Troubled kids? Locational disadvantage,opportunity structures and social exclusion

ABSTRACT

Young people growing up in poverty often have restricted access to out-of-school enrichment activities that are important for generating the soft skills that support post-school transitions. This paper compares young Australians’ accounts of their opportunity structures – their engagement with enrichment activities, their post-school aspirations, and their knowledge of routes to achieve them – in two suburb types – improver suburbs (close to the median on many indicators) and isolate suburbs (severely disadvantaged on most indicators). While young people in improver suburbs felt able to access facilities and networks in equally or more affluent neighbouring suburbs, young people in isolate suburbs felt excluded from neighbouring suburbs, and experienced more restricted opportunity structures than young people living in improver suburbs, even those who were themselves economically disadvantaged. The paper argues that this geographical experience of exclusion prevents many economically disadvantaged young people from accumulating knowledge and skills valued in post-school settings.     

Heritage Monitoring Scouts: Engaging the Public to Monitor Sites at Risk Across Florida

ABSTRACT

Along Florida’s nearly 13,000 km of shoreline, nearly 4000 archaeological sites and over 600 recorded historic cemeteries are at risk from climate change impacts including coastal erosion and a 2-metre rise in sea level. In 2016, the Florida Public Archaeology Network (FPAN) created the Heritage Monitoring Scouts (HMS Florida) programme to engage the public in monitoring sites at risk. The programme grew quickly during the first year of operation to include 233 volunteers who submitted 312 monitoring forms. The programme exists beyond the singular act of a volunteer reporting site conditions; across Florida, varied combinations of local partnerships present unique opportunities for programmes, for example, the pilot program at the Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve. Preliminary outcomes from the first year of HMS Florida and the pilot indicate the programme is effective in public engagement and a powerful management tool for tracking change to sites over time.     

Can conditional cash transfers promote delayed childbearing? Evidence from the ‘Second Honeymoon Package’ in rural Maharashtra,India

In 2007 the District Health Services in Satara District, Maharashtra, India, undertook an innovative programme, ‘the Second Honeymoon Package’ (SHP), which aimed to reduce the rate of population growth by offering conditional cash transfers (CCTs) to newly married couples who agreed to postpone their first birth by two or three years. The approach differed from India's traditional family planning programme, based mainly on female sterilisation, by promoting ‘non-terminal’ contraceptive methods, such as condoms and pills. The SHP ended prematurely in 2010 without being fully evaluated, leaving unanswered the question of its impact and potential for scale-up.

This paper addresses this question by investigating the perceptions and experiences women and couples who participated in the programme, as well as the views of local health staff. We use quantitative data from a 2010 survey of 1355 SHP participants, in which the third author was involved, and new qualitative data from a total of 26 programme staff and participants, collected by the first two authors in 2015. Participants’ perceptions of the programme indicate that the SHP had many positive attributes, despite some major challenges. We conclude with recommendations for improving and scaling up programmes of this kind in India and elsewhere.     

The Turnover Club: locality and identity in the North Staffordshire practice of turning over ceramic ware

This paper explores a key practice adopted by those local to or from Stoke-on-Trent, and outlines its significance in the wider context of ‘ordinary’ consumption and material cultures, globalisation and local identity. Being a ‘turnover-er’ – someone who always turns over pottery to check whether it is Stoke-on-Trent ware – is an oft practised, but little examined part of the living heritage that connects those with affinity to ‘the Potteries’ (as the region is known) and its ceramic ware. The project set out to explore qualitative accounts of turning over and to gauge its salience and reach as a practice, linking this to broader accounts of material culture, consumption and heritage. We carried out 20 interviews with those who turn over or who have an interest in local ceramics, and an online survey (n = 500) which explored the some of the reasons for turning over. Findings indicate the strong connections established by the practice of turning over to local identity, both inherited and adopted, and further indicates the social salience and emotional attachments to the meanings of local ware.     

Disobedient objects: material readings of enclosure protest in sixteenth-century England

ABSTRACT

Responding to calls for scholars to address ‘material worlds’ in our analyses of protests past, the paper examines the more-than-human historical geographies of enclosure and enclosure protest in sixteenth-century England. It argues that negotiating enclosure – in the sense of both promoting and resisting private property rights – was dependent on particular assemblages of people, animals and things and their convergence within specific spaces and temporalities. Particular attention is paid to mundane and everyday objects entangled in enclosure protest and the ways these assemblages might transform objects’ meanings, rendering them threatening or disobedient. Moreover, repurposing these things offered opportunities to re-make space, concretising or resisting particular claims to access or possession at the local level. It contributed too to the ongoing debate out of which new concepts of property eventually emerged, so that interrogating the materialities of enclosure protest offers vital space in which to rethink the makings of our modern world.     

