Generational differences in women's attitudes towards paid employment in a British city: the role of habitus

Most studies of women's work orientations are based on the attitudes and experiences of women with dependent children and conceptualise women's decision-making in terms of moral positions on the combination of paid work and motherhood. Thus, work orientations are understood within a ‘gender model’ (Dex 1988 Dex, S. 1998. Women's attitudes towards work, New York: St. Martin's Press.  [Google Scholar]), which assumes that women's family situation drives their attitudes towards paid work. This article draws on qualitative interview data collected from interviews with women in two age groups living in Oxford, UK, to explore generational differences in women's work orientations and labour market behaviour. Drawing on a Bourdieusian framework, it considers specifically how changing social, economic and moral geographies, incorporating expectations about women's economic and caring roles, have influenced the habitus of older and younger women. The results of the study suggest that whilst caring responsibilities clearly influence women's attitudes and employment patterns, paid work is more important to younger women's sense of themselves and ‘gender models’ of work orientations do not adequately describe their attitudes.     

Imperial Geographies of Home: British Domesticity in India, 1886–1925

This paper considers the translation of domestic discourses over imperial space as middle-class British women established homes in India from 1886 to 1925. Unlike studies of imperial domesticity that delineate separate spheres of home and empire, I consider the exercise of imperial power on a domestic scale, by examining advice given in household guides on managing servants and raising British children in India. Rather than view the household merely as confining, I also explore the advice given to British women regarding travel outside their homes in India. The domestic roles of British women reproduced imperial power relations on a household scale, and the political significance of imperial domesticity extended beyond the boundaries of the home.     

Social conflict and the neoliberal city: a case of Hindu–Muslim violence in India

In an era of globalisation the 'global' is very much implicated in the 'local'. Local events like conflicts therefore need to be understood in the context of the dynamics of globalisation. This paper argues that neoliberal globalisation undergoes a thorough grounding in accordance with the pre-existing socio-cultural and economic specificities of places, which impact upon inter-community alienation and conflict. Using four case studies from a Hindu–Muslim conflict in a neoliberalising city, Ahmedabad, India, this paper illustrates how open market policies are implicated in local industrial restructuring and urban renewal that simultaneously utilise place-specific ethnocentrism to exclude and fragment the poor.     

The care of women's health and beauty: an experience shared by medieval Jewish and Christian women

In this article I intend to elucidate the extent to which medieval western Jewish and Christian women shared customs, knowledge and practices regarding health care, a sphere which has been historically considered as part of women's daily domestic tasks. My study aims to identify female agency in medical care, as well as women's interaction across religious lines, by analysing elusive sources, such as medical literature on women's health care, and by collating the information they provide with data obtained from other textual and visual records. By searching specific evidence of the dialogues that must have occurred between Christian and Jewish women in transmitting their knowledge and experiences, I put forward the idea (developed from earlier work by Montserrat Cabré i Pairet) that medical texts with no clear attribution can be used as sources to reconstruct women's authoritative knowledge.     

The care of women's health and beauty: an experience shared by medieval Jewish and Christian women

In this article I intend to elucidate the extent to which medieval western Jewish and Christian women shared customs, knowledge and practices regarding health care, a sphere which has been historically considered as part of women's daily domestic tasks. My study aims to identify female agency in medical care, as well as women's interaction across religious lines, by analysing elusive sources, such as medical literature on women's health care, and by collating the information they provide with data obtained from other textual and visual records. By searching specific evidence of the dialogues that must have occurred between Christian and Jewish women in transmitting their knowledge and experiences, I put forward the idea (developed from earlier work by Montserrat Cabré i Pairet) that medical texts with no clear attribution can be used as sources to reconstruct women's authoritative knowledge.     

