114 results in The University of Adelaide Press
Contents
- Edited by Susan R. Hemer, University of Adelaide, Alison Dundon, University of Adelaide
-
- Book:
- Emotions, Senses, Spaces
- Published by:
- The University of Adelaide Press
- Published online:
- 25 July 2017
- Print publication:
- 01 October 2016, pp v-vi
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
8 - Interrupted research: Emotions, senses and social space in (and out of) the field
-
- By Anthony Heathcote, University of Adelaide
- Edited by Susan R. Hemer, University of Adelaide, Alison Dundon, University of Adelaide
-
- Book:
- Emotions, Senses, Spaces
- Published by:
- The University of Adelaide Press
- Published online:
- 25 July 2017
- Print publication:
- 01 October 2016, pp 123-136
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
Abstract
This chapter reflexively explores the emotions, senses and social spaces that are shared between researcher and informants. I examine the ways in which an interruption to my ethnographic fieldwork on online memorialisation in Vietnam transformed the experience of research, as well as the ways I was positioned in relation to informants. Drawing on reflexive material, I demonstrate how the experience of returning home to my critically ill mother transformed my social space as a researcher when returning to Vietnam. Through the heightened emotional experience of coming home and being with my mother, amplified by the dulling of senses within the hospital walls and the monotony of illness, I underwent experiences which could be usefully applied to my relationship with informants. Consequently, when I returned to Vietnam, an altered social space opened up where I could empathise more readily with the emotions associated with having a family member close to death, and was accepted in a new way by informants.
Introduction
The detachment of the scientific observer … by itself can never be sufficient; there has to be a way of providing for readers imaginative access to the emotional significance of events as felt by the informants … One has to become inward with a culture, and one possible avenue here is by a confrontation of one's own emotional responses with those of the people with whom one lives. (Watson 1999:144)
In 2012 I undertook twelve months of ethnographic research within the three major cities of Vietnam: Hanoi, Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City. The research was concerned with remembering the dead in Vietnam via new mediated forms of communication such as the internet, and the various connections and tensions this created with the dominant forms of ancestral worship in the country. Such research was largely undertaken in the online memorial website Nghĩa Trang Online [NTO], and also through offline encounters with members of the site. In this I was immersed in the experiences of those who had lost loved ones, sometimes in ‘good deaths’, such as the passing of a grandparent in their home, and often through ‘bad deaths’, such as by abortion, motorcycle accidents and death through warfare.
7 - Anxious spaces: The intersection of sexuality, the senses and emotion in fieldwork in Nepal
-
- By Sarah Homan, The University of Adelaide
- Edited by Susan R. Hemer, University of Adelaide, Alison Dundon, University of Adelaide
-
- Book:
- Emotions, Senses, Spaces
- Published by:
- The University of Adelaide Press
- Published online:
- 25 July 2017
- Print publication:
- 01 October 2016, pp 107-122
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
Abstract
This chapter argues that personal sensorial and emotional experiences in fieldwork can be important for the acquisition of anthropological knowledge. Conducting research on gendered subjectivities and discourses of honour and shame in remote Western Nepal as a first‑time female fieldworker, I had a clear realisation of the intersection of senses, emotions and space. The Nepali lifestyle and lived spaces gave rise to a specific bodily praxis, in which corporeality, senses and emotions played an important role. In particular, being categorised as both woman and other attracted much unwanted sexual attention. As a result I ‘felt’ myself ‘in’ my body acutely, which at times gave rise to a high level of anxiety and awareness. My chapter will focus on this experience, which led me to feel and (re)act in certain ways. This relates to wider themes of gender, sexuality, comportment and honour in Nepali life, which are issues that Nepali women confront on a daily level. In the chapter, I explore the extent to which managing my visibility and ‘dulling the senses’ (see Desjarlais 1997) of sight and hearing as techniques of comportment and ease of movement during fieldwork had a significant impact on my understanding of how it ‘feels’ to be a woman in Nepal. This chapter will seek to explore the importance of such corporeal and emotional experiences of the intersection of senses, space and emotion in the acquisition of anthropological knowledge in ‘the field’.
Introduction
To feel like a woman in Nepal and feel like a woman in Australia are different experiences. In Australia as a woman I feel more confident, respected and carefree. It's almost shameful to say, but I never thought about what it meant to be a woman in Australia, what it feels like from the inside looking out at the world. In Nepal it is a completely different and embodied experience. In Nepal I mentally prepare myself as I step out of the house, my own private space.
