Outsize/Outside: Bodily bignesses and the emotional experiences of British women shopping for clothes

Whilst there has been substantial research in geography concerned with ‘the body’, little consideration has been given to the ‘sized’ body. This article aims to counter this by considering the concept of ‘bodily bignesses’ as a way of understanding the plurality of female emotional and embodied experience through empirical work concerned with British women's experiences of clothes shopping. This involves breaking big bodies out of those categories that act to define their corporeal form for what they ‘represent’ within medical, moral and political contexts. Emphasis is placed upon destabilising the category of ‘bigness’, through utilising the concept of ‘the monstrous’ that is based upon the idea of understanding morphological difference beyond a simple opposition to the ‘normative body’. This provides a way to consider bodily size as a number of differential emotional experiences. For example, empirical examples focus on what it feels like to shop for ‘big clothes’, how women evaluate the suitability of clothing for their (un)suitable bodies, and acknowledges the feelings of self-acceptance that women experience as they come to terms with their bodily size.

If all categories are themselves unstable and the idea of rigid universalist divisions are untenable, then it is difficult to employ meaningfully, universal categories of good and bad, right and wrong. (Shildrick, 1997 Shildrick, Margrit. 1997. Leaky Bodies and Boundaries: Feminism, postmodernism and (bio)ethics, London: Routledge.  [Google Scholar], p. 104)     

‘Against the tide’: placing visual art in the Highlands and Islands,Scotland

Within a political context where Gaelic arts are recognised as integral to the configuration of a new Scotland, this paper focuses on the art and artistic practice of a community arts centre in North Uist, Outer Hebrides, and the art of internationally acclaimed Scots artist, Will Maclean, who has worked with this centre, with initiatives to commemorate the land struggle on the Isle of Lewis, and with Gaelic arts. Drawing, at the conceptual level, on ‘the idea of place as a political project’ (Gibson-Graham 2003 Gibson-Graham, J.K. 2003. An Ethics of the Local. Rethinking Marxism, 15(1): 53–78.  [Google Scholar]: 35) and a narrative of resistance that suggests a differential rather than oppositional optic (Braun 2002 Braun, B. 2002. The Intemperate Rainforest. Nature, Culture, and Power on Canada's West Coast, Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press.  [Google Scholar]), I examine how art and artistic practice contribute to an aesthetics that works ‘against the tide’ and how, as part of this process, place is re-constituted.     

Policy-making in a ‘Cold Climate’ of Ruling Party Benefit: Party Government and the Regulation of Government Advertising in Australia

When analysing party government behaviour, attempts to detect opportunistic policy making (designed to benefit the incumbent) usually focus on electoral law and changes designed to advantage the ruling party in terms of potential votes. However, as Stein Rokkan (1966 Rokkan, S. 1966. “Norway: Numerical Democracy and Corporate Pluralism”. In Political Oppositions in Western Democracies, Edited by: Dahl, R. A. New Haven: Yale University Press.  [Google Scholar], 105) noted: ‘Votes count, but resources decide’. A laissez faire approach to regulating government advertising has allowed the federal government to spend over A$1 billion on advertising over 10 years despite ongoing accusations of misuse for partisan benefit and attempts by multiple actors to tighten the rules. This article, therefore, uses government advertising regulation as a case study of policy making ‘in a cold climate’ where, instead of seeking change, the ruling party benefits from existing rules and is extremely reluctant to change them. Using a hypothesis proposed by Richard S. Katz (2005) Katz, R. S. 2005. “Why Are There So Many (Or So Few) Electoral Reforms?”. In The Politics of Electoral Systems, Edited by: Gallagher, M. and Mitchell, P. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [Crossref] [Google Scholar], it considers what (if anything) might propel policy reform in such a situation.     

