‘Against the tide’: placing visual art in the Highlands and Islands,Scotland

Within a political context where Gaelic arts are recognised as integral to the configuration of a new Scotland, this paper focuses on the art and artistic practice of a community arts centre in North Uist, Outer Hebrides, and the art of internationally acclaimed Scots artist, Will Maclean, who has worked with this centre, with initiatives to commemorate the land struggle on the Isle of Lewis, and with Gaelic arts. Drawing, at the conceptual level, on ‘the idea of place as a political project’ (Gibson-Graham 2003 Gibson-Graham, J.K. 2003. An Ethics of the Local. Rethinking Marxism, 15(1): 53–78.  [Google Scholar]: 35) and a narrative of resistance that suggests a differential rather than oppositional optic (Braun 2002 Braun, B. 2002. The Intemperate Rainforest. Nature, Culture, and Power on Canada's West Coast, Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press.  [Google Scholar]), I examine how art and artistic practice contribute to an aesthetics that works ‘against the tide’ and how, as part of this process, place is re-constituted.     

New data on the singularly rare ‘cockroachoids’ from Xiaheyan (Pennsylvanian; Ningxia,China)

Wei, D.D., Béthoux, O., Guo, Y.X., Schneider, J.W. & Ren D., 2013. New data on the singularly rare ‘cockroachoids’ from Xiaheyan (Pennsylvanian; Ningxia, China). Alcheringa 37, 547–557. ISSN 0311-5518.

Additional material of stem-Dictyoptera, or ‘cockroachoids’, is described from the Early Pennsylvanian Xiaheyan locality (Zhongwei City, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, China). New specimens belonging to Qilianiblatta namurensis Zhang et al., 2012 Zhang, Z., Schneider, J.W. & Hong, Y., 2012. The most ancient roach (Blattida): A new genus and species from the earliest Late Carboniferous (Namurian) of China, with discussion on the phylomorphogeny of early blattids. Journal of Systematic Palaeontology 11, 27–40.[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar] are described, as are several specimens belonging to a new species (viz., Kinklidoblatta youhei sp. nov.). Three further specimens might represent additional species, to be better documented before they could be formally named. The occurrence of a ‘vannus’ in forewings of K. youhei sp. nov. is demonstrated, and discussed in the light of data on extant Dictyoptera. The low abundance and comparatively low diversity of the group in the locality is challenging, and might be a consequence of taphonomic bias.

Dandan Wei [weidandanok@126.com], Yinxia Guo [kuaile422@163.com] and Dong Ren [rendong@mail.cnu.edu.cn], College of Life Science, Capital Normal University, 105 Xisanhuanbeilu, Haidian District, Beijing 100048, PR China; Olivier Béthoux [obethoux@mnhn.fr], CR2P UMR 7207, MNHN, UPMC, CNRS, eight rue Buffon, CP38, F-75005, Paris, France; Jörg W. Schneider [joerg.schneider@geo.tu-freiberg.de], Technical University Bergakademie Freiberg, Institute of Geology, Department of Palaeontology, Bernhard-von-Cotta Str. 2, D-09596 Freiberg, Germany. Received 22.3.2013; revised 17.5.2013; accepted 23.5.2013.     

The Scope and Definitions of Heritage: From Tangible to Intangible

Since the adoption of the Venice Charter in 1964, there have been many conservation guidelines in the form of charters, recommendations and resolutions that have been introduced and adopted by international organisations such as UNESCO and ICOMOS. This article focuses on the scope and definition of heritage as promulgated by the various charters across the globe. The term ‘historic monument’ used in the Venice Charter 1964 was reinterpreted by ICOMOS in 1965 ICOMOS. 21–22 June 1965. Report on the Constitutive Assembly 21–22 June, Warsaw, , Poland [Google Scholar] as ‘monument’ and ‘site’; and by UNESCO in 1968 UNESCO. 1968. Recommendation Concerning the Preservation of Cultural Property Endangered by Public or Private Works. 15th Session of the General Conference. 1968, Paris.  [Google Scholar] as ‘cultural property’ to include both movable and immovable. The different terminology between the UNESCO and ICOMOS was reconciled at the World Heritage Convention 1972. At national and regional levels the scope of heritage was broadened to include gardens, landscape and environment, and later reinterpreted and defined quite differently in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and China. Although the scope of heritage, in general, is now agreed internationally to include ‘tangible’ and ‘intangible’ as well as ‘environments’, the finer terminology of ‘heritage’ has not been streamlined or standardised, and thus no uniformity exists between countries.     

