Bryce Traynor, Emma Lewis, David Connolly

(questions go through from 1 back to 10 - 2)

1. Sense of place: Organise a trip to Sydney’s West as a group. Travel by public transport, eat out at a local eatery and visit local sights. Submit photos of yourselves in front of a local sign as evidence. Submit also a short joint reflection on your experiences, detailing why you picked this particular place to visit, what you expected, and what you found. NOTE: At least four of your five group members should be present on this fieldtrip. I would prefer all, but realise it is hard to coordinate schedules in all cases.

Sense of place:

As a group we decided to visit Parramatta, as this was the easiest location for all of us to catch public transport to whether from uni or our homes. As Bryce and I (David) live in Western Sydney we very much knew what to expect from Parramatta; whilst Emma hadn't visited Parramatta before. After meeting up at the station from catching a bus/train to Parramatta we proceeded to walk down Church Street, where we were greeted by the usual busy Parramatta streets at lunchtime.

Walking down Church Street we saw the old water fountain that I used to play on as a child, numerous shops owned by people of various nationalities as well as town Hall. After wandering around the streets of Parramatta we then decided to head to Westfield shopping centre for a bite to eat. Once again in Westfield we noted the vast amount of different nationalities with a wide range of food nationalities to choose from in the food court. After lunch we then parted ways in order to return to our various suburbs of residency.

10. Migration, Borders, Inequality: Interview someone who moved to Australia from another place. Why did they move? What were the major surprises for them? What do they think it means to be Australian in 2012?

Migration, Borders and Inequality: Interview someone who moved to Australia form another place.

Interviewer: David Connolly

Interviewee: Marissa

Why did you move? Migrating to Australia as a young child in the early 70's; my parents made the decision to leave our birthplace (Chile) due to political conflict.

As a child I saw this move as a big adventure, for my parents it was a very scary and uncertain move. They questioned themselves many times over.

What were major surprises for you?

The cultural difference. Back then Australia was very much an Anglo-Saxon society. The food was very different, very bland and school was an all day affair.

We migrated to Australia so we had to stay in a hostel for 12 months. This was at the back of Liverpool in the Suburb called East Hills. Back then the Hostel was in the middle of bushland, where in the early morning and dusk you could see Kangaroos hoping down the main road there.

What do you think it means to be Australian in 2012?

It is very multi cultural society now the fact that now we can eat/buy any type of food from all over the world.

Couples are so mixed now that children today have a very diverse background. People are proud of our mixed cultures.  

9. Place: Write something about the place you call home, paying particular attention to sense of place (This can be in the form of a poem, a paragraph, a reflection, a joke, a letter – anything you like!)

The Australian Alps are amongst some of the oldest snow covered alpine landscapes in the world and the twisted snow gums that feature during winter are spectacular. The beautiful landscape has inspired and drawn people here over many decades. The morning begins with the beaming light just seeping through the light layer of mist just hovering above the frozen river. There is a calm and serene feeling in the crisp mountain air. A huge white blanket of soft, pure snow is covering the mountains, which have a rich and fascinating Australian history. These mountains have been home for more than 20000 years to a number of Aboriginal groups with a unique way of life. There has been a strong connection between myself and these mountains as they are part of my heritage which is why I call it home.

8. Comment on something new you learned in this unit. Does it affect any other aspect of your life? Does it contradict or complement things you have learned in other units?

