Статті в журналах з теми "AFL Player Ratings system"

ObjectivesTo determine whether specific injury measures were associated with team performance in the Australian Football League (AFL).Methods15 289 injuries caused players from 18 teams to miss 51 331 matches between 1997 and 2016. Data were aggregated to the team level. We analysed the associations among injury measures and team performance (reaching finals/playoffs and specific ladder/table position). Injury measures per team included: injury incidence, injury severity, injury burden, player match availability and percentage of the full player roster injured. We also weighted injury measures by five measures of player value.ResultsAFL teams’ injury burden and player match availability were associated with final table position (r2=0.03, p<0.05). Player value weighted injury burden was different between finalists and non-finalists (mean difference=−8, p<0.001) and explained 12% of the variation in the table position of teams (p<0.001). For a team, nine missed matches due to injury (burden weighted by a best and fairest player rating system) was associated with one lower table position. Player match availability weighted by player value was higher for finalists than non-finalists (mean difference=1.7, p<0.01) and explained 7% of the variation in the table position of teams (p<0.001).Discussion and potential implicationsThe impact of injury (burden weighted by best and fairest) explained up to 12% of the variation in final table position—this is particularly relevant to making/not making playoffs as well as home ground/travel advantages for those teams that make the one-game format of AFL playoffs (not home-away or best of seven format).

Purpose: To examine the association between preseason training variables and subsequent in-season performance in an elite Australian football team. Methods: Data from 41 elite male Australian footballers (mean [SD] age = 23.4 [3.1] y, height =188.4 [7.1] cm, and mass = 86.7 [7.9] kg) were collected from 1 Australian Football League (AFL) club. Preseason training data (external load, internal load, fitness testing, and session participation) were collected across the 17-wk preseason phase (6 and 11 wk post-Christmas). Champion Data© Player Rank (CDPR), coaches’ ratings, and round 1 selection were used as in-season performance measures. CDPR and coaches’ ratings were examined over the entire season, first half of the season, and the first 4 games. Both Pearson and partial (controlling for AFL age) correlations were calculated to assess if any associations existed between preseason training variables and in-season performance measures. A median split was also employed to differentiate between higher- and lower-performing players for each performance measure. Results: Preseason training activities appeared to have almost no association with performance measured across the entire season and the first half of the season. However, many preseason training variables were significantly linked with performance measured across the first 4 games. Preseason training variables that were measured post-Christmas were the most strongly associated with in-season performance measures. Specifically, total on-field session rating of perceived exertion post-Christmas, a measurement of internal load, displayed the greatest association with performance. Conclusion: Late preseason training (especially on-field match-specific training) is associated with better performance in the early season.

This study investigated the validity of the official Australian Football League Player Ratings system. It also aimed to determine the extent to which the distribution of points across the 13 rating subcategories could explain Australian Football League match outcome. Ratings were obtained for each player from Australian Football League matches played during the 2013–2016 seasons, along with the corresponding match outcome (Win/Loss and score margin). The values for each of the 13 subcategories that comprise the ratings were also obtained for the 2016 season. Total team rating scores were derived as an objective team outcome for each match. Percentage agreement and Pearson correlational analyses revealed that winning teams displayed a higher total team rating in 94.2% of matches and an association of r = 0.96 (95% confidence interval = 0.95–0.96) between match score margin and total team rating differential, respectively. A Partial Decision Tree (PART) analysis resulted in seven rules capable of determining the extent to which relative contributions of rating subcategories explain Win/Loss at an accuracy of 79.3%. These models support the validity of the Australian Football League Player Ratings system and its use as a pertinent system for objective player analyses in the Australian Football League.

Association football (soccer) is the most popular sport in the world, resulting in a large economic interest from investors, team managers, and betting agencies. For this reason, a vast number of rating systems exists to assess the strength of football teams or individual players. Nevertheless, most of the existing approaches incorporate deficiencies, e. g., that they depend on subjective ratings from experts. The objective of this work was the development of a new rating system for determining the playing strength of football players. The Elo algorithm, which has established itself as an objective and adaptive rating system in numerous individual sports, has been expanded in accordance with the requirements of team sports. Matches from 16 different European domestic leagues, the UEFA Champions and Europa Leagues have been recorded, with more than 17 000 matches played in recent years, and 12 400 different players. The developed rating system produced promising results, when evaluating the matches based on its predictions. A high relevance of the created system results from the fact that only the associated match report is needed and thus—in relation to existing valuation models—significantly more football players can be assessed.

Background: Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury has been a major cause of missed game time among Australian Football League (AFL) players. Return to play after ACL reconstruction is not always achieved, even among elite athletes. The rate of subsequent ACL injury in the AFL from 1990 to 2000 was high as compared with that of other elite sports. Purpose: To determine the rates of return to play and subsequent ACL injury after ACL reconstruction among AFL players from 1999 to 2013 and to explore factors associated with differing rates of return to play and subsequent ACL injury. Study Design: Case series; Level of evidence, 4. Methods: A total of 158 AFL players who underwent ACL reconstruction were identified from a prospectively maintained registry of AFL player injuries. Further data were gathered from official playing statistics, surgical records, and structured phone interviews. Results: The rate of return to play after an initial ACL injury was 77% (121 of 158 players). Greater preinjury playing experience and earlier selection in the AFL draft were associated with higher rates of return to play. The rate of subsequent ACL injury to either knee was 30% (48 of 158 players) and was especially high among players aged <21 years (23 of 46 players, 50%). After subsequent ACL injury, 34 of 48 players (71%) returned to play. In primary ACL reconstruction, the use of Ligament Augmentation and Reconstruction System grafts resulted in a faster return to play ( P = .001) but had a higher risk of subsequent revision reconstruction (risk ratio = 2.8, P = .048). Family history of ACL injury was associated with an increased risk of subsequent contralateral ACL injury (risk ratio = 3.8, P = .002). Conclusion: Most AFL players who underwent ACL reconstruction returned to play at least 1 AFL match. The high rate of subsequent ACL injury among AFL players demonstrates the highly demanding nature of Australian football, particularly at the elite level. The risk factors for subsequent ACL injury should be considered carefully when treatment and rehabilitation decisions are made for these high-demand athletes.

Purpose:The understanding of the gap between Under 18 y (U18) and senior-level competition and the evolution of this gap in Australian Football lack a strong evidence base. Despite the multimillion dollars invested in recruitment, scientific research on successful transition is limited. No studies have compared individual players’ movement rate, game statistics and ball speed in U18 and senior competition of the Australian Football League across time. This project compared differences in player movement and ball speed between matches from senior AFL competitive matches and U18 players in the 2003 and 2009 seasons.Methods:TrakPerformance Software and Global Positioning System (GPS) technology were used to analyze the movement of players, ball speed and game statistics. ANOVA compared the two levels of competition over time.Results:Observed interactions for distance traveled per minute of play (P = .009), number of sprints per minute of play (P < .001), time spent at sprint speed in the game (P < .001), time on field (P < .001), and ball speed (P < .001) were found. Subsequent analysis identified increases in movement patterns in senior AFL competition in 2009 compared with the same level of competition in 2003 and U18 players in 2003 and 2009.Conclusions:Senior AFL players in 2009 were moving further, sprinting relatively more frequently, playing less time and playing at game speeds significantly greater than the same senior competition in 2003 as well as compared with both cohorts of U18 players.

Purpose: To examine the dose–response relationship between match-play high-speed running (HSR), very high-speed running (VHSR), and sprint (SPR) distances versus subsequent ratings of fatigue and soreness. Methods: Thirty-six outfield players competing in the professional National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL, United States) with a minimum of five 90-minute match observations were monitored during the 2016 and 2017 seasons (408 match observations, 11 [6]/player). HSR (≥3.47 m·s−1), VHSR (≥5.28 m·s−1), and SPR (≥6.25 m·s−1) were determined generically (GEN) in players using a 10-Hz global positioning system. HSR, VHSR, and SPR speed thresholds were also reconfigured according to player peak speed per se and in combination with the final velocity achieved in the 30:15 Intermittent Fitness Test (locomotor approach to establishing individual speed zones). On the morning following matches (match day [MD + 1]), players recorded subjective wellness ratings of fatigue and soreness using 7-point Likert scales. Results: Fatigue (−2.32; 95% CI, −2.60 to −2.03 au; P < .0001) and soreness (−2.05; 95% CI, −2.29 to −1.81; P < .0001) ratings worsened on MD + 1. Standardized unit changes in HSRGEN (fatigue: −0.05; 95% CI, −0.11 to 0.02 and soreness: −0.02, 95% CI, −0.07 to 0.04) and VHSRGEN (fatigue: −0.06; 95% CI, −0.12 to 0.00 and soreness: −0.04; 95% CI, −0.10 to 0.02) had no influence on wellness ratings at MD + 1. Individualized speed thresholds did not improve the model fit. Conclusions: Subjective ratings of fatigue and wellness are not sensitive to substantial within-player changes in match physical performance. HSR, VHSR, and SPR thresholds customized for individual players’ athletic qualities did not improve the dose–response relationship between external load and wellness ratings.

Background: Injury surveillance has been used to quantify the scope of the injury burden in Australian football. However, deeper statistical analyses are required to identify major factors that contribute to the injury risk and to understand how these injury patterns change over time. Purpose: To compare Australian Football League (AFL) injury incidence, severity, prevalence, and recurrence by setting, site, and time span from 1997 to 2016. Study Design: Descriptive epidemiology study. Methods: A total of 15,911 injuries and medical illnesses recorded by team medical staff at each club were obtained from the AFL’s injury surveillance system and analyzed using linear mixed models with 3 fixed effects (setting, time span, site) and 1 random effect (club). All types of injuries and medical illnesses were included for analysis, provided that they caused the player to miss at least 1 match during the regular season or finals. Five-season time spans (1997-2001, 2002-2006, 2007-2011, and 2012-2016) were used for comparisons. Incidence rates were expressed at the player level. Recurrences were recoded to quantify recurrent injuries across multiple seasons. Results: Compared with training injuries, match injuries had a 2.8 times higher incidence per season per club per player (matches: 0.070 ± 0.093; training: 0.025 ± 0.043; P < .001). Match injuries resulted in 1.9 times more missed matches per club per season (matches: 17.2 ± 17.0; training: 9.1 ± 10.5; P < .001). and were more likely to be recurrences (matches: 11.6% ± 20.0%; training: 8.6% ± 21.8%; P < .001). From the 1997-2001 to 2007-2011 time spans, overall injury severity increased from a mean of 3.2 to 3.7 missed matches ( P ≤ .01). For the most recent 2012-2016 time span, injuries resulted in 3.6 missed matches, on average. Hip/groin/thigh injuries had the highest incidence (0.125 ± 0.120) and prevalence (19.2 ± 16.4) rates, and recurrences (29.3% ± 27.9%) were 15% more likely at this site than any other injury site. Conclusion: The risks of match injuries are significantly higher than those of training injuries in the AFL. Compared with the 1997-2001 time span, injuries became more severe during the 2007-2011 time span.

Abstract AIM: The current investigation aimed to create an objective rating of Gaelic football teams and to examine factors relating to a team's rating. METHOD: A modified version of the Elo Ratings formula (Elo, 1978) was used to rate Gaelic football teams. A total of 1101 competitive senior Inter County matches from 2010-2015 were incorporated into calculations. Factors examined between teams included population, registered player numbers, previous success at adult and underage levels, financial income from the GAA, team expenses and number of clubs in a county. RESULTS: The Elo Ratings formula for Gaelic football was found to have a strong predictive ability, correctly predicting the result in 72.90% of 642 matches over a 6 year period. Strong positive correlations were observed between previous success at senior level, Under 21 level, Under 18 level and current Elo points. Moderate correlations exist between population figures and current Elo points. Moderate correlations are also evident between the number of registered players in a county and the county’s Elo rating points. CONCLUSION: Gaelic football teams can be objectively rated using a modified Elo Ratings formula. In order to develop a successful senior team, counties should focus on the development of underage players, particularly up to U18 and U21 level.

We assume that all institutions and individuals involved in the organization of sport for children and young people should utilize the educational potential of sport. We assessed the quality of referee interactions with children during sports competitions in soccer. Based on the developmental theory and research suggesting that interactions between kids and adults are the primary mechanism of their development and learning, we focused on the quality of the referee–player interactions in terms of (1) emotional support, (2) game organization, and (3) instructional support. Twenty-five soccer referees who refereed matches for children aged 9–12 years were recruited. The Referee Educational Function Assessment Scoring System (REFASS) was used to assess the quality of the referee–player interactions. This tool was developed based on Classroom Assessment Scoring System—Upper Elementary. Regarding the REFASS dimensions, the mean scores for positive climate, Sensitivity, behavior management, content understanding and quality of feedback were in the medium range, while productivity and negative climate in the high range. In the case of the positive climate variable, the lowest mean ratings were recorded compared to other assessed dimensions. The assessments of the quality of referee–player interactions obtained for particular dimensions translated into the ratings for the specified domains. The highest ratings were given to game organization (6.0 ± 0.8; Me = 6.0), whereas the emotional support and instructional support were in the medium range (4.6 ± 1.5; Me = 4.5, and 5.2 ± 1.8; Me = 6.0, respectively). Referees are usually not aware of their pedagogical function and the complexity of their respective responsibilities. They are commonly considered to be ordinary technicians and evaluators of performance in competition. Based on the results, a postulate was formulated that referees should consciously perform a pedagogical function in the youth sport. Therefore, it is necessary to train them in educational methods and techniques appropriate to the age and needs of the child. The referees will then be prepared to take actions to prevent negative behavior of players on the field and to encourage prosocial behavior.

