Journal articles on the topic 'Nursing home administrators Australia Attitudes'

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the attitudes of nursing home administrators and key managerial staff toward health information technology (health IT). Design/methodology/approach – This research is exploratory in nature, and applies qualitative case-study methodology to further understand health IT adoption by nursing homes through multiple in-depth semi-structured interviews of management, and direct observations of employee behavior at each participating facility. A modified Technology Acceptance Model is used to examine the attitudes and perceptions of administrators. Findings – This study finds that there are differences in the level of health IT adoption by nursing homes. While some administrators are aware of health IT and are implementing or updating their IT systems in a gradual but haphazard manner, others exhibited a lack of interest in implementing change. Overall, there is a lack of systematic planning and decision-making toward health IT adoption. Adoption is not evidence-based, instead driven primarily by real and perceived regulatory requirements combined with a lack of information about, or consideration of, the real costs and benefits of implementing health IT. Research limitations/implications – Including six in-depth case studies, the sample for this study is small for generalizing the findings. Yet, it contributes to the literature on the slow process of health IT adoption by nursing homes. Moreover, the findings provide guidelines for future research. Practical implications – This study demonstrates that nursing home administrators must systematically plan the adoption of health IT, and such decision making should be evidenced-based and participatory so that employees can voice their opinions that could prevent future resistance. Originality/value – This study is original and advances knowledge on the reasons for the slow adoption of health IT in nursing homes. It finds that lack of adequate information regarding the utility and benefits of health IT in management adoption decisions can result in haphazard implementation or no adoption at all. This finding has significant value for policy makers’ practitioners for improving accessibility of information regarding the use of health IT in nursing homes that could address the health IT adoption challenge in this industry.

Objective: The world-wide demand for skilled Registered Nurses is high, and understanding the reasons why Chinese students leave home to study nursing in Australia is important for institutions, policy makers, and nursing administrators in both China and Australia. This paper explores the factors shaping the decision of six Chinese students to study nursing in Australia and their preference to eventually live and work either in China or Australia.Methods: A three-dimensional space narrative structure approach was used for this study. In-depth interviews and focus group discussions were conducted with six Chinese nursing students whom were studying nursing at universities in Western Australia.Results: Findings revealed that the most important factor that influenced Chinese students’ decision to study nursing in Australia was the possibility for permanent residency.Conclusions: Insights gained from the study are important for a myriad of factors including international nursing relocation, developments in networking and healthcare, and capitalising in education from a global perspective.

Abstract Hospice has been associated with improved outcomes for terminally-ill patients and families, including in pain management, care satisfaction, and rates of hospitalizations. In 2016, 1/3 of Medicare hospice beneficiaries died in nursing homes (NH). The responsibilities for meeting the needs of the NH resident receiving hospice are shared by the NH staff and hospice team, making good communication and coordination of services between providers critical to the successful delivery of services. This exploratory study surveyed NH direct care and administrative staff about their perceptions of hospice, and barriers to collaboration. A total of 66 NH staff completed the online survey. The sample was 62.1% direct care staff (e.g., social work, nursing) and 37.8% administrators, predominately female (75%), non-Hispanic-white (43.9%), and employed full-time (87.8%). Over half of the NHs were non-profit organizations (56.1%). Respondents had on average 33.8 hours of hospice education and held positive hospice attitudes, with 76% strongly agreeing that hospice should be an option regardless of setting, and 87.8% believing they could collaborate with hospice toward the goal of a “good death.” Although participants cited barriers to hospice related to COVID-19, this was not associated with overall hospice attitudes. Respondents cited resistance from family as the primary barrier to hospice, indicating lack of knowledge and a need for family education. They also cited concerns surrounding duplication of roles. Family members in previous studies have identified care allocation as a challenge, based on expectations that hospice would bring additional contact/services instead of replacing NH services. Implications will be discussed.

The purpose of this study was to identify structural, market, and administrator factors of nursing homes that are related to the implementation of person-centered care. Administrators of Medicare/Medicaid-certified nursing homes in the Deep South were invited to complete a standardized survey about their facility and their perceptions and attitudes regarding person-centered care practices (PCCPs). Nursing home structural and market factors were obtained from public websites, and these data were matched with administrator data. Consistent with the resource-based theory of competitive advantage, nursing homes with greater resources and more competition were more likely to implement PCCPs. Implementation of person-centered care was also higher in nursing homes with administrators who perceived culture change implementation to be feasible in their facilities. Given that there is a link between resource availability and adoption of person-centered care, future research should investigate the cost of such innovations.

Background: Older people in institutional care should be allowed to live a meaningful life in a home-like environment consistent with their own free will. Research on actualisation of older people’s own free will in nursing home context is scarce. Objectives: The purpose of this study was to describe older people’s experiences of free will, its actualisation, promoters and barriers in nursing homes to improve the ethical quality of care. Research design: Fifteen cognitively intact older people over 65 years in four nursing homes in Southern Finland were interviewed. Giorgi’s phenomenological method expanded by Perttula was used to analyse the data. Ethical considerations: Chief administrators of each nursing home gave permission to conduct the study. Informants’ written informed consent was gained. Findings: Older people described free will as action consistent with their own mind, opportunity to determine own personal matters and holding on to their rights. Own free will was actualised in having control of bedtime, dressing, privacy and social life with relatives. Own free will was not actualised in receiving help when needed, having an impact on meals, hygiene, free movement, meaningful action and social life. Promoters included older people’s attitudes, behaviour, health, physical functioning as well as nurses’ ethical conduct. Barriers were nurses’ unethical attitudes, institution rules, distracting behaviour of other residents, older people’s attitudes, physical frailty and dependency. Discussion: Promoting factors of the actualisation of own free will need to be encouraged. Barriers can be influenced by educating nursing staff in client-orientated approach and influencing attitudes of both nurses and older people. Conclusion: Results may benefit ethical education and promote the ethical quality of older people’s care practice and management.

AbstractA self-administered mailed questionnaire was sent to a stratified random sample of medical administrators in Ontario homes for the aged (HFAs) and nursing homes (NHs) in 1991 in order to explore the types and extent of medical-administrative activities undertaken by these physicians, and their perceptions of skills, attitudes and knowledge that were important in carrying out their roles. Three key findings emerged from the survey. First, considerable variation exists in the extent of medical administrative activities undertaken within each of the two facility types and, in some cases, across the two facility types. Second, there were few activities which ≥75 per cent of medical administrators reported undertaking on all occasions and many activities which ≥25 per cent of physicians reported not undertaking on any occasion. Third, in general, medical administrators did not express values congruent with adoption of a broader management role in facility administration, financing, and planning activities. Research and policy implications for the evolving role of medical administrators in NHs and HFAs are discussed.

Objective Resident-to-resident aggression (RRA) in nursing homes is a matter of serious and profound concern, yet action to eliminate or mitigate RRA is hampered by a paucity of research. The aim of this study was to explore key stakeholders’ knowledge and perceptions of RRA in Australian nursing homes. Methods A qualitative cross-sectional study design was used, and semistructured telephone interviews were conducted. Participants were purposively and conveniently sampled with replacement from a range of aged care, healthcare and legal professional bodies, as well as advocacy organisations. The interview contained 12 closed-ended questions and six open-ended questions about participants’ knowledge, experiences, perceptions and attitudes to RRA. Participant characteristics and responses to closed-ended questions were aggregated and proportions calculated, and thematic analysis was conducted by two independent researchers using a directed content approach. Results Fifteen participants (11 females; 73.3%) in senior management positions were interviewed. All were familiar with the concept of RRA and just over half (n=8; 53.3%) had witnessed an incident. Major themes included the nature and causes of RRA and attitudes and responses to RRA. Potential causes of RRA included maladaptation to nursing home life, transfer of pre-existing issues into the nursing home environment, physical environment and staffing-related issues. RRA was commonly viewed by participants as dangerous and unpredictable or, conversely, as expected behaviour in a nursing home setting. A person-centred care approach was considered most effective for managing and responding to RRA. Conclusion The research demonstrates that understanding perceptions of RRA among key stakeholders is critical to identifying the nature and scope of the problem and to developing and implementing appropriate prevention strategies. What is known about the topic? RRA is common in nursing homes, with potentially fatal consequences for residents involved, and has serious implications for nursing home staff, managers, providers, and regulators. Despite this, the prevalence, impact, and prevention of RRA remains under-recognised and under-researched in Australia. What does this paper add? This is the first Australian study to produce qualitative findings on the knowledge and perceptions of RRA in nursing homes among key stakeholders. This paper reports on the knowledge and perceptions of individuals in senior management and policy roles in aged care and related fields in relation to four themes: nature; causes; attitudes; and responses to RRA. Our findings highlight the complex and multifactorial nature of RRA. What are the implications for practitioners? A movement towards person-centred care that promotes understanding of individual care needs is favoured as an approach to reducing RRA. Increased reporting of both minor and major incidents of RRA will help to identify patterns and inform appropriate responses. However, a cultural shift is first required to recognise RRA as a manageable and preventable health care and adult safeguarding issue.

Abstract Background Having positive intimate, sexual and relational experiences is an important issue for older adults in care settings, yet little is known on the extent to which nursing staff and care workers have received education or training in addressing and meeting these needs among older residents. This scoping review aimed to identify and examine what education and training resources exist to assist nursing staff and care workers to meet their residents’ needs in this area. Methods and analysis Using the Arksey and O’Malley framework, we systematically searched papers and grey literature to identify education interventions and resources that aimed to facilitate care home staff to meet their residents’ sexuality, intimacy and relational needs. Results Eleven studies (one dissertation) and three education resources met the inclusion criteria; most were conducted in the USA and Australia. Across the studies and resources identified, the education content was mixed and the methodology, presentation, design and duration varied widely. The focus of the education interventions and resources was to increase knowledge and improve and/or change attitudes towards the: (i) sexual expression of older people living in residential aged care, (ii) sexuality and ageing and (iii) expression of sexuality in people with dementia. Conclusion Few education interventions and training resources were identified. The findings suggest that education interventions can improve knowledge and/or change care staff attitudes, in the short-term, towards older people’s sexuality, intimacy and relational needs in care home settings, which can lead to facilitating staff to enhance person-centred care in this area of need.

Abstract Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) elders have shown considerable strength while aging in a society predicated on heteronormative and binary expectations for gender and sexuality. The life trajectories of LGBTQ older adults are shaped by discrimination and stigmatization, and the embodied resistance that comes with demanding their full participation and recognition in society. This symposium highlights the innovative scholarship of emerging scholars in the field of LGBTQ aging who are engaging in diverse substantive and methodological investigations. The first study takes a comparative cohort approach to explore differences in stressors and depressive symptomatology between younger and older sexual minorities, highlighting the significance of cohort effects among LGBTQ people. The second paper uses data from the Health and Retirement Study to examine anticipated nursing home placement needs between LGB and heterosexual adults with suggestions to better prepare aging service networks. The third describes the influence of state legislature mandating LGBTQ-sensitivity training by examining differences in provider baseline knowledge and attitudes toward LGBTQ older adults in two states, one mandating LGBTQ-sensitivity training and one not. The final paper highlights findings from a multi-methods study that explores how long-term care workers, managers, and administrators respond when staff, visitors, or residents challenge LGBTQ rights for religious and moral reasons. Although substantively and methodologically varied, these studies all demonstrate the importance of applied scholarship that builds knowledge in support of policies and practices that promote equity among LGBTQ individuals across the life course. Rainbow Research Group Interest Group Sponsored Symposium.

