The Urban Emergence of a New Information Industry: Sydney's Multimedia Firms

This paper analyses the multimedia industry in Sydney. It seeks to understand whether the emergence of the industry has involved dense horizontal and vertical inter‐firm linkages characteristic of an industrial cluster, or whether the industry has grown because of general urbanisation economies related to such factors as skilled labour supply and market demand. The industry is highly concentrated in and around central Sydney. This provides the best access to firms’ main clients, notably advertising companies and other multimedia firms. It also reflects the centralised location of skilled labour such as web designers. While there is evidence of an emerging inner Sydney multimedia cluster which includes graphic design and advertising and related media, the main driver of the industry's development appears to have been general demand from advertising and related media companies, in association with the pool of computer graphics talent generated by these companies.     

Unfastening Israel's Future from the Occupation: Israeli Plans for Partial Annexation of West Bank Territory

Israeli plans to partially annex West Bank territory have mainly been perceived as frustrating the two-state solution, and as putting Palestine/Israel on a path leading to the one-state alternative. This paper analyses partial annexation plans without assuming that the future of Palestine/Israel would necessarily abide by either statist resolution. It argues that by ostensibly distancing Israel's hold of the West Bank from an identifiable configuration of a belligerent occupation, partial annexation is offered to Jewish Israelis as a path for detaching the futurity of the two nations, and as a trajectory for normalising the Israeli state, without having to make what much of this public would see as painful concessions. It further explores settlers’ objections to such plans, claiming that even a partial incorporation of West Bank territory into formal Israel is expected to erode the exclusivity of Jewish domination which Israel has been upholding in its settler-colonial frontier.     

Industry Clusters in Ireland: An Application of Porter's Model of National Competitive Advantage to Three Sectors

This paper examines the importance of industrial clusters, and the relevance of Porter's diamond model, in the context of the small open economy of Ireland. It analyses the experience of three relatively successful Irish indigenous sectors and it considers to what extent have clusters of related or connected industries been important in accounting for the degree of success attained in Ireland. We do not find evidence of well-developed clusters of the type described by Porter, and our study provides support for some previous critiques of Porter's model. It is concluded that Irish industrial policy does not need to be focused strongly on developing the type of industry clusters described in Porter's model. At the same time, different elements of Porter's model do prove to be relevant and we find that companies in Ireland benefit from being part of some form of wider grouping of connected or related companies and industries, although these groupings can differ from Porter's clusters in significant respects.     

Cleaning up down South: Supermarkets,ethical trade and African horticulture

Supermarkets in Great Britain have joined the country's Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) in order to demonstrate their commitment to social welfare and environmental standards in their supply chains. They have been particularly concerned to enforce ethical as well as food safety standards in the African horticultural industry, which has historically depended on cheap labour to produce high-value vegetables. The supermarkets' 'ethical turn' appears to signal an important change from forms of commodity fetishism that obscured exploitative relations of food production in the South. This paper, however, argues that in an era of high food anxiety for both retailers and consumers, ethical standards are themselves fetishized. It also shows how the effort to impose such standards on Zambia's horticultural export industry resembles the colonial 'hygienic mission', and faces a similar contradiction.     

ASHKELON

Abstract

The Bible refers frequently to sacrifices offered on high places (bamot) and altars 'on every high hill and under every leafy tree'. Archeological finds in the Land of Israel, however, include only a few altars for animal sacrifices. The altar described here is unique, an unprecedented find in the Land of Israel. It is hewn in the rock about 1.5 km west of Shiloh, in an area quite rich in ancient ruins and near a spring. There are no building remains, nor pottery relevant to the period, in its immediate vicinity. At the side is flat, blackened stone, apparently broken off the altar top because of the heat of its fire. The altar has four 'horns' and a levelled top, and its dimensions resemble those of the altar in the book of Exodus (27. 1–2). It stands not on a summit but in mid-slope. It may thus be conjectured that the altar was Israelite and used for monotheistic worship. The orientation of the altar is interesting: its corners, rather than its sides, are aligned with the four cardinal directions (north and south, east and west). In this respect the altar is similar to that discovered on Mount Ebal. The altar shares some features with 'Manoah's altar' below ancient Zor'ah; however, there are some basic differences, and the Shiloh altar is much more impressive.     

