Sustainability Science Partnerships in Concept and in Practice: a Guide to a New Curriculum from a European Perspective

This paper makes the case for advancing sustainability science partnerships (SSPs) both within universities and through innovative means of integrating universities with external public‐private and civil sectors. It links the basic principles of sustainable development with an emerging science of cooperative learning that connects researchers to a wide range of partners. SSPs are specifically designed to be transformational through becoming active agents for societal change. Universities play a special role here because they can act both as communication networks and as laboratories for developing the capability to design and manage SSPs in the creative transition to sustainability. It is gratifying to note that these ideas are beginning to emerge in a number of universities, with European examples being highlighted in this paper. Further steps towards introducing full‐blooded SSPs across the university spectrum are suggested.     

Placing the View from Nowhere: Historical and Sociological Problems in the Location of Science

Over the past two decades broadly geographical sensibilities have become prominent in the academic study of science. An account is given of tensions in science studies between transcendentalist conceptions of truth and emerging localist perspectives on the making, meaning and evaluation of scientific knowledge. The efficient spread of scientific knowledge is not a phenomenon that argues against the applicability of geographical sensibilities towards science but actually calls for an even more vigorous project in the geography of knowledge.     

Partners Connection Process and Spatial Effects: New Insights from a Comparative Inter-Organizational Partnerships Analysis

This article attempts to give new explanations of the spatial patterns of collaborations focusing on the partners' connection process. Taking into account actors are embedded in an historical, interpersonal and institutional space, we first consider organizations can construct a new collaboration or renew an old one when they decide to build a research project with a partner. Then, going back to the moment when they initially connect with their partners through the analysis of the genesis of collaborations, we assume that they can turn to their interpersonal ties or to coordination resources. This process of connection may influence the spatial dimensions of collaborations regarding notably the literature linking the use of interpersonal ties and the spatial proximity effects observed in innovation activities. We test empirically these theoretical propositions through the collection of individual data about more than 200 histories of inter-company (IC) and science-industry (SI) partnerships. The qualitative and quantitative treatments of these data reveal the way partners connect each other and the spatial patterns of collaborations are significantly dependent on the nature of the partnerships. A strong regularity is nevertheless highlighted: for both partnerships (IC and SI ones), actors renewed prior collaborations in 57% of the total of studied partnerships.     

Roman Urbanism: A View from the Countryside

The towns of Roman Britain have been subject to a long tradition of empirical research and discussion, but far less attention has been paid to the landscape context in which they developed. This paper considers the implications of this caveat for our understanding of Roman urbanism and suggests that most previous approaches have internalized the study of towns as social institutions and have failed to give due weight to the role of local rural agency in influencing the character of urban development. In so doing, it is suggested that the potential role of other important and competing nodes of economic, political and religious life, such as forts, fortresses, vici and small towns as well as rural sanctuaries and other settlements, is also not given due consideration in discussing the distinctive character of urbanism in Roman Britain.     

Empire: The View from Beyond

JOHN M. MACKENZIE. The Empire of Nature: Hunting, Conservation and British Imperialism. Manchester: Manchester University Press; dist., New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989. Pp. x, 34a. £40.00;

STEPHEN CONSTANTINE, ed. Emigrants and Empire: British Settlement in the Dominions between the Wars. Manchester Manchester University Press; dist., St. Martin's Press, 1990. Pp. x, 208. £40.00;

J.A. MANGAN, ed. Making Imperial Mentalities: Socialisation and British Imperialism. Manchester: Manchester University Press; dist., New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990. Pp. xi, 227. £40.00

RONALD HYAM. Empire and Sexuality: The British Experience. Manchester: Manchester University Press; dist., New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990. Pp. ix. 234. £10.95 (paper);

W.J. READER. ‘At Duty's Call’: A Study in Obsolete Patriotism. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1988. Pp. viii, 152. £45.00;

JACQUELINE BRATTON et al. Acts of Supremacy: The British Empire and the Stage, 1790–1930. Manchester: Manchester University Press; dist., New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991. Pp. vii, 248. £40.00;

P.J. RICH. Elixir of Empire: The English Public Schools, Ritualism, Freemasonry, and Imperialism. London and New York: Regency Press, 2nd. ed., 1992. Pp. 152. £9.95.     

A View from Jordan: An Interview with a Senior Delegate

[Dr. Fayez Tarawneh is a senior member of the Jordanian delegation to the Middle East peace talks recently held in Washington, D.C. Dr. Tarawneh, an economist, is the former minister of supply and assistant chief of royal protocol in Jordan. This interview was conducted by Dr. Mohammed M. Aman, editor of DOMES, on February 28, 1992, after Dr. Tarawneh spoke at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.]     

Collaborative Watershed Management: A View from the Grassroots

To date, research on collaborative watershed management has paid scant attention to the role of grassroots stakeholders, who are the people that actually use natural resources. This article argues cooperation from grassroots stakeholders is necessary for the success of collaborative management, and outlines three theoretical perspectives to explain cooperation. The validity of these theoretical perspectives is tested using a survey of farmer participation in the Suwannee River Partnership in Florida. The findings suggest farmers' perceptions of policy effectiveness are largely driven by economic considerations, whereas participation in collaborative management is linked to social capital.     

