Intergroup Dialogue as a Just Dialogue: Challenging and Preventing Normalization in Campus Dialogues

The tensions from the Israeli occupation of Palestine reach around the globe and heated debates over the struggles of these two peoples are evident on U.S. college campuses. The power imbalance represented in the relationship between Palestinians and Israelis is replicated on college campuses. BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) is a response to this inequality, is a movement to end the occupation, and has raised the issue of normalization. Teaching about this conflict presents particular challenges for faculty who negotiate this highly contested issue in classrooms or campus communities, and intergroup dialogue is an important pedagogy that can be used. It is critical to address normalization in intergroup dialogue. We discuss examples and themes of normalization in intergroup dialogue, and present pedagogical and other strategies to prevent and address normalization in intergroup dialogue and in other similar intergroup contact approaches with Arab or Palestinian and Jewish or Israeli participants.     

A bone grease processing station at the Mitchell Prehistoric Indian Village: Archaeological evidence for the exploitation of bone fats

Recent excavations at the Mitchell Prehistoric Indian Village, an Initial Middle Missouri site in Mitchell, South Dakota have revealed a large, clay-lined feature filled with fractured and fragmented bison bones. Fracture and fragmentation analysis, along with taphonomic evidence, suggests that the bones preserved within the feature represent evidence of prehistoric bone marrow and bone grease exploitation. Further, the character of the feature suggests that it served as a bone grease processing station. Bone fat exploitation is an activity that is frequently cited as a causal explanation for the nature of many fractured and fragmented bone assemblages in prehistory, and zooarchaeological assemblages have frequently been studied as evidence of bone fat exploitation. The Mitchell example provides some of the first direct, in-situ archaeological evidence of a bone grease processing feature, and this interpretation is sustained by substantial analytical evidence suggesting bone fat exploitation. This new evidence provides a clearer concept of the nature of bone fat exploitation in prehistory as well as an indication of the scale and degree to which bone grease exploitation occurred at the Mitchell site. Finally, this research demonstrates the importance of careful zooarchaeological and taphonomic analysis for the interpretation of both artifactual remains as well as archaeological features.     

Organic Public Geographies: “Making the Connection”

Abstract: A new field of “public geographies” is taking shape ( Fuller 2008 ) in geography's mainstream journals. While much is “traditional”, with intellectuals disseminating academic research via non‐ academic outlets ( Castree 2006 ; Mitchell 2008 ; Oslender 2007 ), less visible is the “organic” work and its “more involved intellectualizing, pursued through working with area‐based or single‐interest groups, in which the process itself may be the outcome” ( Ward 2006 :499; see Fuller and Askins 2010 ). A number of well‐known projects exist where research has been “done not merely for the people we write about but with them” ( Gregory 2005 :188; see also Cahill 2004 ; Johnston and Pratt 2010 ). However, collaborative writing of academic publications which gives research participants authorial credit is unusual ( mrs kinpainsby 2008 ; although see Sangtin Writers and Nagar 2006 ). This paper is about an organic public geographies project called “Making the connection”. It is written by a diverse collection of (non‐)academic participants who contributed to the project before it had started, as it was undertaken, and/or after it had finished. This is a “messy”, process‐oriented text ( Cook et al. 2007 ) working through the threads (partially) connecting the activities of its main collaborators, including a referee who helped get the paper to publication.     

"Confinement of the higher orders": the social role of private lunatic asylums in Ireland, C. 1820-60

The period 1820-60 marked an era of transition and diversity in Ireland that rapidly transformed the face of Irish society. Inextricably linked with these processes was the expansion of Ireland's private asylum system. This system diverged from its British counterpart both in the socioeconomic cohort it served and in the role it played within the mental health-care system as a whole. The implementation of the 1842 Private Asylums (Ireland) Act, the first legislative measure geared exclusively toward the system, highlighted the growing importance of private care in Ireland as well as providing for the licensing and regulation of these institutions for the first time. To date, historians of Irish medicine have focused almost exclusively on the pauper insane. This article aims to shift this emphasis toward other categories of the Irish insane through exploration of the Irish private asylum system, its growth throughout the period, and the social profile of private patients. I shall also interrogate the trade in lunacy model through exploration of financial considerations, discharge and recovery rates, and conditions of care and argue that while Irish private institutions were a lucrative business venture, the quality of care upheld was apparently high. Finally, I shall argue that Irish private asylums catered primarily for the upper classes and briefly explore alternative provisional measures for other non-pauper sectors of society.     

The No. 1 Ladies' Poultry Farm: A feminist political ecology of urban agriculture in Botswana

The research draws on a feminist political ecology perspective to demonstrate that agrarian restructuring and rural–urban transformation in Botswana offers women opportunities to renegotiate their marginalised positionality within the commercial urban agricultural sector in Greater Gaborone. Men and women participate in equal numbers, and both perceive of this sector as offering them new and accessible avenues for economic and social advancement. Although there is continuity of women's social and economic disadvantage relative to men from rural to urban contexts, women are actively making claims on land and capitalising on their traditional roles and responsibilities associated with poultry production. This negotiation of continuity and change in gendered positionality reflects and indeed suggests positive changes for women in urban Botswana, pointing specifically to the transformatory potential of urban agriculture despite existing constraints at the sectoral level. The research highlights the ways in which women are (re)defining their constraints, and seeking out alternative opportunities for empowerment and action. To this end gender remains an integral part of and key element to understanding agrarian restructuring and rural–urban transformation in Botswana.

El No. 1 Granja de Aves de Damas: Una Ecología Política Feminista de Agricultura Urbana en Botswana.

Esta investigación usa una perspectiva de ecología política feminista para demostrar que la reestructuración agraria y la transformación rural–urbano en Botswana ofrecen mujeres oportunidades para renegociar sus posiciones marginales adentro del sector de agricultura comercial en la ciudad de Gabarone. Los hombres y las mujeres participan en cifras iguales, y los dos perciben que este sector les ofrece avenidas nuevas y accesibles para avanzar económicamente y socialmente. Aunque hay continuidad de la desventaja económica y social de mujeres relativa a hombres desde el contexto rural a urbano, mujeres están activamente haciendo derechos de terreno y capitalizando en sus roles y responsabilidades tradicionales asociados con la producción de aves. Esta negociación de continuidad y cambio en sus posiciones de género reflejan y por supuesto sugieren cambios positivos para las mujeres en Botswana, específicamente indicando la potencial de transformación de agricultura urbana a pesar de las limitaciones existente en el sector. Esta investigación subraya las maneras en que mujeres están redefiniendo sus limitaciones y buscan oportunidades alternativos para apoderadamente y acción. En esta vía, género se queda un elemento significado y un parte integral de entender la reestructuración agraria y la transformación rural–urbano en Botswana.