3 - Creating the right ‘vibe’: Exploring the utilisation of space at Hip Hop concerts in Adelaide and Melbourne
-
- By Diane Rodger, Hip Hop culture in Australia
- Edited by Susan R. Hemer, University of Adelaide, Alison Dundon, University of Adelaide
-
- Book:
- Emotions, Senses, Spaces
- Published by:
- The University of Adelaide Press
- Published online:
- 25 July 2017
- Print publication:
- 01 October 2016, pp 31-48
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
Abstract
This chapter examines how space is utilised at Hip Hop concerts to promote certain sensual experiences. It is based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the Adelaide and Melbourne Hip Hop scenes. I explore how light, sound, venue layout and spacing are harnessed to foster specific reactions from the crowd and to create what Hip Hop fans colloquially referred to as the ‘vibe’. I conclude that the practical realities of particular venue spaces (size, configuration, stage equipment and so on) can significantly influence the experiences of individuals attending Hip Hop concerts and the presence or absence of the ‘vibe’.
Introduction
A successful Hip Hop concert is a dynamic event that overwhelms the senses. The music is loud enough to damage your hearing, the bass can be felt as well as heard and the whirling lights create a dramatic atmosphere. Hands are thrown in the air, heads are nodded to the beat, and people yell, clap and cheer their appreciation. Yet not all Hip Hop concerts evoke these kinds of reactions and emotions. Hip Hop concerts can be exciting and inspiring, but they can also be tedious and tiring. In this chapter, I draw on data compiled from participation observation at various Hip Hop shows in Adelaide and Melbourne, Australia, to explore the mutually constitutive relationship between space, emotion and cultural context. I demonstrate that the senses are engaged in specific ways at Hip Hop concerts to foster certain audience reactions and to create what Hip Hoppers colloquially refer to as the ‘vibe’. Creating the right vibe is an important factor that contributes to the perceived ‘success’ or ‘failure’ of Hip Hop events. Concert organisers, promoters, performers and venue staff try to control the concert space and, therefore, the emotional and sensorial experiences of the audience. In particular, they harness light, sound and venue layout to try to promote particular emotional states and bodily movements. I argue that our understanding of the relationship between musical performance and emotion can be enhanced by research that accounts for spatial and cultural context in order to consider how the nature of particular spaces can both constrain and evoke emotion.
4 - Pontic dance: Feeling the absence of homeland
-
- By Valerie Liddle, The University of Adelaide
- Edited by Susan R. Hemer, University of Adelaide, Alison Dundon, University of Adelaide
-
- Book:
- Emotions, Senses, Spaces
- Published by:
- The University of Adelaide Press
- Published online:
- 25 July 2017
- Print publication:
- 01 October 2016, pp 49-66
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
Abstract
Pontic dance originated in the Pontos area of northern Turkey. It survived a genocide and exile of Pontians from that region in the 1920s as well as their migration to Australia thirty to forty years later. In this chapter, I discuss how Pontic dance, in both its choreographic and participatory modes, embodies the loss Pontians feel they have suffered as a result of these ruptures. Pontians assert that it is necessary to have a certain ‘feel’ in order to dance in an authentic way. Although this ‘feel’ may manifest itself in the bodily movements of the dance, it is an expression that comes from a sense of loss that Pontians inwardly feel and express through dance, particularly a loss of place and a waning of cultural practice. This loss is referenced in two ways: first, historically, the dances, their execution, costumes and musical instruments embody the loss of the former homeland. Second, the movements of the dance outwardly express the passion the dancers feel about what it means to be Pontian. This chapter explores how the performance space composed of the emotion and sensation of the dance makes present the absence of a way of life in Greece and the loss of the original homeland.
Introduction
Pontic Greeks have a characteristic way of dancing that developed over many centuries in the Pontos area of northern Turkey. The dance practices survived a genocide1 and their exile from that region in the 1920s as well as their migration to Australia thirty to forty years later. The movements of Pontic dance are different from that of Greek mainland or island dancing. Its dances range ‘from the most languid, slow, relaxed, effortless, shuffling steps to the most frenetic, tense, physically demanding and almost violent movement’ (Kilpatrick 1975:104), with the dancers’ feet covering a small space on the ground. In addition to foot movements, there is ‘flexing and rotation of the torso’ (105‑6), referred to as shimmying, which is characteristic of the style of Pontic dance.