“中英友好奖学金计划”与新时期留学教育的发展

改革开放初期,爱国华人包玉刚向中英两国政府提出了中英友好奖学金计划,该计划得到了中英两国领导人的认可,并一同实施该计划。中英友好奖学金计划历经十年,为中国培养了大批的优秀人才,推动了中国高等教育事业及社会经济的发展;创造了一个全新的留学教育模式,为以后留英教育提供了经验,加强了与华人华侨的联系,发展了中英关系。三边互动的中英友好奖学金计划教育交流模式,有利于香港政权的平稳交接以及回归后的稳步发展,也有力地推动了中英两国关系全面发展。这种三边互动是改革开放初期中国政府勇于探索、积极创新的产物,它不仅表明了中国政府能够采用多种形式发展留英教育事业,同时也证明了中国政府能够团结一切可以团结的力量进行社会主义现代化建设。     

Feminist geography in the UK: the dialectics of women-gender-feminism-intersectionality and praxis

Abstract

Feminist praxis has always been about both the individual and the collective; one of the revolutionary and utopian promises of feminism is that of being, bringing, and working together. This piece provides a brief account of some of the significant scholarship and collective activities within British feminist geography over the last twenty five years, with a particular focus on the work of the Women and Geography Study Group/Gender and Feminist Geographies Research Group. We underscore the importance of intersectional approaches to scholarship and praxis in UK feminist geographies in this period, and in going forward, as well as signalling some of the dialectical opportunities and tensions arising from this approach.     

Celebrating the prophet: religious nationalism and the politics of Milad‐un‐Nabi festivals in India

The traditional honoring of the birth of the Prophet Mohammed (Milad‐un‐Nabi) has shifted in numerous Indian cities from private prayer and ritual meals in the home to grand public festivals that bear resemblances to Hindu religious processions. In 2010 in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad, large‐scale Milad‐un‐Nabi festivals became implicated in Hindu–Muslim nationalist riots that erupted weeks later at the commencement of a Hindu festival for Hanuman Jayanthi. This paper explores the political production of Muslim ethno‐nationalism and the intra‐community debates over the legitimacy and piety of Milad‐un‐Nabi celebrations. It argues that Milad‐un‐Nabi as a public performance is a (re)invented tradition that is part of the struggle for material, political and symbolic goods of the nation‐state. It is shaped by local party politics and history of anti‐Muslim discrimination. However, as the festivals highlight community divisions and religious ambiguities, they ultimately reveal the fragility of ethnic groups.     

The acceleration of transitions to urban sustainability: a case study of Brighton and Hove

Cities raise major challenges and opportunities for achieving sustainability. Much literature on urban sustainability focuses on specific aspects such as planning practices, urban policy or the diffusion of more sustainable technologies or practices. However, attempts at understanding the mechanisms of structural change towards sustainability have resulted in the emergence of an interdisciplinary field of sustainability transitions research. Transitions research has developed a phase model of transitions in which predevelopment, take-off, acceleration and stabilization phases are distinguished. However, the acceleration phase has received limited attention so far. This is a crucial gap as policy-makers are keen to accelerate transitions. This paper aims to enhance our understanding of how local actions contribute towards accelerating urban sustainability transitions. It does so by testing an acceleration mechanisms framework through exploring the collective agency of local initiatives in urban sustainability transitions. Drawing on a case study of the city of Brighton and Hove (UK), the paper finds that despite favourable local political conditions, there is a lack of evidence of acceleration apart from in individual domains such as food or mobility. Progress is found to depend on the agency of initiatives to both scale up sustainable practices and embed these practices into local governance arrangements.     

The mobilisation of identities: a study on the relationship between elite rhetoric and public opinion on national identity in developed democracies

Over the last decade, the topic of national‐identity has gained considerable importance after various heads of states have made it an important political issue in the context of ongoing globalisation and European integration processes. There is also a large, mainly historical literature that has emphasised the role of the political elite in the formation of national‐identities. While this argument is widely discussed in both public and academic debates, there is, surprisingly, hardly any empirical research on this issue. We do not know whether elite positions resonate with how the masses think about these issues. We therefore set out to test this relationship by combining the 2003 wave of the International Social Survey Programme and content analysis of elite mobilisation rhetoric from the Comparative Manifesto Project. Results indicate that an overlap exists between politicians' articulation of exclusive notions about the contours of national‐identity and heightened expressions of civic and ethnic national‐identity within public opinion. By contrast, elite mobilisation along more inclusive lines appears ineffective. From this, it appears that exclusionary arguments play a more important role, at least in terms of attitudes about national‐identity, than inclusionary ones.     

