As Carol Bacchi makes clear, the ‘What's the Problem Represented to be?’ (‘WPR’) approach offers ‘both a novel way of thinking and a new way of analysing policy’ (Bacchi 2009: xvi). The ‘WPR’ approach aims to serve two purposes. Firstly, as a mode of thinking, the approach shifts the focus of analysis from policy as a ‘problem solving’ exercise, a technical, neutral and responsive process, to a mode of thinking that sees policy as an act which is constructive of ‘problems’, political and contingent. This enables us to call into question the ‘problems’ inherent in specific policy proposals and dig deeply into the meaning-making that they are both reflective and constitutive of. Secondly, as a form of analysis, the ‘WPR’ approach provides a clear methodology, based around a set of six guiding questions, to enable application of its way of thinking across boundaries of policy context and content.

Much of the development and application of the ‘WPR’ approach to date has been in relation to domestic public policy, often, though by no means exclusively, Australian. This chapter explores what it can mean to embrace the approach's mode of thinking and apply its form of analysis to new contexts and forms of policy by reflecting on its application within my ongoing PhD research.

In Chapter 2 I examined the Chinese blogging community as a case of Chinese government encouragement of consumerist culture in order to stimulate nationalism. In this chapter, I focus on one blogging phenomenon in particular, the Anti-CNN website established in the Chinese blogosphere, in order to portray how the Chinese government also regulates nationalism to prevent it from getting out of control. I argue that although party propaganda does not cause the nationalist sentiments of Chinese bloggers, as is the dominant perception in the West, those sentiments are, as suggested recently (Fong 2004; Zhao 2002; Zhou 2005), not free from Chinese state intervention. Drawing on the explanations offered in Part II of this book, together with an analysis of samples collected from the Anti-CNN forum, this chapter argues that instead of using a direct tool such as propaganda, the Chinese government shapes bloggers' nationalist sentiments by encouraging their reliance on consumer culture.

A rational approach to nationalism

The Anti-CNN episode

On 18 March 2008, a 23-year-old male Chinese graduate from Tsinghua University registered the domain name “anti-cnn.com” in response to what he perceived as biased Western coverage of the Tibetan unrest. He followed this with the registration of a series of domain names such as “anti-bbc.com”, “anti-voa.com”, “anti-spiegel.com”, “anti-ntv.com”, and “anti-rtl.com”.

ABSTRACT

The Main Occluding Area (MOcA) defined by Kato (1996) has been found to almost always be located between the upper and lower first molars in Japanese. However, there have not been any reports of this feature in other human populations. In this study, the location of the MOcA was assessed in a sample of 80 Australian dental students as part of an exercise relating to dental occlusion. A piece of stopping material was used to locate the MOcA and to determine the preferred chewing side. There was no significant difference between published findings for Japanese and those for Australians in relation to the location of the MOcA, nor were there any significant differences between the ethnicities represented within the Australian sample. However, there was a difference between ethnicities within the Australian sample in the preferred chewing side, with Asians displaying a preference for the left side. We propose that the location of the MOcA is relatively stable across human populations, having been derived from the tribosphenic biting system of the earliest mammals. The difference observed in preferred chewing side between Europeans and Asians may relate to differences in the use of food utensils between these groups.

INTRODUCTION

During human chewing behaviour, only limited contact occurs between opposing surfaces of the dental crowns. Kato et al. (1996) examined the nature of this contact in Japanese and defined the region where maximum contact occurred as the Main Occluding Area (MOcA). He found that the MOcA was usually located between the functional cusps, ie supporting cusps, of the upper and lower first molars. The importance of this feature when chewing food, is that one tends to clench and begin to chew on the MOcA. An understanding of the position of the MOcA is important for dental treatment and also for placing the pattern of modern human masticatory activity into a broader evolutionary perspective.

A personal reflection

My links with Carol Bacchi go back a long way, probably much further back than either of us cares to admit. Carol started teaching at The University of Adelaide in the History Department in 1978 as a tutor in Australian history. I was teaching in what was then the Education Department as a tutor in the history of education. Perhaps I need to explain here exactly what a tutor was, as it is a species that is now virtually extinct in Australia. Tutors, mainly women, took tutorial classes—usually six to eight a week—attended lectures and undertook vast stacks of marking. They were also meant to complete their higher degrees if they had not done so already, and to engage in research. There was no guarantee that a tutoring job would lead to anything else but somehow Carol and I managed to move on to academic posts. As a mother of three young children at the time, I thought tutoring was a dream job and I fervently hoped to keep it for life. But that was before the women's movement fired up my ambition. I am sure neither of us would have thought in our wildest dreams that we would become professors—generally women did not.

