Beach body work: Australian women’s experiences

This article examines Australian women’s complex relationship with the beach through a focus on affect and on what bodies do. Interviews with ten participants of diverse backgrounds and of different ages reveal that women understand the beach as a mediated and surveilled space where their bodies are foregrounded. In this environment, there is an intersection of women’s knowledge of the popular constructions of the archetypal Australian beach body, real women’s bodies, and interviewees’ experiences of the beach as a place of shame and pride. As a means of managing this affective landscape participants detail a range of bodily strategies enacted prior to going to the beach and once at the beach. This bodily labour demonstrates that for Australian women the beach is a dynamic and complicated site of both leisure and labour.     

Consensus and conflict among Australia's leaders∗

This paper reports and analyses survey data on the opinions of 353 top position‐holders in business, trade unions, federal and state politics, the Commonwealth Public Service, mass media, national voluntary associations, and major universities and research institutes during the latter half of 1975. Patterns of elite responses to 15 issue sets aggregating 46 separate opinion items are examined. The main focus is on the extent and configuration of elite conflict and consensus over economic policy, foreign and defence policy, industrial relations, social issues, and institutional structure. In general, substantial conflict between left‐of‐centre and right‐of‐centre elites in all major issue areas, save possibly that of social issues, is found. However, the extent of this conflict varies as between specific policies, over which it is relatively small, and the legitimacy or desirability of various group actions and major policy innovations, over which it is quite large. Whether conflict during 1975 was sufficiently great to threaten the fundamental unity of Australian elites is discussed.     

Maternal work hours and adolescents’ body weight in South Korea

This study examined whether previous findings linking maternal work hours to obesity among children generalised to Asian populations. Using a nationally representative sample of Korean middle school students and their parents (N?=?1,873), ordinary least squares regression and logistic regression models assessed the association between maternal work hours and adolescents’ body mass index (BMI), overweight, and obesity. There were no significant associations between mothers’ weekly work hours and adolescents’ BMI (raw score, z-score, and percentile), overweight and obesity. These null associations were robust across different specifications for maternal employment, the proposed mediators, and outcome variables. Although longer maternal work hours were associated with adolescents’ longer unsupervised time, more sedentary behaviours (TV/Video/DVD viewing and electronic game playing), and less physical activity, this did not lead to an increase in the likelihood of being overweight and obese.     

Soft balancing among weak states? Evidence from Africa

Recent literature on the use of soft balancing to counter the hegemony of the United States has focused primarily on middle powers in Europe and rising powers such as China. But what about weak states? Do they simply go along with the hegemon, or do they challenge its policies despite the odds? And to what extent does the soft balancing argument explain their behaviour? In recent years, several historically friendly African countries have used non‐military means to undermine the unilateral policies of the United States. Leaders in South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, Mali, Namibia and Niger especially have resisted US demands in areas such as the ‘war on terror’, the International Criminal Court and the US Africa Command. This article seeks to explain the strategies of opposition that some African countries have pursued. It finds that the behaviour is driven both by regional power concerns and by domestic political considerations. Interestingly, public opinion in these relatively democratic countries is motivated by disagreements with US policy and by resentment of the predominance of American power. Thus, the evidence both confirms and challenges the notion of soft balancing. On one hand, the behaviour of African states is driven at least in part by the global balance of power—directly, as leaders respond to power concerns within the continent, and indirectly, as citizens pressure leaders to resist the hegemon. On the other hand, these findings challenge the underlying premise that state behaviour is determined solely by structural concerns. Instead, the oppositional behaviour of African states has both systemic and domestic explanations.     

Le fou du tzar—A nail in the body of the empire

In the Edwardian period, the essays, novels, and criticism of G.K. Chesterton gave voice to a unique but emblematic form of patriotic anti-imperialism. The article places his views in the context of the Liberal Little Englander reaction to the Boer War, and offers two comparative case studies. The first focuses on Chesterton's inheritance of the late-Victorian anti-imperialist rhetoric of William Morris; the second assesses his fraught relationship with internationalism, as represented in the writings of Morris's political collaborator, E.B. Bax. Chesterton's radical populist patriotism, it turns out, had more in common with contemporary socialist ideologies than the currently prevailing view of its parochialism would allow.     

