Best for society? Transnational opposition to sexual and gender equalities in Canada and Great Britain

While much has been written about the limitations of new legislative equalities, there is a silence in geographies of sexualities regarding the backlash to these changes and the reiteration of particular heteronormativity. In working across Great Britain and Canada, we argue that these resistances are trans-scalar, operating transnationally as well as evoking nation, classroom, home and body. Arguments at the local level are embedded in and draw on the broader ‘natural family’ arguments circulating at local/regional, national and transnational levels. Drawing on the literature on transnationalism that understands these processes as (re)forming values and practices, this article explores the discourses that reiterate the naturalness and centrality of particular forms of heterosexuality as key for a healthy society and the protection of children. The latter works on three levels. First, the child cannot be ‘naturally’ produced outside of heterosexual sexual relations. Second, the raising of these children appropriately and healthily redefines ‘family’ within heteronormative structures. Third, comments that might be termed ‘homophobic’ are reframed as merely free speech as a way to counter LGBT recognition. We finish the article by arguing for explorations of heterosexuality within transnational networks to resistances to LGBT equalities.     

Experts en Sciences Mathématiques et Projets Impériaux sous le Règne de Kangxi

In 1713 the Kangxi emperor commissioned the compilation of a treatise on mathematics, astronomy, and harmonics. For this project, he recruited literati, selecting them by special examination and closely supervising their work. Only two of them went on to have careers as high officials. In the middle of the 18th century, mathematics began to be taught at the Imperial University. Thus the Qing dynasty established the transmission of a degree of expertise in this field as part of the training of certain literati who aimed at a civil service career.     

Cities without cavities: democracy, risk, and public health

This essay examines the history of fluoride debates in four Canadian cities. It argues that fluoride's opponents were primarily motivated by what they saw as the health and environmental risks of adding fluoride to the water supply. They also believed that fluoridating the public water supply was a fundamental violation of civil liberties. The fluoride debates have much to teach us about how people evaluate potential health risks and how they respond to state interventions in the field of public health.     

Toronto's gay village (1969–1982): plotting the politics of gay identity

Between the late 1960s and the early 1980s, a loose association of gay social spaces consolidated into what is now known as the 'gay village' in the Church and Wellesley street areas in downtown Toronto. Scholars argue that, while these residential and commercial districts evolved prior to the formation of organized gay political organizations, they suggest that the emergence of these districts as political and commercial districts was a direct result of deliberate local gay activism. I argue here that contrary to this literature and for much of its history, the gay movement was largely opposed to the existence of specifically gay-identified spaces, particularly those operated by both heterosexual and homosexual businesspersons. Toronto's gay activists, using different ideological frameworks, struggled to constitute a homosexual identity that stood mainly in opposition to the so-called 'ghetto gay' and to construct alternative spaces that were seen as more appropriate to the formation of a properly politicized homosexual identity. Nevertheless, by the early 1980s, as the gay village continued to thrive and as the players in gay movement politics changed, the gay ghetto became the gay village and was celebrated as a location of political strength and social necessity. This article explores that material and symbolic transformation.     

Book reviews

Gunnar Fermann (ed.), International Politics of Climate Change: Key Issues and Critical Actors. Oslo: Scandinavian University Press, 1997. vi + 472pp. US$45.00 (cloth).

Sanjay Chaturvedi, The Polar Regions: A Political Geography. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, in association with the Scott Polar Research Institute, 1996. xviii + 306 pp. £35.00 (cloth).

G.R. Sloan, The Geopolitics of Anglo‐Irish Relations in the Twentieth Century. Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1997. xii + 320 pp. £45.00 (cloth).

William T. Tow (ed.), Australian‐American Relations: Looking toward the Next Century. Melbourne: Macmillan, in association with the Australian Institute of International Affairs, 1998. xiv + 226 pp. $36.50 (paper).

Paul Earnshaw, Billion Dollar Business: Strategies and Lessons in Australian Arms Acquisitions. Canberra: Australian Defence Studies Centre, 1998. ix + 165 pp. $20.00 (paper).

Derek McDougall, The International Politics of the New Asia Pacific. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1997. xi + 257 pp. US $55.00 (cloth), US $19.95 (paper).

Nicholas Tarling, Nations and States in Southeast Asia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. 138 pp. £69.95 (cloth), £24.95 (paper).

David Martin Jones, Political Development in Pacific Asia. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1997. x + 235 pp. $34.95 (paper).

Scott Burchill and Andrew Linklater, with Richard Devetak, Matthew Paterson and Jacqui True, Theories of International Relations. London: Macmillan, 1996. 274 pp. $32.95 (paper).

William Maley (ed.), Fundamentalism Reborn? Afghanistan and the Taliban. London: C. Hurst, 1998. xiii + 25 3pp. £14.95 (paper).

Nancy Viviani, The Indochinese in Australia 1975–1995: From Burnt Boats to Barbeques. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1996. xvi + 208 pp. $24.95 (paper).

Stuart Harris and Andrew Mack (eds), Asia‐Pacific Security: The Economics‐Politics Nexus. St. Leonards: Allen & Unwin, with the Department of International Relations and the Northeast Asia Program, ANU, 1997. vi + 305 pp. $24.95 (paper).

Andrew Elek (ed.), Building an Asia‐Pacific Community. Development Cooperation within APEC. Brisbane: The Foundation for Development Cooperation, 1997. xiii + 118 pp. $20.00 (paper).

Markus Wolf, with Anne McElvoy, Man without a Face. London: Jonathan Cape, 1997. xii + 367 pp. £17.99 (cloth).

Mordechai Bar‐On, In Pursuit of Peace: A History of the Israeli Peace Movement. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1996. xix + 470 pp. US $37.50 (cloth), US 24.95 (paper).

Paul Cammack, Capitalism and Democracy in the Third World: The Doctrine for Political Development. London and Washington: Leicester University Press, 1997. 277 pp. £45.00 (cloth), £14.99 (paper).     

Scepticisme et politique

Scepticism is generally considered as leading to political conformity. But obedience to custom is not the only consequence of the separation between the private and the public spheres. The main result of this separation is to create an area of private life which is a space of freedom, away from the crowd and the authorities. It is thus easier to understand the sceptical stance in politics, advising the Prince secretly, while keeping out of the limelight. Above all, this helps us to appreciate the contribution of scepticism to modern conceptions of liberty in providing a social model for the free pursuit of truth.     

L'Édit de Nantes et l'indifférence hollandaise

Did the promulgation of the Edict of Nantes find, in the Netherlands, an echo comparable to the one caused by the revocation of this same Edict, a century later? A first inquiry through documents directly related to events of that period (letters of politicians, pamphlets, synod acts, etc.) do not provide any revealing account of a Dutch interest in the French biconfessionalism settlement. The hypothesis put forward in this paper in order to explain this silence from the Dutch side are based on the stake shifting between France and the Netherlands, at that time, concerning tolerance.