Background: Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction is usually performed with autologous bone–patellar tendon–bone (PT) or hamstring tendon (HT) graft. There has been only 1 randomized clinical trial examining ACL reconstruction with these grafts specifically in soccer players, and more studies comparing these graft types within a homogenous cohort such as soccer athletes may better highlight differences in outcomes. Purpose: To compare the results of ACL reconstruction with PT versus HT autograft in soccer players and to evaluate objective and subjective outcomes. Study Design: Randomized controlled trial; Level of evidence, 1. Methods: A total of 62 professional or semiprofessional soccer players (mean age, 25.1 years) with ACL injury were randomized to undergo reconstruction with PT or HT autograft by a single orthopaedic surgeon (n = 31 in each group). Outcome measures were recorded preoperatively and at 2 years postoperatively. The primary outcome was the modified Cincinnati Knee Rating System, and secondary outcomes were the objective and subjective International Knee Documentation Committee scores, Lachman test, pivot-shift test, anterior drawer test, and Lysholm score. The following variables were also evaluated postoperatively: return to soccer, level at return, graft rerupture, postoperative complications, anterior knee pain, patellar tendinitis, difficulty sprinting, and loss of kicking power. Results: The PT and HT groups were homogenous in terms of age, sex distribution, injured side, and time from injury to surgery, and there was no difference between them on any preoperative outcome score. At 2 years postoperatively, there were no differences between the groups on any outcome score; however, there were significantly fewer patients with anterior knee pain in the HT group compared with the PT group (7 [22.6%] vs 15 [48.4%], respectively; P = .03). Two patients from each group (2/31; 6.5%) sustained rerupture. Conclusion: There were no differences between soccer players who underwent different types of ACL reconstruction with the exception of anterior knee pain, which was more frequent in players who underwent reconstruction with PT graft. Registration: NCT02642692 ( ClinicalTrials.gov ).

The aim was to assess factor structure of player-reported fatigue and quantify within-subjects association between changes in training load measures and next day player-reported fatigue at different time points of an elite football season. Using longitudinal research design, twenty-four professional footballers, mean (SD) age of 25.7 (3.4) years, were monitored during their competitive season, including pre-season. Player-reported fatigue data and session ratings of perceived exertion (session-RPE) were collected via a mobile application. Player’s Heart rate (HR) and global positioning system (GPS) data were collected daily for each player in field sessions. Principal component analysis (PCA) indicated three components with Eigenvalues above 1.0; “soreness”, “mood, and “hydration”. Within-player correlations between training load values and next day player-reported fatigue values were trivial to moderate (r ≈ −0.42 to −0.04). In-season we observed large correlations between Total Distance (TD) and PlayerLoad with Soreness (r = −0.55, 95% CI: −0.62 to −0.46; r = −.054, 95% CI: −0.62 to −0.46), but during pre-season, correlations were small (r = −0.15, 95% CI: −0.28 to −0.01; r = −0.13, 95% CI: −0.26 to 0.01). The HR TRIMP, TD and session-RPE measures each showed trivial to moderate correlations (r ≈ −0.41 to −0.08) with next day “mood”. Our in-house player-reported fatigue questionnaire was sensitive to the multi-dimensional nature of fatigue, identifying physiological (soreness), psychological (mood and stress) and nutritional (hydration and nutrition) components. We found the in-season correlations with training load to be greater than previously reported in the literature, specifically with next day player-reported “soreness”. Nevertheless, the correlations between the items of our scale and pre-season training load were small.

Objectives: To examine the collective influence of a range of physical preparation elements on selected performance measures during Australian football match play. Design: Prospective and longitudinal. Methods: Data were collected from 34 professional Australian football players from the same club during the 2016 Australian Football League competition season. Match activity profiles and acute (7-d) and chronic (3-wk) training loads were collected using global positioning system devices. Training response was measured by well-being questionnaires completed prior to the main training session each week. Maximal aerobic running speed (MAS) was estimated by a 2-km time trial conducted during preseason. Coach ratings were collected from the senior coach and 4 assistants after each match on a 5-point Likert scale. Player ratings were obtained from a commercial statistics provider. Fifteen matches were analyzed. Linear mixed models were constructed to examine the collective influence of training-related factors on 4 performance measures. Results: Muscle soreness had a small positive effect (ES: 0.12) on Champion Data rating points. Three-week average high-speed running distance had a small negative effect (ES: 0.14) on coach ratings. MAS had large to moderate positive effects (ES: 0.55 to 0.47) on relative total and high-speed running distances. Acute total and chronic average total running distance had small positive (ES: 0.13) and negative (ES: 0.14) effects on relative total and high-speed running distance performed during matches, respectively. Conclusions: MAS should be developed to enhance players’ running performance during competition. Monitoring of physical preparation data may assist in reducing injury and illness and increasing player availability but not enhance football performance.

During children’s sports competitions, the referees play a special role. The referees are expected to be able to identify behavioral problems (of players, coaches, and fans), applying specific techniques to prevent negative behavior of players. Adapting these actions to the specifics of the group or individuals is crucial in providing a safe educational environment that promotes child development. The main objective of this research was to assess the quality of referees’ interactions with players in terms of positive behavior management and proficiency during rugby matches of children aged 6–12 years. Twenty-three rugby referees officiating matches organized by the Polish Rugby Union in Poland participated in the study. The research used the Referee–Players’ Interaction Assessment Scoring System tool. Additionally, referee–player interactions were recorded with a GoPro 8 camera along with audio from a wireless intercom. The significance of differences between the ratings for each indicator was tested by chi-squared test, while a non-parametric Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used to compare the mean ratings of positive behavior management and proficiency. The Mann–Whitney U-test was used to compare differences between assessments of experienced and inexperienced referees. The observations showed that referees were rated significantly higher in the proficiency dimension than in positive behavior management dimension. Nevertheless, both ratings represent an average level of quality of interactions with the players. The referee’s experience did not determine the quality of his or her interactions with the players in the specific dimensions. The following conclusion was drawn from the research: referees should be trained in the methods and techniques for managing player behavior and should act to prevent the occurrence of negative behavior, by presenting clear and understandable expectations to players before the match and using preventive measures.

ABSTRACT Background The endocannabinoid system (ECS) is considered a key player in the neurophysiology of food reward. Animal studies suggest that the ECS stimulates the sensory perception of food, thereby increasing its incentive-motivational and/or hedonic properties and driving consumption, possibly via interactions with metabolic hormones. However, it remains unclear to what extent this can be extrapolated to humans. Objective We aimed to investigate the effect of oral Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) on subjective and metabolic hormone responses to visual food stimuli and food intake. Methods Seventeen healthy subjects participated in a single-blinded, placebo-controlled, 2 × 2 crossover trial. In each of the 4 visits, subjective “liking” and “wanting” ratings of high- and low-calorie food images were acquired after oral THC or placebo administration. The effect on food intake was quantified in 2 ways: via ad libitum oral intake (half of the visits) and intragastric infusion (other half) of chocolate milkshake. Appetite-related sensations and metabolic hormones were measured at set time points throughout each visit. Results THC increased “liking” (P = 0.031) and “wanting” ratings (P = 0.0096) of the high-calorie, but not the low-calorie images, compared with placebo. Participants consumed significantly more milkshake after THC than after placebo during oral intake (P = 0.0005), but not intragastric infusion, of milkshake. Prospective food consumption ratings during the food image paradigm were higher after THC than after placebo (P = 0.0039). THC also increased plasma motilin (P = 0.0021) and decreased octanoylated ghrelin (P = 0.023) concentrations before milkshake consumption (i.e., in both oral intake and intragastric infusion test sessions), whereas glucagon-like peptide 1 responses to milkshake intake were attenuated by THC during both oral (P = 0.0002) and intragastric (P = 0.0055) administration. Conclusions These findings suggest that the ECS drives food intake by interfering with anticipatory, cephalic phase, and metabolic hormone responses. This trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT02310347.

Exemplary students are students of noble and accomplished character. Exemplary student assessments in schools are essential to motivate students to be better. Sekolah Bhakti YKKP is a school that plans to conduct an exemplary student assessment. The exemplary student assessment in SD Bhakti is taken from 8 aspects of assessment, namely: Average player ratings value, moral, discipline, attendance, point of offense, extracurricular activities of the race and book lover. A lot of data and different judging aspects become constraints in the assessment process, to solve this problem. The purpose of this research is to create a decision support system (SPK) as a solution to help schools in determining exemplary students. SPK applied is using Simple Additive Weighting (SAW) method, because this method can calculate various values based on predefined criteria and weights. After the calculation process is complete, the calculation result of the SAW method can be used to determine the student model based on the best class rating. Based on the results of the test using the PHP programming language and two methods of testing Black Box with an average percentage of 86% and testing Delone and McLean Model with an average percentage of 88%.

Background: Scientific studies have shown female soccer athletes to be 3 times more likely to injure their anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) than their male counterparts and the majority of these injuries are from a non-contact mechanism. The biomechanical factors of this phenomenon have been extensively studied in a laboratory-based setting, but there has been little progress in reducing the incidence of ACL injury in young female athletes. It is plausible, therefore, to suggest that the biomechanical improvements noted in a laboratory-based setting do not directly translate to a field-based setting. Preventive neuromuscular training programs are typically field-based and have been shown to be an effective intervention for reducing ACL injury risk by improving dynamic, frontal-plane knee stability. However, these programs are time consuming and prone to compliance and implementation issues. For these reasons, researchers have attempted to identify the minimum viable training program or wearable device that can be studied in the field using video cameras to determine their influence on movement-related risk factors for ACL injury. Purpose: The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a wearable neuromuscular device (WND) with or without the addition of a field-based, preventive neuromuscular training program on jump-landing risk assessment in young female soccer athletes. Methods: Thirty-nine female soccer players (161.0 +/- 6.6 cm; 49.4 kg +/- 5.9; 13.3 +/- 0.5 y) from two different teams in a local soccer club volunteered to participate in this study. Team 1 (n = 25) performed a 6-week, field-based NMT program while wearing a WND. The NMT was instructed by a trained exercise specialist. The NMT program was divided into three, two-week blocks of progressively increasing levels of exercise complexity and intensity focused on improving the strength and activation behavior of the trunk, hip and thigh muscles. Field-based movement testing was performed in the first week before training began (pre-test) and in the seventh week upon completion of the NMT program (post-test). During testing video cameras recorded a jump-landing task in the frontal and sagittal planes. The Landing Error Scoring System (LESS) and a novel version of the LESS (LESS-RMC) was used to asses movement quality related to ACL injury risk. Team 2 (n=14) wore the WND for an equal amount of athletic exposures over 7 weeks but did not perform the NMT program. Four different raters were recruited to visually score all jump landing trials using the two different rating protocols during the pre-test and post-test. For each visual assessment (LESS & LESS-RMC) a repeated measures ANOVA was conducted to explore within group (test) and between group (team) differences. Results: Repeated measure ANOVA results for the LESS score scale indicated a significant within factor difference in pretest and post test scores F(7.398, 27.533) = 8.598, P < 0.05. Pretest scores for team 1 (6.18 +/- 1.68) and team 2 (6.95 +/- 0.94) both saw a significant reduction in ACL risk scores to 5.44 +/- 1.70 and 6.31 +/- 1.75, respectively. ANOVA results for the LESS-RMC scale also indicated a significant within factor difference in pretest and posttests F(6.756, 35.624) = 6.069, p < 0.05. Pretest scores for Team 1 (6.02 +/- 1.99) and Team 2 (6.49 +/- 1.33) both saw a significant reduction in ACL risk scores to 5.10 +/- 1.77 and 6.09 +/- 1.50, respectively. ANOVA results revealed no significant differences between team scores for the LESS (F(0.031,27.533) = 0.036, p > 0.05) or LESS-RMC (F(1.053,35.624) = .946, p > 0.05) scales. Conclusion: The results reveal that the NMT program utilized in this study had no statistically significant additive effect on the visual risk assessment scores for Team 1 compared to Team 2, who had no NMT intervention and only wore the WND. Collectively, these results suggest that simply wearing a WND during 6 weeks of practice may be a less evasive and cheaper alternative to a NMT program.

Summary The main aim of the present study was to examine the cardiovascular response, time-motion characteristics, game performance and rated of perceived exertion (RPE) during small-sided games (SSGs) with different number of players. The research group consisted of elite youth male soccer players (n = 18) (aged 16.5 ±0.71 years, maximum heart rate (HRmax) 196.42 ±5.31 beats.min−1) from the FC DAC 1904 Dunajská Streda U17 soccer club. Cardiovascular response measurements included heart rate (HR) expressed in minimum, mean and maximum values and time spent in different intensity zones. Total distance covered, high intensity running and the number of accelerations and decelerations were captured by GPS. Individual game performance and the number of technical-tactical actions were recorded during every SSGs. After the game time we collected the ratings of perceived exertion scores from each player. Results showed that SSG with small number of players (3 vs. 3) triggered the highest HR response with mean value 168.00 ±8.48 beats.min−1, players spent the most time in maximal intensity zone 0:09:06 minutes, of SSG duration. This format of SSG was the mostintense for the players´ cardiovascular system, but we can’t find statistically significant differences between the HR values in SSGs. External load was the most demanding in SSG1 too, like in internal load. The highest scores in individual game performance were recorded in SSG2. In RPE scores SSG1 was the most difficult from the players point of view. In conclusion, the present research demonstrates the effectiveness of SSG1 in training sessions. Therefore, the coaching staff has the possibility to choose between SSGs during training sessions according to their physical, technical, tactical and psychological objectives.

