Journal articles on the topic 'Peace – Citizen participation – Zimbabwe'

The purpose of this study was to understand the role of citizen participation in community-based planning with specific reference to the Borrowdale Ratepayers and Residents Association (BRRA) in Harare, Zimbabwe. Qualitative methodology was employed in the study and data was collected through key informant interviews. The key findings of the study were that there is little awareness on the role and importance of citizen participation in community-based planning. This is despite the fact that Borrowdale Community often experiences poor public service delivery and resource management where citizen participation would contribute meaningfully. The study concluded that citizens need to be aware of their role in community-based planning as this has a direct effect on service delivery. Local governance practices need to be transformed to reflect the needs and problems of residents and ratepayers.

Our purpose is to demonstrate: why it is important to maintain citizen faith in their justice institutions. Peace accords cannot be associated with a weakening of criminal justice. Hence the research question: how to strengthen Colombian justice in the peace accords? Colombia is not a failed state forced to sign any peace agreement. The research observes that Colombia is a democratic state with weak public values. This forces us to look for new models of participation: more plural and democratic.

After years of conventional approaches to solid waste management (SWM), in 2009, Bulawayo City Council adopted a non-conventional approach in the form of community-based solid waste management (CBSWM). The success of a CBSWM depends on the participation of members of the public as well as private sector organisations. Yet there is no information documented about their involvement in such activities in the study area. This study provides an analysis of citizen knowledge, participation and their attitudes in SWM in Nkulumane suburb following implementation of a CBSWM project. Door-to-door surveys were undertaken in December 2017 and January 2018 during which interview-administered questionnaires were used to collect data from 375 randomly-selected households. Semi-structured interviews were also used to gather data from officials responsible for CBSWM. The study found that the CBSWM has not been successful in changing the waste disposal behaviour of citizens. It was also found that the community-based organisations (CBOs) have made no effort to implement alternative waste management practices of waste recycling and composting. Furthermore, lack of funds to improve waste infrastructure and infighting between the Environmental Management Agency (EMA) and the Bulawayo City Council have undermined the principles of CBSWM. The study concludes by suggesting strategies that could improve CBSWM in developing countries.

Abstract“Partnership” is a frequently used term in community development practice. Partnerships conjure images of citizen participation, empowerment and the possibility of enhancing grass-roots democracy. An Australian crime prevention project (Waratah Crime Prevention Project), based on the concept of partnerships was developed with senior police, educators, local government representatives, court networks, and nine community groups. A myriad of community based crime prevention initiatives were designed and developed by the community groups, and implemented across the region. Valuable lessons are reported, concerning the application of partnership theory in this community development project. Lessons learnt include the ramifications of inequitable power relations between senior partners and community groups, and the effect of critical organisational cultural differences between the partners that impeded the progress of the project. It was found that “a willingness to partner” is a necessary precondition for partnerships to succeed. Attention is drawn to the need to teach partnership skills before similar projects are commenced.

The reflections undertaken in this article focus on the role that civic education plays in education for peace. Certainly these two areas of educational activity are not the same; Education for Peace is a much broader and more complex process, requiring the involvement of all teachers. However, the knowledge, competences and motivations that should be developed as preparation for responsible civic participation are very important for building a peaceful order. I begin my reflections with a brief discussion of the most important issues related to contemporary perception of peace. Next, I refer to the terms "citizen", "citizenship", to highlight their meaning and in this context to reflect on the most important areas of civic education. This is the starting point for showing the tasks included in civic education as essential in the process of building peaceful coexistence of people. These tasks concern different areas of civic education: cognitive, competence, affective, and value areas.In carrying out these tasks we can hope to educate people who contribute to peace building through responsible civic activity.

Peace building in the modern era is different from those in the World War era. While the latter focused more on the state-to-state policy, the former involves the participation of the society. Part of the explanation is the fast growing development of information and technology, particularly the development of internet, which has helped providing more spaces for civil society to involve and to influence peace building process in any humanitarian activities. This space, as manifested in various social media such as Facebook and Twitter, has become a new way for the so-called netizen (internet citizen) to access information on the existing conflicts, advocate or campaign for the management and settlement of the conflicts, gather financial supports for the peace building process, and develop confidence building among people of the conflicting parties. However, at the same time this space may jeopardize the peace building process as people has no restriction in expressing their opinion online which could deteriorate the relations among people from both sides. This paper, therefore, aims to examine the role of this online activism to peace building process in various cases.

El artículo se refiere al acceso a los medios de comunicación como uno de los subtemas del Acuerdo Final para la Terminación del Conflicto y la Construcción de una Paz Estable y Duradera (2016), firmado entre el Gobierno Nacional de Colombia y la guerrilla de las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (farc-ep), que hace parte del segundo punto del acuerdo, titulado “Participación política: apertura democrática para construir la paz”. Al respecto, se identifican algunos de los principales retos y perspectivas de la implementación del acuerdo en relación con este subtema, específicamente, sobre aspectos como la participación de organizaciones y movimientos sociales en la formulación del proyecto de ley estatutaria de participación ciudadana y la garantía de su acceso a los medios de comunicación masiva. Abstract: The article refers to Access to the media, as one of the sub-themes of the Final Agreement for the completion of the conflict and the construction of a stable and lasting peace (2016), signed between the national government of Colombia and the guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (farc-ep), which is part of the second point of the agreement, entitled “Political participation: Democratic opening to build peace”. In this regard, some of the main challenges and perspectives of the implementation of the agreement are identified in relation to this sub-theme, specifically on aspects such as the participation of organizations and social movements in the formulation of the project of statutory law of citizen participation, and the guarantee of their access to the mass media. Keywords: peace agreement, post-conflict, mass media, community communication, communicationfor peace.

<p>The paper investigates the level of water user participation in water conservation and demand management in Gweru. Data was solicited from a combination of user opinion and key informants selected from the local authority and citizen representative groups. A household survey including 489 residents was carried out in the different categories of residential areas in the city. Several water conservation and demand management measures were identified. However compliance with the measures was poor. The majority of respondents (98%) were never consulted and did not participate in water decisions. Only a few respondents (2%) participated in water conservation and demand management consultation meetings, an indicator that decision-making was the sole prerogative of the local authority. Awareness in water conservation across residential suburbs was incredibly low irrespective of the socio-economic status of high literacy level recorded in the city. To explain the anomaly, respondents reported low participation (p = 0.078) in water conservation trainings which may have translated into limited conservation literacy. The findings also revealed poor communication channels between the local authority and residents such that water users felt disrespected and disregarded. Unfortunately no initiatives were in place to encourage and enable water user participation in water management. Water conservation and demand management will remain a problem in Gweru as long as there is no point of participation for various stakeholders, especially water users. Active participation channels must be opened in order to create water conservation awareness and good relations for effective participation and sustainable water service delivery.</p>

The Amalima program in Matabeleland North and Matabeleland South Provinces of Zimbabwe, an intervention funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Office of Food for Peace, promoted Care Groups from 2014-2020. Care Groups are community peer- to- peer support groups that provide a platform for promoting optimal nutrition and health for pregnant and lactating women, as well as children 6-23 months of age through training sessions run by community group leaders to promote recommended maternal, infant and young child nutrition practices. A qualitative study was conducted to describe adolescent mother inclusion and participation in Care Groups, highlighting key enablers and barriers for participation. A total of 28 in-depth interviews were conducted with adolescents in Care Groups, as well as adolescents not participating in Care Groups. Focus group discussions were also held with family members of adolescents. The key enablers for Care Group participation by adolescent mothers were found to include the motivation to learn how to take care of their children, the social and interactive benefits, family support, and positive facilitator attitudes. Key barriers to participation were workload and chores at home, lack of family support, and lack of adolescent-friendly approaches amongst facilitators. Key recommendations include training facilitators on adolescent-friendly approaches and group dynamics so they can better understand and relate to adolescents.

The article examines the role of international human rights legal standards in shaping the legal status of a person and citizen. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of human rights norms that shape and consolidate the legal status of a person and citizen at the international legal level, determining its formation at the level of the legislation of the national member states of the international community. The essential and decisive role of international legal standards in the processes of formation of the legal status of human and citizen rights occurring at the international legal (universal and regional) and national levels is stated. It is argued that the problem of the formation of the legal status of human and citizen rights and freedoms remains relevant, because it serves as a kind of calling card of each state, but it is objectified and complicated by contradictory tendencies in the development of the modern state regarding the limitation of its sovereignty and the need for existential participation in collective councils. maintaining international peace and security. It is stated that such processes continue to the present day and are systematically complicated because they are, on the one hand, influenced by the processes of legal globalization that promote standardization, typing and unification of international norm-making in the field of human rights, and on the other - the peculiarities of formation, operation and implementation of guidelines democratic legal statehood in each of the Member States of the international community.

The Amalima program, a United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Office of Food for Peace intervention, has been promoting Care Groups from 2014 to 2020 in a resource constrained setting in Zimbabwe. Care Groups are community-based peer-to-peer support groups for mothers, which provide a platform for promoting recommended maternal, infant and young nutrition practices. The researchers conducted a study to compare the quality of the diet for children and mothers participating in Care Groups and children and mothers not participating in Care Groups. The research was conducted in two districts (Gwanda and Tsholotsho) in Zimbabwe across 8 purposively selected sites, six years after project implementation began. A total of 242 children aged 6 to 23 months and 168 women beneficiaries were included in the study. We analysed consumption of the three non-staple food groups promoted by the Care Groups under the theme ‘Four Star Diet’ namely vegetables and fruits, legumes and animal source foods. Our results showed that children whose caregivers were members of Care Groups had a higher consumption of pulses and legumes (29% vs 1%; p = 0.00001), fruits and vegetables (33% vs 18%; p = 0.00104) and animal source foods (59% vs 26%; p = 0.00001) compared to children whose caregivers were not Care Group members. There was no difference in diet quality between women participating or not participating in Care groups. Efforts should be put in place to increase participation in Care Groups, as they serve as a key contact point to support recommended infant and young child nutrition practices during the first 1000 days of life. There is a need to explore barriers to Care Group participation and develop a strategy to address the barriers for non-Care Group participants. Future programs should explore the reasons behind the limited impact that Care Group attendance had on the diet quality for women.

