The Politics of Contraception

Abstract

In modern societies the more obvious risks have already been reduced to level which are acceptable to the public, but there is a growing realization that serious error may be present in the allocation of resources to improve public and industrial safety. There appears to be considerable additional potential for saving many human lives, as well as large sums of money, by more rational and better-informed policies in the field. To reach this better understanding, it is necessary to compare risks and benefits for a set of alternatives and carry through a cost-effectiveness analysis for each proposal. It rapidly becomes more and more expensive to produce equal increments of risk reduction and, beyond a certain level of investment, further expenditure on safety actually increases the number of deaths and injuries, and becomes counter-productive.     

Micro-level assessment of regional and local disaster impacts in tourist destinations

ABSTRACT

The tourism sector faces severe challenges due to the economic impacts from changing natural environments as seen with the increased frequency of natural disasters. Therefore, analyses of disaster impacts models are necessary for managing successful tourism recovery. Typically, disaster assessments are conducted on a countrywide level, which can lead to imbalanced recovery processes, and a distorted distribution of recovery financing or subsidies. We address the challenges of recovery using the tourism disaster management framework by Faulkner. To calculate precise damage assessments, we develop a micro-level assessment model to analyze and understand disaster impacts at the micro-level supporting tourism recovery in an affected destination. We examine economic consequences of a disaster at a small regional scale arguing recovery from a natural disaster is more difficult in individual areas because of differences in geographic location or infrastructure development. The island of Dominica is chosen as an example for the model using statistical data from the tourism sector to outline and detail the consequences of a disaster specifically for communities. The results highlight the importance of damage assessments on a small-scale level, such as communities in order to distinguish between individual regions facing severe changes for resident livelihoods and the local tourism sector. We argue that only after identifying regional impacts it is possible to apply adequate governmental subsidies and development strategies for a country's tourism sector and residents in a continuously changing environment in the hopes of mitigating future financial losses and future climate change impacts.     

Local Childcare Cultures: Moral geographies of mothering and the social organisation of pre-school education

Child-rearing has not been a major focus of research in geography despite the fact that its organisation is both spatially and temporally variable. Geographical work on pre-school childcare provision in the 1970s and 1980s tended to focus on the implementation and implications of government policy; more recently there has been a growth of feminist work on child-rearing which has employed a diversity of approaches. These studies have made a valuable contribution to our understanding of how mothers organise the care of their children, often whilst undertaking paid employment; nevertheless they can not always explain how a wide range of mothers negotiate specific aspects of 'maternal responsibility'. This article draws on an empirical investigation of pre-school childcare cultures in two areas of Sheffield, UK, in order to analyse the ways in which mothers' attitudes to their children's educational development and their strategies for accessing non-parental educational care are jointly shaped within the context of different local childcare cultures. The importance of two key components of these local childcare cultures, the moral geographies of mothering and the local social organisation of non-parental educational care, is emphasised.     

Albert Einstein,Physicist (1879–1955)

Abstract

Einstein's ideas changed man's thoughts about the totality of physics. These ideas were so fundamental for human thought that Einstein belongs to all the sciences and to all cultures. If ever there was a scientist whose centenary ought to be commemorated in an interdisciplinary journal, Einstein would be that one. This is because of the all-pervading influence of the revolution in physics in which Einstein played so paramount a part. Here we look back to what one man was able to contribute to transforming everyman's thought about the physical world. For the most part the lasting consequences are evident and well-known. Nevertheless, we have to observe that in some respect – not necessarily those emphasized by Einstein – the implications are still scarcely apprehended.     

Covid-19 is an unnatural disaster: Hope in revelatory moments of crisis

Abstract

The unfolding COVID-19 pandemic has closed borders, grounded planes, quarantined more than half of the world’s population, triggered anxiety en masse, and shaken global capitalism to its core. Scholars of the political ecology of disasters have sought to denaturalize so-called “natural” disasters by demonstrating their uneven consequences. Work in the political ecology of health similarly accounts for how risk of illness and disease are socio-economically mediated. While this scholarship has demonstrated the need to contextualize the unequal fallout from ecological and health disasters in ways that reveal the festering wounds of structural inequality, we know much less about how hope is cultivated in moments of crisis. The current revelatory moment of the COVID-19 pandemic offers an opportunity to find hope in the rubble through the deconstruction of framings of crisis as “error” and by homing in on the current and potential role of tourism to contribute to a more socially and environmentally just society. This reframing the pandemic as an "unnatural" disaster opens new debates at the intersection of tourism geographies and political ecologies of hope in revelatory moments of crisis.     

