Artículos de revistas sobre el tema "Forced Outage Rate"

Maintaining high facility reliability in power plants is essential to secure long-term electricity supply. This paper applies the survival analysis to the actual unit level power generation data in Korea to estimate the relationship between facility reliability and the preventive maintenance. Duration of generators between forced outages is used to measure plant reliability. the empirical analysis shows that preventive maintenance cost, planned outage for maintenance, use rate, and reserve margin lead to the longer duration of generators and, in turn, the lower forced outage rates. We uncover that the marginal benefit of the preventive maintenance cost is decreasing at an increasing rate. It indicates that the marginal benefit of the “current” maintenance cost is minimal. Results in the paper imply that power plants in Korea might be spending unnecessarily high maintenance costs considering already having world’s lowest forced outage rates.

The availability (readiness) of a Steam Power Plant (PLTU) is an important factor, since one income from a Power Plant is based on its readiness reflected in the EAF (Equivalent Availibility Factor). Factor opposite to Availibility is Outage. Outage occurs when a unit is out of sync to a network and not in a Reserve Shutdown state.

An important factor affecting the integration of large-scale wind power is whether there is sufficient peaking capacity. If the peaking capacity is insufficient, we cannot make full use of wind power. Therefore it’s of great significance to study the peaking gap of the power system. This paper defined the peak-load regulating demand continuous curve and proposed the calculation method of the peaking gap based on non-sequential Monte Carlo simulation method. Taking wind power’s random fluctuation and the unit forced outage rate into consideration, the calculation method effectively reflect the peaking capacity needs of the system, which is helpful for determining the appropriate wind power integration.

ABSTRAKKeandalan tenaga listrik didefinisikan sebagai peluang dari suatu peralatan untuk beroperasi sesuai dengan fungsinya dalam suatu selang waktu tertentu dan dalam suatu kondisi operasi tertentu, sehingga dapat memenuhi kebutuhan listrik konsumen. Keandalan ketersediaan daya suatu sistem pembangkit dapat diketahui berdasarkan indeks keandalan yaitu LOLP (Loss of Load Probability) dan UE (Unserved Energy). Penelitian dilakukan dengan merancang 2 model konfigurasi sistem pembangkit berdasarkan nilai beban puncak, kemudian mengambil data laju kegagalan dan laju perbaikan dari masing-masing komponen sistem pembangkit yang selanjutnya dipakai untuk menghitung nilai FOR (Forced Outage Rate). Nilai FOR yang telah diperoleh digunakan untuk menghitung nilai indeks keandalan menggunakan metode segmentasi. Konfigurasi sistem pembangkit skenario ke-2 memiliki nilai indeks keandalan lebih kecil dibandingkan dengan konfigurasi sistem pembangkit skenario ke-1 yaitu dengan LOLP sebesar 0,0000088248 hari/tahun dan UE sebesar 0,0584 KWH/tahun dengan total perkiraan biaya pada konfigurasi ini sebesar Rp 587.567.108,00.Kata kunci: Keandalan, metode segmentasi, LOLP, FOR, UEABSTRACTThe reliability of electric power is defined as the chance of an apparatus to operate in accordance with its function in a certain interval of time and in a certain operating conditions, so as to meet the electricity needs of consumers. The reliability of a power generation system availability can be determined based on the reliability index is LOLP (Loss of Load Probability) and UE (Unserved Energy). The study was conducted by designing two models generating system configuration based on the value of the peak load, and then retrieve the data failure rate and the rate of repair of the individual components of the next generation system which is used to calculate the value FOR (Forced Outage Rate). FOR Value that has been obtained is used to calculate the reliability index using segmentation method. Generating system configuration scenarios to-2 has a reliability index value is smaller than the generating system configuration scenarios to-1 that is by LOLP of 0.0000088248 days / year and the EU amounted to 0.0584 KWH / year with a total estimated cost in this configuration Rp 587,567,108.00.Keywords: Reliability, segmentation method, LOLP, FOR, UE

Abstract A novel reliability-based approach has been developed for multi-state engine systems. Firstly, the output power of the engine is discretized and modeled as a discrete-state continuous-time Markov random process. Secondly, the multi-state Markov model is established. According to the observed data, the transition intensity is determined. Thirdly, the proposed method is extended to compute the forced outage rate and the expected engine capacity deficiency based on time response. The proposed method can therefore be used for forecasting and monitoring the reliability of the multi-state engine utilizing time-domain response data. It is illustrated that the proposed method is practicable, feasible and gives reasonable prediction which conforms to the engineering practice.

The required level of operating reserve to be maintained by an electric power system can be determined by deterministic and probabilistic techniques. The power system parameters such as failure and repair rates used in the probabilistic models basically come from historical operation records, which are necessarily limited and subject to errors. There is considerable data uncertainty that exists in these parameters. This paper presents the application of fuzzy sets, which is recognized as a potential tool to include data uncertainty in normal calculations, for evaluation of spinning reserve is illustrated. In conventional reliability evaluation method, loads are deterministic values. The failure rate of the generating units is represented as triangular fuzzy number. The fuzzy set is used to represent consumer's demand, which is the deterministic load, as fuzzy loads. The concept is extended for evaluating the fuzzy based well-being indices using different criterion for the generating system. The fz-forced outage rate (FOR) and fz-availability of a unit in service are evaluated using fuzzy Sets and fuzzy interval arithmetic to find the fuzzy well-being states, which are designated as healthy, marginal and at risk. The concept is illustrated for a Roy Billinton's Test System (RBTS) and IEEE RTS. Impact of outage level and deterministic criteria is also illustrated. The proposed method can be applied to the operation of deregulated power system in which operating reserve is served as an important issue with respect to stable and reliable operation.

Many options can be effectively used to meet the future power needs of a country in ways which would be more economically viable, environmentally sound, and socially just. A least-cost generation expansion planning study is conducted to find the economic feasibility of large scale integration of wind farms in the main interconnected transmission system of Oman. The generation expansion planning software used is WASP which is restricted in its ability to model intermittent nature of wind. Therefore, a wind turbine is modeled as a thermal plant with high forced outage rate related to its capacity factor. The result of the study has shown that wind turbines are economically viable option in the overall least-cost generation expansion plan for the Main Interconnected System of Oman.

The major aim of any power system is the continuous provision of safe, quality and reliable electric power to the customers. One of the greatest challenges to meeting up with this goal is the failure of components in the system. In this article, the frequency of outages caused by failure of different components in the distribution system was investigated to ascertain the ones that are more susceptible to failure by comparing their proportions in the entire failure events. The outage data obtained from Irrua Transmission Station comprising Ehor, Ubiaja and Uzebba 33kV feeders were analyzed using Microsoft Excel while the hazard rates were measured using the failure rate index. Findings revealed that 93.77% of all the forced outages in the distribution subsystem in the power sector are caused by the high exposure rate of the bare aluminum conductors used in the construction of the various overhead feeders. Subsequently, the yearly failure rates of aluminum conductors, cross arms, relay, insulators, fuses, electric poles, breakers, transformers, isolators, cables lightning surge arresters were found to be 836.0, 17.5, 17.0, 10.3, 4.3, 2.0, 1.5, 1.3, 1.0, 0.5 and 0.3 respectively in the studied network. A comparison between this study and a related work showed that the rural feeders are more prone to faults as compared to the ones in the urban areas. It was therefore recommended that regular tree trimming along the network corridor should be done. Proper conductor size should be used in every subsequent construction and every segment with undersized conductor should be replaced with the appropriate size. This study will help the power system engineers in the design, construction, maintenance and operation of the distribution power system for optimum and improved system performance.

Regular transmission maintenance is important to keep the infrastructure resilient and reliable. Delays providing on-time maintenance increase the forced outage rate of those assets, causing unexpected changes in the operating conditions and even catastrophic consequences, such as local blackouts. The current process of maintenance schedule is based on the transmission owners’ choice, with the final decision of system operator about the reliability. The requests are examined on a first-come, first-served basis, which means a regular maintenance request may be rejected, delaying the tasks that should be performed. To incorporate optimization knowledge into the transmission maintenance schedule, this study focuses on the co-optimization of maintenance scheduling and the production cost minimization. The mathematical model co-optimizes generation unit commitment and line maintenance scheduling while maintaining N-1 reliability criterion. Three case studies focusing on reliability, renewable energy delivery, and service efficiency are conducted leading up to 4% production cost savings as compared to the business-as-usual approach.

Numerous studies have been conducted on competitive intelligence and its impact on business performance. Most of companies agreed that competitive intelligence is a critical element of business and corporate strategy to increase income hence investment in competitive intelligence considered to be profitable. This research is aimed to expand the knowledge boundary by investigating the application of Competitive Intelligence in electrical power plant company. Twenty companies were selected as the target sample using purposive sampling design, in which the questionnaires were distributed to 120 individuals who were argued to have knowledge in the practice of Competitive Intelligence. In total, 105 questionnaires were returned for further analysis. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistic provided by SPSS. In the aspect of Competitive Intelligence Practices, results indicated that the mean score for each individual item range between 3.23 to 4.14, suggesting intensive practices of Competitive Intelligence. In the aspect of Utilization of Tools in practicing Competitive Intelligence, results indicated that three most widely used tools were from Employees, Customers and Internet. In the aspect of measurement variables in measuring competitive intelligence practices, results indicated that three most widely used measures were (1) yearly improvement of Equivalent Availability Factor-EAF (mean 3.96), (2) increase in percentage of planned maintenance (mean 3.82), and (3) yearly improvement of Equivalent Forced Outage Rate – EFOR (mean 3.75). Public utilities (infrastructure) company usually being pictured as companies that does not really care about competition as they usually being run by the Government. However, the findings of this research show otherwise

We investigate the secrecy performance in large-scale cellular networks, where both Base Stations (BSs) and eavesdroppers follow independent and different homogeneous Poisson point processes (PPPs). Based on the distances between the BS and user, the intended user selects the nearest BS as serving BS to transmit the confidential information. We first derive closed-formed expressions of secrecy outage probability and average secrecy rate of a single-antenna system for both noncooperative and cooperative eavesdroppers scenarios. Then, to further improve the secrecy performance through additional spatial degrees of freedom, the above analyses generalize to the multiantenna scenario, where BSs employ the transmit antenna selection (TAS) scheme. Finally, the results show the small-scale fading has a considerable effect on the secrecy performance in certain density of eavesdroppers and small path loss exponent environment, and when the interference caused by BS is considered, the secrecy performance will be reduced. Moreover, the gap of secrecy performance between noncooperative and cooperative eavesdroppers cases is nearly invariable as the number of antennas increases.

This paper discussed on the Monte-Carlo simulation technique to determine the optimal placement of Phasor Measurement Unit (PMU) in power system whilst ensuring the observability of the system. In addition, the information on Force Outage Rate (FOR) of the system can be calculated using Markov Chain technique. The FOR represents the level of risk security for the transmission line that happened because of unscheduled and unexpected failure or repair in the system. Subsequently, the reliability model of the transmission line can be developed. Using IEEE 57-bus system, the results obtained from Monte-Carlo simulation technique demonstrate the optimal PMU placement, the desired reliability of the Wide Area Monitoring System (WAMS) as well as the number and location of covered contingencies of the system.

The paper aims to examine women vulnerability across 29 different states and 7 union Territories from period 2001-2014 in India. A Women Vulnerability Index (WVI) is formed by using Principal component analysis (PCA) based on different factors i.e. Rape, Cruelty by husband , Insult to Modesty, Dowry Deaths, Kidnapping and Abduction and relatives, Assault with an intent to outrage modesty, Immoral Trafficking and Dowry cases.

The performance of Global Positioning System and Inertial Navigation System (GPS/INS) integrated navigation is reduced when GPS is blocked. This paper proposes an algorithm to overcome the condition where GPS is unavailable. Together with a parameter-optimised Genetic Algorithm (GA), a Support Vector Regression (SVR) algorithm is used to construct the mapping function between the specific force, angular rate increments of INS measurements and the increments of the GPS position. During GPS outages, the real-time pseudo-GPS position is predicted with the mapping function, and the corresponding covariance matrix is estimated by an improved adaptive filtering algorithm. A GPS/INS integration scheme is demonstrated where the vehicle travels along a straight line and around a curve, with respect to both low-speed-stable and high-speed-unstable navigation platforms. The results show that the proposed algorithm provides a better performance when GPS is unavailable.

Nowadays a tremendous progress has been witnessed in Global Positioning System (GPS) and Inertial Navigation System (INS). The Global Positioning System provides information as long as there is an unobstructed line of sight and it suffers from multipath effect. To enhance the performance of an integrated Global Positioning System and Inertial Navigation System (GPS/INS) during GPS outages, a novel hybrid fusion algorithm is proposed to provide a pseudo position information to assist the integrated navigation system. A new model that directly relates the velocity, angular rate and specific force of INS to the increments of the GPS position is established. Combined with a Kalman filter the hybrid system is able to predict and estimate a pseud GPS position when GPS signal is unavailable. Field test data are collected to experimentally evaluate the proposed model. In this paper, the obtained GPS/INS datasets are pre-processed and semi-supervised machine learning technique has been used. These datasets are then passed into Kalman filtering for the estimation/prediction of GPS positions which were lost due to GPS outages. Hence, to bridge out the gaps of GPS outages Kalman Filter plays a major role in prediction. The comparative results of Kaman filter and extended Kalman filter are computed. The simulation results show that the GPS positions have been predicted taking into account some factors/measurements of a vehicle, the trajectory of the vehicle, the entire simulation was done using Anaconda (Jupyter Notebook).

In 1982 McDonnell Douglas Aerospace (MDA) and United Stirling AB (USAB) of Sweden formed a joint venture to develop and market a solar Stirling dish system. Eight modules were built and extensively tested from 1984 to 1988. Power production and daily energy-conversion efficiency as determined by field testing were characterized and modeled into a computer program. Included in this simulation are models of mirror soiling rate, wind spillage loss, mirror washing, and other maintenance outage time, operation and maintenance (O&M) costs, and equipment purchase cost. An economic model of a hybrid (combustion) receiver has been included in the simulation for illustrating the value of using solar energy when available and other fuels such as methane, natural gas, hydrogen, etc. when solar energy is not available or adequate. This paper describes the simulation and presents comparisons of the simulation to test data. The simulation also estimates both the O&M expenses and levelized energy costs for different production volumes.

There are cases that one never forgets. DPP v. Morgan is one of those for me. I read it as an eighteen-year-old in my first year of law school. It was in the criminal law class where we were being taught about rape. The facts left me shocked and outraged. Morgan went out drinking with his friends. At the end of the night, he invited the friends back to his house. He told them that they could have sex with his wife and added that they should not worry if she appeared to resist, because she liked it that way. The friends duly came over and helped themselves to his wife as per his instructions. Morgan also forced her to have sex with him despite her protestations. She experienced injuries which necessitated medical treatment. His friends were convicted of rape, but he was convicted of indecent assault. This seemed strange. Had they all not forced her to have sex with them despite her clearly expressed refusal? Why was he charged with a lesser crime? The reason was simple: he was her husband. Under the law as it then operated in England, there was no recognition of marital rape. Her consent to lifelong sex on demand, even if it was against her will, was taken as part of the contract of marriage. The words “I do” spoken at the time of the marriage, were taken to mean free access for the husband for as long as they both lived, or until the marriage was legally dissolved or a formal separation was in place.

On April 26, 2012, Trial Chamber II (Chamber) of the Special Court for Sierra Leone (Special Court or Court) in The Hague convicted former Liberian president Charles Ghankay Taylor of crimes against humanity and war crimes committed from November 30, 1996, to January 18, 2002, in the territory of Sierra Leone during its civil war. Specifically, Taylor was found guilty of the crimes against humanity of murder, rape, sexual slavery, enslavement and other inhumane acts, and the war crimes of committing acts of terror, murder, outrages upon personal dignity, cruel treatment, pillage, and conscripting or enlisting children under the age of fifteen years into armed forces or groups or using them to participate actively in hostilities. In a separate judgment rendered on May 30, 2012, the Chamber sentenced Taylor to a single term of fifty years for all the counts on which the accused had been convicted.

The exponential rise in wireless technologies and allied applications has revitalized academia-industries to develop more efficient and economic routing solution to meet Quality-of-Service (QoS) provision. Amongst the major wireless communication systems, Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is the most sought technology for defense surveillance, healthcare monitoring, industrial monitoring and control, civic and strategic infrastructure surveillance etc. Additionally, the up surge in Internet of Things (IoT) and Machine to Machine (M2M) communication systems too have broadened the horizon for WSNs based communication. However, the parallel increase in communication environment, complex network conditions etc confine efficacy of the classical WSN protocols. Dynamic network and node conditions often force classical protocols to undergo pre-mature link outage, delayed transmission, energy exhaustion and eventual QoS violation. To address such issues enhancing Median Access Control (MAC) and allied routing decision can have vital significance. However major existing efforts either focus on MAC enhancement or routing optimization, even under static WSN topology. Considering it as motive in this paper a highly robust “Cross-layer architecture based Joint-Synchronous MAC and Routing Protocol for WSN communication (JSMCRP)” has been developed. Being cross layer model JSMCRP protocol employs Application Layer, Network Layer, MAC Layer and PHY Layer to perform Network Adaptive MAC scheduling and Dynamic Routing Decision. JSMCRP employs Data Traffic Assessment, Prioritization and Scheduling (DTAPS), Proactive Network Monitoring and Knowledge (PNMK), Dynamic Congestion Index Estimation (DCIE), Adaptive Link Quality, Packet Injection Rate and Cumulative Rank Sensitive Routing Decision (CRSRD) to perform routing decision. Additionally, exploiting dynamic network/node conditions it performs Cognitive MAC scheduling to ensure QoS centric communication over IEEE 802.15.4 protocol stack. JSMCRP exhibited higher PDR, lower PLR and low delay under varying network conditions, suitable for real-time communication over constrained mobile WSN conditions.

Hong Kong (HK) adopted the Linked Exchange Rate (LER) system in 1983, and it has been operating successfully for more than three decades. However, the maintenance costs for the LER system have grown exorbitantly and could outpace the costs of an exit, especially under the combined influence of a slow-down of the Chinese economy and a possible interest rate hike in the U.S. The HK government currently holds much more foreign reserves than it did preceding the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. The HK government is also facing political unrest and growing anger of low income residents towards wealth inequality. This opposition could eventually force the HK government to abandon the Currency Board System. At present, the cost of exiting the LER ­system is small thanks to a strong HKD sustained by large capital inflows from mainland China. However, the time frame for such a low-cost exit is short.In our view, the HK government is likely to maintain the current system, even at high social and economic costs, in the expectation that changing external factors, such as the rebound of the Chinese economy, will relieve the de-pegging pressure. In this report, we explore several approaches to gauge the timing and risks of a de-pegging of the HKD and the collapse of the Chinese housing bubble. At the same time, we analyze the potential impact of a de-pegging on HK’s local companies and the most vulnerable parts of the system.

The cortical actin gel of eukaryotic cells is postulated to control cell surface activity. One type of protrusion that may offer clues to this regulation are the spherical aneurysms of the surface membrane known as blebs. Blebs occur normally in cells during spreading and alternate with other protrusions, such as ruffles, suggesting similar protrusive machinery is involved. We recently reported that human melanoma cell lines deficient in the actin filament cross-linking protein, ABP-280, show prolonged blebbing, thus allowing close study of blebs and their dynamics. Blebs expand at different rates of volume increase that directly predict the final size achieved by each bleb. These rates decrease as the F-actin concentration of the cells increase over time after plating on a surface, but do so at lower concentrations in ABP-280 expressing cells. Fluorescently labeled actin and phalloidin injections of blebbing cells indicate that a polymerized actin structure is not present initially, but appears later and is responsible for stopping further bleb expansion. Therefore, it is postulated that blebs occur when the fluid-driven expansion of the cell membrane is sufficiently rapid to initially outpace the local rate of actin polymerization. In this model, the rate of intracellular solvent flow driving this expansion decreases as cortical gelation is achieved, whether by factors such as ABP-280, or by concentrated actin polymers alone, thereby leading to decreased size and occurrence of blebs. Since the forces driving bleb extension would always be present in a cell, this process may influence other cell protrusions as well.

AbstractThis essay examines the case of Kelley Williams-Bolar—an African American single mother from Akron, Ohio—who in 2011 was arrested, charged with a felony, and jailed for sending her two daughters to a predominantly White suburban public school in Copley Township without meeting the township's residency requirements. This essay closely examines the case with particular attention paid to the important but often unacknowledged intersections of race, gender, economic privilege, spatial containment, and racialized criminalization that shaped the case. The Williams-Bolar case became a public site of contesting narratives, some obscuring these intersections, others acknowledging them. Those who supported Copley Township's prosecution of Williams-Bolar relied on a law and order mandate and fiscal responsibility that supported the dominant racial narrative while appearing to be race, gender, and class neutral. But many were critical of Williams-Bolar's arrest and the story used to justify it. Their response was a massive and heated online challenge that inspired existing and newly outraged parents and educational activists from a wide range of backgrounds, triggering petitions signed by hundreds of thousands of people requesting that the Governor of Ohio pardon Williams-Bolar.This essay places the case in the context of what I call the “invisible intersections of colorblind racism,” the racial privileges of housing and educational resource hoarding via private property taxes for suburban upper-middle-class Whites and the expanded application of the criminalization of the Black poor to Black mothers who receive state assistance by the judicial system, in political discourse and mass media narrative. Williams-Bolar's supporters used the power of social media to build community activism and to generate alternative narratives that countered the discursive and structural forces that were at work. Finally, this article considers the value and impact of alternative narratives about Williams-Bolar and her actions as generated by supporters.

11085 Background: The College of American Pathologists (CAP), the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC), and the Association for Molecular Pathology (AMP) jointly initiated an effort to establish evidence-based recommendations for the molecular analysis of lung cancers required to guide EGFR- and ALK-directed therapies, addressing which patients and samples should be tested, and when and how testing should be performed. Methods: Three co-chairs without relevant conflicts of interest were selected, one from each of the sponsoring societies: CAP (P.T.C.), IASLC (M.L.), and AMP (N.I.L.). Writing and advisory panels were formed from additional experts from these societies. Unbiased literature searches were performed to capture articles up to February 2012, yielding 1,533 articles whose abstracts were screened to identify 521 pertinent articles that were then reviewed in detail for relevance. Evidence was formally graded for each of the recommendations first formulated by the co-chairs and panel members at a public meeting. Each guideline section was assigned to at least two panelists. Successive drafts were circulated for comments to the writing panel, the advisory panel, the public (online posting), and the three professional societies. Results: We generated 37 guideline items addressing 14 areas of EGFR and ALK testing. The major, evidence-based recommendations are to test for EGFR mutations and ALK fusions in all patients with advanced stage adenocarcinoma, regardless of sex, race, or smoking history, and to prioritize EGFR and ALK testing over other molecular predictive tests. Recommendations and expert consensus opinions were generated for all other key aspects of EGFR and ALK testing in lung cancer related to oncology and pathology practice and technical issues in molecular testing. Conclusions: As scientific discoveries and clinical practice outpace the completion of randomized clinical trials, evidence-based guidelines developed by expert practitioners are vital for communicating emerging clinical standards and thereby improving patient outcomes.

Abstract. The aim of the work is to prove the appropriateness for minority investors of investing in shares of US banks only with speculative, and not investment intentions; identifying the reasons why long-term investment in the sector is not appropriateness in the presence of a fundamental enabling environment for its development. In the article, the US banking sector is considered as an object of long-term investment for investors who plan to be only minority shareholders, including for citizens of Ukraine. The main research methods in the paper are a graphical analysis of the dynamics of share prices of key US banks and determine the average annual growth rate of the market value of their shares. This average annual growth rate of the value of shares of the respective banks was compared with the dynamics of the stock index S & P-500. The sector is characterized by favorable conditions for development, but the paper proves the hypothesis of the feasibility of investing in shares of US banks only with speculative rather than investment intentions. The factors of inexpediency of long-term investment in this sector in the presence of fundamental favorable conditions for the development of the sector in the country are specified. It is determined that the speculative nature of investments in the US banking sector is due to the lack of sustainable long-term growth of shares of the respective banks at a rate exceeding the growth rate of the stock index S&P-500. The main reasons that hinder the sustainable development of the US banking sector and prevent investment in this sector to outpace the efficiency of investment in the broad market was specified. The main such factors are the significant impact on banking activities of both macroeconomic crises and crises in certain sectors of the economy that are customers of banks. Since the clients of banks are almost all sectors of the economy, the list of possible sectoral crises, which are pass on the banking system in proportion to the volume of lending, is quite significant. This makes investing in the banking sector more risky than investing in other sectors of the economy. The property of the US banking sector and its of state regulation to evolve in the direction of improving the ability to counter economic crises is specified. This property reduces the reliability of forecasts for the development of the studied sector similarly to the dynamics of past periods and forces to plan events in a more optimistic scenario. The heterogeneity of the US banking sector in terms of asset structure and the level of diversification of activities has been identified, which allows individual banks of the country to go through periods of economic crisis in different ways. Keywords: US banking sector, stocks, S&P stock index-500, investments, economic crises. JEL Classification G21, G24, G12 Formulas: 2; fig.: 0; tabl.: 2; bibl.: 21.

The transition to market relations and the corresponding structural changes in economy influenced the formation of incomes, their use and distribution system. The largest share in the structure of monetary income of the population is wages; it has increased in recent years. At the same time, there occurred the decline in production in the process of market transformation economy and, as a consequence, forced underemployment and unemployment of a large part of the working population, lack legislative levers of influence on the regulation of the property process stratification of the population led to a decline in living standards, deepening its stratification by the level of cash income and distribution of property, the inability of the majority of the population to do savings, spreading the shadow of monetary income of citizens, hiding them from taxation. This led to a reduction in the effective demand of the population, narrowing the volume of domestic market, reducing opportunities for domestic investment resources and restraint of economic growth of the state. The country’s economic growth is observed from year to year, it directly depends on the welfare of the population and their income. Socio-economic development of the country is impossible without the participation of the population and accumulation of human capital, investment in it. Structural changes in Ukraine’s economy – human capital index, average income, migration processes, declining total population – have negative consequences for economic growth in the country as a whole. Therefore, there is an urgent need to study this issue, taking into account all possible prospects. The peculiarities of these indicators specify the development of any country, where one of the main macroeconomic goals is due to the need to outpace the growth of national income in comparison with the growth of the index of human capital and income of citizens. The economic development of the country concerns money and the increase of the general welfare of the population. The way to improve the better life and economic development of the country is possible taking into account the transformation processes, but achieving this involves solving a set of goals and objectives facing governments at all levels. Economic and social development of the oblasts of Ukraine seeks to be better today. The delimitation of oblasts is caused by the level of the average wage, as well as the total per capita income. The study of indicators of socio-economic development requires clear and precise actions on the part of the state and local self-government. The creation of development strategies for a certain period helps to improve the situation in the oblasts of Ukraine, but it is a temporary phenomenon that is not a managed system in some cases. Currently, there is a problem of economic development, social protection of low-income groups and health care, retirement-age people and so on. All human and civil rights are equal and interrelated, and therefore they must be equally protected by the state: human’s life and health, honour and dignity, inviolability and security are the highest social values (Article 3); free development of personality (Article 23) is determined by the Constitution of Ukraine. The study outlines the relationship and interdependence of local budget revenues from subsidies and subventions of the state budget, economic activity of the population, as well as the unemployment rate is an important indicator of the general state of the economy.

This paper evaluates performance indices based on industry-wide practice and suggests possible approach for improving the operational efficiencies of Jebba, Kainji and Shiroro hydro power generating stations. To actualize that, data including average daily gross operating head, daily flow rate and daily energy generated were obtained from Jebba, Kainji and Shiroro power stations and the National Control Center (N.C.C.) Osogbo. From the energy (MWh) generated the average daily power generated (MW) was computed. Consequently, the average operational efficiencies of Jebba, Kainji and Shiroro hydro schemes were evaluated and found to be 89.43%, 88.45% and 94.03% respectively. Similarly, performance indicators including deemed generation, auxiliary energy consumption, availability factor, capacity index, workforce deployment, forced outage factor and scheduled outage factor were evaluated and technical inferences made. The study was limited to the year 2010 due to non-availability of data for other years.

Generation planning utilizes reliability indices as criteria to ensure adequacy in terms of total installed capacity. Reserve Margin and Loss of Load Expectation (LOLE) are the most widely-used indices in generation adequacy evaluation. Reserve Margin is a measure of available capacity over and above the capacity needed to meet normal peak demand levels. In Peninsular Malaysia, the amount of Reserve Margin has been perceived to be high. Generally, high Reserve Margin can provide high reliability. However, it acquires more generation plant, for which some of them may not be necessary. This may indicate over investment which will be reflected in the tariff structure. LOLE is a probabilistic measure which indicates the risk at which the generation capacity fails to meet the demand and its evaluation involves specific parameters such as the plant capacity and outage rate of each generating unit. Therefore, in order to have optimum generation planning and investment efficiency, it is necessary to perform a study on the practical Reserve Margin level with respect to the current LOLE requirement without endangering the overall power system reliability. This research studies the factors affecting LOLE and evaluates the relationship between Reserve Margin and LOLE under various conditions. A modified Peninsular Malaysia system is simulated using Wien Automatic System Planning (WASP -IV) to determine LOLE focusing on thermal power plants. This study concludes that peak load and forced outage rate give significant impacts to the LOLE and thus, the reliability of the system. Effort to ensure availability especially during peak load may need to be intensified. The study also establishes an inverse exponential curve for the relationship between Reserve Margin and LOLE. It is found that the outcome of the study is to enhance generation planning decision making in obtaining the optimum Reserve Margin considering the LOLE under various conditions.

During the last two decades, for reliable power supply, GIS have found a broad range of application in power systems because of their high reliability, easy maintenance, small space requirement, etc. Gas insulated sub-stations employs a superior dielectric gas, SF6 at moderate pressure for phase to phase and phase to ground insulation. Several troubles and system outages in GIS have been reported world-wide due to insulation failures which resulted in the intensification of electric field along the spacer surface and especially at the triple point electrode – spacer – gas. Hence, it was required to reduce the rate of insulation failure. In this work, Conventional cone type spacer geometry is taken for which field study has been done. Electric field stresses developed by the cone type spacer on the surface of the spacer and also at the triple junction is determined. It is found that the electric field stress at the surface of the spacer is maintained uniform, the electric field stress at the critical junctions formed by the conductor, solid insulator and SF6 gas is not maintained at minimum value. Metal inserts are considered as a means to reduce the stress at the triple point junction. The impact of Lightning Impulse on the Electric Field Stress along the spacer is carried and the reduction of stress is mitigated with the insertion of Metal Inserts.

The practice of “ukuthwalwa” has been described as a “mock abduction” or an “irregular proposal” aimed at achieving a customary law marriage. It has been said that ukuthwalwa may be used for a number of purposes, such as: (a) to force the father to give his consent; (b) to avoid the expense of a wedding; (c) to hasten matters if the woman is pregnant; (d) to persuade the woman of the seriousness of the suitor’s intent; and (e) to avoid payment of lobolo. At common law the courts have stated that ukuthwalwa should not be used “as a cloak for forcing unwelcome attentions on a patently unwilling girl”, and have held that abduction by way of ukuthwalwa is unlawful. However, it has been suggested that if there is a belief by the abductor that the custom of ukuthwalwa was lawful the abduction would lack fault, and that if the parents or guardians consented to the taking it would not be abduction, because abduction is a crime against parental authority. Where the parents or guardians consent to the abduction the crime may amount to assault or rape. Some of these potential lacunae in the law seem to have been addressed by the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Related Matters) Amendment Act 32 of 2007. There has recently been public outrage about the practice of ukuthwalwa in the Eastern Cape in which girls between the ages of 12 and 15 years of age were being abducted and forced into marriages against their consent. This aspect of ukuthwalwa is a breach of the common law and the repealed section of the Sexual Offences Act (s 9 of the SexualOffences Act 23 of 1957. It is also completely contrary to the Bill of Rights (Chapter 2 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa Act, 1996) and the Sexual Offences Amendment Act (Chapters 2 and 3 of the Sexual Offences Amendment Act). Part of the problem may be that some rural communities think that cultural practices trump constitutional rights, whereas according to the law the reverse applies.