La investigación tuvo como objetivo crear un mecanismo que permitiera medir el nivel de conocimiento en competencias ciudadanas de los Patrulleros de la Policía de Colombia durante el proceso de formación, así mismo identificar debilidades, fortalezas y mejoras en la formación. La población estuvo conformada por estudiantes aspirantes a ejercer como patrulleros de una Escuela de formación policial. La investigación siguió un enfoque cuantitativo correlacional, donde se analizó variables de convivencia pacífica y paz, participación y responsabilidad democrática, pluralidad, multiculturalidad y valoración por las diferencias, asociadas a las competencias ciudadanas. Dentro de los principales hallazgos se evidenció el alto sentido de ciudadanía y el reconocimiento de los derechos, deberes, así como de los conceptos de sociedad y la importancia para de la construcción de la paz de Colombia. Así mismo es necesario que se fortalezcan conocimientos sobre los derechos fundamentales bajo el estudio de la Constitución Política de Colombia.La investigación concluyó que en la formación de patrulleros es de gran importancia el estudio de las competencias ciudadanas, más aún, por los caminos de paz que busca el país en la actualidad. Esto tiene una implicación y es que una vez egresen como profesionales, deberán aplicar todos los conocimientos de las competencias de conocimiento para la contribución de la paz de Colombia Palabras clave: formación, competencias, ciudadana, paz, policía. AbstractThe research problem lies in the fact that during the training process of the Patrollers of the Colombian Police, there is no mechanism to know the level of knowledge of citizenship competencies. For this the students were taken for Patrolmen of a School of Police Training; to whom an instrument was applied, with the purpose of identifying levels of knowledge, weaknesses and strengths as well as improvements in the formation of citizen competencies.The methodology used in the present investigation is quantitative, where variables related to peaceful coexistence and peace, participation and democratic responsibility, plurality, multiculturalism and appreciation for differences, are observed, associated with citizen competencies, whose results are They analyzed independently to proceed with the recommendations.Among the main findings that show the high sense of citizenship and the recognition of the rights and duties of these, for the concepts of society and the importance for the construction of peace in Colombia. It is also necessary to strengthen knowledge about fundamental rights under the study of the Political Constitution of Colombia.This investigation concluded that in the training of Patrols, the study of citizen competencies is of great importance, even more, for the paths of peace that the country is currently seeking. This has an implication and is that once they graduate as professionals, they must apply all the knowledge of knowledge competencies for the contribution of peace in Colombia..Keywords: Training, competitions, citizen, peace, police. AbstratoO objetivo da pesquisa foi criar um mecanismo que permita medir o nível de conhecimento em competências cidadãs das patrulhas policiais colombianas durante o processo de treinamento, além de identificar fraquezas, fortalezas e melhorias no treinamento. A população foi conformada por estudantes aspirantes a praticar como patrulheiros de uma escola de treinamento policial. A pesquisa seguiu uma abordagem quantitativa correlacional, onde foram analisadas variáveis de convivência e paz pacífica, participação democrática e responsabilidade, pluralidade, multiculturalidade e avaliação de diferenças, associadas a competências cidadãs. Entre os principais achados foi o alto senso de cidadania e o reconhecimento de direitos, deveres, bem como os conceitos de sociedade e a importância para a construção da paz na Colômbia. Também é necessário fortalecer o conhecimento sobre direitos fundamentais sob o estudo da Constituição Política da Colômbia.A investigação concluiu que, na formação de patrulhas, o estudo das competências dos cidadãos é de grande importância, ainda mais devido aos caminhos de paz que o país está buscando atualmente. Isso tem uma implicação e é que, uma vez que se formam como profissionais, eles devem aplicar todo o conhecimento das competências de conhecimento para o contributo da paz da ColômbiaPalavras chave: treinamento, competições, cidadão, paz, policía

RESUMENEl presente texto analiza con una metodología comparada y basada en el estudio de casos, las experiencias de dos países en los cuales la población se manifestó contraria a los acuerdos o las reformas que se derivaron de negociaciones de paz. Se indaga así en los contextos, las definiciones, las campañas y los resultados de la aplicación del referendo constitucional en Guatemala en 1999 y el plebiscito por la paz en Colombia en 2016. Resaltando similitudes y diferencias de los dos casos, el análisis concluye planteando algunas reflexiones sobre el uso de este tipo de mecanismos de consulta y lo que ellos implican en la relación entre representación política y participación ciudadana, en situaciones de negociación de conflictos armados.ABSTRACTUsing a comparative methodology and based in a case studies , this article analyzes the experience of two countries in which the population declared opposition to the agreements o reforms derived from peace negotiations processes. The contexts, definitions, campaigns and results of the application of the constitutional referendum in Guatemala in 1999 and the plebiscite for peace in Colombia in 2016 are compared. Emphasizing similarities and differences of the two cases, the analysis concludes raising some reflections on the use of this type of consultation mechanisms and what they imply in the relation betwen political representation and citizen participation, in situations of armed conflicts negotiation.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to introduce the idea of the “knowledge front” alongside ideas of “home” and “war” front as a way of understanding the expertise of university-educated women in an examination of the First World War and its aftermath. The paper explores the professional lives of two women, the medical researcher, Elsie Dalyell, and the teacher, feminist and unionist, Lucy Woodcock. The paper examines their professional lives and acquisition and use of university expertise both on the war and home fronts, and shows how women’s intellectual and scientific activity established during the war continued long after as a way to repair what many believed to be a society damaged by war. It argues that the idea of “knowledge front” reveals a continuity of intellectual and scientific activity from war to peace, and offers “space” to examine the professional lives of university-educated women in this period. Design/methodology/approach The paper is structured as an analytical narrative interweaving the professional lives of two women, medical researcher Elsie Dalyell and teacher/unionist Lucy Woodcock to illuminate the contributions of university-educated women’s expertise from 1914 to the outbreak of the Second World War. Findings The emergence of university-educated women in the First World War and the interwar years participated in the civic structure of Australian society in innovative and important ways that challenged the “soldier citizen” ethos of this era. The paper offers a way to examine university-educated women’s professional lives as they unfolded during the course of war and peace that focuses on what they did with their expertise. Thus, the “knowledge front” provides more ways to examine these lives than the more narrowly articulated ideas of “home” and “war” front. Research limitations/implications The idea of the “knowledge front” applied to women in this paper also has implications for how to analyse the meaning of the First World War-focused university expertise more generally both during war and peace. Practical implications The usual view of women’s participation in war is as nurses in field hospitals. This paper broadens the notion of war to see war as having many interconnected fronts including the battle front and home front (Beaumont, 2013). By doing so, not only can we see a much larger involvement of women in the war, but we also see the involvement of university-educated women. Social implications The paper shows that while the guns may have ceased on 11 November 1918, women’s lives continued as they grappled with their war experience and aimed to reassert their professional lives in Australian society in the 1920s and 1930s. Originality/value The paper contains original biographical research of the lives of two women. It also conceptualises the idea of “knowledge front” in terms of war/home front to examine how the expertise of university-educated career women contributed to the social fabric of a nation recovering from war.

El gobierno escolar es una actividad formal que se realiza anualmente en la educación básica como estrategia pedagógica de formación y convivencia democrática con la participación de niños y adolescentes. Se analiza la elección de personeros estudiantiles, actividad anual de participación democrática para toda la comunidad educativa, mostrando cómo pueden deformarse los ámbitos de participación y formación política, reproduciendo prácticas de corrupción y de patronageo y sus consecuencias para la formación ciudadana. Se destaca, además, la importancia del involucramiento familiar en diálogo con el sistema escolar. Palabras clave: Gobierno escolar, personeros escolares, patronageo, pedagogía política Abstract The government school is a formal activity that takes place annually in basic education as a pedagogical strategy of training and democratic coexistence with the participation of children and young people. Discusses the election of student representatives, annual activity of democratic participation for the entire educational community, showing how can deform the fields of participation and political formation, playing corrupt practices and patronage and its consequences for the citizen formation. It further emphasizes the importance of family involvement in dialogue with the school system. Keywords: Government school, school leaders, patronage, political pedagogy ResumoO grêmio estudantil é uma atividade formal que é desenvolvida anualmente no ensino básico como estratégia pedagógica de formação e convivência democrática com a participação de crianças e adolescentes. Analisa se a eleição de representantes estudantis, atividade de participação democrática de toda a comunidade educativa, indicando como as áreas de participação e formação politica podem ser distorcidas, reproduzindo praticas de corrupção e patronageo e suas consequências para a instrução cidadã. Destaca-se, também, a importância do envolvimento familiar no diálogo com o sistema escolar. Palavras-chave: grêmio estudantil, representantes estudantis, patronageo, pedagogia politica

The issue of decentralization in Zimbabwe’s local government system has been topical since the colonial era. In the post-independence epoch the expectation was that the new majority government would address the centralization of governance which was motivated by racial imbalances. However, decentralization was not achieved as local government was not recognized in the Lancaster House Constitution adopted at independence in 1980. For years this allowed the central government to control all the local government structures in the country. The relationship between local governments and the central government became bitter and tense after the formation of a formidable opposition, MDC, which has been controlling most urban local authorities since its formation. The 2013 Constitution has not improved things either as the central government has not been willing to implement the new law to its latter and spirit. In all this it is the citizens who have been bearing the brunt as there has been poor service delivery owing to the bad relationship between the center and local structures. The study found out that if decentralization is fully implemented in Zimbabwe it has the potential of bringing efficient and effective service delivery, citizen participation, democracy and accountability in the local government system. The paper also makes recommendations on what needs to be done to achieve decentralization in the country’s local government system.