Human security and public health in Southeast Asia: the SARS outbreak

Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is now a global public health threat with many medical, ethical, social, economic, political, and legal implications. (Abdullah et al. 2003 Abdullah ASM 2003 ‘Lessons from the severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak in Hong Kong’ Emerging Infectious Diseases Journal [online] September. Available from: URL: http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol9no9/03–0366.htm [Crossref] [Google Scholar])

No man is an island. (John Donne)

The security of the state is dependent on the security of its individual citizens. If they are not secure, the state is not secure. Traditional, state‐dominant, conceptions of security are ill‐equipped to provide understanding into the array of security concerns that now confront nation‐states. In November 2002, one of these new security concerns, a corona pulmonary virus jumped the species barrier to begin infecting people in southern China. Three months later this virus was unwittingly transmitted from mainland China to Hong Kong. From there it spread rapidly throughout most of Southeast Asia as well as through parts of the Americas and Europe. Now known as the SARS—Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome—virus, it became a major threat to the stability and prosperity of Southeast Asian countries. This article reviews the spread and impact of the SARS virus within Southeast Asia from a human security perspective. It is intended that the utilisation of human security in this instance will not only provide a better understanding of the impact of SARS on regional states but will also advance the conceptualisation of the human security model.     

The difference that place makes to methodology: uncovering the ‘lived space’ of young people's spatial practices

While it has been argued that conventional methodological resources are incapable of effectively representing ‘everyday social practice’ (see Latham 2003 Latham, A. 2003. Research, performance, and doing human geography: Some reflections on the diary-photograph, diary-interview method. Environment and Planning A, 35: 1993–2017. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] [Google Scholar], Environment and Planning A, 35, 1993), this paper posits that a consideration of the ‘where’ of methodology can go some way to taking social practices seriously. Drawing on research into young people's spatial practices, conventional interview techniques were adopted in a range of different sites: a classroom, a school store-cupboard, and in teenage ‘hang outs’. Through discussion of these emplaced techniques, the paper demonstrates the difference the where of method makes to research. It will argue that, if harnessed appropriately, emplaced methodology can enhance social science's capacity to access the range of intelligences that constitute everyday social practice.     

Postcolonial border crossing

Through a postcolonial lens and based on in-depth interviews with British expatriates who moved to Hong Kong in the first decade after its handover, this paper highlights the contested role of borders in the everyday making and remaking of skilled migration. It draws on Paasi's (2003 Paasi, A. (2003). Boundaries in a globalizing world. In K. Anderson, M. Domosh, S. Pile, & N. Thrift (Eds.), Handbook of cultural geography. London: Sage. doi:10.4135/9781848608252.n33[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) definition of boundaries to denote that borders are not merely geographical lines but zones of mixing, blending and reconfiguring historically formed material connections, identities and power relations through which contemporary skilled mobility is constituted. The border crossing of skills in Hong Kong and elsewhere is a historically contingent phenomenon whose meaning derives not only from economic forces and social networking but also the accumulated history of the borders they cross. The notion of ‘postcolonial border crossing’ highlights the dis/continuity in skilled migration and integrates social, cultural and economic spheres into the same framework in interpreting skilled mobility.     

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.     

Australian Indonesia-specialists and debates on West Papua: Implications for Australia-Indonesia relations1

This article explores the modes by which Australian scholars construct knowledge of Indonesia with particular reference to the debates on West Papua in the post-Suharto period. It examines their perceptions, beliefs and attitudes towards human rights issues with a view to analysing the underlying forces, motivations and implications of activism. This article casts doubt on a common, yet often unacknowledged, perception in Indonesia about Australian Indonesia-specialists who are categorised as: intellectuals who always see Indonesian government policies as ‘negative’.2 2. ‘Indonesia specialists’ refer to both scholars who have and who do not have formal Indonesian studies or training who get involved in the study of Indonesia and Indonesian society. Whenever I use ‘Indonesianists’, I refer to scholars who have formal Indonesia studies or training. By Australian scholars, I mean scholars who are Australian by ‘residence’. View all notes I demonstrate that the theorisation of Indonesian society has been diverse in Australia as exemplified by the West Papua debates. Australian scholars’ social positions and mobility, not government policy, shape their beliefs, attitudes and knowledge construction of Indonesia. Thus, considering Australian scholars from a monolithic perspective misses the reality that contemporary intellectual culture in Australia is no longer based on a traditional class.3 3. For an excellent discussion on contemporary intellectual culture, see Eyerman (1994 Eyerman, Ron. 1994. Between Culture and Politics: Intellectuals in Modern Society, Cambridge: Polity.  [Google Scholar]). View all notes I argue there are two major opposing groups in West Papua studies which I label as the ‘affirmative revisionist’ scholars who tend to be more optimistic towards resolution of conflicts in West Papua and the ‘sceptical reformist’ scholars who are dubious about any major changes in West Papua. This latter group believes the people of West Papua should be given the opportunity to remain integrated with Indonesia or to opt for selfdetermination. They tend to use the perceived failure of Indonesia in the protection of human rights in West Papua to attack the Indonesian government and Australian governmental agencies dealing with Indonesia. This article argues that this criticism may adversely impact on future Australia-Indonesia relations.     

