consideration of what fans want. Barbie and Mattel have a long history, and the film “doesn’t miss a beat” – enabling the film to become enriched by acknowledging both Barbie’s successes and polarising feminism (Lord). The movie premiere showed how Barbie was more than a doll, with a sea of pink outfits going to watch the movie, the fan response was more than the marketing team hoped for in setting its goals (Rubin). Though the exact sales numbers on how the different licences succeeded or not are unavailable, the social media conversation and in-person dress-up were strong indicators of success beyond the numbers, as fans wanted to talk about Barbie and what the doll and movie meant to them (Keegan). The approach in doing so is not directly asking fans to get creative; it is an implicit open invitation for the public to contribute to the discourse (Piezka). Associate professor at Boston University, Amy Shanler, explains that Barbie is a well-executed campaign because “the best PR isn’t when you do your own Public Relations. It’s when other people are doing it for you” (qtd. in Laskowski). Barbie’s Fan Engagement Techniques In examining the Barbie campaign, the key ideas to note are: fulfilling the PESO Model, appealing to fan knowledge of Barbie (including the doll’s controversies), and leaving room for imagination. This draws on articles analysing the PR strategy by PR practitioners who are currently active in the field, along with insights from online articles with direct marketer interviews. The PESO Model, despite not being a long-standing PR framework, is the most widely used and talked about application not only for building PR campaigns but for being able to dissect major campaigns from the outside looking in. By applying the PESO Model to what is known about the Barbie campaign, not only are all aspects of the model met, but it is impactful in how strongly the Barbie identity and message are implemented. As mentioned, Barbie is a highly recognisable toy, and most people are familiar with Barbie dolls. Appealing to fan knowledge about Barbie, encompassing all of the positive and negative aspects of the doll, was an enjoyable factor of the movie. And in the weeks leading up to the movie, the mystery of the plot was alluring, yet fans were excited to see what Barbie lore would be included. Arguably, the most impactful aspect of a PR campaign is having strategies that can potentially inspire a public (target audience) to mobilise. ‘Barbenheimer’ was not part of the marketing plan, and neither was dressing up in Barbiecore to see the film, but because of the overwhelming success in earned media and shared media, these trends came to fruition and will be remembered as part of what made Barbie a global success. While Barbie had a massive marketing budget, the success that the campaign saw was rooted in fan engagement. The structure of the campaign, with its numerous collaborations, trailers that gave everything visually but nothing plot-wise, star-studded cast, and activities to involve fans like the selfie AI generator and wearing pink to automatically become a Barbie, built an unflappable excitement for a wide-ranging audience. Looking ahead, the PR and marketing industries can utilise the Barbie campaign as an example of fan collaboration by giving fans the tools to become co-creators. To be a successful campaign, knowing the converged media types that are necessary to implement for a diverse fan audience is essential in creating further accessibility. This means that employing the PESO Model structure ensures great reach, whether or not the campaign is backed by Mattel’s budget. The Barbie campaign was loud and unapologetically pink, and such authenticity is what makes fans empowered to embrace Barbie as a cultural icon. The excitement generated for Barbie can’t be easily replicated for other movies or products in terms of massive marketing budgets, but the core of appealing to fans can be studied and taken into consideration for future campaigns. The makings of success for Barbie are in how the campaign gave fans the tools to become collaborators in the campaign. 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Obscured in contemporary climate change discourse is the fact that under even the most serious mitigation scenarios being envisaged it will be virtually impossible to avoid runaway ecosystem collapse; so great is the momentum of global greenhouse build-up (Anderson and Bows). And under even the best-case scenario, two-degree warming, the ecological, social, and economic costs are proving to be much deeper than first thought. The greenhouse genie is out of the bottle, but the best that appears to be on offer is a gradual transition to the pro-growth, pro-consumption discourse of “ecological modernisation” (EM); anything more seems politically unpalatable (Barry, Ecological Modernisation; Adger et al.). Here, I aim to account for how cheaply EM has managed to allay ecology. To do so, I detail the operations of the co-optive, definitional strategy which I call the “high-ground” strategy, waged by a historic bloc of actors, discourses, and institutions with a common interest in resisting radical social and ecological critique. This is not an argument about climate laggards like the United States and Australia where sceptic views remain near the centre of public debate. It is a critique of climate leaders such as the United Kingdom, Germany, and the Netherlands—nations at the forefront of the adoption of EM policies and discourses. With its antecedent in sustainable development discourse, by emphasising technological innovation, eco-efficiency, and markets, EM purports to transcend the familiar dichotomy between the economy and the environment (Hajer; Barry, ‘Towards’). It rebuts the 1970s “limits to growth” perspective and affirms that “the only possible way out of the ecological crisis is by going further into the process of modernisation” (Mol qtd. in York and Rosa 272, emphasis in original). Its narrative is one in which the “dirty and ugly industrial caterpillar transforms into an ecological butterfly” (Huber, qtd. in Spaargaren and Mol). How is it that a discourse notoriously quiet on endless growth, consumer culture, and the offshoring of dirty production could become the cutting edge of environmental policy? To answer this question we need to examine the discursive and ideological effects of EM discourse. In particular, we must analyse the strategies that work to continually naturalise dominant institutions and create the appearance that they are fit to respond to climate change. Co-opting Environmental Discourse Two features characterise state environmental discourse in EM nations: an almost universal recognition of the problem, and the reassurance that present institutions are capable of addressing it. The key organs of neoliberal capitalism—markets and states—have “gone green”. In boardrooms, in advertising and public relations, in governments, and in international fora, climate change is near the top of the agenda. While EM is the latest form of this discourse, early hints can be seen in President Nixon’s embrace of the environment and Margaret Thatcher’s late-1980s green rhetoric. More recently, David Cameron led a successful Conservative Party “detoxification” program with an ostentatious rhetorical strategy featuring the electoral slogan, “Vote blue, go green” (Carter). We can explain this transformation with reference to a key shift in the discursive history of environmental politics. The birth of the modern environmental movement in the 1960s and 70s brought a new symbolic field, a new discourse, into the public sphere. Yet by the 1990s the movement was no longer the sole proprietor of its discourse (Eder 203). It had lost control of its symbols. Politicians, corporations, and