Mr. Dithers Comes to Dinner: Telework and the merging of women's work and home domains in Canada

Studies of home-based telework by women yield mixed results regarding the usefulness of telework in facilitating work–life balance. Most research on the social impacts of home-based telework focuses on workers—employees or self-employed—who deliberately choose that alternative work arrangement. Labour force analysts, however, predict an increase in employer-initiated teleworking. As a case study of the workforce of one large, financial-sector firm in Canada, this article considers the conditions of employment of involuntary teleworkers, those required by their employer to work full-time from a home office. In-depth interviews were co nducted with a sample of 18 female teleworkers working for the case study firm in a professional occupation. Study participants described the advantages and disadvantages of working from home, particularly with regard to spatial and social aspects of locating work in a home setting. The gendered nature of their jobs, and the caring and supportive functions they provide both through their employment and their household responsibilities are seen to support the relocation of their jobs from office to their homes. In many jurisdictions, telework is promoted as a means of giving women more flexibility to balance their paid work with their household responsibilities; the article highlights some of the contradictions involved in moving the workplace into women's homes.     

从精英掌控到大众文化空间——19世纪上半叶大英博物馆的建构与功能转换

19世纪上半叶,英帝国的强盛将大英博物馆推向新纪元,馆藏规模得到极大扩充,书籍、手稿、自然和人工制品的收藏增长迅速。这一时期,英国议会对大英博物馆更加重视也更加慷慨,愿意花费公共资金来扩充藏品。另一方面,严厉的参观规则得以变更,进入博物馆参观或学习的限制被放宽,繁杂的参观时间规定得以改进,阅览室的空间不断扩充。作为大众文化空间,博物馆为公众服务的宗旨和理念随着国家的重视和精英人物的努力逐渐由虚设变为现实,其由国家掌控的特性及作为国家文化工具的使命第一次得到明确的认可和界定。     

Care-givers,leisure and meanings of home: a case study of low income women in Dublin

This article seeks to contribute to the literature on the meanings of domestic spaces by furthering understandings of the sorts of roles that space plays in shaping women's leisure experiences. The study researched a group of 15 women who live in disadvantaged areas of Dublin city and care for dependent children. Focus groups and structured conversations revealed the poverty of the spatial capital available to these women, depicting local environments as difficult and stressful, and to be endured rather than enjoyed. They further revealed the extent to which the women's lives were shaped by their obligations as care-givers. Within the home itself, private domestic spaces were found to be deeply embedded with powerful ideologies of motherhood that did not necessarily evaporate in the simple absence of obligations imposed by children. Instead, they tended to serve as constant reminders of how things ‘should be’, consequently constraining some women's abilities to divest themselves of care-giving duties and engage in self-focused recreation. Some of the women studied were able to move beyond obligation, and for them leisure represented modest yet significant opportunities to self-determinedly relax, reclaim and even luxuriate in certain spaces within their homes. Similarly, once relieved of child-caring responsibilities, leisure encounters within the local environment afforded some women new insights into familiar spaces.     

Republicans,Unionists and Jacobites: The 1st Marquess of Tweeddale and the Restoration of the British Parliament

Although John Hay, 1st marquess of Tweeddale, contributed significantly to both the ruthless overthrow of Charles I, and the establishment of the first British parliament in the 1650s, most of his political career was concerned with attempting to re-establish this parliament after it was dissolved at the restoration of Charles II. His first attempt ended in defeat at the hands of the king and the duke of Lauderdale in 1670, but following the overthrow of James VII and II in 1688, Tweeddale tried to persuade the prince of Orange to unite Scotland and England. The prince, however, showed much more interest in securing the crown of Scotland than uniting the two kingdoms. Tweeddale, as lord high commissioner to the Scottish parliament in 1695, responded by passing legislation designed to provoke the English parliament into accepting union. He was also engaged in a jacobite intrigue to restore King James. Tweeddale intended that the restored monarch would be little more than a puppet, who could be used to legitimise what was effectively a republican regime in all but name. By this means the restored parliament would avoid the unpopularity which brought down the first British parliament in 1660. Tweeddale's scheme came to nought, but the technique he employed to manipulate the English parliament, and exploit the jacobite threat, contributed to the restoration of the British parliament ten years after his death.     

Protagonists and politics in the Italian women's movement: a reflection on the work of Annarita Buttafuoco

This article retraces Annarita Buttafuoco's work as a historian of the women's political movement in Italy through a brief survey of her essays and books. These covered more than two centuries of history, ranging from the echoes of the French Revolution in Italy and the constitution of the Jacobin Republics to the struggles for female suffrage and emancipation in the liberal era down to the period after the Second World War and the founding of the Italian Republic. Emphasizing the originality of both the sources and the methodological approaches she used, the article offers a critical appreciation of Annarita Buttafuoco's research and her role in organizing and shaping collective research projects. It is focused on three specific issues: the history of women as conscious historical subjects, the history of women's political movements not only in their social and political contexts but also in relation to institutional networks and the practices of citizenship.     

