Stories in Space: The Geographies of Children's Literature

This paper argues for the uses of children's literature in the study of children's geographies. It focuses in particular on the nature of representations of urban space in children's literature, a genre more usually connected with the pastoral and explores the narrative strategies and approaches of children's literature which does venture into the city. I propose five modes in which the city is written for children and ask, from the position of literary criticism which distrusts children's stories' ability to speak for children, how far these modes can be said to coincide with children's lived experience of the city.     

A Most Unmanly War: British Military Masculinity in Macedonia,Mesopotamia and Palestine, 1914–18

This article argues that the most severe crisis of masculinity among British and Dominion soldiers in the First World War did not take place on the Western Front. Instead, British and Dominion soldiers serving on the war's sideshows in Macedonia, Mesopotamia and Palestine believed most acutely that their manliness was in question. Unlike soldiers on the Western Front, they were not battling the main German Army, they were not fighting to liberate occupied France and Belgium, and their war was not to preserve the rights of small nations and the inviolability of international law. This article explores how military masculinity played out much differently on the war's peripheral fronts in two ways. First, it suggests that where a soldier fought mattered more to military masculinity than a soldier's method of enlistment or any other variable. British and Dominion soldiers were fully aware that the home front only considered France and Flanders as the real war, and they actively argued against this misconception to loved ones and in their memoirs. Second, this article demonstrates an additional crisis of masculinity on the war's peripheral fronts: the lack, or more often effacement, of non‐white colonial (Eastern Mediterranean and Arab) women. Not only was British and Dominion military masculinity under assault on the war's peripheral fronts, heteronormative sexual relations were also being transformed in a world where few, if any, racially acceptable women were available.     

Constructing Masculinity and Women's Fear in Public Space in Irvine,California

Fear in public spaces negatively impacts women's lives. Even when danger is low, the idea of women as endangered in public space endures—due, in part, to its centrality in the construction of gender identity for men and women. In this article, the author examines the construction of contemporary, masculine gender identities and men's perceptions of women as fearful and endangered in public space. Through interviews with 82 male students in Irvine, California, USA, the author examines how men's construction of masculine identities builds upon perceptions of women as fearful and endangered in Irvine public spaces. Though they regard Irvine as safe, men see women as vulnerable there. The author investigates this apparent inconsistency in light of men's performances of two masculine identities—the youthful 'badass' and the chivalrous man—which depend for their construction on opposition with women as fearful. Recommendations include suggestions for continued research on the spatial construction of masculine identities.     

The family is worthy of being rebuilt: perceptions of the Jewish family in Mandate Palestine, 1918-1948

Although the Jewish community of Palestine was an extremely family-oriented society and the institute of the family played a major role in the establishment of the new Zionist nationhood, the historiography has henceforth paid little attention to its role, images, and functions. This article will examine the diverse and often contradictory perceptions and influences that have shaped the Zionist period. Traditional Jewish perceptions intertwined with modern, bourgeois, and revolutionary notions of the family, whether national or socialist. These contradictory perceptions were manifested in the contested professional and public discourse regarding the many dysfunctional urban families in Tel Aviv, who were treated by welfare authorities and mental health specialists during the 1930s and 1940s.     

Sites of memory in the Holy Land: the design of the British war cemeteries in Mandate Palestine

British war cemeteries of WW1 form a world embracing system of cemeteries, scattered over a wide range of sites and landscapes wherever Imperial soldiers died during the war. Although recent interest in memory and commemoration has made the British war cemeteries of the Great War a much-studied subject, the spatial dimension of this enormous undertaking remains somewhat out of focus. The geographical context, however, is an important factor in shaping the meanings for each cemetery. In each, the memory of the war intersects and interacts with the historical memory carried by the site. Nowhere is this more evident than in the cemeteries of the Palestine campaign, above all in Jerusalem. The paper follows the history of the design of war cemeteries of the Palestine campaign, and examines the ways the cemeteries and their design relate to their particular geographical context, and the impact this context may have on their interpretation     

Matten,Marc Andre.Imagining a Postnational World: Hegemony and Space in Modern China

To some observers,the year 2016 signals the end of an era.Marked by two stunning events-Britain's decision to withdraw from the European Union in June and the election of Donald Trump as the new US president in November-the West appears to turn its back on globalism.After three decades of continuous efforts to dissolve national boundaries for a smooth circulation of capital,labor and products,the pendulum is swinging back to nationalism,if not nativism.Rather than promoting global connectivity,the new trend appears to focus on protecting the home market,domestic industry,and national sovereignty.     

Unsocial analyses: Habitus,Hegemony, and self

Bourdieu, Pierre. The Logic of Practice. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990. 330 pp. including appendix, references, and index. $39.50 cloth, $14.95 paper.

Comaroff, Jean and John Comaroff. Of Revelation and Revolution: Christianity, Colonialism, and Consciousness in South Africa, vol. 1. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991. xx + 414 pp. including notes, bibliography, and index. $60.00 cloth, $18.95 paper.

