Industrial Location as a Bargain: Iceland and the Aluminium Multinationals 1962–1994

This paper conceptualizes industrial location, specifically in the form of foreign investment, as a bargaining process to provide a framework within which to examine Iceland's deals with aluminium multinationals between 1961 and 1994. These deals involve one actual and one planned investment in aluminium smelters. Conceptually, it is argued that the interpretation of industrial location as a bargaining process can be readily incorporated within the geography of enterprise tradition by explicitly recognizing that location factors are not given datum but are created by negotiations among parties whose interests may overlap but do not coincide. In this paper, the main parties are the Icelandic government and aluminium multinationals. While both parties were interested in investments in smelters which would ultilize Iceland's power resources, the initial agreement in the 1960s depended on Iceland's acceptance of foreign investment as an appropriate vehicle of development and the ability of the parties to agree on power supply, power rates and taxation, location, and some jurisdictional issues that had not been anticipated. This deal has since been revised although the impact of the obsolescing bargain is not noticeably evident. The Iceland government has brokered another deal with other multinationals although this project has been put on hold due primarily to unforeseen events in the global economy. Still controversial, the actual and potential structure of Iceland's aluminium industry results directly from these bargains.     

Lines of Landscape Organization: Skovbjerg Moraine (Denmark) in the First Millennium BC

This paper presents a comparative landscape perspective on the Late Bronze Age landscape boundaries in southern Britain, obtained from Skovbjerg Moraine, Denmark. Using Delaunay triangulation as well as classic distribution analyses, it demonstrates that some forms of landscape division articulated already established use‐patterns, while others intercepted the central lines of movement and conflicted with previous ways of organizing the landscape. This pattern is interpreted as a new form of large‐scale landholding in which livestock played a dominant role and boundaries were used to confiscate land in the zones bordering suitable pastures. This situation shows obvious parallels with southern Britain centuries earlier. The paper discusses how the study of these physical boundaries provides new insights into the organization of pre‐Roman landscapes, not only demonstrating a continuing engagement with landscape lines, but also pointing to new concurrent and potentially competing social and economic strategies.     

Lydia Wilson Marshall (Ed.): Landscapes of Slavery in Africa

African Archaeological Review -     

Fields of gold: reflections on the research relations of the cultural policy researcher

ABSTRACT

This article discusses the methodological implications of the relations we have to our object of study as cultural policy researchers. We ask: What research relations we typically are part of and what social dimensions structure these relations? These questions are discussed by comparing field experiences from two cultural forms that can be characterized as polar opposites when it comes to the degree to which they are legitimized: contemporary opera and dance bands. We suggest that four dimensions are especially relevant to help ‘unpack’ the relations we typically find ourselves in as cultural policy researchers; cultural hierarchy, research conditions, geography and, gender and age. The coexistence of these dimensions means that the cultural policy researcher regularly finds him/herself in complex situations that we suggest should be analysed in terms of the ways in which, and the extent to which, we develop roles as insiders – or outsiders – in the field