The Turnover Club: locality and identity in the North Staffordshire practice of turning over ceramic ware

This paper explores a key practice adopted by those local to or from Stoke-on-Trent, and outlines its significance in the wider context of ‘ordinary’ consumption and material cultures, globalisation and local identity. Being a ‘turnover-er’ – someone who always turns over pottery to check whether it is Stoke-on-Trent ware – is an oft practised, but little examined part of the living heritage that connects those with affinity to ‘the Potteries’ (as the region is known) and its ceramic ware. The project set out to explore qualitative accounts of turning over and to gauge its salience and reach as a practice, linking this to broader accounts of material culture, consumption and heritage. We carried out 20 interviews with those who turn over or who have an interest in local ceramics, and an online survey (n = 500) which explored the some of the reasons for turning over. Findings indicate the strong connections established by the practice of turning over to local identity, both inherited and adopted, and further indicates the social salience and emotional attachments to the meanings of local ware.     

Exploring the City in the Cinema of Bahram Beyzaie

This article explores five of Bahram Beyzaie's urban films over the last four decades to study their critique of the process of modernization and social changes that have taken place in Iran. These include The Journey (Safar, 1972), The Crow (Kalagh, 1977), Maybe Some Other Time (Shayad Vaqti Digar, 1987), Killing Mad Dogs (Sag Koshi, 2001) and When We Are All Asleep (Vaqti Hame Khabim, 2009). It examines the impact of modernization on the architecture and landscape of the city and consequently on the local community. It then studies the increasing complexity of ascertaining the real and unreal within the city. Finally, it looks at the changing values, the fears and threats within the city and the impact these have on its inhabitants, particularly women and their movement within the city.     

Historicizing Edai Siabo: a Contemporary Argument about the Pre‐colonial Past among the Motu‐Koita of Papua New Guinea

ABSTRACT In the 1970s the Motu‐Koita, traditional inhabitants of what is now the National Capital District of Papua New Guinea, inaugurated a yearly cultural festival thematically based on traditional coastal trading voyages known as hiri. Contestation over the location and commercialization of the festival in the capital city developed in the new century as one distant village claimed to ‘own’ the hiri. The Motu‐Koita view of their past and their identity has been affected by their encounter with Christianity, colonialism and its aftermath, and the rhetoric of the villagers’ claims drew on criteria of authenticity, cultural purity, and exclusiveness which are arguably contemporary rather than ‘traditional’. This article reviews Motu‐Koita history, the story of the origin of the hiri, and the local politics of the cultural festival. It attempts to understand the way the past, which was formerly mythopoeically invoked, is being historicized and thereby fixed in new local discourses of cultural and heritage rights and ownership, as Melanesians come to terms with the effects of global processes on their traditions and other resources.     

A Note on the Extremities of Local Moran's Iis and Their Impact on Global Moran's I

By defining local Moran's I_i as a ratio of quadratic forms and making use of its overall additivity to match global Moran's I, we can identify spatial objects with a strong impact on global Moran's I. First, we concentrate on the spatial properties of local Moran's I_i expressed by the local linkage degree. Depending on whether we use the W- or C-coding of the spatial connectivity matrix, the variance of local Moran's I_i for a small local linkage degree will be either large or small. Note that spatial objects associated with a local Moran's I_i with a large variance affect the global statistic much more than spatial objects associated with a local Moran's I_i with a small variance. Counterintuitively, global Moran's I defined in the W-coding is most influenced by spatial objects with a small number of spatial neighbors. In contrast, spatial objects with a large number of spatial neighbors exert more impact on global Moran's I setup in the C-coding. Second, we investigate the impact of the empirical data on local Moran's I_i and show that local Moran's I_i will only be significant for extreme absolute residuals at and around the reference location. Clusters of average regression residuals cannot be detected by local Moran's I_i. Consequently, spatial cliques of extreme residuals contribute more to significance tests on global autocorrelation.     

‘To Support Active Empirical Research at the Grassroots’: The Family and Community Historical Research Society

For over 20 years, the Family and Community Historical Research Society, FACHRS, has challenged the notion that universities should have a near monopoly on the construction, ownership, validation and transmission of knowledge. Its central strategy, of publishing research derived from its aggregation of data from connected local research projects, has its immediate roots in an Open University module, Family & Community History: 19^th and 20^th centuries, DA301. This emphasised research construction co-operation within a social scientific framework. The roots of the FACHRS also lie in the development, since Victorian times, of sociable, collaborative and co-operative local history projects. The FACHRS’s progress was framed by its engagement with communications and database technology and digitisation during a period when demarcation lines and epistemic identities, both within universities and outside them, dissolved and reformed.     