Introduction“Cage rage” is one of the most famous Internet memes (Figure 1) which made Nicolas Cage's stylised and sometimes excessive acting style very popular. His outbursts became a subject of many Youtube videos, supercuts (see for instance Hanrahan) and analyses, which turned his rage into a pop-cultural phenomenon. Cage’s outbursts of rage and (over)acting are, according to him (Freeman), inspired by German expressionism as in films like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920). How should this style of acting and its position within the context of the Hollywood industry today be read in societal and political sense? Is “Cage rage” a symptom of our times? Rage might be a correct reaction to events such the financial crisis or the election of Donald Trump, but the question should also be posed, what comes after the rage, or as Slavoj Žižek often puts it, what comes the “morning after” (the revolution, the protests)?Fig. 1: One of the “Cage Rage” MemesDo we need “Cage rage” as a pop cultural reminder that, to paraphrase Gordon Gekko in Wall Street (1987), rage, for a lack of a better word, is good, or is it here to remind us, that it is a sort of an empty signifier that can only serve for catharsis on an individual level? Žižek, in a talk he gave in Vienna, speaks about rage in the context of revolutions:Rage, rebellion, new power, is a kind of a basic triad of every revolutionary process. First there is chaotic rage, people are not satisfied, they show it in a more or less violent way, without any clear goal and organisation. Then, when this rage gets articulated, organised, we get rebellion, with a minimal organisation and more or less clear awareness of who the enemy is. Finally, if rebellion succeeds, the new power confronts the immense task of organising the new society. The problem is that we almost never get this triad in its logical progression. Chaotic rage gets diluted or turns into rightist populism, rebellion succeeds but loses steam. (“Rage, Rebellion, New Power”)This means that, on the one hand, that rage could be effective. If we look at current events, we can witness the French president Emanuel Macron (if only partially) giving in to some of the demands of the gilets jaunes (yellow vests) protesters. In the recent past, the events of “Arab spring” are reminders of a watershed moment in the history of the participating nations; going back to the year 2000, Slobodan Milošević's regime in Serbia was toppled by the rage of the people who could not put up with his oligarchic rule — alongside international military intervention.On the other hand, all the outrage on the streets and in the media cannot simply “un-elect” or impeach Donald Trump from his position as the American President. It appears that President Trump seems to thrive on the liberal outrage against him, at the same time perpetuating outrage among his supporters against liberals and progressives in general. If we look back at the financial crisis of 2008 and the Occupy Wall Street movement, despite the outrage on the streets, the banks were bailed out and almost no one went to prison (Shephard). Finally, in post-Milošević Serbia, instead of true progressive changes taking place, the society continues to follow similar nationalistic patterns.It seems that many movements fail after expressing rage/aggression, a reaction against something or someone. Another recent example is Greece, where after the 2015 referendum, the left-wing coalition SYRIZA complied to the austerity measures of the Eurozone, thereby ignoring the will of the people, prompting its leaders Varoufakis and Tsipras falling out and the latter even being called a ‘traitor.’ Once more it turned out that, as Žižek states, “rage is not the beginning but also the outcome of failed emancipatory projects” ("Rage, Rebellion, New Power").Rage and IndividualismHollywood, as a part of the "cultural industry" (Adorno and Horkheimer), focuses almost exclusively on the individual’s rage, and even when it nears a critique of capitalism, the culprit always seems to be, like Gordon Gekko, an individual, a greedy or somehow depraved villain, and not the system. To illustrate this point, Žižek uses an example of The Fugitive (1993), where a doctor falsifies medical data for a big pharmaceutical company. Instead of making his character,a sincere and privately honest doctor who, because of the financial difficulties of the hospital in which he works, was lured into swallowing the bait of the pharmaceutical company, [the doctor is] transformed into a vicious, sneering, pathological character, as if psychological depravity […] somehow replaces and displaces the anonymous, utterly non-psychological drive of capital. (Violence 175)The violence that ensues–the hero confronting and beating up the bad guy–is according to Žižek mere passage a l’acte, an acting out, which at the same time, “serves as a lure, the very vehicle of ideological displacement” (Violence 175). The film, instead of pointing to the real culprit, in this case the capitalist pharmaceutical company diverts our gaze to the individual, psychotic villain.Other ‘progressive’ films that Hollywood has to offer chose individual rage, like in Tarantino's Kill Bill Volume I and II (2003/2004), with the story centred around a very personal revenge of a woman against her former husband. It is noted here that most of Nicholas Cage’s films, including his big budget movies and his many B-movies, remain outside the so-called ethos of “liberal Hollywood” (Powers, Rothman and Rothman). Conservative in nature, they support radical individualism, somewhat paradoxically combined with family values. This composite functions well values that go hand-in-hand with neoliberal capitalism. Surprisingly, this was pointed out by the guru of (neo)liberalism in global economy, by Milton Friedman: “as liberals, we take freedom of the individual, or perhaps the family, as our ultimate goal in judging social arrangements” (12). The explicit connections between capitalism, family and commercial film was noted earlier by Rudolf Arnheim (168). Family and traditional male/female roles therefore play an important role in Cage's films, by his daughter's murder in Tokarev (2014, alternative title: Rage); the rape of a young woman and Cage’s love interest in Vengeance: A Love Story (2017); the murder of his wife in Mandy (2018).The audience is supposed to identify with the plight of the father/husband plight, but in the case of Tokarev, it is precisely Cage's exaggerated acting that opens up a new possibility, inviting a different viewpoint on rage/revenge within the context of that film.Tokarev/RageAmong Cage's revenge films, Tokarev/Rage has a special storyline since it has a twist ending – it is not the Russian mafia, as he first suspected, but Cage’s own past that leads to the death of his daughter, as she and her friends find a gun (a Russian-made gun called ‘Tokarev’) in his house. He kept the gun as a trophy from his days as a criminal, and the girls start fooling around with it. The gun eventually goes off and his daughter gets shot in the head by her prospective boyfriend. After tracking down Russian mobsters and killing some of them, Cage’s character realises that his daughter’s death is in fact his own fault and it is his troubled past that came back to haunt him. Revenge therefore does not make any sense, rage turns into despair and his violence acts were literally meaningless – just acting out.Fig. 2: Acting Out – Cage in Tokarev/RageBut within the conservative framework of the film: the very excess of Cage’s acting, especially in the case of Tokarev/Rage, can be read as a critique of the way Hollywood treats these kinds of stories. Cage’s character development points out the absurdity of the exploitative way B-grade movies deal with such subjects, especially the way family is used in order to emotionally manipulate the audience. His explicit and deliberate overacting in certain scenes spits in the face of nuanced performances that are considered as “good acting.” Here, a more subdued performance that delivered a ‘genuine’ character portrayal in conflict, would bring an ideological view into play. “Cage Rage” seems to (perhaps without knowing it) unmask the film’s exploitation of violence. This author finds that Cage’s performance suffices to tear through the wall of the screen and he takes giant steps, crossing over boundaries by his embarrassing and awkward moments. Thus, his overacting and the way rage/revenge-storyline evolves, becomes as a sort of a “parapraxis”, the Freudian slip of the tongue, a term borrowed by Elsaesser and Wedel (131). In other words, parapraxis, as employed in film analysis means that a film can be ambiguous – or can be read ambiguously. Here, contradictory meanings can be localised within one particular film, but also open up a space for alternate interpretations of meanings and events in other movies of a similar genre.Hollywood’s celebration of rugged individualism is at its core ideology and usually overly obvious; but the impact this could on society and our understanding of rage and outrage is not to be underestimated. If Cage's “excess of acting” does function here as parapraxis this indicates firstly, the excessive individualism that these movies promote, but also the futility of rage.Rage and the Death DriveWhat are the origins of Nicholas Cage’s acting style? He has made claims to his connection to the silent film era, as expressive overstating, and melodrama was the norm without spoken dialogue to carry the story (see Gledhill). Cage also states that he wanted to be the “California Klaus Kinski” (“Nicolas Cage Breaks Down His Most Iconic Characters”). This author could imagine him in a role similar to Klaus Kinski’s in Werner Herzog's Nosferatu the Vampire (1979), a homage remake of the silent film masterpiece Nosferatu (1922). There remain outstanding differences between Cage and Kinski. It seems that Kinski was truly “crazy”, witnessed by his actions in the documentary My Best Fiend (1999), where he attacks his director and friend/fiend Werner Herzog with a machete. Kinski was constantly surrounded by the air of excessiveness, to this viewer, and his facial expressions appeared unbearably too expressive for the camera, whether in fiction or documentary films. Cage, despite also working with Herzog, does mostly act according to the traditional, method acting norms of the Hollywood cinema. Often he appears cool and subdued, perhaps merely present on screen and seemingly disinterested (as in the aforementioned Vengeance). His switching off between these two extremes can also be seen in Face/Off (1997), where he plays the drug crazed criminal Castor Troy, alongside the role of John Travolta’s ‘normal’ cop Sean Archer, his enemy. In Mandy, in the beginning of the film, before he goes on his revenge killing spree, he presents as a stoic and reserved character.So, phenomena like ‘Cage Rage’, connected to revenge and aggression and are displayed as violent acts, can serve as a stark reminder of the cataclysmic aspect of individual rage as integrated with the death drive – following Freud’s concept that aggression/death drive was significant for self-preservation (Nagera 48).As this author has observed, in fact Cage’s acting only occasionally has outbursts of stylised overacting, which is exactly what makes those outbursts so outstanding and excessive. Here, his acting is an excess itself, a sort of a “surplus” type of acting which recalls Žižek's interpretation of Freud's notion of the death drive:The Freudian death drive has nothing whatsoever to do with the craving for self-annihilation, for the return to the inorganic absence of any life-tension; it is, on the contrary, the very opposite of dying – a name for the “undead” eternal life itself, for the horrible fate of being caught in the endless repetitive cycle of wandering around in guilt and pain. (Parallax 62)Žižek continues to say that “humans are not simply alive, they are possessed by the strange drive to enjoy life in excess, passionately attached to a surplus which sticks out and derails the ordinary run of things” (Parallax 62). This is very similar to the mode of enjoyment detected in Cage’s over-acting.ViolenceRevenge and vigilantism are the staple themes of mass-audience Hollywood cinema and apart from Cage’s films previously mentioned. As Žižek reports, he views the violence depicted in films such as Death Wish (1974) to John Wick (2014) as “one of the key topics of American culture and ideology” (Parallax 343). But these outbursts of violence are simply, again, ‘acting out’ the passage a l’acte, which “enable us to discern the hidden obverse of the much-praised American individualism and self-reliance: the secret awareness that we are all helplessly thrown around by forces out of our control” (Parallax 343f.).Nicholas Cage’s performances express the epitome of being “thrown around by forces out of our control.” This author reads his expressionistic outbursts appear “possessed” by some strange, undead force. Rather than the radical individualism that is trumpeted in Hollywood films, this undead force takes over. The differences between his form of “Cage Rage” and others who are involved in revenge scenarios, are his iconic outbursts of rage/overacting. In his case, vengeance in his case is never a ‘dish best served cold,’ as the Klingon proverb expresses at the beginning of Kill Bill. But, paradoxically, this coldness might be exactly what one needs in the age of the resurgence of the right in politics which can be witnessed in America and Europe, and the outrage it continuously provokes. ConclusionRage has the potential to be positive; it can serve as a wake-up call to the injustices within society, and inspire reform as well as revolution. But rage is defined here as primarily an urge, a drive, something primordial, as an integral expression of the Lacanian Real (Žižek). This philosophic stance contends that in the process of symbolisation, or rage’s translation into language, this articulation tends to open up inconsistencies in a society, and causes the impetus to lose its power. As mentioned at the beginning of this article, the cycle of rage and the “morning after” which inevitably follows, seems to have a problematic sobering effect. (This effect is well known to anyone who was ever hungover and who therefore professed to ‘never drink again’ where feelings of guilt prevail, which erase the night before from existence.) The excess of rage before followed, this author contends, by the excess of rationality after the revolution are therefore at odds, indicating that a reconciliation between these two should happen, a negotiation, providing a passage from the primordial emotion of rage to the more rational awakening.‘Cage Rage’ and its many commentators and critics serve to remind us that reflection is required, and Žižek’s explication of filmic rage allows us to resist the temptation of enacting our rage that merely digresses to an ’acting out’ or a l'acte. In a way, Cage takes on our responsibility here, so we do not have to — not only because a catharsis is ‘achieved’ by watching his films, but as this argument suggests, we are shocked into reason by the very excessiveness of his acting out.Solutions may appear, this author notes, by divisive actors in society working towards generating a ‘sustained rage’ and to learn how to rationally protest. This call to protest need not happen only in an explosive, orgasmic way, but seek a sustainable method that does not exhaust itself after the ‘party’ is over. This reading of Nicholas Cage offers both models to learn from: if his rage could have positive effects, then Cage in his ‘stoic mode’, as in the first act of Mandy (Figure 3), should become a new meme which could provoke us to a potentially new revolutionary act–taking the time to think.Fig. 3: Mandy ReferencesAdorno, Theodor W., and Max Horkheimer. Dialektik der Aufklärung: Philosophische Fragmente. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Verlag, 2006.Arnheim, Rudolf. Film als Kunst. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2002.Cage, Nicolas. “Nicolas Cage Breaks Down His Most Iconic Characters.” 18 Sep. 2018. 19 Dec. 2018 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_WDLsLnOSM>. Death Wish. Dir. Michael Winner. Paramount Pictures/Universal International. 1974.Elsaesser, Thomas, and Michael Wedel. Körper, Tod und Technik: Metamorphosen des Kriegsfilms. Paderborn: Konstanz University Press, 2016.Freeman, Hadley. “Nicolas Cage: ‘If I Don't Have a Job to Do, I Can Be Very Self-Destructive.” The Guardian 1 Oct. 2018. 22 Nov. 2018 <https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/oct/01/nicolas-cage-if-i-dont-have-a-job-to-do-it-can-be-very-self-destructive>.Friedman, Milton. Capitalism and Freedom. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1982.Gledhill, Christie. “Dialogue.” Cinema Journal 25.4 (1986): 44-8.Hanrahan, Harry. “Nicolas Cage Losing His Shit.” 1 Mar. 2011. 19 Dec. 2018 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOCF0BLf-BM>.John Wick. Dir. Chad Stahelski. Thunder Road Films. 2014.Kill Bill Vol I & II. Dir. Quentin Tarantino. Miramax. 2003/2004.Mandy. Dir. Panos Cosmatos. SpectreVision. 2018.My Best Fiend. Dir. Werner Herzog. Werner Herzog Filmproduktion. 1999.Nagera, Humberto, ed. Psychoanalytische Grundbegriffe: Eine Einführung in Sigmund Freuds Terminologie und Theoriebildung. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1998.Powers, Stephen, David J. Rothman, and Stanley Rothman. Hollywood’s America: Social and Political Themes in Motion Pictures. Boulder: Westview Press, 1996.Shephard, Alex. “What Occupy Wall Street Got Wrong.” The New Republic 14 Sep. 2016. 26 Feb. 2019 <https://newrepublic.com/article/136315/occupy-wall-street-got-wrong>.Tokarev/Rage. Dir. Paco Cabezas. Patriot Pictures. 2014.Vengeance: A Love Story. Dir. Johnny Martin. Patriot Pictures. 2017.Wall Street. Dir. Oliver Stone. 20th Century Fox. 1987. Žižek, Slavoj. The Parallax View. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2009.———. “Rage, Rebellion, New Power.” Talk given at the Wiener Festwochen Theatre Festival, Mosse Lectures, 8 Nov. 2016. 19 Dec. 2018 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbmvCBFUsZ0&t=3482s>. ———. Violence: Six Sideways Reflections. London: Profile Books, 2009.

La notion de race est ancienne, et ses significations n’ont jamais cessé de se transformer. Dès le XVIe siècle, le mot race désignait les membres d’un lignage. Par conséquent, l’espèce humaine devenait une race puisque la Bible lui donnait pour ancêtres communs Adam et Ève. Un peuple se réclamant d’un ancêtre mythique pouvait également être qualifié de race : on disait par exemple que les Juifs étaient de la race d’Abraham. Le terme a parfois été synonyme de dynastie royale, elle aussi dotée d’un ancêtre commun. L’Encyclopédie utilise le terme principalement dans ces trois acceptions, parlant aussi bien de race humaine que de race d’Abraham ou de race des Capétiens (L’Encyclopédie 1777 et 1778). Parallèlement, le XVIIIe siècle voit se répandre l’usage zoologique de la notion de race, employée pour désigner les variétés infra-spécifiques d’animaux, surtout des animaux domestiques, tels les chiens, les chevaux ou les bovins (Buffon 1749a et 1755). En même temps, les naturalistes étendent son application aux variétés de l’espèce humaine. On considère alors que les différences biologiques entre groupes humains géographiquement séparés sont solidaires de leurs différences culturelles, les unes et les autres engendrées par l’influence conjointe du sol, du climat et de la nourriture (Buffon 1749b). En accord avec la théorie humorale alors en vogue, on pense que le sol, le climat et la nourriture influencent les quatre humeurs physiologiques (bile jaune, sang, bile noire, pituite), dont l’interaction détermine le degré d’un tempérament (mélancolique, flegmatique, bileux, sanguin), lequel décide à son tour à la fois de l’anatomie des hommes et de leur caractère, mentalité, mœurs et organisation sociale (Greenwood 1984). Aucun consensus n’existait en revanche quant au nombre de races d’hommes, tantôt porté à plusieurs dizaines, tantôt réduit à trois et dont chacune était assimilée à la descendance d’un des trois fils de Noé. Les races humaines étaient disposées sur les échelons supérieurs de la Grande Échelle des Êtres, qui menait des formes animales les plus simples jusqu’à l’homme le plus perfectionné, identifié invariablement au Blanc. Le Noir, et plus particulièrement le Hottentot, occupait la limite inférieure de l’humanité, où il côtoyait l’Orang-outang placé au sommet du monde animal (Dictionnaire des sciences médicales, 1819, Sebastani 2013). Si la plupart des Européens du XVIIIe siècle croyaient à la supériorité des Blancs, tous n’en déduisaient pas les mêmes conclusions. Certains estimaient que les autres races pouvaient éventuellement acquérir la civilisation et devenir, avec le temps, à la fois égales aux Blancs et blanches de peau, blanchies sous l’effet de la civilisation. D’autres restaient convaincus que la supériorité des Blancs était un immuable fait de nature, ce qui condamnait les autres races, surtout les Noirs, à une éternelle soumission, faisant d’eux ce que Aristote avait appelé les esclaves par nature. Les débats raciologiques du XIXe siècle consacrèrent l’opposition plus ancienne entre le monogénisme et le polygénisme (Blanckaert 1981). Les monogénistes clamaient qu’il n’y a qu’une seule espèce humaine, différenciée à partir d’un type originel ; les polygénistes soutenaient qu’il existe depuis toujours plusieurs espèces humaines invariables, pourvues de propriétés spécifiques, aussi bien biologiques que mentales. La théorie darwinienne (1859) n’a modifié que modestement les grandes lignes de ce débat : les degrés de l’Échelle des Êtres seront désormais considérés comme les étapes consécutives de l’évolution, tandis que les races inférieures se verront identifiées aux races moins évoluées. Les polygénistes darwiniens pouvaient renoncer à l’axiome de l’invariabilité des races dans la très longue durée préhistorique, mais ils s’accordaient avec les monogénistes darwiniens à établir une hiérarchie linéaire des races selon leurs formes anatomiques, auxquelles on croyait pouvoir associer une gradation de facultés morales, intellectuelles et civilisatrices, tenues pour héréditaires et difficilement modifiables dans la courte durée historique. Dès la fin du XVIIIe siècle, des mesures anthropométriques variées ont commencé à être proposées, dans l’espoir de quantifier le degré d’avancement moral et mental des races à partir d’indices anatomiques : ce fut l’un des fondements de l’anthropologie physique du XIXe siècle. La théorie darwinienne de la sélection naturelle a contribué à légitimer la vieille idée de la lutte des races pour la survie. On s’est mis à redouter que les races inférieures, réputées plus fertiles, n’en viennent à bout des races supérieures. Le XIXe siècle fut particulièrement marqué par la hantise du mélange racial, censé conduire à la contamination de la « substance germinative » des races supérieures et à leur dégénérescence consécutive. Dans la première moitié du XXe siècle, l’idéologie nazie offrit l’un des aboutissements extrêmes de cette conception. On y trouve une combinaison de nombreuses composantes des théories raciologiques antérieures : une classification raciale rigide, la hiérarchisation des races en supérieures et inférieures, la conviction que les différences anatomiques correspondent aux différences culturelles, l’idée d’une inégalité morale, intellectuelle et civilisatrice des races, la crainte d’une dégénérescence raciale par le métissage qui altère le « sang » de la race supérieure, la croyance qu’une menace pèse sur la race supérieure du fait de la fertilité plus grande des races inférieures, la doctrine de la lutte entre les races comme force motrice du progrès. L’idéologie nazie fut une sinistre synthèse d’au moins deux siècles de développement de la pensée raciale. Lorsque la Deuxième Guerre prit fin, l’Occident tenta de faire le procès à son héritage intellectuel. L’UNESCO exprima une conviction alors inédite en inscrivant dans sa constitution l’idée selon laquelle les atrocités de la récente guerre avaient été rendues possibles par la croyance à l’inégalité des races. Pour rendre impossibles de nouveaux Auschwitz, on décida alors de faire disparaître la notion de races humaines, source présumée de l’horreur suprême. Dans leur déclaration de 1950, les experts de l’UNESCO affirmèrent l’unité fondamentale de l’espèce humaine et reléguèrent la diversité biologique des hommes à un second plan, en tant qu’épiphénomène de divers mécanismes évolutifs de différentiation. La Déclaration de l’UNESCO portait les marques de la toute récente théorie synthétique de l’évolution, dont les principes ramenaient la « race » à un résultat éphémère de la circulation des gènes entre les populations, seules entités réellement observables (UNESCO 1950, Stoczkowski 2008). La conjonction du contexte politique et de l’émergence de la génétique des populations conduisit, à partir des années 1950, à l’abandon progressif de la notion de race, surtout en sciences sociales. Les humanités multiples des théories raciologiques se muèrent en l’Homme universel de l’UNESCO. Pourtant, la génétique des populations n’a pas tenu les promesses dont on l’avait initialement investie en espérant que la recherche allait démontrer l’inexistence des races humaines, ce qui devait invalider toute possibilité de rabattre les différences de culture sur les différences de nature, selon le subterfuge séculaire qui avait maintes fois servi à justifier les inégalités, les discriminations et les oppressions. N’étaient pas moindres les attentes suscitées ensuite par l’exploration du génome humain : elle devait porter le coup de grâce au concept de race et aux préjugés que ce concept implique. En juin 2000, lors des célébrations qui marquèrent la publication de la première esquisse de la carte du génome humain, J. Craig Venter, directeur de l’entreprise de recherche génétique Celera, répéta que « la notion de race n’a aucun fondement génétique ni scientifique » (Marantz Henig 2004). Aujourd’hui, les résultats de la recherche sur le génome humain semblent moins univoques (Stoczkowski 2006). Il est certes réconfortant de savoir qu’aucun doute ne subsiste sur l’unité génétique de l’espèce humaine. Pourtant, après une première période consacrée à la description des similitudes génétiques, les travaux actuels s’orientent de plus en plus vers l’exploration de la diversité de notre espèce. Plusieurs études publiées récemment tendent à démontrer que des données génétiques permettent bel et bien de faire la distinction entre les individus originaires d’Europe, d’Afrique et d’Extrême-Orient, c’est-à-dire entre les populations traditionnellement réparties par la pensée ordinaire entre les trois grandes « races » : blanche, noire et jaune (Bamshad et al. 2003, Rosenberg et al.,2002, Watkins et al. 2003). Ces travaux dérangent et inquiètent. Ils dérangent car on s’attendait à ce que la génétique rende définitivement illégitime toute classification biologique des humains. C’est le contraire qui semble advenir sous nos yeux. Au lieu de prouver que l’ordre du phénotype, privilégié par la pensée ordinaire, s’écarte de l’ordre du génotype étudié par la science, les travaux récents suggèrent que certaines classifications « raciales » – pour autant qu’elles soient fondées non sur la seule morphologie, mais plutôt sur l’origine géographique – peuvent refléter approximativement une partie de la diversité humaine établie par la génétique moderne (Bamshad et al. 2003; Rosenberg et al. 2002; Watkins et al. 2003). Ces travaux inquiètent aussi, car nul n’ignore que l’étude des différences entre les hommes peut fournir des arguments à ceux qui veulent diviser l’humanité, porter les distinctions à l’absolu, les juger scandaleuses et insupportables. Les généticiens ne manquent pas de souligner que les groupements formés à partir de leurs modèles diffèrent des anciennes catégories raciales, puisque les écarts entre les classes génétiques sont statistiques, relatifs, mouvants, soumis aux vicissitudes de l’histoire faite non seulement de séparations, mais aussi de migrations et de croisements. Il n’en demeure pas moins que le risque existe que les résultats de ces travaux nourrissent à nouveau le phantasme de divergences insurmontables inscrites dans le corps des humains. Les controverses sur la classification infra-spécifique des humains sont loin d’être closes. Quelles que soient les conclusions qui remporteront finalement le consensus de la communauté scientifique, il est probable que la pensée antiraciste soit confrontée dans un avenir proche à une nouvelle légitimité scientifique des classements des humains à partir de critères biologiques, cette fois dans un contexte social où l’aspiration à l’égalité ne passe plus par l’effacement des différences biologiques mais, au contraire, par leur revendication de la part des dominés. Après l’expérience du nazisme, dont l’intérêt exacerbé pour les différences biologiques déboucha sur l’abomination de la Shoah, on était enclin à considérer que toute théorie de la différence biologique devait nécessairement conduire au racisme. On en est moins sûr de nos jours, en observant que les minorités auparavant opprimées cherchent à adosser leur combat contre les inégalités à une théorie de la différence biologique (Oak Ridge National Laboratory). Hier, désireux d’expier le péché de racisme, l’homme blanc fit appel à la science pour rendre insignifiantes les différences biologiques entre les humains ; aujourd’hui, réclamant le droit à l’égalité, l’homme de couleur emploie la science pour donner aux différences biologiques une signification nouvelle. Cette résurgence de l’intérêt de la recherche pour la diversité de l’espèce humaine, en dépit du danger bien réel d’un détournement idéologique de ses résultats, encore très provisoires, peut devenir un antidote contre les spéculations naïves sur la race, qui ne manqueront pas de foisonner dans la culture populaire tant que les chercheurs seront incapables d’expliquer pourquoi les hommes, appartenant tous à la même espèce biologique, n’ont pas pour autant tous la même apparence.

Rage can come from anywhere, it ignites as a flash of lightening and hisses rapidly down a darkened tunnel, landing wherever it finds a target. Sigmund Freud, and many other psychoanalysts, have attempted to explain the inception of human’s two primordial emotions, rage and fear – encapsulated in the popular phrase, fight or flight. Our earliest historical records detail the myriad battles that determined the world’s future course of events. Without rage, and its adjutants, violence and war, the world’s countries would not exist with their current boundaries. In fact, our species, Homo sapiens would necessarily have evolved through a different course. Since 2016, the public has been outraged by current events at an unprecedented level: the confluence of the election of US President Donald Trump, the struggles over the UK’s Brexit, and the revelations of systematic sexual abuse of women and African Americans, culminating in the recent #metoo and the #blacklivesmatter social media campaigns. More and more women have protested against sexual abuse, and recently the free-verse poem book Shout, from pop cultural icon Laurie Halse Anderson, “raise[s] urgent alarms, warning against the evils propagated by a culture that values dominance over respect” (Feldman 52). The rage revolution is here now. The nine articles included in this issue of M/C Journal on ‘rage’ unpack the concept of rage and its significant linkages to injustice, anger, personal and sexual abuse of women and minority cultures, violence and war. It is no surprise that many authors have chosen to focus on women’s rage and anger. Below, three articles develop the themes of political disenfranchisement for women and Indigenous cultures with a special emphasis on Australia, and the significant role that clothing plays in group-based activism.In the feature article, Angelika Heurich explores the fraught territory of women’s rights starting with the slogan: ‘the personal is the political’. In both the First and Second Waves of feminism, she reports, “concerns about issues of inequality, including sexuality, the right to abortion, availability of childcare, and sharing of household duties” became “personal problems” rather than a matter for national debate and policy changes (Hanisch qtd. in Heurich). Heurich cites the need for “feminist intervention in the state” (van Acker 120). These issues are very much alive today: how can enraged women change government policy in a meaningful way to address past and present injustices? Author Jo Coghlan further develops the theme of protestation with how clothing depicts the history of dissent. Coghlan’s argument suggests that the political efficacy of dress can perform “an ideological function that either bring[s] diverse members of society together for a cause ... or act[s] as a fence to keep identities separate” (Coghlan qtd Barnard). Clothing, as liberation, was celebrated in Mahatma Gandhi’s hand-spun cotton that symbolised the separation of India from Great Britain. Later, the Australian Aborigines’ Black Protest Committee adopted a set of particular colours for their movement towards equality, in this case, red, black and yellow worn first in 1982. To continue the theme, Lisa Hackett outlines the response of women’s rage’ to how their garments remain unsuitable from several standpoints. Hackett notes that the issues that surround fast fashion inspire women’s anger by its production: clothing that is cheaply made, in workplaces of virtual slavery, and made of unsustainable fabrics which lead to mountains of discarded garments in the world’s landfills. These problems inspire the rage of women who desire to protect the environment and also seek clothing that fits over forced obsolescence. Even as this issue on ‘rage’ widely presents people, activities and events that are driven by rage – across the broad spectrum of personal, artistic and cultural and socio-political storytelling, we also sought solutions in productive and/or philosophical frameworks that could explore how to ameliorate conditions under which rage arises. So the next two articles address the under-used (and under-implemented) word civility. In his article “Of ‘Rage of Party’ and the Coming of Civility”, Greg Melleuish presents the English Civil War as a case study. This conflict between the Royalists and Parliamentarians disrupted the authority of the crown, and resulted in a more moderated English government, in stark contrast to regime changes later on the European continent (e.g., the French Revolution). Melleuish offers that a “new ideal of ‘politeness and moderation’ had conquered English political culture” and promoted civility as a standard of behaviour for the government and worthy individuals. This concept of civility would later evolve to introduce philosophies of the Enlightenment. A collection of authors (Elizabeth Reid Boyd, Madalena Grobbelaar, Eyal Gringart, Alise Bender, and Rose Williams) have worked through the serious issues of ‘intimate civility’ – to encourage pathways to counteract ‘rage’ and its impact on the most vulnerable in society, especially women and children. The authors, in their coinage of the term, “envisage intimate civility – and our relationships – as dynamic, dialectical, discursive and interactive, above and beyond dualism.” They introduce a ‘decalogue’ of civility, relying on notions of politeness, respect, and emphasise dialogue between the affected parties and the Australian government’s campaigns and policies on domestic and sexual violence to reduce rage in the arena of interpersonal and intergenerational conflicts. The last articles in this M/C Journal issue on ‘rage’ address the media side of the equation. These authors all deal with aspects of rage as expressed on various screens, as films, television series or downloads to other devices. Richard Gehrmann, in his analysis of the Hollywood film American Sniper (2014), first provides a capsule timeline of conflicts in the Middle East, from the Second World War to the current day’s ongoing battles in Syria and elsewhere in the region. He highlights the propaganda-based, pro-American ‘jingoism’ presented in American Sniper, contrasting its portrayal of the returned veteran Chris Kyle with other true-life accounts of US Iraqi and Afghan soldiers. Gehrmann presents a bleak commentary on the ‘hot and cold rage’ required of the lone sniper, while many ‘hot’ unresolved issues, including the refugee crisis, remain in the Middle East situation. American Sniper’s celebration of the lone gunman contributes to the acceptance of violence in an America where mass shootings indicate an ever-growing expression of individual rage.”In his article on ‘Cage rage’, Sasa Miletic outlines Hollywood actor Nicholas Cage and his violent, sometimes over-acted outbursts on film as one of “the most famous Internet memes”. Miletic asks: has the overexpression of anger depicted in ‘Cage rage’ become “a pop cultural reminder “that rage, for a lack of a better word, is good ... or can [his filmic rage] only serve for catharsis on an individual level?” With this question, Miletic explores Nicholas Cage throughout his acting career, and presents his argument that the potential for ‘double-reading’ of his angry overacting in movies is a sort of ‘parapraxis’ – or “a Freudian slip of the tongue, a term borrowed by Elsaesser and Wedel (131). Miletic’s exploration of ‘Cage rage’ introduces new concepts of rage from the contemporary Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek.The exploration of rage in film now turns to Jessica Gildersleeve’s article that locates ambiguous meanings of rage in recent television adaptations based in the Australian outback. Guildersleeve explores the two adaptations Wake in Fright (2017) and Mystery Road (2108) for how they depict rage: “in this context rage is turned to melancholy and thus to self-destruction, [serving] as an allegory for the state of the contemporary nation.” Gildersleeve notes that previous Australian authors have outlined the trope of ‘outback noir,’ and in her analysis of these two adaptations, she realigns the previous literary analysis of ‘noir’ to the emerging genre of Outback Gothic horror. The two shows depict the force of inward rage that turns to melancholy from different perspectives. While Wake in Fright (2107) seems to offer no hope for the future, Mystery Road harnesses the power of rage to locate a potential way to reconcile the two ‘classic’ opposing factions that inhabit the Outback: the colonisers and the indigenous Aborigines. Lastly, this collection on ‘rage’ comes full circle, back to the omnipresent ‘women’s rage’.From the viewpoint of Gothic literary traditions, and their challengers, author Katharine Hawkins develops the trope of Monstrous gothic through women’s roles depicted in Showtime’s television series, Penny Dreadful (2014-2016). Here, Hawkins echoes the themes from the introductory articles: as women must comply with men and their comforts, women’s rage turns both inward and outward. In Penny Dreadful, the actress Billie Piper constitutes a figure of the “Monstrous Gothic Feminine” arising from “the parlours of bored Victorian housewives into a contemporary feminist moment that is characterised by a split between respectable diplomacy and the visibility of female rage.” Piper’s Bride figure then mutates “from coerced docility [towards] abject, sexualised anger” which makes itself heard in the show’s second season (2016). Hawkins discussion introduces Ahmed’s figure of the “kill joy”, which becomes “a term to refer to feminists – particularly black feminists – whose actions or presence refuse this obligation, and in turn project their discomfort outwards, instead of inwards.” In summary, rage is with us, always. But there is hope that the outward expression of women’s rage, and of other disenfranchised populations as echoed in the #metoo and #blacklivesmatter movements will change the culture of global politics to value respect over violence. References Anderson, Laurie Halse. Shout. New York: Penguin Random House.Barnard, Malcolm. Fashion as Communication. New York: Routledge, 1996.Elsaesser, Thomas, and Michael Wedel, Körper Tod und Technik: Metamorphosen des Kriegsfilms. Paderborn: Konstanz University Press, 2016.Feldman, Lucy. “A Voice for Others Speaks for Herself.” TIME, 11 Mar. 2019: 52-53.Hanisch, Carol. “Introduction: The Personal Is Political.” 2006. 18 Sep. 2016 <http://www.carolhanisch.org/CHwritings/PIP.html>.Van Acker, Elizabeth. Different Voices: Gender and Politics in Australia. Melbourne: MacMillan Education Australia, 1999.Žižek, Slavoj. Violence: Six Sideways Reflections. London: Profile Books, 2009.