ABSTRACT

The aim of this study was to derive Filipino-specific formulae that can be used as supplementary tools for sex discrimination, especially in forensic cases. Three dimensions — clinical crown height (CCH), maximum mesiodistal breadth (MMD) and maximum buccolingual width (MBL) — of the maxillary and mandibular canines were measured in 100 male and 100 female Filipino participants. CCH emerged as the most significant variable in determining sex in maxillary canines while CCH and MMD were both statistically significant in mandibular canine sex determination. Tree models were derived and 39 data sets were analysed as a test of accuracy. The accuracy ratings for the maxillary and mandibular trees were 56.41% and 74.36%, respectively. The mandibular tree is recommended for use in cases with incomplete or fragmented human remains when no other skeletal elements yielding higher accuracy estimates are available. The results of this study contradict the previous claim of no significant dimorphism in the dentition of the Filipino population.

INTRODUCTION

Sexual dimorphism has always been an interesting issue in primate and human evolution and the canine teeth are some of the most studied and debated elements. Researchers (Almquist, 1974; Crook, 1972; Clutton-Brock and Harvey, 1977; Greenfield, 1992; Guatelli-Steinberg, 2009; Harvey et al., 1978; Kay et al., 1988; Leutenegger, 1982; Leutenegger and Cheverud, 1985; Leutenegger and Kelly, 1977; Lucas et al., 1986; Oxnard et al., 1985; Plavcan, 2001, 2004; Plavcan and Ruff, 2008; Plavcan and van Schaik, 1992, 1994; Royer et al., 2009) have already shown that canine teeth exhibit sexual dimorphism and are one of the most obvious secondary sex differences among non-human primates.

ABSTRACT

Development of the human dentition, a complex, self-organising system, is underpinned by a series of reiterative steps involving a number of key gene pathways, supplemented by smaller influences of a polygenic background. Modelling familial data of dental phenotypes can help to unravel genetic and environmental influences. This paper presents a review of a number of model-based approaches that can be useful analytically, with a focus on twins as the familial structure to elaborate genetic complexity. Genetic modelling is methodologically robust, and provides a framework within which to locate evidence of gene effects from modern, high-throughput genotyping approaches. The twin family structure is particularly well-suited to this approach, and provides a number of distinct advantages analytically, particularly in the presence of population stratification.

INTRODUCTION

The human dentition is of significant anthropological interest when considering variation within and between modern populations. It is also a useful tool for examining evolutionary change over time in response to changes in culture, diet, etc. Teeth provide a (relatively) stable indirect source of information about processes occurring during pre- and early post-natal development. They are also one of the most stable sources of information in the fossil record, both morphologically, and as a repository of ancient DNA sequence information (Adler et al., 2010). Furthermore, variation in tooth form and function can provide opportunities for examining inter-individual variation as a means for forensic identification.

This book contains papers arising from a symposium held during a combined meeting of The International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (IUAES), The Australian Anthropological Society (AAS) and The Association of Social Anthropologists of Aotearoa New Zealand at the University of Western Australia from July 5-8th, 2011. It follows on from a recently published Special Issue Supplement of Archives of Oral Biology, Volume 54, December 2009 that contains papers from an International Workshop on Oral Growth and Development held in Liverpool in 2007 and edited by Professor Alan Brook. Together, these two publications provide a comprehensive overview of state-of-the-art approaches to study dental development and variation, and open up opportunities for future collaborative research initiatives, a key aim of the International Collaborating Network in Oro-facial Genetics and Development that was founded in Liverpool in 2007.

The aim of the symposium held at The University of Western Australia in 2011 was to emphasise some of the powerful new strategies offered by the science of dental anthropology to elucidate the historical lineage of human groups and also to reconstruct environmental factors that have acted on the teeth by analysing dental morphological features. In recent years, migration, as well as increases and decreases in the size of different human populations, have been evident as a result of globalisation. Dental features are also changing associated with changes in nutritional status, different economic or social circumstances, and intermarriage between peoples. Dental anthropological studies have explored these changes with the use of advanced techniques and refined methodologies. New paradigms are also evolving in the field of dental anthropology.

ABSTRACT

A study of non-metric dental traits in people in the Papua New Guinea (PNG) Highlands was carried out and the results were compared with other Asian and Pacific peoples. Dental impressions were obtained of young adults from Kasi village, Wabag, Enga Province, PNG. Frequencies of 13 dental traits were recorded using the Arizona State University Dental Anthropology System. Conspicuous characteristics in PNG Highlanders included: low frequencies of shoveling and double-shoveling of maxillary incisors, 6th cusp in mandibular first molar and Carabelli's trait, but in contrast high frequencies of hypocone reduction in maxillary second molars, 5th cusp in maxillary first molars and 4-cusped mandibular second molars. A principal coordinate plot including 39 Asian and Pacific populations for scores of these 13 traits, based on Smith's MMDs and standard deviations, showed that the PNG Highlanders belonged to the Sunda-Pacific group, but occupied an extreme position on the first axis. Many of dental characteristics of Wabag were related to morphological reduction of the molar dental crowns, especially their distal components. This suggests that their dental morphologies have changed from the original Australian type of dental characteristics to a peculiar type of morphology associated with nutritional conditions and complex genetic factors.

INTRODUCTION

Recent discoveries of archaeological site in highland Papua New Guinea (PNG) demonstrate that this area was colonized by humans almost 49,000 years ago (Gasden, 2010; Summerhays, 2010).