Relational Economies,Social Embeddedness and Valuing Labour in Agrarian Change: An Example from the Developing World

A relatively neglected area of research on agrarian and economic change is the role of indigenous concepts of labour value in the transition from subsistence to market production. In West New Britain Province, Papua New Guinea, the presence of a migrant population on an oil palm land settlement scheme (LSS) in close proximity to village‐based oil palm growers, provided an opportunity to examine changing notions of labour value through the lens of smallholder productivity. Voluntary settlers on the LSS are experiencing population pressure and are highly dependent on oil palm for their livelihoods. In contrast, customary landowners in village settings produce oil palm in a situation of relative land abundance. By examining differences in how these two groups practise and value commodity production, the paper makes four key points. First, concepts of labour value are not static and involve struggles over how labour value is defined. Second, the transition to market‐based notions of labour value can undermine labour's social value with a consequent weakening of social relationships within and between families. Third, Theories of Value developed in western contexts and used to frame development policies and projects in the developing world are often inappropriate and even harmful to the welfare of communities that have different registers of value. Fourth, in response to Point 3, and following Rigg (2007), there is a need for ‘theorising upwards’ using empirical data from the developing world to inform theory rather than applying to the developing world models of sociality and economy developed in western contexts.     

Highlighting the Need and Potential for Use of Interdisciplinary Science in Adaptive Environmental Management: The Case of Endangered Upland Swamps in the Blue Mountains,NSW, Australia

The Blue Mountains region of New South Wales, including the World Heritage listed Blue Mountains National Park, is arguably one of Australia's most highly valued and iconic wilderness areas. Common to this region are upland swamps (formally ‘temperate highland peat swamps on sandstone’), which play a vital hydrological role at the headwaters of the river catchments, as well as providing the habitat for an array of flora and fauna species. This paper involves an interdisciplinary examination into the need and potential for adaptive management in the Blue Mountains. It uses geomorphic (physical) knowledge of swamp condition and social data about the volunteers who rehabilitate them. Research involved using the River Styles river condition framework across 47 swamps and questionnaires and interviews with local rehabilitation volunteers. It is proposed that there is a need and a potential to combine geomorphic understanding with further engagement of community volunteers in order to enable an interdisciplinary approach to adaptive management. Such an approach could result in the effective environmental management of upland swamps in the Blue Mountains.     

The influence of betterment discourses on Canadian Aboriginal peoples in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries

Based on government archival sources, fieldwork and the historical perspectives, experiences and oral histories of Aboriginal peoples, this paper argues that late nineteenth and early twentieth century Indian policy, and more specifically the File Hills farm colony, was deeply influenced by betterment discourses. The presumption of this discourse was that Aboriginal peoples, who clearly were not vanishing as promised, could be transformed into something approaching white settlers by reshaping, controlling, and managing their environments, both private and public, and by altering their genetics and morals. While the betterment discourse and the File Hills colony have each been the focus of research, no one to our knowledge has focused on the importance of betterment thought in the establishment and application of Indian policy and its significance for the File Hills colony.     

“The Old Vexed Question:” Divergent Attitudes and Practices in the Sacred Music of Early Ballarat

When gold was discovered at Ballarat in 1851, the peaceful pastoral community was transformed into a rough mining camp. People from all parts of the world came in search of wealth, bringing with them a diversity of cultural and spiritual affiliations. As the musical life of the various denominational groups developed according to specific doctrinal principles and local influences, strong opinions were expressed in the community regarding the place of music in worship. This article looks at the developments in sacred music during the two decades that saw Ballarat transformed into a major city. The strong differences in discourse and practice that were evident between and within particular religious groups form a background for reflecting upon contemporary perceptions of the function of music in worship.     

HISTOIRE DE LA DÉGLACIATION ET DES ANCIENS LACS DES BASSINS DES RIVIÉRES COATICOOK ET MOE,SUD DU QUÉBEC ET NORD DU VERMONT

Vers 11 200 ans aa , I'inlandsis se retire dans le sens du drainage des rivières Coaticook et Moe, provoquant un endiguement des eaux de fusion dans ces deux vallées. Le premier lac d'importance se crée à 420 m d'altitude et l'écoulement des eaux se fait vers le bassin de la rivière Connecticut. Cette étape de la déglaciation est marquée dans le paysage par la présence de la Moraine de Dixville. Des niveaux lacustres subséquents, s'étageaient entre 410 et 225 m d'altitude. Ces lacs se draineront vers l'ouest, jusqu'à être intégrés au lac proglaciaire Memphrémagog vers 235 m d'altitude. Suite au retrait des lacs proglaciaires, des lacs de barrage morainique s'installent dans certains segments de vallée, dont un en amont de la ville de Coaticook à 290 m d'altitude et un autre en amont de la ville de Waterville æ 220 m d'altitude. Dans cette étude, on établit aussi les corrélations avec les phases de déglaciation reconnues dans la région voisine, celle du lac Memphrémagog, et on précise le mode de déglacement de la région, en discutant des différents schémas régionaux proposés précédemment.     

Speakers at War in the Late 14th and 15th Centuries

The significance of war in the development of the medieval English parliament is well known. The origins of the speakership are located in the context of the Hundred Years War, which began in 1337 and in which the English were still embroiled at the time of the Good Parliament of 1376. It was at this parliament that the Commons first chose a spokesperson, Sir Peter de la Mare, knight of the shire for Herefordshire. This article considers the military careers of de la Mare and his successors to the end of the Hundred Years War in 1453. Did the war have an impact on the choice of Speaker? Was a military man chosen for parliaments where military matters were to be discussed? We know the identity of the Speaker in 53 of the 64 parliaments between 1376 and 1453. Several served more than once, so that we are left with a group of 33 individuals to analyse. An overall trend is discernable. Up to 1407 all known Speakers were belted knights, and most had extensive military experience before they took up office. Only five of the 19 parliaments between 1422 and 1453 had Speakers of knightly rank: otherwise, Speakers with legal and administrative, rather than military, experience were chosen. In the years from 1407 to 1422 the speakership was occupied by a mixture of soldiers and administrators many of whom were closely connected to the royal duchy of Lancaster and to revival of English aggression towards France from 1415 onwards.     

Cultivating ignorance of Aboriginal realities

The principal problem in Aboriginal education in Canada is the education of Canadians. This article exposes Canada's long history of ignorance of Aboriginal Peoples and suggests that while education may not be the source of ignorance, it is now perpetuating it. Using the Ontario secondary school curriculum as an example, this article looks at mainstream Canadian and World Studies, of which geography is an integral part, and Native Studies courses, offered in Ontario since 1999, but available for study to few young Ontarians. Curricular reforms during recent decades have removed the worst expressions of racism, but have not addressed fundamental colonial attitudes in the mainstream curriculum. As a citizenry we are complacent about a deep‐seated ignorance of the country's past and present, affecting both Aboriginal and non‐Aboriginal Canadians. Lack of interest in traditional and modern Aboriginal cultures doom immigrants and established settlers to a dysfunctional relationship with the growing and increasingly internationally recognized indigenous population. As university educators and teachers of teachers, geographers must assume responsibility for promoting truthful and inclusive perceptions of Aboriginal Peoples in Canada and, in recognizing the subtle strategies of cultivating ignorance, examine how geography as it is currently taught in schools might exclude Aboriginal People and understanding.