My message is this in regard to SMS messages and swarming crowds; this is ludicrous behaviour; it is unAustralian. We all share this wonderful country. (NSW Police Assistant Commissioners Mark Goodwin, quoted in Kennedy) The cops hate and fear the swarming packs of Lebanese who respond when some of their numbers are confronted, mobilising quickly via mobile phones and showing open contempt for Australian law. All this is the real world, as distinct from the world preferred by ideological academics who talk about “moral panic” and the oppression of Muslims. They will see only Australian racism as the problem. (Sheehan) The Politics of Transmission On 11 December 2005, as Sydney was settling into early summer haze, there was a race riot on the popular Cronulla beach in the city’s southern suburbs. Hundreds of people, young men especially, gathered for a weekend protest. Their target and pretext were visitors from the culturally diverse suburbs to the west, and the need to defend their women and beaches in the face of such unwelcome incursions and behaviours. In the ensuing days, there were violent raids and assaults criss-crossing back and forth across Sydney’s beaches and suburbs, involving almost farcical yet deadly earnest efforts to identify, respectively, people of “anglo” or “Middle Eastern” appearance (often specifically “Lebanese”) and to threaten or bash them. At the very heart of this state of siege and the fear, outrage, and sadness that gripped those living in Sydney were the politics of transmission. The spark that set off this conflagration was widely believed to have been caused by the transmission of racist and violent “calls to arms” via mobile text messages. Predictably perhaps media outlets sought out experts on text messaging and cell phone culture for commentary, including myself and most mainstream media appeared interested in portraying a fascination for texting and reinforcing its pivotal role in the riots. In participating in media interviews, I found myself torn between wishing to attest to the significance and importance of cell phone culture and texting, on the one hand (or thumb perhaps), while being extremely sceptical about its alleged power in shaping these unfolding events, on the other — not to mention being disturbed about the ethical implications of what had unfolded. In this article, I wish to discuss the subject of transmission and the power of mobile texting culture, something that attracted much attention elsewhere — and to which the Sydney riots offer a fascinating and instructive lesson. My argument runs like this. Mobile phone culture, especially texting, has emerged over the past decade, and has played a central role in communicative and cultural practice in many countries and contexts as scholars have shown (Glotz and Bertschi; Harper, Palen and Taylor). Among other features, texting often plays a significant, if not decisive, role in co-ordinated as well as spontaneous social and political organization and networks, if not, on occasion, in revolution. However, it is important not to over-play the role, significance and force of such texting culture in the exercise of power, or the formation of collective action and identities (whether mobs, crowds, masses, movements, or multitudes). I think texting has been figured in such a hyperbolic and technological determinist way, especially, and ironically, through how it has been represented in other media (print, television, radio, and online). The difficulty then is to identify the precise contribution of mobile texting in organized and disorganized social networks, without the antimonies conferred alternatively by dystopian treatments (such as moral panic) or utopian ones (such as the technological sublime) — something which I shall try to elucidate in what follows. On the Beach Again Largely caught unawares and initially slow to respond, the New South Wales state government responded with a massive show of force and repression. 2005 had been marked by the state and Federal enactment of draconian terror laws. Now here was an opportunity for the government to demonstrate the worth of the instruments and rationales for suppression of liberties, to secure public order against threats of a more (un)civil than martial order. Outflanking the opposition party on law-and-order rhetoric once again, the government immediately formulated new laws to curtail accused and offender’s rights (Brown). The police “locked” down whole suburbs — first Cronulla, then others — and made a show of policing all beaches north and south (Sydney Morning Herald). The race riots were widely reported in the international press, and, not for the first time (especially since the recent Redfern and Macquarie Fields), the city’s self-image of a cosmopolitan, multicultural nation (or in Australian Prime Minister John Howard’s prim and loaded terms, a nation “relaxed and comfortable”) looked like a mirage. Debate raged on why the riots occurred, how harmony could be restored and what the events signified for questions of race and identity — the latter most narrowly construed in the Prime Minister’s insistence that the riots did not reflect underlying racism in Australia (Dodson, Timms and Creagh). There were suggestions that the unrest was rather at base about the contradictions and violence of masculinity, some two-odd decades after Puberty Blues — the famous account of teenage girls growing up on the (Cronulla) Shire beaches. Journalists agonized about whether the media amounted to reporter or amplifier of tensions. In the lead-up to the riots, at their height, and in their wake, there was much emphasis on the role mobile text messages played in creating the riots and sustaining the subsequent atmosphere of violence and racial tension (The Australian; Overington and Warne-Smith). Not only were text messages circulating in the Sydney area, but in other states as well (Daily Telegraph). The volume of such text messages and emails also increased in the wake of the riot (certainly I received one personally from a phone number I did not recognise). New messages were sent to exhort Lebanese-Australians and others to fight back. Those decrying racism, such as the organizers of a rally, pointedly circulated text messages, hoping to spread peace. Media commentators, police, government officials, and many others held such text messages directly and centrally responsible for organizing the riot and for the violent scuffles that followed: The text message hate mail that inspired 5000 people to attend the rally at Cronulla 10 days ago demonstrated to the police the power of the medium. The retaliation that followed, when gangs marauded through Maroubra and Cronulla, was also co-ordinated by text messaging (Davies). It is rioting for a tech-savvy generation. Mobile phones are providing the call to arms for the tribes in the race war dividing Sydney. More than 5000 people turn up to Cronulla on Sunday … many were drawn to the rally, which turned into a mob, by text messages on their mobiles (Hayes and Kearney). Such accounts were crucial to the international framing of the events as this report from The Times in London illustrates: In the days leading up to the riot racist text messages had apparently been circulating calling upon concerned “white” Australians to rally at Cronulla to defend their beach and women. Following the attacks on the volunteer lifeguards, a mobile telephone text campaign started, backed up by frenzied discussions on weblogs, calling on Cronulla locals to rally to protect their beach. In response, a text campaign urged youths from western Sydney to be at Cronulla on Sunday to protect their friends (Maynard). There were calls upon the mobile companies to intercept and ban such messages, with industry spokespeople pointing out text messages were usually only held for twenty-four hours and were in many ways more difficult to intercept than it was to tap phone calls (Burke and Cubby). Mobs and Messages I think there are many reasons to suggest that the transmission of text messages did constitute a moral panic (what I’ve called elsewhere a “mobile panic”; see Goggin), pace columnist Paul Sheehan. Notably the wayward texting drew a direct and immediate response from the state government, with legislative changes that included provisions allowing the confiscation of cell phones and outlawing sending, receipt or keeping of racist or inflammatory text messages. For some days police proceeded to stop cars and board buses and demand to inspect mobiles, checking and reading text messages, arresting at least one person for being responsible for transmitting banned text messages. However, there is another important set of ideas adduced by commentators to explain how people came together to riot in Sydney, taking their cue from Howard Rheingold’s 2002 book Smart Mobs, a widely discussed and prophetic text on social revolution and new technologies. Rheingold sees text messaging as the harbinger of such new, powerful forms of collectivity, studying emergent uses around the world. A prime example he uses to illustrate the “power of the mobile many” is the celebrated overthrow of President Joseph Estrada of the Philippines in January 2001: President Joseph Estrada of the Philippines became the first head of state in history to lose power to a smart mob. More than 1 million Manila residents, mobilized and coordinated by waves of text messages, assembled … Estrada fell. The legend of “Generation Txt” was born (Rheingold 157-58). Rheingold is careful to emphasize the social as much as technical nature of this revolution, yet still sees such developments leading to “smart mobs”. As with his earlier, prescient book Virtual Community (Rheingold 1993) did for the Internet, so has Smart Mobs compellingly fused and circulated a set of ideas about cell phones and the pervasive, wearable and mobile technologies that are their successors. The received view of the overthrow of the Estrada government is summed up in a remark attributed to Estrada himself: “I was ousted by a coup d’text” (Pertierra et al. ch. 6). The text-toppling of Estrada is typically attributed to “Generation Txt”, underlining the power of text messaging and the new social category which marks it, and has now passed into myth. What is less well-known is that the overriding role of the cell phone in the Estrada overthrow has been challenged. In the most detailed study of text messaging and subjectivity in the Philippines, which reviewed accounts of the events of the Estrada overthrow, as well as conducting interviews with participants, Pertierra et al. discern in EDSA2 a “utopian vision of the mobile phone that is characteristic of ‘discourses of sublime technology’”: It focuses squarely on the mobile phone, and ignores the people who used it … the technology is said to possess a mysterious force, called “Text Power” ... it is the technology that does things — makes things happen — not the people who use it. (Pertierra et al. ch. 6) Given the recrudescence of the technological sublime in digital media (on which see Mosco) the detailed examination of precise details and forms of agency and coordination using cell phones is most instructive. Pertierra et al. confirm that the cell phone did play an important role in EDSA2 (the term given to the events surrounding the downfall of Estrada). That role, however, was not the one for which it has usually been praised in the media since the event — namely, that of crowd-drawer par excellence … less than half of our survey respondents who took part in People Power 2 noted that text messaging influenced them to go. If people did attend, it was because they were persuaded to by an ensemble of other reasons … (2002: ch. 6) Instead, they argue, the significance of the cell phone lay firstly, in the way it helped join people who disapproved of Pres. Estrada in a network of complex connectivity … Secondly, the mobile phone was instrumental as an organizational device … In the hands of activists and powerbrokers from politics, the military, business groups and civil society, the mobile phone becomes a “potent communications tool” … (Pertierra et al. 2002: ch. 6) What this revisionist account of the Estrada coup underscores is that careful research and analysis is required to understand how SMS is used and what it signifies. Indeed it is worth going further to step back from either the celebratory or minatory discourses on the cell phone and its powerful effects, and reframe this set of events as very much to do with the mutual construction of society and technology, in which culture is intimately involved. This involves placing both the technology of text messaging and the social and political forces manifested in this uprising in a much wider setting. For instance, in his account of the Estrada crisis Vicente L. Rafael terms the tropes of text messaging and activism evident in the discourses surrounding it as: a set of telecommunicative fantasies among middle-class Filipinos … [that] reveal certain pervasive beliefs of the middle classes … in the power of communication technologies to transmit messages at a distance and in their own ability to possess that power (Rafael 399). For Rafael, rather than possessing instrinsic politics in its own right, text messaging here is about a “media politics (understood in both senses of the phrase: the politics of media systems, but also the inescapable mediation of the political) [that] reveal the unstable workings of Filipino middle-class sentiments” (400). “Little Square of Light” Doubtless there are emergent cultural and social forms created in conjunction with new technologies, which unfreeze and open up (for a time) social relations. As my discussion of the Estrada “coup d’text” shows, however, the dynamics of media, politics and technology in any revolution or riot need to be carefully traced. A full discussion of mobile media and the Sydney uprising will need to wait for another occasion. However, it is worth noting that the text messages in question to which the initial riot had been attributed, were actually read out on one of the country’s highest-rating and most influential talk-radio programs. The contents of such messages had also been detailed in print media, especially tabloids, and been widely discussed (McLellan, Marr). What remains unknown and unclear, however, is the actual use of text messages and cell phones in the conceiving, co-ordination, and improvisational dynamics of the riots, and affective, cultural processing of what occurred. Little retrospective interpretation at all has emerged in the months since the riots, but it certainly felt as if the police and state’s over-reaction, and the arrival of the traditionally hot and lethargic Christmas — combined with the underlying structures of power and feeling to achieve the reinstitution of calm, or rather perhaps the habitual, much less invisible, expression of whiteness as usual. The policing of the crisis had certainly been fuelled by the mobile panic, but setting law enforcement the task of bringing those text messages to book was much like asking them to catch the wind. For analysts, as well as police, the novel and salience appearance of texting also has a certain lure. Yet in concentrating on the deadly power of the cell phone to conjure up a howling or smart mob, or in the fascination with the new modes of transmission of mobile devices, it is important to give credit to the formidable, implacable role of media and cultural representations more generally, in all this, as they are transmitted, received, interpreted and circulated through old as well as new modes, channels and technologies. References The Australian. “SMS Message Goes Out: Let’s March for Racial Tolerance.” The Australian. 17 September, 2005. 6. Brown, M. “Powers Tested in the Text”. Sydney Morning Herald. 20 December, 2005. 7. Burke, K. and Cubby, B. “Police Track Text Message Senders”. Sydney Morning Herald, 23-25 December, 2005. 7. Daily Telegraph. “Police Intercept Interstate Riot SMS — Race Riot: Flames of Fear.” Daily Telegraph. 15 December, 2005. 5. Davis, A. “Flying Bats Rang Alarm”. Sydney Morning Herald. 21 December, 2005. 1, 5. Dodson, L., Timms, A. and Creagh, S. “Tourism Starts Counting the Cost of Race Riots”, Sydney Morning Herald. 21 December, 2005. 1. Goggin, G. Cell Phone Culture: Mobile Technology in Everyday Life. London: Routledge, 2006. In press. Glotz, P., and Bertschi, S. (ed.) Thumb Culture: Social Trends and Mobile Phone Use, Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag. Harper, R., Palen, L. and Taylor, A. (ed.)_ _The Inside Text: Social, Cultural and Design Perspectives on SMS. Dordrecht: Springer. Hayes, S. and Kearney, S. “Call to Arms Transmitted by Text”. Sydney Morning Herald. 13 December, 2005. 4. Kennedy, L. “Police Act Swiftly to Curb Attacks”. Sydney Morning Herald. 13 December, 2005. 6. Maynard, R. “Battle on Beach as Mob Vows to Defend ‘Aussie Way of Life.’ ” The Times. 12 December 2005. 29. Marr, D. “One-Way Radio Plays by Its Own Rules.” Sydney Morning Herald. 13 December, 2005. 6. McLellan, A. “Solid Reportage or Fanning the Flames?” The Australian. 15 December, 2005. 16. Mosco, V. The Digital Sublime: Myth, Power, and Cyberspace. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004. Overington, C. and Warne-Smith, D. “Countdown to Conflict”. The Australian. 17 December, 2005. 17, 20. Pertierra, R., E.F. Ugarte, A. Pingol, J. Hernandez, and N.L. Dacanay, N.L. Txt-ing Selves: Cellphones and Philippine Modernity. Manila: De La Salle University Press, 2002. 1 January 2006 http://www.finlandembassy.ph/texting1.htm>. Rafael, V. L. “The Cell Phone and the Crowd: Messianic Politics in the Contemporary Philippines.” Public Culture 15 (2003): 399-425. Rheingold, H. Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Perseus, 2002. Sheehan, P. “Nasty Reality Surfs In as Ugly Tribes Collide”. Sydney Morning Herald. 12 December, 2005. 13. Sydney Morning Herald. “Beach Wars 1: After Lockdown”. Editorial. Sydney Morning Herald. 20 December, 2005. 12. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Goggin, Gerard. "SMS Riot: Transmitting Race on a Sydney Beach, December 2005." M/C Journal 9.1 (2006). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0603/02-goggin.php>. APA Style Goggin, G. (Mar. 2006) "SMS Riot: Transmitting Race on a Sydney Beach, December 2005," M/C Journal, 9(1). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0603/02-goggin.php>.

Women in federal politics are under-represented today and always have been. At no time in the history of the federal parliament have women achieved equal representation with men. There have never been an equal number of women in any federal cabinet. Women have never held an equitable number of executive positions of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) or the Liberal Party. Australia has had only one female Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, and she was the recipient of sexist treatment in the parliament and the media. A 2019 report by Plan International found that girls and women, were “reluctant to pursue a career in politics, saying they worry about being treated unfairly.” The Report author said the results were unsurprisingwhen you consider how female politicians are still treated in Parliament and the media in this country, is it any wonder the next generation has no desire to expose themselves to this world? Unfortunately, in Australia, girls grow up seeing strong, smart, capable female politicians constantly reduced to what they’re wearing, comments about their sexuality and snipes about their gender.What voters may not always see is how women in politics respond to sexist treatment, or to bullying, or having to vote against their principles because of party rules, or to having no support to lead the party. Rather than being political victims and quitting, there is a ground-swell of women who are fighting back. The rage they feel at being excluded, bullied, harassed, name-called, and denied leadership opportunities is being channelled into rage against the structures that deny them equality. The rage they feel is building resilience and it is building networks of women across the political divide. This article highlights some female MPs who are “maintaining the rage”. It suggests that the rage that is evident in their public responses is empowering them to stand strong in the face of adversity, in solidarity with other female MPs, building their resilience, and strengthening calls for social change and political equality.Her-story of Women’s MovementsThroughout the twentieth century, women stood for equal rights and personal empowerment driven by rage against their disenfranchisement. Significant periods include the early 1900s, with suffragettes gaining the vote for women. The interwar period of 1919 to 1938 saw women campaign for financial independence from their husbands (Andrew). Australian women were active citizens in a range of campaigns for improved social, economic and political outcomes for women and their children.Early contributions made by women to Australian society were challenges to the regulations and of female sexuality and reproduction. Early twentieth century feminist organisations such The Women’s Peace Army, United Association of Women, the Australian Federation of Women’s Societies for Equal Citizenship, the Union of Australian Women, the National Council of Women, and the Australian Federation of Women Voters, proved the early forerunners to the 1970s Women’s Liberation Movement (WLM). It was in many of these early campaigns that the rage expressed in the concept of the “personal is political” (Hanisch) became entrenched in Australian feminist approaches to progressive social change. The idea of the “personal is political” encapsulated that it was necessary to challenge and change power relations, achievable when women fully participated in politics (van Acker 25). Attempts by women during the 1970s to voice concerns about issues of inequality, including sexuality, the right to abortion, availability of childcare, and sharing of household duties, were “deemed a personal problem” and not for public discussion (Hanisch). One core function of the WLM was to “advance women’s positions” via government legislation or, as van Acker (120) puts it, the need for “feminist intervention in the state.” However, in advocating for policy reform, the WLM had no coherent or organised strategy to ensure legislative change. The establishment of the Women’s Electoral Lobby (WEL), together with the Femocrat strategy, sought to rectify this. Formed in 1972, WEL was tasked with translating WLM concerns into government policy.The initial WEL campaign took issues of concern to WLM to the incoming Whitlam government (1972-1975). Lyndall Ryan (73) notes: women’s liberationists were the “stormtroopers” and WEL the “pragmatic face of feminism.” In 1973 Whitlam appointed Elizabeth Reid, a member of WLM, as Australia’s first Women’s Advisor. Of her appointment, Reid (3) said, “For the first time in our history we were being offered the opportunity to attempt to implement what for years we had been writing, yelling, marching and working towards. Not to respond would have felt as if our bluff had been called.” They had the opportunity in the Whitlam government to legislatively and fiscally address the rage that drove generations of women to yell and march.Following Reid were the appointments of Sara Dowse and Lyndall Ryan, continuing the Femocrat strategy of ensuring women were appointed to executive bureaucratic roles within the Whitlam government. The positions were not well received by the mainly male-dominated press gallery and parliament. As “inside agitators” (Eisenstein) for social change the central aim of Femocrats was social and economic equity for women, reflecting social justice and progressive social and public policy. Femocrats adopted a view about the value of women’s own lived experiences in policy development, application and outcome. The role of Senator Susan Ryan is of note. In 1981, Ryan wrote and introduced the Sex Discrimination Bill, the first piece of federal legislation of its type in Australia. Ryan was a founding member of WEL and was elected to the Senate in 1975 on the slogan “A woman’s place is in the Senate”. As Ryan herself puts it: “I came to believe that not only was a woman’s place in the House and in the Senate, as my first campaign slogan proclaimed, but a feminist’s place was in politics.” Ryan, the first Labor woman to represent the ACT in the Senate, was also the first Labor woman appointed as a federal Minister.With the election of the economic rationalist Hawke and Keating Governments (1983-1996) and the neoliberal Howard Government (1996-2007), what was a “visible, united, highly mobilised and state-focused women’s movement” declined (Lake 260). This is not to say that women today reject the value of women’s voices and experiences, particularly in politics. Many of the issues of the 1970s remain today: domestic violence, unequal pay, sexual harassment, and a lack of gender parity in political representation. Hence, it remains important that women continue to seek election to the national parliament.Gender Gap: Women in Power When examining federal elections held between 1972 and 2016, women have been under-represented in the lower house. In none of these elections have women achieved more than 30 per cent representation. Following the 1974 election less that one per cent of the lower house were women. No women were elected to the lower house at the 1975 or 1977 election. Between 1980 and 1996, female representation was less than 10 per cent. In 1996 this rose to 15 per cent and reached 29 per cent at the 2016 federal election.Following the 2016 federal election, only 32 per cent of both chambers were women. After the July 2016 election, only eight women were appointed to the Turnbull Ministry: six women in Cabinet and two women in the Outer Cabinet (Parliament of Australia). Despite the higher representation of women in the ALP, this is not reflected in the number of women in the Shadow Cabinet. Just as female parliamentarians have never achieved parity, neither have women in the Executive Branch.In 2017, Australia was ranked 50th in the world in terms of gender representation in parliament, between The Philippines and South Sudan. Globally, there are 38 States in which women account for less than 10 per cent of parliamentarians. As at January 2017, the three highest ranking countries in female representation were Rwanda, Bolivia and Cuba. The United Kingdom was ranked 47th, and the United States 104th (IPU and UNW). Globally only 18 per cent of government ministers are women (UNW). Between 1960 and 2013, 52 women became prime ministers worldwide, of those 43 have taken office since 1990 (Curtin 191).The 1995 United Nations (UN) Fourth World Conference on Women set a 30 per cent target for women in decision-making. This reflects the concept of “critical mass”. Critical mass proposes that for there to be a tipping balance where parity is likely to emerge, this requires a cohort of a minimum of 30 per cent of the minority group.Gender scholars use critical mass theory to explain that parity won’t occur while there are only a few token women in politics. Rather, only as numbers increase will women be able to build a strong enough presence to make female representation normative. Once a 30 per cent critical mass is evident, the argument is that this will encourage other women to join the cohort, making parity possible (Childs & Krook 725). This threshold also impacts on legislative outcomes, because the larger cohort of women are able to “influence their male colleagues to accept and approve legislation promoting women’s concerns” (Childs & Krook 725).Quotas: A Response to Gender InequalityWith women representing less than one in five parliamentarians worldwide, gender quotas have been introduced in 90 countries to redress this imbalance (Krook). Quotas are an equal opportunity measure specifically designed to re-dress inequality in political representation by allocating seats to under-represented groups (McCann 4). However, the effectiveness of the quota system is contested, with continued resistance, particularly in conservative parties. Fine (3) argues that one key objection to mandatory quotas is that they “violate the principle of merit”, suggesting insufficient numbers of women capable or qualified to hold parliamentary positions.In contrast, Gauja (2) suggests that “state-mandated electoral quotas work” because in countries with legislated quotas the number of women being nominated is significantly higher. While gender quotas have been brought to bear to address the gender gap, the ability to challenge the majority status of men has been limited (Hughes).In 1994 the ALP introduced rule-based party quotas to achieve equal representation by 2025 and a gender weighting system for female preselection votes. Conversely, the Liberal Party have a voluntary target of reaching 50 per cent female representation by 2025. But what of the treatment of women who do enter politics?Fig. 1: Portrait of Julia Gillard AC, 27th Prime Minister of Australia, at Parliament House, CanberraInside Politics: Misogyny and Mobs in the ALPIn 2010, Julia Gillard was elected as the leader of the governing ALP, making her Australia’s first female Prime Minister. Following the 2010 federal election, called 22 days after becoming Prime Minister, Gillard was faced with the first hung parliament since 1940. She formed a successful minority government before losing the leadership of the ALP in June 2013. Research demonstrates that “being a female prime minister is often fraught because it challenges many of the gender stereotypes associated with political leadership” (Curtin 192). In Curtin’s assessment Gillard was naïve in her view that interest in her as the country’s first female Prime Minister would quickly dissipate.Gillard, argues Curtin (192-193), “believed that her commitment to policy reform and government enterprise, to hard work and maintaining consensus in caucus, would readily outstrip the gender obsession.” As Curtin continues, “this did not happen.” Voters were continually reminded that Gillard “did not conform to the traditional.” And “worse, some high-profile men, from industry, the Liberal Party and the media, indulged in verbal attacks of a sexist nature throughout her term in office (Curtin 192-193).The treatment of Gillard is noted in terms of how misogyny reinforced negative perceptions about the patriarchal nature of parliamentary politics. The rage this created in public and media spheres was double-edged. On the one hand, some were outraged at the sexist treatment of Gillard. On the other hand, those opposing Gillard created a frenzy of personal and sexist attacks on her. Further attacking Gillard, on 25 February 2011, radio broadcaster Alan Jones called Gillard, not only by her first-name, but called her a “liar” (Kwek). These attacks and the informal way the Prime Minister was addressed, was unprecedented and caused outrage.An anti-carbon tax rally held in front of Parliament House in Canberra in March 2011, featured placards with the slogans “Ditch the Witch” and “Bob Brown’s Bitch”, referring to Gillard and her alliance with the Australian Greens, led by Senator Bob Brown. The Opposition Leader Tony Abbott and other members of the Liberal Party were photographed standing in front of the placards (Sydney Morning Herald, Vertigo). Criticism of women in positions of power is not limited to coming from men alone. Women from the Liberal Party were also seen in the photo of derogatory placards decrying Gillard’s alliances with the Greens.Gillard (Sydney Morning Herald, “Gillard”) said she was “offended when the Leader of the Opposition went outside in the front of Parliament and stood next to a sign that said, ‘Ditch the witch’. I was offended when the Leader of the Opposition stood next to a sign that ascribed me as a man’s bitch.”Vilification of Gillard culminated in October 2012, when Abbott moved a no-confidence motion against the Speaker of the House, Peter Slipper. Abbott declared the Gillard government’s support for Slipper was evidence of the government’s acceptance of Slipper’s sexist attitudes (evident in allegations that Slipper sent a text to a political staffer describing female genitals). Gillard responded with what is known as the “Misogyny speech”, pointing at Abbott, shaking with rage, and proclaiming, “I will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man” (ABC). Apart from vilification, how principles can be forsaken for parliamentary, party or electoral needs, may leave some women circumspect about entering parliament. Similar attacks on political women may affirm this view.In 2010, Labor Senator Penny Wong, a gay Member of Parliament and advocate of same-sex marriage, voted against a bill supporting same-sex marriage, because it was not ALP policy (Q and A, “Passion”). Australian Marriage Equality spokesperson, Alex Greenwich, strongly condemned Wong’s vote as “deeply hypocritical” (Akersten). The Sydney Morning Herald (Dick), under the headline “Married to the Mob” asked:a question: what does it now take for a cabinet minister to speak out on a point of principle, to venture even a mild criticism of the party position? ... Would you object if your party, after fixing some areas of discrimination against a minority group of which you are a part, refused to move on the last major reform for that group because of ‘tradition’ without any cogent explanation of why that tradition should remain? Not if you’re Penny Wong.In 2017, during the postal vote campaign for marriage equality, Wong clarified her reasons for her 2010 vote against same-sex marriage saying in an interview: “In 2010 I had to argue a position I didn’t agree with. You get a choice as a party member don’t you? You either resign or do something like that and make a point, or you stay and fight and you change it.” Biding her time, Wong used her rage to change policy within the ALP.In continuing personal attacks on Gillard, on 19 March 2012, Gillard was told by Germaine Greer that she had a “big arse” (Q and A, “Politics”) and on 27 August 2012, Greer said Gillard looked like an “organ grinder’s monkey” (Q and A, “Media”). Such an attack by a prominent feminist from the 1970s, on the personal appearance of the Prime Minister, reinforced the perception that it was acceptable to criticise a woman in this position, in ways men have never been. Inside Politics: Leadership and Bullying inside the Liberal PartyWhile Gillard’s leadership was likely cut short by the ongoing attacks on her character, Liberal Deputy leader Julie Bishop was thwarted from rising to the leadership of the Liberal Party, thus making it unlikely she will become the Liberal Party’s first female Prime Minister. Julie Bishop was Australia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs from 2013 to 2018 and Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party from 2007 to 2018, having entered politics in 1998.With the impending demise of Prime Minister Turnbull in August 2018, Bishop sought support from within the Liberal Party to run for the leadership. In the second round of leadership votes Bishop stood for the leadership in a three-cornered race, coming last in the vote to Peter Dutton and Scott Morrison. Bishop resigned as the Foreign Affairs Minister and took a seat on the backbench.When asked if the Liberal Party would elect a popular female leader, Bishop replied: “When we find one, I’m sure we will.” Political journalist Annabel Crabb offered further insight into what Bishop meant when she addressed the press in her red Rodo shoes, labelling the statement as “one of Julie Bishop’s chilliest-ever slapdowns.” Crabb, somewhat sardonically, suggested this translated as Bishop listing someone with her qualifications and experience as: “Woman Works Hard, Is Good at Her Job, Doesn't Screw Up, Loses Out Anyway.”For political journalist Tony Wright, Bishop was “clearly furious with those who had let their testosterone get the better of them and their party” and proceeded to “stride out in a pair of heels in the most vivid red to announce that, despite having resigned the deputy position she had occupied for 11 years, she was not about to quit the Parliament.” In response to the lack of support for Bishop in the leadership spill, female members of the federal parliament took to wearing red in the parliamentary chambers signalling that female members were “fed up with the machinations of the male majority” (Wright).Red signifies power, strength and anger. Worn in parliament, it was noticeable and striking, making a powerful statement. The following day, Bishop said: “It is evident … that there is an acceptance of a level of behaviour in Canberra that would not be tolerated in any other workplace across Australia" (Wright).Colour is political. The Suffragettes of the early twentieth century donned the colours of purple and white to create a statement of unity and solidarity. In recent months, Dr Kerryn Phelps used purple in her election campaign to win the vacated seat of Wentworth, following Turnbull’s resignation, perhaps as a nod to the Suffragettes. Public anger in Wentworth saw Phelps elected, despite the electorate having been seen as a safe Liberal seat.On 21 February 2019, the last sitting day of Parliament before the budget and federal election, Julie Bishop stood to announce her intention to leave politics at the next election. To some this was a surprise. To others it was expected. On finishing her speech, Bishop immediately exited the Lower House without acknowledging the Prime Minister. A proverbial full-stop to her outrage. She wore Suffragette white.Victorian Liberal backbencher Julia Banks, having declared herself so repelled by bullying during the Turnbull-Dutton leadership delirium, announced she was quitting the Liberal Party and sitting in the House of Representatives as an Independent. Banks said she could no longer tolerate the bullying, led by members of the reactionary right wing, the coup was aided by many MPs trading their vote for a leadership change in exchange for their individual promotion, preselection endorsements or silence. Their actions were undeniably for themselves, for their position in the party, their power, their personal ambition – not for the Australian people.The images of male Liberal Members of Parliament standing with their backs turned to Banks, as she tended her resignation from the Liberal Party, were powerful, indicating their disrespect and contempt. Yet Banks’s decision to stay in politics, as with Wong and Bishop is admirable. To maintain the rage from within the institutions and structures that act to sustain patriarchy is a brave, but necessary choice.Today, as much as any time in the past, a woman’s place is in politics, however, recent events highlight the ongoing poor treatment of women in Australian politics. Yet, in the face of negative treatment – gendered attacks on their character, dismissive treatment of their leadership abilities, and ongoing bullying and sexism, political women are fighting back. They are once again channelling their rage at the way they are being treated and how their abilities are constantly questioned. They are enraged to the point of standing in the face of adversity to bring about social and political change, just as the suffragettes and the women’s movements of the 1970s did before them. The current trend towards women planning to stand as Independents at the 2019 federal election is one indication of this. Women within the major parties, particularly on the conservative side of politics, have become quiet. Some are withdrawing, but most are likely regrouping, gathering the rage within and ready to make a stand after the dust of the 2019 election has settled.ReferencesAndrew, Merrindahl. Social Movements and the Limits of Strategy: How Australian Feminists Formed Positions on Work and Care. Canberra. 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Women in Politics: 2017. 2017. 29 Jan. 2018 <https://www.ipu.org/resources/publications/infographics/2017-03/women-in-politics-2017>.Krook, Mona Lena. “Gender Quotas as a Global Phenomenon: Actors and Strategies in Quota Adoption.” European Political Science 3.3 (2004): 59–65.———. “Candidate Gender Quotas: A Framework for Analysis.” European Journal of Political Research 46 (2007): 367–394.Kwek, Glenda. “Alan Jones Lets Rip at ‘Ju-liar’ Gillard.” Sydney Morning Herald 25 Feb. 2011. 12 Sep. 2016 <http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/alan-jones-lets-rip-at-juliar-gillard-20110224-1b7km.html>.Lake, Marilyn. Getting Equal: The History of Australian Feminism. Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1999.McCann, Joy. “Electoral Quotas for Women: An International Overview.” Parliament of Australia Library 14 Nov. 2013. 1 Feb. 2018 <https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1314/ElectoralQuotas>.Parliament of Australia. “Current Ministry List: The 45th Parliament.” 2016. 11 Sep. 2016 <http://www.aph.gov.au/about_parliament/parliamentary_departments/parliamentary_library/parliamentary_handbook/current_ministry_list>.Plan International. “Girls Reluctant to Pursue a Life of Politics Cite Sexism as Key Reason.” 2018. 20 Jan. 2019 <https://www.plan.org.au/media/media-releases/girls-have-little-to-no-desire-to-pursue-a-career-in-politics>.Q and A. “Mutilation and the Media Generation.” ABC Television 27 Aug. 2012. 28 Sep. 2016 <http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s3570412.htm>.———. “Politics and Porn in a Post-Feminist World.” ABC Television 19 Mar. 2012. 12 Sep. 2016 <http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s3451584.htm>.———. “Where Is the Passion?” ABC Television 26 Jul. 2010. 23 Mar. 2018 <http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s2958214.htm?show=transcript>.Reid, Elizabeth. “The Child of Our Movement: A Movement of Women.” Different Lives: Reflections on the Women’s Movement and Visions of Its Future. Ed. Jocelynne Scutt. Ringwood: Penguin 1987. 107-120.Ryan, L. “Feminism and the Federal Bureaucracy 1972-83.” Playing the State: Australian Feminist Interventions. Ed. Sophie Watson. Sydney: Allen and Unwin 1990.Ryan, Susan. “Fishes on Bicycles.” Papers on Parliament 17 (Sep. 1992). 1 Mar. 2018 <https://www.aph.gov.au/~/~/link.aspx?_id=981240E4C1394E1CA3D0957C42F99120>.Sydney Morning Herald. “‘Pinocchio Gillard’: Strong Anti-Gillard Emissions at Canberra Carbon Tax Protest.” 23 Mar. 2011. 12 Sep. 2016 <http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/pinocchio-gillard-strong-antigillard-emissions-at-canberra-carbon-tax-protest-20110323-1c5w7.html>.———. “Gillard v Abbott on the Slipper Affair.” 10 Oct. 2012. 12 Sep. 2016 <http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-09/gillard-vs-abbott-on-the-slipper-affair/4303618>.United Nations Women. 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The concept of war is inextricably linked to violence, and military action almost always resounds with the emotion and language of rage. Since the War on Terror began in September 2001, post-9/11 expressions of terror and rage have influenced academics to evaluate rage and its meanings (Gildersleeve and Gehrmann). Of course, it has directly influenced the lives of those affected by global conflicts in war-torn regions of the Middle East and North Africa. The populace there has reacted violently to military invasions with a deep sense of rage, while in the affluent West, rage has also infiltrated everyday life through clothes, haircuts, and popular culture as military chic became ‘all the rage’ (Rall 177). Likewise, post-9/11 popular films directly tap into rage and violence to explain (or justify?) conflict and war. The film version of the life of United States Iraq veteran Chris Kyle in American Sniper (2014) reveals fascinating depictions of rage through the perspective of a highly trained shooter who waits patiently above the battlefield, watching for hours before taking human life with a carefully planned long-distance shot. The significance of the complexities of rage as presented in this film are discussed later. Foundations of Rage: Colonial Legacy, Arab Spring, and ISISThe War on Terror may have purportedly began with the rage of Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda missions and the responding rage of George Bush’s America determined to seek vengeance for 9/11, but the rage simmering in the Middle East has deeper origins. This includes: the rejection of the Shah of Iran's secular dictatorship in 1979, the ongoing trauma of an Arab Palestinian state that was promised in 1947, and the blighted hopes of Gamal Abdel Nasser's Arab nationalism that offered so much in the 1950s but failed to deliver. But these events should not be considered in isolation from events of the whole 20th century, in particular the betrayal of Arab nationalism by the Allied forces, especially Britain and France after the First World War. The history of injustice that Robert Fisk has chronicled in a monumental volume reveals the complexity and nuances of an East-West conflict that continued to fracture the Middle East. In a Hollywood-based film such as American Sniper it is easy to depict the region from a Western perspective without considering the cycle of injustice and oppression that gave birth to the rage that eventually lashed out at the West. Rage can also be rage against war, or rage about the mistreatment of war victims. The large-scale protests against the war before the 2003 Iraq invasion have faded into apparent nothingness, despite nearly two decades of war. Protest rage appears to have been replaced by outrage on behalf of the victims of war; the refugees, asylum seekers, economic migrants and those displaced by the ever- spreading conflict that received a new impetus in 2011 with the Arab Spring democracy movements. One spark point for rage ignited when Tunisian street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi embarked on his act of self-immolation in protest against harassment by public officials. This moment escalated into a kaleidoscope of collective rage as regimes were challenged from Syria to Libya, but met with a tragic aftermath. Sadly, democratic governments did not emerge, but turned into regimes of extremist violence exemplified in the mediaeval misogynistic horror now known as ISIS, or IS, or the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Hassan). This horror intensified as millions of civilised Syrians and Iraqis sought to flee their homelands. The result was the movement of peoples, which included manipulation by ruthless people smugglers and detention by governments determined to secure borders — even even as this eroded decades of consensus on the rights of refugees. One central image, that of three-year-old Aylan Kurdi’s corpse washed up on a beach (Smith) should invoke open rage. Here, the incongruity was that a one-time Turkish party beach for affluent 18 to 35-year-olds from Western Europe would signify the death place of a Syrian refugee child, now displaced by war. The historical significance of East/West conflicts in the Middle East, recent events post- Arab Spring, the resulting refugee crisis in the region, and global anti-war protests should be foremost when examining Clint Eastwood's film about an American military sniper in Iraq.Hot Rage and Cold Rage Recent mass shootings in the United States have delineated factions within the power of rage: it seems to blow either hot or cold. US Army psychiatrist Major Nidal Malik Hasan was initially calm when he embarked on a public expression of rage, wounding 30 people and murdering 13 others in a mass shooting event in 2009 (MacAskill). Was this to be categorised as the rage of a nihilist, an Islamist - or as just another American mass shooting like events in Orlando or Sandy Hook? The war journalist and film maker Sebastian Junger authored a study on belonging, where he linked mass shootings (or rampage killings) to social stress and disunity, as a “tendency rising steadily in the US since the 1980s” (115-116). In contrast, the actions of a calm and isolated shooter on a rooftop can be justified as acceptable behaviour if this occurs during war. Now in the case of Chris Kyle, he normalised his tale of calm killing, as an example identified by action “built on a radically asymmetric violence” (Pomarede 53).Enemy at the Gates The point is that sniper killings can be presented in film as morally good. For example, the 2001 film Enemy at the Gates portrays a duel of two snipers in Stalingrad, Russia. This is a fictionalised contest of a fictionalised event, because there was only tangential evidence that Russian sniper hero Vasily Zaytsev actually engaged in a three-day sniper duel with his German enemy during the Second World War. Enemy at the Gates presents the sniper as an acceptable figure in mass popular culture (or even a hero?), which provides the justification for American Sniper. However, in this instance, viewers could recognise a clear struggle between good and evil.Politically, Enemy at the Gates, whether viewed from a conservative or a progressive perspective, presents a struggle between a soldier of the allies (the Soviet Union) and the forces of Nazism, undeniably the most evil variant of fascism. We can interpret this as a defence of the communist heartland, or the defence of a Russian motherland, or the halting of Nazi aggression at its furthest expansion point. Whichever way it is viewed, the Russian sniper is a good man, and although in the movie’s plot the actor Ralph Fiennes as political commissar injects a dimension of manipulation and Stalinist authoritarian control, this does not detract from the idea of the hero defeating evil with single aimed shots. There is rage, but it is overshadowed by the moral ‘good.’American Sniper The true story of Chris Kyle is quite simple. A young man grows up in Texas with ‘traditional’ American values, tries sport and University, tries ranch life, and joins the US Navy Special Forces. He becomes a SEAL (Sea, Air and Land) team member, and is trained as a specialist sniper. Kyle excels as a sniper in Iraq, where he self-identifies as America's most successful sniper. He kills a lot of enemies in Iraq, experiences multiple deployments followed by the associated trauma of reintegration to family life and redeployment, suffers from PTSD, returns to civilian life in America and is himself shot dead by a distressed veteran, in an ironic act of rage. Admired by many, the veracity of Kyle’s story is challenged by others, a point I will return to. As noted above, Kyle kills a lot of people, many of whom are often unaware of his existence. In his book On Killing, Lieutenant-Colonel David Grossman notes this a factor that actually causes the military to have a “degree of revulsion towards snipers” (109), which is perhaps why the movie version of Kyle’s life promotes a rehabilitation of the military in its “unambiguous advocacy of the humility, dedication, mastery, and altruism of the sniper” as hero (Beck 218). Most enlisted soldiers never actually kill their enemies, but Kyle kills well over 100 while on duty.The 2012 book memoir of United States Navy sniper Chris Kyle at war in Iraq became a national cultural artefact. The film followed in 2014, allowing the public dramatisation of this to offer a more palatable form for a wider audience. It is noted that military culture at the national level is malleable and nebulous (Black 42), and these constructs are reflected in the different variants of American Sniper. These cultural products are absorbed differently when consumed by the culture that has produced them (the military), as compared to the way that they are consumed by the general public, and the book American Sniper reflects this. Depending upon readers’ perspectives, it is a book of raw honesty or nationalistic jingoism, or perhaps both. The ordinary soldier’s point of view is reiterated and directed towards a specifically American audience. Despite controversy and criticism the book was immensely successful, with weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. While it naturally appealed to many in its primary American audience, from an Australian perspective, the jingoism of this book jars. In fact, it really jars a lot, to the point of being quite challenging to read. That Australian readers would have difficulty with this text is probably appropriate, because after all, the book was not created for Australians but for Americans.On the other hand, Americans have produced balanced accounts of the soldier experience in Iraq. A very different exemplar is Garry Trudeau’s Doonesbury blog that became the book The Sandbox (2007). Here American men and women soldiers wrote their own very revealing stories about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, in autobiographical accounts that ranged from nuanced explanations of the empathy for the soldier’s predicament, to simple outright patriotism. TIn their first-hand accounts of war showed a balance of ordinary pathos, humour – and the raw brutality of a soldier finding the neck stem of a human spine on the ground after a suicide bomb attack (Trudeau 161) – and even this seems more palatable to read than American Sniper. A similar book on the US military sniper experience (Cavallaro and Larsen) also shows it is possible to incorporate a variety of perspectives without patriotic jingoism, or even military propaganda being predominant.In contrast to the book, the film American Sniper narrates a more muted story. The movie is far more “saccharine”, in the words of critical Rolling Stone reviewer Matt Taibbi, but still reflects a nationalistic attitude to war and violence — appropriate to the mood of the book. American producer/director Clint Eastwood has developed his own style for skipping around the liminal space that exists between thought-provoking analysis and populism, and American Sniper is no exception. The love story of Chris Kyle and his wife Taya looks believable, and the intensity of military training and war fighting, including the dispassionate thoughts of Kyle as sniper, are far more palatable in the film version than as the raw words on the page.The Iraq War impacted on millions of Americans, and it is the compelling images shown re-living Chris Kyle’s funeral at the film’s conclusion that leaves a lasting message. The one-time footballer’s memorial service is conducted in a Texas football stadium and this in itself is poignant: but it is the thousands of people who lined the highway overpasses for over 200 miles to farewell him and show respect as his body travels towards the funeral in the stadium, that gives us an insight into the level of disenchantment and rage at America’s loss. This is a rage fuelled by losing their military ‘empire’ coupled with a traumatised search for meaning that Jerry Lembcke sees as inextricably linked to US national failure in war and the tragedy of an individual soldier’s PTSD. Such sentiments seem intimately connected to Donald Trump’s version of America, and its need to exercise global power. Kyle died before Trump’s election, but it seems evident that such rage, anger and alienation experienced by a vast segment of the American population contributed to the election result (Kluger). Calm Cold Calculation Ironically, the traditional sniper embodies the antithesis of hot-blooded rage. Firing any long- distance range weapon with accuracy requires discipline, steady breathing and intense muscle control. Olympic shooting or pentathlons demonstrate this, and Gina Cavallaro and Matt Larsen chronicle both sniper training and the sniper experience in war. So, the notion of sniper shooting and rage can only coexist if we accept that rage becomes the cold, calculating rage of a person doing a highly precise job when killing enemies. In the book, Kyle clearly has no soldierly respect for his Iraqi insurgent enemies and is content to shoot them down one by one. In the film, there is greater emphasis on Kyle having more complex emotions based around the desire to protect his fellow soldiers by shooting in a calm and detached fashion at his designated targets.Chris Kyle’s determination to kill his enemies regardless of age or gender seems at odds with the calm detached passivity of the sniper. The long-distance shooter should be dispassionate but Kyle experiences rage as he kills to protect his fellow soldiers. Can we argue he exhibits ‘cold rage’ not ‘hot rage’, but rage none the less? It would certainly seem so. War Hero and Fantasist?In life, as in death, Chris Kyle presents a figure of controversy, being praised by the political far right, yet condemned by a diverse coalition that included radicals, liberals, and even conservatives such as former soldier Michael Fumento. Fumento commented that Kyle’s literary embellishments and emphasis on his own prowess denigrated the achievements of fellow American snipers. Reviewer Lindy West described him as “a hate filled killer”, only to become a recipient of rage and hatred from Kyle supporters. Paul Rieckhoff described the film as not the most complex nor deepest nor provocative, but the best film made about the Iraq war for its accuracy in storytelling and attention to detail.Elsewhere, reviewer Mark Kermode argues that the way the film is made introduces a significant ambiguity: that we as an audience can view Kyle as either a villain, a hero, or a combination of both. Critics have also examined Kyle’s reportage on his military exploits, where it seems he received less fewer medals than he claimed, as well as his ephemeral assertion that he shot looters in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina (Lamothe). In other claims, the US courts have upheld the assertion of former wrestler turned politician Jesse Ventura that Kyle fabricated a bar-room brawl between the two. But humans are complex beings, and Drew Blackburn sees it as “entirely plausible to become both a war hero and a liar” in his candid (Texas-based) assessment of one person who was, like many of us, a multifaceted figure.Conclusion This article has addressed the complicated issues of rage originating in the historical background of military actions that have taken place in the East/West conflicts in the Middle East that began in the region after the Second World War, and continue to the present day. Rage has become a popular trope within popular culture as military chic becomes ‘all the rage’. Rage is inextricably linked to the film American Sniper. Patriotism and love of his fellow soldiers motivated Chris Kyle, and his determination to kill his country’s enemies in Iraq and protect the lives of his fellow American soldiers is clear, as is his disdain for both his Iraqi allies and enemies. With an ever- increasing number of mass shootings in the United States, the military sniper will be a hero revered by some and a villain reviled by others. Rage infuses the film American Sniper, whether the rage of battle, rage at the moral dilemmas his role demands, domestic rage between husband and wife, PTSD rage, or rage inspired following his pointless murder. But rage, even when it expresses a complex vortex of emotions, remains dangerous for those who are obsessed with guns, and look to killing others either as a ‘duty’ or to soothe an individual crisis of confidence. ReferencesAmerican Sniper. Dir. Clint Eastwood. Warner Brothers, 2014.Beck, Bernard. “If I Forget Thee: History Lessons in Selma, American Sniper, and A Most Violent Year.” Multicultural Perspectives 17.4 (2015): 215-19.Black, Jeremy. War and the Cultural Turn. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2012.Blackburn, Drew. “How We Talk about Chris Kyle.” Texas Monthly 2 June 2016. 18 Feb. 2019 <https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-daily-post/chris-kyle-rorschach/>.Cavallaro, Gina, and Matt Larsen. Sniper: American Single-Shot Warriors in Iraq and Afghanistan. Guildford, Connecticut: Lyons, 2010. Enemy at the Gates. Dir. Jean-Jaques Annaud. Paramount/Pathe, 2001.Fisk, Robert. The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006.Fumento, Michael. “American Sniper’s Myths and Misrepresentations.” The American Conservative 13 Mar. 2015. 18 Feb. 2019 <https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/clint-eastwoods-fabricated-sniper/>.Gildersleeve, Jessica, and Richard Gehrmann. “Memory and the Wars on Terror”. Memory and the Wars on Terror: Australian and British Perspectives. Eds. Jessica Gildersleeve and Richard Gehrmann. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. 1-19.Grossman, Dave. On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society. Boston: Little, Brown, 1995.Hassan, Hassan. “The True Origins of ISIS.” The Atlantic 30 Nov. 2018. 17 Feb. 2019 <https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/11/isis-origins-anbari-zarqawi/577030/>.Kermode, Mark. “American Sniper Review – Bradley Cooper Stars in Real-Life Tale of Legendary Marksman.” The Guardian 18 Jan. 2015. 18 Feb. 2019 <https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/jan/18/american-sniper-review-bradley-cooper-real-life-tale-legendary-marksman>.Kluger, Jeffrey. “America's Anger Is Out of Control.” TIME 1 June 2016. 17 Feb. 2019 <http://time.com/4353606/anger-america-enough-already>.Kyle, Chris. American Sniper. New York: Harper, 2012. Junger, Sebastian. Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging. London: Fourth Estate, 2016.Lamothe, Dan. “How ‘American Sniper’ Chris Kyle’s Truthfulness Is in Question Once Again.” 25 May 2016. 19 Feb. 2019 <https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2016/05/25/how-american-sniper-chris-kyles-truthfulness-is-in-question-once-again/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.d8806f2b8d3a>.Lembcke, Jerry. PTSD: Diagnosis and Identity in Post-Empire America. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2013.Pomarède, Julien. “Normalizing Violence through Front-Line Stories: The Case of American Sniper.” Critical Military Studies 4.1 (2018): 52-71. Rall, Denise N. “Afterword: The Military in Contemporary Fashion.” Fashion and War in Popular Culture. Ed. Denise N. Rall. Bristol: Intellect, 2014. 177-179. Rieckhoff, Paul. “A Veteran's View of American Sniper.” Variety 16 Jan. 2015. 19 Feb. 2019 <https://variety.com/2015/film/opinion/a-veterans-view-of-american-sniper-guest-column-1201406349/>.Smith, Heather, and Richard Gehrmann. “Branding the Muscled Male Body as Military Costume.” Fashion and War in Popular Culture. Ed. Denise N. Rall. Bristol: Intellect, 2014. 57-71.Smith, Helena. “Shocking Images of Drowned Syrian Boy Show Tragic Plight of Refugees.” The Guardian 2 Sep. 2015. 17 Feb. 2019 <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/02/shocking-image-of-drowned-syrian-boy-shows-tragic-plight-of-refugees>.Stanford, David (ed.). The Sandbox: Dispatches from Troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Kansas City: Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2007.Taibbi, Matt. “American Sniper Is Almost Too Dumb to Criticise.” Rolling Stone 21 Jan. 2015. <https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/movie-news/american-sniper-is-almost-too-dumb-to-criticize-240955/>.Trudeau, Garry B. The Sandbox: Dispatches from Troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Kansas City: Andrew McMeel Publishing, 2007.West, Lindy. “The Real American Sniper Was a Hate-Filled Killer: Why Are Simplistic Patriots Treating Him as a Hero?” The Guardian 6 Jan. 2015. 19 Feb. 2019 <https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/06/real-american-sniper-hate-filled-killer-why-patriots-calling-hero-chris-kyle>.

