Contested heritages and cultural tourism

The fascination with death and disaster has encouraged the development of distinctive tourism markets, the rediscovery of sites and places of past conflict and all accompanied with uneasy narratives about what they mean and how they should be consumed. The increasingly stratified tourist economy and the interplay between demand and supply has also stimulated a complex set of ontological, socio-political and indifferent responses as places and interests compete to project often selective or stylised claims for recognition. This paper reviews the experiences of tourists visiting Derry/Londonderry, the UK’s first City of Culture and how they make sense of the competing interpretations of the past in museums, rituals and artefacts. The 17thC walled city, the city of violence and the post-conflict renaissance city are spatially and socially reproduced but rarely connect with each other to help make sense of the past for the present and critically, for the future. The paper concludes that the discursive content promised by the City of Culture was a missed opportunity to debate these places and events and critically, the problematized and reified narratives they each project.     

Analysing partition: Definition, classification and explanation

Political partitions should be carefully distinguished from secessions, de-colonizations and disengagements—though they may accompany these phenomena. Political partitions involve a fresh cut, an at least partially novel border, ripped through at least one national community's homeland. Partitions of national and multinational polities may be distinguished, as may external and internal partitions. External partitions have been rarer than suggested in conventional accounts, and explanations of their occurrence are evaluated, and recommendations are made that their rarity should persist.     

Reviews

The Modern Traveller to the Early Irish Church Kathleen Hughes & Ann Hamlin, 1997 Dublin, Four Courts Press pp. 134, ISBN 1.85182.194.5, £9.95 (pb)

In Search of Columba Lesley Whiteside, 1997 Blackrock, Dublin, Columba Press pp. 136, ISBN 1.8560.7180.4, £5.99 (pb)

A History of the Irish Working Class Peter Beresford Ellis, 1996 London, Pluto Press pp.378, ISBN 0.7453.1103.2, £40.00 (hb); ISBN 0.7453.0009.X, £15.99 (pb)

The Elizabethan Conquest of Ireland John McGurk, 1997 Manchester, Manchester University Press pp. xiii + 290, ISBN 0.7190.4959.8, £45.00 (hb)

Edmund Spenser: A View of the State of Ireland Andrew Hadfield & Willy Maley (eds), 1997 Oxford, Blackwell pp. xxvi +197, ISBN 0.63120.534.9, £35.00 (hb); ISBN 0.63120.535.7, £10.99 (pb)

Inventing and Resisting Britain: Cultural Identities in Britain and Ireland, 1685–1789 Murray Pittock, 1997 London, Macmillan pp.200, ISBN 0.333.65060.3, £42.50 (hb); ISBN 0.333.65061.1, £13.99 (pb)

Linen, Family and Community in Tullylish, County Down, 1690–1914 Marilyn Cohen, 1997 Dublin, Four Courts Press pp. 284, ISBN 1.85182.312.3, £45.00 (hb)

Remembrance and Imagination: Patterns in the Historical and Literary Representation of Ireland in the Nineteenth Century Joep Leerssen, 1996 Cork, Cork University Press in association with Field Day pp. 320, ISBN 1.85918.111.2, £15.95 (pb)

The Historical Dimensions of Irish Catholicism Emmet Larkin, reprint 1997 Washington, The Catholic University of America Press; Dublin, Four Courts Press pp. 138, ISBN 1.85182305.0, £9.95 (pb)

The Kingdom of the Ryans: The Irish in Southwest New South Wales 1816–1890 Malcolm Campbell, 1997 Sydney, University of New South Wales Press pp.210, ISBN 0.86840.191.9, A$34.95 (pb)

’This Dreadful Visitation’: The Famine in Lurgan/Portadown Gerard Mac Atasney, with a foreword by Christine Kinealy, 1997 Belfast, Beyond the Pale Publications pp. 126, ISBN 1.900960.02.8, £6.95 (pb)

A Death‐dealing Famine: The Great Hunger in Ireland Christine Kinealy, 1997 London, Pluto Press pp.200, ISBN 0.7453.1075.3, £40.00 (hb); ISBN 0.7453.1074.5, £12.99 (pb)