Minding Your Peers and Queers: Female sex workers in the AIDS discourse in Australia and South-east Asia {1}

Sex workers have been incorporated into the Western AIDS discourse initially as a category of 'risk group'. The model of 'peer education' developed successfully by gay men in the West has been used with sex workers in Australia and is being exported to South-east Asia. This paper shows that the role of the 'peer educator' is paradoxical, and embedded in locally specific laws, cultural factors and power relations involving the sex industry. Ignoring the politico-cultural context can mean that peer workers are involved in their own surveillance and in reinforcing the stigma of sex work. The 'Asian prostitute' has been characterised both as an exotic commodity and as the focus of 'AIDS panic'; however, alternative voices express both complexity of the sex industry and more immediate concerns which need to be confronted before HIV/AIDS can be given meaning.     

Notes and News

Abstract

Most parts of Israel were excavated intensively, and most of the country was also covered by surveys. Our knowledge of settlement patterns and distribution during the various periods is very comprehensive — probably more so than in any other region in the world. Using data from the numerous excavations and from the detailed surveys, many studies have made use of various and sundry methods, in order to learn about the settlements and the population of the country, about changes in settlement patterns and distribution, and about periods of crises, decline, or growth.

Past studies, however, have ignored an entire array of findings that could have improved, refined, and even changed the familiar picture of the settlement history of ancient Israel. Thousands of salvage excavations ('rescue digs') were carried out over the years, and especially in the last decade, but these have not been dealt with systematically. These excavations provide comprehensive and reliable information, which is likely to change the picture of the history of settlement in some periods. While a comprehensive project of collecting and analysing the published data on these excavations is now in progress, the present article aims at drawing attention to this neglected source of information. We will demonstrate the advantages of this analysis as compared to other sources of information, and will show how this information, when combined with other sources of information, is changing our understanding of the settlement history of certain periods, including the transition from the Iron Age I–II and the formation of the Israelite monarchy, the nature of the Neo-Babylonian period, and the outcomes of the Jewish revolts against the Romans. The paper ends with a discussion of the advantages and limitations of the various sources of information, i.e., planned excavations, surveys, and salvage excavations.     

Ludwig Knoop, ‘The Arkwright of Russia’

Abstract

Piece-rate arrangements in the British cotton weaving industry were anomalous in that they prescribed a weekly wage based on output. Although, to some extent, output reflected the work done by the weaver, it was also governed by technical and other factors which were beyond the weaver's control. A wage system which emphasized the repair of broken threads and the replenishment of empty shuttles would have been preferable since these were the principal elements of the weaver's work. The absence of a clear relationship between effort and reward confounded attempts to increase productivity in cotton weaving between the wars, and was a particular obstacle to the adoption of the 'more-looms' systems. This article explores the anomalies and the issues to which they gave rise, both at industry level and in a local context characterized by the manufacture of diverse fabric types. It concludes that there was an uncritical acceptance of traditional wage arrangements, reinforced by a fear that fundamental change would destabilize an already fragile system of industry level (that is, across the cotton weaving industry as a whole) bargaining.     

Measuring Spatial Dispersion: An Experimental Test on the M-Index

Despite representing a very accurate method for assessing spatial distribution, Marcon and Puech's M has been insufficiently exploited so far, most likely because its computation relies on pairing every point of interest (i.e., firms, plants) with every other point within the area under analysis. Such a figure rapidly grows to unmanageable levels when said area is larger than a neighborhood or when every industry is taken into account. Consequently, practical applications of M have been exclusively experimental and circumscribed to very limited areas or to a handful of industries. This seems much regrettable since M provides many advantages compared to conventional measures of spatial distribution and also to alternative distance measures. In this article, we assess the reliability of using small administrative units instead of exact postal addresses for the localization of plants, in order to reduce M's computational burden. Working with a dataset that provides the location, the specific industry and the number of employees for every single plant/establishment in Italy for both manufacturing and services, we can also draw a preliminary but certainly interesting picture of Sardinia's economic geography and its development through the Great Recession toughest years between 2007 and 2012.     

FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT,INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXT AND THE CHANGING POLISH PIG INDUSTRY

The world's meat market has had tremendous growth in the past decades. Global meat producers, particularly in developed economies, have grown bigger through expansion, mergers and acquisitions. The livestock markets in less developed countries are particularly the prime targets for investments by these producers. This article looks at foreign direct investment in a transitional economy, using Poland's pig industry as the empirical case study. It argues that such investments not only bring significant changes in the method of producing meat in the host country; they also have particular socio‐political impacts and have thus been met with some level of resistance by local communities. Our study suggests that the relations of foreign firms to the local community are crucial for their long term presence; and these relations are in turn dependent on a gamut of place specific features and the firms' broader corporate philosophy and strategy. In general, foreign firms need to find ways to replicate the kinds of deep social‐economic links between the livestock industry and places that existed in the socialist era. The case studies of American‐owned Agri Plus and Danish‐owned Poldanor illustrate some of the difficulties involved in the foreign investment in the meat industries while demonstrating the viability and possibility of such companies becoming more accepted and welcomed in the local communities.     

Confidence Building in Local Planning and Development. Some Experience from Norway

Can local confidence building and cooperation strengthen local communities and have a positive influence on local development? This is the main question in this article. In the first part of the article the conditions for confidence building, mobilization, self-development and self-confidence in local planning are presented. A planning process called strategic and mobilizing planning which is built on these conditions is described. This planning or development process is drawn as an infinite spiral with an increasing 'radius'. As examples of such local confidence building and mobilization processes the cases of 'Nordvest Forum' and 'Cooperation in Haram commune' are presented and discussed. Nordvest Forum is a collaborative activity owned by competing companies in the region, which have recognized that they have a common problem related to recruitment and training of leaders. This has lead to new activities and new cooperation especially related to management training and cooperation. The collaboration between private and public institutions in Haram is an example where common challenges for companies and community were recognized. This process started as a concrete activity regarding recruitment of skilled workers with participation from a few but nevertheless important persons in the private and public sectors. The learning and confidence developed as a result of this cooperation lead to new and broader activities concerning the future of the community with many more participants. In the conclusion some practical advice is given for community planning and confidence building, informed by the theoretical discussion and the empirical examples in the article.     

Poverty in Transit: Uber,Taxi Coops,and the Struggle over Philadelphia's Transportation Economy

This article examines how ride‐hailing companies like Uber have disrupted not only the mainstream taxi industry but also progressive efforts to remedy that industry's shortcomings. The article focuses on Alliance Taxi Cooperative (ATC), a failed taxi worker cooperative in Philadelphia. ATC was deeply committed to economic democracy, living wages, and outreach to underserved communities. Its ambitions were nevertheless thwarted by regulatory obstruction and market disruptions caused by Uber. Drawing on relational poverty theory and literature on solidarity economy and platform capitalism, I suggest that ATC's story offers more than a cautionary tale about the pitfalls facing small taxi start‐ups. It also illuminates a great deal about the exploitative conditions and discriminatory geographies of the taxi and ride‐hailing industry, the biases of regulatory agencies, and the complicated ways that platform capitalism is refiguring class dynamics.     

旅游上市公司业绩测评体系研究

旅游上市公司是旅游业内龙头企业,其业绩好坏可以反映整个行业的盈利水平和发展潜力。本文在学术界分析上市公司经营业绩时常用方法的基础上,结合旅游业具体特点,构建了新的测评指标,运用因子模糊综合评价法建立了测评旅游上市公司经营业绩的数学模型,并选取20家旅游上市公司2005年财务数据为样本,进行了具体分析和评价。     