Our land is our voice: First Nation heritage-making in the Tr’ondëk/Klondike

Abstract

The subsistence lifeways of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in, a First Nation in northwestern Canada, were radically challenged by the arrival of settler colonialism during the Klondike Gold Rush (1896–98). This Yukon First Nation has subsequently faced down a powerful array of Western heritage activities and commemorations, both local and national, designed to absorb them into modernity. Through a conscious and continuous programme of heritage-making, the citizens of the First Nation have re-asserted their territorial sovereignty and maintained and adapted their cultural identity to changing circumstances. Their heritage-making strategies are illustrated through a review of their call for a treaty, the creation of new instruments for carrying and expressing their cultural identity and their more recent programme of support for the survivors of the Canadian Government’s Indian Residential Schools.     

The margin to act: a framework of investigation for women's (and men's) medieval art-making

ABSTRACT

One of the challenges faced by medieval art historians is to recognise the diverse roles women played in matters of medieval art, while seeing also the impact of society on their artistic choices. By tracing how one work of art can open new critical insights into another, and how disparate objects and buildings – if thought through together – can illuminate our understanding of the Middle Ages overall, we can discern the multi-layered stages of the creative process. The term ‘makers of art’ is proposed as a shift away from the commonly used words – artist, patron, recipient – and the preconceived notions about the individuals who fulfilled those roles. The paper also lays out a framework – ‘the margin to act’ – for the investigation of the multi-levelled interactions of women with medieval art and, ultimately, the writing of history.     

The new face of development: The ‘bottom of the pyramid’ entrepreneurs (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

In recent years, ‘bottom of the pyramid’ (BoP) initiatives – from Grameen Phone Ladies and Solar Sister, to Women First and Living Goods – have captured increasing attention, not only in corporate boardrooms where the desire for untapped revenue streams looms large, but also in the arenas of development policy and practice, where entrepreneurship is celebrated as a way to repurpose ‘informal’ and/or ‘subsistence’ workers through new forms of private sector engagement. Based on fieldwork with BoP schemes in Bangladesh and South Africa, and cases drawn from other regions, this paper explores how development is outsourced through the figure of the BoP entrepreneur, the ‘poor’ woman who travels door‐to‐door delivering a range of branded manufactured goods across the ‘retail black spots’ of developing countries. These women are actively converted into entrepreneurial subjects through a set of ideological and material practices that aim to produce and hone the requisite traits of industry, market discipline and entrepreneurial distinction to succeed in global business; subject positions that can bring tangible rewards to those who successfully assume them. However, the process of outsourcing development to a reservoir of ‘informal labour’ unsettles BoP claims of ‘inclusive capitalism’, as an ethos of meritocracy and individual responsibility not only deflects the responsibility for development onto the poor themselves, but remakes their subjectivities in service to global brands.     

Physical Geography and the Geographic Thought Course

The positioning of residential fieldwork early in students' higher education is an established way of attempting to build and engage them in a community of learning. In the study reported here, the benefits of such early residential fieldwork were investigated using Krausse and Coates's seven scales of engagement. These scales consider a number of key indicators – specifically transition, academic, beyond-class, peer, staff–student, online and intellectual engagement. Data on these scales were collected via questionnaires completed by groups of students who did and did not attend such a residential fieldwork event, both before and after the event. A Wilcoxon test of these data showed significant increases in peer and student–staff engagement in the post-fieldwork group only. A Kruskal–Wallis analysis provides evidence that students who had been on residential fieldwork became more involved in a community of learning with both their peers and virtual communities than those who had not. These results support the hypothesis that early residential fieldwork is an effective way of engaging students new to higher education in a community of learning.     

Opportunities across boundaries: lessons from a collaboratively delivered cross-institution Master's programme

Advances in technology have created opportunities for collaborative multi-institution programme delivery which are increasingly attractive within a constrained financial environment. This paper details the development of a cross-institution collaboratively delivered masters and postgraduate diploma programme in Geographical Information Science in New Zealand. We explore the benefits of such an approach as well as the lessons learnt from its implementation. The recommendations presented will be of interest to teaching faculty considering specialized collaborative programmes as well as more senior staff who are keen to combine institutional resources to meet new and emerging demands for skills.     