Practices of judgement and domestic geographies of affect

This paper describes how practices of judgement take place from within the ‘life’ of ‘everyday life’. It does this, in part, to counter the assumption that the expression of taste necessarily acts as a strategy of distinction that creates hierarchized relations between different types of body. Instead the paper argues that considering practices to be of everyday life involves attuning to how different modalities of the more-than-rational are bound up with the making of value. This means, however, refusing to suspect the making of a judgement. In contrast, the paper exemplifies an ethos of engagement that functions affectively to discern traces of something better in these most judged of practices. Practices of judgement with music are thereafter disclosed as concerned with the momentary (re)ordering of what William Connolly (1999 Connolly, W. 1999. Why I Am Not a Secularist, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.  [Google Scholar]) has termed ‘thought imbued intensities and feelings’. They occur from within the contradictory, often confused, affective imperatives that both circulate to pleat together everyday life and form the multiple, intersecting, topologies of affect that enact domestic time-space.     

Engaging geographies of public art: indwellers,the ‘Butt Plug Gnome’ and their locale

This paper focuses on particularities of indwellers' perceptions of public art and its locale by drawing on the epistemology of ‘situated knowledges’ (Haraway 1991, Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Women. New York: Routledge) and the notion of ‘geographies of engagement’ (Zebracki, Van Der Vaart and Van Aalst 2010, Geoforum 41(5): 786–795). We employ the case of Paul McCarthy's internationally acclaimed public artwork Santa Claus in Rotterdam to illustrate the sundry outlooks on its spatialities, aesthetics and moralities, and its functionalities in relation to place. Santa Claus's alleged sexual nature is highly disputed among local politicians and the local population. This dispute is narratively covered by media sources and inscribed by its popular renaming as the ‘Butt Plug Gnome’. We empirically situate documented media views within the way indwellers perceive Santa Claus and its experienced locale in interrelation with themselves. We try to open up differential vistas on public-art narration in relation to people, time and space, whereby we elaborate on the reflexive idea of ‘social relationality’ (Massey and Rose 2003, Personal Views: Public Art Research Project. Milton Keynes: The Open University) by revealing how socio-spatial differences in public-art narration are negotiated. As such, we examine how public art is geographically reconstituted through the publics, namely those for whom public art is essentially intended yet who have been neglected actors of analysis in public-art research.     

‘Childhood is measured out by sounds and sights and smells,before the dark of reason grows’: children’s geographies at 12

This Keynote essay argues for a supplement to existing studies in children’s geographies, one that explores the potential of a non-child-centric children’s geography alert to the work done by the figure of ‘the child’ in all manner of worldly situations. Taking a cue from the poetry of John Betjeman, notably his 1960 Betjeman, J. 1960. Summoned by Bells. London: John Murray. [Google Scholar] Summoned by Bells, the essay considers both the intimate spaces of childhood – ones gauged by the immediacies of ‘sounds and sights and smells’ – and the challenges posed by a wider world raddled by adult preoccupations and abuses, those characterised by Betjeman as stemming from ‘the dark of reason’. The essay builds from this foundation to address the ‘darkness’ in two sets of Nazi children’s wartime geographies, as well as engaging with the complexities of Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer’s claims, in the horizon of WWII, about the ‘dialectic of enlightenment’. Within the latter – and also, notably, in Adorno’s later writing – the figure of ‘the child’ surfaces as one miniscule crumb of hope, of experiencing and knowing the world otherwise, set against the face of adult Enlightenment’s seemingly inevitable decay. At the close, Adorno’s own brief dalliance with imagining a small slice of children’s geographies allows the essay to arc back towards its original claims, and to a renewed sense of why childhood ‘sounds and sights and smells’ continue to matter far beyond just the domain of geographers researching children.     

