Traditional medicine was once ubiquitous on islands and a valued component of local environmental knowledge. Its practice has declined and been partly superseded by biomedicine in every island context. A comprehensive initial comparative review of contemporary studies from more than forty mainly tropical and sub-tropical islands indicates that the number of medicinal plants in use, and the range of uses, has fallen fastest in European and Caribbean islands and more slowly in Pacific islands, where biomedicine is more recent and less accessible, and generational knowledge transmission is more likely. However, the practice and reception of traditional medicine is increasingly confined to older people and centred on minor ailments. The uneven loss of medicinal plants in island contexts is a significant component in the decline of biodiversity, through entanglements and material encounters with habitat loss, climate change, invasive species, modern education, migration and employment, monetisation, and attitudes to medical practice. Recent times have seen greater retention, medical pluralism, and a partial revival in islands and diasporas as local Indigenous values stress more holistic perspectives on identity and wellbeing.

Taiwanese Working Holiday Makers (WHMs) are one of the largest WHM cohorts in Australia. While mainstream media and public discourse often portray them as exploited labourers in precarious rural employment, this paper challenges such portrayals by highlighting the agency and diverse experiences of Taiwanese WHMs. Driven by their perceptions of a 'rural idyll,' many Taiwanese youth actively choose to work and live in rural and regional areas beyond merely fulfilling visa requirements. Taiwanese WHMs also seek to embrace a version of rural cosmopolitanism and cultural diversity. Despite structural constraints imposed by precarious employment and tied accommodation, and a labour regime that discourages social interaction, WHMs actively shape their transnational experiences rather than being solely passive workers. This paper thus contributes to a nuanced understanding of how rural spaces are imagined and experienced by temporary migrants in a globalised labour regime.

Guestworker schemes have increased in geographical extent and numerical importance in the twenty-first century. In the southern hemisphere, Australia and New Zealand developed schemes primarily drawing workers from small Pacific island states to meet horticultural needs. Proponents of guestwork pointed to a triple win for farmers, workers and source countries, couched in economic terms. In small Pacific states, such economic gains were less evident at workers' household level, while growing numbers of participants created increased social problems for workers' households and source countries, evident especially during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Increased demand for workers in destination states and new geopolitical tensions in the region enabled Pacific states to demand structural changes to the schemes that would remedy social costs. However, Antipodean schemes retained the structural problems of guestworker schemes elsewhere, but emphasised by skill losses, a permanently temporary precariat, and impacts affecting the entirety of small states that challenge the simplicity and ubiquity of 'Triple win' discourses.

The concept of the 'tourist pose' is developed to examine the feminised aesthetic labour involved in 'post-selfie' tourist self-portraiture for social media consumption, and its role in vernacular geographies of tourist visitation. We elaborate on what constitutes the tourist pose, its linkage to distinctive cultural groups and practices, and altered tourism geographies. Young female Chinese tourist-influencers visiting Sydney, Australia, combine photography, fashion, colour, text, and compositional skills, to curate high-end social media posts within a culturally-inflected community of practice. Their aesthetic labour also creates new distinctive geographies of 'marked' (daka) places. Democratisation of photography through smartphones and social media platforms, notably Xiaohongshu, has encouraged tourists to discover and recommend distinctive sites, beyond the mainstream, selected for their colour and curatorial possibilities. The tourist pose and accompanying aesthetic labour, fuel creativity and performances of femininity, extending the tourist gaze while diffusing tourism geographies. Visitation patterns associated with the tourist pose are dispersed and small-scale, and eschew managerial interventions. The point is not to 'develop' chosen sites for commercial gain, but to acknowledge tourists' vernacular social practices and accompanying gendered performances. The tourist pose reveals how visitors find meaning, refine aesthetic skills, perform gendered identities and explore vernacular creativity, in distinctive places.

1. Beyond the Hexagon: France in World Politics Robert Aldrich and John Connell 2. Consensus and Mythology: Security Alternatives in Post-Gaullist France Jolyon Howorth, University of Bath 3. France and European Unity Mark Wise, Plymouth Polytechnic 4. Travailleurs Immigr s and International Relations Max Silverman, University of Leeds 5. France and Africa Guy Martin, University of Nairobi 6. France and the Third World: Co-operation or Dependence? Howard Evans, University of Leeds 7. Remnants of Empire: France's Overseas Departments and Territories John Connell and Robert Aldrich 8. Francophonie: Language, Culture or Politics? Robert Aldrich and John Connell 9. The Quai d'Orsay and the Formation of French Foreign Policy in Historical Context Mark B. Hayne, University of New England Index.