Global changes taking place in today’s world have brought about an unprecedented crisis in citizenship values. For instance, violence, conflict and radicalization have become rampant in our society. Such crisis has brought to the limelight the role of education in sensitizing students about their rights and duties in order to promote peace, tolerance and mutual respect. In Morocco, educational reforms have given much importance to citizenship education in the belief that it can help raise students’ awareness about their rights and duties, anchor them to their communities, and provide them with the knowledge and skills necessary for active participation in society. The National Charter for Education and Training and the Higher Council for Education, Training and Scientific Research have created a roadmap for citizenship education. This study aims to investigate the impact of such attempts to train good citizens. The participants are 73 semester-two students of the department of English from the faculty of humanities, Chouaib Doukkali University. The main data collection tool is questionnaires. The data obtained are fed into SPSS to generate frequencies besides identifying main themes obtained from answers to open-ended questions. Findings show that the impact of such educational reforms is rather limited. While the majority of students expressed their feeling of belonging to their community as well as an accepted level of awareness of their rights and duties, they failed to act on the self-reported qualities of a good citizen. Such low level of engagement in their community affairs betrays weak links between students and their communities. In light of these findings, several recommendations are made to improve citizenship education and reduce the gap between the goals of national educational reforms and their actual implementation in schools. One such recommendation is that textbooks need to emphasize critical thinking and analysis so that students are empowered to become critical thinking global citizens and agents of change.

Abstract “Community Radio – a different kind of radio, we work with our people. Together we plan, together we decide; together we implement. We work with our people” (GCRN Community Radio Anthem) 1. This practice-based article presents the experiences and reflections of two pioneer organizations which are continuously innovating with the use of community radio. We share reflections on its use as a tool for building inclusive communities that are able to seek accountability, especially for those facing intersecting inequalities deriving from identity-based as well as other social, economic and spatial drivers. These organizations are Radio Ada–based in the Greater Accra region in Ghana, founding member of the Ghana Community Radio Network (GCRN) and the Soroti Justice and Peace Commission (SOCAJAPIC) in North Eastern Uganda. Both organizations see community radio as central to their participatory practice, through which they articulate and promote the right to communicate as fundamental for inclusion and accountability 2. They partnered with the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) in the UK to explore how participatory action research processes can contribute to building sustainable social inclusion and pathways to accountability for the most marginalized (see Shaw, Howard and López Franco (2020) Article in this issue). The article is primarily based on an interview with Wilna Quarmyne, Kofi Larweh, Ben Boham Okiror and John Elyanu, founding members and leaders of Radio Ada and SOCAJAPIC, respectively, but also draws on research data and from previous stages of work with both organizations as part of the Participate initiative’s research on accountability for those most marginalized (Burns, Ikita, López Franco, Shahrokh, (2015) Citizen Participation and Accountability for Sustainable Development, IDS, Brighton; Howard, López Franco and Wheeler (2017) Participatory Monitoring and Accountability and the Sustainable Development Goals: A Learning Report of the Participate Network, Participate Network, Brighton. Find the full report at: https://opendocs.ids.ac.uk/opendocs/bitstream/handle/123456789/13326/Participate_LearningReport_Final.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y). Other reflective moments and dialogue, resulting through rounds of feedback to drafts of this article, have also shaped the outcome. The piece is organized in four sections in an aim to explain how community radio has been a key driver of accountability for populations confronting intersecting inequalities, through combining this with different expressions of participatory performing arts 3, simplified here as processes whereby “participants instigate and realise their own creative idea. They are the directors/curators of the piece. Professional artist/s are involved if it is the participants” decision to do so’ (Tiller 2013 p11). The first section introduces the work of Radio Ada and SOCAJAPIC, explaining their approach to community radio, performing arts and social change, by each organization. Section 2 presents reflections on using radio as a means for shifting social norms in the quest for building inclusion. Section 3 speaks to the ways that community radio is being used to support multiple marginalized groups in seeking accountability. Section 4 presents some limitations and obstacles emerging for community radio stations to maintain their work towards sustained social change.

