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Prisons are a rich source for literary narratives – but what narratives do prison officers
themselves construct about working in a prison and their place in it? How do they talk about
their daily work with prisoners, justify disciplinary action or assess prison as a form of
punishment in general? As ontological narratives which position and give rise to the self,
prison officers' narratives are highly relevant, as they shape officers' daily practice, the
working of the prison as an organisation and ultimately the way prisoners are treated.
Christopher Young combines field notes and interviews from a Swiss prison to reconstruct a
typology of prison officers' narratives of the self. One casts the officer as a tragic hero
fighting to prevent the decline of punishment, another positions the officer as a lone fighter
attempting to overcome the therapy-adverse inertia of the prison system. As the study shows,
this inherent tension ultimately contributes to the failure of the attempt to establish a
therapeutic detention unit.
Prison officers' narratives are viewed as shared narratives which cite and echo legal and
media discourses, which the author in turn reconstructs on the basis of a discussion of the
history of Swiss penal law and practice and a recent corpus of newspaper articles

How can humanity possibly become sustainable in the future if we cannot think or plan sustainably in the present? This project aims to challenge people's current thinking, raising awareness that the issue of sustainability will not be resolved without a significant cultural shift in our relationship with our world's environmental systems. The thesis addresses this through an architectural narrative conceived to enhance the viewer's awareness of how our interdependent relationship with machines and industry has led to this dire situation. Prior to the Industrial Revolution the environment could regenerate and recover faster than humanity could destroy it. With the advent of the Industrial Revolution this changed and environmental degradation has rapidly increased out of control. The result is that today we need to evolve and change our thinking rather than be limited by our tools if we are to be sustainable. It is this at present unsustainable relationship between mechanical industry and human behaviour that this thesis exposes through speculative architecture. The investigation explores how architectural allegory can be an effective way of conveying a message with multiple layers of interpretation and meaning - a message capable of addressing important environmental, political, economic and social issues. The title of the thesis is taken from Albert Camus's novel l'Étranger (The Stranger) as well as Georg Simmel's essay "The Stranger", which was written as an excursus to a chapter dealing with sociology of space in his book Soziologie. In this thesis, as an architectural allegory, the Stranger's architectural habitat is composed of a myriad of integrated machines that symbolise our time and place identity: a Theodolite that surveys the land; a Clock that keeps the time; a Loom that reflects the folklore of fate; a Compass that represents direction, and a Camera Obscura through which the Stranger views his/her surroundings. The Stranger lives in the Camera Obscura, a compartment with a periscopic lens focused across the Cook Strait to South Island. When (s)he activates the Loom, it pulls the living compartment along tracks toward the core, where (s)he descends into the central volume of the Theodolite. A Compass on the top of the structure points towards landmarks across the Cook Strait while the mechanical workings are inspired by the internals of a mechanical Clock. The overall programme for the thesis investigation is an Aquaponics Lab, a self-contained environment that grows marine life in an aquaculture system, using their waste to fertilise plant life in a hydroponic system, and using their nutrients in turn to feed the marine life. The flora and fauna continually sustain one another in an eternal cycle - the machines replicating a perfect natural system. The thesis takes the form of a day in the life of the Stranger. The reader witnesses the sequential daily rituals of the Stranger as (s)he moves through the machines from sunrise to sunset.

This report has two main purposes: the identification of what agricultural policy representatives and lobbyists recognise as the key factors that influence the competiveness of agriculture; and the identification of whether this industry viewpoint differs from that of the literature on the same topic. This study will provide substantial value to the National Farmers' Federation ('NFF'), as it will allow for the recognition of the alignment, or possible misalignment of perspectives, and may lead to more effective resource allocation materialised via more targeted lobbying pressure. The overall method used in this report was a broad review of the past literature coupled with in-depth interviews with key agricultural lobbyists responsible for both national and industry-level representation. The key findings of the report are: • There is a wide range of factors that both the literature and agricultural representatives perceive to be key influences on the competiveness of Australian agriculture. • All perspectives agreed on the following factors being salient influences on competiveness: Level and Rate of On-farm Innovation, Manager Expertise, Research, Development & Extension Investment, Regulatory Burden and Drought and Broader Climate Variability • There was little difference between the perspectives of the literature and that of the sector representatives. • The case studies revealed unique issues that the industry representatives interviewed believe impact their competiveness. These include: o The Dried Fruit Industry: Inadequate Succession planning Support, Agricultural Lobbying Effectiveness, The Importance of Agriculture to Government, Marketing Levy Free-riding and Product Dumping o The Beef Industry: Labour Issues and Speed of Market Change Based on these findings the report has made the following key recommendations to the National Farmers' Federation: • That the NFF undertake a broader investigation into the factors that all of its member organisations, which make up the vast majority of agricultural industries in Australia, believe most impact their competiveness. • That NFF place importance in recognising the interrelationship of many of the factors that impact competiveness and direct policy pressure accordingly. • That NFF direct policy resources to the areas identified by all perspectives as being key influences of competiveness

When it comes to finding the bad guys of Olympic history, all roads lead to Germany. Writing in the New York Times at the height of the torch relay fracas in April this year, Edward Rothstein pointed the way: "If you want to know how the Olympic torch really began its 'Journey of Harmony,' as the Chinese call its current relay, if you want to see why the torch has had to pass through a human obstacle course composed of protesters, SWAT teams, and police in San Francisco, Paris, and London, then do not look to Tibet's grievances against China. Look to the opening of Leni Riefenstahl's 1938 film, "Olympia." In that homage to Berlin's 1936 Olympic Games the origins of this ritual are revealed. Never before had a lighted torch been relayed from a Greek temple in Olympia to an athletic competition, let alone by thousands of runners trying to keep it from being extinguished.

