The 2014 Elections in New Caledonia: A Precursor to Self-determination?

ABSTRACT

On 11 May 2014, voters in New Caledonia went to the polls to elect representatives to three provincial assemblies and the national congress. The election results reaffirmed the division between supporters and opponents of independence, as New Caledonians move towards a self-determination referendum scheduled before the end of 2018. The election results confirmed longstanding regional and political divisions. In the rural north and outlying Loyalty Islands, the FLNKS independence movement holds sway. In spite of a united mobilisation by a pro-independence coalition in the Southern Province, three competing anti-independence parties dominate the Southern assembly. The campaign highlighted issues that will dominate political debate in coming years: electoral reforms, economic and fiscal policy, the key role of nickel mining and competing alternatives to ‘exit’ the 1998 Noumea Accord. In the incoming congress, 29 conservative opponents of independence face 25 members of independence parties. This balance of forces in New Caledonia's political institutions and divisions within the loyalist camp means tension will be ongoing as the country moves closer to the scheduled referendum on self-determination – especially as France seeks to maintain its status as a midsized global power.     

The New Museum Folkwang in Essen. A Contribution to the Cultural and Economic Regeneration of the Ruhr Area?

Abstract

The “Bilbao effect” shows that major cultural investments can contribute to the regeneration of old industrial cities and regions. Four different contributions can be distinguished: the (1) direct economic effects of such an investment; (2) social functions of a cultural institution which often serves as a point of contact for local and regional elites; (3) symbolic functions as an expression of a new regional identity and (4) cognitive functions, for example, the contribution to regional diversity and the cross-fertilization of ideas. Taking the example of a major cultural investment in Germany, namely the renovation of Museum Folkwang prior to the European Capital of Culture RUHR.2010, this article discusses the economic, social, symbolic and cognitive contributions of this investment to the economic transformation of the town and the Ruhr area, which is now one of the largest urban agglomerations in Europe. A Bilbao effect was not intended and did not take place. The museum, however, contributed to the incremental transformation of the town by creating a different image of the town, its role as a meeting place and point of identification for local elites and companies and its contribution to the emergence of an integrated cultural district.     

The Blind Leading the Blind? Teaching Geography to Students with Vision Impairment

Geography frequently uses graphics to express the spatial concepts that are the hallmark of the discipline. Students with a vision impairment may find access to this medium limited, and consequently teachers of geography may find themselves in the position of imposing discriminatory educational conditions upon such students. This paper arises from the absence of any coordinated statement of policies or methodology for teaching in this area in Australia, and reviews strategies which may be adopted: the provision of suitable materials; the adaptation of the conceptual and administrative bases of teaching; and the provision of advice and information.     

Coming to Grips with a “New” State of Consciousness: The Study of Rapid-Eye-Movement Sleep in the 1960s

Since antiquity yawning has attracted a moderate interest among philosophers, psychologists, physiologists, as well as educators, moralists and physicians. Organisms from birds to men and from the womb to the deathbed were found to be displaying it. While sometimes satisfying to the producer, its display is offensive to the lay observer. Hippocrates had it on his lists of useful ‘natures.’ Aristotle dropped a few words on the matter. Boerhaave elevated its function to the intellect of animals. Haller has commented on its relation to the acoustic system, blood-flow, and baby sleep. Darwin mentioned it in connection with emotional behavior. Some modem authors praised its beneficial effects on respiration and smell. In the 1960s, Ashley Montagu tried to correct the contemporary failure to explain the behavior by the fact of raised CO 2 and arterial compression. It also interested some neurologists, especially in its association with the encephalitis lethargica in the 1920s, with ‘spasmodic yawning,’ with epilepsy, not to speak of hysteria. As to boredom or its stimulus, a 40-page dissertation survives from the court of Frederick the Great of the 18th century condemning idleness, a subject that also inspired Blaise Pascal and William James. But in the Hindu world, public yawning was a religious offense.     

Where to Next?: Garden Site Selection in the Papua New Guinea Highlands

The Wola speakers of the Southern Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea are nominally shifting cultivators. The question asked here is how do they decide, when they periodically abandon gardens, where to establish new ones. The answer is framed in terms of an investigation of knowledge largely in action rather than as discourse. Several factors are postulated as influencing site selection, among them distance to location, ease of enclosing it, site topography (including aspect, slope and altitude), its vegetation cover, and finally social considerations that might inform gardeners' choices. It includes a critique of materialistic assumptions in respect of social status and access to productive resources. It is noteworthy that these decisions are made in a context where there is currently no pressure on arable land resources, the region having large forested reserves. A review of data collected from a sample of gardens in the Wage valley (presented in terms of both numbers of gardens and their areas), suggests that farmers skillfully draw on their experiential knowledge in balancing consideration of various factors, none necessarily predominating in their decision making.     

The End of the Road in Land Reform? Limits to Redistribution in West Bengal

The hypothesis that failures of land reform programmes are due to the political power of dominant classes is problematic where land is scarce, ownership not highly concentrated and politics not especially exclusionary. Since the late 1960s, land reform in West Bengal has been initiated by radical rural political mobilization—with significant participation by the agrarian underclass. The Communist Party of India (Marxist)—the largest radical party in West Bengal-has been unable to extend its redistributive land reform agenda beyond a point because of political difficulties rooted in West Bengal's intense competition for scarce resources. It has modified the land reform agenda to accommodate the competing demands of the poor and the non-poor, and there are signs that land reform is losing saliency in the policy agenda. This paper argues that the weak implementation of land reform in West Bengal is explained not by the power of the dominant classes, but as an adaptation of policy to an environment of resource scarcity and a relatively low level of land concentration.