6 - Sensual feasting: Transforming spaces and emotions in Lihir
-
- By Susan R. Hemer, The University of Adelaide in Australia
- Edited by Susan R. Hemer, University of Adelaide, Alison Dundon, University of Adelaide
-
- Book:
- Emotions, Senses, Spaces
- Published by:
- The University of Adelaide Press
- Published online:
- 25 July 2017
- Print publication:
- 01 October 2016, pp 91-106
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
Abstract
This chapter explores how shifts between differing emotions are mediated spatially and sensually. Drawing on Hochschild's (1979) concepts of ‘feeling rules’ and ‘emotion work’, the chapter questions how spatial and sensual aspects of social events may evoke particular emotions and, in turn, how feeling rules for social situations may be transformed in the process. I focus on the case of events surrounding a project for women's development in Lihir, Papua New Guinea, in the early 2000s. One form of anger, a simmering withdrawal, was changed to open conflict following a large feast to mark the opening of a sewing centre. The sensuality of feasting, with its sounds, smells, tastes and crowds, allowed women to take ownership of the centre and of their right to openly express hostility. This case allows for critical reflection on the concept of feeling rules in a setting that places less emphasis on individual emotional management and more on social relatedness.
Introduction
In April 2002, the small boat harbour at Londolovit in Lihir, Papua New Guinea, came alive. Lihirian women took over the normally empty space with its yellow coronous road, green grass and large white metal building, and changed it into a bustling, noisy area. Thousands of people packed into the space to eat hot tubers and meaty pork, to watch dancers arrayed in neat lines moving to the sounds of beaten bamboo and kundu (hour glass) drums, to smell the scent of herbs adorning the dancers and hosts. They watched fashion parades with newly made garments and white wedding dresses, and listened to speeches by dignitaries and songs proclaiming women's togetherness.
This unprecedented event was planned and executed by Lihirian women's leaders to celebrate gaining their own space in Londolovit township. Yet this event was preceded by simmering conflict and followed by open conflict. In this chapter, I unravel this event through an understanding of its emotional, sensual and spatial dimensions. In doing so, I critically comment on the concepts of feeling rules and emotion work.
Frontmatter
- Edited by Susan R. Hemer, University of Adelaide, Alison Dundon, University of Adelaide
-
- Book:
- Emotions, Senses, Spaces
- Published by:
- The University of Adelaide Press
- Published online:
- 25 July 2017
- Print publication:
- 01 October 2016, pp i-iv
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
Biographies
- Edited by Susan R. Hemer, University of Adelaide, Alison Dundon, University of Adelaide
-
- Book:
- Emotions, Senses, Spaces
- Published by:
- The University of Adelaide Press
- Published online:
- 25 July 2017
- Print publication:
- 01 October 2016, pp vii-x
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
1 - Ethnographic intersections: Emotions, senses and spaces
-
- By Alison Dundon, Papua New Guinea, Australia, Susan R. Hemer, The University of Adelaide in Australia
- Edited by Susan R. Hemer, University of Adelaide, Alison Dundon, University of Adelaide
-
- Book:
- Emotions, Senses, Spaces
- Published by:
- The University of Adelaide Press
- Published online:
- 25 July 2017
- Print publication:
- 01 October 2016, pp 1-16
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
In his book Paths toward a Clearing Jackson (1989) describes the Kuranko girls’ initiation rites that he witnessed in 1970:
Each night from the veranda of the house where I was staying I would watch the girls performing the graceful and energetic yatuiye and yamayili dances … With their hair specially braided and adorned with snail‑shell toggles and wearing brightly coloured beaded headbands, groups of girls passed from house to house around the village, dancing, clapping, and singing that their girlhood days were almost over. The daylight hours too were crowded with activities. Visitors poured into the village … all while the neophytes continued to circulate around the village in the company of indefatigable drummers … Then women performers danced before us too. One was dressed in men's clothes with a wild fruit hung from a chord across her forehead. She imitated the maladroit dance movements of men, her face expressionless, while other women surrounded her, clapping, singing, and laughing. (Jackson 1989:124‑5)
At the time Jackson puzzled over the meanings of the rites and, with great fervour, sought answers to the questions he posed about the rites, ‘decoding the ritual activities as if they were symbolic representations of unconscious concerns’ (125). Looking back, Jackson acknowledged that he assumed that there was a distinction to be made between pragmatic work and ritual activity, and that ritual could be analysed and interpreted outside of its action and experience. He wrote that the
quest for semantic truths also explained my inability to participate in the spirit of the performances and why I spent time asking people to tell me what was going on, what it all meant, as if the painted bodies and mimetic dances were only the insipid remnants of what had perhaps once been a symbolically coherent structure of myths and masks. (127)
In this later analysis, Jackson argued the need for a primary focus on experiential, sensory and bodily aspects of ritual and other forms of social action, and pointed to how ‘the body is the ground for what is thought and said’ (131).
