Edition 32
Wicked Problems, Exquisite Dilemmas
- Published 7th June, 2011
- ISBN: 9781921758218
- Extent: 264 pp
- Paperback (234 x 153mm), eBook
UK journalist Barbara Gunnell reports from London on the legacy of Julian Assange and the changing nature of journalism, state secrets and the limits to privacy. Valerie Brown and Lyn Carson explore the benefits of collective thinking and leadership, while Wendy McCarthy looks behind the rise of women in power.
Military historian Greg Lockhart reveals an Australian defence cover-up with repercussions for the current geopolitics of the Asia Pacific region; John Langmore and Jan Egeland look to Norway for lessons in peacekeeping.
Matthew Condon reminds us of the importance of history in the wake of the Brisbane floods; Deb Newell and Andrea Koch look at the value of soil; Robyn Ballinger and Chris Miller learn from the locals in the Murray-River Basin.
Other contributors include John van Tigglen on the Australian spirit at Tamworth; Susan Varga on attitudes towards Israel; Lynne Weathered on wrongful conviction; new fiction from Morris Lurie and Susan Johnson, PLUS a graphic novel from a story by Nick Earls and much more.
Wicked Problems, Exquisite Dilemmas approaches intractable problems with innovative thinking and optimism.
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In this Edition
The rise and fall of infant reflux
Selected for The Best Australian Science Writing 2012 AT THE DAWN of the twenty-first century Queensland infants were in the grip of an epidemic. Babies screamed, vomited and woke frequently at night. They refused to feed, arched their backs, drew up their knees. Parents were...
If wishes were fishes
I LISTLESSLY TRAWLED through endless canned quote pages, searching for a line that would capture my feelings and ideas about the links between fun, participation and problem-solving. Where I found it now eludes me, but it was this line from Harvey Cox's The Feast...
A new enlightenment
ANYONE WHO HAS worked in science for the past fifty years, as I have, has experienced many changes in the way a scientist looks at the world. The growing interest in wicked problems leads to the question: are the moves to tackle such problems...
Struggling in the face of complexity
THE FLOODS THAT swept through Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria, causing death, injury and the destruction of homes, businesses and infrastructure, and threatening whole communities, were met with a determination and no small amount of community-mindedness to repair the damage and support those...
Invisible innocence
IT IS HARD for most people to imagine being convicted of a crime they did not commit. Yet this scenario is not only possible, but far more likely than it should be. Sometimes it is just a matter of being in the wrong place...
The silence
MANY AUSTRALIAN JEWS take an intense interest in Israel. They find it difficult to ignore the miracle of its creation so soon after the Holocaust, but also impossible to ignore the underside of that miracle: the tragic dispossession of the Palestinian people. They find...
Learning from Norway
AUSTRALIANS ARE USED to comparing their country with the United States and their countries of origin, whether the UK, Italy, China or any of the two hundred or so other nations from whence their families emigrated. Norway does not generally figure in such reflections...
Race fear, dangerous denial
For Bruce Pollard, Greg Dodds and Howard Dick 'I still want to talk about Australia as a whole, as a nation-state...' – John Hirst, Looking for Australia (Black Inc., 2010) ONE OF THE founding myths of Australia protects a great deception – one that centres on...
Turning dirt into soil
WORKING IN SUSTAINABLE food and agriculture means confronting some of the biggest wicked problems of our time: climate change, declining fresh water, a projected global population of nine billion people, and the planet's ability to supply their needs for food, fibre and energy. Solutions...
Across the divide
IT'S SUMMER, AND I decide to drive the length of the Waranga Western Channel. I want to see for myself the canal system that carries water from the Goulburn River to the plains north of where I live, in Bendigo, Victoria.I start at the...
The flood
JUST A FEW kilometres west of the brass lions and clock tower in Brisbane city's King George Square, over a patchwork of corrugated iron and great crowns of poinciana and fig trees, is a little crosshatch of streets on the floor of a suburban...
Dilemmas, disasters and deliberative democracy
THE JANUARY FLOODS in Queensland and Victoria were a disaster but also a showcase for civic engagement. Thousands of volunteers – strangers to each other – spontaneously came together, made collective decisions about what to do, and then got on with doing it. The...
Rebel, public nuisance and dreamer
For the launch of Griffith Review 32: Wicked Problems, Exquisite Solutions, Barbara Gunnell spoke with fellow journalist Margaret Simons to outline the arguments in 'Rebel, public nuisance and dreamer'.The compelling conversation explores how mainstream media outlets have dealt with Wikileaks as both information source and...
Mud, mud glorious mud
SHE WAS COMING towards us with a broad smile, proffering a plate of golden round buns. She said they were meat pies, as if to explain to the army of muddied helpers – young and old, from all backgrounds – that they were good...
Daughters of the revolution
FOR FIVE YEARS from 1970 I pushed a stroller, with a baby or two or three, in passionate street marches with hundreds of other women. As our voices grew stronger it was easy to believe that the future would deliver equity and equality for...
The dispossessed
IN MID-AFTERNOON JUST days after Christmas, finding a park in the small National Heritage town of Central Tilba, on the far South Coast of New South Wales, was proving difficult. Rows of Audis, Prados, the occasional BMW and all kinds of shining new four-wheel...
Too blue
TAMWORTH'S TEN-DAY Jayco Country Music Festival is preceded by a ten-day Festival Countdown for those so excited about the impending shebang that they need the extra time to settle in and plan. That's Tourism Tamworth's thinking, anyway. Very likely it has the full encouragement...
Five across: Puzzle
MY FRIEND PHILIP enjoyed a weekly crossword.He bought or subscribed to a magazine he freely acknowledged was of at best passing or peripheral interest – society gossip, largely, such as I could gather – but with a puzzle on its inner back page he...
Dying, laughing
KYLIE THOMAS'S CHILDREN had been on the roof since early morning. She had heard them, vaguely, tapping at the edges of her consciousness, as she tried to hold on to sleep, even as it disappeared. She loved sleep, loved the act of being unconscious...
Missing persons
Peacetime or warthere are deserters to round up,warrants to be issuedby the clerk of rules. In the riotless cityof fashionable slumsno one staggers through jungleto reach the border,uniform ditched in the grass,rifle upside down for a crutch.No body bags accruein Parliament Gardens,just the nightly sarcophagiof...
Vanellinae
And I know now, about the birds – their Latin name, theirpopulation and international distribution. I know their migratory patterns and have watched footage of them inflight; could write about the slow, irregular beat of wing or shrillness of call, but still do not know how...
Featured Contributors
Greg Lockhart
After serving with the Pacific Islands Regiment in Papua New Guinea and The Australian Army Training Team in Vietnam,...
Barbara Gunnell
Barbara Gunnell is a writer and editor based in London.From 1992-97 she was Assistant Editor of the Independent on...
Matthew Condon
Matthew Condon is the author of ten novels and story collections, including A Night at the Pink Poodle, winner...
Bronwyn Adcock
Bronwyn Adcock is a freelance journalist who's worked in radio, television and print. She started her career as a cadet...
