Journal articles on the topic 'Greene County (Tenn.)'

As consumption behavior is one of the key human activities destabilizing the Earth system, green consumption is expected to increase. However, although consumers often show interest in green consumption, they tend to choose non-green alternatives. Presuming that one of the reasons for their inconsistency lies in the trade-offs between green attributes and other attributes (e.g., brand, performance, and price), this study adopted a discrete choice experiment to understand how green attributes play a role in consumers’ purchase decisions. To obtain a deeper understanding, the study conducted a cross-country (young Japanese [n = 370] and Vietnamese [n = 403] consumers) and product (water bottles and T-shirts) comparative analysis. The findings showed that for both products, Japanese respondents were less appreciative of green attributes in both relative and absolute terms than Vietnamese respondents. Furthermore, the marginal willingness to pay (MWTP) for a low environmental impact was the highest among the other attributes in both products for Vietnamese respondents, while this was not the case for Japanese respondents. Utilizing the findings obtained from the conditional logit models and MWTP, this study proposes several policy implications for the promotion of green purchases suitable for each country’s unique situation.

Social assistance is a largely neglected part of the welfare state in Greece. Recent surveys of social assistance arrangements in developed countries from a comparative perspective tend to portray Greece as the most 'rudimentary' member of the 'rudimentary' group of countries or social assistance regimes, i.e. Southern Europe. While not entirely unfounded, this view rests on a less than complete account of social assistance in Greece, and also ignores the latest developments that further challenge this position. This article aims to 'map' social assistance benefits in Greece, describe recent developments and discuss current debates on future directions of welfare reform in the country. This review suggests that although social assistance remains a 'poor relation' within Greece's social protection system as a whole, its relative weight is much greater than previously thought. Moreover, the profile of social assistance is set to rise due to a renewed emphasis on notions of selectivity and targeting, but also in connection with the revival of the debate on the merits and practicalities of introducing a minimum guaranteed income scheme in the country. The article concludes that the search for the proper place of social assistance within a reconstructed welfare state in Greece has only just begun.

Purpose The effect of global warming on our environment has shifted the focus to green technologies worldwide. Subsequently, multiple research studies have attempted to assess awareness around the concept of “Green IT” in different countries. This paper aims to examine the factors that affect the intention to use green information technology (IT) (INT) and their subsequent influence on the actual use of green IT (ACT) among students in the context of a developing country. Design/methodology/approach The data were collected using survey questionnaires administered to six public university students. A total of 633 valid questionnaires were received and analyzed using structural equation modeling. Findings A positive relationship of INT with attitude toward green IT, subjective norms toward green IT, perceived behavioral control toward green IT, consideration of future consequences and openness was found, and also, a positive relationship between INT and ACT was found. Originality/value Many of prior research focused on factors influencing green IT adoption and usage from the organizational point of view, and there is not much literature dedicated to the study of IT users’ belief and behavior about green IT. Moreover, most studies tend to focus on developed nations, while a lesser number of studies gave consideration to developing nations. This study proposes a research framework that incorporated two personality trait factors to the theory of planned behavior to investigate individual factors influencing INT among students in the context of a developing country.

This paper implements a point pattern analysis using a novel dataset with exact coordinates of statistical data for Greek manufacturing industry. Specifically, the dataset comprises the precise location of 2.452 observations of enterprises including 146.923 employees. For the year 2018 these industries are divided into twenty-four two-digit NACE 2 sub-industries of manufacturing activity. The method of point pattern analysis permits the estimation of the pattern in manufacturing activity across space. The highest agglomeration appears to be taking place in sectors of High (H) technological intensity as well as in the Middle High (M-H) sectors. In addition, sectors belonging to the middle category and the large category according to the number of employees tend to be more agglomerated in space. Findings reveal that the level of concentration or dispersion differs substantially among different sectors underlying the specialization and dispersion of economic activity in the country.

Purpose Currently, environmental and social concerns have made green innovation more popular among researchers and practitioners around the globe. Developed countries tend to focus more on this issue, compared to developing countries. However, the reality shows that small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are considered as high contributors to environmental pollution. This study is designed for, and conducted on, SMEs in a developing country, Pakistan. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the main determinants of green innovation adoption in SMEs in Pakistan. Design/methodology/approach A data sample of 288 SMEs from five different sectors was collected and analyzed using the partial least squares structural equation modeling technique. Findings The results of the study indicate that organizational and human resource factors, market and customer factors, and government support and technological factors have a positive and significant impact, whereas external partnership and cooperation, and rules and regulatory factors have an insignificant impact on green innovation adoption in SMEs in Pakistan. Originality/value The outcomes of the study have important implications for managers as well as for government policy makers regarding framing better policies to promote green practices in SMEs.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide insights into the impact of agencification on the process of administrative reorganization in Greece. It is suggested that agencies tend to create a parallel administrative space that operates disjointly or even detached from the central bureaucracy. This hypothesis is tested and elaborated in relation to Greece's centralist administrative tradition.Design/methodology/approachThe analysis identifies the critical junctures of the domestic agencification pattern and seeks to explain its evolution on the basis of historical-cultural factors, rational choice explanations and country-specific variables. The methodology combines quantitative and qualitative research. Along with a review of existing literature, data were collected through semi-structured interviews and the Registry of Entities and Agencies.FindingsThe findings show that agencification never became a coherent policy reform tool, while its outcomes were filtered by the centralist and politicized tradition of the Greek state. The effect of agencification was proved to be highly path-dependent and contingent upon the broader administrative tradition. The agencification policy does not follow a clear direction and has been shaped as a random combination of ad hoc decisions, external pressures and domestic politics.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper provides some generalizations of the agencification experience. However, they do not cover all specificities and particularities of agencies and their applicability varies. Further research could consider these variations.Originality/valueA novelty of this study is that it links the agencification effect with three key aspects of the administrative reform process, namely, decentralization, debureaucratization and depoliticization. In addition, no single study exists regarding agencification in Greece; thus, the paper is the first to provide an overall view of the Greek arm's length bodies.

Businesses are believed to be partly responsible for upsetting the balance of local biodiversity through activities that degrade the environment. Critically, entrepreneurship is increasingly being cited as a key sector that can bring about sustainable transformation in production and distribution. Ghana’s total entrepreneurial activity rate is estimated at 37%, with businesses operating unsustainably. Meanwhile, little has been explored empirically on the factors that influence businesses’ sensitivity to the environment in Ghana. Using the 2013 GEM data in estimating seven different logic regression models coupled with a qualitative analysis, this paper fills the gap by investigating how the demographic and entrepreneurial characteristics of entrepreneurs in Ghana influence their environmental consciousness. The empirical evidence suggests that education fosters environmental consciousness, while owner-manager and female entrepreneurs as well as rural locality entrepreneurs in Ghana tend to be more environmentally sensitive. The qualitative data also revealed general concerns for the environment as motivating factors for entrepreneurs to be more environmentally conscious. The findings therefore draw attention to the inadequate focus on green entrepreneurship in Ghana. Embarking on educational campaigns to promote the adherence to environmental regulations by all businesses, especially those in urban areas, could help build a robust eco-preneurship landscape in Ghana.

It is expected that 40% of adults in Greece will be obese by 2030, and more and more individuals in the country are inactive. There are many reasons for obesity and inactivity; however, factors such as societal influences and appearance-focused communication are known to have an effect. Negative body communication—in other words, size-discrimination or shaming—may cause a person to consume unhealthy or large amounts of food and avoid exercise. Likewise, a system of social marking divides one group, the “ideal” group, from another group, the “lesser” group, thereby creating a perception of abnormality towards the “lesser” group and strengthening a social divide. Moreover, labelling theory states that individuals tend to behave based on the label assigned to them. In contrast, body positive communication seeks to challenge beauty standards and encourage a healthy mindset that in turn inspires healthy consumption and activity. This study analyzes communication towards females in Athens, Greece, through imagery, by examining front-of-store signage and mannequins, and clothing, by reviewing the size range available for purchase in stores. Major findings reveal that images do not show diversified sizing and the most common sizes are medium and small. This paper shows that negative communication could potentially exacerbate the overweight and obesity rate and that Athens, Greece has inadequate body positive communication practices.

Alternative action organizations (AAO) usually rise during economic crises to offer direct support and solidarity to their constituency groups. These groups may be less involved recipient beneficiary groups or more participative groups collaborating and creating networks of support to sustain the needs of their members. This article compensates for the lack of empirical knowledge about such groups by systematically describing AAOs’ constituency groups in nine different European countries. The analysis is based on detailed data from the websites of a random sample of more than 4,000 AAOs in France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom—countries representing different welfare regimes, as well as experience of the 2008 economic crisis. Results demonstrate that there are significant intracountry variations of groups reported as major beneficiaries and participants by the AAOs, but this variation is related to the solidarity orientation of the organization rather than the country’s welfare regime or experience of economic crises. Mutual support organizations, which focus on collaborating for common interests, tend to target active constituency such as less vulnerable local communities and alternative economy consumer-producer initiatives. Distribution-oriented organizations, however, are more likely to target more vulnerable recipient beneficiary groups such as children, families, the poor, and migrants. We also show some significant country differences, as different constituency groups are represented relatively equally as targets of AAOs in Sweden, while being more “biased” toward alternative consumers and small enterprises in France. Results encourage further comparative research about constituency beneficiary and participant groups and the voluntary sector.

Abstract While it is generally acknowledged that fascist movements tend to glorify the national past of the country in which they arise, sometimes, fascist regimes seek to resurrect a past even more ancient, and more glorious still; the turn towards ancient Greece and Rome. This phenomenon is particularly marked in the case of the two most powerful and indisputably ‘fascist’ regimes of all: Benito Mussolini’s Italy and Adolf Hitler’s Germany. The author suggests that this twin turn towards antiquity was no mere accident, but was rather motivated by certain commonalities in national experience. By placing these two fascist regimes alongside each other and considering their seduction by antique myths in tandem, it is argued that – without putting forward some kind of classicizing Sonderweg – we can better appreciate the historic rootedness of this particular form of ‘chronopolitics’ in a complex nexus of political and social causes, many of which lie far deeper than the traumatic events of the Great War and its aftermath.

The article focuses on the party political spaces in four Southern European countries (i.e. Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain) since the onset of the Euro crisis. To understand the emerging conflict structures, it argues for the need to consider that these countries simultaneously face an economic crisis and a political crisis and that both crises have strong domestic and European components. Moreover, the major driving forces of change tend to be social movements and political parties that forcefully combine opposition to austerity and to “old politics.” This leads to a complex conflict structure shaped by struggles over austerity and political renewal. In this structure, divides over economic and political issues are closely aligned with each other. While this pattern emerges everywhere, there are distinct country differences. Empirically, the article relies on original data from a large-scale content analysis of national election campaigns in the four countries in the period 2011 to 2015.

We present very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) observations of 179 radio sources in the COSMOS field with extremely high sensitivity using the Green Bank Telescope (GBT) together with the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) (VLBA+GBT) at 1.4 GHz, to explore the faint radio population in the flux density regime of tens of μJy. Here, the identification of active galactic nuclei (AGN) is based on the VLBI detection of the source, meaning that it is independent of X-ray or infrared properties. The milli-arcsecond resolution provided by the VLBI technique implies that the detected sources must be compact and have large brightness temperatures, and therefore they are most likely AGN (when the host galaxy is located at z ≥ 0.1). On the other hand, this technique only allows us to positively identify when a radio-active AGN is present, in other words, we cannot affirm that there is no AGN when the source is not detected. For this reason, the number of identified AGN using VLBI should be always treated as a lower limit. We present a catalogue containing the 35 radio sources detected with the VLBA+GBT, ten of which were not previously detected using only the VLBA. We have constructed the radio source counts at 1.4 GHz using the samples of the VLBA and VLBA+GBT detected sources of the COSMOS field to determine a lower limit for the AGN contribution to the faint radio source population. We found an AGN contribution of >40−75% at flux density levels between 150 μJy and 1 mJy. This flux density range is characterised by the upturn of the Euclidean-normalised radio source counts, which implies a contribution of a new population. This result supports the idea that the sub-mJy radio population is composed of a significant fraction of radio-emitting AGN, rather than solely by star-forming galaxies, in agreement with previous studies.

Green fabrics that comprise of roadside tree planting play a vital element in an urban ecosystem. Inappropriate roadside tree planting implementation and even during its post-execution of management practices affect streetscape quality of life (QOL). Roadside tree planting condition in every country and town in Malaysia tend to have different in quality as different authority conducts management and maintenance for different area. This study is to serve as a discussion of non-numerical data on the potential of attributes and approaches that can be executed in the Malaysian context.Keywords: Streetscape Design; Roadside Tree Planting; Tree Sensitive Urban Design TheoryeISSN: 2398-4287 © 2020. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BYNC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/e-bpj.v5i13.2086

Abstract This study compares, spatially explicitly and at global scale, per capita water availability and water requirements for food production presently (1971–2000) and in the future given climate and population change (2070–99). A vegetation and hydrology model Lund–Potsdam–Jena managed Land (LPJmL) was used to calculate green and blue water availability per capita, water requirements to produce a balanced diet representing a benchmark for hunger alleviation [3000 kilocalories per capita per day (1 kilocalorie = 4184 joules), here assumed to consist of 80% vegetal food and 20% animal products], and a new water scarcity indicator that relates the two at country scale. A country was considered water-scarce if its water availability fell below the water requirement for the specified diet, which is presently the case especially in North and East Africa and in southwestern Asia. Under climate (derived from 17 general circulation models) and population change (A2 and B1 emissions and population scenarios), water availability per person will most probably diminish in many regions. At the same time the calorie-specific water requirements tend to decrease, due mainly to the positive effect of rising atmospheric CO2 concentration on crop water productivity—which, however, is very uncertain to be fully realized in most regions. As a net effect of climate, CO2, and population change, water scarcity will become aggravated in many countries, and a number of additional countries are at risk of losing their present capacity to produce a balanced diet for their inhabitants.

After the ousting of Palestinians from an ethnically segmented labour market, Israel has recruited large numbers of nonJewish labour migrants to fill the country's low wage sector. As elsewhere, restrictive migration policies could not hinder migrants from staying on, organising, and collectively struggle for their rights. Within the urban space ofIsrael's most cosmopolitan centre, the so-called 'White City' of Tel Aviv, they have appropriated a space with a long history of social, economic, and cultural exclusion from Israeli mainstream society, the southern 'Black City'. In 2002, Israel adopted a deportation campaign of migrants who had become 'illegals'. As subsequently tens of thousands of Tel Aviv's residents were forced to leave the country within a short period oftime, Israel, and in particular migrants' main residential area in southern Tel Aviv, became an increasingly unhomely space. In the wake of this change, migrants' everyday lives in Israel were 'transnationalised', and orientations shifted towards the 'greener pastures' of Western Europe and Northern America. Within this process, Tel Aviv became one of the Mediterranean's 'border cities', a transnational gateway, which the notion of' global city' cannot fully grasp.

Purpose Manufacturing and service companies are likely to make a variety of costs possible. Environmental costs are one of those costs. Environmental performance is one of the most important factors in assessing a company’s success. For environmental accounting, companies need to work together as teams of system designers, chemists, engineers, production managers, operators, employees, purchasing circle and accountants (those who may have never worked together before). Design/methodology/approach Nowadays, most of the companies are facing environmental issues and are seeking an appropriate way to report and disclose the information to the public. The environmental pollution issue is among the most important problems of today’s human society. Therefore, this is very important to use environmental accounting as an attempt towards protecting the environment. Findings Green accounting is a type of accounting that attempts to factor environmental costs into the financial results of operations. Apart from answering the question whether the economy has performed sustainably during one or more accounting periods, green accounting indicators [green gross domestic product (GDP)] can be used in policy formulation and evaluation. Green GDP calculations can contribute to raise awareness for sustainability concerns among national governments/policy-makers, who tend to concentrate on their countries’ fast economic development. Practical implications Environmental accounting can be applied to large and small companies in various industries, as well as in manufacturing or service sectors. Environmental accounting can be applied on a large or a smaller scale in a systematic manner for the required bases. Social implications Environmental accounting requires the collection of information from all the groups. People of various groups need to talk to each other to achieve a common vision and understanding of environmental accounting and to realize this vision. Originality/value Undoubtedly, to establish an ideal system of environmental accounting in the country, accountants can become a powerful forearm of the government regarding economical and financial controls. To achieve this goal, environmental accounting objectives and tasks should be identified and defined in detail, and the standards, rules and criteria should be grounded and codified based on reasonable and practical principles.

Gender as an individual characteristic has been proved to affect the use of strategies in learning a foreign language but how gender affects the use of strategies in learning a local language where the people in the community speak a national language is not explored yet. Some studies show that female students employed language learning strategies more often than male students (Oxford & Nyikos, 1989; Awang Hashim & Syed Sahil, 1994; Green and Oxford, 1995; Dreyer & Oxford, 1999). The present study was aimed to identify how gender affects the use of strategies in learning a local language in the environment where people in the country have a national language. A Non–probability sampling was used to collect data. With the Cronbach Alphas ranging from .79 to 82, mean scores of the use of language learning strategies the male and female students reported using were compared. In the present study it was found that metacognitive strategies were the strategies mostly used by female students and cognitive strategeis were the strategies mostly used by male students. This means that male students are likely to be more dependent on memorization than female students. Cognitive strategies which are characterized at least with memorization or rote learning in the present study tend to be used by male students.

In this paper, building upon several theories (agency theory, stakeholder theory, and resource dependence theory) and by utilising data from 161 Greek manufacturing companies that were listed in the Athens Stock Exchange on the 31st December 2008, the authors explore the relationships between the organisational characteristics of the firms (organisational age, organisational size, and years listed in the stock market) and the board configuration (board size, board leadership structure, and directors' dependence/independence). The motivation of the study was based on both the peculiarity of the Greek context in the front of a strong economic crisis, but also in trying to establish relationship of board characteristics with factors that are understudied. Both descriptive and inferential statistics (ANOVA tests) were utilised to answer the research questions. Interestingly and in alignment with the literature, the findings showed that larger organizations tend to have larger boards and greater proportions of external and independent directors. However, no more strong relationships have been identified between the organisational characteristics and the board configuration. The paper contributes by suggesting that while board configuration is being determined by factors like the legal context of the country and the broader external environment suggested by the literature, various company characteristics can explain some of the board characteristics. Finally, it is worth mentioning that this study examines the listed Greek manufacturing companies during very turbulent times, the start of the financial crisis in Greece, which may have an impact on the configuration of the boards at that time.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze the role of institutional distance and host country attractiveness in location determinants of Chinese Foreign investments in EU in the renewable energy sector, taking into account bilateral political and economic relations. Design/methodology/approach – A firm-level Ministry of Commerce (MofCom) database of greenfield and non-greenfield Chinese investments abroad is used. A six fixed-effects logit analysis is performed. Findings – Chinese firms tend to invest in EU countries with reduced rule of law; market affluence is an attraction factor for them, but they do not seem to be human capital asset-seekers. Countries with politically stable environment are most attractive to sales/services subsidiaries; while countries with good control of corruption, low trade barriers and encouraging foreign ownership are most attractive to manufacturing subsidiaries. A large market is the most attractive factor for R & D subsidiaries, and a rich market is the most attractive factor for manufacturing subsidiaries. Manufacturing subsidiaries are more technological asset-seekers. R & D subsidiaries are the most non-human capital asset-seekers. Research limitations/implications – The study extends the state of the art of the literature by developing a theoretical framework, grounded on the influence of host country institutional factors and on endowment of resources on the location choice of Chinese investors. Further variables should be included in the future (industrial specialization of host country, cultural distance, bilateral ties). Practical implications – Policy implications are relevant. They are related both to outward foreign direct investment attraction policies and to Europe-China cooperation dialogue. With reference to attraction policies, as Chinese green firms are technological asset-seekers, more than human capital asset-seekers, EU countries interested in partnering with Chinese investors should develop specific measures targeting encouraging technology spillover. Even R & D subsidiaries should be tempted with technology-oriented measures. With reference to Europe-China cooperation, the paper findings support suggestions for a more active European position on foreign investments in key European energy sectors. Originality/value – The paper is grounded on an improved theoretical model, tested through a unique Mofcom firm-level database. Originality lies in the fact that the authors provide a sectoral insight. The need for sectoral analysis is fundamental as Chinese industrial development and internationalization path vary extensively across industry, due to policy interventions, supportive measures and prioritized initiatives. Zhang et al. (2011, p. 229) found that – specifically – the energy sector is highly sensitive to host country institutional context, therefore Chinese foreign direct investment are more likely to be exposed to regulatory and competitive pressure compared to other industries.

The factors affecting African Forest Elephants include food availability, demand for ivory and changes in land-use. In order to survive, they tend to traverse considerable distances in search of food; on such occasions they are trapped and killed for their ivory. This present study is aimed at assessing the faecal matter of elephants, and at providing information on the season of ingestion and foraging preferences of these elephants. Faecal matter was collected at nine different locations for one year before being processed and subjected to standard palynological laboratory procedures. The analyses showed that the samples had moderately abundant and diversified palynomorphs. A total of 27 palynomorphs belonging to 22 families with a total count of 2,895 accounting for 94.34% were found to be eaten, while other plant fragments (epidermal cells, xylem vessel elements, and seeds) accounted for 5.66%. The wet and dry seasons accounted for 73.26% and 26.74% respectively. Epidermal cells and xylem vessel elements recorded (70.76%) and (29.2%) during the dry and wet seasons, respectively. In the palynological analysis, pollen of Balanites wilsoniana, Desplatsia subericarpa, Chrysophyllum albidum, among others were recovered in the faecal matter. Pollen analysis of faecal matters provided no information about the quantitative composition of the natural vegetation of elephants, but rather valuable information about their diet. It is recommended that these preferentially foraged parent plants should be cultivated on a large scale. This would potentially reduce competition for food and movement of these animals to other greener areas, consequently leading to poaching.

Abstract. We assess the sustainability of groundwater irrigation in the Euro-Mediterranean region. After analysing the available data on groundwater irrigation, we identify areas where irrigation causes groundwater depletion. To prevent the latter, we experiment with guidelines to restrict groundwater irrigation to sustainable levels, simulating beneficial and detrimental impacts in terms of improved environmental flow conditions and crop yield losses. To carry out these analyses, we apply the integrated model of water resources, irrigation and crop production LISFLOOD-EPIC. Crop growth is simulated accounting for atmospheric conditions and abiotic stress factors, including transpiration deficit. Four irrigation methods are modelled: drip, sprinkler, and intermittent and permanent flooding. Hydrologic and agricultural modules are dynamically coupled at the daily time scale through soil moisture, plant water uptake, and irrigation water abstraction and application. Water abstractions of other sectors are simulated based on requirement data. Water may be withdrawn from groundwater, rivers, lakes and reservoirs. As groundwater is abstracted to buffer the effects of drought, we use groundwater depletion to detect unsustainable water exploitation. We characterise reported data of annual groundwater abstractions for irrigation available at country and sub-national levels. Country data are the most complete, but their spatial resolution is often coarse. While the resolution of sub-national data is finer, their coverage is heterogeneous. Simulated and reported irrigation groundwater abstractions compare well in several areas, particularly in France, while some structural discrepancies emerge: simulated values tend to be larger than those reported, especially in southern Spain; and simulated inter-annual variability is significantly smaller than reported in some areas, most remarkably in Turkey. Potential causes of these discrepancies are simplified model assumptions influencing irrigation frequency and amounts; lack of high temporal and spatial resolution data on irrigated areas, and irrigation technologies and distribution; and possible unreported abstractions in areas where groundwater irrigation is significant. We identify areas undergoing groundwater depletion from model simulations. In the southern Iberian Peninsula, Greece, Middle East and northern Africa, most simulated depletion is caused by irrigation. In other Mediterranean areas, depletion is caused by all sectors combined. From well measurements of groundwater table depth in Spain, we find statistically significant decline rates affecting large areas of the south, thus in agreement with the model, but also areas in the north-eastern and central parts where model estimates detect no depletion. The comparison of model- and well-based depletion rates is limited by spatial scale differences and groundwater model assumptions, for which we suggest potential research directions. We design rules restricting irrigation groundwater abstraction to prevent groundwater depletion and minimise severe irrigation shortages. We optimise them and simulate their effects in the southern Iberian Peninsula. Irrigation restrictions cause crop yield reductions in groundwater-dependent irrigated areas, particularly in the Algarve and Segura river basin districts. At the same time, they positively impact environmental flows. This study shows the potential of integrated agro-hydrologic modelling for detecting water resources over-exploitation and exploring trade-offs between crop production, sustainable irrigation and ecosystem support.

Research Highlights This paper aims to assess the current progress of RE in this country and identify the impact of business sustainability idea towards RE policy development. The extensive review presented in this work offers a useful reference for policy makers, corporate managers and researchers who have vested interest in business sustainability and renewable energy related studies. ___________________________________________________________________________ Research Objectives The objectives of this study is to explore the evolving concept of business sustainability towards environmental concern and to identify the impact of business sustainability idea towards Malaysia’s policy development on RE deployment. Methodology This is conceptual paper where the authors tend to make the analysis by exploring particular theories on business sustainability, renewable energy (RE), and the engagement of RE activities on Malaysia policy development. Results All energy sources have some impact and benefit on our environment. For instance, renewable energy (RE) is energy resource that naturally replenished over time and always can be generated such as solar, wind and hydro energy. However, if the rate of use exceeds the rate of renewal, gradually it will become unsustainable. Thus, to have a sustainable energy which defined as energy production that can last for the foreseeable future is crucial and become main focus of recent national policies, strategies and development plan as of many countries. Malaysia energy consumption still heavily depended on the non- renewable energies (RE) such as fossil fuel and natural gases. Unfortunately, the use of the non-RE is unsustainable and can contribute adversely towards the environment and economic performance of a country. Renewable energy is brought to play as it is believed sustainable and has the potential to thrive in infinitely competitive market of contemporary business nowadays. Therefore, in 2009, the government of Malaysia has announced a National Renewable Energy Policy and Action Plan (NREPAP) as part of their commitment to accelerate the growth of RE as an alternatives energy sources for the coming years. Moving onwards, a strong policy is needed to tackle the challenges in meeting the demand, energy security and also the affordability of energy pricing. Thus, in energy security dimension, perhaps the government should put attention on renewable energy by engaging more on the alternative mechanism to deploy RE capacity through program such as Large-Scale Solar PV, Net Metering as at current practices and also other new initiative like green certificates. The exploration on new RE resource such as wind, geothermal, ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) also could assist in build up a new opportunity to enlarge the share of renewable energy mix percentage and ensure the future energy security (UNDP, 2007) Findings The energy industry is changing fast and in multiple directions. It is also regularly known as the catalyst for development in a country. Realizing the importance of energy as a vital dimension in economic and social development, the government of Malaysia has been continuously reviewing its energy policy and practices to ensure long-term sustainability, reliability and security of energy supply (Mohamed & Lee, 2006). The private sector even the communities should also be more corporate in social responsibilities and make compromises for instance by participating in green programs and accepting longer payback periods in RE projects. Nevertheless, continuous efforts and strong support from the societies are vital to ensure RE development can reach its maximum potential. This effort is also supported by (Dincer, 2000) and (Wutenhagen, Wolsink, & Buer, 2007) where they are stressed that increases the public awareness and acceptance on RE, it is as the initial step to make the sustainable energy program successful. This is done through the media, professional organizations, public and government channels. In conclusion, since there is still insufficient insight to critically reasoning the RE development in aspect of business and sustainability, the paper insists to contributes more to the research on energy policies enhancement in Malaysia particularly. This could be a challenge on governing agenda that involves a series of tradeoffs, market players, organizations and companies (Oliveira, 2018) and these efforts are important to ensure the future success of the RE development in Malaysia. Acknowledgement The authors would like to acknowledge Universiti Tenaga Nasional (UNITEN) for the fund granted through the Internal Grant (UNIIG2019), Project code: J510050852. References Dincer, I. (2000). Renewable energy and sustainable development: a crucial review. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 4(2), 157–175. Mohamed, A. R., & Lee, K. T. (2006). Energy for sustainable development in Malaysia: Energy policy and alternative energy. Energy Policy, 34(15), 2388–2397. Oliveira, R. L. De. (2018). Powering the future : Malaysia ’ s energy policy challenges. Kuala Lumpur: IDEAS Policy Research Berhad. UNDP, United Nations Development Programme. (2007). Energy and Poverty in Malaysia: Challenges and the Way Forward. UNDP. Wutenhagen, R., Wolsink, M., & Buer, M. J. (2007). Social acceptance of renewable energy innovation: An introduction to the concept. Energy Policy, 35, 2683–2691.

Abstract Abstract 5085 Multiple myeloma is a disease of the elderly, with a median age at diagnosis around 65 years of age. This disease occurs uncommonly in patients ≤40 years of age and thus the reports on these patients are limited. We analyzed the database of the Greek Myeloma Study Group and among 1750 unselected consecutive patients we identified 66 patients (3.7%) ≤40 years of age. Most of these young patients were males (67%), 80% had osteolytic bone disease at initial diagnosis, 49% had an ECOG performance status ≥2, 34% presented with anemia (hemoglobin less than 10 gr/dl), 10% with low platelet counts (≤130×109/L) and 14% had serum creatinine ≥2 mg/dl. When compared to patients older than 40 years, younger patients with symptomatic MM were more often males (67% vs. 55%, p=0.071), had less often renal impairment (eGFR < 60 ml/min; 22% vs. 49%, p<0.001), low serum albumin (< 3.5 gr/dl; 24% vs. 40%, p=0.013) and less often beta2-microglobulin ≥3.5 mg/dl (40% vs. 60%, p=0.013). Thus, there was a different disposition within ISS: 51% of young patients ≤40 years of age were ISS-1, 25% were ISS-2 and 25% ISS-3 compared to patients older than 40 years of age (27%, 35% and 37% for ISS-1, ISS-2 and ISS-3, respectively, p<0.001). IgD myeloma was more common in patients 40 years or younger than older patients (8% vs. 1.2%, p<0.001). Elevated serum LDH ≥300 IU/L was more common in patients ≤40 years that older patients (19% vs. 11%, p=0.061). There were no significant differences regarding performance status, the frequency of osteolytic bone disease, the frequency of anemia or low platelet counts or the degree of Bence Jones proteinuria when compared to older patients. Most patients ≤ 40 years of age received first line therapy based on conventional chemotherapy (82%) and 18% received novel agent based therapies – there was no significant difference in the treatment type when compared to patients older than 40 years. A response to first line therapy was achieved in 52% of younger patients compared to 63% for patients older than 40 years (p=0.093). The median survival for patients ≤40 years of age was 75 months, while for patients >40 years but ≤65 years was 50 months and for patients >65 years was 35 months (p<0.001). The survival for patients ≤40 years who started treatment before 1/1/2000 (i.e. before novel agents became available in Greece) was 60 months compared to 36.5 months for patients older than 40 years (p=0.003), while for patients who started treatment after 1/1/2000 (i.e. in the era of novel agents) the median survival for those ≤40 years has not been reached and is 49 months for patients >40 years (p=0.003). We then evaluated several factors which could be associated with survival within the cohort of patients ≤40 years: ECOG performance status ≥2 (66 vs. 154 months, p=0.03), low platelet counts <130×109/L (69 months vs. not reached, p<0.001), advanced ISS stage (154 vs. 69 vs. 33 months for ISS-1, ISS-2 and ISS-3, respectively, p=0.048) and LDH ≥300 IU/L (21 vs. 116 months, p<0.001) were associated with inferior survival. In multivariate analysis, ECOG performance status ≥2 (HR: 3.9, 95% CI 1.43–10.5, p=0.008) and elevated LDH ≥300 IU/L (HR: 6.230, 95% CI 1.72–22.5, p=0.005) were independently associated with inferior survival in patients ≤40 years of age. In conclusion, 3.7% of our myeloma patients were ≤40 years of age; these patients tend to be males, have more often IgD myeloma and ISS-1 disease. The median survival of these patients exceeds 6 years, and there is also a significant improvement after the introduction of novel agents with an expected survival of 10 years. Factors associated with tumor burden such as ISS-stage, low platelet counts and elevated LDH are associated with inferior survival in these young patients. Although there has been significant progress over the last decade, especially with the introduction of novel agents, efforts to further improve their outcome should be continued and perhaps cure should be the ultimate goal for as many as possible of these young patients. Disclosures: No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.

