Conveyor‐Belt Justice: Precarity,Access to Justice,and Uneven Geographies of Legal Aid in UK Asylum Appeals

Ongoing government funding cuts to British legal aid have resulted in the formation of legal deserts and uneven geographies of access to advice and legal representation. Asylum seekers, particularly those subjected to no‐choice dispersal throughout the UK for housing, are enduring the impact of these cuts directly. This paper explores the spatial and legal marginalisation of asylum seekers, drawing upon the findings of a three‐year study of the asylum appeals process. Already precarious, we analyse the manifold spatial marginalisation of dispersed asylum seekers from sources of legal advice and representation. We identify the frames of luck, uncertainty and dislocation as ways to further a spatially cognisant understanding of precarity, alongside identifying strategies employed to counter precarious positionalities.     

“Like Barnabas and Saul”: Malagasy Converts in Britain, 1839–1841

In 1839, six Malagasy Christians arrived in Britain under the auspices of the London Missionary Society. The group had been persecuted in Madagascar for their faith. They were introduced to the British evangelical community as saints and martyrs who were dependent on the missionary society, but their decision to undertake the long journey was shaped by their spiritual beliefs, their desire to develop their education, and their wish to eventually become evangelical missionaries in Madagascar. At public meetings around the country, the Malagasy used a Christian frame of reference to describe their personal stories and their hopes for the future of Christianity in Madagascar. As speaking subjects, not merely objects of spectacle and display, they communicated to British audiences their credibility as fellow Christians, educated individuals, and civilised human beings.     

Jumping Fish: Engendering Contestation and Development on the Waterways of the Aramia River in Papua New Guinea

ABSTRACT Set in the Aramia River basin, this article explores the intimate and interactive relationship between communities in Western Province, Papua New Guinea, and the water that dominates the environment in which they live. Located amongst tidal rivers, creeks and lagoons, Gogodala villages sit high on ‘islands’ of land. In this environment, water is the site of seasonal change and the space of movement. The Aramia River is synonymous with an ancestral figure called Sawiya who travelled in her canoe, naming, creating and populating the water and land of the area. As the ‘mother of all fish’, Sawiya controls the movement and abundance of fish and other aquatic resources. Water is embodied in Sawiya, whose capacities to both nourish and punish are the basis of seasonal variations in fish, and in the colour and clarity of water in the local lagoons and rivers. Set against the backdrop of the Ok Tedi Mine and recent logging operations on the Aramia, the article explores some of the ways in which water and its resources are defined and experienced in this rural community and the impact this may have on the exploitation and development of natural resources in PNG.     

"Days of Heaven on Earth": Presbyterian Communion Seasons in Nineteenth–Century Otago

Communion seasons were a distinctive and important part of nineteenth–century Presbyterian culture. This paper examines such occasions in the Presbyterian–dominated colony of Otago, New Zealand. Communion was a significant social event, and its preparatory fast days were holidays for the whole community. As a spiritual event, the communion season induced an experiential and emotive piety, belying common modern perceptions of nineteenth–century Presbyterianism as an ascetic and intellectualised faith. Over the period from the founding of the colony (1848) to the turn of the century, certain rituals of the communion season altered significantly. Some changes occurred in response to new ideologies such as temperance; others reflected a softening of traditional Calvinist theology in favour of a more inclusive religion, Presbyterians being invited to communion rather than having to prove themselves fit to attend. Such changes were not unique to Otago, and practice in the colony reveals a strong continuity with events in Scotland: the Presbyterian communion season proved a remarkably successful import to colonial Otago.