Women’s History in France: An Ill-Defined Subject

As a new approach and subject, women’s history in France is ill-defined as an academic category and remains on the margins of mainstream history. The concept of gender, a necessary analytical tool, cannot in itself suffice; the historicity of the tensions between men and women must be restored. At stake is the tension between a continuous linear history and the historical discontinuities which arise in its gaps and flaws, the tension between female individuals [individues] who, as objects of representation, are taken to be representative of their sex, and critical subjects who confront representation as a form of power.     

‘Oh You Pretty Thing!’: How David Bowie ‘Unlocked Everybody’s Inner Queen’ in spite of the music press

The 1967 Sexual Offence Act decriminalised homosexual acts between men allowing gay men to discuss their sexuality in public. Few prominent popular musicians came-out until 1972 when David Bowie claimed that he was bisexual in an interview with Melody Maker. Music papers and Bowie had substantial cultural power: Bowie was a rising star and music papers recruited journalists who discussed and perpetuated social change. The subsequent conversation, however, reinforced negative stereotypes in constructing the queer subject and tried to safeguard commercial concerns due to the assumption that the market for popular music avoided queer music. This undermined arguments that associate permissive legislation with a permissive media and society, but, to some, representation alone empowered people and destabilised preconceptions about queer identity.     

‘We’re moving out’: Youth Out‐Migration Intentions in Coastal Non‐Metropolitan New South Wales

This article discusses youth out‐migration on the non‐metropolitan New South Wales Eastern Seaboard. High levels of in‐migration and counter‐urbanisation, typical of many coastal non‐metropolitan towns in NSW, mask the out‐migration of youth. There are relatively few 15–24 year olds in the coastal communities of non‐metropolitan New South Wales, because many youths out‐migrate to larger centres, for a range of reasons. Out‐migration also demarcates a life transition away from school life, adolescence and the parental home. This paper draws from research with senior high school students in one coastal town – Coffs Harbour – where such trends have been particularly apparent. It examines the propensity for youth out‐migration and discusses how young people articulate their migration intentions. Young people's perceptions of their current and future prospects feature prominently in their discourses about intended migration, although this research also demonstrates that the life courses of regional youth are unorthodox and diverse in nature.     

Overcoming ‘Simply Being’: Straight Sex,Masculinity and Physical Culture in Modern Egypt

This article considers the specific deployment of gender and sexuality in interwar Egypt against the general backdrop of a universalising colonial modernity, which since around the middle of the nineteenth century aimed at producing a repeatable subject everywhere. It examines the magazine Physical Culture as an artefact of that colonial modernity and as a watermark of an ineffable style of performing gender and sexuality – a culmination of nearly five decades of historicising Egypt and of exercising Egyptians. That the cultivation of healthy and desirable bodies was constrained by Egypt's asymmetrical location in a global economic and political order constituted by colonialism was a well‐established fact of social life by the end of the 1920s; consequently, the problem of the modern subject in Egypt was posed in terms that were not exclusively nationalist and examined in terms that were keenly attuned to circulations of global cultural forms and discursive practices. In the resulting process of subject formation, a gendered and sexualised other was also produced, as a de‐formation, wherein the terms of its prior being would no longer be intelligible.     

Gender,Work and Fears of a ‘Hybrid Race’ in 1920s New Zealand

The 1929 New Zealand Committee of Inquiry into the Employment of Maori on Market Gardens affords insight into the ways in which masculine fears of racial degradation through miscegenation – of a ‘hybrid’ Chinese/Maori race – operated within a hierarchy of race, gender and Iwi (tribal) interests. The participation of Maori men in national politics contributed to a new articulation of ‘National Manhood’, in which Maori men and white men combined to express fears about women's work and sexuality and young women's potential to undermine a fragile and contested hierarchy of racial purity. Maori women, silenced in the cacophony of voices lamenting their plight, were at the centre of debates between Maori men, Pakeha (white New Zealander) employers, Chinese market gardeners, Anglican and Methodist interests and Pakeha women's groups. I argue that the Inquiry was about commerce, both in a business and a sexual sense. As a historical episode, it also serves to complicate the picture of New Zealand as a historically bicultural society, made up only of Maori and Pakeha, by signalling the importance of the Chinese in debates about national belonging.     