Abstract Thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP), characterized by profound thrombocytopenia and microangiopathic hemolytic anemia, may occur in neonates, children and adults. Two types of TTP: hereditary and acquired, have been described. Hereditary TTP is caused by mutations in the ADAMTS13 gene, whereas the acquired TTP is mainly caused by autoantibodies against ADAMTS13 protease. Despite of low incidence of hereditary TTP, patients with hereditary TTP tend to recur or relapse after an initial episode, which may result in sustained neurological and/or renal complications or death. Therefore, early diagnosis and treatment of hereditary TTP are crucial to prevent catastrophic complications. Gene therapy may provide an attractive alternative therapeutic approach to plasma infusion or exchange for long-term correction of ADAMTS13 deficiency. Lentiviral vector encoding the full-length human ADAMTS13 gene tagged with V5-His at the carboxyl terminus and an enhanced green fluorescent protein (eGFP) reporter or PBS was administered to day 14 mouse fetuses (C57/BL6) via direct injection into yolk sac vessels. The blood was collected into sodium citrate at birth, 1, 4, 8, 12, 18, 24, 28 and 36 weeks following the injection. The plasma ADAMTS13 activity, VWF antigen, VWF activity and VWF multimers were determined by FRETS-VWF73, enzyme-linked immunoassay, type III collagen binding and agarose gel electrophoresis, respectively. The transduction of lentiviral vector and expression of human ADAMTS13 in vivo were determined by direct visualization of eGFP reporter by fluorescence stereomicroscopy and immunohistochemistry with monoclonal anti-V5 antibody. We showed that liver appeared to be the predominant organ expressing human ADAMTS13 and eGFP reporter. Other organs including brain, heart, kidney, lung, intestines and testes were also positive for the transgene products, particularly in the vessels. Full-length human ADAMTS13-V5-His (~195kDa) protein was detectable in mouse plasma after immunoprecipitation with mouse anti-V5 and Western blot with rabbit anti-ADAMTS13 IgG. The plasma ADAMTS13 activity in lentiviral vector-injected mice (n=8) was approximately 15~20% higher on average than that in the buffer-injected controls (n=8). The elevated levels of ADAMTS13 persisted for at least 9 months tested. Furthermore, the ratio of VWF activity to VWF antigen levels and the multimer sizes in the lentiviral vector-injected mice were significantly smaller than those in the PBS-injected control. The mice overexpressing human ADAMTS13 had normal complete blood count and did not show signs of spontaneous bleeding. To our surprise, these mice exhibited a significant prolongation of occlusion time in the carotid arteries after 10% FeCl3 injury (28.6 ± 13.0 min, n=8) compared to the control mice (8.5 ± 1.9 min, n=8) (p<0.001). These data demonstrate for the first time that long-term expression of human ADAMTS13 is achieved in mice by in utero administration of lentiviral vector and that the over expression of human ADAMTS13 may offer a systemic anti-thrombotic effect in vivo. Our study supports the feasibility of successful gene therapy for hereditary TTP and/or other arterial thrombotic disorders that are mediated by “unusually large” or “hyperactive” VWF.

Abstract Background and objectives Protocols for acute myeloid leukemia (AML) 1st line patients are centered on the combination of Cytarabine and an anthracycline; Idarubicin (IDA), Daunorubicin (DNR), or Mitoxantrone (MIT). Patients may be treated with IDA, DNR, or MIT depending on the country of residence, because multiple clinical trials have not found significant differences among them. A new Personalized Medicine (PM) test developed by Vivia Biotech based on pharmacological responses in patient samples (ex vivo) is uncovering individual responses to these treatments. Our objective is to explore whether a significant % of individual patients may respond differently to IDA vs DNR vs MIT treatments, in spite that of their “on average” similar response shown by clinical trials. Patients and Methods Multicenter, prospective, non-interventional study of the PETHEMA group for treatment of AML. Bone Marrow (BM) samples were collected at diagnosis for 160 AML patients. Samples were incubated for 48 hours in 96-well plates, each well containing different drugs or drug combinations, each at 8 different concentrations, enabling calculation of dose response curves for each single drug (CYT, IDA, DNR, MIT) and combination used in treatments (CYT-IDA, CYT-DNR, CYT-MIT). Drug response was evaluated as depletion of AML malignant cells in each well after 48 hours incubations. Annexin V-FITC was used to quantify the ability of the drugs to induce apoptosis. Malignant cells were identified with monoclonal antibodies and light scatter properties. 1) We use the whole bone marrow sample, retaining the erythrocyte population and serum proteins, during the entire incubation period; and after 48 h leukocytes are isolated prior to evaluation by flow cytometry. 2) We have pioneered development of a proprietary automated flow cytometry platform called ExviTech. 3) Pharmacological responses are calculated using pharmacokinetic population models. Results Figure left panel shows dose responses for both IDA (red) and DNR (blue) in 125 AML patient samples. Although their average curves (thick red & blue) are similar, the interpatient variability of either drug is quite large. We hypothesized that some patients could show very differential sensitivities to both drugs, as illustrated by the green arrow where a patient sample is resistant to DNR (right shifted dose response curve) but sensitive to IDA (left shifted dose response curve). To identify these cases Figure right panel shows a comparison of the potency IDA vs DNR. Potency is represented by their EC50 (concentration that kills 50% of the cells). Most dots tend to line up, but red dots represent patient samples with a difference in potency between these drugs >30%. Repeating this exercise for IDA-MIT and DNR-MIT to cover all alternatives among the 3 anthracyclines identifies 40% of patients samples with >30% different potency among IDA-DNR-MIT. Repeating this exercise with the combination treatments CYT-IDA, CYT-DNR, CYT-MIT increases to 58% the population of patients whose samples have a differential sensitivity to these anthracyclines. A fraction of this 57% of patients may benefit in if treatment selection among these 3 treatments were to be aided by this ex vivo testing sensitivities. To identify which fraction would benefit we would need a trial specifically designed. Conclusions This preliminary results show that Vivia's PM test seems able to identify a subset of AML patients who's ex vivo pharmacological response to anthracycline drugs is significantly different. Because this ex vivo test accurately predicts the clinical response to CYT-IDA, if these selective anthracycline ex vivo responses translate to clinical responses, a fraction of this 57% subpopulation could benefit significantly from receiving 1st or 2nd line treatments based on either IDA, DNR, MIT, and their combinations. Hence this approach stands for European integration of treatment protocols, based on ex vivo individual responses data rather than nationality. Disclosures: Primo: Vivia Biotech: Employment. Hernandez-Campo:Vivia Biotech: Employment. Rojas:Vivia Biotech: Employment. Bennett:Vivia Biotech: Employment. Liebana:Vivia Biotech: Employment. Lopez:Vivia Biotech: Employment. Ballesteros:Vivia Biotech: Equity Ownership.

Dependence of damage estimates upon assumptions of economic growth and technological development Greater economic growth could, by increasing emissions, lead to greater damages from climate change. On the other hand, by increasing wealth and advancing technological development and human capital, economic growth would also increase a society's adaptive capacity and reduce those damages. Although analyses of the impacts (or damages) of climate change generally incorporate economic growth into the emissions and climate change scenarios that they use as inputs, these analyses do not adequately account for the increase in adaptive capacity resulting from that very growth. Because of this inconsistency, these analyses generally tend to overstate impacts. For instance, the average GDP per capita for developing countries in 2100 is projected to be $11,000 (in 1990 US$, at market exchange rates) under A2, the slowest economic growth scenario, and $66,500 under A1, the scenario with both the greatest economic growth and largest climate change. By comparison, in 1990 the GDP per capita for Greece, for example, was $8,300 while Switzerland, the country with the highest income level at that time, had a GDP per capita of $34,000. Based on historical experience, one should expect that at the high levels of GDP per capita projected by the IPCC scenarios in 2100, wealth-driven increases in adaptive capacity alone should virtually eliminate damages from many climate-sensitive hazards, e.g., malaria and hunger, whether or not these damages are caused by climate change. Current damage estimates are inflated further because they usually do not adequately account for secular (time-dependent) improvements in technology that, if history is any guide, ought to occur in the future unrelated to economic development. A compelling argument for reducing greenhouse gases is that it would help developing countries cope with climate change. It is asserted that they need this help because their adaptive capacity is weak. Although often true today, this assertion becomes increasingly invalid in the future if developing countries become wealthier and more technologically advanced, per the IPCC's scenarios. Damage assessments frequently overlook this. Are scenario storylines internally consistent in light of historical experience? Regardless of whether the economic growth assumptions used in the IPCC scenarios are justified, their specifications regarding the relationship between wealth and technological ability are, in general, inconsistent with the lessons of economic history. They assume that the less wealthy societies depicted by the B1 and B2 scenarios would have greater environmental protection and employ cleaner and more efficient technologies than the wealthier society characterized by the A1F1 scenario. This contradicts general experience in the real world, where richer countries usually have cleaner technologies. Under the IPCC scenarios, the richer A1 world has the same population as the poorer B1 world, but in fact total fertility rates — a key determinant of population growth rates — are, by and large, lower for richer nations and, over time, have dropped for any given level of GDP per capita (Goklany 2001a). Merits of reallocating expenditures from mitigation to international development Halting climate change at its 1990 level would annually cost substantially more than the $165 billion estimated for the minimally-effective Kyoto Protocol. According to DEFRA-sponsored studies, in 2085, which is at the limit of the foreseeable future, such a halt would reduce the total global population at risk (PAR) due to both climate change and non-climate-change-related causes by 3 percent for malaria, 21 percent for hunger, and 86 percent for coastal flooding, although the total PAR for water shortage might well increase. The benefits associated with halting climate change — and more — can be obtained more economically through “focused adaptation”, i.e., activities focused on reducing vulnerabilities to the above noted climate-sensitive hazards, or through broadly advancing sustainable development in developing countries by meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015. In fact, such efforts, which together could annually cost donor countries $150 billion according to UN Millennium Project and World Health Organization studies, should reduce global malaria, hunger, poverty, and lack of access to safe water and sanitation by 50 percent (each); reduce child and maternal mortality by at least 66 percent; provide universal primary education; and reverse growth in AIDS/HIV, and other major diseases. These numbers also indicate that no matter how important climate change might be in this century, for the next several decades it would be far more beneficial for human well-being, especially in developing countries, to deal with non-climate change related factors. Not only would either focused adaptation or adherence to the MDGs provide greater benefits at lesser costs through the foreseeable future than would any emission reduction scheme, they would help solve today's urgent problems sooner and more certainly. Equally important, they would also increase the ability to deal with tomorrow's problems, whether they are caused by climate change or other factors. None of these claims can be reasonably made on behalf of any mitigation scheme today. Accordingly, over the next few decades the focus of climate policy should be to: (a) broadly advance sustainable development, particularly in developing countries since that would generally enhance their adaptive capacity to cope with the many urgent problems they currently face, including many that are climate-sensitive, (b) specifically reduce vulnerabilities to climate-sensitive problems that are urgent today and might be exacerbated by future climate change, and (c) implement “no-regret” emission reduction measures, while (d) concurrently striving to expand the universe of no-regret options through research and development to increase the variety and cost-effectiveness of available mitigation options. Ancillary benefits associated with greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions Some GHG emission control options might provide substantial co-benefits by concurrently reducing problems not directly caused by climate change (e.g., air pollution or lack of sustained economic growth, especially in developing countries). However, in both these instances, the same, or greater, level of co-benefits can be obtained more economically by directly attacking the specific (non-climate change related) problems rather than indirectly through greenhouse gas control. On the other hand, a direct assault on the numerous climate-sensitive hurdles to sustainable development (e.g., hunger, malaria, and many natural disasters) would, as indicated, provide greater benefits more cost-effectively than would efforts to mitigate climate change.

PurposeThis study aims to examine the determinants of corporate green investments (GI) by using a series of both firm- and country-level factors.Design/methodology/approachThe authors collect information on environmental expenditures of 763 firms from 40 countries and use random effects regressions to identify the determinants of GI.FindingsThe authors find that larger firms tend to invest more in green projects, whereas firms that are highly valued or more profitable are less likely to go green. In terms of country-level determinants, we find that the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita and population are positively related with GI, while GDP growth and surface area are negatively associated with GI. Additionally, firms in common-law countries and English-speaking countries make fewer GI than firms in other countries.Social implicationsThe findings of this research not only contribute to the academic literature in these areas, but also have important implications for both regulators and policymakers in countries that exhibit sub-par GI or who otherwise aim to increase GI by firms operating in their country.Originality/valueThe authors identify and explore the key determinants of GI from both a firm- and country-level perspective.

<p>The purpose of this paper is the presentation of the results compiled from self weighing of household food waste and self filling of waste collection diaries that took place in Greece. A diary was compiled and given to 101 urban households in various areas of the country. The participants were asked to weigh and write down in the diary every food item wasted in their households for two full weeks (i.e., 14 days). The total per capita food waste generation in Greece is estimated to be 76.1 (±68.3) kg/inh.y. This figure is divided into the avoided food waste fraction which equals to 25.9 (±34.9) kg/inh.y, and the unavoidable fraction which is estimated to be 50.2 (±47.1) kg/inh.y. The use of diaries for recording food that is thrown away from households is a methodology that underestimates the food wasted in households because households tend to be cautious when they know that they have to weigh and report the amount of food that they throw away. The current research is the first of its kind, presenting actual field data for food waste generation by households in Greece.</p>

Urban environments tend to lack the capacity to absorb water from precipitation. This is due to vegetated surfaces being replaced by impermeable ones, such as concrete, bitumen or similar. As a result problems can occur, where a period of heavy rainfall coincides with sudden increases in surface water runoff. This in turn can lead to a city’s sewerage system becoming overloaded. Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems (SUDS), are recognized worldwide as a successful manner by which to mitigate this phenomenon. One of the principal components of SUDS are permeable areas in an urban setting, which have the ability to absorb and retain rainfall that would otherwise flow as surface runoff. To date there has been little research into what the effect of a massive increase in green roofs would have for cities in Ecuador. As a developing country, it is not uncommon for cities’ sewerage systems to suffer collapse when faced with sudden rainfall peak loads. It is suggested in this paper, that instead of looking to implement costly sewerage expansion programs, it would be more cost effective to implement city scale green roof systems. The paper sets out to quantify the theoretical effect of such an initiative.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the possibilities and the growth prospects of medical tourism in Greece, while particularly focusing on the dialysis process. Patients with end-stage renal failure have the right to any treatment deemed necessary during their journey to another city or country away from the place where their treatment normally takes place. Design/methodology/approach The survey has been conducted among 193 kidney disease patients that underwent extra-renal dialysis in two public and three private artificial kidney units in Thessaloniki. The study population consists of patients with end-stage chronic renal failure (CRF) that undergo dialysis. For the purpose of this study, quantitative research was carried out via a structured and anonymous questionnaire. The design and structure of the study were based upon questionnaires from two relevant questionnaires. The questionnaires were modified appropriately to respond to the subject in question. Finally, for the analysis of the data, the SPSS software has been used. Findings One of the most obvious results is that patients on dialysis treatment have limited both the frequency and the duration of their vacation. The 8.3% of patients that did not use to travel increased to 37.8%, whereas only 22.3% continue to travel 2–4 times a year. Patients that keep on going on vacation frequently claim that a break from the daily routine improves their quality of life. Most of the participants (up to 36.3%) claim they feel healthier, while 34.2% stated they experience a normal life when they escape their everyday life and travel far from home. The 69.9% claim that Greece has the potentials to be a popular medical tourism destination. However, a well-structured and government-financed assistance programme is absent. The processing of data has revealed a positive correlation between age and tourism behaviour. Additionally, according to the research results, younger patients tend to be better informed regarding medical tourism in comparison with older ones. Social implications Considering the patients to be potential travellers facilitates the development, realization and promotion of medical tourism. Originality/value This study attempts to investigate, for the first time, the tourism behaviour of chronic kidney disease patients. The study highlights a sensitive issue, patients’ right to treatment without geographical or distance-related obstacles.

ABSTRACT We explore a hypothetical zero-latency earthquake early warning (EEW) system in Greece, aiming to provide alerts before warning thresholds of the intensity of ground motion are exceeded. Within the seismotectonic context of Greece, both shallow- and intermediate-depth earthquakes (along the Hellenic subduction zone) are plausible and, thus, examined. Using regionally applicable attenuation relations, we combine and adjust the methodologies of Minson et al. (2018) and Hoshiba (2020) to examine what are the minimum magnitudes required to invoke the warning thresholds at the user site. With simple modeling, we examine how fast an alert can be issued and what is the available warning time when taking into account delays due to finite-fault rupture propagation, alongside other delays. These computations are merged with delays introduced due to the present-day configuration of the Greek national monitoring network (varying spatial density of permanent monitoring stations). This approach serves as a tool to assess the feasibility of an EEW system at specific sites and to redesign the national permanent monitoring network to serve such a system more effectively (we provide results for four sites.). Warning times for on-land crustal earthquakes are found to be shorter, whereas for intermediate-depth earthquakes in Greece an EEW system is feasible (provides warning times of several tens of seconds at large cities, e.g., on Crete Island) even with the current configuration of the national monitoring network, which is quite sparse in the southern part of the country. The current network configuration also provides sufficient early warning (e.g., of the order of 10 s for a warning threshold of 0.05g) at the center of Athens from earthquakes of the eastern Gulf of Corinth—a zone posing elevated hazard in the broader area of the Greek capital. Several additional assumptions and factors affecting the operability of an EEW system in Greece (i.e., source process complexity and uncertainty in attenuation laws) are also discussed.

Abstract Wearable devices enable theoretically continuous, longitudinal monitoring of physiological measurements such as step count, energy expenditure, and heart rate. Although the classification of abnormal cardiac rhythms such as atrial fibrillation from wearable devices has great potential, commercial algorithms remain proprietary and tend to focus on heart rate variability derived from green spectrum LED sensors placed on the wrist, where noise remains an unsolved problem. Here we develop DeepBeat, a multitask deep learning method to jointly assess signal quality and arrhythmia event detection in wearable photoplethysmography devices for real-time detection of atrial fibrillation. The model is trained on approximately one million simulated unlabeled physiological signals and fine-tuned on a curated dataset of over 500 K labeled signals from over 100 individuals from 3 different wearable devices. We demonstrate that, in comparison with a single-task model, our architecture using unsupervised transfer learning through convolutional denoising autoencoders dramatically improves the performance of atrial fibrillation detection from a F1 score of 0.54 to 0.96. We also include in our evaluation a prospectively derived replication cohort of ambulatory participants where the algorithm performed with high sensitivity (0.98), specificity (0.99), and F1 score (0.93). We show that two-stage training can help address the unbalanced data problem common to biomedical applications, where large-scale well-annotated datasets are hard to generate due to the expense of manual annotation, data acquisition, and participant privacy.

AbstractAmong safety countermeasures for roads, service and rest areas play a vital role, providing a place to stop or rest during a journey and offering services such as petrol stations. Due to their importance, they must be logically distributed along routes at convenient locations with respect to travel itineraries and must be conveniently equipped. These needs become even more apparent on motorways that charge a toll to use the road, because drivers tend avoid leaving the motorway until they have reached their planned destination or departure point. The objective of this paper is to explore the spatial distribution of the service and rest areas on the toll motorways (or freeways) in the European Union (EU) and their facilities. Additionally, the distance and facility specifications established by the regulations of each country were compared. The EU was selected for this evaluation because of the virtual inexistency of borders and the substantial international traffic volumes that result from this relatively free flow of traffic between countries. Countries with a toll road network over 100 km were included: Italy, Portugal, France, Spain, Poland, Greece, and the Slovak Republic. Analysis of average and maximum distances between areas and the facilities provided showed a great variability due to different distribution policies. Few regulations exist that establish maximum distances between areas. Standardization of the spatial distribution of these facilities, on both free and tolled roadways, in the EU would benefit drivers, especially on long journeys, creating a consistent and predictable network of areas and services.

Development on soft ground area cannot be avoided at certain area especially nearby coastal or marine area. At urban areas, most of the land has been fully developed and very limited space available, therefore area nearby marine region has to be explored to cater increasing in population in certain country. It is very crucial to stabilize the soft ground before any construction carried out to ensure the structure would be founded on the stable foundation system. Foundation system commonly established for deep soft ground is a pile foundation. There are certain cases whereby pile foundation system failed after completion of structure and the building has been accommodated or been utilized. It causes large settlement which contributes to the failure of structure such as longitudinal crack, sinkholes, beam fractured and so forth. Rectification works have to be done to restore foundation strength thus to prevent further settlement which can cause collapse or major failure of structure. Rectification works that commonly being done nowadays is underpinning pile whereby new pile being installed in between the existing pile to stabilize the foundation and prevent further settlement. This method rather wearisome to be carried out since it involves major excavation and disturbs the existing structure and the surrounding. Therefore it is proposed to carry out Palm Kernel Oil Based Polyurethane (PKO-P) Pile injection to overcome this problem. PKO-P pile injection is a lightweight material to prevent further settlement and the rectification works can be done very fast. No excavation is required and only a small diameter of hole is drilled on the existing slab foundation before injection of PKO-P Pile. PKO-P is a polyurethane processed from palm kernel oil which is renown of the sustainability and green materials. In this research, Unconfined Compression Test been have conducted on few samples of PKO-P materials with different ratio of polyol and isocynate to determine the compressive strength characteristics for PKO-P materials as such to evaluate the performance of the PKO-P for ground improvement. From the test that has been done, the compressive strength achieves its maximum strength at isocynate to polyol ratio of 1:0.75 with maximum compressive strength of 2.3MPa. PKO-P shows rigid characteristics at this maximum strength which produce strong material, able to resist deformation but brittles beyond the maximum stress. With further increasing amount of polyol, PKO-P shows flexible characteristics whereby it undergoes deformation but they tend not to break beyond the maximum stress. Higher elastic modulus recorded for rigid type PKO-P compare to flexible type PKO-P.

When the National Trust was established in 1895 its founders, Canon Rawnsley, Sir Robert Hunter and Octavia Hill, were, as Cannadine notes, “primarily concerned with preserving open spaces of outstanding natural beauty which were threatened with development or spoliation.” This was because, like Ruskin, Morris and “many of their contemporaries, they believed that the essence of Englishness was to be found in the fields and hedgerows, not in the suburbs and slums” (Cannadine 227). It was important to protect these sites of beauty and historical interest from development not only for what they were but for what they purportedly represented—an irreplaceable repository of the nation’s “spiritual values”, and thus a vital antidote to the “base materialism” of the day. G.M. Trevelyan, who I am quoting here, noted in two pieces written on behalf of the Trust in the 1920s and 30s, that the “inexorable rise of bricks and mortar” and the “full development of motor traffic” were laying waste to the English countryside. In the face of this assault on England’s heartland, the National Trust provided “an ark of refuge” safeguarding the nation’s cherished physical heritage and preserving its human cargo from the rising waters of materialism and despair (qtd. in Cannadine 231-2).Despite the extension of the road network and increasing private ownership of cars (up from 200,000 registrations in 1918 to “well over one million” in 1930), physical distance and economic hardship denied the majority of the urban population access to the countryside (Taylor 217). For the urban working classes recently or distantly displaced from the land, the dream of a return to rural roots was never more than a fantasy. Ford Madox Ford observed that “the poor and working classes of the towns never really go back” (Ford 58).Through the later nineteenth century the rural nostalgia once most prevalent among the working classes was increasingly noted as a feature of middle class sensibility. Better educated, with more leisure time and money at their disposal, these sentimental ruralists furnished a ready market for a new consumer phenomenon—the commodification of the English countryside and the packaging of the values it notionally embodied. As Valentine Cunningham observes, this was not always an edifying spectacle. By the late 1920s, “the terrible sounds of ‘Ye Olde England’ can already be heard, just off-stage, knocking together its thatched wayside stall where plastic pixies, reproduction beer-mugs, relics of Shakespeare and corn-dollies would soon be on sale” (Cunningham 229). Alongside the standard tourist tat, and the fiction and poetry that romanticised the rural world, a new kind of travel writing emerged around the turn of the century. Through an analysis of early-twentieth century notions of Englishness, this paper considers how the north struggled to find a place in H.V. Morton’s In Search of England (1927).In Haunts of Ancient Peace (1901), the Poet Laureate, Alfred Austin, described a journey through “Old England” as a cultural pilgrimage in quest of surviving vestiges of the nation’s essential identity, “or so much of it as is left” (Austin 18). Austin’s was an early example of what had, by the 1920s and 30s become a “boom market … in books about the national character, traditions and antiquities, usually to be found in the country” (Wiener 73). Longmans began its “English Heritage” series in 1929, introduced by the Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, with volumes on “English humour, folk song and dance, the public school, the parish church, [and] wild life”. A year later Batsford launched its series of books on “English Life” with volumes featuring “the countryside, Old English household life, inns, villages, and cottages” (Wiener 73). There was an outpouring of books with an overtly conservationist agenda celebrating journeys through or periods of residence in the countryside, many of them written by “soldiers like Henry Williamson and Edmund Blunden, who returned from the First War determined to preserve the rural England they’d known” (Cunningham 229; Blunden, Face, England; Roberts, Pilgrim, Gone ; Williamson). In turn, these books engendered an efflorescence of critical analyses of the construction of England (Hamilton; Haddow; Keith; Cavaliero; Gervais; Giles and Middleton; Westall and Gardiner).By the 1920s it was clear that a great many people thought they knew what England was, where it might be found, and if threatened, which parts of it needed to be rescued in order to safeguard the survival of its essential identity. By the same point, there were large numbers who felt, in Patrick Wright’s words, that “Some areas of the nation had been lost forever and in these no one should expect to find the traditional nation at all” (Wright 87).A key guide to the nation’s sacred sites in this period, an inventory of their relics, and an illustration of how its lost regions might be rescued for or erased from its cultural map, was provided in H.V. Morton’s In Search of England (1927). Initially published as a series of articles in the Daily Express in 1926, In Search of England went through nine editions in the two and a half years after its appearance in book form in 1927. With sales in excess of a million copies, as John Brannigan notes, the book went through a further twenty editions by 1943, and has remained continuously in print since (Brannigan).In his introduction Morton proposes In Search of England is simply “the record of a motor-car journey round England … written without deliberation by the roadside, on farmyard walls, in cathedrals, in little churchyards, on the washstands of country inns, and in many another inconvenient place” (Morton vii). As C.R. Perry notes, “This is a happy image, but also a misleading one” (Perry 434) for there was nothing arbitrary about Morton’s progress. Even a cursory glance at the map of his journey confirms, the England that Morton went in search of was overwhelmingly rural or coastal, and embodied in the historic villages and ancient towns of the Midlands or South.Morton’s biographer, Michael Bartholomew suggests that the “nodal points” of Morton’s journey are the “cathedral cities” (Bartholomew 105).Despite claims to the contrary, his book was written with deliberation and according to a specific cultural objective. Morton’s purpose was not to discover his homeland but to confirm a vision that he and millions of others cherished. He was not in search of England so much as reassuring himself and his readers that in spite of the depredations of the factory and the motor vehicle, it was still out there. These aims determined Morton’s journey; how long he spent in differing parts, what he recorded, and how he presented landscapes, buildings, people and material culture.Morton’s determination to celebrate England as rural and ancient needed to negotiate the journey north into an industrial landscape better known for its manufacturing cities, mining and mill towns, and the densely packed streets of the poor and working classes. Unable to either avoid or ignore this north, Morton needed to settle upon a strategy of passing through it without disturbing his vision of the rural idyll. Narratively, Morton’s touring through the south and west of the country is conducted at a gentle pace. In my 1930 edition of the text, it takes 185 of the book’s 280 pages to bring him from London via the South Coast, Cornwall, the Cotswolds and the Welsh marches, to Chester. The instant Morton crosses the Lancashire border, his bull-nosed Morris accelerates through the extensive northern counties in a mere thirty pages: Warrington to Carlisle (with a side trip to Gretna Green), Carlisle to Durham, and Durham to Lincoln. The final sixty-five pages return to the more leisurely pace of the south and west through Norfolk and the East Midlands, before the journey is completed in an unnamed village somewhere between Stratford upon Avon and Warwick. Morton spends 89 per cent of the text in the South and Midlands (66 per cent and 23 per cent respectively) with only 11 per cent given over to his time in the north.If, as Genette has pointed out, narrative deceleration results in the descriptive pause, it is no coincidence that this is the recurring set piece of Morton’s treatment of the south and west as opposed to the north. His explorations take dwelling moments on river banks and hill tops, in cathedral closes and castle ruins to honour the genius loci and imagine earlier times. On Plymouth Hoe he sees, in his mind’s eye, Sir Walter Raleigh’s fleet set sail to take on the Armada; at Tintagel it is Arthur, wild and Celtic, scaling the cliffs, spear in hand; at Buckler’s Hard amid the rotting slipways he imagines the “stout oak-built ships which helped to found the British Empire”, setting out on their journeys of conquest (Morton 39). At the other extreme, Genette observes, that narrative acceleration produces ellipsis, where details are omitted in order to render a more compact and striking expression. It is the principle of ellipsis, of selective omission, which compresses the geography of Morton’s journey through the north with the effect of shaping reader experiences. Morton hurries past the north’s industrial areas—shuddering at the sight of smoke or chimneys and averting his gaze from factory and slum.As he crosses the border from Cheshire into Lancashire, Morton reflects that “the traveller enters Industrial England”—not that you would know it from his account (Morton 185). Heading north towards the Lake District, he steers a determined path between “red smoke stacks” rising on one side and an “ominous grey haze” on the other, holding to a narrow corridor of rural land where, to his relief, he observes men “raking hay in a field within gunshot of factory chimneys” (Morton 185-6). These redolent, though isolated, farmhands are of greater cultural moment than the citadels of industry towering on either side of them. While the chimneys might symbolise the nation’s economic potency, the farmhands embody the survival of its essential cultural and moral qualities. In an allusion to the Israelites’ passage through the Red Sea from the Book of Exodus, the land that the workers tend holds back the polluted tide of industry, furnishing relief from the factory and the slum, granting Morton safe passage through the perils of modernity and into the Promised Land–or at least the Lake District. In Morton’s view this green belt is not only more essentially English than trade and industry, it is also expresses a nobler and more authentic Englishness.The “great industrial new-rich cities of northern England—vast and mighty as they are,” Morton observes, “fall into perspective as mere black specks against the mighty background of history and the great green expanse of fine country which is the real North of England” (Morton 208). Thus, the rural land between Manchester and Liverpool expands into a sea of green as the great cities shrink on the horizon, and the north is returned to its origins.What Morton cannot speed past or ignore, what he is compelled or chooses to confront, he transforms, through the agency of history, into something that he and England can bear to own. Tempted into Wigan by its reputation as a comic nowhere-land, a place whose name conjured a thousand music hall gags, Morton confesses that he had expected to find there another kind of cliché, “the apex of the world’s pyramid of gloom … dreary streets and stagnant canals and white-faced Wigonians dragging their weary steps along dull streets haunted by the horror of the place in which they are condemned to live” (Morton 187).In the process of naming what he dreads, Morton does not describe Wigan: he exorcises his deepest fears about what it might hold and offers an incantation intended to hold them at bay. He “discovers” Wigan is not the industrial slum but “a place which still bears all the signs of an old-fashioned country town” (Morton 188). Morton makes no effort to describe Wigan as it is, any more than he describes the north as a whole: he simply overlays them with a vision of them as they should be—he invents the Wigan and the north that he and England need.Having surveyed parks and gardens, historical monuments and the half-timbered mock-Tudor High Street, Morton returns to his car and the road where, with an audible sigh of relief, he finds: “Within five minutes of notorious Wigan we were in the depth of the country,” and that “on either side were fields in which men were making hay” (Morton 189).In little more than three pages he passes from one set of haymakers, south of town, to another on its north. The green world has all but smoothed over the industrial eyesore, and the reader, carefully chaperoned by Morton, can pass on to the Lake District having barely glimpsed the realities of industry and urbanism, reassured that if this is the worst that the north has to show then the rural heartland and the essential identity it sustains are safe. Paradoxically, instead of invalidating his account, Morton’s self-evident exclusions and omissions seem only to have fuelled its popularity.For readers of the Daily Express in the months leading up to and immediately after the General Strike of 1926, the myth of England that Morton proffered, of an unspoilt village where old values and traditional hierarchies still held true, was preferable to the violently polarised urban battlefields that the strike had revealed. As the century progressed and the nation suffered depression, war, and a steady decline in its international standing, as industry, suburban sprawl and the irresistible spread of motorways and traffic blighted the land, Morton’s England offered an imagined refuge, a real England that somehow, magically resisted the march of time.Yet if it was Morton’s triumph to provide England with a vision of its ideal spiritual home, it was his tragedy that this portrait of it hastened the devastation of the cultural survivals he celebrated and sought to preserve: “Even as the sense of idyll and peace was maintained, the forces pulling in another direction had to be acknowledged” (Taylor 74).In his introduction to the 1930 edition of In Search of England Morton approvingly acknowledged that a new enthusiasm for the nation’s history and heritage was abroad and that “never before have so many people been searching for England.” In the next sentence he goes on to laud the “remarkable system of motor-coach services which now penetrates every part of the country [and] has thrown open to ordinary people regions which even after the coming of the railways were remote and inaccessible” (Morton vii).Astonishingly, as the waiting charabancs roared their engines and the village greens of England enjoyed the last hours of their tranquillity, Morton somehow failed to make the obvious connection between these unique cultural and social phenomena or take any measure of their potential consequences. His “motoring pastoral” did more than alert the barbarians to the existence of the nation’s hidden treasures, as David Matless notes it provided them with a route map, itinerary and behavioural guide for their pillages (Matless 64; Peach; Batsford).Yet while cultural preservationists wrung their hands in horror at the advent of the day-tripper slouching towards Barnstaple, for Morton this was never a cause for concern. The nature of his journey and the form of its representation demonstrate that the England he worshipped was more an imaginary than a physical space, an ideal whose precise location no chart could fix and no touring party defile. ReferencesAustin, Alfred. Haunts of Ancient Peace. London: Macmillan, 1902.Bartholomew, Michael. In Search of H.V. Morton. London: Methuen, 2004.Batsford, Harry. How to See the Country. London: B.T. Batsford, 1940.Blunden, Edmund. The Face of England: In a Series of Occasional Sketches. London: Longmans, 1932.———. English Villages. London: Collins, 1942.Brannigan, John. “‘England Am I …’ Eugenics, Devolution and Virginia Woolf’s Between the Acts.” The Palgrave Macmillan Literature of an Independent England: Revisions of England, Englishness and English Literature. Eds. Claire Westall and Michael Gardiner. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.Cannadine, David. In Churchill’s Shadow: Confronting the Past in Modern Britain. London: Penguin, 2002.Cavaliero, Glen. The Rural Tradition in the English Novel 1900-1939. Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1977.Cunningham, Valentine. British Writers of the Thirties. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.Ford, Ford Madox. The Heart of the Country: A Survey of a Modern Land. London: Alston Rivers, 1906.Gervais, David. Literary Englands. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.Giles, J., and T. Middleton, eds. Writing Englishness. London: Routledge, 1995.Haddow, Elizabeth. “The Novel of English Country Life, 1900-1930.” Dissertation. London: University of London, 1957.Hamilton, Robert. W.H. Hudson: The Vision of Earth. New York: Kennikat Press, 1946.Keith, W.J. Richard Jefferies: A Critical Study. Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1965.Lewis, Roy, and Angus Maude. The English Middle Classes. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1949.Matless, David. Landscape and Englishness. London: Reaktion Books, 1998.Morris, Margaret. The General Strike. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976.Morton, H.V. In Search of England. London: Methuen, 1927.Peach, H. Let Us Tidy Up. Leicester: The Dryad Press, 1930.Perry, C.R. “In Search of H.V. Morton: Travel Writing and Cultural Values in the First Age of British Democracy.” Twentieth Century British History 10.4 (1999): 431-56.Roberts, Cecil. Pilgrim Cottage. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1933.———. Gone Rustic. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1934.Taylor, A.J.P. England 1914-1945. The Oxford History of England XV. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975.Taylor, John. War Photography: Realism in the British Press. London: Routledge, 1991.Wiener, Martin. English Culture and the Decline of the Industrial Spirit, 1850-1980. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.Williamson, Henry. The Village Book. London: Jonathan Cape, 1930.Wright, Patrick. A Journey through Ruins: A Keyhole Portrait of British Postwar Life and Culture. London: Flamingo, 1992.