Outsize/Outside: Bodily bignesses and the emotional experiences of British women shopping for clothes

Whilst there has been substantial research in geography concerned with ‘the body’, little consideration has been given to the ‘sized’ body. This article aims to counter this by considering the concept of ‘bodily bignesses’ as a way of understanding the plurality of female emotional and embodied experience through empirical work concerned with British women's experiences of clothes shopping. This involves breaking big bodies out of those categories that act to define their corporeal form for what they ‘represent’ within medical, moral and political contexts. Emphasis is placed upon destabilising the category of ‘bigness’, through utilising the concept of ‘the monstrous’ that is based upon the idea of understanding morphological difference beyond a simple opposition to the ‘normative body’. This provides a way to consider bodily size as a number of differential emotional experiences. For example, empirical examples focus on what it feels like to shop for ‘big clothes’, how women evaluate the suitability of clothing for their (un)suitable bodies, and acknowledges the feelings of self-acceptance that women experience as they come to terms with their bodily size.

If all categories are themselves unstable and the idea of rigid universalist divisions are untenable, then it is difficult to employ meaningfully, universal categories of good and bad, right and wrong. (Shildrick, 1997 Shildrick, Margrit. 1997. Leaky Bodies and Boundaries: Feminism, postmodernism and (bio)ethics, London: Routledge.  [Google Scholar], p. 104)     

The difference that place makes to methodology: uncovering the ‘lived space’ of young people's spatial practices

While it has been argued that conventional methodological resources are incapable of effectively representing ‘everyday social practice’ (see Latham 2003 Latham, A. 2003. Research, performance, and doing human geography: Some reflections on the diary-photograph, diary-interview method. Environment and Planning A, 35: 1993–2017. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] [Google Scholar], Environment and Planning A, 35, 1993), this paper posits that a consideration of the ‘where’ of methodology can go some way to taking social practices seriously. Drawing on research into young people's spatial practices, conventional interview techniques were adopted in a range of different sites: a classroom, a school store-cupboard, and in teenage ‘hang outs’. Through discussion of these emplaced techniques, the paper demonstrates the difference the where of method makes to research. It will argue that, if harnessed appropriately, emplaced methodology can enhance social science's capacity to access the range of intelligences that constitute everyday social practice.     

Are Methodologies for Children keeping them in their Place?

As participatory methodologies gain popularity and are increasingly adapted to carry out research with ‘children’, I return to the methodological question: is doing research with children different from doing research with adults? (Punch, 2000 Punch, S. 2000. Research with children the same or different from research with adults?. Childhood, 9(3): 321–341. [Web of Science ®] [Google Scholar]). As a participatory researcher, I raise concerns around methods designed for ‘children’ that stamp a ‘how-to-research’ label upon a diverse group of individuals prior to entering the research space. Rather than continue the well-worn debate around the incompetent/competent/powerless child versus the competent all-powerful adult, I attempt a different approach that aims to dissolve this dichotomy. I draw on hybrid theories of identities (Benhabib, 1992 Benhabib, S. 1992. Situating the Self, New York: Routledge.  [Google Scholar]; Butler, 1990 Butler, J. 1990. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, London: Routledge.  [Google Scholar]; Adams, 2006 Adams, M. 2006. Hybridising habitus and reflexivity: towards an understanding of contemporary identity?. Sociology, 40(3): 511–528. [Crossref] [Google Scholar]), that recognise identities as multiple and fluid, and present social identities as unhelpful guides in designing participatory methods, principally the mythical notion of the competent all-powerful adult (Lee, 2001 Lee, N. 2001. Childhood and Society: Growing Up in an Age of Uncertainty, Milton Keynes: OUP.  [Google Scholar]). I present the case that pre-labelling participants contradicts the bottom-up approach of participatory methodologies, particularly when Participation is understood as spatial practice (Kesby, 1999 Kesby, M. 1999. Beyond the Representational Impasse? Retheorising Power, Empowerment and Spatiality, mimeo [Google Scholar]; Cornwall, 2000), and participants are invited into a research space, where identities are performed (Thrift, 2000) and are, therefore, something we ‘do’ not ‘have’ (Butler, 1990 Butler, J. 1990. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, London: Routledge.  [Google Scholar]).     