5 - Emotional actors/Affective agents: Interspecies edgework and sociotechnical networks in the Spanish bullfight from horseback (rejoneo)
-
- By Kirrilly Thompson, CQUni's Appleton Institute
- Edited by Susan R. Hemer, University of Adelaide, Alison Dundon, University of Adelaide
-
- Book:
- Emotions, Senses, Spaces
- Published by:
- The University of Adelaide Press
- Published online:
- 25 July 2017
- Print publication:
- 01 October 2016, pp 67-90
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
Abstract
Latour (1993) describes an ongoing human preoccupation with ‘purification’ from categories such as technology from society, nature from culture and human from animal. He identifies a certain irony in that such processes of purification simultaneously enable a proliferation of hybrid states of being: those that fall between the conceptual gaps. One enduring hybrid of Classical Greek mythology is the centaur — half man, half horse. The centaur metaphor is frequently used to describe a state of interspecies intercorporeality referred to in descriptions of horseriders thinking, feeling and moving ‘as one’ with their horse. However, there is a need to interrogate the centaur metaphor for human‑horse intercorporeality by examining the dimensions through which it is generated — not only those of human and animal, but also technology, space and senses. This chapter considers these dimensions by applying an Actor Network Theory approach to the ethnographic example of the mounted bullfight. In so doing, space, technology and emotion (through tension) are acknowledged for having agency alongside and through the horse and rider. Through a careful consideration of the progression of a typical mounted bullfight event, the sociotechnical relations between these ‘actors’ can be seen to intensify to such an extent that tension cannot be overlooked. In fact, the integral role of tension in the mounted bullfight performance requires a consideration of the agency of emotions in networks. This discussion is framed by the concept of ‘edgework’ (Lyng 1990), making it possible not only to more fully describe the sociotechnical relations of the human‑animal relations in the mounted bullfight, but also to convey how those relationships are felt and experienced by bodies in space, over time.
Introduction
Latour's (1993) early work identified the ironic proliferation of ‘hybrids’ that arise from, and are made possible by, attempts to purify categories such as ‘human’ and ‘animal’. The centaur is one mythological hybrid that has been used both poetically (Pineda Novo 1988) and academically (Thompson 2011; Game 2001) to describe intercorporeal relationships between horses and riders.
2 - ‘Dancing for joy’: Gender and relational spaces in Papua New Guinea
-
- By Alison Dundon, Papua New Guinea, Australia
- Edited by Susan R. Hemer, University of Adelaide, Alison Dundon, University of Adelaide
-
- Book:
- Emotions, Senses, Spaces
- Published by:
- The University of Adelaide Press
- Published online:
- 25 July 2017
- Print publication:
- 01 October 2016, pp 17-30
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
Abstract
Among the Gogodala of Papua New Guinea, a predominantly rural population in the Western Province, dance is a site of considerable emotion. Owama gi — ‘dancing for joy’ — is particularly so, a seemingly spontaneous series of sensuous movements through which women express both pleasure and pride in the beauty and ability of their male kin as well as the efficacy of their own webs of relatedness. Women express their compulsion to dance at these occasions in terms of expressions like ‘you cannot help yourself’. In this chapter, I examine the performance of owama gi as the sensual and embodied generation of what I refer to as relational space, in which happiness, pride and pleasure in relationships between women and their children, fathers, uncles and brothers are elicited and appreciated. At the same time, dancing for joy is an overtly public performance of the central role that women play in the lives and achievements of their kin. I analyse the ways in which, although understood as spontaneous expressions of pleasure and joy, such dances and the behaviour of those who perform them are highly proscribed. The chapter seeks to contribute to an analysis of the substantive connection between space, sensory experience and human emotions through an exploration of the ways in which the senses and emotions both generate, and are generated by, certain kinds of gendered relationships and performative spaces.
Introduction
The articulation of emotion is spatially mediated … [W]hen we speak of the ‘heights of joy’ and the ‘depths of despair’, significant others are comfortingly close or distressingly distant. (Davidson & Milligan 2004:523)
It is September 1995. I am sitting behind a recently erected bamboo fence that runs the length and breadth of the football field in Balimo with over one thousand people who, like me, are there to watch the dances, canoe races, sports and other performances that make up the Balimo Show. Although I had been in the Gogodala‑speaking area of the Western Province of Papua New Guinea for more than eight months by this stage, conducting research for my doctoral thesis, this was the first formal event that I had attended which brought together these performances.
