Journal articles on the topic 'SAE reconciliation'

Serious Adverse Event (SAE) reconciliation is a critical process in pharmacovigilance, ensuring the accuracy and consistency of safety data across clinical trial databases and regulatory reports. Inaccurate or incomplete SAE reconciliation can lead to discrepancies that compromise patient safety, regulatory compliance, and the overall reliability of clinical trial outcomes. Given the increasing complexity of clinical studies and the stringent regulatory landscape, maintaining data integrity through effective reconciliation practices is more critical than ever. The paper highlights the challenges associated with SAE reconciliation, the impact of data discrepancies, and the regulatory requirements guiding this process. We will also overview current tools and technologies used for SAE reconciliation, highlighting their role in improving efficiency and accuracy, as well as best practices and emerging trends that can enhance the effectiveness of SAE reconciliation efforts.

This paper aims to analyze Pamela through the lens of Stockholm Syndrome, a condition where captives develop psychological bonds with their captors due to power imbalances. The paper contends that Mr. B’s coercive tactics amount to a form of legal abduction, with Pamela’s eventual affection for him indicating Stockholm Syndrome. This analysis also reflects on the broader context of women’s confinement in the 18th century, asserting that true love must be based on mutual respect and equality, not coercion and control. The research method includes a close reading of the novel, focusing on Pamela’s changing attitudes toward Mr. B. The study reveals that Mr. B’s coercive tactics amount to a form of legal abduction, with Pamela’s eventual affection for him indicating Stockholm Syndrome. The conclusion reflects on the broader context of women’s confinement in the 18th century, asserting that true love must be based on mutual respect and equality, not coercion and control.

Indonesia have SME accounting standard that effective in 2018, but this standard adoption is not popular at that time. Hence recent fastest growing in financial technology adoption by food industries’ SME creating the need for having financial reports in order to make an exact reconciliation for the payment. This research wants to know whether this financial technology usage will lead to SME’s to make financial reports according to accounting standard. The model is designed to test the Extended Technology Acceptance Model (Extended-TAM). Population here is SME in food industry that on Grabfood list. 100 sample were drawn using purposive sampling for SME that uses OVO, a financial technology company that partnering with Grabfood. Data then analyzes using WarpPLS.This results is consistent with Extended TAM. The result also shows that adoption of FinTech will trigger SME to make better financial reports to make reconciliation process in billing easier.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of the Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA) on the economic development of the Western Balkans. The basic aim of this agreement was the economic development of the countries of this region. Many firms would benefit from trade and contractual relationships with the European Union (EU). The methodology used is the gravity model, which predicts bilateral trade flows based on the economic sizes and distance between the EU and the Western Balkans. The model has been used in international relations to evaluate the impact of treaties on trade, and it has been used to test the effectiveness of trade agreements on the economy. Statistics of export, import, economic growth, etc. have been provided for a ten-year period 2007–2017. This paper is based on the research of Qorraj (2016), Qorraj and Jusufi (2018), and Leka et al. (2022). The relevance of the paper depends on that, within the ten years, there was no significant increase in the exports of these countries to the EU market. This paper concludes that the SAA has not ensured the export growth of these countries because products originating from this region are not competitive in the EU market, EU exports to this region have increased more than the other way around.

The article offers a detailed interpretation of the private letter P.Oxy. 43/3094. This letter deals with a lawsuit which was carried on before three governors (M. Aurelius Septimius Heraclitus, L. Valerius Datu and Iulius Basilianus). A chronological reconciliation with the events and implications of Caracalla’s journey to Alexandria in the winter of 215/16 AD enables a detailed reconstruction of the course of the lawsuit, which lasted approximately three years. Furthermore the paper discusses the meaning of ὑπόμνημα in a juridical and administrative context.

This article describes the use of evolutionary psychology to inform the design of a serious computer game aimed at improving 9–12-year-old children's conflict resolution skills. The design of the game will include dynamic narrative generation and emotional tagging, and there is a strong evolutionary rationale for the effect of both of these on conflict resolution. Gender differences will also be taken into consideration in designing the game. In interview research in schools in three countries (Greece, Portugal, and the UK) aimed at formalizing the game requirements, we found that gender differences varied in the extent to which they applied cross-culturally. Across the three countries, girls were less likely to talk about responding to conflict with physical aggression, talked more about feeling sad about conflict and about conflicts over friendship alliances, and talked less about conflicts in the context of sports or games. Predicted gender differences in anger and reconciliation were not found. Results are interpreted in terms of differing underlying models of friendship that are motivated by parental investment theory. This research will inform the design of the themes that we use in game scenarios for both girls and boys.

The Covid-19 pandemic undermines all aspects of ecclesiastical services. This also has an impact on grieving services. There is no longer any consolation service held the same as before the pandemic. What is even sadder is that if a family member of the congregation dies of Covid-19, it makes them very sad. As a result of Covid-19, there is no longer the usual consolation worship that strengthens families. Because of this, pastoral care is very much needed, especially for families who are grieving. This paper uses a qualitative method with a literature study approach related to pastoral care. The results of the discussion are that the results of the discussion are to present forms of pastoral assistance for families who are grieving through family visits in which there are intense conversations with families. The conversation can use social media, video calls. In the mentoring process, the Pastor patiently listened to the expressions of grief that enveloped them and the Pastor in assisting them to carry out guidance, feelings of reconciliation, and healing through God's Word to families grieving due to Covid-19.

Kosovo, a landlocked country in the Western Balkans, declared independence from Serbia in 2008. Since then, it has been actively pursuing its European integration process to become a fully-fledged member of the European Union. The European integration process is a strategic priority for Kosovo, as it seeks to align its legal, institutional, and administrative framework standard. The process promotes democratic governance, the rule of law, human rights, and economic development. Kosovo's European integration process is guided by the Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA) it signed with the European Union in 2015, which sets out the framework for Kosovo's engagement with the European Union and outlines the necessary reforms and commitments for its European integration. The SAA is accompanied by several other European Union instruments and initiatives, such as the European Reform Agenda, which provides a roadmap for reforms, and the European Investment Plan, which aims to boost economic growth and investment in Kosovo. The European integration process is crucial for Kosovo's political stability, economic prosperity, and social development. It is seen as a way to strengthen the rule of law, democracy, and human rights. And to enhance Kosovo's regional cooperation and reconciliation efforts. However, Kosovo faces various challenges in its European integration process, including corruption, organized crime, weak governance, and socio-economic disparities. In this context, discussion on the necessary steps for Kosovo to continue its path towards European integration, focusing on key areas such as reforms, democratic governance, alignment with the European Union acquis, economic development, human capital, regional cooperation, administrative capacities, citizen engagement, dialogue with the European Union, and progress monitoring. By taking these steps, Kosovo can progress in its European integration process and move closer to its goal of European Union membership.
 
 Received: 05 May 2022 / Accepted: 14 May 2023 / Published: 20 May 2023

<strong>Abstract:</strong> Integral to contemporary economies, digital payments have reshaped how individuals and businesses manage financial transactions. As technology continues its relentless progress, the realm of digital payments will undergo further transformations, providing people worldwide with increasingly secure and convenient choices. Today, customers have the choice of closed wallets, semi-closed wallets, and open wallets, but venturing into this business requires both technical expertise and substantial investment. Success in the realm of digital payments is achievable through a sound business strategy aligned with Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS). In the modern business landscape, connecting with multiple Payment Service Providers (PSPs) for seamless payment processes has been challenging. Until now, a comprehensive solution for integrating consumer applications, both SAP and non-SAP, with multiple PSPs and managing real-time payments effectively was lacking. The SAP digital payments add-on addresses these challenges, offering flexibility by supporting multiple real-time digital payment methods and enabling automatic reconciliation through seamless PSP integrations. It enhances security by eliminating the need to store sensitive credit card data in SAP S/4HANA and non-SAP systems, simplifying PCI compliance. This solution empowers businesses to embrace diverse digital payment methods while ensuring security, flexibility, and efficiency. This paper is intended to assist enterprises in making an informed choice when selecting digital payment through the SAP Digital Payment add-on. This cloud-based Software-as-a-Service (SAAS) tool facilitates the development of digital payment processing, making it more secure, efficient, and adaptable to diverse customer needs. The company successfully navigated the challenges of modern payment processing and emerged with an enhanced payment system that positions it for continued growth and success in the global marketplace. <strong>Keywords:</strong> SAP Digital Payment add-on, SAP S/4 HANA, Payment service Providers. <strong>Title:</strong> Credit Card Payments Processing using SAP Digital Payment Add-on for FIAR Process &ndash; Case Study <strong>Author:</strong> Chandrasekhar Gopisetti <strong>International Journal of Computer Science and Information Technology Research</strong> <strong>ISSN 2348-1196 (print), ISSN 2348-120X (online)</strong> <strong>Vol. 12, Issue 2, April 2024 - June 2024</strong> <strong>Page No: 29-33</strong> <strong>Research Publish Journals</strong> <strong>Website: www.researchpublish.com</strong> <strong>Published Date: 31-May-2024</strong> <strong>DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11402346</strong> <strong>Paper Download Link (Source)</strong> <strong>https://www.researchpublish.com/papers/credit-card-payments-processing-using-sap-digital-payment-add-on-for-fiar-process--case-study</strong>

This article reviews the first twelve months of the civil disobedience movement in Myanmar following the 1 February 2021 coup d’état and its many dynamics and manifestations. Myanmar’s ‘Spring Revolution’ generated a shared sense of national unity—overcoming gender, ethnic, religious and class boundaries, but raising questions about the long-term sustainability of nonviolent civil resistance in a state where the military has for decades wielded political and economic power. Since the coup, Myanmar has been in turmoil, paralysed by instability which escalated after the military’s deadly crackdown on pro-democracy activists. The article charts the growth of the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), its multiple methods of strategic resistance and non-cooperation, and the radicalisation of the resistance agenda. It analyses the formation of the Committee Representing the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH), the creation of the interim National Unity Government (NUG), the founding of the National Unity Consultative Council (NUCC) and the inauguration of the People’s Defence Force (PDF). It examines the implications for Myanmar when the crisis reached a more complex phase after the military’s open use of force and terror on the broader civilian population prompted the NUG to declare war on the junta, and to urge ethnic armed organisations (EAOs) and newly formed anti-junta civilian militias (PDF) to attack the State Administration Council (SAC) as a terrorist organisation. The NUG now opposes the military junta by strategic and peaceful non-cooperation, armed resistance, and international diplomacy. This paper considers whether the predominantly nonviolent civil resistance movement’s struggle for federal democracy and inclusive governance is laying the foundations for eventual transition to a fully democratic future or whether the cycles of violence will continue as the military continues to control power by using intimidation and fear. It notes that the coup has destroyed the economy and expanded Myanmar’s human rights and humanitarian crises but has also provided the opportunity for Myanmar’s people to explore diverse visions of a free, federal, democratic and accountable Myanmar. It finally examines the possibilities for future peaceful nation building, reconciliation, and the healing of the trauma of civil war.

Clear Light of Day by Anita Desai is one of many novels that visibly exposes an individual&rsquo;s, a family's, and a nation&rsquo;s miseries surrounding India&rsquo;s Partition in 1947. In course of Sharma Sunanda&rsquo;s stay at Lawley Road in Old Delhi she meets in turn a number of the Das family. Using a non-linear narrative, the story can move from olden times through the present to reflect on the breakdown of society, family, and emotional experiences followed by gradual recovery. The family&rsquo;s struggles with historical injustices as well as questions of personal agency and the unspoken battles that they have had to face is thus vividly portrayed in all its complexity. From loneliness and resentment, Bim has passed through acceptance and her journey represents the strength to continue. Across the novel are strewn memory, identity, and themes of postcolonial displacement: while at the same time examining gender dynamics especially in Bim&rsquo;s resistance to patriarchal norms. Desai focuses on how people and families cope with struggles from the past, a way of portraying a sense of sad fatalism which runs through her best-known works. With clear, natural art and a silence that remains in the end, we can only say that Clear Light of Day is a sensitive story about forgiving others, trying to make peace in a world of conflict and overcoming adversity. This paper attempts to redress the balance by demonstrating how Anita Desai portrays the transformation of melancholy and alienation into hope within the Das family. The results of this research should be to investigate how to move from forgiving oneself and remembering past lives, or in other words, aid that stage along by which all is not done in process. We must never let our pasts limit our movements. This novel is read in the light of such things. Symbolizing rebirth, this paper seeks to suggest that Desai&rsquo;s novel may be viewed as aesthetically parallel to other great poetic works in which human suffering yields transformation and renewal.