IntroductionThis paper explores the different meanings that individuals from diverse ethnic backgrounds associate with being authentic. It builds on previous research (Menendez 11) that found quantitative differences in terms of the meanings individuals from Eastern and Western backgrounds tend to associate with being authentic. Using qualitative analysis, it describes in more detail how individuals from these two backgrounds construct their different meanings of authenticity.Authenticity has become an overriding moral principle in contemporary Western societies and has only recently started to be contested (Feldman). From cultural products to individuals’ discourses, authenticity pervades Western culture (Lindholm; Potter; Vannini and Williams). On an individual level, the ideal of authenticity is reflected in the maxim “be true to yourself.” The social value of authenticity has a relatively recent history in the Western world of approximately 200 years (Trilling). It started to develop alongside the notion of individuality during modernity (Taylor, Sources; Trilling). The Romantic movement consolidated its cultural influence (Taylor, Sources). In the 1960s, the Hippy movement revived authenticity as a countercultural discourse, although it has progressively become mainstream through consumer culture and therapeutic discourses (Binkley).Most of the studies in the literature on authenticity as a cultural phenomenon are theoretical, conducted from a philosophical perspective (Ferrara; Guignon; Taylor, Ethics), but few of them are empirical, mostly from sociology (Erickson; Franzese, Thine; Turner, Quest; Vannini, Authenticity). Part of this dearth of empirical research on authenticity is due to the difficulties that researchers encounter in attempting to define what it means to be authentic (Franzese, Authenticity 87). Sociologists study the phenomenological experience of being true to oneself, but are less attentive to the metaphysical notion of being a “true self” (Vannini, Dead 236–37). Trying to preserve this open approach, without judging individuals on how “authentic” they are, is what makes defining authenticity difficult. For this reason, sociologists have defined being authentic in a broad sense as “an individual’s subjective sense that their behaviour, appearance, self, reflects their sense of core being. One’s sense of core being is composed of their values, beliefs, feelings, identities, self-meanings, etc.” (Franzese, Authenticity 87); this is the definition of authenticity that I use here. Besides being scarce, the sociological empirical studies on authenticity have been conducted with individuals from Western backgrounds and, thus, have privileged authenticity as a Western cultural construct. This paper tries to contribute to this field of research by: (1) contributing more empirical investigation and (2) providing cross-cultural comparison between individuals from Eastern and Western backgrounds.The literature on cross-cultural values associates Eastern societies with collective (Hofstede, Hofstede and Mirkov 95–97; 112–17) and material or survival (Inglehart and Welzel 51–57; 61–65) values, while Western societies tend to be linked to the opposite kind of values: individual, post-material or self-expression (WVS). For example, societies that score high in survival values are likely to be African (e.g., Zimbabwe) Middle Eastern (e.g., Morocco and Jordan) or Asian (e.g., Bangladesh) countries, while societies that score high in self-expression values tend to be European (e.g., Sweden) or English speaking (e.g., Australia) countries. Nevertheless, there are some exceptions, the case of Japan, for example, which tends to score high in self-expression values despite being an “Eastern” society (WVS). These differences also tend to be reflected among Eastern minorities living in Western countries (Chua and Rubenfeld). Collective values emphasise harmony in relations and prioritise the needs of the group over the individual; on the other hand, individual values emphasise self-expression. Material or survival values accentuate the satisfaction of “basic” needs, in Abraham Maslow’s terms (21), such as physiological or security needs, and imply practising thrift and delaying immediate gratification; by contrast, post-material or self-expression values stress the satisfaction of “higher” needs, such as freedom of speech, equality, or aesthetic needs.The sociologist Ralph Turner (Real) created a theoretical framework to organize individuals’ discourses around authenticity: the “impulsive” and “institutional” categories. One of Turner’s assumptions is particularly important in understanding the differences between these two categories: individuals tend to consider the self as an objective entity that, despite only existing in their minds, feels “real” to them. This can have consequences for the meanings they ascribe to certain internal subjective states, such as cognitions or emotions, which can be interpreted as indicators of their authentic selves (990–91).The institutional and impulsive categories are two different ways of understanding authenticity that present several differences (991–95). Two among them are most relevant to understand the differences that I discuss in this paper. The first one has to do with the individual’s locus of the self, whether the self is conceptualized as located “outside” or “inside” the individual. Impulsive interpretations of authenticity have an internal sense of authenticity as “being,” while institutional conceptualizations have an external sense of authenticity as “becoming.” For “impulsives,” the authentic self is something that must be searched for. Impulsives look within to discover their “true self,” which is often in opposition to society’s roles and its expectations of the individual. On the other hand, for “institutionals” authentic is achieved through external effort (Turner, Quest 155); it is something that individuals achieve through regular practice, often aligned with society’s roles and their expectations of the individual (Turner, Real 992).The second difference has to do with the management of emotions. For an institutional understanding of authenticity, individuals are true to their own authentic selves when they are in full control of their capacities and emotions. By contrast, from an impulsive point of view, individuals are true to themselves when they are spontaneous, accepting and freely expressing their emotions, often by breaking the internal or external controls that society imposes on them (Turner, Real 993).Although individuals can experience both types of authenticity, previous research on this topic (Menendez) has shown that institutional experiences tend to happen more frequently among Easterners, and impulsive experiences tend to occur more frequently among Westerners. In this paper, I show how Easterners and Westerners construct institutional and impulsive meanings of authenticity respectively; what kind of authenticity work individuals from these two backgrounds do when they conceptualize their authentic selves; how they interpret internal subjective states as expressions of who they are; and what stories they tell themselves about who they are.I suggest that these stories, although they may look purely individual, can also be social. Individuals from Western backgrounds tend to interpret impulsive experiences of authenticity as expressing their authentic selves, as they are informed by the individual and post-material values of Western societies. In contrast, individuals from Eastern backgrounds tend to interpret institutional experiences of authenticity as expressing their authentic selves, as they have been socialized in the more collective and material values of Eastern societies.Finally, and before I proceed to the analysis, I would like to acknowledge a limitation of this study. The dichotomies that I use to explain my argument, such as the Western and Eastern or the impulsive and institutional categories, can constitute a limitation for this paper because they cannot reflect nuances. They can be easily contested. For example, the division between Eastern and Western societies is often seen as ideological and Turner’s distinction between institutional and impulsive experiences of authenticity can create artificial separations between the notions of self and society or reason and passion (Solomon 173). However, these concepts have not been used for ideological or simplifying purposes, but to help explain distinguishable cultural orientations towards authenticity in the data.MethodologyI completed 20 interviews (from 50 minutes to 2 hours in length) with 20 students at La Trobe University (Australia), between September 2012 and April 2013. The 20 interviewees (9 females and 11 males), ranged from 18 to 58 years old (the median age was 24 years old). The sample was theoretically designed to cover as many diverse cultural backgrounds as possible. I asked the interviewees questions about: moments they had experienced that felt either authentic and inauthentic, what constitutes a life worth-living, and the impact their cultural backgrounds might have had on their conceptions of their true selves.The 20 interviewees were born in 13 different countries. According to the extensive dataset on cultural values, the World Values Survey (WVS), these 13 countries have different percentages of post-materialists—individuals who choose post-material instead of material values (Inglehart and Welzel 54–56). Table 1 shows the percentages of post-materialists in each of the interviewees’ countries of birth. Table 1: Percentages of post-materialists in the interviewees’ countries of birth Country % of post-materialists WVS Wave United Kingdom 22.8 2005 – 2009 Australia 20.5 2010 – 2014 United States 16.7 2010 – 2014 Israel 11.6 2000 – 2004 Finland 11.3 2005 – 2009 Greece (Turkey) 10.7 2010 – 2014 South Africa 7.7 2005 – 2009 Malaysia 5.6 2010 – 2014 Ghana 4.2 2010 – 2014 India 4 2005 – 2009 China 2.5 2010 – 2014 Egypt 1.1 2010 – 2014 Note: These data are based on the 4-item post-materialism index question (Y002) of World Values Survey (WVS). I use three different waves of data (2000–2004, 2005–2009, and 2010–2014). Greece did not have any data in World Values Survey, so its data have been estimated considering the results from Turkey, which is the most similar country in geographical and cultural terms that had data available.In my model, I consider “Western” societies as those that have more than 10% post-materialists, while “Eastern” societies have less than 10% post-materialists. As shown in Table 1 and mentioned earlier, Western countries (English speaking or European) tend to have higher percentages of post-materialists than Eastern societies (African, Asian and Middle Eastern).Thus, as Table 2 shows, the interviewees who were born in a Western society are ascribed to one group, while individuals born in an Eastern society are ascribed to another group. Although many overseas-born interviewees have lived in Australia for periods that range from 6 months to 10 years, they were ascribed to the “East” and “West” groups solely based on their country of birth. Even though these individuals may have had experiences of socialization in Australia, I assume that they have been primarily socialized in the values of their ethnic backgrounds and the countries where they were born, via their parents’ educational values or through direct experience, during the time that they lived in their countries of birth. According to my definition of authenticity, individuals’ values inform their understanding of authenticity, therefore, the values from their ethnic backgrounds can also influence their understanding of authenticity.In the first phase of the analysis, I used Grounded Theory (Charmaz), with categories directly emerging from the data, to analyse my interviewees’ stories. In the second stage, I reviewed these categories in combination with Turner’s categories of impulsive and institutional, applying them to classify the stories.Table 2: Distribution of participants between “East” and “West” West (n=11) East (n=9) Australia (n=5) China (n=2) United Kingdom (n=2) India (n=2) United States (n=1) South Korea (n=1) Greece (n=1) South Africa (n=1) Finland (n=1) Egypt (n=1) Israel (n=1) Ghana (n=1) Malaysia (n=1) ResultsAlthough I interviewed 20 participants, due to space-constraints, I illustrate my argument with only 4 interview extracts from 4 of the interviewees: 2 interviewees from Western backgrounds and 2 from Eastern backgrounds. However, these stories are representative of the trends found for the whole sample. I show how Easterners and Westerners construct their authentic selves in institutional and impulsive senses respectively through the two key characteristics that I presented in the introduction: locus of the self and management of emotions.In the first instance, Rachel (from Australia, 24 years old), a Western respondent, shows an impulsive locus of the self as “being.” Authenticity is discovered through self-acceptance of an uncomfortable emotion, like a “bad mood:”I think the times when I want to say, ‘oh, I wasn’t myself’, I usually was. My bad moods are more ‘me’. My bad moods are almost always the ‘real me’. [So you consider that your authentic self is something that is there, inside you, that you have to discover, or it is something outside yourself, that you can achieve?] I think it is something that you have to discover for yourself. I think it is different for everyone. [But would you say that it is something that is there already or it is something that you become?] No, I think it is something that is there already.On the other hand, Rani (from China, 24 years old), an Eastern respondent, interprets authenticity as “becoming;” authenticity does not pre-exist—as in the case of Rachel—but is something “external” to her idea of self. Rani becomes herself by convincing herself that she conforms to society’s ideals of physical beauty. Unlike the process of self-acceptance that Rachel described, Rani develops authentic selfhood by “lying” to herself or, as she says, “through some lies”:I have heard this sentence, like ‘you have to be yourself to others’, but I think it is really hard to do this. I think people still need some ‘acting’ things in their life. You need to act, not to say to act as another person, but sometimes like let’s say to be polite or make other people like you, you need acting. And sometimes if you are doing the ‘acting things’ a lot, you are going to believe this is true (she laughs). [Like others will believe that you are something that you are not?] I think at the beginning, maybe that’s not, but… because some people wake up every morning and say to the mirror, ‘you are very beautiful, you are the most beautiful girl in the world’, then, you will be happy and you will actually become beautiful. I think it is not like lie to yourself, but it is just being confident. Maybe at the beginning you are not going to believe that you are beautiful… like, what is this sentence? ‘Being true to yourself’, but actually doing this everyday, then that’s true, you will become, you will be confident. [So that means you can be yourself also through…] Through some lies. [So you don’t think that there is something inside you that you have to kind of discover?] No.Eastern and Western respondents also tend to interpret emotions differently. Westerners are more likely to interpret them in more impulsive terms than Easterners, who interpret them in a more institutional light. As we can see in the following extract, Sean, a Western respondent (born in Australia, but raised in England, 41 years old), feels inauthentic because he could not express his dislike of a co-worker he did not get along with:In a six months job I had before I came to Australia, I was an occupational therapist in a community. There was a girl in the administration department who was so rude. I wanted to say: ‘look darling you are so rude. It is really unpleasant talking to you. Can you just be nice? It would be just so much better and you will get more done and you will get more from me’. That’s what I should have said, but I didn’t say it. I didn’t, why? Maybe it is that sort of culture of not saying things or maybe it is me not being assertive enough. I don’t think I was being myself. Because my real self wanted to say: ‘look darling, you are not helping matters by being a complete bitch’. But I didn’t say that. I wasn’t assertive enough.In a similar type of incident, Ben, an Eastern respondent (from Ghana, 32 years old), describes an outburst he had with a co-worker who was annoying him. Unlike Sean, Ben expressed his anger to the co-worker, but he does not consider this to be a manifestation of his authentic self. For Ben, to act authentically one must control their emotions and try help others:I don’t know if that is myself or if that is not myself, but sometimes I get angry, I get upset, and I am the open type. I am the type that I can’t keep something in me, so sometimes when you make me annoyed, I just response. There is this time about this woman, in a class, that I was in Ghana. She was an older woman, a respected woman, she kept annoying me and there was one day that I couldn’t take it any longer, so I just burst up and I just… I don’t know what I said, I just… said a lot of bad things to her. The woman, she was shocked. I also felt shocked because I thought I could control myself, so that’s me… I don’t want to hide my feelings, I just want to come out with what I think when you make me annoyed, but those times, when I come out, I don’t like them, because I think it contradicts who I really am, someone who is supposed to help or care. I don’t like that aspect. You know somebody could be bossy, so he or she enjoys shouting everybody. I don’t enjoy that, but sometimes it is something that I cannot even control. Someone pushes me to the limit, and I just can’t keep that anger, and it comes out. I won’t say that is ‘me,’ I wouldn’t say that that is me. I don’t think that is a ‘true me’. [Why?] Because the true me would enjoy that experience the way I enjoy helping people instead.Unlike the two accounts from Rachel and Rani, these two last passages from Sean and Ben describe experiences of inauthenticity, where the authentic self cannot be expressed. What is important in these two passages is not their behaviour, but how they attribute their own emotions to their sense of authentic selfhood. Sean identifies his authentic self with the “impulsive” self who expresses his emotions, while Ben identifies his authentic self with the “institutional” self who is in control of his emotions. Sean feels inauthentic because he could not express his angry feelings to the co-worker, whereas Ben feels inauthentic because he could not control his outburst. Ben still hesitates about which side of himself can be attributed to his authentic self, for example, he says that he is “the open type” or that he does not want to “hide [his] feelings”, but he eventually identifies his authentic self with his institutional self.The choices that Sean and Ben make about the emotions that they attribute to their authentic selves could be motivated by their respective ethnic backgrounds. Like Rachel, Sean identifies his authentic self with a socially unacceptable emotion: anger. Consistent with his Western background, Sean’s sense of authenticity emphasizes the needs of the individual over the group and sees suppression of emotions as repressive. On the other hand, Ben reasons that since he does not enjoy being angry as much as he enjoys helping others, expressing anger is not a manifestation of authenticity. His authentic self is linked to his institutional self. Ben’s values are infused with altruism, which reflects the collective values that tend to be associated with his Eastern background. For him, suppression of emotions might not mean repression, but can foster authenticity instead.DiscussionBoth ways of interpreting authenticity, impulsive and institutional, look for self-consistency and the need to tell a coherent story to ourselves about who we are. The results section of this paper showed how Easterners and Westerners conceptualize authenticity. Easterners understand authenticity differently to Western discourses of the authentic. These alternative understandings offer viable solutions to the self-consistency problem. They present external, rather than internal, ways of conceiving the authentic self, and regulative, rather than expressive, approaches to emotions. As I mentioned earlier, Eastern societies are associated with collective and material values, while Western ones are related to individual and post-material values. These divisions in terms of values are reflected in individuals’ self-constructs. Individuals in Western societies tend to have a more independent idea of the self, whereas individuals in Eastern societies are more likely to have an interdependent one (Kitayama). An interdependent idea of the self values connectedness and conceptualizes the self in relation to others, so it can generate an institutional approach to authenticity, where the idea of the authentic self is not something that individuals search for inside themselves, but something that individuals become through their participation in social roles. This was evident in the example of Rani, whose idea of being authentic as “becoming” seemed to be an extension of her more interdependent self-construct and the need to fit in society.A regulative approach to emotions has also been associated with Easterners (Cheung and Park), on the basis of their collective values and interdependent self-constructs. For individuals from a Western background, with a more independent sense of self, as in the case of Sean, suppressing emotions tends to be seen negatively as being inauthentic, a form of repression. However, for individuals with interdependent self-constructs, this can be not only less harmful (feeling less inauthentic), but can even be beneficial because they tend to prioritize the needs of others (Le and Impett). This is evident in the example of Ben, for whom suppressing aanger does not make him feel inauthentic because he identifies his authentic self with the self that is in control of his emotions and helps others. This understanding of authenticity is aligned with the collective values of his ethnic background.In sum, ideas of authenticity seem to vary culturally according to the repertoires and values systems that inform them. Thus, even what we think might be our most intimate or individual experiences, like our experiences of authenticity and ideas of who we are, can also be socially constructed. This paper has tried to demonstrate the importance of sociology for the study of authenticity as a cultural phenomenon.ReferencesBinkley, Sam. Getting Loose: Lifestyle Consumption in the 1970s. Durham: Duke UP, 2007.Charmaz, Kathy. Constructing Grounded Theory. London: Sage, 2013.Cheung, Rebecca and Irene Park. “Anger Supression, Interdependent Self-Construal, and Depression among Asian American and European American College Students”. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology 16.4 (2010): 517–25.Chua, Amy, and Jed Rubenfeld. The Triple Package: How Three Unlikely Traits Explain the Rise and Fall of Cultural Groups in America. New York: The Penguin P, 2014.Erickson, Rebecca J. When Emotion Is the Product: Self, Society, and (In)Authenticity in a Postmodern World. Ph.D. Thesis, Washington: Whasington State U, 1991.Feldman, Simon. Against Authenticity: Why You Shouldn't Be Yourself. Kentucky: Lexington Books, 2014.Ferrara, Alessandro. Reflective Authenticity Rethinking the Project of Modernity. London: Routledge, 2002.Franzese, Alexis D. To Thine Own Self Be True? An Exploration of Authenticity. Ph.D. Thesis, Durham: Duke University, 2007.———. “Authenticity: Perspectives and Experiences.” Authenticity in Culture, Self, and Society. Eds. Phillip Vannini and J. Patrick Williams. Farnham: Ashgate, 2009. 87–101.Guignon, Charles B. On Being Authentic. London: Routledge, 2004.Hofstede, Geert, and Michael Minkov. Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind. USA: McGraw Hill, 2010.Inglehart, Ronald, and Christian Welzel. Modernization, Cultural Change and Democracy: The Human Development Sequence. New York: Cambridge UP, 2005.Kitayama, Shinobu, and Hazel R. Markus. “Culture and the Self: Implications for Cognition, Emotion, and Motivation.” Psychological Review 98.2 (1991): 224–53.Le, Bonnie M., and Emily A. Impett. “When Holding Back Helps: Supressing Negative Emotions during Sacrifice Feels Authentic and Is Beneficial for Highly Interdependent People”. Pscyhological Science 24.9 (2013): 1809–15.Lindholm, Charles. Culture and Authenticity. Malden: Blackwell, 2008.Maslow, Abraham H. Toward a Psychology of Being. Princeton: Van Nostrand, 1968.Menendez, Ramon. “The Culture of Authenticity: An Empirical Study of La Trobe University Students from Diverse Cultural Backgrounds.” Proceedings of The Australian Sociological Association (TASA) Conference, 25-28 November. Melbourne: Monash U, 2013.Potter, Andrew. The Authenticity Hoax How We Get Lost Finding Ourselves. Carlton North: Scribe, 2010.Solomon, Robert C. “Notes on Emotion, ‘East and West.’” Philosophy East and West 45.2 (1995): 171–202.Taylor, Charles. Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1989.———. The Ethics of Authenticity. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1991.Trilling, Lionel. Sincerity and Authenticity. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1972.Turner, Ralph. “Is There a Quest for Identity?” The Sociological Quarterly 16.2 (1975): 148–61.———. “The Real Self: From Institution to Impulse.” The American Journal of Sociology 81.5 (1976): 989–1016.Vannini, Phillip. Authenticity and Power in the Academic Profession. Ph.D. Thesis, Whasington: Whashington State U, 2004.———. “Dead Poet’s Society: Teaching, Publish-or-Perish, and Professors’ Experiences of Authenticity.” Symbolic Interaction 29.2 (2006): 235–57.———, and J. Patrick Williams. Authenticity in Culture, Self, and Society. Farnham: Ashgate, 2009.WVS. World Values Survey. World Values Survey Association. 18 Feb. 2015 ‹http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs.jsp›.

The theme of the 1990s -- for the English-speaking middle-classes in consumer societies -- has been the Internet. The decade started with only a handful of people sensing the potential of online communication, but the following years have been characterised by an exponential growth in awareness as the Internet has established itself as the fastest growing medium in history (Arens 513). Ten years on, and fifty million users later, it's hard to remember that things were ever any different. Nonetheless, some aspects of the initial hesitancy about online are retained in everyday speech. 'Virtual community' is an example of such an anachronism; it harks back to a time of uncertainty. By the time a movement reaches double digits in age -- and the population of a medium-sized country -- it deserves to be taken seriously. For the Internet, and especially for social uses of the Internet, that means it's time to put an end to the virtual community. For those of us interested to read it, there's a wealth of learned opinion about what constitutes 'community'. From the early days, when Baym discussed computer-mediated community in terms of Usenet groups, to her more current work, the theme has been one of comparison: how does online differ from 'real life' (RL)? RL has been established as the standard against which online is measured. When this happened in the 1970s (and for me the 1970s was the decade of second-wave feminism) these 'naming rights' were challenged early on. Who were these people who claimed to have the right to judge -- and how appropriate was the standard they were using? Whose interests are served by judging online against the real? It's clear that the aim is to 'otherise' online, to marginalise it as a site for genuine experience. Let's end the implied discrimination here and now -- from 01/01/2000 (assuming we all survive Y2K), let's work for Online Liberation! Completeness demands that I play the game of comparing online and RL once more, however. As the Internet became 'adopted' (welcomed into some households, smuggled into others), those with a disposable income came to worry about more than Telstra and ISP bills. They began to consider the nature and status of their social contact in the online environment and started to interrogate the quality of the community they found there. There tend to be two big stumbling blocks to recognising online as community. Online participants didn't share geographical space, and they didn't 'really' know each other. As Stone (in Benedickt 82-3) documents, some people on the Internet have been taken in by a middle-aged male psychiatrist who pretended to be a woman. This could be a dreadful problem in RL, but do RL notions of space and identity matter online? More positively, what does online have that RL doesn't? When we turn the focus, and judge RL according to the standards of online -- accepting online at its own value -- we find RL lacking in many desirable features. In RL, for example: Participants are constrained by their age, sex, appearance, class etc; There are geographical limitations; Night tends to be a time for sleep (indeed the concept of night, as such, only pertains to RL); People make negative judgements if you go off in private with someone as soon as they say something interesting. Let's face it, RL's got a lot of drawbacks. Especially for baby boomers who want an acceptable venue to act the age they feel (cusp of thirty). In tandem with RL's drawbacks online offers a number of positive benefits, including: Participants can act the age they feel without looking silly; Ease of access to other people (given access to the technology); The combination of intensity and variety through simultaneous intimate conversations over an extended period of time; and It's a publishing platform for personal opinion (useful if you aren't a Packer or Murdoch). Looking at features which online and RL have in common, we find that the more an individual invests in a community (or any relationship) the more they are likely to benefit from that community. Deposits of social capital work in both locations (but in RL it's harder to draw upon investments at 3.00 am). In both locations people are attracted to others of like mind and interests, and then find their exchanges centre on the exploration of differences. Both settings let us learn about ourselves, but online allows us far more freedom to explore the 'real' person behind the a/s/l (age, sex, location) bounded persona. Online, like RL, has developed its own slang (did that originally mean 'short language'?). On my computer, for example, it's hard to type :), it automatically becomes ;). For the past four months I have been working on a collaborative participant-research project with a group of students whose ages range from 18-43. We have been developing a theory of involvement in online community. The engagement patterns identified now require more investigation with a wider cross-section of Net users and neophytes. It is to be expected that online participation -- as with audience membership -- may reflect 'age and stage' in terms of the nature and intensity of online involvement (notwithstanding the fluidity of a/s/l in cyberspace). Initial impressions from this research with Net users indicates that we judge 'community' according to our level of emotional investment; that online can involve huge emotional investment; and that vulnerability is as relevant to social behaviour online as it is in RL. Keen Netizens also reckon that only academics and people who have never 'lived' online are worried about whether online community 'really exists'. They take it as self-evident that online communities are ... online communities. And as for the concern of many that online seduces teenagers and young adults away from family life (echoes of all those early 'displacement studies' of television viewing in the 1950s), the experience of these participants is that much of family life centres around online. There's full and frank discussion of time spent online -- versus time spent in study -- not to mention phone bills, calls not getting through etc. Nonetheless, it's a pretty tame way to make one's transitional-adult presence felt, compared with a hard drug addiction or a full-face tattoo. And what about the 'dark side' of online -- the porn, the (consensual but wacky) cybersex groups, the MA-rated games, hate sites, gambling and genocide showcases? What about the fifty-something men pretending to be pre-teen girls on the my.chickclick.com chat lines? I rest my case. These are all features of community -- the good, the bad, the ugly and the exploited. Like any self-respecting social system, both RL and online are never manifest in just 'one' community but have members who interact in a number of contexts across a range of interests. Perhaps the fear that RL feels about online (which makes RL keen to label 'online' as 'virtual') centres on the fact that the 'dark side' in online is an illumination of the hidden and the marginalised in RL. We all know what happens with the return of the repressed. (It's larger than life!) The history of media studies shows displacement research, followed by effects research, content and semiotic analysis, the uses and gratifications perspective, and audience and consumption studies ethnography. Episodes of moral panic liberally laced these approaches, driving the research programme and making some funding applications more attractive than others. Online has an open research agenda and huge potential to inform us about ourselves, as well as about the medium and its characteristics. It has already attracted displacement research, and triggered a number of moral panics. Interactivity makes online a far more exciting and challenging venue for research than straightforward consumption studies of mass media. Online communities offer sites of maximum interactivity and social creativeness. They are the natural starting point for the post-Y2K research era. Growing up is learning to judge yourself by your own standards -- and not having to conform to other people's. It tends to start in our second decade and, for the more interesting among us, it never ends. The phrase 'online community' accepts the community within the context of its environment and its communications ecology. Virtual is the name given by others; online is what the community members choose to call themselves. Let's mark the end of the Internet's first decade by paying it the respect it deserves. The virtual is dead! Long live online! The author acknowledges the particular contributions of Russell Carman, Marian Palandri and an anonymous reviewer to this paper. References Arens, W. Contemporary Advertising. 7th ed. US: Irwin/McGraw-Hill, 1999. Baym, N. "The Emergence of Community in Computer-Mediated Communication." CyberSociety: Computer-Mediated Communication and Community. Thousand Oaks, Cal.: Sage, 1995. 138-63. Benedickt, M. Cyberspace: First Steps. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT P, 1991. Citation reference for this article MLA style: Lelia Green. "The End of the Virtual Community." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2.8 (1999). [your date of access] <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9912/virtual.php>. Chicago style: Lelia Green, "The End of the Virtual Community," M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2, no. 8 (1999), <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9912/virtual.php> ([your date of access]). APA style: Lelia Green. (1999) The end of the virtual community. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2(8). <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9912/virtual.php> ([your date of access]).

