Book Review

Yi-Fu Tuan. Dominance & Affection: The Making of Pets. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984, x and 193 pp. $19.95.     

Book Review

Abstract

The year 2011 marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the World Archaeological Congress (WAC). WAC marked a bold intervention in the politics of knowledge in archaeology in the context of the mid-1980s. But how has it fared in contemporary worlds of practice? In this paper, two senior WAC members take a close and critical look at the changing fortunes, meanings, and contexts of the organization. At its centre, is an account of the controversial meeting between the WAC Executive and Rio Tinto Limited, the mining multinational, in Melbourne in 2007. Other parts of the paper engage with notions of the Indigenous, and discuss the assumptions informing the WAC programme Archaeologists Without Borders. Framed as a challenge, the paper invites response and commentary, as a way of opening debate which allows us to envisage alternative futures for the discipline, beyond the banal prospect of 'Archaeology Inc.'.     

Book Review

Books reviewed: Geoffrey Carey, David Lindenmayer and Stephen Dovers (eds), Australia Burning: Fire Ecology, Policy and Management Issues . V. Golosov, V. Belyaev and D.E. Walling (eds), Sediment Transfer through the Fluvial System . R.Q. Grafton, L. Robin and R.J. Wasson (eds), Understanding the Environment: Bridging the Disciplinary Divides . Neil McKenzie, David Jacquier, Ray Isbell and Katherine Brown, Australian Soils and Landscapes: an Illustrated Compendium . John Randolph, Environmental Land Use Planning and Management . Paul Robbins, Political Ecology: a Critical Introduction . Jenny Stewart and Grant Jones, Renegotiating the Environment: the Power of Politics Marta Vannucci (ed.), Mangrove Management and Conservation. Present and Future