Australian Indonesia-specialists and debates on West Papua: Implications for Australia-Indonesia relations1

This article explores the modes by which Australian scholars construct knowledge of Indonesia with particular reference to the debates on West Papua in the post-Suharto period. It examines their perceptions, beliefs and attitudes towards human rights issues with a view to analysing the underlying forces, motivations and implications of activism. This article casts doubt on a common, yet often unacknowledged, perception in Indonesia about Australian Indonesia-specialists who are categorised as: intellectuals who always see Indonesian government policies as ‘negative’.2 2. ‘Indonesia specialists’ refer to both scholars who have and who do not have formal Indonesian studies or training who get involved in the study of Indonesia and Indonesian society. Whenever I use ‘Indonesianists’, I refer to scholars who have formal Indonesia studies or training. By Australian scholars, I mean scholars who are Australian by ‘residence’. View all notes I demonstrate that the theorisation of Indonesian society has been diverse in Australia as exemplified by the West Papua debates. Australian scholars’ social positions and mobility, not government policy, shape their beliefs, attitudes and knowledge construction of Indonesia. Thus, considering Australian scholars from a monolithic perspective misses the reality that contemporary intellectual culture in Australia is no longer based on a traditional class.3 3. For an excellent discussion on contemporary intellectual culture, see Eyerman (1994 Eyerman, Ron. 1994. Between Culture and Politics: Intellectuals in Modern Society, Cambridge: Polity.  [Google Scholar]). View all notes I argue there are two major opposing groups in West Papua studies which I label as the ‘affirmative revisionist’ scholars who tend to be more optimistic towards resolution of conflicts in West Papua and the ‘sceptical reformist’ scholars who are dubious about any major changes in West Papua. This latter group believes the people of West Papua should be given the opportunity to remain integrated with Indonesia or to opt for selfdetermination. They tend to use the perceived failure of Indonesia in the protection of human rights in West Papua to attack the Indonesian government and Australian governmental agencies dealing with Indonesia. This article argues that this criticism may adversely impact on future Australia-Indonesia relations.     

Dressed for Ritual,Dressed for Life. A Migration-Period Grave from Sande in Norway

A RICHLY FURNISHED GRAVE from the migration period in Norway is our starting point for a discussion of the impact of dress in life and death. The Sande farm is situated on the southern tip of Norway on the Lista peninsula, an area renowned for its many rich finds from the migration period.⁴⁴ Helliksen 2006 Helliksen, W 2006, ‘Rik kvinnegrav og naust fra folkevandringstid på Sande i Herad’, Listamuseet Årbok 2006, 7–9. [Google Scholar], 7; Lund 2008 Lund, W H 2008, ‘Grav, kult og hall i folkevandringstid og merovingertid på Sande i Farsund k, Vest-Agder’, Primitive Tider 10, 7–19. [Google Scholar], 8–10. A high-status grave from Sande in Vest-Agder was excavated in 2005 and was found to be lavishly equipped, not least in terms of jewellery items and dress fittings. Some remarkable textile remains were also preserved. The types of adornment and their position in the grave strongly suggest this was the burial of a woman, while the jewellery and textiles and their composition, style and appearance, all offer valuable information on the story of the individual and the dress code of the time. This article offers the first detailed exploration of this burial and its assemblage and an in-depth discussion of the surviving textile fragments and dress equipment as evidence of a form of dress and display that may have operated in life and death.     