I can remember setting up the dish, all the excitement of assembling it [...] and then putting the motor on. And in the late afternoon, you position the dish and kind of turn it, to find the right spot, and all of a sudden on this blank television screen there was an image that came on. And it was shocking knowing that this noise and this thing would be there, and begin to infiltrate – because I see it as an infiltration, I see it as invasion – I’m not mad on television, very choosy really about what I watch – and I see it as an invasion, and there was GWN as well as the ABC. I just thought ‘by golly, I’m in the process of brain-washing people to accept stuff without thinking about it, like consciously considering either side of any case’ [...] The one thing that protected you from having it on at all times was the need to put on the generator in order to power it. I felt a bit sad actually. (Savannah Kingston, Female, 55+ – name changed – homestead respondent) This paper addresses the huge communications changes that occurred over the past fifty years in outback Western Australia. (What happened in WA also has parallels with equivalent events in the Northern Territory, Queensland, in the larger properties in western New South Wales and northern South Australia.) Although the ‘coming of television’ – associated in remote areas with using a satellite dish to scan for the incoming signal – is typically associated with a major shift in community and cultural life, the evidence suggests that the advent of the telephone had an equivalent or greater impact in remote areas. With the introduction of the telephone, the homestead family no longer had to tune into (or scan) the radio frequencies to check on predicted weather conditions, to respond to emergencies, to engage in roll call or to hold a ‘public meeting’. As the scanning of the radio frequencies ended, so the scanning of the satellite signals began. As Sandstone resident Grant Coleridge (pseudonym, male, 40-54) said, only half ironically, “We got the telephone and the telly at the same time, so civilisation sort of hit altogether actually.” The scale and importance of changes to the technological communications infrastructure in remote WA within a single life-time spans pre-2-way radio to video livestock auctions by satellite. It comes as a surprise to most Australians that these changes have occurred in the past generation. As recent viewers of the unexpectedly-successful Mongolian film The Story of the Weeping Camel (2004) would know, one of the themes of the Oscar-nominated movie is the coming of television and its impact upon a traditional rural life. The comparative availability of television outside the rural areas of Mongolia – and its attraction to, particularly, the younger family members in the Weeping Camel household – is a motif that is explored throughout the narrative, with an unspoken question about the price to be paid for including television in the cultural mix. It’s easy to construct this story as a fable about the ‘exotic other’, but the same theme was played out comparatively recently in remote Western Australia, where the domestic satellite service AUSSAT first made television an affordable option just under twenty years ago. This paper is about the people in remote Western Australia who started scanning for the satellite signal in 1986, and stopped scanning for the RFDS (Royal Flying Doctor Service) 2-way radio phone messages at about the same time. Savannah Kingston (name changed), who in 1989 generously agreed to an in-depth interview discussing the impact of satellite broadcasting upon her outback life, was a matriarch on a rural property with four grown children. She had clear views upon ways in which life had changed dramatically in the generation before the satellite allowed the scanning of the television signal. Her recollection of the weft and warp of the tapestry of life in outback WA started thirty-five years previously, with her arrival on the station as a young wife: When I went there [mid-1950s], we had a cook and we ate in the dining room. The cook and anyone who worked in the house ate in the kitchen and the men outside ate in the outside. So, with the progress of labour away from the bush, and the cost of labour becoming [prohibitive] for a lot of people, we got down to having governesses or house-girls. If the house-girls were white, they ate at the table with us and the governesses ate with us. If the house-girls were Aboriginal, they didn’t like eating with us, and they preferred to eat in the kitchen. The kids ate with them. Which wasn’t a good idea because two of my children have good manners and two of them have appalling manners. The availability of domestic help supported a culture of hospitality reminiscent of British between-the-wars country house parties, recreated in Agatha Christie novels and historically-based films such as The Remains of the Day (1993): In those early days, we still had lots of visitors [...] People visited a lot and stayed, so that you had people coming to stay for maybe two or three days, five days, a week, two weeks at a time and that required a lot of organisation. [int:] WHERE DID YOUR VISITORS COME FROM? City, or from the Eastern states, occasionally from overseas. [Int:] WOULD THEY BE RELATIVES? Sometimes relatives, friends or someone passing through who’d been, you know, someone would say ‘do visit’ and they’d say ‘they’d love to see you’. But it was lovely, it was good. It’s a way of learning what’s going on. (Savannah Kingston.) The ‘exotic other’ of the fabled hospitality of station life obscures the fact that visitors from the towns, cities and overseas were a major source of news and information in a society where radio broadcasts were unpredictable and there was no post or newspaper delivery. Visitors were supplemented by a busy calendar of social events that tied together a community of settlements in gymkhanas, cricket fixtures and golf tournaments (on a dirt course). Shifts in the communications environment – the introduction of television and telephone – followed a generation of social change witnessing the metamorphosis of the homestead from the hub of a gentrified lifestyle (with servants, governesses, polo and weekends away) to compact, efficient business-units, usually run by a skeleton staff with labour hired in at the peak times of year. Over the years between the 1960s-1980s isolation became a growing problem. Once Indigenous people won the fight for award-rate wages their (essentially) unpaid labour could no longer support the lifestyle of the station owners and the absence of support staff constrained opportunities for socialising off the property, and entertaining on it, and the communication environment became progressively poorer. Life on the homestead was conceived of as being more fragile than that in the city, and more economically vulnerable to a poor harvest or calamities such as wildfire. The differences wrought by the introduction of newer communication technologies were acknowledged by those in the country, but there was a clear resistance to city-dwellers constructing the changes as an attack upon the romance of the outback lifestyle. When the then Communications Minister Tony Staley suggested in 1979 that a satellite could help “dispel the distance – mental as well as geographical – between urban and regional dwellers, between the haves and the have-nots in a communication society”, he was buying into a discourse of rural life which effectively disempowered those who lived in rural and remote areas. He was also ignoring the reality of a situation where the Australian outback was provided with satellite communication a decade after it was made available to Canadians, and where the king-maker in the story – Kerry Packer – stood to reap a financial windfall. There was a mythological dimension to Australia (finally) having a domestic satellite. Cameron Hazelhurst’s article on ‘The Dawn of the Satellite Era in Australia’ includes a colourful account of Kerry Packer’s explanation to Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser of the capacity of domestic satellites to bring television, radio and telephone services to isolated communities in arctic Canada: And I [Packer] went and saw the Prime Minister and I explained to him my understanding of what was happening in those areas, and to his undying credit he grasped on to it immediately and said ‘Of course, it’s what we want. It’s exactly the sort of thing we need to stop the drift of people into urban areas. We can keep them informed. We can allow them to participate in whatever’s happening around the nation (Day 7, cited in Hazelhurst). Fraser here, as someone with experience of running a rural property in Victoria, propounds a pro-country rhetoric as a rationale for deployment of the satellite in terms of the Australian national policy agenda. (The desire of Packer to network his television stations and couple efficiency with reach is not addressed in this mythological reconstruction.) It is difficult, sometimes, to appreciate the level of isolation experienced on outback properties at the time. As Bryan Docker (male, 40-54), a resident of Broome at the time of the interviews, commented, “Telegrams, in those days, were the life-blood of the stations, through the Flying Doctor Service. But at certain times of the year the sun spots would interfere with the microwave links and we were still on morse from Broome to Derby during those periods.” Without reliable shortwave radio; with no television, newspapers or telephone; and with the demands of keeping the RFDS (Royal Flying Doctor Service) 2-way radio channel open for emergencies visitors were one of the ways in which station-dwellers could maintain an awareness of current events. Even at the time of the interviews, after the start of satellite broadcasting, I never travelled to an outback property without taking recent papers and offering to pick up post. (Many of the stations were over an hour’s journey from their nearest post office.) The RFDS 2-way radio service offered a social-lifeline as well as an emergency communication system: [Int:] DO YOU MISS THE ROYAL FLYING DOCTOR SERVICE AT ALL? Yes, I do actually. It’s – I think it’s probably more lonely now because you used to switch it on and – you know if you’re here on your own like I am a lot – and you’d hear voices talking, and you used to know what everybody was doing – sort of all their dramas and all their [...] Now you don’t know anything that’s going on and unless somebody rings you, you don’t have that communication, where before you used to just hop over to another channel and have a chat [...] I think it is lonelier on the telephone because it costs so much to ring up. (Felicity Rohrer, female, 40-54, homestead.) Coupled with the lack of privacy of 2-way radio communication, and the lack of broadcasting, was the particular dynamic of a traditional station family. Schooled at home, and integrated within their homestead lifestyle, station children spent most of their formative years in the company of one or other of their parents (or, in previous decades, the station staff). This all changed at secondary school age when the children of station-owners and managers tended to be sent away to boarding school in the city. Exposure of the next generation to the ways of city life was seen as a necessary background to future business competence, but the transitions from ‘all’ to ‘next-to-nothing’ in terms of children’s integration within family life had a huge socio-emotional cost which was aggravated, until the introduction of the phone service, by the lack of private communication channels. Public Relations and news theory talk about the importance of the ‘environmental scan’ to understand how current events are going to impact upon a business and a family: for many years in outback Australia the environmental scan occurred when families got together (typically in the social and sporting rounds), on the RFDS radio broadcasts and ‘meetings’, in infrequent visits to the closest towns and through the giving and receiving of hospitality. Felicity Rohrer, who commented (above) about how she missed the RFDS had noted earlier in her interview: “It’s made a big difference, telephone. That was the most isolating thing, especially when your children were away at school or your parents are getting older [...] That was the worst thing, not having a phone.” Further, in terms of the economics of running a property, Troy Bowen (male, 25-39, homestead respondent) noted that the phone had made commercial life much easier: I can carry out business on the phone without anyone else hearing [...] On the radio you can’t do it, you more or less have to say ‘well, have you got it – over’. ‘Yeah – over’. ‘Well, I’ll take it – over’. That’s all you can do [...] Say if I was chasing something [...] the cheapest I might get it down to might be [...] $900. Well I can go to the next bloke and I can tell him I got it down to $850. If you can’t do any better than that, you miss out. ‘oh, yes, alright $849, that’s the best I can do.’ So I’ll say ‘alright, I’ll take it’. But how can you do that on the radio and say that your best quote is [$850] when the whole district knows that ‘no, it isn’t’. You can’t very well do it, can you? This dynamic occurs because, for many homestead families prior to the telephone, the RFDS broadcasts were continuously monitored by the women of the station as a way of keeping a finger on the pulse of the community. Even – sometimes, especially – when they were not part of the on-air conversation, the broadcast could be received for as far as reception was possible. The introduction of the phone led to a new level of privacy, particularly appreciated by parents who had children away at school, but also introduced new problems. Fran Coleridge, (female, 40-54, Sandstone) predicted that: The phone will lead to isolation. There’s an old lady down here, she’s about 80, and she housekeeps for her brother and she’s still wearing – her mother died 50 years ago – but she’s still wearing her clothes. She is so encapsulated in her life. And she used to have her [RFDS] transceiver. Any time, Myrtle would know anything that’s going on. Anything. Birthday party at [local station], she’d know about it. She knew everything. Because she used to have the transceiver on all the time. And now there’s hardly any people on, and she’s a poor little old lonely lady that doesn’t hear anything now. Can you see that? Given the nuances of the introduction of the telephone (and the loss of the RFDS 2-way), what was the perceived impact of satellite broadcasting? Savannah Kingston again: Where previously we might have sat around the table and talked about things – at least the kids and I would – with television there is now more of a habit of coming in, showering and changing for dinner, putting on the motor and the men go and sit in front of the television during [...] six o’clock onwards, news programs and whatnot and um, I find myself still in the kitchen, getting the meal and then whoever was going to eat it, wanting to watch whatever was on the television. So it changed quite appreciably. Felicity Rohrer agrees: [Int:] DO YOU THINK THERE HAVE BEEN CHANGES IN THE TIME THAT YOU SPEND WITH EACH OTHER? Yes, I think so. They [the homestead household] come home and they – we all sit down here and look at the news and have a drink before tea whereas people used to be off doing their own tea. [Int] SO YOU THINK IT’S INCREASED THE AMOUNT OF TIME YOU SPEND TOGETHER? Yes, I think so – well, as a family. They all try and be home by 6 to see the [GWN] news. If they miss that, we look at the 7 o’clock [ABC], but they like the Golden West because it’s got country news in it. But the realities of everyday life, as experienced in domestic contexts, are sometimes ignored by commentators and analysts, except insofar as they are raised by interviewees. Thus the advent of the satellite might have made Savannah Kingston feel “a bit sad actually”, but it had its compensations: It was definitely a bit of a peace-maker. It sort of meant there wasn’t the stress that we had previously when going through [...] at least people sitting and watching something, you’re not so likely to get into arguments or [...] It definitely had value there. In fact, when I think about it, that might be one of its major applications, ’cos a lot of men in the bush tend to come in – if they drink to excess they start drinking in the evening, and that can make for very uncomfortable company. For film-makers like the Weeping Camel crew – and for audiences and readers of historical accounts of life in outback Australia – the changes heralded by the end of scanning the RFDS channels, and the start of scanning for satellite channels, may seem like the end of an era. In some ways the rhythms of broadcasting helped to homogenise life in the country with life in the city. For many families in remote homes, as well as the metropolis, the evening news became a cue for the domestic rituals of ‘after work’. A superficial evaluation of communications changes might lead to a consideration of how some areas of life were threatened by improved broadcasting, while others were strengthened, and how some of the uniqueness of a lifestyle had been compromised by an absorption into the communication patterns of urban life. It is unwise for commentators to construct the pre-television past as an uncomplicated romantic prior-time, however. Interviews with those who live such changes as their reality become a more revealing indicator of the nuances and complexities of communications environments than a quick scan from the perspective of the city-dweller. References Day, C. “Packer: The Man and the Message.” The Video Age (February 1983): 7 (cited in Hazelhurst). Hazelhurst, Cameron. “The Dawn of the Satellite Era.” Media Information Australia 58 (November 1990): 9-22. Staley, Tony. Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates. Canberra: House of Representatives Hansard (18 October 1979): 2225, 2228-9. The Remains of the Day. 1993. The Story of the Weeping Camel. Thinkfilm and National Geographic, 2004. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Green, Lelia. "Scanning the Satellite Signal in Remote Western Australia." M/C Journal 8.4 (2005). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0508/01-green.php>. APA Style Green, L. (Aug. 2005) "Scanning the Satellite Signal in Remote Western Australia," M/C Journal, 8(4). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0508/01-green.php>.

Ecology has emerged as one of the most important sites of political struggle today. This issue of M/C invited authors to engage with “ecology” not as a siloised field of scientific enquiry, but rather as a way of contemporary thinking and a conceptual mode that emphasizes connectivity, conviviality, and inter-dependence. Proposing a radical revision of anthropocentrism in When Species Meet, Donna Haraway emphasises the dynamism of ecology as an entangled mesh, observing that, “the world is a knot in motion.” The “infolding” of human bodies with what we call “the environment” has never been clearer than the present moment—a time where humans may have undermined the viability of their own and other organism’s life on Earth. This impending ecological crisis has forced awareness of humanity’s dependence on the nonhuman lives that surround and envelop us. Gregory Bateson reminds us of the gravity of this mutuality with his assertion that the unit of survival is the organism-and-its-environment in a relationship, and that an organism which destroys its environment commits suicide (Bateson). Our unstable ecological future has prompted the emergence of an array of inter-disciplines, and new political, intellectual and cultural alignments including; ecomedia, eco-Marxism, ecological humanities, political ecology and animal studies. These thriving areas of scholarship often attempt to situate, “humans in ecological terms and non-humans in ethical terms,” while highlighting, as Val Plumwood has in her landmark Environmental Culture: The Ecological Crisis of Reason, how, “anthropocentric perspectives and culture […] make us insensitive to our ecological place in the world’ (2). Despite the growing popular concern for the more-than-human world, Western populations are “citizens of science-led modernity, and are still investing in the narratives of progress” (Myerson 61). Climate change and the contemporary ecological crisis have provided an impetus and opportunity for collaborative scholarship and alternative engagements across the science/humanities divide. Deborah Bird Rose and Libby Robin remind us that the driving forces behind crises are primarily social and cultural. It is therefore essential for media and cultural theorists to be part of the ecological conversation as it seeks to develop new knowledge practices in order to “engage with connectivity and commitment in a time of crisis and concern” (Rose and Robin). Since James Lovelock proposed the Gaia hypothesis in 1982, conceptualising the Earth as a self-regulating, evolving system, notions of equilibrium and harmony have pervaded ecological thinking. Gaia is “a powerfully productive scientific metaphor and has considerable value as a way to imagine the planet as at once vulnerable and vast, enduring and evolving” (Garrard 201). Because the study of ecology concerns life and the complex contingencies of all of its relationships, applying ecological thought to contemporary “matters of concern” (Latour) can alert us to the limitations of our knowledge, while simultaneously impelling us to act from our enmeshed position in a precariously balanced world. At the same time, as our Feature for this issue recognises, ecological metaphors can paradoxically damage ecologies. Evidently the theme of ecology has contemporary resonance as we were both excited and overwhelmed with the sheer number (over 20) of papers we received and their theoretical diversity, and we regret that we could not include more than those that follow. Our sincere gratitude goes to our generous referees—all 54 of them. And a special thanks to our colleagues (in Macquarie University’s Department of Media, Music, Communication and Cultural Studies, and Environment and Geography) who we relied upon when reviewers fell through. If we then include the efforts of all our contributors, as well as M/C editors Peta Mitchell and Axel Bruns, this issue is the culmination of the collaborative (and mostly invisible) labour of around 89 people. Thank you. Invisible labour is one focus of Richard Maxwell and Toby Miller’s feature article for this issue, “The Real Future of the Media.” It is both an eco-Marxist critique of the media industries and a call to action for all media, communications and cultural studies scholars to place ecological issues at the core of their work. Far from the “end of materiality” promised by virtual media’s technological utopia, Maxwell and Miller demonstrate the ways in which the media industries and technophiles alike, tend to obscure not only inequitable and dangerous labour conditions but also the media’s negative environmental impacts. With some staggering statistics around ICT/CE planned obsolescence, E-waste, exposure of workers to toxicity, they emphasise that ecological metaphors more often blind us to harsh environmental realities, rather than illuminate them. By focusing on the not-so-green outcomes of contemporary media practice, they remind us that while ecology can be a useful conceptual mode, it is important to avoid divorcing metaphor from materiality, lest we confuse the map with the territory (Alfred Korzybski). In a similar political vein, in “Gentrifying Climate Change: Ecological Modernisation and the Cultural Politics of Definition”, Ben Glasson remains sceptical that our current political and economic system can adequately address the challenges that climate change will bring. Focused on the shortcomings of the discourse of ecological modernisation (EM), Glasson argues that environmentalism, rather than being integrated into capitalism, has been co-opted, through a process of gentrification, without necessarily, any tangible environmental benefits. The next two articles explore filmic portrayals of ecological disaster. Described by one referee as a “breath of fresh air in the field of post-apocalyptic criticism,” Tim Matts’s and Aidan Tynan’s timely piece places Lars von Trier’s recent film Melancholia, in the broader context of humanity’s sense of impending annihilation. Instead of mourning for the loss of Earth, the authors suggest that Melancholia’s central character’s overwhelming melancholy enables a “radical form of ecological openness.” While in “Spectre of the Past, Vision of the Future,” Tamas Molnar celebrates filmmaker Arthus-Bertrand’s Home as a climate change communication text which uses ritual to influence audience’s environmental behaviour. Molnar argues that Home transforms anthropocentric hubris into ecological awareness, as the film’s spectators begin to reconcile the spectral haunting of human-induced environmental devastation with a future vision of personal responsibility and hope for the suffering body of the Earth. Anita Howarth focuses on another suffering body to explore the convergence of two ecologies which combine to form an “ecology of protest” in “A Hunger Strike-the Ecology of a Protest: The Case of Bahraini activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja.” Howarth argues that through an act of corporeal-environmental (self)destruction, the emaciated body of Bahraini hunger striker Abdulhadi al-Khawaja was transformed into a political spectacle by a global media ecology. Howarth explores how the interpenetration between the ecology of the organism-and-its-environment, and the ecology of a global media system, impacts on protest movements and social justice. The erasure of the rabbit’s suffering body becomes Katherine Wright’s focus in “Bunnies, Bilbies, and the Ethic of Ecological Remembrance” where she ponders the more sinister dimensions of substituting the Easter bunny with the Easter bilby. Analysing how stories impact on ecological thinking and attitudes, Wright critiques the problematic native/invasive dichotomy that sees the native bilby valued over the invasive rabbit; slaughtered in vast numbers in Australia. In place of this binary she proposes an ethic of “ecological remembrance,” which recognises the importance of memory in sustaining an ethics of more-than-human ecological care. The following two articles emphasise the importance of storytelling to develop Indigenous ecological understanding and a decolonising ethic. With a focus on Australian Aboriginal story ecology, “Growing up the Future: Children’s Stories and Aboriginal Ecology,” Blaze Kwaymullina et al. explore two works of children’s literature which emphasise the sentience of Country and the responsibilities of future generations to protect fragile ecologies. They argue that through story, children will learn to “enhance the pattern of life,” rather than destroy it. While in “Ecology, Ontology and Pedagogy at Camp Coorong,” Bindi MacGill et al. traverse another pedagogy of Indigenous storytelling which has developed at Camp Coorong: Race Relations and Cultural Education Centre 200km south of Adelaide. An initiative of Ngarrindjeri Regional Authority, Camp Coorong is a site of place-based education which passes on ethics of caring for country to students in the Murray-Darling Basin. Through the “gift of story” Camp Coorong has become a site of active decolonisation as non-Indigenous students and teachers are able to hear stories of Aboriginal dispossession, survival, and resilience. By creating a, “pedagogy of discomfort,” Camp Coorong encourages ecological responsibility and commitment, while engaging in the vital task of decolonising Australian culture and environments. Applying the ecological framework to a very different form of storytelling, Paul Makeham, Bree Hadley and Joon-Yee Kwok discuss what “ecological thinking” can offer studies of the performing arts sector in Brisbane, Australia. Through a case study of Aus-e-stage Mapping Service, an online application that maps data about performing arts practitioners, organisations and audiences, “A ‘Value Ecology’ Approach to the Performing Arts” demonstrates the benefits of ecologically grounded rhizomatic thinking in assessing a theatre industry’s “health” through relationships and flows. Grounded in the theory of French philosopher Michel Serres, Timothy Barker’s, “Information and Atmospheres: Exploring the Relationship between the Natural Environment and Information Aesthetics” is a thoughtful exploration of the way an array of artworks forges connections between “nature” and information. Through information visualisation and sonification, all three examples give a new sense of materiality to the atmosphere, with EcoArtTech appearing as our cover image for this issue. This journal edition is populated by papers which explore different niches in ecological thinking, that are perhaps best understood in Latourian terms as an assemblage. The broad scope covered in the following papers demonstrates that ecology is an unsettled concept, made fertile by instability and excess. This issue of M/C hovers in the borderlands of inter-disciplinarity, where creative verve thrives in contact zones. We hope you enjoy it! References Bateson, Gregory. Steps to an Ecology of Mind. London: Paladin, Granada Publishing, 1973. Garrard, Greg. Ecocriticism. Oxon and New York: Routledge, 2012. Haraway, Donna. When Species Meet. London: University of Minneapolis Press, 2007. (Kindle edition) Latour, Bruno. “Why Has Critique Run Out of Steam? From Matters of Fact to Matters of Concern.” Critical Inquiry 30.2 (2004). 27 June 2012 ‹http://criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/issues/v30/30n2.Latour.html›. Lovelock, James. Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982. Moreton, Timothy. Ecology without Nature. Harvard: Harvard University Press, 2007. Myerson, George. Ecology and the End of Postmodernity. London: Icon Books, 2002. Plumwood, Val. Environmental Culture: The Ecological Crisis of Reason. Routledge; London and New York, 2002. Rose, Deborah Bird, and Libby Robin. “The Ecological Humanities in Action.” Australian Humanities Review 31-32. (April 2004). 27 June 2012