Abstract Background In situations of home care, patients and their family members must address problems and emergencies themselves. For this reason, home-visiting nurses (HVNs) must practice risk management to ensure that patients can continue receiving care in the comfort of their homes. The purpose of this study was to examine HVNs’ attitudes toward risk management. Methods This study adopted a qualitative description approach. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to collect information on HVNs’ risk management behavior and their attitudes toward it. Participants comprised 11 HVNs working at home-visiting nursing agencies in a prefecture of Japan. Transcribed interviews were analyzed using content analysis. Results Nurses’ attitudes toward risk management comprised the following themes: (i) predicting and avoiding risks, (ii) ensuring medical safety in home settings, (iii) coping with incidents, and (iv) playing the role of administrators in medical safety, which was answered only by administrators. Conclusions When practicing risk management, home-visiting nurses should first assess the level of understanding of the patient and family, followed by developing safety measures tailored to their everyday needs. These results further suggest that administrators should take actions to foster a working environment conducive to risk management. These actions include coordinating duties to mitigate risk and improve the process of reporting risks. This study provides a baseline for future researchers to assist patients and families requiring medical care services of this nature.

BackgroundPediatric nurses care for some of the most vulnerable patients in our healthcare system and are vulnerable to the impact of the stress of their work on their well-being. Burnout is a potential response to chronic interpersonal stressors and a negative work outcome linked to personal and professional consequences. A thorough understanding of the experience and factors associated with burnout in this population is an important part of developing interventions to mitigate or prevent this workplace outcome. Therefore, our study objectives were to: (1) explain and expand our understanding of pediatric critical care nurses experience of burnout in relation to their work environment and work engagement; (2) provide recommendations for nursing administrators to improve nurses’ work environment, work attitudes, and work outcomes.MethodsA convenience sample of pediatric critical care nurses from a large pediatric quaternary care hospital in Ontario, Canada were invited to participate in this second phase of a sequential explanatory mixed-methods study. Semi-structured interviews were conducted, with and main themes and subthemes distilled through the method of interpretive description.ResultsA total of 18 PICU/CCCU/NICU nurses participated. Derived themes included the experience and identification of burnout, including its prevalence and elusiveness. Their experiences of quality of work-life included themes such as compensation, emotional support at work, respect, their professional identity, and spill over into home life. They discussed components of work engagement, including the work itself, investment into their growth and development, and the meaning of their work. The self-care subthemes included the importance of preparation and recovery, and the use of physical and mental separation as a preservation strategy. The participants’ recommendations for strategies to mitigate burnout were also summarized.ConclusionBurnout is a complex and regularly occurring experience for pediatric critical care nurses. Although the experience may be difficult to self-identify, the impacts on the individuals are profound. Further research and organizational support are needed to test practical and evidence-based interventions to improve the well-being of this population.