In the summer of 1999, four ships carrying 599 Fujianese people arrived on the west coast of Canada. They survived a desperate and dangerous journey only for the Canadian Government to put them in prison. After numerous deportations, there are still about 40 of these people in Canadian prisons as of January 2001. They have been in jail for over a year and a half under mere suspicion of flight risk. About 24 people have been granted refugee status. Most people deported to China have been placed in Chinese prisons and fined. It is worth remembering that these migrants may have been undocumented but they are not "illegal" in that they have mobility rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognizes everyone's right to leave any country and to seek asylum. It can be argued that it is not the migrants who are illegal, but the unjust laws that criminalize their freedom of movement. In considering people's rights, we need to keep in mind not only the civil and political rights that the West tends to privilege, but equally important social and economic rights as well. As a local response to a global phenomenon, Direct Action Against Refugee Exploitation (DAARE) formed in Vancouver to support the rights of the Fujianese women, eleven of whom at the time of writing are still being held in the Burnaby Correctional Centre for Women (BCCW). In DAARE’s view, Immigration Canada's decision to detain all these people is based on a racialized group-profiling policy which violates basic human rights and ignores Canadian responsibility in the creation of the global economic and societal conditions which give rise to widespread migration. In light of the Canadian government's plans to implement even more punitive immigration legislation, DAARE endorses the Coalition for a Just Immigration and Refugee Policy's "Position Paper on Bill C31." They call for humanitarian review and release for the remaining Fujianese people. This review would include a few released refugee claimants who are still in Canada, children, women who were past victims of family planning, people facing religious persecution and, of course, those who are still in prison after 18 months and who have never been charged with any crime. Suspicion of flight risk is not a valid reason to incarcerate people for such a long time. Who Is a Migrant? The lines between "voluntary" and "forced" migration are no longer adequate to explain the complexities of population movements today. Motives for forced displacement include political, economic, social and environmental factors. This spectrum runs from the immediate threats to life, safety and freedom due to war or persecution, to situations where economic conditions make the prospects of survival marginal and non-existent. (Moussa 2000). Terms like "economic migrant" and "bogus refugee" have been used in the media to discredit migrants such as the Fujianese and to foster hostility against them. This scapegoating process oversimplifies the situation, for all refugees and all migrants are entitled to the basic respect due all human beings as enshrined in the UN Declaration of Human Rights. There can be multiple reasons for an individual to migrate—ranging from family reunification to economic pressures to personal survival; to fear of government corruption and of political persecution, to name just a few. The reduction of everything to merely the economic does not allow one to understand why migration is occurring and likely to increase in the future. Most immigrants to Canada could also be described as economic migrants. Conrad Black is an economic migrant. The privileging of rich migrants over poor ones romanticizes globalization as corporate progress and ignores the immense human suffering it entails for the majority of the world's population as the gap between the wealthy and the poor rapidly increases. Hundreds of years ago, when migrants came to this aboriginal territory we now call Canada, they came in order to survive—in short, they too were "economic migrants." Many of those migrants who came from Europe would not qualify to enter Canada today under its current immigration admissions guidelines. Indeed, over 50% of Canadians would not be able to independently immigrate to Canada given its current elitist restrictions. One of the major reasons for an increase in migration is the destruction of rural economies in Asia and elsewhere in the world. Millions of people have been displaced by changes in agriculture that separate people from the land. These waves of internal migration also result in the movement of peoples across national borders in order to survive. Chinese provinces such as Fujian and Guangdong, whose people have a long history of overseas travel, are particularly common sources of out-migration. In discussing migration, we need to be wary of how we can inadvertently reinforce the colonization of First Nations people unless we consciously work against that by actively supporting aboriginal self-determination. For example, some First Nations people have been accused of "smuggling" people across borders—this subjects them to the same process of criminalization which the migrants have experienced, and ignores the sovereign rights of First Nations people. We need ways of relating to one another which do not reenact domination, but which work in solidarity with First Nations' struggles. This requires an understanding of the ways in which racism, colonialism, classism, and other tactics through which "dividing and conquering" take place. For those of us who are first, second, third, fourth, fifth generation migrants to this land, our survival and liberation are intimately connected to that of aboriginal people. History Repeating Itself? The arrival of the Fujianese people met with a racist media hysteria reminiscent of earlier episodes of Canadian history. Front page newspaper headlines such as "Go Home" increased hostility against these people. In Victoria, people were offering to adopt the dog on one of the ships at the same time that they were calling to deport the Chinese. From the corporate media accounts of the situation, one would think that most Canadians did not care about the dangerous voyage these people had endured, a voyage during which two people from the second ship died. Accusations that people were trying to enter the country "illegally" overlooked how historically, the Chinese, like other people of colour, have had to find ways to compensate for racist and classist biases in Canada's immigration system. For example, from 1960 to 1973, Canada granted amnesty to over 12,000 "paper sons," that is, people who had immigrated under names other than their own. The granting of "legal" status to the "paper sons" who arrived before 1960 finally recognized that Canada's legislation had unfairly excluded Chinese people for decades. From 1923 to 1947, Canada's Chinese Exclusion Act had basically prevented Chinese people from entering this country. The xenophobic attitudes that gave rise to the Chinese Exclusion Act and the head tax occurred within a colonial context that privileged British migrants. Today, colonialism may no longer be as rhetorically attached to the British empire, but its patterns—particularly the globally inequitable distribution of wealth and resources—continue to accelerate through the mechanism of transnational corporations, for example. As Helene Moussa has pointed out, "the interconnections of globalisation with racist and colonialist ideology are only too clear when all evidence shows that globalisation '¼ legitimise[s] and sustain[s] an international system that tolerates an unbelievable divide not only between the North and the South but also inside them'" (2000). Moreover, according to the United Nations Development Programme, the income gap between people in the world's wealthiest nations and the poorest nations has shifted from 30:1 in 1960 to 60:1 in 1990 and to 74:1 in 1997. (Moussa 2000) As capital or electronic money moves across borders faster than ever before in what some have called the casino economy (Mander and Goldsmith), change and instability are rapidly increasing for the majority of the world's population. People are justifiably anxious about their well-being in the face of growing transnational corporate power; however, "protecting" national borders through enforcement and detention of displaced people is a form of reactive, violent, and often racist, nationalism which scapegoats the vulnerable without truly addressing the root causes of instability and migration. In short, reactive nationalism is ineffective in safe-guarding people's survival. Asserting solidarity with those who are most immediately displaced and impoverished by globalization is strategically a better way to work towards our common survival. Substantive freedom requires equitable economic relations; that is, fairly shared wealth. Canadian Response Abilities The Canadian government should take responsibility for its role in creating the conditions that displace people and force them to migrate within their countries and across borders. As a major sponsor of efforts to privatize economies and undertake environmentally devastating projects such as hydro-electric dams, Canada has played a significant role in the creation of an unemployed "floating population" in China which is estimated to reach 200 million people this year. Punitive tactics will not stop the movement of people, who migrate to survive. According to Peter Kwong, "The well-publicized Chinese government's market reforms have practically eliminated all labor laws, labour benefits and protections. In the "free enterprise zones" workers live virtually on the factory floor, laboring fourteen hours a day for a mere two dollars—that is, about 20 cents an hour" (136). As Sunera Thobani has phrased it, "What makes it alright for us to buy a t-shirt on the streets of Vancouver for $3, which was made in China, then stand up all outraged as Canadian citizens when the woman who made that t-shirt tries to come here and live with us on a basis of equality?" Canada should respond to the urgent situations which cause people to move—not only on the grounds upon which Convention refugees were defined in 1949 (race, religion, nationality, social group, political opinion) which continue to be valid—but also to strengthen Canada's system to include a contemporary understanding that all people have basic economic and environmental survival rights. Some migrants have lives that fit into the narrow definition of a UN Convention refugee and some may not. Those who do not fit this definition have nonetheless urgent needs that deserve attention. The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has pointed out that there are at least 18 million people working in 124 export zones in China. A living wage in China is estimated to be 87 cents per hour. Canadians benefit from these conditions of cheap labour, yet when the producers of these goods come to our shores, we hypocritically disavow any relationship with them. Responsibility in this context need not refer so much to some stern sense of duty, obligation or altruism as to a full "response"—intellectual, emotional, physical, and spiritual—that such a situation provokes in relations between those who "benefit"—materially at least—from such a system and those who do not. References Anderson, Sarah, et al. Field Guide to the Global Economy. New York: New Press, 2000. Canadian Council of Refugees. "Migrant Smuggling and Trafficking in Persons." February 20, 2000. Canadian Woman Studies: Immigrant and Refugee Women. 19.3 (Fall 1999). Chin, Ko-lin. Smuggled Chinese. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1999. Coalition for a Just Immigration and Refugee Policy. "Position Paper on Bill C31." 2000. Davis, Angela. The Angela Davis Reader. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1998. Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women, Foundation Against Trafficking in Women, and International Human Rights Law Group. "Human Rights Standards for the Treatment of Trafficked Persons." January 1999. Henry, Frances and Tator, Carol. Racist Discourses in Canada's English Print Media. Toronto: Canadian Foundation for Race Relations, 2000. Jameson, Fredric and Miyoshi, Masao, Eds. The Cultures of Globalization. Durham: Duke University Press, 1998. Kwong, Peter. Forbidden Workers. New York: New Press, 1997. Mander, Jerry and Goldsmith, Edward, Eds. The Case Against the Global Economy. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1996. Moussa, Helene. "The Interconnections of Globalisation and Migration with Racism and Colonialism: Tracing Complicity." 2000. ---. "Violence against Refugee Women: Gender Oppression, Canadian Policy, and the International Struggle for Human Rights." Resources for Feminist Research 26 (3-4). 1998 Migrant Forum statement (from Asia Pacific People's Assembly on APEC) 'Occasional Paper Migration: an economic and social analysis.' Pizarro, Gabriela Rodriguez. "Human Rights of Migrants." United Nations Report. Seabrook, Jeremy. "The Migrant in the Mirror." New Internationalist 327 (September 2000): 34-5. Sharma, Nandita. "The Real Snakeheads: Canadian government and corporations." Kinesis. October/November (1999): 11. Spivak, Gayatri. "Diasporas Old and New: Women in the Transnational World." Class Issues. Ed. Amitava Kumar. New York: New York University Press, 1997. States of Disarray: The Social Effects of Globalization. London: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UN RISD), 1995. Thobani, Sunera. "The Creation of a ‘Crisis’." Kinesis October/November (1999): 12-13. Whores, Maids and Wives: Making Links. Proceedings of the North American Regional Consultative Forum on Trafficking in Women, 1997.

