Search results

This chapter came about, after five years of working with the Ngadjuri community on speculative student cultural centre designs. Ideation for those conversations and studio-based interactions, in addition to time and cultural tours spent on Country, revealed a variety of opinions and hopes that exist within the Ngadjuri community for a place to celebrate their cultural heritage. This heritage has an incredible history, and the idea of a cultural centre has been topical since the late Uncle Vince Copley Senior worked with other Ngadjuri community members such as Robert Rigney, on Country and in an advocacy role for Ngadjuri more than 30 years ago. This series of yarnings from a two-part transcription process re-awakens those desires of Elders now passed. The transcriptions are complemented with literature around yarning as a research methodology that delivers current, immediate, and insightful personal thoughts, although only as personal as the lead yarner wishes to share. In addition, the literature contextualises the key themes of which the yarnings divulge. Research has indicated how yarning interactions and interrelationships create a unique dynamic between the researcher and the community members. It is these rich experiences where knowledge is shared in a two-way exchange that is noteworthy for the galleries, libraries, archives, and museums [GLAM] sector. GLAM sector priorities must implement policy to pursue future Indigenisation of their epistemological methods and ontological systems. To address any future data curation of Ngadjuri cultural heritage materials on Country or in GLAM, hearing the personal stories and desires seemed timely and necessary.

This chapter offers an overview of the applications of artificial intelligence (AI) in the textile industry and in particular, the textile colouration and finishing industry. The advent of new technologies such as AI and the Internet of Things (IoT) has changed many businesses and one area AI is seeing growth in is the textile industry. It is estimated that the AI software market shall reach a new high of over US$60 billion by 2022, and the largest increase is projected to be in the area of machine learning (ML). This is the area of AI where machines process and analyse vast amount of data they collect to perform tasks and processes. In the textile manufacturing industry, AI is applied to various areas such as colour matching, colour recipe formulation, pattern recognition, garment manufacture, process optimisation, quality control and supply chain management for enhanced productivity, product quality and competitiveness, reduced environmental impact and overall improved customer experience. The importance and success of AI is set to grow as ML algorithms become more sophisticated and smarter, and computing power increases.

Strategic Management, Business Ethics.

This case is suitable to be used in advanced undergraduate and MBA/MSc level.

The case accentuates the challenges faced by Geetanjali Woollens in its mechanical recycling business which is proving detrimental to its African business expansion plans. The case is developed from the episodes of divergence in January 2018 when the buyers’ non-acceptance of mechanically recycled products initiated a managerial dilemma between “business sustenance” and “sustainable business” for Geetanjali Woollens. Being associated with the recycling business for more than 25 years, Madhukar Ghosh, the General Manager at Geetanjali Woollen recycling unit, was delving upon practical, supply-chain-wide solutions to generate standard acceptance norms for mechanically recycled textiles. For him, ethical purpose of business existence was equally important as the profit motive. Bringing operational clarity and standardized regulatory framework still seemed a big challenge for international policymakers and torchbearers of environmental responsibility, and Governments and NGOs popularizing green initiatives. Lack of policy guidelines for business behavior was exacerbating the business functioning. Madhukar knew that consistent buyer policies and standard regulatory framework could clear some mist and induce maturity in the concept of circular economy. Some formalizations were expected till the end of December 2018, if the deadlines did not get pushed further.

The objectives of this case are as follows:

• to highlight the limitations that recycled apparel and textile products have and the concerns that emerge for buyers, designers, and consumers, due to these limitations;

• to highlight the myopic business vision with which the recycling business is suffering due to the lack of a formalized regulatory framework, which in turn is creating various system barriers and making recycling business an unattractive proposition;

• to appreciate the contribution of mechanical recycling of post-consumer textile waste as a closed-loop manufacturing technique in recouping the eco-impacts of increased disposal of apparel and textile products; and

• to promote discussions for innovative solutions for limitations and concerns related to substances of concern in the recycling business and deliberations for a more effective tracking of such substances to facilitate buyer acceptance of mechanically recycled products.

to highlight the limitations that recycled apparel and textile products have and the concerns that emerge for buyers, designers, and consumers, due to these limitations;

to highlight the myopic business vision with which the recycling business is suffering due to the lack of a formalized regulatory framework, which in turn is creating various system barriers and making recycling business an unattractive proposition;

to appreciate the contribution of mechanical recycling of post-consumer textile waste as a closed-loop manufacturing technique in recouping the eco-impacts of increased disposal of apparel and textile products; and

to promote discussions for innovative solutions for limitations and concerns related to substances of concern in the recycling business and deliberations for a more effective tracking of such substances to facilitate buyer acceptance of mechanically recycled products.

In this chapter, we reflect on the possibilities of craftivism — yarn bombing, specifically — in a fourth-year undergraduate seminar on feminist praxis. We suggest that knitting in the classroom, as an ‘everyday [act] of defiance’ (Baumgardner & Richards, 2000, p. 283), opens a productive space for complex and challenging conversations, in the process enabling not only different ways of listening, but also different ways of learning. Knitting, as a meditative and embodied practice, encourages and supports critical attentiveness. We also argue that craftivism can operate to make change in a way that emphasizes collaboration, non-violence and critical self-reflection. Social change, in a craftivist framework, happens in the everyday, and perhaps more radically, within the domestic spaces of the normatively feminine. Finally, our project demonstrated that knitting as feminist praxis serves a bridging function: we contend that systems of power may be challenged through knitting-as-protest, and that students may be able to practice engaged citizenship as they navigate the slippery borders between public and private, and academic and community-based feminisms.

