The ‘Liverpool model(s)’: cultural planning,Liverpool and Capital of Culture 2008

Within the UK, the ‘Liverpool model’ is being celebrated as the new template for Capital of Culture festivals, and culture led urban regeneration in general. This paper will question this celebration and argue that there are, in fact, two ‘Liverpool models’: the first, outlined in its bid and developed within its initial planning strategy, represented the apogee of a New Labour informed ‘cultural planning’ framework for urban development; the second, developed post-2008 within the impact analysis Impacts08, is a more sober and realistic reflection of the role of culture in urban regeneration. This paper will demonstrate how this first model, while politically expedient and rhetorically seductive, was both theoretically unstable and practically unrealizable. Its subsequent abandonment represents an indictment of cultural planning as a nostrum for the complex structural, social and economic problems of the post-industrial city.     

Airports and air-mindedness: spacing,timing and using the Liverpool Airport, 1929–1939

Some popular texts have associated airports with a lack of identity. It is supposed that people are alienated from these ahistorical and interstitial spaces (Augé 1995 Augé, M. 1995. Non-places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity, London: Verso.  [Google Scholar]; Castells 1996 Castells, M. 1996. The Rise of the Network Society, Volume 1: The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture, Oxford: Blackwell.  [Google Scholar]). Other approaches have tended to ignore their sociality, exploring their role within transport networks rather than what goes on within. Through a discussion of the early beginnings of British airport development and the construction of Liverpool Airport at Speke, I attempt to show how there are other contextual geographies to airports. By using the concept of air-mindedness—a moral geographical concept that promoted the belief in the possibilities of aircraft mobility, this paper discusses how social identities became bound to flight, forming the context to the development of the airport and both local and national belonging. This examination will reveal the embeddedness of airports within the times, spaces and uses from which they are produced and consumed. Archival research provides the material for this discussion.

Les aéroports et le sens des choses de l'air: l'espace, le temps et l'utilisation de l'aéroport de Liverpool, 1929–1939

Un nombre d'écrits populaires ont dressé un parallèle entre les aéroports et un déficit d'identité. Les gens, suppose t'on, se sentent aliénés par ces espaces ahistoriques et interstitiels (Augé 1995 Augé, M. 1995. Non-places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity, London: Verso.  [Google Scholar]; Castells 1996 Castells, M. 1996. The Rise of the Network Society, Volume 1: The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture, Oxford: Blackwell.  [Google Scholar]). Dans d'autres cas, on a fait fi de leur socialité, explorant alors leur rôle au sein de réseaux des transports plutôt que de s'intéresser à ce qui se passe dedans. Une discussion sur les tout débuts de l'expansion des aéroports britanniques et de la construction de l'aéroport de Liverpool à Steke tente de montrer comment les aéroports sont situés dans des contextes géographiques différents. Grâce au concept du sens des choses de l'air—un concept moral en géographie qui renforçait la croyance dans les possibilités de mobilité qu'offre l'avion, cet article traite de la façon dont les identités sociales se rattachent au vol créant ainsi le contexte dans lequel se situe le développement de l'aéroport et de l'appartenance locale et nationale. Dans cette étude, il est question de l'enchâssement des aéroports dans les époques, espaces et usages à partir desquels ils sont produits et consommés. La discussion fait état des résultats d'une recherche en archivistique.

Mots-clefs: aéroports, géographie, contexte, mobilité, identité, sens des choses de l'air.

Aeropuertos y air-mindedness: espacio, tiempo y el uso del aeropuerto de Liverpool 1929–1939

Algunos textos populares asocian los aeropuertos con una falta de identidad. Se supone que la gente se siente distanciada de estos espacios ahistóricos e intersticiales (Augé 1995 Augé, M. 1995. Non-places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity, London: Verso.  [Google Scholar]; Castells 1996 Castells, M. 1996. The Rise of the Network Society, Volume 1: The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture, Oxford: Blackwell.  [Google Scholar]). Los enfoques de otros no tienen en cuenta el aspecto social y exploran el papel del aeropuerto en las redes de transporte en vez de explorar lo que pasa dentro del mismo aeropuerto. Por un estudio de los inicios del desarrollo del Aeropuerto Británico y la construcción del aeropuerto de Liverpool en Speke, pretendo mostrar que, con respecto a los aeropuertos, hay otras geografías contextuales para explorar. Haciendo uso de la idea de ‘air-mindedness’—un concepto geográfico moral que fomentaba confianza en las posibilidades de movilidad aeronáutica—este papel habla de cómo las identidades sociales llegaron a ser vinculadas a la aviación, así formando el contexto para el desarrollo del aeropuerto y un sentido de pertenencia, tanto local como nacional. Este estudio revela hasta qué punto los aeropuertos se han arraigado en los tiempos, espacios y usos de los cuales son producidos y consumidos. Hago uso de investigaciones de archivos para este debate.