The primary aims of the present study were to examine the impact of chronotype on sleep/wake behaviour, perceived exertion, and training load among professional footballers. Thirty-six elite female professional football player’s (mean ± SD: age, 25 ± 4 y; weight, 68 ± 7 kg) sleep and training behaviours were examined for 10 consecutive nights during a pre-season period using a self-report online player-management system and wrist activity monitors. All athletes completed the Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire (rMEQ) on the first day of data collection. Eleven participants were morning types, seventeen participants were intermediate types, and three participants were evening types. Separate linear mixed models were conducted to assess differences in sleep, perceived exertion, and training behaviours between chronotype groups. Morning types woke up earlier (wake time: 07:19 ± 01:16 vs. 07:53 ± 01:01, p = 0.04) and reported higher ratings of perceived exertion compared to intermediate types (6.7 ± 1.1 vs. 5.9 ± 1.2, p = 0.01). No differences were observed between chronotype groups for bedtime, time in bed, total sleep time, sleep efficiency, training duration, or training load. In circumstances where professional female football players are required to train at a time opposing their natural circadian preference (e.g., morning type training in the evening), their perceived exertion during training may be higher than that of players that are training at a time that aligns with their natural circadian preference (e.g., evening type training in the evening). It is important for practitioners to monitor individual trends in training variables (e.g., rating of perceived exertion, training load) with relation to athlete chronotype and training time. Future research should examine the relationship between chronotype, training time, and rating of perceived exertion across different training durations.

One of the key elements of effective sports programs that contribute to a child’s sense of joy and satisfaction in participating in sports is contact with an adult who builds a caring climate deliberately and intentionally. Referees play a special role in providing positive experiences for young athletes. The main aim of this study was to assess the quality of referee–player interactions in terms of building a positive climate during the game and the referee’s responsiveness to the health, emotional, social, and cognitive needs of young rugby players aged 6–12 years. The research was conducted among 23 referees refereeing children’s rugby matches in Poland. The structure observation method and The Referee–Players’ Interaction Assessment Scoring System tool were used in the study. Each referee was observed twice. The referee’s verbal and non-verbal communication was recorded using a GoPro Hero 8 camera and an Ejeas Fbim wireless intercom system. A Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used to examine differences between referees’ ratings on two dimensions. The Mann-Whitney U test was employed to test the significance of differences in the mean scores of referees between groups divided by experience. The referees, in both dimensions (building positive climate and responsiveness to the players’ needs), scored on a 7-point scale, were rated at an average level of 3.22 (SD = 1.65) and 4.39 (SD = 1.67), respectively, with the responsiveness dimension rating being statistically significantly higher than the positive climate rating. The results showed that referee experience was not a determinant of the rating of the quality of referee–players’ interactions in both dimensions. From these studies, it was concluded that there is a need to complement the existing training programs for referees with the contents from the field of pedagogy and developmental psychology. This will help them build a positive climate during the game and show how to respond to children’s health, cognitive, emotional, and social needs. Furthermore, developing a referee’s pedagogical skills can improve their relationship with players, which can ultimately translate into a greater sense of job satisfaction. The formulated practical implications can also be transposed to other team sports.

Purpose – As the suppliers of any organization are considered as the strategic partners and taken as the integral part of the supply chain network, hence it is very crucial decision to select the suppliers in order to get the competitive edge. Whenever, any organization select its suppliers then organization evaluates every supplier with respect to certain criteria, which are already listed in the organization’s policies. Since supplier selection is based on the evaluation of various attributes of each alternative; therefore this problem is a multi-attribute decision-making (MADM) problem. The purpose of this paper is to propose a model for selecting the best supplier. Design/methodology/approach – This paper reports the implementation of grey theory to choose the appropriate supplier with uncertain information. Grey values have been used to give the ratings and weightage to various criteria which are being used to evaluate the different supplier alternatives. And finally the grey possibility degree has been calculated to rate the various alternatives. Findings – This paper proposed a MADM model based on grey theory to select the optimal supplier and finally, the proposed model has been applied to select the best supplier for “optimizing digital banking” in the Indian context. Research limitations/implications – The selection criteria selected here through literature review may not fit the whole industry and moreover this paper can be extended into the field where multiple-supplier selection is required, like in manufacturing sector where the authors cannot rely always on single supplier. So, in that case the authors need to pick more than one best alternatives. Practical implications – The grey theory approach can be applied almost all the services industries, where the exact information about the suppliers in quantitative terms is very difficult to find. So the authors can use the grey numbers to rate the suppliers. Social implications – Since, the coming generation is more dependent on the internet banking, so it becomes very much necessary for the banking sector to update the existing system. Due to lack in technical skills, outsourcing the information technology and software development is the best option. Hence, Grey theory based model can be used in selecting the best supplier under uncertain information. Originality/value – Very few studies have been done in India using grey theory approach for supplier selection and moreover, to the best knowledge of the authors’ this is the first study which employs grey theory for selecting the best supplier in banking industry. Moreover the digital banking system is the future of banking industry, so every player should provide the digital banking structure in order to survive in the market.

In English: Exemplary students are students of noble and accomplished character. Exemplary student assessments in schools are essential to motivate students to be better. Sekolah Bhakti YKKP is a school that plans to conduct an exemplary student assessment. The exemplary student assessment in SD Bhakti is taken from 8 aspects of assessment, namely: Average player ratings value, moral, discipline, attendance, point of offense, extracurricular activities of the race and book lover. A lot of data and different judging aspects become constraints in the assessment process, to solve this problem. The purpose of this research is to create a decision support system (SPK) as a solution to help schools in determining exemplary students. SPK applied is using Simple Additive Weighting (SAW) method, because this method can calculate various values based on predefined criteria and weights. After the calculation process is complete, the calculation result of the SAW method can be used to determine the student model based on the best class rating. Based on the results of the test using the PHP programming language and two methods of testing Black Box with an average percentage of 86% and testing Delone and McLean Model with an average percentage of 88%. In Indonesian : Siswa teladan adalah siswa yang karakter mulia dan berprestasi. Penilaian siswa teladan di sekolah sangat penting untuk memotivasi siswa untuk menjadi lebih baik. SD Bhakti YKKP adalah sekolah yang berencana untuk melakukan penilaian siswa teladan. Penilaian siswa teladan di SD Bhakti diambil dari 8 aspek penilaian, yaitu: nilai rapor rata-rata, moral, disiplin, absensi, poin pelanggaran, kegiatan ekstrakurikuler lomba dan book lover. Permasalahan dalam penelitian ini adalah jumlah data yang banyak dan aspek penilaian yang berbeda menjadi kendala dalam proses penilaian. Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk membuat sebuah Sistem Pendukung Keputusan (SPK) sebagai solusi untuk membantu sekolah dalam menentukan siswa teladan. SPK yang diterapkan adalah menggunakan metode Simple Additive Weighting (SAW), karena metode ini dapat menghitung berbagai nilai berdasarkan kriteria dan bobot yang telah ditentukan. Setelah proses perhitungan selesai, hasil perhitungan metode SAW dapat digunakan untuk menentukan model siswa berdasarkan pada peringkat kelas terbaik. Berdasarkan hasil pengujian menggunakan bahasa pemrograman PHP dan dua metode yaitu Pengujian Black Box dengan persentase rata-rata 86% dan pengujian Delone and McLean Model dengan persentase rata-rata 88%.

The main goal of this article is to compare the performance of team ratings and individual player ratings when trying to forecast match outcomes in association football. The well-known Elo rating system is used to calculate team ratings, whereas a variant of plus-minus ratings is used to rate individual players. For prediction purposes, two covariates are introduced. The first represents the pre-match difference in Elo ratings of the two teams competing, while the second is the average difference in individual ratings for the players in the starting line-ups of the two teams. Two different statistical models are used to generate forecasts. The first type is an ordered logit regression (OLR) model that directly outputs probabilities for each of the three possible match outcomes, namely home win, draw and away win. The second type is based on competing risk modelling and involves the estimation of scoring rates for the two competing teams. These scoring rates are used to derive match outcome probabilities using discrete event simulation. Both types of models can be used to generate pre-game forecasts, whereas the competing risk models can also be used for in-game predictions. Computational experiments indicate that there is no statistical difference in the prediction quality for pre-game forecasts between the OLR models and the competing risk models. It is also found that team ratings and player ratings perform about equally well when predicting match outcomes. However, forecasts made when using both team ratings and player ratings as covariates are significantly better than those based on only one of the ratings.

Abstract Statistical analysis in competitive sport is an important tool for developing strategy and seeking competitive advantages. However, for complex team sports such as Australian Rules Football, major limitations occur when using possession event data for game analysis. First, focusing on counting possession events does not capture the impact of off-the-ball actions such as ground positioning of other players. Second, it is difficult to determine the extent that an event is due to either team’s relative proficiency or skill. Third, there is limited possession event data available from each match and modelling efforts often have low statistical power. Here we reinterpret event data into positional systems and utilise pairwise performance metrics to understand the relative team proficiency in each of these states. These metrics can then be used to construct transition probabilities between states for future games, and ultimately, absorbing probabilities of goal states. Our approach effectively predicts match outcomes using team ratings for forward, midfield and defensive systems and is sufficiently interpretable to support strategic decision-making by coaching departments in the Australian Football League (AFL).

Abstract Background There is extensive research investigating the match demands of players in the Australian Football League (AFL). Objective This systematic literature review and meta-regression sought to analyse the evolution of in-game demands in AFL matches from 2005 to 2017, focusing on the relationship between volume and intensity. Methods A systematic search of Ovid MEDLINE, Embase, Emcare, Scopus, SPORTDiscus, and Cochrane Library databases was conducted. Included studies examined the physical demands of AFL matches utilising global positioning system (GPS) technology. Meta-regression analysed the shift in reported volume (total distance and total match time) and intensity (metres per minute [m.min−1], sprint duration and acceleration) metrics for overall changes, across quarters and positional groups (forwards, nomadics and defenders) from 2005 to 2017 inclusive and for each year between 2005 and 2007, 2007 and 2010, 2010 and 2012, and 2012 and 2015/2017 breakpoints. Results Distance (p = 0.094), m.min−1 (p = 0.494), match time (p = 0.591), time over 18 km·h−1 (p = 0.271), and number of accelerations greater than 4 km·h−1 (p = 0.498) and 10 km·h−1 (p = 0.335) in 1 s did not change from 2005 to 2017. From 2005 to 2007 volume decreased (− 6.10 min of match time; p = 0.010) and intensity increased (6.8 m.min−1 increase; p = 0.023). Volume and intensity increased from 2007 to 2010, evidenced by increases in total distance (302 m; p = 0.039), time over 18 km·h−1 (0.31 min; p = 0.005), and number of accelerations greater than 4 km·h−1 (41.1; p = 0.004) and 10 km·h−1 (3.6; p = 0.005) in 1 s. From 2010 to 2012, intensity decreased, evidenced by reductions in metres per minute (− 4.3; p = 0.022), time over 18 km·h−1 (− 0.93 min; p < 0.001), and number of accelerations greater than 4 km·h−1 (− 104.4; p < 0.001) and 10 km·h−1 (− 8.3; p < 0.001) in 1 s, whilst volume stabilised with no changes in distance (p = 0.068) and match time (p = 0.443). From 2012 to 2015/2017 volume remained stable and intensity increased with time over 18 km·h−1 (0.27 min; p = 0.008) and number of accelerations greater than 4 km·h−1 (31.6; p = 0.016) in 1 s increasing. Conclusions Changes in volume and intensity of AFL match demands are defined by discrete periods from 2007 to 2010 and 2010 to 2012. The interaction of rule and interpretation changes and coaching strategies play a major role in these evolutionary changes. In turn, modified game styles impact player game demands, training, and selection priorities. Standardisation and uniformity of GPS data reporting is recommended due to inconsistencies in the literature.

Context: Single-leg hop tests are used to assess functional performance following anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction. Recording 6-m timed hop scores using a stopwatch increases the potential for misclassification of patient status due to the number of error sources present. Objective: To examine the consistency of pass/fail (>90% limb symmetry index [LSI]) decisions in athletes tested at discharge following ACL reconstruction during the 6-m timed hop and the agreement between different human raters using a stopwatch and an electronic timing system. Setting: Clinic, rehabilitation. Participants: A total of 20 professional soccer players (age 24.6 [4.2] y; height 175.3 [10.2] cm; mass 73.6 [14.5] kg; 36 [10.5] wk following ACL reconstruction) volunteered to take part in this study. Main Outcome Measures: Two individual raters recorded each trial of the 6-m timed hop test on each limb with a stopwatch and an electronic timing system acted as the criterion measure. LSI scores were also computed with a pass score >90% LSI. Results: No significant differences were observed between limbs for any scoring method (P > .05). Mean differences indicated the electronic timing system was slower than both human raters (P < .05). Five participants failed the test (<90% LSI) but on each occasion this was only recorded by one method of rating. Kappa statistics showed no agreement in LSI scores across all 3 methods of scoring (κ = −.13) and no agreement when comparing the light gates to individual raters and rater 1 versus 2 (κ < 0). 95% limits of agreement in LSI scores recorded values of approximately ±20%. Conclusions: The 6-m timed hop test recorded using a stopwatch is not a valid measure to make clinical decisions following ACL reconstruction. Systematic bias between methods also suggests that a stopwatch and electronic timing system cannot be used interchangeably.

AbstractThis paper examines the performance of five different measures for forecasting men’s and women’s professional tennis matches. We use data derived from every match played at the 2018 and 2019 Wimbledon tennis championships, the 2019 French Open, the 2019 US Open, and the 2020 Australian Open. We look at the betting odds, the official tennis rankings, the standard Elo ratings, surface-specific Elo ratings, and weighted composites of these ratings, including and excluding the betting odds. The performance indicators used are prediction accuracy, calibration, model discrimination, Brier score, and expected return. We find that the betting odds perform relatively well across these tournaments, while standard Elo (especially for women’s tennis) and surface-adjusted Elo (especially for men’s tennis) also perform well on a range of indicators. For all but the hard-court surfaces, a forecasting model which incorporates the betting odds tends also to perform well on some indicators. We find that the official ranking system proved to be a relatively poor measure of likely performance compared to betting odds and Elo-related methods. Our results add weight to the case for a wider use of Elo-based approaches within sports forecasting, as well as arguably within the player rankings methodologies.