The Chosen Few: The Order Pour le mérite and the Order of Merit

Abstract

Brain disease or injury is a terrible thing, but the fact that the same kinds of brain diseases occur the world over offers researchers the opportunity to address the question posed by the title to this review. In the research described here, we assessed the reading skills of adult neurological patients (who had been normal speakers and readers prior to the onset of their brain damage) in both England and Japan. We chose patients in the two countries with the same causes and neuroanatomical locations of brain damage. The writing systems of English and Japanese differ fundamentally in the manner in which written words represent the sounds and meanings of the words in their respective languages. If the organisation of language in a person's brain is determined by the characteristics of the language he or she has learned, it follows that there should be little or no commonality in the patterns of reading deficit across these two languages. On the other hand, if the same principles of brain organisation apply across different cultures and languages, then we should be able to predict the nature of the reading impairments from one language to another when the same part of the brain is malfunctioning. The results discussed strongly suggest that the brain's organisation of language is in fact the same no matter which language you speak.     

The regional consequences of a dualistic industrial structure: the case of Australia

This article is a preliminary attempt to consider the spatial consequences of business organisation segmentation in the Australian economy. The first section outlines a framework that can be employed in an analysis of business organisation segmentation. The second section applies this framework in the context of the Australian economy. This section is in three parts. First, it is shown that conventional sectoral data can be used to approximate business organisation segmentation. Second, the labour market consequences of this empirical exercise are documented. Finally, the spatial consequences of the exercise are shown by way of a series of maps.     

综合城市灾害风险管理:创新的途径和新世纪的挑战

21世纪的城市发展绝不仅仅是经济实力、科学与信息之争,必然是包括生态环境及减灾防灾在内的城市安全度之争。可以说21世纪城市综合防灾减灾能力的高低,将成为全面衡量城市整体功能及其安是针对城市进行的全灾害的管理,它贯穿于灾害管理全过程,集中于灾害风险和承灾体的脆弱性分析并强调多层面、多元化和多学科的参与合作的全面整合的灾害管理模式。本文介绍了综合城市灾害风险管理的必要性、内涵和原则;综合城市灾害风险管理的对策和实施过程;在此基础上探讨了综合城市灾害管理的实施战略和实施途径。     

The Shadow Field of Reindeer Management: A Case Study from Finland

Abstract

This article applies the analytical concept of shadow field in relation to reindeer management, to explain why some herders and reindeer herding cooperatives do not adhere to government regulations on herd size. The underlying processes and structures related to reindeer numbers are exemplified through two case studies of two Finnish reindeer herding cooperatives, which for several years have exceeded the total allowable quota of reindeer. The case studies reveal a different reality of reindeer management, which functions according to a logic and agenda not always understood by the State authorities or incorporated into the management decisions. This reality is the outcome of anomalies in the official reindeer management system, including the system's disclosure of herders from the decision-making process, the system's provision of self-determination and self-monitoring regarding the organisation of reindeer herding to the cooperatives, the system's weak external control and a subsidy system which promotes reindeer ownership instead of production. Combined, these anomalies enable and encourage the formation of a shadow field of reindeer management. This paper uses as its theoretical framework Pierre Bourdieu's theory of practice, and focuses especially on the key notion of field and shadow field in addressing the Common Pool Resource discussion related to reindeer herding.     

城市社区应急避难所评价——以焦作市为例

社区避难所是居民灾后第一时间紧急疏散避难的重要场所,也是城市应急避难体系的重要组成部分。本文从场地规划、基础设施和日常管理方面入手,结合GIS手段对社区避难所服务与建设进行评价。结果表明:焦作市社区避难所具有良好的基础,但是基础设施和日常管理相对落后;同时社区避难所分布不均,服务区域有限,存在较大面积的覆盖盲区。在社区避难所建设中,应综合考虑社区避难所的影响要素,结合人口分布、合理布局,以提高社区避难所的满足性与服务水平。     