The aim of this chapter is to develop a strong research base for the academia and the industry to understand the importance of data analytics in International Trade. This chapter focuses on the case of cotton trade from India and explores different methodologies developed by the World Bank and International Trade Center to analyze the Big Data available on export and import. Through Big Data analysis, this chapter attempts to find out the export performance, market demand, export potential, and attractive markets for Indian cotton. This chapter also explores the trade competitiveness of Indian cotton over the years. The data through appropriate analysis can address some simple yet complicated questions in trade like what export potential the commodity holds, if the commodity is competitive or not in international market, what are new markets to look up to, and other similar questions. In other words, this information could make huge difference in decision-making of traders and policymakers directly, and farmers indirectly.

This paper shows how business suppliers set up processes allowing the translation of their competencies into value for the customers. As such, this paper seeks to complement the dominant view in which competencies are seen mainly as valuable for the firm owning the competencies but not for that firm's customers. In so doing, the paper seeks to contribute to two bodies of research: the notions of core competencies in strategic management and of value for customer in business marketing. These two bodies of research interact infrequently thus far, leaving the question of how value is transferred unanswered. This question is relevant because competencies are immaterial, tacit, and non-tradable assets. Hence, the research question underlying the present paper becomes: How can competencies translate into valuable outputs and be made accessible to the customer? To answer this question, a qualitative approach is used that involves a multiple-case study analysis aimed at exploring the competence-based process of value supplying in business markets. Specifically, this paper suggests the following propositions: (1) Competence-based value analysis, where suppliers anticipate customers’ competence needs, require an end-market orientation. (2) Competence-based value creation implies an accumulation of know-how that overlaps with customer competencies. (3) Competence-based value communication builds on live communication tools that allow customers to get an ongoing experience of the value potential of competencies. (4) Competence-based value delivery is based on bundles of suppliers’ competencies into tradable means and direct access to competence tools.

This article aims to discuss the effects of unpaid reproductive labour on labour productivity and production. We make use of a Marxist approach, recognising in its method and categories the necessary and adequate tools in order to disclose reality. Capitalism is regarded as patriarchal, and patriarchy as a set of social relations that dominate women and women’s labour-power for the benefit of men and capital. We argue that unpaid reproductive labour involves both class and gender struggles, which affect in a contradictory manner the capitalist accumulation process. Such assertion is reached by using an analytical instrument (based on linear algebra) developed in order to observe the impact that an insufficient fulfilment of the workers’ necessities has on labour productivity and production.

This study constructs a comprehensive, internationally comparative set of foreign trade data for the period 1857–1875. The dataset is constructed using information at the commodity group-level and contains import and export values for the UK, France, the Zollverein, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria-Hungary, and the United States, itemised by trade partner. The study tackles three basic problems related to the heterogeneity in national statistics of the period: different definitions of aggregates, inadequate ‘official’ pricing, and the ‘proximity bias’, i.e. the misleading practice of crediting imports to bordering countries from where they physically entered, but where they did not originate. After passing successfully a consistency test, the resulting dataset contains harmonised and country of origin-corrected bilateral trade values for 7 central importers, 10 points in time, and 21 commodity groups, along with ad valorem tariff rates for all commodity groups and countries. They offer new detailed insights into the composition and evolution of trade and tariffs in the third quarter of the 19th century. Furthermore, a basic implementation of the gravity equation shows that as a consequence of the proximity bias estimates using uncorrected data are to be taken with care, especially when assessing border effects and the impact of policy variables.

Country and cultural heritage are inextricably linked for First Nations peoples. This chapter explores those relationships in the context of repatriating cultural heritage materials back to Country and conceptualising a place for its ‘awakening’ for the Ngadjuri community of Mid-North South Australia. These materials in the context of this book ‘interpreted’ as a form of data curation, requiring potentially unique information systems designs to achieve accessibility, recoverability, and durability in remote communities with limited internet and mobile phone coverage. On the other hand, it is critically important to note, that the processes, challenges and repatriation of culturally sensitive materials and remains, are dependant here on the limitations of language. The reference to the notion of ‘data’ as a descriptor, and an inadequate term on some level, does not, and is not intended to, diminish any of their cultural significance and gravity. These are challenges that are worth the intellectual and technological investment to realise a return to Country for generationally displaced peoples and their cultural property that also needs to make it home.

Teaching and learning success rely on effective communication in a style which will enhance enquiry and engage the learner in developing self-confidence and self-worth. This is a space which respects the prior knowledge and culture of the learner. Many have written and theorised with regard to the importance of a culturally inclusive curriculum, which in effect should incorporate decolonising methodologies in the multifaceted pedagogical landscape. Education has been structured on a Western scaffold which has gone unchallenged over decades. Interculturality with regard to Indigenous pedagogy must be recognised and identified to move forward. Teaching in the area of the creative arts is a diverse learning environment. Creative works are culturally informed and are closely connected to the individual’s sense of identity, cultural values, spiritual beliefs and traditional expectations. Visual arts are a point of intercultural communication, where traditional artistic expressions connect with those around us, informing and expressing our ‘Being’ to a wider audience. This chapter will provide an exploratory discussion of the historical and sociocultural facets of Australian Aboriginal Knowledge Systems and how this relates to an emerging scholarly Indigenous Knowledge system. The aspects of this chapter are: it will focus on the colonisation of Australia; a review of Indigenous and Western theoretical perspectives; and the importance of traditional practice, such as yarning and cultural values in relation to creative arts. This expands on possibilities and creative ideas, informing the various ways expression can be developed. These can be both traditional and contemporary in origin. This chapter will bring reference to these in the particularistic sense of creative expression and its correlation with teaching in higher education for Aboriginal students.