In August 2017, a white supremacist rally marketed as “Unite the Right” was held in Charlottesville, Virginia. In participation were members of the alt-right, including neo-nazis, white nationalists, neo-confederates, and other hate groups (Atkinson). The rally swiftly erupted in violence between white supremacists and counter protestors, culminating in the death of a counter-protester named Heather Heyer, who was struck by a car driven by white supremacist James Alex Fields, and leaving dozens injured. Terry McQuliffe, the Governor of Virginia, declared a state of emergency on August 12, and the world watched while white supremacists boldly marched in clothing emblazoned with symbols ranging from swastikas to a cartoon frog (Pepe), with flags featuring the nation of “Kekistan”, and carrying tiki torches chanting, “You Will Not Replace Us... Jews Will Not Replace Us”.The purpose of this essay is not, however, to examine the Internet symbols that circulated during the Unite the Right rally but rather to hone in on a specific moment that illustrates a key part of Internet culture that was often overlooked during analysis of the events that occurred during the riots: a documentary filmmaker, C. J. Hunt, was at the rally to record footage for a project on the removal of Confederate monuments. While there, he saw a rally-goer dressed in the white polo t-shirt and khaki pants uniform of the white nationalist group Vanguard America. The rally-goer, a young white man, was being chased by a counter-protester. He began to scream and beg for mercy, and even went as far as stripping off his clothing and denying that he really believed in any of the group’s ideology. In the recording by Hunt, who asks why he was there and why he was undressing, the young white man responded that shouting white power is “fun”, and that he was participating in the event because he, quote, “likes to be offensive” (Hunt).As Hunt notes in a piece for GQ reflecting on his experience at the rally, as soon as the man was cut off from his group and confronted, the runaway racist’s demeanor immediately changed when he had to face the consequences of his actions. Trolls often rely on the safety and anonymity of online forums and digital spaces where they are often free from having to face the consequences of their actions, and for the runaway racist, things became real very quickly when he was forced to own up to his hateful actions. In a way, many members of these movements seem to want politics without consequence for themselves, but with significant repercussions for others. Milo Yiannopoulos, a self-professed “master troll”, built an entire empire worth millions of dollars off of what the far-right defends as ironic hate speech and a form of politics without consequences reserved only for the privileged white men that gleefully engage in it. The runaway racist and Yiannopoulos are borne out of an Internet culture that is built on being offensive, on trolling, and “troll” itself being an aspirational label and identity, but also more importantly, a political aesthetic.In this essay, I argue that trolling itself has become a kind of political aesthetic and identity, and provide evidence via examples like hoaxes, harassment campaigns, and the use of memes to signal to certain online populations and extremist groups in violent attacks. First coined by Walter Benjamin in order to explain a fundamental component of using art to foster consent and compliance in fascist regimes, the term since then has evolved to encompass far more than just works of art. Benjamin’s original conception of the term is in regard to a creation of a spectacle that prevents the masses from recognizing their rights – in short, the aestheticization of politics is not just about the strategies of the fascist regimes themselves but says more about the subjects within them. In the time of Benjamin’s writing, the specific medium was mass propaganda through the newly emerging film industry and other forms of art (W. Benjamin). To Benjamin, these aesthetics served as tools of distracting to make fascism more palatable to the masses. Aesthetic tools of distraction serve an affective purpose, revealing the unhappy consciousness of neoreactionaries (Hui), and provide an outlet for their resentment.Since political aesthetics are concerned with how cultural products like art, film, and even clothing reflect political ideologies and beliefs (Sartwell; McManus; Miller-Idriss), the objects of analysis in this essay are part of the larger visual culture of the alt-right (Bogerts and Fielitz; Stanovsky). Indeed, aesthetic aspects of political systems shift their meaning over time, or are changed and redeployed with transformed effect (Sartwell). In this essay, I am applying the concept of the aestheticization of politics by analyzing how alt-right visual cultures deploy distraction and dissimulation to advance their political agenda through things like trolling campaigns and hoaxes. By analyzing these events, their use of memes, trolling techniques, and their influence on mainstream culture, what is revealed is the influence of trolling on political culture for the alt-right and how the alt-right then distracts the rest of the public (McManus).Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Troll?Large scale analyses of disinformation and extremist content online tends to examine how certain actors are connected, what topics emerge and how these are connected across platforms, and the ways that disinformation campaigns operate in digital environments (Marwick and Lewis; Starbird; Benkler et al.). Masculine and white-coded technology gave rise to male-dominated digital spaces (R. Benjamin), with trolling often being an issue faced by non-normative users of the Internet and their communities (Benjamin; Lumsden and Morgan; Nakamura; Phillips, Oxygen). Creating a kind of unreality where it is difficult to parse out truth from lies, fiction from non-fiction, the troll creates cultural products, and by hiding behind irony and humor confuses onlookers and is removed from any kind of reasonable blame for their actions. Irony has long been a rhetorical strategy used in politics, and the alt right has been no exception (Weatherby), but for our current sociopolitical landscape, trolling is a political strategy that infuses irony into politics and identity.In the digital era, political memes and internet culture are pervasive components of the spread of hate speech and extremist ideology on digital platforms. Trolling is not an issue that exists in a vacuum – rather, trolls are a product of greater mainstream culture that encourages and allows their behaviors (Phillips, This Is Why; Fichman and Sanfilippo; Marwick and Lewis). Trolls, and meme culture in general, have often been pointed to as being part of the reason for the rise of Trump and fascist politics across the world in recent years (Greene; Lamerichs et al.; Hodge and Hallgrimsdottir; Glitsos and Hall). Although criticism has been expressed about how impactful memes were in the election of Donald Trump, political memes have had an impact on the ways that trolling went from anonymous jerks on forums to figures like Yiannapoulos who built entire careers off of trolling, creating empires of hate (Lang). These memes that are often absurd and incomprehensible to those who are not a part of the community that they come from aim to cheapen, trivialize, and mock social justice movements like Black Lives Matter, feminism, LGBTQ+ rights, and others.But the history of trolling online goes as far back as the Internet itself. “Trolling” is just a catch all term to describe online behaviors meant to antagonize, to disrupt online conversations, and to silence other users (Cole; Fichman and Sanfilippo). As more and more people started moving online and engaging in participatory culture, trolling continued to evolve from seemingly harmless jokes like the “Rick Roll” to targeted campaigns meant to harass women off of social media platforms (Lumsden and Morgan; Graham). Trolling behaviors are more than just an ugly part of the online experience, but are also a way for users to maintain the borders of their online community - it’s meant to drive away those who are perceived to be outsiders not just from the specific forum, but the Internet itself (Graham). With the rise of modern social media platforms, trolling itself is also a part of the political landscape, creating a “toxic counterpublic” that combines irony with a kind of earnestness to spread and inject their beliefs into mainstream political discourse (Greene). As a mode of information warfare, these subversive rhetorical strategies meant to contradict or reverse existing political and value systems have been used throughout history as a political tactic (Blackstock).The goal of trolling is not just to disrupt conversations, but to lead to chaos via confusion about the sincerity and meaning of messages and visuals, and rather than functioning as a politics of outrage (on the part of the adherents), it is a politics of being as outrageous as possible. As a part of larger meme culture, the aesthetics of trolls and their outrageous content manage to operate under the radar by being able to excuse their behaviors and rhetoric as just “trolling” or “joking”. This ambiguity points to trolling on the far right as a political strategy and identity to absolve them of blame or accusations of what their real intentions are. Calling them “trolls” hides the level of sophistication and vast levels of influence that they had on public opinion and discourse in the United States (Geltzer; Starks et al.; Marwick and Lewis). We no longer live in a world apart from the troll’s influence and immune from their toxic discourse – rather, we have long been under the bridge with them.Co-Opted SymbolsOne of the most well-known examples of trolling as a political aesthetic and tactic may be the OK hand sign used by the Christchurch shooter. The idea that the OK hand sign was a secretly white supremacist symbol started as a hoax on 4chan. The initial 2017 hoax purported that the hand sign was meant to stand for “White Power”, with the three fingers representing the W and the circle made with the index finger and thumb as the P (Anti-Defamation League, “Okay Hand Gesture”). The purpose of perpetuating the hoax was to demonstrate that (a) they were being watched and (b) that the mainstream media is stupid and gullible enough to believe this hoax. Meant to incite confusion and to act as a subversive strategy, the OK hand sign was then actually adopted by the alt-right as a sort of meme to not just perpetuate the hoax, but to signal belonging to the larger group (Allyn). Even though the Anti-Defamation League initially listed it as not being a hate symbol and pointed out the origins of the hoax (Anti-Defamation League, “No, the ‘OK’ Gesture Is Not a Hate Symbol”), they then switched their opinion when the OK hand sign was being flashed by white supremacists, showing up in photographs at political events, and other social media content. In fact, the OK hand sign is also a common element in pictures of Pepe the Frog, who is a sort of “alt right mascot” (Tait; Glitsos and Hall), but like the OK hand sign, Pepe the Frog did not start as an alt-right mascot and was co-opted by the alt-right as a mode of representation.The confusion around the actual meaning behind the hand symbol points to how the alt-right uses these modes of representation in ways that are simultaneously an inside joke and a real expression of their beliefs. For instance, the Christchurch shooter referenced a number of memes and other rhetoric typical of 4chan and 8chan communities in his video and manifesto (Quek). In the shooter’s manifesto and video, the vast amounts of content that point to the trolling and visual culture of the alt-right are striking – demonstrating how alt-right memes not only make this violent ideology accessible, but are cultural products meant to be disseminated and ultimately, result in some kind of action (DeCook).The creation and co-optation of symbols by the alt-right like the OK hand sign are not just memes, but a form of language created by extremists for extremists (Greene; Hodge and Hallgrimsdottir). The shooter’s choice of including this type of content in his manifesto as well as certain phrases in his live-streamed video indicate his level of knowledge of what needed to be done for his attack to get as much attention as possible – the 4chan troll is the modern-day bogeyman, and parts of the manifesto have been identified as intentional traps for the mainstream media (Lorenz).Thus, the Christchurch shooter and trolling culture are linked, but referring to the symbols in the manifesto as being a part of “trolling” culture misses the deeper purpose – chaos, through the outrage spectacle, is the intended goal, particularly by creating arguments about the nature and utility of online trolling behavior. The shooter encouraged other 8chan users to disseminate his posted manifesto as well as to share the video of the attack – and users responded by immortalizing the event in meme format. The memes created celebrated the shooter as a hero, and although Facebook did remove the initial livestream video, it was reuploaded to the platform 1.2 million times in the first 24 hours, attempting to saturate the online platform with so many uploads that it would cause confusion and be difficult to remove (Gramenz). Some users even created gifs or set the video to music from the Doom video game soundtrack – a video game where the player is a demon slayer in an apocalyptic world, further adding another layer of symbolism to the attack.These political aesthetics – spread through memes, gifs, and “fan videos” – are the perfect vehicles for disseminating extremist ideology because of what they allow the alt-right to do with them: hide behind them, covering up their intentions, all the while adopting them as signifiers for their movement. With the number of memes, symbols, and phrases posted in his manifesto and spoken aloud in his mainstream, perhaps the Christchurch shooter wanted the onus of the blame to fall on these message board communities and the video games and celebrities referenced – in effect, it was “designed to troll” (Lorenz). But, there is a kernel of truth in every meme, post, image, and comment – their memes are a part of their political aesthetic, thus implicit and explicit allusions to the inner workings of their ideology are present. Hiding behind hoaxes, irony, edginess, and trolling, members of the alt-right and other extremist Internet cultures then engage in a kind of subversion that allows them to avoid taking any responsibility for real and violent attacks that occur as a result of their discourse. Antagonizing the left, being offensive, and participating in this outrage spectacle to garner a response from news outlets, activists, and outsiders are all a part of the same package.Trolls and the Outrage SpectacleThe confusion and the chaos left behind by these kinds of trolling campaigns and hoaxes leave many to ask: How disingenuous is it? Is it meant for mere shock value or is it really reflective of the person’s beliefs? In terms of the theme of dissimulation for this special issue, what is the real intent, and under what pretenses should these kinds of trolling behaviors be understood? Returning to the protestor who claimed “I just like to be offensive”, the skepticism from onlookers still exists: why go so far as to join an alt-right rally, wearing the uniform of Identity Evropa (now the American Identity Movement), as a “joke”?Extremists hide behind humor and irony to cloud judgments from others, begging the question of can we have practice without belief? But, ultimately, practice and belief are intertwined – the regret of the Runaway Racist is not because he suddenly realized he did not “believe”, but rather was forced to face the consequences of his belief, something that he as a white man perhaps never really had to confront. The cultural reach of dissimulation, in particular hiding true intent behind the claim of “irony”, is vast - YouTuber Pewdiepie claimed his use of racial and anti-Semitic slurs and putting on an entire Ku Klux Klan uniform in the middle of a video were “accidental” only after considerable backlash (Picheta). It has to be noted, however, that Pewdiepie is referenced in the manifesto of the Christchurch shooter – specifically, the shooter yelled during his livestream “subscribe to Pewdiepie”, (Lorenz). Pewdiepie and many other trolls, once called out for their behavior, and regardless of their actual intent, double down on their claims of irony to distract from the reality of their behaviors and actions.The normalization of this kind of content in mainstream platforms like Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and even Instagram show how 4chan and alt-right Internet culture has seeped out of its borders and exists everywhere online. This “coded irony” is not only enabled rhetorically due to irony’s slippery definition, but also digitally via these online media (Weatherby). The aesthetics of the troll are present in every single platform and are disseminated everywhere – memes are small cultural units meant to be passed on (Shifman), and although one can argue it was not memes alone that resulted in the rise of the alt-right and the election of Donald Trump, memes are a part of the larger puzzle of the political radicalization process. The role of the Internet in radicalization is so powerful and insidious because of the presentation of content – it is funny, edgy, ironic, offensive, and outrageous. But these behaviors and attitudes are not just appealing to some kind of adolescent-like desire to push boundaries of what is and is not socially acceptable and/or politically incorrect (Marwick and Lewis), and calling it such clouds people’s perceptions of their level of sophistication in shaping political discourse.Memes and the alt-right are a noted phenomenon, and these visual cultures created by trolls on message boards have aided in the rise of the current political situation worldwide (Hodge and Hallgrimsdottir). We are well in the midst of a type of warfare based on not weapons and bodies, but information and data - in which memes and other elements of the far right’s political aesthetic play an important role (Molander et al.; Prier; Bogerts and Fielitz). The rise of the online troll as a political player and the alt-right are merely the logical outcomes of these systems.ConclusionThe alt-right’s spread was possible because of the trolling cultures and aesthetics of dissimulation created in message boards that predate 4chan (Kitada). The memes and inflammatory statements made by them serve multiple purposes, ranging from an intention to incite outrage among non-members of the group to signal group belonging and identity. In some odd way, if people do not understand the content, the content actually speaks louder and, in more volumes, that it would if its intent was more straightforward – in their confusion, people give these trolling techniques more attention and amplification in their attempt to make sense of them. Through creating confusion, distraction, and uncertainty around the legitimacy of messages, hand signs, and even memes, the alt-right has elevated the aestheticization of politics to a degree that Walter Benjamin could perhaps not have predicted in his initial lament about the distracted masses of fascist regimes (McManus). The political dimensions of trolling and the cognitive uncertainty that it creates is a part of its goal. Dismissing trolls is no longer an option, but also regarding them as sinister political operatives may be overblowing their significance. In the end, “ironic hate speech” is still hate speech, and by couching their extremist ideology in meme format they make their extremist beliefs more palatable -- and nobody is completely immune to their strategies.ReferencesAllyn, Bobby. “The ‘OK’ Hand Gesture Is Now Listed as a Symbol of Hate.” NPR 2019. <https://www.npr.org/2019/09/26/764728163/the-ok-hand-gesture-is-now-listed-as-a-symbol-of-hate>.Anti-Defamation League. “No, the ‘OK’ Gesture Is Not a Hate Symbol.” Anti-Defamation League. 10 Dec. 2017 <https://www.adl.org/blog/no-the-ok-gesture-is-not-a-hate-symbol>.———. “Okay Hand Gesture.” Anti-Defamation League. 28 Feb. 2020 <https://www.adl.org/education/references/hate-symbols/okay-hand-gesture>.Atkinson, David C. “Charlottesville and the Alt-Right: A Turning Point?” Politics, Groups, and Identities 6.2 (2018): 309-15.Benjamin, Ruha. Race after Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code. Polity, 2019.Benjamin, Walter. 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There is a scene near the beginning of the Mel Brooks movie The History of the World, Part I, in which the ‘first artist’ makes his appearance, completing a cave painting of a hunting scene or some such. Immediately following this, a bearskin-clad man steps forward and urinates on the wall. This individual, we are told (by the disembodied voice of Orson Welles, no less), is the ‘first critic’. Fair or unfair, this is, in many cases, the popular image of the reviewer. Fans of The Simpsons will doubtless remember ‘Guess Who’s Coming to Criticize Dinner?’ a 1999 episode in which Homer Simpson becomes a restaurant critic. At first, he loves everything and can’t believe his good fortune in getting so much free food. Gradually, however, peer pressure from other critics forces him to become increasingly negative, until he finally alienates family and friends and winds up unable to enjoy even the most elaborate meals. The episode ends with him escaping from enraged restaurant owners. Controversy and negative criticism are, as many reviewers will attest, the keys to getting work read and discussed. The desire of reviewers to push the bounds of propriety as far as possible is frequently in evidence. The most-read ‘events’ article on the partner site to this journal, M/C Reviews is entitled, somewhat provocatively, ‘Cunt Get Enough of The Vagina Monologues’. This is, in every way, a fine review which examines the material well and provides a balanced view of the production, but one cannot help wondering how much of the popularity of this particular piece – the site statistics give 11724 readers as of 4 August, 2005 – depends on the title, the first point of contact for the reader. Critics themselves are motivated by various factors, not all of which are generally explicitly stated to the reader. Aside from the desire to be read, they may have a vested interest in an event, or in being allowed to continue to attend events, for example, and one is often forced to wonder whether or not a critic might have been harsher should they not care about getting future tickets. There is an illuminating article by Quentin Letts from the New Statesman in which he describes the negative reaction of fellow critics to his actually paying for a ticket, attending and reviewing a play before the ‘official’ review night. They were more concerned with his having upset precedent and the free ticket tradition than with his actual review, and he quotes the Daily Telegraph’s Charles Spencer as stating that he was "wrecking a perfectly good system". That being said, who are reviewers? For whom do they write and why is their opinion more important than that of the general public? A ‘professional’ reviewer may not necessarily get paid, or may only be paid in event tickets, but their work goes through some sort of formal review process of its own and is subsequently published, generally in a journal, magazine, newspaper or website. Anyone can write a review, but getting it published is harder, and the more respected the publication, the more difficult it is to get into print. This does not mean that all reviewers are experts on the topic that they discuss, although the admission of this is generally left up to the discretion of the individual writer. Given the diversity of critical opinions, perhaps the only general characteristic that the majority of professional reviewers could be said to share is an ability to express their thoughts clearly and in a readable manner. Reviewers are sometimes highly qualified, but not always, and the opinions of a few can create a sort of cultural oligarchy, which might be considered far from ideal. Should reviews be ingenuous or informed? This very issue is addressed in ironic terms in the 1981 painting The Innocent Eye Test by the American artist Mark Tansey. Here, we have a cow, the ‘innocent eye’ of the title, examining a painting of cows. Does the cow have a special perspective? Is it an objective audience? Does it recognise the images on the canvas as such at all? The answer to these questions would appear to be awaited with eager anticipation by the gathered watchers, although the futility of their efforts is immediately obvious to the observer of the painting. The chain of perception does not stop here, however. It is merely part of a post-structural signifier play. Consider, for example, the following photograph, which features an observer commenting on his perception of the painting to a group of what one might term ‘secondary’ observers, in turn seen through the lens of the present discussion and further transformed by the experience and reaction of you, the reader (and so on, ad infinitum): If reviews are themselves reviewed before publication, the reader is the (momentary) endpoint in the aforementioned complex chain of perception. These issues have been discussed recently by Jordan et. al. in a recent issue of Communication Studies in which they argue persuasively that the ideas of the reviewers of reviews impart a type of imprint on what is being written as criticism. The present article has, itself, been through a ‘peer-review’ process and was revised as a result – some new content was added, some taken away, all according to ideas which are not necessarily those of the original author. Different publications usually offer a different style of review depending on their demographic. Generally speaking, the more specialised the publication, the more specialised the review. Academic journals cater to an informed, highly educated audience who expect a degree of precision, referencing and analysis, which might be lacking in more general newspaper reviews. The latter tend to be short and give a brief overview and opinion, reflecting the essentially ephemeral nature of a daily paper. Magazine reviews are often more substantial in both length and depth of discussion, but are, again, usually aimed at a non-specialist audience, although this can depend on the primary focus of the magazine itself. Professional website reviews tend not to suffer from space constraints, but are limited more by the desire of the reviewer to keep their observations digestible to whoever their ‘ideal reader’ might be. All such media, however, rely on the views of a select (and selected) few. There are a number of websites that cater for those members of the public who seek a more democratic model. In the case of cinema, the Internet Movie Database allows registered users to rate and review movies. The resulting ratings are averaged to give an overall idea of the popular reaction to the movie, and those who wish to explore further can read the numerous ‘user comments’, or mini-reviews on the site. A similar phenomenon is featured at the online store Amazon, where customers can rate a book, CD or movie and write their own summary. Several other sites offer an averaging of published reviews in major papers, journals, magazines and websites. Rotten Tomatoes offers a statistical summary of the positive or negative opinions cited in such reviews in the form of the ‘tomatometer’, which gives a percentage rating to a given movie. Yahoo! Movies goes one step further and allows users to submit their own reviews, which are then averaged and can be compared to the aggregate media rating. Generally, these are close, although it is interesting to note that a brief scan suggests that Yahoo! users generally rate movies lower than the professional critics. Does this mean, therefore, that the role of the professional reviewer is becoming less relevant in these days of digital egalitarianism? Certainly, opinions can be disseminated worldwide with greater ease than ever before, but the problem with this is one of quality control. When reading an online review, one often has no way of knowing the motives or, indeed, veracity of the author. On IMDB, for example, users often complain that other reviewers have not even seen the movie in question, which is a criticism that arises only very rarely in the world of professional criticism. It is likely that the division between the professional and the general public will become even more sharply defined with the rise of the internet medium, and that both will have their own audiences. It is significant that none of the aforementioned sites make any attempt to merge the ‘professional’ and ‘open’ content, but keep the boundary between the two clearly defined. It is probable that critical theorists and reviewers themselves will continue to review the culture of reviewing. As R.P. Hart noted in 1976 (70), “the refusal by any field of inquiry to launch periodic, self-reflective examinations is surely a very special kind of arrogance”. Naturally, the desire to discuss one’s profession and, thus, give it the additional lustre of being considered an academic pursuit is also a motivation. That said, such probing is unlikely to change review culture itself. Harry Haskell’s overview of musical criticism, The Attentive Listener, contains sufficient examples to show that the same primary elements that exist in contemporary arts reviews have been in frequent use since at least the beginning of the eighteenth century, for example. We cannot quantify intent meaningfully, and can only discuss the ramifications of individual reviews in the broadest possible terms – perhaps critics are much less significant individually than they would like to believe, especially in a culture of increasingly globalised information exchange. Poor old jesting Pilate – when he asked (rhetorically) “what is truth?”, what would he have thought to be told that it was, arguably, merely a sociological statistical aggregate? References Hart, R. P. “Theory-Building and Rhetorical Criticism: An Informal Statement of Opinion”. Central Stales Speech Journal 27 (1976): 70-7. Haskell, Harry. The Attentive Listener: Three Centuries of Music Criticism. London: Faber & Faber, 1995. Jordan, John W., Kathryn M. Olson and Stephen R. Goldzwig. “Continuing the Conversation on ‘What Constitutes Publishable Rhetorical Criticism?’: A Response”. Communication Studies 54.3 (2003): 392-402. Letts, Quentin. “Theatre Reviewing: How I Outraged the Drama Critics”. New Statesman (6 Dec. 2004). Sources for Illustrations “The First Critic”, from History of the World Part I. 1981. 4 Aug. 2005 http://www.ladyofthecake.com/mel/world/hwimages.htm>. “Guess Who’s Coming to Criticize Dinner”, from The Simpsons. 1999. 4 Aug. 2005 http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~hc01srp/mult1001/cw2/work.html>. Tansey, Mark. The Innocent Eye-Test. 1981. 4 Aug. 2005 http://www.artlex.com/ArtLex/s/images/seeing_tansey.innocent.lg.gif>. Photograph of people viewing Tansey’s painting. 2003. 4 Aug. 2005 http://www2.essex.ac.uk/arthistory/images/newyork2003/Metropolitian%2520Museum-3.JPG&imgrefurl=http://www2.essex.ac.uk/arthistory/ news/new_york_2003.asp&h=195&w=258&sz=12&tbnid=Rqr7aaBrBkIJ: &tbnh=80&tbnw=107&hl=ja&start=3&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dtansey%2Bthe%2Binnocent%2Beye%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Dja%26hs%3D7tD%26lr%3D%26c2coff%3D1%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:ja-JP:official_s%26sa%3DN>. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Ralph, Barnaby. "Eye of the Beholden: Reflections on the Role and Perception of the Arts Reviewer." M/C Journal 8.5 (2005). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0510/09-ralph.php>. APA Style Ralph, B. (Oct. 2005) "Eye of the Beholden: Reflections on the Role and Perception of the Arts Reviewer," M/C Journal, 8(5). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0510/09-ralph.php>.

There are certain discourses operating in contemporary western culture that are granted tremendous power and authority to speak about those issues that cut across the racial, class, and gender boundaries of a culture. Life, death and politics are all central and legitimate categories for the discourses generated by media institutions. As we slide from the 'factual' realm (which the news media is taken to represent) into the fictional, the authority to speak of these categories steadily declines. Certain films and television dramas have this legitimacy, provided that they retain a certain verisimilitude that is seen as factual. A bit further down this scale are sitcoms. Sitcoms are often criticised when they attempt to shift the comedic tone into a moralising one -- or as in the case of Ally McBeal, attempts at covering serious topics are trivialised by media hype about the lead character’s skirt length. At the very bottom of this discursive scale come adventure stories -- fantasy and action films and television shows, frequently targeted and marketed to teenagers and young adults. Regardless of content, these texts are the focus of continual derision and contempt for the representational strategies that they employ to address the issues named above. Despite this contempt, these subordinate texts and discourses are paradoxically also granted a good deal of causative power. Moral outrage invariably turns to violent and fantastic media as a cause whenever horrific violence is committed in real life. The most clear and shocking example of course have been the recent high school shootings in Littleton, Colorado, and what follows is a brief case study of the discursive hierarchy in operation in North American media cultures. The news media, in covering the shootings, had what appeared to be utterly free and unquestioned access to investigate, examine, and even influence the situation as it happened. Reporters were on the scene, as usual, asking painfully obvious questions of the traumatised teachers and students. It was not until some time later that slightly bemused mutterings were heard from the police forces that, for instance, a local television station had somewhat overstepped its poorly defined boundaries when it broadcast the frantic telephone calls of a student trapped in the school while the killers were still at large. Following the factual reports, the desperate search for causation began. And the usual suspects were rounded up with considerable haste. The killers played Doom and other video games to improve their sharp-shooting abilities. The Gothic-industrial music of Marilyn Manson and KMFDM filled them with hatred for all humanity. Surfing the 'net had sapped their social skills. Wearing black trench coats had overheated their brains and made them want to be more like Keanu Reeves in The Matrix. Or perhaps not. Interviews with survivors and evidence gathered by police seemed to suggest that the motivational triggers were to be found in the two killers' social environment. The boys' diaries revealed their rage at the alienation and bullying they suffered at the hands of the school's elite jock culture. And yet such findings are almost completely ignored in the discourses of gossip and current affairs analysis. It's as if space to interpret and interrogate the evidence isn't available in the discourses used to represent this event. In a move clearly inspired by the cascading moral panic, the Warner Brothers network in the US removed several episodes of their hit show, Buffy the Vampire Slayer from the schedules. The network made the claim that the episodes, depicting armed teenagers fighting demons on a high school campus, were pulled because of sensitivity to the grief of the bereaved families. I find it suggestive that, while the Buffy episodes were pulled outright, a police drama on the same network is merely being placed under greater executive scrutiny. It's obviously inadequate from a cultural studies perspective to locate the reasons for these events purely in the discourse of moral panic in the USA. It’s time, then, to take a closer look at the processes and conditions that structure the media hierarchy. Network news programmes employ a range of signification systems designed to embody certain values; authority, credibility and responsibility. These systems are frequently expressed in the production values of the programmes, and the businesslike, middle class (and middle-aged), appearance of the presenters. Any correspondence of these values with the actual production practices employed by the programmes is increasingly accidental in a market driven and structured by insatiable demands for entertainment over knowledge. This of course was clearly seen in the thirst for spectacle that accompanied the initial reports from the Columbine massacre. Popular drama shows that are based on a science fictional or fantasy premise, and are geared towards teenagers and young adults, typically have no access to those signifiers of high status. The concerns that they deal with are marginalised and representations of them in the wider media focus on their violent content and supposed ludicrousness of the situations depicted. And so a TV show which shows violence but is always careful to also depict the emotional consequences of violence, is trivialised and scapegoated because it employs a different discourse of realism than a news broadcast operating almost purely in the register of spectacle (self-important moralising aside). Clearly the triggers for violence, especially of the kind that prompted this media panic, are many and interact in complex ways. What is not clear is that the popular culture texts discussed are in any way prominent as triggers. The fact that they are represented as such in the news media and the discourses of common-sense indicates a tremendous anxiety at work. This anxiety seems to frequently congeal around fantasy texts. Images of the fantastic disrupts the hierarchy of realist discourses that order and regulate the media and must be continually subjected to disavowal and dismissal. Perhaps, then, real violence can only be seen in these terms as a pretext for this process. References Katz, Jon. "Voices from the Hellmouth." Slashdot.org. 25 Apr. 1999. 13 June 1999 <http://slashdot.org/articles/99/04/25/1438249.shtml>. Fiske, John. Television Culture. London: Routledge, 1987. Martin, Adrian. "In the Name of Popular Culture." Australian Cultural Studies: a Reader. Ed. John Frow and Meaghan Morris. Urbana: Illinois UP, 1993. 117-32. Stevenson, Nick. Understanding Media Cultures: Social Theory and Mass Communication. London: Sage, 1995. Stolberg, Sheryl Gay. "By the Numbers: Science Looks at Littleton, and Shrugs." The New York Times on the Web. 9 May 1999. 13 June 1999 <http://www.nytimes.com/library/review/050999colo-shooting-odds-review.php>. Taylor, Charles. "The WB's Big Daddy Condescension." Salon Magazine. 26 May 1999. 13 June 1999 <http://www.salon.com/>. Citation reference for this article MLA style: Nick Caldwell. "Seen But Not Heard: Pop Culture Scapegoats and the Media Discourse Hierarchy." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2.4 (1999). [your date of access] <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9906/seen.php>. Chicago style: Nick Caldwell, "Seen But Not Heard: Pop Culture Scapegoats and the Media Discourse Hierarchy," M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2, no. 4 (1999), <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9906/seen.php> ([your date of access]). APA style: Nick Caldwell. (1999) Seen but not heard: pop culture scapegoats and the media discourse hierarchy. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2(4). <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9906/seen.php> ([your date of access]).

Introduction Darkness is often characterised as something that warrants heightened caution and scrutiny – signifying increased danger and risk. Within settler-colonial settings such as Australia, cautionary and negative connotations of darkness are projected upon Black people and their bodies, forming part of continuing colonial regimes of power (Moreton-Robinson). Negative stereotypes of “dark” continues to racialise all Indigenous peoples. In Australia, Indigenous peoples are both Indigenous and Black regardless of skin colour, and this plays out in a range of ways, some of which will be highlighted within this article. This article demonstrates that for Indigenous peoples, associations of fear and danger are built into the structural mechanisms that shape and maintain colonial understandings of Indigenous peoples and their bodies. It is this embodied form of darkness, and its negative connotations, and responses that we explore further. Figure 1: Megan Cope’s ‘I’m not afraid of the Dark’ t-shirt (Fredericks and Heemsbergen 2021) Responding to the anxieties and fears of settlers that often surround Indigenous peoples, Quandamooka artist and member of the art collective ProppaNow, Megan Cope, has produced a range of t-shirts, one of which declares “I’m not afraid of the Dark” (fig. 1). The wording ‘reflects White Australia’s fear of blackness’ (Dark + Dangerous). Exploring race relations through the theme of “darkness”, we begin by discussing how negative connotations of darkness are represented through everyday lexicons and how efforts to shift prejudicial and racist language are often met with defensiveness and resistance. We then consider how fears towards the dark translate into everyday practices, reinforced by media representations. The article considers how stereotype, conjecture, and prejudice is inflicted upon Indigenous people and reflects white settler fears and anxieties, rooting colonialism in everyday language, action, and norms. The Language of Fear Indigenous people and others with dark skin tones are often presented as having a proclivity towards threatening, aggressive, deceitful, and negative behaviours. This works to inform how Indigenous peoples are “known” and responded to by hegemonic (predominantly white) populations. Negative connotations of Indigenous people are a means of reinforcing and legitimising the falsity that European knowledge systems, norms, and social structures are superior whilst denying the contextual colonial circumstances that have led to white dominance. In Australia, such denial corresponds to the refusal to engage with the unceded sovereignty of Aboriginal peoples or acknowledge Indigenous resistance. Language is integral to the ways in which dominant populations come to “know” and present the so-called “Other”. Such language is reflected in digital media, which both produce and maintain white anxieties towards race and ethnicity. When part of mainstream vernacular, racialised language – and the value judgments associated with it – often remains in what Moreton-Robinson describes as “invisible regimes of power” (75). Everyday social structures, actions, and habits of thought veil oppressive and discriminatory attitudes that exist under the guise of “normality”. Colonisation and the dominance of Eurocentric ways of knowing, being, and doing has fixated itself on creating a normality that associates Indigeneity and darkness with negative and threatening connotations. In doing so, it reinforces power balances that presents an image of white superiority built on the invalidation of Indigeneity and Blackness. White fears and anxieties towards race made explicit through social and digital media are also manifest via subtle but equally pervasive everyday action (Carlson and Frazer; Matamoros-Fernández). Confronting and negotiating such fears becomes a daily reality for many Indigenous people. During the height of the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests in the United States, which extended to Australia and were linked to deaths in custody and police violence, African American poet Saul Williams reminded his followers of the power of language in constructing racialised fears (saulwilliams). In an Instagram post, Williams draws back the veil of an uncontested normality to ask that we take personal responsibility over the words we use. He writes: here’s a tip: Take the words DARK or BLACK in connection to bad, evil, ominous or scary events out of your vocabulary. We learn the stock market crashed on Black Monday, we read headlines that purport “Dark Days Ahead”. There’s “dark” or “black” humour which implies an undertone of evil, and then there are people like me who grow up with dark skin having to make sense of the English/American lexicon and its history of “fair complexions” – where “fair” can mean “light; blond.” OR “in accordance with rules or standards; legitimate.” We may not be fully responsible for the duplicitous evolution of language and subtle morphing of inherited beliefs into description yet we are in full command of the words we choose even as they reveal the questions we’ve left unasked. Like the work of Moreton-Robinson and other scholars, Williams implores his followers to take a reflexive position to consider the questions often left unasked. In doing so, he calls for the transcendence of anonymity and engagement with the realities of colonisation – no matter how ugly, confronting, and complicit one may be in its continuation. In the Australian context this means confronting how terms such as “dark”, “darkie”, or “darky” were historically used as derogatory and offensive slurs for Aboriginal peoples. Such language continues to be used today and can be found in the comment sections of social media, online news platforms, and other online forums (Carlson “Love and Hate”). Taking the move to execute personal accountability can be difficult. It can destabilise and reframe the ways in which we understand and interact with the world (Rose 22). For some, however, exposing racism and seemingly mundane aspects of society is taken as a personal attack which is often met with reactionary responses where one remains closed to new insights (Whittaker). This feeds into fears and anxieties pertaining to the perceived loss of power. These fears and anxieties continue to surface through conversations and calls for action on issues such as changing the date of Australia Day, the racialised reporting of news (McQuire), removing of plaques and statues known to be racist, and requests to change placenames and the names of products. For example, in 2020, Australian cheese producer Saputo Dairy Australia changed the name of it is popular brand “Coon” to “Cheer Tasty”. The decision followed a lengthy campaign led by Dr Stephen Hagan who called for the rebranding based on the Coon brand having racist connotations (ABC). The term has its racist origins in the United States and has long been used as a slur against people with dark skin, liking them to racoons and their tendency to steal and deceive. The term “Coon” is used in Australia by settlers as a racist term for referring to Aboriginal peoples. Claims that the name change is example of political correctness gone astray fail to acknowledge and empathise with the lived experience of being treated as if one is dirty, lazy, deceitful, or untrustworthy. Other brand names have also historically utilised racist wording along with imagery in their advertising (Conor). Pear’s soap for example is well-known for its historical use of racist words and imagery to legitimise white rule over Indigenous colonies, including in Australia (Jackson). Like most racial epithets, the power of language lies in how the words reflect and translate into actions that dehumanise others. The words we use matter. The everyday “ordinary” world, including online, is deeply politicised (Carlson and Frazer “They Got Filters”) and comes to reflect attitudes and power imbalances that encourage white people to internalise the falsity that they are superior and should have control over Black people (Conor). Decisions to make social change, such as that made by Saputo Dairy Australia, can manifest into further white anxieties via their ability to force the confrontation of the circumstances that continue to contribute to one’s own prosperity. In other words, to unveil the realities of colonialism and ask the questions that are too often left in the dark. Lived Experiences of Darkness Colonial anxieties and fears are driven by the fact that Black populations in many areas of the world are often characterised as criminals, perpetrators, threats, or nuisances, but are rarely seen as victims. In Australia, the repeated lack of police response and receptivity to concerns of Indigenous peoples expressed during the Black Lives Matter campaign saw tens of thousands of people take to the streets to protest. Protestors at the same time called for the end of police brutality towards Indigenous peoples and for an end to Indigenous deaths in custody. The protests were backed by a heavy online presence that sought to mobilise people in hope of lifting the veil that shrouds issues relating to systemic racism. There have been over 450 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to die in custody since the end of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody in 1991 (The Guardian). The tragedy of the Indigenous experience gains little attention internationally. The negative implications of being the object of white fear and anxiety are felt by Indigenous and other Black communities daily. The “safety signals” (Daniella Emanuel) adopted by white peoples in response to often irrational perceptions of threat signify how Indigenous and other Black peoples and communities are seen and valued by the hegemony. Memes played out in social media depicting “Karens” – a term that corresponds to caricaturised white women (but equally applicable to men) who exhibit behaviours of entitlement – have increasing been used in media to expose the prevalence of irrational racial fears (also see Wong). Police are commonly called on Indigenous people and other Black people for simply being within spaces such as shopping malls, street corners, parks, or other spaces in which they are considered not to belong (Mohdin). Digital media are also commonly envisioned as a space that is not natural or normal for Indigenous peoples, a notion that maintains narratives of so-called Indigenous primitivity (Carlson and Frazer). Media connotations of darkness as threatening are associated with, and strategically manipulated by, the images that accompany stories about Indigenous peoples and other Black peoples. Digital technologies play significant roles in producing and disseminating the images shown in the media. Moreover, they have a “role in mediating and amplifying old and new forms of abuse, hate, and discrimination” (Matamoros-Fernández and Farkas). Daniels demonstrates how social media sites can be spaces “where race and racism play out in interesting, sometimes disturbing, ways” (702), shaping ongoing colonial fears and anxieties over Black peoples. Prominent footballer Adam Goodes, for example, faced a string of attacks after he publicly condemned racism when he was called an “Ape” by a spectator during a game celebrating Indigenous contributions to the sport (Coram and Hallinan). This was followed by a barrage of personal attacks, criticisms, and booing that spread over the remaining years of his football career. When Goodes performed a traditional war dance as a form of celebration during a game in 2015, many turned to social media to express their outrage over his “confrontational” and “aggressive” behaviour (Robinson). Goodes’s affirmation of his Indigeneity was seen by many as a threat to their own positionality and white sensibility. Social media were therefore used as a mechanism to control settler narratives and maintain colonial power structures by framing the conversation through a white lens (Carlson and Frazer “They Got Filters”). Indigenous peoples in other highly visible fields have faced similar backlash. In 1993, Elaine George was the first Aboriginal person to feature on the cover of Vogue magazine, a decision considered “risky” at the time (Singer). The editor of Vogue later revealed that the cover was criticised by some who believed George’s skin tone was made to appear lighter than it actually was and that it had been digitally altered. The failure to accept a lighter skin colour as “Aboriginal” exposes a neglect to accept ethnicity and Blackness in all its diversity (Carlson and Frazer “They Got Filters”; Carlson “Love and Hate”). Where Adam Goodes was criticised for his overt expression of Blackness, George was critisised for not being “black enough”. It was not until seventeen years later that another Aboriginal model, Samantha Harris, was featured on the cover of Vogue (Marks). While George inspired and pathed the way for those to come, Harris experienced similar discrimination within the industry and amongst the public (Carson and Ky). Singer Jessica Mauboy (in Hornery) also explains how her identity was managed by others. She recalls, I was pretty young when I first received recognition, and for years I felt as though I couldn't show my true identity. What I was saying in public was very dictated by other people who could not handle my sense of culture and identity. They felt they had to take it off my hands. Mauboy’s experience not only demonstrates how Blackness continues to be seen as something to “handle”, but also how power imbalances play out. Scholar Chelsea Watego offers numerous examples of how this occurs in different ways and arenas, for example through relationships between people and within workplaces. Bargallie’s scholarly work also provides an understanding of how Indigenous people experience racism within the Australian public service, and how it is maintained through the structures and systems of power. The media often represents communities with large Indigenous populations as being separatist and not contributing to wider society and problematic (McQuire). Violence, and the threat of violence, is often presented in media as being normalised. Recently there have been calls for an increased police presence in Alice Springs, NT, and other remotes communities due to ongoing threats of “tribal payback” and acts of “lawlessness” (Sky News Australia; Hildebrand). Goldberg uses the phrase “Super/Vision” to describe the ways that Black men and women in Black neighbourhoods are continuously and erroneously supervised and surveilled by police using apparatus such as helicopters and floodlights. Simone Browne demonstrates how contemporary surveillance practices are rooted in anti-black domination and are operationalised through a white gaze. Browne uses the term “racializing surveillance” to describe a ”technology of social control where surveillance practices, policies, and performances concern the production of norms pertaining to race and exercise a ‘power to define what is in or out of place’” (16). The outcome is often discriminatory treatment to those negatively racialised by such surveillance. Narratives that associate Indigenous peoples with darkness and danger fuel colonial fears and uphold the invisible regimes of power by instilling the perception that acts of surveillance and the restrictions imposed on Indigenous peoples’ autonomy are not only necessary but justified. Such myths fail to contextualise the historic colonial factors that drive segregation and enable a forgetting that negates personal accountability and complicity in maintaining colonial power imbalances (Riggs and Augoustinos). Inayatullah and Blaney (165) write that the “myth we construct calls attention to a darker, tragic side of our ethical engagement: the role of colonialism in constituting us as modern actors.” They call for personal accountability whereby one confronts the notion that we are both products and producers of a modernity rooted in a colonialism that maintains the misguided notion of white supremacy (Wolfe; Mignolo; Moreton-Robinson). When Indigenous and other Black peoples enter spaces that white populations don’t traditionally associate as being “natural” or “fitting” for them (whether residential, social, educational, a workplace, online, or otherwise), alienation, discrimination, and criminalisation often occurs (Bargallie; Mohdin; Linhares). Structural barriers are erected, prohibiting career or social advancement while making the space feel unwelcoming (Fredericks; Bargallie). In workplaces, Indigenous employees become the subject of hyper-surveillance through the supervision process (Bargallie), continuing to make them difficult work environments. This is despite businesses and organisations seeking to increase their Indigenous staff numbers, expressing their need to change, and implementing cultural competency training (Fredericks and Bargallie). As Barnwell correctly highlights, confronting white fears and anxieties must be the responsibility of white peoples. When feelings of shock or discomfort arise when in the company of Indigenous peoples, one must reflexively engage with the reasons behind this “fear of the dark” and consider that perhaps it is they who are self-segregating. Mohdin suggests that spaces highly populated by Black peoples are best thought of not as “black spaces” or “black communities”, but rather spaces where white peoples do not want to be. They stand as reminders of a failed colonial regime that sought to deny and dehumanise Indigenous peoples and cultures, as well as the continuation of Black resistance and sovereignty. Conclusion In working towards improving relationships between Black and white populations, the truths of colonisation, and its continuing pervasiveness in local and global settings must first be confronted. In this article we have discussed the association of darkness with instinctual fears and negative responses to the unknown. White populations need to reflexively engage and critique how they think, act, present, address racism, and respond to Indigenous peoples (Bargallie; Moreton-Robinson; Whittaker), cultivating a “decolonising consciousness” (Bradfield) to develop new habits of thinking and relating. To overcome fears of the dark, we must confront that which remains unknown, and the questions left unasked. This means exposing racism and power imbalances, developing meaningful relationships with Indigenous peoples, addressing structural change, and implementing alternative ways of knowing and doing. Only then may we begin to embody Megan Cope’s message, “I’m not afraid of the Dark”. Acknowledgements We thank Dr Debbie Bargallie for her feedback on our article, which strengthened the work. References ABC News. 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Le terme violence qualifie un certain nombre de manifestations allant de l’altercation verbale jusqu’aux destructions de masse, en passant par l’agression physique, le viol, le meurtre, la torture, les mutilations, etc. Infligées ou subies, discontinues ou constantes, localisées ou endémiques, accidentelles ou motivées, ces expressions de la violence se compliquent encore par leur caractère tantôt privé, tantôt public, assumé et revendiqué ou dissimulé et renié. La violence est si protéiforme qu’elle ne cesse de voir les discriminants de sa catégorisation et les grilles de classification se démultiplier. Le critère est tantôt spatial (violence urbaine), tantôt social (violence conjugale, ouvrière), tantôt politique (répression, coercition, guerre, assassinat politique, terrorisme), économique (exploitation, injustice), sexuel (viol, maltraitance), ou encore psychologique (automutilations et autres actes pervers). Englober toutes ces manifestations dans une même perspective relève de la gageure (Michaud 2004 ; Crettiez 2008). Comment approcher pareils phénomènes aux formes et motivations aussi diversifiées selon les mêmes grilles théorico-méthodologiques? D’autant plus qu’à ces expressions physiques de la violence s’ajoutent toutes celles qui relèvent de la « violence symbolique ». Consentie (plus que subie), cette violence impose un certain ordre dans les manières d'être. Elle englobe tous les dispositifs dont usent les dominants pour que les dominés intériorisent et acceptent leur statut et leur état de dominés (Bourdieu & Wacquant 1992). Elle participe de cette violence structurelle inhérente à tout pouvoir, qu’il soit celui du pater familias ou du chef élu ou imposé. Elle peut être liée à la forme même de l'organisation sociale à laquelle on adhère et qu’elle tend à malmener. Le politiste norvégien Johan Galtung (1969) est sans doute le premier à l’évoquer, faisant remarquer que dans cette forme de violence il n’y a pas de lien évident et apparent entre les sujets. Inscrite dans des structures sociales, cette violence est plus insidieuse mais non moins destructrice. Outre ces violences dévastatrices du lien, l’anthropologie a mis en évidence un autre genre de violences, celles destinées précisément à instaurer le lien, à le suturer ou à le raffermir. Ces violences fondatrices qui ponctuent les rites de passage (tatouages, circoncisions, excisions, scarifications et autres marquages corporels), souvent violentes et non exemptes de douleur, ont pour finalité d’agréger les individus à des communautés. Initiatique, cette violence qui laisse une marque distinctive (du rang, du sexe, etc.), n’est jamais perçue comme telle par ceux qui l’adoptent (Bodiou et Briand 2015). Malgré la variété de ses expressions et de ses modes d’effectuation, l’acte de violence demeure aisément identifiable. En revanche, il en est tout autrement quand il s’agit de définir ce qu’est la violence. Tous les dictionnaires la mettent en rapport avec l’exercice d’une force brutale ou excessive en vue de soumettre, contraindre ou obtenir quelque chose. Pour la majorité des approches, la violence a été longtemps conçue comme un « usage délibéré de la force pour blesser ou détruire physiquement » (Gurr, 1970). Au milieu des années 1990, la définition de l’OMS en élargit l’acception. Se voulant exhaustive, elle intègre à la fois les actes individuels et communautaires, commis contre autrui ou auto-infligés; qu’ils soient interpersonnels ou collectifs. Elle couvre tout aussi bien les actes de violence que les menaces et intimidations de tous ordres, induisant des atteintes physiques, psychologiques, ou affectives. Toutefois, cette définition demeure encore fortement associée aux violences physiques et n'évoque pas clairement et suffisamment les violences psychologiques et morales découlant d’actes verbaux, d'attitudes et autres conduites symboliques. Plus largement, F. Héritier (1996 : 17) appelle « violence toute contrainte de nature physique ou psychique susceptible d'entraîner la terreur, le déplacement, le malheur, la souffrance ou la mort d'un être animé; tout acte d'intrusion qui a pour effet volontaire ou involontaire la dépossession d'autrui, le dommage ou la destruction d'objets inanimés (…) ». Complète et exhaustive, cette définition souligne, une fois encore, la difficulté à parler de la violence de manière générale. La violence est une force dont l’exercice s’inscrit immanquablement dans le cadre de normes partagées. Ce sont de telles normes qui caractérisent, in fine, ce qui relève ou non de la violence. Celle-ci est justement le plus souvent un dépassement de la règle ou de la norme admise, une démesure. Elle est ce qui remet en cause l’existence de ce qu’Hanna Arendt (1989 : 283) appelle « un monde commun ». Yves Michaud (1978 : 101) le dit avec ses mots : la violence « tient plus à la dissolution des règles qui unifient le regard social qu’à la réalité qu’elle peut avoir ». À ce titre, la manifestation de la violence est l’indice d’une rupture de consensus, dont la finalité est de contraindre et de faire mal, de manière volontaire et apparemment gratuite. Elle est tantôt une infraction, tantôt un outrage. Chaque société désigne ce qu’elle considère comme violent en tentant de le réduire par l’éthique, la culture, le droit, la contrainte et en lui opposant… de la violence. Ce sont les logiques qui président à ces choix que l’anthropologue ne cesse de pointer dans leur singularité pour tenter de comprendre le phénomène dans son universalité. Même si le catalogue des actes de violence semble infini, et l’imagination des bourreaux individuels et collectifs incommensurablement fertiles, il n’en demeure pas moins que cette violence s’exerce toujours ou du moins le plus souvent selon des logiques inscrites dans un contexte historico-culturel. La « violence » est enchâssée dans une matrice éthique et obéit à une échelle de valeurs qui rend sa perception et, partant, sa signification variables selon les normes de référence en usage. Polymorphe, elle est également et nécessairement polysémique; et sa perception culturellement et sociohistoriquement déterminée. Des châtiments tolérés naguère (sectionner la langue des blasphémateurs, noyer des femmes adultères), sont décriés par des sociétés contemporaines pratiquant d’autres formes de violence (chaise électrique ou injection létale), estimées moins cruelles à leurs yeux. Ce sont en général les actes et conduites jugés illégitimes qui sont qualifiés de violents; tous ceux, tout aussi violents, mais exercés au nom d’une règle partagée ou par un pouvoir considéré comme légitime, ne sont pas tenus pour de la violence; ils sont perçus comme une coercition, une contrainte. Que ce soit pour Hobbes (2000) ou Weber (1959), l’usage légitime de la violence prévient la violence. Dès lors, il n’est plus de la violence. Loin d’être un phénomène débridé, la violence est souvent un outil savamment orchestré destiné à faire obéir ou à punir. Qu’elle soit privée ou publique, la violence est toujours inscrite dans une matrice symbolique qui structure ses modes d’effectuation et lui donne sens aux yeux de ses protagonistes. Ainsi devient-elle légitime pour son auteur; et parfois même pour celui qui la subit, la vivant comme une fatalité ou se considérant comme victime expiatoire. Ainsi, est-elle une « configuration » (Elias, 1989) où les adversaires sont aussi des partenaires agissant selon des règles partagées. Une propension devenue routinière consiste à toujours considérer la violence comme une réactivité instinctive, motivée par une pure répétition pavlovienne et paresseuse. Les études des violences urbaines ont pu montrer que celles-ci peuvent être un indicateur d’inégalité ou de défiance vis-à-vis des institutions; et, partant, l’expression d’une volonté de négociation. La manifestation de la violence est un « signal de danger » nous dit Lewis Coser (1982). Autrement dit, la violence fait à la fois signe et sens. Elle n’est pas que l’expression du chaos et du désordre. L’exercice de la violence (notamment politique) a le souci à la fois de l’efficacité et de la légitimité. Le plus souvent, la violence n’est ainsi qualifiée qu’en rapport aux seuls faits concrets, quantifiables et mesurables. Or, d’un point de vue anthropologique, la violence intègre à la fois l’éthique, les valeurs partagées, les sentiments, etc. La rumeur, l’ironie ou la satire peuvent être ressenties comme plus violentes que des coups. Physique, psychologique ou symbolique, la violence est toujours un fait « construit » à partir d’une culture partagée; dont la perception et l’intensité sont étroitement en rapport avec les normes communément admises. Quelle que soit la forme de son expression, la violence demeure un « fait social total »; car elle est toujours enchâssée dans d’autres faits sociaux qui démultiplient ses logiques et ses univers de sens (politique, religieux, économique, social etc.) (Clastres, 1977 ; Kilani, 2006). Instinct naturel, moyen d’imposer l’ordre social ou vecteur du changement social? La violence est une des catégories les plus discutées dans les sciences humaines et sociales; mobilisant terrains et théories pour saisir un phénomène en passe de figurer parmi les universaux et ne cessant de réinventer ses formes d’expression. Pour Thomas Hobbes (2000), l’une des références inévitables dans ces débats, l’homme est un être « duplice », naturellement violent mais socialement dans l’obligation de rechercher la répression de son agression en acceptant de se conformer aux règles d’une instance qui lui permettrait de vivre en société. Pour Hobbes, c’est l’égalité primordiale entre les hommes qui serait à l’origine des affrontements. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1971) reproche au philosophe britannique d’avoir attribué à l’homme vivant dans l’état de nature les attributs et les passions propres à l’homme vivant dans la société. Ces deux postures spéculatives vont constituer dans une large mesure le cadre de pensée dans lequel seront débattues thèse et contre-thèse sur la nature violente ou non de l’homme. La première défend le caractère inné de la violence, tandis que la seconde la considère comme un acquis culturel. En anthropologie, l’intérêt pour la violence comme phénomène, est présent dès les premiers travaux qui ont pu montrer que toutes les sociétés contiennent de la violence, la produisent, l’utilisent et la gèrent. Mise en avant par Max Weber (1959) dans sa théorie de l’État comme monopole de la violence légitime, elle est popularisée par les travaux de René Girard (1972, 1978). Pour ce philosophe et anthropologue, les désirs de l’homme sont mimétiques et engendrent une violence fondée sur la « rivalité ». L’homme désire les mêmes objets que son prochain, et son désir augmente en fonction de celui de l’autre. Ce désir mimétique débouche sur la violence qui, de proche en proche, devient générale et concerne toute la société. Pour y remédier, Girard s’écarte des thèses wébériennes qui préconisent l’instauration d’une violence légitime confiée à l’État. Il postule que les hommes déplacent leur hostilité sur une victime émissaire (Girard, 1972). C’est le sens du sacrifice présent dans toutes les sociétés humaines. C’est le « désir mimétique » à l’origine de la violence qui caractérise l’être humain en société. Pour empêcher le saccage de cette violence réciproque, présente dans l’essentiel des rapports humains et dans toutes les sociétés dès le début de leur formation, la communauté sacrifie une victime arbitraire consensuelle. La haine de chacun est transférée sur cette victime émissaire dont la mise à mort est expiatoire. Elle sauve la communauté et lui permet de survivre. En évitant la violence destructrice de la communauté, cette violence sacrificielle et pacificatrice se transforme en une violence fondatrice. Les anthropologues se sont également intéressés à la forme institutionnelle de la violence. Ainsi, la guerre mobilisera l’essentiel des théories. Une approche naturaliste développée notamment par André Leroi-Gourhan (1965), postule que la guerre (comme violence institutionnelle) est la conséquence de l'évolution naturelle de l'Homme, qui de chasseur devient guerrier. Pour cet ethnologue et penseur des techniques et de la culture, la violence humaine relèverait du biologique. Postulant que la guerre est une extension de la chasse, il considère que l’homme, à l’instar de l’animal, est un être prédateur et donc violent par nécessité. Le social et l'institutionnel sont ainsi naturalisés. La violence permet de se procurer les rares ressources disponibles. Une telle approche rejoint celle qui met en rapport la guerre et les pénuries de nourriture dans les sociétés primitives. D’autres thèses, plus répandues, estiment certains modèles culturels, comme la virilité, l'autoritarisme culturel et la religion, à l'origine immédiate et exclusive de cette violence. Ce courant culturaliste considère la violence comme un phénomène culturel. Une de ses premières figures, Ruth Benedict (1950), a tenté d’opposer la culture apollinienne des Indiens Pueblos, qu’elle considère comme communautaire et pacifique, à celle des Indiens des plaines, qu’elle définit comme passionnés et agressifs et dont elle qualifie la culture de dionysiaque. Une autre approche culturaliste, celle de Claude Lévi-Strauss, voit dans la violence un mode d’échange, un « échange malheureux ». Pour le théoricien du structuralisme, la guerre est l’expression d’un échec dans l'échange entre communautés, lequel échange est à ses yeux fondateur des sociétés. L’anthropologie Pierre Clastres (1977) réfutera toutes ces théories pour soutenir que la guerre est constitutive de la société primitive. Elle n’est, selon lui, ni un instinct animal, ni la conséquence d’un manque, ni l’expression d’un ethos culturel, ni un échange raté. Elle est au fondement même de l’être ensemble. Étant sans hiérarchie, la société primitive use de la guerre contre l’Autre comme moyen de raffermir son unité. Depuis Thomas Hobbes, la violence hors d'un cadre prescrit par l'État est considérée comme une pathologie sociale. Contre cette vision, Pierre Clastres soutient que les violences (apparemment déviantes ou criminelles) s'inscrivent dans un univers social, culturel et symbolique pour faire sens. Poussée à ses limites, cette approche compréhensive risque de conduire à soutenir des légitimations au nom du relativisme culturel. Dans un monde où génocides, guerres, terrorismes et autres destructions de masse sont devenus une réalité quotidienne, plusieurs auteurs soutiennent la thèse de Norbert Elias (1989) sur le recul de la violence et la domestication de l’animal humain. Contre-intuitive, cette thèse est défendue par plusieurs historiens sur la base de travaux sur des archives judiciaires, dont l'historien Jean-Claude Chesnais (1981 : 14) qui estime qu' « il y a au cours des derniers siècles une régression considérable de la violence criminelle ». Si aujourd’hui on parle de son omniprésence, c’est parce que le seuil de tolérance aurait baissé. Nous serions devenus plus sensibles à la violence, subjectivement. Ceux qui rejettent une telle thèse préfèrent souligner le nombre et la diversification des formes des violences : génocides, attentas, terrorismes, etc. (Wieviorka, 2004). En effet, la violence a pris des formes inédites en rapport avec la complexification de notre organisation sociale. La technologie a contribué à une certaine sophistication de la violence et à sa mise à distance. Sa « domestication » s’opère par sa taylorisation. L’acte de tuer ou de perpétrer un génocide est noyé dans les échelons de la décision (du général qui décide au soldat qui exécute) et dans une « chaîne opératoire » plus ou moins longue. Grâce à cette « taylorisation », la violence se trouve aujourd’hui « domestiquée ». L’euphémisation par la technologie (écrans) la rend supportable par celui qui l’exécute; tout comme le sacré l’avait déjà rendue acceptable et supportable aux yeux, à la fois, de celui qui la donne et de celui qui la subit (Matthew, 2017 ; Blaya, 2011). Quoi qu’il en soit, le développement vertigineux de la technologie, et de l’organisation bureaucratique, contribue à cette « banalisation du mal » (Arendt 1991) en rendant moins perceptibles et plus insidieuses ces violences. Les armes biologiques sont moins spectaculaires dans leur usage mais plus dévastatrices dans leurs effets, tout comme les drones tuent de façon aussi chirurgicale que silencieuse (Chamayou 2013). Il suffit également de penser à toutes les formes de cyberviolence qui se développent dans le monde virtuel des réseaux sociaux, à l’instar du « revenge porn » ou « cyber-rape » (Blaya, 2011). Ce type de violence s’effectue en général sans échange verbal direct. Le registre du langage et l’émotion qu’il produit sont ainsi annulés, privant la victime de repères et d’alertes. Le « bourreau » est également protégé puisqu’il ne voit pas et il n’entend pas la réaction que produit son acte sur la victime. Dans cette nouvelle configuration que produit la cyberviolence, l‘agresseur n’est pas nécessairement plus fort, mais dispose de plus de latitude pour nuire. La thèse du recul de la violence ne tient pas suffisamment compte de sa sophistication, qui arrive à l’occulter. En revanche, la montée de la violence, souvent signalée, peut n’être que le signe d’un abaissement du seuil de tolérance face à des conduites plus ou moins agressives. En réalité, la notion de violence renvoie à deux dimensions, l’une factuelle et l’autre normative. Elle qualifie les effets de la force physique au regard de la transgression des normes socialement établies (Robert & al. 2008 ; Mucchielli, 2008).