media outlets had assumed a dominant role in efforts to define “what climate change was and what it meant for the world” (Carvalho and Burgess 1464). I contend that the dramatic rise to prominence of environmental issues in party-political discourse is not purely due to short-term tactical vote-winning strategy. Nor is it the case that governments are finally, reluctantly waking up to the scientific reality of ecological degradation. Instead, they are engaged in a proactive attempt to redefine the contours of green critique so as to take the discourse onto territory in which established interests already control the high ground. The result is the defusing of the oppositional element of political ecology (Dryzek et al. 665–6), as well as social critique in general: what I term the gentrification of climate change. If we view environmentalism as, at least partially, a cultural politics in which contested definitions of problem is the key political battleground, we can trace how dominant interests have redefined the contours of climate change discourse. We can reveal the extent to which environmentalism, rather than being integrated into capitalism, has been co-opted. The key feature of this strategy is to present climate change as a mere aberration against a background of business-as-usual. The solutions that are presented are overwhelmingly extensions of existing institutions: bringing CO2 into the market, the optimistic development of new techno-scientific solutions to climate problems, extending regulatory regimes into hitherto overlooked domains. The agent of this co-optive strategy is not the state, industry, capital, or any other manifest actor, but a “historic bloc” cutting across divisions between society, politics, and economy (Laclau and Mouffe 42). The agent is an abstract coalition that is definable only to the extent that its strategic interests momentarily intersect at one point or another. The state acts as a locus, but the bloc is itself not reducible to the state. We might also think of the agent as an assemblage of conditions of social reproduction, in which dominant social, political, and economic interests have a stake. The bloc has learned the lesson that to be a player in a definitional battle one must recognise what is being fought over. Thus, exhortations to address climate change and build a green economy represent the first stage of the definitional battle for climate change: an attempt to enter the contest. In practical terms, this has manifest as the marking out of a self-serving division between action and inaction. Articulated through a binary modality climate change becomes something we either address/act on/tackle—or not. Under such a grammar even the most meagre efforts can be presented as “tackling climate change.” Thus Kevin Rudd was elected in 2007 on a platform of “action on climate change”, and he frequently implored that Australia would “do its bit” on climate change during his term. Tony Blair is able to declare that “tackling climate change… need not limit greater economic opportunity” and mean it in all sincerity (Barry, ‘Towards’ 112). So deployed, this binary logic minimises climate change to a level at which existing institutions are validated as capable of addressing the “problem,” and the government legitimised for its moral, green stand. The Hegemonic Articulation of Climate Change The historic bloc’s main task in the high-ground strategy is to re-articulate the threat in terms of its own hegemonic discourse: market economics. The widely publicised and highly influential Stern Review, commissioned by the British Government, is the standard-bearer of how to think about climate change from an economic perspective. It follows a supremely EM logic: economy and ecology have been reconciled. The Review presents climate change, famously, as “the greatest market failure the world has ever seen” (Stern et al. viii). The structuring horizon of the Stern Review is the correction of this failure, the overcoming of what is perceived to be not a systemic problem requiring a reappraisal of social institutions, but an issue of carbon pricing, technology policy, and measures aimed at “reducing barriers to behavioural change”. Stern insists that “we can be ‘green’ and grow. Indeed, if we are not ‘green’, we will eventually undermine growth, however measured” (iv). He reassures us that “tackling climate change is the pro-growth strategy for the longer term, and it can be done in a way that does not cap the aspirations for growth of rich or poor countries” (viii). Yet Stern’s seemingly miraculous reconciliation of growth with climate change mitigation in fact implies a severe degree of warming. The Stern Review aims to stabilise carbon dioxide equivalent concentrations at 550ppm, which would correspond to an increase of global temperature of 3-4 degrees Celsius. As Foster et al. note, this scenario, from an orthodox economist who is perceived as being pro-environment, is ecologically unsustainable and is viewed as catastrophic by many scientists (Foster, Clark, and York 1087–88). The reason Stern gives for not attempting deeper cuts is that they “are unlikely to be economically viable” (Stern et al. 231). In other words, the economy-ecology articulation is not a meeting of equals. Central to the policy prescriptions of EM is the marketising of environmental “bads” like carbon emissions. Carbon trading schemes, held in high esteem by moderate environmentalists and market economists alike, are the favoured instruments for such a task. Yet, in practice, these schemes can do more harm than good. When Prime Minister Kevin Rudd tried to legislate the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme as a way of addressing the “greatest moral challenge of our generation” it represented Australia’s “initial foray into ecological modernisation” (Curran 211). Denounced for its weak targets and massive polluter provisions, the Scheme was opposed by environmental groups, the CSIRO, and even the government’s own climate change advisor (Taylor; Wilkinson). While the Scheme’s defenders claimed it was as a step in the right direction, these opponents believed it would hurt more than help the environment. A key strategy in enshrining a particular hegemonic articulation is the repetition and reinforcement of key articulations in a way which is not overtly ideological. As Spash notes of the Stern Review, while it does connect to climate change such issues as distributive justice, value and ethical conflicts, intergenerational issues, this amounts to nothing but lip service given the analysis comes pre-formed in an orthodox economics mould. The complex of interconnected issues raised by climate change is reduced to the impact of carbon control on consumption growth (see also Swyngedouw and While, Jonas, and Gibbs). It is as if the system of relations we call global capitalism—relations between state and industry, science and technology, society and nature, labour and capital, North and South—are irrelevant to climate change, which is nothing but an unfortunate over-concentration of certain gases. In redrawing the discursive boundaries in this way it appears that climate change is a temporary blip on the path to a greener prosperity—as if markets and capitalism merely required minor tinkering to put them on the green-growth path. Markets are constituted as legitimate tools for managing climate change, in concert with regulation internalised within neoliberal state competition (While, Jonas, and Gibbs 81). The ecology-economy articulation both marketises “green,” and “greens” markets. Consonant with the capitalism-environment articulation is the prominence of the sovereign individual. Both the state and the media work to reproduce subjects largely as consumers (of products