AbstractIn this article, the author explains how "liberative dialogue" with a Socially Engaged Buddhist may enhance the tasks of Christian missiology and North American Christian church congregations as they seek God's reign of personal and social harmony. By deeply listening to Engaged Buddhists such as the Vietnam monk Thich Nhat Hanh, we may discover new ways, become further convinced of our current practices, and possibly improve our methods to carry on Jesus' liberative mission as he proclaimed in Luke 4: 16–19. From the Christian Liberation perspective of Fr. Gustavo Gutiérrez, the author examines some of the different yet common themes, goals and methods that are shared by Engaged Buddhism. The insights gained from our investigation of these two men from Latin America and Asia will broaden our missiological horizons. Likewise, they will encourage our appreciation of meditation, inculturation, reconciliation, inter-religious dialogue, and action for solidarity in these faith traditions. The conclusion will offer a variety of contributions to Christian missiology and practical suggestions for our churches that are the fruit of deep listening and dialogue with Engaged Buddhism. At this time in history, God knows we need all the collaboration we can muster for individual and global justice and peace. Dans cet article, l'auteur explique comment le « dialogue de libération » avec un bouddhiste engagé socialement peut dynamiser les tâches de la missiologie chrétienne et des communautés ecclésiales nord-américaines dans leur recherche du royaume de Dieu, royaume d'harmonie personnelle et sociale. L'écoute profonde de bouddhistes engagés comme le moine vietnamien Thich Nhat Hanh peut nous faire découvrir des voies nouvelles, nous rendre plus convaincus dans nos pratiques habituelles, et peut être améliorer nos méthodes pour accomplir la mission libératrice de Jésus proclamée en Luc 4, 16–19. A partir de la perspective de la libération chrétienne du P. Gustavo Gutiérrez, l'auteur examine les thèmes, objectifs et méthodes du bouddhisme engagé, qui sont divers tout en gardant un aspect commun. Nos horizons missiologiques sont élargis par ces intuitions latinoaméricaines et asiatiques tout spécialement et cette étude nous fera apprécier la méditation, l'inculturation, la réconciliation, le dialogue interreligieux et l'activité de solidarité dans ces traditions de foi. La conclusion apportera sa contribution à la missiologie chrétienne et des suggestions pratiques à nos communautés, fruit de cette écoute profonde et de ce dialogue avec le bouddhisme engagé. A ce moment de notre histoire, Dieu sait si nous avons besoin de toute la collaboration que nous pouvons mettre en œuvre en vue de la justice et de la paix personnelle et globale. In diesem Artikel erklärt der Autor, wie der "befreiende Dialog" mit einem sozial engagierten Buddhisten die Perspektiven christlicher Missiologie und nordamerikanischer Gemeinden fördern kann, wenn sie Gottes Herrschaft für persönliche und soziale Harmonie suchen. Wenn wir aufmerksam hinhören auf engagierte Buddhisten wie den vietnamesischen Mönch Thich Nhat Hanh, können wir neue Weisen entdecken, von unseren aktuellen Praktiken besser überzeugt werden und möglicherweise unsere Methoden verbessern, die befreiende Mission Jesu weiterzuführen, wie er sie in Lukas 4,16–19 verkündete. Von der Perspektive christlicher Befreiung Gustavo Gutiérrez' untersucht der Autor einige der verschiedenen, aber auch gemeinsamen Themen, Ziele und Methoden, die auch engagierte Buddhisten teilen. Während unsere missiologischen Horizonte mit diesen Einsichten aus Lateinamerika und besonders auch Asien ausgeweitet werden, will diese Studie unsere Wertschätzung von Meditation, Inkulturation, Versöhnung, interreligiösem Dialog und Handeln für die Solidarität in diesen Glaubenstraditionen fördern. Die Schlussfolgerung bietet eine Bandbreite von Beiträgen zur christlichen Missiologie und praktische Anregungen für unsere Kirchen an, die die Frucht tiefen Hinhörens und Dialogs mit dem engagierten Buddhismus sind. Zu diesem geschichtlichen Zeitpunkt können wir weiß Gott jede Mitarbeit brauchen, die wir einbringen können, für persönliche und globale Gerechtigkeit und Frieden. En este articulo, el autor explica cómo el "diálogo liberador" con un budista socialmente comprometido puede fortalecer la misionología cristiana y a congregaciones eclesiales cristianas de América del Norte, ya que ellas buscan el reino de Dios de la armonía personal y social. Al escuchar profundamente a budistas comprometidos como al monje vietnamita Thich Nhat Hanh podemos descubrir nuevos caminos, convencernos más de nuestras prácticas actuales y probablemente mejorar nuestros métodos para llevar adelante la misión liberadora de Jesús como él la proclamó en Lucas 4,16–19. Desde la perspectiva de una liberación cristiana del P. Gustavo Gutiérrez, el autor analiza algunos de los temas, metas y métodos diferentes, sin embargo comunes que se comparten con el budismo comprometido. Como nuestros horizontes misionológicos se amplían desde estas comprensiones desde América Latina y particularmente desde Asia, este estudio nos animará en nuestra valoración de la meditación, inculturación, reconciliación, diálogo interreligioso y acción por la solidaridad en estas tradiciones de fe. La conclusión ofrecerá una seria de aportes a la misionología cristiana y sugerencias prácticas para nuestras iglesias que son el fruto de una escucha y un diálogo profundo con el budismo comprometido. En este momento de la historia, Dios sabe que necesitamos toda la colaboración que podamos suscitar, para la justicia y paz individuales y globales.

<em>The Winter’s Tale</em> is a great tragic comedy. It is a comedy hovering on the brinks of tragedy. It includes conflicts within friends, family and generations. It is a romantic play with unique dramatic structure. It is expressed in a brilliant two part structure. While commenting in the structure of the play, the Director Martin Maraden points out: To create the two different worlds of Sicilia and Bohemia and yet to have them seem necessary to each other is one of the challenges of <em>The Winter’s Tale</em>. I think the contrast in the play makes perfect sense, we begin in Sicilia, we sojourn in Bohemia… (James Deborah, 2002.) The first part of the structure is Sicilia kingdom ruled by King Leontes. King Polixenes, the king of Bohemia is visiting King Leontes who happens to be his friend and decides to leave Sicilia after his visit. Leontes tries to convince Polixenes to stay for longer. But Polixenes refuses and when Leontes’ queen Hermione requests him, he accepts to stay a little longer in Sicilia. So Leontes is seized with jealousy over their relationship in the first three Acts of the play which leads into series of events those results in the death of his wife Hermione and his son Mamillus. In a fit of jealousy he abandons his other baby with the help of Antigonus on the coast of Bohemia. To introduce the next part or structure of the play and make it convincing to the Elizabethan audience “Time” enters as chorus and announces the passage of sixteen years. I that please some, try all: both joy and tenor Of good and bad, it makes and unfold error, Now take upon me, in the name of Time, To use my wings, Impute is not a crime To me, or my swift passage, that I Over sixteen years, and leave slide the growth untried Of that wide gap, ……..(Act IV, Sc – i) Shakespeare leaving Leontes, who mourns the result of the foolish jealousies, who shuts himself away from human company transports the audience through this chorus of Time to comical events after sixteen years. Lauchen Maclean Watt commenting on the function of chorus in his article, “Attic and Elizabethan Tragedy”, he deducts that: …Here was something intensely human, yet super human. Here was a meaning given to what was beyond all meaning, a light cast over what must forever remain dark beyond all penetration. Thus the poet of tragedy produces an ecstasy. He draws men out of themselves - lofts their souls up to the applauding and the tearful eye, which are his certificates of success. So, indicating the loftiness of his calling as prophetic criticism and interpretation of life, the utterance of his creation must move along in loftier majestic cadence than the huckster’s cry or utterance of the streets; and the lyrical comment of some ideal spectator may well intervene to give spaces when the pent up feeling of actor and of audience must have relief and rest. This was the function of the chorus – one of the most remarkable adjuncts of any literary criticism (Watt, Lauchian Madeon, 1908.) Shakespeare uses ‘Time’ as chorus, a spectator, who lifts the curtains after the tragic events of the first three acts of the play revealing the progress of the invisible, leading the audience on the side of good, to the romantic beauty of the couple, Prince Florizel and Princess Perdita and also to the pastoral beauty of the land. The author uses this musical convention in furtherance of dramatic resolution and functions as an expressive therapy attributing cathartic effect of healing the mental state of the characters, empowering an atmospheric change through songs and music in the second part of the structure of the play. As the critic Lauchian Maclean Watt points out this Chorus of Time heals and gives relief and rest to the pent up feeling of actors and audience. For the Elizabethan, music was either a performing art or composition or a philosophical concept or all three according to critic Christopher R. Wilson and Michela Calore. In many of his comedies Shakespeare has introduced songs which not only increase the entertainment value of the comedies, provide dramatic relief after tragic stress and strain, but are also intimately related with the action of the play. In the other place of Shakespeare the songs are mainly provided by the clown ‘the fun maker’ of the play, in <em>The Winter’s Tale</em> they are provided by Autolycus, ‘the merry rogue’, who sings in order to attract the simple rustics to purchase his wares. In this paper the researcher discusses the use of music therapy as expressive therapy in the songs and music of Shakespeare’s play The Winter’s Tale. The American music therapy defines music therapy which uses music to effective positive changes in the psychological, physical, cognitive, or social functioning of individuals with health or educational problems. The role of music therapy as expressive therapy in drama is the scope of the researcher. While elucidating about Drama Therapy in his book on “Essay in drama therapy – The Double Life”, the author says ‘As a field, drama therapy is a hybrid’ (P.1) and to achieve therapeutic goals of symptom, relief, emotional and physical integration and personal growth. It is an active approach that helps the client to tell his story to solve problem, achieve catharsis, and extend the depth and breath of inner experience, understanding the meaning of images and strengthen the ability to observe personal roles while increasing flexibility between roles. In The Winter’s Tale, an analyses of the roles of songs and music will reveal that how they are expressed to prevent or resolve psychological difficulties and achieve optimal growth and development in the characters. R. J. Martin in his article ‘Music in Shakespeare: the bard’s innovative use of music as a dramatic tool’ has deducted, the use of songs and music by Shakespeare, under four categories. Music in Shakespeare usually serves multiple purposes. Attempting to categorize songs by the purpose they serve presents challenges as the musical selection often fit into more than one category. Terms like: “Revelatory songs,” “Ritualistic songs,” “Epiphantic songs” and “Atmospheric songs,” often fall short in describing the full depth of playwright purpose in choosing a musical passage.(Martin R.J) And Music is all important in the second part of the play. The scenes of the sheep rearing feast in Act IV are used by Shakespeare to present those human values which Leontes had vanished from his court: love, joy, trust, hospitality, good fellowship. And also there are dialogues between the peddler and clown with his girlfriends, Mopsa and Dorcas about songs and ballads. It contains a large quantity of the history of songs in the sixteenth century and is one of the most important to be found in Shakespeare. Shakespeare introduces Autolycus- a merry rogue and a vagabond. The ballads he tries to sell off to the clown and his lovers describe the situation of the ballad, but they are used for the dramatic progression of the play.. As again the Critic In the Act IV, Sc iv line 190-199 the servant of the clown announces of peddler name Autolycus at the door who sings to sell his items to people: SERVANT: He hath songs for man or woman, of all sizes no milliner so can fit his customers with gloves : he has the prettiest love songs for maids, so without bawdry (which is strange); with such delicate burdens of dildoes and fadings, jump her and thump her; and where some stretch - mouth rascal would, as it were, mean mischief and break a foul gap into the matter, he makes the maid to answer “whoop, do me no harm, good man:” puts him off, slights him with ‘whoop, do me no harm, good man.’ (Act IV Sc I lines 190-199). Autolycus has important artistic function in the play, apart function from his share in the plot, His worldliness, wit and songs bring relaxation and relief of his dramatic value Martin points out that “Shakespeare certainly believed in the power of music as a healing force and in its power to influence nature- the idea of the ‘music of the spheres’ and the effect of both heavenly and earthly harmonies on the wellness of the human spirit.” (Sumonova) Autolycus, the merry rogue enter the play in Act IV scene iii with a song which begins when daffodils begin to peer with heigh; the doxy over the dale, why, then comes to the sweet the year for the red blood reigns in the winter’s pale (Act Iv Sci II) reigns supreme, some of the poetically most memorable allusions are to spring - the spring embodied by the young lovers, which, in the play’s symbolic pattern, takes the place of the long wintry period established by Leontes. Especially the line ‘For the red blood reigns in the winter’s pale ie the boundaries, the domain of winter; the line sums up the basic progression of the play. All the sweet sights and sounds of the country side in the first blush of spring are beautifully touched upon. These songs can be categorized under the ‘Atmospheric songs’ as they promote the feelings of audience from cold, sad and frozen because of the tragic events of the earlier parts of the play to fresh, purely romantic spring part of the second structure of the play. Revelatory songs serve the purpose of understanding character’s personality. In the second stanza of the song of ‘when daffodils….’ He cleverly hints at his profession of his cheating and stealing. It summarizes that the white linen spread out to bleach or to dry on the hedge, while the sweet birds sing merrily, increases his desire for stealing. A quart of ale that he gets from the sale of the stolen linen is as precious to him as a peg of costly wine fit for King. The white sheet bleaching on the hedge With hey! The sweet birds. O how they sing? Doth set my pugging tooth an edge; For a quart of ale is a dish for a King. (Act IV Sc iii) In this song of enjoyment of Spring by Autolycus is then followed by certain soliloquizing disclosure of his antecedents and of his present cogitation. He also justifies himself and his profession in the second song. If tinkers may have leave to live, And bear the sow – skin budget, Then my account I well may give, And in the stocks avouch it. (Act IV Sc iii) He argues that if tinkers are allowed to trade and carry their tools in their pig-skin bags, then there is no reason why he should not be free to ply his trade of stealing. He attempts to moralize his occupation saying that there is no reason why he should not be able to give an account of his occupation and assert that it is as honest as that of a tinker and, therefore, get released from the stocks. The third song is more typical of a ‘revelatory’ song of a vagabond. He formulates a romantic philosophy of tramping: Jog on, Jog on, the foot – pathway, And merrily hent the stile – a: A merry heart goes all the day, Your sad tires in a mile – a. (Act IV Sc iii) These revelatory songs of the merry rogue serve as an expressive therapy for the dramatist for he had to introduce a character who can bring merry to the characters and to the audience by his songs. Simple dialogues may not have suited him for he is involved in the immoral activities of cheating and thieving , the audience must have turned wild with laughter and characters were able to have some more fun in sheep shearing ceremony. In the next scene of sheep shearing ceremony Autolycus is introduced by the servant of the Clown as one who sings of his wares with thorough sense of enjoyment, over and above his merely commercial motives in the promotion of the quickest sale of ‘trinkets’, etc., which articles, as the servant afterwards declares, he sings over as if they were Gods and Goddesses. So the audience has a revelation of the character Autolycus about his vocal qualities and that he is a true artist not only in his most questionable doings but musically also as far as his style of song is concerned. The following songs in Act IV Sc iv (1) ‘Lawns as white as driven snow Get you hence, for I must go Will you buy any tape?’ reveal that Autolycus sings his song with just the right feeling, and does not merely announce his wares but actually makes people fall in love with them. When he puts forth what he designates as being a merry ballad, but a very pretty ‘One’ and which ballad he tells Dorcas and Mopsa that he will have a part in it, his answer is notable. He is indeed a most roguish Peddler, but he is also right willing to sing for singing’s sake. He joyfully exclaims, ‘I can bear my part; you must know,’ its my occupation, have at it with you”. (Act IV, Sc iv, line 285). The Songs in The Winter’s Tale are highly realistic. They are songs of practical life and experience: They have direct merry roguishness. Instrumental Music The idea of music in all of Shakespeare’s plays except in 3 Henry IV and King John practical instrumental indicate in stage directions and dialogue to mark the solemnity of specific occasions. In the play ‘The Winter’s Tale’ there is a stage direction for music in the shepherd’s dance Act IV Sc iv and for the awakening of Hermione in Act V Sc iii and there is no stage decoration for the dance of Satyrs at the sheep - shearing feast. The music that accompanies the dance of the shepherds must be ritualistic to denote the sheep shearing ceremony. We comprehend the ceremonial activities from the words of the shepherd who explains how his wife would behave on these sheep shearing ceremonies. He says “Would sing her song and dance her turn; now here/on his shoulder, and his/……” (Act IV Sc iv lines 57 – 58). The ritualistic music and dance awakens Perdita from her romantic mood to behave as the hostess of the family. As Martin says in his commentary that “Ritualistic Songs” are used for in casting, magical and ceremonial purposes, these songs are ceremonial in purpose and a music therapy to change the pessimistic mood between Florizel and Perdita. The dance of Satyrs by the troupe from Polixenes words in reply to shepherd that it is an entertainment or refreshing dance after boredom of monotony. They dance and no music direction is given. The wordings of the Songs are not given, the suggestion probably is that the troupe could sing any song or play any music to suit the time, place or audience were the play is acted. Since music in Shakespeare’s plays is also used in light - hearted contexts and for a lively repartee. The fourth kind of song or music as discussed by the critic Martin is ‘epithantic’ uses of Music as employed to announce an epiphany. An excellent example is in the last Act and last scene of the play The Winter’s Tale which is called the statue- scene by critics. This wonderful scene been highly eulogized, with few exceptions, by all the critics of Shakespeare. Leontes has faithfully kept his vow and done a ‘most saint – like penance’ for full sixteen years. In the last scene all the characters are taken by Leontes to the statue of Hermione. Leontes gazes, “recognizes Hermione’s natural posture”, asks her to chide him, yet remembers how she was tender ‘as infancy and grace’. Sweet though the statue be, it remains cold and withdrawn yet it’s ‘majesty’ exerts a strangely potent ‘magic’ before which Perdita kneels almost in ‘superstition’. Audience witnesses the rebirth of Leontes. In Perdita, on the other hand, the vision produces the first move towards reconciliation: binding together mother and daughter in the single process of recreated life. Paulina’s command in the last scene (Act V Sc iii) “Music awake her; strike!” and to the surprise of all characters on stage, what appears to be a statue of Hermione starts to walk to the sound of music. Christopher R. Wilson and Michela Calore in their book on Music in Shakespeare a dictionary (2007) have appropriately quoted Dunn “the use of music here could be considered…. as a typical use of musical instrumentalist to underscore a dramatic climax. But it is, of course, as an example of music’s restorative powers that it gains it chief importance” (299). This resuscitation scene is a fair example how Shakespeare used the sense of temporal impermanence to overcome the present in the reference to the filling up of grave. With Leontes and Hermione finally embraced to the wonder of those who surround them, it only remains for the play to be rounded off by the gesture by which the family unity is finally restored and in which the father bestows his blessings. Hence, though music was being used from Greek drama “Shakespeare facilitated a paradigm shift in the way that music was used”. “In conclusion Shakespeare intended music in his plays to encompass a larger role than simply an interruption or distraction; he carefully inserted the music in support of his overall dramatic goals for the work.” (Sumanova.com).