Introduction In this article, we hypothesise how mainstream media coverage can promote the spread of disinformation about Covid-19. Mainstream media are often discussed as opposed to disinformation (Glasser; Benkler et al.). While the disinformation phenomenon is related to the intentional production and spread of misleading and false information to influence public opinion (Fallis; Benkler et al.), mainstream media news is expected to be based on facts and investigation and focussed on values such as authenticity, accountability, and autonomy (Hayes et al.). However, journalists might contribute to the spread of disinformation when they skip some stage of information processing and reproduce false or misleading information (Himma-Kadakas). Besides, even when the purpose of the news is to correct disinformation, media coverage might contribute to its dissemination by amplifying it (Tsfati et al.). This could be particularly problematic in the context of social media, as users often just read headlines while scrolling through their timelines (Newman et al.; Ofcom). Thus, some users might share news from the mainstream media to legitimate disinformation about Covid-19. The pandemic creates a delicate context, as journalists are often pressured to produce more information and, therefore, are more susceptible to errors. In this research, we focussed on the hypothesis that legitimate news can contribute to the spread of disinformation on social media through headlines that reinforce disinformation discourses, even though the actual piece may frame the story differently. The research questions that guide this research are: are URLs with headlines that reinforce disinformation discourses and other mainstream media links shared into the same Facebook groups? Are the headlines that support disinformation discourses shared by Facebook users to reinforce disinformation narratives? As a case study, we look at the Brazilian disinformation context on Covid-19. The discussion about the disease in the country has been highly polarised and politically framed, often with government agents and scientists disputing the truth about facts on the disease (Araújo and Oliveira; Recuero and Soares; Recuero et al.). Particularly, the social media ecosystem seems to play an important role in these disputes, as Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and his supporters use it as a key channel to spread disinformation about the virus (Lisboa et al.; Soares et al.). We use data from public groups on Facebook collected through CrowdTangle and a combination of social network analysis and content analysis to analyse the spread and the content of URLs and posts. Theoretical Background Disinformation has been central to the Covid-19 “infodemic”, created by the overabundance of information about the pandemic, which makes it hard for people to find reliable guidance and exacerbates the outbreak (Tangcharoensathien et al.). We consider disinformation as distorted, manipulated, or false information intentionally created to mislead someone (Fallis; Benkler et al.). Disinformation is often used to strengthen radical political ideologies (Benkler et al.). Around the world, political actors politically framed the discussion about the pandemic, which created a polarised public debate about Covid-19 (Allcott et al., Gruzd and Mai; Recuero and Soares). On social media, contexts of polarisation between two different political views often present opposed narratives about the same fact that dispute public attention (Soares et al.). This polarisation creates a suitable environment for disinformation to thrive (Benkler et al.) The polarised discussions are often associated with the idea of “bubbles”, as the different political groups tend to share and legitimate only discourses that are aligned with the group's ideological views. Consequently, these groups might turn into ideological bubbles (Pariser). In these cases, content shared within one group is not shared within the other and vice versa. Pariser argues that users within the bubbles are exposed exclusively to content with which they tend to agree. However, research has shown that Pariser’s concept of bubbles has limitations (Bruns), as most social media users are exposed to a variety of sources of information (Guess et al.). Nevertheless, polarisation might lead to different media diets and disinformation consumption (Benkler et al.). That is, users would have contact with different types of information, but they would choose to share certain content over others because of their political alignment (Bruns). Therefore, we understand that bubbles are created by the action of social media users who give preference to circulate (through retweets, likes, comments, or shares) content that supports their political views, including disinformation (Recuero et al.). Thus, bubbles are ephemeral structures (created by users’ actions in the context of a particular political discussion) with permeable boundaries (users are exposed to content from the outside) in discussions on social media. This type of ephemeral bubble might use disinformation as a tool to create a unique discourse that supports its views. However, it does not mean that actors within a “disinformation bubble” do not have access to other content, such as the news from the mainstream media. It means that the group acts to discredit and to overlap this content with an “alternative” story (Larsson). In addition, the mainstream media might disseminate false or inaccurate disinformation (Tsfati et al.). Particularly, we focus on inaccurate headlines that reinforce disinformation narratives, as social media users often only read news headlines (Newman et al.; Ofcom). This is especially problematic because a large number of social media users are exposed to mainstream media content, while exposure to disinformation websites is heavily concentrated on only a few users (Guess et al.; Tsfati et al.). Therefore, when the mainstream media disseminate disinformation, it is more likely that a larger number of social media users will be exposed to this content and share it into ideological bubbles. Based on this discussion, we aim to understand how the mainstream media contribute to the spread of disinformation discourses about Covid-19. Methods This study is about how mainstream media coverage might contribute to the spread of disinformation about Covid-19 on Facebook. We propose two hypotheses, as follows: H1: When mainstream media headlines frame the information in a way that reinforces the disinformation narrative, the links go into a “disinformation bubble”. H2: In these cases, Facebook users might use mainstream media coverage to legitimate disinformation narratives. We selected three case studies based on events that created both political debate and high media coverage in Brazil. We chose them based on the hypothesis that part of the mainstream media links could have produced headlines that support disinformation discourses, as the political debate was high. The events are: On 24 March 2020, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro made a public pronouncement on live television. In the week before the pronouncement, Brazilian governors decided to follow World Health Organisation (WHO) protocols and closed non-essential business. In his speech, Bolsonaro criticised social distancing measures. The mainstream media reproduced some of his claims and claims from other public personalities, such as entrepreneurs who also said the protocols would harm the economy. On 8 June 2020, a WHO official said that it “seems to be rare that an asymptomatic person transmits [Covid-19] onward to a secondary individual”. Part of the mainstream media reproduced the claim out of context, which could promote the misperception that both asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic persons (early stages of an illness, before the first symptoms) do not transmit Covid-19 at all. On 9 November 2020, Brazil’s national sanitary watchdog Anvisa reported that they had halted the clinical studies on the CoronaVac vaccine, developed by the Chinese company Sinovac. Bolsonaro often criticised CoronaVac because it was being produced in partnership with São Paulo’s Butantan Institute and became the subject of a political dispute between Bolsonaro and the Governor of São Paulo, João Dória. Bolsonaro said the halt of the CoronaVac trial was "another victory for Jair Bolsonaro". Anvisa halted the trail after a "severe adverse event". The mainstream media rapidly reverberated the decision. Later, it was revealed that the incident was a death that had nothing to do with the vaccine. Before we created our final dataset that includes links from the three events together, we explored the most shared URLs in each event. We used keywords to collect posts shared in the public groups monitored by CrowdTangle, a tool owned by Facebook that tracks publicly available posts on the platform. We collected posts in a timeframe of three days for each event to prevent the collection of links unrelated to the cases. We collected only posts containing URLs. Table 1 summarises the data collected. Table 1: Data collected Dates March 24-26 2020 June 8-10 2020 November 9-11 2020 Keywords “Covid-19” or “coronavirus” and “isolation” or “economy” “Covid-19” or “coronavirus” and “asymptomatic” “vaccine” and “Anvisa” or “CoronaVac” Number of posts 4780 2060 3273 From this original dataset, we selected the 60 most shared links from each period (n=180). We then filtered for those which sources were mainstream media outlets (n=74). We used content analysis (Krippendorff) to observe which of these URLs headlines could reinforce disinformation narratives (two independent coders, Krippendorff’s Alpha = 0.76). We focussed on headlines because when these links are shared on Facebook, often it is the headline that appears to other users. We considered that a headlined reinforced disinformation discourses only when it was flagged by both coders (n=21 – some examples are provided in Table 3 in the Results section). Table 2 provides a breakdown of this analysis. Table 2: Content analysis Event Mainstream media links Headlines that support disinformation discourses Number of links Number of posts Economy and quarantine 24 7 112 Asymptomatic 22 7 163 Vaccine trial 28 7 120 Total 74 21 395 As the number of posts that shared URLs with headlines that supported disinformation was low (n=395), we conducted another CrowdTangle search to create our final dataset. We used a sample of the links we classified to create a “balanced” dataset. Out of the 21 links with headlines that reinforced disinformation, we collected the 10 most shared in public groups monitored by CrowdTangle (this time, without any particular timeframe) (n=1346 posts). In addition, we created a “control group” with the 10 most shared links that neither of the coders considered could reinforce disinformation (n=1416 posts). The purpose of the “control group” was to identify which Facebook groups tend to share mainstream media links without headlines that reinforce disinformation narratives. Therefore, our final dataset comprises 20 links and 2762 posts. We then used social network analysis (Wasserman and Faust) to map the spread of the 20 links. We created a bipartite network, in which nodes are (1) Facebook groups and (2) URLs; and edges represent when a post within a group includes a URL from our dataset. We applied a modularity metric (Blondel et al.) to identify clusters. The modularity metric allows us to identify “communities” that share the same or similar links in the network map. Thus, it helped us to identify if there was a “bubble” that only shares the links with headlines that support disinformation (H1). To understand if the disinformation was supporting a larger narrative shared by the groups, we explored the political alignments of each cluster (H2). We used Textometrica (Lindgreen and Palm) to create word clouds with the most frequent words in the names of the cluster groups (at least five mentions) and their connections. Finally, we also analysed the posts that shared each of the 10 links with headlines that reinforced disinformation. This also helped us to identify how the mainstream media links could legitimate disinformation narratives (H2). Out of the 1346 posts, only 373 included some message (the other 973 posts only shared the link). We used content analysis to see if these posts reinforced the disinformation (two independent coders – Krippendorff’s Alpha = 0.723). There were disagreements in the categorisation of 27 posts. The two coders reviewed and discussed the classification of these posts to reach an agreement. Results Bubbles of information In the graph (Figure 1), red nodes are links with headlines that support disinformation discourses, blue nodes are the other mainstream media links, and black nodes are Facebook groups. Our first finding is that groups that shared headlines that support disinformation rarely shared the other mainstream media links. Out of the 1623 groups in the network, only 174 (10.7%) shared both a headline that supports disinformation discourse, and another mainstream media link; 712 groups (43.8%) only shared headlines that support disinformation; and 739 groups (45.5%) only shared other links from the mainstream media. Therefore, users’ actions created two bubbles of information. Figure 1: Network graph The modularity metric confirmed this tendency of two “bubbles” in the network (Figure 2). The purple cluster includes seven URLs with headlines that support disinformation discourse. The green cluster includes three headlines that support disinformation discourse and the other 10 links from the mainstream media. This result partially supports H1: When mainstream media headlines frame the information in a way that reinforces the disinformation narrative, the links go into a “disinformation bubble”. As we identified, most of the headlines that support disinformation discourse went into a separate “bubble”, as users within the groups of this bubble did not share the other links from the mainstream media. Figure 2: Network graph with modularity This result shows that users’ actions boost the creation of bubbles (Bakshy et al.), as they choose to share one type of content over the other. The mainstream media are the source of all the URLs we analysed. However, users from the purple cluster chose to share only links with headlines that supported disinformation discourses. This result is also related to the political framing of the discussions, as we explore below. Disinformation and Political Discourse We used word clouds (Lindgreen and Palm) to analyse the Facebook groups’ names to explore the ideological affiliation of the bubbles. The purple bubble is strongly related to Bolsonaro and his discourse (Figure 3). Bolsonaro is the most frequent word. Other prevalent words are Brazil, patriots (both related to his nationalist discourse), right-wing, conservative, military (three words related to his conservative discourse and his support of the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil from 1964 to 1985), President, support, and Alliance [for Brazil] (the name of his party). Some of the most active groups within the purple bubble are “Alliance for Brazil”, “Bolsonaro 2022 [next presidential election]”, “Bolsonaro’s nation 2022”, and “I am right-wing with pride”. Figure 3: Purple cluster word cloud Bolsonaro is also a central word in the green cluster word cloud (Figure 4). However, it is connected to other words such as “against” and “out”, as many groups are anti-Bolsonaro. Furthermore, words such as left-wing, Workers’ Party (centre-left party), Lula and Dilma Rousseff (two Workers’ Party ex-presidents) show another ideological alignment in general. In addition, there are many local groups (related to locations such as Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Rio Grande do Sul, Minas Gerais, and others), and groups to share news (news, newspaper, radio, portal). “We are 70 per cent [anti-Bolsonaro movement]”, “Union of the Left”, “Lula president”, and “Anti-Bolsonaro” are some of the most active groups within the green cluster. Figure 4: Green cluster word cloud Then, we analysed how users shared the mainstream media links with headlines that support disinformation discourses. In total, we found that 81.8% of the messages in the posts that shared these links also reproduced disinformation narratives. The frequency was higher (86.2%) when considering only posts that shared one of the seven links from the purple cluster (based on the modularity metric). Consequently, it was lower (64%) in the messages that shared one of the other three links. The messages often showed support for Bolsonaro; criticised other political and health authorities (the WHO, São Paulo Governor João Dória, and others), China, and the “leftists” (all opposition to Bolsonaro); claimed that quarantine and social distancing measures were unnecessary; and framed vaccines as dangerous. We provide some examples of headlines and posts in Table 3 (we selected the most-shared URL for each event to illustrate). This result supports H2 as we found that users shared mainstream media headlines that reinforce disinformation discourse to legitimate the disinformation narrative; and that it was more prevalent in the purple bubble. Table 3: Examples of headlines and posts Headline Post "Unemployment is a crisis much worse than coronavirus", says Bolsonaro Go to social media to support the President. Unemployment kills. More than any virus... hunger, depression, despair and everything UNEMPLOYMENT, THE DEPUTIES CHAMBER, THE SENATE AND THE SUPREME COURT KILL MORE THAN COVID19 Asymptomatic patients do not boost coronavirus, says WHO QUARANTINE IS FAKE #StayHome, the lie of the century! THIS GOES TO THE PUPPETS OF THE COMMUNIST PARTIES THE AND FUNERARY MEDIA Anvisa halts Coronavac vaccine trial after "serious adverse event" [The event] is adverse and serious, so the vaccine killed the person by covid And Doria [Governor of São Paulo and political adversary of Bolsonaro] wants to force you to take this shit This result shows that mainstream media headlines that support disinformation narratives may be used to reinforce disinformation discourses when shared on Facebook, making journalists potential agents of disinformation (Himma-Kadakas; Tsfati et al.). In particular, the credibility of mainstream news is used to support an opposing discourse, that is, a disinformation discourse. This is especially problematic in the context of Covid-19 because the mainstream media end up fuelling the infodemic (Tangcharoensathien et al.) by sharing inaccurate information or reverberating false claims from political actors. Conclusion In this article, we analysed how the mainstream media contribute to the spread of disinformation about Covid-19. In particular, we looked at how links from the mainstream media with headlines that support disinformation discourse spread on Facebook, compared to other links from the mainstream media. Two research questions guided this study: Are URLs with headlines that reinforce disinformation discourses and other mainstream media links shared into the same Facebook groups? Are the headlines that support disinformation discourses shared by Facebook users to reinforce disinformation narratives? We identified that (1) some Facebook groups only shared links with headlines that support disinformation narratives. This created a “disinformation bubble”. In this bubble, (2) Facebook users shared mainstream media links to reinforce disinformation – in particular, pro-Bolsonaro disinformation, as many of these groups had a pro-Bolsonaro alignment. 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Introduction Burning Man (BM) is a festival of art and music that materialises for one week each year in the Nevada desert. It is considered by many to be the world’s largest countercultural event. But what is BM, really? With record attendance of 69,613 in 2013 (Griffith) (the original event in 1986 had twenty), and recent event themes that have engaged with mainstream political themes such as “Green Man” (2007) and “American Dream” (2008), can BM still be considered countercultural? Was it ever? In the first part of this article, we define counterculture as a subculture that originates in the hippie movement of 1960s America and the rejection of “mainstream” values associated with post-WWII industrial culture, that aligns itself with environmentalism and ecological consciousness, and that is distinctly anti-consumer (Roszak, Making). Second, we identify BM as an art and music festival that transcends the event to travel with its desert denizens out into the “real world.” In this way, it is also a festival that has countercultural connections. Third, though BM bears some resemblance to counterculture, given that it is founded upon “Radical Self-Reliance”, BM is actually anything but countercultural because it interlocks with the current socioeconomic zeitgeist of neoliberalism, and that reflects a “new individualism” (Elliot & Lemert). BM’s ambition to be a commercial-free zone runs aground against its entanglement with market relations, and BM is also arguably a consumer space. Finally, neoliberal ideology and “new individualism” are encoded in the space of BM at the level of the spectacle (Debord). The Uchronian’s structure from BM 2006 (a cavernous wooden construction nicknamed the “Belgian Waffle”) could be read as one example. However, opportunities for personal transformation and transcendent experience may persist as counterculture moves into a global age. Defining Counterculture To talk about BM as a counterculture, we must first define counterculture. Hebdige provided a useful distinction between subculture and counterculture in an endnote to a discussion of Teds versus Rockers (148). According to Hebdige, what distinguishes counterculture from mere subculture and related styles is its association with a specific era (1967–70), that its adherents tended to hail from educated, middle-class families, and that it is “explicitly political and ideological” and thus more easily “read” by the dominant powers. Finally, it opposes the dominant culture. Counterculture has its roots in “the hippies, the flower children, the yippies” of the 60s. However, perhaps Hebdige’s definition is too narrow; it is more of an instance of counterculture than a definition. A more general definition of counterculture might be a subculture that rejects “mainstream” values, and examples of this have existed throughout time. For example, we might include the 19th century Romantics with their rejection of the Enlightenment and distrust of capitalism (Roszak 1972), or the Beat generation and post-War America (Miller). Perhaps counterculture even requires one to be a criminal: the prominent Beat writer William S. Burroughs shot guns and heroin, was a homosexual, and accidentally shot and killed his wife in a drug haze (Severo). All of these are examples of subcultures that rejected or opposed the mainstream values of the time. But it was Roszak (Making) who originally defined counterculture as the hippie movement of 1960s era college-aged middle-class American youth who revolted against the values and society inherited not only from their parents, but from the “military-industrial complex” itself, which “quite simply was the American political system” (3). Indeed, the 1960s counterculture—what the term “counterculture” has more generally come to mean—was perhaps the most radical expression of humanity ever in its ontological overthrow of industrial culture and all that it implied (and also, Roszak speculates, in so much that it may have been an experiment gone wrong on the part of the American establishment): The Communist and Socialist Left had always been as committed to industrialism as their capitalist foes, never questioning it as an inevitable historical stage. From this viewpoint, all that needed to be debated was the ownership and control of the system. But here was a dissenting movement that yearned for an entirely different quality of life. It was not simply calling the political superstructure into question; with precocious ecological insight, it was challenging the culture of industrial cities on which that superstructure stood. And more troubling still, there were those among the dissenters who questioned the very sanity of that culture. These psychic disaffiliates took off in search of altered states of consciousness that might generate altered states of society. (8) For the purposes of this paper, then, counterculture refers specifically to those cultures that find their roots in the hippie movement of the late 1960s. I embrace both Roszak’s and Hebdige’s definitions of counterculture because they define it as a unique reaction of post-WWII American youth against industrial culture and a rejection of the accompanying values of home, marriage and career. Instead, counterculture embraced ecological awareness, rejected consumption, and even directed itself toward mystical altered states. In the case of the espoused ecological consciousness, that blossomed into the contemporary (increasingly mainstream) environmental movement toward “green” energy. In the case of counterculture, the specific instance really is the definition in this case because the response of postwar youth was so strong and idiosyncratic, and there is overlap between counterculture and the BM community. So what is Burning Man? Defining Burning Man According to the event’s website: Burning Man is an annual event and a thriving year-round culture. The event takes place the week leading up to and including Labor Day, in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert. The Burning Man organization […] creates the infrastructure of Black Rock City, wherein attendees (or “participants”) dedicate themselves to the spirit of community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance. They depart one week later, leaving no trace […] Outside the event, Burning Man’s vibrant year-round culture is growing through the non-profit Burning Man Project, including worldwide Regional Groups and associated non-profits who embody Burning Man’s ethos out in the world. (“What is Burning Man?”) I interpret BM as a massive art festival and party that materialises in the desert once a year to produce one of the largest cities in Nevada, but one with increasingly global reach in which the participants feel compelled to carry the ethos forward into their everyday lives. It is also an event with an increasing number of “regional burns” (Taylor) that have emerged as offshoots of the original. Creator Larry Harvey originally conceived of burning the effigy of a man on San Francisco’s Baker Beach in 1986 in honor of the solstice (“Burning Man Timeline”). Twenty people attended the first BM. That figure rapidly rose to 800 by 1990 when for legal reasons it became necessary to relocate to the remote Black Rock desert in Nevada, the largest expanse of flat land in the United States. In the early 90s, when BM had newly relocated and attendees numbered in the low thousands, it was not uncommon for participants to mix drugs, booze, speeding cars and firearms (Bonin) (reminiscent of the outlaw associations of counterculture). As the Internet became popular in the mid-1990s word spread quickly, leading to a surge in the population. By the early 2000s attendance regularly numbered in the tens of thousands and BM had become a global phenomenon. In 2014 the festival turned 28, but it had already been a corporation for nearly two decades before transitioning to a non-profit (“Burning Man Transitions”). Burning Man as Countercultural Event BM has connections to the counterculture, though the organisation is quick to dispel these connections as myths (“Media Myths”). For example, in response to the notion that BM is a “90s Woodstock”, the organisers point out that BM is for all ages and not a concert. Rather, it is a “noncommercial environment” where the participants come to entertain each other, and thus it is “not limited by the conventions of any subculture.” The idea that BM is a “hippie” festival is also a myth, but one with some truth to it: Hippies helped create environmental ethics, founded communes, wore colorful clothing, courted mysticism, and distrusted the modern industrial economy. In some ways, this counterculture bears a resemblance to aspects of Burning Man. Hippie society was also a youth movement that often revolved around drugs, music, and checks from home. Burning Man is about “radical self-reliance”–it is not a youth movement, and it is definitely not a subculture (“Media Myths”). There are some familiar aspects of counterculture here, particularly environmental consciousness, anti-consumer tendencies and mysticism. Yet, looking at the high attendance numbers and the progression of themes in recent years one might speculate that BM is no longer as countercultural as it once was. For instance, psychedelic themes such as “Vault of Heaven” (2004) and “Psyche” (2005) gave way to “The Green Man” (2007) and “American Dream” (2008). Although “Green Man” was an environmental theme it debuted the year after Vice President Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” (2006) brought the issue of climate change to a mainstream audience. Indeed, as a global, leaderless event with a strong participatory ethos in many respects BM followed suit with the business world, particularly given it was a Limited Liability Corporation (LLC) for many years (though it was ahead of the curve): “Capitalism has learned from the counter culture. But this is not news” (Rojek 355). Similarly, just in time for the 2008 U.S. Presidential election the organisational committee decided to juxtapose “the Man” with the American flag. Therefore, there has been an arguable shift toward engagement with mainstream issues and politics in recent years (and away from mysticism). Recent themes are really re-appropriations of mainstream discourses; hence they are “agonistic” readings (Mouffe). Take for example the VoterDrive Bus, an early example of political talk at BM that engaged with mainstream politics. The driver was seven-time BM veteran Corey Mervis (also known as “Misty Mocracy”) (“Jack Rabbit Speaks”). Beginning on 22 July 2004, the VoterDrive Bus wrote the word VOTE in script across the continental United States in the months before the election, stopping in the Black Rock City (BRC) for one week during the BM festival. Four years later the theme “American Dream” would reflect this countercultural re-appropriation of mainstream political themes in the final months leading up to the 2008 Presidential election. In that year, “the Man,” a massive wooden effigy that burns on the last night of the event, stood atop a platform of windows, each inscribed with the flag of a different country. “American Dream” was as politically as it was poetically inspired. Note the agonistic appeal: “This year's art theme is about patriotism—not that kind which freights the nation state with the collective weight of ego, but a patriotism that is based upon a love of country and culture. Leave ideology at home…Ask yourself, instead…What can postmodern America, this stumbling, roused, half-conscious giant, yet give to the world?” (“2008 Art Theme: American Dream”). BM has arguably retained its countercultural authenticity despite engagement with mainstream political themes by virtue of such agonistic appeals to “American Dream”, and to “Green Man” which promoted environmental awareness, and which after all started out in the counterculture. I attended BM twice in 2006 and 2007 with “The Zombie Hotel”, one among a thousand camps in the BRC, Nevada (oddly, there were numerous zombie-themed camps). The last year I attended, the festival seemed to have come of age, and 2007 was the first in its history that BM invited corporate presence in the form of green energy companies (and informational kiosks, courtesy of Google) (Taylor). Midway through the week, as I stumbled through the haphazard common area that was The Zombie Hotel hiding from the infernal heat of the desert sun, two twin fighter jets, their paths intertwining, disturbed the sanctity of the clear, blue afternoon sky followed by a collective roar from the city. One can imagine my dismay at rumours that the fighter jets—which I had initially assumed to be some sort of military reconnaissance—were in fact hired by the BM Organizational Committee to trace the event’s symbol in the sky. Speculation would later abound on Tribe.net (“What was up with the fighter jets?”). What had BM become after all? Figure 1: Misty Mocracy & the VoterDrive Bus. Photo: Erick Leskinen (2004). Reproduced with permission. “Radical Self-Reliance”, Neoliberalism and the “New Individualism” Despite overlap with elements of counterculture, there is something quite normative about BM from the standpoint of ideology, and thus “mainstream” in the sense of favouring values associated with what Roszak calls “industrial society”, namely consumption and capitalist labor relations. To understand this, let us examine “The Ten Principles of BM”. These include: Radical Inclusion, Gifting, Decommodification, Radical Self-Reliance, Radical Self-Expression, Communal Effort, Civic Responsibility, Leaving No Trace, Participation and Immediacy (“Ten Principles of Burning Man”). These categories speak to BM’s strong connection to the counterculture. For example, “Decommodification” is a rejection of consumerism in favour of a culture of giving; “Immediacy” rejects mediation, and “Participation” stresses transformative change. Many of these categories also evoke political agonism, for example “Radical Inclusion” requires that “anyone may be a part of Burning Man”, and “Radical Self-Expression”, which suggests that no one other than the gift-giver can determine the content of the message. Finally, there are categories that also engage with concepts associated with traditional civil society and democracy, such as “Civic Responsibility”, which refers to the “public welfare”, “Participation”, and “Communal Effort.” Though at first it may seem to connect with countercultural values, upon closer inspection “Radical Self-Reliance” aligns BM with the larger socioeconomic zeitgeist under late-capitalism, subverting its message of “Decommodification.” Here is what it says: “Burning Man encourages the individual to discover, exercise and rely on his or her inner resources.” That message is transformative, even mystical, but it aligns well with a neoliberal ideology and uncertain labor relations under late capitalism. Indeed, Elliot and Lemert explore the psychological impact of a “new individualism”, setting the self in opposition to the incoming forces of globalisation. They address the question of how individuals respond to globalisation, perhaps pathologically. Elliot and Lemert clarify the socio-psychological ramifications of economic fragmentation. They envision this as inextricably caught up with the erosion of personal identity and the necessity to please “self-absorbed others” in a multiplicity of incommensurate realities (20, 21). Individuals are not merely atomised socially but fragmented psychologically, while at the macroscopic level privatisation of the economy spawns this colonisation of the personal Lifeworld, as social things move into the realm of individualised dilemmas (42). It is interesting to note how BM’s principles (in particular “Radical Self-Reliance”) evoke this fracturing of identity as identities and realities multiply in the BRC. Furthermore, the spectre of neoliberal labour conditions on “the Playa” kicks down the door for consumer culture’s entrée. Consumer society “technicises” the project of the self as a series of problems having consumer solutions with reference to expert advice (Slater 86), BM provides that solution in the form of a transformative experience through “Participation”, and acolytes of the BM festival can be said to be deeply invested in the “experience economy” (Pine & Gilmore): “We believe that transformative change, whether in the individual or in society, can occur only through the medium of deeply personal participation” (“Ten Principles”). Yet, while BM rejects consumption as part of “Decommodification”, the event has become something of a playground for new technological elites (with a taste for pink fur and glow tape rather than wine and cheese) with some camps charging as much as US $25,000 in fees per person for the week (most charge $300) (Bilton). BM is gentrifying, or as veteran attendee Tyler Hanson put it, “Burning Man is no longer a counterculture revolution. It’s now become a mirror of society” (quoted in Bilton). Neoliberalism and “new individualism” are all around at BM, and a reading of space and spectacle in the Uchronian structure reveals this encoding. Figure 2: “Message Out of the Future by Night” (also known as “the Belgian Waffle). Photo: Laurent Chavanne (2006). Reproduced with permission. “Long Gone Hippies” Republican tax reformist Grover Norquist made his way to BM for the first time this year, joining the tech elites. He subsequently proclaimed that America had a lot to learn from BM: “The story of Burning Man is one of radical self-reliance” (Norquist). As the population of the BRC surges toward seventy thousand, it may be difficult to call BM a countercultural event any longer. Given parallels between the BM ethos and neoliberal market relations and a “new individualism”, it is hard to deny that BM is deeply intertwined with counterposing forces of globalisation. However, if you ask the participants (and Norquist) they will have a different story: After you buy your ticket to Burning Man to help pay for the infrastructure, and after you pay for your own transportation, food and water, and if you optionally decide to pay to join a camp that provides some services THEN you never have to take your wallet out while at Burning Man. Folks share food, massages, alcohol, swimming pools, trampolines, many experiences. The expenses that occur prior to the festival are very reasonable and it is wonderful to walk around free from shopping or purchasing. Pockets are unnecessary. So are clothes. (Alex & Allyson Grey) Consumerism is a means to an end in an environment where the meanings of civic participation and “giving back” to the counterculture take many forms. Moreover, Thornton argued that the varied definitions of what is “mainstream” among subcultures point more to a complex and multifaceted landscape of subculture than to any coherent agreement as to what “mainstream” actually means (101), and so perhaps our entire discussion of the counterculture/mainstream binary is moot. Perhaps there is something yet to be salvaged in the spaces of participation at BM, some agonistic activity to be harnessed. The fluid spaces of the desert are the loci of community action. Jan Kriekels, founder of the Uchronia Community, holds out some hope. The Belgian based art collective hauled 150 kilometres of lumber to the BRC in the summer of 2006 to construct a freestanding, cavernous structure with a floor space of 60 by 30 metres at its center and a height of 15 metres (they promised a reforestation of the equivalent amount of trees) (Figure 1). “Don’t mistake us for long gone hippies in the desert”, wrote Kriekels in Message Out of the Future: Uchronia Community, “we are trying to build a bridge between materialism and spiritualism” (102). The Uchronians announced themselves as not only desert nomads but nomads in time (“U” signifying “nothing” and “chronos” or “time”), their time-traveller personas designed to subvert commodification, their mysterious structure (nicknamed the “Belgian Waffle” by the burners, a painful misnomer in the eyes of the Uchronians) evoking a sense of timelessness. I remember standing within that “cathedral-like” (60) structure and feeling exhilarated and lonely and cold all at once for the chill of the desert at night, and later, much later, away from the Playa in conversations with a friend we recalled Guy Debord’s “Thesis 30”: “The spectator feels at home nowhere, for the spectacle is everywhere.” The message of the Uchronians provokes a comparison with Virilio’s conceptualisations of “world time” and “simultaneity” that emerge from globalisation and digital technologies (13), part of the rise of a “globalitarianism” (15)—“world time (‘live’) takes over from the ancient, immemorial supremacy of the local time of regions” (113). A fragmented sense of time, after all, accompanies unstable labour conditions in the 21st century. Still, I hold out hope for the “resistance” inherent in counterculture as it fosters humanity’s “bothersomely unfulfilled potentialities” (Roszak, Making 16). I wonder in closing if I have damaged the trust of burners in attempting to write about what is a transcendent experience for many. It may be argued that the space of the BRC is not merely a spectacle—rather, it contains the urban “forests of gestures” (de Certeau 102). These are the secret perambulations—physical and mental—at risk of betrayal. References An Inconvenient Truth. Dir. Davis Guggenheim. Perf. Al Gore. Paramount Pictures, 2006. Bilton, Nick. “At Burning Man, the Tech Elite One-Up One Another.” The New York Times: Fashion & Style, 20 Aug. 2014. 10 Oct. 2014 ‹http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/21/fashion/at-burning-man-the-tech-elite-one-up-one-another.html› “Burning Man Timeline.” Burningman. 10 Oct. 2014 ‹http://burningman.org/timeline/›. “Burning Man Transitions to Non-Profit Organization.” Burningman 3 Mar. 2014. 10 Oct. 2014 ‹http://blog.burningman.com/2014/03/news/burning-man-transitions-to-non-profit-organization/›. De Bord, Guy. The Society of the Spectacle. New York: Zone, 1994. De Certeau, Michel. The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley, Calif.: U of California P, 1984. Dust & Illusions: 30 Years of History of Burning Man. Dir. Oliver Bonin. Perf. Jerry James, Larry Harvey, John Law. Imagine, 2009. Elliot, Anthony, and Charles Lemert. The New Individualism. New York: Routledge, 2006. Grey, Alex, and Alyson Grey. “Ticket 4066, Burning Man Study.” Message to the author. 30 Nov. 2007. E-mail. Griffith, Martin. “Burning Man Draws 66,000 People to the Nevada Desert.” The Huffington Post 2 Sep. 2014. 10 Oct. 2014 ‹http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/02/burning-man-2014_n_5751648.html›. Hebdige, Dick. Subculture: The Meaning of Style. New York: Methuen, 1979. “Jack Rabbit Speaks.” JRS 8.32 (2004). 10 Oct. 2014 ‹http://www.burningman.com/blackrockcity_yearround/jrs/vol08/jrs_v08_i32.html›. Kriekels, Jan. Message Out of the Future: Uchronia Community. 2006. 10 Oct. 2014 ‹http://issuu.com/harmenvdw/docs/uchronia-book-low#›. “Media Myths.” Burningman. 6 Nov. 2014 ‹http://www.burningman.com/press/myths.html›. Miller, Timothy. The Hippies and American Values. Knoxville: U of Tennessee P, 1999. Mouffe, Chantal. On the Political. London: Routledge, 2005. Norquist, Grover. “My First Burning Man: Confessions of a Conservative from Washington.” The Guardian 2 Sep. 2014. 10 Oct. 2014 ‹http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/02/my-first-burning-man-grover-norquist›. Pine, B. Joseph, and James H. Gilmore. The Experience Economy. Boston: Harvard Business School P, 1999. Rojek, Chris. "Leaderless Organization, World Historical Events and Their Contradictions: The ‘Burning Man’ City Case.” Cultural Sociology 8.3 (2014): 351–364. Roszak, Theodore. The Making of a Counter Culture. Oakiland, Calif.: U of California P, 1995 [1968]. Roszak, Theodore. Where the Wasteland Ends. Charlottesville, Va.: U of Virginia P, 1972. Severo, Richard. “William S. Burroughs Dies at 83.” New York Times 3 Aug. 1997. 6 Nov. 2014 ‹http://www.nytimes.com/1997/08/03/nyregion/william-s-burroughs-dies-at-83-member-of-the-beat-generation-wrote-naked-lunch.html›. Slater, Don. Consumer Culture and Modernity. Cambridge, U.K.: Polity, 1997. Taylor, Chris. “Burning Man Grows Up.” CNN: Money. 10 Oct. 2014 ‹http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2007/07/01/100117064›. “Ten Principles of Burning Man.” Burningman. 10 Oct. 2014 ‹http://burningman.org/culture/philosophical-center/10-principles/›. Thornton, Sarah. Club Cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital. Hanover, NH: Wesleyan UP, 1996. Virilio, Paul. The Information Bomb. London: Verso, 2000. “What Was Up with the Fighter Jets?” Tribe 7 Sep. 2007. 10 Oct. 2014 ‹http://bm.tribe.net/thread/84f762e0-2160-4e6e-b5af-1e35ce81a1b7›. “2008 Art Theme: American Dream.” Tribe 3 Sep. 2007. 10 Oct. 2014 ‹http://bm.tribe.net/thread/60b9b69c-001a-401f-b69f-25e9bdef95ce›.