Prelude: 2020 in Words Each year the Australian National Dictionary Centre, based at the Australian National University (ANU), selects “a word or expression that has gained prominence in the Australian social landscape”. In 2020, “iso” took out first place, with “bubble” following close behind. On the Centre’s website, Senior Researcher Mark Gywnn explains that “iso” was selected not only for its flexibility, merrily combining with other words to create new compound words (for instance “being in iso”, doing “iso baking” and putting on “iso weight”), but also because it “stood out as a characteristically Aussie abbreviation” (Australian National Dictionary Centre). Alongside the flexibility of the word “iso” and its affinity with the Australian English tradition of producing and embracing diminutives, iso’s appeal might well be that it does not carry the associations that the word “bubble” has acquired in the time of COVID. While COVID-19 has put many of us in various forms of “iso”, the media imagery—and indeed experiences—of many older people living in residential aged care during COVID has shifted some of the associations of the word “bubble”, heightening its associations with fragility and adding vulnerability and helplessness into the mix. 2020 was not the first time “bubble” has appeared in the Australian word of the year list. In 2018 “Canberra bubble” took out the first spot. What interests us about bubble’s runner-up position behind “iso” in 2020’s word of the year is what this might also reveal about the way ideas of independence vs dependence, and youthfulness vs aged underlie and inflect new usages of these words. In the era of COVID-19, the buoyancy of “iso” is tied to its association with a particular kind of Aussie-youth-speak, while the sense of heaviness and negative resonances that now accompany the word bubble are tied to its associations with the experiences of those in aged care. In 2020 “bubble”—a word that has primarily been associated with children and the child-like (bubble baths, bubble tea)—took on new associations and overtones. As the pandemic unfolded, “bubble” also became intertwined with media depictions of and popular discourses around those in later life, many of whom experienced “iso” much more brutally than the easy-Aussie-speak of “iso” would convey. There is much less play—and a lot less mingling—in the Australian National Dictionary Centre description of new uses of the word “bubble”: “a district, region, or a group of people viewed as a closed system, isolating from other districts, regions, or groups as a public health measure to limit the spread of Covid-19”. There have been various kinds of “closed system[s]”, isolated groups and regions constructed in the management of the pandemic, but there is one group—and one kind of location—that has been “bubbled” in quite specific ways. While the sectioning off and isolating of older age people in the name of protecting their health has often been ineffectively—and in some places, disastrously—managed in terms of disease prevention, it has been very effective in reducing the rights and voices of those it acts in the name of. Speaking from Ireland but commenting on the situation in the UK and parts of Europe, Anne Fuchs and colleagues write that “the discursive homogenization and ‘frailing’ of the over 65s meant that people in this category were an object of public discourse rather than participants in the debate” (2). In many instances the “bubbling” of older people, particularly those in aged care residences, has served to both isolate and render largely voiceless the residents of these care homes. Although the global impact of COVID-19 on the aged has been significant, including across many affluent societies, it has been particularly disastrous in Australia. At the time of writing (1 January 2021), of the 909 COVID-related deaths in Australia to date, 693 have been of people aged 80 or over: in other words, more than 75% of COVID-related deaths in Australia have been of people over 80. According to the federal government’s records of COVID-19 deaths by age group and sex, 685 of these deaths have been of aged care residents. It is not surprising therefore that many speak of the heavy impact of COVID-19 on older people as a form of genocide. Public discourse and government policies and priorities around COVID-19 have thrown into relief and exacerbated some of the deeply troubling ways that older people, particularly those living in aged care residences, are not recognised or treated as “equal partners in our future” (Royal Commission into Aged Care 1). Both the management of and public discourse around COVID-19 have highlighted and escalated the forms of ageism, especially ageism around later life, that have become embedded in Australian culture. In late 2019 the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety released its Interim Report, titled simply Neglect. In the Foreword, the commissioners write: the Australian community generally accepts that older people have earned the chance to enjoy their later years, after many decades of contribution and hard work. Yet the language of public discourse is not respectful towards older people. Rather, it is about burden, encumbrance, obligation and whether taxpayers can afford to pay for the dependence of older people. (Royal Commission into Aged Care 1) Written and released before the COVID-19 pandemic, the Interim Report highlighted the “fundamental fact that our aged care system essentially depersonalises older people” (Royal Commission into Aged Care 6) and identified many ways “the aged care system fails to meet the needs of our older, often very vulnerable, citizens” (Royal Commission into Aged Care 1). In 2020 we saw some of the effects of these failures in the often disastrous mismanagement of disease transmission prevention in many aged care residences in Australia. Equally troubling, the resulting deaths have at times been accompanied by a general acceptance of the loss of so many in later life to COVID-19. The fact that these deaths are often regarded as somehow more inevitable, or as less significant than the deaths of others, is an indication of how deeply “Australia has drifted into an ageist mindset that undervalues older people and limits their possibilities” (Royal Commission into Aged Care 1). It assumes that one’s later-life years are of less significance and value (to oneself, to the community) than one’s younger years. At various times in the pandemic, sizable parts of the global population have been variously asked, advised, or required by their governments to remain within their household or residential “bubble”. These COVID-related “bubbles” are more buoyant for some. Jackie Gulland has written a feminist analysis of the ways that the UK COVID-19 lockdown rules are premised on “neo-liberal assumptions about the family as autonomous and sufficient for the provision of reproductive labour” (330). In many places the requirement to stay within one’s “household bubble” both assumes that the home is safe for all, and that most care and dependency requirements are provided and received within a household. As Gulland’s essay demonstrates, the idea of the household bubble constructs an image or idea of who and what constitutes a household, and which relationships “count”. Drawing on critiques of neo-liberal and able-ist ideas about autonomy by feminist and disability scholars, Gulland “shows how the failure of policymakers to take account of interdependency has made lockdown more difficult for carers and those in receipt of care” (330). In this essay we look at some of the ways that the required and/or imagined COVID-19 bubbles for people in later life are thought of differently to the COVID-19 bubbles that younger, and mixed age, households are imagined as forming. This is particularly the case, we argue, for those in aged care residences. Younger and mixed age COVID bubbles often include extended or linked households (as we will discuss below in relation to the idea of the compassionate bubble) and function as a bubble that can link and enclose. In contrast, COVID bubbles in and for aged care and those in later life, work to isolate and separate. They function as bubbles that close off and shut out, as if placing the older person and older people behind glass (in some cases, quite literally). Likewise, while the COVID-19 bubbles for the “general” population (a category from which those in later life are often excluded) are regarded as temporary structures that will in time be dissolved to re-allow social movement and intermingling, the later life and aged care COVID-19 bubble is imagined very differently. This is because it is overlaid upon a pre-existing conception of later life—and in particular the fourth age—as itself a kind of bubbled existence, a fragile state held somewhat separate and apart from the general population and moving inexorably toward death—a bubble that pops. Bubbling the Fourth Age The idea that later life can be divided into different stages and ages has a long history, although the shape, meaning and valuing of different ages in later life is historically specific. Back in the late 1980s the Cambridge historian Peter Laslett proposed that rather than falling into three main stages—childhood, adulthood and old age—there are in fact four stages and that “later life can be divided into a ‘third age’ and a ‘fourth age’” (Gilleard and Higgs, “The Fourth Age” 368). Laslett’s distinction between a third age (active and characterised by personal fulfillment) and a fourth age (for Laslett an age of infirmity) has become increasingly significant in both age studies and in the provision and imagining of aged care. While the third age is increasingly depicted as something that, when managed “successfully”, can expand and fill with rich experiences and rewards (assuming one has the economic and social privilege and mobility to embrace these rich offerings—see Katz and McHugh cited in Zeilig, “Critical Use of Narrative”), the fourth age, on the other hand, is associated with frailty, increased dependence, vulnerability, precarity (see Lloyd; Gilleard and Higgs; and Morganroth Gullette on the fourth age). Of course, experiences of vulnerability, dependency and precarity run throughout the life course and cannot be reduced to chronological age. However, the distinction between a third and fourth age tends to assume that once one “leaves” the third age, it is a one-way path to “the three ‘Ds’: decrepitude, dependence, and death” (Laslett). The fourth age becomes associated with those aspects of ageing that are culturally rejected and pushed aside—in particular physical dependence which, as in much able-ist thinking, is rendered abject. As Morganroth Gullette has argued, a “savage contradiction” underlies and fuels this distinction, as “fantasies of the longevity bonanza proliferate alongside growing terrors of living too long” and becoming a “‘burden’” (21). In other words, those aspects of ageing—indeed those aspects of being human—that are seen as undesirable and/or abject are associated with the fourth age and imagined as somehow exclusive to it: they are placed elsewhere, contained in a fourth age “bubble”. The understanding of the fourth age as a kind of bubble is evident in and enabled by various kinds of cultural representations and institutional discourses around later life, including the kind of language used (particularly language connoting precarity and fragility and liminality) and recurrent media imagery in which people in their “fourth age” are depicted as mentally and physically out of reach (for instance isolated behind glass). Legislation around the movements of residents, visitors, and staff in aged care residence does not simply create “protective” bubbles around aged care residences but also constructs and imagines these residences and their inhabitants as “bubbled”, removed, and voiceless. Vulnerability, ephemerality, precarity and decline have become increasingly significant in representations of and discourses around ageing. Much of the media coverage of those in later life, particularly those living in aged care residences, has further fuelled what Sally Chivers has called the “nursing home specter” and delivered, in heightened and often spectacularised form, the “life-course narrative that dominant culture provides—an unliveable mind and unrecognizable body, mountainous expense” (Morganroth Gullette, 24). The discourse on ageing is characterised by the use of metaphor and metonymy, of which “the bubble” or “bubbling” is only one notable example. The culture of fear that surrounds the fourth age stems from the presumption that ageing inevitably leads to decay and decline in quality of life, and that the experience of ageing is characterised by various forms of physical and cognitive deterioration, such as dementia. Cultural gerontologist Hannah Zeilig has drawn attention to the pervasive use of metaphors—in both medical journals and mass media reports—to describe the experience of living with dementia. These metaphors attempt to capture and simplify the complexities of being, speaking, and knowing experienced by people with dementia. They are frequently used to communicate these experiences to people who do not live with dementia. The cultural metaphors of dementia are potent examples of ageism. They are not neutral in their connotations or implicit value judgements. These metaphors reveal wider social anxieties around ageing, despite the fact that people in their 40s and 50s can have dementia (Dementia Australia). As Zeilig has pointed out, many of these metaphors have presented a negative framing of dementia, describing the rising numbers of dementia diagnoses in apocalyptic, biblical terms such as “plague”, “crisis”, and “epidemic” (“Cultural Metaphor” 260). While this hyperbole may be grounded in statistics and the realities of an ageing population, it has nevertheless been alarming. This rhetoric has often been a necessary tactic for dementia organisations as part of their efforts to secure media coverage, raise public awareness of dementia, and lobby for increased government and private investment in funding research and support services. Despite these noble intentions, this rhetoric can risk excluding or marginalising the voices of people living with dementia. Some of the metaphors that have been used to describe dementia are particularly dehumanising and stigmatising, such as the perception of Alzheimer’s disease as a form of “living death”. This conception of Alzheimer’s, which Susan M. Behuniak has observed in both scholarly and popular