and politics) rather than citizens, framing environmental responsibility as the responsibility to consume “wisely” (Carvalho). Of course, what is obscured in this “self-greening” discourse is the culpability of consumption itself, and of a capitalist economy based on endless consumption growth, exploitation of resources, and the pursuit of new markets. Greening Technology EM also “greens” technology. Central to its pro-growth ethos is the tapering off of ecosystem impacts through green technologies like solar, wind, tidal, and geothermal. While green technologies are preferable to dependence upon resource-intensive technologies of oil and coal, that they may actually deliver on such promises has been shown to be contingent upon efficiency outstripping economic growth, a prospect that is dubious at best, especially considering the EM settlement is one in which any change to consumption practices is off the agenda. As Barry and Paterson put it, “all current experience suggests that, in most areas, efficiency gains per unit of consumption are usually outstripped by overall increases in consumption” (770). The characteristic ideological manoeuvre of foregrounding non-representative examples is evident here: green technologies comprise a tiny fraction of all large-scale deployed technologies, yet command the bulk of attention and work to cast technology generally in a green light. It is also false to assume that green technologies do not put their own demands on material resources. Deploying renewables on the scale that is required to address climate change demands enormous quantities of concrete, steel, glass and rare earth minerals, and vast programs of land-clearing to house solar and wind plants (Charlton 40). Further, claims that economic growth can become detached from ecological disturbance are premised on a limited basket of ecological indicators. Corporate marketing strategies are driving this green-technology articulation. While a single advertisement represents an appeal to consume an individual commodity, taken collectively advertising institutes a culture of consumption. Individually, “greenwash” is the effort to spin one company’s environmental programs out of proportion while minimising the systemic degradation that production entails. But as a burgeoning social institution, greenwash constitutes an ideological apparatus constructing industry as fundamentally working in the interests of ecology. In turn, each corporate image of pristine blue skies, flourishing ecosystems, wind farms, and solar panels constitutes a harmonious fantasy of green industry. As David Mackay, chief scientific advisor to the UK Government has pointed out, the political rhetoric of green technology lulls people into a false sense of security (qtd. in Charlton 38). Again, a binary logic works to portray greener technologies—such as gas, “clean coal”, and biomass combustion—as green. Rescuing Legitimacy There are essentially two critical forces that are defused in the high-ground strategy’s definitional project. The first is the scientific discourse which maintains that the measures proposed by leading governments are well below what is required to reign in dangerous climate change. This seems to be invisible not so much because it is radical but because it is obscured by the uncertainties in which climate science is couched, and by EM’s noble-sounding rhetoric. The second is the radical critique which argues that climate change is a classic symptom of an internal contradiction of a capitalist economy seeking endless growth in a finite world. The historic bloc’s successful redefinition strategy appears to jam the frequency of serious, scientifically credible climate discourse, yet at the level of hegemonic struggle its effects range wider. In redefining climate change and other key signifiers of green critique – “environment”, “ecology”, “green”, “planet”—it expropriates key properties of its antagonist. Were it not that climate change is now defined on the cheery, reassuring ground of EM discourse, the gravity of the alarming—rather than alarmist (Risbey)—scientific discourse may just have offered radical critique the ammunition it needed to provoke society into serious deliberations over its socioeconomic path. Radical green critique is not in itself the chief enemy of the historic bloc. But it is a privileged element within antagonistic discourse and reinforces the critical element of the feminist, civil rights, and student movements of the 1960s and 1970s. In this way ecology has tended to act as a nodal point binding general social critique: all of the other demands began to be inscribed with the green critique, just as the green critique became a metaphor for all of the others (Laclau). The metaphorical value of the green critique not only relates to the size and vibrancy of the movement—the immediate visibility of ecological destruction stood as a powerful symbol of the kernel of antagonistic politics: a sense that society had fundamentally gone awry. While green critique demands that progress should be conditional upon ecology, EM professes that progress is already green (Eder 217n). Thus the great win achieved by the high-ground strategy is not over radical green critique per se but over the shifting coalition that threatens its legitimacy. As Stavrakakis observes, what is novel about green discourse is nothing essential to the signifiers it deploys, but the way that a common signifier comes to stand in and structure the field as a whole – to serve as a nodal point. It has a number of signifiers: environmental sustainability, social justice, grassroots democracy, and peace and non-violence, all of which are “quilted” around the master-signifiers of “ecology”, “green”, or “planet”. While these master-signifiers are not unique to green ideology, what is unique is that they stand at the centre. But the crucial point to note about the green signifier at the heart of political ecology is that its value is accorded, in large part, through its negation of the dominant ideology. That is to say, it is not that green ideology stands as merely another way of mapping the social; rather, the master-signifier "green" contains an implicit refutation of the dominant social order. That “green” is now almost wholly evacuated of its radical connotations speaks to the effectiveness of the redefinitional effort.The historic bloc is aided in its efforts by the complexity of climate change. Such opacity is characteristic of contemporary risks, whose threats are mostly “a type of virtual reality, real virtuality” (Beck 213). The political struggle then takes place at the level of meaning, and power is played out in a contest to fix the definitions of key risks such as climate change. When relations of (risk) definition replace relations of production as the site of the effects of power, a double mystification ensues and shifts in the ground on which the struggle takes place may go unnoticed. Conclusion By articulating ecology with markets and technology, EM transforms the threat of climate change into an opportunity, a new motor of neoliberal legitimacy. The historic bloc has co-opted environmentalist discourse to promote a gentrified climate change which present institutions are capable of managing: “We are at the fork in the road between order and catastrophe. Stick with us. We will get you through the crisis.” The sudden embrace of the environment by Nixon and by Thatcher, the greening of Cameron’s Conservatives, the Garnaut and Stern reports, and the Australian Government’s foray into carbon trading all have their more immediate policy and political aims. Yet they are all consistent with the high-ground definitional strategy, professing no contraction between sustainability and the present socioeconomic order. Undoubtedly, EM is vastly preferable to denial and inaction. It may yet open the doors to real ecological reform. But in its present form, its preoccupation is the legitimation crisis threatening dominant interests, rather than the ecological crisis facing us all. References Adger, W. Neil, Tor A. Benjaminsen, Katrina Brown, and Hanne Svarstad. ‘Advancing a Political Ecology of Global Environmental Discourses.’ Development and Change 32.4 (2001): 681–715. 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Mol, “Sociology, Environment, and Modernity: Ecological Modernization as a Theory of Social Change.” Society and Natural Resources 5.4 (1992): 323-44. Spash, Clive. L. “Review of The Economics of Climate Change (The Stern Review).”Environmental Values 16.4 (2007): 532–35. Stavrakakis, Yannis. “Green Ideology: A Discursive Reading.” Journal of Political Ideologies 2.3 (1997): 259–79. Stern, Nicholas et al. Stern Review: The Economics of Climate Change. Vol. 30. London: HM Treasury, 2006. Swyngedouw, Erik. “Apocalypse Forever? Post-political Populism and the Spectre of Climate Change.” Theory, Culture & Society 27.2-3 (2010): 213–32. Taylor, Lenore. “Try Again on Carbon: Garnaut.” The Australian 17 Apr. 2009: 1. While, Aidan, Andrew E.G. Jonas, and David Gibbs. “From Sustainable Development to Carbon Control: Eco-state Restructuring and the Politics of Urban and Regional Development.”Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 35.1 (2010): 76–93. 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In the 2019 documentary Chasing Happiness, recording artist/musician Joe Jonas tells audiences that the band was “living the dream”. Similarly, in the 2012 documentary Artifact, lead singer Jared Leto remarks that at the height of Thirty Seconds to Mars’s success, they “were living the dream”. However, for both the Jonas Brothers and Thirty Seconds to Mars, their experiences of the music industry (much like other commercially successful recording artists) soon transformed into nightmares. Similar to other commercially successful recording artists, the Jonas Brothers and Thirty Seconds to Mars, came up against the constraints of the industry which inevitably led to a forfeiting of authenticity, a loss of creative control, increased exploitation, and unequal remuneration. This work will consider how working in the music industry is not always a dream come true and can instead be viewed as a proverbial nightmare. Living the DreamIn his book Dreams, Carl Gustav Jung discusses how that which is experienced in sleep, speaks of a person’s wishes: that which might be desired in reality but may not actually happen. In his earlier work, The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud argued that the dream is representative of fulfilling a repressed wish. However, the creative industries suggest that a dream need not be a repressed wish; it can become a reality. Jon Bon Jovi believes that his success in the music industry has surpassed his wildest dreams (Atkinson). Jennifer Lopez considers the fact that she held big dreams, had a focussed passion, and strong aspirations the reason why she pursued a creative career that took her out of the Bronx (Thomas). In a Twitter post from 23 April 2018, Bruno Mars declared that he “use [sic] to dream of this shit,” in referring to a picture of him performing for a sold out arena, while in 2019 Shawn Mendes informed his 24.4 million Twitter followers that his “life is a dream”. These are but a few examples of successful music industry artists who are seeing their ‘wishes’ come true and living the American Dream.Endemic to the American culture (and a characteristic of the identity of the country) is the “American Dream”. It centres on “a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to his ability and achievement” (Adams, 404). Although initially used to describe having a nice house, money, stability and a reasonable standard of living, the American Dream has since evolved to what the scholar Florida believes is the new ‘aspiration of people’: doing work that is enjoyable and relies on human creativity. At its core, the original American Dream required striving to meet individual goals, and was promoted as possible for anyone regardless of their cultural, socio-economic and political background (Samuel), because it encourages the celebrating of the self and personal uniqueness (Gamson). Florida’s conceptualisation of the New American dream, however, tends to emphasise obtaining success, fame and fortune in what Neff, Wissinger, and Zukin (310) consider “hot”, “creative” industries where “the jobs are cool”.Whether old or new, the American Dream has perpetuated and reinforced celebrity culture, with many of the young generation reporting that fame and fortune were their priorities, as they sought to emulate the success of their famous role models (Florida). The rag to riches stories of iconic recording artists can inevitably glorify and make appealing the struggle that permits achieving one’s dream, with celebrities offering young, aspiring creative people a means of identification for helping them to aspire to meet their dreams (Florida; Samuel). For example, a young Demi Lovato spoke of how she idolised and looked up to singer Beyonce Knowles, describing Knowles as a role model because of the way she carries herself (Tishgart). Similarly, American Idol winner Kelly Clarkson cited Aretha Franklin as her musical inspiration and the reason that she sings from a place deep within (Nilles). It is unsurprising then, that popular media has tended to portray artists working in the creative industries and being paid to follow their passions as “a much-vaunted career dream” (Duffy and Wissinger, 4656). Movies such as A Star Is Born (2018), The Coal Miner’s Daughter (1980), Dreamgirls (2006), Begin Again (2013) and La La Land (2016) exalt the perception that creativity, talent, sacrifice and determination will mean dreams come true (Nicolaou). In concert with the American dream is the drive among creative people pursuing creative success to achieve their dreams because of the perceived autonomy they will gain, the chance of self-actualisation and social rewards, and the opportunity to fulfil intrinsic motivations (Amabile; Auger and Woodman; Cohen). For these workers, the love of creation and the happiness that accompanies new discoveries (Csikszentmihalyi) can offset the tight budgets and timelines, precarious labour (Blair, Grey, and Randle; Hesmondhalgh and Baker), uncertain demand (Caves; Shultz), sacrifice of personal relationships (Eikhof and Haunschild), the demand for high quality products (Gil & Spiller), and the tense relationships with administrators (Bilton) which are known to plague these industries. In some cases, young, up and coming creative people overlook these pitfalls, instead romanticising creative careers as ideal and worthwhile. They willingly take on roles and cede control to big corporations to “realize their passions [and] uncover their personal talent” (Bill, 50). Of course, as Ursell argues in discussing television employees, such idealisation can mean creatives, especially those who are young and unfamiliar with the constraints of the industry, end up immersed in and victims of the “vampiric” industry that exploits workers (816). They are socialised towards believing, in this case, that the record label is a necessary component to obtain fame and fortune and whether willing or unwilling, creative workers become complicit in their own exploitation (Cohen). Loss of Control and No CompensationThe music industry itself has been considered by some to typify the cultural industries (Chambers). Popular music has potency in that it is perceived as speaking a universal language (Burnett), engaging the emotions and thoughts of listeners, and