Emotions, Senses, Spaces
- Ethnographic Engagements and Intersections
- Edited by Susan R. Hemer, Alison Dundon
-
- Published by:
- The University of Adelaide Press
- Published online:
- 25 July 2017
- Print publication:
- 01 October 2016
-
This volume draws together three core concerns for the social sciences: the senses and embodiment, emotions, and space and place. In so doing, these collected essays consider the ways in which these core concerns are mutually constitutive. This includes how spaces evoke, constrain or are composed by the senses and emotions; the ways in which emotions are generated or transformed in certain spaces and through sensual engagement; and the processes by which embodied senses create spaces and emotions.
10 - Ngadha being-in-common: Emotional attachment to people and place in Flores, Indonesia
-
- By Jayne Curnow, Australian Centre for International Agriculture Research
- Edited by Susan R. Hemer, University of Adelaide, Alison Dundon, University of Adelaide
-
- Book:
- Emotions, Senses, Spaces
- Published by:
- The University of Adelaide Press
- Published online:
- 25 July 2017
- Print publication:
- 01 October 2016, pp 159-174
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
Abstract
For the Ngadha people of Central Flores, Indonesia, residential clan land, nua, is imbued with emotional connections as the locus of Ancestors, ceremony and the key symbols of clan unity, the Ngadhu post and Bhaga miniature house. Prominently located in the centre of the nua, the Ngadhu and Bhaga are grounding symbols, constant reminders of interdependence between clan members and their Ancestors. This spiritual commons (McWilliam 2009) anchors emotional connections not just to place but also to fellow clan members, living and deceased. To articulate the emotional ties that bind clan members to one another, I draw on Nancy's concept of ‘being singular plural’ to illustrate that to be Ngadha is to have a keen sense of being implicated in the existence of others. Being with others is a human concern, as people cannot exist in the singular. For Ngadha people, this is particularly explicit, so that individual independence is not a coveted state of being; rather, being singular plural is the principal mode of existence. In this context, the nua is the central heartland for the spatial and material expression of clan unity, although the emotions of being singular plural transcend time and space.
Introduction
For the Ngadha people of Central Flores, Indonesia, residential clan land, nua, is imbued with emotional connections as the locus of Ancestors, ceremony and the key symbols of clan unity, the Ngadhu sacrificial post and Bhaga model house. Prominently located in the centre of the nua, the Ngadhu and Bhaga are grounding symbols, constant reminders of interdependence between living and deceased clan members. Bomolo nua, located on the outskirts of the town of Bajawa, exemplifies Ngadha configurations of material symbols, intangible associations and emotional connections. Bajawa has a population of approximately 15 000 and a small grid‑pattern of streets dotted with shops and government offices surrounded by private homes. Following a string road out of town, privately held residential blocks end abruptly at the edge of the corporately owned land of Bomolo. Entering Bomolo, the Ngadhu and Bhaga are striking features in the large nua square, which is bordered on all sides by houses facing into the square.
9 - Voices in the park: The composition of sacred space and public place
-
- By Judith Haines, Adelaide environment movement
- Edited by Susan R. Hemer, University of Adelaide, Alison Dundon, University of Adelaide
-
- Book:
- Emotions, Senses, Spaces
- Published by:
- The University of Adelaide Press
- Published online:
- 25 July 2017
- Print publication:
- 01 October 2016, pp 137-158
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
Abstract
City parks and gardens are environments established to enhance, complement and offset the economic and residential conditions of urban living. Composed of life forms attributed to the ‘natural world’ for human pleasure and wellbeing, these ‘green spaces’ are socially inscribed with liminal potentialities. As ontological islands in geographic space, urban parks and gardens exist in, and generate tensions between, orderings of reality in modern societies. An Adelaide group of environmentalists and their friends meet regularly in the Adelaide Park Lands to practise Reiki spiritual healing. In their group healing sessions, they bring a cultural discourse of health and harmony associated with green and natural places to the social foreground in their use of spontaneous, ambient vocalisation. Drawing on understandings of healing energy derived from notions of ultimate truth as a universal, animated energy of love, the members of the Reiki group give voice to their spiritual experience of communal healing. As a feature of improvisation, the emotional spiritual tone of vocalisation is not a formal component of Reiki healing technique, and it challenges the social constraints of conduct in public place as rational space. This chapter explores how ambient vocal sound produced as spiritual emotion takes up conceptual gaps in social ambivalence about ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’ space, composing public space as cosmic spiritual space.