discourse, elicits strong negative emotional responses of revulsion and fear. It constructs people with Alzheimer’s as abject zombie-like figures living a half-life or twilight existence. These trends in dementia discourse that Zeilig and Behuniak identified in the first half of the 2010s are also apparent in media imagery and discourse about older people in the COVID-19 pandemic. Much like the cultural narratives of dementia, these representations often reinforce the fourth age’s association with forms of vulnerability, decline and decay that are rendered abject. In contrast to this negative framing of both dementia and the fourth age, the trope of “living in a bubble” can also present a more ambivalent conception of both living with dementia and, by extension, the sociocultural experience of living in the fourth age during the time of COVID-19. “Bubbling” can serve a protective function for the person living with dementia by reducing sensory overload and cognitive confusion that may lead to anxiety and emotional distress. In dementia care, bubble wands and bubble wrap are two of the most commonly used tools in sensory therapy for reducing anxiety and agitation, and providing comfort (DailyCaring). These examples remind us of the materiality of the bubble, which functions as both cultural trope and material condition that affects people’s lives (to borrow from Helen Deutsch and Felicity Nussbaum, cited in Vivian Sobchack’s essay on metaphor and materiality). Within the diversity and range of caring practices encompassed by the trope of “bubbling”, there is clear potential for the bubble to be enabling, rather than disabling, if it is used to enhance quality of life and wellbeing for older people, rather than to separate, marginalise and isolate. Despite the multivalent possibilities of the bubble for enhancing quality of life for people with dementia, the bubble’s association with precarity has been heightened by its deployment to protect older people during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is a source of ambivalence around the COVID-19 bubble, a public health response that is acknowledged as having both protective and harmful effects. It involves “bubbling” older people, especially those living in residential care, by physically isolating them and limiting their contact with family and friends to conversations mediated by digital technology or a windowpane. By restricting physical and direct contact with the outside world in order to reduce and contain transmission of the virus, the COVID-19 bubble is intended to protect the physical health of older adults. But as Karra Harrington and Martin J. Sliwinski caution, this can also risk the cognitive health and mental wellbeing of older people by creating social isolation. These concerns about the negative health impacts of the COVID-19 bubble compound the existing popular understanding of late life as isolated and isolating, perpetuating the ageist assumptions that characterise the social imaginary around the fourth age. Creating Compassionate Bubbles The distress of separation caused by COVID-19 lockdowns and restrictions is felt by all generations, not just older people. Recognising the costs to our emotional and mental wellbeing of living in isolation to protect our bodies and our communities from viral invasion, Australian epidemiologist Mary-Louise McLaws has called for “a compassionate germ bubble”, modelled on New Zealand’s concept of an extended bubble that allows close contacts beyond one household. This alternative approach to “bubbling” is designed to strike a better balance between physical and mental health. Writing during Melbourne’s strict and prolonged lockdown following a second wave of cases in the winter of 2020, McLaws argued that “a compassionate germ bubble may foster resilience by reducing a sense of isolation for people living alone and friends, extended family and partners distressed by the separation”. There have been a number of creative and compassionate responses to the necessity of the COVID-19 bubble for protecting those most vulnerable to the virus. Aged care residences have developed innovative ways to safely maintain in-person visits and provide opportunities for face-to-face contact between residents and their families and friends. One example reported in the Australian media (Steger) is “The Window of Love” in Perth, which demonstrates the positive potential of the bubble—represented here as a pane of glass bordered by a painted frame—for facilitating social connection and supporting wellbeing despite restrictions on physical contact. The media reporting of these innovations tends to spectacularise the residents of these homes, reinforcing their fragility and vulnerability as they are framed behind plastic or glass. In December 2020, international media outlets The Guardian, RTE News, and Star Media posted a Reuters video story on their respective YouTube channels about a “hug bubble” created in an aged care home in Jeumont, France. This inflatable plastic tunnel allows physical touch between those living in the home and those outside it through hermetically sealed sleeves. Separating the resident from their visitors is a clear plastic sheet, which is disinfected by staff in between each visit. Recognising the importance of physical contact for wellbeing, nursing staff reported that the hug bubble has brought comfort to the residents, whose previous contact with family and friends since the outbreak of COVID-19 in March 2020 had been limited to video calls or talking through a window. Viewer comments reveal divergent responses to this media story across all three YouTube channels. Some viewers applaud the innovation while others disparage the hug bubble as “cruel” and “disgraceful”. Other comments register viewers’ ambivalence, recognising the good intentions behind the idea while despairing at the need for it. Several comments offer a snapshot of the cynical, often incoherent views about the pandemic commonly found on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, while also demonstrating the persistence of ageist attitudes that regard the elderly as a burden. These negative responses are striking in contrast with the positive framing of the original media report, which is presented as a “feel good” human interest story through brief interviews with family members and nursing home staff, reflecting on the residents’ experiences using the hug bubble. This positive framing is reinforced by the gentle music track accompanying the video posted on the RTE News channel. Beyond the institutional context of aged care residences, many families and communities have also engineered solutions to reduce the stress of separation. Craving physical contact after months of isolation, they have embraced the materiality and tactility inherent in the bubble trope. People have improvised using household objects, such as plastic sleeves attached to transparent shower curtains, to build “cuddle curtains”, and “hug machines” to enable safe—and playful—physical contact. These innovations and adaptations tap into the bubble’s playful qualities, while also “going viral” as families document their creativity, delight and joy through their own video stories shared on YouTube. As we move into the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic, with case numbers and the death toll continuing to climb globally, the concept of the COVID-19 bubble and its role in protecting the community will continue to be debated, refined and reconfigured in both public health responses and media discourse. Despite Australia’s relatively good fortune in terms of total number of COVID-related deaths compared to other Western nations such as the US and the UK, the disproportionately high number of deaths among Australians in aged care is a sobering reminder of the systemic failures in Australia’s aged care residences. As we move in and out of periods of social isolation, restrictions and lockdowns, it will become increasingly important to address the mental health impacts of “living in a bubble” and to consider creative, compassionate alternatives that challenge ageism and maintain quality of life for fourth age Australians. *** As COVID-19 and its management continue to reshape our world(s) and our relations to each other, its impacts continue to be unevenly felt, particularly for those in later life. For this reason, it becomes increasingly important to be alert to the ways in which “bubbling” the fourth age in response to COVID-19 risks reinforcing a homogenising view of older people as vulnerable and isolated, defenceless against viral invasion and voiceless in expressing agency and maintaining social connection. This essay responds to Hannah Zeilig’s earlier call to “radically rethink the ways in which age and ageing have been culturally configured” (“Critical Use of Narrative” 16). One of the purposes of this essay has been to critically assess some of the ways that the relatively new discourse of a fourth age—as somehow both qualitatively and quantifiably different to and separate from the third age—entails a homogenising view of older people. This view has enabled forms of ageism that have often been particularly brutal in their impact during the pandemic. In this essay we have argued that popular conceptions of and public health discourse and policy around the fourth age have often enabled—or, at the very least, supported—forms of ageism. This ageism has been further heightened through both the discourse and the imagery of the COVID-19 bubble. The fourth age, we argued, has often been understood as bubble-like: as a “stage” of life when one is somehow separated from the larger community and culture. The fourth age is configured as physically fragile and precarious, transient and temporary, ephemeral, and enclosed in—and as—its own world. Created in the name of protecting “our most vulnerable”, the bubble in the time of COVID-19 has heightened these pre-existing social anxieties around the fourth age. The challenge, as we move into the second year of the pandemic in Australia, is to find new ways of protecting the health and wellbeing of people in later life, while creating opportunities for connection, agency and play that are supported, rather than hindered, by the COVID-19 bubble. References Australian National Dictionary Centre. “2020 Word of the Year.” Canberra: School of Literature, Languages and Linguistics, ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences, Australian National University. 17 Nov. 2020. 12 Jan. 2021 <https://slll.cass.anu.edu.au/centres/andc/news/2020-word-year>. Behuniak, Susan M. “The Living Dead? The Construction of People with Alzheimer’s Disease as Zombies.” Ageing & Society 21 (2011): 70–92. Chivers, Sally. “‘Blind People Don’t Run’: Escaping the ‘Nursing Home Specter’ in Children of Nature and Cloudburst.” Journal of Aging Studies 34 (2015): 134–41. “COVID-19 Deaths by Age Group and Sex.” Australian Government Department of Health: Coronovirus (COVID-19) Current Situation and Case Numbers. 1 Jan. 2021 <https://www.health.gov.au/news/health-alerts/novel-coronavirus-2019-ncov-health-alert/coronavirus-covid-19-current-situation-and-case-numbers#cases-and-deaths-by-age-and-sex>. DailyCaring. “6 Alzheimer’s Sensory Activities Reduce Anxiety without Medication.” 12 Jan. 2021 <https://dailycaring.com/6-alzheimers-sensory-activities-reduce-anxiety-without-medication/>. Dementia Australia. “What Is Dementia?” 12 Jan. 2021 <https://www.dementia.org.au/about-dementia/what-is-dementia>. Fuchs, Anne, Desmond O'Neill, Mary Cosgrove, and Julia Langbein. “Report on COVID-19 – Reframing Ageing Webinar 12 June 2020.” Preprint. Aug. 2020. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.34508.44161. Gilleard, Chris, and Paul Higgs. “Aging without Agency: Theorizing the Fourth Age.” Aging and Mental Health 14.2 (2010): 121–28. Gilleard, Chris, and Paul Higgs. “Ageing Abjection and Embodiment in the Fourth Age.” Journal of Aging Studies 25.2 (2011): 135–42. Gilleard, Chris, and Paul Higgs. “The Fourth Age and the Concept of a ‘Social Imaginary’: A Theoretical Excursus.” Journal of Aging Studies 27 (2013): 368–76. Gulland, Jackie. “Households, Bubbles, and Hugging Grandparents: Caring and Lockdown Rules during COVID-19.” Feminist Legal Studies 28 (2020): 329–39. Harrington, Karra, and Martin J. Sliwinski. “The Loneliness of Social Isolation Can Affect Your Brain and Raise Dementia Risk in Older Adults.” The Conversation 4 Aug. 2020. 12 Jan. 2021 <https://theconversation.com/the-loneliness-of-social-isolation-can-affect-your-brain-and-raise-dementia-risk-in-older-adults-141752>. Laslett, Peter. A Fresh Map of Life: The Emergence of the Third Age. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1989. Lloyd, Liz. “The Fourth Age.” Routledge Handbook of Cultural Gerontology. Eds. Julia Twigg and Wendy Martin. London: Routledge, 2015. 20 Dec. 2020 <https://www.routledgehandbooks.com/doi/10.4324/9780203097090.ch33>. McLaws, Mary-Louise. “What Is the COVID ‘Bubble’ Concept, and Could It Work in Australia?” The Conversation 1 Sep. 2020. 12 Jan. 2021 <https://theconversation.com/what-is-the-covid-bubble-concept-and-could-it-work-in-australia-144938>. Morganroth Gullette, Margaret. “Aged by Culture.” Routledge Handbook of Cultural Gerontology. Eds. Julia Twigg and Wendy Martin. London: Routledge, 2015. 28 Dec. 2020 <https://www.routledgehandbooks.com/doi/10.4324/9780203097090.ch3>. Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety. Neglect. Interim Report Volume 1. Canberra: Commonwealth Government of Australia, 31 Oct. 2019. 12 Jan. 2021 <https://agedcare.royalcommission.gov.au/publications/interim-report>. Sobchack, Vivian. “A Leg to Stand On: Prosthetics, Metaphor, and Materiality.” In The Prosthetic Impulse: From a Posthuman Present to a Biocultural Future. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2006. 17–41. Steger, Sarah. “Coronavirus Crisis: Oryx Communities Aged Care Home Creates ‘Window of Love’ to Help Residents Stay Connected to Families.” The West Australian 5 Apr. 2020. 12 Jan. 2021 <https://thewest.com.au/news/coronavirus/coronavirus-crisis-oryx-communities-aged-care-home-creates-window-of-love-to-help-residents-stay-connected-to-families-ng-b881510245z>. Zeilig, Hannah. “The Critical Use of Narrative and Literature in Gerontology.” International Journal of Ageing and Later Life 6.2 (2011): 7-37. ———. “Dementia as a Cultural Metaphor.” The Gerontologist 54.2 (2013): 258–67. ———. “What Do We Mean When We Talk about Dementia? Exploring Cultural Representations of ‘Dementia’.” Working with Older People 19.1 (2015): 12–20.