The Elo rating system, which was originally proposed by Arpad Elo for chess, has become one of the most important rating systems in sports, economics and gaming. Its original formulation is based on two-player zero-sum games, but it has been adapted for team sports and other settings. In 2015, Junca and Jabin proposed a kinetic version of the Elo model, and showed that under certain assumptions the ratings do converge towards the players’ strength. In this paper, we generalize their model to account for variable performance of individual players or teams. We discuss the underlying modelling assumptions, derive the respective formal mean-field model and illustrate the dynamics with computational results. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Kinetic exchange models of societies and economies’.

Purpose: There is significant cost associated with sports injury. Establishing injury profiles in contact sports like Australian Rules Football (ARF) will facilitate implementation of injury prevention strategies. The purpose of this literature review was to investigate sports injury data collection methodology, assess the strengths and limitations of previous research and identify gaps in the relevant literature. Recommendations for methodology of future sports injury data collection studies are made, particularly with reference to junior ARF. Method: A non-systematic literature search was undertaken in a narrative fashion to determine past and current injury surveillance in Australian Rules Football (ARF), Soccer, Rugby league and Union. The comprehensive search was performed using databases Cinahl, Sport Discus, Medline, Science Direct, Scopus and Informit Health Database: Ausport. For inclusion in this review, studies had to include the collection of baseline data, be peer-reviewed and have full text versions available in English. The effect of the methodology on research outcomes was evaluated, including: epidemiology, aetiology, common mechanisms and risk factors for injury are evaluated, as are the incidence, prevalence, severity and pathologies of injury in relevant sports. Results: While other alternatives are presented and evaluated, the following criteria appear the most reliable for use in future studies. A narrow games/time lost injury definition; a similar narrow injury severity definition; and a prospective model for sports injury data collection, making use of a standardised Player Movement Record (PMR). The AFL is the only major sport in which an injury surveillance system has been created that is robust, reliable and has captured all data from all clubs over a 12 year period. This system uses all criteria outlined. Conclusions/Recommendations: A significant knowledge gap remains with respect to the analytical epidemiology of injuries at the non-elite level of participation and a very small evidence base exists for injury prevention in Australian football, especially at non-elite and junior levels. By using critically developed methodology in the form of a prospective cohort study, an updated sports injury data collection model, adequate sample size and consistent injury definition, future research will guide future injury prevention interventions in junior ARF.

The aim of the study was to compare internal and external load responses of different small-sided games, using balanced (5v5 Possession and small-sided games formats) and unbalanced (6v4) teams. Ten elite youth male soccer players were monitored at the start of the in-season period using global positioning system, heart rate and subjective ratings of intensity. Results showed higher physiological stress (>90% HRmax) in Possession and small-sided games formats when compared to the unbalanced teams (ES = 1.3–2.3). Total and high-intensity distance in small-sided games (28 ± 25 m) and Possession (67 ± 35 m) were greater compared to teams of 6 and 4 in the unbalanced scenario. Small-sided games format and team with six players had higher proportion of distance running at sub-maximal velocities (0–5.8 m/s2). Small-sided games format and team with four players saw greater mean acceleration effort (mean acceleration intensity in small-sided games 1.91 ± 0.27 vs. Possession 1.80 ± 0.20 m/s2, ES = 0.4 and Team 4 1.56 ± 0.24 vs. Team 6 1.44 ± .0.19 m/s2, ES = 1.3). Small-sided games format and team with 6 players had lower starting velocities prior to acceleration efforts (small-sided games 0.90 ± 0.08 and Team 6 1.11 ± 0.11 m/s2, ES = 1.5 and ES = 1.8), while velocity at the end of each acceleration effort was greater in the Possession format and Team 4 compared to small-sided games and Team 6 (Possession 3.54 ± 0.23 m/s2 and Team 4 3.13 ± 0.22 m/s2) compared to the small-sided games format (ES = 0.1) and the team with six players (ES = 2.3). These data demonstrate that using unbalanced teams can provide an additional form of training prescription to facilitate player specific training within a squad environment by providing different internal and external training responses within a combined drill.

IntroductionIn his seminal article, “Communications: Blindspot of Western Marxism” (1977), Dallas Smythe suggested that audiences are the commodity form of advertiser-supported communications, as their time is sold to advertisers. Audience measurement firms establish the audience size for a programme by calculating how many people are “tuned in” to a particular offering, and then provide their estimates to advertisers and break down their figures on the basis of demographic characteristics (these characteristics include age, gender, and income level). These ratings have long been the currency of the television industry. Essentially, Smythe points out that advertisers purchase, “the services of audiences with predictable specifications who will pay attention in predictable numbers and at particular times to particular means of communication” (4). Ien Ang has proposed that audience measurement produces an “objectified category of others” that can be governed and abstracted from the “messiness of everyday life” (8, 132). Indeed, Ang sees ratings to be a means of controlling the audience by creating a truth about them that suits the industry’s needs for an exchangeable commodity.In the United States, Nielsen ratings dictate the terms for the buying and selling of television advertising. Over the years, Nielsen has adjusted the measurement methodology to satisfy the demands of various stakeholders: audience measurement companies, advertisers, programme producers, and network executives, among others. Recently, however, social media (particularly Twitter) has threatened Nielsen’s preeminence. Writing in Wired magazine in 2013, Tom Vanderbilt went so far as to declare that the Nielsen Family—the “25,000 households whose TV habits collectively provide a statistical snapshot of a nation’s viewing behavior” (n.p.)—was now dead. He proposed that a show’s “tweetability” had become more important than its Nielsen rating.Nielsen, for its part, has tried to keep up with the changing television landscape and the demands of the television industry. In 2012 they partnered with McKinsey & Company to create the social media consulting company NM Incite, and acquired social TV startup SocialGuide. The following year the company introduced Nielsen Twitter TV Ratings (NTTR) as a supplement to its traditional ratings offering. This step is in line with the shifting industry interest from measuring audience exposure to programming to measuring audience engagement with programming (Jenkins; and Napoli).With NTTR, Nielsen has made, we suggest here, a fairly unimaginative and restricted addition to existing metrics in that it limits its measurements to tweet volume and tweet impressions. In this paper we explore other ways Twitter might be used to create insights that would be useful for audience research. Richard Rogers has raised the question of whether and when standard methods should be applied to the study of a new medium (162). We respond by proposing that, in the case of NTTR, traditional methods should not be applied to Twitter.We begin by briefly discussing the emergence of social media metrics and some of the problems involved in employing these metrics in current audience research. We then investigate how Twitter invites new forms of inquiry, drawing a picture of relationships among television programmes based on viewer tweets. In this re-imagining of audience research, following the Digital Methods tradition, we treat Twitter as a “postdemographic machine” (Rogers) that profiles user tastes, interests, favourite things, and so forth (rather than demographics such as age, income, educational level, and ethnicity).Nielsen and the Introduction of NTTRNielsen collects data about television viewing through diaries kept by members of a relatively small audience sample and meters that are connected to television sets. They provide ratings for programmes according to a system where one Nielsen rating point equals one per cent of all US households with television sets tuned into that programme. Two trends now strain this traditional form of the “exposure metrics” used in the buying and selling of primetime advertising: audience fragmentation and audience autonomy (Napoli). These terms refer, respectively, to the explosion of channels and platforms, first via cable television and later the Internet, on which viewers can watch television programming, and to viewers’ increased control over what television programmes they watch and when they watch them, thanks to technologies such as remote control, DVR, and now the Internet. These trends have eroded audience size for broadcast television and have made traditional metrics, which measure a sample of the audience, increasingly less representative of the viewing population as a whole. Responding to the changing television landscape, Nielsen introduced its “C3 rating” in 2009. This rating measures commercials watched both during first-run broadcasts and on DVR playback within three days (Nielsen Company, “C3 TV Ratings”). In this new landscape, producers and advertisers have begun to think that a small, yet engaged, group of viewers might be more valuable than a larger, more superficial audience (Jenkins 63). They have become increasingly interested in viewers’ engagement with particular programmes. Since around 2009, social TV as a television strategy—to stimulate people to watch television at its scheduled broadcast time and to deepen their engagement with programmes using the real-time features of social media—has gained prominence (van Es). Social TV efforts protect the existing business model for television.The Internet, and its communication structures, are becoming a valuable companion to television, not only because social media reinvigorates first-run viewing, but also because it provides data about viewing activity (Lee and Andrejevic). Social TV’s popularity made the introduction of NTTR unsurprising. Moreover, the particular partnership with Twitter, as opposed to other social platforms, makes sense, because Twitter is—at least for now—the biggest player in the social TV space. Its current ascendency may be due to the particular public openness of the platform, which unlike Facebook allows even non-account holders access to Twitter streams, and its users’ propensity to share their responses to TV on Twitter in real time (Proulx and Shepatin 13).NTTR measures the total number of tweets that refer to a specific television episode, the number of times these tweets were viewed (“impressions”), “unique authors” (accounts that tweeted at least once about a specific episode), and “unique audience” (the number of individual accounts that received at least one “impression” of the tweets about a specific episode [Nielsen Company, “Weekly Top Ten”]). Since May 2014, Nielsen also includes a demographic breakdown in NTTR, specifying the age and gender of those who tweet and view tweets (related to programming from 250 US TV networks). Through a partnership with GfK, a leading market research institute in Europe, Nielsen has since introduced Twitter TV ratings in Germany, Austria, and The Netherlands.In the United States, other companies besides Nielsen generate social TV analytics. Philip Napoli has compared the leading three social TV analytics providers: BlueFin Labs, Trenddr.tv, and General Sentiment. Twitter has recently acquired the first two of these firms as part of its efforts to solidify its position in the social TV landscape. These social TV analytics providers, Napoli claims, and we