Out of all the things that I learnt in this unit, one of the most interesting and reality changing things is that I have been able to see just how worse off people in those developing nations are and this has led me to change my outlook on those countries.  While I am able to sit and type on my computer there are millions of people just trying to find somewhere to sit in their house, if they even have a house that is.  While we may complain about our public transport being poor and not up to standard and road congestion problems, we have things that people in a lot of south-east Asian countries don’t even have.  Some things are taken for granted by us in everyday life; Health care, electricity, communication. While we might go out and get a new phone every year, it is those people in developing nations that are forced to make my phone as a way of getting some money to live on.  I found out that while many in those nations are trying to move forward and to get a better live for themselves, it is the developed nations that are keeping them how they are.  The world is built on a foundation where the ‘larger’ countries don’t want to get their hands dirty so they just off load their burdens onto another country.  While that country might try to escape the tag of a developing or third world country, it is us who are making sure they keep with that tag.  I found this to be quite disturbing and it gave me quite a reality check, we shouldn’t take for granted what we have, and instead we should be grateful and should try to help those who are unable to help themselves as easily.

， 7. Economic Geography: Using the diverse economies framework, map out your activities and economic transactions for one day. Comment on the proportion of activities/transactions that could be viewed as ‘capitalist’, ‘non-capitalist’ and ‘alternative capitalist’.

Transactions	Labour	Enterprise
Market	Wage ·       Working as a waiter	Capitalist
Alternative Market ·       Buying my monthly phone plan.	Alternative Pay	Alternative Capitalist
Non-market ·       Borrowing things of friends (Games) ·       Favour system within friends group.	Non-pay ·       Coach soccer team ·       Help around the house.	Non-Capitalist

In my daily and activities and transactions there were not many, if any activities that could be seen as capitalist.  The 2 main ones were earning a wage as a waiter and buying my phone plan.  Although we are said to live in a capitalist society, there are many different ways to get by everyday.

， 6. Territoriality: Interview a woman who has breastfed her children. Where and when was it OK to breastfeed them? How did she know? Don’t forget to comment on the historical context.

From interviewing a woman who has breastfed her 3 children in the present tense, results have shown she was most comfortable feeding her babies in a private area such as in the comfort of her own home with people she knew would not take offense for example family, close friends. However, it was inappropriate to breastfeed her babies in a public place as she was more self consciousness about herself and making others around her uncomfortable which made it seem inappropriate.

 With this in mind other Mums feel this strongly about their own choices and simply because they differ it does mean they are wrong. Every mother and baby is different and unless you know them intimately you cannot judge their individual situation.

Historically breastfeeding was not accepted in public due to the concern of some people seeing a woman's bare breast in public as she takes it out to feed her baby. This may be unexpected and even offensive to some, but the fact is that breastfeeding in public is typically legal, and babies need to eat often.

5. PlaceandCulture:InMaoritradition,speechesoftenbeginwithsituatingthespeakerthrough their connections to land and people. This protocol is called mihimihi. Write a mihimihi that connects you to the land and people of the place you call home

mihimihi:

Ko Mazada 6 te waka

My canoe is Mazada 6

Ko Winston te maunga

My mountain is Winston

Ko Toongabbie te awa

My river is Toongabbie

Ko Connolly te iwi

My tribe is Connolly

Ko Friends te hapū

My sub tribe is Friends

Ko Mother te rangatira

Mother is the chief

Ko Home te marae

My marae is Home

Ko David ahau

I am David

Reflection:

I believe this protocol is quite similar to others I have previously heard, it addresses land; Mountain and River; family, owner of land, sacred places and name.

The elements I found most difficult was that of a sacred meeting place. Personally I don't have anywhere that I call sacred but I find my home to be the most peaceful and reflective place and therefore named it as my 'marae'.

4. Place,Culture,Imperialism:Findoutsomethingaboutthetraditionalownersofthelandyou currently live on. What do you think it means to be a ‘traditional owner’ in 2012?

The Darug people are the traditional custodians of the area of modern Sydney. They spread from the foot hills of the blue to the coast and from Wisemans ferry in the north to Camden in the south. There was a large cultural difference between the coastal and inland people. The coastal sea people built canoes and ate fish and shellfish where as the inland, or tomahawk people ate kangaroo and emus that they caught. There is a dispute that the Darug people didn’t extend right to the sea and that the coastal Eora were their own tribe. However, many believe that they were part of the Darug clan.