Introduction Special occasion cookery has been a staple of the cookbook writing in the English speaking Western world for decades. This includes providing catering for personal milestones as well as religious and secular festivals. Yet, in an era when the culinary publishing sector is undergoing considerable expansion and market segmentation, narratives of foods marking of one of life’s central and inescapable rites—death—are extremely rare. This discussion investigates examples of food writing related to death and funeral rites in contemporary cookbooks. Funeral feasts held in honour of the dead date back beyond recorded history (Luby and Gruber), and religious, ceremonial and community group meals as a component of funeral rites are now ubiquitous around the world. In earlier times, the dead were believed to derive both pleasure and advantage from these offerings (LeClercq), and contemporary practice still reflects this to some extent, with foods favoured by the deceased sometimes included in such meals (see, for instance, Varidel). In the past, offering some sustenance as a component of a funeral was often necessary, as mourners might have travelled considerable distances to attend the ceremony, and eateries outside the home were not as commonplace or convenient to access as they are today. The abundance and/or lavishness of the foods provided may also have reflected the high esteem in which the dead was held, and offered as a mark of community respect (Smith and Bird). Following longstanding tradition, it is still common for Western funeral attendees to gather after the formal parts of the event—the funeral service and burial or cremation —in a more informal atmosphere to share memories of the deceased and refreshments (Simplicity Funerals 31). Thursby notes that these events, which are ostensibly about the dead, often develop into a celebration of the ties between living family members and friends, “times of reunions and renewed relationships” (94). Sharing food is central to this celebration as “foods affirm identity, strengthen kinship bonds, provide comfortable and familiar emotional support during periods of stress” (79), while familiar dishes evoke both memories and promising signals of the continued celebration of life” (94). While in the southern states and some other parts of the USA, it is customary to gather at the church premises after the funeral for a meal made up of items contributed by members of the congregation, and with leftovers sent home with the bereaved family (Siegfried), it is more common in Australasia and the UK to gather either in the home of the principal mourners, someone else’s home or a local hotel, club or restaurant (Jalland). Church halls are a less common option in Australasia, and an increasing trend is the utilisation of facilities attached to the funeral home and supplied as a component of a funeral package (Australian Heritage Funerals). The provision of this catering largely depends on the venue chosen, with the cookery either done by family and/or friends, the hotel, club, restaurant or professional catering companies, although this does not usually affect the style of the food, which in Australia and New Zealand is often based on a morning or afternoon tea style meal (Jalland). Despite widespread culinary innovation in other contexts, funeral catering bears little evidence of experimentation. Ash likens this to as being “fed by grandmothers”, and describes “scones, pastries, sandwiches, biscuits, lamingtons—food from a fifties afternoon party with the taste of Country Women’s Association about it”, noting that funerals “require humble food. A sandwich is not an affront to the dead” (online). Numerous other memoirists note this reliance on familiar foods. In “S is for Sad” in her An Alphabet for Gourmets (1949), food writer M.F.K. Fisher writes of mourners’s deep need for sustenance at this time as a “mysterious appetite that often surges in us when our hearts seem breaking and our lives too bleakly empty” (135). In line with Probyn’s argument that food foregrounds the viscerality of life (7), Fisher notes that “most bereaved souls crave nourishment more tangible than prayers: they want a steak. […] It is as if our bodies, wiser than we who wear them, call out for encouragement and strength and […] compel us […] to eat” (135, 136). Yet, while funerals are a recurring theme in food memoirs (see, for example, West, Consuming), only a small number of Western cookbooks address this form of special occasion food provision. Feast by Nigella Lawson Nigella Lawson’s Feast: Food that Celebrates Life (2004) is one of the very few popular contemporary cookbooks in English that includes an entire named section on cookery for funerals. Following twenty-one chapters that range from the expected (Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, and wedding) to more original (children’s and midnight) feasts, Lawson frames her discussion with an anthropological understanding of the meaning of special occasion eating. She notes that we use food “to mark occasions that are important to us in life” (vii) and how eating together “is the vital way we celebrate anything that matters […] how we mark the connections between us, how we celebrate life” (vii). Such meals embody both personal and group identities because both how and what is eaten “lies at the heart of who we are-as individuals, families, communities” (vii). This is consistent with her overall aims as a food writer—to explore foods’ meanings—as she states in the book’s introduction “the recipes matter […] but it is what the food says that really counts” (vii). She reiterates this near the end of the book, adding, almost as an afterthought, “and, of course, what it tastes like” (318). Lawson’s food writing also reveals considerable detail about herself. In common with many other celebrity chefs and food writers, Lawson continuously draws on, elaborates upon, and ultimately constructs her own life as a major theme of her works (Brien, Rutherford, and Williamson). In doing so, she, like these other chefs and food writers, draws upon revelations of her private life to lend authenticity to her cooking, to the point where her cookbooks could be described as “memoir-illustrated-with-recipes” (Brien and Williamson). The privileging of autobiographical information in Lawson’s work extends beyond the use of her own home and children in her television programs and books, to the revelation of personal details about her life, with the result that these have become well known. Her readers thus know that her mother, sister and first and much-loved husband all died of cancer in a relatively brief space of time, and how these tragedies affected her life. Her first book, How to Eat: The Pleasures and Principles of Good Food (1998), opened with the following dedication: “In memory of my mother, Vanessa (1936–1985) and my sister Thomasina (1961–1993)” (dedication page). Her husband, BBC broadcaster and The Times (London) journalist John Diamond, who died of throat cancer in 2001, furthered this public knowledge, writing about both his illness and at length about Lawson in his column and his book C: Because Cowards Get Cancer Too (1999). In Feast, Lawson discusses her personal tragedies in the introduction of the ‘Funeral Foods’ chapter, writing about a friend's kind act of leaving bags of shopping from the supermarket for her when she was grieving (451). Her first recipe in this section, for a potato topped fish pie, is highly personalised in that it is described as “what I made on the evening following my mother’s funeral” (451). Following this, she again uses her own personal experience when she notes that “I don’t think anyone wants to cook in the immediate shock of bereavement […] but a few days on cooking can be a calming act, and since the mind knows no rest and has no focus, the body may as well be busy” (451). Similarly, her recipe for the slowly hard-boiled, dark-stained Hamine Eggs are described as “sans bouche”, which she explains means “without mouths to express sorrow and anguish.” She adds, drawing on her own memories of feelings at such times, “I find that appropriate: there is nothing to be said, or nothing that helps” (455). Despite these examples of raw emotion, Lawson’s chapter is not all about grief. She also comments on both the aesthetics of dishes suitable for such times and their meanings, as well as the assistance that can be offered to others through the preparation and sharing of food. In her recipe for a lamb tagine that includes prunes, she notes, for example, that the dried plums are “traditionally part of the funeral fare of many cultures […] since their black colour is thought to be appropriate to the solemnity of the occasion” (452). Lawson then suggests this as a suitable dish to offer to someone in mourning, someone who needs to “be taken care of by you” (452). This is followed by a lentil soup, the lentils again “because of their dark colour … considered fitting food for funerals” (453), but also practical, as the dish is “both comforting and sustaining and, importantly, easy to transport and reheat” (453). Her next recipe for a meatloaf containing a line of hard-boiled eggs continues this rhetorical framing—as it is “always comfort food […] perfect for having sliced on a plate at a funeral tea or for sending round to someone’s house” (453). She adds the observation that there is “something hopeful and cheering about the golden yolk showing through in each slice” (453), noting that the egg “is a recurring feature in funeral food, symbolising as it does, the cycle of life, the end and the beginning in one” (453). The next recipe, Heavenly Potatoes, is Lawson’s version of the dish known as Mormon or Utah Funeral potatoes (Jensen), which are so iconic in Utah that they were featured on one of the Salt Lake City Olympic Games souvenir pins (Spackman). This tray of potatoes baked in milk and sour cream and then topped with crushed cornflakes are, she notes, although they sound exotic, quite familiar, and “perfect alongside the British traditional baked ham” (454), and reference given to an earlier ham recipe. These savoury recipes are followed by those for three substantial cakes: an orange cake marbled with chocolate-coffee swirls, a fruit tea loaf, and a rosemary flavoured butter cake, each to be served sliced to mourners. She suggests making the marble cake (which Lawson advises she includes in memory of the deceased mother of one of her friends) in a ring mould, “as the circle is always significant. There is a cycle that continues but—after all, the cake is sliced and the circle broken—another that has ended” (456). Of the fruitcake, she writes “I think you need a fruit cake for a funeral: there’s something both comforting and bolstering (and traditional) about it” (457). This tripartite concern—with comfort, sustenance and tradition—is common to much writing about funeral foods. Cookbooks from the American South Despite this English example, a large proportion of cookbook writing about funeral foods is in American publications, and especially those by southern American authors, reflecting the bountiful spreads regularly offered to mourners in these states. This is chronicled in novels, short stories, folk songs and food memoirs as well as some cookery books (Purvis). West’s memoir Consuming Passions: A Food Obsessed Life (2000) has a chapter devoted to funeral food, complete with recipes (132–44). West notes that it is traditional in southern small towns to bring covered dishes of food to the bereaved, and that these foods have a powerful, and singular, expressive mode: “Sometimes we say all the wrong things, but food […] says, ‘I know you are inconsolable. I know you are fragile right now. And I am so sorry for your loss’” (139). Suggesting that these foods are “concern and sympathy in a Pyrex bowl” (139), West includes recipes for Chess pie (a lemon tart), with the information that this is known in the South as “funeral pie” (135) and a lemon-flavoured slice that, with a cup of tea, will “revive the spirit” (136). Like Lawson, West finds significance in the colours of funeral foods, continuing that the sunny lemon in this slice “reminds us that life continues, that we must sustain and nourish it” (139). Gaydon Metcalf and Charlotte Hays’s Being Dead is No Excuse: The Official Southern Ladies Guide to Hosting the Perfect Funeral (2005), is one of the few volumes available dedicated to funeral planning and also offers a significant cookery-focused section on food to offer at, and take to, funeral events. Jessica Bemis Ward’s To Die For: A Book of Funeral Food, Tips, and Tales from the Old City Cemetery, Lynchburg, Virginia (2004) not only contains more than 100 recipes, but also information about funeral customs, practical advice in writing obituaries and condolence notes, and a series of very atmospheric photographs of this historic cemetery. The recipes in the book are explicitly noted to be traditional comfort foods from Central Virginia, as Ward agrees with the other writers identified that “simplicity is the by-word when talking about funeral food” (20). Unlike the other examples cited here, however, Ward also promotes purchasing commercially-prepared local specialties to supplement home-cooked items. There is certainly significantly more general recognition of the specialist nature of catering for funerals in the USA than in Australasia. American food is notable in stressing how different ethnic groups and regions have specific dishes that are associated with post-funeral meals. From this, readers learn that the Amish commonly prepare a funeral pie with raisins, and Chinese-American funerals include symbolic foods taken to the graveside as an offering—including piles of oranges for good luck and entire roast pigs. Jewish, Italian and Greek culinary customs in America also receive attention in both scholarly studies and popular American food writing (see, for example, Rogak, Purvis). This is beginning to be acknowledged in Australia with some recent investigation into the cultural importance of food in contemporary Chinese, Jewish, Greek, and Anglo-Australian funerals (Keys), but is yet to be translated into local mainstream cookery publication. Possible Publishing Futures As home funerals are a growing trend in the USA (Wilson 2009), green funerals increase in popularity in the UK (West, Natural Burial), and the multi-million dollar funeral industry is beginning to be questioned in Australia (FCDC), a more family or community-centered “response to death and after-death care” (NHFA) is beginning to re-emerge. This is a process whereby family and community members play a key role in various parts of the funeral, including in planning and carrying out after-death rituals or ceremonies, preparing the body, transporting it to the place of burial or cremation, and facilitating its final disposition in such activities as digging the grave (Gonzalez and Hereira, NHFA). Westrate, director of the documentary A Family Undertaking (2004), believes this challenges us to “re-examine our attitudes toward death […] it’s one of life’s most defining moments, yet it’s the one we typically prepare for least […] [and an indication of our] culture of denial” (PBS). With an emphasis on holding meaningful re-personalised after-disposal events as well as minimal, non-invasive and environmentally friendly treatment of the body (Harris), such developments would also seem to indicate that the catering involved in funeral occasions, and the cookbooks that focus on the provision of such food, may well become more prominent in the future. References [AHF] Australian Heritage Funerals. “After the Funeral.” Australian Heritage Funerals, 2013. 10 Mar. 2013 ‹http://www.ahfunerals.com.au/services.php?arid=31›. Ash, Romy. “The Taste of Sad: Funeral Feasts, Loss and Mourning.” Voracious: Best New Australian Food Writing. Ed. Paul McNally. Richmond, Vic.: Hardie Grant, 2011. 3 Apr. 2013 ‹http://www.romyash.com/non-fiction/the-taste-of-sad-funeral-feasts-loss-and-mourning›. Brien, Donna Lee, Leonie Rutherford, and Rosemary Williamson. "Hearth and Hotmail: The Domestic Sphere as Commodity and Community in Cyberspace." M/C Journal 10.4 (2007). 28 Apr. 2013 ‹http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0708/10-brien.php›. Brien, Donna Lee, and Rosemary Williamson. “‘Angels of the Home’ in Cyberspace: New Technologies and Biographies of Domestic Production”. Biography and New Technologies. Australian National University. Humanities Research Centre, Canberra, ACT. 12-14 Sep. 2006. Conference Presentation. Diamond, John. C: Because Cowards Get Cancer Too… . London: Vermilion, 1998. Fisher, M.F.K. “S is for Sad.” An Alphabet for Gourmets. New York, North Point P, 1989. 1st. pub. New York, Viking: 1949. Gonzalez, Faustino, and Mildreys Hereira. “Home-Based Viewing (El Velorio) After Death: A Cost-Effective Alternative for Some Families.” American Journal of Hospice & Pallative Medicine 25.5 (2008): 419–20. Harris, Mark. Grave Matters: A Journey Through the Modern Funeral Industry to a Natural Way of Burial. New York: Scribner, 2007. Jalland, Patricia. Australian Ways of Death: A Social and Cultural History 1840-1918. Melbourne: Oxford UP, 2002. Jensen, Julie Badger. The Essential Mormon Cookbook: Green Jell-O, Funeral Potatoes, and Other Secret Combinations. Salt Lake City: Deseret, 2004. Keys, Laura. “Undertaking a Jelly Feast in Williamstown.” Hobsons Bay Leader 28 Mar. 2011. 2 Apr. 2013 ‹http://hobsons-bay-leader.whereilive.com.au/news/story/undertaking-a-jelly-feast-in-williamstown›. Lawson, Nigella. How to Eat: The Pleasures and Principles of Good Food. London: Chatto & Windus, 1998. ---. Feast: Food that Celebrates Life. London: Chatto & Windus, 2004. LeClercq, H. “The Agape Feast.” The Catholic Encyclopedia I, New York: Robert Appleton, 1907. 3 Apr. 2013. ‹http://www.piney.com/AgapeCE.html›. Luby, Edward M., and Mark F. Gruber. “The Dead Must Be Fed: Symbolic Meanings of the Shellmounds of the San Francisco Bay Area.” Cambridge Archaeological Journal 9.1 (1999): 95–108. Metcalf, Gaydon, and Charlotte Hays. Being Dead Is No Excuse: The Official Southern Ladies Guide to Hosting the Perfect Funeral. New York: Miramax, 2005. [NHFA] National Home Funeral Alliance. “What is a Home Funeral?” National Home Funeral Alliance, 2012. 3 Apr. 2013. ‹http://homefuneralalliance.org›. PBS. “A Family Undertaking.” POV: Documentaries with a Point of View. PBS, 2004. 3 Apr. 2013 ‹http://www.pbs.org/pov/afamilyundertaking/film_description.php#.UYHI2PFquRY›. Probyn, Elspeth. Carnal Appetites: Food/Sex/Identities. London: Routledge, 2000. Purvis, Kathleen. “Funeral Food.” The Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink. Ed. Andrew F. Smith. New York: Oxford UP, 2007. 247–48. Rogak, Lisa. Death Warmed Over: Funeral Food, Rituals, and Customs from Around the World. Berkeley: Ten Speed P, 2004. Siegfried, Susie. Church Potluck Carry-Ins and Casseroles: Homestyle Recipes for Church Suppers, Gatherings, and Community Celebrations. Avon, MA.: Adams Media, 2006. Simplicity Funerals. Things You Need To Know About Funerals. Sydney: Simplicity Funerals, 1990. Smith, Eric Alden, and Rebecca L. Bliege Bird. “Turtle Hunting and Tombstone Opening: Public Generosity as Costly Signaling.” Evolution and Human Behavior 21.4 (2000): 245–61.Spackman, Christy. “Mormonism’s Jell-O Mold: Why Do We Associate the Religion With the Gelatin Dessert?” Slate Magazine 17 Aug. (2012). 3 Apr. 2013.Thursby, Jacqueline S. Funeral Festivals in America: Rituals for the Living. Lexington: UP of Kentucky, 2006. Varidel, Rebecca. “Bompas and Parr: Funerals and Food at Nelson Bros.” Inside Cuisine 12 Mar. (2011). 3 Apr. 2013 ‹http://insidecuisine.com/2011/03/12/bompas-and-parr-funerals-and-food-at-nelson-bros›. Ward, Jessica Bemis. Food To Die for: A Book of Funeral Food, Tips, and Tales from the Old City Cemetery, Lynchburg, Virginia. Lynchburg: Southern Memorial Association, 2004. West, Ken. A Guide to Natural Burial. Andover UK: Sweet & Maxwell, 2010. West, Michael Lee. Consuming Passions: A Food Obsessed Life. New York: Perennial, 2000. Wilson, M.T. “The Home Funeral as the Final Act of Caring: A Qualitative Study.” Master in Nursing thesis. Livonia, Michigan: Madonna University, 2009.