would add NTTR to the list, are methodologically distinct from traditional ratings in three ways. First, they track everyone who is tweeting about a programme rather than using a “representative” sample. Second, people do not receive incentives to participate in the research, or even get to opt in or out of it. Third, social analytics can focus on not only the “volume” but also the “valence” of an online conversation: it can assign, for instance, a quantitative score between 1 and 10 to reflect either positive or negative contributions on social media (Napoli 11).Among the reviewed providers, Napoli found two main methodological disparities: the platforms they draw data from and the time windows used (10-15). He contends that by measuring different factors they offer different interpretations of “engagement” and give conflicting representations of the audience as a commodity. Social media metrics are not going to work as long as there is disagreement over how to measure and value television’s viewers.Social media metrics have been met with considerable criticism. Like traditional metrics, they track a particular demographic rather than a random sample of people, and so are not broadly representative. Nancy Baym points out how social media metrics in audience research are affected by factors such as “skew,” a by-product of the fact that platforms actively shape the communication that takes place on them. Trending topics on Twitter may, for instance, boost the number of tweets about a programme. She also identifies the problem of deception: bots can tweet about topics and accounts can purchase certain forms of engagement (Baym n.p.).Most important here, perhaps, is what Baym calls “ambiguous meaning”: actions on social media are “uncoupled from contexts of action and application” (Dean in Baym n.p.). In the case of Twitter, for instance, it is not readily evident why people tweet, or why they retweet or favourite certain tweets; one can learn why people do so only through methods such as interviews.The discussion of these limitations highlights the need for a certain sensibility when encountering social media metrics. The limitations themselves, however, do not mean that Twitter is ineffectual for audience research. Tweets can help generate insights and raise new questions about television viewing. Between Counting Viewers and Counting TweetsTo explore the relationship between traditional ratings and NTTR, we collected tweets about television programmes in The Netherlands during the first four weeks of September 2014. This project was conducted, on behalf of BuzzCapture, by a group of research assistants of the Utrecht Data School (Leila Essanoussi, Friso Leder, David de Wied, and Koen Mooij) under our instruction. Specifically, we extracted tweets from 1 September up to, and including, 29 September 2014. We included one extra day since programmes aired on Sunday 28 might still have been discussed around midnight. Initially, we collected tweets on the basis of the official and popular hashtags relating to the 30 most-watched television programmes (rated by the national association for audience research, Stichting KijkOnderzoek, SKO); we then added two programmes not included in this list that were frequently mentioned on Twitter. We collected tweets referring to these 32 programmes as well as profile information of the related Twitter accounts. After removing marketing and spam accounts, we had a sample of 135,882 tweets posted by 39,792 unique tweeters.Figure 1: Number of Viewers versus Average Number of TweetsWe then compared the number of viewers to the average number of tweets referring to the 32 television programmes in a scatterplot (see Figure 1). We took the average number of tweets as our reference point to correct for the fact that the frequency of broadcasting differed among the programmes. Figure 1 shows that some programmes attract a large audience but generate few tweets, and vice versa. For example, Het Journaal, with three million viewers, generates an average of 160 tweets per broadcast, while Pauw, with fewer than 750,000 viewers, generates on average nearly 1,000 tweets.This sort of disparity suggests that what is “successful” in terms of the number of tweets may not be “successful” in terms of the number of viewers. There are several possible explanations for the variation in Twitter activity: a political talk show like Pauw consists of highly controversial content, making it more likely to “spark” tweets and retweets, while the eight o’clock news airs less polarising points of view. Moreover, reality shows like The Voice of Holland not only stir up conflict and invite enthusiastic judgements (Bratich) but also actively encourage their audience to interact through social media.Our sample, moreover, suggests that viewing television and tweeting about programming constitute two distinct phenomena. However, there remains a lot of speculation about what can be inferred from a tweet and tweet impressions, and thus what price tag to attach to these sorts of activities. Twitter numbers are now used either as a point of differentiation from traditional methods (such as, to sell programmes by claiming that they are successful, despite their low ratings), or when a programme’s audience is too small to be registered by traditional methods (Napoli). In what follows, we explore how tweets can be used to study viewing patterns, and briefly consider the advantages of doing so.Looking at Affiliations among TV Programmes through Tweets In his book Digital Methods (2013), Richard Rogers points out how social networking sites allow for new methods to study social networks. Information supplied to social media platforms can be used to explore “post-demographics,” meaning that they can be used to profile users’ tastes, interests, and favourite items, and the co-occurrences of the expressions of these preferences (154). Although this approach is common on various platforms (for example, in Amazon recommendations) and in online marketing practices (as in those that establish affiliations among the brands people tweet about), it has not commonly been used to research audiences. Looking at affiliations can, we suggest here, help create new knowledge about audiences.Figure 2: The Overlap in Tweeters among 32 Programmes in the NetherlandsUsing the same dataset of tweets used for the scatterplot, we tracked the viewing patterns of tweeters, analysing the sequence in which they used programme hashtags. We found that 8,958 people tweeted about more than one programme. The data revealed very interesting results when we calculated the relative overlap among programmes, charting the number of interrelating tweeters with respect to the absolute number of tweeters who referred to the two respective programmes. We imported the 32 nodes (the programmes) and the relative relations to Gephi in order to generate an association network, using the force-directed layout algorithm ForceAtlas2. The resulting network helps illuminate which programmes attract the same tweeters (see Figure 2). Our decision to rectify for the bias of highly social programmes has serious consequences and its validity is open to discussion. We did so to help expose taste relations (rather than reflect popularity).The association network demonstrates that TV shows of the same genre attract similar Twitter audiences: Dubbeltje op Zijn Kant and Uitstel van Executie are both reality shows about personal financial struggles, Studio Sport and Studio Voetbal are sport programmes, Hart van Nederland and RTL Boulevard are tabloid news shows, and Spoorloos and Familiedinner are programmes that centre on family issues. Aside from the strong overlap between programmes of the same genre, the visualisation also shows a concentration of programmes from public broadcasters—on the left-hand side of the figure—and those on commercial television—seen on the right. These connections suggest that people that watch commercial television tend to focus their viewing to commercial television (and the same is true for public television). The Voice of Holland, which seems to have a weak overlap in tweeters with multiple programmes, presents an intriguing case. This observation invites further consideration of its audience composition (which traditional ratings might help with).These are just some quick reflections made possible by using different methods to study Twitter. Although the input from an association network does not provide neat numbers that can serve as a “commodity,” it could help inform the programme schedules of television networks (they could adjust air times to better fit audience preferences, for example, by scheduling two TV shows with similar Twitter audiences in back-to-back time slots). Such insights could assist advertisers better understand consumer behaviour and viewing habits and thus maximise the effectiveness of their commercials. Television producers could also explore on-air and online collaborations between programmes. ConclusionIn this paper we have discussed the limitations of both traditional metrics and newer social media metrics. We explored how tweets can be used to generate insights into viewing patterns, briefly considering how such findings could benefit various parties. We have shown that the counting of tweets addresses the tweetability of a show but seems unrelated to the show’s number of viewers. We speculate, also, that programmes that spark polarised debate or motivate users to engage through social media are receiving many more mentions on Twitter than other sorts of programming. There is much space for TV programmers to build new relationships with their viewers.We have offered some criticism on the decision of NTTR to apply old methods to a new medium, and proposed that audience research on social media should—as the digital methods dictum goes—“follow the medium.” That is, such research should make use of the features of the medium (links, tags, timestamps, and the like) that invite new forms of inquiry. Finally, we have shown that a digital methods approach, although it will not necessarily provide conclusive answers, raises relevant questions that can elicit additional research.ReferencesAng, Ien. Desperately Seeking the Audience. London: Routledge, 1991.Baym, Nancy. “Data Not Seen: The Uses and Shortcomings of Social Media Metrics.” First Monday 18.10 (2013). 23 Sep. 2015 ‹http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/4873/3752›.Bratich, Jack. “Affective Convergence in Reality Television: A Case Study in Divergence.” Flow TV: Television in the Age of Media Convergence. Ed. M. Kackman, M. Binfield, M. Payne, A. Perlman, and B. Sebok. New York: Routledge, 2011. 55–74.Jenkins, Henry. Convergence Culture. New York: New York UP, 2006.Lee, Hye Jin, and Mark Andrejevic. “Second-Screen Theory: From the Democratic Surround to the Digital Enclosure.” Connected Viewing: Selling, Streaming, & Sharing Media in the Digital Era. Eds. Jennifer Holt and Kevin Sanson. New York: Routledge, 2014. 40–61.Napoli, Philip M. “The Institutionally Effective Audience in Flux: Social Media and the Reassessment of the Audience Commodity.” SSRN Electronic Journal (2013). 23 Sep. 2015 ‹http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID2260925_code548166.pdf?abstractid=2260925&mirid=3›.Proulx, Mike, and Stacey Shepatin. Social TV: How Marketers Can Reach and Engage Audiences by Connecting Television to the Web, Social Media, and Mobile. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2012. Rogers, Richard. Digital Methods. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2013. SKO. “Kijkcijfers.” Home—Kijkonderzoek. n.d. 23 Sep. 2015 ‹https://kijkonderzoek.nl/kijkcijfers›.Smythe, Dallas W. “Communications: Blind Spot of Western Marxism.” Canadian Journal of Political and Social Theory 1.3 (1977): 1–27.The Nielsen Company. “C3 TV Ratings Show Impact of DVR Ad Viewing.” What People Watch, Listen to and Buy. Oct. 2009. 23 Sep. 2015 ‹http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2009/c3-tv-ratings-show-impact-of-dvr-ad-viewing.html›.———. "Weekly Top Ten." Nielsen Social. n.d. 23 Sep. 2015 ‹http://www.nielsensocial.com/nielsentwittertvratings/weekly/›.Vanderbilt, Tom. "The New Rules of the Hyper-Social, Data-Driven, Actor-Friendly, Super-Seductive Platinum Age of Television." Wired, Mar. 2013. 23 Sep. 2015 ‹http://www.wired.com/2013/03/nielsen-family-is-dead/›.Van Es, Karin. “The Perks and Perils of Social TV: On the Participation Dilemma in NBC’s The Voice.” Television & New Media (forthcoming).

