Place Making: the Social Construction of Newcastle

The city of Newcastle has experienced significant transformations of identity. The city's contemporary reconstruction is a deliberate shift from industrial to post-industrial identity. An industrial identity is now held to be debilitating for places, while a post-industrial vision proffers an impression of improvement. The notion that places are constructed, symbolically as well as materially, allows us to problematise the identity of place, and to expose the ideologies and the actors behind such (re)constructions. Creative literature, media comment and autobiographical material provide insight into the landscapes and discourses of the city's changing identity, and into persisting patriarchal ideology, Anglo-centrism and elitism.     

Reconceptualizing Senses of Place: Social Relations, Ideology and Ecology

The purpose of this paper is to reconceptualize sense of place through the examination, re-analysis and theorization of two case studies, one of an ex-urban community in England, the other a Himalayan farming and herding community. The paper begins by examining the traditional locus of sense of place research in humanistic geography with extensions to political geography and interpretive anthropology. Identifying three core components—social, ideological and ecological—of senses of place, the paper goes on to reconceptualize these elements using Habermas's theory of communicative action and Ingold's work on environmental psychology. It then applies this reconceptualization to the case studies of Towcester and Shimshal. The paper concludes by emphasizing the ways these cases enrich our understanding of sense of place, by stressing the theoretical contributions of conceiving sense of place as rooted in theories of social organization and society, and as being variably and contingently ecologically emplaced.     

The Economic and Social Justification for Publicly Financed Stadia: The Case of Vancouver's BC Place Stadium

Publicly financed Stadia, as manifest in numerous North American metropolitan cities, have always been at the centre of public debate and widely covered by the media. At one end of the debate adherents of such investments urge that stadia are an economic as well as a social catalyst in reviving a city, and at the same time have the capability to market and promote the image of a city. However, the cynics claim that this economic promise is a mere canard, or myth, and places an enormous financial and social burden on public expenditure. They are projects that are politically driven and motivated, and despite being financed by the public, are more oriented to the private sector. In my view, stadia on the whole are ineffective in fostering direct economic spin-off effects, but from a socio-cultural perspective are a key factor in producing significant intangible benefits, while enhancing the status of a city. The purpose of this article is to probe and delve into this debate and attempt to relate the broad theories to the issues revolving around BC Place Stadium in Vancouver. In conclusion a number of possible solutions and recommendations will be addressed to try to bridge the gap between proponents and critics.     

The Creation and Endurance of Memory and Place Among First Nations of Northwestern Ontario, Canada

Examinations of rock art typically focus on acts of creation and compositional meaning, with little attention paid to the position of these created places in the palimpsest of history. As these sites endure, their recognition and importance within subsequent social developments, including memory and oral tradition, are both invented and reinvented as descendant populations become established or as new populations move in displacing or replacing the makers. This paper examines the ways in which oral histories of historic and contemporary First Nations populations in northwestern Ontario, Canada, challenge standard understandings of rock-art in the region, taking these sites out of the maker/meaning context and placing them within a framework of user/caretaker. The results of this contextual shift contest notions of applied cultural affiliation and traditional ownership, resulting in a perspective that reveals a transgenerational and transcultural endurance of these places in the contemporary social memory of these Indigenous communities.     

The Future of Collective Farms' Built Social Infrastructure: Choosing Between Central Place and Network Theories

The aim of this paper is to discuss local and regional planning and development practices in a post‐socialist country such as Estonia. Two approaches — central places and network theories — are used as a conceptual basis. According to the first hypothesis, planning and development of social infrastructure (e.g. schools, sports halls) has remained based on the central place theory — as an outdated planning approach — in Estonia. The second hypothesis argues that while, on the one hand, the application of the network paradigm and increased cooperation between local communities would considerably save public resources, on the other hand, because of the path dependency of Soviet centralized planning and development practices, the networking and lobbying takes place vertically rather than horizontally. This restricts both administrative cooperation and networking on the local and regional levels. The paper consists of three parts. The first part describes the turn in Western planning theory: the shift from normative top‐down planning to a bottom‐up approach and networking. The second part analyses critically the Soviet and post‐Soviet planning theory and practices: the planning and development culture created during the Soviet era. Finally we present a case study of a community planning procedure in the Suure‐Jaani locality — a good example of the influence of historical changes in the settlement system and planning culture of the past on current development.     

Against Nostalgia: Place and Memory in Myles Lalor's ‘Oral History’

Western thought tends to see aboriginal identity as dependent upon a particularistic ubiety. Myles Lalor, a New South Wales Aborigine, proposes another kind of identity which recognises that for his generation the tie between place and people is liable to be ruptured, but asserts that wherever there are Aboriginal people there are other places to be Aboriginal. Lalor presents his refusal of nostalgia in the form of an autobiography which articulates memories through a sense of his own agency.     

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 Consequences for Wilderness Conservation in the Development of the National Park System in Tasmania,Australia

Statewide extents of wilderness are mapped and calculated for four historic time‐slices that reflect major periods of national park development in Tasmania. The representation of wilderness in the Tasmanian reserve system is calculated for 1937, 1970 and 1992. National parks were established in wilderness areas during all major periods of reserve development. While the total core wilderness area in Tasmania decreased by 63% between 1916 and 1992, the core wilderness area captured in the reserve system increased by 618%, with the largest increase being in the post‐1970 period. However, those parks established prior to 1970 suffered an enormous attrition of their wilderness resource. This reflects man‐agement policies inconsistent with the maintenance of wilderness during early periods of national park development. The huge increase in wilderness area captured in the reserve system after 1970 suggests that wilderness conservation only became a significant motive behind the expansion of the reserve system in the later decades of the twentieth century.