In recent years ecological thinking has been applied to a range of social, cultural, and aesthetic systems, including performing arts as a living system of policy makers, producers, organisations, artists, and audiences. Ecological thinking is systems-based thinking which allows us to see the performing arts as a complex and protean ecosystem; to explain how elements in this system act and interact; and to evaluate its effects on Australia’s social fabric over time. According to Gallasch, ecological thinking is “what we desperately need for the arts.” It enables us to “defeat the fragmentary and utilitarian view of the arts that dominates, to make connections, to establish overviews of the arts that can be shared and debated” (Gallasch NP). The ecological metaphor has featured in debates about the performing arts in Brisbane, Australia, in the last two or three years. A growing state capital on Australia’s eastern seaboard, Brisbane is proud of its performing arts culture. Its main theatre organisations include the state flagship Queensland Theatre Company; the second major presenter of adapted and new text-based performances La Boite Theatre Company; venues which support local and touring performances such as the Judith Wright Centre for Contemporary Arts and the Brisbane Powerhouse; emerging talent incubator Metro Arts; indigenous companies like Kooemba Jdarra; independent physical theatre and circus companies such as Zen Zen Zo and Circa; and contemporary play-producing company 23rd Productions (cf. Baylis 3). Brisbane aspires to be a cultural capital in Australia, Australasia, and the Asia Pacific (Gill). Compared to Australia’s southern capitals Sydney and Melbourne, however, Brisbane does have a relatively low level of performing arts activity across traditional and contemporary theatre, contemporary performance, musicals, circus, and other genres of performance. It has at times been cast as a piecemeal, potentially unsustainable arts centre prone to losing talent to other states. In 2009, John Baylis took up these issues in Mapping Queensland Theatre, an Arts Queensland-funded survey designed to map practices in Brisbane and in Queensland more broadly, and to provide a platform to support future policy-making. This report excited debate amongst artists who, whilst accepting the tenor of Baylis’s criticisms, also lamented the lack of nuanced detail and contextualised relationships its map of Queensland theatre provided. In this paper we propose a new approach to mapping Brisbane’s and Queensland’s theatre that extends Baylis’s “value chain” into a “value ecology” that provides a more textured picture of players, patterns, relationships, and activity levels. A “value chain” approach emphasises linear relationships and gaps between production, distribution, and consumption in a specific sector of the economy. A “value ecology” approach goes further by examining a complex range of rhizomatic relationships between production, distribution, and consumption infrastructure and how they influence each other within a sector of the economy such as the performing arts. Our approach uses a “value ecology” model adapted from Hearn et al. and Cherbo et al. to map and interpret information from the AusStage performing arts database, the Australian Bureau of Statistics, and other sources such as previews, reviews, and an ongoing local blogosphere debate. Building upon Baylis’s work, our approach produces literal and conceptual maps of Queensland’s performing arts as they change over time, with analysis of support, infrastructure, and relationships amongst government, arts organisations, artists, and audiences. As debate on Mapping Queensland Theatre gives way to more considered reflection, and as Baylis develops a follow-up report, our approach captures snapshots of Queensland’s performing arts before, during, and after such policy interventions. It supports debate about how Queensland artists might manage their own sustainability, their own ability to balance artistic, cultural, and economic factors that influence their work in a way that allows them to survive long term, and allows policy makers, producers, and other players to better understand, articulate, assess, and address criticisms. The Ecological Metaphor In recent years a number of commentators have understood the performing arts as an “ecology,” a system characterised by interacting elements, engagements, flows, blockages, breaks, and breakthroughs whose “health” (synonymous in this context with sustainability) depends on relationships between players within and without the system. Traditionally, performing arts policies in Australia have concentrated on singular elements in a system. They have, as Hunt and Shaw argue, “concentrate[d] on individual companies or an individual artist’s practice rather than the sector as a whole” (5, cf. 43). The focus has been on how to structure, support, and measure the success—the aesthetic and social benefits—of individual training institutions, artists, administrators, and arts organisations. The “health” of singular elements has been taken as a sign of the “health” of the system. An ecologies approach, by contrast, concentrates on engagements, energies, and flows as signs of health, and thus sustainability, in a system. Ecological thinking enables policy makers, practitioners, and scholars to go beyond debate about the presence of activity, the volume of activity, and the fate of individual agents as signs of the health or non-health of a system. In an ecologies context, level of activity is not the only indicator of health, and low activity does not necessarily equate with instability or unsustainability. An ecological approach is critical in Brisbane, and in Queensland more broadly, where attempts to replicate the nature or level of activity in southern capitals are not necessarily the best way to shore up the “health” of our performing arts system in our own unique environment. As the locus of our study Queensland is unique. While Queensland has 20% of Australia’s population (OESR; ABS ‘ Population Projections’), and is regularly recognised as a rapidly growing “lifestyle superstate” which values innovation, creativity, and cultural infrastructure (Cunningham), it is still home to significantly less than 20% of Australia’s performing arts producers, and many talented people continue to migrate to the south to pursue career opportunities (Baylis 4, 28). An ecologies approach can break into oft-cited anxieties about artist, activity, and audience levels in Brisbane, and in Queensland, and create new ideas about what a “healthy” local performing arts sector might look like. This might start to infuse some of the social media commentary that currently tends to emphasise the gaps in the sector. Ecologies are complex systems. So, as Costanza says, when we consider ecosystem health, we must consider the overall performance of the system, including its ability to deal with “external stress” (240) from macro-level political, legal, social, cultural, economic, or technological currents that change the broader society this particular sector or ecosystem sits within. In Brisbane, there is a growing population and a desire to pursue a cultural capital tag, but the distinctive geographic, demographic, and behavioural characteristics of Brisbane’s population—and the associated ‘stresses’, conditions, or constraints—mean that striving to replicate patterns of activity seen in Sydney or Melbourne may not be the straightest path to a “healthy” or “sustainable” sector here. The attitudes of the players and the pressures influencing the system are different, so this may be like comparing rainforests with deserts (Costanza), and forgetting that different elements and engagements are in fact “healthy” in different ecosystems. From an ecologies point of view, policy makers and practitioners in Brisbane and in Queensland more broadly might be well advised to stop trying to match Sydney or Melbourne, and to instead acknowledge that a “healthy” ecosystem here may look different, and so generate policy, subsidy, and production systems to support this. An ecological approach can help determine how much activity is in fact necessary to ensure a healthy and sustainable local performing arts sector. It can, in other words, provide a fresh approach that inspires new ideas and strategies for sector sustainability. Brisbane, Baylis and the Blogosphere Debate The ecological metaphor has clearly captured the interest of policy makers as they consider how to make Queensland’s performing arts more sustainable and successful. For Arts Queensland: The view of the sector as a complex and interdependent ‘ecosystem’ is forging new thinking, new practices and new business models. Individual practitioners and organisations are rethinking where they sit within the broader ecology, and what they contribute to the health and vitality of the sector, and how they might address the gaps in services and skills (12). This view informed the commissioning of Mapping Queensland Theatre, an assessment of Queensland’s theatre sector which offers a framework for allocation of resources under the Queensland Arts & Cultural Sector Plan 2010-2013. It also offers a framework for negotiation with funded organisations to ensure “their activities and focus support a harmonious ecology” (Baylis 3) in which all types and levels of practice (emerging, established, touring, and so on) are functioning well and are well represented within the overall mix of activities. Utilising primary and secondary survey sources, Mapping Queensland Theatre seeks: to map individuals, institutions, and organisations who have a stake in developing Queensland’s professional theatre sector; and to apply a “value chain” model of production from supply (training, creation, presentation, and distribution) to demand (audiences) to identify problems and gaps in Queensland’s professional theatre sector and recommend actions to address them. The report is critical of the sector. Baylis argues that “the context for great theatre is not yet in place in Queensland … therefore works of outstandingly high quality will be rare” (28).Whilst acknowledging a lack of ready answers about how much activity is required in a vibrant theatre culture, Baylis argues that “comparisons are possible” (27) and he uses various data sets to compare numbers of new Australian productions in different states. He finds that “despite having 20% of the Australian population, [Queensland] generates a dramatically lower amount of theatre activity” (4, cf. 28). The reason, according to Baylis (20, 23, 25, 29, 32, 40-41, 44), is that there are gaps in the “value chain” of Queensland theatre, specifically in: Support for the current wave of emerging and independent artistsSpace for experimentation Connections between artists, companies, venues and festivals, between and within regional centres, and between Queensland companies and their (inter)national peers Professional development for producers to address the issue of market distributionAudience development “Queensland lacks a critical mass of theatre activity to develop a sustainable theatre culture” (48), and the main gap is in pathways for independent artists. Quality new work does not emerge, energy dissipates, and artists move on. The solution, for Baylis, is to increase support for independent companies (especially via co-productions with mainstage companies), to improve (inter)national touring, and to encourage investment in audience development. Naturally, Queensland’s theatre makers responded to this report. Responses were given, for example, in inaugural speeches by new Queensland Theatre Company director Wesley Enoch and new La Boite Theatre Company director David Berthold, in the media, and in blogosphere commentary on a range of articles on Brisbane performing arts in 2010. The blogosphere debate in particular raged for months and warrants more detailed analysis elsewhere. For the purposes of this paper, though, it is sufficient to note that blogosphere debate about the health of Queensland theatre culture acknowledged many of the deficits Baylis identified and called for: More leadershipMore government supportMore venuesMore diversityMore audience, especially for risky work, and better audience engagementMore jobs and retention of artists Whilst these responses endorse Baylis’s findings and companies have since conceived programs that address Baylis’s criticisms (QTC’s introduction of a Studio Season and La Boite’s introduction of an Indie program in 2010 for example) a sense of frustration also emerged. Some, like former QTC Chair Kate Foy, felt that “what’s really needed in the theatre is a discussion that breaks out from the old themes and encourages fresh ideas—approaches to solving whatever problems are perceived to exist in ‘the system’.” For commentators like Foy the blogosphere debate enacted a kind of ritual rehearsal of an all-too-familiar set of concerns: inadequate and ill-deployed funding, insufficient venues, talent drain, and an impoverished local culture of theatre going. “Value Chains” versus “Value Ecologies” Why did responses to this report demand more artists, more arts organisations, more venues, and more activities? Why did they repeat demands for more government-subsidised venues, platforms, and support rather than drive toward new seed- or non- subsidised initiatives? At one level, this is to do with the report’s claims: it is natural for artists who have been told quality work is “rare” amongst them to point to lack of support to achieve success. At another level, though, this is because—as useful as it has been for local theatre makers—Baylis’s map is premised on a linear chain from training, to first productions, to further developed productions (involving established writers, directors, designers and performers), to opportunities to tour (inter)nationally, etc. It provides a linear image of a local performing arts sector in which there are individuals and institutions with potential, but specific gaps in the production-distribution-consumption chain that make it difficult to deliver work to target markets. It emphasises gaps in the linear pathway towards “stability” of financial, venue, and audience support and thus “sustainability” over a whole career for independent artists and the audiences they attract. Accordingly, asking government to plug the gaps through elements added to the system (venues, co-production platforms, producer hubs, subsidy, and entrepreneurial endeavours) seems like a logical solution. Whilst this is true, it does not tell the whole story. To generate a wider story, we need to