assisting in their identity construction (Burnett; Gardikiotis and Baltzis). Given the place of music within society, it is not surprising that in 2018, the global music industry was worth US$19.1billion (IFPI). The music industry is necessarily underpinned by a commercial agenda. At present, six major recording companies exist and between them, they own between 70-80 per cent of the recordings produced globally (Konsor). They also act as gatekeepers, setting trends by defining what and who is worth following and listening to (Csikszentmihalyi; Jones, Anand, and Alvarez). In essence, to be successful in the music industry is to be affiliated with a record label. This is because the highly competitive nature and cluttered environment makes it harder to gain traction in the market without worthwhile representation (Moiso and Rockman). In the 2012 documentary about Thirty Seconds to Mars, Artifact, front man Jared Leto even questions whether it is possible to have “success without a label”. The recording company, he determines, “deal with the crappy jobs”. In a financially uncertain industry that makes money from subjective or experience-based goods (Caves), having a label affords an artist access to “economic capital for production and promotion” that enables “wider recognition” of creative work (Scott, 239). With the support of a record label, creative entrepreneurs are given the chance to be promoted and distributed in the creative marketplace (Scott; Shultz). To have a record label, then, is to be perceived as legitimate and credible (Shultz).However, the commercial music industry is just that, commercial. Accordingly, the desire to make money can see the intrinsic desires of musicians forfeited in favour of standardised products and a lack of remuneration for artists (Negus). To see this standardisation in practice, one need not look further than those contestants appearing on shows such as American Idol or The Voice. Nowhere is the standardisation of the music industry more evident than in Holmes’s 2004 article on Pop Idol. Pop Idol first aired in Britain from 2001-2003 and paved the way for a slew of similar shows around the world such as Australia’s Popstars Live in 2004 and the global Idol phenomena. According to Holmes, audiences are divested of the illusion of talent and stardom when they witness the obvious manufacturing of musical talent. The contestants receive training, are dressed according to a prescribed image, and the show emphasises those melodramatic moments that are commercially enticing to audiences. Her sentiments suggest these shows emphasise the artifice of the music industry by undermining artistic authenticity in favour of generating celebrities. The standardisation is typified in the post Idol careers of Kelly Clarkson and Adam Lambert. Kelly Clarkson parted with the recording company RCA when her manager and producer Clive Davis told her that her album My December (2007) was “not commercial enough” and that Clarkson, who had written most of the songs, was a “shitty writer… who should just shut up and sing” (Nied). Adam Lambert left RCA because they wanted him to make a full length 80s album comprised of covers. Lambert commented that, “while there are lots of great songs from that decade, my heart is simply not in doing a covers album” (Lee). In these instances, winning the show and signing contracts led to both Clarkson and Lambert forfeiting a degree of creative control over their work in favour of formulaic songs that ultimately left both artists unsatisfied. The standardisation and lack of remuneration is notable when signing recording artists to 360° contracts. These 360° contracts have become commonplace in the music industry (Gulchardaz, Bach, and Penin) and see both the material and immaterial labour (such as personal identities) of recording artists become controlled by record labels (Stahl and Meier). These labels determine the aesthetics of the musicians as well as where and how frequently they tour. Furthermore, the labels become owners of any intellectual property generated by an artist during the tenure of the contract (Sanders; Stahl and Meier). For example, in their documentary Show Em What You’re Made Of (2015), the Backstreet Boys lament their affiliation with manager Lou Pearlman. Not only did Pearlman manufacture the group in a way that prevented creative exploration by the members (Sanders), but he withheld profits to the point that the Backstreet Boys had to sue Pearlman in order to gain access to money they deserved. In 2002 the members of the Backstreet Boys had stated that “it wasn’t our destinies that we had to worry about in the past, it was our souls” (Sanders, 541). They were not writing their own music, which came across in the documentary Show Em What You’re Made Of when singer Howie Dorough demanded that if they were to collaborate as a group again in 2013, that everything was to be produced, managed and created by the five group members. Such a demand speaks to creative individuals being tied to their work both personally and emotionally (Bain). The angst encountered by music artists also signals the identity dissonance and conflict felt when they are betraying their true or authentic creative selves (Ashforth and Mael; Ashforth and Humphrey). Performing and abiding by the rules and regulations of others led to frustration because the members felt they were “being passed off as something we aren’t” (Sanders 539). The Backstreet Boys were not the only musicians who were intensely controlled and not adequately compensated by Pearlman. In the documentary The Boy Band Con: The Lou Pearlman Story 2019, Lance Bass of N*Sync and recording artist Aaron Carter admitted that the experience of working with Pearlman became a nightmare when they too, were receiving cheques that were so small that Bass describes them as making his heart sink. For these groups, the dream of making music was undone by contracts that stifled creativity and paid a pittance.In a similar vein, Thirty Seconds to Mars sought to cut ties with their record label when they felt that they were not being adequately compensated for their work. In retaliation EMI issued Mars with a US$30 million lawsuit for breach of contract. The tense renegotiations that followed took a toll on the creative drive of the group. At one point in the documentary Artifact (2012), Leto claims “I can’t sing it right now… You couldn’t pay me all the money in the world to sing this song the way it needs to be sung right now. I’m not ready”. The contract subordination (Phillips; Stahl and Meier) that had led to the need to renegotiate financial terms came at not only a financial cost to the band, but also a physical and emotional one. The negativity impacted the development of the songs for the new album. To make music requires evoking necessary and appropriate emotions in the recording studio (Wood, Duffy, and Smith), so Leto being unable to deliver the song proved problematic. Essentially, the stress of the lawsuit and negotiations damaged the motivation of the band (Amabile; Elsbach and Hargadon; Hallowell) and interfered with their creative approach, which could have produced standardised and poor quality work (Farr and Ford). The dream of making music was almost lost because of the EMI lawsuit. Young creatives often lack bargaining power when entering into contracts with corporations, which can prove disadvantaging when it comes to retaining control over their lives (Phillips; Stahl and Meier). Singer Demi Lovato’s big break came in the 2008 Disney film Camp Rock. As her then manager Phil McIntyre states in the documentary Simply Complicated (2017), Camp Rock was “perceived as the vehicle to becoming a superstar … overnight she became a household name”. However, as “authentic and believable” as Lovato’s