Culture, Conflict and Migration: The Irish in Cumbria Donald M. MacRaild, 1998 Liverpool, Liverpool University Press pp.237, ISBN O.85323.652.6, £30.00 (hb); ISBN 0.85323.662.3, £12.95 (pb)

Guns and Chiffon: Women Revolutionaries and Kilmainham Gaol Sinead McCoole, 1996 Dublin, Kilmainham Gaol Museum pp. 70, ISBN 0.7076.3870.4, £5.00 (pb)

Hanna Sheehy Skeffington: A Life Margaret Ward, 1997 Cork, Cork University Press pp.368, ISBN 1.85594.179.1, £45.00 (hb); ISBN 1.85594.187.2, £14.95 (pb)

’They Shall Grow Not Old’: Irish Soldiers and the Great War Myles Dungan, 1997 Dublin, Four Courts Press pp. 218, ISBN 1.85182.347.6, £17.95 (hb)

Rural Ireland, Real Ireland? Jacqueline Genet (ed.), 1996 Gerrard's Cross, Colin Smythe pp.245, ISBN 0.86140.385.1, £28.00 (hb)

Irish Playwrights, 1880–1995: A Resource and Production Sourcebook Beknice Schrank & William W. Demastes (eds), 1997 London, Greenwood Press pp.454, ISBN 0.313.28805.4, £75.95 (hb)

Wilde's Last Stand: Decadence, Conspiracy and the First World War Philip Hoare, 1977 London, Gerald Duckworth pp.256, ISBN 0.71562.737.6, £16.95 (hb); ISBN 0.71562.828.3, £11.95 (pb)

Yeats's Nations: Gender, Class and Irishness Marjorie Howes, 1996 Cambridge, Cambridge University Press pp. 250, ISBN 0.521.56362.3, £35.00 (hb)

Yeats and Women Deirdre Toomey (ed.), 1997 Basingstoke, Macmillan; New York, St. Martin's Press pp.448, ISBN 0.333698.16.9, £19.50 (pb)

James Joyce, Ulysses , and the Construction of Jewish Identity: Culture, Biography, and ‘The Jew’ in Modernist Europe Neil R. Davison, 1996 Cambridge, Cambridge University Press pp.317, ISBN 0.521.55181.1, £35.00 (hb)

Sex, Nation and Dissent in Irish Writing Éibhear Walshe (ed.), 1997 Cork, Cork University Press pp.291, ISBN 1.85918.015.2, £40.00 (hb); ISBN 1.85918.014.0, £16.95 (pb)

Women and Irish Society: A Sociological Reader Anne Byrne & Madeleine Leonard (eds), 1997 Belfast, Beyond the Pale Publications pp. 573, ISBN 1.900960.03.6, £16.95 (pb)

Discrimination and the Irish Community in Britain Mary Hickman & Bronwen Walter, 1997 London, Commission for Racial Equality pp.312, ISBN 1.85442.200.6, £10.00 (pb)

Culture and Policy in Northern Ireland: Anthropology in the Public Arena Hastings Donnan & Graham McFarlane (eds), 1997 Belfast, Institute of Irish Studies pp. 240, ISBN 0.85389.690.9, £9.95 (pb)

Was Ireland Conquered? International Law and the Irish Question Anthony Carty, 1996 London, Pluto Press pp. viii + 203, ISBN 0.7453.0325.0, £40.00 (hb); ISBN 0.7453.0722.1, £12.99 (pb)

Sacrifice of Fools Ian McDonald, 1997 London, Vista pp. 286, ISBN 0.575.60059.4, £5.99 (pb)

Enchanted Journeys: Fifty Years of Irish Writing for Children Robert Dunbar (ed.), 1997 Dublin, O'Brien Press pp. 192, ISBN 0.86278.531.6, £8.99 (hb)

Grace Notes Bernard Mac Laverty, 1997 London, Jonathan Cape pp.278, ISBN 0.224.04429.X, £14.99 (hb); ISBN 0099.77801.7, £5.99 (pb)

The Bridal Suite Matthew Sweeney, 1997 London, Jonathan Cape pp. 49, ISBN 0.224.04328.5, £7.00 (pb)