Alice's Unrepresentative Council: Cause for Intervention?

The troubles of Alice Springs have been widely discussed in the Australian media since The Weekend Australian published Nicolas Rothwell's (2011) feature article ‘Destroyed in Alice’ in February. Discussion has covered many things: violence, drugs, alcohol, sex, town camps, property crime, Aboriginal people coming in from outlying communities and the idea of another Commonwealth intervention. One topic that has not been mentioned is Alice's highly unrepresentative town council, built on a little-known electoral system used in Northern Territory local government called ‘exhaustive preferential’. This paper explains and critiques this electoral system and suggests that it is causing significant problems for both Alice Springs Town Council and other local governments in the Territory.1 ¹A version of this article was published in April 2011 in the Canberra Times monthly supplement The Public Sector Informant. Their by-line for the article was ‘A town like Alice needs an intervention’. View all notes It notes that the Northern Territory government is currently reviewing the system and is possibly moving slowly towards change. If change is not effected soon, it asks: is this electoral system cause for another Commonwealth intervention?     

Are Methodologies for Children keeping them in their Place?

As participatory methodologies gain popularity and are increasingly adapted to carry out research with ‘children’, I return to the methodological question: is doing research with children different from doing research with adults? (Punch, 2000 Punch, S. 2000. Research with children the same or different from research with adults?. Childhood, 9(3): 321–341. [Web of Science ®] [Google Scholar]). As a participatory researcher, I raise concerns around methods designed for ‘children’ that stamp a ‘how-to-research’ label upon a diverse group of individuals prior to entering the research space. Rather than continue the well-worn debate around the incompetent/competent/powerless child versus the competent all-powerful adult, I attempt a different approach that aims to dissolve this dichotomy. I draw on hybrid theories of identities (Benhabib, 1992 Benhabib, S. 1992. Situating the Self, New York: Routledge.  [Google Scholar]; Butler, 1990 Butler, J. 1990. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, London: Routledge.  [Google Scholar]; Adams, 2006 Adams, M. 2006. Hybridising habitus and reflexivity: towards an understanding of contemporary identity?. Sociology, 40(3): 511–528. [Crossref] [Google Scholar]), that recognise identities as multiple and fluid, and present social identities as unhelpful guides in designing participatory methods, principally the mythical notion of the competent all-powerful adult (Lee, 2001 Lee, N. 2001. Childhood and Society: Growing Up in an Age of Uncertainty, Milton Keynes: OUP.  [Google Scholar]). I present the case that pre-labelling participants contradicts the bottom-up approach of participatory methodologies, particularly when Participation is understood as spatial practice (Kesby, 1999 Kesby, M. 1999. Beyond the Representational Impasse? Retheorising Power, Empowerment and Spatiality, mimeo [Google Scholar]; Cornwall, 2000), and participants are invited into a research space, where identities are performed (Thrift, 2000) and are, therefore, something we ‘do’ not ‘have’ (Butler, 1990 Butler, J. 1990. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, London: Routledge.  [Google Scholar]).     

The Scope and Definitions of Heritage: From Tangible to Intangible

Since the adoption of the Venice Charter in 1964, there have been many conservation guidelines in the form of charters, recommendations and resolutions that have been introduced and adopted by international organisations such as UNESCO and ICOMOS. This article focuses on the scope and definition of heritage as promulgated by the various charters across the globe. The term ‘historic monument’ used in the Venice Charter 1964 was reinterpreted by ICOMOS in 1965 ICOMOS. 21–22 June 1965. Report on the Constitutive Assembly 21–22 June, Warsaw, , Poland [Google Scholar] as ‘monument’ and ‘site’; and by UNESCO in 1968 UNESCO. 1968. Recommendation Concerning the Preservation of Cultural Property Endangered by Public or Private Works. 15th Session of the General Conference. 1968, Paris.  [Google Scholar] as ‘cultural property’ to include both movable and immovable. The different terminology between the UNESCO and ICOMOS was reconciled at the World Heritage Convention 1972. At national and regional levels the scope of heritage was broadened to include gardens, landscape and environment, and later reinterpreted and defined quite differently in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and China. Although the scope of heritage, in general, is now agreed internationally to include ‘tangible’ and ‘intangible’ as well as ‘environments’, the finer terminology of ‘heritage’ has not been streamlined or standardised, and thus no uniformity exists between countries.     

