Home Lands is a recipient of an Australian Research Council (ARC) grant. apc.au will be involved in a component of the research being one of the partners of the application to the ARC. We are very proud to be involved in this project and to have been part of a successful ARC process.
What is Home Lands?
Home Lands is an internet television project made with entry level technical resources that connects refugee young people living in separated communities. Home Lands is underpinned by the premise that refugee youth resettlement is more successful if identification, communication and engagement is maintained with home communities.
Many young refugees struggle to develop positive cultural identities. The Home Lands project will explore the role that information and communication technologies (ICTs) can play in connecting young refugees to their diasporic communities and demonstrate how this can assist them in developing positive social and cultural identities.
How will it work?
Separated production teams collaborate towards the creation of regular internet television programs that are then broadcast to communities at either end of this production spectrum and to other community members around the world. Preliminary stages of the project will see the use of Engage Media’s video distribution software and Creative Commons licensing, which may well form the basis of a dedicated media delivery platform in the future.
What has Home Lands done?
Over 2008, the Home Lands project has been in a research and development phase, through funding from the City of Melbourne’s Community Cultural Development Program and VicHealth (Victoria’s peak health promotion body). The Home Lands project has recently been funded over three years by the Australian Research Council and will continue to receive funding from the City of Melbourne throughout this time. Substantial research on the impact of ICTs on refugee/transnational identities will be undertaken by Dr Sandy Gifford at the Refugee Health Research Centre, La Trobe University, as part of the project.
A Home Lands future and partnerships
So far, work has been undertaken with Karen (Burmese) and Sudanese young people in Melbourne and Karen young people on the Thai-Burma border. We are seeking additional funding to support the on-going activities and are looking for international partnerships to support the international aspects of the project’s development over the next three years – 2009-2011 – in Thailand, Southern Sudan, Egypt and other Diaspora locations which could include Europe/USA/UK. Future phases of the project will see the introduction of other communities including Iraqi and Somali.
It is the intention of the Home Lands project that it becomes a sustainable resource to provide for on-going connection between separated communities around the world.
We all know how painful it is to let go of the things you love, the things you have nurtured and given life to. I have had to do just that with Toy Satellite. It has been time to move on…
Last year apc.au had decommissioned c2o, it’s hosting servers and along with moving to an entire virtual operation, it has sought to either continue to support Toy Satellite initiatives, or that of its own. After much soul searching, we chose the latter.
toysatellite.org is now an archive of its contribution to Australian New Media – a decade of innovation and experimentation from its founding in 1995 to its subsequent closure in 2005. Read more about this on my website.
The Graz commons with farms either side
It was a brisk, crisp walk to the Schloss Berg in Graz where the last in a series of public discussions on the commons was being held. The venue, Dom in Berg, a theatre carved out of a mountain (the Schloss Berg itself), actually in the mountain, provided an inspired setting for what turned out to be a pivotal, necessary and invaluable exchange of ideas and debate.
The focus of these discussions were towards Reclaiming the Commons – struggles, strategies, visions. David Bollier wrote about the first session, which I had regrettably missed, but captured the tone of it through David’s article. The panel was comprised of farmer and winner of the Right Livelihood Award 2007 Percy Schmeiser (CA); leader of Creative Commons Brazil, author and professor of law, Ronaldo Lemo (BR); author and Commons expert, David Bollier (US); founder of the Free Knowledge Network, Petra Buhr (DE); Commons activist and blogger Silke Helfrich (DE); political scientist and economist Massimo De Angelis (UK); and, Stefan Meretz (DE), who studies the political economy of the free software movement.
The following is based on notes I had taken during the discussions and as such, are not indicative of the depth and extent of the forum that took place. At the outset of the discussion, the moderator Silke Helfrich and David Bollier, keynote presenter, it set out two primary objectives, 1) Reclaiming the commons, 2) Building the commons.
Read more…
Many of you may have seen reports that the Australian government wants to establish an Internet filter system to protect Australians from harmful sites. Akin to the Great Firewall of China, this system introduces moral and legal issues as well as slowing down the Internet within Australia, breaking existing systems and simply not working as intended. It will also bring Australia down to the level of China, Iran, Cuba and other regimes that fear the openness and freedoms of information the Internet can bring.
The Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Stephen Conroy, is pushing hard to establish this latest step in protecting us from terrorists and the dangers of the Internet. Many comments are being aired related to protecting the children and that anyone who is against such a filter is supporting child pornography. In a chilling indication of the misuse a filtering system could lead to, Senator Conroy’s department has even tried to suppress technical reports critical of the plan.
This proposed system is flawed on three major levels:
- Technical: It slows down the feed, it breaks some applications and it is possible to bypass it
- Legal: If the ISPs are filtering content without laws to support them, they are open to wrongful disconnection and/or wrongful blocking cases
- Ethical: By what standard is content being filtered? Differing religious beliefs and political leanings frequently result in varying moral codes – that which is offensive to me may be perfectly acceptable for you
apc.au believes that this proposed system is an invalid solution to the problem areas of the Internet. Australia should be enhancing existing methods of tracking down illegal content and online criminals rather than trying to find ways to block them. Australia should also be implementing improved education programmes to teach people how to safely make the best use of the freedoms and information the Internet provides rather than attempting to further protect us from ourselves.
We recommend that anyone concerned about the implications of an Australian Internet filtering system should immediately take action about it. In addition to following the issue on the Electronic Frontiers Australia site, an excellent site about the filter is No Clean Feed where they have a great summary of the steps you can take to voice your concerns. Actions range from an online petition to writing a letter to your representatives and calling Senator Conroy. There is also the Australian Web Industry Association’s site called Keep Your Filter Off Our Internet. For further reference to what’s happening in our government, the Open Australia site is a wonderful source of information about your representatives and how to contact them.
If you are concerned about any erosion of the freedoms that the Internet can provide, act now. Don’t just sit around complaining about it or getting upset, tell your representatives what you think.
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