Perceived Injustice is Associated with Heightened Pain Behavior and Disability in Individuals with Whiplash Injuries

The present study examined the relationship between perceived injustice associated with whiplash injury and displays of pain behavior. Individuals (N?=?85) with whiplash injuries were filmed while performing a simulated occupational lifting task. They were also asked to complete measures of pain, perceived injustice, catastrophic thinking, depression, and functional disability. Consistent with previous research, high levels of perceived injustice were associated with more intense pain, higher levels of catastrophic thinking, depression, and disability. Analyses revealed that individuals with high levels of perceived injustice displayed more protective pain behaviors than individuals with low levels of perceived injustice, regardless of the level of physical demand of the task. The relation between perceived injustice and protective pain behavior remained significant even when controlling for pain severity, catastrophic thinking, and depression. There was no significant association between perceived injustice and displays of communicative pain behavior. The results of this study suggest that the relation between perceived injustice and pain behavior might underlie the high prevalence of occupational disability in individuals who have sustained whiplash injuries. Implications for intervention are addressed.     

Obituaries: Lady Delia Pilcher

The New York-born journalist and travel writer Francis Nichols (1879-1904) is best known for his travels through early 20^th-century China. However, his attempt in 1903-4 to travel through Tibet to Lhasa ahead of the Younghusband Mission, and thus to become the first westerner to reach the city, has been forgotten, partly on account of his death in the field and the loss of his diary. From new research in recently-catalogued documents and letters in the archives of the American Geographical Society (AGS), the author has compiled an account of Nichols’ mission to Lhasa, including the support he received from US backers, including the AGS, his travels in China, Tibet and India, and his relations with Younghusband and the British. Although Nichols was unable to reach Lhasa, the author observes that he should be credited as the first American to travel from India into the Chumbi valley in southern Tibet and across the Tibetan plateau from Phari to the town of Gyantse, 120 miles south-west of Lhasa.     

The Queensland Native Police and Strategies of Recruitment on the Queensland Frontier, 1849–1901

Although historians have provided substantial insights into the structure, development and activities of the Queensland Native Mounted Police, they have rarely focused on the complex and sensitive issue of Aboriginal recruitment. A careful reading of historical records, however, identifies several methods, including coercion, intimidation, kidnapping and inducement, as well as “voluntary” enlistment. It is difficult to identify Aboriginal agency in recruitment processes as the records are entirely one-sided—the voices of the troopers themselves are absent from the archival sources. In this article, we examine the cultural and historical contexts of Aboriginal recruitment—for example, the dire social situations of Aboriginal survivors of the frontier war and the absence of future survival options for the potential recruits. We explore, through the framework of historical trauma, the impacts on vulnerable victims of violence and other devastating effects of colonisation. We conclude that the recruitment of Aboriginal troopers was far from a homogeneous or transparent process and that the concept of agency with regard to those who can be considered war victims themselves is extremely complex. Unravelling the diverse, conflicting and often controversial meanings of this particular colonial activity remains a challenge to the historical process.     

Is the Environment Getting Its Fair Share? An Analysis of the Australian Water Reform Process Using a Social Justice Framework

Australia is currently undergoing fundamental and far-reaching reforms in water management that have been prompted by wide-spread environmental degradation caused by past water management practices. This paper is an extract of a wider study that explores how governments incorporate social justice into water reform policies and how that effort is perceived by non-government stakeholders. Using a comprehensive Social Justice Framework, we used a mixed methods approach that combines a quantitative content analysis of key water reform documents with a qualitative semistructured interview process to identify and analyse three principles of social justice that apply to the environment as a water stakeholder: need as a distributive justice principle, representativeness and accuracy as procedural justice principles. We found that the environment is identified as a legitimate water stakeholder whose needs are meant to be assured through the water reform process. However, the environment suffers from a crisis of identity. Other water stakeholders claim to speak for the environment but say different things. Thus, due to a diversity of voices, strong government intention to satisfy environmental needs is diluted in practice. Furthermore, the prerogative to define and measure environmental needs through science, while deemed to be fair and objective, leads to unintended consequences that complicate management and disenfranchise less scientifically capable stakeholders. Overall, we believe that the formal recognition of the environment as a stakeholder in water reform is a significant forward step but its crisis of identity must be resolved before the environment can fully utilise its new role as a stakeholder.