In my postgraduate formation during the last years of the 80’s, we had close to thirty hospital beds in a pavilion called “sépticas” (1). In Colombia, where abortion was completely penalized, the pavilion was mostly filled with women with insecure, complicated abortions. The focus we received was technical: management of intensive care; performance of hysterectomies, colostomies, bowel resection, etc. In those times, some nurses were nuns and limited themselves to interrogating the patients to get them to “confess” what they had done to themselves in order to abort. It always disturbed me that the women who left alive, left without any advice or contraceptive method. Having asked a professor of mine, he responded with disdain: “This is a third level hospital, those things are done by nurses of the first level”. Seeing so much pain and death, I decided to talk to patients, and I began to understand their decision. I still remember so many deaths with sadness, but one case in particular pains me: it was a woman close to being fifty who arrived with a uterine perforation in a state of advanced sepsis. Despite the surgery and the intensive care, she passed away. I had talked to her, and she told me she was a widow, had two adult kids and had aborted because of “embarrassment towards them” because they were going to find out that she had an active sexual life. A few days after her passing, the pathology professor called me, surprised, to tell me that the uterus we had sent for pathological examination showed no pregnancy. She was a woman in a perimenopausal state with a pregnancy exam that gave a false positive due to the high levels of FSH/LH typical of her age. SHE WAS NOT PREGNANT!!! She didn’t have menstruation because she was premenopausal and a false positive led her to an unsafe abortion. Of course, the injuries caused in the attempted abortion caused the fatal conclusion, but the real underlying cause was the social taboo in respect to sexuality. I had to watch many adolescents and young women leave the hospital alive, but without a uterus, sometime without ovaries and with colostomies, to be looked down on by a society that blamed them for deciding to not be mothers. I had to see situation of women that arrived with their intestines protruding from their vaginas because of unsafe abortions. I saw women, who in their despair, self-inflicted injuries attempting to abort with elements such as stick, branches, onion wedges, alum bars and clothing hooks among others. Among so many deaths, it was hard not having at least one woman per day in the morgue due to an unsafe abortion. During those time, healthcare was not handled from the biopsychosocial, but only from the technical (2); nonetheless, in the academic evaluations that were performed, when asked about the definition of health, we had to recite the text from the International Organization of Health that included these three aspects. How contradictory! To give response to the health need of women and guarantee their right when I was already a professor, I began an obstetric contraceptive service in that third level hospital. There was resistance from the directors, but fortunately I was able to acquire international donations for the institution, which facilitated its acceptance. I decided to undertake a teaching career with the hope of being able to sensitize health professionals towards an integral focus of health and illness. When the International Conference of Population and Development (ICPD) was held in Cairo in 1994, I had already spent various years in teaching, and when I read their Action Program, I found a name for what I was working on: Sexual and Reproductive Rights. I began to incorporate the tools given by this document into my professional and teaching life. I was able to sensitize people at my countries Health Ministry, and we worked together moving it to an approach of human rights in areas of sexual and reproductive health (SRH). This new viewpoint, in addition to being integral, sought to give answers to old problems like maternal mortality, adolescent pregnancy, low contraceptive prevalence, unplanned or unwanted pregnancy or violence against women. With other sensitized people, we began with these SRH issues to permeate the Colombian Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology, some universities, and university hospitals. We are still fighting in a country that despite many difficulties has improved its indicators of SRH. With the experience of having labored in all sphere of these topics, we manage to create, with a handful of colleagues and friend at the Universidad El Bosque, a Master’s Program in Sexual and Reproductive Health, open to all professions, in which we broke several paradigms. A program was initiated in which the qualitative and quantitative investigation had the same weight, and some alumni of the program are now in positions of leadership in governmental and international institutions, replicating integral models. In the Latin American Federation of Obstetrics and Gynecology (FLASOG, English acronym) and in the International Federation of Obstetrics and Gynecology (FIGO), I was able to apply my experience for many years in the SRH committees of these association to benefit women and girls in the regional and global environments. When I think of who has inspired me in these fights, I should highlight the great feminist who have taught me and been with me in so many fights. I cannot mention them all, but I have admired the story of the life of Margaret Sanger with her persistence and visionary outlook. She fought throughout her whole life to help the women of the 20th century to be able to obtain the right to decide when and whether or not they wanted to have children (3). Of current feminist, I have had the privilege of sharing experiences with Carmen Barroso, Giselle Carino, Debora Diniz and Alejandra Meglioli, leaders of the International Planned Parenthood Federation – Western Hemisphere Region (IPPF-RHO). From my country, I want to mention my countrywoman Florence Thomas, psychologist, columnist, writer and Colombo-French feminist. She is one of the most influential and important voices in the movement for women rights in Colombia and the region. She arrived from France in the 1960’s, in the years of counterculture, the Beatles, hippies, Simone de Beauvoir, and Jean-Paul Sartre, a time in which capitalism and consumer culture began to be criticized (4). It was then when they began to talk about the female body, female sexuality and when the contraceptive pill arrived like a total revolution for women. Upon its arrival in 1967, she experimented a shock because she had just assisted in a revolution and only found a country of mothers, not women (5). That was the only destiny for a woman, to be quiet and submissive. Then she realized that this could not continue, speaking of “revolutionary vanguards” in such a patriarchal environment. In 1986 with the North American and European feminism waves and with her academic team, they created the group “Mujer y Sociedad de la Universidad Nacional de Colombia”, incubator of great initiatives and achievements for the country (6). She has led great changes with her courage, the strength of her arguments, and a simultaneously passionate and agreeable discourse. Among her multiple books, I highlight “Conversaciones con Violeta” (7), motivated by the disdain towards feminism of some young women. She writes it as a dialogue with an imaginary daughter in which, in an intimate manner, she reconstructs the history of women throughout the centuries and gives new light of the fundamental role of feminism in the life of modern women. Another book that shows her bravery is “Había que decirlo” (8), in which she narrates the experience of her own abortion at age twenty-two in sixty’s France. My work experience in the IPPF-RHO has allowed me to meet leaders of all ages in diverse countries of the region, who with great mysticism and dedication, voluntarily, work to achieve a more equal and just society. I have been particularly impressed by the appropriation of the concept of sexual and reproductive rights by young people, and this has given me great hope for the future of the planet. We continue to have an incomplete agenda of the action plan of the ICPD of Cairo but seeing how the youth bravely confront the challenges motivates me to continue ahead and give my years of experience in an intergenerational work. In their policies and programs, the IPPF-RHO evidences great commitment for the rights and the SRH of adolescent, that are consistent with what the organization promotes, for example, 20% of the places for decision making are in hands of the young. Member organizations, that base their labor on volunteers, are true incubators of youth that will make that unassailable and necessary change of generations. In contrast to what many of us experienced, working in this complicated agenda of sexual and reproductive health without theoretical bases, today we see committed people with a solid formation to replace us. In the college of medicine at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia and the College of Nursing at the Universidad El Bosque, the new generations are more motivated and empowered, with great desire to change the strict underlying structures. Our great worry is the onslaught of the ultra-right, a lot of times better organized than us who do support rights, that supports anti-rights group and are truly pro-life (9). Faced with this scenario, we should organize ourselves better, giving battle to guarantee the rights of women in the local, regional, and global level, aggregating the efforts of all pro-right organizations. We are now committed to the Objectives of Sustainable Development (10), understood as those that satisfy the necessities of the current generation without jeopardizing the capacity of future generations to satisfy their own necessities. This new agenda is based on: - The unfinished work of the Millennium Development Goals - Pending commitments (international environmental conventions) - The emergent topics of the three dimensions of sustainable development: social, economic, and environmental. We now have 17 objectives of sustainable development and 169 goals (11). These goals mention “universal access to reproductive health” many times. In objective 3 of this list is included guaranteeing, before the year 2030, “universal access to sexual and reproductive health services, including those of family planning, information, and education.” Likewise, objective 5, “obtain gender equality and empower all women and girls”, establishes the goal of “assuring the universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights in conformity with the action program of the International Conference on Population and Development, the Action Platform of Beijing”. It cannot be forgotten that the term universal access to sexual and reproductive health includes universal access to abortion and contraception. Currently, 830 women die every day through preventable maternal causes; of these deaths, 99% occur in developing countries, more than half in fragile environments and in humanitarian contexts (12). 216 million women cannot access modern contraception methods and the majority live in the nine poorest countries in the world and in a cultural environment proper to the decades of the seventies (13). This number only includes women from 15 to 49 years in any marital state, that is to say, the number that takes all women into account is much greater. Achieving the proposed objectives would entail preventing 67 million unwanted pregnancies and reducing maternal deaths by two thirds. We currently have a high, unsatisfied demand for modern contraceptives, with extremely low use of reversible, long term methods (intrauterine devices and subdermal implants) which are the most effect ones with best adherence (14). There is not a single objective among the 17 Objectives of Sustainable Development where contraception does not have a prominent role: from the first one that refers to ending poverty, going through the fifth one about gender equality, the tenth of inequality reduction among countries and within the same country, until the sixteenth related with peace and justice. If we want to change the world, we should procure universal access to contraception without myths or barriers. We have the moral obligation of achieving the irradiation of extreme poverty and advancing the construction of more equal, just, and happy societies. In emergency contraception (EC), we are very far from reaching expectations. If in reversible, long-term methods we have low prevalence, in EC the situation gets worse. Not all faculties in the region look at this topic, and where it is looked at, there is no homogeneity in content, not even within the same country. There are still myths about their real action mechanisms. There are countries, like Honduras, where it is prohibited and there is no specific medicine, the same case as in Haiti. Where it is available, access is dismal, particularly among girls, adolescents, youth, migrants, afro-descendent, and indigenous. The multiple barriers for the effective use of emergency contraceptives must be knocked down, and to work toward that we have to destroy myths and erroneous perceptions, taboos and cultural norms; achieve changes in laws and restrictive rules within countries, achieve access without barriers to the EC; work in union with other sectors; train health personnel and the community. It is necessary to transform the attitude of health personal to a service above personal opinion. Reflecting on what has occurred after the ICPD in Cairo, their Action Program changed how we look at the dynamics of population from an emphasis on demographics to a focus on the people and human rights. The governments agreed that, in this new focus, success was the empowerment of women and the possibility of choice through expanded access to education, health, services, and employment among others. Nonetheless, there have been unequal advances and inequality persists in our region, all the goals were not met, the sexual and reproductive goals continue beyond the reach of many women (15). There is a long road ahead until women and girls of the world can claim their rights and liberty of deciding. Globally, maternal deaths have been reduced, there is more qualified assistance of births, more contraception prevalence, integral sexuality education, and access to SRH services for adolescents are now recognized rights with great advances, and additionally there have been concrete gains in terms of more favorable legal frameworks, particularly in our region; nonetheless, although it’s true that the access condition have improved, the restrictive laws of the region expose the most vulnerable women to insecure abortions. There are great challenges for governments to recognize SRH and the DSR as integral parts of health systems, there is an ample agenda against women. In that sense, access to SRH is threatened and oppressed, it requires multi-sector mobilization and litigation strategies, investigation and support for the support of women’s rights as a multi-sector agenda. Looking forward, we must make an effort to work more with youth to advance not only the Action Program of the ICPD, but also all social movements. They are one of the most vulnerable groups, and the biggest catalyzers for change. The young population still faces many challenges, especially women and girls; young girls are in particularly high risk due to lack of friendly and confidential services related with sexual and reproductive health, gender violence, and lack of access to services. In addition, access to abortion must be improved; it is the responsibility of states to guarantee the quality and security of this access. In our region there still exist countries with completely restrictive frameworks. New technologies facilitate self-care (16), which will allow expansion of universal access, but governments cannot detach themselves from their responsibility. Self-care is expanding in the world and can be strategic for reaching the most vulnerable populations. There are new challenges for the same problems, that require a re-interpretation of the measures necessary to guaranty the DSR of all people, in particular women, girls, and in general, marginalized and vulnerable populations. It is necessary to take into account migrations, climate change, the impact of digital media, the resurgence of hate discourse, oppression, violence, xenophobia, homo/transphobia, and other emergent problems, as SRH should be seen within a framework of justice, not isolated. We should demand accountability of the 179 governments that participate in the ICPD 25 years ago and the 193 countries that signed the Sustainable Development Objectives. They should reaffirm their commitments and expand their agenda to topics not considered at that time. Our region has given the world an example with the Agreement of Montevideo, that becomes a blueprint for achieving the action plan of the CIPD and we should not allow retreat. This agreement puts people at the center, especially women, and includes the topic of abortion, inviting the state to consider the possibility of legalizing it, which opens the doors for all governments of the world to recognize that women have the right to choose on maternity. This agreement is much more inclusive: Considering that the gaps in health continue to abound in the region and the average statistics hide the high levels of maternal mortality, of sexually transmitted diseases, of infection by HIV/AIDS, and the unsatisfied demand for contraception in the population that lives in poverty and rural areas, among indigenous communities, and afro-descendants and groups in conditions of vulnerability like women, adolescents and incapacitated people, it is agreed: 33- To promote, protect, and guarantee the health and the sexual and reproductive rights that contribute to the complete fulfillment of people and social justice in a society free of any form of discrimination and violence. 37- Guarantee universal access to quality sexual and reproductive health services, taking into consideration the specific needs of men and women, adolescents and young, LGBT people, older people and people with incapacity, paying particular attention to people in a condition of vulnerability and people who live in rural and remote zone, promoting citizen participation in the completing of these commitments. 42- To guarantee, in cases in which abortion is legal or decriminalized in the national legislation, the existence of safe and quality abortion for non-desired or non-accepted pregnancies and instigate the other States to consider the possibility of modifying public laws, norms, strategies, and public policy on the voluntary interruption of pregnancy to save the life and health of pregnant adolescent women, improving their quality of life and decreasing the number of abortions (17).

Background: In recent years, informal peace committees have rapidly made their mark either as precautionary or as response mechanisms to particular conflicts. Their main purpose is to prevent the eruption or escalation of nascent micro-level conflict into violent and more widespread conflicts. This article reports on aspects of a larger research project in which the researcher collaborated with local communities to create a ward-level peace committee in ward 8 of Seke district, Mashonaland East province, Zimbabwe.Objective: To test whether and under what conditions informal peace committees can effectively help to contribute to peacebuilding at local community level.Method: The study applied participatory action research to design, implement and evaluate the peace committee initiative with 15 individual members in ward 8 of Seke district. The study first conducted a 10-member focus group. Secondly, a follow-up in-depth interview on five focus group members and seven more involved in peacebuilding provided feedback on the effectiveness of informal peace committees.Results: The study showed that creating informal peace committees is possible, as community participation in the design, implementation and day-to-day operations of such initiatives guarantees their sustainability even without external funding. One of the comparative advantages of informal peace committees is that all social groups in the community have equal chances of being represented, thus helping to meet the needs and aspirations of the community at large. The study further revealed that informal peace committees are faced with a number of limitations. The major one is that they do not enjoy official recognition from government, in spite of their critical role in contributing to peace in their host communities.Conclusion: The strengths of informal peace committees are that they are self-initiated; they represent the interests of the host community and can be replicated.