Background: Reporting serious adverse events (SAEs) is crucial to reduce or avoid toxicities that can lead to major consequences for patient’s health due to treatments tested in clinical trials. Its exhaustiveness is often inadequate, and we observe discrepancies between data published by pharmacovigilance organizations and clinical databases. Objectives: While the process of reconciliation aims at reducing these differences, it remains a very time-consuming and imprecise task. We propose a tool to automate this process. Design: We have developed and tested Reconciliaid, an application that compares the SAEs of the databases of clinical trials collected according to a standard inspired by the Clinical Data Interchange Standards Consortium, and of pharmacovigilance collected according to the international standards ICH-E2B (R3). It generates a reconciliation file that indicates precisely what information does not coincide in the two databases to facilitate the identification of inconsistencies. Methods: Reconciliaid was tested to create 13 reconciliation files, containing 290 SAEs. We inspected these files to determine their ability in identifying the inconsistencies and compared the manual and semi-automated reconciliation time. Four users answered the System Usability Scale (SUS) to measure its usability. Results: The application identified all variables of interest in all reconciliations. Different formats and libraries were automatically harmonized, allowing a perfect identification of inconsistencies for all variables. The matching of the same SAE in the two databases was correct in 97.2% of the reconciliations. Reconciliaid is six times faster than the manual approach for senior data managers (range = 3–24 times). A novice data manager performed three reconciliations 4.8 faster with the help of Reconciliaid than manually (29 min vs 134 min) and with fewer mistakes. Mean SUS score was 92.5. Conclusion: Reconciliaid has a high level of usability, can increase the quality of reconciliation, and reduces considerably the reconciliation time, allowing to increase the frequency of reconciliation processes and to focus resources on patient safety and medical assessment.

With both Cambodia and Indonesia making at least some political progress against what are clearly great odds, I find it especially sad that we must still address the lack of movement toward reconciliation in Burma. Burma is a country in great and growing distress today. The situation there has gotten worse in the last year; the threat it poses to the stability of this region has grown.

The United Nations declared 2019 the International Year of Indigenous Languages[i] for the promotion of language development, peace, and reconciliation. One of the stated aims of the awareness campaign is the integration of indigenous languages into standard settings, bringing about empowerment through capacity building and through the elaboration of new knowledge. The San tsî Khoen Digital Languages Application &amp; Archive is a project based in the San &amp; Khoi Centre at the University of Cape Town (UCT). Established in 2020 and funded by the Department of Sports, Arts and Culture, it is informed by a co-design digital curation process with the community. The project archives the endangered and erased languages of the indigenous San and Khoi communities of southern Africa, with an initial focus on N|uu and Khoekhoegowab. To obtain this, the project integrates decolonial scholarship within a digital environment of human languages technologies that creates a visibility of not only erased and endangered languages but also indigenous African feminist knowledges that have been lacking in scholarship. Its co-design digital curation process challenges the insular and fragmented nature of academic output, thereby allowing for a greater degree of critical analysis. This action research and digital curation processes are not without its challenges, as co-creating knowledge in an attempted decolonial framework that aims to foreground African feminist knowledge in a region of historical linguicide that was subjected to epistemic violence, as a consequence of colonialism and neo-colonialism is in itself not without its various contestations. This paper critically discusses this collaborative research and co-design knowledge production process engaged with over a process of forty research workshops [ii], over the past two years. The analysis and discussion in this paper are derived from a thematic analysis of this co-design digital curation process facilitated by the San &amp; Khoi Centre between 2020 and 2022.

&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; i) In Australia we do a lot of thinking about home. Or so it would seem from all the talk about belonging, home, being at home (see Read). A sure sign of displacement, some might say. In his recent memoir, John Hughes writes: It is a particularly Australian experience that our personal heritage and sense of identity includes a place and a history not really our own, not really accessible to us. The fact that our sense of self-discovery and self-realisation takes place in foreign lands is one of the rich and complex ironies of being Australian. (24-25) My sense of self-discovery did not occur in a foreign land. However, my personal heritage and sense of identity includes places and histories that are not really my own. Unlike Hughes I don’t have what is often portrayed as an exotic heritage; I am plainly white Australian. I grew up on the Far North Coast of New South Wales, on farms that every year knew drought and flood. My place in this country – both local and national – seemingly was beyond question. I am after all a white, settler Australian. But I left Kyogle twenty years ago and since then much has changed. My project is very different than Hughes’. However, reading his memoir led me to reflect upon my sense of belonging. What is my home made from? Like Hughes I want to deploy memories from my childhood and youth to unpack my idea of home. White settler Australians’ sense of belonging is often expressed as a profound feeling of attachment; imagined as unmediated (Moreton-Robinson 31). It is a connection somehow untroubled by the worldliness of the world: it is an oasis of plentitude. For Indigenous Australians, Aileen Moreton-Robinson argues, non-Indigenous Australians sense of belonging is tied to migrancy, while the Indigenous subject has an ontological relationship to land and these modes are incommensurable (31). Since colonisation the nation state has attempted through an array of social, legal, economic and cultural practices to break Indigenous people’s ontological connections to land, and to cast them as homeless in the ‘modern’ world. The expression of belonging as a profound sense of attachment – beyond the material – denies not only the racialised power relations of belonging and dispossession, but also the history of this sentiment. This is why I want to stay right here and take up Moreton-Robinson’s challenge to further theorise (and reflect) upon how non-Indigenous subjects are positioned in relation to the original owners not through migrancy but through possession (37). ii) Australia has changed a lot. Now most understand Australia to be comprised of a plurality of contradictory memories, imaginaries and histories, generated from different cultural identities and social bodies. Indigenous Australians, who have been previously spoken for, written about, categorised and critiqued by non-Indigenous people, have in the last three decades begun to be heard by mainstream Australia. In a diversity of mediums and avenues Indigenous stories, in all their multiplicity, penetrated the field of Australian culture and society. In so doing, they enter into a dialogue about Australia’s past, present and future. The students I teach at university arrive from school with an awareness that Australia was colonised, not discovered as I was taught. Recent critical historiography, by both Indigenous and non-Indigenous writers and academics, calls for and creates a new Australian memory (Hage 80). A memory, or memories, which the reconciliation movement not only want acknowledged by mainstream Australia but also integrated into national consciousness. Over the last twenty years, many Australian historians have reinforced the truths of fictional and autobiographical accounts of colonial violence against Indigenous people. The benign and peaceful settlement of Australia, which was portrayed in school history lessons and public discourse, began to be replaced by empirical historical evidence of the brutal subjugation of Indigenous people and the violent appropriation of Indigenous land. Indigenous struggles for recognition and sovereignty and revisionist history have created a cultural transformation. However, for all the big changes there has been limited investigation into white Australians’ sense of belonging continuing to be informed and shaped by settler colonial desire. Indigenous memories not only contest and contradict other memories, but they are also derived from different cultural bodies and social and historical contexts. My memory of our farm carved out of Toonumbah State Forest is of a peaceful place, without history; a memory which is sure to contradict Bundjalung memories. To me Kyogle was a town with only a few racial problems; except for the silences and all those questions left unasked. Ghassan Hage argues that a national memory or non-contradictory plurality of memories of colonisation in Australia is impossible because although there has been a cultural war, the two opposing sides have not assimilated to become one (92). There remain within Australia, ‘two communal subjects with two wills over one land; two sovereignties of unequal strength’ (Hage 93). The will of one is not the will of the other. I would argue that there is barely recognition of Indigenous sovereignty by non-Indigenous Australians; for so many there is only one will, one way. Furthermore, Hage maintains that: For a long time to come, Australia is destined to become an unfinished Western colonial project as well as a land in a permanent state of decolonisation. A nation inhabited by both the will of the coloniser and the will of the colonised, each with their identity based on their specific understanding, and memory, of the colonial encounter: what was before it and what is after it. Any national project of reconciliation that fails to fully accept the existence of a distinct Indigenous will, a distinct Indigenous conatus, whose striving is bound to make the settlers experience ‘sadness’, is destined to be a momentary cover-up of the reality of the forces that made Australia what it is. (94) Why must Indigenous will make settlers experience sad passions? Perhaps this is a naïve question. I am not dismissing Hage’s concerns, and agree with his critique of the failure of the project of reconciliation. However, if we are to understand the forces that made Australia what it is – to know our place – then as Hage writes we need not only to acknowledge these opposing forces, but understand how they made us who we are. The narrative of benign settlement might have resulted in a cultural amnesia, but I’m not convinced that settler Australians didn’t know about colonial violence and its aftermath. Unlike Henry Reynolds who asked ‘why didn’t we know?’ I think the question should be, as Fiona Nicoll asks, ‘what is it we know but refuse to tell?’ (7). Or how did I get here? In asking what makes home, one needs to question what is excluded to enable one to stay in place. iii) When I think of my childhood home there is one particular farm that comes to mind. From my birth to when I left home at eighteen I lived in about six different homes; all but one where on farms. The longest was for about eight years, on a farm only a few kilometres from town; conveniently close for a teenager wanting all the ‘action’ of town life. It was just up the road from my grandparents’ place, whose fridge I would raid most afternoons while my grandmother lovingly listened to my triumphs and woes (at least those I thought appropriate for her ears). Our house was set back just a little from the road. On this farm, my brother and I floated paper boats down flooded gullies; there, my sisters, brother and I formed a secret society on the banks of the picturesque creek, which was too quickly torn apart by factional infighting. In this home, my older sisters received nightly phone calls from boys, and I cried to my mother, ‘When will it be my turn’. She comforted me with, ‘Don’t worry, they will soon’. And sure enough they did. There I hung out with my first boyfriend, who would ride out on his motor bike, then later his car. We lolled around on our oddly sloping front lawn and talked for hours about nothing. But this isn’t the place which readily comes to mind when I think of a childhood home. Afterlee Rd, as we called it, never felt like home. Behind the house, over the other side of the creek, were hills. Before my teens I regularly walked to the top of the first hill and rode around the farm, but not all the way to the boundary fence. I didn’t belong there. It was too exposed to passing traffic, yet people rarely stopped to add to our day. For me excitement and life existed elsewhere: the Gold Coast or Lismore. When I think of my childhood home an image comes to mind: a girl child standing on the flat between our house and yards, with hills and eucalypts at her back, and a rock-faced mountain rising up behind the yards at her front. (Sometimes there is a dog by her side, but I think it’s a late edition.) The district was known as Toonumbah because of its proximity (as the crow flies) to Toonumbah Dam. My siblings and I ventured across the farm and we rode with my father to muster, or sometimes through the adjoining State Forest to visit our neighbours who lived deep in the bush. I thought the trees whispered to me and watched over us. They were all seeing, all knowing, as they often are for children – a forest of gods. Sometime during my childhood I read the children’s novel Z for Zachariah: a story of a lone survivor of an apocalypse saved by remaining in a safe and abundant valley, while the rest of the community went out to explore what happened (O’Brien). This was my idea of Toonumbah. And like Zachariah’s valley it was isolated and for that reason, in spite of its plenty, a strange home. It was too disconnected from the world. Despite my sense of homeliness, I never felt sovereign. My disquiet wasn’t due to a sense that at any moment we might be cast out. Quite the opposite, we were there to stay. And not because I was a child and sovereignty is the domain of adults. I don’t think, at least as a feeling, it is. But rather because sovereignty is tied to movement or crossings. Not just being in place, but leaving and returning, freely moving through and around, and welcoming others who recognise it as ‘our’ place. Home is necessitated upon movement. And my idea of this childhood home is reliant upon a romanticised, ‘profound’ feeling of attachment; a legacy of settler colonial desire. There is no place like home. Home is far more than a place, it is, as Blunt and Dowling suggest, about feelings, desire, intimacy and belonging and relationships between places and connections with others (2). One’s sense of home has a history. To be at home one must limit the chaos of the world – create order. As we know, the environment is also ordered to enable a sense of bodily alignment and integrity. How or rather with whom does one establish connections with to create a sense of home? To create a sense of order, who does one recognise as belonging or not? Who is deemed a part of the chaos? Here Sara Ahmed’s idea of the stranger is helpful. Spaces are claimed, or ‘owned’, she argues, not so much by inhabiting what is already there, but rather movement or ‘passing through’ creates boundaries, making places by giving them a value (33). Settlers moved out and across the country, and in so doing created the colonies and later the nation by prescribing an economic value to the land. Colonialism attempts to enclose both Indigenous people and the country within its own logic. To take possession of the country the colonisers attempted to fix Indigenous people in place. A place ordered according to colonial logic; making the Indigenous subject out of place. Thus the Indigenous ‘stranger’ came into view. The stranger is not simply constituted by being recognised by the other, but rather it is the recognition of strangers which forms the local (Ahmed 21-22). The settler community was produced and bounded by their recognition of strangers; their belonging was reliant upon others not belonging. The doctrine of terra nullius cleared the country not only of people, but also of the specifics of Indigenous place, in an attempt to recreate another place inspired by the economic and strategic needs of the colonisers. Indigenous people were further exposed as strangers in the ‘new’ country by not participating in the colonial economy and systems of exchange. Indigenous people’s movement to visit family, to perform ceremony or maintain connections with country were largely dismissed by the colonial culture and little understood as maintaining and re-making sovereignty. European forms of commerce made the settlers sovereign – held them in place. And in turn, this exchange continues to bind settler Australians to ways of being that de-limit connections to place and people. It created a sense of order that still constrains ideas of home. Colonial logic dominates Australian ideas of sovereignty, thus of being at home or belonging in this country. Indeed, I would argue that it enforces a strange attachment: clinging fast as if to a too absent parent or romancing it, wooing a desired but permissive lover. We don’t know, as Fiona Nicoll questions, what Indigenous sovereignty might look like. Discussions of sovereignty are on Western terms. If Indigenous sovereignty is recognised at all, it is largely figured as impractical, impossible or dangerous (Nicoll 9). The fear and forgetting of the long history of Indigenous struggles for sovereignty, Nicoll writes, conceals the everydayness of the contestation (1). Indigenous sovereignty is both unknown and too familiar, thus it continues to be the stranger which must be expelled to enable belonging. Yet without it we cannot know the country. iv) I carry around a map of Australia. It is a simple image, a crude outline of the giant landmass; like what you find on cheap souvenir tea-towels. To be honest it’s just the continent – an islandless island – even Tasmania has dropped off my map. My map is not in my pocket but my head. It comes to mind so regularly I think of it as the shape of my idea of home. It is a place shared by many, yet singularly mine. I want to say that it is not the nation, but the country itself, but of course this isn’t true. My sense of Australia as my home is forged from an imaginary nation. However, I have problems calling Australia home – as if being at home in the nation is like being in an idealised family home. What is too often sentimentalised and fetishised as closed and secure: a place of comfort and seamless belonging (Fortier 119). Making home an infantile place where everything is there for me. But we understand that nations are beyond us and all that they are composed of we cannot know. Even putting aside the romantic notions, nations aren’t very much like home. They are, however, relational. Like bower birds, we collect sticks, stones, shells and coloured things, building connections with the outside world to create something a bit like home in the imaginary nation. I fill my rough map with ‘things’ that hold me in place. We might ask, is a home a home if we don’t go outside? My idea of home borrows from Meaghan Morris. In Ecstasy and Economics, she is attempting to create what Deleuze and Guattari call home. She writes: In their sense of the term, “home does not pre-exist”; it is the product of an effort to “organize a limited space”, and the limit involved is not a figure of containment but of provisional (or “working”) definition. This kind of home is always made of mixed components, and the interior space it creates is a filter or a sieve rather than a sealed-in consistency; it is not a place of origin, but an “aspect” of a process which it enables (“as though the circle tended on its own to open into a future, as a function of the working forces it shelters”) but does not precede – and so it is not an enclosure, but a way of going outside. (92) If home is a way of going outside then we need to know something about outside. Belonging is a desire and we make home from the desire to belong. In desiring belonging we should not forsake the worldliness of the world. What is configured as outside home are often the legal, political, economic and cultural conditions that have produced contemporary Australia. However, by refusing to engage with how colonialism and Indigenous sovereignty have made Australia one might not be able to go outside; risk imprisoning oneself in a too comfortable space. By letting in some of the elements which are strange and unhomely, one might begin to build connections which aid the reimagining of the self and the social, which in turn enables one to not only live in postcolonial Australia but participate in creating it (Probyn). A strange place: unsettled by other desires, histories, knowledge and memories, but a place more like home. I am arguing that we need to know our place. But knowing our place cannot be taken for granted. We need many hearts and minds to allow us to see what is here. The childhood home I write of is not my home, nor do I want it to be. However, the remembering or rather investigation of my idea of home is important. Where has it come from? There has been a lot of discussion about non-Indigenous Australians being unsettled by revisionist historiography and Indigenous demands for recognition and this is true, but the unsettlement has been enabling. Given that settler Australians are afforded so much sovereignty then there seems plenty of room for uncertainty. We don’t need to despair, or if we do, it could be used productively to remake our idea of home. If someone were to ask that tired question, ‘Generations of my family have lived here, where am I going to go?’ The answer is no where. You’re going no where, but here. The question isn’t of leaving, but of staying well. References Ahmed, Sara. Strange Encounters: Embodied Others in Post-coloniality. London: Routledge, 2000. Blunt, Alison, and Robyn Dowling. Home. London: Routledge, 2006. Fortier, Anne-Marie. “Making Home: Queer Migrations and Motions of Attachment.” Uprootings/Regrounding: Questions of Home and Migration. Eds S. Ahmed et. al. Oxford: Berg, 2003. 115-135. Gelder, Ken, and Jane Jacobs. Uncanny Australia: Sacredness and Identity in a Postcolonial Nation. Carlton, Vic: Melbourne UP, 1998. Hage, Ghassan. Against Paranoid Nationalism. Annandale: Pluto Press, 2003. Hughes, John. The Idea of Home: Autobiographical Essays. Sydney: Giramondo, 2004. Moreton-Robinson, Aileen. “I Still Call Australia Home: Indigenous Belonging and Place in a White Postcolonizing Society.” Uprootings/Regrounding: Questions of Home and Migration. Eds S. Ahmed et. al. Oxford: Berg, 2003. 23-40. Morris, Meaghan. Ecstasy and Economics: American Essays for John Forbes. Sydney: Empress, 1992. Nicoll, Fiona. “Defacing Terra Nullius and Facing the Public Secret of Indigenous Sovereignty in Australia.” borderlands 1.2 (2002): 1-13. O’Brien, Robert C. Z for Zachariah: A Novel. London: Heinemann Educational, 1976. Probyn, Elspeth. Outside Belongings. New York: Routledge, 1996. Read, Peter. Belonging: Australians, Place and Aboriginal Ownership. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000. Reynolds, Henry. Why Weren’t We Told?: A Personal Search for the Truth about Our History. Melbourne: Penguin, 2002. &#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; Citation reference for this article&#x0D; &#x0D; MLA Style&#x0D; Slater, Lisa. "No Place like Home: Staying Well in a Too Sovereign Country." M/C Journal 10.4 (2007). echo date('d M. Y'); ?&gt; &lt;http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0708/13-slater.php&gt;. APA Style&#x0D; Slater, L. (Aug. 2007) "No Place like Home: Staying Well in a Too Sovereign Country," M/C Journal, 10(4). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?&gt; from &lt;http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0708/13-slater.php&gt;. &#x0D;