Tracing the Roots of Municipal Archaeology in St Augustine,Florida: The Story of How ‘The Oldest City’ Connected Archaeology,Local Government,and the Public

Abstract

This article explores the history of public archaeology in St Augustine, Florida, and identi?es lessons that may be useful for archaeologists looking to develop a stronger relationship with the public. The City of St Augustine has developed an archaeology ordinance, it keeps an archaeologist on staff, and it boasts a grassroots non-pro?t organization dedicated to supporting archaeology in the city. This framework is the result of a conversation that has been taking place within the community since the 1930s. As public archaeologists seek new ways of establishing long-term relationships with community groups, this exceptional programme, which only exists because of community support, provides insights into how to build those relationships on a solid foundation.     

Bridging the cultures: architecture,models and computers in 1960s Cambridge

ABSTRACT

In the 1960s a unique research centre was founded in the Department of Architecture at the University of Cambridge. Before that date research in architecture was fragmentary and consisted largely of individual studies of topics in architectural history. Under the direction of Sir Leslie Martin, who had been appointed Professor of Architecture in 1956, a group of young architecture graduates embarked on a programme of research in the newly established centre for Land Use and Built Form Studies. Informed by the interest in the idea of the ‘model’ that was prevalent across the disciplines in Cambridge at this time and by using the power of the University Mathematical Laboratory’s ‘Titan’ mainframe computer, the group developed conceptual and mathematical models that operated across the range of architectural scales from building to city. This paper describes that work and sets it in the context of Leslie Martin’s role in reshaping architectural education in Britain.     

Malagasy Judaism: The ‘who is a Jew?’ conundrum comes to Madagascar

With the virtual disappearance of the centuries‐old Jewish community in Ethiopia through wholescale emigration to Israel, African Jewry is in the process of reconstituting itself into new Jewish movements (NJMs). One of these NJMs is emerging in Madagascar. However, the number of Malagasy adherents to normative (i.e. rabbinic) Judaism is eclipsed by those within the larger society who affirm genealogical descent from ancient Israel – and therefore the mantle of ‘Jew’. They do so while practising Christianity. Thus, the longstanding, sensitive question ‘who is a Jew?’ has migrated from Israel, America and Europe to Africa and Madagascar. This article introduces an array of Malagasy ‘Judaizing’ communities – believers in an Israelite Lost Tribe origin, descendants of a Jewish convert to Islam, Leviticus‐like ‘Aaronites’ – before focusing on Malagasies practising normative Judaism. The new Jews of Madagascar extend the cultural and geographic scope of new religious movements literature to greater Africa and, by extension, to societies in the developing world.     

Belonging to the nation: Negotiating narratives of national identity in Aotearoa New Zealand

One of the most important yet complex contemporary political projects of belonging relate to rapidly diversifying societies. While prior research has tended to focus on how young people work to fit into the nation, this study sought to examine the processes by which ethnic minority young people (re)produced, reimagined and challenged narratives of national belonging. Underpinned by feminist theoretical understandings of citizenship and everyday nation, the study examined how young people (n = 180) attending four superdiverse high schools in Aotearoa New Zealand deliberated and negotiated the parameters of who belonged to the nation. The use of a qualitative participatory strategy – self-directed peer focus groups – opened up opportunities for young people to debate and contest complex ideas about belonging and national identity. Ethnic minority participants expressed widespread dissatisfaction with traditional narrow, monocultural narratives of national identity and drew on illustrations from their own everyday encounters with diverse others to offer more inclusive alternatives. Many employed affective notions of national belonging that centred on ‘feeling’ like, or choosing to be a ‘Kiwi’, rather than being chosen. Their deliberations and dialogue demonstrated agentic ways in which ethnic minority young people were ‘rewriting’ the narratives of national belonging to ensure that they and their peers were located as legitimate citizens of the nation, and in doing so, revealed the formation of their citizenship subjectivities.     