Since their first encounter with colonial administrators in 1963, approximately 2,000 indigenous people living in the Nimakot region of central New Guinea have been struggling with a tension between their indigenous way of life and the imperatives of the state. It is not just that they are on the international border between Papua New Guinea and Indonesia and therefore difficult to categorise into this or that country. It is that they do not habitually conceptualise themselves and others in categorical terms. They value and focus on relationships rather than categories. In their struggle to adapt the blooming buzzing complexities of their semi-nomadic lifestyle and relational logic to the strict and apparently static lines, grids, and coordinates of rationalistic statecraft they have become torn by duelling conceptions of “kantri” itself (Melanesian Tok Pisin for “country”). On the one hand, kantri invokes an unbroken rural landscape rich with personal and cultural memories that establish a firm and deep relationship with the land and the ancestors. Such a notion fits easily with local conceptions of kinship and land tenure. On the other hand, kantri is a bounded object, part of an often frustrating and mystifying system of categorization imposed by strict and rationalist mechanisms of statecraft. The following analyses this tension based on 22 months of intensive and intimate participant observation in the region from 1999-2006 with a special focus on the uses and impacts of writing and other new communication technologies. The categorical bias of statecraft is enabled, fostered, extended, and maintained by the technology of writing. Statecraft seeks (or makes) categories that are ideally stable, permanent, non-negotiable, and fit for the relative fixity of print, while the relationships emphasised by people of Nimakot are fluid, temporary, negotiable, contested and ambiguous. In contrast to the engaged, pragmatic, and personal view one finds in face-to-face relationships on the ground, the state’s knowledge of the local is ultimately mediated by what can be written into abstract categories that can be listed, counted and aggregated, producing a synoptic, distanced, and decontextualising perspective. By simplifying the cacophonous blooming buzzing complexities of life into legible categories, regularities, and rules, the pen and paper become both the eyes and the voice of the state (Scott 2). Even the writing of this paper is difficult. Many sentences would be easier to write if I could just name the group I am discussing. But the group of people I am writing about have no clear and uncontested name for themselves. More importantly, they do not traditionally think of themselves as a “group,” nor do they habitually conceptualise others in terms of bounded groups of individuals. The biggest challenge to statecraft’s attempts to create a sense of “country” here is the fact that most local people do not subjectively think of themselves in categorical terms. They do not imagine themselves to be part of “adjacent and competitive empires” (Strathern 102). This “group” is most widely known as the western “Atbalmin” though the name is not an indigenous term. “Atbalmin” is a word used by the neighbouring Telefol that means “people of the trees.” It was adopted by early patrol officers who were accompanied by Telefol translators. As these early patrols made their way through the “Atbalmin” region from east to west they frequently complained about names and their inability to pin or pen them down. Tribal names, clan names, even personal names seemed to change with each asking. While such flexibility and flux were perfectly at home in an oral face-to-face environment, it wasn’t suitable for the colonial administrators’ relatively fixed and static books. The “mysterious Kufelmin” (as the patrol reports refer to them) were even more frustrating for early colonial officers. Patrols heading west from Telefomin searched for decades for this mysterious group and never found them. To this day nobody has ever set foot in a Kufelmin village. In each valley heading west patrols were told that the Kufelmin were in the next valley to the west. But the Kufelmin were never there. They were always one more valley to the west. The problem was that the administrators wrongly assumed “Kufelmin” to be a tribal name as stable and categorical as the forms and maps they were using would accept. Kufelmin simply means “those people to the West.” It is a relational term, not a categorical one. The administration’s first contact with the people of Nimakot exposed even more fundamental differences and specific tensions between the local relational logic and the categorical bias of statecraft. Australian patrol officer JR McArthur crested the mountain overlooking Nimakot at precisely 1027 hours on 16 August 1963, a fact he dutifully recorded in his notebook (Telefomin Patrol Report 12 of 1962/63). He then proceeded down the mountain with pen and paper in hand, recording the precise moment he crossed the Sunim creek (1109 hours), came to Sunimbil (1117 hours), and likewise on and on to his final destination near the base of the present-day airstrip. Such recordings of precise times and locations were central to McArthur's main goal. Amidst the steep mountains painted with lush green gardens, sparkling waterfalls, and towering virgin rainforests McArthur busied himself examining maps and aerial photographs searching for the region’s most impressive, imposing, and yet altogether invisible feature: the 141st Meridian East of Greenwich, the international border. McArthur saw his work as one of fixing boundaries, taking names, and extending the great taxonomic system of statecraft that would ultimately “rationalise” and order even this remote corner of the globe. When he came to the conclusion that he had inadvertently stepped outside his rightful domain he promptly left, noting in his report that he purchased a pig just before leaving. The local understanding of this event is very different. While McArthur was busy making and obeying categories, the people of Nimakot were primarily concerned with making relationships. In this case, they hoped to create a relationship through which valuable goods, the likes of which they had never seen, would flow. The pig mentioned in McArthur's report was not meant to be bought or sold, but as a gift signifying the beginning of what locals hoped would be a long relationship. When McArthur insisted on paying for it and then promptly left with a promise that he would never return, locals interpreted his actions as an accusation of witchcraft. Witchcraft is the most visible and dramatic aspect of the local relational logic of being, what might be termed a relational ontology. Marilyn Strathern describes this ontology as being as much “dividual” as individual, pointing out that Melanesians tend to conceptualise themselves as defined and constituted by social relationships rather than independent from them (102). The person is conceptualised as socially and collectively constituted rather than individuated. A person’s strength, health, intelligence, disposition, and behaviour depend on the strength and nature of one’s relationships (Knauft 26). The impacts of this relational ontology on local life are far reaching. Unconditional kindness and sharing are constantly required to maintain healthy relations because unhealthy relations are understood to be the direct cause of sickness, infertility, and death. Where such misfortunes do befall someone, their explanations are sought in a complex calculus examining relational histories. Whoever has a bad relation with the victim is blamed for their misfortune. Modernists disparage such ideas as “witchcraft beliefs” but witchcraft accusations are just a small part of a much more pervasive, rich, and logical relational ontology in which the health and well-being of relations are conceptualised as influencing the health and well-being of things and people. Because of this logic, people of Nimakot are relationship experts who navigate the complex relational field with remarkable subtleness and tact. But even they cannot maintain the unconditional kindness and sharing that is required of them when their social world grows too large and complex. A village rarely grows to over 50 people before tensions lead to an irresolvable witchcraft accusation and the village splits up. In this way, the continuous negotiations inspired by the relational ontology lead to constant movement, changing of names, and shifting clan affiliations – nothing that fits very well on a static map or a few categories in a book. Over the past 45 years since McArthur first brought the mechanisms of statecraft into Nimakot, the tensions between this local relational ontology and the categorical logic of the state have never been resolved. One might think that a synthesis of the two forms would have emerged. Instead, to this day, all that becomes new is the form through which the tensions are expressed and the ways in which the tensions are exacerbated. The international border has been and continues to be the primary catalyst for these tensions to express themselves. As it turns out, McArthur had miscalculated. He had not crossed the international border before coming to Nimakot. It was later determined that the border runs right through the middle of Nimakot, inspiring one young local man to describe it to me as “that great red mark that cuts us right through the heart.” The McArthur encounter was a harbinger of what was to come; a battle for kantri as unbounded connected landscape, and a battle with kantri as a binding categorical system, set against a backdrop of witchcraft imagery. Locals soon learned the importance of the map and census for receiving state funds for construction projects, education, health care, and other amenities. In the early 1970s a charismatic local man convinced others to move into one large village called Tumolbil. The large population literally put Tumolbil “on the map,” dramatically increasing its visibility to government and foreign aid. Drawn by the large population, an airstrip, school, and aid post were built in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Locally this process is known as “namba tok,” meaning that “numbers (population, statistics, etc.) talk” to the state. The greater the number, the stronger the voice, so locals are now intent on creating large stable villages that are visible to the state and in line for services and development projects. Yet their way of life and relational cultural logics continue to betray their efforts to create such villages. Most people still navigate the complexities of their social relations by living in small, scattered, semi-nomadic hamlets. Even as young local men trained in Western schools become government officials in charge of the maps and census books themselves, they are finding that they are frustrated by the same characteristics of life that once frustrated colonial administrators. The tensions between the local relational ontology and the categorical imperatives of the state come to rest squarely on the shoulders of these young men. They want large stable villages that will produce a large number in the census book in order to bring development projects to their land. More importantly, they recognise that half of their land rests precariously west of that magical 141st Meridian. A clearly defined and distinct place on the map along with a solid number of names in the census book, have become essential to assuring their continued connection with their kantri. On several occasions they have felt threatened by the possibility that they would have to either abandon the land west of the meridian or become citizens of Indonesia. The first option threatens their sense of kantri as connection to their traditional land. The other violates their new found sense of kantri as nationalistic pride in the independent state of Papua New Guinea. In an attempt to resolve these increasingly pressing tensions, the officers designed “Operation Clean and Sweep” in 2003 – a plan to move people out of their small scattered hamlets and into one of twelve larger villages that had been recognised by Papua New Guinea in previous census and mapping exercises. After sending notice to hamlet residents, an operation team of over one hundred men marched throughout Nimakot, burning each hamlet along the way. Before each burning, officers gave a speech peppered with the phrase “namba tok.” Most people listened to the speeches with enthusiasm, often expressing their own eagerness to leave their hamlet behind to live in a large orderly village. In one hamlet they asked me to take a photo of them in front of their houses just before they cheerfully allowed government officers to enter their homes and light the thatch of their rooftops. “Finally,” the officer in charge exclaimed triumphantly, “we can put people where their names are.” If the tension between local relational logics and the categorical imperatives of the state had been only superficial, perhaps this plan would have ultimately resolved the tension. But the tension is not only expressed objectively in the need for large stable villages, but subjectively as well, in the state’s need for people to orient themselves primarily as citizens and individuals, doing what is best for the country as a categorical group rather than acting as relational “dividuals” and orienting their lives primarily towards the demands of kinship and other relations. This tension has been recognised in other contexts as well, and theorised in Craig Calhoun’s study of nationalism in which he marks out two related distinctions: “between networks of social relationships and categories of similar individuals, and between reproduction through directly interpersonal interactions and reproduction through the mediation of relatively impersonal agencies of large-scale cultural standardization and social organization” (29). The former in both of these distinctions make up the essential components of relational ontology, while the latter describe the mechanisms and logic of statecraft. To describe the form of personhood implicit in nationalism, Calhoun introduces the term “categorical identity” to designate “identification by similarity of attributes as a member of a set of equivalent members” (42). While locals are quick to understand the power of categorical entities in the cultural process of statecraft and therefore have eagerly created large villages on a number of occasions in order to “game” the state system, they do not readily assume a categorical identity, an identity with these categories, and the villages have consistently disintegrated over time due to relational tensions and witchcraft accusations born from the local relational ontology. Operation Clean and Sweep reached its crisis moment just two days after the burnings began. An influential man from one of the unmapped hamlets scheduled for burning came to the officers complaining that he would not move to the large government village because he would have to live too close to people who had bewitched and killed members of his family. Others echoed his fears of witchcraft in the large government villages. The drive for a categorical order came head to head with the local relational ontology. Moving people into large government villages and administering a peaceful, orderly, lawful society of citizens (a categorical identity) would take much more than eliminating hamlets and forced migration. It would require a complete transformation in their sense of being – a transformation that even the officers themselves have not fully undertaken. The officers did not see the relational ontology as the problem. They saw witchcraft as the problem. They announced plans to eradicate witchcraft altogether. For three months, witchcraft suspects were apprehended, interrogated, and asked to list names of other witches. With each interrogation, the list of witches grew longer and longer. The interrogations were violent at times, but not as violent or as devastating as the list itself. The violence of the list hid behind its simple elegance. Like a census book, it had a mystique of orderliness and rationality. It stripped away the ugliness and complexity of interrogations leaving nothing but pure categorical knowledge. In the interrogation room, the list became a powerful tool the officer in charge used to intimidate his suspects. He often began by reading from the list, as if to say, “we already have you right here.” But one might say it was the officer who was really trapped in the list. It ensnared him in its simple elegance, its clean straight lines and clear categories. He was not using the list as much as the list was using him. Traditionally it was not the witch that was of concern, but the act of witchcraft itself. If the relationship could be healed – thereby healing the victim – all was forgiven. The list transformed the accused from temporary, situational, and indefinite witches involved in local relational disputes to permanent, categorical witches in violation of state law. Traditional ways of dealing with witchcraft focused on healing relationships. The print culture of the state focuses on punishing the categorically “guilty” categorical individual. They were “sentenced” “by the book.” As an outsider, I was simply thought to be naïve about the workings of witchcraft. My protests were ignored (see Wesch). Ultimately it ended because making a list of witches proved to be even more difficult than making a list for the census. Along with the familiar challenges of shifting names and affiliations, the witch list made its own enemies. The moment somebody was listed all of their relations ceased recognising the list and those making it as authoritative. In the end, the same tensions that motivated Operation Clean and Sweep were only reproduced by the efforts to resolve them. The tensions demonstrated themselves to be more tenacious than anticipated, grounded as they are in pervasive self-sustaining cultural systems that do not overlap in a way that is significant enough to threaten their mutual existence. The relational ontology is embedded in rich and enduring local histories of gift exchange, marriage, birth, death, and conflict. Statecraft is embedded in a broader system of power, hierarchy, deadlines, roles, and rules. They are not simply matters of belief. In this way, the focus on witches and witchcraft could never resolve the tensions. Instead, the movement only exacerbated the relational tensions that inspire, extend, and maintain witchcraft beliefs, and once again people found themselves living in small, scattered hamlets, wishing they could somehow come together to live in large prosperous villages so their population numbers would be great enough to “talk” to the state, bringing in valuable services, and more importantly, securing their land and citizenship with Papua New Guinea. It is in this context that “kantri” not only embodies the tensions between local ways of life and the imperatives of the state, but also the persistent hope for resolution, and the haunting memories of previous failures. References Calhoun, Craig. Nationalism. Open UP, 1997. Knauft, Bruce. From Primitive to Postcolonial in Melanesia and Anthropology. Ann Arbor: U Michigan P, 1999. McArthur, JR. Telefomin Patrol Report 12 of 1962/63 Strathern, Marilyn. The Gender of the Gift. U California P, 1988. Scott, James. Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. Yale UP, 1998. Wesch, Michael. “A Witch Hunt in New Guinea: Anthropology on Trial.” Anthropology and Humanism 32.1 (2007): 4-17.

Different forms of transport have always had different effects on the cityscape, landscape, nationscape and airscape. Modes of moving from A to B have consumed, manipulated and divided this space, often requiring other activities to operate around it. This division is seen most obviously in roads and their effect on community (see for example The Castle), but also in other scapes such as the control of airspace through flight paths which has had a marked effect on, for example, the migratory flight paths of birds. With the adoption of new transport technologies, scapes are manipulated to accommodate the needs of this technology. The bicycle is an interesting example of a technology, which in its popularity last century began to affect the architecture of the landscape, before the automobile left its indelible imprint. With the disenchantment with cars in the Western world, it is interesting to ponder on the effect that bicycles are now having with the resurgence of their popularity. At this point, it must be noted that this is a purely Western orientated study and it would be worthwhile comparing these spatial effects to the scapes in a highly cycle-dominated country such as China. The popularity of bicycles peaked in the 1880-90s (Bardou et al. 7). This craze was partly due to the attraction of the technology, but also due to an associated sense of freedom and escape. This attitude to the bicycle is expressed in H.G. Wells's novella, Wheels of Chance (based in 1895) where the main character, a draper called Mr Hoopdriver, undertakes a cycling tour of the south coast of England. Freedom takes on two meanings -- firstly, Mr Hoopdriver finds a sense of freedom in being able to escape from his mundane life and travel the long distances solo and in a shorter time. He also observes another type of freedom in the form of the Young Lady in Grey who is also on a cycling tour. Mr Hoopdriver is shocked to see a woman exerting herself physically and wearing pants, yet realises that there is no question of women cycling side saddle wearing a skirt. It seems that in this form of transport, the emancipation of women progresses a little further. This freedom led to the enormous popularity of bicycles and as a result, bicycle organisations began to petition for the improvement and expansion of roads which were in a poor state due to the use of horses (Fink 8). And so bicycles began to impose their needs on the landscape and with the expansion of road networks, the landscape was altered markedly. Interestingly enough, these roadworks were one factor which led to the bicycle's demise in popularity and the accelerated manufacture of cars (Bardou et al. 9). At the time that roads were being improved, farmers in the United States were becoming distressed by the railway's monopolised power over mass transport. Due to the improved roads, the agricultural industry pushed towards using these roads for transporting produce. A number of automobiles had been designed and tested since Leonardo da Vinci first sketched the idea. 1860-90 had seen a number of reasonable size steam engines which had reasonable power/weight radio, and an electric car, invented by William Morrison (US) in 1890, had a running time of 13 hours at 14 mph (Fink 9). However, it was the internal combustion engine that revolutionised this form of transport, and it did not take long before the utopia was conceived. Not only could cars move faster than a horse and cart, they were originally deemed cleaner and healthier, according to an 1899 article from the Scientific American: The improvement in city conditions by the general adoption of the motorcar can hardly be overestimated. Streets clean, dustless and odourless, with light rubber tired vehicles moving swiftly and noiselessly over the smooth expanse, would eliminate a greater part of the nervousness, distraction, and strain of modern metropolitan life. (Conyngton 19660) There existed some initial resistance to the introduction of cars. Pedestrians, horse owners and cyclists began to feel that their road space was being impinged upon and speed laws were introduced to attempt to counteract the fanaticism (Flink 25). However, little could be done to dissuade the masses about the benefits of the car. Given the car's enormous popularity and the spatial needs of this vehicle, it is interesting to consider the architectural changes to the city and landscapes necessary to account for the requirements of the car. As the rail trucks needed tracks, so too the cars needed roads. Already existing roads in cities were altered significantly and in particular, enormous amounts of money were injected into building highways to link major cities. Examples of these projects are the now defunct Highway Trust Fund in the United States and the Pacific Highway system in Australia. These roads have always been built with great opposition from people whose homes or land were rezoned for use by governing bodies. The consumption and division of established city scapes to accommodate for the cars' needs has severely altered the spatial priorities. Leavitt (1970) suggests that previously cohesive neighbourhoods have become socially and spatially divided as a result. Small corner stores have closed down due to bypasses, neighbours cannot visit each other on foot due to uncrossable motorways, animals are killed as a result of normal routes being intersected by highways, and the airscape has become dominated by the engine fumes especially in places such as Mexico City. On a larger scale, it may be suggested that cars has had scape-altered effects on a national and transnational level. The rise of the use of motorised transport can be considered in conjunction with the growing popularity of communication systems, more specifically at this time, the telephone. Both the car and the telephone have changed the perception of space between previously distant neighbours. Travelling time and communication time have decreased as a result of the use of these devices, resulting in a greater unification of the nation state. The negative corollary to this is the disintegration of these nation states through war. The use of cars and the expanded and improved highway systems had devastating effects in World War II. The increased mobilisation of soldiers and weaponry increased the efficiency of destruction, resulting in razed city and landscapes and a shift in national borders and nation space. Thus the demands of cars have altered these scapes and subsequently dictate the use of this space. It may be suggested that the car no longer is a tool for humans, but tends to control human activity within the space it dominates. People must use a bypass to drive further for a loaf of bread which was previously bought from the corner shop now closed from a lack of business due to the same bypass. Commuters in Mexico City are forced back into cars to escape the hazardous chemicals now dominating this space. This almost master/servant relationship over space allocation in the land, city and airscapes led to the disenchantment with cars which began in the 70s. One of the results of this disenchantment was to reconsider the bicycle as an alternate, less impinging form of transport. It has taken a number of decades but, in terms of space and scapes, an interesting phenomenon is occurring with the resurgence of the popularity of bicycles in the Western world. Cycling advocate groups are highlighting the advantages of this mode of transport. Cycling is no longer discussed in the 1890 discourses of freedom and adventure, but in terms of the environment and health. The environmental rhetoric, in particular, can be framed in terms of space. For example, it may be suggested that bicycles do not tend to permeate the airscape to the degree that cars do. It is through these types of discourses that advocate groups have been arguing for the right to take back some of the space that cars have since subsumed. A struggle exists over this space. For example, in many European cities, bicycle lanes on the far left of the road (between the footpath and carlanes) have been drawn on many intra-urban roads. In Amsterdam, vehicle access is colour coded, with bikeways being marked by red bricks (Poindexter). The cityscape is not altered as a result, but challenges to the space already filled by cars are made. In Australian capital cities, these bikelanes are less successful. Many of these bike lanes exist where car parking is permitted and a line of parked cars potentially subsumes this designated space, such that it no longer exists. Thus many cyclists resort to using pathways, some specific to cyclists, others shared with pedestrians. Other innovations from the Netherlands, which have perpetuated this challenge to the car's control of space, are traffic lights with special signals for bicycles and right-of-way laws which include specific give way to cyclists rules (Poindexter). These practices question the dominion of cars in travelling spaces and go towards changing this transport paradigm. As natural resources are depleted further and little progress is made on green cars, bicycles may again find their niche. It will be interesting to see another architectural evolution of the city, land, air and nationscapes as this space changes to accommodate another shift in transport trends. References Bardou, Jean-Pierre, Jean-Jacques Chanaron, Patrick Fridenson and James Laux. The Automobile Revolution: The Impact of an Industry. Chapel Hill (US): North Carolina UP, 1982. Conyngton, Thomas. "Motor Carriages and Street Paving." Scientific American Supplement 48 (1899): 196660. Fink, James. The Car Culture. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1975. Leavitt, Helen. Superhighway -- Super Hoax. New York: Doubleday, 1970. Poindexter, Miles. "Are Bicycle Lanes the Answer?" Self-Propelled City 31 January 1999. 13 November 2000 <http://www.self-propelled-city.com>. Wells, H.G. The Wheels of Chance. London: Dent; New York: Dutton, 1935. Citation reference for this article MLA style: Felicity Meakins. "Reknowing the Bicycle; Renewing its Space." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3.6 (2000). [your date of access] <http://www.api-network.com/mc/0012/bike.php>. Chicago style: Felicity Meakins, "Reknowing the Bicycle; Renewing its Space," M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3, no. 6 (2000), <http://www.api-network.com/mc/0012/bike.php> ([your date of access]). APA style: Felicity Meakins. (2000) Reknowing the bicycle; renewing its space. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3(6). <http://www.api-network.com/mc/0012/bike.php> ([your date of access]).

IntroductionThe death of Chris Cornell in the spring of 2017 shook me. As the lead singer of Soundgarden and a pioneer of early 1990s grunge music, his voice revealed an unbridled pain and joy backed up by the raw, guitar-driven rock emanating from the Seattle, Washington music scene. I remember thinking, there’s only one left, referring to Eddie Vedder, lead singer for Pearl Jam, and lone survivor of the four seminal grunge bands that rose to fame in the early 1990s whose lead singers passed away much too soon. Alice in Chains singer Layne Staley died in 2002 at the age of 35, and Nirvana front man Kurt Cobain’s death in 1994 had resonated around the globe. I thought about when Cornell and Staley said goodbye to their friend Andy Wood, lead singer of Mother Love Bone, after he overdosed on heroine in 1990. Wood’s untimely death at the age of 24, only days before his band’s debut album release, shook the close-knit Seattle music scene and remained a source of angst and inspiration for a genre of music that shaped youth culture of the 1990s.When grunge first exploded on the pop culture scene, I was a college student flailing around in pursuit of an English degree I had less passion for than I did for music. I grew up listening to The Beatles and Prince; Led Zeppelin and Miles Davis; David Bowie and Willie Nelson, along with a litany of other artists and musicians crafting the kind of meaningful music I responded to. I didn’t just listen to music, I devoured stories about the musicians, their often hedonistic lifestyles; their processes and epiphanies. The music spoke to my being in the world more than the promise of any college degree. I ran with friends who shared this love of music, often turning me on to new bands or suggesting some obscure song from the past to track down. I picked up my first guitar when John Lennon died on the eve of my eleventh birthday and have played for the past 37 years. I rely on music to relocate my sense of self. Rhythm and melody play out like characters in my life, colluding to make me feel something apart from the mundane, moving me from within. So, when I took notice of grunge music in the fall of 1991, it was love at first listen. As a pop cultural phenomenon, grunge ruptured the music and fashion industries caught off guard by its sudden commercial appeal while the media struggled to galvanize its relevance. As a subculture, grunge rallied around a set of attitudes and values that set the movement apart from mainstream (Latysheva). The grunge sound drew from the nihilism of punk and the head banging gospel of heavy metal, tinged with the swagger of 1970s FM rock running counter to the sleek production of pop radio and hair metal bands. Grunge artists wrote emotionally-laden songs that spoke to a particular generation of youth who identified with lyrics about isolation, anger, and death. Grunge set off new fashion trends in favor of dressing down and sporting the latest in second-hand, thrift store apparel, ripping away the Reagan-era starched white-collared working-class aesthetic of the 1980’s corporate culture. Like their punk forbearers who railed against the status quo and the trappings of success incurred through the mass appeal of their art, Kurt Cobain, Eddie Vedder, and the rest of the grunge cohort often wrestled with the momentum of their success. Fortunes rained down and the media ordained them rock stars.This auto-ethnography revisits some of the cultural impacts of grunge during its rise to cultural relevance and includes my own reflexive interpretation positioned as a fan of grunge music. I use a particular auto-ethnographic orientation called “interpretive-humanistic autoethnography” (Manning and Adams 192) where, along with archival research (i.e. media articles and journal articles), I will use my own reflexive voice to interpret and describe my personal experiences as a fan of grunge music during its peak of popularity from 1991 up to the death of Cobain in 1994. It is a methodology that works to bridge the personal and popular where “the individual story leaves traces of at least one path through a shifting, transforming, and disappearing cultural landscape” (Neumann 183). Grunge RootsThere are many conflicting stories as to when the word “grunge” was first used to describe the sound of a particular style of alternative music seeping from the dank basements and shoddy rehearsal spaces in towns like Olympia, Aberdeen, and Seattle. Lester Bangs, the preeminent cultural writer and critic of all things punk, pop, and rock in the 1970s was said to have used the word at one time (Yarm), and several musicians lay claim to their use of the word in the 1980s. But it was a small Seattle record label founded in 1988 called Sub Pop Records that first included grunge in their marketing materials to describe “the grittiness of the music and the energy” (Yarm 195).This particular sound grew out of the Pacific Northwest blue-collar environment of logging towns, coastal fisheries, and airplane manufacturing. Seattle’s alternative music scene unfolded as a community of musicians responding to the tucked away isolation of their musty surroundings, apart from the outside world, free to submerge themselves in their own cultural milieu of rock music, rain, and youthful rebellion.Where Seattle stood as a major metropolitan city soaked in rainclouds for much of the year, I was soaking up the desert sun in a rural college town when grunge first leapt into the mainstream. Cattle ranches and cotton fields spread across the open plains of West Texas, painted with pickup trucks, starched Wrangler Jeans, and cowboy hats. This was not my world. I’d arrived the year prior from Houston, Texas, an urban sprawl of four million people, but I found the wide-open landscape a welcome change from the concrete jungle of the big city. Along with cowboy boots and western shirts came country music, and lots of it. Garth Brooks, Reba McEntire, George Straight; some of the voices that captured the lifestyle of my small rural town, twangy guitars and fiddles blaring on local radio. While popular country artists recorded for behemoth record labels like Warner Brothers and Sony, the tiny Sub Pop Records championed the grunge sound coming out of the Seattle music scene. Sub Pop became a playground for those who cared about their music and little else. The label cultivated an early following through their Sub Pop Singles Club, mailing seven-inch records to subscribers on a monthly basis promoting new releases from up-and-coming bands. Sub Pop’s stark, black and white logo showed up on records sleeves, posters, and t-shirts, reflecting a no-nonsense DIY-attitude rooted in in the production of loud guitars and heavy drums.Like the bands it represented, Sub Pop did not take itself too seriously when one of their best-selling t-shirts simply read “Loser” embracing the slacker mood of newly minted Generation X’ers born between 1961 and 1981. A July 1990 Time Magazine article described this twenty-something demographic as having “few heroes, no anthems, no style to call their own” suggesting they “possess only a hazy sense of their own identity” (Gross & Scott). As a member of this generation, I purchased and wore my “Loser” t-shirt with pride, especially in ironic response to the local cowboy way of life. I didn’t hold anything personal against the Wrangler wearing Garth Brooks fan but as a twenty-one-year-old reluctant college student, I wanted to rage with contempt for the status quo of my environment with an ambivalent snarl.Grunge in the MainstreamIn 1991, the Seattle sound exploded onto the international music scene with the release of four seminal grunge-era albums over a six-month period. The first arrived in April, Temple of the Dog, a tribute album of sorts to the late Andy Wood, led by his close friend, Soundgarden singer/songwriter, Chris Cornell. In August, Pearl Jam released their debut album, Ten, with its “surprising and refreshing, melodic restraint” (Fricke). The following month, Nirvana’s Nevermind landed in stores. Now on a major record label, DGC Records, the band had arrived “at the crossroads—scrappy garageland warriors setting their sights on a land of giants” (Robbins). October saw the release of Soundgarden’s Badmotorfinger as “a runaway train ride of stammering guitar and psycho-jungle telegraph rhythms” (Fricke). These four albums sent grunge culture into the ether with a wall of sound that would upend the music charts and galvanize a depressed concert ticket market.In fall of 1991, grunge landed like a hammer when I witnessed Nirvana’s video for “Smells Like Teen Spirit” on MTV for the first time. Sonically, the song rang like an anthem for the Gen Xers with its jangly four-chord opening guitar riff signaling the arrival of a youth-oriented call to arms, “here we are now, entertain us” (Nirvana). It was the visual power of seeing a skinny white kid with stringy hair wearing baggy jeans, a striped T-shirt and tennis shoes belting out choruses with a ferociousness typically reserved for black-clad heavy metal headbangers. Cobain’s sound and look didn’t match up. I felt discombobulated, turned sideways, as if vertigo had taken hold and I couldn’t right myself. Stopped in the middle of my tracks on that day, frozen in front of the TV, the subculture of grunge music slammed into my world while I was on my way to the fridge.Suddenly, grunge was everywhere, As Soundgarden, Nirvana, and Pearl Jam albums and performances infiltrated radio, television, and concert halls, there was no shortage of media coverage. From 1992 through 1994, grunge bands were mentioned or featured on the cover of Rolling Stone 33 times (Hillburn). That same year, The New York Times ran the article “Grunge: A Success Story” featuring a short history of the Seattle sound, along with a “lexicon of grunge speak” (Marin), a joke perpetrated by a former 25-year-old Sub Pop employee, Megan Jasper, who never imagined her list of made-up vocabulary given to a New York Times reporter would grace the front page of the style section (Yarm). In their rush to keep up with pervasiveness of grunge culture, even The New York Times fell prey to Gen Xer’s comical cynicism.The circle of friends I ran with were split down the middle between Nirvana and Pearl Jam, a preference for one over the other, as the two bands and their respective front men garnered much of the media attention. Nirvana seemed to appeal to people’s sense of authenticity, perhaps more relatable in their aloofness to mainstream popularity, backed up with Cobain’s simple-yet-brilliant song arrangements and revealing lyrics. Lawrence Grossberg suggests that music fans recognise the difference between authentic and homogenised rock, interpreting and aligning these differences with rock and roll’s association with “resistance, refusal, alienation, marginality, and so on” (62). I tended to gravitate toward Nirvana’s sound, mostly for technical reasons. Nevermind sparkled with aggressive guitar tones while capturing the power and fragility of Cobain’s voice. For many critics, the brilliance of Pearl Jam’s first album suffered from too much echo and reverb muddling the overall production value, but twenty years later they would remix and re-release Ten, correcting these production issues.Grunge FashionAs the music carved out a huge section of the charts, the grunge look was appropriated on fashion runways. When Cobain appeared on MTV wearing a ragged olive green cardigan he’d created a style simply by rummaging through his closet. Vedder and Cornell sported army boots, cargo shorts, and flannel shirts, suitable attire for the overcast climate of the Pacific Northwest, but their everyday garb turned into a fashion trend for Gen Xers that was then milked by designers. In 1992, the editor of Details magazine, James Truman, called grunge “un fashion” (Marin) as stepping out in second-hand clothes ran “counter to the shellacked, flashy aesthetic of 1980s” (Nnadi) for those who preferred “the waif-like look of put-on poverty” (Brady). But it was MTV’s relentless airing of Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden videos that sent Gen Xers flocking to malls and thrift-stores in search grunge-like apparel. I purchased a pair of giant, heavyweight Red Wing boots that looked like small cars on my feet, making it difficult to walk, but at least I was prepared for any terrain in all types of weather. The flannel came next; I still wear flannos. Despite its association with dark, murky musical themes, grunge kept me warm and dry.Much of grunge’s appeal to the masses was that it was not gender-specific; men and women dressed to appear unimpressed, sharing a taste for shapeless garments and muted colors without reference to stereotypical masculine or feminine styles. Cobain “allowed his own sexuality to be called into question by often wearing dresses and/or makeup on stage, in film clips, and on photo shoots, and wrote explicitly feminist songs, such as ‘Sappy’ or ‘Been a Son’” (Strong 403). I remember watching Pearl Jam’s 1992 performance on MTV Unplugged, seeing Eddie Vedder scrawl the words “Pro Choice” in black marker on his arm in support of women’s rights while his lyrics in songs like “Daughter”, “Better Man”, and “Why Go” reflected an equitable, humanistic if somewhat tragic perspective. Females and males moshed alongside one another, sharing the same spaces while experiencing and voicing their own response to grunge’s aggressive sound. Unlike the hypersexualised hair-metal bands of the 1980s whose aesthetic motifs often portrayed women as conquests or as powerless décor, the message of grunge rock avoided gender exploitation. As the ‘90s unfolded, underground feminist punk bands of the riot grrrl movement like Bikini Kill, L7, and Babes in Toyland expressed female empowerment with raging vocals and buzz-saw guitars that paved the way for Hole, Sleater-Kinney and other successful female-fronted grunge-era bands. The Decline of GrungeIn 1994, Kurt Cobain appeared on the cover of Newsweek magazine in memoriam after committing suicide in the greenhouse of his Seattle home. Mass media quickly spread the news of his passing internationally. Two days after his death, 7,000 fans gathered at Seattle Center to listen to a taped recording of Courtney Love, Cobain’s wife, a rock star in her own right, reading the suicide note he left behind.A few days after Cobain’s suicide, I found myself rolling down the highway with a carload of friends, one of my favorite Nirvana tunes, “Come As You Are” fighting through static. I fiddled with the radio to clear up the signal. The conversation turned to Cobain as we cobbled together the details of his death. I remember the chatter quieting down, Cobain’s voice fading as we gazed out the window at the empty terrain passing. In that reflective moment, I felt like I had experienced an intense, emotional relationship that came to an abrupt end. This “illusion of intimacy” (Horton and Wohl 217) between myself and Cobain elevated the loss I felt with his passing even though I had no intimate, personal ties to him. I counted this person as a friend (Giles 284) because I so closely identified with his words and music. I could not help but feel sad, even angry that he’d decided to end his life.Fueled by depression and a heroin addiction, Cobain’s death signaled an end to grunge’s collective appeal while shining a spotlight on one of the more dangerous aspects of its ethos. A 1992 Rolling Stone article mentioned that several of Seattle’s now-famous international musicians used heroin and “The feeling around town is, the drug is a disaster waiting to happen” (Azzerad). In 2002, eight years to the day of Cobain’s death, Layne Staley, lead singer of Alice In Chains, another seminal grunge outfit, was found dead of a suspected heroin overdose (Wiederhorn). When Cornell took his own life in 2017 after a long battle with depression, The Washington Post said, “The story of grunge is also one of death” (Andrews). The article included a Tweet from a grieving fan that read “The voices I grew up with: Andy Wood, Layne Staley, Chris Cornell, Kurt Cobain…only Eddie Vedder is left. Let that sink in” (@ThatEricAlper).ConclusionThe grunge movement of the early 1990s emerged out of musical friendships content to be on their own, on the outside, reflecting a sense of isolation and alienation in the music they made. As Cornell said, “We’ve always been fairly reclusive and damaged” (Foege). I felt much the same way in those days, sequestered in the desert, planting my grunge flag in the middle of country music territory, doing what I could to resist the status quo. Cobain, Cornell, Staley, and Vedder wrote about their own anxieties in a way that felt intimate and relatable, forging a bond with their fan base. Christopher Perricone suggests, “the relationship of an artist and audience is a collaborative one, a love relationship in the sense, a friendship” (200). In this way, grunge would become a shared memory among friends who rode the wave of this cultural phenomenon all the way through to its tragic consequences. But the music has survived. Along with my flannel shirts and Red Wing boots.References@ThatEricAlper (Eric Alper). “The voices I grew up with: Andy Wood, Layne Staley, Chris Cornell, Kurt Cobain…only Eddie Vedder is left. Let that sink in.” Twitter, 18 May 2017, 02:41. 15 Sep. 2018 <https://twitter.com/ThatEricAlper/status/865140400704675840?ref_src>.Andrews, Travis M. “After Chris Cornell’s Death: ‘Only Eddie Vedder Is Left. Let That Sink In.’” The Washington Post, 19 May 2017. 29 Aug. 2018 <https://www.washingtonpost.com/newsmorning-mix/wp/2017/05/19/after-chris-cornells-death-only-eddie-vedder-is-left-let-that-sink-in>.Azzerad, Michael. “Grunge City: The Seattle Scene.” Rolling Stone, 16 Apr. 1992. 20 Aug. 2018 <https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/grunge-city-the-seattle-scene-250071/>.Brady, Diane. “Kids, Clothes and Conformity: Teens Fashion and Their Back-to-School Looks.” Maclean’s, 6 Sep. 1993. Brodeur, Nicole. “Chris Cornell: Soundgarden’s Dark Knight of the Grunge-Music Scene.” Seattle Times, 18 May 2017. 20 Aug. 2018 <https://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/music/chris-cornell-soundgardens-dark-knight-of-the-grunge-music-scene/>.Ellis, Carolyn, and Arthur P. Bochner. “Autoethnography, Personal Narrative, Reflexivity: Researcher as Subject.” Handbook of Qualitative Research. 2nd ed. Eds. Norman Denzin and Yvonna Lincoln. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2000. 733-768.Foege, Alec. “Chris Cornell: The Rolling Stone Interview.” Rolling Stone, 28 Dec. 1994. 12 Sep. 2018 <https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/chris-cornell-the-rolling-stone-interview-79108/>.Fricke, David. “Ten.” Rolling Stone, 12 Dec. 1991. 18 Sep. 2018 <https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/ten-251421/>.Giles, David. “Parasocial Interactions: A Review of the Literature and a Model for Future Research.” Media Psychology 4 (2002): 279-305.Giles, Jeff. “The Poet of Alientation.” Newsweek, 17 Apr. 1994, 4 Sep. 2018 <https://www.newsweek.com/poet-alienation-187124>.Gross, D.M., and S. Scott. Proceding with Caution. Time, 16 July 1990. 3 Sep. 2018 <http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,155010,00.html>.Grossberg, Lawrence. “Is There a Fan in the House? The Affective Sensibility of Fandom. The Adoring Audience” Fan Culture and Popular Media. Ed. Lisa A. Lewis. New York, NY: Routledge, 1992. 50-65.Hillburn, Robert. “The Rise and Fall of Grunge.” Los Angeles Times, 21 May 1998. 20 Aug. 2018 <http://articles.latimes.com/1998/may/31/entertainment/ca-54992>.Horton, Donald, and R. Richard Wohl. “Mass Communication and Para-Social Interactions: Observations on Intimacy at a Distance.” Psychiatry: Interpersonal and Biological Process 19 (1956): 215-229.Latysheva, T.V. “The Essential Nature and Types of the Youth Subculture Phenomenon.” Russian Education and Society 53 (2011): 73–88.Manning, Jimmie, and Tony Adams. “Popular Culture Studies and Autoethnography: An Essay on Method.” The Popular Culture Studies Journal 3.1-2 (2015): 187-222.Marin, Rick. “Grunge: A Success Story.” New York Times, 15 Nov. 1992. 12 Sep. 2018 <https://www.nytimes.com/1992/11/15/style/grunge-a-success-story.html>.Neumann, Mark. “Collecting Ourselves at the End of the Century.” Composing Ethnography: Alternative Forms of Qualitative Writing. Eds. Carolyn Ellis and Arthur P. Bochner. London: Alta Mira Press, 1996. 172-198.Nirvana. "Smells Like Teen Spirit." Nevermind, Geffen, 1991.Nnadi, Chioma. “Why Kurt Cobain Was One of the Most Influential Style Icons of Our Times.” Vogue, 8 Apr. 2014. 15 Aug. 2018 <https://www.vogue.com/article/kurt-cobain-legacy-of-grunge-in-fashion>.Perricone, Christopher. “Artist and Audience.” The Journal of Value Inquiry 24 (2012). 12 Sep. 2018 <https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/BF00149433.pdf>.Robbins, Ira. “Ten.” Rolling Stone, 12 Dec. 1991. 15 Aug. 2018 <https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/ten-25142>.Strong, Catherine. “Grunge, Riott Grrl and the Forgetting of Women in Popular Culture.” The Journal of Popular Culture 44.2 (2011): 398-416. Wiederhorn, Jon. “Remembering Layne Staley: The Other Great Seattle Musician to Die on April 5.” MTV, 4 June 2004. 23 Sep. 2018 <http://www.mtv.com/news/1486206/remembering-layne-staley-the-other-great-seattle-musician-to-die-on-april-5/>.Yarm, Mark. Everybody Loves Our Town: An Oral History of Grunge. Three Rivers Press, 2011.

