Having an impact? Academics,the music industries and the problem of knowledge

This article reflects upon recent interest in knowledge transfer from higher education to the creative industries, using the UK music industries as a case study. It suggests that traditional academic values of impartiality and concern with research methodology can come in to conflict with instrumentalist agendas that see research as valuable only insofar as it fits with pre‐existing worldviews and policy ends. In this setting, knowledge resistance is often more significant than knowledge transfer and may be expected to frustrate any attempts to have an ‘impact’.     

The Fluted Point tradition and the Arctic Small Tool tradition: What’s the connection?

This paper presents a comparative study of two colonizing populations in the Americas: the Fluted Point tradition (FPt) and the early Arctic Small Tool tradition (ASTt) with the aim of understanding the role of lithic technologies in the colonization process. The FPt and ASTt are seen as residentially mobile groups with comparatively little reliance on food storage and minimal transportation aids. At the same time they also produced very similar flaked stone technologies that differed greatly from all later groups, being characterized by standardized core reduction, excellence in manufacture, production of a wide range of often hafted tools, use of the highest quality toolstones and a reliance on flaked stone, as opposed to ground stone, tools. The main advantage of these technologies is that they are not only flexible but can be rapidly produced. It is suggested that the key variable accounting for these choices is the lack of efficient transportation aids. In colonizing situations, the limited transport capabilities force populations to: (a) rely more on less predictable search and encounter methods of resource procurement and in turn, residential mobility to position people with regard to resources and (b) place a high premium on efficient time allocation to meet the excessive demands needed to maintain social contacts and mating networks amongst very low density populations.     

New countryside,old peasants? Politics,tradition and modernity in rural France

Since the publication of the volume Rural Studies in Britain and France (1990) by P. Lowe and M. Bodiguel, ‘la ruralitéfrançaise’ has become the object of intense scrutiny and has emerged as a political field where questions of national and collective identity, traditions, history, landscapes, the past and future of French society have all been debated. In the introduction to that volume, the editors declared: ‘The countryside and rural society, their past, present and future, are major preoccupations in Britain and in France. The urbanisation of the two nations has in no way diminished this interest; if anything, it has sharpened it. With the bulk of economic and social activity concentrated in towns and cities, the countryside has come to embody largely a cultural interest in both countries’, something that has been borne out by recent events. This special issue devoted to ‘Politics, tradition and modernity in rural France’ is the first issue of Modern & Contemporary France to be dedicated to a discussion of topics surrounding la question agricole. The recent publication of a short dossier on French agriculture in the journal French Politics, Society and Culture pointed the way to a number of the debates examined in the following articles about the past and the future of rural France, especially in the context of a more globalised and Europeanised economy.     

Wind Words and Fury: Canada and the Geneva Protocol, 1925–26

Abstract

Negotiation over the Geneva Protocol and its acceptance or rejection is placed in the context of Canadian domestic policy and its relationships both to the League of Nations, of which the Canadian government remained a strong support in principle, and the demands and expectations of its place within the British empire.     

Keeping it real? Subcultural graffiti,street art,heritage and authenticity

This article considers the implications of framing subcultural graffiti and street art as heritage. Attention is paid to subcultural graffiti’s relationship to street art and the incompatibility of its traditions of illegality, illegibility, anti-commercialism and transience with the formalised structures of heritage frameworks. It is argued that the continued integration of street art and subcultural graffiti into formal heritage frameworks will undermine their authenticity and mean that traditional definitions of heritage, vandalism and the historic environment will all need to be revisited. The article contributes to the current re-theorisation of heritage’s relationship with erasure by proposing that subcultural graffiti should be perceived as an example of ‘alternative heritage’ whose authenticity might only be assured by avoiding the application of official heritage frameworks and tolerating loss in the historic environment.     

Why get involved? Finding reasons for municipal interventions in the Canadian music industry

This article investigates the role of Canadian municipal governments in relation to the development of music industry policy. It examines two attempts by Canadian cities (Calgary and Toronto) to develop municipally based music policies. Both cases are examined in context of the policies of other levels of government in Canada, where municipalities have not generally played a significant role in addressing the music industry. Historically, music industry policy has been a concern of federal government policies. The article addresses how this creates a particular conception of the industry and the extent to which municipal policies need to challenge this in order to be effective. Further, the article examines some of the other factors that constrain and shape the ability of Canadian municipalities to intervene in this field.     