Hopewell Archaeology: A View from the Northern Woodlands

A tremendous amount of research on Hopewellian societies in the Northern Woodlands of the United States has been conducted within the last decade. This article summarizes the main themes and directions of that current research and presents a general model of Hopewellian societies. Local communities appear to have been small in size and relatively sedentary; sets of these communities shared a greater sense of cultural identity within a lineage and possibly clan organization, with each riverine drainage system occupied by a mosaic of lineages. Each in turn was spatially centered on specific clusters of religious, nonresidential public architecture. Alliances were based on a number of historically shifting variables, including religion, kinship, politics, and economics. It is suggested that future research continue existing methodologies and analyses and consider new ecological, genetic, and ideological research as a means of adding greater local historic nuance to this general model of Hopewellian societies.     

Assessing the Stability and Sustainability of Rock Art Sites: Insight from Southwestern Arizona

In light of global trends in human population growth and urbanization, burgeoning cultural heritage tourism industries, and climate change, cultural heritage places in nearly every corner of the world are significantly threatened, and will remain so into the foreseeable future. Rock art sites are some of the most imperiled, with their exposed contexts posing unique challenges to conservation. Consequently, effective management of publically accessible rock art sites necessitates a sustainable approach that weighs visitation in regard to cultural significance and site stability. This essay integrates rock art stability and sustainability assessment methodologies at the Painted Rock Petroglyph Site in southwestern Arizona. The study specifically applies the Rock Art Stability Index (RASI) to evaluate the natural and anthropogenic weathering forces impacting the site, and the Heritage Asset Sensitivity Gauge (HASG) to assess site sustainability under existing management practices in relation to current and forecasted rates of visitation. A spatial analysis of aggregated RASI data shows that visitor foot traffic has had some of the most profound impacts to the petroglyphs. Unrestricted access to the site area is also highly correlated with the presence and location of vandalism and graffiti, and visitor-related trampling has adversely affected the site’s surface artifact assemblage. Application of the HASG projects that, while existing management practices are fairly sustainable, they become less so under forecasted increases in visitation. Further, the HASG appraises the site’s cultural significance as outweighing its market appeal, indicating management efforts should prioritize conservation over tourism-related development.     

Landcare: Policy,Practice and Partnerships

Landcare is a response to the land degradation crisis facing Australia and is both a community process and a government policy. ‘Landcare’ is a contested term with different meanings being placed on it by individuals and groups from different places with different levels of power and local knowledge. A key concept of Landcare is forming partnerships, which are also seen in very different terms by various Landcare stakeholders. Landcare places great value on local environmental knowledge and senses of place. The achievements of Landcare in facilitating cultural change are assessed and the factors identified that will determine whether Landcare can be ‘scaled up’ to address wider issues of ecological sustainability.     

Women,Place and Practice in Vanuatu: a View from Ambae

This paper discusses the relationship between people and place in Vanuatu, focusing on the relationship between women and place. The paper draws on ethnographic data from the island of Ambae, arguing that practice mediates the relationship between people and place, and, in the new context of the nation, has become a way of demonstrating a person's affiliation to place. In contemporary Vanuatu, kastom mediates and expresses place-based identity. Landholding and land-use are aspects of the practice of a place. The fact that a person's identity is tied to their place raises issues for the identity and status of women, who move at marriage to their husband's place. It remains the case, however that at marriage a woman becomes identified as a person of her husband's place, no matter whether she lives there or not. Ni-Vanuatu women see their capacity to move and resettle in this way as a strength, a capacity of which they can be proud, and for which men respect them. The growth of urban centres since Independence is bringing new presssures to bear on the relationship between people, practice and place.     

Athenian Black Gloss Pottery: A View from the West

Excavation of archaic Morgantina (c.700–450 BC), Sicily, has brought to light a significant pattern in the distribution of imported Greek pottery. This pattern, which shows a preference for imports with features that referred to metal vessels, is echoed at sites around the western Mediterranean. We argue that the preference for certain types was communicated back to Greek producers, and that it also reflects the particular local interests of non‐Greeks, who associated metallic features not only with wealth, but also with their own ancestral traditions.     

A Wider Europe: the View from Moscow and Kyiv

The expansion of NATO and the enlargement of the EU will produce outside states in which perceptions and policies will be influenced by feelings of exclusion and isolation. Russia and Ukraine are two important examples. In Russia the sense of exclusion results from NATO expansion and it was exacerbated by the air strikes against Serbia. Although Ukraine also responded negatively to NATO's attack on Serbia, Ukrainian perceptions of exclusion are caused primarily by disappointment that EU membership is proving so difficult to attain. Based on elite interviews, opinion surveys and the analysis of focus group discussions, this article compares and contrasts the attitudes towards NATO and the EU in the two countries.     

Small-Town Sustainability: Prospects in the Second Modernity

Small towns account for a significant fraction of the total population in many regions, but there has been a relative lack of research into small towns, with researchers' attention being drawn more to the effects of globalization and technological change on large cities and city regions. Yet, as the effects of globalization have become increasingly imprinted on small towns, transnational grassroots movements have emerged to address the needs, challenges and opportunities of small-town communities. Many of these movements involve partnerships and networks linking the local and international levels. They are often framed in terms of sustainability of their community, with an emphasis on liveability and quality of life. This article places the emergence of cross-border collaborations between small towns in the broader context of shifts from the “first” to the “second modernity”. Through in-depth case studies of movements such as Italy's Slow Food and Slow City movement, Sweden's eco-cities, economic gardening in the US and the creative cities project in Albania, we highlight four sensibilities that have emerged: local, organic and slow food; environmentalism; entrepreneurship and creativity.