Improving market systems: expert to share insight

October 25, 2007

A researcher who has helped to improve agricultural marketing systems in Cambodia and Papua New Guinea will discuss a key factor in the success of such ventures when he gives a public lecture at the University of New England tomorrow (Friday 26 October).

John Spriggs, Professor of Regional Socio-Economic Development at the University of Canberra's Australian Institute for Sustainable Communities, will present UNE's John L. Dillon Memorial Lecture for 2007. The free lecture, titled "Improving Agricultural Marketing Systems in the Developing World", will be at 1 pm in the Lewis Seminar Room (EBL Building, UNE).

"If you are concerned to improve an agricultural marketing system in the developing world, then it is necessary to see the marketing system as fundamentally a social system that exists within a particular cultural context," Professor Spriggs said. "This is not to say we should ignore the economic or technical aspects of the marketing system, as these are clearly important. To 'make a difference', however, we must go beyond the writing of a report and think about implementation. And implementation requires social decision making – seeing the marketing system as fundamentally a social system."

"How do we do this?" he added. "That is the topic of my presentation."

Professor Spriggs has worked on projects (funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research) to improve marketing systems for maize and soybeans in rural areas of Cambodia and for fresh produce in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea.

His interest in improving the socio-economic conditions of societies includes rural and regional Australia, and he has carried out research in the Coleambally Irrigation Area of NSW. As an Adjunct Professor at UNE, he is involved in research projects with members of UNE's School of Business, Economics and Public Policy.

The New England Branch of the Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society will be providing refreshments in the EBL Café after the lecture.

The Aztec underworld of Mexican cinema

Another lecture by a visiting academic at UNE tomorrow will form part of the series of lectures organised by UNESEX (the UNE Sexualities Research Group).

Dr Terrie Waddell from La Trobe University in Melbourne will discuss resonances of the Aztec underworld (Mictlan) and its canine deity Xolotl in the film Amores Perros ("Love's a Bitch") by the Mexican director Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu.

The lecture, titled "Dog Day Afternoons: the trickster archetype in Amores Perros", will be in Room 122, UNE Arts Building, at 12 noon.

Dr Waddell is a Senior Lecturer at La Trobe University. Her book Mis/takes: Archetype, Myth and Identity in Screen Fiction was published by Routledge in 2006. Her current research project, Wild/lives (which includes the study of Amores Perros), will result in her second book on television, film, and analytical psychology.

Posted by Jim Scanlan at October 25, 2007 08:29 AM