edginess appeared, the speed with which her success came took a toll on Lovato. The pressure she experienced having to tour, write songs that were approved by others, star in Disney channel shows and movies, and look a certain way, became too much and to compensate, Lovato engaged in regular drug use to feel free. Accordingly, she developed a hybrid identity to ensure that the squeaky clean image required by the moral clauses of her contract, was not tarnished by her out-of-control lifestyle. The nightmare came from becoming famous at a young age and not being able to handle the expectations that accompanied it, coupled with a stringent contract that exploited her creative talent. Lovato’s is not a unique story. Research has found that musicians are more inclined than those in other workforces to use psychotherapy and psychotropic drugs (Vaag, Bjørngaard, and Bjerkeset) and that fame and money can provide musicians more opportunities to take risks, including drug-use that leads to mortality (Bellis, Hughes, Sharples, Hennell, and Hardcastle). For Lovato, living the dream at a young age ultimately became overwhelming with drugs her only means of escape. AuthenticityThe challenges then for music artists is that the dream of pursuing music can come at the cost of a musician’s authentic self. According to Hughes, “to be authentic is to be in some sense real and true to something ... It is not simply an imitation, but it is sincere, real, true, and original expression of its creator, and is believable or credible representations or example of what it appears to be” (190). For Nick Jonas of the Jonas Brothers, being in the spotlight and abiding by the demands of Disney was “non-stop” and prevented his personal and musical growth (Chasing Happiness). As Kevin Jonas put it, Nick “wanted the Jonas Brothers to be no more”. The extensive promotion that accompanies success and fame, which is designed to drive celebrity culture and financial motivations (Currid-Halkett and Scott; King), can lead to cynical performances and dissatisfaction (Hughes) if the identity work of the creative creates a disjoin between their perceived self and aspirational self (Beech, Gilmore, Cochrane, and Greig). Promoting the band (and having to film a television show and movies he was not invested in all because of contractual obligations) impacted on Nick’s authentic self to the point that the Jonas Brothers made him feel deeply upset and anxious. For Nick, being stifled creatively led to feeling inauthentic, thereby resulting in the demise of the band as his only recourse.In her documentary Gaga: Five Foot Two (2017), Lady Gaga discusses the extent she had to go to maintain a sense of authenticity in response to producer control. As she puts it, “when producers wanted me to be sexy, I always put some absurd spin on it, that made me feel like I was still in control”. Her words reaffirm the perception amongst scholars (Currid-Halkett and Scott; King; Meyers) that in playing the information game, industry leaders will construct an artist’s persona in ways that are most beneficial for, in this case, the record label. That will mean, for example, establishing a coherent life story for musicians that endears them to audiences and engaging recording artists in co-branding opportunities to raise their profile and to legitimise them in the marketplace. Such behaviour can potentially influence the preferences and purchases of audiences and fans, can create favourability, originality and clarity around artists (Loroz and Braig), and can establish competitive advantage that leads to producers being able to charge higher prices for the artists’ work (Hernando and Campo). But what impact does that have on the musician? Lady Gaga could not continue living someone else’s dream. She found herself needing to make changes in order to avoid quitting music altogether. As Gaga told a class of university students at the Emotion Revolution Summit hosted by Yale University:I don’t like being used to make people money. It feels sad when I am overworked and that I have just become a money-making machine and that my passion and creativity take a backseat. That makes me unhappy.According to Eikof and Haunschild, economic necessity can threaten creative motivation. Gaga’s reaction to the commercial demands of the music industry signal an identity conflict because her desire to create, clashed with the need to be commercial, with the outcome imposing “inconsistent demands upon” her (Ashforth and Mael, 29). Therefore, to reduce what could be considered feelings of dissonance and inconsistency (Ashforth and Mael; Ashforth and Humphrey) Gaga started saying “no” to prevent further loss of her identity and sense of authentic self. Taking back control could be seen as a means of reorienting her dream and overcoming what had become dissatisfaction with the commercial processes of the music industry. ConclusionsFor many creatives working in the creative industries – and specifically the music industry – is constructed as a dream come true; the working conditions and expectations experienced by recording artists are far from liberating and instead can become nightmares to which they want to escape. The case studies above, although likely ‘constructed’ retellings of the unfortunate circumstances encountered working in the music industry, nevertheless offer an inside account that contradicts the prevailing ideology that pursuing creative passions leads to a dream career (Florida; Samuel). If anything, the case studies explored above involving 30 Seconds to Mars, the Jonas Brothers, Lady Gaga, Kelly Clarkson, Adam Lambert and the Backstreet Boys, acknowledge what many scholars writing in the creative industries have already identified; that exploitation, subordination, identity conflict and loss of control are the unspoken or lesser known consequences of pursuing the creative dream. That said, the conundrum for creatives is that for success in the industry big “creative” businesses, such as recording labels, are still considered necessary in order to break into the market and to have prolonged success. This is simply because their resources far exceed those at the disposal of independent and up-and-coming creative entrepreneurs. Therefore, it can be argued that this friction of need between creative industry business versus artists will be on-going leading to more of these ‘dream to nightmare’ stories. The struggle will continue manifesting in the relationship between business and artist for long as the recording artists fight for greater equality, independence of creativity and respect for their work, image and identities. 