Protocol,politics and popular culture: the independence jubilee in Gabon

National days are powerful moments of commemoration that aim at renewing the citizens' bonds to the nation and the state. In order to be successful, public rituals need to draw large audiences, and their ceremonial design therefore has to be adapted to suit the masses, employing elements of popular culture and everyday forms of nationhood. Despite drawing its significance from the declaration of independence in 1960, however, Gabon's independence jubilee was less concerned with history and commemoration than with celebrating the state and the nation in the present. The ceremonial design of Gabon's jubilee featured intensive preparations, official ceremonies, popular festivities and symbolic politics. In this article, I look at why history and commemoration played such an unimportant role during the celebrations and how Gabon's jubilee organisers included official as well as popular forms of nationhood to assure the population's participation.     

Location or dis-location? Towards a conceptualization of people and place in the care-giving experience

Over the last two decades we have seen an increased interest in informal care within both political and academic communities in the UK. This has stemmed in large part from an increased emphasis on the home-space as the preferred site of care provision and a resultant increase in the complexity of the care-giving relationship. The explicitly spatial dimensions of this caring relationship, however, are vastly under-researched. This paper represents one attempt to redress the gap by examining the importance of place, and its conceptualization, in the care of frail older people. In doing so, the paper focuses, firstly, on the spatial manifestation of care at various scales, identifying some of the processes behind variations in the care-giving experience and, secondly, using the example of dementia care, it considers how Auge´'s concepts of anthropological place and non-space, when applied to domestic and institutional care settings, can facilitate a more nuanced understanding of the importance of people and place in the construction and delivery of care to frail older people.     

Art as a diagnostic: assessing social and political transformation through public art in Cairo,Egypt

Since January 2011, Egypt has undergone several waves of political upheaval in order to craft a new form of governance. Central to this process has been the role of art. This article argues that artistic interventions that engage with the idea of public space and that take place in the public space of the city engender interactions that illuminate the complexities and difficulties currently facing Egyptian society. More so than serving as documentation of what has taken place or as acts of protest, public art can serve as a diagnostic of issues that simmer underneath the surface of national politics. Based on interviews, focus groups, and observations conducted between 2011 and 2013 with Cairo-based artists and arts advocates, the paper explores the way in which public art has signaled tensions regarding class, gender and increasing political polarization. By exploring the relationship between art, artists and urban space, this paper extends analyses on political transitions to take account of the effects produced by forms of artistic expression within the public sphere.     

Cruise Passenger Terminals,Spatial Planning and Regeneration: The Cases of Amsterdam and Rotterdam

Recent growth in the cruise tourism industry has been accompanied by the development of new cruise passenger terminals in many port cities, in part to assist aims for spatial planning and urban regeneration. Such terminals can bring specific benefits but also problems, though application of spatial planning and related policy can help to maximize benefits and ameliorate or mitigate problems. The cases of cruise terminal developments in Amsterdam and Rotterdam in the Netherlands are illustrative in this context, and offer lessons for spatial planning and regeneration involving cruise tourism elsewhere.