Challenges to Democracy in Market-Oriented Urban Planning in Norway

Neo-liberal ideas have resulted in a planning practice characterized by an informal phase in which early agreements are reached in closed negotiations between municipal planners and private developers. This challenges norms of legitimacy and accountability found in traditional democratic theories, as well as deliberative planning and network governance theories. Input-based legitimacy may be weakened by the lack of participation as well as by asymmetry in resources available for participation (voice). The representative democracy's (vote) responsiveness to the electorate may be weakened due to the lack of knowledge of the views of those affected, early lock-in to agreements and weak meta-governance due to the lack of adherence to overall plans. Throughput legitimacy is reduced by the lack of transparency, and thus accountability, in the informal phase. Output legitimacy might justify the privileged position of developers if tangible results are achieved. However, lack of participation weakens the quality and long-term lastingness of decisions, and lack of deliberation weakens the acceptability of justifications for those burdened by the decisions. We argue that two different types of reforms are necessary to increase the input legitimacy of planning practices: representative democracy reforms that strengthen the role of politicians and reforms that strengthen the direct participation of stakeholders in planning.     

Late Pleistocene to Early Holocene Plant Movements in Southern Kyushu, Japan

From the late Pleistocene to early Holocene in Japan, subtropical and temperate forest elements moved northwards. This affected human choices and access to food sources. More settled patterns of living spread northwards gradually, and northern hunting-gathering-fishing people began cultivating vegetables and cereal crops. This poster reports the presence of ancient starch residues on stone artefacts in Kagoshima Prefecture, southern Kyushu. The oldest residues recovered are dated by context to about 30,000 ¹⁴C yr BP. If such residues can be identified, it may be possible to detect a hypothesized early phase of tropical plant movement northwards during warmer climate peaks in the late terminal Pleistocene, as well as during the long period of Holocene warming that followed. As an initial step towards identification, the morphological characteristics and condition of the starch granules are described and compared to those of other sites in early Japan.     

杨秀清职爵衔考释

杨秀清是太平天国的重要领导人物,在他的生前死后,或得加官进爵,或得追封头衔,使其职爵衔由初期的7个字发展到中期的19个字,直至死后追封到41个字。这些不同时期的头衔各有内涵,它既反映出杨秀清地位的变化,又从一个侧面反映出太平天国历史的变化,对其细加考释,有助于加深对太平天国历史的理解。     

The site Hein 33: Typological and chronological problems of the New Stone Age of Southern Norway

In this issue of Norwegian Archaeological Review the article Hein 33 ‐ En steinalderboplass på Hardangervidda. Fors?k på kronologisk og kulturell analyse by Svein Indrelid (1973) has been chosen for discussion. The research into the Norwegian Stone Age has always been dependent on the results obtained by studies of the South Scandinavian material. Indrelid's main goal has been to free himself from this dependence when trying to establish local southwest Norwegian chronology. This new approach has given important results also for the understanding of the South Scandinavian Stone Age.

Comments by Egil Bakka, Carl Cullberg, Arne B. Johansen, and Egil Mikkelsen are followed by a reply from Svein Indrelid.     

Environmental response to land use at Lake Curlip,East Gippsland,Victoria

A palaeoecological approach was undertaken to investigate the last 400 years of change in vegetation, fire, nutrient mobility, lake productivity and erosion associated with Aboriginal and European land-use practices in a forested environment in eastern Victoria. Melaleuca ericifolia scrub, although present prior to European settlement, has expanded around Lake Curlip in the last 200 years, primarily due to the action of fire on a forest already weakened by drought. A fern understorey has declined in extent and a more open aspect has developed in the forest. Fire has been a major component of vegetation dynamics in the historical period. Erosion rates were comparatively low and associated with fire during prehistoric times, but after European settlement its increase is more closely related to land clearance and flooding than fire. The response of vegetation to both anthropogenic and natural influences changed during the historical period. Although fire is an integral part of vegetation change, it is not an over-riding effect at Lake Curlip. Drain construction in the swamp has reduced the impact that any accumulation of pasture improvement chemicals may have had on eutrophication of the lake.     