Walking the Middle of the Peace Road? The Emergence of JCall in France

On 3 May 2010, a ‘Call to reason’ (Appel à la raison) was presented to the European Parliament in Brussels by a number of prominent figures from European Jewish political and intellectual classes, launching JCall, which is supposedly the European version of the US J Street. JCall explicitly positions itself as pro-Israel on one hand but against the Israeli state's occupation and increased settlement of Palestine, including East Jerusalem, on the other hand. The ‘reason’ it calls for is thus a negotiated two-state settlement to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and the organisation urges EU governments to apply pressure on both Israel and the Palestinian Authority to this end. This article looks at JCall within the French context, first in distinction to J Street in the USA, with which JCall shares a political position but not organisational links, and second in relation to the broader French political debate about Jewishness, Muslimness and the Middle East. Criticised by the right for its supposed disloyalty to Israel and even ‘anti-Semitism’, and by the left for its non-support of boycott, divestment and sanctions and its ongoing support of the Israeli state, JCall at first appears as somewhat middle-of-the-road in the French context. It also, from this writer's point of view, regrettably lacks a strong female presence or gendered perspective. It has, however, emerged as a serious political voice in the debate over the Middle East and could be less of a lightweight in the French political battles over Israel and Palestine than it may have first appeared.     

Community Archaeology in Proto-Historical Tel Bareqet,Israel: School Children and Agency for Active Public Engagement in Cultural Heritage Projects

Abstract

Community archaeology has become very popular over the past decade, and community archaeology projects are yielding interesting results in many regions around the globe (Merriman, 2004). These projects seem to be gaining academic importance as well, and are considered by some people to be vital to the survival of archaeology as a whole (Marshall, 2002: 218).

Still, community archaeology projects often stir debate regarding their importance, role, and existence. A major theme of these discussions is the role played by the community. In particular, the question is often raised of what role, if any, should be given to non-professional local populations in a project's scientific decision-making.

The current article aims to present the controversy between two types of archaeological practices, 'archaeology from above' and 'archaeology from below' (Faulkner, 2000) through the examination of a community archaeological project in which schoolchildren constitute the community participants. The site of the excavation is Tel Bareqet, a 5000-year-old (Early Bronze Age II, c. 3050–2700 BCE) urban settlement located in central Israel. On the one hand, the excavation strives to maintain the highest scientific standard; on the other hand, it depends upon the participation of unskilled young people in the excavation process.

This article presents obstacles that have been encountered in this excavation, and describes the methodological framework that has been developed in order to overcome these obstacles and continue carrying out a successful community archaeology project.     

Network Analysis of Production Clusters: The Potsdam/Babelsberg Film Industry as an Example

The cluster concept has assumed a prominent position in the institutional approaches which have been applied in economic geography in recent times. Although there are numerous analyses based on the cluster concept, no agreement has been reached to date on suitable methods for analysis and comparison of regional clusters. This paper presents a research design for the analysis of regional production clusters which employs the network analysis method to develop, in particular, the 'quality analysis' of clusters, using the film industry production cluster in Potsdam/Babelsberg (adjacent to the Berlin metropolis) as a practical example.     

Who Pays the Ferryman? Industry Policy and Shipbuilding in Australia

The lightweight fast ferry industry that has emerged in Australia over the last couple of decades has been a remarkable and surprising success story. Given the contraction of manufacturing in general and traditional shipbuilding in particular, its growth is all the more noteworthy. This paper analyses the evolution of the industry and considers the impact of industry policy on its development. Although the effectiveness of industry policy in Australia has generally been undermined by a lack of political support and inadequate integration with other government policies, it was, nevertheless, an important part of this industry's expansion.     

The Spatial Evolution of the Polish Biotech Industry: A Path-Dependent Process?

In Poland, similarly to other Central and Eastern European countries, the development of the biotech industry dates back to the late 1980s, when the first private companies were established. The political and economic transformation of 1989 enabled mass development of private enterprises, but over the course of 20 years of development, only a couple of dozens biotech firms have emerged in Poland. The spatial evolution of the industry shows a strong concentration in Poland's six largest urban centres, which are characterized by the best scientific base, access to financial capital, and a well-developed local entrepreneurial culture. Given that all biotech clusters are also important centres of the pharmaceutical industry, despite the fact that there are no strong direct relationships between Poland's biotech and pharmaceutical companies, the authors of this paper put forward the thesis that the institutional environment of the pharmaceutical sector also affects the development of the biotech industry.