Firefighters in the UK and the US: Risk perception of local and organic foods

Abstract

Recent health scares such as BSE have contributed to the growth of local farmers' markets and consumption of organics sourced globally (Morgan et al., 2006 Morgan, K., Marsden, T. and Murdoch, J. 2006. Worlds of Food: Place, Power and Provenance in the Food Chain, Oxford: Oxford University Press.  [Google Scholar]). Yet a central question about alternative agro-food networks (AAFNs) is whether they supply undemocratic diets chiefly for elites (Goodman, 2004 Goodman, D. 2004. Rural Europe redux? Reflections on alternative agro-food networks and paradigm change. Sociologia Ruralis, 44(1): 3–16. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). This is relevant to government campaigns such as ‘Generation Scotland’ and ‘5 A Day’ in the UK, and ‘Food Pyramids’ in the US, which promote better diets for their entire populations. Firefighting is risky work and because firefighters inhabit middle rungs on the socioeconomic ladder, and food is seen as key to morale and fitness, they are suitable consumers to query on food and risk. This firefighter survey presents evidence that alternative foods are gaining value in the UK and US study areas used here. Though Newcastle, UK, lags behind Seattle, US, on a continuum from conventional to alternative food systems, consumption of alternative foods by Newcastle firefighters is greater than that of workers surveyed in Edinburgh a decade before (Tregear, 1994 Tregear, A., Dent, J. B. and McGregor, M. J. 1994. The demand for organically-grown produce. British Food Journal, 96(4): 21–25. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), implying that northern UK diets could turn greener if availability and prices improve. Reasons why organic preference seems stronger among firefighters in northwestern US, than in northern UK where local preference appears stronger, are discussed, as well as theorisation of consumer response to a variety of risks over time.     

Policy-making in a ‘Cold Climate’ of Ruling Party Benefit: Party Government and the Regulation of Government Advertising in Australia

When analysing party government behaviour, attempts to detect opportunistic policy making (designed to benefit the incumbent) usually focus on electoral law and changes designed to advantage the ruling party in terms of potential votes. However, as Stein Rokkan (1966 Rokkan, S. 1966. “Norway: Numerical Democracy and Corporate Pluralism”. In Political Oppositions in Western Democracies, Edited by: Dahl, R. A. New Haven: Yale University Press.  [Google Scholar], 105) noted: ‘Votes count, but resources decide’. A laissez faire approach to regulating government advertising has allowed the federal government to spend over A$1 billion on advertising over 10 years despite ongoing accusations of misuse for partisan benefit and attempts by multiple actors to tighten the rules. This article, therefore, uses government advertising regulation as a case study of policy making ‘in a cold climate’ where, instead of seeking change, the ruling party benefits from existing rules and is extremely reluctant to change them. Using a hypothesis proposed by Richard S. Katz (2005) Katz, R. S. 2005. “Why Are There So Many (Or So Few) Electoral Reforms?”. In The Politics of Electoral Systems, Edited by: Gallagher, M. and Mitchell, P. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [Crossref] [Google Scholar], it considers what (if anything) might propel policy reform in such a situation.     

Early evolutionary history of Monalaria (Mollusca: Gastropoda: Struthiolariidae) from the Palaeogene of New Zealand

Huang, D.-Y. &; Nel, A., December, 2008. New ‘Grylloblattida’ related to the genus Prosepididontus Handlirsch, 1920 Handlirsch, A. 1920. “Kapitel 7. Palaeontologie. C.”. In Schröder Handbuch der Entomologie, III, 117–304. G. Fischer, Jena.  [Google Scholar] in the Middle Jurassic of China (Insecta: Geinitziidae). Alcheringa 32, 395–403. ISSN 0311-5518.

