PLACE AND SPACE IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE: SOME LESSONS AND REFLECTIONS*

The “localities debate,” stimulated by the Economic and Social Research Council's “Changing Urban and Regional Systems” initiative, was conducted in the pages of Antipode and Society and Space at a length that showed scant regard for emerging environmental sensitivities. Much of it involved politically contentious claims and increasingly exhausted theory; it resolved very little and in that sense was little more than a storm in a pretty familiar pudding basin. A later flirtation with postmodernism simply pushed aside questions of explanation while raising the political stakes as celebration of the differences between places became the order of the day. Nonetheless, important issues emerge from or relate to that debate, and we draw on our experiences to comment on three of them: (i) agents, structures, the production of space and the material bases of place: some issues of theory; (ii) the production of places, people's attachment to place, and place-based political strategies: some issues of practice; (iii) localities, postmodernism and the difference that place makes: is the regressive turn to postmodernism as approach avoidable?     

ALUMINA AND CALCIUM OXIDE CONTENT OF GLASS FOUND IN WESTERN AND NORTHERN EUROPE, FIRST TO NINTH CENTURIES

Summary. The glass of Gallo-roman origin and that considered as coming from the several centuries after the disintegration of the Roman empire has much the same composition in examples found in northern and western Europe. The components calcium oxide and alumina (CaO and Al₂O₃) increase or decrease together. Compositional variation between different samples from this geographic area are not much greater than those at a single site of manufacture. Contamination during the manufacture process is unlikely to account for the CaO and Al₂O₃ contents in glass from this period according to analyses of glass adhering to crucibles or fusion pots. CaO and Al₂O₃ were apparently added intentionally to the glass composition. A slight tendency to an increase in these oxides is accompanied by a decrease in Na₂O content which might be due to a loss through volatilization during re-workings. Such a trend is apparent in the eighth to ninth century samples. The remarkably constant composition of glass found in a wide area for objects produced over a long period of time suggests that a limited number of production sites existed for either the raw materials or the confection of raw glass which was fashioned at various other sites.     

EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF OFFICE RENT AND AGGLOMERATION ECONOMIES: A CASE STUDY OF TORONTO*

ABSTRACT. An equilibrium model of office location is applied and tested in the Toronto metropolitan area. The model focuses on the role of communication among firms which is the driving force behind the spatial agglomeration of office firms. The model calculates the equilibrium floor rent in each district, given the existing building stock. The performance of the model is tested in terms of the goodness of fit between observed and estimated office rent in each district. By using the model, we estimate the value of agglomeration economies which is defined as changes in productivities caused by increases in the number of office firms. It is shown that the agglomeration economies in the office sector are much larger than those in manufacturing, and the external effects of agglomeration are considerably large.     

CHARACTERIZATION OF PLASTERS AND MORTARS AS A TOOL IN ARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDIES: THE CASE OF LARDIRAGO CASTLE IN PAVIA,NORTHERN ITALY*

Plasters and mortars from Lardirago Castle (Pavia, northern Italy) have been characterized by means of petrographical and chemical analyses in order to achieve technical and historical evidence of material production. The study focused on the oldest nucleus of the structure, where hidden plastered masonry has been discovered recently. Textural and compositional data of the binder and the aggregate fractions were collected by means of optical microscopy and electron microscopy coupled with microanalysis. These data permit the identification of building materials with similar technical and compositional characteristics, which can be related to different building phases.     

WORKING-CLASS WOMEN AND CIVIC ACTION: A CASE STUDY OF AN INNOVATIVE COMMUNITY ROLE*

This paper focuses on working-class women who are assuming public responsibility in voluntary organizations aimed at the maintenance and improvement of their city neighborhoods. Forty women were interviewed in-depth regarding their civic concerns and voluntary activities in a case study of Carondelet, a predominantly white working-class neighborhood of St. Louis. Overall, activism is well-organized and widespread with women playing a major contributing role. If the experience of Carondelet is typical, then future urban policy analysis must seriously take into account extensive female input at the grass-roots level.     

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS: EUROCENTRISM IN GEOGRAPHY -THE CASE OF ASIAN URBANIZATION*

This address is in the nature of a series of reflections on underlying intellectual premises that characterize the relationship between Western geographers (defined as those practitioners who generally reside in Anglo-America, Western Europe, Australia, and New Zealand) and the part of the world called Asia. The argument presented is that this relationship is essentially one-sided, in which the Western geographers have defined Asia in their Eurocentric terms. This is part of a broader discourse that may be labelled ‘Orientalism.’ The author, who has spent more than 30 years carrying out research on Asia, analyses these intellectual assumptions in terms of his own experience and suggests how a realization of the Eurocentric premises have enabled him largely to discard them and develop a new model of Asian urbanization. Finally, these trends are related to geography's increasing engagement in the main discourse of social theory. Dans ce discours, il s'agit d'une série de considérations sur les prémisses intellectuelles qui caractérisent les relations entre les géographes occidentaux (soit ceux qui habitent en Amérique anglophone, en Europe de l'ouest, en Australie, et à Nouvelle-Zélande) et les geographes de l'Asie. L'argument est presenté du point de vue des geographes occidentaux, qui decrivent l'Asie en termes eurocentriques. Ceci fait partie d'un sujet plus large, qu'on pourrait nommer ‘l'Orientalisme.’ L'auteur, qui a fait plus de trente ans de recherches sur l'Asie, fait I'analyse de ces premisses dans le cadre de sa propre expérience, et il suggère que la mise en évidence des prémisses eurocentriques lui a permis de les reletter en gros et de développer un nouveau modèle pour décrire l'urbanisation asiatique. Finalernent, l'auteur fait le lien entre ces tendances et le rôle de plus en plus important joué par les geographes dans la dornaine de la théorie sociale en général. From this vantage point, a question somewhat different from that of most historical sociologists arises. Almost all Western writing has been both Eurocentric and written from the hindsight of the 19th and 20th centuries. It has posed the question, crudely paraphrased: What was so special about the West that made it, rather than some other region, the “master” of the world system? Put this way, the question has a self-congratulatory ring. It looks into the special qualities of the West to account for its success. By contrast, then, it judges the other contenders as deficient insofar as they lacked the characteristics of the West. (Janet Abu-Lughod 1978–1979, 6)     

ACCESSING PAST BELIEFS AND PRACTICES: THE CASE OF LEMNIAN EARTH*

Lemnian Earth, a medicine in the shape of a stamped clay tablet (sphragis) from Lemnos, northeastern Greece, was much valued in antiquity and in the post‐medieval period as an antidote to poison and a treatment for other ailments. Although it was among the first archaeological materials to be subjected to chemical analysis (in 1807), there is still no clear understanding as to what made Lemnian Earth an effective medicine. We argue that Lemnian Earth, the artefact, was not the same as Lemnian Earth, the raw material. We suggest a composition for the artefact by scrutinizing the documentary evidence for its properties and by considering the geochemical processes that led to the formation of the raw material and the ritual relating to its extraction. The study of the latter highlights the need for archaeological materials scientists to recognize ritual as a possible manifestation of physical and chemical processes carried out within the framework of past beliefs and practices.