A house of Treasures: The Account of Amaziah in 2 Chronicles 25—Observations and Implications

The account of the reign of Amaziah in 2 Chronicles 25 is a true house of treasures for those studying the book of Chronicles in its historical milieu or reconstructing the intellectual milieu of ancient Yehud. In particular, this study shows how 2 Chronicles 25 calls attention and sheds light on: (1) matters of time construction and periodization; (2) multiple temporal relations within one account in Chronicles and their significance for understanding both reading strategies of the intended and primary readerships and the organization of their memories of the past; (3) chaotic tendencies and their non-random distribution in the past that the readers are asked to remember and vicariously partake through reading and studying; (4) the significance of a memory of the past in which the size of armies diminishes through time; (5) concepts of “otherness” and the remembrance of some concrete constructions of “otherness” through the reading and rereading of the book; (6) otherness and the question of northern Israel; (7) attributes associated (or not) with being a Jerusalemite; and (8) on deontological vs. consequentionalist approaches to evaluate whether actions are to be judged right or wrong and the influence of a continuous remembrance of related events narrated in 2 Chronicles 25.     

‘A house for dead people’: memory and spatial transformation in Red Location,South Africa

One of several new South African post-apartheid memory projects, the Red Location Museum in New Brighton, Port Elizabeth opened in 2006, in a century-old informal settlement with strong histories of resistance. The museum was intended to acknowledge the area’s contribution to the liberation struggle, and contribute to dismantling apartheid urban geographies by producing a tourist and cultural economy. However, the project was highly contested from its inception by residents who felt that the priority for the neighbourhood should be housing and service delivery. Major housing-related protests erupted on the museum’s doorstep between 2003 and 2005, and in late 2013 the new cultural precinct was closed down indefinitely. This paper examines the politics and controversies surrounding the Red Location developments between 1997 and 2013, using this case study to consider the ways in which the protests around the museum are rooted in historical and political histories made visible through residents’ radical claiming of ownership of the museum building. The Red Location example offers a useful consideration of the complexities of applying notions of ‘participation’ and ‘community ownership’ in practice in fraught situations where major change is needed, and makes a case for the thorough historicisation of contemporary conflicts over development and spatial change.     

‘Home,and not some house’: young people's sensory construction of family relationships in domestic spaces

Drawing on recent work highlighting sensory experience of space, this paper argues that understandings of children's and young people's relationships, including difficult family circumstances, may be enriched by taking greater account of their embodied, sensory experience of the domestic spaces in which these relationships are lived. In a study of young people's family life in the context of parental substance misuse, we found that respondents often made sense of difficult family relationships, at different times and in particular spaces, through sensory experience. They also employed sensory and spatial strategies to construct safe and secure domestic places for themselves.     

The origins of New Zealand’s first government house

SUMMARY: In 1842 the former first government house located at Okiato, New Zealand, burnt to the ground and the site was abandoned. A well on the site was excavated in 1994–95, revealing a base layer of burnt timbers, a Maori digging stick and ceramic sherds with an estimated manufacture date range of 1823–41. We argue that this deposit is derived from the 1842 destruction of the Okiato government house building. An analysis of the wood identified kauri (Agathis australis) and kahikatea (Dacrycarpus dacrydioides), confirming that the building was not a prefabricated imported structure, but rather was constructed on site from locally available timber.     

The fort in the doctor’s house: using tree-ring growth patterns to discover historic Fort Wayne,Indiana, USA

Local Fort Wayne, Indiana (USA) lore says that the Dr. Merchant Huxford House contains timbers from Fort Wayne, the US military outpost constructed in 1794 by General Anthony Wayne. The wilderness fort played roles in Native American and British conflicts and was the genesis for a city with a current population of more than 250,000. The doctor’s residence was built on the outskirts of the young city, but within 0.4 km of the fort site. Accounts contemporary to the house’s construction describe timbers being recycled from the fort for use in new building projects. This article describes the use of dendrochronological methods to establish a construction date for the Huxford House and attempts to confirm or dispel accounts that the house contains recycled timbers from the historic fort.     

