The “Commons” Versus the “Commodity”: Alter‐globalization,Anti‐privatization and the Human Right to Water in the Global South

Abstract: In response to the growth of private sector involvement in water supply management globally, anti‐privatization campaigns for a human right to water have emerged in recent years. Simultaneously, alter‐globalization activists have promoted alternative water governance models through North‐South red‐green alliances between organized labour, environmental groups, women's groups, and indigenous groups. In this paper, I explore these distinct (albeit overlapping) responses to water privatization. I first present a generic conceptual model of market environmentalist reforms, and explore the contribution of this framework to debates over ‘neoliberalizing nature’. This conceptual framework is applied to the case of anti‐privatization activism to elucidate the limitations of the human right to water as a conceptual counterpoint to privatization, and as an activist strategy. In contrast, I argue that alter‐globalization strategies—centred on concepts of the commons—are more conceptually coherent, and also more successful as activist strategies. The paper concludes with a reiteration of the need for greater conceptual precision in our analyses of neoliberalization, for both academics and activists.     

Moody and Sankey Down Under: A Case Study in “Trans‐Atlantic” Revivalism in Nineteenth‐Century New Zealand*

This article examines the reception of revivalism inspired by the work of Dwight Moody and Ira Sankey in the Wanganui‐Manawatu region of New Zealand in the 1870s and 1880s. The success of Moody and Sankey's 1873–75 British campaign inspired interest in revivalism, and led to rapid and widespread adoption of their distinctive methods. Though it aroused opposition in some quarters, Moody and Sankey style revivalism became established as a significant feature of New Zealand religiosity at that time. Some aspects continued to appeal well into the twentieth century. This article traces the rise and growth in influence of this form of revivalism, and considers reasons for its appeal in late nineteenth‐century New Zealand.     

Unearthing Women's Anti‐Mining Activism in the Andes: Pachamama and the “Mad Old Women”

Women play an important role in social activism challenging the expansion of extractive industries across Latin America. In arguing that this involvement has been largely unrecognised, this paper explores Andean Peruvian and Ecuadorian women's accounts of their activism and the particular gendered narratives that the women deploy in explaining and legitimising this activism. These discussions contribute to understanding the patterning of grassroots activism and making visible the gendered micro‐politics of resistance and struggle around natural resource use, as well as to understanding the gendered and strategic ways in which women contest dominant discourses of development.     

EUROPEAN UNION REGIONAL PRODUCTIVITY DYNAMICS: A “DISTRIBUTIONAL” APPROACH*

ABSTRACT Working within the “distributional approach,” this research offers evidence of past and future polarization in aggregate regional labor productivity in EU‐15. This finding is robust to alternative definitions of the spatial units used and does not appear to be the result of regional structural change. Spatial effects are found but are of rather localized nature. Turning to separate sectoral analyses suggests that past and future polarization in labor productivity across European regions may be associated with regional productivity differences in the services sectors.     

“Marsh fever”—The geography of malaria in England

The marshlands of Kent and Essex had exceptionally high levels of mortality from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. The unhealthiness of the environment aroused frequent comment during this period and it was attributed to an endemic disease known as “marsh fever” or “ague”. Marsh parishes were perceived both as a danger to the local inhabitants and as a deterrent to potential settlers. This paper traces the geography and history of the “marsh fever” in England and shows that the disease was, in fact, plasmodium malaria transmitted by anopheline mosquitoes. Malaria, once indigenous in the coastal marshes of England, had a striking impact on regional patterns of disease and death. The discussion concludes with an examination of the reasons for the clinical disappearance of malaria during the nineteenth century, its reappearance after the First and Second World Wars and the possibility of new outbreaks of malaria in the future.     

“Proto–Tantric” Elements in The Gandavyuha‐sutra*

Although a Māhāyana sūtra, the clearly contains a number of elements that seem to presage the “tantric” phase in Indian Buddhism. In particular, the sūtra contains four components worthy of note: elaborate scenes detailing what can best be understood as , a soteriology based on absolute faith in the spiritual guides, a strong insinuation of organisational esotericism, and the hint of sexual yoga. After briefly summarising some recent scholarship on the , the author addresses each of the four “proto‐tantric” components in detail. Following this, the author concludes with the suggestion that despite the inherent difficulties in developing a relative chronology of Indian Buddhist literature, close readings such as provided in this article may be useful in generating data sets, which can then be used to relate Indian Buddhist texts to each other.     

THE “INS” AND “OUTS” OF HISTORY: REVISION AS NON‐PLACE

Revision in history is conventionally characterized as a linear sequence of changes over time. Drawing together the contributions of those engaged in historiographical debates that are often associated with the term “revision,” however, we find our attention directed to the spaces rather than the sequences of history. Contributions to historical debates are characterized by the marked use of spatial imagery and spatialized language. These used to suggest both the demarcation of the “space of history” and the erasure of existing historiographies from that space. Bearing these features in mind, the essay argues that traditional, temporally oriented explanations for revision in history, such as Thomas S. Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions, miss the mark, and that a more promising line of explanation arises from the combined use of Michel Foucault's idea of “heterotopias” and Marc Augé's idea of “non‐places.” Revision in history is to be found where writers use imagery to move readers away from rival historiographies and to control their movement in the space of history toward their desired vision. Revision is thus associated more with control than with liberation.     