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Background “The sense of taste,” write Nelson and colleagues in a 2002 issue of Nature, “provides animals with valuable information about the nature and quality of food. Mammals can recognize and respond to a diverse repertoire of chemical entities, including sugars, salts, acids and a wide range of toxic substances” (199). The authors go on to argue that several amino acids—the building blocks of proteins—taste delicious to humans and that “having a taste pathway dedicated to their detection probably had significant evolutionary implications”. They imply, but do not specify, that the evolutionary implications are positive. This may be the case with some amino acids, but contemporary tastes, and changes in them, are far from universally beneficial. Indeed, this article argues that modern food production shapes and distorts human taste with significant implications for health and wellbeing. Take the western taste for fried chipped potatoes, for example. According to Schlosser in Fast Food Nation, “In 1960, the typical American ate eighty-one pounds of fresh potatoes and about four pounds of frozen french fries. Today [2002] the typical American eats about forty-nine pounds of fresh potatoes every year—and more than thirty pounds of frozen french fries” (115). Nine-tenths of these chips are consumed in fast food restaurants which use mass-manufactured potato-based frozen products to provide this major “foodservice item” more quickly and cheaply than the equivalent dish prepared from raw ingredients. These choices, informed by human taste buds, have negative evolutionary implications, as does the apparently long-lasting consumer preference for fried goods cooked in trans-fats. “Numerous foods acquire their elastic properties (i.e., snap, mouth-feel, and hardness) from the colloidal fat crystal network comprised primarily of trans- and saturated fats. These hardstock fats contribute, along with numerous other factors, to the global epidemics related to metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular disease,” argues Michael A. Rogers (747). Policy makers and public health organisations continue to compare notes internationally about the best ways in which to persuade manufacturers and fast food purveyors to reduce the use of these trans-fats in their products (L’Abbé et al.), however, most manufacturers resist. Hank Cardello, a former fast food executive, argues that “many products are designed for ‘high hedonic value’, with carefully balanced combinations of salt, sugar and fat that, experience has shown, induce people to eat more” (quoted, Trivedi 41). Fortunately for the manufactured food industry, salt and sugar also help to preserve food, effectively prolonging the shelf life of pre-prepared and packaged goods. Physiological Factors As Glanz et al. discovered when surveying 2,967 adult Americans, “taste is the most important influence on their food choices, followed by cost” (1118). A person’s taste is to some extent an individual response to food stimuli, but the tongue’s taste buds respond to five basic categories of food: salty, sweet, sour, bitter, and umami. ‘Umami’ is a Japanese word indicating “delicious savoury taste” (Coughlan 11) and it is triggered by the amino acid glutamate. Japanese professor Kikunae Ikeda identified glutamate while investigating the taste of a particular seaweed which he believed was neither sweet, sour, bitter, or salty. When Ikeda combined the glutamate taste essence with sodium he formed the food additive sodium glutamate, which was patented in 1908 and subsequently went into commercial production (Japan Patent Office). Although individual, a person’s taste preferences are by no means fixed. There is ample evidence that people’s tastes are being distorted by modern food marketing practices that process foods to make them increasingly appealing to the average palate. In particular, this industrialisation of food promotes the growth of a snack market driven by salty and sugary foods, popularly constructed as posing a threat to health and wellbeing. “[E]xpanding waistlines [are] fuelled by a boom in fast food and a decline in physical activity” writes Stark, who reports upon the 2008 launch of a study into Australia’s future ‘fat bomb’. As Deborah Lupton notes, such reports were a particular feature of the mid 2000s when: intense concern about the ‘obesity epidemic’ intensified and peaked. Time magazine named 2004 ‘The Year of Obesity’. That year the World Health Organization’s Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health was released and the [US] Centers for Disease Control predicted that a poor diet and lack of exercise would soon claim more lives than tobacco-related disease in the United States. (4) The American Heart Association recommends eating no more than 1500mg of salt per day (Hamzelou 11) but salt consumption in the USA averages more than twice this quantity, at 3500mg per day (Bernstein and Willett 1178). In the UK, a sustained campaign and public health-driven engagement with food manufacturers by CASH—Consensus Action on Salt and Health—resulted in a reduction of between 30 and 40 percent of added salt in processed foods between 2001 and 2011, with a knock-on 15 percent decline in the UK population’s salt intake overall. This is the largest reduction achieved by any developed nation (Brinsden et al.). “According to the [UK’s] National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), this will have reduced [UK] stroke and heart attack deaths by a minimum of 9,000 per year, with a saving in health care costs of at least £1.5bn a year” (MacGregor and Pombo). Whereas there has been some success over the past decade in reducing the amount of salt consumed, in the Western world the consumption of sugar continues to rise, as a graph cited in the New Scientist indicates (O’Callaghan). Regular warnings that sugar is associated with a range of health threats and delivers empty calories devoid of nutrition have failed to halt the increase in sugar consumption. Further, although some sugar is a natural product, processed foods tend to use a form invented in 1957: high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). “HFCS is a gloopy solution of glucose and fructose” writes O’Callaghan, adding that it is “as sweet as table sugar but has typically been about 30% cheaper”. She cites Serge Ahmed, a French neuroscientist, as arguing that in a world of food sufficiency people do not need to consume more, so they need to be enticed to overeat by making food more pleasurable. Ahmed was part of a team that ran an experiment with cocaine-addicted rats, offering them a mutually exclusive choice between highly-sweetened water and cocaine: Our findings clearly indicate that intense sweetness can surpass cocaine reward, even in drug-sensitized and -addicted individuals. We speculate that the addictive potential of intense sweetness results from an inborn hypersensitivity to sweet tastants. In most mammals, including rats and humans, sweet receptors evolved in ancestral environments poor in sugars and are thus not adapted to high concentrations of sweet tastants. The supranormal stimulation of these receptors by sugar-rich diets, such as those now widely available in modern societies, would generate a supranormal reward signal in the brain, with the potential to override self-control mechanisms and thus lead to addiction. (Lenoir et al.) The Tongue and the Brain One of the implications of this research about the mammalian desire for sugar is that our taste for food is about more than how these foods actually taste in the mouth on our tongues. It is also about the neural response to the food we eat. The taste of French fries thus also includes that “snap, mouth-feel, and hardness” and the “colloidal fat crystal network” (Rogers, “Novel Structuring” 747). While there is no taste receptor for fats, these nutrients have important effects upon the brain. Wang et al. offered rats a highly fatty, but palatable, diet and allowed them to eat freely. 