Tomboy Tales: The rural,nature and the gender of childhood

By following and connecting certain well-trodden routes through constructions of childhood, it is possible to arrive at a point at which the 'natural' gender of childhood is apparently male. This is indicated by the fact that girls are often termed 'tomboys' in both popular and lay discourses, even when they are partaking in what are seen to be the purest, most ideal childhoods which are present in notions of country childhood idylls. Children, nature, and the countryside as surrogate nature, are all seen as innocent, and thus notions of idyllic 'natural' country childhoods become a powerful force. Heavily influenced by romantic constructions of, and connections between, childhood, nature and the countryside, such views, it will be shown, leave little space for girl children to adopt female identities. The author suggests that this ideal association of male children and nature, and the accompanying notion that it is the development of female sexuality which in particular marks a departure from the natural state of childhood, and thus ends childhood, merits consideration. This is particularly so in the contexts of various discourses, such as romanticism, feminism and ecofeminism, which have explored links between the female and the natural. The aim is not to challenge these constructions and theorisations of gender and nature directly, but rather to show how the introduction of the notion of childhood might cross-cut, problematise and even illuminate them to some degree.     

Between Worlds: Considering Celtic feminine identities in The Secret of Roan Inish

This article explores the ways in which Celtic oral traditions concerning the 'place' of women are replayed within a contemporary textual form, namely the 1995 film, The Secret of Roan Inish. Through an examination of the representation of gender relations within the film, we address how the incorporation of mythic elements is intended to provide a sense of female 'empowerment'. While the film has been praised for its positive portrayal of Irish Celtic women, we suggest that the various qualities of strength associated with the female lead characters are expressed within the context of a discursive framework that valorizes certain roles and behavior as 'natural' at the expense of other modes of life, and, further, ties the construction of subject identities into a fixed, or essentialist, notion of 'place'. Rather than presume that this filmic vision of Irish Celtic feminine identities is intrinsically regressive, however, we note that in our act of viewing Roan Inish those identities are recontextualized further in, we hope, a progressive, post-structuralist manner.     

Albert Wendt and the Problem of History

Poet and fiction writer Albert Wendt has taken on the task of correcting colonialist representations of the Pacific from an insider perspective. This involves him in questions of historical record and modes of recording history. The role of memory becomes central to the artist transposing oral traditions into written forms. Trained as an historian, Wendt progressively blurs the boundaries between imaginative and factual, personal and public re/constructions, aware of the illusions of both nationalistic nostalgia for lost perfection and colonialist 'objective' encyclopaedism. History both liberates and traps; in the poem 'Inside Us the Dead' and novels Pouliuli and Black Rainbow , Wendt looks for a postcolonial dynamic between postmodern deconstruction and representational texts that can be seen in terms of de Certeau's ideas of tactics and strategies.     

La Parité en débat au-delà de Versailles

Referring mainly to texts published after the passage of the constitutional bill on gender parity in politics, this article asks theoretical questions about how French intellectuals understand the issue of 'women and politics'. It raises questions about 'differentialism' and 'discrimination', two notions that keep recurring in critiques of parity. By continuously emphasising the differentialism of parity advocates, 'republican feminists' may end up reinforcing and popularising this notion. Furthermore, parity critics' constant references to 'discrimination' may (intentionally or not) encourage the view that women are just another 'minority'. Do these two mutally reinforcing developments point to a 'socialisation of politics'? Is such a trend unavoidable when thinking about the links between 'women' and 'politics'?     

Stop – chemophobia

Abstract

Chemophobia – the fear of chemistry – is caused by both rational and emotional concepts. Here only the fear which can be explained by reason is considered, namely the evil uses of chemicals as deliberate poisons and the disasters caused by unwanted chemical explosions. The psychology of chemophobia, as well as the love of the 'natural' and the dislike of the 'man made' chemical materials, is explored with reference to Hoffmann. The implacable law of all accidents and disasters is discussed together with the code of conduct drawn up by German chemists, since these are based on cause and effect and not on irrational influence. That modern civilisation could not flourish without the all embracing and beneficial influence of chemistry is illustrated by a few examples ranging from anaesthetics to beer and wine. Finally, the drastic consequences of chemophobia are noted and a solution to these is suggested: teaching the school teachers to present knowledge of chemistry as desirable, as a basis of modern existence, and as a worthy career for young scientists, these may remove chemophobia in time.     