Crapanzano, Vincent. Hermes’ Dilemma and Hamlet's Desire: On the Epistemology of Interpretation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992. ix + 386 pp. including notes, references, and index. $45.00 cloth, $16.95 paper.     

Masculinity, Identity and Labour Market Change: Some Reflections on the Implications of Thinking Relationally About Difference and the Politics of Inclusion

Abstract In this paper I want to address the connections between the three areas of work: first, the theorisation of identity as relational; second, the significance of difference and diversity in thinking about inequality, labour market restructuring and the social construction of multiple masculinities; and finally, the political implications of taking diversity into account in arguing for a participatory democracy based on ideas about inclusion, respect and responsibility. I want to illustrate these connections in the specific context of a case study about young men in contemporary Britain. In the sections that follow, I focus on each of these areas or concepts in turn, but attempt to demonstrate the connections between the substantive debates in each of the sections. In my conclusion I raise some of the policy implications for building wider social inclusion in democracies by connecting notions of difference and diversity to structural inequalities, or what is sometimes referred to by geographers as ‘the cultural’ and ‘the economic’ dimensions of difference.     

Children's Space and Interests: Constructing an Agenda for Student Voice

Student voice is now a more prominent feature of the education policy agenda in England and Wales. The introduction of citizenship education and the demands on schools to become more socially inclusive have forced educationalists to look more critically at the most popular expression of student voice, the school council. Drawing on empirical data from four secondary schools, this paper explores the strategies adopted by students and staff in establishing the position of the school council both as a mechanism for the expression of students' interests and as a possible forum within a broader decision-making process in school. As such the paper provides an insight into new ways of governance that may resonate with young people's experiences in other settings, both temporal and spatial.     

Masculinity and Secessionism in Italy: An Assessment

Abstract. The masculinist rhetoric of the northern Italian separatist party, the Lega Nord, is an example of nationalist status affirmation. The stereotyped contrast between effeminate southerners and masculine northerners developed at the end of last century is used to affirm the superiority of the masculine North. The Lega's rhetoric parallels mainstream concerns on Italy's international status, and proposals for reforms to make Italy more ‘masculine’ and European. The use of a gendered language for the affirmation of national status reveals a belief in a normative hierarchy of nations, but also introduces a tension between a ‘masculinist’ status affirmation and a model of modernity which includes the emancipation of women as one of its principles.     

Rape in Kosovo: Masculinity and Serbian Nationalism

Abstract. Accusations of Albanian rape of Serbs in Kosovo became a highly charged political factor in the development of Serbian nationalism in the 1980s. Discussions of rape were used to link perceptions of national victimisation and a crisis of masculinity and to legitimate a militant Serbian nationalism, ultimately contributing to the violent break‐up of Yugoslavia. The article argues for attention to the ways that nationalist projects have been structured with reference to ideals of masculinity, the specific political and cultural contexts that have influenced these processes, and the consequent implications for gender relations as well as for nationalist politics. Such an approach helps explain the appeal of Milo?evi?'s nationalism; at the same time it highlights the divisions and conflicts that lie behind hegemonic gender and national identities constructed around difference.     

Fish and Fish Products in Late Antique Palestine and Babylonia in Their Social and Geographical Contexts: Archaeology and the Talmudic Literature

This paper looks at the ancient Jewish talmudic literature (4th-7th centuries CE) for information about fish and fish products in the ancient world and compares it with information from classical sources and from archaeology. Analysis of the texts show that information about food, and particularly fish and fish products, can be derived from texts originally written as religious regulations and moral narratives. Talmudic textual evidence, backed up by parallel archaeological finds, documents long-distance transport of preserved fish, including what is identified as Nile perch from Egypt and mackerel from Spain. Parallel papyrological evidence testifies to the import of the parrot wrasse. Graeco-Roman allec, a sauce made of macerated tiny fish, is identified by the Palestinian Talmud with tarit terufah, made of tiny chopped fish, and afitz, cf Greek afye, immature fish, often cooked as such. Remains of allec have been found archaeologically in Israel/Palestine. The Palestinian Talmud identifies tarit[a] with tza?ana, one of a trio of strong-smelling Babylonian fish-dishes eaten by the poor: the others are gildana and harsana. The varied material on these discussed here adds to our knowledge of ancient salted and/or fermented fish-dishes. The identification of tza?ana with 9th-to-10th century ?a?na from Baghdad of the Caliphs and 14th-century Cairo appears very likely. Thus tarit/tza?ana/?a?na appears to have been not very appetising processed fish food for the poor in Roman Palestine, Jewish Babylonia, Baghdad of the Abbasid Caliphs and Mamluk Egypt, and it may be identified with allec. The talmudic literature also discusses reasons for failure of the preservation processes, as well as of potentially lethal effects of insufficient preservation.