Heteroglossic heritage and the first-place of the Kalahari

Abstract

Using Bakhtin’s concept of ‘heteroglossia,’ this article examines the layering and intersections of multiple claims to heritage places that form dialogics about heritage truths. Social groups derive their collective-self, in part, through association with a place, or places, to which they attribute their origin, described here as a ‘first-place.’ Identity maintenance can occur through the praxis of heritage tourism in which group members exhibit emotional performances during their visits to a first-place. Through the extended example of the Tsodilo Hills in Botswana and the various social groups – local ethnic communities, national citizens, and segments of the global community – who each form a collective-self using Tsodilo as a first-place, this article addresses the roles of science (archaeology) and tourism, and their interplay, in enabling several languages or dialects of belonging to coexist without dissonance. The argument is that heteroglossic heritage is possible because visitors’ affect-mediated encounters with heritage places facilitate the reaffirmation of their shared group identity. While all heritage discourse is heteroglossic, the article focuses on claims to a first-place set within a postcolonial context of nation building and modernising that involves the politicisation and re-spatialization of heritage places through tourism development.     

Contested mobilities: gendered migration pressures among Cambodian youth

This paper explores how gender norms and expectations shape the migration decision-making processes of Cambodian young people, in a community characterized by high levels of migration to Thailand. Based on qualitative fieldwork with migrant and nonmigrant youth, I examine how young people make sense of migration and its local alternatives, and highlight the various gendered pressures that young people, and particularly men, experience for migration. Given the lack of local life-making alternatives that neatly conform to hegemonic masculine ideals, young men experience strong pressures for migration and encounter negative social judgments where they seek to stay put. In contrast, young women experience less forceful migration pressures, perceive meaningful alternative life-making projects in the village, and feel more free to actively resist migration. More generally, my findings highlight the importance of interrogating gendered processes of migration not only in terms of how they affect women and those who choose to migrate but also with consideration to how they affect men, and those who choose – or would prefer – to stay home.     

‘The largest volunteer life saving corps in the world’: centering child caregiving in histories of U.S. human security through the Little Mothers’ League

Abstract

In this article, I explore the relationship between youth, security, and caregiving through a study of the U.S. Little Mothers’ Leagues, an initiative which began in New York City in 1910 with the aim of reducing infant mortality by training young girls to properly care for their infant siblings. Critical approaches to caregiving view security and insecurity as relational, drawing attention to contemporary power arrangements in the global caregiving industry and the contemporary crisis of care. However, in treating children as perpetual care recipients, it fails to provide a robust framework for understanding youth and children in historical and contemporary concerns related to human security. The history of the Little Mothers, largely children of European ‘non-native white’ immigrant families, illustrates the importance of children in securing population-wide well-being and the nation’s status in the global competition to reduce infant mortality. When set in contrast to the eugenics-inspired Mothercraft movement, the case reveals how children and youth become enlisted into projects of national human security, and how their ambiguity as caregivers – too young according to modern childhood, yet effective lifesavers – intersects with race and gender to further obscure their status as caregiving agents     

Declining Youth In‐migration in Rural Western Australia: the Role of Perceptions of Rural Employment and Lifestyle Opportunities

Over the last two decades there has been a steady decline in youth migration to Australian rural communities. Generally, inland agricultural communities are the most seriously impacted by this trend. Coupled with high rates of youth out‐migration, many rural communities face difficulties in attracting young people to fill skilled job vacancies and apprentice positions. Declining youth in‐migration also has social consequences, effectively reducing the capacity of rural communities to replenish their skill base and social networks. This research identifies how urban‐based youth perceive rural lifestyles and employment opportunities and how this is linked to their willingness to move to rural areas. The study reveals that young people attach undesirable aesthetic values to the physical environment of inland rural communities and perceive them as socially isolating and as having minimal opportunities for career advancement. However, the perceptions of those who live, or had lived, in rural areas are far more positive than those who have had little experience in rural communities. Accordingly, those who had previously lived in inland regions were far more likely to move to rural areas than those who had limited lived experience of rural communities. Overall, the research found that perceptions of lifestyle and employment opportunities were important influences on young people's willingness to move to rural communities.     

Cultural Heritage and Communities Coexisting: Public Archaeology in Cambodia, 1999–2009

Abstract

This paper outlines the background, planning and execution of a programme of public education around the archaeological site of Banteay Kdei in Cambodia. This was aimed at interesting and involving local communities in the research carried out at the site, and providing opportunities for further engagement. The programme was conducted within the established Japanese model of gensetsu, organized educational visits to working archaeological sites. The paper discusses the practicalities of establishing gensetsu at Banteay Kdei, including bureaucratic and practical obstacles, and the rewards of working with local schools.