Population-specific stature reconstruction for medieval Trondheim,Norway

Temporal changes in average stature are often used as a measure of a past population's adaptation, or lack of it. Traditionally, stature estimates have been calculated using formulae derived from limb proportions of cadavers. However, many authors have noted the problem of regional or population variation in body proportions of such reconstructed ratios. Before differences in stature can be attributed to environmental adaptation, ‘ethnic’ or population differences in limb ratios must be taken into account. The present paper calculates the stature of a medieval Norwegian skeletal sample using archaeological plan femur length and dry bone femur length. The author presents a variety of formulae and compares the stature derived from these calculations to the stature derived from archaeological plans. The Trondheim statures are then compared to stature reconstructions of other contemporary populations.     

Social scientists and native title cases in Australia

Abstract

Recent legal developments in Australia have led the courts to reject the doctrine of terra nullius, which denied pre-existing Aboriginal rights to land ownership, and Aboriginal prior occupation and ownership of land are now acknowledged. However, in the absence of consent determinations the courts have to evaluate the justification for legally recognizing native title based on specific local evidence for continuities in the traditional customs and laws of Aboriginal claimants since British sovereignty. Much of the evidence for such continuities can come from the Aboriginal claimants themselves. However, proving the time, depth and relevance of these continuities and presenting them in a form that is considered acceptable by the courts has drawn upon the ‘expertise’ of academics. This paper considers the types of evidence that anthropologists, linguists, historians and archaeologists are able to present and makes some suggestions as to how this could be improved in the future.     

The class route to nationhood: China,Vietnam, Norway,Cyprus – and France*

ABSTRACT. This essay explores the proposition that China and Vietnam represent a fourth class route to modern nationhood, in addition to the ethnic (German), civic (French) and plural (American) routes. Nation‐states emerging along the class route are characterised by an exclusive membership based on social class rather than just ethnicity, living under the same laws or participation in liberation from foreign rule. The essay compares China's and Vietnam's class‐based nationalism with the more inclusive labour movement nationalisms of Norway and Cyprus. Then it explains how the class route differs from the French civic route. In the conclusion, the author concedes that the Chinese and Vietnamese class route is perhaps a detour rather than a route of its own, since it leads to inevitable tension between the divisive history of how the nation was formed and the need of its later leaders to include and represent the same social classes that were originally excluded. These leaders and their national storytellers are forced to undertake a redefinition of the national self as ethnic, civic and/or plural in an attempt to recreate national legitimacy, often in competition with more radically nationalist opposition groups.     

Relict Soils and Early Arable Land Management in Lofoten, Norway

Relict arable soils dating fromc.AD700 provide an opportunity to identify early arable land management practices in the agriculturally marginal landscapes of the Lofoten archipelago, northern Norway. Synthesis of field survey and soil thin section micromorphology supported by image analysis suggests that there was deliberate management of erodible sandy soils in sloping locations to create small areas of cultivation terrace, with a range of materials used as soil amendments to stabilize the accumulated soil and enhance fertility. Small areas of sandy soils in more gently sloping locations were also cultivated, again with a range of materials used as amendments and which contributed to a significant increase in soil thickness. The last phase of cultivation commenced during the late 1800s and involved the reclamation of wetter, peaty soils by spade. These patterns of arable land management are repeated in different parts of Lofoten and indicate that despite the climatic and economic marginality of arable activity in Lofoten, land management practices were developed and applied to permit barley production from small areas.     

Contesting land,creating community,in the Highlands and Islands,Scotland

This paper draws on research in four communities in the Highlands and Islands, Scotland, to explore how the notion of community and community identity are re‐worked in the political spaces created as communities claim collective rights to land. In the cases of the Assynt Crofters’ Trust, the Bhaltos Community Trust, and Laid, this has concerned land under crofting tenure; in the case of the claim of the North Sutherland Community Forestry Trust, the land on which the Naver Forests stand is the responsibility of the Scottish Ministers and is managed by Forest Enterprise. The four case studies differ with respect to membership and institutional practices and thus provide fertile ground on which to examine, comparatively, collective struggles for the land and the search for sustainable futures.