On the basis of well-preserved nearly complete specimens, two new genera and species Sinosepididontus chifengensis and Megasepididontus grandis, both closely related to the Early Jurassic geinitziid genus Prosepididontus, are described. The new material was collected from the Middle Jurassic Jiulongshan Formation near the Daohugou Village, Ningcheng County, Inner Mongolia, northeast China. New body and leg structures are described for these Chinese taxa. They were previously unknown in other Geinitziidae. The new data indicate that the extinct ‘Grylloblattida’ contained heterogenous groups.     

Inaccessible childhoods: evaluating accessibility in homes,schools and neighbourhoods with disabled children

Accessible built environments are a critical component of Canada’s commitment to disabled children’s ‘right to enjoy full and decent lives’ [United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. 1989. Convention on the Rights of the Child. New York. [Google Scholar]. Convention on the Rights of the Child. New York.] . Although valid, reliable research data about the accessibility of built environments are key to developing related policies, these data currently do not exist. To begin to redress this gap, we conducted a case study series followed by a survey to determine the accessibility of schools, homes and neighbourhoods directly from disabled children (The ScHaN Project). To present a concise summary of the findings that can inform equitable, evidence-based policies, we developed a scoring system for their homes, schools and neighbourhoods. Although our findings illustrate that eliciting and interpreting data from these children were complex undertakings, it is clear that none of these central environments met Canada’s obligation to enhance equity by enabling their access, inclusion and participation.     

Performing the global through the local—globalisation and individualisation in the spatial practices of young East Germans

This paper aims to show how young people in former East Germany respond to the globalising processes that are part of the transformation of their society from a state-socialist to a capitalist one. It focuses particularly on the differential ways in which young people perform their identities as global/local subjects through the uses that they make of urban space. While emphasising the agency of young people, the paper seeks to examine the dialectic between globalising forces that are largely beyond their control and the negotiation of these forces in everyday practices of identity-formation. Conceptually, the paper draws particularly on the work of Beck (2000) Beck, U. 2000. “What is Globalization?”. Cambridge and Oxford: Polity Press.  [Google Scholar], Beck and Gernsheim (2002) Beck, U. and Beck-Gernsheim, E. 2002. Individualization. Institutionalized Individualism and its Social and Political Consequences, London: Sage.  [Google Scholar] and Giddens (1994) Giddens, A. 1994. Modernity and Self-Identity. Self and Society in the Late Modern Age, Cambridge: Polity Press.  [Google Scholar] in order to conceptualise the connections between globalisation and individualisation, as well as on feminist and recent geographical work on performativity (Butler, 1990 Butler, J. 1990. Gender Trouble. Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, London and New York: Routledge.  [Google Scholar], 1993 Butler, J. 1993. Bodies that Matter. On the Discursive Limits of ‘Sex’, London and New York: Routledge.  [Google Scholar]; Rose, 1996 Rose, G. 1996. “As if the mirrors had bled: masculine dwelling, masculine theory and feminist masquerades”. In BodySpace: Destabilising Geographies of Gender and Sexuality, Edited by: Duncan, N. 56–74. London and New York: Routledge.  [Google Scholar]; Gregson and Rose, 2000 Gregson, N. and Rose, G. 2000. ‘Taking Butler elsewhere: performativities, spatialities and subjectivities’. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 18(4): 433–452. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] [Google Scholar]; Thrift, 1996 Thrift, N. 1996. Spatial Formations, London: Sage.  [Google Scholar]; Dewsbury, 2000 Dewsbury, J.-D. 2000. ‘Performativity and the event: enacting a philosophy of difference’. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 18(4): 473–496. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] [Google Scholar]; Dewsbury and Naylor, 2002 Dewsbury, J.-D. and Naylor, S. 2002. Practicing geographical knowledge: fields, bodies and dissemination. Area, 34(3): 253–260.  [Google Scholar]) in order to gain an embodied understanding of the ways in which individuals construct themselves as global/local subjects.     