Introduction
Just begin making a sound, then it becomes comfortable. Next, explore … the sound, directing it to the person; then become immersed, absorbed in the energy of the sound and there's no … space between oneself and the sound for … thought, a dissolving of barriers, preconceptions, self‑consciousness of whatever is between you and the other person. (Interview with Tom, 1 April 2011)
In the long, late summer grass, the Reiki healing session was now well underway. Tom lay flat and straight on his back with his eyes closed, surrounded by six others who were conveying healing energy to him from the palms of their hands, laying them softly on his shoulders, stomach, knees, ankles and feet. At irregular intervals, individuals lifted their hands, held them at a short distance from Tom's body, moved them backward and forward or in circular motions, or made broader sweeps of his body to ascertain where to apply healing next.
11 - Trust your senses: Growing wine and making place in McLaren Vale
-
- By William Skinner, The University of Adelaide
- Edited by Susan R. Hemer, University of Adelaide, Alison Dundon, University of Adelaide
-
- Book:
- Emotions, Senses, Spaces
- Published by:
- The University of Adelaide Press
- Published online:
- 25 July 2017
- Print publication:
- 01 October 2016, pp 175-191
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
Abstract
This chapter argues that the tasks and processes of wine production undertaken by small‑scale producers not only serve to bring forth or unlock a ‘sense of place’ in the wine but can also be seen to continuously produce place itself. In the skilled performance of these tasks, winegrowers engage intimately with the world around them at a sensorial level: including touching the soil and the vines, feeling the sun, wind and rain in the vineyard, smelling and feeling the warmth of the fermenting grapes, and tasting the wine at different stages of its production. For many, such physical interaction (hands‑on doing) is extremely desirable in wine production, as wine's ‘authenticity’ is often considered to relate to the close interaction of people and place working in concert. It is this sort of deep and attentive sensorial engagement of people with their worlds, over time, that provides not only practical and intellectual ‘knowledge’ but also a rich topography of feelings and emotions attached to places and landscapes. I argue that the production of this sort of emotional space, via the hands‑on tasks and activities of small‑scale wine production, is a crucial element in the development among many such winegrowers of a relational or animic perspective, through which they see themselves, their vines, wines and other aspects of their worlds as fundamentally intertwined and interrelated. Wines, vines and wine places are thus invested with ‘meanings’ and ‘emotions’ — social products which are nevertheless linked inextricably to the sensuous materiality of production and consumption.
Introduction
Too many people sit in air conditioned cabins in their tractors, with a charcoal filter so they can't smell anything and a CD player so they can't hear anything, driving up and down the [vine] rows, and they're not connecting to the land … As a farmer, I think that you need to be really sensitive to the land: to feel the soil, touch the plants, take care and do things by hand. That's why we use basket presses as well. You could do it just as well with mechanised techniques but to actually do it by hand, to feel the grapes and work with them gently, you learn a lot more about what you're doing. (Peter, 17 April 2012)
Chapter Six - Cohort 3 – Tooth emergence and oral health in Australian twins and their families
- Grant C. Townsend, University of Adelaide, Sandra K. Pinkerton, University of Adelaide, James R. Rogers, University of Adelaide, Michelle R. Bockmann, University of Adelaide, Toby E. Hughes, University of Adelaide
-
- Book:
- Twin Studies
- Published by:
- The University of Adelaide Press
- Published online:
- 05 February 2016
- Print publication:
- 15 November 2015, pp 135-164
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
Introduction
While the focus of our studies involving Cohorts 1 and 2 was on dental development and morphology, we decided to concentrate more on oral health and disease, particularly dental decay, when studying Cohort 3. The major developments in molecular biology have also enabled research involving this cohort to make use of new technologies and approaches to study genetic effects more directly.
Dental decay (caries) is the most common chronic disease affecting Australian children, despite the implementation of public health initiatives, such as fluoridated drinking water and toothpastes. The disease can cause pain and systemic infection, lead to speech and learning problems, and is a predictor for poor general health. Treatment for dental caries inflicts a huge economic burden on society, accounting for 6.5 per cent ($AUS5.3 billion) of total health care expenditure in Australia per year (Armfield et al., 2009; Ha et al., 2011).