33 percent of the calories in the food were delivered via fat, compared with 21 percent in a normal diet. The animals almost doubled their usual calorific intake, both because the food had a 37 percent increased calorific content and also because the rats ate 47 percent more than was standard (2786). The research team discovered that in as little as three days the rats “had already lost almost all of their ability to respond to leptin” (Martindale 27). Leptin is a hormone that acts on the brain to communicate feelings of fullness, and is thus important in assisting animals to maintain a healthy body weight. The rats had also become insulin resistant. “Severe resistance to the metabolic effects of both leptin and insulin ensued after just 3 days of overfeeding” (Wang et al. 2786). Fast food restaurants typically offer highly palatable, high fat, high sugar, high salt, calorific foods which can deliver 130 percent of a day’s recommended fat intake, and almost a day’s worth of an adult man’s calories, in one meal. The impacts of maintaining such a diet over a comparatively short time-frame have been recorded in documentaries such as Super Size Me (Spurlock). The after effects of what we widely call “junk food” are also evident in rat studies. Neuroscientist Paul Kenny, who like Ahmed was investigating possible similarities between food- and cocaine-addicted rats, allowed his animals unlimited access to both rat ‘junk food’ and healthy food for rats. He then changed their diets. “The rats with unlimited access to junk food essentially went on a hunger strike. ‘It was as if they had become averse to healthy food’, says Kenny. It took two weeks before the animals began eating as much [healthy food] as those in the control group” (quoted, Trivedi 40). Developing a taste for certain food is consequently about much more than how they taste in the mouth; it constitutes an individual’s response to a mixture of taste, hormonal reactions and physiological changes. Choosing Health Glanz et al. conclude their study by commenting that “campaigns attempting to change people’s perception of the importance of nutrition will be interpreted in terms of existing values and beliefs. A more promising strategy might be to stress the good taste of healthful foods” (1126). Interestingly, this is the strategy already adopted by some health-focused cookbooks. I have 66 cookery books in my kitchen. None of ten books sampled from the five spaces in which these books are kept had ‘taste’ as an index entry, but three books had ‘taste’ in their titles: The Higher Taste, Taste of Life, and The Taste of Health. All three books seek to promote healthy eating, and they all date from the mid-1980s. It might be that taste is not mentioned in cookbook indexes because it is a sine qua non: a focus upon taste is so necessary and fundamental to a cookbook that it goes without saying. Yet, as the physiological evidence makes clear, what we find palatable is highly mutable, varying between people, and capable of changing significantly in comparatively short periods of time. The good news from the research studies is that the changes wrought by high salt, high sugar, high fat diets need not be permanent. Luciano Rossetti, one of the authors on Wang et al’s paper, told Martindale that the physiological changes are reversible, but added a note of caution: “the fatter a person becomes the more resistant they will be to the effects of leptin and the harder it is to reverse those effects” (27). Morgan Spurlock’s experience also indicates this. In his case it took the actor/director 14 months to lose the 11.1 kg (13 percent of his body mass) that he gained in the 30 days of his fast-food-only experiment. Trivedi was more fortunate, stating that, “After two weeks of going cold turkey, I can report I have successfully kicked my ice cream habit” (41). A reader’s letter in response to Trivedi’s article echoes this observation. She writes that “the best way to stop the craving was to switch to a diet of vegetables, seeds, nuts and fruits with a small amount of fish”, adding that “cravings stopped in just a week or two, and the diet was so effective that I no longer crave junk food even when it is in front of me” (Mackeown). Popular culture indicates a range of alternative ways to resist food manufacturers. In the West, there is a growing emphasis on organic farming methods and produce (Guthman), on sl called Urban Agriculture in the inner cities (Mason and Knowd), on farmers’ markets, where consumers can meet the producers of the food they eat (Guthrie et al.), and on the work of advocates of ‘real’ food, such as Jamie Oliver (Warrin). Food and wine festivals promote gourmet tourism along with an emphasis upon the quality of the food consumed, and consumption as a peak experience (Hall and Sharples), while environmental perspectives prompt awareness of ‘food miles’ (Weber and Matthews), fair trade (Getz and Shreck) and of land degradation, animal suffering, and the inequitable use of resources in the creation of the everyday Western diet (Dare, Costello and Green). The burgeoning of these different approaches has helped to stimulate a commensurate growth in relevant disciplinary fields such as Food Studies (Wessell and Brien). One thing that all these new ways of looking at food and taste have in common is that they are options for people who feel they have the right to choose what and when to eat; and to consume the tastes they prefer. This is not true of all groups of people in all countries. Hiding behind the public health campaigns that encourage people to exercise and eat fresh fruit and vegetables are the hidden “social determinants of health: The conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age, including the health system” (WHO 45). As the definitions explain, it is the “social determinants of health [that] are mostly responsible for health iniquities” with evidence from all countries around the world demonstrating that “in general, the lower an individual’s socioeconomic position, the worse his or her health” (WHO 45). For the comparatively disadvantaged, it may not be the taste of fast food that attracts them but the combination of price and convenience. If there is no ready access to cooking facilities, or safe food storage, or if a caregiver is simply too time-poor to plan and prepare meals for a family, junk food becomes a sensible choice and its palatability an added bonus. For those with the education, desire, and opportunity to break free of the taste for salty and sugary fats, however, there are a range of strategies to achieve this. There is a persuasive array of evidence that embracing a plant-based diet confers a multitude of health benefits for the individual, for the planet and for the animals whose lives and welfare would otherwise be sacrificed to feed us (Green, Costello and Dare). Such a choice does involve losing the taste for foods which make up the lion’s share of the Western diet, but any sense of deprivation only lasts for a short time. The fact is that our sense of taste responds to the stimuli offered. It may be that, notwithstanding the desires of Jamie Oliver and the like, a particular child never will never get to like broccoli, but it is also the case that broccoli tastes differently to me, seven years after becoming a vegan, than it ever did in the years in which I was omnivorous. When people tell me that they would love to adopt a plant-based diet but could not possibly give up cheese, it is difficult to reassure them that the pleasure they get now from that specific cocktail of salty fats will be more than compensated for by the sheer exhilaration of eating crisp, fresh fruits and vegetables in the future. Conclusion For decades, the mass market food industry has tweaked their products to make them hyper-palatable and difficult to resist. They do this through marketing experiments and consumer behaviour research, schooling taste buds and brains to anticipate and relish specific cocktails of sweet fats (cakes, biscuits, chocolate, ice cream) and salty fats (chips, hamburgers, cheese, salted nuts). They add ingredients to make these products stimulate taste buds more effectively, while also producing cheaper items with longer life on the shelves, reducing spoilage and the complexity of storage for retailers. Consumers are trained to like the tastes of these foods. Bitter, sour, and umami receptors are comparatively under-stimulated, with sweet, salty, and fat-based tastes favoured in their place. Western societies pay the price for this learned preference in high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, and obesity. 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