‘It shocks me,the place of women’: intersectionality and mining companies’ retrogradation of indigenous women in New Caledonia

Indigenous women’s social positionings are complex and dynamic, informed by culture and post-colonial politics; gender and ethnicity intersect with age, socio-economic status, and social hierarchies. This article uses an ethnographic study of Kanak women’s engagements with mining in New Caledonia, to examine three questions. First, how do indigenous women’s dynamic social positionings shape their possibilities for negotiation with and resistance to industry? Secondly, how do women’s possibilities for engagement in turn shape the wider community’s possibilities for negotiation with or resistance to industry? Finally, what is the companies’ role in shaping women’s possibilities for such engagement? I draw on the critical feminist concept of intersectionality, bringing this into conversation with concepts of symbolic and cultural violence and hegemony. Over time, women began to actively negotiate with and resist industrial projects, in line with growing gender equity in New Caledonia, but the mining companies referenced – and thus reinforced – women’s dominated social position as an excuse to sideline their concerns, a type of cultural violence I term ‘retrogradation.’ Thus, this article recognizes indigenous women’s increasing agency in engaging with external actors, such as industrial projects, yet also shows how outsiders can commit retrogradation to further marginalize young, rural, poor community women. I discuss how such marginalization limits options for the larger group. Finally, I point to a way out of oppression, through transformation of hegemonic ideologies.     

New regionalism in Turkey: questioning the ‘new’ and the ‘regional’

Turkey’s regional policies are inspired by the new regionalism theory. During past two decades, key concepts of new regionalism, including knowledge economies, specialization, networked cities and innovation, have been incorporated in policy documents. At the same time, Turkey comes from a strong central state tradition that controls local and regional development. At first insight, new regionalism and strong central state control do not fit in the same frame. This research analyses the trajectory of regional policies in Turkey with the aim of explaining how these seemingly incompatible policies can coexist. It argues that regional policies developed at the central state level utilized new regionalism as a part of the strategy to maintain power in the course of transformation of the nation state.     

Egyptian women’s position in the family in the time of the Pharaohs

Although many scholars have assert that the Egyptian women s position in the family was high during the time of the Pharaohs, no research in China has made a comprehensive and systematic discussion over this issue so far. Based on both documents and archaeological materials, this article approaches this question in three aspects: (1) Egyptian women s position in the family economy; (2) the affection between the husband and the wife; (3) the position and role of the mother.     

A link in ‘the great chain of Empire friendship’: the Victoria League in New Zealand

With the objective of exploring New Zealand women's part in imperialism, this article focuses on the history of the Victoria League. Through its activities during war and peace, the League promoted New Zealand's place as a loyal part of the British Empire. The League in New Zealand was part of a ‘female imperialism’ whereby elite women in the ‘white’ settler societies performed gendered work to promote the strength and unity of the Empire. Women's work considered suitable for empire friendliness and unity ranged from hospitality and socialising in the ‘private’ female world, to the support of immigration and education. Wartime saw patriotic ‘mothers of empire’ in full force. The article covers the League's work into the second half of the twentieth century when, despite the ‘end of empire’, imperial loyalty endured, entwined with emerging national identities. Maternal imperial identity slowly waned, the legacy of Queen Victoria lasting until local challenges to the process of colonisation became vocal.     

‘Chilling’ and ‘hopping’ in the ‘teenage space network’: explorations in teenagers’ geographies in the city of Mechelen

Within the field of children's geographies several calls have been made to develop ‘teenagers’ geographies’ as a complementary field of research and practice. It has been stated that teenagers remain ‘invisible’ or ‘marginalised’ in public debates as well as in research and practice, even within childhood studies and children's geographies. Further explorations in teenagers’ geographies could contribute to the research on ‘diverse childhoods’. This article explores the spatial worlds of teenagers (approximately 12–16 years) in Flanders (Belgium), a region characterised by a dense network of smaller cities and ‘urban sprawl’. Based on street interviews and observations in a small city several mental maps and patterns of teenagers’ use of public space were identified. Starting from a case study in the city of Mechelen, this article suggests how these perspectives can be integrated into urban planning by identifying and tying together relevant planning layers, thus creating a more closely knit ‘teenage space network’. Wouter Vanderstede is an urban planner, anthropologist and historian. He is a researcher and staff member at Childhood & Society Research Centre–Onderzoekscentrum Kind & Samenleving vzw. Child friendly and teenager friendly planning and design of public space is one of the main research themes of the institute. View all notes     

‘The Scum of France’: Australian Anxieties towards French Convicts in the Nineteenth Century

Between the 1860s and the early decades of the twentieth century, escaped and liberated French convicts from the penal colony in New Caledonia arrived on Australian shores, raising concerns about physical as well as moral contamination. This article combines Australian sources with French consular and ministerial archives to examine the impact this little-known episode of trans-imperial history had on the early Australian federal process. The arrival of the convicts and former convicts played on at least two levels. It highlighted the colonial authorities’ weak powers in asserting their territorial sovereignty and policies and pitted them against both Great Britain and the French. Further, the constant nudging of these unwelcome neighbours disrupted the ongoing disavowal of the colonies’ convict past.     