Lying and deception in the Biblical and post‐Biblical Judaic tradition

Abstract

A great variety of cuneiform texts have been found within the precincts of the high priest's building complex in ancient Ugarit. Some of the texts are letters, others are lexical texts and others again are ritual texts. The great epics of aqht and krt are best described as literary texts. Some of the texts, however, do not unambiguously belong to one group only: Some scholars would construe the Baal‐cycle as a ritual text or at least a text somehow connected with the cult performed in the temples; others would describe the Baal‐cycle as pure literature. Similarly the enigmatic text about Shachar and Shalim (abbreviated SS) apparently contains cultic and literary elements. Is this text then a cult‐text or a piece of literature? The aim of the article is to investigate if from the archaeological evidence we can add an argument to the on‐going debate about the Sitz im Leben of the Ugaritic Baal‐cycle: Were the clay tablets in the high priest's building distributed according to their content? The answer seems to be yes. The Baal‐cycle was in fact stored with other literary texts in the high priest's building whereas SS has been kept in the room of the ritual texts. This fact might give us a hint as to how to interpret these two texts.     

“Oh,what matter,when for Erin dear we fall?”: music and Irish nationalism, 1848–1913

Between the failed uprising of the Irish Confederacy in 1848 and the formation of the Irish Volunteers in 1913, music was a constant presence in the political life of Ireland. Physical force and constitutional nationalists alike found ample use for music, commemorating the martyrs of nationalism, intimidating opponents and expressing shared ideologies. Nationalist music was a regular feature at political rallies, at funerals and during elections, allowing parliamentary nationalists such as Charles Stewart Parnell to associate their cause with more radical ideals. This article employs a combination of historical and ethnomusicological methods in an analysis of songbooks, memoirs, oral histories and contemporary documents to reconstruct the nature and function of musical culture in nationalist politics between 1848 and 1913.     

Discourses of nation among migrants from Northern Ireland: Irishness,Britishness and the spaces in‐between

Narratives of nation and identity are highly contested in Northern Ireland, with allegiance usually given to an Irish nation or a British nation, or located somewhere along a continuum between the two. The negotiation of one's identity along this continuum can become particularly complex once one migrates outside Northern Ireland. Adopting a sense of belonging to or exclusion from an Irish diasporic community is part of this process of negotiation. This paper explores these negotiations of identity among both Catholic and Protestant migrants from Northern Ireland to England. It utilises an oral history archive of interviews with individuals who migrated in the latter half of the 20th century, and focuses on narratives of nation and identity among these migrants. Drawing on the notion of England as a diaspora space, in order to make sense of these narratives, the intersections between diasporic Irishness and different British identities are untangled in an attempt to draw out the spaces ‘in‐between’ two, often polarised, narratives of nation.     

The Frankish tradition and new perceptions of the monarchy: Louis XV—the new pharamond?

During the last century of the ancien régime in France, perceived notions of history, the rediscovery of the past, and the recourse to tradition were closely linked to each other as well as to political considerations or implications. Notions about the past and interpretations of tradition had relevance and meaning for the political élites, enabling them to explain the origins of the monarchy as well as its nature. The purpose here is to explore these links and to show how, in one particular instance, they came to affect the artistic representation of the monarch himself.     

‘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.     

Revolutions in music and physics, 1900–30

Abstract

The period 1900 to 1930 saw fundamental changes in the basic laws of physics. The discoveries of the special and general theories of relativity and those of quanta and quantum mechanics transformed profoundly physicists' understanding of the nature of space and time, as well as the fundamentals of physics at the atomic level, which have no counterpart in classical physics. Almost coincidentally, major changes took place in the processes of musical composition – that same period seeing the development of atonality, the liberation of rhythm, and twelve-tone music. This essay reviews in non-technical terms the profound changes in the thinking of physicists and compares the intellectual struggles involved with the extraordinary parallel changes in the approaches of composers to musical composition. No causal connection is suggested, but the common theme of the processes of innovation and creativity within very strict sets of rules in both physics and music is emphasised.     

Halford Mackinder's “new” political geography and the geographical tradition

This article re-examines Halford Mackinder's conception of geography in general and his practise as a political geographer in particular by placing his work in the context of the history of geography. The nature and politicisation of early modern (c.1600–1850) geography are depicted, and used as a contextual standard against which to assess Mackinder's claims to have propounded a “new” geography and a “new” form of political geography. Mackinder's conception of geography is found to have been a substantial departure from the early modern one, in terms of its definition of geography, its textual format and its placing of geography in a broader educative structure. By contrast, Mackinder's political geography is shown to effect a far less radical break, for whilst Mackinder's rhetoric suggests that geography will drive his political analysis, it is in fact his pre-existent politics as a tariff-reforming conservative which drove his political geography. To the extent that geography acted as a container for politics, Mackinder was still in the tradition of the early modern period, although he did change the form of that argument.     