In 2004, we submitted an application for funding to the NHMRC for a new initiative involving Australian twins and their families. The title of this grant application was ‘Tooth emergence and oral streptococci colonisation: a longitudinal study of Australian twins’. Although the application was supported, funding was only provided for three years rather than the five years that had been requested. The study commenced in 2005, with the twins and their families comprising what is now referred to as Cohort 3. The chief investigators on this project were Grant Townsend, Kim Seow, Theo Gotjamanos, Toby Hughes, Neville Gully and Lindsay Richards.
The first aim of the project was to clarify the influences of genetic and environmental determinants on variation in the emergence (often referred to as tooth eruption) of the human primary teeth by applying modern methods of genetic model- fitting to longitudinal data obtained from young monozygotic and dizygotic twin pairs. The intention was to compare variability in both the timing and sequencing of tooth emergence within and between the twins, and to relate these findings to measures of physical development and other pre- and postnatal factors. It was also planned to apply linkage analyses to detect quantitative trait loci (QTLs) for dental development using genome scans of DNA derived from cheek cells.
Foreword
-
- By Nick Martin, Queensland Institute of Medical Research Brisbane
- Grant C. Townsend, University of Adelaide, Sandra K. Pinkerton, University of Adelaide, James R. Rogers, University of Adelaide, Michelle R. Bockmann, University of Adelaide, Toby E. Hughes, University of Adelaide
-
- Book:
- Twin Studies
- Published by:
- The University of Adelaide Press
- Published online:
- 05 February 2016
- Print publication:
- 15 November 2015, pp v-vii
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
This book presents a unique account of a comprehensive research program on the genetics of teeth and faces, carried out over three decades at the School of Dentistry within the University of Adelaide by Professor Grant Townsend and colleagues. It is unique in several senses, firstly in that perhaps no other centre in the world has carried out such a long-term and wide-ranging program on so many facets of dentistry and craniofacial biology. But it is also unique in the sense that I know of no other academic endeavour that has so thoroughly documented its own history and intellectual progression, including the description not just of the main projects but also the smaller side-projects and all the people, including other researchers and students, who carried them out. Thus the book is not just a heartfelt ‘thank you’ to all the twins and their families who took part in these studies over the decades, but also a valuable scientific and photographic record of the research projects, their planning, execution and findings.
I am privileged to have played some small part in this research program in introducing Grant and his team to structural equation modelling methods for analysis of twin data. The great attraction for me was (and still is) not only the inherent interest in the dentition, but that the measurements are so very reliable and the traits are so heritable. This is in contrast to my other domain of interest, human behaviour, where, for many traits, measurement is often quite unreliable and heritabilities are modest. Another appealing feature of the dentition is that the same basic structure of eight teeth is replicated four times — left and right sides, on both upper and lower jaws. This provides very rich opportunities for statistical modelling, and Grant and I spent many hours, days, weeks fitting what I think are rather elegant models to explain the genetics of tooth size.
Another inherently appealing aspect of this research is that its research subjects are normal identical (monozygotic) and non-identical (dizygotic) twins growing up together in normal Australian households. In fact, the classical twin method — the comparison of the similarity of the two types of twins — is the most powerful design we have in humans to estimate the relative influence of genes and environment on any trait one cares to measure.
Chapter Five - Cohort 2 – A longitudinal study of dental and facial development in Australian twins and their families
- Grant C. Townsend, University of Adelaide, Sandra K. Pinkerton, University of Adelaide, James R. Rogers, University of Adelaide, Michelle R. Bockmann, University of Adelaide, Toby E. Hughes, University of Adelaide
-
- Book:
- Twin Studies
- Published by:
- The University of Adelaide Press
- Published online:
- 05 February 2016
- Print publication:
- 15 November 2015, pp 113-134
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
Introduction
In 1994 the Craniofacial Biology Group decided that it would be valuable to carry out a comprehensive study of dental and facial development and morphology in young twins in the 4-6-year-old age interval to supplement previous studies of teenage twins. At that time, there had been no detailed studies of the teeth or faces of young twins with primary (deciduous) teeth. It was also not known whether special features of the twinning process affected dental and facial features of young twins. It was planned, if funding allowed, to re-examine these twins again around the ages of 9 to 11 years and then at around 12 to 14 years of age. This would then become one of the few longitudinal studies of twins focusing on teeth and faces to be carried out worldwide.