Causality,Chaos Theory,and the End of the Weimar Republic: A Commentary On Henry Turner’s Hitler’s Thirty Days to Power

This article seeks to integrate the roles of structure and human agency in a theory of historical causation, using the fall of the Weimar Republic and in particular Henry Turner's book Hitler's Thirty Days to Power as a case study. Drawing on analogies from chaos theory, it argues that crisis situations in history exhibit sensitive dependence on local conditions, which are always changing. This undermines the distinction between causes and conditions (including counterfactual conditions). It urges instead a distinction between empowering and constraining causes of specific human actions as a more fruitful model. The paper also discusses more briefly two other analogies to chaos theory: 1) similarity across differences in scale as applicable to different levels of individual (psychological) and collective events, which are seen as homologous; 2) a model of branching as applicable to the totality of causes of a given event.     

Sandro Penna and anti-Oedipal impegno

A number of Italianists have recently argued the need to reconsider the term impegno in the light of feminist and queer critiques. Such critiques do not simply highlight the way in which impegno has usually been construed as a masculine, heterosexual domain. They also note that its employment often presupposes a gendered, heteronormative account of politics itself. Complicating this sense of politics via a reading of recent work in queer theory which insists that desire and need are intertwined, this essay argues for a reconsideration of the work of Italian poet Sandro Penna – someone whose oeuvre has regularly been construed by literary critics as apolitical – as an example of impegno. Bringing together psychoanalysis, the work of Michel Foucault, and historical materialism, the essay argues that, in their historical context, Penna's poems staged a resistance to what Freud termed the genital organisation of the libido and are thus ‘anti-Oedipal’.     

The ‘Dividual Androgyne’ and Me: a Personal Affair

In the 25 years since Marilyn Strathern published The Gender of the Gift (1988) its signature concepts of the ‘dividual androgyne’ and ‘sociality’ have received almost no criticism in the anthropological literature and are now widely accepted as true. The ‘dividual’ is considered to be ‘a new, non‐unitary model of embodiment and … one of the most important theoretical accomplishments to emerge from Melanesian ethnography in the latter part of the 20^th Century’ despite the fact that it erases affect, agency, identity and other essential features of human beings (Lipset 2008). The present critique of Strathern's concept of the androgynous ‘dividual’ challenges its legitimacy as a Melanesian or any other ‘premodern’ form of personhood and suggests that it expresses the wish of academic feminists in the 1970s and 1980s to locate an indigenous model for androgyny and to characterise patriarchy, misogyny and sexual segregation as peculiarly Western. The article explores aspects of Gimi myth, ritual and exchange which Strathern claims helped her to formulate the concept of the ‘dividual’ (especially those surrounding men's sacred bamboo flutes) and concludes that she mistook a virulently anti‐female ideology – including a fantasy in which men may subsume or incorporate certain aspects of female anatomy – for benign accommodation between the sexes. The ‘dividual’ does not correspond to social reality among the Gimi and paradoxically affirms Lévi‐Strauss' classic demonstration in the Elementary Structures of Kinship (1949) that ‘the gender of the gift’ is invariably female.     

‘Proportioning violence’: Ethnographic notes on the contingencies of police reform in Turkey

In spite of years of efforts in Turkey to reform the police, including an increase in budget allocations for ‘democratic policing training’, ‘capacity building programmes’ and ‘non‐lethal technologies and tools’, police violence persists. How might we conceptualize the relationship between the upsurge of police violence and such investments? In this article, the author suggests that instead of taking ‘reform’ or ‘transformation’ discourses at face value, we look at some of the ways in which police violence is reformatted through the very tools, discourses and idioms of police reform itself. The article draws on 18 months of fieldwork research on police and security in Turkey, where the author observed the on‐site implementation of police reforms in several venues: police academy classes, practical training programmes that also involved ‘international’ security experts, and local police stations and neighbourhoods. The article examines how the processes of reforming expand the contours of not only policing practice but also the boundaries of police violence – ostensibly what these reforms were supposed to restrain.     

