Anticipating fatness: childhood, affect and the pre-emptive 'war on obesity'

This paper draws together recent geographical work on fatness, pre-emptive biopolitics, affect and childhood in order to question the spatiotemporalities of obesity policy in the UK. Through analysis of key policy documents and associated media coverage, the paper questions the dystopian production of the future nation in obesity policy; the role of affect in making futures felt as realities which can be acted on in the present; and the role of childhood and children's bodies within such policy. It argues that children are central to the production and pre-emption of obese futures because of the affective potential of childhood and the paradoxical position of children's bodies both as children in the present and adults of the future. The paper concludes by arguing that obesogenic environment theories are fundamentally problematic and that recognition of the temporalities as well as the spatialities of obesity is necessary for a balanced critical geography.     

International law, International Relations theory and post-atrocity justice: towards a genuine dialogue

For much of the twentieth century, a chasm divided the disciplines of international relations and international law, with relatively little communication and even less mutual comprehension. In particular, this period saw the increasing exclusion of international law from the study of international relations, with key texts removed from reading lists. Perhaps the most obvious and significant reason for this exclusion was the dominance of the realist, and later, neorealist schools of thought in international relations. This phenomenon was certainly most notable in the United States, where the dominance of realism was most extensive. However, in recent decades, a rapprochement between the two disciplines has been attempted, led in the first instance largely by international lawyers. Despite significant efforts at bridging the gap, however, this article argues that a genuine dialogue has yet to emerge. Using insights from debates in and across each discipline about appropriate responses to mass atrocities, this article offers suggestions for creating such a dialogue.     

Cultural Assumptions against Sustainability: An International Survey

Despite the great progress in increasing public awareness of and attention to the issue of sustainability, the measures taken so far fall dramatically short of halting deleterious cycles. This apparent deficiency can be ascribed to two main factors: insufficient efforts to finding viable and visible alternatives and the failure to thoroughly re-examine dominant cultural paradigms. The widespread resistance to adopting more sustainable habits, in spite of the patent environmental crisis, suggests that there are persisting epistemological substrates so compelling as to be called ‘secular dogmas’. Higher education should undertake to promote both empirical research and applications, and systemic cultural critique. Geographers are among the most apt coordinators for such a complex interdisciplinary task. This paper shows the results of an international survey on some spatial, taxonomic and teleological macro-coordinates that underpin people's perception and representation of reality and thus influence the above-mentioned ‘secular dogmas’, which, if not properly addressed, may inexorably hinder the adoption of sustainable development models.     

Anglo-Saxon women and the law

Scholarly investigations of Anglo-Saxon social history have usually drawn the conclusion that women during that period enjoyed a favourable position in comparison with their successors in post-Conquest England. The following study aims to qualify this view, by demonstrating that the position of women was more complicated than is usually acknowledged. An examination of the Anglo-Saxon legal documents shows that the position of women varied according to circumstances such as rank, marital status, and geographical location. However, an overall improvement between the early and late period is clear. In fact, this improvement is so considerable that there is a much closer resemblance between the situation obtaining in late Anglo-Saxon England and post-Conquest England than there is between the early and late Anglo-Saxon period. Thus, to describe Anglo-Saxon E England as a time when women enjoyed an independence which they lost as a result of the changes introduced by the Norman Conquest is misleading.     

Zechariah 5 and the priestly law

The bizarre imagery of Zechariah 5, and the relationship between the two visions contained therein has long been a source of bafflement to commentators. This article argues that the content of these visions is dependent on three texts from the priestly law: Leviticus 14, 19 and Numbers 5. The first of these texts provides the legal precedent for Zechariah's attacks on theft, fraud and perjury, while the action taken by God (the entry of the curse scroll into the house of the perjured thief, followed by its destruction and the removal of ''wickedness'') makes use of Numbers 5 and Leviticus 14 respectively.     

Literacy and the law in Lombard government

This article examines the Lombard law code as evidence for literate practices in government and society in seventh- and eighth-century Italy. The effectiveness of the code as an instrument of government is testified by the charter evidence, in which the precepts of the code are implicitly acknowledged or cited directly. Although largely the result of a necessary appropriation of late Roman property law, Lombard legislation and notarial practice applied further literate methods to document, and hence to validate, a range of transactions. The use of written law was not merely limited to male landowners, but affected Italo-Lombard society more widely, as is revealed by the evidence for women's property rights and manumission. The charter evidence and references within the code itself suggest that various uses of writing for governmental administration extended beyond the royal and ducal levels into local society.     

Northern Ireland,employment and the law

Employment Equality in Northern Ireland, vols I‐III Eithne McLaughlin (series ed.), 1997 Belfast, Standing Advisory Committee on Human Rights ISBN 0.9527.5280.8

Vol. I. Fair Employment Law in Northern Ireland: Debates and Issues Denise Magill & Sarah Rose (eds) pp. 202

Vol. II. Policy Aspects of Employment Equality in Northern Ireland Eithne McLaughlin & Padraic Quirk (eds) pp.197

Vol. III. Public Views and Experiences of Fair Employment and Equality Issues in Northern Ireland John McVey & Nigel Hutson (eds) pp. 170     

Finding the law in Myanmar

The law is difficult to find in Myanmar and the legal system is not accessible or transparent to its citizens. This article looks at some of the issues plaguing the country.     

The fall of Zion and the revelation of the law

Abstract

Did the Egyptians Die in a Storm? F. M. Cross and D. N. Freedman have argued that Exodus 15,1–19 presents a version of the crossing of the Reed Sea in which the Israelites are pursued by the Egyptians across a storm‐tossed sea in boats, instead of across the dry seabed with the waters in walls on either side. The central argument hinges on the meaning of qp’ and nd (v 8) in the light of comparative philology; however, careful application of comparative philology does not support their thesis.