Professional Workers in a Risk Society

This paper contributes to the debate on the utility of Ulrich Beck's (1992) notion of the 'risk society' for understanding the positions and experiences of workers who are negotiating more 'flexible' employment contracts. Whilst previous articles in this journal have concentrated upon the lower end of the employment market, I aim to broaden the scope of the discussion by focussing upon professional freelance magazine workers, and ask whether Beck's framework has a different utility in terms of understanding their employment security and risk.¹     

Tuvalu and Climate Change: Constructions of Environmental Displacement in The Sydney Morning Herald

Tuvalu, a place whose image in the ‘West’ is as a small island state, insignificant and remote on the world stage, is becoming remarkably prominent in connection with the contemporary issue of climate change‐related sea‐level rise. My aim in this paper is to advance understanding of the linkages between climate change and island places, by exploring the discursive negotiation of the identity of geographically distant islands and island peoples in the Australian news media. Specifically, I use discourse analytic methods to critically explore how, and to what effects, various representations of the Tuvaluan islands and people in an Australian broadsheet, the Sydney Morning Herald, emphasize difference between Australia and Tuvalu. My hypothesis is that implicating climate change in the identity of people and place can constitute Tuvaluans as .tragic victims. of environmental displacement, marginalizing discourses of adaptation for Tuvaluans and other inhabitants of low‐lying islands, and silencing alternative constructions of Tuvaluan identity that could emphasize resilience and resourcefulness. By drawing attention to the problematic ways that island identities are constituted in climate change discourse in the news media, I advocate a more critical approach to the production and consumption of representations of climate change.     

Did Organization Really Matter? Party Organization and Conservative Electoral Recovery, 1945-59

Organizational recovery has traditionally been considered animportant factor in any explanation of the Conservative Party'selectoral recovery during the fifteen years after 1945. Thisarticle examines the extent of this recovery in three marginalseats, which the Conservatives either held or regained to formtheir new parliamentary majority. It demonstrates that, in anumber of constituencies, whatever the wider community mighthave thought, the reality of local organization—whetherin terms of financial health, membership numbers, the deliveryof political education, election campaigning, the effectivenessof party agents, or level of activity—was considered tobe less than impressive to those involved intimately. The articleconcludes that although the value of the Conservative Party'sextensive grass roots should not be denied, the precise roleand effectiveness of local organization should be reconsidered.     

The Relevance of Nineteenth-Century Religion to the Archaeological Record: An Example from the Home of Ellen White, Prophetess of Seventh-Day Adventism

Religion is one of the least tangible aspects of the past, yet it was very real and very important in the lives of past people. Understanding the impact nineteenth-century evangelical Christianity had on the archaeological record will add substantially to studies of historic households in the United States and around the world. One of the most aggressive of these denominations was Seventh-day Adventism, which grew out of the Millerite movement under Ellen White. A brief case study based on a home occupied by her family is used as a way to explore some of these themes.