Place, networks, space: theorising the geographies of social movements

This essay examines how geography affects the different types of networks underlying social movements. The principal argument of the paper is that networks forged in particular places and at great distances play distinctive yet complementary functions in broad-based social movements. Not only does the articulation of these different types of networks result in complementary roles, but it also introduces key relational dynamics affecting the stability of the entire social movement. The purpose of the paper is therefore threefold: to provide a conceptual framework for interpreting the complex geographies of contemporary social movement networks, to stress the contributions of place-based relations in social movements and to assess how activist places connect to form 'social movement space'.     

Caring at a distance: gift theory,aid chains and social movements

This paper takes as its starting point recent work on caring for distant others which is one expression of renewed interest in moral geographies. It examines relationships in aid chains connecting donors/carers in the First World or North and recipients/cared for in the Third World or South. Assuming predominance of relationships between strangers and of universalism as a basis for moral motivation I draw upon Gift Theory in order to characterize two basic forms of gift relationship. The first is purely altruistic, the other fully reciprocal and obligatory within the framework of institutions, values and social forces within specific relationships of politics and power. This conception problematizes donor–recipient relationships in the context of two modernist models of aid chains—the Resource Transfer and the Beyond Aid Paradigms. In the first, donor domination means low levels of reciprocity despite rhetoric about partnership and participation. The second identifies potential for greater reciprocity on the basis of combination between social movements and non‐governmental organizations at both national and trans‐national levels, although at the risk of marginalizing competencies of states. Finally, I evaluate post‐structural critiques which also problematize aid chain relationships. They do so both in terms of bases—such as universals and difference—upon which it might be constructed and the means—such as forms of positionality and mutuality—by which it might be achieved.     

Accountability,motivation and practice: NGOs North and South

This Article does not have an abstract.     

Visual motion illusions, eye movements, and the search for objectivity

The initial interpretations of motion phenomena are often in terms of eye movements. It reflects a desire to link an objective expression of motion (of the eyes) with a subjective experience of motion. This approach is examined historically with respect to induced motion, motion aftereffects, visual vertigo, autokinetic effects and stroboscopic motion. All but one of these phenomena were initially observed in the natural environment and they have subsequently been studied under laboratory conditions. Eye movements are not correlated with induced motion, the motion aftereffect, or stroboscopic motion, but they do correspond to the direction and extent of visual vertigo. The extent of apparent visual motion in the autokinetic effect far exceeds that of involuntary eye movements but there might be a weak relation between them. If eye movements are to provide a reasonable account of motion illusions then they should apply to all the contours that are visible. This does apply to visual vertigo, but not to induced motion, the motion aftereffect and stroboscopic motion, all of which involve relative motion in a visible display. The autokinetic phenomenon involves the perception of isolated stimuli, and so interpretations in terms of some internal eye movement signals remain sustainable.     

Presumption,policy and practice

This article aims to analyse the basis for the construction of current policy designed to use museums and galleries as agents of social inclusion in Great Britain. It does this by first analysing their social role and their historical contribution to social policy. The article then goes on to present the findings of a research project that compared the rhetoric surrounding this issue with practice. It concludes that a series of issues are preventing the successful construction and implementation of policy. These are: a lack of policy coherence across different parts of the British Government; an inability to successfully measure social impact; a lack of institutional clarity about how to respond to policy guidance; and a lack of understanding about what constitutes social exclusion. The final and most significant difficulty is the lack of clarity about what can be expected from museums and galleries in this respect. The underlying question of how they function in society remains largely unanswered and means that policy is not based upon firm foundations.     

Spatial Displacements: Transnationalism and the new social movements

This paper looks at connections between transnationalism and the new social movements in the USA. Drawing on feminist and 'queer theory' critiques of totalising 'lesbian-feminist' and 'radical feminist' arguments, as well as on the neo-Marxist analyses of transnationalism, I argue that it is possible to theorise transnational 'flexible accumulation' in terms of gender, race and sexuality as well as class. I analyse David Harvey's argument about the role of the 'spatial fix' and 'temporal fix' in post-modernity. I compare Harvey's approach to the analysis of post-modernity with Mike Davis's more local/global analytic. I contrast their approaches with the ways that the notion of displacement can be applied to the deconstructive reading of narrative and representational texts. I conclude with an analysis of the way transnationalism is displaced, as multiplanetary capitalism, in C.J. Cherryh's science fiction. Cherryh links the construction of spatialities to ways of constructing gender, species, and sexualities, as well as to changes in the mode of production. Her heroines, too, as translators, knowledge brokers and political intriguers, are centrally involved in the crisis of accumulation in the novels' fictive universe. In this way, Cherryh's fictions, and her heroines' actions, produce an implicit theorisation of accumulation, based on gender, and sexuality, as well as class.     

Process, perception, and practice: Time perspectivism in Yosemite native demography

Multiple concepts of time apply to archaeology—from analytical time used to organize and interpret the archaeological record to the time of lived experience of those individuals responsible for creation of the archaeological record. This paper demonstrates how these disparate concepts of time can be reconciled through a perception-based approach to time perspectivism, which invokes multiple analytical scales working from the minimum scale of the average human lifespan. This approach is demonstrated through a case study of hunter–gatherer demographic change in Yosemite Valley in the central Sierra Nevada of California.     

Social control,structure and practice

Black, Donald, ed. Toward A General Theory of Social Control. Volume 1: Fundamentals. New York: Academic Press, 1984. xvi + 363 pp. including author and subject indexes, bibliographies, list of contributors. $45.00 cloth.

Black, Donald, ed. Toward A General Theory of Social Control. Volume 2: Selected Problems. New York: Academic Press, 1984. x + 310 pp. including author and subject indexes, bibliographies, list of contributors. S39.50 cloth.     

Migration at the micro-scale: intra-parochial movements in rural Normandy, 1946-54

"Most working definitions of migration accept that only movements across local authority boundaries can normally be dealt with: by the use of questionnaire surveys certain urban studies have examined intra-unit moves but few non-urban migration studies have been able to penetrate below the level of local authority boundaries. In this paper use is made of various unpublished documents available in connection with population censuses in France from which it is possible to examine migration within rural communes for the intercensal period from 1946 to 1954. Twelve communes were investigated and the emerging picture of intra-parochial migrants have been compared with that of inter-parochial movers." The author notes "differences in age-structure between the two groups. Net movement takes place up the settlement hierarchy within each 'commune', whilst the reasons for movement show that between village-centres and outlying settlements there are certain social cleavages."