Last year, the ABC’s Media Watch (17 Oct. 2005) noted the continuing outrage in the tabloid media over “the dirtiest house in NSW”. The program took issue with Sydney newspaper The Daily Telegraph, and the descriptor “exclusive” attached to their article on a property in beachside Bondi (9 Oct. 2005). In fact, as Media Watch pointed out, Channel Seven’s current affairs flagship Today Tonight had already made repeat visits to the residence. A Current Affair, Channel Nine’s rival show, as well as Bondi’s local newspaper also offered coverage. However, I am interested not in the number of times the story appeared – though this is certainly a symptom of what I do want to talk about. Instead, I want to consider the affect generated by this reportage. In turn, I want to consider what this reveals about our attitudes to refuse, and how these attitudes work to constitute social order in capitalist discourse. The overwhelming affective register of the language deployed to speak about the house is disgust. Adam Bell in The Sunday Telegraph paints a visceral picture entitled “A stinking mess”. He writes that the Bondi premises are engulfed in a stinking three-metre high pile of decaying rubbish that poses a serious health and safety risk. … Stacked with empty boxes, beer cartons, broken furniture, canned fruit, newspapers and cardboard, the waste dump fills the entire front and backyards of the house and spills onto the street. On hot days, the stench of the rotting garbage is detected blocks away while at night, rats and cockroaches are regularly seen running in and out of the mess. … The rubbish is piled so high only the roof of the 1920s Californian bungalow is clearly visible from the front. (9 Oct. 2005) Bell’s follow-up speaks of “the huge pile of filth at the infamous Bondi rubbish house” and of “a team of cleaners dressed in forensic ‘space suits’” (27 Nov. 2005). Other News Limited journalists who subsequently visited the site conjured similar imagery (Goldner; Cummings). Television was not to be outdone: Today Tonight called it “the house from hell”, whilst A Current Affair focused on the “disgraceful pile of rat-infested rubbish [that] just gets higher and higher” (Media Watch). The tonality of the language is a dimension of the prevalent discourse of “aspirationalism” that is central to the popularist politics of Australian Prime Minister John Howard. One key signifier of “aspiration” is property ownership expressed through the rhetoric of the “home.” The affective dimension of the reporting—the disgust—stems from the disjuncture of the exalted (Bondi Beach, high property values) and the abject (refuse). It is a tool used to discursively fix the inappropriate physical and social location of the refuse so as to locate what is culturally valued. Bell’s initial article mentions no less than three times in 600 words that the house is a “million dollar property” and is “located in one of Sydney’s most prestigious and expensive suburbs” (9 Oct. 2005). His second article also mentioned the property’s value (27 Nov. 2005), as did another article by a colleague at The Daily Telegraph (9 Dec. 2005). Today Tonight emphasized that the house was in “an exclusive beachside suburb” and that it was “smack bang in the middle of one of Australia’s most expensive and best known suburbs” (Media Watch). William Ian Miller in Anatomy of Disgust explains how the affective response to an encounter like the one with Bondi’s “rubbish house” can be attributed to feelings about organisation. Miller positions disgust as “a strong sense of aversion to something perceived as dangerous because of its danger to contaminate, infect, or pollute by proximity, contact or ingestion” (2). In other words, disgust is the product of an aversion to something that breaches the lines of containment, and therefore signals a threat to established order. The body – a network of physiological and neurological processes, which constitute multiple systems of order in their own right – cannot cope with such a breakdown and reacts accordingly. David Trotter elaborates: Psychological activity [is] an attempt to impose order on experience: bodily paroxysm is a way of confronting and resolving urgent abstract dilemmas. According to this view, you vomit because you have lost confidence in your ability to make sense of the world: your ability to categorize, order, explain, or tell stories about what has happened to you. Disgust is the product of conceptual trauma. (158-9) The “conceptual trauma” in the case of Bondi’s “rubbish house” is a reaction to a transgression of the order of capitalist social space, which then becomes a discursive conduit for its hegemonic renewal. Indeed, the concern with the malfunction in social order that the misplaced refuse represents confirms what anthropologist Mary Douglas has been telling us for some time: If we can abstract pathogenicity and hygiene from our notion of dirt, we are left with the old definition of dirt as matter out of place. This is a very suggestive approach. It implies two conditions: a set of ordered relations and a contravention of that order. Dirt then, is never a unique, isolated event. Where there is dirt there is a system. Dirt is the by-product of a systematic ordering and classification of matter, in so far as ordering involves rejecting inappropriate elements. (36) Certainly, the associated health risks to Mary Bobolas, the house’s owner/occupier, and the wider community from her hoarding are not purely ideological. However, it is impossible to divorce the social discourses surrounding refuse from the series of social and technological developments that Dominique Laporte in his History of Shit calls the “privatisation” of waste (28). The social and technical apparatuses which enable dominant sociogenetic attitudes regarding refuse include the increasing emphasis on private property, the emergence of the family unit as the primary site for the coalescence of socializing forces and inventions such as the toilet (Elias 137-40). Laporte believes that this process in instrumental in creating the individuated, capitalist subject, which, in the context of contemporary Australian capitalist discourse, is the middle-class homeowner. The construction of complex regulatory architecture to manage practices and tastes substantiates American novelist Don DeLillo’s proposal that civilisation did not rise and flourish as men hammered out hunting scenes on bronze gates and whispered philosophy under the stars, with garbage as a noisome offshoot, swept away and forgotten. No, garbage came first, inciting people to build a civilization in response, in self-defense. We had to find ways to discard our waste, to use what we couldn’t discard, to reprocess what we couldn’t use. … Consume or die. That’s the mandate of the culture. And it all ends up in the dump. We make stupendous amounts of garbage, then we react to it, not only technologically but in our hearts and minds. We let it shape us. We let it control our thinking. Garbage comes first, then we build a system to deal with it. (287-8) Most of the systems to which DeLillo refers are designed to counter the visibility of refuse and channel it to a demarcated, separate space. This is the paradox of refuse: our sense of order depends upon it, yet in affluent society we are anxious about confronting it. Over the years, Bondi Beach has been sanitised both materially and socially. The sewage outfall is a heritage site and the area is no longer working class. Yet, it seems the shit is still washing up on the shore: significantly, the refuse Bobolas accumulates is other people’s rubbish collected from “the streets, garbage bins and council clean-ups” (Bell 9 Oct. 2005). It is produced by the very homeowners whose disgust is so palpable. However, the media coverage of the “rubbish house” does not merely remind the rich and famous residents of their own refuse, nor does it function as a critique of conspicuous consumption. The media event of the “rubbish house” illustrates how “matter out of place” and the resulting affect of disgust are exploited discursively by hegemonic culture in order to maintain the ideology of “aspirationalism” and reiterate the wider capitalist project. References Bell, Adam. “A Stinking Mess – Mountain of Garbage in Sydney Yard.” Sunday Telegraph [Sydney] 9 Oct. 2005: 9. Bell, Adam. “End of the Dirt House.” Sunday Telegraph [Sydney] 27 Nov. 2005: 17. Cummings, Larissa. “Bondi Mountain of Rubbish Rises Again.” Daily Telegraph [Sydney] 20 May 2006: 15. DeLillo, Don. Underworld. New York: Scribner, 1997. Douglas, Mary. Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. London: Routledge, 2002. Elias, Norbert. The Civilising Process: The History of Manners: Sociogenetic and Psychogenetic Investigations. Trans. Edmund Jephcott. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1978. Goldner, Viva. “Rage over Rubbish – Daughters Defend Garbage Mountain.” Daily Telegraph [Sydney] 9 Dec. 2005: 17. Laporte, Dominique. History of Shit. Cambridge, Mass: MIT P, 2002. Media Watch. ABC TV. 17 Oct. 2005. Transcript. 23 Jul 2006 http://www.abc. net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s1483767.htm. net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s1483767.htm> Miller, William Ian. The Anatomy of Disgust. Cambridge, Mass & London: Harvard UP, 1997. Trotter, David. Cooking with Mud: The Idea of Mess in Nineteenth-Century Art and Fiction. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Seale, Kirsten. "Location, Location: Situating Bondi’s “Rubbish House”." M/C Journal 9.5 (2006). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0610/07-seale.php>. APA Style Seale, K. (Nov. 2006) "Location, Location: Situating Bondi’s “Rubbish House”," M/C Journal, 9(5). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0610/07-seale.php>.

Introduction Eating is one of the most quintessential activities of human life. Because of this primacy, eating is, as food anthropologist Sidney Mintz has observed, “not merely a biological activity, but a vibrantly cultural activity as well” (48). This article posits that the current awareness of climate change in the Western world is animating such cultural activity as the Slow Food movement and is, as a result, stimulating what could be seen as an evolutionary change in popular foodways. Moreover, this paper suggests that, in line with modelling provided by the Slow Food example, an increased awareness of the connections of climate change to the social injustices of food production might better drive social change in such areas. This discussion begins by proposing that contemporary foodways—defined as “not only what is eaten by a particular group of people but also the variety of customs, beliefs and practices surrounding the production, preparation and presentation of food” (Davey 182)—are changing in the West in relation to current concerns about climate change. Such modification has a long history. Since long before the inception of modern Homo sapiens, natural climate change has been a crucial element driving hominidae evolution, both biologically and culturally in terms of social organisation and behaviours. Macroevolutionary theory suggests evolution can dramatically accelerate in response to rapid shifts in an organism’s environment, followed by slow to long periods of stasis once a new level of sustainability has been achieved (Gould and Eldredge). There is evidence that ancient climate change has also dramatically affected the rate and course of cultural evolution. Recent work suggests that the end of the last ice age drove the cultural innovation of animal and plant domestication in the Middle East (Zeder), not only due to warmer temperatures and increased rainfall, but also to a higher level of atmospheric carbon dioxide which made agriculture increasingly viable (McCorriston and Hole, cited in Zeder). Megadroughts during the Paleolithic might well have been stimulating factors behind the migration of hominid populations out of Africa and across Asia (Scholz et al). Thus, it is hardly surprising that modern anthropogenically induced global warming—in all its’ climate altering manifestations—may be driving a new wave of cultural change and even evolution in the West as we seek a sustainable homeostatic equilibrium with the environment of the future. In 1962, Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring exposed some of the threats that modern industrial agriculture poses to environmental sustainability. This prompted a public debate from which the modern environmental movement arose and, with it, an expanding awareness and attendant anxiety about the safety and nutritional quality of contemporary foods, especially those that are grown with chemical pesticides and fertilizers and/or are highly processed. This environmental consciousness led to some modification in eating habits, manifest by some embracing wholefood and vegetarian dietary regimes (or elements of them). Most recently, a widespread awareness of climate change has forced rapid change in contemporary Western foodways, while in other climate related areas of socio-political and economic significance such as energy production and usage, there is little evidence of real acceleration of change. Ongoing research into the effects of this expanding environmental consciousness continues in various disciplinary contexts such as geography (Eshel and Martin) and health (McMichael et al). In food studies, Vileisis has proposed that the 1970s environmental movement’s challenge to the polluting practices of industrial agri-food production, concurrent with the women’s movement (asserting women’s right to know about everything, including food production), has led to both cooks and eaters becoming increasingly knowledgeable about the links between agricultural production and consumer and environmental health, as well as the various social justice issues involved. As a direct result of such awareness, alternatives to the industrialised, global food system are now emerging (Kloppenberg et al.). The Slow Food (R)evolution The tenets of the Slow Food movement, now some two decades old, are today synergetic with the growing consternation about climate change. In 1983, Carlo Petrini formed the Italian non-profit food and wine association Arcigola and, in 1986, founded Slow Food as a response to the opening of a McDonalds in Rome. From these humble beginnings, which were then unashamedly positing a return to the food systems of the past, Slow Food has grown into a global organisation that has much more future focused objectives animating its challenges to the socio-cultural and environmental costs of industrial food. Slow Food does have some elements that could be classed as reactionary and, therefore, the opposite of evolutionary. In response to the increasing homogenisation of culinary habits around the world, for instance, Slow Food’s Foundation for Biodiversity has established the Ark of Taste, which expands upon the idea of a seed bank to preserve not only varieties of food but also local and artisanal culinary traditions. In this, the Ark aims to save foods and food products “threatened by industrial standardization, hygiene laws, the regulations of large-scale distribution and environmental damage” (SFFB). Slow Food International’s overarching goals and activities, however, extend far beyond the preservation of past foodways, extending to the sponsoring of events and activities that are attempting to create new cuisine narratives for contemporary consumers who have an appetite for such innovation. Such events as the Salone del Gusto (Salon of Taste) and Terra Madre (Mother Earth) held in Turin every two years, for example, while celebrating culinary traditions, also focus on contemporary artisanal foods and sustainable food production processes that incorporate the most current of agricultural knowledge and new technologies into this production. Attendees at these events are also driven by both an interest in tradition, and their own very current concerns with health, personal satisfaction and environmental sustainability, to change their consumer behavior through an expanded self-awareness of the consequences of their individual lifestyle choices. Such events have, in turn, inspired such events in other locations, moving Slow Food from local to global relevance, and affecting the intellectual evolution of foodway cultures far beyond its headquarters in Bra in Northern Italy. This includes in the developing world, where millions of farmers continue to follow many traditional agricultural practices by necessity. Slow Food Movement’s forward-looking values are codified in the International Commission on the Future of Food and Agriculture 2006 publication, Manifesto on the Future of Food. This calls for changes to the World Trade Organisation’s rules that promote the globalisation of agri-food production as a direct response to the “climate change [which] threatens to undermine the entire natural basis of ecologically benign agriculture and food preparation, bringing the likelihood of catastrophic outcomes in the near future” (ICFFA 8). It does not call, however, for a complete return to past methods. To further such foodway awareness and evolution, Petrini founded the University of Gastronomic Sciences at Slow Food’s headquarters in 2004. The university offers programs that are analogous with the Slow Food’s overall aim of forging sustainable partnerships between the best of old and new practice: to, in the organisation’s own words, “maintain an organic relationship between gastronomy and agricultural science” (UNISG). In 2004, Slow Food had over sixty thousand members in forty-five countries (Paxson 15), with major events now held each year in many of these countries and membership continuing to grow apace. One of the frequently cited successes of the Slow Food movement is in relation to the tomato. Until recently, supermarkets stocked only a few mass-produced hybrids. These cultivars were bred for their disease resistance, ease of handling, tolerance to artificial ripening techniques, and display consistency, rather than any culinary values such as taste, aroma, texture or variety. In contrast, the vine ripened, ‘farmer’s market’ tomato has become the symbol of an “eco-gastronomically” sustainable, local and humanistic system of food production (Jordan) which melds the best of the past practice with the most up-to-date knowledge regarding such farming matters as water conservation. Although the term ‘heirloom’ is widely used in relation to these tomatoes, there is a distinctively contemporary edge to the way they are produced and consumed (Jordan), and they are, along with other organic and local produce, increasingly available in even the largest supermarket chains. Instead of a wholesale embrace of the past, it is the connection to, and the maintenance of that connection with, the processes of production and, hence, to the environment as a whole, which is the animating premise of the Slow Food movement. ‘Slow’ thus creates a gestalt in which individuals integrate their lifestyles with all levels of the food production cycle and, hence to the environment and, importantly, the inherently related social justice issues. ‘Slow’ approaches emphasise how the accelerated pace of contemporary life has weakened these connections, while offering a path to the restoration of a sense of connectivity to the full cycle of life and its relation to place, nature and climate. In this, the Slow path demands that every consumer takes responsibility for all components of his/her existence—a responsibility that includes becoming cognisant of the full story behind each of the products that are consumed in that life. The Slow movement is not, however, a regime of abstention or self-denial. Instead, the changes in lifestyle necessary to support responsible sustainability, and the sensual and aesthetic pleasure inherent in such a lifestyle, exist in a mutually reinforcing relationship (Pietrykowski 2004). This positive feedback loop enhances the potential for promoting real and long-term evolution in social and cultural behaviour. Indeed, the Slow zeitgeist now informs many areas of contemporary culture, with Slow Travel, Homes, Design, Management, Leadership and Education, and even Slow Email, Exercise, Shopping and Sex attracting adherents. Mainstreaming Concern with Ethical Food Production The role of the media in “forming our consciousness—what we think, how we think, and what we think about” (Cunningham and Turner 12)—is self-evident. It is, therefore, revealing in relation to the above outlined changes that even the most functional cookbooks and cookery magazines (those dedicated to practical information such as recipes and instructional technique) in Western countries such as the USA, UK and Australian are increasingly reflecting and promoting an awareness of ethical food production as part of this cultural change in food habits. While such texts have largely been considered as useful but socio-politically relatively banal publications, they are beginning to be recognised as a valid source of historical and cultural information (Nussel). Cookbooks and cookery magazines commonly include discussion of a surprising range of issues around food production and consumption including sustainable and ethical agricultural methods, biodiversity, genetic modification and food miles. In this context, they indicate how rapidly the recent evolution of foodways has been absorbed into mainstream practice. Much of such food related media content is, at the same time, closely identified with celebrity mass marketing and embodied in the television chef with his or her range of branded products including their syndicated articles and cookbooks. This commercial symbiosis makes each such cuisine-related article in a food or women’s magazine or cookbook, in essence, an advertorial for a celebrity chef and their named products. Yet, at the same time, a number of these mass media food celebrities are raising public discussion that is leading to consequent action around important issues linked to climate change, social justice and the environment. An example is Jamie Oliver’s efforts to influence public behaviour and government policy, a number of which have gained considerable traction. Oliver’s 2004 exposure of the poor quality of school lunches in Britain (see Jamie’s School Dinners), for instance, caused public outrage and pressured the British government to commit considerable extra funding to these programs. A recent study by Essex University has, moreover, found that the academic performance of 11-year-old pupils eating Oliver’s meals improved, while absenteeism fell by 15 per cent (Khan). Oliver’s exposé of the conditions of battery raised hens in 2007 and 2008 (see Fowl Dinners) resulted in increased sales of free-range poultry, decreased sales of factory-farmed chickens across the UK, and complaints that free-range chicken sales were limited by supply. Oliver encouraged viewers to lobby their local councils, and as a result, a number banned battery hen eggs from schools, care homes, town halls and workplace cafeterias (see, for example, LDP). The popular penetration of these ideas needs to be understood in a historical context where industrialised poultry farming has been an issue in Britain since at least 1848 when it was one of the contributing factors to the establishment of the RSPCA (Freeman). A century after Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle (published in 1906) exposed the realities of the slaughterhouse, and several decades since Peter Singer’s landmark Animal Liberation (1975) and Tom Regan’s The Case for Animal Rights (1983) posited the immorality of the mistreatment of animals in food production, it could be suggested that Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth (released in 2006) added considerably to the recent concern regarding the ethics of industrial agriculture. Consciousness-raising bestselling books such as Jim Mason and Peter Singer’s The Ethics of What We Eat and Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma (both published in 2006), do indeed ‘close the loop’ in this way in their discussions, by concluding that intensive food production methods used since the 1950s are not only inhumane and damage public health, but are also damaging an environment under pressure from climate change. In comparison, the use of forced labour and human trafficking in food production has attracted far less mainstream media, celebrity or public attention. It could be posited that this is, in part, because no direct relationship to the environment and climate change and, therefore, direct link to our own existence in the West, has been popularised. Kevin Bales, who has been described as a modern abolitionist, estimates that there are currently more than 27 million people living in conditions of slavery and exploitation against their wills—twice as many as during the 350-year long trans-Atlantic slave trade. Bales also chillingly reveals that, worldwide, the number of slaves is increasing, with contemporary individuals so inexpensive to purchase in relation to the value of their production that they are disposable once the slaveholder has used them. Alongside sex slavery, many other prevalent examples of contemporary slavery are concerned with food production (Weissbrodt et al; Miers). Bales and Soodalter, for example, describe how across Asia and Africa, adults and children are enslaved to catch and process fish and shellfish for both human consumption and cat food. Other campaigners have similarly exposed how the cocoa in chocolate is largely produced by child slave labour on the Ivory Coast (Chalke; Off), and how considerable amounts of exported sugar, cereals and other crops are slave-produced in certain countries. In 2003, some 32 per cent of US shoppers identified themselves as LOHAS “lifestyles of health and sustainability” consumers, who were, they said, willing to spend more for products that reflected not only ecological, but also social justice responsibility (McLaughlin). Research also confirms that “the pursuit of social objectives … can in fact furnish an organization with the competitive resources to develop effective marketing strategies”, with Doherty and Meehan showing how “social and ethical credibility” are now viable bases of differentiation and competitive positioning in mainstream consumer markets (311, 303). In line with this recognition, Fair Trade Certified goods are now available in British, European, US and, to a lesser extent, Australian supermarkets, and a number of global chains including Dunkin’ Donuts, McDonalds, Starbucks and Virgin airlines utilise Fair Trade coffee and teas in all, or parts of, their operations. Fair Trade Certification indicates that farmers receive a higher than commodity price for their products, workers have the right to organise, men and women receive equal wages, and no child labour is utilised in the production process (McLaughlin). Yet, despite some Western consumers reporting such issues having an impact upon their purchasing decisions, social justice has not become a significant issue of concern for most. The popular cookery publications discussed above devote little space to Fair Trade product marketing, much of which is confined to supermarket-produced adverzines promoting the Fair Trade products they stock, and international celebrity chefs have yet to focus attention on this issue. In Australia, discussion of contemporary slavery in the press is sparse, having surfaced in 2000-2001, prompted by UNICEF campaigns against child labour, and in 2007 and 2008 with the visit of a series of high profile anti-slavery campaigners (including Bales) to the region. The public awareness of food produced by forced labour and the troubling issue of human enslavement in general is still far below the level that climate change and ecological issues have achieved thus far in driving foodway evolution. This may change, however, if a ‘Slow’-inflected connection can be made between Western lifestyles and the plight of peoples hidden from our daily existence, but contributing daily to them. Concluding Remarks At this time of accelerating techno-cultural evolution, due in part to the pressures of climate change, it is the creative potential that human conscious awareness brings to bear on these challenges that is most valuable. Today, as in the caves at Lascaux, humanity is evolving new images and narratives to provide rational solutions to emergent challenges. As an example of this, new foodways and ways of thinking about them are beginning to evolve in response to the perceived problems of climate change. The current conscious transformation of food habits by some in the West might be, therefore, in James Lovelock’s terms, a moment of “revolutionary punctuation” (178), whereby rapid cultural adaption is being induced by the growing public awareness of impending crisis. It remains to be seen whether other urgent human problems can be similarly and creatively embraced, and whether this trend can spread to offer global solutions to them. References An Inconvenient Truth. Dir. Davis Guggenheim. Lawrence Bender Productions, 2006. Bales, Kevin. Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004 (first published 1999). Bales, Kevin, and Ron Soodalter. The Slave Next Door: Human Trafficking and Slavery in America Today. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009. Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962. Chalke, Steve. “Unfinished Business: The Sinister Story behind Chocolate.” The Age 18 Sep. 2007: 11. Cunningham, Stuart, and Graeme Turner. The Media and Communications in Australia Today. Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin, 2002. Davey, Gwenda Beed. “Foodways.” The Oxford Companion to Australian Folklore. Ed. Gwenda Beed Davey, and Graham Seal. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1993. 182–85. Doherty, Bob, and John Meehan. “Competing on Social Resources: The Case of the Day Chocolate Company in the UK Confectionery Sector.” Journal of Strategic Marketing 14.4 (2006): 299–313. Eshel, Gidon, and Pamela A. Martin. “Diet, Energy, and Global Warming.” Earth Interactions 10, paper 9 (2006): 1–17. Fowl Dinners. Exec. Prod. Nick Curwin and Zoe Collins. Dragonfly Film and Television Productions and Fresh One Productions, 2008. Freeman, Sarah. Mutton and Oysters: The Victorians and Their Food. London: Gollancz, 1989. Gould, S. J., and N. Eldredge. “Punctuated Equilibrium Comes of Age.” Nature 366 (1993): 223–27. (ICFFA) International Commission on the Future of Food and Agriculture. Manifesto on the Future of Food. Florence, Italy: Agenzia Regionale per lo Sviluppo e l’Innovazione nel Settore Agricolo Forestale and Regione Toscana, 2006. Jamie’s School Dinners. Dir. Guy Gilbert. Fresh One Productions, 2005. Jordan, Jennifer A. “The Heirloom Tomato as Cultural Object: Investigating Taste and Space.” Sociologia Ruralis 47.1 (2007): 20-41. Khan, Urmee. “Jamie Oliver’s School Dinners Improve Exam Results, Report Finds.” Telegraph 1 Feb. 2009. 24 Aug. 2009 < http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/4423132/Jamie-Olivers-school-dinners-improve-exam-results-report-finds.html >. Kloppenberg, Jack, Jr, Sharon Lezberg, Kathryn de Master, G. W. Stevenson, and John Henrickson. ‘Tasting Food, Tasting Sustainability: Defining the Attributes of an Alternative Food System with Competent, Ordinary People.” Human Organisation 59.2 (Jul. 2000): 177–86. (LDP) Liverpool Daily Post. “Battery Farm Eggs Banned from Schools and Care Homes.” Liverpool Daily Post 12 Jan. 2008. 24 Aug. 2009 < http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2008/01/12/battery-farm-eggs-banned-from-schools-and-care-homes-64375-20342259 >. Lovelock, James. The Ages of Gaia: A Biography of Our Living Earth. New York: Bantam, 1990 (first published 1988). Mason, Jim, and Peter Singer. The Ethics of What We Eat. Melbourne: Text Publishing, 2006. McLaughlin, Katy. “Is Your Grocery List Politically Correct? Food World’s New Buzzword Is ‘Sustainable’ Products.” The Wall Street Journal 17 Feb. 2004. 29 Aug. 2009 < http://www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/fairtrade/coffee/1732.html >. McMichael, Anthony J, John W Powles, Colin D Butler, and Ricardo Uauy. “Food, Livestock Production, Energy, Climate Change, and Health.” The Lancet 370 (6 Oct. 2007): 1253–63. Miers, Suzanne. “Contemporary Slavery”. A Historical Guide to World Slavery. Ed. Seymour Drescher, and Stanley L. Engerman. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Mintz, Sidney W. Tasting Food, Tasting Freedom: Excursions into Eating, Culture, and the Past. Boston: Beacon Press, 1994. Nussel, Jill. “Heating Up the Sources: Using Community Cookbooks in Historical Inquiry.” History Compass 4/5 (2006): 956–61. Off, Carol. Bitter Chocolate: Investigating the Dark Side of the World's Most Seductive Sweet. St Lucia: U of Queensland P, 2008. Paxson, Heather. “Slow Food in a Fat Society: Satisfying Ethical Appetites.” Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture 5.1 (2005): 14–18. Pietrykowski, Bruce. “You Are What You Eat: The Social Economy of the Slow Food Movement.” Review of Social Economy 62:3 (2004): 307–21. Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. New York: The Penguin Press, 2006. Regan, Tom. The Case for Animal Rights. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983. Scholz, Christopher A., Thomas C. Johnson, Andrew S. Cohen, John W. King, John A. Peck, Jonathan T. Overpeck, Michael R. Talbot, Erik T. Brown, Leonard Kalindekafe, Philip Y. O. Amoako, Robert P. Lyons, Timothy M. Shanahan, Isla S. Castañeda, Clifford W. Heil, Steven L. Forman, Lanny R. McHargue, Kristina R. Beuning, Jeanette Gomez, and James Pierson. “East African Megadroughts between 135 and 75 Thousand Years Ago and Bearing on Early-modern Human Origins.” PNAS: Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences of the United States of America 104.42 (16 Oct. 2007): 16416–21. Sinclair, Upton. The Jungle. New York: Doubleday, Jabber & Company, 1906. Singer, Peter. Animal Liberation. New York: HarperCollins, 1975. (SFFB) Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity. “Ark of Taste.” 2009. 24 Aug. 2009 < http://www.fondazioneslowfood.it/eng/arca/lista.lasso >. (UNISG) University of Gastronomic Sciences. “Who We Are.” 2009. 24 Aug. 2009 < http://www.unisg.it/eng/chisiamo.php >. Vileisis, Ann. Kitchen Literacy: How We Lost Knowledge of Where Food Comes From and Why We Need to Get It Back. Washington: Island Press/Shearwater Books, 2008. Weissbrodt, David, and Anti-Slavery International. Abolishing Slavery and its Contemporary Forms. New York and Geneva: Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations, 2002. Zeder, Melinda A. “The Neolithic Macro-(R)evolution: Macroevolutionary Theory and the Study of Culture Change.” Journal of Archaeological Research 17 (2009): 1–63.