Children with mind–body differences: performing disability in primary school classrooms

There has been a significant geographical shift in the primary school education of children with mind–body differences in England. Emphasis is increasingly placed upon the ‘inclusive’ education of ‘disabled’ children in mainstream schools (DfES, 2001 Department for Education and Skills (2001a) Special Needs and Disability Act London: HMSO  [Google Scholar]a, 2001 Department for Education and Skills (2001b) Special Educational Needs, Code of Practice London: DFES  [Google Scholar]b), and children with a range of mind–body abilities are currently educated within mainstream primary school classrooms. This paper prioritises children's experiences in examining how (dis)ability is reproduced heterogeneously through everyday practices in ‘inclusive’ classrooms. The discourses of disability which circulate through classroom spaces are influenced by wider societal representations of disability and childhood, albeit often interpreted in specific ways within the context of the education institution. This demonstrates that classroom micro‐spaces are porous, specific institutional spaces.     

Lysis at the anterior vertebral body margin: evidence for brucellar spondylitis?

Recently, palaeopathologists have begun to diagnose brucellosis in skeletal remains from minor lytic lesions located on the anterior margins of one or some few vertebral bodies, taking these lesions to represent brucellar epiphysitis. However, review of the literature indicates that these lesions have been sporadically noted for some time by palaeopathologists and various different interpretations have been placed upon them. In view of this, a study of these vertebral marginal lesions (VML) was undertaken in a large series of archaeological skeletons from England, with the aim of characterising their morphology and frequency and shedding light upon their causes. In the study material, VML were found only in the lumbar spine, where they occurred with a prevalence of approximately 4%. It was argued that VML are consistent with two principal alternative diagnoses: brucellosis and traumatic anterior disc herniation. Differentiating these possibilities for the VML in the study material was difficult, but the balance of the evidence seemed to favour traumatic anterior disc herniation as the more likely cause. It is concluded that VML should not be used to identify the presence of brucellosis in skeletal remains unless there is further evidence, in the form of additional skeletal lesions or biomolecular evidence for residual brucella bacterial DNA, to support such a diagnosis. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The chemical analysis of oriental ceramic body compositions: Part 2—Greenwares

The results of over 130 chemical analyses of Chinese Greenware bodies are presented, obtained by atomic absorption spectrometry. A clear chemical difference is seen between the earlier Northern Zhejiang Yue wares and the later Longquan celadons. Interesting connections are observed between Northern Celadons (assumed to be from Yaozhou), Hangzhou Guan wares and early Jingdezhen Greenwares, which are tentatively explained by the flight of the Song court to Hangzhou in AD 1127, perhaps taking Imperial potters with them. The Longquan celadons contained a substantial number of kiln sherds, obtained by Nils Palmgren on his visit to the area in 1936. The availability of authentic kiln material is very unusual in Western studies of this kind, and particular attention is paid to these data. It was hoped to discriminate between the named kilns around Longquan (Lishui, Qikou, Yuankou, Longfeng, Jincun, Dayao, Anfu, Baoding and Wenzhou), and it proved possible to distinguish chemically the Baoding and Wenzhou products. These kilns are geographically slightly removed from Longquan itself, are probably earlier in date, and their composition appears to be intermediate between the Yue wares of Zhejiang province and the true Longquan celadons. The other kilns proved difficult to distinguish, and observed small differences are probably due to differences in date or fabric quality.     

‘Lend me your ears’: social policy and the hearing body

Recent developments in music regulation policy in some European countries show a recognition of changes in the built environment, contemporary demographics and the sonic profile of popular music. These initiatives have not been echoed in Australian music policy, where the primary focus is on the cultural and economic conditions of production and consumption, with little interest in the mechanics and biology of sound production and circulation, and their social welfare implications. Within the general category of noise pollution, it appears that the proliferation of low-frequency noise (LFN) is the fastest growing problem, in which contemporary popular music is increasingly implicated. This paper explores why LFN should suddenly become so pervasive that it has begun to attract specific social policy and legislative measures, its own scientific journals, and attempts to establish standards of its measurement specific to a profile that evades traditional sound pollution analysis.     

Hierarchical tendencies and functional patterns among Mainland China’s megaregions

This paper presents an empirical analysis of hierarchical tendencies and functional patterns in the development of Mainland China’s space-economy by operationalizing the concept of “megaregions.” Drawing on the burgeoning literature on megaregions, we first argue that under conditions of economic globalization the megaregion concept does indeed present an effective tool to study the spatial agglomeration of the key components of China’s economic development. Second, we analyze the development status and the key functional characteristics of 16 prospective Chinese megaregions by constructing an index system consisting of 5 functions and 36 indicators. Third, we calculate an entropy index to rank megaregions according to their overall development status and reveal functional differences by applying cluster analysis. We find that the Yangtze River Delta, Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei Metropolitan Area, and the Pearl River Delta stand out, identify different varieties of megaregions according to their dominant functional characteristics, and explore the main policy dimensions of the persistent west–east divides observed. The paper is concluded with a discussion of potential avenues for future research.     