The reliance on untrained reporters with limited or no understanding of journalistic standards has become increasingly widespread particularly in less democratic environments and these practices have impacted news gathering and reporting. There however has been some debate about the conceivability, capacity, reliability and acceptability of citizen journalists due to the lack of the professional standards associated with the profession. Even so, diverse forms of citizen journalism continue to emerge and develop in several countries in the Global South, such as Zimbabwe and Mozambique, examined in-depth in our study of the current frameworks, trends, practices and principles of citizen journalism in Africa. Buoyed by what appears like a slump in global citizen journalism research, we identify specific cases to rethink the concept, seeking to theoretically contribute to new directions on the phenomenon’s role in African societies. Our analysis suggests that a reconceptualization of citizen journalism is imperative thanks to several factors, including improved access to the Internet and changing attitudes toward political dissent and participation, citizen journalism in Africa is taking new directions.

Devolution, which was incorporated into the Constitution of Zimbabwe through section 264, is a new phenomenon in Zimbabwe. This incorporation came about because of the need for participatory governance and the devolution of power away from the centre. Over the years, local governance has been informed by a plethora of pieces of legislation that do not provide an enabling environment for citizen participation, giving Zimbabwe’s local government a chequered history that excludes citizens from participating in public affairs that affect their lives. An analysis of section 264 of the Constitution revealed that devolution has the propensity to enhance transparency, efficiency and effectiveness as well as the fulfilment of central government’s responsibilities at provincial and local levels. This article argues that the belated implementation of the devolution of power has delayed improved service delivery, effectiveness, efficiency and accountability within local governance. This article further seeks to explain how the implementation of section 264 of the Constitution can bring about good local governance.

Remaining true to the spirit and logic of the war-torn territories, the Dayton Peace Agreement highlights the interdependence of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s (B&H) 'local' problems with the wider region’s problems, and indeed, global problems. 25 years after the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement, we have gained a democracy without a people, a democracy with MP’s defined by their ethnicity, who, at their discretion, interpret the will of the people and dispose of the mandate entrusted to them by their convictions. This paper aims to open up the question of whether the Dayton Constitution alienated B&H’s citizens from their political community. Pointing to the process of alienation from citizenship, which is, among other things, caused by a constitutional architecture that does not conceive of the citizen as an abstract category, the author focuses more on the conditions in which voters are denied real political participation. In theoretical terms, this participation would mean not only resistance to ethnonationalism, but also the creation of opportunities for citizens to unite and make political-strategic, and long-term decisions important for the future of B&H.

How does civil war affect citizen engagement with democracy? Civilians who live through warfare face numerous disruptions to everyday life that can have permanent effects on political engagement even after peace is achieved. This article analyzes the role of depressed living standards resulting from education loss during the Liberia Civil War as a case study of war-related deprivation. I argue that the negative effects of war on education and economic outcomes clash with the expectations that citizens have for postwar democracy, with adverse consequences for political participation. I demonstrate support for this argument using a mixed methods approach, combining qualitative interviews with census, voting, and Afrobarometer survey data. I leverage a difference-in-differences identification strategy to causally identify the negative impact of conflict on human capital for a generation of young adults, and on the downstream consequences of disruptions in education on political participation. Results indicate that children who were of school age during the civil war are differentially less likely to have any formal schooling by the end of the war. I further find that educational deficiencies disproportionately decrease postwar job prospects, breeding resentment against the newly elected government. This extends to political participation: those who lost out on educational opportunities due to war exhibit lower political engagement and less desire to engage with democratic processes.