Writing the region: Jonathan Couch and the Cornish fauna

Abstract

The county of Cornwall was the subject of an early nineteenth century attempt to compile an exhaustive regional fauna, Jonathan Couch's three volume A Cornish Fauna (1838–44). Although the Fauna was part of a much broader contemporary impulse to document the natural history of Britain, it was a very early example of a zoological study organised by geography rather than faunal group. It therefore required the author to make an explicit defence of its geographical approach and focus. According to Couch the region was the best place from which to build a better understanding of nature and, ultimately, of nature's creator. In particular, careful observations of a naturalist's local fauna could contribute to mid-nineteenth century debates over the distribution and migration of animals, their extinction, and their value to human industry. According to Couch, the county of Cornwall was especially suited to this sort of investigation. Indeed, although little had been done on the Cornish fauna before Couch's own study, his work was the catalyst for a number of other Cornish naturalists over the latter half of the century.     

‘Affirmative Signalling’: Dickens’s Railway Journalism and Victorian Risk Society

This essay explores Charles Dickens’s railway journalism of the 1850s and 1860s and its differences from his more well-known fictional accounts of the British railway network. While fictional works such as Dombey and Son and ‘The Signalman’ emphasize the catastrophic aspects of railway accidents, Dickens’s journalism in Household Words and All the Year Round examines the modern systematicity of the railway network, which by its nature as system, necessitated accidents on the lines. The essay incorporates theoretical readings of risk by Ulrich Beck and Paul Virilio into its critical assessment of Dickens’s railway journalism. Fundamentally, it aims to demonstrate that Dickens’s railway journalism illuminates the complexity of Victorian narratives of technological and bureaucratic industrial and transport systems by prioritizing the global dimensions of systematic accidents over the period’s tendencies to focus merely on local accidental events.     

Mamlakhtiyut,Capitalism and Socialism during the 1950s in Israel

The debate over mamlakhtiyut (Zionist republicanism) in the early years of the State of Israel concerned the centrality of the state in the shaping of Israeli society. This article considers whether and to what extent this debate can be seen as a struggle over the possibilities of a “left-wing mamlakhtiyut,” aimed at an egalitarian politics, society and economy, as opposed to a “mamlakhtiyut,” based on structural stratification in the distribution of real political, social and economic power. It concludes that although in the short and medium term Israeli mamlakhtiyut was egalitarian in its socioeconomic policies, its political and educational policies fostered structural inequality in Israeli society.     

Implementing the Regulation on Places of Worship in Indonesia: New Problems,Local Politics and Court Action

This article examines the local implementation of the national Joint Regulation 2006 on places of worship in Indonesia. It focuses on the case study of the Protestant Christian Batak Congregation, which became one of the first churches to successfully challenge the authority of a local leader to cancel its permit to build a church. I begin by exploring the history of the regulation of permits for places of worship in Indonesia and the various proposals for law reform that have been put forward since 1998. I then outline the provisions of the new Joint Regulation and highlight the ongoing problems for religious minorities at the local level because of the failure of local authorities to implement the national regulation. I will demonstrate how religious minorities are challenging the decisions of local authorities by complaining to independent watchdogs, taking court action and using the political process. In conclusion, I argue that the Protestant Christian Batak Congregation court case is part of a broader trend for local authorities to use conflict over places of worship as an opportunity for political gain in the highly competitive political atmosphere since the downfall of Suharto in 1998.     

Outsourcing local democracy? Evidence for and implications of the commercialisation of community engagement in Australian local government

ABSTRACT

Participatory governance practices are enjoying popularity, not least in local government. This is driven by legislation that requires councils to undertake some of these processes; also by communities and practitioners – parties that derive income from participatory governance. An industry is emerging: one characterised by demand and supply, with frameworks, strategies and processes, training and conferences. This industry warrants investigation so that its impacts upon local democracy can be understood. Following a theorisation of local democracy and community engagement, the paper describes the community engagement industry, presenting evidence about council activities, providers and professional associations to establish that the commercialisation of engagement is a significant phenomenon in Australian local government. Possible risks to local governance and local democracy are explored.     

The dynamics and livelihood implications of illegal mining in Ghana: A critical assessment

Discourses on “illegal” or informal small-scale mining (galamsey) have presented it largely as a menace. Using Ghana as the focus of our study, we present a counter-narrative to the predominant discourse. Employing qualitative in-depth interviews with 193 local galamsey operators, the study found that economic factors coupled with the combative posture of state regulatory agencies explain the persistence of illegal activity. Although galamsey is not problem-free, the study revealed it is the livelihood support base of such communities, providing jobs and incomes to many households. Since mineral-rich local communities, at least, in part, depend on galamsey, the state and its regulatory agencies could collaboratively work with local agencies and mineral-rich communities to fully exploit the hidden treasures in galamsey while reducing the proximate negative effects.     