Public life is usually understood to be whatever we do or say in our formal and professional relationships. At the workplace, at the doctor’s office or at the café, we need to make a good impression and we cannot say everything we think or do anything we want. We need to appear a certain way to be liked, get ahead, or simply stay out of trouble. The distinction between private and public presupposes that we invest efforts in maintaining a public “persona” whereas at home we can “be ourselves.” A closer examination, however, reveals that we also have a persona within the circle of our immediate family and close friends. We often censor ourselves with the people closest to us, in order to be seen by our loved-ones as caring partners, devoted children or loyal friends. Can we ever relax and really be ourselves without maintaining a persona? Even in our most private moments, at home alone, we are under the pressure of a private persona, a self-image we want to maintain even when nobody else is looking. We also want to impress ourselves, so to speak, to feel and think about and interact with people in a manner that reflects the way we think we are, or should be, in our social world. On occasion, we explicitly endorse certain values or character traits that we see as guiding our social interactions as well as our private thoughts and emotions. Naturally, most of us probably think that who we are, as reflected from our actions and reactions, thoughts and emotions, matches quite well our private persona. But when we consider those around us, especially those we know well enough to know what they think about themselves, we often notice patterns of behaviour that are in tension with their private persona. We could say that they have a false, or at least a partially blind, self-image. The philosopher and psychoanalyst Jonathan Lear provides a good example to think about these tensions in one’s private persona. In A Case for Irony, he describes a woman who displays prototypical femininity in some of her mannerisms, gestures and her style of clothing, and self-consciously comports herself according to traditional gender roles. Yet, Lear notices that she also exhibits “boyish” behaviour without realising it, a behaviour that further demonstrates that she cares about being “boyish” (42-71). Consider other examples such as: a proud anti-authoritarian whose gestures and reactions reveal that he evaluates people according to their social hierarchy; or a person who fiercely defends her independence in close relationships and yet remains financially dependent; or the delicate flower that cannot hurt a fly with a killer instinct. Around us, many people hold onto a self-image that captures only a part of their social ways of being and ignores other parts that are apparently in tension with it. We ascribe to one another the ability to turn a blind eye to what is there to see. In such cases, it appears that some patterns of social interaction fit well with what we may call one’s endorsed private persona whereas other identifiable patterns do not. Those, in turn, seem to fit a hidden private persona, certain values or character traits that the person does not acknowledge having. In other words, one’s private persona may include an endorsed aspect that is in tension with its hidden aspect. In this paper, I critically examine Jonathan Lear’s suggestion as to how to understand and deal with such tensions. In particular, I examine how one’s private persona may get caught up in such tensions in the first place. Endorsed Private Persona Our roles in our relationships and group-belongings comprise what philosophers call our practical identities, such as being a spouse, a parent, a friend, a child, a teacher or a member of the neighbourhood cat-rescue organisation. These practical identities do not just impose on us duties and obligations and appropriate ways of interaction dictated by our social niche. They are also, as the philosopher Christine Korsgaard says in The Sources of Normativity, “description[s] under which [we] value [ourselves], description[s] under which [we] find [our lives] to be worth living and [our] actions worth undertaking” (101). Our social roles present us sometimes with dilemmas, challenges and moments of choice. When we face an important decision in our lives, such as leaving a boyfriend or getting married, telling or not telling a friend that her husband is cheating on her, we may explicitly ask ourselves: do I want to be the kind of person that pursues this course of action? Am I this kind of partner, this kind of friend? It is not just about what others would think of me, it is about what I will think of me: will I be able to live with myself if I make this choice? These are typical moments in which we encounter our endorsed private persona, and reflect upon certain values that we attempt to cultivate through our choices. We also describe ourselves and identify with certain social styles, character traits, or virtues that guide some of our social gestures and actions. We care about being confident or modest, polite or direct communicators, courageous or risk averse, feminine or masculine, light travellers or collectors of objects. These labels do not just comprise the way people see us or how we want them to see us. They describe how we see and want to see ourselves and thus form a part of our endorsed private persona. We often self-consciously attempt to sustain and cultivate behaviours that would fit our endorsed personal style and qualify us as cool or elegant or nerdy, daring or cautious. We also encounter our endorsed private persona when we assess our spontaneous behaviours, in particular our emotional reactions. Those are moments when we face criticism or self-criticism about our emotions. Emotions may be criticised on the ground that they do not fit the circumstances (e.g. fear of a tiny spider), or that they are exaggerated in intensity (e.g. rage about a minor offence), or that they are ungraceful and reflect badly on us, or that they show we are immoral (e.g. envy of a friend or anger at a child), or excessively touchy (e.g. taking offence by a joke), and so forth. Our practices of criticism demonstrate that although we often forgive or accept emotions as episodes we cannot help but undergo, they nevertheless show something about us, about what kind of a person we are. We take such criticisms to heart when they reveal, on reflection, that our emotion is incompatible with our private persona, with our being someone rational, or moral, or with a hippy’s temperament. At times, we embrace the criticism, make it our own, and use it to control our emotion, with varied degrees of success. Our endorsed private persona includes values, virtues, character traits, and styles of social interactions that cut across practical identities. They are ways of inhabiting our various roles and relationships. Many of our spontaneous behaviours, our gestures and emotional reactions, fit with the way we want to be in the social world. Other people may characterise us similarly to how we characterise ourselves and use the same labels to do so, such as “courageous” or “cautious.” It is the fact that we self-consciously care about fitting those labels that makes them a part of our endorsed private persona. A Hidden Private Persona? Our spontaneous reactions, our passing thoughts and emotions, and our non-reflective actions or gestures, often fit well with the way we see and want to see ourselves. Those are the spontaneous behaviours we notice, endorse, or just accept as forgivable or understandable. They reflect who we think we are and what we self-consciously care about. And yet, many such spontaneous behaviours do not fit so well with the endorsed aspect of our private persona. We do not normally pay much attention to those behaviours. We are quite skilled in ignoring them so they typically do not manage to shake our self-image. They are more like background “noise” for our general self-aware comportment in our social interactions. Even in the privacy of our own mind, of the spontaneous emotions and thoughts that strike us without anyone else knowing, we tend to comply with our own endorsed private persona and ignore those passing thoughts that are incompatible with it. And when such behaviours cannot be easily ignored, such as certain emotional reactions, we may be able to control them, to some extent, in reference to our endorsed cares and concerns. But are the spontaneous emotions and gestures that we ignore or reject nothing more than background noise? Do they follow no other positive rhyme or reason? Do they affirm nothing about us in their own right? Lear says that often, the background noise is not just an aggregate of unacknowledged or un-reflected upon emotions and gestures (46). Reflecting on his experience as a psychoanalyst, he claims that this ignored portion of our social lives is often well unified under another social label or “pretence” that the person does not acknowledge or explicitly identify with, even if certain aspects of that person’s behaviour suggest that she actually cares about fitting that hidden “label” (46-51). Although Lear calls these hidden labels “practical identities,” the example of “boyish” and “feminine” demonstrates that he is talking about personal styles, character traits or virtues, such as “self-sacrificing” or “selfish” or “needy.” When we shut off and ignore what we see as mere background noise, Lear says, we effectively shut off a vibrant and unified part of ourselves (64). Lear notices that subjects who are not aware that a certain label unifies aspects of their patterns of social interaction, self-consciously describe themselves with another counter-label, which is the exact inverse of the hidden label (46-47). Lear’s patient is consciously feminine and also exhibits “boyish” behaviour without realising it. Consider also the married man who also exhibits single-life behaviour, or the self-sacrificing family member who actually also cares about what she sees as her selfish needs. These inversions or tensions occur within larger categories: married life; womanhood; self-concern; adulthood, and so forth. The people in these examples inhabit those social categories in ways they find contradictory. How can I be both married and lead a single’s lifestyle? How can I be both a feminine woman and a boyish woman at the same time? As Lear sees things, once his patient acknowledges that she lives in such a tension, she should reassess her ways of organising her behaviours under such rubrics (59-60). The feminine-boyish woman should examine the behaviours that she classifies under the two conflicting labels and ask: “What does any of this has to do with being a woman?” (59). In other words, Lear expects or hopes his patients ask what are, in effect, philosophical questions: what does it mean to be a woman—for me? How do I fit in this category, “woman?” Such negotiation can help people reach some kind of integration whose general purpose is self-acceptance. Perhaps some apparently conflicting identities may serve to qualify one another into reconciliation. Some may be gradually let go. New identities may arise, through reflection, and regroup, so to speak, the behaviours that until then were grouped separately and in opposition. Alternatively, one may accept both sides of the contrariety as parts of oneself that can be given their own time and place for expression. Persona in a World Full of Clichés In her comments on Lear, Korsgaard remarks that the categories of womanhood that trouble Lear’s patient are “most banal” (“Irony” 81). Indeed, Lear’s example—as well as the examples I suggested so far for such tensions—manifests social clichés. His patients exhibit behaviours describable by two poles of society’s stereotypes, prejudices and unqualified moralisms, as if a woman must be either “feminine” or “boyish,” as if love relationships are either “for life” or “dalliances,” as if one is either “loyal” or a “free-spirit,” or either good and “self-sacrificing,” or bad and “selfish” etc. Society offers us many clichés to label ourselves with and some of them may infect our private persona. How did Lear’s patient get caught in opposing clichés? Lear seems to claim that all such people need is some philosophical therapy that would liberate them from this one glitch of their private persona into a superficial dichotomy, inherited from the social world. Are things that simple? Are all the rejected spontaneous behaviours that do not sit well with our endorsed private persona unified by just one social label that comprises what Lear calls our “core fantasy” (e.g. 46; 57)? Our spontaneous behaviours, whether or not we acknowledge or endorse them, give rise to quite a few identifiable patterns, which in turn organise our emotional life. The tensions Lear speaks about are only one such identifiable structuration. That people’s spontaneous emotions and gestures follow various patterns is familiar from ordinary experience. Although we cannot exactly predict the reactions of those we know well, although they may surprise us, we are usually able to make sense of their reaction in light of their past reactions. Our various mannerisms, gestures and emotional reactions lend themselves to groupings in various patterns of reactions. On the one hand, these patterns do not follow a clear rule (or we would be able to predict each other’s emotions much more easily and reliably). And on the other hand, each identifiable pattern brings to light some common aspect in which the behaviours of a pattern are similar to one another. Some reactions resemble one another straightforwardly, like the irritation I feel often with the same rude waiter. This does not mean that each time I see the same rude waiter I will get irritated but, rather, that when I do get irritated, it is partly because of the similarity of the situation now to certain past irritations. Other reactions, as Freud noticed, resemble one another symbolically, such as the resentment one may feel toward one’s female boss here and now symbolising the resentment he has (secretly) harboured for many years toward his mother. As Freud claims, this symbolic connection is also a causal connection and the current resentment is partly caused by the old resentment. Some reactions may be the inverse of one another as in cases of mixed feelings, such as the joy for and the envy of the same friend who achieved something that we wanted for ourselves. Ambivalence, as Freud repeatedly discovered in his case studies, pervades many of our emotional reactions. In Emotions and the Limits of Reason, I propose that our spontaneous emotional life is stitched together through imaginative connections. That is, every reaction of ours is similar to, or symbolic of, the inverse of, or somehow imaginatively relates to, many other reactions from our past. The emotional imaginative network thus gives rise to many traceable patterns. And for each pattern one could, in principle, articulate the respects in which the reactions that follow it connect with one another imaginatively, through similarities and symbols or inversions etc. When we articulate thematic threads that run through such patterns, we can identify various cares and concerns that emerge from our emotional-imaginative network about people and things, ideas, virtues and styles of social interaction. If we are able to identify patterns of both the reactions we endorse and the reactions we normally ignore, the cares and concerns that emerge from our imaginative-emotional network would include those we ordinarily endorse as well as those that we normally fail to recognise. The similarities and other imaginative connections among our various spontaneous reactions do not come at first instance with “subtitles” or with a list of the respects in which they hold. Yet, given that these respects can be articulated in language, these similarities make implicit use of familiar labels. And some of these labels are clichés; they are prejudiced and stereotyped models for being a woman or a parent or good etc. Sometimes, an imaginative emotional network can also give rise to inversions among various patterns such that one group of patterns falls under one social label and another group of patterns under the contrary social label. Such a person may endorse one label and ignore the counter-label. As Freud remarks, “the unconscious [is] the precise contrary of the conscious”(“Notes” 180). Consciously, we do not like to appear contradictory. But, to paraphrase another Freudian maxim, the unconscious knows no contradiction or negation. Imaginatively speaking, this person occupies two—apparently conflicting—positive prototypes of womanhood or adulthood etc., one through her endorsed private persona and another without acknowledgment. But there is no reason to suppose that inversion is the only kind of unity available nor that overcoming it is a once and for all effort, as Lear suggests. Our private persona may inhabit more than one such clichéd couple of apparently conflicting stereotypes that may or may not cause emotional turmoil at various stages in life. On the picture I propose, we may dig ourselves out of one cliché about our private persona and then find ourselves in another. Alternatively, the same cliché may return to haunt us. The solutions we may find to our personalised Socratic question in Lear’s clinic—such as “what is a woman?” or, “what is a sacrifice?”—do not comprise the final word, not for society and not for oneself. Living with Yourself There is no graduation from therapy or immunisation to clichéd inversions or to the pathologies they may cause at some stage in our lives. Perhaps what one can acquire is an attentive attitude to one’s spontaneous behaviours, including those that are not compatible with one’s endorsed private persona. The skill involves the capacity to “listen” to one’s emotions and passing thoughts, to notice one’s non-reflective gestures and ways of interacting and let them inform one’s endorsed cares and concerns and valued styles, character traits and virtues. The goal is not to unify one’s private persona and reach some ideal peace where one is exactly what one wants to be. The goal is, rather, to attend to the spontaneous interruptions of one’s endorsed private persona and at times be prepared to doubt or negotiate the way one sees and wants to see oneself. References Breuer J. and S. Freud. Studies on Hysteria [1893-1895]. S.E. vol. 2. Freud, Sigmund. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud [1966]. Trans. James Strachey. London: The Hogarth Press, 1995. Freud, Sigmund. Notes upon a Case of Obsessional Neurosis [1909]. S.E. vol. 10, 155-249. Freud, Sigmund. “The Unconscious [1915].” S.E. vol. 14, 166-215. Greenspan, Patricia. “A Case of Mixed Feelings: Ambivalence and the Logic of Emotion.” Explaining Emotions. Ed. Amélie Rorty. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980. 223-250. Korsgaard, Christine M. The Sources of Normativity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Korsgaard, Christine M. “Self Constitution and Irony.” A Case for Irony. Ed. J. Lear. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011. 75-83. Lear, Jonathan. A Case for Irony. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011. Morag, Talia. Emotions and the Limits of Reason: The Role of the Imagination in Explaining Pathological Emotions. PhD Thesis. University of Sydney, 2013. Rorty, Amélie. “Explaining Emotions.” Ed. Amélie Rorty. Explaining Emotions. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980. 103-126. Sartre, J. P. Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology [1943]. Trans. Hazel E. Barnes. NY: Philosophical Library, 1984.

