The Central Scotland airport: Transport policy‐making in Scotland

The recognition that the central belt of Scotland will exhaust its existing airport capacity by 2020 has provoked serious and at times acrimonious debate, both economic and political, whether capacity should be expanded at Edinburgh Airport or at Glasgow Airport. This paper confronts the question of whether an entirely new single airport in the central belt, requiring the closure of Edinburgh and Glasgow Airports, should be built. Clearly, megaprojects on this scale, require a national decision‐making framework involving, amongst others, the Department for Transport, the Civil Aviation Authority, the Treasury and the British Airports Authority plc. However, regional bodies such as the Scottish Executive, Scottish Enterprise Network, and local authorities are involved in confronting local issues concerning ground transport, the environment, economic development and labour market shifts.     

Peatland conservation in Buchan,north‐east Scotland: The historic context and contemporary issues

Scottish peatlands are now recognised as important habitats for conservation, and are increasingly protected by both national and international designations. This paper examines peatland conservation in north‐east Scotland, using recently published data to assess habitat quality, and relating this to longer‐term historical trends in attitudes towards peatlands, and their utilisation. The historical data indicates that peatland losses in northeast Scotland have been extensive, and occurred rapidly during the 18th and 19th centuries, when peatlands were regarded as fuel sources, or wastelands which could be converted to agricultural use. Threats have lessened in the second half of the 20th century, and many sites are now protected by conservation designations. However, historical attitudes towards peatlands often persist, and this can pose problems which must be addressed if conservation management is to be successful.     

Guanhua,Guoyu, and Putonghua: Politics and “proper names” for standard language in modern China

ABSTRACT

Guanhua (official language), Guoyu (national language), and Putonghua (common language) are generally regarded as different names for the same thing in different eras, but from the perspective of cultural history, there are many subtle semantic differences between these three concepts, symbolizing how different social classes and political groups defined their particular experiences, expectations, and efforts to take action. Guoyu, which replaced Guanhua in the late Qing Dynasty, is closely bound up with the construction of modern nationalism. In the 1930s, leftist intellectuals imbued Putonghua with strong proletariat attributes and overtones of indigenous and ethnic equality, wielding it as a tool for critiques against Guoyu. Although Putonghua returned to certain key positions of Guoyu after the mid-1950s, it putatively emphasized the legacy of the leftist language movement, and represented a new political identity. Through these “proper names” for the standard language, it was possible not only to launch a political and social “revolution,” but also to smooth over the historical rifts that this engendered, by repeatedly revising the concepts of “written” and “standard” to form a linear national narrative.     

The study of a region: An exercise in taste,temperament, and training?

Brenda E. F. Beck. Peasant Society in Koñku: A Study of Right and Left Subcastes in South India. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1972. xix + 354 pp. Diagrams, tables, appendixes, glossary, bibliography, and index. $16.50.     

Settlement Form and Evolution in the Central Highlands of Scotland,ca. 1100–1900

Since 1996, archaeologists from Glasgow University have been involved in a research project on the north shores of Loch Tay in the Central Highlands of Scotland. This work—known as the Ben Lawers Historic Landscape Project—was specifically focused on medieval and later settlement remains. For the purposes of this paper, the results of the archaeological work are contrasted with work from similar sites elsewhere in Scotland. The sweeping changes in tenurial, social and cultural spheres, known as the Improvements, of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are considered in relation to the preceding six hundred years.     

The center and the edge: Archaeology in Belize, 1809–1992

The archaeological history of Belize now spans, in a sense, 183 years. For all but the past quarter-century of that time, research in the country has ranged from sporadic to nonexistent. In recent years, however, forces both internal and external to Belize have brought about an explosion of fieldwork and reporting, as well as wide-ranging analyses, problem-focused studies, and the beginnings of placement of Belize in a theoretical frame. Review of the development of archaeological research in the country establishes a base on which to rest discussion of themes in current work, as well as the impact of Belizean data as regards changes in our assessment of Maya prehistory as a whole.     

The “Nation of Poetry”: Language,Festival and Subversion in Macedonia

This article critically examines the Struga Poetry Festival established in 1961 when it placed Macedonian poets and writers on the wider map of world poetry, international literature and language. With this the festival carried a subversive and an emancipatory task that not only promoted Macedonia's national poetry but also pushed the nation itself onto the world stage. Although highly politicized (and deeply political), the festival emerged as a seemingly apolitical event that celebrated the “universal language of poetry”. Yet, with its aesthetic form of an open event devoted to poetry, this festival (in a very Bakhtinian manner) pinpoints the obvious carnivalesque element in manoeuvring and subverting established social and political hierarchies. Initially, it allowed Macedonian language and poets to join established national states that have “undisputed” (or less disputed) literary traditions. The subversive nature of this festival after the 2001 military conflict in Macedonia changed the direction and intensity of the Albanian struggle for improving their status into the Macedonian society. This event has effectively allowed a minority group to initiate social movement and engage in serious identity politics related to territorial self-governance, language and cultural representation.     

Post‐conflict Heritage and Tourism in Cambodia: The Burden of Angkor

The World Heritage Site of Angkor is enduring one of the most crucial, turbulent periods in its 1200‐year history. Since the early 1990s over 20 countries have contributed millions of dollars to help safeguard and restore its temples. As one of Southeast Asia’s premier destinations, Angkor has also seen a 10,000% growth in international tourist arrivals in just over a decade. The challenges arising from the intense convergence of these two paradoxical and unstable agendas—heritage conservation and tourism development—are greatly compounded by Cambodia’s need to recover from war and turmoil. This paper explores the critical trends that have surfaced at Angkor and why the challenges posed by surging tourism have been inadequately addressed. It argues Angkor’s dominant role within Cambodia’s post‐conflict heritage and tourism industries requires closer, more critical attention given recent events in the country. This article is the summary of Winter's book Post‐conflict Heritage, Post‐colonial Tourism (Routledge 2007).