"verbiage very thinly sliced and plated up real nice" (Barrett 1)IntroductionMany of us share in an obsessive collecting of cookbooks and recipes. Torn or cut from newspapers and magazines, recipes sit swelling scrapbooks with bloated, unfilled desire. They’re non-hybrid seeds, peas under the mattress, an endless cycle of reproduction. Desire and narrative are folded into each other in our drive, as humans, to create meaning. But what holds us to narrative is good writing. And what can also drive desire is image—literal as well as metaphorical—the visceral pleasure of the gaze, or looking and viewing the sensually aesthetic and the work of the imagination. Creative WritingCooking, winemaking, and food and wine writing can all be considered art. For example, James Halliday (31), the eminent Australian wine critic, posed the question “Is winemaking an art?,” answering: “Most would say so” (31). Cookbooks are stories within stories, narratives that are both factual and imagined, everyday and fantastic—created by both writer and reader from where, along with its historical, cultural and publishing context, a text gets its meaning. Creative writing, in broad terms of genre, is either fiction (imagined, made-up) or creative nonfiction (true, factual). Genre comes from the human taxonomic impulse to create order from chaos through cataloguing and classification. In what might seem overwhelming infinite variety, we establish categories and within them formulas and conventions. But genres are not necessarily stable or clear-cut, and variation in a genre can contribute to its de/trans/formation (Curti 33). Creative nonfiction includes life writing (auto/biography) and food writing among other subgenres (although these subgenres can also be part of fiction). Cookbooks sit within the creative nonfiction genre. More clearly, dietary or nutrition manuals are nonfiction, technical rather than creative. Recipe writing specifically is perhaps less an art and more a technical exercise; generally it’s nonfiction, or between that and creative nonfiction. (One guide to writing recipes is Ostmann and Baker.) Creative writing is built upon approximately five, more or less, fundamentals of practice: point of view or focalisation or who narrates, structure (plot or story, and theme), characterisation, heightened or descriptive language, setting, and dialogue (not in any order of importance). (There are many handbooks on creative writing, that will take a writer through these fundamentals.) Style or voice derives from what a writer writes about (their recurring themes), and how they write about it (their vocabulary choice, particular use of imagery, rhythm, syntax etc.). Traditionally, as a reader, and writer, you are either a plot person or character person, but you can also be interested primarily in ideas or language, and in the popular or literary.Cookbooks as Creative NonfictionCookbooks often have a sense of their author’s persona or subjectivity as a character—that is, their proclivities, lives and thus ideology, and historical, social and cultural place and time. Memoir, a slice of the author–chef/cook’s autobiography, is often explicitly part of the cookbook, or implicit in the nature of the recipes, and the para-textual material which includes the book’s presentation and publishing context, and the writer’s biographical note and acknowledgements. And in relation to the latter, here's Australian wine educator Colin Corney telling us, in his biographical note, about his nascent passion for wine: “I returned home […] stony broke. So the next day I took a job as a bottleshop assistant at Moore Park Cellars […] to tide me over—I stayed three years!” (xi). In this context, character and place, in the broadest sense, are inevitably evoked. So in conjunction with this para-textual material, recipe ingredients and instructions, visual images and the book’s production values combine to become the components for authoring a fictive narrative of self, space and time—fictive, because writing inevitably, in a broad or conceptual sense, fictionalises everything, since it can only re-present through language and only from a particular point of view.The CookbooksTo talk about the art of cookbooks, I make a judgmental (from a creative-writer's point of view) case study of four cookbooks: Lyndey Milan and Colin Corney’s Balance: Matching Food and Wine, Sean Moran’s Let It Simmer (this is the first edition; the second is titled Let It Simmer: From Bush to Beach and Onto Your Plate), Kate Lamont’s Wine and Food, and Greg Duncan Powell’s Rump and a Rough Red (this is the second edition; the first was The Pig, the Olive & the Squid: Food & Wine from Humble Beginnings) I discuss reading, writing, imaging, and designing, which, together, form the nexus for interpreting these cookbooks in particular. The choice of these books was only relatively random, influenced by my desire to see how Australia, a major wine-producing country, was faring with discussion of wine and food choices; by the presence of discursive text beyond technical presentation of recipes, and of photographs and purposefully artful design; and by familiarity with names, restaurants and/or publishers. Reading Moran's cookbook is a model of good writing in its use of selective and specific detail directed towards a particular theme. The theme is further created or reinforced in the mix of narrative, language use, images and design. His writing has authenticity: a sense of an original, distinct voice.Moran’s aphoristic title could imply many things, but, in reading the cookbook, you realise it resonates with a mindfulness that ripples throughout his writing. The aphorism, with its laidback casualness (legendary Australian), is affectively in sync with the chef’s approach. Jacques Derrida said of the aphorism that it produces “an echo of really curious, indelible power” (67).Moran’s aim for his recipes is that they be about “honest, home-style cooking” and bringing “out a little bit of the professional chef in the home cook”, and they are “guidelines” available for “sparkle” and seduction from interpretation (4). The book lives out this persona and personal proclivities. Moran’s storytellings are specifically and solely highlighted in the Contents section which structures the book via broad categories (for example, "Grains" featuring "The dance of the paella" and "Heaven" featuring "A trifle coming on" for example). In comparison, Powell uses "The Lemon", for example, as well as "The Sheep". The first level of Contents in Lamont’s book is done by broad wine styles: sparkling, light white, robust white and so on, and the second level is the recipe list in each of these sections. Lamont’s "For me, matching food and wine comes down to flavour" (xiii) is not as dramatic or expressive as Powell’s "Wine: the forgotten condiment." Although food is first in Milan and Corney’s book’s subtitle, their first content is wine, then matching food with colour and specific grape, from Sauvignon Blanc to Barbera and more. Powell claims that the third of his rules (the idea of rules is playful but not comedic) for choosing the best wine per se is to combine region with grape variety. He covers a more detailed and diversified range of grape varieties than Lamont, systematically discussing them first-up. Where Lamont names wine styles, Powell points out where wine styles are best represented in Australian states and regions in a longish list (titled “13 of the best Australian grape and region combos”). Lamont only occasionally does this. Powell discusses the minor alternative white, Arneis, and major alternative reds such as Barbera and Nebbiolo (Allen 81, 85). This engaging detail engenders a committed reader. Pinot Gris, Viognier, Sangiovese, and Tempranillo are as alternative as Lamont gets. In contrast to Moran's laidbackness, Lamont emphasises professionalism: "My greatest pleasure as a chef is knowing that guests have enjoyed the entire food and wine experience […] That means I have done my job" (xiii). Her reminders of the obvious are, nevertheless, noteworthy: "Thankfully we have moved on from white wine/white meat and red wine/red meat" (xiv). She then addresses the alterations in flavour caused by "method of cooking" and "combination of ingredients", with examples. One such is poached chicken and mango crying "out for a vibrant, zesty Riesling" (xiii): but where from, I ask? Roast chicken with herbs and garlic would favour "red wine with silky tannin" and "chocolatey flavours" (xiii): again, I ask, where from? Powell claims "a different evolution" for his book "to the average cookbook" (7). In recipes that have "a wine focus", there are no "pretty […] little salads, or lavish […] cakes" but "brown" albeit tasty food that will not require ingredients from "poncy inner-city providores", be easy to cook, and go with a cheap, budget-based wine (7). While this identity-setting is empathetic for a Powell clone, and I am envious of his skill with verbiage, he doesn’t deliver dreaming or desire. Milan and Corney do their best job in an eye-catching, informative exemplar list of food and wine matches: "Red duck curry and Barossa Valley Shiraz" for example (7), and in wine "At-a-glance" tables, telling us, for example, that the best Australian regions for Chardonnay are Margaret River and the Adelaide Hills (53). WritingThe "Introduction" to Moran’s cookbook is a slice of memoir, a portrait of a chef as a young man: the coming into being of passion, skill, and professionalism. And the introduction to the introduction is most memorable, being a loving description of his frugal Australian childhood dinners: creations of his mother’s use of manufactured, canned, and bottled substitutes-for-the-real, including Gravox and Dessert Whip (1). From his travel-based international culinary education in handmade, agrarian food, he describes "a head of buffalo mozzarella stuffed with ricotta and studded with white truffles" as "sheer beauty", "ambrosial flavour" and "edible white 'terrazzo'." The consonants b, s, t, d, and r are picked up and repeated, as are the vowels e, a, and o. Notice, too, the comparison of classic Italian food to an equally classic Italian artefact. Later, in an interactive text, questions are posed: "Who could now imagine life without this peppery salad green?" (23). Moran uses the expected action verbs of peel, mince, toss, etc.: "A bucket of tiny clams needs a good tumble under the running tap" (92). But he also uses the unexpected hug, nab, snuggle, waltz, "wave of garlic" and "raining rice." Milan and Corney display a metaphoric-language play too: the bubbles of a sparkling wine matching red meat become "the little red broom […] sweep[ing] away the […] cloying richness" (114). In contrast, Lamont’s cookbook can seem flat, lacking distinctiveness. But with a title like Wine and Food, perhaps you are not expecting much more than information, plain directness. Moran delivers recipes as reproducible with ease and care. An image of a restaurant blackboard menu with the word "chook" forestalls intimidation. Good quality, basic ingredients and knowledge of their source and season carry weight. The message is that food and drink are due respect, and that cooking is neither a stressful, grandiose nor competitive activity. While both Moran and Lamont have recipes for Duck Liver Pâté—with the exception that Lamont’s is (disturbingly, for this cook) "Parfait", Moran also has Lentil Patties, a granola, and a number of breads. Lamont has Brioche (but, granted, without the yeast, seeming much easier to make). Powell’s Plateless Pork is "mud pies for grown-ups", and you are asked to cook a "vat" of sauce. This communal meal is "a great way to spread communicable diseases", but "fun." But his passionately delivered historical information mixed with the laconic attitude of a larrikin (legendary Australian again) transform him into a sage, a step up from the monastery (Powell is photographed in dress-up friar’s habit). Again, the obvious is noteworthy in Milan and Corney’s statement that Rosé "possesses qualities of both red and white wines" (116). "On a hot summery afternoon, sitting in the sun overlooking the view … what could be better?" (116). The interactive questioning also feeds in useful information: "there is a huge range of styles" for Rosé so "[g]rape variety is usually a good guide", and "increasingly we are seeing […] even […] Chambourcin" (116). Rosé is set next to a Bouillabaisse recipe, and, empathetically, Milan and Corney acknowledge that the traditional fish soup "can be intimidating" (116). Succinctly incorporated into the recipes are simple greyscale graphs of grape "Flavour Profiles" delineating the strength on the front and back palate and tongue (103).Imaging and DesigningThe cover of Moran’s cookbook in its first edition reproduces the colours of 1930–1940's beach towels, umbrellas or sunshades in matt stripes of blue, yellow, red, and green (Australian beaches traditionally have a grass verge; and, I am told (Costello), these were the colours of his restaurant Panoroma’s original upholstery). A second edition has the same back cover but a generic front cover shifting from the location of his restaurant to the food in a new subtitle: "From Bush to Beach and onto Your Plate". The front endpapers are Sydney’s iconic Bondi Beach where Panoroma restaurant is embedded on the lower wall of an old building of flats, ubiquitous in Bondi, like a halved avocado, or a small shallow elliptic cave in one of the sandstone cliff-faces. The cookbook’s back endpapers are his bush-shack country. Surfaces, cooking equipment, table linen, crockery, cutlery and glassware are not ostentatious, but simple and subdued, in the colours and textures of nature/culture: ivory, bone, ecru, and cream; and linen, wire, wood, and cardboard. The mundane, such as a colander, is highlighted: humbleness elevated, hands at work, cooking as an embodied activity. Moran is photographed throughout engaged in cooking, quietly fetching in his slim, clean-cut, short-haired, altar-boyish good-looks, dressed casually in plain bone apron, t-shirt (most often plain white), and jeans. While some recipes are traditionally constructed, with the headnote, the list of ingredients and the discursive instructions for cooking, on occasion this is done by a double-page spread of continuous prose, inviting you into the story-telling. The typeface of Simmer varies to include a hand-written lookalike. The book also has a varied layout. Notes and small images sit on selected pages, as often as not at an asymmetric angle, with faux tape, as if stuck there as an afterthought—but an excited and enthusiastic afterthought—and to signal that what is informally known is as valuable as professional knowledge/skill and the tried, tested, and formally presented.Lamont’s publishers have laid out recipe instructions on the right-hand side (traditional English-language Western reading is top down, left to right). But when the recipe requires more than one item to be cooked, there is no repeated title; the spacing and line-up are not necessarily clear; and some immediate, albeit temporary, confusion occurs. Her recipes, alongside images of classic fine dining, carry the implication of chefing rather than cooking. She is photographed as a professional, with a chef’s familiar striped apron, and if she is not wearing a chef’s jacket, tunic or shirt, her staff are. The food is beautiful to look at and imagine, but tackling it in the home kitchen becomes a secondary thought. The left-hand section divider pages are meant to signal the wines, with the appropriate colour, and repetitive pattern of circles; but I understood this belatedly, mistaking them for retro wallpaper bemusedly. On the other hand, Powell’s bog-in-don’t-wait everyday heartiness of a communal stewed dinner at a medieval inn (Peasy Lamb looks exactly like this) may be overcooked, and, without sensuousness, uninviting. Images in Lamont’s book tend toward the predictable and anonymous (broad sweep of grape-vined landscape; large groups of people with eating and drinking utensils). The Lamont family run a vineyard, and up-market restaurants, one photographed on Perth’s river dockside. But Sean's Panoroma has a specificity about it; it hasn’t lost its local flavour in the mix with the global. (Admittedly, Moran’s bush "shack", the origin of much Panoroma produce and the destination of Panoroma compost, looks architect-designed.) Powell’s book, given "rump" and "rough" in the title, stridently plays down glitz (large type size, minimum spacing, rustic surface imagery, full-page portraits of a chicken, rump, and cabbage etc). While not over-glam, the photography in Balance may at first appear unsubtle. Images fill whole pages. But their beautifully coloured and intriguing shapes—the yellow lime of a white-wine bottle base or a sparkling wine cork beneath its cage—shift them into hyperreality. White wine in a glass becomes the edge of a desert lake; an open fig, the jaws of an alien; the flesh of a lemon after squeezing, a sea anemone. The minimal number of images is a judicious choice. ConclusionReading can be immersive, but it can also hover critically at a meta level, especially if the writer foregrounds process. A conversation starts in this exchange, the reader imagining for themselves the worlds written about. Writers read as writers, to acquire a sense of what good writing is, who writing colleagues are, where writing is being published, and, comparably, to learn to judge their own writing. Writing is produced from a combination of passion and the discipline of everyday work. To be a writer in the world is to observe and remember/record, to be conscious of aiming to see the narrative potential in an array of experiences, events, and images, or, to put it another way, "to develop the habit of art" (Jolley 20). Photography makes significant whatever is photographed. The image is immobile in a literal sense but, because of its referential nature, evocative. Design, too, is about communication through aesthetics as a sensuous visual code for ideas or concepts. (There is a large amount of scholarship on the workings of image combined with text. Roland Barthes is a place to begin, particularly about photography. There are also textbooks dealing with visual literacy or culture, only one example being Shirato and Webb.) It is reasonable to think about why there is so much interest in food in this moment. Food has become folded into celebrity culture, but, naturally, obviously, food is about our security and survival, physically and emotionally. Given that our planet is under threat from global warming which is also driving climate change, and we are facing peak oil, and alternative forms of energy are still not taken seriously in a widespread manner, then food production is under threat. Food supply and production are also linked to the growing gap between poverty and wealth, and the movement of whole populations: food is about being at home. Creativity is associated with mastery of a discipline, openness to new experiences, and persistence and courage, among other things. We read, write, photograph, and design to argue and critique, to use the imagination, to shape and transform, to transmit ideas, to celebrate living and to live more fully.References Allen, Max. The Future Makers: Australian Wines for the 21st Century. Melbourne: Hardie Grant, 2010. Barratt, Virginia. “verbiage very thinly sliced and plated up real nice.” Assignment, ENG10022 Writing from the Edge. Lismore: Southern Cross U, 2009. [lower case in the title is the author's proclivity, and subsequently published in Carson and Dettori. Eds. Banquet: A Feast of New Writing and Arts by Queer Women]Costello, Patricia. Personal conversation. 31 May 2012. Curti, Lidia. Female Stories, Female Bodies: Narrative, Identity and Representation. UK: Macmillan, 1998.Derrida, Jacques. "Fifty-Two Aphorisms for a Foreword." Deconstruction: Omnibus Volume. Eds. Andreas Apadakis, Catherine Cook, and Andrew Benjamin. New York: Rizzoli, 1989.Halliday, James. “An Artist’s Spirit.” The Weekend Australian: The Weekend Australian Magazine 13-14 Feb. (2010): 31.Jolley, Elizabeth. Central Mischief. Ringwood: Viking/Penguin 1992. Lamont, Kate. Wine and Food. Perth: U of Western Australia P, 2009. Milan, Lyndey, and Corney, Colin. Balance: Matching Food and Wine: What Works and Why. South Melbourne: Lothian, 2005. Moran, Sean. Let It Simmer. Camberwell: Lantern/Penguin, 2006. Ostmann, Barbara Gibbs, and Jane L. Baker. The Recipe Writer's Handbook. Canada: John Wiley, 2001.Powell, Greg Duncan. Rump and a Rough Red. Millers Point: Murdoch, 2010. Shirato, Tony, and Jen Webb. Reading the Visual. Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin, 2004.

Despite the period's fashionable aspiration to a materialist, scientific objectivity, the new wilderness revealed by the microscope in the nineteenth century did not lend itself quickly or easily to sober, observational consensus. Rather, the nature of the microscopic world was, like the cosmos, largely open to interpretation. Since techniques of observation were largely undeveloped, many microscopists were not certain precisely what it was they were to look for, nor of the nature of their subjects. Did monstrosity lurk at the threshold, or was the microscope a window to the divine designs of the creator? Monstrosity and the microscopic may be a familiar relationship today, but prior to Pasteur and Koch's development of a germ theory of disease in the 1870s, the invisible world revealed by the microscope was not especially horrific, nor did it invalidate long-standing notions of the divinity of Nature. It is more than probable that many microorganisms were, prior to their identification as causal agents of disease, looked upon and admired as beautiful natural specimens. Certain microscopists may have suspected early on that all was not well at the microscopic level (suspicion of wilderness is traditional within the Western cartographic project), but by and large nineteenth century microscopy was deeply enmeshed in the extensive romanticism of the period, and most texts on the nature of the microorganism prior to the late nineteenth century tend to emphasise (in retrospect, a little naively), their embodiment of the amazing, wonderful complexity of the natural world. Germany was the center of this modern fusion of romanticism, naturalism, and microscopic visuality, where the prolific microgeologist, Christian Godfried Ehrenberg (1795 - 1876) achieved considerable attention through his discovery of the intricately symmetrical, skeletal remains of unknown microorganisms in the calacerous tertiaries of Sicily and Greece, and Oran in Africa. Documenting these fossils in Microgeologie (1854), he established for them the group Polycystina, in which he also included a series of forms making up nearly the whole of a silicious sandstone prevailing through an extensive district of Barbadoes. These widely admired microscopic sea-dwelling organisms were later discovered and studied in their living state by Johannes Muller, who named them Radiolaria. Ehrenberg's pursuit of natural beauty, rather than monstrosity, was clearly appealing throughout the mid-to-late nineteenth century. Central to the aesthetic evaluation of the natural world inspired by his discoveries was a privileging of symmetrical forms as divine signifiers. Drawing heavily from Ehrenberg's approach to the natural world, it had been the intention of Gideon Algernon Mantell, Vice-President of the Geological Society of London and author of The Invisible World Revealed by the Microscope (1850), to "impart just and comprehensive views of the grandeur and harmony of the Creation, and of the Infinite Wisdom and Beneficence of its Divine Author; and which, in every condition and circumstance of life, will prove a never-failing source of pleasure and instruction" (ix-x). An admirable project indeed, but increasingly problematic in the wake of evidence suggesting the infinite wisdom and beneficence of the divine author included the scripting of destructive, ruthless, mindless, invisible agents of suffering and death against which human beings were granted little, if any, defence. What did such evidence say of our allegedly privileged role in the story of life on Earth? Where might the raw, biological body reside within such an arrangement? Precisely at the vulnerable center of the controversy surrounding the nature of its own existence. Not surprisingly, consensus on what the body actually is has always been fairly frail, since it closed its modern formation in conjunction with the revelation of the body's mysterious, "hidden powers" through the lens of the microscope, which radically expanded, and confused, the cartographic field. Renaissance anatomical representation, thought once to be so authoritative and thorough (maybe too thorough), now seemed superficial. And moreover, as shown by the discovery of electricity and its extensive, shockingly experimental application to the body, we were enigmatic entities indeed, consisting of, and vulnerable to, mysterious, untamed forces of attraction and repulsion. The invention of the "Leyden jar" in the eighteenth century, which allowed the storage and regulation of electrical charge, had been turned almost immediately to the human body, often with all the playful naivete of a child. As Sarah Bakewell (2000) writes: One experimenter, Jean-Antoine Nollet (1700-70), liked to demonstrate the power of the new equipment by lining up 180 of the king's guards with hands clasped and connecting the man on the end to a Leyden jar, so that the whole line leaped involuntarily into the air. (36) The discovery that the biological body was an electrical organism unquestionably inspired the exorbitant interest in the "ether" that underpinned much nineteenth century spiritualism, horror fiction, and the emergence of paranoia as a cultural condition in the modern era. Most notably, it disrupted the notion of an external God in favour of a "divine power" running through, and thus connecting, all life. And as psychiatry has since discovered, the relation of the body to such a deeper, all-pervasive, unmappable power - an ontology in which matter has no empty spaces - is "profoundly schizoid" (Anti-Oedipus 19). But this did not prevent its intrusion into nineteenth century science. Biologist Ernst Haeckel (1834 - 1919), nineteenth century Germany's most vocal advocator of Darwinism, openly subscribed to a mystical, arguably delusional approach to the natural world. Drawn to study of the microscopic by Ehrenberg, Haeckel was likewise attracted to the patterned aesthetic of the natural world, especially its production of symmetrical forms. Although he drew his fair share of critics, it is unlikely he was ever considered "sick", since neither paranoia nor schizophrenia were recognised illnesses at the time. Yet in retrospect his writings clearly indicate a commitment to what would now be regarded as a paranoid/schizophrenic ontology in which "matter has no empty spaces". Haeckel's recourse to monism may be understood, at least in part, as a reaction to the agency panic provoked by the invasion narrative central to the germ theory of disease: if all is One, notions of "invasion" become redundant and transformed into the internalised self-regulation of the whole. Devoted to monism, Haeckel was adamant that "ever more clearly are we compelled by reflection to recognise that God is not to be placed over against the material world as an external being, but must be placed as a "divine power" or "moving spirit" within the cosmos itself" (Monism 15). This conception of God is synonymous with that discussed by Deleuze and Guttari in their exploration of the nervous illness of Judge Daniel Schreber, in which God is defined as the Omnitudo realitatis, from which all secondary realities are derived by a process of division (Anti-Oedipus 13). Like a textbook schizophrenic, Haeckel stressed the oneness of the cosmos, its operation under fundamental conditions of attraction and repulsion, the indissoluble connection between energy and matter, the mind and embodiment, and God and the world. His obsession with the "secret powers" of the Creator led him to adopt the notion of a "cosmic ether", which was itself almost totally dependent on contemporary research into the properties of electricity. Haeckel wrote that "the ether itself is no longer hypothetical; its existence can at any moment be demonstrated by electrical and optical experiment" (Monism 23). Recognising the inherent conflict of nature whilst providing convincing evidence of its divine, harmonious beauty through his hundreds of spectacularly symmetrical, mandala-like representations of Radiolarians and other microscopic forms in Die Radiolarian (1862) and Kunstformen der Natur (1899), Haeckel furthered his views through several popular manifestos such as Monism as Connecting Religion and Science: The Confession of Faith of a Man of Science (1894), The Wonders of Life: A Popular Study of Biological Philosophy (1905), and The Riddle of the Universe at the Close of the Nineteenth Century (1911). For Haeckel, clearly entranced by the hypersignificance of nature, the struggle for biological survival was also a mystical one, and thus divinely inspired. Tying this notion together with the Volkish tradition, and clearly influenced by the emerging germ theory, which emphasised conflict as precondition for (apparently mythic) harmony, Haeckel wrote that: We now know that the whole of organic nature on our planet exists only by a relentless war of all against all. Thousands of animals and plants must daily perish in every part of the earth, in order that a few chosen individuals may continue to subsist and to enjoy life. But even the existence of these favoured few is a continual conflict with threatening dangers of every kind. Thousands of hopeful germs perish uselessly every minute. The raging war of interests in human society is only a feeble picture of the unceasing and terrible war of existence which reigns throughout the whole of the living world. The beautiful dream of God's goodness and wisdom in nature, to which as children we listened so devoutly fifty years ago, no longer finds credit now - at least among educated people who think. It has disappeared before our deeper acquaintance with the mutual relations of organisms, the advancement of ecology and sociology, and our knowledge of parasite life and pathology. (Monism 73-74). The "war of existence", according to Haeckel, was ultimately an expression of the ethereal power of an omnipresent God. Denying real difference between matter and energy, he also implicitly denied the agency of the subject, instead positing the war of existence as a self-regulating flow of divine power. Biological survival was thus synonymous with the triumph of divine embodiment. Since Haeckel was resolutely convinced that nature was hierarchically structured (with the Aryan Volk fairly close to the top), so too were its expressions of God. And since God was not a being external to the Self, but rather the vital spirit or soul running through all being, divinity may be contained by organisms in varying degrees depending on their level of evolution. Domination of others was thus a prerequisite for the pursuit of God. And this was the essence of Haeckel's highly problematic distortion of the Darwinist theory of evolution: At the lowest stage, the rude - we may say animal - phase of prehistoric primitive man, is the "ape-man", who, in the course of the tertiary period, has only to a limited degree raised himself above his immediate pithecoid ancestors, the anthropoid apes. Next come successive stages of the lowest and simplest kind of culture, such as only the rudest of still existing primitive peoples enable us in some measure to conceive. These "savages" are succeeded by peoples of a low civilisation, and from these again, by a long series of intermediate steps, we rise little by little to the more highly civilised nations. To these alone - of the twelve races of mankind only to the Mediterranean and Mongolian - are we indebted for what is usually called "universal history. (Monism 5-6) This fairly crude, very German take on Darwinism, with its emphasis on the transference of biological principles to the social realm, contributed to the establishment of the preconditions for the emergence of National Socialism in that country shortly after Haeckel's death in 1919. In The Scientific Origins of National Socialism (1971), Daniel Gasman reveals the extent of Haeckel's descent into mysticism and its part in the wider development of the Volkish myths that underpinned Nazism in the twentieth century. And although the "sick" ideals of Nazism are undeniably deplorable, upon review of the cultural circumstances in which Haeckel's ideas developed, many of them seem inevitable for a frightened, paranoid culture convinced - based on scientific evidence - that life itself can only ever be a form of war: the very notion that continues to underpin, and indeed sustain, the germ theory of disease in the modern era References Bakewell, Sarah. "It's Alive!" Fortean Times October 2000: 34-39. Carpenter, William B. The Microscope and its Revelations. London: J & A Churchill, 1891. Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari. Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. 1972. Trans. Robert Hurley, Mark Seem, and Helen R. Lane. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1983. Gasman, Daniel. The Scientific Origins of National Socialism: Social Darwinism in Ernst Haeckel and the German Monist League. London: McDonald, 1971. Haeckel, Ernst. Die Radiolarien (Rhizopoda Radiaria). Berlin, 1862. ---. Monism as Connecting Religion and Science: The Confession of Faith of a Man of Science. London: Adam and Charles Black, 1894. ---. Kunstformen der Natur. 2 vols. Leipzig and Wien, 1899. ---. The Riddle of the Universe at the Close of the Nineteenth Century. Watts and Co., 1911. ---. The Wonders of Life. London: Watts and Co., 1905. Mantell, Gideon Algernon. The Invisible World Revealed by the Microscope; or, Thoughts on Animalcules. London: John Murray, 1850. Tomes, Nancy. The Gospel of Germs: Men, Women, and the Microbe in American Life. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1998.

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.