consider: What the expected elements in a “healthy” ecosystem would be (e.g. more versus alternative activity);What other aesthetic, cultural, or economic pressures affect the “health” of an ecosystem;Why practices might need to cycle, ebb, and flow over time in a “healthy” ecosystem. A look at the way La Boite works before, during, and after Baylis’s analysis of Brisbane theatre illustrates why attention to these elements is necessary. A long-running company which has made the transition from amateur to professional to being a primary developer of new Australian work in its distinctive in-the-round space, La Boite has recently shifted its strategic position. A focus on text-based Australian plays has given way to adapted, contemporary, and new work in a range of genres; regular co-productions with companies in Brisbane and beyond; and an “Indie” program that offers other companies a venue. This could be read as a response to Baylis’s recommendation: the production-distribution-consumption chain gap for Brisbane’s independents is plugged, the problem is solved, the recommendation has led to the desired result. Such a reading might, though, overlook the range of pressures beyond Brisbane, beyond Queensland, and beyond the Baylis report that drive—and thus help, hinder, or otherwise effect—the shift in La Boite’s program strategies. The fact that La Boite recently lost its Australia Council funding, or that La Boite like all theatre companies needs co-productions to keep its venue running as costs increase, or that La Boite has rebranded to appeal to younger audiences interested in postdramatic, do-it-your-self or junkyard style aesthetics. These factors all influence what La Boite might do to sustain itself, and more importantly, what its long-term impact on Brisbane’s theatre ecology will be. To grasp what is happening here, and get beyond repetitive responses to anxieties about Brisbane’s theatre ecology, detail is required not simply on whether programs like La Boite’s “plugged the gap” for independent artists, but on how they had both predicted and unpredicted effects, and how other factors influenced the effects. What is needed is to extend mapping from a “value chain” to a full ”value ecology”? This is something Hearn et al. have called for. A value chain suggests a “single linear process with one stage leading to the next” (5). It ignores the environment and other external enablers and disregards a product’s relationship to other systems or products. In response they prefer a “value creating ecology” in which the “constellation of firms are [sic] dynamic and value flow is multi-directional and works through clusters of networks” (6). Whilst Hearn et al. emphasise “firms” or companies in their value creating ecology, a range of elements—government, arts organisations, artists, audiences, and the media as well as the aesthetic, social, and economic forces that influence them—needs to be mapped in the value creating ecology of the performing arts. Cherbo et al. provide a system of elements or components which, adapted for a local context like Brisbane or Queensland, can better form the basis of a value ecology approach to the way a specific performing arts community works, adapts, changes, breaks down, or breaks through over time. Figure 1 – Performing Arts Sector Map (adapted from Cherbo et. al. 14) Here, the performing arts sector is understood in terms of core artistic workers, companies, a constellation of generic and sector specific support systems, and wider social contexts (Cherbo et al. 15). Together, the shift from “value chain” to “value ecology” that Hearn et al. advocate, and the constellation of ecology elements that Cherbo et al. emphasise, bring a more detailed, dynamic range of relations into play. These include “upstream” production infrastructure (education, suppliers, sponsors), “downstream” distribution infrastructure (venues, outlets, agents), and overall public infrastructure. As a framework for mapping “value ecology” this model offers a more nuanced perspective on production, distribution, and consumption elements in an ecology. It allows for analysis of impact of interventions in dozens of different areas, from dozens of perspectives, and thus provides a more detailed picture of players, relationships, and results to support both practice and policy making around practice. An Aus-e-Stage Value Ecology To provide the more detailed, dynamic image of local theatre culture that a value ecology approach demands—to show players, relations between players, and context in all their complexity—we use the Aus-e-Stage Mapping Service, an online application that maps data about artists, arts organisations, and audiences across cityscapes/landscapes. We use Aus-e-Stage with data drawn from three sources: the AusStage database of over 50,000 entries on Australian performing arts venues, productions, artists, and reviews; the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data on population; and the Local Government Area (LGA) maps the ABS uses to cluster populations. Figure 2 – Using AusStage Interface Figure 3 – AusStage data on theatre venues laid over ABS Local Government Area Map Figure 4 – Using Aus-e-Stage / AusStage to zoom in on Australia, Queensland, Brisbane and La Boite Theatre Company, and generate a list of productions, dates and details Aus-e-Stage produces not just single maps, but a sequential series of snapshots of production ecologies, which visually track who does what when, where, with whom, and for whom. Its sequences can show: The way artists, companies, venues, and audiences relate to each other;The way artists’ relationship to companies, venues, and audiences changes over time;The way “external stressors” changes such as policy, industrial, or population changes affect the elements, roles, and relationships in the ecology from that point forward. Though it can be used in combination with other data sources such as interviews, the advantage of AusStage data is that maps of moving ecologies of practice are based not on descriptions coloured by memory but clear, accurate program, preview, and review data. This allows it to show how factors in the environment—population, policy, infrastructure, or program shifts—effect the ecology, effect players in the ecology, and prompt players to adapt their type, level, or intensity of practice. It extends Baylis’s value chain into a full value ecology that shows the detail on how an ecology works, going beyond demands that government plug perceived gaps and moving towards data- and history- based decisions, ideas and innovation based on what works in Brisbane’s performing arts ecology. Our Aus-e-Stage mapping shows this approach can do a number of useful things. It can create sequences showing breaks, blockages, and absences in an individual or company’s effort to move from emerging to established (e.g. in a sudden burst of activity followed by nothing). It can create sequences showing an individual or company’s moves to other parts of Australia (e.g. to tour or to pursue more permanent work). It can show surprising spaces, relations, and sources of support artists use to further their career (e.g. use of an amateur theatre outside the city such as Brisbane Arts Theatre). It can capture data about venues, programs, or co-production networks that are more or less effective in opening up new opportunities for artists (e.g. moving small-scale experiments in Metro Arts’ “Independents” program to full scale independent productions in La Boite’s “Indie” program, its mainstage program, other mainstage programs, and beyond). It can link to program information, documentation, or commentary to compare anticipated and actual effects. It can lay the map dates and movements across significant policy, infrastructure, or production climate shifts. In the example below, for instance, Aus-e-Stage represents the tour of La Boite’s popular production of a new Australian work Zig Zag Street, based on the Brisbane-focused novel by Nick Earls about a single, twentysomething man’s struggles with life, love, and work. Figure 5 – Zig Zag Street Tour Map In the example below, Aus-e-Stage represents the movements not of a play but of a performer—in this case Christopher Sommers—who has been able to balance employment with new work incubator Metro Arts, mainstage and indie producer La Boite, and stage theatre company QTC with his role with independent theatre company 23rd Productions to create something more protean, more portfolio-based or boundary-less than a traditional linear career trajectory. Figure 6 – Christopher Sommers Network Map and Travel Map This value of this approach, and this technology, is clear. Which independents participate in La Boite Indie (or QTC’s “Studio” or “Greenroom” new work programs, or Metro’s emerging work programs, or others)? What benefits does it bring for artists, for independent companies, or for mainstage companies like La Boite? Is this a launching pad leading to ongoing, sustainable production practices? What do artists, audiences or others say about these launching pads in previews, programs, or reviews? Using Aus-e-Stage as part of a value ecology approach answers these questions. It provides a more detailed picture of what happens, what effect it has on local theatre ecology, and exactly which influences enabled this effect: precisely the data needed to generate informed debate, ideas, and decision making. Conclusion Our ecological approach provides images of a local performing arts ecology in action, drawing out filtered data on different players, relationships, and influencing factors, and thus extending examination of Brisbane’s and Queensland’s performing arts sector into useful new areas. It offers three main advances—first, it adopts a value ecology approach (Hearn et al.), second, it adapts this value ecology approach to include not just companies by all up- and down- stream players, supporters and infrastructure (Cherbo et. al.), and, thirdly, it uses the wealth of data available via Aus-e-Stage maps to fill out and filter images of local theatre ecology. It allows us to develop detailed, meaningful data to support discussion, debate, and development of ideas that is less likely to get bogged down in old, outdated, or inaccurate assumptions about how the sector works. Indeed, our data lends itself to additional analysis in a number of ways, from economic analysis of how shifts in policy influence productivity to sociological analysis of the way practitioners or practices acquire status and cultural capital (Bourdieu) in the field. Whilst descriptions offered here demonstrate the potential of this approach, this is by no means a finished exercise. Indeed, because this approach is about analysing how elements, roles, and relationships in an ecology shift over time, it is an ever-unfinished exercise. As Fortin and Dale argue, ecological studies of this sort are necessarily iterative, with each iteration providing new insights and raising further questions into processes and patterns (3). Given the number of local performing arts producers who have changed their practices significantly since Baylis’s Mapping Queensland Theatre report, and the fact that Baylis is producing a follow-up report, the next step will be to use this approach and the Aus-e-Stage technology that supports it to trace how ongoing shifts impact on Brisbane’s ambitions to become a cultural capital. This process is underway, and promises to open still more new perspectives by understanding anxieties about local theatre culture in terms of ecologies and exploring them cartographically. References Arts Queensland. Queensland Arts & Cultural Sector Plan 2010-2013. Brisbane: Arts Queensland, 2010. Australian Bureau of Statistics. “Population Projections, Australia, 2006 to 2101.” Canberra: ABS (2008). 20 June 2011 ‹http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/3222.0Main+Features12006%20to%202101?OpenDocument›. ——-. “Regional Population Growth, Australia, 2008-2009: Queensland.” Canberra: ABS (2010). 20 June 2011 ‹http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Latestproducts/3218.0Main%20Features62008-09?opendocument&tabname=Summary&prodno=3218.0&issue=2008-09&num=&view=›. Baylis, John. Mapping Queensland Theatre. Brisbane: Arts Queensland, 2009. Bourdieu, Pierre. “The Forms of Capital.” Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education. Ed. John G. Richardson. New York: Greenwood, 1986.241-58. Cherbo, Joni M., Harold Vogel, and Margaret Jane Wyszomirski. “Towards an Arts and Creative Sector.” Understanding the Arts and Creative Sector in the United States. Ed. Joni M. Cherbo, Ruth A. Stewart and Margaret J. Wyszomirski. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2008. 32-60. Costanza, Robert. “Toward an Operational Definition of Ecosystem Health”. Ecosystem Health: New Goals for Environmental Management. Eds. Robert Costanza, Bryan G. Norton and Benjamin D. Haskell. Washington: Island Press, 1992. 239-56. Cunningham, Stuart. “Keeping Artistic Tempers Balanced.” The Courier Mail, 4 August (2010). 20 June 2012 ‹http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/opinion/keeping-artistic-tempers-balanced/story-e6frerc6-1225901295328›. Gallasch, Keith. “The ABC and the Arts: The Arts Ecologically.” RealTime 61 (2004). 20 June 2011 ‹http://www.realtimearts.net/article/61/7436›. Gill, Raymond. “Is Brisbane Australia’s New Cultural Capital?” Sydney Morning Herald, 16 October (2010). 20 June 2011 ‹http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/is-brisbane-australias-new-cultural-capital-20101015-16np5.html›. Fortin, Marie-Josée and Dale, Mark R.T. Spatial Analysis: A Guide for Ecologists. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Foy, Kate. “Is There Anything Right with the Theatre?” Groundling. 10 January (2010). 20 June 2011 ‹http://katefoy.com/2010/01/is-there-anything-right-with-the-theatre/›. Hearn, Gregory N., Simon C. Roodhouse, and Julie M. Blakey. ‘From Value Chain to Value Creating Ecology: Implications for Creative Industries Development Policy.’ International Journal of Cultural Policy 13 (2007). 20 June 2011 ‹http://eprints.qut.edu.au/15026/›. Hunt, Cathy and Phyllida Shaw. A Sustainable Arts Sector: What Will It Take? Strawberry Hills: Currency House, 2007. Knell, John. Theatre’s New Rules of Evolution. Available from Intelligence Agency, 2008. Office of Economic and Statistical Research. “Information Brief: Australian Demographic Statistics June Quarter 2009.” Canberra: OESR (2010). 20 June 2012 ‹http://www.oesr.qld.gov.au/queensland-by-theme/demography/briefs/aust-demographic-stats/aust-demographic-stats-200906.pdf›.