The aim in setting up this study of young twins, who are now referred to as Cohort 2, was to extend the use of newly developed methods of genetic model-fitting to data obtained from teeth and faces of both monozygotic and dizygotic twins, so that we could clarify in more detail than previously the roles of genetic and environmental determinants on observed variation. We also aimed to compare the expression of bilateral dental and facial features on the right and left sides, in both twins and singletons, to see the extent to which the twinning process affects the determination of body symmetry. This included our desire to explore more fully the fascinating phenomenon of mirror imaging, where one twin of a pair mirrors the other for one or more features.
As has been emphasised earlier, the primary teeth provide an excellent model system to study genetic aspects of dental and facial development. They also have advantages for investigating some of the questions relating to observed developmental differences between dental and facial features on the right and left sides (disturbed laterality) thought to be associated with the twinning process.
Most of the development of the primary tooth crowns occurs between approximately four weeks in utero and birth, with all the crowns being completely formed by around twelve months postnatally. This developmental span enables an assessment of how various pre- and perinatal factors, such as maternal health, smoking and alcohol consumption, placenta type and birth weight, might influence dental structures.
Chapter One - A tour of the mouth
- Grant C. Townsend, University of Adelaide, Sandra K. Pinkerton, University of Adelaide, James R. Rogers, University of Adelaide, Michelle R. Bockmann, University of Adelaide, Toby E. Hughes, University of Adelaide
-
- Book:
- Twin Studies
- Published by:
- The University of Adelaide Press
- Published online:
- 05 February 2016
- Print publication:
- 15 November 2015, pp 1-34
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
Chapter Seven - Publications and theses relating to the Adelaide Twin Studies
- Grant C. Townsend, University of Adelaide, Sandra K. Pinkerton, University of Adelaide, James R. Rogers, University of Adelaide, Michelle R. Bockmann, University of Adelaide, Toby E. Hughes, University of Adelaide
-
- Book:
- Twin Studies
- Published by:
- The University of Adelaide Press
- Published online:
- 05 February 2016
- Print publication:
- 15 November 2015, pp 165-177
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
Publications
1980s
Brown T, Townsend GC, Richards LC, Travan GR (1987). A study of dentofacial morphology in South Australian twins. Aust Dent J 32:81‑90.
Sekikawa M, Namura T, Kanazawa E, Ozaki T, Richards LC, Townsend GC, Brown T (1989). Three‑dimensional measurement of the maxillary first molar in Australian Whites. Nihon Univ J Oral Sci 15:457‑464.
Townsend G (1988). Research in dentistry: growth and development. Aust Dent J 33:375‑378.
Townsend GC, Corruccini RS, Richards LC, Brown T (1988). Genetic and environmental determinants of dental occlusion variation in South Australian twins. Aust Orthod J 10:231‑235.
Townsend GC, Richards LC, Brown T, Burgess VB (1988). Twin zygosity determination on the basis of dental morphology. J Forensic Odontostomatol 6:1‑15.
Townsend GC, Brown T, Richards LC, Rogers JR, Pinkerton SK, Travan GR, Burgess VB (1986). Metric analyses of the teeth and faces of South Australian twins. Acta Genet Med Gemellol 35:179‑192.
Travan GR, Townsend GC, Brown T, Richards LC, Burgess VB (1987). Application of the SIR system in a study of South Australian twins. Proceedings of the Annual Conference USIR Australasia.
1990s
Brown T, Townsend GC, Richards LC, Travan GR, Pinkerton SK (1992). Facial symmetry and mirror imaging in South Australian twins. In: Craniofacial Variation in Pacific Populations. Brown T, Molnar S, editors. Adelaide: Anthropology and Genetics Laboratory, The University of Adelaide, pp. 79‑98.
Corruccini RS, Townsend GC, Richards LC, Brown T (1990). Genetic and environmental determinants of dental occlusal variation in twins of different nationalities. Hum Biol 62:353‑367.
Dempsey PJ, Townsend GC, Martin NG (1999). Insights into the genetic basis of human dental variation from statistical modelling analyses. Perspec Hum Biol 4(3):9‑17.
Dempsey PJ, Townsend GC, Richards LC (1999). Increased tooth crown size in females with twin brothers: evidence for hormonal diffusion between human twins in utero. Am J Hum Biol 11:577‑586.
Dempsey P, Schwerdt W, Townsend G, Richards L (1999). Handedness in twins: the search for genetic and environmental causes. Perspec Hum Biol 4(3):37‑44.
Dempsey PJ, Townsend GC, Martin NG, Neale MC (1995). Genetic covariance structure of incisor crown size in twins. J Dent Res 74:1389‑1398.