On 23 August 2005, John Howard, then Prime Minister, called together Muslim ‘representatives’ from around the nation for a Muslim Summit in response to the London bombings in July of that year. One of the outcomes of the two hour summit was a Statement of Principles committing Muslim communities in Australia to resist radicalisation and pursue a ‘moderate’ Islam. Since then the ill-defined term ‘moderate Muslim’ has been used in both the political and media discourse to refer to a preferred form of Islamic practice that does not challenge the hegemony of the nation state and that is coherent with the principles of secularism. Akbarzadeh and Smith conclude that the terms ‘moderate’ and ‘mainstream’ are used to describe Muslims whom Australians should not fear in contrast to ‘extremists’. Ironically, the policy direction towards regulating the practice of Islam in Australia in favour of a state defined ‘moderate’ Islam signals an attempt by the state to mediate the practice of religion, undermining the ethos of secularism as it is expressed in the Australian Constitution. It also – arguably – impacts upon the citizenship rights of Australian Muslims in so far as citizenship presents not just as a formal set of rights accorded to an individual but also to democratic participation: the ability of citizens to enjoy those rights at a substantive level. Based on the findings of research into how Australian Muslims and members of the broader community are responding to the political and media discourses on terrorism, this article examines the impact of these discourses on how Muslims are practicing citizenship and re-defining an Australian Muslim identity. Free Speech Free speech has been a hallmark of liberal democracies ever since its defence became part of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Australian Constitution does not expressly contain a provision for free speech. The right to free speech in Australia is implied in Australia’s ratification of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), article 19 of which affirms: Article 19. Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. The ultimate recent endorsement of free speech rights, arguably associated with the radical free speech ‘open platform’ movement of the 1960s at the University of California Berkeley, constructs free speech as essential to human and civil liberties. Its approach has been expressed in terms such as: “I reject and detest XYZ views but will defend to the utmost a person’s right to express them”. An active defence of free speech is based on the observation that, unless held to account, “[Authorities] would grant free speech to those with whom they agree, but not to minorities whom they consider unorthodox or threatening” (“Online Archives of California”). Such minorities, differing from the majority view, do so as a right accorded to citizens. In very challenging circumstances – such as opposing the Cold War operations of the US Senate Anti-American Activities Committee – the free speech movement has been celebrated as holding fast (or embodying a ‘return’) to the true meaning of the American First Amendment. It was in public statements of unpopular and minority views, which opposed those of the majority, that the right to free speech could most non-controvertibly be demonstrated. Some have argued that such rights should be balanced by anti-vilification legislation, by prohibitions upon incitement to violence, and by considerations as to whether the organisation defended by the speaker was banned. In the latter case, there can be problems with excluding the defence of banned organisations from legitimate debate. In the 1970s and 1980s, for example, Sinn Fein was denounced in the UK as the ‘political wing of the IRA’ (the IRA being a banned organisation) and denied a speaking position in many forums, yet has proved to be an important party in the eventual reconciliation of the Northern Ireland divide. In effect, the banning of an organisation is a political act and such acts should best be interrogated through free speech and democratic debate. Arguably, such disputation is a responsibility of an involved citizenry. In general, liberal democracies such as Australia do not hesitate to claim that citizens have a right to free speech and that this is a right worth defending. There is a legitimate expectation by Australians of their rights as citizens to freedom of expression. For some Australian Muslims, however, the appeal to free speech seems a hollow one. Muslim citizens run the risk of being constructed as ‘un-Australian’ when they articulate their concerns or opinions. Calls by some Muslim leaders not to reprint the Danish cartoons depicting images of the Prophet Mohammed for example, met with a broader community backlash and drew responses that, typically, constructed Muslims as a threat to Australian cultural values of freedom and liberty. These kinds of responses to expressions by Australian Muslims of their deeply held convictions are rarely, if ever, interpreted as attempts to curtail Australian Muslims’ rights to free speech. There is a poor fit between what many Australian Muslims believe and what they feel the current climate in Australia allows them to say in the public domain. Positioned as the potential ‘enemy within’ in the evolving media and political discourse post September 11, they have been allocated restricted speaking positions on many subjects from the role and training of their Imams to the right to request Sharia courts (which could operate in parallel with Australian courts in the same way that Catholic divorce/annulment courts do). These social and political restrictions lead them to question whether Muslims enjoy citizenship rights on an equal footing with Australians from the broader community. The following comment from an Australian woman, an Iraqi refugee, made in a research interview demonstrates this: The media say that if you are Australian it means that you enjoy freedom, you enjoy the rights of citizenship. That is the idea of what it means to be Australian, that you do those things. But if you are a Muslim, you are not Australian. You are a people who are dangerous, a people who are suspicious, a people who do not want democracy—all the characteristics that make up terrorists. So yes, there is a difference, a big difference. And it is a feeling all Muslims have, not just me, whether you are at school, at work, and especially if you wear the hijab. (Translated from Arabic by Anne Aly) At the same time, Australian Muslims observe some members of the broader community making strong assertions about Muslims (often based on misunderstanding or misinformation) with very little in the way of censure or rebuke. For example, again in 2005, Liberal backbenchers Sophie Panopoulos and Bronwyn Bishop made an emotive plea for the banning of headscarves in public schools, drawing explicitly on the historically inherited image of Islam as a violent, backward and oppressive ideology that has no place in Western liberal democracy: I fear a frightening Islamic class emerging, supported by a perverse interpretation of the Koran where disenchantment breeds disengagement, where powerful and subversive orthodoxies are inculcated into passionate and impressionable young Muslims, where the Islamic mosque becomes the breeding ground for violence and rejection of Australian law and ideals, where extremists hijack the Islamic faith with their own prescriptive and unbending version of the Koran and where extremist views are given currency and validity … . Why should one section of the community be stuck in the Dark Ages of compliance cloaked under a veil of some distorted form of religious freedom? (Panopoulos) Several studies attest to the fact that, since the terrorist attacks in the United States in September 2001, Islam, and by association Australian Muslims, have been positioned as other in the political and media discourse (see for example Aly). The construct of Muslims as ‘out of place’ (Saniotis) denies them entry and representation in the public sphere: a key requisite for democratic participation according to Habermas (cited in Haas). This notion of a lack of a context for Muslim citizenship in Australian public spheres arises out of the popular construction of ‘Muslim’ and ‘Australian’ as mutually exclusive modes of being. Denied access to public spaces to partake in democratic dialogue as political citizens, Australian Muslims must pursue alternative communicative spaces. Some respond by limiting their expressions to closed spheres of communication – a kind of enforced silence. Others respond by pursuing alternative media discourses that challenge the dominant stereotypes of Muslims in Western media and reinforce majority-world cultural views. Enforced Silence In closed spheres of discussion, Australian Muslims can openly share their perceptions about terrorism, the government and media. Speaking openly in public however, is not common practice and results in forced silence for fear of reprisal or being branded a terrorist: “if we jump up and go ‘oh how dare you say this, rah, rah’, he’ll be like ‘oh he’s going to go off, he’ll blow something up’”. One research participant recalled that when his work colleagues were discussing the September 11 attacks he decided not to partake in the conversation because it “might be taken against me”. The participant made this decision despite the fact that his colleagues were expressing the opinion that United States foreign policy was the likely cause for the attacks—an opinion with which he agreed. This suggests some support for the theory that the fear of social isolation may make Australian Muslims especially anxious or fearful of expressing opinions about terrorism in public discussions (Noelle-Neumann). However, it also suggests that the fear of social isolation for Muslims is not solely related to the expression of minority opinion, as theorised in Noelle-Neumann’s Spiral of Silence . Given that many members of the wider community shared the theory that the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Centre in 2001 may have been a response to American foreign policy, this may well not be a minority view. Nonetheless, Australian Muslims hesitated to embrace it. Saniotis draws attention to the pressure on Australian Muslims to publicly distance themselves from the terrorist attacks of September 11 and to openly denounce the actions of terrorists. The extent to which Muslims were positioned as a threatening other was contingent on their ability to demonstrate that they too participated in the distal responses to the terrorist attacks—initial pity for the sufferer and eventual marginalisation and rejection of the perceived aggressor. Australian Muslims were obliged to declare their loyalty and commitment to Australia’s ally and, in this way, partake in the nationalistic responses to the threat of terrorism. At the same time however, Australian Muslims were positioned as an imagined enemy and a threat to national identity. Australian Muslims were therefore placed in a paradoxical bind- as Australians they were expected to respond as the victims of fear; as Muslims they were positioned as the objects of fear. Even in discussions where their opinions are congruent with the dominant opinion being expressed, Australian Muslims describe themselves as feeling apprehensive or anxious about expressing their opinions because of how these “might be taken”. Pursuing alternative discourses The overriding message from the research project’s Muslim participants was that the media, as a powerful purveyor of public opinion, had inculcated a perception of Muslims as a risk to Australia and Australians: an ‘enemy within’; the potential ‘home grown terrorist’. The daily experience of visibly-different Australian Muslims, however, is that they are more fearing than fear-inspiring. The Aly and Balnaves fear scale indicates that Australian Muslims have twice as many fear indicators as non-Muslims Australians. Disengagement from Western media and media that is seen to be influenced or controlled by the West is widespread among Australian Muslims who increasingly argue that the media institutions are motivated by an agenda that includes profit and the perpetuation of a negative stereotype of Muslims both in Australia and around the globe, particularly in relation to Middle Eastern affairs. The negative stereotypes of Muslims in the Australian media have inculcated a sense of victimhood which Muslims in Australia have used as the basis for a reconstruction of their identity and the creation of alternative narratives of belonging (Aly). Central to the notion of identity among Australian Muslims is a sense of having their citizenship rights curtailed by virtue of their faith: of being included in a general Western dismissal of Muslims’ rights and experiences. As one interviewee said: If you look at the Channel Al Jazeera for example, it’s a channel but they aren’t making up stories, they are taping videos in Iraqi, Palestine and other Muslim countries, and they just show it to people, that’s all they do. And then George Bush, you know, we hear on the news that George Bush was discussing with Tony Blair that he was thinking to bomb Al Jazeera so why would these people have their right to freedom and we don’t? So that’s why I think the people who are in power, they have the control over the media, and it’s a big political game. Because if it wasn’t then George Bush, he’s the symbol of politics, why would he want to bomb Al Jazeera for example? Amidst leaks and rumours (Timms) that the 2003 US bombing of Al Jazeera was a deliberate attack upon one of the few elements of the public sphere in which some Western-nationality Muslims have confidence, many elements of the mainstream Western media rose to Al Jazeera’s defence. For example, using an appeal to the right of citizens to engage in and consume free speech, the editors of influential US paper The Nation commented that: If the classified memo detailing President Bush’s alleged proposal to bomb the headquarters of Al Jazeera is provided to The Nation, we will publish the relevant sections. Why is it so vital that this information be made available to the American people? Because if a President who claims to be using the US military to liberate countries in order to spread freedom then conspires to destroy media that fail to echo his sentiments, he does not merely disgrace his office and soil the reputation of his country. He attacks a fundamental principle, freedom of the press—particularly a dissenting and disagreeable press—upon which that country was founded. (cited in Scahill) For other Australian Muslims, it is the fact that some media organisations have been listed as banned by the US that gives them their ultimate credibility. This is the case with Al Manar, for example. Feeling that they are denied access to public spaces to partake in democratic dialogue as equal political citizens, Australian Muslims are pursuing alternative communicative spaces that support and reinforce their own cultural worldviews. The act of engaging with marginalised and alternative communicative spaces constitutes what Clifford terms ‘collective practices of displaced dwelling’. It is through these practices of displaced dwelling that Australian Muslims essentialise their diasporic identity and negotiate new identities based on common perceptions of injustice against Muslims. But you look at Al Jazeera they talk in the same tongue as the Western media in our language. And then you look again at something like Al Manar who talks of their own tongue. They do not use the other media’s ideas. They have been attacked by the Australians, been attacked by the Israelis and they have their own opinion. This statement came from an Australian Muslim of Jordanian background in her late forties. It reflects a growing trend towards engaging with media messages that coincide with and reinforce a sense of injustice. The Al Manar television station to which this participant refers is a Lebanese based station run by the militant Hezbollah movement and accessible to Australians via satellite. Much like Al Jazeera, Al Manar broadcasts images of Iraqi and Palestinian suffering and, in the recent war between Israel and Hezbollah, graphic images of Lebanese casualties of Israeli air strikes. Unlike the Al Jazeera broadcasts, these images are formatted into video clips accompanied by music and lyrics such as “we do not fear America”. Despite political pressure including a decision by the US to list Al Manar as a terrorist organisation in December 2004, just one week after a French ban on the station because its programming had “a militant perspective with anti-Semitic connotations” (Jorisch), Al Manar continued to broadcast videos depicting the US as the “mother of terrorism”. In one particularly graphic sequence, the Statue of Liberty rises from the depths of the sea, wielding a knife in place of the torch and dripping in blood, her face altered to resemble a skull. As she rises out of the sea accompanied by music resembling a funeral march the following words in Arabic are emblazoned across the screen: On the dead bodies of millions of native Americans And through the enslavement of tens of millions Africans The US rose It pried into the affairs of most countries in the world After an extensive list of countries impacted by US foreign policy including China, Japan, Congo, Vietnam, Peru, Laos, Libya and Guatamala, the video comes to a gruelling halt with the words ‘America owes blood to all of humanity’. Another video juxtaposes images of Bush with Hitler with the caption ‘History repeats itself’. One website run by the Coalition against Media Terrorism refers to Al Manar as ‘the beacon of hatred’ and applauds the decisions by the French and US governments to ban the station. Al Manar defended itself against the bans stating on its website that they are attempts “to terrorise and silence thoughts that are not in line with the US and Israeli policies.” The station claims that it continues on its mission “to carry the message of defending our peoples’ rights, holy places and just causes…within internationally agreed professional laws and standards”. The particular brand of propaganda employed by Al Manar is gaining popularity among some Muslims in Australia largely because it affirms their own views and opinions and offers them opportunities to engage in an alternative public space in which Muslims are positioned as the victims and not the aggressors. Renegotiating an ‘Othered’ Identity The negative portrayal of Muslims as ‘other’ in the Australian media and in political discourse has resulted in Australian Muslims constructing alternative identities based on a common perception of injustice. Particularly since the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre in September 2001 and the ensuing “war on terror”, the ethnic divisions within the Muslim diaspora are becoming less significant as Australian Muslims reconstruct their identity based on a notion of supporting each other in the face of a global alliance against Islam. Religious identity is increasingly becoming the identity of choice for Muslims in Australia. This causes problems, however, since religious identity has no place in the liberal democratic model, which espouses secularism. This is particularly the case where that religion is sometimes constructed as being at odds with the principles and values of liberal democracy; namely tolerance and adherence to the rule of law. This problematic creates a context in which Muslim Australians are not only denied their heterogeneity in the media and political discourse but are dealt with through an understanding of Islam that is constructed on the basis of a cultural and ideological clash between Islam and the West. Religion has become the sole and only characteristic by which Muslims are recognised, denying them political citizenship and access to the public spaces of citizenship. Such ‘essentialising practices’ as eliding considerable diversity into a single descriptor serves to reinforce and consolidate diasporic identity among Muslims in Australia, but does little to promote and assist participatory citizenship or to equip Muslims with the tools necessary to access the public sphere as political citizens of the secular state. In such circumstances, the moderate Muslim may be not so much a ‘preferred’ citizen as one whose rights has been constrained. Acknowledgment This paper is based on the findings of an Australian Research Council Discovery Project, 2005-7, involving 10 focus groups and 60 in-depth interviews. The authors wish to acknowledge the participation and contributions of WA community members. References Akbarzadeh, Shahram, and Bianca Smith. The Representation of Islam and Muslims in the Media (The Age and Herald Sun Newspapers). Melbourne: Monash University, 2005. Aly, Anne, and Mark Balnaves. ”‘They Want Us to Be Afraid’: Developing Metrics of the Fear of Terrorism.” International Journal of Diversity in Organisations, Communities and Nations 6 (2007): 113-122. Aly, Anne. “Australian Muslim Responses to the Discourse on Terrorism in the Australian Popular Media.” Australian Journal of Social Issues 42.1 (2007): 27-40. Clifford, James. Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century. London: Harvard UP, 1997. Haas, Tanni. “The Public Sphere as a Sphere of Publics: Rethinking Habermas’s Theory of the Public Sphere.” Journal of Communication 54.1 (2004): 178- 84. Jorisch, Avi. J. “Al-Manar and the War in Iraq.” Middle East Intelligence Bulletin 5.2 (2003). Noelle-Neumann, Elisabeth. “The Spiral of Silence: A Theory of Public Opinion.” Journal of Communication 24.2 (1974): 43-52. “Online Archives of California”. California Digital Library. n.d. Feb. 2008 http://content.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/kt1199n498/?&query= %22open%20platform%22&brand=oac&hit.rank=1>. Panopoulos, Sophie. Parliamentary debate, 5 Sep. 2005. Feb. 2008 http://www.aph.gov.au.hansard>. Saniotis, Arthur. “Embodying Ambivalence: Muslim Australians as ‘Other’.” Journal of Australian Studies 82 (2004): 49-58. Scahill, Jeremy. “The War on Al-Jazeera (Comment)”. 2005. The Nation. Feb. 2008 http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051219/scahill>. Timms, Dominic. “Al-Jazeera Seeks Answers over Bombing Memo”. 2005. Media Guardian. Feb. 2008 http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2005/nov/23/iraq.iraqandthemedia>. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Aly, Anne, and Lelia Green. "‘Moderate Islam’: Defining the Good Citizen." M/C Journal 10.6/11.1 (2008). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0804/08-aly-green.php>. APA Style Aly, A., and L. Green. (Apr. 2008) "‘Moderate Islam’: Defining the Good Citizen," M/C Journal, 10(6)/11(1). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0804/08-aly-green.php>.

Introduction With a deluge of mouthwatering pre-publicity, the opening of The Spotted Pig, the USA’s first self-identified British-styled gastropub, in Manhattan in February 2004 was much anticipated. The late Australian chef, food writer and restauranteur Mietta O’Donnell has noted how “taking over a building or business which has a long established reputation can be a mixed blessing” because of the way that memories “can enrich the experience of being in a place or they can just make people nostalgic”. Bistro Le Zoo, the previous eatery on the site, had been very popular when it opened almost a decade earlier, and its closure was mourned by some diners (Young; Kaminsky “Feeding Time”; Steinhauer & McGinty). This regret did not, however, appear to affect The Spotted Pig’s success. As esteemed New York Times reviewer Frank Bruni noted in his 2006 review: “Almost immediately after it opened […] the throngs started to descend, and they have never stopped”. The following year, The Spotted Pig was awarded a Michelin star—the first year that Michelin ranked New York—and has kept this star in the subsequent annual rankings. Writing Restaurant Biography Detailed studies have been published of almost every type of contemporary organisation including public institutions such as schools, hospitals, museums and universities, as well as non-profit organisations such as charities and professional associations. These are often written to mark a major milestone, or some significant change, development or the demise of the organisation under consideration (Brien). Detailed studies have also recently been published of businesses as diverse as general stores (Woody), art galleries (Fossi), fashion labels (Koda et al.), record stores (Southern & Branson), airlines (Byrnes; Jones), confectionary companies (Chinn) and builders (Garden). In terms of attracting mainstream readerships, however, few such studies seem able to capture popular reader interest as those about eating establishments including restaurants and cafés. This form of restaurant life history is, moreover, not restricted to ‘quality’ establishments. Fast food restaurant chains have attracted their share of studies (see, for example Love; Jakle & Sculle), ranging from business-economic analyses (Liu), socio-cultural political analyses (Watson), and memoirs (Kroc & Anderson), to criticism around their conduct and effects (Striffler). Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal is the most well-known published critique of the fast food industry and its effects with, famously, the Rolling Stone article on which it was based generating more reader mail than any other piece run in the 1990s. The book itself (researched narrative creative nonfiction), moreover, made a fascinating transition to the screen, transformed into a fictionalised drama (co-written by Schlosser) that narrates the content of the book from the point of view of a series of fictional/composite characters involved in the industry, rather than in a documentary format. Akin to the range of studies of fast food restaurants, there are also a variety of studies of eateries in US motels, caravan parks, diners and service station restaurants (see, for example, Baeder). Although there has been little study of this sub-genre of food and drink publishing, their popularity can be explained, at least in part, because such volumes cater to the significant readership for writing about food related topics of all kinds, with food writing recently identified as mainstream literary fare in the USA and UK (Hughes) and an entire “publishing subculture” in Australia (Dunstan & Chaitman). Although no exact tally exists, an informed estimate by the founder of the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards and president of the Paris Cookbook Fair, Edouard Cointreau, has more than 26,000 volumes on food and wine related topics currently published around the world annually (ctd. in Andriani “Gourmand Awards”). The readership for publications about restaurants can also perhaps be attributed to the wide range of information that can be included a single study. My study of a selection of these texts from the UK, USA and Australia indicates that this can include narratives of place and architecture dealing with the restaurant’s location, locale and design; narratives of directly food-related subject matter such as menus, recipes and dining trends; and narratives of people, in the stories of its proprietors, staff and patrons. Detailed studies of contemporary individual establishments commonly take the form of authorised narratives either written by the owners, chefs or other staff with the help of a food journalist, historian or other professional writer, or produced largely by that writer with the assistance of the premise’s staff. These studies are often extensively illustrated with photographs and, sometimes, drawings or reproductions of other artworks, and almost always include recipes. Two examples of these from my own collection include a centennial history of a famous New Orleans eatery that survived Hurricane Katrina, Galatoire’s Cookbook. Written by employees—the chief operating officer/general manager (Melvin Rodrigue) and publicist (Jyl Benson)—this incorporates reminiscences from both other staff and patrons. The second is another study of a New Orleans’ restaurant, this one by the late broadcaster and celebrity local historian Mel Leavitt. The Court of Two Sisters Cookbook: With a History of the French Quarter and the Restaurant, compiled with the assistance of the Two Sisters’ proprietor, Joseph Fein Joseph III, was first published in 1992 and has been so enduringly popular that it is in its eighth printing. These texts, in common with many others of this type, trace a triumph-over-adversity company history that incorporates a series of mildly scintillating anecdotes, lists of famous chefs and diners, and signature recipes. Although obviously focused on an external readership, they can also be characterised as an instance of what David M. Boje calls an organisation’s “story performance” (106) as the process of creating these narratives mobilises an organisation’s (in these cases, a commercial enterprise’s) internal information processing and narrative building activities. Studies of contemporary restaurants are much more rarely written without any involvement from the eatery’s personnel. When these are, the results tend to have much in common with more critical studies such as Fast Food Nation, as well as so-called architectural ‘building biographies’ which attempt to narrate the historical and social forces that “explain the shapes and uses” (Ellis, Chao & Parrish 70) of the physical structures we create. Examples of this would include Harding’s study of the importance of the Boeuf sur le Toit in Parisian life in the 1920s and Middlebrook’s social history of London’s Strand Corner House. Such work agrees with Kopytoff’s assertion—following Appadurai’s proposal that objects possess their own ‘biographies’ which need to be researched and expressed—that such inquiry can reveal not only information about the objects under consideration, but also about readers as we examine our “cultural […] aesthetic, historical, and even political” responses to these narratives (67). The life story of a restaurant will necessarily be entangled with those of the figures who have been involved in its establishment and development, as well as the narratives they create around the business. This following brief study of The Spotted Pig, however, written without the assistance of the establishment’s personnel, aims to outline a life story for this eatery in order to reflect upon the pig’s place in contemporary dining practice in New York as raw foodstuff, fashionable comestible, product, brand, symbol and marketing tool, as well as, at times, purely as an animal identity. The Spotted Pig Widely profiled before it even opened, The Spotted Pig is reportedly one of the city’s “most popular” restaurants (Michelin 349). It is profiled in all the city guidebooks I could locate in print and online, featuring in some of these as a key stop on recommended itineraries (see, for instance, Otis 39). A number of these proclaim it to be the USA’s first ‘gastropub’—the term first used in 1991 in the UK to describe a casual hotel/bar with good food and reasonable prices (Farley). The Spotted Pig is thus styled on a shabby-chic version of a traditional British hotel, featuring a cluttered-but-well arranged use of pig-themed objects and illustrations that is described by latest Michelin Green Guide of New York City as “a country-cute décor that still manages to be hip” (Michelin 349). From the three-dimensional carved pig hanging above the entrance in a homage to the shingles of traditional British hotels, to the use of its image on the menu, website and souvenir tee-shirts, the pig as motif proceeds its use as a foodstuff menu item. So much so, that the restaurant is often (affectionately) referred to by patrons and reviewers simply as ‘The Pig’. The restaurant has become so well known in New York in the relatively brief time it has been operating that it has not only featured in a number of novels and memoirs, but, moreover, little or no explanation has been deemed necessary as the signifier of “The Spotted Pig” appears to convey everything that needs to be said about an eatery of quality and fashion. In the thriller Lethal Experiment: A Donovan Creed Novel, when John Locke’s hero has to leave the restaurant and becomes involved in a series of dangerous escapades, he wants nothing more but to get back to his dinner (107, 115). The restaurant is also mentioned a number of times in Sex and the City author Candace Bushnell’s Lipstick Jungle in relation to a (fictional) new movie of the same name. The joke in the book is that the character doesn’t know of the restaurant (26). In David Goodwillie’s American Subversive, the story of a journalist-turned-blogger and a homegrown terrorist set in New York, the narrator refers to “Scarlett Johansson, for instance, and the hostess at the Spotted Pig” (203-4) as the epitome of attractiveness. The Spotted Pig is also mentioned in Suzanne Guillette’s memoir, Much to Your Chagrin, when the narrator is on a dinner date but fears running into her ex-boyfriend: ‘Jack lives somewhere in this vicinity […] Vaguely, you recall him telling you he was not too far from the Spotted Pig on Greenwich—now, was it Greenwich Avenue or Greenwich Street?’ (361). The author presumes readers know the right answer in order to build tension in this scene. Although this success is usually credited to the joint efforts of backer, music executive turned restaurateur Ken Friedman, his partner, well-known chef, restaurateur, author and television personality Mario Batali, and their UK-born and trained chef, April Bloomfield (see, for instance, Batali), a significant part has been built on Bloomfield’s pork cookery. The very idea of a “spotted pig” itself raises a central tenet of Bloomfield’s pork/food philosophy which is sustainable and organic. That is, not the mass produced, industrially farmed pig which produces a leaner meat, but the fatty, tastier varieties of pig such as the heritage six-spotted Berkshire which is “darker, more heavily marbled with fat, juicier and richer-tasting than most pork” (Fabricant). Bloomfield has, indeed, made pig’s ears—long a Chinese restaurant staple in the city and a key ingredient of Southern US soul food as well as some traditional Japanese and Spanish dishes—fashionable fare in the city, and her current incarnation, a crispy pig’s ear salad with lemon caper dressing (TSP 2010) is much acclaimed by reviewers. This approach to ingredients—using the ‘whole beast’, local whenever possible, and the concentration on pork—has been underlined and enhanced by a continuing relationship with UK chef Fergus Henderson. In his series of London restaurants under the banner of “St. John”, Henderson is famed for the approach to pork cookery outlined in his two books Nose to Tail Eating: A Kind of British Cooking, published in 1999 (re-published both in the UK and the US as The Whole Beast: Nose to Tail Eating), and Beyond Nose to Tail: A Kind of British Cooking: Part II (coauthored with Justin Piers Gellatly in 2007). Henderson has indeed been identified as starting a trend in dining and food publishing, focusing on sustainably using as food the entirety of any animal killed for this purpose, but which mostly focuses on using all parts of pigs. In publishing, this includes Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s The River Cottage Meat Book, Peter Kaminsky’s Pig Perfect, subtitled Encounters with Some Remarkable Swine and Some Great Ways to Cook Them, John Barlow’s Everything but the Squeal: Eating the Whole Hog in Northern Spain and Jennifer McLagan’s Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient, with Recipes (2008). In restaurants, it certainly includes The Spotted Pig. So pervasive has embrace of whole beast pork consumption been in New York that, by 2007, Bruni could write that these are: “porky times, fatty times, which is to say very good times indeed. Any new logo for the city could justifiably place the Big Apple in the mouth of a spit-roasted pig” (Bruni). This demand set the stage perfectly for, in October 2007, Henderson to travel to New York to cook pork-rich menus at The Spotted Pig in tandem with Bloomfield (Royer). He followed this again in 2008 and, by 2009, this annual event had become known as “FergusStock” and was covered by local as well as UK media, and a range of US food weblogs. By 2009, it had grown to become a dinner at the Spotted Pig with half the dishes on the menu by Henderson and half by Bloomfield, and a dinner the next night at David Chang’s acclaimed Michelin-starred Momofuku Noodle Bar, which is famed for its Cantonese-style steamed pork belly buns. A third dinner (and then breakfast/brunch) followed at Friedman/Bloomfield’s Breslin Bar and Dining Room (discussed below) (Rose). The Spotted Pig dinners have become famed for Henderson’s pig’s head and pork trotter dishes with the chef himself recognising that although his wasn’t “the most obvious food to cook for America”, it was the case that “at St John, if a couple share a pig’s head, they tend to be American” (qtd. in Rose). In 2009, the pigs’ head were presented in pies which Henderson has described as “puff pastry casing, with layers of chopped, cooked pig’s head and potato, so all the lovely, bubbly pig’s head juices go into the potato” (qtd. in Rose). Bloomfield was aged only 28 when, in 2003, with a recommendation from Jamie Oliver, she interviewed for, and won, the position of executive chef of The Spotted Pig (Fabricant; Q&A). Following this introduction to the US, her reputation as a chef has grown based on the strength of her pork expertise. Among a host of awards, she was named one of US Food & Wine magazine’s ten annual Best New Chefs in 2007. In 2009, she was a featured solo session titled “Pig, Pig, Pig” at the fourth Annual International Chefs Congress, a prestigious New York City based event where “the world’s most influential and innovative chefs, pastry chefs, mixologists, and sommeliers present the latest techniques and culinary concepts to their peers” (Starchefs.com). Bloomfield demonstrated breaking down a whole suckling St. Canut milk raised piglet, after which she butterflied, rolled and slow-poached the belly, and fried the ears. As well as such demonstrations of expertise, she is also often called upon to provide expert comment on pork-related news stories, with The Spotted Pig regularly the subject of that food news. For example, when a rare, heritage Hungarian pig was profiled as a “new” New York pork source in 2009, this story arose because Bloomfield had served a Mangalitsa/Berkshire crossbreed pig belly and trotter dish with Agen prunes (Sanders) at The Spotted Pig. Bloomfield was quoted as the authority on the breed’s flavour and heritage authenticity: “it took me back to my grandmother’s kitchen on a Sunday afternoon, windows steaming from the roasting pork in the oven […] This pork has that same authentic taste” (qtd. in Sanders). Bloomfield has also used this expert profile to support a series of pork-related causes. These include the Thanksgiving Farm in the Catskill area, which produces free range pork for its resident special needs children and adults, and helps them gain meaningful work-related skills in working with these pigs. Bloomfield not only cooks for the project’s fundraisers, but also purchases any excess pigs for The Spotted Pig (Estrine 103). This strong focus on pork is not, however, exclusive. The Spotted Pig is also one of a number of American restaurants involved in the Meatless Monday campaign, whereby at least one vegetarian option is included on menus in order to draw attention to the benefits of a plant-based diet. When, in 2008, Bloomfield beat the Iron Chef in the sixth season of the US version of the eponymous television program, the central ingredient was nothing to do with pork—it was olives. Diversifying from this focus on ‘pig’ can, however, be dangerous. Friedman and Bloomfield’s next enterprise after The Spotted Pig was The John Dory seafood restaurant at the corner of 10th Avenue and 16th Street. This opened in November 2008 to reviews that its food was “uncomplicated and nearly perfect” (Andrews 22), won Bloomfield Time Out New York’s 2009 “Best New Hand at Seafood” award, but was not a success. The John Dory was a more formal, but smaller, restaurant that was more expensive at a time when the financial crisis was just biting, and was closed the following August. Friedman blamed the layout, size and neighbourhood (Stein) and its reservation system, which limited walk-in diners (ctd. in Vallis), but did not mention its non-pork, seafood orientation. When, almost immediately, another Friedman/Bloomfield project was announced, the Breslin Bar & Dining Room (which opened in October 2009 in the Ace Hotel at 20 West 29th Street and Broadway), the enterprise was closely modeled on the The Spotted Pig. In preparation, its senior management—Bloomfield, Friedman and sous-chefs, Nate Smith and Peter Cho (who was to become the Breslin’s head chef)—undertook a tasting tour of the UK that included Henderson’s St. John Bread & Wine Bar (Leventhal). Following this, the Breslin’s menu highlighted a series of pork dishes such as terrines, sausages, ham and potted styles (Rosenberg & McCarthy), with even Bloomfield’s pork scratchings (crispy pork rinds) bar snacks garnering glowing reviews (see, for example, Severson; Ghorbani). Reviewers, moreover, waxed lyrically about the menu’s pig-based dishes, the New York Times reviewer identifying this focus as catering to New York diners’ “fetish for pork fat” (Sifton). This representative review details not only “an entree of gently smoked pork belly that’s been roasted to tender goo, for instance, over a drift of buttery mashed potatoes, with cabbage and bacon on the side” but also a pig’s foot “in gravy made of reduced braising liquid, thick with pillowy shallots and green flecks of deconstructed brussels sprouts” (Sifton). Sifton concluded with the proclamation that this style of pork was “very good: meat that is fat; fat that is meat”. Concluding remarks Bloomfield has listed Michael Ruhlman’s Charcuterie as among her favourite food books. Publishers Weekly reviewer called Ruhlman “a food poet, and the pig is his muse” (Q&A). In August 2009, it was reported that Bloomfield had always wanted to write a cookbook (Marx) and, in July 2010, HarperCollins imprint Ecco publisher and foodbook editor Dan Halpern announced that he was planning a book with her, tentatively titled, A Girl and Her Pig (Andriani “Ecco Expands”). 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