The pagan. Races of the Malay Peninsula

This paper aims to define and illustrate the ways in which a change in land tenure can impact on housing provision. It looks in particular at rural Scotland. The paper interprets interview data gathered on the isle of Gigha, a small island off the west coast of Scotland in the spring of 2005. Three years earlier, Gigha had been purchased by its residents from a single, private landowner. The paper finds that the process and nature of ownership change have fundamentally reshaped economic, social and political relationships governing housing provision. The paper concludes by reflecting on the significance of the findings.     

Ready, willing, and able to divorce: an economic and cultural history of divorce in twentieth-century Sweden

This study outlines a long history of divorce in Sweden, recognizing the importance of considering both economic and cultural factors in the analysis of marital dissolution. Following Ansley Coale, the authors examine how a framework of multiple theoretical constructs, in interaction, can be applied to the development toward mass divorce. Applying a long historical perspective, the authors argue that an analysis of gendered aspects of the interaction between culture and economics is crucial for the understanding of the rise of mass divorce. The empirical analysis finds support for a marked decrease in legal and cultural obstacles to divorce already during the first decades of the twentieth century. However, economic structures remained a severe obstacle that prohibited significant increases in divorce rate prior to World War II. It was only during the 1940s and 1960s, when cultural change was complemented by marked decreases in economic interdependence between spouses, that the divorce rate exhibited significant increases. The authors find that there are advantages to looking at the development of divorce as a history in which multiple empirical factors are examined in conjunction, recognizing that these factors played different roles during different time periods.