Verbum et Verbum Micheál Fanning, 1997 Knockeven, Salmon Publishing pp.78, ISBN 1.8976.48898, IR£5.99 (pb)

Mutabilitie Frank McGuinness, 1997 London, Faber & Faber pp. 101, ISBN 0.571.19342.0, £6.99 (pb)

The Boxer Director, Jim Sheridan Universal Studios Inc., 1997

The Butcher Boy Director, Neil Jordan Geffen Pictures, 1997     

Petroleum infiltration of high-grade basement, South Norway: Pressure-Temperature-time-composition (P–T–t–X) constraints

Fluid inclusion data provide pressure–temperature–time–composition (P–T–t–X) constraints for an episode of petroleum infiltration of the crystalline basement in South Norway. Petroleum inclusions associated with pyrobitumen occur in postmetamorphic quartz veins in the Modum Complex. Three groups of fluid compositions have been shown, ranging from CH₄ ± CO₂ to condensates with alkanes up to C₁₅. The range in fluid composition is a result of petroleum decomposition at high temperature. Globular and massive pyrobitumen occurs in the quartz veins or in associated vein systems. Reflectance (%Rm) measurements of 3.20–3.35 correspond to a maximum temperature of 207–214°C for the pyrobitumen associated with group II and III inclusions. Geothermometry of chlorites included in the quartz show results of 226–231°C. Pressure conditions of trapping for all three groups of inclusion fluids have been estimated to 520–985 bar at 220°C. The pressure range is probably a result of fluctuations caused by repeated fracture opening and sealing due to seismic activity coupled with mineral growth. A lack of systematic textural relationships between the three groups of inclusions and similar pressure–temperature estimates for all fluid types indicate trapping at similar times and a process of rapid change. Fluid migration in fractures from an overlying, overpressured sedimentary basin into a dry, crystalline basement best explains the observed P–T–t–X constraints.     

Implications of a freshwater radiocarbon reservoir correction for the timing of late Holocene settlement of the Elk Hills,Kern County,California

Uncertainties regarding the magnitude of freshwater radiocarbon reservoir effects can introduce random errors into dates on archaeological freshwater carbonates. As a result, many archaeologists avoid dating freshwater shells unless no other datable materials are available. The chronology of prehistoric occupation of the former Naval Petroleum Reserve No. 1 (NPR-1) at Elk Hills, Kern County, has been established with 50 radiocarbon dates on freshwater mussels (Gonidea and Anodonta sp.). Characterization of any freshwater radiocarbon reservoir effect is crucial for the accurate interpretation of inferred settlement and subsistence changes on the Elk Hills. Paired charcoal and freshwater mussels sampled from closely associated contexts were dated to identify a freshwater reservoir effect. Paired Anodonta and Gonidea sp. shells were dated to investigate interspecific differences in fractionation. Results indicate that a 340 ± 20 ¹⁴C yr correction should be applied to conventional ¹⁴C dates on freshwater carbonates in the Buena Vista Basin before calendar calibration. Evidence of interspecific differences is inconclusive. Dates recalibrated with the reservoir correction indicate that widespread occupation of the Elk Hills is correlated with increasing precipitation towards the end of the Medieval Climatic Anomaly and during the Little Ice Age, suggesting that slough resource exploitation may have been driven by regional population pressure rather than drought-related declines in aquatic productivity.     

Human Development and Decent Work: Why some Concepts Succeed and Others Fail to Make an Impact

This article examines the impact of the International Labour Organization's concept of Decent Work on development thinking and the academic literature. We attempt to answer the question of what makes a development initiative successful by comparing the decent work approach to the United Nation Development Programme's Human Development concept (in conjunction with the human development indicator). We consider that the latter has been one of the most successful development concepts ever to have been launched, while the impact of decent work by comparison has been limited. Our hypothesis relating to the question of what makes a development initiative successful has three fundamental components: first, a solid theoretical foundation has to justify the launch of a development concept. A second vital factor is the availability of sufficient national and internationally comparable data that enables researchers and policy makers alike to apply the concept, preferably by means of a synthetic indicator. Third, the political will and institutional structure of the development institution that launches a concept is a key factor, particularly if data availability is limited as countries then have to be persuaded to generate new data.