Risk assessment and structural integrity aspects of materials behaviour

Abstract

Risk has always been an inherent part of everyday life, but quantified assessment of risk is now an important part of several different aspects of materials and engineering applications. Risk is taken into account as an integral part of the design of many constructions in limit state design through the use of partial safety factors to achieve a target reliability, depending on the consequences of failure and the uncertainties of the input data and design relationships. Risk is also increasingly being used as a basis for decisions on inspection, maintenance, and life extension of engineering structures and infrastructure. As part of the effective management of projects, assessments of the financial risks both for the client and for the contractor are essential requirements. Environmental risk assessments are obligatory for major projects before decisions to proceed can be taken. The current status of the application of risk analysis methods to avoidance of failure by plastic collapse, fracture, buckling, fatigue, creep, and corrosion is reviewed, and applications in a range of industries are considered. The application of risk analysis to the use of new materials, methods of construction, and life extension is then briefly explored. Finally, the importance of a proper understanding of both risk analysis and materials behaviour for students on degree courses is stressed.     

Firewood economy during the 4th millennium BC at Lake Clairvaux,Jura, France

Abstract

This paper presents the results of charcoal analyses from two waterlogged sites located at Lake Clairvaux in the French Jura and dated to the period between 3700–3500 BC. The economy of firewood intended for domestic use was characterised in accordance with the spatial organisation of the sites on the lakeshore, the economic context and the environment. Because gathering modes mainly depend on the available biomass and resource proximity, charcoal spectra are representative of the exploited woodland. However, as firewood gathering is a major and vital activity, the Neolithic societies established a firewood economy closely linked to their social organisation and way of life and to the environment.     

明清时期广西的虎患及相关生态问题研究

在历史上,广西曾是华南虎的重要栖息地,明清时期广西经历了一个较严重的虎患过程,特别是明代中后期、清初和清末三个时期的虎患非常严重,这反映出三个时期广西的人工生态环境因受战乱的影响而呈现出某种程度的自然退化,田地荒芜导致次生性植被复萌,为虎患的爆发提供了条件。随着社会的安定和人类开发活动的加强,特别是清代乾、嘉、道时期的山地垦殖运动兴起以后,广西的生态环境发生了巨大的变迁,森林植被覆盖率不断下降,虎患逐渐减轻。但人类在免受虎害的同时,却不得不面临生态恶化的威胁。     

Dwelling(s) in a north‐west Arabian oasis: decoding residential architecture at Taymāʾ

The definition of an ancient, autochthonous north‐west Arabian residential architecture is still a major void in the archaeology of the region. This preliminary case study is intended to shed some light on this “blind spot” by presenting and analysing the architectural complex E‐b9 from Taymā? (c. fourth/third century BCE until the first/early second century CE). A meticulous study of the architecture identified a modular concept as a key to understanding the complex. Furthermore, underlying patterns of household organisation can be deduced from the architectural remains resulting in the definition of potential household units. Those are indicated by a set of activity areas which are congruent with patterns of accessibility and the use of specific wall types. These findings provide insights into the organisation of households and daily life in the oasis of Taymā?, and may help to define local or regional traditions in the future.     

5. REPLIES TO COMMENTS ON IMAGES OF HISTORY BY WARREN BRECKMAN,ROBERT R. CLEWIS,AND ESPEN HAMMER

In my replies to the perceptive and cogent observations and questions about my book offered by Warren Breckman, Robert Clewis, and Espen Hammer, I emphasize the thought that we must learn to live with standing tensions between settled institutions and improvisatory courses of action. In reply to Breckman, I suggest that Münchhausen's Trilemma is best regarded as a practical problem that should be addressed in different ways in different contexts rather than as an epistemological puzzle to be solved, and I embrace his rejection of methodological individualism. Although our evolved biology sets some limits and some possibilities, our practical lives are also relatively autonomous from biological determination. In reply to Robert Clewis, I emphasize that Kant has a picture of divine noumenal causation, dimly discernible in history and operating principally through human beings as agents, and I suggest, with Kant, that we may well be unable to explain in any satisfactory way the nature of this noumenal causation. In reply to Espen Hammer's worries about whether a dialogue between Kant and Benjamin is really possible without doing violence to one side or the other, I stress that I am not myself trying to develop a single consistent theory of the meaning of history. Instead, I am “working through” my own perplexity at the constitutive tensions that shape human life, including my own, and trying to see those tensions more clearly.     