A historical review of Olympic Games boycotts begins with comments on the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games vis-a-vis the 1936 Berlin Games & the boycotts of the late 1970s-early-1980s. It is asserted that domestic & international agendas can influence governments to avoid Olympic boycotts & that arguments about the political neutrality of sports are fraught with contradiction. Attention is given to Avery Brundage, president of the US Olympic Committee & eventual head of the International Olympic Committee, who fought the 1936 boycott & battled the politicization of the Games via an ever-more resistant "Olympism" discourse. Brundage's responses to boycott issues are seen to run the gamut from commonsensical to distasteful; however, his staunch belief in the autonomy of sports, first displayed in his effort to prevent the Berlin boycott, is viewed as having sustained the Olympic Games through the Cold War & decolonization. Brundage's 1960s anti-boycott alliance with Olympian Jesse Owens is then recounted. It is concluded that only governments make Olympic boycotts happen, major boycotts ultimately have little impact, Brundage seems an unsavory sort of character, anti-boycott stances result in strange bedfellows, & the Games survival hinges on the ludicrous idea of their political neutrality. In this light, some closing remarks are offered on the debates on the Beijing Games. Adapted from the source document.

Für die DDR war der Leistungssport eine zentrale Arena staatlicher und ideologischer Selbstdarstellung. Im Vorfeld und Verlauf der Olympischen Spiele in München im Jahr 1972 versuchte der ostdeutsche Staat auf verschiedene Weise, dem verhassten westdeutschen Gegenüber Schaden zuzufügen. Eine größere Anzahl an Medaillen zu erringen war ein zentrales Anliegen der DDR, gleichzeitig jedoch versuchte die SED, die Münchner Spiele mit einer propagandistischen Offensive zu desavouieren. Der Beitrag konzentriert sich auf die diplomatischen Ränke um den geplanten olympischen Fackel-Lauf. Die DDR scheiterte mit ihrer Absicht, eine Route durch die 'sozialistischen Bruderstaaten' zu verhindern. ; Sport was immensely important to the GDR because of its potential to symbolize ideological superiority. Prior as well as during the Olympic Games at Munich in 1972, the GDR tried in different ways to beat its hated West-German counterpart. Winning more medals than the FRG was one thing, but at the same time East Germany tried to obstruct the games in several propagandistic ways. The article centres on the GDR's failure to sabotage the planned route of the traditional torch relay through Eastern Europe.

1972 saw the coming to fruition of two events of major importance to the Federal Republic of Germany under Willy Brandt's leadership: the normalization of relations with the Soviet Union and its satellites through the process of Ostpolitik, and the Munich Olympic Games, which were designed to present a new Germany on the world stage. Although recent scholarship has highlighted the intricacies of East-West diplomacy and the political machinations of Cold-War sports relations, there have been few attempts to investigate the latter's role in the former. This essay seeks to investigate sport in the context of politics, and more vitally vice versa. Focusing on events in the immediate run-up to the Four Powers Treaty on West Berlin in 1971, it shows how sport's appeal to broad sectors of public opinion in Eastern and Western Europe made it a prime candidate for the cultural warfare that accompanied political negotiations.

'Für die DDR war der Leistungssport eine zentrale Arena staatlicher und ideologischer Selbstdarstellung. Im Vorfeld und Verlauf der Olympischen Spiele in München im Jahr 1972 versuchte der ostdeutsche Staat auf verschiedene Weise, dem verhassten westdeutschen Gegenüber Schaden zuzufügen. Eine größere Anzahl an Medaillen zu erringen war ein zentrales Anliegen der DDR, gleichzeitig jedoch versuchte die SED, die Münchner Spiele mit einer propagandistischen Offensive zu desavouieren. Der Beitrag konzentriert sich auf die diplomatischen Ränke um den geplanten olympischen Fackel-Lauf. Die DDR scheiterte mit ihrer Absicht, eine Route durch die 'sozialistischen Bruderstaaten' zu verhindern.' (Autorenreferat)

This article focuses on the stadium as a site of cultural space. Its key example is that of the Olympiastadion, which was built for the Munich Olympics 1972 and subsequently passed on to Germany's largest soccer club, Bayern Munich. It examines a double problematic relation: that between architecture and the legacy of history (World War II), typified by the stadium's original purpose of presenting a New Germany on the world stage, and that between symbolism and the body, exemplified by the soccer club's abandonment of the site. The article poses wider questions about the role of bodies and history in the discipline of sports geography.