Palabras claves: aeropuertos, geografía, contexto, movilidad, identidad, air-mindedness.     

Decline and sprawl: an evolving type of urban development – observed in Liverpool and Leipzig1

Much of the empirical research on urban sprawl has been carried out in North America and most theoretical studies on this problem have been concerned with expanding urban areas. This study differs, firstly in that it is concerned with sprawl in two European cities, Liverpool in England and Leipzig in Germany, and secondly because both these cities are in decline. This presents an opportunity to explore whether the process of urban sprawl is somehow specific in a situation of urban decline and what its outcomes might be for both urban form and urban policy.     

An important 16th-century finds assemblage from ‘Moorfields’, Liverpool Street,London

SUMMARY: Excavation at Liverpool Street, London, for Crossrail Limited, uncovered two large drains and a pit in an area of the city known since the medieval period as ‘Moorfields’. Their fills can be closely dated to the mid 16th century and included artefacts such as personal possessions, domestic utensils and refuse, and material likely to be waste from leather and textile processing. The combination of excellent preservation, tight dating and an assemblage encompassing all facets of everyday life is seldom encountered for this period, making this a nationally significant assemblage, which is outlined here by broad functional category.     

The Liverpool Economy during the War of American Independence, 1775–83

Much has been written about how the American War of Independence, a key imperial event, affected the British Isles. However, within this body of work there is limited reference to Liverpool, which was arguably becoming ‘the second city of empire’. This article attempts to fill this gap in the historiography, and addresses the economic impact of the war upon this key port town. It shows that there were four overall stages to Liverpool’s foreign commerce during this period—initially trade remained broadly steady, then there was a noticeable decline, the penultimate stage marked a sluggish improvement, and finally it was not until the post-war years that a sustained recovery took hold. That said, despite these overall trends, individual markets such as the trans-Atlantic slave trade often had their own dynamics. Although privateers (private ships of war) contributed towards the town’s eventual commercial recovery, this activity was by no means the only factor in explaining this rebound. Furthermore, the American war had an impact upon other sectors of the Liverpudlian economy, including shipbuilding and infrastructure projects. Combined, this evidence suggests that eighteenth-century warfare had positive and negative repercussions for the UK economy. As a result, we learn more about being ‘at home with the empire’.     

Working in the shade: agriculture,race, and recreational landscapes in Connecticut, 1940–1950

During the middle decades of the twentieth century, shade tobacco growers in the state of Connecticut employed white high school students from Florida and Pennsylvania, as well as African Americans from southern black colleges and high schools to harvest and process their crop. This paper traces the history of these workers as a means for examining overlooked processes of racialization in rural New England, and for expanding on discussions of race, agriculture, and rural landscapes through the context of leisure. I argue that racialization among student workers unfolded according to the structure, management, and representation of leisure and the recreational landscapes that were opened (or closed) to them. Additional contexts bearing on this process included gender, class, and status as resident or non-resident, each of which informed race-based discussions about leisure and recreational landscapes. This empirical study infuses cultural geographic studies of race and agriculture, whether in New England or beyond, with a depth of perspective not normally associated with rural landscapes. It argues for the extension of cultural geographic inquiry on leisure and racialization into the contexts of agricultural and rural landscapes.     

Development of geography in higher education in China: departments,curricula, and faculty, 1904–1949

By extracting information from various original materials and using geography departments, curricula, and faculty as indicators, this paper contributes to the discussion of the development of geography in higher education in China from 1904 to 1949. Four mutual connections are outlined. First, the development of geography in higher education is inextricably linked to social and political changes. Second, geography in higher education during the period concerned progressed in fits and starts, which affected its distribution. Third, geography departments were split into two categories according to the type of higher educational institution, which created differences in the tasks, curricula, and faculty of these departments. Fourth, faculty were trained in both domestic and foreign universities, and Western universities made an obvious contribution to the growth of qualified academic faculty. Simultaneously, universities where qualified academic faculty were trained were centralized both in domestic and foreign aspects. The special role of geographers returning from overseas study, the particularity of geography in higher education in China, and the connection between Chinese and foreign geography are also discussed in terms of geography departments, curricula, and faculty.     