Marketing Fabrics and Femininity in Interwar France

Abstract

This article examines discourse about the gender of garments and dress fabrics in the French fashion media, using Roland Barthes's 'informal semiotics' of modern consumption, and particularly his notion of the fashion magazine as a 'machine' articulating the meaning of fashion, including the gender implications of fashion and fabrics. The article also tracks the response of French couturiers and textile manufacturers to anxieties about gender ambiguities in ladieswear between the two world wars. The first part analyzes coverage of chemise dresses and ladies' suits in 13 illustrated magazines: four fashion magazines, three fashion supplements, three trade magazines and three society magazines. The second part of the article explores the attitudes of textile manufacturers' associations, of prominent woollen and silk producers, and of their marketing campaigns, to more androgynous styles using the same sources, professional bulletins, and the minutes of the Silk Manufacturers Syndicate (Chambre Syndicale des Fabricants de Soieries).     

A Strategy for Industrial Archaeology in the Black Country

Abstract

Remains from Britain's industrial past are being lost daily. Much has gone already, often with its importance unrecognised. This applies no more so than in the Black Country where a joint local authority/university initiative set about addressing the problem by identifying, through Local Area Surveys, significant remains from the industrial period. Arising from this, Dudley MBC's 'Strategy for Industrial Archaeology' now allows important sites to be flagged throughout the planning and development process and, with public involvement and the imaginative use of existing controls, a degree of protection is afforded. It is hoped that the approach described below will form the basis of discussion and encourage similar initiatives elsewhere.     

Looking Out,Looking In: The ‘Other' in the Journal of Geography in Higher Education

The Journal of Geography in Higher Education has a vision of being inclusive. This paper examines what the journal, throughout its history, has published on teaching and learning in relation to people and places referred to in contemporary scholarship as the 'Other'. It addresses themes of gender, race/ethnicity, sexuality, and the 'Third World', noting especially the surprising paucity of material on the latter. In particular, the article explores ways in which teaching addresses aspects of students' values and attitudes, and the importance of linking knowledge, emotion, experiential learning and action.     

Resisting mothers,making gender: teenage girls in the United States and the articulation of femininity

Much of the feminist literature on teenage girls in the west has tended to polarize around the issues of girls' gendered agency and victimization. In contrast, this article explores the ambiguous relationship between gender resistance and compliance. I argue that while girls clearly articulate their own agency, they do so through a reliance on gendered and heterosexual norms, identities, and categories. The article draws on examples from my research with girls in South Carolina, USA, in particular girls' narratives about their mothers. I suggest that girls situate their gendered practices and evaluate femininity in part via evaluations of their mothers' gender, sexual and nurturing practices. Mothers often stand in as representatives of normative and traditional femininity for the girls; yet girls do not realize that they reproduce, rather than resist, aspects of femininity, even as they criticize generational differences and their mothers' versions of feminine and gendered behaviors.     

'Walking the walk and talking the talk': Bodies,conversation, gender and power in higher education in England

Combinations of speaking, listening and bodily behaviour have been neglected in accounts of the operation of power. Although often described as fluid and interactionally produced, power has been the subject of few empirically based analyses at micro-interactional scales. Drawing on interviews with undergraduates and extracts from teaching interactions at higher education institutions in England, this article focuses on talk as a situated practice. It describes how verbal and bodily behaviours together are fundamentally involved in the enactment of instructor and student roles and power relations, and the collective interactional (re)production of teaching spaces. It discusses two broad types of teaching interaction in terms of gendered differences in the structure of talk, drawing attention to how these are shaped by differences in how instructors enact power. I suggest that men may routinely engage in conversations with 'feminine' structures in teaching spaces without this compromising heterosexual masculinity, and present reasons why it may be more likely that women be problematized for using 'masculine' verbal styles. I also argue that rather than simply being inscribed on to instructors' bodies in ways that accord with the hegemonic discourses of gender, authority and respect have to continually be earned from students, and verbal behaviour is deeply involved in this process. It is not enough to 'walk the walk', instructors must also 'talk the talk', in ways that students deem legitimate.     