What is the countercultural potential of citizen science? As a participant in the wider citizen science movement, I can attest that contemporary citizen science initiatives rarely characterise themselves as countercultural. Rather, the goal of most citizen science projects is to be seen as producing orthodox scientific knowledge: the ethos is respectability rather than rebellion (NERC). I will suggest instead that there are resonances with the counterculture that emerged in the 1960s, most visibly through an emphasis on participatory experimentation and the principles of environmental sustainability and social justice. This will be illustrated by example, through two citizen science projects that have a commitment to combining social values with scientific practice. I will then describe the explicitly countercultural organisation, Science for the People, which arose from within the scientific community itself, out of opposition to the Vietnam War. Methodological and conceptual weaknesses in the authoritative model of science are explored, suggesting that there is an opportunity for citizen science to become anti-hegemonic by challenging the hegemony of science itself. This reformulation will be expressed through Deleuze and Guattari's notion of nomadic science, the means through which citizen science could become countercultural. Counterculture Before examining the countercultural potential of citizen science, I set out some of the grounds for identifying a counterculture drawing on the ideas of Theodore Roszak, who invented the term counterculture to describe the new forms of youth movements that emerged in the 1960s (Roszak). This was a perspective that allowed the carnivalesque procession of beatniks, hippies and the New Left to be seen as a single paradigm shift combining psychic and social revolution. But just as striking and more often forgotten is the way Roszak characterised the role of the counterculture as mobilising a vital critique of the scientific worldview (Roszak 273-274). The concept of counterculture has been taken up in diverse ways since its original formation. We can draw, for example, on Lawrence Grossberg's more contemporary analysis of counterculture (Grossberg) to clarify the main concepts and contrast them with a scientific approach. Firstly, a counterculture works on and through cultural formations. This positions it as something the scientific community would see as the other, as the opposite to the objective, repeatable and quantitative truth-seeking of science. Secondly, a counterculture is a diverse and hybrid space without a unitary identity. Again, scientists would often see science as a singular activity applied in modulated forms depending on the context, although in practice the different sciences can experience each other as different tribes. Thirdly, a counterculture is lived as a transformative experience where the participant is fundamentally changed at a psychic level through participation in unique events. Contrast this with the scientific idea of the separation of observer and observed, and the objective repeatability of the experiment irrespective of the experimenter. Fourthly, a counterculture is associated with a unique moment in time, a point of shift from the old to the new. For the counterculture of the 1960s this was the Age of Aquarius. In general, the aim of science and scientists is to contribute to a form of truth that is essentially timeless, in that a physical law is assumed to hold across all time (and space), although science also has moments of radical change with regard to scientific paradigms. Finally, and significantly for the conclusions of this paper, according to Roszak a counterculture stands against the mainstream. It offers a challenge not at the level of detail but, to the fundamental assumptions of the status quo. This is what “science” cannot do, in as much as science itself has become the mainstream. It was the character of science as the bedrock of all values that Roszak himself opposed and for which he named and welcomed the counterculture. Although critical of some of the more shallow aspects of its psychedelic experimentation or political militancy, he shared its criticism of the technocratic society (the technocracy) and the egocentric mode of consciousness. His hope was that the counterculture could help restore a visionary imagination along with a more human sense of community. What Is Citizen Science? In recent years the concept of citizen science has grown massively in popularity, but is still an open and unstable term with many variants. Current moves towards institutionalisation (Citizen Science Association) are attempting to marry growth and stabilisation, with the first Annual General Meeting of the European Citizen Science Association securing a tentative agreement on the common principles of citizen science (Haklay, "European"). Key papers and presentations in the mainstream of the movement emphasise that citizen science is not a new activity (Bonney et al.) with much being made of the fact that the National Audubon Society started its annual Christmas Bird Count in 1900 (National Audubon Society). However, this elides the key role of the Internet in the current surge, which takes two distinct forms; the organisation of distributed fieldwork, and the online crowdsourcing of data analysis. To scientists, the appeal of citizen science fieldwork follows from its distributed character; they can research patterns over large scales and across latitudes in ways that would be impossible for a researcher at a single study site (Toomey). Gathering together the volunteer, observations are made possible by an infrastructure of web tools. The role of the citizen in this is to be a careful observer; the eyes and ears of the scientist in cyberspace. In online crowdsourcing, the internet is used to present pattern recognition tasks; enrolling users in searching images for signs of new planets or the jets of material from black holes. The growth of science crowdsourcing is exponential; one of the largest sites facilitating this kind of citizen science now has well in excess of a million registered users (Zooniverse). Such is the force of the technological aura around crowdsourced science that mainstream publications often conflate it with the whole of citizen science (Parr). There are projects within citizen science which share core values with the counterculture as originally defined by Roszak, in particular open participation and social justice. These projects also show characteristics from Grossberg's analysis of counterculture; they are diverse and hybrid spaces, carry a sense of moving from an old era to a new one, and have cultural forms of their own. They open up the full range of the scientific method to participation, including problem definition, research design, analysis and action. Citizen science projects that aim for participation in all these areas include the Extreme Citizen Science research group (ExCiteS) at University College London (UCL), the associated social enterprise Mapping for Change (Mapping for Change), and the Public Laboratory for Open Technology and Science (Public Lab). ExCiteS sees its version of citizen science as "a situated, bottom-up practice" that "takes into account local needs, practices and culture". Public Lab, meanwhile, argue that many citizen science projects only offer non-scientists token forms of participation in scientific inquiry that rarely amount to more that data collection and record keeping. They counter this through an open process which tries to involve communities all the way from framing the research questions, to prototyping tools, to collating and interpreting the measurements. ExCiteS and Public Lab also share an implicit commitment to social justice through scientific activity. The Public Lab mission is to "put scientific inquiry at the heart of civic life" and the UCL research group strive for "new devices and knowledge creation processes that can transform the world". All of their work is framed by environmental sustainability and care for the planet, whether it's enabling environmental monitoring by indigenous communities in the Congo (ExCiteS) or developing do-it-yourself spectrometry kits to detect crude oil pollution (Public Lab, "Homebrew"). Having provided a case for elements of countercultural DNA being present in bottom-up and problem-driven citizen science, we can contrast this with Science for the People, a scientific movement that was born out of the counterculture. Countercultural Science from the 1970s: Science for the People Science for the People (SftP) was a scientific movement seeded by a rebellion of young physicists against the role of US science in the Vietnam War. Young members of the American Physical Society (APS) lobbied for it to take a position against the war but were heavily criticised by other members, whose written complaints in the communications of the APS focused on the importance of scientific neutrality and the need to maintain the association's purely scientific nature rather than allowing science to become contaminated by politics (Sarah Bridger, in Plenary 2, 0:46 to 1:04). The counter-narrative from the dissidents argued that science is not neutral, invoking the example of Nazi science as a justification for taking a stand. After losing the internal vote the young radicals left to form Scientists and Engineers for Social and Political Action (SESPA), which later became Science for the People (SftP). As well as opposition to the Vietnam War, SftP embodied from the start other key themes of the counterculture, such as civil rights and feminism. For example, the first edition of Science for the People magazine (appearing as Vol. 2, No. 2 of the SESPA Newsletter) included an article about leading Black Panther, Bobby Seale, alongside a piece entitled “Women Demand Equality in Science.” The final articles in the same issue are indicators of SftP's dual approach to science and change; both the radicalisation of professionals (“Computer Professionals for Peace”) and the demystification of technical practices (“Statistics for the People”) (Science for the People). Science for the People was by no means just a magazine. For example, their technical assistance programme provided practical support to street health clinics run by the Black Panthers, and brought SftP under FBI surveillance (Herb Fox, in Plenary 1, 0:25 to 0:35). Both as a magazine and as a movement, SftP showed a tenacious longevity, with the publication being produced every two months between August 1970 and May/June 1989. It mutated through a network of affiliated local groups and international links, and was deeply involved in constructing early critiques of nuclear power and genetic determinism. SftP itself seems to have had a consistent commitment to non-hierarchical processes and, as one of the founders expressed it, a “shit kicking” approach to putting its principles in to practice (Al Weinrub, in Plenary 1, 0:25 to 0:35). SftP criticised power, front and centre. It is this opposition to hegemony that puts the “counter” into counterculture, and is missing from citizen science as currently practised. Cracks in the authority of orthodox science, which can be traced to both methodologies and basic concepts, follow in this paper. These can be seen as an opportunity for citizen science to directly challenge orthodox science and thus establish an anti-hegemonic stance of its own. Weaknesses of Scientific Hegemony In this section I argue that the weaknesses of scientific hegemony are in proportion to its claims to authority (Feyerabend). Through my scientific training as an experimental particle physicist I have participated in many discussions about the ontological and epistemological grounds for scientific authority. While most scientists choose to present their practice publicly as an infallible machine for the production of truths, the opinions behind the curtain are far more mixed. Physicist Lee Somolin has written a devastating critique of science-in-practice that focuses on the capture of the institutional economy of science by an ideological grouping of string theorists (Smolin), and his account is replete with questions about science itself and ethnographic details that bring to life the messy behind-the-scenes conflicts in scientific-knowledge making. Knowledge of this messiness has prompted some citizen science advocates to take science to task, for example for demanding higher standards in data consistency from citizen science than is often the case in orthodox science (Haklay, "Assertions"; Freitag, "Good Science"). Scientists will also and invariably refer to reproducibility as the basis for the authority of scientific truths. The principle that the same experiments always get the same results, irrespective of who is doing the experiment, and as long as they follow the same method, is a foundation of scientific objectivity. However, a 2012 study of landmark results in cancer science was able to reproduce only 11 per cent of the original findings (Begley and Ellis). While this may be an outlier case, there are broader issues with statistics and falsification, a bias on positive results, weaknesses in peer review and the “publish or perish” academic culture (The Economist). While the pressures are all-too-human, the resulting distortions are rarely acknowledged in public by scientists themselves. On the other hand, citizen science has been slow to pick up the gauntlet. For example, while some scientists involved in citizen science have commented on the inequality and inappropriateness of orthodox peer review for citizen science papers (Freitag, “What Is the Role”) there has been no direct challenge to any significant part of the scientific edifice. I argue that the nearest thing to a real challenge to orthodox science is the proposal for a post-normal science, which pre-dates the current wave of citizen science. Post-normal science tries to accommodate the philosophical implications of post-structuralism and at the same time position science to tackle problems such as climate change, intractable to reproducibility (Funtowicz and Ravetz). It accomplishes this by extending the domains in which science can provide meaningful answers to include issues such as global warming, which involve high decision stakes and high uncertainty. It extends traditional peer review into an extended peer community, which includes all the stakeholders in an issue, and may involve active research as well as quality assessment. The idea of extended peer review has obvious overlaps with community-oriented citizen science, but has yet to be widely mobilised as a theoretical buttress for citizen-led science. Prior even to post-normal science are the potential cracks in the core philosophy of science. In her book Cosmopolitics, Isabelle Stengers characterises the essential nature of scientific truth as the ability to disqualify and exclude other truth claims. This, she asserts, is the hegemony of physics and its singular claim to decide what is real and what is true. Stengers traces this, in part, to the confrontation more than one hundred years ago between Max Planck and Ernst Mach, whereas the latter argued that claims to an absolute truth should be replaced by formulations that tied physical laws to the human practices that produced them. Planck stood firmly for knowledge forms that were unbounded by time, space or specific social-material procedures (Stengers). Although contemporary understandings of science are based on Planck's version, citizen science has the potential to re-open these questions in a productive manner for its own practices, if it can re-conceive of itself as what Deleuze and Guattari would call nomadic science (Deleuze; Deleuze & Guattari). Citizen Science as Nomadic Science Deleuze and Guattari referred to orthodox science as Royal Science or Striated Science, referring in part to its state-like form of authority and practice, as well as its psycho-social character. Their alternative is a smooth or nomadic science that, importantly for citizen science, does not have the ambition to totalise knowledge. Nomadic science is a form of empirical investigation that has no need to be hooked up to a grand narrative. The concept of nomadic science is a natural fit for bottom-up citizen science because it can valorise truths that are non-dual and that go beyond objectivity to include the experiential. In this sense it is like the extended peer review of post-normal science but without the need to be limited to high-risk high-stakes questions. As there is no a priori problem with provisional knowledges, it naturally inclines towards the local, the situated and the culturally reflective. The apparent unreliability of citizen science in terms of participants and tools, which is solely a source of anxiety, can become heuristic for nomadic science when re-cast through the forgotten alternatives like Mach's formulation; that truths are never separated from the specifics of the context and process that produced them (Stengers 6-18; 223). Nomadic science, I believe, will start to emerge through projects that are prepared to tackle toxic epistemology as much as toxic pollutants. For example, the Community Based Auditing (CBA) developed by environmental activists in Tasmania (Tattersall) challenges local alliances of state and extractive industries by undermining their own truth claims with regards to environmental impact, a process described in the CBA Toolbox as disconfirmation. In CBA, this mixture of post-normal science and Stenger's critique is combined with forms of data collection and analysis known as Community Based Sampling (Tattersall et al.), which would be recognisable to any citizen science project. The change from citizen science to nomadic science is not a total rupture but a shift in the starting point: it is based on an overt critique of power. One way to bring this about is being tested in the “Kosovo Science for Change” project (Science for Change Kosovo), where I am a researcher and where we have adopted the critical pedagogy of Paulo Freire as the starting point for our empirical investigations (Freire). Critical pedagogy is learning as the co-operative activity of understanding—how our lived experience is constructed by power, and how to make a difference in the world. Taking a position such as nomadic science, openly critical of Royal Science, is the anti-hegemonic stance that could qualify citizen science as properly countercultural. Citizen Science and Counterculture Counterculture, as I have expressed it, stands against or rejects the hegemonic culture. However, there is a strong tendency in contemporary social movements to take a stance not only against the dominant structures but against hegemony itself. They contest what Richard Day calls the hegemony of hegemony (Day). I witnessed this during the counter-G8 mobilisation of 2001. Having been an activist in the 1980s and 1990s I was wearily familiar with the sectarian competitiveness of various radical narratives, each seeking to establish itself as the correct path. So it was a strongly affective experience to stand in the convergence centre and listen to so many divergent social groups and movements agree to support each other's tactics, expressing a solidarity based on a non-judgemental pluralism. Since then we have seen the emergence of similarly anti-hegemonic countercultures around the Occupy and Anonymous movements. It is in this context of counterculture that I will try to summarise and evaluate the countercultural potential of citizen science and what being countercultural might offer to citizen science itself. To be countercultural it is not enough for citizen science to counterpose participation against the institutional and hierarchical aspects of professional science. As an activity defined purely by engagement it offers to plug the legitimacy gap for science while still being wholly dependent on it. A countercultural citizen science must pose a strong challenge to the status quo, and I have suggested that a route to this would be to develop as nomadic science. This does not mean replacing or overthrowing science but constructing an other to science with its own claim to empirical methods. It is fair to ask what this would offer citizen science that it does not already have. At an abstract level it would gain a freedom of movement; an ability to occupy Deleuzian smooth spaces rather than be constrained by the striation of established science. The founders of Science for the People are clear that it could never have existed if it had not been able to draw on the mass movements of its time. Being countercultural would give citizen science an affinity with the bottom-up, local and community-based issues where empirical methods are likely to have the most social impact. One of many examples is the movement against fracking (the hydraulic fracturing of deep rock formations to release shale gas). Together, these benefits of being countercultural open up the possibility for forms of citizen science to spread rhizomatically in a way that is not about immaterial virtual labour but is itself part of a wider cultural change. The possibility of a nomadic science stands as a doorway to the change that Roszak saw at the heart of the counterculture, a renewal of the visionary imagination. References Begley, C. Glenn, and Lee M. Ellis. "Drug Development: Raise Standards for Preclinical Cancer Research." Nature 483.7391 (2012): 531–533. 8 Oct. 2014 ‹http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v483/n7391/full/483531a.html›. Bonney, Rick, et al. "Citizen Science: A Developing Tool for Expanding Science Knowledge and Scientific Literacy." BioScience 59.11 (2009): 977–984. 6 Oct. 2014 ‹http://bioscience.oxfordjournals.org/content/59/11/977›. Citizen Science Association. "Citizen Science Association." 2014. 6 Oct. 2014 ‹http://citizenscienceassociation.org/›. Day, Richard J.F. Gramsci Is Dead: Anarchist Currents in the Newest Social Movements. London: Pluto Press, 2005. Deleuze, Giles. Nomadology: The War Machine. New York, NY: MIT Press, 1986. Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus. 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"Best Practice Guides to Choosing and Using Citizen Science for Environmental Projects." Centre for Ecology & Hydrology May 2014. 9 Oct. 2014 ‹http://www.ceh.ac.uk/products/publications/understanding-citizen-science.html›. Parr, Chris. "Why Citizen Scientists Help and How to Keep Them Hooked." Times Higher Education 6 June 2013. 6 Oct. 2014 ‹http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/why-citizen-scientists-help-and-how-to-keep-them-hooked/2004321.article›. Plenary 1: Stories from the Movement. Film. Science for the People, 2014. Plenary 2: The History and Lasting Significance of Science for the People. Film. Science for the People, 2014. Public Lab. "Public Lab: A DIY Environmental Science Community." 2014. 6 June 2014 ‹http://publiclab.org/›. ---. "The Homebrew Oil Testing Kit." Kickstarter 24 Sep. 2014. 8 Oct. 2014 ‹https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/publiclab/the-homebrew-oil-testing-kit›. Roszak, Theodore. The Making of a Counter Culture. 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In its preamble, The Western Australian Charter of Multiculturalism (WA) commits the state to becoming: “A society in which respect for mutual difference is accompanied by equality of opportunity within a framework of democratic citizenship”. One of the principles of multiculturalism, as enunciated in the Charter, is “equality of opportunity for all members of society to achieve their full potential in a free and democratic society where every individual is equal before and under the law”. An important element of this principle is the “equality of opportunity … to achieve … full potential”. The implication here is that those who start from a position of disadvantage when it comes to achieving that potential deserve more than ‘equal’ treatment. Implicitly, equality can be achieved only through the recognition of and response to differential needs and according to the likelihood of achieving full potential. This is encapsulated in Kymlicka’s argument that neutrality is “hopelessly inadequate once we look at the diversity of cultural membership which exists in contemporary liberal democracies” (903). Yet such a potential commitment to differential support might seem unequal to some, where equality is constructed as the same or equal treatment regardless of differing circumstances. Until the past half-century or more, this problematic has been a hotly-contested element of the struggle for Civil Rights for African-Americans in the United States, especially as these rights related to educational opportunity during the years of racial segregation. For some, providing resources to achieve equal outcomes (rather than be committed to equal inputs) may appear to undermine the very ethos of liberal democracy. In Australia, this perspective has been the central argument of Pauline Hanson and her supporters who denounce programs designed as measures to achieve equality for specific disadvantaged groups; including Indigenous Australians and humanitarian refugees. Nevertheless, equality for all on all grounds of legally-accepted difference: gender, race, age, family status, sexual orientation, political conviction, to name a few; is often held as the hallmark of progressive liberal societies such as Australia. In the matter of religious freedoms the situation seems much less complex. All that is required for religious equality, it seems, is to define religion as a private matter – carried out, as it were, between consenting parties away from the public sphere. This necessitates, effectively, the separation of state and religion. This separation of religious belief from the apparatus of the state is referred to as ‘secularism’ and it tends to be regarded as a cornerstone of a liberal democracy, given the general assumption that secularism is a necessary precursor to equal treatment of and respect for different religious beliefs, and the association of secularism with the Western project of the Enlightenment when liberty, equality and science replaced religion and superstition. By this token, western nations committed to equality are also committed to being liberal, democratic and secular in nature; and it is a matter of state indifference as to which religious faith a citizen embraces – Wiccan, Christian, Judaism, etc – if any. Historically, and arguably more so in the past decade, the terms ‘democratic’, ‘secular’, ‘liberal’ and ‘equal’ have all been used to inscribe characteristics of the collective ‘West’. Individuals and states whom the West ascribe as ‘other’ are therefore either or all of: not democratic; not liberal; or not secular – and failing any one of these characteristics (for any country other than Britain, with its parliamentary-established Church of England, headed by the Queen as Supreme Governor) means that that country certainly does not espouse equality. The West and the ‘Other’ in Popular Discourse The constructed polarisation between the free, secular and democratic West that values equality; and the oppressive ‘other’ that perpetuates theocracies, religious discrimination and – at the ultimate – human rights abuses, is a common theme in much of the West’s media and popular discourse on Islam. The same themes are also applied in some measure to Muslims in Australia, in particular to constructions of the rights of Muslim women in Australia. Typically, Muslim women’s dress is deemed by some secular Australians to be a symbol of religious subjugation, rather than of free choice. Arguably, this polemic has come to the fore since the terrorist attacks on the United States in September 2001. However, as Aly and Walker note, the comparisons between the West and the ‘other’ are historically constructed and inherited (Said) and have tended latterly to focus western attention on the role and status of Muslim women as evidence of the West’s progression comparative to its antithesis, Eastern oppression. An examination of studies of the United States media coverage of the September 11 attacks, and the ensuing ‘war on terror’, reveals some common media constructions around good versus evil. There is no equal status between these. Good must necessarily triumph. In the media coverage, the evil ‘other’ is Islamic terrorism, personified by Osama bin Laden. Part of the justification for the war on terror is a perception that the West, as a force for good in this world, must battle evil and protect freedom and democracy (Erjavec and Volcic): to do otherwise is to allow the terror of the ‘other’ to seep into western lives. The war on terror becomes the defence of the west, and hence the defence of equality and freedom. A commitment to equality entails a defeat of all things constructed as denying the rights of people to be equal. Hutcheson, Domke, Billeaudeaux and Garland analysed the range of discourses evident in Time and Newsweek magazines in the five weeks following September 11 and found that journalists replicated themes of national identity present in the communication strategies of US leaders and elites. The political and media response to the threat of the evil ‘other’ is to create a monolithic appeal to liberal values which are constructed as being a monopoly of the ‘free’ West. A brief look at just a few instances of public communication by US political leaders confirms Hutcheson et al.’s contention that the official construction of the 2001 attacks invoked discourses of good and evil reminiscent of the Cold War. In reference to the actions of the four teams of plane hijackers, US president George W Bush opened his Address to the Nation on the evening of September 11: “Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts” (“Statement by the President in His Address to the Nation”). After enjoining Americans to recite Psalm 23 in prayer for the victims and their families, President Bush ended his address with a clear message of national unity and a further reference to the battle between good and evil: “This is a day when all Americans from every walk of life unite in our resolve for justice and peace. America has stood down enemies before, and we will do so this time. None of us will ever forget this day. Yet, we go forward to defend freedom and all that is good and just in our world” (“Statement by the President in His Address to the Nation”). In his address to the joint houses of Congress shortly after September 11, President Bush implicated not just the United States in this fight against evil, but the entire international community stating: “This is the world’s fight. This is civilisation’s fight” (cited by Brown 295). Addressing the California Business Association a month later, in October 2001, Bush reiterated the notion of the United States as the leading nation in the moral fight against evil, and identified this as a possible reason for the attack: “This great state is known for its diversity – people of all races, all religions, and all nationalities. They’ve come here to live a better life, to find freedom, to live in peace and security, with tolerance and with justice. When the terrorists attacked America, this is what they attacked”. While the US media framed the events of September 11 as an attack on the values of democracy and liberalism as these are embodied in US democratic traditions, work by scholars