Ways of Whiteness: Harlemising Sydney’s Aboriginal Redfern

The inner Sydney Aboriginal settlement known as The Block has been monitored by police, the media and welfare organisations since its inception in the early 1970s. The Block is the subject of an ongoing commentary, a ‘discourse of decline’ about a place that is commonly considered to be Australia's own Harlem‐like ‘black ghetto’. In stark contrast, the predominantly non‐Aboriginal suburbs of Darlington, Redfern and Chippendale, which surround The Block, are undergoing gentrification. Within this zone of gentrification there are complex and seemingly confused responses to the presence of The Block. The responses challenge and/or embellish the official (‘white’) narrative that The Block is imploding in a sea of drugs, crime and cultural inferiority.     

Erdoğan’s pragmatism and the ascension of AKP in Turkey: Islam and neo‐Ottomanism

This article aimed to analyze the ascension of Justice and Development Party—Adalet ve Kalk?nma Partisi (AKP)—in Turkey and its political measures regarding both Islam and the country's Ottoman past, in order to comprehend the party's role in a potential shift of Turkish national identity and in Turkey's relationship with the Middle East. The article does this through a content analysis of decrees, laws, and other measures taken by the AKP that emphasizes its cultural and religious policies, as well as revisiting literature produced about the subject. Analyzing Recep Tayyip Erdo?an's government during his time as Prime Minister (2003–2014), two noteworthy features come to light: its Islamic influence and its so‐called neo‐Ottomanist outlook. However, this article argues that besides an identity‐ and ideology‐based motivation, the AKP had pragmatic intentions in adopting such approaches, aiming to gather support both domestically and regionally.     

Alternative Cartographies of the British Women’s Movement

Books reviewed in this article: Elizabeth Crawford, The Women’s Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide 1866–1928 Peter Gordon and David Doughan, with a foreword by Sheila Rowbotham, Dictionary of British Women’s Organisations 1825–1960 Sybil Oldfield, Collective Biography of Women in Britain, 1550–1900: A Select Annotated Bibliography     

CHEMICAL CHARACTERIZATION OF ANCIENT MESOAMERICAN ‘COPAL’ RESINS: PRELIMINARY RESULTS*

So‐called ‘copal’ resins from nine Aztec/Mixtec turquoise mosaics have been subject to analysis by gas chromatography – mass spectrometry to examine their higher terpenoid composition with a view to botanical identification. Botanical specimens and modern commercial ‘copal’ resins were analysed for reference. A range of botanical sources for the resins was identified, including pine, Protium and possibly Bursera. The data reinforce the ambiguity in the use of the term ‘copal’ and demonstrate the need for further work on characterization of ancient Bursera resins.     

Incorporating the time and space of the ethnic ‘other’: nationalism and space in Southeast Turkey in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries*

Abstract. This paper aims to develop a model for the ethno‐nationalist incorporation of the space and time – that is of the geography and history – of ethnies considered as ‘others’ by the ethno‐nationalist core of an emerging nation‐state. It contends that one of the reasons for the recurring power and emotive force of nationalist discourse and practice stems from the disjunction between the complex history of a locality – exemplified in its material culture – and the homogenised present, which various strategies of ethno‐nationalist incorporation have brought about. Based on the analysis of the empirical evidence of the case of the city of (Sanli) Urfa in Southeast Turkey, it argues that a ‘spatial perspective’ focusing on the locale might facilitate unveiling hitherto understudied aspects of local nationalisms, as well as the rather dark sides of most nation‐building projects such as large‐scale population exchanges or ethnic cleansing.     

First Geochemical ‘Fingerprinting’ of Balkan and Prut Flint from Palaeolithic Romania: Potentials,Limitations and Future Directions

Long‐distance raw material transfers across Romania prior to the Last Glacial Maximum have previously been inferred from either visual and/or petrographic observations of East Carpathian sites. We investigated the potential to ‘fingerprint’ flint from archaeological sites at Mitoc‐Malu Galben and Bistricioara–Lut?rie III in Eastern Romania, using in situ high‐precision analyses of 28 major, minor and trace elements determined by laser ablation – inductively coupled plasma – mass spectrometry (LA–ICP–MS) in combination with multivariate statistical analysis. Our results suggest that geochemical analyses have the ability to distinguish between different geographical sources but are unable to positively associate flint artefacts from archaeological contexts to these geochemical groups. The mismatches of signatures between artefacts and geological materials, however, raise new questions and open unforeseen perspectives.     