IntroductionIn 2011, Four Corners — the flagship current affairs program of the Australian national broadcaster, ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) — aired an investigative report on the conditions in Indonesian slaughterhouses. Central to the report was a focus on how Australian cows were being killed for human consumption. Moral outrage ensued. The Federal Government responded with a temporary ban on the live export of cattle to Indonesia. In 2010 the Australian Government initiated legal action in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) opposing Japanese whaling in the Southern Ocean, following a sustained period of public opposition. This article pays close attention to expressions of public opposition to the killing of what have come to be referred to as our cows and our whales, and the response of the Federal Government.Australia’s recent history with the live export of farmed animals and its transformation into an anti-whaling nation provides us with a foundation to analyse these contemporary disputes. In contrast to a focus on “Australian cow making” (Fozdar and Spittles 76) during the live export controversy, this article investigates the processes through which the bodies of cows and whales became sites for the mapping of Australian identity and nationhood – in other words, a relational construction of Australianness that we can identify as a form of animal nationalism (Dalziell and Wadiwel). What is at stake are claims about desired national self-image. In what we might consider as part of a history of cows and whales is in many ways a ‘history of people with animals in it” (Davis 551). In other words, these disputes are not really about cows and whales.The Live Export IndustryAustralia is the largest exporter of live farmed animals, primarily sheep and cows, to the Middle East and Southeast Asia respectively (Phillips and Santurtun 309). The live export industry is promoted and supported by the Federal Government, with an explicit emphasis on the conditions experienced by these farmed animals. According to the Government, “Australia leads the world in animal welfare practices … [and] does not tolerate cruelty towards animals and will not compromise on animal welfare standards” (Department of Agriculture and Water Resources). These are strong and specific claims about Australia’s moral compass. What is being asserted is the level of care and concern about how Australia’s farmed animals are raised, transported and killed.There is an implicit relationality here. To be a ‘world leader’ or to claim world’s best practice, there must be some form of moral or ethical measure to judge these practices against. We can locate these more clearly and directly in the follow-up sentence on the above claim: “Our ongoing involvement in the livestock export trade provides an opportunity to influence animal welfare conditions in importing countries” (Department of Agriculture and Water Resources). The enthusiasm expressed in this statement manifests in explicitly seeking to position Australia as an exporter of moral progress (see Caulfield 76). These are cultural claims about us.In its current form the Australian live export industry dates back to the early 1960s, with concerns about the material conditions of farmed animals in destination countries raised from the outset (Caulfield 72; Villanueva Pain 100). In the early 1980s animal activists formed the Australian Federation of Animal Societies to put forward a national unified voice. Protests and political lobbying lead to the formation of a Senate Select Committee on Animal Welfare, reflecting what Gonzalo Villanueva has referred to as a social and political landscape that “appeared increasingly favourable to discussing animal welfare” (Transnational 89-91).The Select Committee’s first report focussed on live export and explicitly mentioned the treatment of Australian farmed animals in the abattoirs of destination countries. The conditions in these facilities were described as being of a lower “standard of animal welfare” to those in Australia (Senate Select Committee on Animal Welfare xiii). These findings directly mirror the expressions of concern in the wake of the 2011 controversy.“A Bloody Business”On 30 May 2011, Four Corners aired a report entitled ‘A Bloody Business’ on the conditions in Indonesian slaughterhouses. The investigation followed-up on footage provided by Animals Australia and Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA Australia). Members from these groups had travelled to Indonesia in order to document conditions in slaughterhouses and prepare briefing notes which were later shared with the ABC. Their aim was to increase public awareness of the conditions Australian farmed cattle faced in Indonesia, provide a broader indictment of the live export industry, and call for an end the practice. The nationwide broadcast which included graphic footage of our cows being killed, enabled broader Australia to participate from the comfort of their own homes (see Della Porta and Diani 177-8).The program generated significant media coverage and public moral outrage (Dalziell and Wadiwel 72). Dr Bidda Jones, Chief Scientist of RSPCA Australia, referred to “28,000 radio stories, 13,000 TV mentions and 3,000 press stories” making it one of the top five national issues in the media for five weeks. An online petition created by the activist organisation GetUp! collected more than 260,000 signatures over a period of three days and $300,000 was raised for campaign advertising (Jones 102). Together, these media reports and protest actions influenced the Federal Government to suspend live exports to Indonesia. A front-page story in The Age described the Federal Government as having “caved in to public and internal party pressure” (Willingham and Allard). In her first public statement about the controversy, Prime Minister Julia Gillard outlined the Government’s intent: “We will be working closely with Indonesia, and with the industry, to make sure we can bring about major change to the way cattle are handled in these slaughter houses” (Willingham and Allard).The Prime Minister’s statement directly echoed the claims made on the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources website introduced above. Implicit is these statements is a perceived ability to bring about “major change” and an assumption that we kill better. Both directly align with claims of leading the world in animal welfare practices and the findings of the 1985 Select Committee report. Further, the controversy itself was positioned as providing an “opportunity to influence animal welfare conditions in importing countries” (Department of Agriculture and Water Resources).Four Corners provided a nationwide platform to influence decision-makers (see Della Porta and Diani 168-9). White, Director of Strategy for Animals Australia, expressed this concisely:We should be killing the animals here under Australian conditions, under our control, and then they should only be shipped as meat products, not live animals. (Ferguson, Doyle, and Worthington)Jones provided more context, describing the suffering experienced by “Australian cattle” in Indonesia as “too much,” especially when “a clear, demonstrated and successful alternative to the live export of animals” was already available (“Broader”; Jones 188). Implicit in these calls for farmed cows to be killed in Australia was an inference to technical and moral progress, evoking Australia’s “national self-image” as “a modern, principled culture” (Dalziell and Wadiwel 84). The clean, efficient and modern processes undertaken in Australia were relationally positioned against the bloody practices conducted in the Indonesian facilities. In other words, we kill cows in a nicer, more humane and better way.Australia and WhalingAustralia has a long and dynamic history with whaling (Salter). A “fervently” pro-whaling nation, the “rapidly growing” local industry went through a modernisation process in the 1950s (Day 19; Kato 484). Operations became "clean and smooth,” and death became "instant, swift and painless”. As with the live export controversy, an inference of a nicer, more humane and better way of killing was central the Australian whaling industry (Kato 484-85). Enthusiastic support for an Australian whaling industry was superseded within three decades by what Charlotte Epstein describes as “a dramatic historical turnabout” (Power 150). In June 1977, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) came to Canberra, and protests were organised across Australia to coincide with the meeting.The IWJ meeting was seen as a political opportunity. An IWC meeting being held in the last English-as-first-language nation with a commercial whaling operation provided an ideal target for the growing anti-whaling movement (Epstein, Power 149). In parallel, the opportunity to make whaling an electoral issue was seen as a priority for locally based activists and organisations (Pash 31). The collective actions of those campaigning against the backdrop of the IWC meeting comprised an array of performances (Tarrow 29). Alongside lobbying delegates, protests were held outside the venue, including the first use of a full-sized replica inflatable sperm whale by anti-whaling activists. See Image 1. The symbol of the whale became a signifier synonymous for the environment movement for decades to follow (see Epstein, Power 110-11). The number of environmental organisations attending exceeded those of any prior IWC meeting, setting in place a practice that would continue for decades to follow (M’Gonigle 150; Pash 27-8).Image 1: Protest at Australia’s last whaling station August 28, 1977. Photo credit: Jonny Lewis Collection.Following the IWC meeting in Canberra, activists packed up their equipment and prepared for the long drive to Albany in Western Australia. Disruption was added to their repertoire (Tarrow 99). The target was the last commercial whaling operation in Australia. Two months later, on August 28, demonstrations were held at the gates of the Cheynes Beach Whaling Company. Two inflatable Zodiac boats were launched, with the aim of positioning themselves between the whales being hunted and the company’s harpoon vessels. Greenpeace was painted on the side — the first protest action in Australia under the organisation’s banner (Pash 93-94).In 1978, Prime Minister Fraser formally announced an Inquiry into the future of whaling in Australia, seeking to position Australia as being on the right side of history, “taking a decisive step forward in the human consciousness” (Epstein, World 313). Underpinning announcement was a (re)purposing of whales bodies as a site for the mapping of relational constructions of Australian identity and nationhood:Many thousands of Australians — and men, women and children throughout the world — have long felt deep concern about the activities of whalers… I abhor any such activity — particularly when it is directed against a species as special and intelligent as the whale.(Qtd. in Frost vii)The actions of those protesting against whaling and the language used by Fraser in announcing the Inquiry signalled Australia’s becoming as the first nation in which “ethical arguments about the intrinsic value of the whale” displaced “scientific considerations of levels of endangerment” (Epstein, Power 150). The idea of taking action for whales had become about more than just saving their lives, it was an ethical imperative for us.Standing Up for (Our) WhalesThe Inquiry into “whales and whaling” provided specific recommendations, which were adopted in full by Prime Minister Fraser:The Inquiry’s central conclusion is that Australian whaling should end, and that, internationally, Australia should pursue a policy of opposition whaling. (Frost 206)The inquiry found that the majority of Australians viewed whaling as “morally wrong” and as a nation we should stand up for whales internationally (Frost 183). There is a direct reference here to the moral values of a civilised community, what Arne Kalland describes as a claim to “social maturity” (130). By identifying itself as a nation on the right side of the issue, Australia was pursuing a position of moral leadership on the world stage. The Whale Protection Act (1980) replaced the Whaling Act (1960). Australia’s policy of opposition to whaling was “pursued both domestically and internationally though the IWC and other organizations” (Day 19).Public opposition to whaling increased with the commencement of Japan’s scientific research whaling program in the Southern Ocean, and the dramatic actions of Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. The Daily Telegraph which ran a series of articles under the banner of “our whales” in June 2005 (see, for example, Hossack; Rehn). The conservative Federal Government embraced the idea, with the Department of the Environment and Heritage website including a “Save Our Whales” page. Six months out from the 2007 federal election, opposition leader Kevin Rudd stated “It's time that Australia got serious when it comes to the slaughter of our whales” (Walters). As a “naturally more compassionate, more properly developed” people, we [Australians] had a duty to protect them (Dalziell and Wadiwel 84).Alongside oft-repeated claims of Australia’s status as a “world leader” and the priority placed on the protection of whales nationally and internationally, saveourwhales.gov.au wristbands were available for order from the government website — at no charge. By wearing one of these wristbands, all Australians could “show [their] support for the protection of whales and dolphins” (Department of the Environment and Heritage). In other words, the wearer could join together with other Australians in making a clear moral and ethical statement about both how much whales mean to us and that we all should stand up for them. The wristbands provided a means to individually and collectively express this is what we do in unobtrusive everyday way.Dramatic actions in the Southern Ocean during the 2008/09 whaling season received a broader audience with the airing of the first season of the reality TV series Whale Wars, which became Animal Planets most viewed program (Robé 94). As with A Bloody Business, Whale Wars provided an opportunity for a manifestly larger number of people to eyewitness the plight of whales (see Epstein, Power 142). Alongside the dramatised representation of the risky and personally sacrificial actions taken by the crew, the attitudes expressed reflected those of Prime Minister Fraser in 1977: protecting special and intelligent whales was the right and civilised thing to do.These sentiments were framed by the footage of activists in the series. For example, in episode four of season two, Lockhart McClean, Captain of the MV Gojira referred to Japanese whalers and their vessels as “evil” and “barbaric”, and their practices outdated. The drama of the series revolved around Sea Shepherd patrolling the Southern Ocean, their attempts to intervene against the Japanese fleet and protect our whales. The clear undercurrent here is a claim of moral progress, situated alongside an enthusiasm to export it. Such sentiments were clearly echoed by Bob Brown, a respected former member of federal parliament and spokesperson for Sea Shepherd: “It’s just a gruesome, bloody, medieval, scene which has no place in this modern world” (Japanese Whaling).On 31 May 2010 the Federal Government initiated proceedings against Japan in the ICJ. Four years later, the Court found in their favour (Nagtzaam, Young and Sullivan).Conclusion, Claims of Moral LeadershipHow the 2011 live export controversy and opposition to Japanese whaling in the Southern Ocean have unfolded provide us with an opportunity to explore a number of common themes. As Dalziell and Wadiwell noted with regard to the 2011 live export controversy, our “national self-image” was central (84). Both disputes encompass claims about us about how we want to be perceived. Whereas our cows and whales appear as key players, both disputes are effectively a ‘history of people with animals in it” (Davis 551). In other words, these disputes were not really about the lives of our farmed cows or whales.The Federal Government sought to reposition the 2011 live export controversy as providing (another) opportunity "to influence animal welfare conditions in importing countries,” drawing from our own claimed worlds-best practices (Department of Agriculture and Water Resources). The “solution” put forward by White and Jones solution was for Australian farmed cows to be killed here. Underpinning both was an implicit claim that we kill cows in a nicer, more humane and better way: "Australians are naturally more compassionate, more properly developed; more human” (Dalziell and Wadiwel 84).Similarly, the Federal Government’s pursuit of a position of world-leadership in opposing whaling was rooted in claims of our moral progress as a nation. Having formally recognised the specialness of whales in the 1970s, it was our duty to pursue their protection internationally. We could individually and collectively express national identity on our wrists, through wearing a government-provided saveourwhales.gov.au wristband. Collectively, we would not stand by and let the "gruesome, bloody, medieval” practice of Japanese whaling continue in our waters (“Japanese”). Legal action undertaken in the ICJ was the penultimate pronouncement.In short, expressions of concerns for our cows whales positioned their bodies as sites for the mapping of relational constructions of our identity and nationhood.Author’s NoteFor valuable comments on earlier drafts, I thank Talei Vulatha, Ben Hightower, Scott East and two anonymous referees.References“Broader Ban the Next Step: Animal Group.” Sydney Morning Herald, 8 June 2011. 11 July 2018 <https://www.smh.com.au/environment/conservation/broader-ban-the-next-step-animal-group-20110608-1frsr.html>.Caulfield, Malcolm. Handbook of Australian Animal Cruelty Law. North Melbourne: Animals Australia, 2009.Dalziell, Jacqueline, and Dinesh Joseph Wadiwel. “Live Exports, Animal Advocacy, Race and ‘Animal Nationalism’.” Meat Culture. Ed. Annie Potts. Brill Academic Pub., 2016. 73-89.Day, David. The Whale War. Random House, Inc., 1987.Della Porta, Donatella, and Mario Diani. Social Movements: An Introduction. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2006.Department of Agriculture and Water Resources. “Live Animal Export Trade.” Canberra: Australian Government, 2015. 15 May 2018 <http://www.agriculture.gov.au/animal/welfare/export-trade/>.Department of the Environment and Heritage. “Save Our Whales.” Canberra, Australian Government, 2007. 31 May 2017 <https://web.archive.org/web/20070205015403/http://www.environment.gov.au/coasts/species/cetaceans/intro.html>.Epstein, Charlotte. The Power of Words in International Relations: Birth of an Anti-Whaling Discourse. Cambridge, MA: MIT P, 2008.———. “WorldWideWhale. 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IntroductionClowns can be seen as enacting catastrophe with a small “c.” They are experts in “failing better” who perhaps live on the cusp of turning catastrophe into a metaphorical whirlwind while ameliorating the devastation that lies therein. They also have the propensity to succumb to the devastation, masking their own sense of the void with the gestures of play. In this paper, knowledge about clowns emerges from my experience, working with circus clowns in Circus Knie (Switzerland) and Circo Tihany (South America), observing performances and films about clowns, and reading, primarily in European fiction, of clowns in multiple guises. The exposure to a diverse range of texts, visual media and performance, has led me to the possibility that clowning is not only a conceptual discipline but also a state of being that is yet to be fully recognised.Diminutive CatastropheI have an idea (probably a long held obsession) of the clown as a diminutive figure of catastrophe, of catastrophe with a very small “c.” In the context of this incisive academic dialogue on relationships between catastrophe and creativity where writers are challenged with the horrendous tragedies that nature and humans unleash on the planet, this inept character appears to be utterly insignificant and, moreover, unworthy of any claim to creativity. A clown does not solve problems in the grand scheme of society: if anything he/she simply highlights problems, arguably in a fatalistic manner where innovation may be an alien concept. Invariably, as Eric Weitz observes, when clowns depart from their moment on the stage, laughter evaporates and the world settles back into the relentless shades of oppression and injustice. In response to the natural forces of destruction—earthquakes, tsunamis, cyclones, and volcanic eruptions—as much as to the forces of rage in war and ethnic cleansing that humans inflict on one another, a clown makes but a tiny gesture. Curiously, though, those fingers brushing dust off a threadbare jacket may speak volumes.Paradox is the crux of this exploration. Clowns, the best of them, project the fragility of human value on a screen beyond measure and across many layers and scales of metaphorical understanding (Big Apple Circus; Stradda). Why do odd tramps and ordinary inept people seem to pivot against the immense flows of loss and outrage which tend to pervade our understanding of the global condition today? Can Samuel Beckett’s call to arms of "failing better” in the vein of Charles Chaplin, Oleg Popov, or James Thiérrée offer a creative avenue to pursue (Bala; Coover; Salisbury)? Do they reflect other ways of knowing in the face of big “C” Catastrophes? Creation and CatastropheTo wrestle with these questions, I wish to begin by proposing a big picture view of earth-life wherein, across inconceivable aeons, huge physical catastrophes have wrought unimaginable damage on the ecological “completeness” of the time. I am not a palaeontologist or an evolutionary scientist but I suspect that, if human life is taken out of the equation, the planet since time immemorial has been battered by “disaster” which changed but ultimately did not destroy the earth. Evolution is replete with narratives of species wiped out by ice-ages, volcanoes, earthquakes, and meteors and yet the organism of this planet has survived and even regenerated. In metaphorical territory, the Sanskrit philosophers have a wise take on this process. Indian concepts are always multiple, crowded with possibilities, but I find there is something intriguing in the premise (even if it is impossible to tie down) of Shiva’s dance:Shiva Nataraja destroys creation by his Tandava Dance, or the Dance of Eternity. As he dances, everything disintegrates, apparently into nothingness. Then, out of the thin vapours, matter and life are recreated again. Shiva also dances in the hearts of his devotees as the Great Soul. As he dances, one’s egotism is consumed and one is rendered pure in soul and without any spiritual blemish. (Ghosh 109–10)For a dancer, the central location of dance in life’s creation forces is a powerful idea but I am also interested in how this metaphysical perspective aligns with current scientific views. How could these ancient thinkers predict evolutionary processes? Somehow, in the mix of experiential observation and speculation, they foresaw the complexity of time and, moreover, appreciated the necessary interdependence of creation and destruction (creativity and catastrophe). In comparison to western thought which privileges progression—and here evolution is a prime example—Hindu conceptualisation appears to prefer fatalism or a cyclical system of understanding that negates the potential of change to make things better. However, delving more closely into scientific narratives on evolution, the progression of life forms to the human species has involved the decimation of an uncountable number of other living possibilities. Contrariwise, Shiva’s Dance of Eternity is premised on endless diachronic change crossed vertically by reincarnation, through which progression and regression are equally expressed. I offer this simplistic view of both accounts of creation merely to point out that the interdependency of destruction and creation is deeply embodied in human knowledge.To introduce the clown figure into this idea, I have to turn to the minutiae of destruction and creation; to examples in the everyday nature of regeneration through catastrophe. I have memories of touring in the Northern Territory of Australia amidst strident green shoots bursting out of a fire-tortured landscape or, earlier in Paris, of the snow-crusted earth being torn asunder by spring’s awakening. We all have countless memories of such small-scale transformations of pain and destruction into startling glimpses of beauty. It is at this scale of creative wrestling that I see the clown playing his/her role.In the tension between fatalism and, from a human point of view, projections of the right to progression, a clown occupying the stage vacated by Shiva might stamp out a slight rhythm of his/her own with little or no meaning in the action. The brush on the sleeve might be hard to detect in an evolutionary or Hindu time scale but zoom down to the here and now of performance exchange and the scene may be quite different?Turning the Lens onto the Small-ScaleSmall-scale, clowns tend to be tiny bundles or, sometimes, gangly unbundles of ineptitude, careering through the simplest tasks with preposterous incompetence or, alternatively, imbibing complexity with the virtuosic delicacy—take Charles Chaplin’s shoe-lace spaghetti twirling and nibbling on nail-bones as an example. Clowns disrupt normalcy in small eddies of activity which often wreak paths of destruction within the tightly ordered rage of social formations. The momentum is chaotic and, not dissimilar to storms, clownish enactment bears down not so much to threaten human life but to disrupt what we humans desire and formulate as the natural order of decorum and success. Instead of the terror driven to consciousness by cyclones and hurricanes, the clown’s chaos is superficially benign. When Chaplin’s generous but unrealistic gesture to save the tightrope-act is thwarted by an escaped monkey, or when Thiérrée conducts a spirited debate with the wall of his abode in the midst of an identity crisis (Raoul), life is not threatened. Such incongruous and chaotic trajectories generate laughter and, sometimes, sadness. Moreover, as Weitz observes, “the clown-like imagination, unfettered by earthly logic, urges us to entertain unlikely avenues of thought and action” (87). While it may seem insensitive, I suggest that similar responses of laughter, sadness and unlikely avenues of thought and action emerge in the aftermath of cataclysmic events.Fear, unquestionably, saturates big states of catastrophe. Slide down the scale and intriguing parallels between fear and laughter emerge, one being a clown’s encapsulation of vulnerability and his/her stoic determination to continue, to persevere no matter what. There are many ways to express this continuity: Beckett’s characters are forever waiting, fearful that nothing will arrive, yet occupy themselves with variations of cruelty and amusement through the interminable passage of time. A reverse action occurs in Grock’s insistence that he can play his tiny violin, in spite of his ever-collapsing chair. It never occurs to him to find another chair or play standing up: that, in an incongruous way, would admit defeat because this chair and his playing constitute Grock’s compulsion to succeed. Fear of failure generates multiple innovations in his relationship with the chair and in his playing skills. Storm-like, the pursuit of a singular idea in both instances triggers chaotic consequences. Physical destruction may be slight in such ephemeral storms but the act, the being in the world, does leave its mark on those who witness its passage.I would like to offer a mark left in me by a slight gesture on the part of a clown. I choose this one among many because the singular idea played out in Circus Knie (Switzerland) back in the early 1970s does not conform to the usual parameters. This Knie season featured Dimitri, an Italian-Swiss clown, as the principal attraction. Following clown conventions, Dimitri appeared across the production as active glue between the various circus acts, his persona operating as an odd-jobs man to fix and clean. For instance, he intervened in the elephant act as a cleaner, scrubbing and polishing the elephant’s skin with little effect and tuned, with much difficulty, a tiny fiddle for the grand orchestration to come. But Dimitri was also given moments of his own and this is the one that has lodged in my memory.Dimitri enters the brightly lit and empty circus ring with a broom in hand. The audience at this point have accepted the signal that Dimitri’s interludes prepare the ring for the next attraction—to sweep, as it were, the sawdust back to neutrality. He surveys the circle for a moment and then takes a position on the periphery to begin what appears to be a regular clean-up. The initial brushes over the sawdust, however, produce an unexpected result—the light rather than the sawdust responds to his broom stokes. Bafflement swiftly passes as an idea takes hold: the diminutive figure trots off to the other side of the ring and, after a deep breath and a quick glance to see if anyone is looking (we all are), nudges the next edge of light. Triumphantly, the pattern is pursued with increasing nimbleness, until the figure with the broom stands before a pin-spot of light at the ring’s centre. He hesitates, checks again about unwanted surveillance, and then, in a single strike (poof), sweeps light and the world into darkness.This particular clown gesture contradicts usual commentaries of ineptitude and failure associated with clown figures but the incongruity of sweeping light and the narrative of the little man who scores a win lie thoroughly in the characteristic grounds of clownish behaviour. Moreover, the enactment of this simple idea illustrates for me today, as much as it did on its initial viewing, how powerful a slight clown gesture can be. This catastrophe with a very small “c:” the little man with nothing but a broom and an idea destroyed, like the great god Shiva, the world of light.Jesse McKnight’s discussion of the peculiar attraction of two little men of the 20th century, James Joyce’s Bloom and Charles Chaplin, could also apply to Dimitri:They are at sixes and sevens here on earth but in tune with the stars, buffoons of time, and heroes of eternity. In the petty cogs of the causal, they appear foolish; in the grand swirl of the universe, they are wise, outmaneuvering their assailants and winning the race or the girl against all odds or merely retaining their skins and their dignity by nightfall. (496) Clowning as a State of Mind/ConsciousnessAnother perspective on a clown’s relationship to ideas of catastrophe which I would like to examine is embedded in the discussion above but, at the same time, deviates by way of a harsh tangent from the beatitude and almost sacred qualities attributed by McKnight’s and my own visions of the rhythmic gestures of these diminutive figures. Beckett’s advice in Worstward Ho (1983) is a fruitful starting place wherein the directive is “to keep on trying even if the hope of success is dashed again and again by failure: ‘Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better’” (Le Feuvre 13). True to the masterful wordsmith, these apparently simple words are not transparent; rather, they deflect a range of contradictory interpretations. Yes, failure can facilitate open, flexible and alternative thought which guards against fanatical and ultra-orthodox certitude: “Failure […] is free to honour other ways of knowing, other construals of power” (Werry & O’Gorman 107). On the other hand, failure can mask a horrifying realisation of the utter meaninglessness of human existence. It is as if catastrophe is etched lightly in external clown behaviour and scarred pitilessly deep in the psyches that drive the comic behaviour. Pupils of the pre-eminent clown teacher Jacques Lecoq suggest that theatrical clowning pivots on “finding that basic state of vulnerability and allowing the audience to exist in that state with you” (Butler 64). Butler argues that this “state of clowning” is “a state of anti-intellectualism, a kind of pure emotion” (ibid). From my perspective, there is also an emotional stratum in which the state or condition involves an adult anxiety desiring to protect the child’s view of the world with a fierceness equal to that of a mother hen protecting her brood. A clown knows the catastrophe of him/herself but refuses to let that knowledge (of failure) become an end. An obstinate resilience, even a frank acknowledgement of hopelessness, makes a clown not so much pure emotion or childlike but a kind of knowledgeable avenger of states of loss. Here I need to admit that I attribute the clowning state or consciousness to an intricate lineage inclusive of the named clowns, Grock, Chaplin, Popov, Dimitri, and Thiérrée, which extends to a whole host of others who never entered a circus or performance ring: Mikhail Dostoyevsky’s Mushkin (the holy Russian fool), Henry Miller’s Auguste, Salman Rushdie’s Saleem, Jacques Tati, Joan Miro, Marc Chagall, Jean Cocteau, Eric Satie’s sonic whimsy, and Pina Bausch’s choreography. In the following observation, the overlay of catastrophe and play is a crucial indication of this intricate lineage:Heiner Müller compared Pina Bausch's universe to the world of fairy tales. “History invades it like trouble, like summer flies [...] The territory is an unknown planet, an emerging island product of an ignored (forgotten or future) catastrophe [...] The whole is nothing but children's play”. (Biro 68)Bausch clearly recognises and is interested in the catastrophic moments or psychological wiring of life and her works are not exempt from comic (clownish) modulations in the play of violence and despair that often takes centre stage. In fact, Bausch probably plays on ambivalence between despair and play more explicitly than most artists. From one angle, this ambivalence is generational, as her adult performers bear the weight of oppression within the structures (and remembering of) childhood games. An artistic masterstroke in this regard is the tripling reproduction over many years of her work exploring gender negotiations at a social dance gathering: Kontakhof. Initially, the work was performed by Bausch’s regular company of mature, if diverse, dancers (Bausch 1977), then by an elderly ensemble, some of whom had appeared in the original production (Kontakhof), and, finally, by a group of adolescents in 2010. The latter version became the subject of a documentary film, Dancing Dreams (2010), which revealed the fidelity of the re-enactment, subtly transformed by the brashness and uncertainty of the teenage protagonists playing predetermined roles and moves. Viewing the three productions side-by-side reveals socialised relations of power and desire, resonant of Michel Foucault’s seminal observations (1997), and the catastrophe of gender relations subtly caught in generational change. The debility of each age group becomes apparent. None are able to engage in communication and free-play (dream) without negotiating an unyielding sexual terrain and, more often than not, the misinterpretation of one human to another within social conventions. Bausch’s affinity to the juxtaposition of childhood aspiration and adult despair places her in clown territory.Becoming “Inhuman” or SacrificialA variation on this condition of a relentless pursuit of failure is raised by Joshua Delpech-Ramey in an argument for the “inhuman” rights of clowns. His premise matches a “grotesque attachment to the world of things” to a clown’s existence that is “victimized by an excessive drive to exist in spite of all limitation. The clown is, in some sense, condemned to immortality” (133). In Delpech-Ramey’s terms:Chaplin is human not because his are the anxieties and frustrations of a man unable to realize his destiny, but because Chaplin—nearly starving, nearly homeless, a ghost in the machine—cannot not resist “the temptation to exist,” the giddiness of making something out of nothing, pancakes out of sawdust. In some sense the clown can survive every accident because s/he is an undead immortal, demiurge of a world without history. (ibid.)The play on a clown’s “undead” propensity, on his/her capacity to survive at all costs, provides a counterpoint to a tragic lens which has not been able, in human rights terms, to transcend "man’s inhumanity to man.” It might also be argued that this capacity to survive resists nature’s blindness to the plight of humankind (and visa versa). While I admire the skilful argument to place clowns as centrepieces in the formulation of alternative and possibly more potent human rights legislations, I’m not absolutely convinced that the clown condition, as I see it, provides a less mysterious and tragic state from which justice can be administered. Lear and his fool almost become interchangeable at the end of Shakespeare’s tragedy: both grapple with but cannot resolve the problem of justice.There is a little book written by Henry Miller, The Smile at the Foot of the Ladder (1948), which bears upon this aspect of a clown’s condition. In a postscript, Miller, more notorious for his sexually explicit fiction, states his belief in the unique status of clowns:Joy is like a river: it flows ceaselessly. It seems to me this is the message which the clown is trying to convey to us, that we should participate through ceaseless flow and movement, that we should not stop to reflect, compare, analyse, possess, but flow on and through, endlessly, like music. This is the gift of surrender, and the clown makes it symbolically. It is for us to make it real. (47)Miller’s fictional Auguste’s “special privilege [was] to re-enact the errors, the foibles, the stupidities, all the misunderstandings which plague human kind. To be ineptitude itself” (29). With overtones of a Christian resurrection, Auguste surrenders himself and, thereby, flows on through death, his eyes “wide open, gazing with a candour unbelievable at the thin sliver of a moon which had just become visible in the heavens” (40). It may be difficult to reconcile ineptitude with a Christ figure but those clowns who have made some sort of mark on human imagination tend to wander across territories designated as sacred and profane with a certain insouciance and privilege. They are individuals who become question marks: puzzles not meant to be solved. Maybe similar glimpses of the ineffable occur in tiny, miniscule shifts of consciousness, like the mark given to me by Dimitri and Chaplin and...—the unending list of clowns and clown conditions that have gifted their diminutive catastrophes to the problem of creativity, of rebirth after and in the face of destruction.With McKnight, I dedicate the last word to Chaplin, who speaks with final authority on the subject: “Be brave enough to face the veil and lift it, and see and know the void it hides, and stand before that void and know that within yourself is your world” (505).Thus poised, the diminutive clown figure may not carry the ferment of Shiva’s message of destruction and rebirth, he/she may not bear the strength to creatively reconstruct or re-birth normality after catastrophic devastation. But a clown, and all the humanity given to the collisions of laughter and tears, may provide an inept response to the powerlessness which, as humans, we face in catastrophe and death. Does this mean that creativity is inimical with catastrophe or that existing with catastrophe implies creativity? As noted at the beginning, these ruminations concern small “c” catastrophes. They are known otherwise as clowns.ReferencesBala, Michael. “The Clown.” Jung Journal: Culture & Psyche 4.1 (2010): 50–71.Bausch, Pina. Kontakthof. Wuppertal Dance Theatre, 1977.Big Apple Circus. Circopedia. 27 Feb. 2013 ‹http://www.circopedia.org/index.php/Main_Page›.Biro, Yvette. “Heartbreaking Fragments, Magnificent Whole: Pina Bausch’s New Minimyths.” PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art 20.2 (1998): 68–72.Butler, Lauren. “Everything Seemed New: Clown as Embodied Critical Pedagogy.” Theatre Topics 22.1 (2012): 63–72.Coover, Robert. “Tears of a Clown.” Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction 42.1 (2000): 81–83.Dancing Dreams. Dirs. Anne Linsel and Rainer Hoffmann. First Run Features, 2010.Delpech-Ramey, Joshua. “Sublime Comedy: On the Inhuman Rights of Clowns.” SubStance 39.2 (2010): 131–41.Foucault, Michel. “The Ethics of the Concern for Self as Practice of Freedom.” Michel Foucault: Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth. Ed. Paul Rabinow. New York: The New Press, 1997. 281–302. Ghosh, Oroon. The Dance of Shiva and Other Tales from India. New York: New American Library, 1965.Kontakthof with Ladies and Gentlemen over ’65. Dir. Pina Bausch. Paris: L’Arche Editeur, 2007.Le Feuvre, Lisa. “Introduction.” Failure: Documents of Contemporary Art. Ed. Lisa Le Feuvre. London: Whitechapel Gallery, 2010. 12–21.McKnight, Jesse H. “Chaplin and Joyce: A Mutual Understanding of Gesture.” James Joyce Quarterly 45.3–4 (2008): 493–506.Miller, Henry. The Smile at the Foot of the Ladder. New York: New Directions Books, 1974.Raoul. Dir. James Thiérrée. Regal Theatre, Perth, 2012.Salisbury, Laura. “Beside Oneself Beckett, Comic Tremor and Solicitude.” Parallax 11.4 (2005): 81–92.Stradda. Stradda: Le Magazine de la Creation hors les Murs. 27 Feb. 2013 ‹http://www.horslesmurs.fr/-Decouvrez-le-magazine-.html›.Weitz, Eric. “Failure as Success: On Clowns and Laughing Bodies.” Performance Research: A Journal of the Performing Arts 17.1 (2012): 79–87.Werry, Margaret, and Róisín O'Gorman. “The Anatomy of Failure: An Inventory.” Performance Research: A Journal of the Performing Arts 17.1 (2012): 105–10.