Probably the most (in)famous Australian teenager of recent times, now-17-year-old Kim Duthie—better known as the “St Kilda Schoolgirl”—first came to public attention when she posted naked pictures of two prominent St Kilda Australian Football League (AFL) players on Facebook. She claimed to be seeking revenge on the players’ teammate for getting her pregnant. This turned out to be a lie. Duthie also claimed that 47-year-old football manager Ricky Nixon gave her drugs and had sex with her. She then said this was a lie, then that she lied about lying. That she lied at least twice is clear, and in doing so, she arguably reinforced the pervasive myth that women are prone to lie about rape and sexual abuse. Precisely what occurred, and why Duthie posted the naked photographs will probably never be known. However, it seems clear that Duthie felt herself wronged. Can she therefore be held entirely to blame for the way she went about seeking redress from a group of men with infinitely more power than she—socially, financially and (in terms of the priority given to elite football in Australian society) culturally? The many judgements passed on Duthie’s behaviour in the media highlight the crucial, seldom-discussed issue of how problematic behaviour on the part of women might reinforce patriarchal norms. This is a particularly sensitive issue in the context of a spate of alleged sexual assaults committed by elite Australian footballers over the past decade. Given that representations of alleged rape cases in the media and elsewhere so often position women as blameworthy for their own mistreatment and abuse, the question of whether or not women can and should be held accountable in certain situations is particularly fraught. By exploring media representations of one of these complex scenarios, we consider how the issue of “complicity” might be understood in a rape culture. In doing so, we employ Auschwitz survivor Primo Levi’s highly influential concept of the “grey zone,” which signifies a complex and ambiguous realm that challenges both judgement and representation. Primo Levi’s “Grey Zone,” Patriarchy and the Problem of Judgement In his essay titled “The Grey Zone” (published in 1986), Levi is chiefly concerned with Jewish prisoners in the Nazi-controlled camps and ghettos who obtained “privileged” positions in order to prolong their survival. Reflecting on the inherently complex power relations in such extreme settings, Levi positions the “grey zone” as a metaphor for moral ambiguity: a realm with “ill-defined outlines which both separate and join the two camps of masters and servants. [The ‘grey zone’] possesses an incredibly complicated internal structure, and contains within itself enough to confuse our need to judge” (27). According to Levi, an examination of the scenarios and experiences that gave rise to the “grey zone” requires a rejection of the black-and-white binary opposition(s) of “friend” and “enemy,” “good” and “evil.” While Levi unequivocally holds the perpetrators of the Holocaust responsible for their actions, he warns that one should suspend judgement of victims who were entrapped in situations of moral ambiguity and “compromise.” However, recent scholarship on the representation of “privileged” Jews in Levi’s writings and elsewhere has identified a “paradox of judgement”: namely, that even if moral judgements of victims in extreme situations should be suspended, such judgements are inherent in the act of representation, and are therefore inevitable (see Brown). While the historical specificity of Levi’s reflections must be kept in mind, the corruptive influences of power at the core of the “grey zone”—along with the associated problems of judgement and representation—are clearly far more prevalent in human nature and experience than the Holocaust alone. Levi’s “grey zone” has been appropriated by scholars in the fields of Holocaust studies (Petropoulos and Roth xv-xviii), philosophy (Todorov 262), law (Luban 161–76), history (Cole 248–49), theology (Roth 53–54), and popular culture (Cheyette 226–38). Significantly, Claudia Card (The Atrocity Paradigm, “Groping through Gray Zones” 3–26) has recently applied Levi’s concept to the field of feminist philosophy. Indeed, Levi’s questioning of whether or not one can—or should—pass judgement on the behaviour of Holocaust victims has considerable relevance to the divisive issue of how women’s involvement in/with patriarchy is represented in the media. Expanding or intentionally departing from Levi’s ideas, many recent interpretations of the “grey zone” often misunderstand the historical specificity of Levi’s reflections. For instance, while applying Levi’s concept to the effects of patriarchy and domestic violence on women, Lynne Arnault makes the problematic statement that “in order to establish the cruelty and seriousness of male violence against women as women, feminists must demonstrate that the experiences of victims of incest, rape, and battering are comparable to those of war veterans, prisoners of war, political prisoners, and concentration camp inmates” (183, n.9). It is important to stress here that it is not our intention to make direct parallels between the Holocaust and patriarchy, or between “privileged” Jews and women (potentially) implicated in a rape culture, but to explore the complexity of power relations in society, what behaviour eventuates from these, and—most crucial to our discussion here—how such behaviour is handled in the mass media. Aware of the problem of making controversial (and unnecessary) comparisons, Card (“Women, Evil, and Gray Zones” 515) rightly stresses that her aim is “not to compare suffering or even degrees of evil but to note patterns in the moral complexity of choices and judgments of responsibility.” Card uses the notion of the “Stockholm Syndrome,” citing numerous examples of women identifying with their torturers after having been abused or held hostage over a prolonged period of time—most (in)famously, Patricia Hearst. While the medical establishment has responded to cases of women “suffering” from “Stockholm Syndrome” by absolving them from any moral responsibility, Card writes that “we may have a morally gray area in some cases, where there is real danger of becoming complicit in evildoing and where the captive’s responsibility is better described as problematic than as nonexistent” (“Women, Evil, and Gray Zones” 511). Like Levi, Card emphasises that issues of individual agency and moral responsibility are far from clear-cut. At the same time, a full awareness of the oppressive environment—in the context that this paper is concerned with, a patriarchal social system—must be accounted for. Importantly, the examples Card uses differ significantly from the issue of whether or not some women can be considered “complicit” in a rape culture; nevertheless, similar obstacles to understanding problematic situations exist here, too. In the context of a rape culture, can women become, to use Card’s phrase, “instruments of oppression”? And if so, how is their controversial behaviour to be understood and represented? Crucially, Levi’s reflections on the “grey zone” were primarily motivated by his concern that most historical and filmic representations “trivialised” the complexity of victim experiences by passing simplistic judgements. Likewise, the representation of sexual assault cases in the Australian mass media has often left much to be desired. Representing Sexual Assault: Australian Football and the Media A growing literature has critiqued the sexual culture of elite football in Australia—one in which women are reportedly treated with disdain, positioned as objects to be used and discarded. At least 20 distinct cases, involving more than 55 players and staff, have been reported in the media, with the majority of these incidents involving multiple players. Reports indicate that such group sexual encounters are commonplace for footballers, and the women who participate in sexual practices are commonly judged, even in the sports scholarship, as “groupies” and “sluts” who are therefore responsible for anything that happens to them, including rape (Waterhouse-Watson, “Playing Defence” 114–15; “(Un)reasonable Doubt”). When the issue of footballers and sexual assault was first debated in the Australian media in 2004, football insiders from both Australian rules and rugby league told the media of a culture of group sex and sexual behaviour that is degrading to women, even when consensual (Barry; Khadem and Nancarrow 4; Smith 1; Weidler 4). The sexual “culture” is marked by a discourse of abuse and objectification, in which women are cast as “meat” or a “bun.” Group sex is also increasingly referred to as “chop up,” which codes the practice itself as an act of violence. It has been argued elsewhere that footballers treating women as sexual objects is effectively condoned through the mass media (Waterhouse-Watson, “All Women Are Sluts” passim). The “Code of Silence” episode of ABC television program Four Corners, which reignited the debate in 2009, was even more explicit in portraying footballers’ sexual practices as abusive, presenting rape testimony from three women, including “Clare,” who remains traumatised following a “group sex” incident with rugby league players in 2002. Clare testifies that she went to a hotel room with prominent National Rugby League (NRL) players Matthew Johns and Brett Firman. She says that she had sex with Johns and Firman, although the experience was unpleasant and they treated her “like a piece of meat.” Subsequently, a dozen players and staff members from the team then entered the room, uninvited, some through the bathroom window, expecting sex with Clare. Neither Johns nor Firman has denied that this was the case. Clare went to the police five days later, saying that professional rugby players had raped her, although no charges were ever laid. The program further includes psychiatrists’ reports, and statements from the police officer in charge of the case, detailing the severe trauma that Clare suffered as a result of what the footballers called “sex.” If, as “Code of Silence” suggests, footballers’ practices of group sex are abusive, whether the woman consents or not, then it follows that such a “gang-bang culture” may in turn foster a rape culture, in which rape is more likely than in other contexts. And yet, many women insist that they enjoy group sex with footballers (Barry; Drill 86), complicating issues of consent and the degradation of women. Feminist rape scholarship documents the repetitive way in which complainants are deemed to have “invited” or “caused” the rape through their behaviour towards the accused or the way they were dressed: defence lawyers, judges (Larcombe 100; Lees 85; Young 442–65) and even talk show hosts, ostensibly aiming to expose the problem of rape (Alcoff and Gray 261–64), employ these tactics to undermine a victim’s credibility and excuse the accused perpetrator. Nevertheless, although no woman can be in any way held responsible for any man committing sexual assault, or other abuse, it must be acknowledged that women who become in some way implicated in a rape culture also assist in maintaining that culture, highlighting a “grey zone” of moral ambiguity. How, then, should these women, who in some cases even actively promote behaviour that is intrinsic to this culture, be perceived and represented? Charmyne Palavi, who appeared on “Code of Silence,” is a prime example of such a “grey zone” figure. While she stated that she was raped by a prominent footballer, Palavi also described her continuing practice of setting up footballers and women for casual sex through her Facebook page, and pursuing such encounters herself. This raises several problems of judgement and representation, and the issue of women’s sexual freedom. On the one hand, Palavi (and all other women) should be entitled to engage in any consensual (legal) sexual behaviour that they choose. But on the other, when footballers’ frequent casual sex is part of a culture of sexual abuse, there is a danger of them becoming complicit in, to use Card’s term, “evildoing.” Further, when telling her story on “Code of Silence,” Palavi hints that there is an element of increased risk in these situations. When describing her sexual encounters with footballers, which she states are “on her terms,” she begins, “It’s consensual for a start. I’m not drunk or on drugs and it’s in, [it] has an element of class to it. Do you know what I mean?” (emphasis added). If it is necessary to define sex “on her terms” as consensual, this implies that sometimes casual “sex” with footballers is not consensual, or that there is an increased likelihood of rape. She also claims to have heard about several incidents in which footballers she knows sexually abused and denigrated, if not actually raped, other women. Such an awareness of what may happen clearly does not make Palavi a perpetrator of abuse, but neither can her actions (such as “setting up” women with footballers using Facebook) be considered entirely separate. While one may argue, following Levi’s reflections, that judgement of a “grey zone” figure such as Palavi should be suspended, it is significant that Four Corners’s representation of Palavi makes implicit and simplistic moral judgements. The introduction to Palavi follows the story of “Caroline,” who states that first-grade rugby player Dane Tilse broke into her university dormitory room and sexually assaulted her while she slept. Caroline indicates that Tilse left when he “picked up that [she] was really stressed.” Following this story, the program’s reporter and narrator Sarah Ferguson introduces Palavi with, “If some young footballers mistakenly think all women want to have sex with them, Charmyne Palavi is one who doesn’t necessarily discourage the idea.” As has been argued elsewhere (Waterhouse-Watson, “Framing the Victim”), this implies that Palavi is partly responsible for players holding this mistaken view. By implication, she therefore encouraged Tilse to assume that Caroline would want to have sex with him. Footage is then shown of Palavi and her friends “applying the finishing touches”—bronzing their legs—before going to meet footballers at a local hotel. The lighting is dim and the hand-held camerawork rough. These techniques portray the women as artificial and “cheap,” techniques that are also employed in a remarkably similar fashion in the documentary Footy Chicks (Barry), which follows three women who seek out sex with footballers. In response to Ferguson’s question, “What’s the appeal of those boys though?” Palavi repeats several times that she likes footballers mainly because of their bodies. This, along with the program’s focus on the women as instigators of sex, positions Palavi as something of a predator (she was widely referred to as a “cougar” following the program). In judging her “promiscuity” as immoral, the program implies she is partly responsible for her own rape, as well as acts of what can be termed, at the very least, sexual abuse of other women. The problematic representation of Palavi raises the complex question of how her “grey zone” behaviour should be depicted without passing trivialising judgements. This issue is particularly fraught when Four Corners follows the representation of Palavi’s “nightlife” with her accounts of footballers’ acts of sexual assault and abuse, including testimony that a well-known player raped Palavi herself. While Ferguson does not explicitly question the veracity of Palavi’s claim of rape, her portrayal is nevertheless largely unsympathetic, and the way the segment is edited appears to imply that she is blameworthy. Ferguson recounts that Palavi “says she was able to put [being raped] out of her mind, and it certainly didn’t stop her pursuing other football players.” This might be interpreted a positive statement about Palavi’s ability to move on from a rape; however, the tone of Ferguson’s authoritative voiceover is disapproving, which instead implies negative judgement. As the program makes clear, Palavi continues to organise sexual encounters between women and players, despite her knowledge of the “dangers,” both to herself and other women. Palavi’s awareness of the prevalence of incidents of sexual assault or abuse makes her position a problematic one. Yet her controversial role within the sexual culture of elite Australian football is complicated even further by the fact that she herself is disempowered (and her own allegation of being raped delegitimised) by the simplistic ideas about “assault” and “consent” that dominate social discourse. Despite this ambiguity, Four Corners constructs Palavi as more of a perpetrator of abuse than a victim—not even a victim who is “morally compromised.” Although we argue that careful consideration must be given to the issue of whether moral judgements should be applied to “grey zone” figures like Palavi, the “solution” is far from simple. No language (or image) is neutral or value-free, and judgements are inevitable in any act of representation. In his essay on the “grey zone,” Levi raises the crucial point that the many (mis)understandings of figures of moral ambiguity and “compromise” partly arise from the fact that the testimony and perspectives of these figures themselves is often the last to be heard—if at all (50). Nevertheless, an article Palavi published in Sydney tabloid The Daily Telegraph (19) demonstrates that such testimony can also be problematic and only complicate matters further. Palavi’s account begins: If you believed Four Corners, I’m supposed to be the NRL’s biggest groupie, a wannabe WAG who dresses up, heads out to clubs and hunts down players to have sex with… what annoys me about these tags and the way I was portrayed on that show is the idea I prey on them like some of the starstruck women I’ve seen out there. (emphasis added) Palavi clearly rejects the way Four Corners constructed her as a predator; however, rather than rejecting this stereotype outright, she reinscribes it, projecting it onto other “starstruck” women. Throughout her article, Palavi reiterates (other) women’s allegedly predatory behaviour, continually portraying the footballers as passive and the women as active. For example, she claims that players “like being contacted by girls,” whereas “the girls use the information the players put on their [social media profiles] to track them down.” Palavi’s narrative confirms this construction of men as victims of women’s predatory actions, lamenting the sacking of Johns following “Code of Silence” as “disgusting.” In the context of alleged sexual assault, the “predatory woman” stereotype is used in place of the raped woman in order to imply that sexual assault did not occur; hence Palavi’s problematic discourse arguably reinforces sexist attitudes. But can Palavi be considered complicit in validating this damaging stereotype? Can she be blamed for working within patriarchal systems of representation, of which she has also been a victim? The preceding analysis shows judgement to be inherent in the act of representation. The paucity of language is particularly acute when dealing with such extreme situations. Indeed, the language used to explore this issue in the present article cannot escape terminology that is loaded with meaning(s), which quotation marks can perhaps only qualify so far. Conclusion This paper does not claim to provide definitive answers to such complex dilemmas, but rather to highlight problems in addressing the sensitive issues of ambiguity and “complicity” in women’s interactions with patriarchal systems, and how these are represented in the mass media. Like the controversial behaviour of teenager Kim Duthie described earlier, Palavi’s position throws the problems of judgement and representation into disarray. There is no simple solution to these problems, though we do propose that these “grey zone” figures be represented in a self-reflexive, nuanced manner by explicitly articulating questions of responsibility rather than making simplistic judgements that implicitly lessen perpetrators’ culpability. Levi’s concept of the “grey zone” helps elucidate the fraught issue of women’s potential complicity in a rape culture, a subject that challenges both understanding and representation. Despite participating in a culture that promotes the abuse, denigration, and humiliation of women, the roles of women like Palavi cannot in any way be conflated with the roles of the perpetrators of sexual assault. These and other “grey zones” need to be constantly rethought and renegotiated in order to develop a fuller understanding of human behaviour. References Alcoff, Linda Martin, and Laura Gray. “Survivor Discourse: Transgression or Recuperation.” Signs 18.2 (1993): 260–90. 