Gender,craft labour and the creative sector

This paper responds to a resurgence of interest in craft labour as an integral aspect of policy generation in the creative sector. It highlights the local, and industrial, cultural, and political histories and processes that create divisions and distinctions within craft economies. Drawing on research with designer makers in Birmingham Jewellery Quarter, the paper demonstrates how gender infuses the responses of policy actors in their regeneration plans for the local economy. It notes the significance of local meanings of craft and how this leads to misrecognition and devaluation. It also illustrates how the economic importance of designer makers is diminished within a policy environment that has had a long-standing focus on large-scale manufacturing. This leaves designer makers occupying a role that is predominantly focused on their symbolic and decorative value. This bodes ill for cultural policy reformulation that is based on the economic significance of flexible specialisation within small-scale, networked businesses.     

Intensifying collection and size increase of the tessellated nerite snail (Nerita tessellata) at the Coconut Walk site,Nevis, northern Lesser Antilles,AD 890–1440

Recent archaeological investigation at the Coconut Walk site on the Caribbean island of Nevis revealed dense 40 cm deep midden deposits that accumulated between cal AD 890–1440. Analysis of invertebrate faunal remains reveals an assemblage dominated by nerite snails. We measured the length and width of more than 2700 tessellated nerite (Nerita tessellata) shells to investigate evidence for changing mean size that might be indicative of intensifying human predation pressure or other cultural and natural processes. Contrary to similar archaeomalacological studies in which size decline is detected, we observed a statistically significant size increase for N. tessellata over time. This size increase is coupled with increasing levels of tessellated nerite exploitation at the Coconut Walk site. Results suggest that tessellated nerite use was sustainable over several centuries of site occupation. Our findings have important implications for investigations of anthropogenic impacts on prehistoric mollusc populations. In addition, the findings reported here provide important insight into human subsistence patterns during the Late Ceramic Age in the Caribbean and a framework for comparison with observations from other Pre-Columbian sites in the Caribbean.     

Regional economic resilience: the role of national and regional policies

In recent years, economic resilience has become a popular term in both theory and policy practice. This interest was triggered by the fact that some regional economies were extremely vulnerable, while others have managed to overcome, more or less effectively, the worse consequences of the current economic crisis. Within this context, questions arise regarding the role that policies at both the national and subnational levels can play in shaping regional economic resilience. Although high in the academic and political agenda, understanding the policy and governance aspects of resilience still remains a relatively underdeveloped area. The paper contributes to this debate focusing on an area which has been most severely hit by crises, the Region of West Macedonia, in Greece. The case study builds on the historical trajectory of the region in order to explain how different types of policies have influenced the ability of West Macedonia to respond to economic slumps and crises of the last 30 years. Evidence suggests that national protectionist policies largely explain not only resilience of the region against previous crises, but also its vulnerability towards the still ongoing economic crisis.     

Den Metropolen mehr Aufmerksamkeit schenken

Zusammenfasung  Im Herbst 2006 hat die Bundesregierung die „Neuen Leitbilder der Raumentwicklung“ verabschiedet. Die drei Leitbilder „Wachstum und Innovation“, „Daseinsvorsorge sichern“ sowie „Ressourcen bewahren, Kulturlandschaften gestalten“ sollen helfen, wichtige Probleme des Landes zu l?sen und Deutschland fit für die Zukunft zu machen. Im Leitbild „Wachstum und Innovation“ spielen insbesondere elf so genannte „Europ?ische Metropolregionen“ (EMR) eine wichtige Rolle. über die Metropolregionen und den Raum dazwischen sprach Dipl.-Geogr. Ute C. Bauer mit Manfred Sinz. Der Ministerialdirigent im Bundesministerium für Verkehr, Bau und Stadtentwicklung hat wesentlich an der Entwicklung der Leitbilder mitgewirkt und sie in vielen Runden vor Ort der raumplanerischen Fach?ffentlichkeit vorgestellt.     

Mut zum Risiko

Zusammenfassung Der im zweij?hrlichen Rhythmus stattfindende Geographentag hat sich als wichtigstes Gro?ereignis der Geographie in der Bundesrepublik l?ngst etabliert. In diesem Jahr wird der Kongress in Bayreuth ausgerichtet – unter etwas ver?nderten Rahmenbedingungen. Mit den Mitgliedern des Ortsauschusses Prof. Dr. Herbert Popp und Prof. Dr. Detlef Müller-Mahn sprach Dipl.-Geogr. Ute C. Bauer über die organisatorische Struktur und das inhaltliche Anliegen der Tagung.     

The 'external dimension' of EU immigration and asylum policy

Since the late 1990s, the EU has sought to develop the so-called 'external dimension' of cooperation on immigration and asylum: attempts to manage migration through cooperation with migration sending or transit countries. However, one can discern two rather distinct concepts of the 'external dimension'. The first involves attempts to externalize traditional tools of domestic or EU migration control; the second to prevent the causes of migration and refugee flows, through development assistance and foreign policy tools. Both are based on different assumptions about how best to influence migration flows, and will have divergent impacts on migration flows, refugee protection and relations with third countries. It therefore makes a big difference which of the two is likely to emerge as the predominant pattern of cooperation in the future. This article looks at the factors influencing the emergence of both concepts, focusing on three central determinants: the potential of such approaches to meet migration policy goals; the institutional context; and domestic political—electoral pressures. It argues that the two last factors have militated in favour of the prevalence of externalization approaches to the detriment of longer-term strategies of migration management, refugee protection and relations with third countries.     

Obsidian hydration dating on the South Coast of Peru

We compare over 230 obsidian hydration readings from 30 individual site components from the Southern Nasca Region (SNR) with independent age estimates based on radiocarbon dates and temporally diagnostic artifacts. Although there are problems with small sample sizes, and readings must be adjusted for elevation, a very strong relationship accounting for nearly 90% of the total variation in the data set is found. This suggests that obsidian hydration dating (OHD) works in the SNR and is a viable means of independently estimating age. Residual values from our regression suggest that hydration age estimates are usually within 15% of the radiocarbon estimates. Finally, we present an equation other scholars can use to estimate age for Quispisisa obsidian in the SNR.