Girls' friendships, ‘distinctive individuality’ and socio‐spatial practices of (dis)identification

This paper investigates girls' friendships (aged 14–15) at Hilltop school in England. Through the use of multi‐locational participant observation this paper identifies the significance of schoolgirl friendship in the production and contestation of femininity and compulsory heterosexuality. This paper focuses on one friendship group known as the ‘alternative’ girls. This paper illustrates how these young women invoke a discourse of ‘distinctive individuality’ (Muggleton, 2000 Muggleton D (2000) Inside Subculture: The Postmodern Meaning of Style Oxford: Berg  [Google Scholar]) in order to produce inclusionary and exclusionary boundaries of friendship. Central to an understanding of these friendships are the complex spatialities of young women's processes of (dis)identification (Skeggs, 1997 Skeggs B (1997) Formations of Class and Gender: Becoming Respectable London: Sage  [Google Scholar]).     

The Penumbral Spaces of Nella Larsen's Passing: Undecidable bodies,mobile identities,and the deconstruction of racial boundaries

Nella Larsen's 1929 novel, Passing, is a psychological drama centering around two fair-skinned women. One, Clare Kendry, passes as the White wife of a financially successful racist; the other, Irene Redfield, is a ‘race woman’ living in upper Manhattan during the era of the Renaissance Harlem. Clare and Irene are undecidables, neither White nor Black, fluid subjects traversing the boundaries of race—passing. Passing is an act of insinuating oneself into forbidden spaces by jettisoning former identities. It is as much a transgression of spatial boundaries as it is of racial boundaries. In the novel Clare passes by merely crossing from Black space into White space, and along the way shedding a Black identity for a White one. This paper examines the mobility of identities across racial geographies and how this movement destabilizes notions of race and of raced spaces.

We encounter the world in our bodies, and through our bodies' most exquisitely sensitive sense, our skins, we take the world into ourselves. We have made and remade a world where nearly every experience is shaded and shaped by the color of those bodies, the tones of those skins. (Jane Lazarre Lazarre, Jane. 1997. Beyond the Whiteness of Whiteness: Memoir of a White Mother of Black Sons, Durham: Duke University Press.  [Google Scholar], Beyond the Whiteness of Whiteness: memoir of a White mother of Black sons, 1997, p. 94)     

Engaging with place: artists,site-specificity and the Hebden Bridge Sculpture Trail

This paper traces the creative processes employed by artists participating in the 2004 Hebden Bridge Sculpture Trail and examines relationships between place, art and site-specificity. The Trail is a popular, temporary annual local arts event that invites international artists, students and community art groups to create and exhibit site-sensitive sculpture within Hardcastle Crags in Yorkshire, England. We consider some of the multiple ways in which artists mediate relationships between ‘site’ and artwork. We connect geographical concepts of place that highlight location, locale and sense of place, with mobile understandings of site as porous and flowing. The paper positions geographical research of art, opening out art and site in a non-urban environment through comparative discussion of concepts of ‘place’ and three ‘paradigms’ in site-specific art (phenomenological, social/institutional and discursive, Kwon 2002 Kwon, M. 2002. One Place After Another: Site-specific Art and Locational Identity, Cambridge MA: MIT Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). Three elements of site-specificity – histories, natures, interactions – are then explored through fourteen artists' creative practices and our documentation of the installation of their artwork in the Trail. We highlight the juxtaposition of ‘sites’ within the Trail, the over-lapping of ‘paradigms’ within individual artworks, and transitory aspects of ‘site’ to suggest that ‘time’ holds great significance in understanding site-specificity, place and art outdoors.     