Antifascism,anticommunism, antipolitics: delegitimation in Berlusconi’s Italy

Abstract

Post-1994 delegitimizing discourses borrowed a lot from antifascism and anticommunism, which they updated to fit the new historical circumstances. Yet, with the events of 1992–94, the role, credibility, autonomy, and boundaries of the Italian political sphere entered a crisis, and this turned arguments about politics and antipolitics into new instruments of delegitimation. This article analyzes how delegitimizing traditions survived the end of the Cold War, and how they interacted with the new issues generated by Tangentopoli. Section 2 describes Berlusconi’s anticommunism, nurtured by the persistence of pre-1989 memories, but also by three present-oriented arguments: the fact that the communists had been able to survive the end of communism; their being professional politicians; and their statism. Section 3 deals with antiberlusconism, which is also composed of three threads: antifascism; the refusal of the ‘spirit of the Eighties’; and moralism. The final section of the article connects post-1994 delegitimizing discourses with the conflict between two opposed solutions to the crisis of the political, both fraught with contradictions: Berlusconi’s offer of less politics; and the conviction of the left that the correct answer was not less, but good politics.     

“Keep withstanding”: Territory in the body,home and market in Xinjiang,China

Geographic literature has explored how territorialization occurs by multiple actors in material and symbolic spaces, especially in the home and body. Building on the important research in feminist geography concerning the body as territory, important questions remain: How do Uyghurs in China respond to state territory in their everyday lives? How does fear, pleasure, and mistrust constitute the social relations of territory? How do people experience and navigate state dispossession of territory? I use long-term ethnographic fieldwork to study these questions. China is a strong, authoritarian state with a monopoly on power and seemingly unlimited surveillance and policing capabilities. Uyghurs explored survival strategies that constituted social relations of territory as a node in overlapping networks in Xinjiang. My main argument is that despite a strong government presence, embodied Indigenous practices enabled survivance for the Uyghur people. People escaped the stress of government surveillance and policing by turning to material and symbolic modes of constituting embodied territory.     

Trapped in clichés: masculinity,films and tourism in Iceland

When the Icelandic television series ‘Trapped’ was aired it instantly garnered worldwide attention. The main character, a rugged Icelandic man, is presented as being one with the harsh cold landscape. This article demonstrates how visual materials, like ‘Trapped,’ have become extremely important in the presentation of Iceland to the outside world, as well as working to present Iceland as a tourism destination. Furthermore, we evidence how ‘Trapped’ identifies with the Nordic noir genre. Our analysis shows that the series ‘Trapped’ and recent Icelandic films rest on the strong and entrenched association of Icelandicness with maleness, while also reflecting on existing stereotypes about Iceland and the Icelandic people as being exotic, both of which have become reanimated through the tourism industry. Thus, visual material such as ‘Trapped’ constitutes a part of, and becomes in and of itself symbolic of recurrent masculinity in Iceland. Our analysis emphasizes the importance of framing the ‘official’ production of locations as tourism destinations by both state and commercial industries in relation to other cultural productions that often also engage with mobile historical stereotyping and commercial attempts at nation branding.     

Liverpool’s Cotton Importers c. 1700 to 1914

Liverpool’s first cotton importers dealt in a range of commodities and this pattern continued until the late eighteenth century. As the British cotton industry grew and new sources of raw cotton – particularly the United States – emerged, some merchants specialized increasingly in cotton in the early decades of the nineteenth century. By the end of the century, the largest importers of cotton dealt in little besides cotton. The growing prosperity of Liverpool’s cotton trade drew companies from elsewhere in the United Kingdom to Liverpool to participate in this trade. By the mid nineteenth century, several key cotton importing houses had originated in the United States; by the end of the nineteenth century the largest importers there. The manner of importing cotton changed. At first, importers had to send a ship out with a captain or supercargo with broad instructions about what to freight the ship with. As communications improved, importers were able to control their purchases of cotton more closely. In the nineteenth century, a significant amount of cotton was imported through Liverpool by merchants acting on a commission basis but this form of importing declined in the later decades of the century.