La métropolisation à l’aune de la ‘loi’ taille/rang : Le cas Canadien, 1971–2001

Metropolization and the rank/size ’law‘: the Canadian case, 1971–2001 There is currently considerable interest in the process of metropolization. One of the consequences of this process, observed by numerous researchers, is the slower growth and even decline of small and medium cities. From a theoretical point of view, this process is compatible with endogenous growth theory: metropolitan areas offer economic actors certain key factors (access to information, to global networks, etc.) that smaller cities cannot. Concurrently, however, there is a resurgence of interest in Zipf's law and, more generally, in the stability of urban hierarchies. These two bodies of work appear to be in contradiction. However, using Canadian data from 1971 to 2001, we show that whilst metropolization is indeed occurring, this is not necessarily incompatible with a regular urban hierarchy. Indeed, if it is assumed that Zipf's rank‐size rule applies to urban systems in stable socio‐economic contexts, and that this regularity can be disrupted by fundamental social and economic changes, then the current wave of metropolization can be interpreted as a re‐ordering of cities in the face of the major social and economic changes of the 1980s and 1990s, which may eventually lead to a new equilibrium compatible with Zipf's law.     

‘It’s a man’s world’: Recent Studies of Male Representation of the Female in the Middle Ages

Blamires, Alcuin (ed.) Woman Defamed and Woman Defended. An Anthology of Medieval Texts Baldwin, John W. The Language of Sex: Five Voices from Northern France around 1200 Kay, Sarah and Rubin, Miri (eds) Framing Medieval Bodies Lomperis, Linda and Stanbury, Sarah (eds) Feminist Approaches to the Body in Medieval Literature Burns, E. Jane Bodytalk: When Women Speak in Old French Literature Krueger, Roberta L. Women Readers and the Ideology of Gender in Old French Verse Romance Cazelles, Brigitte The Lady as Saint: A Collection of French Hagiographic Romances of the Thirteenth Century Meale, Carol M. (ed.) Women and Literature in Britain, 1150–1500 Cherewatuk, Karen and Wiethaus, Ulrike (eds) Dear Sister: Medieval Women and the Epistology Genre     

Men’s Recollections of a Women’s Rite: Medieval English Men’s Recollections Regarding the Rite of the Purification of Women after Childbirth

This study examines the recollections of medieval English men, found in proof–of–age inquests, regarding their participation in the rite of the purification of women after childbirth. Because the rite of purification was reserved to women, scant attention has been paid to how this rite and the customs surrounding it played in the lives of medieval men. These men’s recollections situate postpartum purification within the festivities celebrating the birth of a man’s heir. For them, it is a public event celebrating paternity and lineage, and a forum for the negotiation of social relationships.     

In the Canine Archives of Sex: Radclyffe Hall,Una Troubridge and their Dogs

How does attention to dogs open up understanding of the queer, and more specifically, the Sapphic, past? This article examines the forgotten enmeshments of lesbian and pedigree dog subcultures in 1920s England. It takes as its case study one of the best-known couples of Sapphic modernity, Radclyffe Hall and Una Troubridge, and their dachshunds, Wotan and Thorgils. Bringing into dialogue scholarship on queer, trans and animal history, it traces the historical footprint of the dogs and considers how what this article calls the ‘canine archive of sex’ – a wide range of documents including show catalogues, newspaper reports, fiction and scientific writing – adds to understanding of the complexities of modern Sapphic history. Sapphic here is used to denote relationships between people assigned female at birth, some of whom may have transed gender norms and expectations. The article argues that the records of Hall's and Troubridge's involvement in the world of dog breeding expand understanding both of Sapphic modernity specifically and the intersections between histories of sexuality and gender and animal history more broadly. They reveal how gender norms, class privilege and racialised practices converged in modern pedigree culture, shaping canine–human relationships as well as the queer subcultures that formed around them.