The arts of memory revived: The re‐interpretation of old parliament house

Abstract

The authors discuss the interpretation of Old Parliament House in Canberra, which ceased being the site of the Australian Federal Parliament in 1988 and is now an historic building and open to the public. The challenge lies in a building, which is not only an historic piece of architecture, which contains the National Portrait Gallery, but also the site of all Australian federal political life for sixty years. How to tell such a plethora of stories to a variety of visitors remains a daunting proposition.     

Authenticity challenged? The ‘plastic house’ at Çatalhöyük

Abstract

This paper focuses on the problems of identifying and conserving authenticity in an object or structure. Using a range of examples it discusses the effects of material change on the many values, both technical and social, which may be assigned to an object. In particular it looks atthe problems of repeated conservation treatment and whether gradually modifying the material of the object may eventually erode its authenticity. It explores these issues with reference to the earth structure known as Building 5 at the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük Turkey. This house is often referred to by the excavation team as the ‘plastic house’ because over the last seven years it has been treated annually with an acrylic polymer. The paper concludes by proposing that, despite the presence of the acrylic, the authenticity of Building 5 will not be undermined unless the treatment reaches a stage where it radically changes the surface appearance of the earthen structure.     

‘The house cannot stay empty’: a case of young rural Nepalis negotiating multilocal householding

Over the past few decades, the mobility of young people abroad for education and labour has been rapidly increasing in Nepal, which has impacted both rural communities and household life. Based on ethnographic field data from Eastern Nepal, this paper explores how multilocality affects the socio-spatial dimensions of householding, i.e. how siblings negotiate their roles as movers and stayers in relation to household obligations, individual aspirations and shifting socio-economic opportunities. This paper draws on and contributes to scholarly debates on how migration impacts social transformation in places, with a particular focus on the dynamics of multilocal householding. We argue that a common agreement between generations and siblings that ‘the house cannot stay empty’ reinforces the importance of the household as a meaningful place exercised through the maintenance of traditional intra- and intergenerational contracts and the practice of rotating presence and absence.     

Sino-American Cooperation in Geological Survey in Tibet

TheHimalayasandtheQinghai-TibetPlateau,plusareasundertheirimpact,makeupone-thirdoftheChineseterritory.Thisyoungpartoftheworid,withanaver-ageelevationof4,500meters,isstillrising.WarmandhumidcurrentsfromtheIndianOceaninthesouthareblockedbytheHimalayas,causi…     

Leaders in Thinking,Laggards in Attention? Bureaucratic Engagement in International Arenas

Frameworks that examine policy subsystems, networks, and coalitions view bureaucracies as part of the mix of policy actors that advocate policy positions in both domestic and international arenas. However, few examine bureaucracies as independent actors and how they exercise influence distinct from other pressure groups. The ways in which domestic bureaucracies engage in the international environment is woefully under examined, with only a few studies examining how domestic bureaucrats affect decision making in the international arena. However, it is not unreasonable to posit that bureaucratic engagement in the international arena may have political implications in the domestic sphere. Building on examinations of bureaucratic autonomy, this research queries the ways in which domestic bureaucracies can interact in the international arena to "change agendas and preferences" of domestic political actors. While it finds that attention to developing an international reputation can enhance political leverage at home, it may do so at a cost to domestic programs if insufficient attention is given to domestic aspects of the organization's mission. Nevertheless, as attention lurches from one arena to another, policy change is facilitated by the politically powerful resources of an international reputation in expertise, active engagement in the international policy community, and broadly based support for programmatic change.     

Heating the house. An archaeological and archaeometrical investigation into the tile-stoves of late-medieval Flanders,Belgium (14–17th centuries)

SUMMARY: Tile stoves arise in the Low Countries from the 14th century onwards. Although they have been well documented in northern and central Europe, they have remained an almost forgotten aspect of the material culture of the historic county of Flanders (Belgium). In recent years the amount of stove tiles found in archaeological excavations has increased considerably, raising questions concerning their production and origin. Micro X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy was used to determine the elemental composition of these tiles to see if they could be divided into groups and what these groups could tell us about the distribution of workshops, resources and finished products.     

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