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During World War II, the Soviet Union’s food supply was in a state of crisis. Hitler’s army had occupied the agricultural heartlands of Ukraine and Southern Russia in 1941 and, as a result, agricultural production for the entire nation had plummeted. Soldiers in Red Army, who easily ate the best rations in the country, subsisted on a daily allowance of just under a kilogram of bread, supplemented with meat, tea, sugar and butter when and if these items were available. The hunger of the Red Army and its effect on the morale and strength of Europe’s eastern warfront were causes for concern for the Soviet government and its European and American allies. The one country with a food surplus decided to do something to help, and in 1942 the United States agreed to send thousands of pounds of meat, cheese and butter overseas to help feed the Red Army. After receiving several shipments of the all-American spiced canned meat SPAM, the Red Army’s quartermaster put in a request for a more familiar canned pork product, Russian tushonka. Pound for pound, America sent more pigs overseas than soldiers during World War II, in part because pork was in oversupply in the America of the early 1940s. Shipping meat to hungry soldiers and civilians in war torn countries was a practical way to build business for the U.S. meat industry, which had been in decline throughout the 1930s. As per a Soviet-supplied recipe, the first cans of Lend-Lease tushonka were made in the heart of the American Midwest, at meatpacking plants in Iowa and Ohio (Stettinus 6-7). Government contracts in the meat packing industry helped fuel economic recovery, and meatpackers were in a position to take special request orders like the one for tushonka that came through the lines. Unlike SPAM, which was something of a novelty item during the war, tushonka was a food with a past. The original recipe was based on a recipe for preserved meat that had been a traditional product of the Ural Mountains, preserved in jars with salt and fat rather than by pressure and heat. Thus tushonka was requested—and was mass-produced—not simply as a convenience but also as a traditional and familiar food—a taste of home cooking that soldiers could carry with them into the field. Nikita Khrushchev later claimed that the arrival of tushonka was instrumental in helping the Red Army push back against the Nazi invasion (178). Unlike SPAM and other wartime rations, tushonka did not fade away after the war. Instead, it was distributed to the Soviet civilian population, appearing in charity donations and on the shelves of state shops. Often it was the only meat product available on a regular basis. Salty, fatty, and slightly grey-toned, tushonka was an unlikely hero of the postwar-era, but during this period tushonka rose from obscurity to become an emblem of socialist modernity. Because it was shelf stable and could be made from a variety of different cuts of meat, it proved an ideal product for the socialist production lines where supplies and the pace of production were infinitely variable. Unusual in a socialist system of supply, this product shaped production and distribution lines, and even influenced the layout of meatpacking factories and the genetic stocks of the animals that were to be eaten. Tushonka’s initial ubiquity in the postwar Soviet Union had little to do with the USSR’s own hog industry. Pig populations as well as their processing facilities had been decimated in the war, and pigs that did survive the Axis invasion had been evacuated East with human populations. Instead, the early presence of tushonka in the pig-scarce postwar Soviet Union had everything to do with Harry Truman’s unexpected September 1945 decision to end all “economically useful” Lend-Lease shipments to the Soviet Union (Martel). By the end of September, canned meat was practically the only product still being shipped as part of Lend-Lease (NARA RG 59). Although the United Nations was supposed to distribute these supplies to needy civilians free of cost, travelers to the Soviet Union in 1946 spotted cans of American tushonka for sale in state shops (Skeoch 231). After American tushonka “donations” disappeared from store shelves, the Soviet Union’s meat syndicates decided to continue producing the product. Between its first appearance during the war in 1943, and the 1957 announcement by Nikita Khrushchev that Soviet policy would restructure all state animal farms to support the mass production of one or several processed meat products, tushonka helped to drive the evolution of the Soviet Union’s meat packing industry. Its popularity with both planners and the public gave it the power to reach into food commodity chains. It is this backward reach and the longer-term impacts of these policies that make tushonka an unusual byproduct of the Cold War era. State planners loved tushonka: it was cheap to make, the logistics of preparing it were not complicated, it was easy to transport, and most importantly, it served as tangible evidence that the state was accomplishing a long-standing goal to get more meat to its citizenry and improving the diet of the average Soviet worker. Tushonka became a highly visible product in the Soviet Union’s much vaunted push to establish a modern food regime intended to rival that of the United States. Because it was shelf-stable, wartime tushonka had served as a practical food for soldiers, but after the war tushonka became an ideal food for workers who had neither the time nor the space to prepare a home-cooked meal with fresh meat. The Soviet state started to produce its own tushonka because it was such an excellent fit for the needs and abilities of the Soviet state—consumer demand was rarely considered by planners in this era. Not only did tushonka fit the look and taste of a modern processed meat product (that is, it was standard in texture and flavor from can to can, and was an obviously industrially processed product), it was also an excellent way to make the most of the predominant kind of meat the Soviet Union had the in the 1950s: small scraps low-grade pork and beef, trimmings leftover from butchering practices that focused on harvesting as much animal fat, rather than muscle, from the carcass in question. Just like tushonka, pork sausages and frozen pelmeny, a meat-filled pasta dumpling, also became winning postwar foods thanks to a happy synergy of increased animal production, better butchering and new food processing machines. As postwar pigs recovered their populations, the Soviet processed meat industry followed suit. One official source listed twenty-six different kinds of meat products being issued in 1964, although not all of these were pork (Danilov). An instructional manual distributed by the meat and milk syndicate demonstrated how meat shops should wrap and display sausages, and listed 24 different kinds of sausages that all needed a special style of tying up. Because of packaging shortages, the string that bound the sausage was wrapped in a different way for every type of sausage, and shop assistants were expected to be able to identify sausages based on the pattern of their binding. Pelmeny were produced at every meat factory that processed pork. These were “made from start to finish in a special, automated machine, human hands do not touch them. Which makes them a higher quality and better (prevoskhodnogo) product” (Book of Healthy and Delicious Food). These were foods that became possible to produce economically because of a co-occurring increase in pigs, the new standardized practice of equipping meatpacking plants with large-capacity grinders, and freezers or coolers and the enforcement of a system of grading meat. As the state began to rebuild Soviet agriculture from its near-collapse during the war, the Soviet Union looked to the United States for inspiration. Surprisingly, Soviet planners found some of the United States’ more outdated techniques to be quite valuable for new Soviet hog operations. The most striking of these was the adoption of competing phenotypes in the Soviet hog industry. Most major swine varieties had been developed and described in the 19th century in Germany and Great Britain. Breeds had a tendency to split into two phenotypically distinct groups, and in early 20th Century American pig farms, there was strong disagreement as to which style of pig was better suited to industrial conditions of production. Some pigs were “hot-blooded” (in other words, fast maturing and prolific reproducers) while others were a slower “big type” pig (a self-explanatory descriptor). Breeds rarely excelled at both traits and it was a matter of opinion whether speed or size was the most desirable trait to augment. The over-emphasis of either set of qualities damaged survival rates. At their largest, big type pigs resembled small hippopotamuses, and sows were so corpulent they unwittingly crushed their tiny piglets. But the sleeker hot-blooded pigs had a similarly lethal relationship with their young. Sows often produced litters of upwards of a dozen piglets and the stress of tending such a large brood led overwhelmed sows to devour their own offspring (Long). American pig breeders had been forced to navigate between these two undesirable extremes, but by the 1930s, big type pigs were fading in popularity mainly because butter and newly developed plant oils were replacing lard as the cooking fat of preference in American kitchens. The remarkable propensity of the big type to pack on pounds of extra fat was more of a liability than a benefit in this period, as the price that lard and salt pork plummeted in this decade. By the time U.S. meat packers were shipping cans of tushonka to their Soviet allies across the seas, US hog operations had already developed a strong preference for hot-blooded breeds and research had shifted to building and maintaining lean muscle on these swiftly maturing animals. When Soviet industrial planners hoping to learn how to make more tushonka entered the scene however, their interpretation of american efficiency was hardly predictable: scientifically nourished big type pigs may have been advantageous to the United States at midcentury, but the Soviet Union’s farms and hungry citizens had a very different list of needs and wants. At midcentury, Soviet pigs were still handicapped by old-fashioned variables such as cold weather, long winters, poor farm organisation and impoverished feed regimens. The look of the average Soviet hog operation was hardly industrial. In 1955 the typical Soviet pig was petite, shaggy, and slow to reproduce. In the absence of robust dairy or vegetable oil industries, Soviet pigs had always been valued for their fat rather than their meat, and tushonka had been a byproduct of an industry focused mainly on supplying the country with fat and lard. Until the mid 1950s, the most valuable pig on many Soviet state and collective farms was the nondescript but very rotund “lard and bacon” pig, an inefficient eater that could take upwards of two years to reach full maturity. In searching for a way to serve up more tushonka, Soviet planners became aware that their entire industry needed to be revamped. When the Soviet Union looked to the United States, planners were inspired by the earlier competition between hot-blooded and big type pigs, which Soviet planners thought, ambitiously, they could combine into one splendid pig. The Soviet Union imported new pigs from Poland, Lithuania, East Germany and Denmark, trying valiantly to create hybrid pigs that would exhibit both hot blood and big type. Soviet planners were especially interested in inspiring the Poland-China, an especially rotund specimen, to speed up its life cycle during them mid 1950s. Hybrdizing and cross breeding a Soviet super-pig, no matter how closely laid out on paper, was probably always a socialist pipe dream. However, when the Soviets decided to try to outbreed American hog breeders, they created an infrastructure for pigs and pig breeding that had a dramatic positive impact of hog populations across the country, and the 1950s were marked by a large increase in the number of pigs in the Soviet union, as well as dramatic increases in the numbers of purebred and scientific hybrids the country developed, all in the name of tushonka. It was not just the genetic stock that received a makeover in the postwar drive to can more tushonka; a revolution in the barnyard also took place and in less than 10 years, pigs were living in new housing stock and eating new feed sources. The most obvious postwar change was in farm layout and the use of building space. In the early 1950s, many collective farms had been consolidated. In 1940 there were a quarter of a million kolkhozii, by 1951 fewer than half that many remained (NARA RG166). Farm consolidation movements most often combined two, three or four collective farms into one economic unit, thus scaling up the average size and productivity of each collective farm and simplifying their administration. While there were originally ambitious plans to re-center farms around new “agro-city” bases with new, modern farm buildings, these projects were ultimately abandoned. Instead, existing buildings were repurposed and the several clusters of farm buildings that had once been the heart of separate villages acquired different uses. For animals this meant new barns and new daily routines. Barns were redesigned and compartmentalized around ideas of gender and age segregation—weaned baby pigs in one area, farrowing sows in another—as well as maximising growth and health. Pigs spent less outside time and more time at the trough. Pigs that were wanted for different purposes (breeding, meat and lard) were kept in different areas, isolated from each other to minimize the spread of disease as well as improve the efficiency of production. Much like postwar housing for humans, the new and improved pig barn was a crowded and often chaotic place where the electricity, heat and water functioned only sporadically. New barns were supposed to be mechanised. In some places, mechanisation had helped speed things along, but as one American official viewing a new mechanised pig farm in 1955 noted, “it did not appear to be a highly efficient organisation. The mechanised or automated operations, such as the preparation of hog feed, were eclipsed by the amount of hand labor which both preceded and followed the mechanised portion” (NARA RG166 1961). The American official estimated that by mechanizing, Soviet farms had actually increased the amount of human labor needed for farming operations. The other major environmental change took place away from the barnyard, in new crops the Soviet Union began to grow for fodder. The heart and soul of this project was establishing field corn as a major new fodder crop. Originally intended as a feed for cows that would replace hay, corn quickly became the feed of choice for raising pigs. After a visit by a United States delegation to Iowa and other U.S. farms over the summer of 1955, corn became the centerpiece of Khrushchev’s efforts to raise meat and milk productivity. These efforts were what earned Khrushchev his nickname of kukuruznik, or “corn fanatic.” Since so little of the Soviet Union looks or feels much like the plains and hills of Iowa, adopting corn might seem quixotic, but raising corn was a potentially practical move for a cold country. Unlike the other major fodder crops of turnips and potatoes, corn could be harvested early, while still green but already possessing a high level of protein. Corn provided a “gap month” of green feed during July and August, when grazing animals had eaten the first spring green growth but these same plants had not recovered their biomass. What corn remained in the fields in late summer was harvested and made into silage, and corn made the best silage that had been historically available in the Soviet Union. The high protein content of even silage made from green mass and unripe corn ears prevented them from losing weight in the winter. Thus the desire to put more meat on Soviet tables—a desire first prompted by American food donations of surplus pork from Iowa farmers adapting to agro-industrial reordering in their own country—pushed back into the commodity supply network of the Soviet Union. World War II rations that were well adapted to the uncertainty and poor infrastructure not just of war but also of peacetime were a source of inspiration for Soviet planners striving to improve the diets of citizens. To do this, they purchased and bred more and better animals, inventing breeds and paying attention, for the first time, to the efficiency and speed with which these animals were ready to become meat. Reinventing Soviet pigs pushed even back farther, and inspired agricultural economists and state planners to embrace new farm organizational structures. Pigs meant for the tushonka can spent more time inside eating, and led their lives in a rigid compartmentalization that mimicked emerging trends in human urban society. Beyond the barnyard, a new concern with feed-to weight conversions led agriculturalists to seek new crops; crops like corn that were costly to grow but were a perfect food for a pig destined for a tushonka tin. Thus in Soviet industrialization, pigs evolved. No longer simply recyclers of human waste, socialist pigs were consumers in their own right, their newly crafted genetic compositions demanded ever more technical feed sources in order to maximize their own productivity. Food is transformative, and in this case study the prosaic substance of canned meat proved to be unusually transformative for the history of the Soviet Union. In its early history it kept soldiers alive long enough to win an important war, later the requirements for its manufacture re-prioritized muscle tissue over fat tissue in the disassembly of carcasses. This transformative influence reached backwards into the supply lines and farms of the Soviet Union, revolutionizing the scale and goals of farming and meat packing for the Soviet food industry, as well as the relationship between the pig and the consumer. References Bentley, Amy. Eating for Victory: Food Rationing and the Politics of Domesticity. Where: University of Illinois Press, 1998. The Book of Healthy and Delicious Food, Kniga O Vkusnoi I Zdorovoi Pishche. Moscow: AMN Izd., 1952. 161. Danilov, M. M. Tovaravedenie Prodovol’stvennykh Tovarov: Miaso I Miasnye Tovarye. Moscow: Iz. Ekonomika, 1964. Khrushchev, Nikita. Khrushchev Remembers. New York: Little, Brown & Company, 1970. 178. Long, James. The Book of the Pig. London: Upcott Gill, 1886. 102. Lush, Jay & A.L. Anderson, “A Genetic History of Poland-China Swine: I—Early Breed History: The ‘Hot Blood’ versus the ‘Big Type’” Journal of Heredity 30.4 (1939): 149-56. Martel, Leon. Lend-Lease, Loans, and the Coming of the Cold War: A Study of the Implementation of Foreign Policy. Boulder: Westview Press, 1979. 35. National Archive and Records Administration (NARA). RG 59, General Records of the Department of State. Office of Soviet Union affairs, Box 6. “Records relating to Lend Lease with the USSR 1941-1952”. National Archive and Records Administration (NARA). RG166, Records of the Foreign Agricultural Service. Narrative reports 1940-1954. USSR Cotton-USSR Foreign trade. Box 64, Folder “farm management”. Report written by David V Kelly, 6 Apr. 1951. National Archive and Records Administration (NARA). RG 166, Records of the Foreign Agricultural Service. Narrative Reports 1955-1961. Folder: “Agriculture” “Visits to Soviet agricultural installations,” 15 Nov. 1961. Skeoch, L.A. Food Prices and Ration Scale in the Ukraine, 1946 The Review of Economics and Statistics 35.3 (Aug. 1953), 229-35. State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF). Fond R-7021. The Report of Extraordinary Special State Commission on Wartime Losses Resulting from the German-Fascist Occupation cites the following losses in the German takeover. 1948. Stettinus, Edward R. Jr. Lend-Lease: Weapon for Victory. Penguin Books, 1944.