If love is a many-splendoured thing, then many of its splendours can be seen on toy shelves occupied by recent playthings such as Luv Buds, Love and Kisses, First Love, My Puppy Loves Me and Love-A-Lot Bear. As the meaning of childhood has changed, particularly over the last 150 years (Postman), toys have become a major means of demonstrating and defining love between generations, between genders and between humans and commodities. The widespread availability of commodities, all increasingly finetuned in their prescribed meanings under a regime of rampant advertising, has been a key factor in this development, which reached an apex in the final quarter of the last century. Major toy companies grew dramatically (Stern and Schoenhaus), details of toy-play became more intricately spelt out for children (Kline), and advertising leapt into bold new fronts, not the least being 30-minute toy advertisements masquerading as children’s television programs (Kunkel). Hand in hand with these developments came more sensual elaboration of characters and themes (Kline and Pentecost), in line with general moves towards “commodity aesthetics” (Haug). Selling not just toys but warm fuzzy feelings, toy companies took up slogans such as those surrounding Cabbage Patch Kids: “A special kind of love” and “Come open your arms to a Cabbage Patch Kid” (Blyskal; Jacob, Rodenhauser and Markert). Care Bears made similar claims, each in the set distinguished by heightened sensuality and segmenting the tasks previously performed by the simpler teddy bear. Thus, while semanticists and sociologists grapple with the meaning of the word “love” and the shifting nature of the concept, modern-day toy manufacturers have utilised a number of pertinent notions to underpin their marketing efforts. Such is the importance of marketing that even the basic design of toys can be a marketer’s initiative, giving rise to toys structured specifically around love themes. This is significant because mass marketed toys act as powerful media, transmitting messages, offering interpretations and interacting with other toys and commodities, particularly in terms of communicating the appeals and joys of consumerism on which their existence so heavily relies. Modern toys are not only surrounded by massive advertising and other related texts which leave little to the child’s imagination but, due to their “collaboration” with other commodities in cross-marketing ventures, are prominently positioned to advertise themselves and each other. Messages promoting mass marketed toys are interwoven into the presentation of each toy, its advertising package and other promotional media, including books, films, mall appearances and miniaturisation in children’s packaged fast-food meals. Such schemes highlight the sensuality and appeals of the toys and their themes. Of course children – and their parents – may create oppositional meanings from those intended. The messages are not closed and not always accepted wholesale or unquestioningly, but toys, like other media, often privilege particular readings favourable to the marketplace, as Ann du Cille has pointed out in relation to race and I have noted in relation to gender. Love fits snugly into the repertoire of appeals and joys, taking several different forms, determined mostly by each toy’s target audience and marketing profile. Four of the main variations on the love theme in toys are: Representational love Substitutional love Obligatory love Romantic love I will focus on closely linked representational and substitutional love. A toy that draws on straightforward representational love for its appeal to a parent or carer is typically marketed to suggest that toys are material proof of love, important links in a chain of bonding. At its most crass, the suggestion is that one can prove one’s love for a child by showering her or him with toys, though usually claims are more sophisticated, implying issues of quality and toy genre. In 1993 toy company Mattel was marketing its Disney toys as coming with the special offer of a book. An advertisement in the Australian women’s magazine New Idea spoke of the “magic” of Disney toys and how they would “enchant your child” but made even grander claims of the accompanying book: “It’s valued at $9.95…but you can’t put a price on the bond between you and your child when you read one of these Disney classic tales together.” The pressures of modern-day life are such that parents sometimes feel guilty that they cannot spend enough time with their children or do not know how to play with them or have little interest in doing so, in which case substitutional love can be a strong marketing claim to parents by toys. Among the major features of modern toys and their part in the relationship between parents and children, Brian Sutton-Smith pinpointed a contradiction (115, 127). Parents give their children toys to bond with them but also to simultaneously facilitate separation: “I give you this toy for you to play with…but now go away and play with it by yourself.” Toys not only serve the contradiction but also may offer reconciliation, pitching at a niche seeking substitutional love. Mattel was explicit about this with its promotion of the Heart Family, a set of dolls that on one hand stressed the importance of the traditional nuclear family while, on the other, offered carers a chance to opt out of the burdens of such rigid family organization (Langer). In a booklet entitled “Dear Mum and Dad, will you give me five minutes of your time?” distributed in Australia, Mattel claimed that major research had found that parents did not spend enough time with children and that children felt sad and angry about this. But there was a solution at hand: the purchase of the Heart Family, which incidentally came with an enormous range of accessories, each capable of chipping away at parental guilt though perhaps never quite assuaging it, for there always seemed to be one more accessory on the way. Most notable of these was the large, elegant, two-storeyed dollhouse, Loving Home. The dolls, their dollhouse, musical nursery, playground and umpteen other accessories were, it was insinuated by the Mattel booklet, a way of purchasing “values we all believe in. Sharing. Caring. Loving. Togetherness”. It seemed that the range of commodities could stand in for parents. More recently, Fisher-Price, now part of the Mattel group, has brought out a similar toy line, Loving Family, which hints even more strongly at links between family security and material possessions. Among Loving Family’s accessories are a multi-room family house with attached stable, a beach house, country home, townhouse, beauty salon and much more. While we cannot be sure that these suggested links and parental guilt in the absence of multiple toy gifts take root, toy companies, market analysts, toy advertising agencies and psychiatrists have noted trends that suggest they generally do. They have noted the impact on toy sales thought to be associated with “the high number of children with guilt-ridden working mothers, or from broken homes where parents are trying to buy their offspring’s affections” (McKee). Sometimes parents are keen to ensure the love and affection of playmates for their children. Toy companies also offer this type of substitutional love. Knickerbocker says of its wares: “Toys that love you back,” while among Galoob’s dolls is Mandi, My Favorite Friend. But what a gloomy picture of human companionship is painted by Phebe Bears’ slogan: “When there’s no one else to trust.” Space permits only the briefest comments on either obligatory love or romantic love; the key factor here is that both are strongly gendered. Boys need not concern themselves with either variety but girls’ toys abound which play a socialising role in respect to each. Toys contributing to a concept of love as obligation train girls for a motherhood role that ensures they will be emotionally as well as physically equipped. Kenner doll Baby Needs Me is only one of many such toys. The box of Baby Chris gift set claims the doll “needs your love and care” while Hush Little Baby “responds to your loving care” and “loves to be fed”. Matchbox’s Chubbles is claimed to “live on love”. If the weight of these obligations seems daunting to a girl, the Barbie doll genre offers her a carrot, suggesting that girls grow into women who are the recipients of love from men. A closer look reveals narcissism is surely the strongest type of love promoted by Barbie, but that is not explicit. Barbies such as Dream Date Barbie, Enchanted Evening Barbie and the numerous Barbie brides – even though Barbie is claimed to have never married – promote a straightforward and romanticised view of heterosexual relationships. In conclusion, each toy makes its own grab for attention, often promising love or one of its components, but usually working within a framework of short-term gratification, infatuation, obsession, the yearn to possess and elicitation of guilt – mostly unhealthy ingredients for relationships. While it may be hard to decide what love is, most would agree that, if it ideally has some sense of community responsibility and reciprocity about it, then the definitions offered by these toys fall short of the mark. Works Cited Blyskal, Jeff and Marie. “Media Doll – Born in a Cabbage Patch and Reared by a PR Man” The Quill, 73, November 1985: 32. du Cille, Ann. “Dyes and Dolls: Multicultural Barbie and the Merchandising of Difference” Differences 6(1) Spring 1994: 46-68. Haug, Wolfgang Fritz. Commodity Aesthetics: Ideology and Culture. New York: International General, 1987. Jacob, James E., Paul Rodenhauser and Ronald J. Markert. “The Benign Exploitation of Human Emotions: Adult Women and the Marketing of Cabbage Patch Kids” Journal of American Culture 10, Fall 1987: 61-71. Kline, Stephen, and Debra Pentecost, “The Characterization of Play: Marketing Children’s Toys” Play and Culture, 3(3), 1990: 235-255. Kline, Stephen, Out of the Garden: Toys, TV, and Children’s Culture in the Age of Marketing. London: Verso, 1993. Kunkel, Dale. “From a Raised Eyebrow to a Turned Back: The FCC and Children’s Product-Related Programming” Journal of Communication 38(4) Autumn 1988: 90-108. Langer, Beryl. “Commoditoys: Marketing Childhood” Arena no. 87, 1989: 29-37. McKee, Victoria. “All Stressed Out and Ready to Play” The Times (London), 19 December 1990: 17. Postman, Neil. The Disappearance of Childhood. New York: Dell, 1982. Stern, Sydney Ladensohn and Ted Schoenhaus. Toyland: The High-Stakes Game of the Toy Industry. Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1990. Sutton-Smith, Brian. Toys As Culture. New York: Garden Press, 1986. Varney, Wendy. “The Briar Around the Strawberry Patch: Toys, Women and Food” Women’s Studies International Forum no. 19, June 1996: 267-276. Varney, Wendy. “Of Men and Machines: Images of Masculinity in the Toybox” Feminist Studies 28(1) Spring 2002: 153-174. Citation reference for this article Substitute your date of access for Dn Month Year etc... MLA Style Varney, Wendy. "Love in Toytown" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5.6 (2002). Dn Month Year &lt; http://www.media-culture.org.au/0211/loveintotytown.php&gt;. APA Style Varney, W., (2002, Nov 20). Love in Toytown. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture, 5,(6). Retrieved Month Dn, Year, from http://www.media-culture.org.au/0211/loveintotytown.html