From the mid-twentieth century, state and public conceptions of deviance and crime control have turned increasingly punitive (Hallett 115; Hutchinson 138). In a Western context, criminal justice has long been retributive, prioritising punishment over rehabilitation (Wenzel et al. 26). Within that context, there has been an increase in punitiveness—understood here as a measure of a punishment’s severity—the intention of which has been to help restore the moral imbalance created by offending while also deterring future crime (Wenzel et al. 26). Entangled with the global spread of neoliberal capitalism, punitiveness has become internationally pervasive to a near-hegemonic degree (Sparks qtd. in Jennings et al. 463; Unnever and Cullen 100).The punitive turn has troubling characteristics. Punitive policies can be expensive, and increased incarceration stresses the criminal justice system and leads to prison overcrowding (Hutchinson 135). Further, punitiveness is not only applied unequally across categories such as class, race, and age (Unnever and Cullen 105-06; Wacquant 212) but the effectiveness of punitive policy relative to its costs is contested (Bouffard et al. 466, 477; Hutchinson 139). Despite this, evidence suggests public demand is driving punitive policymaking, but that demand is only weakly related to crime rates (Jennings et al. 463).While discussion of punitiveness in the public sphere often focuses on measures such as boot camps for young offenders, increased incarceration, and longer prison sentences, punitiveness also has a darker side. Our research analysing discussion taking place on a large, regional, crime-focused online forum reveals a startling degree and intensity of violence directed at offenders and related groups. Members of the discussion forum do propose unsurprising measures such as incarceration and boot camps, but also an array of violent alternatives, including beating, shooting, dismemberment, and conversion into animal food. This article draws on our research to explore why discussion of punitiveness can be so intensely violent.Our research applies thematic analysis to seven discussion threads posted to a large regional online forum focused on crime, made between September and November 2017. One discussion thread per week of the study period was purposively sampled based on relevance to the topic of punitiveness, ultimately yielding 1200 individual comments. Those comments were coded, and the data and codes were reiteratively analysed to produce categories, then basic, organising, and global themes. We intended to uncover themes in group discussion most salient to punitiveness to gain insight into how punitive social interactions unfold and how those who demand punitiveness understand their interactions and experiences of crime. We argue that, in this online forum, the global theme—the most salient concept related to punitiveness—is a “subaltern citizenship”. Here, a clear division emerges from the data, where the group members perceive themselves as “us”—legitimate citizens with all attendant rights—in opposition to an external “them”, a besieging group of diverse, marginalised Others who have illegitimately usurped certain rights and who victimise citizens. Group members often deride the state as too weak and untrustworthy to stop this victimisation. Ironically, the external Others perceived by the group to hold power are themselves genuinely marginalised, though the group does not recognise or see that form of marginalisation as legitimate. In this essay, to preserve the anonymity of the forum and its members, we refer to them only as “the Forum”, located in “the City”, and refrain from direct quotes except for commonly used words or phrases that do not identify individuals.It is also important to note that the research described here deliberately focused on a specific group in a specific space who were concerned about specific groups of offenders. Findings and discussion, and the views on punitiveness described, cannot be generalised to the broader community. Nor do we suggest these views can be considered representative of all Forum members as we present here only a limited analysis of some violent discourse emerging from our research. Likewise, while our discussion often centres on youth and other marginalised groups in the context of offending, we do not intend to imply that offending is a characteristic of these groups.Legitimate CitizenshipCommonly, citizenship is seen as a conferred status denoting full and equal community membership and the rights and responsibilities dictated by community values and norms (Lister 28-29). Western citizenship norms are informed by neoliberal capitalist values: individual responsibility, an obligation to be in paid employment, participation in economic consumption, the sanctity of ownership, and that the principal role of government is to defend the conditions under which these norms can freely thrive (Walsh 861-62). While norms are shaped by laws and policy frameworks, they are not imposed coercively or always deployed consciously. These norms exist as shared behavioural expectations reproduced through social interaction and embodied as “common sense” (Kotzian 59). As much as Western democracies tend to a universalist representation of one, undifferentiated citizenship, it is clear that gender, race, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, and migrant status all exist in different relationships to citizenship as an identity category. Glass ceilings, stolen generations, same-sex marriage debates, and Australian Government proposals to strip citizenship from certain types of criminal offender all demonstrate that the lived experience of norms surrounding citizenship is profoundly unequal for some (Staeheli et al. 629-30). An individual’s citizenship status, therefore, more accurately exists on a spectrum between legitimacy—full community membership, possessing all rights and living up to all associated responsibilities—and illegitimacy—diminished membership, with contested rights and questionable fulfilment of associated responsibilities—depending on the extent of their deviation from societal norms.Discussing punitiveness, Forum members position themselves as “us”, that is, legitimate citizens. Words such as “we” and “us” are used as synonyms for society and for those whose behaviours are “normal” or “acceptable”. Groups associated with offending are described as “they”, “them”, and their behaviours are “not normal”, “disgusting”, “feral”, and merit the removal of “them” from civilisation, usually to “the middle of nowhere” or “the Outback”. Possession of legitimate citizenship is implicit in assuming authority over what is normal and who should be exiled for failing the standard.Another implicit assumption discernible in the data is that Forum members perceive the “normal we” as good neoliberal citizens. “We” work hard, own homes and cars, and take individual responsibility. There is a strong imputation of welfare dependency among offenders, the poor, and other suspect groups. Offending is presented as something curable by stripping offenders or their parents of welfare payments. Members earn their status as legitimate citizens by adhering to the norms of neoliberal citizenship in opposition to potential offenders to whom the benefits of citizenship are simply doled out.Forum members also frame their citizenship as legitimate by asserting ownership over community spaces and resources. This can be seen in their talking as if they, their sympathetic audience, and “the City” are the same (for example, declaring that “the City” demands harsher punishments for juvenile offenders). There are also calls to “take back” the streets, the City, and Australia from groups associated with offending. That a space can and should be “taken back” implies a pre-existing state of control interrupted by those who have no right to ownership. At its most extreme, the assertion of ownership extends to a conviction that members have the right to position offenders as enemies of the state and request that the army, the ultimate tool of legitimate state violence, be turned against them if governments and the criminal justice system are too “weak” or “soft” to constrain them.The Illegitimate OtherThroughout the data, perceived offenders are spoken of with scorn and hatred. “Perceived offenders” may include offenders and their family, youths, Indigenous people, and people of low socioeconomic status, and these marginalised groups are referenced so interchangeably it can be difficult to determine which is being discussed.Commenting on four “atsi [sic] kids” who assaulted an elderly man, group members asserted “they” should be shot like dogs. The original text gives no antecedents to indicate whether “they” is meant to indicate youths, Indigenous youths, or offenders in general. However, Australia has a colonial history of conflating crime and indigeneity and shooting Indigenous people to preserve white social order (Hill and Dawes 310, 312), a consequence of the tendency of white people to imagine criminals as black (Unnever and Cullen 106). It must be noted that the racial identity of individual Forum members is unknown. This does constitute a limitation in the original study, as identity categories such as race and class intersect and manifest in social interactions in complex ways. However, that does not prevent analysis of the text itself.In the Forum’s discursive space, “they” is used to denote offenders, Indigenous youths, youths, or the poor interchangeably, as if they were all a homogeneous, mutually synonymous “Other”. Collectively, these groups are represented as so generally hopeless that they are imagined as choosing to offend so they will be sentenced to the comforts of “holiday camp” prisons where they can access luxuries otherwise beyond their reach: freedom from addicted parents, medical care, food, television, and computers. A common argument, that crime is an individual choice, is often based on the idea that prison is a better option for the poor than going home. As a result, offending by marginalised offenders is reconstructed as a rational choice or a failure of individual responsibility rather than a consequence of structural inequality.Further, parents of those in suspect populations are blamed for intergenerational maintenance of criminality. They are described as too drunk or drugged to care, too unskilled in parenting due to their presumed dreadful upbringing, or too busy enjoying their welfare payments to meet their responsibility to control their children or teach them the values and skills of citizenship. Comments imply parents probably participated in their children’s crimes even when no evidence suggests that possibility and that some groups simply cannot be trusted to raise disciplined children owing to their inherent moral and economic dissipation. That is, not just offenders but entire groups are deemed illegitimate, willing to enjoy benefits of citizenship such as welfare payments but unwilling or unable to earn them by engaging with the associated responsibilities. This is a frequent argument for why they deserve severely punitive punishment for deviance.However, the construction of the Other as illegitimate in Forum discussions reaches far beyond imagining them as lacking normative skills and values. The violence present on the Forum is startling in its intensity. Prevalent within the data is the reduction of people to insulting nicknames. Terms used to describe people range from the sarcastic— “little darlings”—through standard abusive language such as “bastards”, “shits”, “dickheads”, “lowlifes”, to dehumanising epithets such as “maggots”, “scum”, and “subhuman arsewipes”. Individually and collectively, “they” are relentlessly framed as less than human and even less than animals. They are “mongrels” and “vermin”. In groups, they are “packs”, and they deserve to be “hunted” or just shot from helicopters. They are unworthy of life. “Oxygen thieves” is a repeated epithet, as is the idea that they should be dropped out at sea to drown. Other suggestions for punishment include firing squads, lethal injections, and feeding them to animals.It is difficult to imagine a more definitive denial of legitimacy than discursively stripping individuals and groups of their humanity (their most fundamental status) and their right to existence (their most fundamental right as living beings). The Forum comes perilously close to casting the Other as Agamben’s homo sacer, humans who live in a “state of exception”, subject to the state’s power but excluded from the law’s protection and able to be killed without consequence (Lechte and Newman 524). While it would be hyperbole to push this comparison too far—given Agamben had concentration camps in mind—the state of exception as a means of both excluding a group from society and exercising control over its life does resonate here.Themes Underlying PunitivenessOur findings indicate the theme most salient to punitive discussion is citizenship, rooted in persistent concerns over who is perceived to have it, who is not, and what should be done about those Others whose deviance renders their citizenship less legitimate. Citizenship norms—real or aspirational—of society’s dominant groups constitute the standards by which Forum members judge their experiences of and with crime, perceived offenders, the criminal justice system, and the state. However, Forum members do not claim a straightforward belonging to and sharing in the maintenance of the polity. Analysis of the data suggests Forum members consider their legitimate citizenship tainted by external forces such as politics, untrustworthy authorities and institutions, and the unconstrained excess of the illegitimate Other. That is, they perceive their citizenship to be simultaneously legitimate and undeservedly subaltern.According to Gramsci, subaltern populations are subordinate to dominant groups in political and civil society, lulled by hegemonic norms to cooperate in their own oppression (Green 2). Civil society supports the authority of political society and, in return, political society uses the law and criminal justice system to safeguard civil society’s interests against unruly subalterns (Green 7). Rights and responsibilities of citizenship reside within the mutual relationship between political and civil society. Subalternity, by definition, exists outside this relationship, or with limited access to it.Forum members position themselves as citizens within civil society. They lay emphatic claim to fulfilling their responsibilities as neoliberal citizens. However, they perceive themselves to be denied the commensurate rights: they cannot rely on the criminal justice system to protect them from the illegitimate Other. The courts are “soft”, and prisons are “camps” with “revolving doors”. Authorities pamper offenders while doing nothing to stop them from hurting their victims. Human rights are viewed as an imposition by the UN or as policy flowing from a political sphere lacking integrity and dominated by “do gooders”. Rights are reserved only for offenders. Legitimate citizens no longer even have the right to defend themselves. The perceived result is a transfer of rights from legitimate to illegitimate, from deserving to undeserving. This process elides from view the actual subalterns of Australian society—here, most particularly Indigenous people and the socioeconomically vulnerable—and reconstructs them as oppressors of the dominant group, who are reframed as legitimate citizens unjustly made subaltern.The Violence in PunitivenessOn the Forum, as in the broader world, a sense of “white victimisation”—the view, unsupported by history or evidence, that whites are an oppressed people within a structure systematically doling out advantage to minorities (King 89)—is a recurrent legitimising argument for punitiveness and vigilantism. Amid the shrinking social safety nets and employment precarity of neoliberal capitalism, competitiveness increases, and white identity forms around perceived threats to power and status incurred by “losing out” to minorities (Sacks and Lindholm 131). One 2011 study finds a majority of white US citizens believe themselves subject to more racism than black people (King 89). However, these assumptions of whiteness tend to be spared critical examination because, in white-dominated societies, whiteness is the common-sense norm in opposition to which other racial categories are defined (Petray and Collin 2). When whiteness is made the focus of critical questioning, white identities gain salience and imaginings of the “dark other” and besieged white virtues intensify (Bonilla-Silva et al. 232).With respect to feelings of punitiveness, Unnever and Cullen (118-19) find that the social cause for punitiveness in the United States is hostility towards other races, that harsh punishments, including the death penalty, are demanded and accepted by the dominant group because they are perceived to mostly injure “people they do not like” (Unnever and Cullen 119). Moreover, perception that a racial group is inherently criminal amplifies more generalised prejudices against them and diminishes the capacity of the dominant group to feel empathy for suffering inflicted upon them by the criminal justice system (Unnever and Cullen 120).While our analysis of the Forum supports these findings where they touch on crimes committed by Indigenous people, they invite a question. Why, where race is not a factor, do youths and the socioeconomically disadvantaged also inspire intensely violent punitiveness as described above? We argue that the answer relates to status. From this perspective, race becomes one of several categories of differentiation from legitimate citizenship through an ascription of low status.Wenzel, Okimoto, and Cameron (29) contend punitiveness, with respect to specific offences, varies according to the symbolic meaning the offence holds for the observer. Crimes understood as a transgression against status or power inspire a need for “revenge, punishment, and stigmatisation” (Wenzel et al. 41) and justify an increase in the punitiveness required (Wenzel et al. 29, 34). This is particularly true where an offence is deemed to make someone unfit for community membership, such that severe punishment serves as a symbolic marker of exile and a reaffirmation for the community of the violated values and norms (Wenzel et al. 41). Indeed, as noted, Forum posts regularly call for offenders to be removed from society, exiled to the outback, or shipped beyond Australia’s territorial waters.Further, Forum members’ perception of subaltern citizenship, with its assumption of legitimate citizenship as being threatened by undeserving Others, makes them view crime as implicitly a matter of status transgression. This is intensified by perception that the political sphere and criminal justice system are failing legitimate citizens, refusing even to let them defend themselves. Virulent name-calling and comparisons to animals can be understood as attempts by the group to symbolically curtail the undeservedly higher status granted to offenders by weak governments and courts. More violent demands for punishment symbolically remove offenders from citizenship, reaffirm citizen values, and vent anger at a political and criminal justice system deemed complicit, through weakness, in reducing legitimate citizens to subaltern citizens.ConclusionsIn this essay, we highlight the extreme violence we found in our analysis of an extensive online crime forum in a regional Australian city. We explore some explanations for violent public punitiveness, highlighting how members identify themselves as subaltern citizens in a battle against undeserving Others, with no support from a weak state. This analysis centres community norms and a problematic conception of citizenship as drivers of both public punitiveness and dissatisfaction with crime control policy and the criminal justice system. We highlight a real dissonance between community needs and public policy that may undermine effective policymaking. That is, evidence-based crime control policies, successful crime prevention initiatives, and falling crime rates may not increase public satisfaction with how crime is dealt with if policymakers pursue those measures without regard for how citizens experience the process.While studies such as that by Wenzel, Okimoto, and Cameron identify differences in status between legitimate citizens and offenders as amplifiers of punitiveness, we suggest the amplification may be mediated by the status relationship between legitimate citizens and authority figures within legitimate society. The offender and their crime may not contribute as much to the public’s outrage as commonly assumed. Instead, public punitiveness may predominantly arise from the perception that the political sphere, media, and criminal justice system respond to citizens’ experience of crime in ways that devalue the status of legitimate citizens. At least in the context of this regional city, this points to something other than successful crime control being integral to building more effective and satisfactory crime control policy: in this case, the need to rebuild trust between citizens and authority groups.ReferencesBonilla-Silva, Eduardo, Carla Goar, and David G. Embrick. “When Whites Flock Together: The Social Psychology of White Habitus.” Critical Sociology 32.2-3 (2006): 229–253.Bouffard, Jeff, Maisha Cooper, and Kathleen Bergseth. “The Effectiveness of Various Restorative Justice Interventions on Recidivism Outcomes among Juvenile Offenders.” Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice 15.4 (2017): 465–480.Green, Marcus. “Gramsci Cannot Speak: Presentations and Interpretations of Gramsci’s Concept of the Subaltern.” Rethinking Marxism 14.3 (2002): 1–24.Hallett, Michael. “Imagining the Global Corporate Gulag: Lessons from History and Criminological Theory.” Contemporary Justice Review 12.2 (2009): 113–127.Hill, Richard, and Glenn Dawes. “The ‘Thin White Line’: Juvenile Crime, Racialised Narrative and Vigilantism—A North Queensland Study.” Current Issues in Criminal Justice 11.3 (2000): 308–326.Hutchinson, Terry. “‘A Slap on the Wrist’? The Conservative Agenda in Queensland, Australia.” Youth Justice 15.2 (2015): 134–147.Jennings, Will, Stephen Farrall, Emily Gray, and Colin Hay. “Penal Populism and the Public Thermostat: Crime, Public Punitiveness, and Public Policy.” Governance: An International Journal of Policy, Administration, and Institutions 30.3 (2017): 463–481.King, Mike. “The ‘Knockout Game’: Moral Panic and the Politics of White Victimhood.” Race & Class 56.4 (2015): 85–94.Kotzian, Peter. “Good Governance and Norms of Citizenship: An Investigation into the System- and Individual-Level Determinants of Attachment to Civic Norms.” American Journal of Economics and Sociology 73.1 (2014): 58–83.Lechte, John, and Saul Newman. “Agamben, Arendt and Human Rights: Bearing Witness to the Human.” European Journal of Social Theory 15.4 (2012): 522–536.Lister, Ruth. “Citizenship: Towards a Feminist Synthesis.” Feminist Review 57 (1997): 28–48.Petray, Theresa L., and Rowan Collin. “Your Privilege is Trending: Confronting Whiteness on Social Media.” Social Media + Society 3.2 (2017): 1–10.Sacks, Michael A., and Marika Lindholm. “A Room without a View: Social Distance and the Structuring of Privileged Identity.” Working through Whiteness: International Perspectives. Ed. Cynthia Levine-Rasky. Albany, NY: State U of New York P, 2002. 129-151.Staeheli, Lynn A., Patricia Ehrkamp, Helga Leitner, and Caroline R. Nagel. “Dreaming the Ordinary: Daily Life and the Complex Geographies of Citizenship.” Progress in Human Geography 36.5 (2012): 628–644.Unnever, James D., and Francis T. Cullen. “The Social Sources of Americans’ Punitiveness: A Test of Three Competing Models.” Criminology 48.1 (2010): 99–129.Wacquant, Loïc. “Crafting the Neoliberal State: Workfare, Prisonfare, and Social Insecurity.” Sociological Forum 25.2 (2010): 197–220.Walsh, James P. “Quantifying Citizens: Neoliberal Restructuring and Immigrant Selection in Canada and Australia.” Citizenship Studies 15.6-7 (2011): 861–879.Wenzel, Michael, Tyler Okimoto, and Kate Cameron. “Do Retributive and Restorative Justice Processes Address Different Symbolic Concerns?” Critical Criminology 20.1 (2012): 25–44.

Following the deep-seated analogy between biological and computer parasites, it is surely inconceivable that anyone would want to deliberately infect a computer. It’s a bad idea, right? Well, not necessarily. It seems that the University of Calgary (UoC) want to challenge the received wisdom of security experts—a judgment, which determines that there is no such thing as a good virus. The UoC wants to encourage their students to write and test malevolent viruses. Still following the biological analogy, Dr John Aycock, the academic who runs the program at UoC, likens the approach to ‘what medical researchers do to combat the latest biological viruses such as Sars’. He argues that ‘before you can develop a cure, you have to understand what the virus is and how it spreads and what motivates those who write malicious software’ (Fried). The reaction from security experts is not surprisingly one of dismay—for them, all viruses are bad. Nonetheless, it is Dr. Aycock’s provocation that may provide a much-needed alternative solution to one of the biggest problems facing the network society. As many affiliates of this composite society are increasingly discovering, the network is a present day communication paradox. It is a vast, fast, and efficient logic machine, but simultaneously it provides the perfect medium for viral contagion. Moreover, despite the efforts of a billion dollar anti-virus industry, current reactive solutions are clearly not working. A report in the UK (DTI) concludes that despite the considerable uptake of anti-virus software—93% of UK companies have anti-virus software—70% of all security breaches are from viral-like programs. (The DTI report claims that ‘two-thirds of organisations that had any security incident said that a virus infection was their worst one’. In comparison, a 1991 Gallup survey [in Louw and Duffy] showed that of 500 of the UK’s largest businesses 24% had experienced a viral attack.) Viruses, it seems, are progressively more capable of ‘bypassing traditional anti-virus software and targeting vulnerabilities’. However, Dr Aycock argues that academics should not bury their heads in the sand. They should openly recognise that ‘reacting to the virus is simply not working’ and instead support pro-active research into the creation of computer viruses. Within the bad idea itself there maybe a good solution. Naturally, the experts are outraged by what they perceive as an incursion beyond the ethical norms of the computer world. These recent events are part of an ongoing good virus/bad virus debate. Network controllers have long argued for the ethical containment of viral code. Unlocking the secrets of the virus writer is, according to the anti-virus community, a bad idea. In the early 1980s, when Fred Cohen began experimenting with self-replicating code as part of his PhD, he experienced the moral indignation of the computer community. Cohen’s viral research at the University of Southern California (USC) referenced von Neumann’s seminal work on cellular automata (1948) and the Darwinian computer games played out in the Bell Labs in the 1950s and 1960s (Dewdney). Cohen was working on a similar, but simplified, idea, a ‘program’ that could insert itself into other programs and assume control of them. In doing so, he quickly realised the potential problem of the computer virus. I’d been working on computer security for a long time – I knew how systems worked, and how different attacks worked… But it came over me. Anyone who writes one of these things would have something that could replicate everywhere (Spiller 172). After seeing the results of his experiments, network controllers at USC banned him from repeating any similar exercises. Moreover, after completing his thesis in 1985, he could not get it published in a journal until 1987 (Spiller 176; it was finally published in the journal Computers and Security), and suffered a ‘virtual lockout’ in the funding of further research. Cohen later refers to the ‘apparent fear reaction’ as a result of trying to solve technical problems with policy solutions. At the time, Cohen used the same biological analogy as Dr. Aycock to defend his research into computer viruses. The benefits of biological research on the quality of life is indisputable, and the benefits of computer virus research may some day pay off in the quality of our information systems, and by extension, our well being. (Cohen in Trends in Computer Virus Research) In the early 1990s, the network seemed to be a more open-minded society. Cohen was able to consider computer viruses in terms of the legitimacy of friendly contagion. The so-called benevolent virus appeared in his book A Short Course on Computer Viruses (Cohen 15). It was conceived of as a viral alternative to Turing logic. At the same time, physicist Mark Ludwig, driven by his desire to make technical information about computer viruses freely available, published the Black Book of Computer Viruses. Wired Magazine championed Ludwig’s ‘gruellingly meticulous analyses of viral performance and technique’ (Dibbell). In 1995, Tom Ray, a biologist turned computer programmer, created the viral-like Tierra program, an evolutionary race between digital hosts and parasites. Ray proposed that Tierra should exist in ‘a very large, complex and inter-connected region of cyberspace… inoculated with digital organisms, which will be allowed to evolve freely through natural selection’ (Ray)—ironically, something similar to what we are currently experiencing. In the early days, viral researchers were prompted to defend their work. In an interview in the virus webzine Alive in 1994, Cohen argued that a ‘symbol sequences without any known malicious side effects’ could not be considered as a bad idea. Ludwig contended that people were ‘brainwashed into believing that virus = bad…’ (Dibbell). However, more foreboding voices soon joined the debate. Spafford warned that while there is legitimate ‘scientific interest’ in viruses as a ‘means of modelling life’ and developing epidemiological defences, fellow researches should heed the dangers of further experimentation. True viruses are inherently unethical. For Spafford, the idea of a ‘good virus’ is an oxymoron. Following the exponential growth in malicious attacks in the mid-1990s, the idea of a good virus drifted considerably from the centre to the margins of the network society. In 1996, the IBM anti-virus researcher Sarah Gordon criticised Ludwig for elevating the status of the computer virus from the digital equivalent of a can of spray paint. With estimated costs to the worldwide Information Technolgy industry of $13 billion in 2001 (Pipkin 41) and the destructive force of a single worm costing tens of millions of dollars, not surprisingly the word ‘virus’ has developed a negative connotation. Even Cohen has realised that any acceptance of the benevolent virus would require considerable linguistic embellishment. Try ‘intelligent agents’, ‘artificial life’, ‘adaptive distributed networks’, and similar names and you will be far more successful. (Fed Cohen’s response to email questions posed by the author in June 2002) Within this heated climate, it was highly probable that Dr Aycock would stand accused of peddling a bad idea. Graham Cluley, a consultant for Sophos, rhetorically questions UoC’s ethics by asking, ‘should we teach kids how to break into cars if they’re interested in becoming a policeman one day?’ (Kelly). The anti-virus experts argue that by teaching how to ‘attack and destroy’ rather than ‘prevention, protection, and cure’, UoC will simply encourage the widespread contagion of the bad idea. However, UoC questions the naivety of this expert opinion. They argue that any ‘reasonably intelligent individual’ can access this information without attending university for four years. They claim it is ‘dangerous to think that virus writers can be stopped without a better understanding of how they operate.’ Maybe UoC are doing what academia does best. They are considering the virus in a new and unfamiliar light, clearing away ethical baggage, and crossing the moral boundaries of the network society. Deep-seated as it is, the analogy only goes so far. The network and the virus writer have developed their own biology, which is both technologically and culturally shaped. The search for a viral cure has to move away from the reactionary dissection of existing viral anatomies. Researchers need to look towards a pro-active engineering model that incorporates the complex human-computer assemblage. As one maverick expert suggests: Tomorrow’s experts need to learn to think beyond and develop better applications and operating systems that proactively block potential attack vectors rather than waiting to be attacked and then responding (a ‘security expert’ discussing the UoC programme in http://www.tla.ch/TLA/NEWS/2004sec/20040914Writting-Viruses.htm, 14 Sep. 2004) While many other types of furtive program, like ‘bots’, ‘crawlers’, and ‘spiders’ legitimately creep behind our screens, the virus is seen as a digital pariah. Whether or not the viral algorithm is benevolent or malevolent doesn’t seem to matter any more. The vast majority of the network society regards it as a bad idea. Nevertheless, Dr Aycock’s experiment with both the cultural and technological elements could produce a pro-active immunisation program. Whatever the conclusion, he should be applauded for attempting to carry out this experiment while beleaguered by so many experts who decide to judge innovation in terms of rigid moral outcomes. References Cohen, F. A Short Course on Computer Viruses. 2nd ed. John Wiley & Sons, 1994. Cohen, F. “Friendly Contagion: Harnessing the Subtle Power of Computer Viruses.” The Sciences Sept/Oct (1991): 22–8. Cohen, F. “The Legend: An Interview.” Alive 1.1 (April-July 1994). Dec. 2004 http://www.virusview.net/info/virus/j&a/alive11.html>. Cohen, F. Trends in Computer Virus Research. Pittsburgh: ASP Press, 1991. Dec. 2004 http://vx.netlux.org/lib/afc06.html>. Department of Trade and Industry. “Technical Report.” Information Security Breaches Survey (2004). PriceWaterhouseCoopers. Dec. 2004 http://www.security-survey.gov.uk>. Dewdney, AK. “Computer Recreations: In the Game Called Core War Hostile Programs Engage in a Battle of Bits.” Scientific American 250.5 (1984): 14-22. 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Spafford, E. “Computer Viruses: A Form of Artificial Life?” Artificial Life II, Studies in the Sciences of Complexity. Ed. C. Langton. Addison-Wesley, 1991: vol. XII 727-47. Spiller, N., ed. Cyber_Reader: Critical Writings for the Digital Era. London: Phaidon, 2002. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Sampson, Tony. "Dr Aycock's Bad Idea: Is the Good Use of Computer Viruses Still a Bad Idea?." M/C Journal 8.1 (2005). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0502/02-sampson.php>. APA Style Sampson, T. (Feb. 2005) "Dr Aycock's Bad Idea: Is the Good Use of Computer Viruses Still a Bad Idea?," M/C Journal, 8(1). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0502/02-sampson.php>.