“Hymns of a More or Less Idiotic Character”: The Impact and Use of “Sankey's” Gospel Songs in Late Nineteenth‐Century Australia

Through the large inter‐denominational evangelistic campaigns of the last quarter of the nineteenth century in Australia, the gospel songs commonly described as “Sankey's” were introduced to both church‐goers and the general community and came into wide public knowledge. This article explores their early acceptance, dissemination, and use, and argues that while their impact upon church‐goers was considerable since they were so widely sung in many churches, they were also known, or known about, in the wider community, occupying a significant cultural space.     

“UNABLE TO RESIST”: ON THE “POSSIBILITY” OF “IMPOSSIBILITY” AND CHRISTOPHE BOUTON'S TIME AND FREEDOM

This essay reflects critically on Martin Heidegger's remarks about authenticity and death with the aid of Christophe Bouton's Temps et liberté (2002), translated by Christopher Macann as Time and Freedom (2014). It first raises general questions concerning the possible thematic relationship between human endeavoring (action) and the experiences of finitude and freedom. Heidegger's Being and Time is particularly useful for exploring this relationship, but certain problems emerge when using this text for accessing the essay's themes. To wit: there are good reasons for mistrusting readings of Being and Time as a “practical” guide for grounding action. Against the practical reading, the essay wishes to reclaim the ontological‐existential significance of Heidegger's text. Although Bouton's treatment of Being and Time excludes its ontological dimensions and is entirely practical, even to the point of disregarding certain theoretical risks inherent in this approach, Bouton's study is indispensable for situating Being and Time in a historical‐intellectual context, whereby the experiences of freedom and time are understood within certain metaphysical presuppositions rendering them difficult to establish together on reliable grounds. Following Bouton's lead, the essay shows that the hermeneutic differences between practical and ontological readings of Being and Time can be explored through reflections on what Heidegger might have meant by the term “Möglichkeit” (“possibility”), from which Bouton infers “freedom.” It is alleged that Bouton does not fully consider all of Heidegger's assertions regarding Möglichkeit, most problematically the claim that the human being's most essential “possibility” is its “impossibility,” that is to say, its death.     

2. CONSTRUCTIONS OF “HOME,”“FRONT,” AND WOMEN'S MILITARY EMPLOYMENT IN FIRST‐WORLD‐WAR BRITAIN: A SPATIAL INTERPRETATION

In First‐World‐War Britain, women's ambition to perform noncombatant duties for the military faced considerable public opposition. Nevertheless, by late 1916 up to 10,000 members of the female volunteer corps were working for the army, laying the foundation for some 90,000 auxiliaries of the official Women's Services, who filled support positions in the armed forces in the second half of the war. This essay focuses on the public debate in which the volunteers overcame their critics to understand how they obtained sufficient popular consent for their martial work. I explain the process in terms of shifting hegemonic understandings of space. As critics' arguments in the debate indicate, the gender attribution of war participation was organized and represented spatially, assigning men to the warlike “front” as warriors and women to the peaceful “home” as civilians. To redefine the meaning of these gendered wartime spaces, women volunteers deployed rival spatial discourses and practices in their campaign for martial employment. The essay explores the progress of these competing definitions through feminist and spatial theories, including gender performativity, discursively constructed and constructive spaces, and heterotopias. I argue that the upheaval caused by the war in gender and spatial norms undermined absolute conceptualizations of space with dichotomous binary areas on which critics drew for their arguments and reinforced more recent, relative spatialities, including the cultural construction of militarized heterotopic sites in between and paralleling both “home” and “front” for soldiers in training or recovery. The volunteers' efforts to gain access to military employment both contributed to and were supported by this shift. Heterotopic sites offered ideal discursive locations for constructing the new gender role of auxiliary soldiering through the performance of martial training and work, and competing spatial definitions provided arguments through which they could justify their activities to both critics and supporters.     

Draper,the “Conflict Thesis” and Secularising Politics in Late Nineteenth‐Century Argentina

Despite appearances to the contrary, late nineteenth‐century Buenos Aires (Argentina) seems to be a suitable scale model to explore the relationships between the “conflict thesis” and secularisation. John W. Draper's History of the Conflict between Religion and Science (1874) arrived in the country in the midst of political battles over the shape of the future relationships between the state and the majoritarian Catholic Church. In the decade between 1875 and 1885 variants of the “conflict thesis” were expounded, discussed, and used as rhetorical weapons in the battles over the issue of religious teaching in elementary schools. This article analyses the discussions over the “conflict thesis” between liberal secularists and Catholics in newspaper articles, public speeches, parliamentary debates, and other forms of public discourse during that period. Against the backdrop of a weak institutional church, a vigorous growth of nascent scientific institutions, and a cultural atmosphere permeated by positivism, the opposing parties argued about the “conflict thesis” while each reclaimed for itself the legitimacy of science. The episode permits a close look at how the intellectual leaders who conceived the project of a secularised state utilised science‐based philosophies for purposes of political argument and ideological legitimation.