Looking through the learning disability lens: inclusive education and the learning disability embodiment

Inclusion as an educational approach for students with disabilities is a widely debated topic. The concept of inclusion is often referred to as a philosophy that all pupils – regardless of ability and other differences – should be included within age-appropriate community schools [Stainback, S.B. and Stainback, W. eds., 1996. Inclusion: a guide for educators. Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes Publishing, Artiles, A.J. and Kozleski, E.B., 2007. Beyond convictions: interrogating culture, history, and power in inclusive education. Language Arts, 84 (4), 357–365]. This educational approach has been scrutinized for its capacity to meet the needs of students with and without disabilities Lindsay, G., 2003. Inclusive education: a critical perspective. British journal of special education, 30 (1), 3–12; Kauffman, J.M. and Hallahan, D.P., 2005 Kauffman, J. M. and Hallahan, D. P. 2005. Special education: what it is and why we need it, Toronto, , Canada: Pearson.  [Google Scholar]. Special education: what it is and why we need it. Toronto, Canada: Pearson; McPhail, J.C. and Freeman, J.C., 2005. Beyond prejudice: thinking towards genuine inclusion. Learning disability research and practice, 20 (4), 254–267]. However, as Bodgan and Taylor [1990. Looking at the bright side: a positive approach to qualitative policy and evaluation research. Qualitative sociology, 13 (2), 183–192.] point out, the ‘does it work’ framework for analyzing inclusion programs for persons with disabilities is not beneficial to practitioners and researchers who believe that ‘integration into society is a moral question rather than an empirical one’ (p. 187). Instead of questioning whether inclusion ‘works’ or is ‘effective’ for students with learning disabilities (SLD), this study uses a critical geography perspective to examine from the SLDs' perspective how educational spaces are as socially and discursively constructed as places of inclusion and exclusion. This paper also examines interest in how these constructions of places are situated in relation to provincial and regional inclusive education policies.     

Let Them Eat Macarons? Dissonant heritage of Marie Antoinette at Petit Trianon

ABSTRACT

Through an analysis of the Petit Trianon, the historic house museum at the Château de Versailles associated with Marie Antoinette, the present article invites reflection over the topic of dissonant heritage (Tunbridge and Ashworth 1996 Tunbridge, J. E., and G. J. Ashworth. 1996. Dissonant Heritage: The Management of the past as a Resource in Conflict. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons. [Google Scholar]) in connection with heritage commodification. The aim of this study is to heighten awareness of the difficulties which historic house legacies face in postmodern society through heritage analyses placed in the context of museology, art history and popular culture. This is achieved by building upon curatorial approaches and their reception by visitors, within an assessment of the 2008 restoration ethos of the Estate of Marie-Antoinette, and in parallel with a process of heritage commodification indirectly related to a twenty-first century Hollywood biopic of the last Queen of France - Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette (2006). Competition surges between official and popular discourses of heritage (Groote and Haartsen 2008 Alderman, D. H. 2008. “Place, Naming and the Interpretation of Cultural Landscapes.” 195–213; Groote, P. and T. Haartsen “The Communication of Heritage: Creating Place Identities.” 181–194; Harvey, D. C. “The History of Heritage.” 19–36; McLean, F. “Museums and the Representation of Identity.” 283–297; Smith, L. “Heritage, Gender and Identity.” 159–178. In The Ashgate Research Companion to Heritage & Identity, edited by B. Graham and P. J. Howard. Aldershot: Ashgate. [Google Scholar]), all dealing, however, with the power of the same clichés engraved onto the French ‘collective memory’ (Halbwachs [1950]1980 Halbwachs, M. (1950) 1980. The Collective Memory. New York: Harper & Row. [Google Scholar]). This article highlights issues that arise when curatorial interpretation and visitor perceptions find themselves under the auspices of postmodern visual culture, thereby setting traps for heritage authenticity (Ashworth and Howard 1999 Ashworth, G. J., and P. J. Howard. 1999. European Heritage Planning and Management. Exeter: Intellect. [Google Scholar]).