Painted Textiles in a Buddhist Temple

Abstract

This article investigates women's dye practice at a time when natural dyes were deemed obsolete, or when created by men working from an artisanal studio, transformed into idealized labour more consistent with the ideals of the Arts and Crafts Movement. The objective of this article is to assess the extent to which gender plays a role in the historical and contemporary determination of the aesthetic, cultural, and social value of natural dyeing. Another goal is to move away from the term 'craft work' with its acquired pejorative context and locate dyeing within 'artisanal practice' as an occupational choice. Current studies on women's participation in the Arts and Crafts Movement raise questions as to the distinction between amateur and professional status among practitioners in many media. The only dyer deemed to be 'professional' was William Morris; yet in north-west Ireland, the Scottish Highlands, and England's Lake District, female dyers contemporary with Morris also made important contributions. That their production of colour originated from the separate sphere of home need not mitigate against professional status nor historical value, but there is a lingering perception that men such as Morris possessed inherently superior abilities. The focus of this article is also to analyze the mythology of natural dyeing which has limited the opportunity to recognize female dyers whose practice aligned with the utopian ideals of the Arts and Crafts Movement. Three examples are discussed here against a brief summary of centuries of women's involvement in the business and trade of dyeing. The Arts and Crafts dyers discussed in this paper are also compared to Morris. Women's abilities as colourists were as worthy of professional designation as were those same skills when they emanated from men who comprised the Movement's elite.     

Transferring the Spinning Jenny to Barcelona: An Apprenticeship in the Technology of the Industrial Revolution

Abstract

The exceptional documentation which exists on the introduction of the spinning jenny in Barcelona between 1784 and 1788 has been used in this article to reconstruct the early history of Spain's first cotton spinning mill. The extent of the data available serves to provide information on the technical characteristics of the machine. Of particular interest is the information about the character of the pre-spinning processes before the adoption of the carding engine. Light is also thrown on the issue of technological transfer, shown to be a 'wide' process requiring the learning of manufacturing as well as machine-making skills.     

Preliminary remarks on George Seferis' visual poetics

Abstract

This article makes some preliminary remarks on Seferis' photography, focusing mainly on its poetics as an act of seeing. The main intention is to highlight the direct relationship between Seferis' visual sensibility and his poetry. The article primarily discusses some technical features of Seferis' photography. It then examines his photography as a visual diary and draws attention to those cases where it is obvious that photographs hide behind specific poems. Finally, the article discusses the differences between photography and poetry regarding their relation to time. In this context, the poem 'M? τov τρóπo τov Γ.Σ.', which makes explicit reference to photography, is examined.     

Performing gender in lay saints' Lives

Abstract

Taking as its point of departure Judith Butler's theory of gender performativity, this article shows how femininity and masculinity are performed in three lay saints' Lives from the middle Byzantine period: the Life of Philaretos the Merciful (820), the Life of Thomaïs of Lesbos (mid-tenth century) and the Life of Mary the Younger (eleventh century). The approach of these texts through gender performativity shows in the most graphic way the difference between male and female constructions of sanctity on the one hand, and the important role that gender plays in the construction of lay sanctity, on the other.     

Technological Continuity,Technological 'Survival': the Use of Horizontal Mills in Western Ireland,c. 1632–1940

Abstract

This article discusses the continued use of the early medieval horizontal waterwheel form, well into the post-medieval period in the Atlantic Provinces of the British Isles. It argues that archaeological and documentary evidence demonstrates that the horizontal mills of western Ireland represent the continued use of this technology from the early medieval period in to modern times. Similarly, it argues that the traditional horizontal mills of Scotland and its western islands can, on linguistic grounds, be linked into the same enduring tradition. The continued use of this technology in these societies appears to be as much a product of social context and choice, as it was a technological 'survival' in a 'marginalised' area.     

Zechariah 5 and the priestly law

The bizarre imagery of Zechariah 5, and the relationship between the two visions contained therein has long been a source of bafflement to commentators. This article argues that the content of these visions is dependent on three texts from the priestly law: Leviticus 14, 19 and Numbers 5. The first of these texts provides the legal precedent for Zechariah's attacks on theft, fraud and perjury, while the action taken by God (the entry of the curse scroll into the house of the perjured thief, followed by its destruction and the removal of ''wickedness'') makes use of Numbers 5 and Leviticus 14 respectively.     

Childhood in the rural areas of Chile,intergenerational and gendered perspectives

ABSTRACT

This article triangulates intergenerational (childhood, adulthood, and old age) visions on the social representation of childhood in rural areas of Chile. These visions were considered within the framework of identity constructs (perceptions, social behaviours, preferences, and ambitions) and were compared against emerging transformations in the spheres of family, and gender relations. A qualitative methodology was used to analyse 68 individual interviews (41 children; 21 women old age; and 6 adult women). It was concluded that, in a context of globalization, rural boys and girls use modern, urban symbols and conform to traditional gender stereotypes. In a familial environment, rural children have acquired discursive protagonism in alliance with older women, a reality that conflicts with the conservative vision of middle-aged adults who have poor awareness regarding the participation of children. Contrasting visions exist between adult women and seniors concerning the responsibilities assigned to children in general and, particularly, to girls.