The state of the art on state origins?

Claessen, Henri J.M., and Peter Skalnik, eds. The Early State. New Babylon Studies in the Social Sciences No. 32. The Hague: Mouton, 1978. xii + 689 pp. including maps, figures, tables, separate bibliographies, and index. $68.00 cloth.

Claessen, Henri J.M., and Peter Skalnik, eds. The Study of the State. New Babylon Studies in the Social Sciences No. 35. The Hague: Mouton, 1981. xvi + 535 pp. including figures, tables, separate bibliographies, and index. $52.00 cloth.     

Aesthetic cosmopolitan,national and local popular music heritage in Melbourne’s music laneways

There are currently few examples of popular music being officially celebrated as heritage in Australia. Interest in this area is growing, however, and this paper examines how Melbourne, the capital of the state of Victoria, has recently named three laneways after rock artists, namely, AC/DC Lane, Amphlett Lane and Rowland S. Howard Lane. Using interview and observational data collected at the laneways, we demonstrate that these spaces respectively reflect aesthetic cosmopolitan heritage (AC/DC Lane), national heritage (Amphlett Lane), and sub-national heritage (Rowland S. Howard Lane). The number of visitors to these laneways varies greatly across the sites, and reflects the national and international success of the artist commemorated. The laneways’ success as commemorative sites is also related to intersections of globally circulating ideas about what constitutes ‘rock’, what urban spaces should look or feel like, and how heritage is expected to be enacted (especially for tourists). Within this field, there are specifics relating to the Australian music industry that appear to find clear reflection in the sites chosen and their level of success as memorial spaces.     

‘Our lives,our fortunes,and our sacred honors’: The Kansas Civil War and the revolutionary tradition

New England settlers used the history of the American Revolution in their struggle against the proslavery party in Kansas territory. As the settlement of Kansas became increasingly politicized over slavery, New England settlers drew on the history of their Puritan and Patriot ancestors to legitimize their actions. Although the New Englanders were a minority of the Kansas population, they nonetheless claimed a privileged understanding of the meaning of liberty in the United States. The free‐state political movement used these claims as an effective propaganda tool. The New England settlers, and the free‐state movement, claimed to be acting on the principles of the Revolution. At times, free‐staters argued that their struggle surpassed the Revolution in significance. Eventually, later Kansans concluded that the Kansas Civil War had been, not a revolution itself, but the prelude to a national Civil War of revolutionary significance in its spread of human liberty.     

Provinciality and the art world: the Midland Group 1961–1977

This paper takes as its focus the Midland Group Gallery in order to, first, make a case for the consideration of the geographies of art galleries; second, highlight the importance of galleries in the context of cultural geographies of the 1960s and third, discuss the role of provinciality in the operation of art worlds. In doing so, it explicates one set of geographies surrounding the gallery—those of the local, regional and international networks that are connected to produce art works and art space. It reveals how the interactions between places and practices outside of metropolitan and regional hierarchies provide a more nuanced insight into how art worlds operated during the 1960s, a period of growing internationalism of art, and how contested definitions of the provincial played an integral role in this. The paper charts the operations of the Midland Group Gallery and the spaces that it occupied to demonstrate how it was representative of a post-war discourse of provincialism and a corresponding re-evaluation of regional cultural activity.     

Working for Inclusion? Conditional Cash Transfers,Rural Women,and the Reproduction of Inequality

Throughout the global South, conditional cash transfer programmes (CCTs) are used to promote socially inclusive development. CCTs are widely evaluated for their capacity to build children's human capital. In contrast, this paper aims to hold “social inclusion” to account by elucidating the impacts of Peru's CCT “Juntos” on the poor, rural mothers who are expected to meet programme conditions. Grounded in extensive ethnographic research in households, clinics, schools, and village halls, the paper interrogates the work of social inclusion in spaces where uneven development manifests itself in privation. Considered in light of critical feminist theories of performativity and social reproduction, the findings shed light on a far less optimistic reality for the work of social inclusion. This paper contributes a rich empirical account to critical literature on cash transfers and the discourses that drive them, and suggests that the circumstances under which women are required to fulfil programme conditions challenge the substance of contemporary “inclusive” development.