In this article I discuss a story told by the South Australian Ngarrindjeri Aboriginal elder, Aunty Hilda Wilson (nee Varcoe), about the time when, at not quite sixteen, she was sent from the Point Pearce Aboriginal Station to work in the Adelaide Hills, some 500 kilometres away, as a housekeeper for “one of Adelaide’s leading doctors”. Her secondment was part of a widespread practice in early and mid-twentieth century Australia of placing young Aboriginal women “of marriageable age” from missions and government reserves into domestic service. Consciously deploying Indigenous storytelling practices as pedagogy, Hilda Wilson recounted this episode in a number of distinct ways during the late 1990s and early 2000s. Across these iterations, each building on the other, she exhibited a personal resilience in her subjectivity, embedded in Indigenous knowledge systems of relationality, kin and work, which informed her agency and determination in a challenging situation in which she was both caring for a white socially-privileged family of five, while simultaneously grappling with the injustices of a state system of segregated indentured labour. Kirmayer and colleagues propose that “notions of resilience emerging from developmental psychology and psychiatry in recent years address the distinctive cultures, geographic and social settings, and histories of adversity of indigenous peoples”. Resilience is understood here as an ability to actively engage with traumatic change, involving the capacity to absorb stress and to transform in order to cope with it (Luthar et al.). Further to this, in an Indigenous context, Marion Kickett has found the capacity for resilience to be supported by three key factors: family connections, culture and belonging as well as notions of identity and history. In exploring the layers of this autobiographical story, I employ this extended psychological notion of resilience in both a domestic ambit as well as the broader social context for Indigenous people surviving a system of external domination. Additionally I consider the resilience Aunty Hilda demonstrates at a pivotal interlude between girlhood and womanhood within the trajectory of her overall long and productive life, and within an intergenerational history of resistance and accommodation. What is especially important about her storytelling is its refusal to be contained by the imaginary of the settler nation and its generic Aboriginal-female subject. She refuses victimhood while at the same time illuminating the mechanisms of injustice, hinting also at possibilities for alternative and more equitable relationships of family and work across cultural divides. Considered through this prism, resilience is, I suggest, also a quality firmly connected to ideas of Aboriginal cultural-sovereignty and standpoint and to, what Victoria Grieves has identified as, the Aboriginal knowledge value of sharing (25, 28, 45). Storytelling as Pedagogy The story I discuss was verbally recounted in a manner that Westphalen describes as “a continuation of Dreaming Stories”, functioning to educate and connect people and country (13-14). As MacGill et al. note, “the critical and transformative aspects of decolonising pedagogies emerge from storytelling and involve the gift of narrative and the enactment of reciprocity that occurs between the listener and the storyteller.” Hilda told me that as a child she was taught not to ask questions when listening to the stories of an Elder, and her own children were raised in this manner. Hilda's oldest daughter described this as a process involving patience, intrigue and surprise (Elva Wanganeen). Narratives unfold through nuance and repetition in a complexity of layers that can generate multiple levels of meaning over time. Circularity and recursivity underlie this pedagogy through which mnemonic devices are built so that stories become re-membered and inscribed on the body of the listener. When a perceived level of knowledge-transference has occurred, a narrator may elect to elaborate further, adding another detail that will often transform the story’s social, cultural, moral or political context. Such carefully chosen additional detail, however, might re-contextualise all that has gone before. As well as being embodied, stories are also emplaced, and thus most appropriately told in the Country where events occurred. (Here I use the Aboriginal English term “Country” which encompasses home, clan estate, and the powerful complex of spiritual, animate and inanimate forces that bind people and place.) Hilda Wilson’s following account of her first job as a housekeeper for “one of Adelaide’s leading doctors”, Dr Frank Swann, provides an illustration of how she expertly uses traditional narrative forms of incrementally structured knowledge transmission within a cross-cultural setting to tell a story that expresses practices of resilience as resistance and transformation at its core. A “White Doctor” Story: The First Layer Aunty Hilda first told me this story when we were winding along the South Eastern Freeway through the Adelaide hills between Murray Bridge and Mount Barker, in 1997, on our way home to Adelaide from a trip to Camp Coorong, the Ngarrindjeri cultural education centre co-founded by her granddaughter. She was then 86 years old. Ahead of us, the profile of Mt Lofty rose out of the plains and into view. The highest peak in the Mount Lofty ranges, Yurrebilla, as it is known to Kaurna Aboriginal people, or Mt Lofty, has been an affluent enclave of white settlement for Adelaide’s moneyed elite since early colonial times. Being in place, or in view of place, provided the appropriate opportunity for her to tell me the story. It belongs to a group of stories that during our initial period of working together changed little over time until one day two years later she an added contextual detail which turned it inside out. Hilda described the doctor’s spacious hill-top residence, and her responsibilities of caring for Dr Swann’s invalid wife (“an hysteric who couldn't do anything for herself”), their twin teenage boys (who attended private college in the city) along with another son and younger daughter living at home (pers. com. Hilda Wilson). Recalling the exhilaration of looking down over the sparkling lights of Adelaide at night from this position of apparent “privilege” on the summit, she related this undeniably as a success story, justifiably taking great pride in her achievements as a teenager, capable of stepping into the place of the non-Indigenous doctor's wife in running the large and demanding household. Successfully undertaking a wide range of duties employed in the care of a family, including the disabled mother, she is an active participant crucial to the lives of all in the household, including to the work of the doctor and the twin boys in private education. Hilda recalled that Mrs Swann was unable to eat without her assistance. As the oldest daughter of a large family Hilda had previously assisted in caring for her younger siblings. Told in this way, her account collapses social distinctions, delineating a shared social and physical space, drawing its analytic frame from an Indigenous ethos of subjectivity, relationality, reciprocity and care. Moreover Hilda’s narrative of domestic service demonstrates an assertion of agency that resists colonial and patriarchal hegemony and inverts the master/mistress-servant relationship, one she firmly eschews in favour of the self-affirming role of the lady of the house. (It stands in contrast to the abuse found in other accounts for example Read, Tucker, Kartinyeri. Often the key difference was a continuity of family connections and ongoing family support.) Indeed the home transformed into a largely feminised and cross-culturalised space in which she had considerable agency and responsibility when the doctor was absent. Hilda told me this story several times in much the same way during our frequent encounters over the next two years. Each telling revealed further details that fleshed a perspective gained from what Patricia Hill Collins terms an “epistemic privilege” via her “outsider-within status” of working within a white household, lending an understanding of its social mechanisms (12-15). She also stressed the extent of her duty of care in upholding the family’s well-being, despite the work at times being too burdensome. The Second Version: Coming to Terms with Intersecting Oppressions Later, as our relationship developed and deepened, when I began to record her life-narrative as part of my doctoral work, she added an unexpected detail that altered its context completely: It was all right except I slept outside in a tin shed and it was very cold at night. Mount Lofty, by far the coldest part of Adelaide, frequently experiences winter maximum temperatures of two or three degrees and often light snowfalls. This skilful reframing draws on Indigenous storytelling pedagogy and is expressly used to invite reflexivity, opening questions that move the listener from the personal to the public realm in which domestic service and the hegemony of the home are pivotal in coming to terms with the overlapping historical oppressions of class, gender, race and nation. Suddenly we witness her subjectivity starkly shift from one self-defined and allied with an equal power relationship – or even of dependency reversal cast as “de-facto doctor's wife” – to one diminished by inequity and power imbalance in the outsider-defined role of “mistreated servant”. The latter was signalled by the dramatic addition of a single signifying detail as a decoding device to a deeper layer of meaning. In this parallel stratum of the story, Hilda purposefully brings into relief the politics in which “the private domain of women's housework intersected with the public domain of governmental social engineering policies” (Haskins 4). As Aileen Moreton-Robinson points out, what for White Australia was cheap labour and a civilising mission, for Indigenous women constituted stolen children and slavery. Protection and then assimilation were government policies under which Indigenous women grew up. (96) Hilda was sent away from her family to work in 1927 by the universally-feared Sister Pearl McKenzie, a nurse who too-zealously (Katinyeri, Ngarrindjeri Calling, 23) oversaw the Chief Protector’s policies of “training” Aboriginal children from the South Australian missions in white homes once they reached fourteen (Haebich, 316—20). Indeed many prominent Adelaide hills’ families benefited from Aboriginal labour under this arrangement. Hilda explained her struggle with the immense cultural dislocation that removal into domestic service entailed, a removal her grandfather William Rankine had travelled from Raukkan to Government House to protest against less than a decade earlier (The Register December 21, 1923). This additional layer of story also illuminates Hilda’s capacity for resilience and persistence in finding a way forward through the challenge of her circumstances (Luthar et al.), drawing on her family networks and sense of personhood (Kickett). Hilda related that her father visited her at Mount Lofty twice, though briefly, on his way to shearing jobs in the south-east of the state. “He said it was no good me living like this,” she stated. Through his active intervention, reinforcement was requested and another teenager from Point Pearce, Hilda’s future husband’s cousin, Annie Sansbury, soon arrived to share the workload. But, Hilda explained, the onerous expectations coupled with the cultural segregation of retiring to the tin shed quickly became too much for Annie, who stayed only three months, leaving Hilda coping again alone, until her father applied additional pressure for a more suitable placement to be found for his daughter. In her next position, working for the family of a racehorse trainer, Hilda contentedly shared the bedroom with the small boy for whom she cared, and not long after returned to Point Pearce where she married Robert Wilson and began a family of her own. Gendered Resilience across Cultural Divides Hilda explicitly speaks into these spaces to educate me, because all but a few white women involved have remained silent about their complicity with state sanctioned practices which exploited Indigenous labour and removed children from their families through the policies of protection and assimilation. For Indigenous women, speaking out was often fraught with the danger of a deeper removal from family and Country, even of disappearance. Victoria Haskins writes extensively of two cases in New South Wales where young Aboriginal women whose protests concerning their brutal treatment at the hands of white employers, resulted in their wrongful and prolonged committal to mental health and other institutions (147-52, 228-39). In the indentured service of Indigenous women it is possible to see oppression operating through Eurocentric ideologies of race, class and gender, in which Indigenous women were assumed to take on, through displacement, the more oppressed role of white women in pre-second world war non-Aboriginal Australian society. The troubling silent shadow-figure of the “doctor’s wife” indeed provides a haunting symbol of - and also a forceful rebellion against – the docile upper middle-class white femininity of the inter-war era. Susan Bordo has argued that that “the hysteric” is archetypal of a discourse of ‘pathology as embodied protest’ in which the body may […] be viewed as a surface on which conventional constructions of femininity are exposed starkly to view in extreme or hyperliteral form. (20) Mrs Swann’s vulnerability contrasts markedly with the strength Hilda expresses in coping with a large family, emanating from a history of equitable gender relations characteristic of Ngarrindjeri society (Bell). The intersection of race and gender, as Marcia Langton contends “continues to require deconstruction to allow us to decolonise our consciousness” (54). From Hilda’s brief description one grasps a relationship resonant with that between the protagonists in Tracy Moffat's Night Cries, (a response to the overt maternalism in the film Jedda) in which the white mother finds herself utterly reliant on her “adopted” Aboriginal daughter at the end of her life (46-7). Resilience and Survival The different versions of story Hilda deploys, provide a pedagogical basis to understanding the broader socio-political framework of her overall life narrative in which an ability to draw on the cultural continuity of the past to transform the future forms an underlying dynamic. This demonstrated capacity to meet the challenging conditions thrown up by the settler-colonial state has its foundations in the connectivity and cultural strength sustained generationally in her family. Resilience moves from being individually to socially determined, as in Kickett’s model. During the onslaught of dispossession, following South Australia’s 1836 colonial invasion, Ngarrindjeri were left near-starving and decimated from introduced diseases. Pullume (c1808-1888), the rupuli (elected leader of the Ngarrindjeri Tendi, or parliament), Hilda’s third generation great-grandfather, decisively steered his people through the traumatic changes, eventually negotiating a middle-path after the Point McLeay Mission was established on Ngarrindjeri country in 1859 (Jenkin, 59). Pullume’s granddaughter, the accomplished, independent-thinking Ellen Sumner (1842—1925), played an influential educative role during Hilda’s youth. Like other Ngarrindjeri women in her lineage, Ellen Sumner was skilled in putari practice (female doctor) and midwifery culture that extended to a duty of care concerning women and children (teaching her “what to do and what not to do”), which I suggest is something Hilda herself drew from when working with the Swann family. Hilda’s mother and aunties continued aspects of the putari tradition, attending births and giving instruction to women in the community (Bell, 171, Hughes Grandmother, 52-4). As mentioned earlier, when the South Australian government moved to introduce The Training of Children Act (SA) Hilda’s maternal grandfather William Rankine campaigned vigorously against this, taking a petition to the SA Governor in December 1923 (Haebich, 315-19). As with Aunty Hilda, William Rankine used storytelling as a method to draw public attention to the inequities of his times in an interview with The Register which drew on his life-narrative (Hughes, My Grandmother, 61). Hilda’s father Wilfred Varcoe, a Barngarrla-Wirrungu man, almost a thousand kilometres away from his Poonindie birthplace, resisted assimilation by actively pursuing traditional knowledge networks using his mobility as a highly sought after shearer to link up with related Elders in the shearing camps, (and as we saw to inspect the conditions his daughter was working under at Mt Lofty). The period Hilda spent as a servant to white families to be trained in white ways was in fact only a brief interlude in a long life in which family connections, culture and belonging (Kickett) served as the backbone of her resilience and resistance. On returning to the Point Pearce Mission, Hilda successfully raised a large family and activated a range of community initiatives that fostered well-being. In the 1960s she moved to Adelaide, initially as the sole provider of her family (her husband later followed), to give her younger children better educational opportunities. Working with Aunty Gladys Elphick OBE through the Council of Aboriginal Women, she played a foundational role in assisting other Aboriginal women establish their families in the city (Mattingly et al., 154, Fisher). In Adelaide, Aunty Hilda became an influential, much loved Elder, living in good health to the age of ninety-six years. The ability to survive changing circumstances, to extend care over and over to her children and Elders along with qualities of leadership, determination, agency and resilience have passed down through her family, several of whom have become successful in public life. These include her great-grandson and former AFL football player, Michael O’Loughlin, her great-nephew Adam Goodes and her-grand-daughter, the cultural weaver Aunty Ellen Trevorrow. Arguably, resilience contributes to physical as well as cultural longevity, through caring for the self and others. Conclusion This story demonstrates how sociocultural dimensions of resilience are contextualised in practices of everyday lives. We see this in the way that Aunty Hilda Wilson’s self-narrated story resolutely defies attempts to know, subjugate and categorise, operating instead in accord with distinctively Aboriginal expressions of gender and kinship relations that constitute an Aboriginal sovereignty. Her storytelling activates a revision of collective history in ways that valorise Indigenous identity (Kirmayer et al.). Her narrative of agency and personal achievement, one that has sustained her through life, interacts with the larger narrative of state-endorsed exploitation, diffusing its power and exposing it to wider moral scrutiny. Resilience in this context is inextricably entwined with practices of cultural survival and resistance developed in response to the introduction of government policies and the encroachment of settlers and their world. We see resilience too operating across Hilda Wilson’s family history, and throughout her long life. The agency and strategies displayed suggest alternative realities and imagine other, usually more equitable, possible worlds. References Bell, Diane. Ngarrindjeri Wurruwarrin: A World That Is, Was and Will Be. Melbourne: Spinifex, 1998. Bordo, Susan. “The Body and the Reproduction of Femininity.” Writing on the Body: Female Embodiment and Feminist Theory. Eds. Katie Conboy, Nadia Medina, and Sarah Stanbury. New York: Columbia UP, 1997. 90-110. Collins, Patricia Hill. Black Feminist Thought. New York: Routledge, 2000. Fisher, Elizabeth M. "Elphick, Gladys (1904–1988)." Australian Dictionary of Biography. National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, 29 Sep. 2013. ‹http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/elphick-gladys-12460/text22411>. Grieves, Victoria. Aboriginal Spirituality: Aboriginal Philosophy, The Basis of Aboriginal Social and Emotional Wellbeing, Melbourne University: Cooperative Research Centre for Aboriginal Health, 2009. Haebich, Anna. Broken Circles: The Fragmenting of Indigenous Families. Fremantle: Fremantle Arts Press, 2000. Haskins, Victoria. My One Bright Spot. London: Palgrave, 2005. Hughes, Karen. "My Grandmother on the Other Side of the Lake." 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