&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; Introduction Our home is the most intimate space we inhabit. It is the centre of daily existence – where our most significant relationships are nurtured – where we can impart a sense of self in both physical and psychological ways. To lose this place is overwhelming, the physical implications far-reaching and the psychological impact momentous. And yet, there is little research on what happens when home is lost as a consequence of relationship breakdown. This paper provides an insight into how the meaning of home changes for those going through separation and divorce. Focusing on heterosexual couples, my research reveals that intense feelings of grief and loss are expressed as individuals in a relationship dispute reflect on different aspects of home which are destroyed as a consequence of their partnership collapse. Attitudes to the physical dwelling often reflect the changing nature of the relationship as it descends into crisis. There is a symbolic element as well, which is mirrored in the ways that the physical space is used to negotiate power imbalances, re-establish another life, maintain continuity for children, and as a bargaining tool to redress intense anger and frustration. A sense of empowerment eventually develops as the loss of the relationship is accepted and life adjustments made. Home: A Place of Profound Symbolic and Physical Meaning Home is the familiar, taken-for-granted world where most of us are nurtured, comforted and loved. Home is where we can dream and hope, relax and be ourselves, laugh and cry. For the majority, home is a safe and welcoming place, although positive associations are not universal as some experience home as a negative, threatening and unloving place. Home transcends the domestic physical structure, encompassing cultural, symbolic and psychological significance, as well as extending to the neighbourhood, city, region and nation. Home provides a sense of belonging in the world and is a refuge from the dangers and uncertainty of the environment at large. It is the centre of important human relationships and their accompanying domestic roles, rituals and routines. Home is where the bonds between partners, child and parent, brother and sister are reinforced, along with extended family members and close friends Home is a symbol of personal identity and worth, where the individual can exercise a degree of power and autonomy denied elsewhere. Significant life events, both sad and happy, learning experiences, and celebrations of varying type and magnitude, all occur at home. These are the bases for our memories of home and its importance to us, serving to imbue the notion with a sense of permanence and continuity over time. Home represents the interface between public and private worlds; a place where cultural and societal norms are symbolically juxtaposed with expressions of individuality. There has been a range of research from “humanistic-literary” to “empirical-behavioural” perspectives showing that home has “complex, multiple but inter-related meanings” (Porteous and Smith 61). And while this intellectual endeavour covers a wide range of disciplines and perspectives (for good overviews see Blunt and Dowling; Mallett; Chapman and Hockey) research on the loss of home is more limited. Nevertheless, there are some notable exceptions. Recent work by Robinson on youth homelessness in Sydney illustrates that the loss of home affects the way in which it is desired and valued, and how its absence impacts on self identity and the grief process. Fried’s seminal and much older study also tells of intense grieving, similar to that associated with the death of a loved one, when residents were forcibly removed from their homes – places perceived as slums by the city planners. Analogous issues of sorrow are detailed by Porteous and Smith in their discussion of situations where individuals and entire communities have lost their homes. The emphasis in this moving text is on the power and lack of understanding displayed by those in authority. Power resides in the ability to destroy the home of others; disrespect is shown to those who are forced to relocate. There is no appreciation of the profound meanings of home which individuals, communities and nations hold. Similarly, Read presents a range of situations involving major disruptions to meanings of home. The impact on individuals as they struggle to deal with losing a house or neighbourhood through fire, flood, financial ruin or demolition for redevelopment, demonstrates the centrality of notions of home and the devastation that results when it is no longer. So too do the many moving personal stories of migrants who have left one nation to settle in another (Herne et al), as well as more academic explorations of the diaspora (Rapport and Dawson) and resettlement and migrant women home-making (Thompson). Meanings of home are also disrupted, changed and lost when families and partnerships fall apart. Given the prevalence of relationship breakdown in our society, it is surprising that very little work has focussed on the changed meanings of home that follow. Cooper Marcus examined disruptions in bonding with the home for those who had to leave or were left following the end of a marriage or partnership. “The home may have been shared for many years; patterns of territory, privacy, and personalisation established; and memories of the past enshrined in objects, rooms, furniture, and plants” (222). Gram-Hanssen and Bech-Danielsen explore both the practical issues of dissolving a home, as well as the emotional responses of those involved. Anthony provides further illumination, recommending design solutions to help better manage housing for families affected by divorce. She concludes her paper by declaring that “…the housing experiences of women, men, and children of divorce deserve much further study” (15). The paucity of research on what happens to meanings of home when a relationship breaks down was a key motivation for the current work – a qualitative study involving self-reflection of the experience of relationship loss; in-depth interviews with nine people (three men and six women from English speaking middle class backgrounds) who had experienced a major partnership breakdown; and focus group sessions and one in-depth interview with nine professional mediators (six women and three men) who work with separating couples. The mediators provided an informed overview of the way in which separating partners negotiate the loss of a shared home across the range of its physical and psychological meanings. Their reflections confirmed that the identified themes in the individual stories were typical of a range of experiences, feelings and actions they had encountered with different clients. Relationship Breakdown and Meanings of Home: What the Research Revealed The Symbolism of Home The interview, focus group and reflective data all confirmed the centrality of home and its multi-dimensional meanings. Different physical and symbolic elements were uncovered, mirroring theoretical schemas in the literature. These meanings go far beyond a physical space and the objects therein. They represent different aspects of the individual’s sense of self, well-being and identity, as well as their roles and feelings of belonging in a family and the broader social and cultural setting. Home was described as a place to be one’s self; where one can relax away from the rest of the world. Participants talked about home creating a sense of belonging and familiarity. This was achieved in many ways including physical renovation of the structure, working in the garden, enjoying the dwelling space and nurturing family relationships. As Helen said, …the home and children go together… I created belonging by creating a space which was mine, which was always decorated in a very particular way which is mine, and which was my place of belonging for me and my kin… that’s my home – it’s just absolutely essential to me. Home was described as an important physical place. This incorporated the dwelling as a structure and the special things that adorn it. Objects such as the marital bed, family photos, artifacts and pets were important symbols of home as a shared place. As the mediators pointed out, in the splitting up process, these often take on huge significance as a couple try to decide who has what. The division is typically the final acknowledgement that the relationship is over. The interviewees told me that home extended beyond the dwelling into the wider neighbourhood. This encompassed networks of friendships, including relationships with local residents, business people and service providers, to the physical places frequented such as parks, shops and cafes. These neighbourhood connections were severed when the relationship broke down. The data revealed home as a shared space where couples undertook daily tasks such as preparing meals together and doing the housework. There was pleasure in these routines which further reinforced home as a central aspect of the partnership, as Laura explained: But for the most part it [my marriage relationship] was very amicable… easy going, and it really was a whole thing of self-expression. And the house was very much about self-expression. Even cooking. We both loved to cook, we’d have lots of dinner parties… things like that. With the loss of the relationship the rhythm and comfort of everyday activities were shattered. Sharing was also linked to the financial aspects of home, with the payment of a mortgage representing a combined effort in working towards ownership of the physical dwelling. While the end of a relationship usually spelt severe financial difficulty, if not disaster, it also meant the loss of that shared commitment to build a secure financial future together extending into old age. The Deteriorating Relationship A decline in the physical qualities of the dwelling often accompanied the demise of the inter-personal relationship. As the partnership descended into crisis, the centrality of home and its importance across both physical and symbolic elements were increasingly threatened. This shift in meaning impacted on the loss experienced and the subsequent translation into conflict and grief. It [the house] was quite run down, but I think it kind of reflected our situation at the time which was fairly strained in terms of finances and lack of certainty about what was happening… tiny little damp house and no [friendship] network and no money and no stability, that’s how it felt. (Jill) Not only did home begin to symbolise a battleground, it started to take on lost dreams and hopes. For Helen, it embodied a force that was greater than the relationship she had shared with her husband. And that home became the symbol of our fight… a symbol of how closely glued we were together… And I think that’s why we had such enormous difficulty breaking up because the house actually held us together in some way … it was as though the house was a sort of a binding force of the relationship. The home as the centre of family relationships and personal identity was threatened by the deteriorating relationship. For Jill this represented ending her dream that being a wife and mother were what she needed to define her identity and purpose in life. I was very unhappy. I’d got these two babies, I’d got what I thought was quite a catch husband, who was doing very well… but yet somehow I felt very unhappy and insecure, very insecure, and I realised that the whole role I had carved out for myself wasn’t going to do it. The End of the Relationship: Disruption, Explosion, Grief and Loss While the relationship can be in crisis for many months, eventually there is a point where any hope of reconciliation disappears. For some separating couples this phase was heralded by a defining, shattering and shocking moment when it was clear that their relationship was over. Both physical and emotional violence were reported by my interviewees, including these comments from Helen. And so my parting from the home was actually very explosive. In fact it was the first time he ever hit me, and it was in the hitting of me that I left home… And while the final stage was not always dramatic or violent, there was a realisation that this was the end of the dream – the end of home. A deep sadness resulted, as evident in Greg’s story: I was there in the house by myself and I can remember the house was empty, all the furniture had been shifted out…I actually shed a few tears as I left the house because…the strongest feeling I had was that this was a house that had such a potential for me. It had such a potential for a good loving relationship and I just felt that it did represent, leaving then, represented the kind of the dashing of the hope that I had in that relationship. In some cases the end of the relationship was accompanied by feelings of guilt for shattering the home. In other cases, the home became a battleground as the partners fought over who was going to move out. …if they’re separated under the one roof and nobody’s moved out, but certainly in one person’s mind the marriage is over, and sometimes in both… there’s a big tussle about who’s going to move out and nobody wants to go… (Mediator) The loss of home could also bring with it a fear of never having another, as well as a rude awakening that the lost home was taken for granted. Cathy spoke of this terror. I became so obsessed with the notion that I’d never have a home again, and I remember thinking how could I have taken so much for granted? The end of a relationship was accompanied by a growing realisation of impending loss – the loss of familiar and well-loved surroundings. This encompassed the local neighbourhood, the dwelling space and the daily routine of married life. I can remember feeling, [and] knowing the relationship was coming to an end, and knowing that we were going to be selling the house and we were going to be splitting…, feeling quite sad walking down the street the last few times… realising I wouldn’t be doing this much longer. I was very conscious of the fact that I was… going up and down those railway station escalators for the last few times, and going down the street for the last few times, and suddenly…[I felt]… an impending sense of loss because I liked the neighbourhood… There was also a loss in the sense of not having a physical space which I kind of wanted to live in… [I] don’t like living in small units or rented rooms… I just prefer what I see as a proper house… so downsizing [my accommodation] just kind of makes the whole emotional situation worse …there was [also] a lack of domesticity, and the kind of sharing of meals and so on that does…make you feel some sort of warmth… (Greg) Transitions: Developing New Meanings of Home Once there was an acknowledgment – whether a defining moment or a gradual process – that the relationship was over, a transitional phase dawned when new meanings of home began to emerge. Of the people I interviewed, some stayed on in the once shared dwelling, and others moved out to occupy a new space. Both actions required physical and psychological adjustments which took time and energy, as well as a determination to adapt. Organising parenting arrangements, dividing possessions and tentative steps towards the establishment of another life characterised this phase. While individual stories revealed a variety of transitional approaches, there were unifying themes across the data. The transition could start by moving into a new space, which as one mediator explained, might not feel like home at all. …[one partner has] left and often left with very little, maybe just a suitcase of clothes, and so their sense of home is still the marital home or the family home, but they’re camping at a unit somewhere, or mother’s spare room or a relative’s backyard or garage or something… They’re truly homeless. For others, while setting up a new space was initially very hard and alien, with effort and time, it could take on a home-like quality, as Helen found. I did take things from the house. I took all the things I’d hidden in cupboards that were not used or second-hand… things that weren’t used everyday or on display or anything… things I’d take like if you were going camping… I wasn’t at home… it was awful…[but gradually]… I put things around… to make it homely for me and I would spend hours doing it, Just hours… paintings on the wall are important, and a stereo system and music was important. My books were important…and photographs became very important. Changes in tenure could also bring about profound feelings of loss. This was Keith’s experience: Well I’m renting now which is a bit difficult after having your own home… you feel a bit stifled in the fact that you can’t decorate it, and you can’t do things, or you can’t fix things… now I’m in a place which is drab and the colours are horrible and I don’t particularly like it and it’s awful. The experience of remaining in the home once one’s partner leaves is different to being the one to leave the formerly shared space. However, similar adaptation strategies were required as can be seen from Barbara’s experience: …so, I rearranged the lounge room and I rearranged the bedroom…I probably did that fairly promptly actually, so that I wasn’t walking back into the same mental images all the time…I’m now beginning to have that sense of wanting to put my mark on it, so I’ve started some painting and doing things… Laura talked about how she initially felt scared living on her own, despite occupying familiar surroundings, but this gradually changed as she altered the once shared physical space. Sally spoke about reclaiming the physical space on her own and through these deliberative actions, empowering herself as a single person. Those with dependent children struggled in different ways during this transition period. Individual needs to either move or reclaim the existing space were often subjugated to the requirements of their off-spring – where it might be best for them to live and with whom they should principally reside. I think the biggest issue is where the children are going to be. So whoever wants the children also wants the family home. And that’s where the pull and tug starts… it’s a big desire not to disrupt the children and to keep a smooth life for them. (Mediator) Finally, there was a sense of moving along. Meanings of home changed as the strength of the emotional attachment weakened and those involved began to see that another life was possible. The old meanings of home had to be confronted and prized apart, just as the connections between the partners were painstakingly severed, one by one. Sally likened this time consuming and arduous process to laboriously unpicking the threads of a tightly woven cloth. Empowerment: Meanings of Home to Mirror a New Life …I’ve realized too that I’m the person I am today because of that experience. (Sally) The stories of participants in this research ended with hope for the future. Perhaps this reflects my interviewees’ determination to build a new life following the loss of their relationship, most having the personal resources to work through their loss, grief and conflict. This is not however, always the case. Divorce can lead to long lasting feelings of failure, disappointment and a sense that one has “an inability to love or care…” (Ambrose 87). However, “with acceptance of the separation many come to see the break-up as having been beneficial and report feeling they have an improved quality of life” (88). This positive stance is mirrored in my mediator focus group data and other literature (for example, Cooper Marcus 222-238). Out of the painful loss of home emerges a re-evaluation of one’s priorities and a revitalized sense of self, as illustrated by Barbara’s words below. That’s come out of the separation, suddenly going, ‘Oh, hang on, I can do what I want to do, when I want to do it’. It’s quite nice really… I’ve decided [to] start pursuing a few of the things I always wanted to do, so I’m using a bit of the space [in the house] to study… I’m doing a lot of stuff that nurtures me and my interest and my space… Feelings of liberation were entwined with meanings of home as spaces were decorated afresh, and in some cases, a true home founded for the first time. [since the end of the relationship]… I actually see my space differently, I want less around me, I’ve been really clearing out things, throwing things out, clearing cupboards… kind of feung shui-ing every corner and just really keeping it clear and clean… I’ve painted the whole house. It was like it needed a fresh coat of something over it… (Laura) Empowerment embodied lessons learnt and in some cases, a more cautious redefining of home. Barbara put it this way: I’m really scared of losing what I’ve now got [my home on my own] and that sense of independence… maybe I will not go into a relationship because I don’t want to put that at risk. Finally, meanings of home took on different dimensions that reflected the new life and hope it engendered. …it’s very interesting to me to be in a house now that is a very solid, square, double brick house… [I feel] that it’s much more representative of who I am now… the solidness is very much me… I feel as though I inhabit my home more now… I have much more sense of peace around my home now than I did then in the previous house… it’s the space where I feel extremely comfortable… a space to meditate on… I’m home – I can now be myself… (Helen) I don’t know whether… [my meaning of home] is actually a physical structure any more…Now it’s come more into … surrounding myself with things that I love, like you know bits and pieces that you can take, your photographs and your pet… it’s really much more about being happy I think, and being happy in a space with somebody that you love, rather than living in a box like a prison, with somebody that you really despise (Keith) Conclusion … the physical moving out from my own home was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my entire life. (Jane) The trauma of divorce is a crisis that occurs in many of our lives, and one which often triggers a profound dislocation in person-dwelling relations. (Cooper Marcus 222) This paper has presented insights into the ways in which multi-dimensional meanings of home change when an intimate familial relationship breaks down. The nature and degree of the impacts vary from one individual to another, as do the ways in which the identifiable stages of relationship breakdown play out in different partnership situations. Nevertheless, this research revealed a transformative journey – from the devastation of the initial loss to an eventual redefining of home across its symbolic, psychological and physical constructs. References Ambrose, Peter J. Surviving Divorce: Men beyond Marriage. Sussex: Wheatsheaf Books, 1983. Anthony, Kathryn H. “Bitter Homes and Gardens: The Meanings of Home to Families of Divorce.” Journal of Architectural and Planning Research 14.1 (1997): 1-19. Blunt, Alison, and Robyn Dowling. Home. London: Routledge, 2006. Chapman, Tony, and Jenny Hockey. Ideal Homes? Social Change and Domestic Life. London: Routledge, 1999. Cooper Marcus, Clare. House as a Mirror of Self: Exploring the Deeper Meaning of Home. Berkeley: Conari Press, 1995. Fried, Marc. “Grieving for a Lost Home.” In L. Duhl, ed. The Urban Condition: People and Policy in the Metropolis. New York: Basic Books, 1963. 151-171. Gram-Hanssen, Kirsten, and Claus Bech-Danielsen. “Home Dissolution – What Happens after Separating?” Paper presented at the European Network for Housing Research, ENHR International Housing Conference, Ljubljana, Slovenia, 2006. Herne, Karen, Joanne Travaglia, and Elizabeth Weiss, eds. Who Do You Think You Are? Second Generation Immigrant Women in Australia. Sydney: Women’s Redress Press, 1992. Mallett, Shelley. “Understanding Home: A Critical Review of the Literature.” The Sociological Review 52.1 (2004): 62-89. Porteous, Douglas J., and Sandra E. Smith. Domicide: The Global Destruction of Home. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queens UP, 2001. Rapport, Nigel, and Andrew Dawson, eds. Migrants of Identity: Perceptions of Home in a World of Movement. New York: Oxford, 1998. Read, Peter. Returning to Nothing: The Meaning of Lost Places. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996. Robinson, Catherine. “‘I Think Home Is More than a Building’: Young Home(less) People on the Cusp of Home, Self and Something Else.” Urban Policy and Research 20.1 (2002): 27–38. Robinson, Catherine. “Grieving Home.” Social and Cultural Geography 6.1 (2005): 47–60. Thompson, Susan. “Suburbs of Opportunity: The Power of Home for Migrant Women.” In K. Gibson and S. Watson, eds. Metropolis Now: Planning and the Urban in Contemporary Australia. Australia: Pluto Press, 1994. 33-45. &#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; Citation reference for this article&#x0D; &#x0D; MLA Style&#x0D; Thompson, Susan. "Home and Loss: Renegotiating Meanings of Home in the Wake of Relationship Breakdown." M/C Journal 10.4 (2007). echo date('d M. Y'); ?&gt; &lt;http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0708/07-thompson.php&gt;. APA Style&#x0D; Thompson, S. (Aug. 2007) "Home and Loss: Renegotiating Meanings of Home in the Wake of Relationship Breakdown," M/C Journal, 10(4). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?&gt; from &lt;http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0708/07-thompson.php&gt;. &#x0D;