The Consuming Visions of Late Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-century Anarchists: Actualising Political Violence Transnationally

Pre-First World War anarchists blamed industrial society for denying its working class the share of the good life that was its due. Their critiques of their contemporary ‘regime of consumption’ were more than marginal to their views of a society they saw as upholding distributive injustice with the means of state violence. They conceived of a bourgeois system that had to be consumed and attacked with its own weapons: political violence. Hence the tactics of ‘propaganda by deed’ and ‘direct action’, the power of dynamite and later on syndicalist organisation appeared as appropriate means to overcome state-centred capitalist society and to usher in alternative ‘regimes of consumption’ based on cooperative or communist models allowing the producers to enjoy the fruits of their labour. Two of the most prominent German adherents of such visions, Johann Most and Wilhelm Hasselmann, were prompted to adopt the transnational propaganda of anarchist terrorism by their experience of state repression, exile and a series of terrorist events they associated themselves with. Siegfried Nacht, whose attitudes were heavily influenced by French syndicalism, sought to transfer older traditions of violent class struggle to the realm of economic terrorism. All their attempts at actualising political violence transnationally were marked by a desire to overcome weakness and the gap that separated visions of revolutionary acts and future societies from the starkly contrasting reality of their increasingly isolated and marginal political positions. The intellectual nexus between ‘political economy from below’ and contemporary practices of violence is crucial for understanding anarchist terrorism. Enemy images of parasitic consumers based on dichotomies between justified producer-consumers and criminal exploiter-consumers were part and parcel of its ideological currency.

In countries with revolutionary trade union tactics the boycott is given emphasis and rendered more effective by the boycotting crowd threatening and damaging the goods, stockrooms and factories owned by those being boycotted, by smashing windows, by throwing stink bombs into department stores, which will chase away the clientele, sometimes even by smashing up and setting fire to the stockrooms. (Siegfried Nacht, Die direkte Aktion, 19071 ?[1] Roller Roller, Arnold [Siegfried Nacht]. [1907]. Die direkte Aktion, revolutionäre Gewerkschaftstaktik, New York: Freiheit Publishing Association. without year [Google Scholar] [Siegfried Nacht], Die direkte Aktion, 39–40. My translation. This work is sometimes attributed to 1903, but in various library catalogues I have found no evidence supporting this claim. The two copies I consulted both listed publications from 1906 in the bibliography. View all notes)     

Firefighters in the UK and the US: Risk perception of local and organic foods

Abstract

Recent health scares such as BSE have contributed to the growth of local farmers' markets and consumption of organics sourced globally (Morgan et al., 2006 Morgan, K., Marsden, T. and Murdoch, J. 2006. Worlds of Food: Place, Power and Provenance in the Food Chain, Oxford: Oxford University Press.  [Google Scholar]). Yet a central question about alternative agro-food networks (AAFNs) is whether they supply undemocratic diets chiefly for elites (Goodman, 2004 Goodman, D. 2004. Rural Europe redux? Reflections on alternative agro-food networks and paradigm change. Sociologia Ruralis, 44(1): 3–16. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). This is relevant to government campaigns such as ‘Generation Scotland’ and ‘5 A Day’ in the UK, and ‘Food Pyramids’ in the US, which promote better diets for their entire populations. Firefighting is risky work and because firefighters inhabit middle rungs on the socioeconomic ladder, and food is seen as key to morale and fitness, they are suitable consumers to query on food and risk. This firefighter survey presents evidence that alternative foods are gaining value in the UK and US study areas used here. Though Newcastle, UK, lags behind Seattle, US, on a continuum from conventional to alternative food systems, consumption of alternative foods by Newcastle firefighters is greater than that of workers surveyed in Edinburgh a decade before (Tregear, 1994 Tregear, A., Dent, J. B. and McGregor, M. J. 1994. The demand for organically-grown produce. British Food Journal, 96(4): 21–25. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), implying that northern UK diets could turn greener if availability and prices improve. Reasons why organic preference seems stronger among firefighters in northwestern US, than in northern UK where local preference appears stronger, are discussed, as well as theorisation of consumer response to a variety of risks over time.     

Feeling insecure: a personal account in a psychoanalytic voice

The concept of ontological security has been taken up in human geography primarily through Giddens' (1990 Giddens, A. (1990) The Consequences of Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. [Google Scholar], 1991 Giddens, A. (1991) Modernity and Self-Identity. Cambridge: Polity Press. [Google Scholar]) formulation, but the idea has its origins in the writings of the existential psychoanalyst R.D. Laing. Returning to the psychoanalytic underpinnings of the concept, I use autobiographical vignettes to evoke and explore what it means to feel insecure. Using psychoanalytically informed illustrations of melancholia, ordinary acute anxiety and unconscious splitting, I develop a personal, subjective emotional geography of insecurity, and I caution against confusing certainty with ontological security.