The Role of Leading Firms in the Evolution of SME Clusters: Evidence from the Leather Products Cluster in Florence

Clusters that emerged in the past have changed during the latest decades, so that today the research challenge in economic geography is on their evolution over time. The aim of this paper is to update the evolutionary path of SME Italian clusters, which faced the economic crisis are undergoing a process of decline in the number of firms. Furthermore, changes in the techno-economic landscape and in the competitive environment have generated new challenges. In this context, some leading firms, able to connect local resources (and firms) to global networks, have emerged over time and today they act as a gatekeeper. The focus will be on local networks interacting with leading firms and particular attention will be devoted to the pattern of co-evolution and to the geographical dimension of this co-evolutionary process. To empirically verify if other firms in the cluster may co-evolve with the leading firm over time, a deep analysis of the Gucci network in the leather products cluster in Florence will be carried out.     

An Insular Reliquary from Melhus: The Significance of Insular Ecclesiastical Material in Early Viking-Age Norway

THIS PAPER presents and discusses a unique insular reliquary shrine discovered in an early 9th-century woman’s grave at Melhus, central Norway, over a century ago. In addition to a detailed re-evaluation of the shrine and its use in its original ecclesiastical context, the paper also proposes an alternative interpretation as to how the local pagan population may have conceptualised this Christian object after it arrived in Norse hands. While most of the insular ecclesiastical items in Scandinavia were broken up and transformed into personal ornaments, the Melhus shrine was kept complete, suggesting it was considered to be of special value. It is argued here that this status should be seen in association with the shrine’s involvement in local narratives and ritual aspects connected with the earliest voyages across the North Sea. The woman with whom the reliquary was buried may have played a central role in these rituals.     

State,Taoist monasteries,and the Taoist clergy: a study of the zhuchi crises in the Beiping Baiyun Guan Monastery in the 1930s

Two zhuchi crises occurred in the Beiping Baiyun Guan Monastery during the 1930s. The first occurred in June 1930, when the zhuchi, or abbot, Chen Mingbin was dismissed by the Shehuiju, the Bureau of Social Affairs, for failing to register in time at its order. He was restored only after agreeing to pledge contributions to those in authority. Unfortunately, this stability did not last for long. When Chen passed away in early 1936, a new crisis occurred surrounding the qualifications of the new zhuchi. Because of the urgency in registering the monastery, the Beiping Shehuiju reversed its policy, and validated An Shilin, the monastic manager, in the capacity of jianyuan, or prior, as the interim zhuchi. This arrangement planted the seeds of violent internal strife in the Baiyun Guan during the 1940s, which led to An's death by burning. These two crises manifested strong state control over the Taoist monastery, which was nevertheless aggravated by poor state administration; they also reflect the complicated conflicts within the Baiyun Guan during its decline.     

Tracking 800-year-old Shipments: An Archaeological Investigation of the Mado Shipwreck Cargo, Taean, Korea

This paper examines cargo from an 800-year-old shipwreck and discusses its implications in relation to the exchange networks and maritime transportation of the Goryeo period (A.D. 918–1392) in Korea. In 2007, two local fishermen fortuitously discovered porcelain vessels from a Goryeo-period shipwreck off the mid-western coast of the Korean peninsula. Underwater excavation conducted by the National Research Institute of Maritime Cultural Heritage (NRIMCH) revealed that the ship was carrying a myriad of cargoes destined for Gaegyeong, the capital of the Goryeo dynasty. Excavation indicates that the main body of the cargo was porcelain vessels produced in the southern part of the peninsula. Archaeobotanical investigation of the wreck deposits revealed that the ship was carrying crops such as rice (Oryza sativa L.), broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum L.), foxtail millet (Setaria italica (L.) P. Beauv.), and buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum Moench) bound for the capital. Among the recovered objects were 73 wooden cargo tags with Chinese letters. These tags, equivalent to the modern day air bill, contained detailed information about the senders, recipients, and shipped goods. These findings indicate that during the Goryeo period maritime transportation played an important role in the interpersonal exchange of products over long distances.     

An irreconcilable first-place: the precarious life of tourism and heritage in a southern European historic centre

Abstract

This article discusses the ambiguous relationship between heritage tourism and everyday life in the historic centre of Naples. This area, long characterised by a lower-class residential population and intermittently considered off-limits to tourists, has over the last two decades become the focus of a burgeoning heritage tourism industry. The article adopts the idea of precariousness – understood contra conventional formulations as a condition that elicits both anxiety and emancipatory release – in order to make sense of the allure and repulsion that the historic centre exerts in tourist encounters with the city. Through three examples – a bus sightseeing tour, online responses to a New York Times article about Naples and local people’s perceptions of a pedestrianised piazza as a tourist contact zone – the article illustrates how the historic centre as a tourist destination is constituted by a mix of foreboding and excitement; where affective experience tends to trump the monumental gaze. Thinking in terms of precariousness not only underlines the contradictory role that this area plays in the local production of cultural heritage but also poses a challenge to those accounts that see in the advent of a visitor economy the inevitable ‘museumification’ and gentrification of historic centres.     