&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; This paper will discuss the way in which the creative component of my thesis Hannah’s Place uses a style of neo-historical fiction to find ‘good’ narratives in (once) ‘bad’ women, keeping with the theme, here paraphrased as:&#x0D; &#x0D; The work of any researcher in the humanities is to…challenge what is simply thought of as bad or good, to complicate essentialist categories and question passively accepted thinking. &#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; As a way of expanding this statement, I would like to begin by considering the following quote from Barthes on the nature of research. I believe he identifies the type of research that I have been involved with as a PhD candidate producing a ‘creative’ thesis in the field of Communications.&#x0D; &#x0D; What is a piece of research? To find out, we would need to have some idea of what a ‘result’ is. What is it that one finds? What is it one wants to find? What is missing? In what axiomatic field will the fact isolated, the meaning brought out, the statistical discovery be placed? No doubt it depends each time on the particular science approached, but from the moment a piece of research concerns the text (and the text extends very much further than the literary work) the research itself becomes text, production: to it, any ‘result’ is literally im-pertinent. Research is then the name which prudently, under the constraint of certain social conditions, we give to the activity of writing: research here moves on the side of writing, is an adventure of the signifier. (Barthes 198)&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; My thesis sits within the theoretical framework of postmodern literature as a new form of the genre that has been termed ‘historical fiction’. Although the novel breaks away from and challenges the concept of the traditional ‘saga’ style of narrative, or ‘grand narrative’ within historical fiction, it is no less concerned with events of the past and the idea of past experience. It departs from traditional historical fiction in that it foregrounds not only an imagined fictional past world created when the novel is read, but also the actual archival documents, the pieces of text from the past from which traditional history is made, and which here have been used to create that world–‘sparking points’ for the fictional narrative. These archival documents are used within the work as intertextual elements that frame, and, in turn, are framed by the transworld characters’ homodiegetic narrations.&#x0D; &#x0D; The term ‘transworld character’ has been attributed to Umberto Eco and refers to any real world personages found within a fictional text. Eco defines it as the ‘identity of a given individual through worlds (transworld identity)…where the possible world is a possible state of affairs expressed by a set of relevant propositions [either true or untrue which] outlines a set of possible individuals along with their properties’ (219). Umberto Eco also considers that a problem of transworld identity is ‘to single out something as persistent through alternative states of affairs’ (230). In Postmodernist Fiction, Brian McHale also puts forward a number of definitions for ‘transworld identity’. For my purposes, I take it to mean both that defined by Eco but also the literary device, as defined by McHale, of ‘borrowing a character from another text’ (57). It is McHale who elaborates on the concept as it relates to historical fiction when he states:&#x0D; &#x0D; All historical novels, even the most traditional, typically involve some violation of ontological boundaries. For instance they often claim ‘transworld identity’ between characters in their projected worlds and real-world historical figures (16-17).&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; Interestingly for the type of fiction that I am attempting to write, McHale also takes the idea into another area when he discusses the ontological levels of the historical dimension that transworld identities may undergo.&#x0D; &#x0D; Entities can change their ontological status in the course of history, in effect migrating from one ontological realm or level to another. For instance, real world entities and happenings can undergo ‘mythification’, moving from the profane realm to the realm of the sacred (36).&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; For transworld identities, such as those within my novel, this may mean a change in status between the past, where they were stereotyped and categorised as ‘bad’ in contemporary newspapers (my intertext elements), to something in the present approaching ‘good’, or at least a more rounded female identity within a fictional world.&#x0D; &#x0D; The introduced textual elements which I foreground in my novel are those things most often hidden from view within the mimetic and hermeneutic worlds of traditional historical fiction. The sources re-textualised within my novel are both ‘real’ items from our past, and representations and interpretations of past events. The female transworld characters’ stories in this novel are imaginative re-interpretations. Therefore, both the fictional stories, as well as their sources, are textual interpretations of prior events.&#x0D; &#x0D; In this way, the novel plays with the idea of historical ‘fact’ and historical ‘fiction’. It blurs their boundaries. It gives textual equality to each in order to bring a form of textual agency to those marginalised groups defined by PF Bradley as the ‘host of jarring witnesses, [of history] a chaos of disjoined and discrepant narrations’ (Bradley in Holton 11): In the past in Australia these were lower class women, Aboriginals, the Irish, the illiterate, and poor agricultural immigrants whose labour was excess to Britain’s needs.&#x0D; &#x0D; Hannah’s Place – A Brief Synopsis&#x0D; &#x0D; Six individual women’s stories, embedded in or ‘framed’ by a fictional topographic artist’s journal, recount ‘real’ events from Australia’s colonial past. The journal is set in 1845; a few years after convict transportation to Australia’s eastern states ceased, and the year of the first art exhibition held in the colony. That same year, Leichhardt’s expedition arrived at Port Essington in Australia’s far north, after 12 months inland exploration, while in the far south the immigrant ship Cataraqui was wrecked one day short of arrival at Melbourne’s Port Phillip with the drowning of all but one of the 369 immigrants and 38 of the 46 sailors on board. Each chapter title takes the form of the title of a topographic sketch as a way of placing the text ‘visually’ within the artist’s journal narrative. The six women’s stories are:&#x0D; &#x0D; New South Wales at Last (Woman on a Boat): A woman arrives with a sick toddler to tent accommodation for poor immigrants in Sydney, after a three month sea voyage and the shipboard birth, death, and burial at sea of her baby daughter.&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; Yarramundi Homestead, as Seen from the East: An ill-treated Irish servant girl on a squatter’s run awaits the arrival of her fiancée, travelling on board the immigrant ship Cataraqui.&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; In the Vale of Hartley: In the Blue Mountains, an emancipist sawyer who previously murdered three people, violently beats to death his lover, Caroline Collitts, the seventeen-year-old sister of Maria, his fifteen-year-old wife.&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; She Being Dead Yet Speaketh: In Goulburn, Annie Brownlow, a pretty 24-year-old mother of three is executed by a convict executioner for the accidental ‘murder’, while drunk, of her adulterous husband.&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; The Eldest Daughter: The isolated wife of a small settler gives birth, assisted by Lottie, her eldest daughter, and Merrung, an Aboriginal midwife.&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; On Wednesday Last, at Mr Ley’s Coach and Horses Hotel: In Bathurst, a vagrant alcoholic, Hannah Simpson, dies on the floor of a dodgy boarding house after a night and a day of falling into fits and ranting about her lifetime of 30 years migration.&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; Historiographic Metafiction&#x0D; &#x0D; Has been defined by Linda Hutcheon as ‘Fiction which keeps distinct its formal auto-representation from its historical context and in so doing problematises the very possibility of historical knowledge… There is no reconciliation, no dialectic…just unresolved contradiction’ (106). Unresolved contradiction is one of the themes that surfaces in my novel because of the juxtaposition of archival documents (past text ‘facts’) alongside fictional narrative.&#x0D; &#x0D; Historiographic metafiction can usefully be employed as a means of challenging prior patriarchal narratives written about marginalised women. It allows the freedom to create a space for a new understanding of silenced women’s lives.&#x0D; &#x0D; My novel seeks to illuminate and problematise the previously ‘seamless’ genre of hical fiction by the use of (narrative) techniques such as: collage and juxtaposition, intertextuality, framing, embedded narrative, linked stories, and footnote intertext of archival material. Juxtaposition of the fiction against elements from prior non-fiction texts, clearly enunciated as being those same actual historical sources upon which the fiction is based, reinforces this novel as a work of fiction. Yet this strategy also reminds us that the historical narrative created is provisional, residing within the fictional text and in the gaps between the fictional text and the non-fictional intertext. At the same time, the clear narrativity, the suspenseful and sensationalised text of the archival non-fiction, brings them into question because of their place alongside the fiction.&#x0D; &#x0D; A reading of the novel questions the truthfulness or degree of reliability of past textual ‘facts’ as accurate records of real women’s life events. It does this by the use of a parallel narrative, which articulates characters whose moments of ‘breaking frame’ challenge those same past texts. Their ‘fiction’ as characters is reinforced by their existence as ‘objects’ of narration within the archival texts. Both the archival texts and the fiction can be seen as ‘unreliable’.&#x0D; &#x0D; The novel uses ex-centric transworld characters and embedded intertextual ‘fragments’ to create a covert self-reflexivity. It also confuses and disrupts narrative temporality and linearity of plot in two ways. It juxtaposes ‘real’ (intertextual element) dates alongside conflicting or unknown periods of time from the fictional narrative; and, within the artist’s journal, it has a minimal use of expected temporal ‘signposts’. These ‘signposts’ of year dates, months, or days of the week are those things that would be most expected in an authentic travel narrative.&#x0D; &#x0D; In this way, the women’s stories subvert the idea, inherent in previous forms of ‘historical’ fiction, of a single point of view or ‘take’ on history that one or two main characters may hold. The use of intertext results in a continued restating of multiple, conflicting (gender, race, and class) points of view. Ultimately no one ‘correct’ reading of the past gains in supremacy over any other. This narrative construct rearticulates the idea that the past, as does the present, comprises different points of view, not all of which conform to the ‘correct’ view created by the political, social and economic ‘factors’ dominant at the time those events happen. For colonial Australia, this single point of view gave us the myth of heroic (white male) pioneers and positioned women such as some of those within my fiction as ‘bad’.&#x0D; &#x0D; The fictional text challenges that of the male ‘gaze’, which constructed these women as ‘objects’. Examples of this from the newspaper articles are:&#x0D; &#x0D; A younger sister of Caroline Collit, married John Walsh, the convict at present under sentence of death in Bathurst gaol, and, it appears, continued to live with him up till the time of her sister’s murder; but she, as well as her sister Caroline, since the trial, have been ascertained to have borne very loose characters, which is fully established by the fact, that both before and after Walsh had married the younger sister, Caroline cohabited with him and had in fact been for a considerable time living with him, under the same roof with her sister, and in a state of separation from her own husband (Collit). Sydney Morning Herald, April 27, 1842, The Mount Victoria Murder.