Being critical: an account of an early career academic working within and against neoliberalism

In 2014 I attended a symposium concerning Early Career Academics (ECAs) in the field of physical education and sport pedagogy. I was struck by the dominance of a particular theme at that symposium—that is, how to obtain a position and survive in academia. The aim of this paper is to use an inciting moment that occurred at this symposium as a means to confront some of the broader issues that I thought were at stake. Specifically I seek to interrogate the possible consequences of thinking about ECAs and academia in neoliberal terms, for the future of the field—a field that has a strong critical tradition. To this end I utilise autoethnographic techniques to connect the personal to the cultural and attempt to describe and analyse my story of becoming and being a critical scholar of sport, in a neoliberal context.     

Practical considerations when using pedometers to assess physical activity in population studies: lessons from the Burnie Take Heart Study

The aim of this study was to summarize both practical and methodological issues in using pedometers to assess physical activity in a large epidemiologic study. As part of a population-based survey of cardiovascular disease risk factors, physical activity was assessed using pedometers and activity diaries in 775 men and women ages 25-64 years who were residents of Burnie, Tasmania, 1998-99. Common data problems were classified by type. The frequency of each problem and the methods used to identify it are reported along with strategies to correct or prevent each problem type. Pedometer data from 15 (1.9%) participants could not be used due to errors in completing the pedometer protocol. Among 760 participants with usable data, the median number of steps was 9,729 for men and 10,388 for women. Pedometer steps per day were modestly correlated (r = .20, p < .0001) with the duration of pedometer wear, which ranged from 4.50 to 21.75 hr. Adjustment for wear time, however, did not alter observed correlations between pedometer steps and cardiovascular risk factors. The authors conclude that pedometers can be used in large population studies with a relatively low frequency of data errors. However guidelines for consistent data collection and interpretation are needed.     

Canoe slalom--competition analysis reliability

The aim of this study was to assess intra-observer and inter-observer reliability of data gathered from a lapsed-time time-motion analysis of canoe slalom competition. The data were collected using a definition set developed in conjunction with elite canoe slalom coaches. Competition runs from four national-standard paddlers in a national selection race were analysed in random order three times by three observers. For each run, observers identified various events specific to canoe slalom, including time taken between gates, touched and missed gates, turn times, major and minor avoidance, rolls, paddle in and out of water times, and stroke classification. The error of measurement was determined for each of these variables. For time taken between gates and turn times, the error was < or = 0.21 and < or = 0.39 s for intra-observer and inter-observer analysis, respectively. The error for stroke in and out of water times was < or = 0.08 and < or = 0.13 s for intra-observer and inter-observer analysis, respectively. Analysis of stroke classification identification for intra-observer comparisons revealed that 91% of the time identical stroke identification occurred. Inter-observer analysis revealed identical stroke identification was achieved 81% of the time. These reliability data compare favourably with previous time-motion analysis in other sports using fewer variables.     

Spaces of Mediation: Excavating Art's Boundaries

Ideas of social responsibility and exploring art's place in society are widespread and prevalent. Access, community, participation, empowerment are words that appear with increasing frequency within disparate discourses. From Glasgow's successful bid to be UK City of Architecture and Design 1999, [1] to lottery guidelines [2] and policy research [3], there appears to be a preoccupation with such terminology. However, does this demonstrate a true desire to find a point of mediation between discourses, between one place or one group and another? Do projects establish sustainability in the relationships that are built up between apparently disparate elements or are these terms linked mainly to high profile events that intervene, then move on, leaving people with little more than a memory of the encounter? This paper proposes that in order to shift the topography of art practice – the where, how and on whose terms it occurs – spaces and forms of mediation have to reconstruct the very sub structure on which they are founded.     

Administration of the Aurukun archives held at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies

ABSTRACT

The Aurukun archives held at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies were initially developed in accordance with a ‘before it is too late’ model. In response to national controversy over proposed bauxite mining on Wik land, the Institute reorientated its documentation strategy towards collaborating with the Aurukun community. Wik people were not so much the subjects of the archive, but collaborators in its production. The outcome was an extensive multimedia archive which underpinned the Wik native title claim in 1993. Since then the collaborative relationship between the Institute and the Wik people has lapsed. Intermittent attempts to repatriate parts of the Aurukun archives were not successful in the long term. While revising controls over key Aurukun record groups, current Institute staff became aware of the extent and some of the strengths of the Aurukun archives. The staff have been attempting to revive the community’s awareness of their archives and their interest in them. Although the community’s interests presently have a different focus, revived collaboration between the Institute and the Aurukun community could result in some form of distributed custody and control of the Aurukun archives which may be of value to Wik society.     

Governing knowledge in the scientific community: Exploring the role of retractions in biomedicine

Although the validity of knowledge is critical to scientific progress, substantial concerns exist regarding the governance of knowledge production. While research errors are as relevant to the knowledge economy as defects are to the manufacturing economy, mechanisms to identify and signal “defective” or false knowledge are poorly understood. In this paper, we investigate one such institution - the system of scientific retractions. We analyze the universe of peer-reviewed scientific articles retracted from the biomedical literature between 1972-2006 and comparing with a matched control sample in order to identify the correlates, timing, and causal impact of scientific retractions. This effort provides insight into the workings of a distributed, peer-based system for the governance of validity in scientific knowledge. Our findings suggest that attention is a key predictor of retraction - retracted articles arise most frequently among highly-cited articles. The retraction system is expeditious in uncovering knowledge that is ever determined to be false (the mean time to retraction is less than two years) and democratic (retraction is not systematically affected by author prominence). Lastly, retraction causes an immediate, severe, and long-lived decline in future citations. Conditional on the obvious limitation that we cannot measure the absolute amount of false science in circulation, these results support the view that distributed governance systems can be designed to uncover false knowledge relatively swiftly and to mitigate the costs that false knowledge for future generations of producers.     

Navigating the impact-innovation double hurdle: The case of a climate change research fund

This paper analyses how the funding for research grants was allocated from a specific research fund which aimed to support innovative research projects with the potential to have research impact by reducing carbon emissions. The fund received a total of 106 proposals, of which 27 were successful at obtaining financial support. Our aims were to test which factors influenced the funding decision and to discover whether or not and to what extent the fund met its intended objectives through the allocation of monies. The allocation process and its outcomes were analysed using correlation, logistical and linear regression to test our research hypotheses. Using this research funding process as a single study, we found that trying to clear the impact-innovation double hurdle in a single funding initiative ultimately compromises both goals. This paper therefore contributes to our understanding of innovation management within the context of carbon emission reduction and explains which factors influenced success in securing research monies through the funding process.     

Mulling over mathematics

Face to Face

Mulling over mathematics M S Raghunathan talks to Sujata Varadarajan