The Threefold Logic of Papua‐Melanesia: Constitution‐writing in the Margins of the Indonesian Nation‐State

Clashes over the status of West Papua and the political future of the territory proliferated markedly following the end of Indonesia's New Order regime in 1998. Amid a wide variety of demands for justice and independence, and a series of demonstrations, mass gatherings and prayers, only a few Papuans mused on how Papua could become a state and what would constitute its nature as being distinctly Papuan and/or Melanesian. One exception is the work put into the Constitution for West Papua entitled Basic Guidelines, State of West Papua, a document edited by Don A.L. Flassy, a bureaucrat, writer and thinker, with a preface by late Theys H. Eluay, then chairman of the Papuan Council. In this article I analyse this Constitution to show how a combination of Christianity and local customs, and a mimicry of elements of Indonesian nation building and symbols of the Indonesian nation‐state are reshaped to oppose Indonesian nation‐building agendas. The Constitution shows that when Papuans imagine an independent state, forms of vernacular legality play a central role. ‘The state’ has journeyed to Papua and encouraged faith in ‘the law,’ and Basic Guidelines is partly the effect of this growing vernacular legality. My analysis shows that it is essential to see how legal mobilisations and imaginations of the state articulate with other normative systems and practices – in particular Christianity and custom (adat) – and how they mutually allow for and invite strategies.     

Authenticity and adaptation: the Mongol Ger as a contemporary heritage paradox

The Mongol Ger is a transportable felt tent deriving from an ancient nomadic civilization. The structure encapsulates a specific Mongolian nomadic cultural identity by encompassing a way of life based upon pastoral migration, complex familial relationships and hierarchies, and spiritual beliefs. As Mongolia has rapidly urbanised over the past century, the form and function of the ger have changed, with some of the integral facets of the structure lost with a view to commercialising and/or adapting a nomadic symbol for modern consumption. This paper will explore the ger as a vernacular and globally recognised form, assessing whether its nomination by the Mongolian State Party on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity as a craft-skill is either sufficient or indeed appropriate. It will further be argued that to understand the ger in its totality requires an understanding also of the concept of authenticity to disentangle variations between the ‘livingness’ of the ger and its appropriation for a wider audience.     

Agents of altruism: the Great Irish Famine and Italian civil society (1847)

ABSTRACT

This article analyses the participation of individuals, networks and international organizations in transnational fundraising aimed at providing humanitarian relief aid. Focusing on fundraising campaigns organized in the Italian states in favour of Ireland in 1847, when the Great Famine scourged its population the most, the article highlights the agency of the fundraisers in setting in motion an economy of altruism that transcended groups’ boundaries and state borders. The activism and networking of a few well-established individuals in Rome were pivotal in mobilizing the lay and religious elites at a local level. In January and February 1847, the elites of the Italian capitals collected copious sums within private events and initiatives directed at their peers, while the Christian faiths present in Rome organized the first alms collections. This wave of altruism succeeded in setting humanitarian relief for Ireland as one of the goals of the global Catholic Church. In March, Pope Pius IX issued the Encyclical Praedecessores Nostros, appealing for Catholics to donate in favour of Ireland, and thereby generating much local fundraising, mainly in the Italian states and Southern Europe, until the early months of 1848. The Catholic clergy served the cause, raising money locally and taking charge of its delivery to Ireland, with partial coordination from Rome. Although implementing a transnational fundraising campaign involved obstacles of a political, logistical and financial nature, the alms collection raised in the Catholic churches aggregated many small donations over a considerable time span, providing more than double the amount raised in the lay initiatives organized by the elites of the Italian states. The article, based on unedited archival sources from the Italian, Vatican and Irish archives, shows how the charitable fundraisers overcame the obstacles imposed by state politics, international conflicts and transaction costs over the transnational circulation of ideas, initiatives and capitals.     

The Analysis of Spatial Association by Use of Distance Statistics

Introduced in this paper is a family of statistics, G, that can be used as a measure of spatial association in a number of circumstances. The basic statistic is derived, its properties are identified, and its advantages explained. Several of the G statistics make it possible to evaluate the spatial association of a variable within a specified distance of a single point. A comparison is made between a general G statistic and Moran's I for similar hypothetical and empirical conditions. The empirical work includes studies of sudden infant death syndrome by county in North Carolina and dwelling unit prices in metropolitan San Diego by zip-code districts. Results indicate that G statistics should be used in conjunction with I in order to identify characteristics of patterns not revealed by the I statistic alone and, specifically, the G_i and G_i* statistics enable us to detect local “pockets” of dependence that may not show up when using global statistics.