&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; About twelve months after her marriage, her mother who was a notorious drunkard hanged herself in her own house… Sydney Morning Herald, April 27, 1842, The Mount Victoria Murder.&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; And when we further reflect that the perpetrator of that deed of blood was a woman our horror is, if possible, much augmented. Yes! A woman and one who ought to have been in as much as the means were assuredly in the power of her family-an ornament to her sex and station. She has been cut off in the midst of her days by the hands of the common executioner. And to add to our distress at this sad event she to whose tragic end I am referring was a wife and a mother. It was her hand which struck the blow that rendered her children orphans and brought her to an ignominious end… The Goulburn Herald, October 20, 1855, Funeral sermon on Mary Ann Brownlow.&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; His wife had been drinking and created an altercation on account of his having sold [her] lease; she asked him to drink, but he refused, when she replied “You can go and drink with your fancywoman”. She came after him as he was going away and stabbed him…..she did it from jealousy, although he had never given her any cause for jealousy. The Goulburn Herald, Saturday, September 15, 1855, Tuesday, September 11, Wilful Murder.&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; She was always most obedient and quiet in her conduct, and her melancholy winning manners soon procured her the sympathy of all who came in contact with her. She became deeply impressed with the sinfulness of her previous life… The Goulburn Herald, October 13, 1855, Execution of Mary Ann Brownlow.&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; [Police] had known the deceased who was a confirmed drunkard and an abandoned woman without any home or place of abode; did not believe she had any proper means of support…The Bathurst Times, November 1871.&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; It is the oppositional and strong narrative ‘voice’ that elicits sympathies for and with the women’s situations. The fictional narratives were written to challenge unsympathetic pre-existing narratives found within the archival intertexts. This male ‘voice’ was one that narrated and positioned women such that they adhered to pre-existing notions of morality; what it meant to be a ‘good’ woman (like Mary Ann Brownlow, reformed in gaol but still sentenced to death) or a ‘bad’ woman (Mary Ann again as the murdering drunken vengeful wife, stabbing her husband in a jealous rage).&#x0D; &#x0D; ‘Reading between the lines’ of history in this way, creating fictional stories and juxtaposing them against the non-fiction prior articulations of those same events, is an opportunity to make use of narrative structure in order to destabilise established constructs of our colonial past. For example, the trope of Australia’s colonial settler women as exampled in the notion of Anne Summers of colonial women as either God’s police or damned whores. ‘A Particularly rigid dualistic notion of women’s function in colonial society was embodied in two stereotypes….that women are either good [God’s police] or evil [Damned whores]’ (67).&#x0D; &#x0D; With this dualism in mind, it is also useful here to consider the assumption made by Veeser in laying the ground work for New Historicism, that ‘no discourse imaginative or archival, gives access to unchanging truths or expresses unalterable human nature’ (2).&#x0D; &#x0D; In a discussion of the ideas of Brian McHale, Middleton and Woods acknowledge McHale’s point of view that readers do recognise the degree to which all knowledge of the past is a construction. They make the claim that ‘the postmodern novelist answers that sense of dislocation and loss…by wrapping ruins of earlier textualities around the narrative’ (66). This to my mind is a call for the type of intertextuality that I have attempted in my thesis. The senses of dislocation and loss found when we attempt to narrativise history are embodied in the structure of the creative component of my thesis.&#x0D; &#x0D; Yet it could also be argued that the cultural complexity of colonial Australia, with women as the subjugated ‘other’ of a disempowered voice has only been constructed by and from within the present. The ‘real’ women from whose lives these stories are imagined could not have perceived their lives within the frames (class, gender, post coloniality) that we now understand in the same way that we as educated westerners cannot totally perceive a tribal culture’s view of the cosmos as a real ‘fact’.&#x0D; &#x0D; However, a fictional re-articulation of historical ‘facts’, using a framework of postmodern neo-historical fiction, allows archival documents to be understood as the traces of women to whom those documented facts once referred. The archival record becomes once again a thing that describes a world of women. It is within these archival micro-histories of illiterate lower-class women that we find shards of our hidden past. By fictionally imagining a possible narrative of their lives we, as the author/reader nexus which creates the image of who these transworld characters were, allow for things that existed in the past as possibility. The fictionalised stories, based on fragments of ‘facts’ from the past, are a way of invoking what could have once existed. In this way the stories partake of the Bernstein and Morson concept of ‘sideshadowing’.&#x0D; &#x0D; Sideshadowing admits, in addition to actualities and impossibilities, a middle realm of real possibilities that could have happened even if they did not. Things could have been different from the way they were, there are real alternatives to the present we know, and the future admits of various possibilities… sideshadowing deepens our sense of the openness of time. It has profound implications for our understanding of history and of our own lives (Morson 6).&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; The possibilities that sideshadowing their lives invokes in these stories ‘alters the way that we think about earlier events and the narrative models used to describe them’ (Morson 7). We alter our view of the women, as initially described in the archival record, because we now perceive the narrative through which these events and therefore ‘lives’ of the women were written, as merely ‘one possibility’ of many that may have occurred.&#x0D; &#x0D; Sideshadowing alternate possibilities gives us a way out of that patriarchal hegemony into a more multi-dimensional and non-linear view of female lives in 19th Century Australia. Sideshadowing allows for the ‘non-closure’ within female narratives that these fragments of women’s lives represent.&#x0D; &#x0D; It is this which is at the core of the novel—an historiographic metafictional challenging by the fictional ‘voices’ of female transworld characters. In this work, they narrate from a female perspective the might-have-been alternative of that previously considered as an historical, legitimate account of the past.&#x0D; &#x0D; Barthes and Bakhtin&#x0D; &#x0D; Readers of this type of historiographic metafiction have the freedom to recreate an historical fictional world. By virtue of the use of self-reflexivity and intertext they participate in a fictional world constructed by themselves from the author(s) of the text(s) and the intertext, and the original women’s voices used as quotations by the intertext’s (male) author. This world is based upon their construction of a past created from the author’s research, the author’s subjectivity (from within and by disciplinary discourse), by the author(s) choice of ‘signifiers’ and the meanings that these choices create within the reader’s subjectivity (itself formed out of their individual cultural and social milieu). This idea echoes Barthes concept of the ‘death of the author’, such that:&#x0D; &#x0D; As soon as a fact is narrated no longer with a view to acting directly on reality but intransitively, that is to say, finally outside of any function other than that of the very practice of the symbol itself; this disconnection occurs, the voice loses its origin, the author enters into his own death, writing begins. (142)&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; When entering into the world created by this style of historical fiction the reader also enters into a world of previous ‘texts’ (or intertexts) and the multitude of voices inherent in them. This is the Bakhtinian concept of heteroglossia, that ‘every utterance contains within it the trace of other utterances, both in the past and in the future’ (263).&#x0D; &#x0D; The narrative formed thus becomes one of multiple ‘truths’ and therefore multiple histories. Once written as ‘bad’, the women are now perceived as ‘good’ characters and the ‘bad’ events that occurred around them and to them make up ‘good’ elements of plot, structure, characterisation and voice for a fictionalised version of a past possibility. Bad women make good reading.&#x0D; &#x0D; Conclusion&#x0D; &#x0D; This type of narrative structure allows for the limits of the silenced ‘voice’ of the past, and therefore an understanding of marginalised groups within hegemonic grand narratives, to be approached. It seems to me no surprise that neo-historical fiction is used more when the subjects written about are members of marginalised groups. Silenced voices need to be heard.&#x0D; &#x0D; Because these women left no written account of their experiences, and because we can never experience the society within which their identities were formed, we will never know their ‘identity’ as they experienced it. Fictional self-narrated stories of transworld characters allows for a transformation of the women away from an identity created by the moralising, stereotyped descriptions in the newspapers towards a more fully developed sense of female identity. Third-hand male accounts written for the (then) newspaper readers consumption (and for us as occupiers of the ‘future’) are a construct of one possible identity only. They do not reflect the women’s reality. Adding another fictional ‘identity’ through an imagined self-narrated account deconstructs that limited ‘identity’ formed through the male ‘gaze’. It does so because of the ability of fiction to allow the reader to create a fictional world which can be experienced imaginatively and from within their own subjectivity.&#x0D; &#x0D; Rather than something passively recorded, literature offers history as a permanent reactivation of the past in a critique of the present, and at the level of content offers a textual anamnesis for the hitherto ignored, unacknowledged or repressed pasts marginalised by the dominant histories. (Middleton and Woods 77)&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; References&#x0D; &#x0D; Bakhtin, Mikhail. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. Trans. Michael Holquist. Ed. Caryl Emerson. Austin: U of Texas P, 1981. Barthes, Roland, and Stephen Heath, eds. Image, Music, Text. New York: Hill and Wang, 1977. Eco, Umberto. The Role of the Reader: Explorations in the Semiotics of Texts. Bloomington and London: Indiana UP, 1979. Holton, Robert. Jarring Witnesses: Modern Fiction and the Representation of History. New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1994. Hutcheon, Linda. A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction. New York: Routledge, 1988. McHale, Brian. Postmodernist Fiction. New York and London: Methuen, 1987. Middleton, Peter, and Tim Woods. Literatures of Memory: History, Time and Space in Postwar Writing. Manchester and New York: Manchester UP, 2000. Morson, Gary Saul. Narrative and Freedom: The Shadows of Time. New Haven: Yale UP, 1994. Summers, Anne. Damned Whores and God’s Police. Ringwood Vic: Penguin Books, 1994. Veeser, H. Aram. The New Historicism. London: Routledge, 1989.&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; Citation reference for this article&#x0D; &#x0D; MLA Style&#x0D; Lowes, Elanna Herbert. "Transgressive Women, Transworld Women: The Once ‘Bad’ Can Make ‘Good’ Narratives." M/C Journal 8.1 (2005). echo date('d M. Y'); ?&gt; &lt;http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0502/04-herbertlowes.php&gt;. APA Style&#x0D; Lowes, E. (Feb. 2005) "Transgressive Women, Transworld Women: The Once ‘Bad’ Can Make ‘Good’ Narratives," M/C Journal, 8(1). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?&gt; from &lt;http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0502/04-herbertlowes.php&gt;. &#x0D;