A Day’s Excursion among the Churches of South-East Norfolk

It will be proposed that the common utilitarian or functional explanation for the deposition of currency bars is too simple and should be amended to allow greater emphasis on the social context of the acts of production and deposition. Research indicates that currency bars—both as single finds and as hoards—occur in a limited range of archaeological contexts. It would appear that the act of deposition occurred under strict control and that the majority of currency bars were deposited as part of acts of ritual. The archaeological contexts of the three major types of currency bar are considered. All three types of currency bar—spit-shaped, sword-shaped, and plough-share—occur in similar contexts. Two major types of context are identified and in turn these define at least two distinct regions in the distribution of the bars. One zone is characterized by the deposition of the bars in varying sized hoards, but almost always in close relationship to a hill-fort rampart or a settlement boundary ditch. This may relate to rituals which defined the boundary of the settlement area of the family or community group. The analysis raises questions concerning the social and ritual significance of the boundaries which surrounded iron age hill forts and settlements. In contrast, a second zone is characterized by the deposition of currency bars in a range of natural locations (including bogs, rivers, caves, and rocky outcrops) which constitute the more standard contexts of ritual deposition for the British Bronze Age and Iron Age. These contexts may relate to rituals that defined boundaries at a range of scales; from those between social groups to tribal boundaries and even the boundaries of Britain.     

Shopping or Specialization? Venue Targeting among Nonprofits Engaged in Advocacy

Studies of venue shopping have typically analyzed the case of an individual advocacy group or issue campaign rather than comparing venue strategies across multiple groups. Moreover, this literature focuses on interest groups and advocacy coalitions whose principal mandate is to influence public policy. Using original data, we test theories of venue selection among nonprofit organizations that report engaging in policy processes but the majority of which do not self‐identify as an advocacy group. Our analyses explore the “where” of nonprofit advocacy across three different venue types: branch (executive, legislative), domain (bureaucracy, elected officials), and level of government (local, state, federal). Like interest groups, we find that nonprofits shop among both executive and legislative branches and among elected and bureaucratic domains; however, they tend to specialize in one level of government. Geographic scope and revenue source predicted venue targeting, but most other organizational characteristics including age, capacity, and structure did not.     

Political information among first‐year Australian politics students: Queensland

This paper is a preliminary investigation into the process of acquiring political information. Data are derived from a survey of students enrolling in the introductory Australian politics course at the University of Queensland in 1980 and compared with similar data from earlier surveys at two NSW Universities. Two types of political information are distinguished—information about political institutions and recognition of political figures. The effects of ten independent variables are shown to be different for the two types of political information. It is hypothesized that information about political institutions is dependent primarily on attitudes towards politics, while recognition of political figures is dependent primarily on exposure to information about them. Sex of the respondents is found to have a powerful and independent effect on both types of political information.     

The Great War,the child’s body and the American Red Cross

Abstract

This article examines the child-relief activities of the American Red Cross in Hungary in the aftermath of the Great War, offering an insight into the workings of humanitarianism in interwar Europe. A close look at this one Central European ‘playground’ of transatlantic intervention helps us understand the logic and the underlying political, economic and ideological motives behind Allied humanitarian aid to ‘enemy’ children. Analysis of the ways in which the war’s aftermath affected children, their bodies and their relief throws light on the relationship between violent conflicts, children in need and humanitarian intervention. The article looks particularly at the role of the child’s damaged body and its photographic representation, making it what Cathleen Canning calls an ‘embodied experience of war’. Exploration of the humanitarian discourse around the suffering child helps us identify the humanitarian reaction to the unforeseen social consequences of wartime confrontation. The article argues that the harmed body of the ‘enemy child’ served to mobilise transnational compassion that challenged the war’s deeply anchored ‘friend–foe’ mentality. The child turned into a means of configuring and translating human suffering beyond ideological and political borders. At the same time humanitarian child relief helped to further consolidate asymmetric international power relations.     

Vox populismus: a populist radical right attitude among the public?

In the last two decades, populist radical right (PRR) parties have been electorally very successful in Western Europe. Various scholars have argued that these parties share an ideological core that consists of a specific form of nationalism (nativism), in combination with two other attitudes (authoritarianism and populism). The aim of this research note is to assess whether this ideological core also exists as a consistent attitude among citizens. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses of the attitudes of Dutch citizens indicate that we can indeed speak of a consistent PRR attitude among the public. I also show that this attitude is strongly related to the probability of voting for the PRR Freedom Party (Partij voor de Vrijheid) of Geert Wilders.