Creative construction: crafting, negotiating and performing urban food sharing landscapes.

Activities utilising online tools are an increasingly visible part of our everyday lives, providing new subjects, objects and relationships - essentially new landscapes - for research, as well as new conceptual and methodological challenges for researchers. In parallel, calls for collaborative interdisciplinary, even transdisciplinary, research are increasing. Yet practical guidance and critical reflection on the challenges and opportunities of conducting collaborative research online, particularly in emergent areas, is limited. In response, this paper details what we term the 'creative construction' involved in a collaborative project building an exploratory database of more than 4000 food sharing activities in 100 cities that utilise internet and digital technologies in some way (ICT mediated for brevity) to pursue their goals. The research was undertaken by an international team of researchers, including geographers, which utilised a combination of reflexive coding and online collaboration to develop a system for exploring the practice and performance of ICT-mediated food sharing in cities. This paper will unpack the black box of using the internet as a source of data about emergent practices and provide critical reflection on that highly negotiated and essentially handcrafted process. While the substance of the paper focuses on the under-determined realm of food sharing, a site where it is claimed that ICT is transforming practices, the issues raised have resonance far beyond the specificities of this particular endeavour. While challenging, we argue that handcrafting systems for navigating emergent online data is vital, not least to render visible the complexities and contestations around definition, categorisation and translation.

Socio-cultural reflections on heat in Australia with implications for health and climate change adaptation.

BACKGROUND: Australia has a hot climate with maximum summer temperatures in its major cities frequently exceeding 35°C. Although 'heat waves' are an annual occurrence, the associated heat-related deaths among vulnerable groups, such as older people, suggest that Australians could be better prepared to deal with extreme heat. OBJECTIVE: To understand ways in which a vulnerable sub-population adapt their personal behaviour to cope with heat within the context of Australians' relationship with heat. DESIGN: We draw upon scientific, historical and literary sources and on a set of repeat interviews in the suburbs of Western Sydney with eight older participants and two focus group discussions. We discuss ways in which this group of older people modifies their behaviour to adapt to heat, and reflect on manifestations of Australians' ambivalence towards heat. RESULTS: Participants reported a number of methods for coping with extreme heat, including a number of methods of personal cooling, changing patterns of daily activity and altering dietary habits. The use of air-conditioning was near universal, but with recognition that increasing energy costs may become more prohibitive over time. CONCLUSIONS: While a number of methods are employed by older people to stay cool, these may become limited in the future. Australians' attitudes may contribute to the ill-health and mortality associated with excessive heat.

Climate change adaptation at the intersection of food and health.

Nutritious, safe, affordable, and enjoyable food is a fundamental prerequisite for health. As a nation, Australia is currently classified as food secure with the domestic production exceeding domestic consumption of most major food groups. The domestic system is almost self-sufficient in terms of nutritious plant foods, although these foods have seen steady higher price increases relative to other foods, with nutrition equity implications. However, the viability of Australia's food security sits counter to the continued presence of a stable and supportive climate. This article reviews the current state of science concerning the interface between climate change, food systems, and human health to reveal the key issues that must be addressed if Australia is to advance human health and sustainable food systems under a changing climate.