Suburban women and the ‘glocalisation’ of the everyday lives: gender and glocalities in underprivileged areas in Sweden

This article presents results from two case studies of marginalised housing areas on the outskirts of two major cities in Sweden. The areas have been analysed through the lens of glocalisation of the everyday lives. The aim is to illustrate and gain a deeper understanding of the meaning of, and relationship between, place, gender and transnationalism. The article contests the simplified image of migrant women in these marginalised areas as local-bound and isolated. It analyses their everyday lives as spaces of glocality, with a particular focus on local and global networks, local and global meeting places, and relationships to local authorities. The aim is to disseminate new knowledge about the complexities of these women's lives in a global–local context, which also has implications for the theoretical concept of glocality. Through the concept of glocality, the beneficial as well as the negative aspects of these women's lives in marginalised neighbourhoods are illustrated.     

The question of ‘the political’ in critical geopolitics: Querying the ‘child soldier’ in the ‘war on terror’

After two decades of scholarship on ‘critical geopolitics’, the question of whether it is largely a discursive critique of prevailing knowledge production and geopolitical texts or critique with an implicit, normative politics of its own remains open. These positions are not incommensurate, and much scholarship on critical geopolitics does both. This paper analyzes critical geopoliticians' concern with this question in the present historical moment and probes the possibility of a post-foundational ethic as the basis for ‘the political’ in critical geopolitics and beyond. Empirically, this paper explores these theoretical tensions within ‘critical geopolitics’ by tracing the disparate fates of two young men, both child soldiers at the time of their capture. ‘Child soldier’ is an unstable category subject to geopolitical valence and stigma during the ‘war on terror’. The deployment of extra-legal tactics and spaces of violence, such as those faced by detainees at Guantanamo Bay, point to the rise of biopolitics combined with geopolitics, illustrating the intersection of sovereignty and governmentality as important political fodder for critical geopolitics two decades after its inception. The stories of Canadian Omar Khadr, one of the youngest prisoners at Guantanamo and the only citizen of a Western state still held there, and Ismael Beah, a rehabilitated soldier who fought as a boy from Sierra Leone, illustrate too how geographical imagination strongly shapes access to provisions of international law and the victimized status of ‘child soldier’ in particular.     

On the origins and role of ‘wise women’ in causes for annulment on the grounds of male impotence

By 1215 the medieval Church's doctrine of marriage was established. The requirements for and impediments to marriage had been articulated and ecclesiastical courts began to enforce the canon laws governing marriage. One of the impediments to the formation of the bond was male impotence. This impediments posed difficulties to the courts, which used a variety of means to substantiate the allegation. One innovation of English origin was the use of wise women to examine the husband. How this practice developed and later spread to other parts of Europe can be explained by piecing together fragments of evidence from ecclesiastical courts, confessors' manuals, and other sources. The use of wise women helped to alleviate the problems which such cases could pose and, in the process, gave women a prominent role in the legal system. This investigation provides insights into the social and psychological as well as legal contexts of sexuality in the Middle Ages.     

Evolution of the Concept of ‘Extracellular Matrix’ in the Brain

The question as to whether an extracellular matrix exists between cells in the adult brain has been debated since the end of the last century. In the early years, zones containing neuropil and glial processes were mistakenly believed to represent this substance. But Golgi's discovery of the “perineuronal net” paved the way for future study of the true extracellular matrix. In the 1950s, application of histochemical techniques established the existence of interstitial material between nerve cells. Unfortunately the similarity between the pericellular distribution of this material and Golgi's “pericellular nets” was overlooked. The detection of an extracellular volume fraction in the central nervous system furnished further indirect proof for the existence of an extracellular matrix in the brain. However, the repeated failure of electron microscopy to reveal a substantial space between cell processes undermined the acceptance of the concept of “extracellular matrix” in the central nervous system. Nowadays this concept has, however, been firmly established.     

Trans lives in the ‘gay capital of the UK’

Recent geographical interventions have begun to question the power relations among lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people, challenging assumptions that LGBT communities have homogeneous needs or are not characterised by hierarchies of power. Such interventions have included examinations of LGBT scenes as sites of exclusion for trans people. This article augments academic explorations of trans lives by focusing on ‘the gay capital’ of the UK, Brighton & Hove, a city that is notably absent from academic discussions of gay urbanities in the UK, despite its wider acclaim. The article draws upon Count Me In Too (CMIT), a participatory action research project that seeks to progress social change for LGBT people in Brighton & Hove. Rather than focusing on LGBT scenes, the article addresses broader experiences of the city, including those relating to the city as a political entity that seeks to be ‘LGBT inclusive’ and those relating to the geographies of medical ‘treatment’ that relocate trans people outside the boundaries of the city, specifically to the gender identity clinic at Charing Cross Hospital in London. It argues that trans lives are both excluded from and inextricably linked to geographical imaginings of the ‘gay capital’, including LGBT spaces, scenes and activism, such that complex sexual and gender solidarities are simultaneously created and contested. In this way, the article recognises the paradoxes of the hopes and solidarities that co-exist – and should be held in tension – with experiences of marginalisation.