This paper provides embedded, reflective practice-based insight arising from my experience collaborating to produce online and print-on-demand editions of a magazine showcasing the photography of members of haphazart! Contemporary Abstracts group (hereafter referred to as haphazart!). The group’s online visual, textual and activity-based practices via the photo sharing social networking site Flickr are portrayed as achieving cohesive visual identity. Stylistic analysis of pictures in support of this claim is not attempted. Rather negotiation, that Elliot has previously described in M/C Journal as innate in collaboration, is identified as the unifying factor. However, the collaborators’ adherence to Flickr’s communication platform proves problematic in the editorial context. Some technical incoherence with possible broader cultural implications is encountered during the process of repurposing images from screen to print. A Scan of Relevant Literature The photographic gaze perceives and captures objects which seem to ‘carry within them ready-made’ a work of art. But the reminiscences of the gaze are only made possible by knowing and associating with groups that define a tradition. The list of valorised subjects is not actually defined with reference to a culture, but rather by familiarity with a limited group. (Chamboredon 144) As part of the array of socio-cultural practices afforded by Web 2.0 interoperability, sites of produsage (Bruns) are foci for studies originating in many disciplines. Flickr provides a rich source of data that researchers interested in the interface between the technological and the social find useful to analyse. Access to the Flickr application programming interface enables quantitative researchers to observe a variety of means by which information is propagated, disseminated and shared. Some findings from this kind of research confirm the intuitive. For example, Negoecsu et al. find that “a large percentage of users engage in sharing with groups and that they do so significantly” ("Analyzing Flickr Groups" 425). They suggest that Flickr’s Groups feature appears to “naturally bring together two key aspects of social media: content and relations.” They also find evidence for what they call hyper-groups, which are “communities consisting of groups of Flickr groups” ("Flickr Hypergroups" 813). Two separate findings from another research team appear to contradict each other. On one hand, describing what they call “social cascades,” Cha et al. claim that “content in the form of ideas, products, and messages spreads across social networks like a virus” ("Characterising Social Cascades"). Yet in 2009 they claim that homocity and reciprocity ensure that “popularity of pictures is localised” ("Measurement-Driven Analysis"). Mislove et al. reflect that the affordances of Flickr influence the growth patterns they observe. There is optimism shared by some empiricists that through collation and analysis of Flickr tag data, the matching of perceptual structures of images and image annotation techniques will yield ontology-based taxonomy useful in automatic image annotation and ultimately, the Semantic Web endeavour (Kennedy et al.; Su et al.; Xu et al.). Qualitative researchers using ethnographic interview techniques also find Flickr a valuable resource. In concluding that the photo sharing hobby is for many a “serious leisure” activity, Cox et al. propose that “Flickr is not just a neutral information system but also value laden and has a role within a wider cultural order.” They also suggest that “there is genuinely greater scope for individual creativity, releasing the individual to explore their own identity in a way not possible with a camera club.” Davies claims that “online spaces provide an arena where collaboration over meanings can be transformative, impacting on how individuals locate themselves within local and global contexts” (550). She says that through shared ways of describing and commenting on images, Flickrites develop a common criticality in their endeavour to understand images, each other and their world (554).From a psychologist’s perspective, Suler observes that “interpersonal relationships rarely form and develop by images alone” ("Image, Word, Action" 559). He says that Flickr participants communicate in three dimensions: textual (which he calls “verbal”), visual, and via the interpersonal actions that the site affords, such as Favourites. This latter observation can surely be supplemented by including the various games that groups configure within the constraints of the discussion forums. These often include submissions to a theme and voting to select a winning image. Suler describes the place in Flickr where one finds identity as one’s “cyberpsychological niche” (556). However, many participants subscribe to multiple groups—45.6% of Flickrites who share images share them with more than 20 groups (Negoescu et al., "Analyzing Flickr Groups" 420). Is this a reflection of the existence of the hyper-groups they describe (2009) or, of the ranging that people do in search of a niche? It is also probable that some people explore more than a singular identity or visual style. Harrison and Bartell suggest that there are more interesting questions than why users create media products or what motivates them to do so: the more interesting questions center on understanding what users will choose to do ultimately with [Web2.0] capabilities [...] in what terms to define the success of their efforts, and what impact the opportunity for individual and collaborative expression will have on the evolution of communicative forms and character. (167) This paper addresseses such questions. It arises from a participatory observational context which differs from that of the research described above. It is intended that a different perspective about online group-based participation within the Flickr social networking matrix will avail. However, it will be seen that the themes cited in this introductory review prove pertinent. Context As a university teacher of a range of subjects in the digital media field, from contemporary photomedia to social media to collaborative multimedia practice, it is entirely appropriate that I embed myself in projects that engage, challenge and provide me with relevant first-hand experience. As an academic I also undertake and publish research. As a practicing new media artist I exhibit publically on a regular basis and consider myself semi-professional with respect to this activity. While there are common elements to both approaches to research, this paper is written more from the point of view of ‘reflective practice’ (Holmes, "Reconciling Experimentum") rather than ‘embedded ethnography’ (Pink). It is necessarily and unapologetically reflexive. Abstract Photography Hyper-Group A search of all Flickr groups using the query “abstract” is currently likely to return around 14,700 results. However, only in around thirty of them does the group name, its stated rules and, the stream of images that flow through the pool arguably reflect a sense of collective concept and aesthetic that is coherently abstract. This loose complex of groups comprises a hyper-group. Members of these groups often have co-memberships, reciprocal contacts, and regularly post images to a range of groups and comment on others’ posts to be found throughout. Given that one of Flickr’s largest groups, Black and White, currently has around 131,150 members and hosts 2,093,241 items in its pool, these abstract special interest groups are relatively small. The largest, Abstract Photos, has 11,338 members and hosts 89,306 items in its pool. The group that is the focus of this paper, haphazart!, currently has 2,536 members who have submitted 53,309 items. The group pool is more like a constantly flowing river because the most recently added images are foremost. Older images become buried in an archive of pages which cannot be reverse accessed at a rate greater than the seven pages linked from a current view. A member’s presence is most immediate through images posted to a pool. This structural feature of Flickr promotes a desire for currency; a need to post regularly to maintain presence. Negotiating Coherence to the Abstract The self-managing social dynamics in groups has, as Suler proposes to be the case for individuals, three dimensions: visual, textual and action. A group integrates the diverse elements, relationships and values which cumulatively constitute its identity with contributions from members in these dimensions. First impressions of that identity are usually derived from the group home page which consists of principal features: the group name, a selection of twelve most recent posts to the pool, some kind of description, a selection of six of the most recent discussion topics, and a list of rules (if any). In some of these groups, what is considered to constitute an abstract photographic image is described on the group home page. In some it is left to be contested and becomes the topic of ongoing forum debates. In others the specific issue is not discussed—the images are left to speak for themselves. Administrators of some groups require that images are vetted for acceptance. In haphazart! particular administrators dutifully delete from the pool on a regular basis any images that they deem not to comply with the group ethic. Whether reasons are given or not is left to the individual prosecutor. Mostly offending images just disappear from the group pool without trace. These are some of the ways that the coherence of a group’s visual identity is established and maintained. Two groups out of the abstract photography hyper-group are noteworthy in that their discussion forums are particularly active. A discussion is just the start of a new thread and may have any number of posts under it. At time of writing Abstract Photos has 195 discussions and haphazart! — the most talkative by this measure—has 333. Haphazart! invites submissions of images to regularly changing themes. There is always lively and idiosyncratic banter in the forum over the selection of a theme. To be submitted an image needs to be identified by a specific theme tag as announced on the group home page. The tag can be added by the photographer themselves or by anyone else who deems the image appropriate to the theme. An exhibition process ensues. Participant curators search all Flickr items according to the theme tag and select from the outcome images they deem to most appropriately and abstractly address the theme. Copies of the images together with comments by the curators are posted to a dedicated discussion board. Other members may also provide responses. This activity forms an ongoing record that may serve as a public indicator of the aesthetic that underlies the group’s identity. In Abstract Photos there is an ongoing discussion forum where one can submit an image and request that the moderators rule as to whether or not the image is ‘abstract’. The same group has ongoing discussions labelled “Hall of Appropriate” where worthy images are reposted and celebrated and, “Hall of Inappropriate” where images posted to the group pool have been removed and relegated because abstraction has been “so far stretched from its definition that it now resides in a parallel universe” (Askin). Reasons are mostly courteously provided. In haphazart! a relatively small core of around twelve group members regularly contribute to the group discussion board. A curious aspect of this communication is that even though participants present visually with a ‘buddy icon’ and most with a screen name not their real name, it is usual practice to address each other in discussions by their real Christian names, even when this is not evident in a member’s profile. This seems to indicate a common desire for authenticity. The makeup of the core varies from time to time depending on other activities in a member’s life. Although one or two may be professionally or semi-professionally engaged as photographers or artists or academics, most of these people would likely consider themselves to be “serious amateurs” (Cox). They are internationally dispersed with bias to the US, UK, Europe and Australia. English is the common language though not the natural tongue of some. The age range is approximately 35 to 65 and the gender mix 50/50. The group is three years old. Where Do We Go to from Here? In early January 2009 the haphazart! core was sparked into a frenzy of discussion by a post from a member headed “Where do we go to from here?” A proposal was mooted to produce a ‘book’ featuring images and texts representative of the group. Within three days a new public group with invited membership dedicated to the idea had been established. A smaller working party then retreated to a private Flickr group. Four months later Issue One of haphazart! magazine was available in print-on-demand and online formats. Following however is a brief critically reflective review of some of the collaborative curatorial, editorial and production processes for Issue Two which commenced in early June 2009. Most of the team had also been involved with Issue One. I was the only newcomer and replaced the person who had undertaken the design for Issue One. I was not provided access to the prior private editorial ruminations but apparently the collaborative curatorial and editorial decision-making practices the group had previously established persisted, and these took place entirely within the discussion forums of a new dedicated private Flickr group. Over a five-month period there were 1066 posts in 54 discussions concerning matters such as: change of format from the previous; selection of themes, artists and images; conduct of and editing of interviews; authoring of texts; copyright and reproduction. The idiom of those communications can be described as: discursive, sporadic, idiosyncratic, resourceful, collegial, cooperative, emphatic, earnest and purposeful. The selection process could not be said to follow anything close to a shared manifesto, or articulation of style. It was established that there would be two primary themes: the square format and contributors’ use of colour. Selection progressed by way of visual presentation and counter presentation until some kind of consensus was reached often involving informal votes of preference. Stretching the Limits of the Flickr Social Tools The magazine editorial collaborators continue to use the facilities with which they are familiar from regular Flickr group participation. However, the strict vertically linear format of the Flickr discussion format is particularly unsuited to lengthy, complex, asynchronous, multithreaded discussion. For this purpose it causes unnecessary strain, fatigue and confusion. Where images are included, the forums have set and maximum display sizes and are not flexibly configured into matrixes. Images cannot readily be communally changed or moved about like texts in a wiki. Likewise, the Flickrmail facility is of limited use for specialist editorial processes. Attachments cannot be added. This opinion expressed by a collaborator in the initial, open discussion for Issue One prevailed among Issue Two participants: do we want the members to go to another site to observe what is going on with the magazine? if that’s ok, then using google groups or something like that might make sense; if we want others to observe (and learn from) the process - we may want to do it here [in Flickr]. (Valentine) The opinion appears socially constructive; but because the final editorial process and production processes took place in a separate private forum, ultimately the suggested learning between one issue and the next did not take place. During Issue Two development the reluctance to try other online collaboration tools for the selection processes requiring visual comparative evaluation of images and trials of sequencing adhered. A number of ingenious methods of working within Flickr were devised and deployed and, in my opinion, proved frustratingly impractical and inefficient. The digital layout, design, collation and formatting of images and texts, all took place on my personal computer using professional software tools. Difficulties arose in progressively sharing this work for the purposes of review, appraisal and proofing. Eventually I ignored protests and insisted the team review demonstrations I had converted for sharing in Google Documents. But, with only one exception, I could not tempt collaborators to try commenting or editing in that environment. For example, instead of moving the sequence of images dynamically themselves, or even typing suggestions directly into Google Documents, they would post responses in Flickr. To Share and to Hold From the first imaginings of Issue One the need to have as an outcome something in one’s hands was expressed and this objective is apparently shared by all in the haphazart! core as an ongoing imperative. Various printing options have been nominated, discussed and evaluated. In the end one print-on-demand provider was selected on the basis of recommendation. The ethos of haphazart! is clearly not profit-making and conflicts with that of the printing organisation. Presumably to maintain an incentive to purchase the print copy online preview is restricted to the first 15 pages. To satisfy the co-requisite to make available the full 120 pages for free online viewing a second host that specialises in online presentation of publications is also utilised. In this way haphazart! members satisfy their common desires for sharing selected visual content and ideas with an online special interest audience and, for a physical object of art to relish—with all the connotations of preciousness, fetish, talisman, trophy, and bookish notions of haptic pleasure and visual treasure. The irony of publishing a frozen chunk of the ever-flowing Flickriver, whose temporally changing nature is arguably one of its most interesting qualities, is not a consideration. Most of them profess to be simply satisfying their own desire for self expression and would eschew any critical judgement as to whether this anarchic and discursive mode of operation results in a coherent statement about contemporary photographic abstraction. However there remains a distinct possibility that a number of core haphazart!ists aspire to transcend: popular taste; the discernment encouraged in camera clubs; and, the rhetoric of those involved professionally (Bourdieu et al.); and seek to engage with the “awareness of illegitimacy and the difficulties implied by the constitution of photography as an artistic medium” (Chamboredon 130). Incoherence: A Technical Note My personal experience of photography ranges from the filmic to the digital (Holmes, "Bridging Adelaide"). For a number of years I specialised in facsimile graphic reproduction of artwork. In those days I became aware that films were ‘blind’ to the psychophysical affect of some few particular paint pigments. They just could not be reproduced. Even so, as I handled the dozens of images contributed to haphazart!2, converting them from the pixellated place where Flickr exists to the resolution and gamut of the ink based colour space of books, I was surprised at the number of hue values that exist in the former that do not translate into the latter. In some cases the affect is subtle so that judicious tweaking of colour levels or local colour adjustment will satisfy discerning comparison between the screenic original and the ‘soft proof’ that simulates the printed outcome. In other cases a conversion simply does not compute. I am moved to contemplate, along with Harrison and Bartell (op. cit.) just how much of the experience of media in the shared digital space is incomparably new? Acknowledgement Acting on the advice of researchers experienced in cyberethnography (Bruckman; Suler, "Ethics") I have obtained the consent of co-collaborators to comment freely on proceedings that took place in a private forum. 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