Brewarrina: An Australian Story

This short paper discusses Barry Morris's account of the ‘riot’ at Brewarrina, New South Wales, in 1987 and its legal aftermath, which continued for some years. An iconic event in Australian race relations, much can be learnt from its various dimensions, a fact that Morris amply demonstrates. Notwithstanding, this discussion questions a related narrative in his book, which interprets capitalism's impact on self‐determination simply in terms of neoliberalism's ‘political effects’. The paper seeks to broaden the discussion of the relations between the state and self‐determination, and between capitalism and race.     

Intersections, Networks and the Genesis of Social Complexity on the Nyali Coast of East Africa

This paper examines intersections between different societies occupying the Nyali Coast region of southern Kenya from the late first millennium ad to the mid-second millennium ad. We explore interaction between societies at three scales: between hunter-gatherers and farmers in the coastal hinterland, between the hinterland and the coast and between the coast and the wider Indian Ocean. The patterns indicate that local intersections in the hinterland between hunter-gatherers and farmers went hand-in-hand with both the emergence of larger settlements in the hinterland and on the coast, and participation in a pan-Indian Ocean trade network.     

Answers and echoes: the Libellus responsionum and the hagiography of north-western European mission

This article examines three aspects of Augustine of Canterbury's Libellus responsionum. Through recent scholarship it provides a summary of the Libellus 's textual context. It also clarifies the very contentious issue of just how familiar the Libellus was to missionaries, not only those preaching in England but also on the Continent, and specifically Augustine of Canterbury and Boniface. Finally, in light of the pastoral and textual circumstances, it explores the largely neglected question of just how the Libellus may (or may not) have illuminated the various literary features and strata of Augustinian and Bonifatian biography.     

The Changing Geographies of Power and Control in Rural Service Provision: Recent Restructuring Within the Australian Tractor Dealership System

Over the past few years a considerable body of research has illuminated the changing geographies of service provision in rural Australia. Mostly, this work has emphasised the quantitative aspects of restructuring, by way of documenting numerical reductions in service delivery points and their implications for local employment and service access. In this paper, an examination of recent restructuring within the dealership system for high‐horsepower tractors underlines that these quantitative changes also intersect with qualitative shifts to the character of service delivery. Interviews with 31 participants in the tractor dealership system of Central‐West New South Wales reveal the recent evolution of a producer‐driven supply chain in which two dominant, multinational, tractor‐machinery companies have sought to exercise tighter control over customer relations through the restructuring of franchise agreements with dealers. There has been a resultant demise of the independent dealership, and its replacement by a system of standardised, company‐affiliated outlets operated by franchise holders. Hence, the spatial restructuring of this industry represents the surface manifestations of corporate strategies in which large economic entities are re‐organising their interests in light of globalised theatres of competition and profit. In this sense, the tractor‐dealership system is emblematic of changes to power and control in rural service provision as the franchise models propagated by large corporate interests increasingly subsume the small‐business sector activities of Australia's rural towns.     

Common Recollections: Resisting Enclosure “by Agreement” in Seventeenth-Century England

Through the enclosure of upland common wastes, an upwardly mobile yeomanry and lesser gentry sought to shift the emphases of local economies toward agrarian capitalism and strove to establish tighter control over burgeoning rural industries. An examination of the township of Castleton in the Pennine uplands of Derbyshire, where the 1691 enclosure proceedings and survey still survive, demonstrates that the typical historical view of such (non-Parliamentary) enclosure agreements is highly problematic. Confronted with the loss of customary common rights, poorer Castleton tenants were compelled to enclose strips within the open arable fields in order to husband animals. By attempting to preserve routines of daily life, however, they also resisted enclosure—through the conservation of common rights and customary practices and through efforts to maintain continuity in agricultural and lead-extraction activities.     

The Supreme Court as a Policy Arena: The Strategies and Tactics of State Attorneys General

Presently, state governments are more active and more successful in the U.S. Supreme Court than at any time since the New Deal. These rates of activity and success are a function of two coincident forces—the emergence of the Republican Court and the increased capacity of the states to pursue their policy goals aggressively before the High Bench. In this analysis, we seek to offer a better-defined portrait of the states' evolving advocacy in the Supreme Court. Using archival and survey data, we find that, as a group, the states are more capable Supreme Court litigators, that their perceptions of the Republican Court have encouraged them to increase their pursuit of policy goals through litigation, and that they are "procedurally rational"—i.e., their estimates of success enter into their decisions to engage the Court.     

REVIEW ESSAY

Rednecks, Eggheads and Blackfellas: a study of racial power and intimacy in Australia. By Gillian Cowlishaw Sydney: Allen and Unwin. 1999. Pp. xix + 352. Figures, Maps, Photos & Index $35