A new Gaullist moment? European bandwagoning and international polarity

The transatlantic partnership needs to be reassessed. Since the end of the Cold War, Europe has chosen to bandwagon with the United States and to outsource its security to Washington. Bandwagoning has serious consequences when the use of force is at stake: it may lead to entrapment, where weaker allies may be involuntarily dragged into a conflict. It may also lead to abandonment, where the dominant ally may choose to discard their vital security concerns. With the evolution of the international system towards a multipolar configuration, this strategy of bandwagoning is becoming increasingly costly for Europe while the dominant power, the United States, is progressively confronted by other competitors at the systemic level. These classic dilemmas attached to an asymmetric partnership are exacerbated in a multipolar configuration. In particular, the abandonment scenario may become more and more frequent precisely because there is competition—and thus potential costs—at the international level: the United States may leave Europe alone, not by choice but by necessity. The current crisis in Ukraine illustrates this shift: while some American leaders were keen to escalate the conflict by arming Ukraine, the Obama administration's commitment to the defence of Europe has been minimal and it has largely delegated the management of the crisis to the Europeans themselves. Washington had other and more important priorities. Strategic autonomy is not an option for Europe; it has become a reality, a Gaullist moment where Europeans will have to learn to think and act strategically for themselves.     

ICAHM redivivus!

Abstract

The measures employed in a current Siberian rock art conservation project are briefly described; and preliminary results are examined. The future development of the project is considered, and specific noninterventionist methods are suggested in an effort to contain contamination of the rock art, and so to avoid the destruction of its remaining research potential. The main site among the series of sites being discussed has suffered extensive damage from rock art recorders, as well as intentional vandalism by residents of the district's villages. In view of the steepness of most of the sites, access modifications are considered to be the most effective measures of alleviating anthropic damage. A number of less serious threats can be mitigated by fairly simple measures of altering the conditions threatening the rock art. Such measures of minimal intervention are listed. Although the paper deals with a particular region, climate, demography and geology, the underlying management philosophy may be much more widely applicable.     

中国出境旅游安全事故时空分布格局及形成机制

以原国家旅游局“旅行社责任保险统保示范项目”中的11115条出境旅游出险案例为研究对象，运用数理统计和空间计量方法，对中国出境旅游安全事故时空分布格局及形成机制进行分析。研究表明：①出境旅游安全事故总体区域分布呈现出异质性和高度凝聚的分布态势。②各类型旅游安全事故具有集中性、差异性的频次分布特征和空间集聚特征。③各大洲旅游安全事故呈现出逐年扩张的发展态势，事故高发核心区聚集性不断增强，不同区域的旅游安全事故呈现出差异化的年际变化特征，各州事故季节波动也存在异质性，但均出现下降趋势。④旅游安全事故时空分布格局形成受客源地主体因素和目的地客体因素的共同影响，不同探测因子的影响力度呈现差异化特征。     

“Punching Above its Weight”. The Mafikeng Anti-Repression Forum (Maref) and the Fall of Bophuthatswana

Abstract

This article traces the history of the Mafikeng Anti-Repression Forum (Maref) that operated in the former homeland of Bophuthatswana from early 1990 to late 1994. It was the only human rights organisation in Bophuthatswana. Maref's work was in five areas. Firstly, it monitored human rights abuses as a consequence of political repression in the homeland. Secondly, it responded to these abuses by means of disseminating the facts behind them. Thirdly, it attempted to defend the interests of the victims by means of seeking legal redress and relief from suffering and deprivation. Fourthly, it agitated for political change in Bophuthatswana in accordance with the changing nature of political reform in South Africa as a whole. Lastly it collated and published the information that formed an essential component of the negotiations that led to the new dispensation in 1994. For these activities, Maref members were severely harassed. The role the organisation played generally has received little analysis or comment, and is deserving of a place in the annals of human rights activities and activists during this period of transformation and upheaval in South Africa.     

Rewilding education? Exploring an imagined and experienced outdoor learning space

ABSTRACT

This paper follows the progress of a small rural primary school in the UK as it goes about cultivating a new vision of the future by transforming its outdoor spaces. Exploring the significance of these outdoor spaces as they are imagined, made and experienced, from the first design stages to the first days of use, the paper considers how feelings about children’s access to and engagement with nature are entangled with cultures of protection and surveillance. Using observations from a multimodal ethnography, including video tours and photography workshops alongside observant participation and interviews, the paper illustrates how, in practical terms, changing an educational landscape can also shift a school culture, giving children greater freedom outdoors to live, learn and grow together.