While the Darug people might be the traditional owners of the land, there is a different meaning and much debate as to what this phrase actually means in today’s world. Does this mean that you were the first own of the house you live in? Have you and your family always lived in the same suburb? Were you related to the first convicts of did your family come over to Australia after that time? Were you born here? After how many generations does it take for you to be classed as a ‘traditional owner’? All these questions are constantly being debated and therefore there is no definitive answer as to what defines a traditional owner now.   

3. Global networks and place: Describe the land-use effects of ‘googling’ something. Think up some ways your ‘googling’ can be ‘greener’.

Googling something comes with a number of land use effects. First of all there is Google itself. Google is a global company with a number of different data centres over many different countries. This naturally takes up a large amount of space. Along with this space comes the thousands of workers that would drive to work, meaning that additional space is needed to house them, increasing their land-use. There is also the pollution that these workers bring with them from their cars, leading to increased pollution in these areas. Another way that Google uses the land is through electricity. They need a constant stream of electricity to keep all their servers online and running and to also keep the facilities running, as servers create heat they need to be cooled constantly to ensure they don’t overheat. This means that Google uses a large amount of energy derived from fossil fuels. Another way is all the other resources that went into making the computers, servers and wires that Google uses. This means a large amount of plastics and metals were used in the creation of these data centres that keep Google running. There are also the land uses on the receivers end. Electricity is used by the computer that is ‘googling’, which helps to increase their electricity consumption. There is also the use of plastics and metals in the computers or devices that can now access the internet.

While these may be the land-uses of Google, there are many things that can be done, and that are being done to help minimise the impact that this large company has. One of the main ways is by using renewable energy. By harnessing solar and wind energy, Google will be able to lower their electricity use and might even be able to put some of the energy back into the community. There are also many other ways that Google can minimise its carbon footprint. With a large amount of workers, shuttle buses for these workers will take a large number of cars of the road, lowering traffic congestion and also lowering pollution. Incentives to use public transport or push bikes could also lead to lower carbon emissions. This would also mean that they wouldn’t need as big a space for their buildings and facilities if parking spaces were very limited, meaning people were better off getting to work through other means.

These are the many land-uses of googling and also some of the examples of how to combat this land-use.

2.2. Productionandconsumption:Chooseonecommodityinyourhome.Research,thenmapoutona world map the global connections of this one commodity (this can include historical connections as well as the actual connections of that commodity – e.g. potatoes were first grown in South America).

Production and Consumption

Commodity: A raw material or primary agricultural product that can be bought and sold

Coffee

History:

The Legend of Kaldi in the Ethiopian highlands explains the discovery of Coffee when he discovered his goats becoming restless and unable to sleep after eating the berries from a certain tree. Kaldi showed a local abbot who then made the berries into a drink that kept him awake for many hours. The news of this drink soon spread east where it reached the Arabian Peninsula and from there spread around the globe.

Currently, coffee is grown in Asia, Africa, Central and South America along with the islands of the Caribbean and Pacific. It is a product that is world renowned for its taste and its energetic properties.

Fast Facts:

• A coffee seed takes 3-4 years before it grows into a tree able to produce beans
• Seeds are planted in nurseries for 6 -12 months before being transplanted to the fields
• The trees produce a small fruit known as the coffee cherry and in the centre of each cherry is two coffee beans
• Harvesting requires hand picking
• 4000 beans are needed to produce 1 pound of roasted coffee beans
• After the process of husking, sorting and bagging the beans are shipped to countries to be manufactured and consumed.
• Manufacture includes the roasting and grinding of coffee beans or the production of instant coffee
  
  
  
  

Illy - 100% Arabaica Beans

• Grown in Brazil
• DNV's "Responsible Supply Chain Process" Certificate
• The product was manufactured in Trieste, Italy
• Imported to Australia by Caffe Espresso
• Purchased at our local Bakery