Defending Country: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Military Service since 1945

Defending Country: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Military Service since 1945. By Noah Riseman and Richard Trembath (St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 2016), pp. xi + 243, photographs, bibliography, AU$34.95 (pb).     

Clinical psychologists’ perceptions of barriers and facilitators to engaging service users in index offence assessment and formulation within a medium secure unit

Index offence assessment and formulation (IOAF) helps service users (SU) in secure units to make sense of their index offence, provides detailed understanding of risk and contributes to treatment planning and discharge decisions. Clinical psychologists’ perceptions of barriers and facilitators to engaging SUs in IOAF within the men’s and women’s services of one medium secure unit were explored through focus groups. Thematic analysis identified two relevant domains: person-specific factors and the organisational context. Person-specific barriers included challenges in working with fragmented narratives, conflicting motivations to engage, SU defences and distorted perceptions of clinical psychologists’ roles. Giving clarity and choice to SUs facilitated engagement with the work. Regarding the organisational context, clinical psychologists within both services identified the importance of having adequate resources and care-team support to complete this work. Findings highlight the importance of developing an evidence-based framework for IOAF to be embedded within clear ‘risk’ care pathways through secure services.     

The marginalisation of participation “as an end” development: an Ecuadorean case study

The evolution of participatory practices clearly evidences movement away from local participatory projects implemented with the use of participatory methodologies such as participatory rural appraisal, and towards citizen participation in government activities. This trend reflects development discourse concerning participation, and in particular responds to the critique aimed at local participatory development. Using case study data from Ecuador, the article discusses the previously overlooked effects of this phenomenon, namely a uniformity of participatory development practice and a lack of opportunities for people to engage in development activities that provide participation “as an end” benefits such as empowerment and confidence-building.     

Introduction

Law and Philosophy -     

COVID-19 and the Wuhan Diary –how does the overseas Chinese community react to group criticism?

Journal of Chinese Political Science - We conduct an online survey to explore how Chinese people living in Germany perceive and react to group criticism in the context of the debate on the Wuhan...     

Communal Democracy and its History

Communes and communal thought are an essential part of the history of democracy. By recognizing this we can re-discover the connection between democracy and local, small-scale self-government, and see that democracy has a communitarian as well as a liberal foundation.     

„Integration“ als Exklusion?

Dieser Beitrag versucht, sich auf der Grundlage einer Medienanalyse, qualitativer Interviews und Gruppendiskussionen dem gesellschaftlichen Umgang mit dem Integrationsbegriff anzunähern. Den Ausgangspunkt der empirischen Untersuchung bildet die Beobachtung, dass sich in der öffentlichen Auseinandersetzung um die legitime inhaltliche Besetzung dieses Begriffs die konfligierenden Ansprüche der Mehrheitsgesellschaft und die Selbstwahrnehmung der von Integrationsgeboten betroffenen Immigrantengruppen spiegeln. Auf dieser Grundlage geht es nicht darum, nach den Motivationen und Strukturen von Integration zu fragen, sondern ?Integrationsrahmungen“ zu untersuchen, d.h. empirisch nachzuvollziehen, wie in deutschen Medien und von den Immigranten selbst der Begriff mit Bedeutung versehen, symbolisch aufgeladen und zur Grundlage politischer Forderungen herangezogen wird. Die Ergebnisse der diskurstheoretisch orientierten Untersuchung zeigen, dass sich ?Integration“ empirisch nicht nur als neutral-deskriptive Kategorie erweist, sondern soziale Lagen von Gruppen ?be-zeichnet“ und auf sie symbolische Macht ausübt, die Gegenstrategien auslöst. Die komparativen qualitativen Fallanalysen verschiedener Migrantengruppen in Deutschland verdeutlichen, dass ?Integrationsrahmungen“ nicht nur Konflikte in Einwanderungsgesellschaften sichtbar machen, sondern sie paradoxerweise auch reproduzieren.