analysing the Australian media’s representation of the attacks suggested that this perspective was echoed and internationalised for an Australian audience. Green asserts that global media coverage of the attacks positioned the global audience, including Australians, as ‘American’. The localisation of the discourses of patriotism and national identity for Australian audiences has mainly been attributed to the media’s use of the good versus evil frame that constructed the West as good, virtuous and moral and invited Australian audiences to subscribe to this argument as members of a shared Western democratic identity (Osuri and Banerjee). Further, where the ‘we’ are defenders of justice, equality and the rule of law; the opposing ‘others’ are necessarily barbaric. Secularism and the Muslim Diaspora Secularism is a historically laden term that has been harnessed to symbolise the emancipation of social life from the forced imposition of religious doctrine. The struggle between the essentially voluntary and private demands of religion, and the enjoyment of a public social life distinct from religious obligations, is historically entrenched in the cultural identities of many modern Western societies (Dallmayr). The concept of religious freedom in the West has evolved into a principle based on the bifurcation of life into the objective public sphere and the subjective private sphere within which individuals are free to practice their religion of choice (Yousif), or no religion at all. Secularism, then, is contingent on the maintenance of a separation between the public (religion-free) and the private or non- public (which may include religion). The debate regarding the feasibility or lack thereof of maintaining this separation has been a matter of concern for democratic theorists for some time, and has been made somewhat more complicated with the growing presence of religious diasporas in liberal democratic states (Charney). In fact, secularism is often cited as a precondition for the existence of religious pluralism. By removing religion from the public domain of the state, religious freedom, in so far as it constitutes the ability of an individual to freely choose which religion, if any, to practice, is deemed to be ensured. However, as Yousif notes, the Western conception of religious freedom is based on a narrow notion of religion as a personal matter, possibly a private emotional response to the idea of God, separate from the rational aspects of life which reside in the public domain. Arguably, religion is conceived of as recognising (or creating) a supernatural dimension to life that involves faith and belief, and the suspension of rational thought. This Western notion of religion as separate from the state, dividing the private from the public sphere, is constructed as a necessary basis for the liberal democratic commitment to secularism, and the notional equality of all religions, or none. Rawls questioned how people with conflicting political views and ideologies can freely endorse a common political regime in secular nations. The answer, he posits, lies in the conception of justice as a mechanism to regulate society independently of plural (and often opposing) religious or political conceptions. Thus, secularism can be constructed as an indicator of pluralism and justice; and political reason becomes the “common currency of debate in a pluralist society” (Charney 7). A corollary of this is that religious minorities must learn to use the language of political reason to represent and articulate their views and opinions in the public context, especially when talking with non-religious others. This imposes a need for religious minorities to support their views and opinions with political reason that appeals to the community at large as citizens, and not just to members of the minority religion concerned. The common ground becomes one of secularism, in which all speakers are deemed to be indifferent as to the (private) claims of religion upon believers. Minority religious groups, such as fundamentalist Mormons, invoke secular language of moral tolerance and civil rights to be acknowledged by the state, and to carry out their door-to-door ‘information’ evangelisation/campaigns. Right wing fundamentalist Christian groups and Catholics opposed to abortion couch their views in terms of an extension of the secular right to life, and in terms of the human rights and civil liberties of the yet-to-be-born. In doing this, these religious groups express an acceptance of the plurality of the liberal state and engage in debates in the public sphere through the language of political values and political principles of the liberal democratic state. The same principles do not apply within their own associations and communities where the language of the private religious realm prevails, and indeed is expected. This embracing of a political rhetoric for discussions of religion in the public sphere presents a dilemma for the Muslim diaspora in liberal democratic states. For many Muslims, religion is a complete way of life, incapable of compartmentalisation. The narrow Western concept of religious expression as a private matter is somewhat alien to Muslims who are either unable or unwilling to separate their religious needs from their needs as citizens of the nation state. Problems become apparent when religious needs challenge what seems to be publicly acceptable, and conflicts occur between what the state perceives to be matters of rational state interest and what Muslims perceive to be matters of religious identity. Muslim women’s groups in Western Australia for example have for some years discussed the desirability of a Sharia divorce court which would enable Muslims to obtain divorces according to Islamic law. It should be noted here that not all Muslims agree with the need for such a court and many – probably a majority – are satisfied with the existing processes that allow Muslim men and women to obtain a divorce through the Australian family court. For some Muslims however, this secular process does not satisfy their religious needs and it is perceived as having an adverse impact on their ability to adhere to their faith. A similar situation pertains to divorced Catholics who, according to a strict interpretation of their doctrine, are unable to take the Eucharist if they form a subsequent relationship (even if married according to the state), unless their prior marriage has been annulled by the Catholic Church or their previous partner has died. Whereas divorce is considered by the state as a public and legal concern, for some Muslims and others it is undeniably a religious matter. The suggestion by the Anglican Communion’s Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, that the adoption of certain aspects of Sharia law regarding marital disputes or financial matters is ultimately unavoidable, sparked controversy in Britain and in Australia. Attempts by some Australian Muslim scholars to elaborate on Dr Williams’s suggestions, such as an article by Anisa Buckley in The Herald Sun (Buckley), drew responses that, typically, called for Muslims to ‘go home’. A common theme in these responses is that proponents of Sharia law (and Islam in general) do not share a commitment to the Australian values of freedom and equality. The following excerpts from the online pages of Herald Sun Readers’ Comments (Herald Sun) demonstrate this perception: “These people come to Australia for freedoms they have never experienced before and to escape repression which is generally brought about by such ‘laws’ as Sharia! How very dare they even think that this would be an option. Go home if you want such a regime. Such an insult to want to come over to this country on our very goodwill and our humanity and want to change our systems and ways. Simply, No!” Posted 1:58am February 12, 2008 “Under our English derived common law statutes, the law is supposed to protect an individual’s rights to life, liberty and property. That is the basis of democracy in Australia and most other western nations. Sharia law does not adequately share these philosophies and principles, thus it is incompatible with our system of law.” Posted 12:55am February 11, 2008 “Incorporating religious laws in the secular legal system is just plain wrong. No fundamentalist religion (Islam in particular) is compatible with a liberal-democracy.” Posted 2:23pm February 10, 2008 “It should not be allowed in Australia the Muslims come her for a better life and we give them that opportunity but they still believe in covering them selfs why do they even come to Australia for when they don’t follow owe [our] rules but if we went to there [their] country we have to cover owe selfs [sic]” Posted 11:28am February 10, 2008 Conflicts similar to this one – over any overt or non-private religious practice in Australia – may also be observed in public debates concerning the wearing of traditional Islamic dress; the slaughter of animals for consumption; Islamic burial rites, and other religious practices which cannot be confined to the private realm. Such conflicts highlight the inability of the rational liberal approach to solve all controversies arising from religious traditions that enjoin a broader world view than merely private spirituality. In order to adhere to the liberal reduction of religion to the private sphere, Muslims in the West must negotiate some religious practices that are constructed as being at odds with the rational state and practice a form of Islam that is consistent with secularism. At the extreme, this Western-acceptable form is what the Australian government has termed ‘moderate Islam’. The implication here is that, for the state, ‘non-moderate Islam’ – Islam that pervades the public realm – is just a descriptor away from ‘extreme’. The divide between Christianity and Islam has been historically played out in European Christendom as a refusal to recognise Islam as a world religion, preferring instead to classify it according to race or ethnicity: a Moorish tendency, perhaps. The secular state prefers to engage with Muslims as an ethnic, linguistic or cultural group or groups (Yousif). Thus, in order to engage with the state as political citizens, Muslims must find ways to present their needs that meet the expectations of the state – ways that do not use their religious identity as a frame of reference. They can do this by utilizing the language of political reason in the public domain or by framing their needs, views and opinions exclusively in terms of their ethnic or cultural identity with no reference to their shared faith. Neither option is ideal, or indeed even viable. This is partly because many Muslims find it difficult if not impossible to separate their religious needs from their needs as political citizens; and also because the prevailing perception of Muslims in the media and public arena is constructed on the basis of an understanding of Islam as a religion that conflicts with the values of liberal democracy. In the media and public arena, little consideration is given to the vast differences that exist among Muslims in Australia, not only in terms of ethnicity and culture, but also in terms of practice and doctrine (Shia or Sunni). The dominant construction of Muslims in the Australian popular media is of religious purists committed to annihilating liberal, secular governments and replacing them with anti-modernist theocratic regimes (Brasted). It becomes a talking point for some, for example, to realise that there are international campaigns to recognise Gay Muslims’ rights within their faith (ABC) (in the same way that there are campaigns to recognise Gay Christians as full members of their churches and denominations and equally able to hold high office, as followers of the Anglican Communion will appreciate). Secularism, Preference and Equality Modood asserts that the extent to which a minority religious community can fully participate in the public and political life of the secular nation state is contingent on the extent to which religion is the primary marker of identity. “It may well be the case therefore that if a faith is the primary identity of any community then that community cannot fully identify with and participate in a polity to the extent that it privileges a rival faith. Or privileges secularism” (60). Modood is not saying here that Islam has to be privileged in order for Muslims to participate fully in the polity; but that no other religion, nor secularism, should be so privileged. None should be first, or last, among equals. For such a situation to occur, Islam would have to be equally acceptable both with other religions and with secularism. Following a 2006 address by the former treasurer (and self-avowed Christian) Peter Costello to the Sydney Institute, in which Costello suggested that people who feel a dual claim from both Islamic law and Australian law should be stripped of their citizenship (Costello), the former Prime Minister, John Howard, affirmed what he considers to be Australia’s primary identity when he stated that ‘Australia’s core set of values flowed from its Anglo Saxon identity’ and that any one who did not embrace those values should not be allowed into the country (Humphries). The (then) Prime Minister’s statement is an unequivocal assertion of the privileged position of the Anglo Saxon tradition in Australia, a tradition with which many Muslims and others in Australia find it difficult to identify. Conclusion Religious identity is increasingly becoming the identity of choice for Muslims in Australia, partly because it is perceived that their faith is under attack and that it needs defending (Aly). They construct the defence of their faith as a choice and an obligation; but also as a right that they have under Australian law as equal citizens in a secular state (Aly and Green). Australian Muslims who have no difficulty in reconciling their core Australianness with their deep faith take it as a responsibility to live their lives in ways that model the reconciliation of each identity – civil and religious – with the other. In this respect, the political call to Australian Muslims to embrace a ‘moderate Islam’, where this is seen as an Islam without a public or political dimension, is constructed as treating their faith as less than equal. Religious identity is generally deemed to have no place in the liberal democratic model, particularly where that religion is constructed to be at odds with the principles and values of liberal democracy, namely tolerance and adherence to the rule of law. Indeed, it is as if the national commitment to secularism rules as out-of-bounds any identity that is grounded in religion, giving precedence instead to accepting and negotiating cultural and ethnic differences. Religion becomes a taboo topic in these terms, an affront against secularism and the values of the Enlightenment that include liberty and equality. In these circumstances, it is not the case that all religions are equally ignored in a secular framework. What is the case is that the secular framework has been constructed as a way of ‘privatising’ one religion, Christianity; leaving others – including Islam – as having nowhere to go. Islam thus becomes constructed as less than equal since it appears that, unlike Christians, Muslims are not willing to play the secular game. In fact, Muslims are puzzling over how they can play the secular game, and why they should play the secular game, given that – as is the case with Christians – they see no contradiction in performing ‘good Muslim’ and ‘good Australian’, if given an equal chance to embrace both. Acknowledgements 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. 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