Demolition of Chengzhongcun and social mobility of Migrant youth: a case study in Beijing

ABSTRACT

Since the late 1980s, millions of poor and low-income rural migrant workers migrating to Chinese metropolises with their children have congregated in chengzhongcun (villages in the city) for low-cost housing. Drawing on data from a 14-month participant observation in one chengzhongcun in Beijing, we critically explore the potential impact of urban expansion on social mobility of migrant youth. We argue that the uncertainty and chaos connected with looming demolition result in substandard schooling and business closures for migrant parents, leading to the stagnant mobility of migrant youth. Expanding the social hierarchy pyramids, we argue that eliminating chengzhongcun, a space that creates the possibility of climbing the social ladder, hampers the social mobility of migrant youth in the context of the rigid class structure in the late-socialist China. This research re-examines the goals of the demolition of chengzhongcun and advances our understanding by analyzing the prospects of disadvantaged migrant youth during and after the demolition process.     

Water and the Urban Fabric: a study of towns and waterscapes in the Roman period in Britain

This paper highlights the ways in which components of waterscapes—rivers, lakes, pools, wetlands and waterfronts—formed elements of the urban fabric in the Roman period. Urban archaeology has focused mainly on features relating to land, while nautical archaeology, studying rivers, ports and harbours, trade and seafaring, reminds us of the importance of watery contexts. By examining waterscapes in the urban setting we can start to break down some of the traditional dichotomies in archaeology between land and water. Water could form an integral part of the lived environment and acquire cultural meanings that can be studied archaeologically. © 2012 The Author     

Stability of phytoliths in the archaeological record: a dissolution study of modern and fossil phytoliths

Opaline phytoliths are important microfossils used in archaeological and ecological research. Relatively little is known about the stability of phytoliths after burial. Under alkaline pH conditions they can dissolve, and mechanical disturbances can cause a loss of their more delicate appendages. Here we present an experimental study of phytolith stability (combination of solubility and abrasion). Modern and fossil phytoliths were extracted from wheat using new methods to minimize dissolution, and by burning in an oven. These assemblages were placed in a solution buffered to pH 10 and maintained under constant temperature and shaking conditions. The silicon concentrations in the solution were monitored once a week for 5 weeks. The phytolith morphologies in each assemblage were determined at the outset of the experiment and after 5 weeks. The results show that there are differences in stability between various assemblages. Modern inflorescence wheat phytolith assemblages are more unstable than those from leaves/stems. Burnt assemblages are less stable than unburnt assemblages, and a fossil phytolith assemblage about 3000 years old is more stable than the modern wheat assemblages. The results also show that individual phytolith morphotypes have different stabilities, and as a result of dissolution and abrasion, some morphotypes may resemble others. This study further shows that archaeological and/or paleo-environmental interpretation of phytolith assemblages may change with the assemblage’s state of preservation.     

Artur Hazelius and the ethnographic display of the Scandinavian peasantry: a study in context and appropriation

Artur Hazelius (1833–1901), founder of the Nordiska Museet and the Skansen Open-Air Museum, was a pioneering figure in the practice of ethnographic display in Europe. Hazelius achieved Europe-wide recognition following his presentation of Swedish and Scandinavian peasant ethnography at the Paris Universal Exposition of 1878, where his displays were reviewed positively in the international press. This paper argues that the significance of the Hazelian ethnographic project was embedded in overlapping contextual frames with centres in Stockholm and Paris. If the displays most readily spoke to a general concern with the decline of traditional life as rooted in the countryside, they arguably took on other, different and occasionally conflicting meanings as they were moved from one exhibitionary context to another. Whereas in Stockholm the ethnographic displays were inscribed in the conciliatory rhetoric of Scandinavism, the exhibitionary setting of the exposition universelle imposed an interpretative frame defined by the logic of a competitive nationalism. For Nordic audiences, the scenes reflected the positive historical significance of the peasantry in the unfolding narrative of Scandinavian political modernity; for the French audience, however, those same scenes were either applauded for their life-likeness or seen as reflective of the ethnographic richness of the ‘kingdom of Sweden’.