Tourism as a vehicle for regional development in peripheral areas – myth or reality? A longitudinal case study of Swedish regions

In the contemporary so-called ‘competition state era’, many rural and peripheral regions are in decline. Tourism is increasingly viewed as being able to alleviate and rejuvenate regions that are facing economic difficulties. The European Union has launched several programmes with the goal of stimulating growth and employment in peripheral areas. These programmes are often used to support tourism development projects. In this paper, a longitudinal analysis of spatial changes in Swedish tourism is conducted. The analysis is based on statistics regarding overnight stays in Swedish commercial accommodation facilities. The aim is to investigate if tourism and tourism policy contribute to the reduction in disparities between regions. Although there are exceptions, the main findings indicate that the potential for creating sustainable rural tourism growth through tourism policy seems to be much less than the popular discourse suggests.     

Radiocarbon Chronometry of Site QJ-280, Quebrada Jaguay,a Terminal Pleistocene to Early Holocene Fishing Site in Southern Peru

Excavations in 1970, 1996, and 1999 at Site QJ-280, Quebrada Jaguay, in southern Peru, yielded enough dateable terrestrial plant material to establish an extensive radiocarbon chronology for the site. QJ-280 is one of oldest well-dated fishing sites in the Americas: it was occupied from the terminal Pleistocene to the mid-Holocene (about 13,000–8,300 calibrated years BP) based on 42 terrestrial radiocarbon dates, encompassing the Jaguay and Machas Phases of the local archaeological sequence. In addition to the terrestrial dates, radiocarbon measurements on valves of two marine surf clam (Mesodesma donacium) individuals from a single, well-dated mid-Holocene Manos Phase archaeological context have provided insight into marine upwelling conditions during the occupation of Quebrada Jaguay. The marine reservoir age varied between 130 and 730 ¹⁴C years during the brief lives of the two clams (up to 5 years each), and varied by up to 530 ¹⁴C years within an individual valve, suggesting strong and variable deep marine upwelling; conditions broadly similar to those that exist in coastal Peru today. These rapid variations in marine radiocarbon age suggest that marine radiocarbon dates from environments with variable upwelling could be skewed by up to hundreds of years.     

Viewing obesogenic advertising in children's neighbourhoods using Google Street View

The advertising of unhealthy food and beverages forms an important component of obesogenic environments. Such marketing to children is a key health determinant because of its impact on dietary preference and food purchasing behaviour. The location of outdoor advertising is important in exploring obesogenic environments and children's neighbourhoods. The aim of this study is to explore issues involved in the use of Google Street View to examine outdoor food and beverage advertising. The implications for using Google Street View in the context of neighbourhood built environment research and grass‐roots advocacy are discussed. The study was conducted within walkable distances from 19 primary and intermediate schools in Auckland, New Zealand, where “walkable” was defined as limited by 800 m road network boundaries, which are equivalent to school buffer boundaries. Google Street View allows for centrality of data collection, coding, and storage. However, challenges exist with the method because 727 (29.4%) of a total of 2,474 outdoor advertisements that were identified were not able to be categorised because images were unclear, not in English, blocked, or at angles where detail cannot be deciphered. Specific to outdoor advertising for food and beverages, the results presented here show that children are exposed to a significantly greater number of unhealthy advertising than other advertising, P=0.001, eta‐squared statistic (0.45) indicates a large effect size. Overall, the results show promise for the use of Google Street View in the study of obesogenic environments.     

Welshness in ‘British Wales’: negotiating national identity at the margins

Popular interpretations of national identity often focus on the unifying qualities of nationhood. However, societies frequently draw hierarchical distinctions between the people and places who are ‘most national’, and those who are ‘least national’. Little attention is paid to these marginal places within the nation and the experiences of their inhabitants. This article helps to address this by analysing the ‘less Welsh’ British Wales region of Wales, a country that has traditionally possessed a hierarchical, regionally constituted nationhood. The article studies the British Wales region both ‘from above’ – considering how some areas develop as ‘less national’ – and ‘from below’, introducing empirical ethnographic work into ‘everyday Welshness’ in this area. Whilst previous work on hierarchical nationhood focuses on how hierarchies are institutionalized by the state, this article demonstrates how people at the margins of the nation actively negotiate their place in the nation. Whilst people in this area expressed a strong Welshness, they also struggled to place themselves in the nation because they had internalized their lowly place within the national hierarchy. The article demonstrates the importance of place and social class for national identity construction and draws attention to the role of power in the discursive construction of hierarchical nationhood.     

British Policy Towards Military Cooperation with the Republic of South Africa, 1961–1975

The early 1960s were a turbulent time in South Africa; the Sharpeville Massacre provoked condemnation from the international community, which, with the acceleration of decolonisation, was turning increasingly against Pretoria. The decision to withdraw its re-application to the Commonwealth in October 1960 further isolated South Africa. Despite this, UK–South African military cooperation remained largely unaffected until the pivotal Simonstown Agreement's termination in 1975. This article explores this relationship and explains why British policy-makers consistently maintained links with an overtly racist regime. UK–South African military cooperation was persistently controversial and engendered frequent criticism from African members of the Commonwealth and from campaigning groups such as the Anti-Apartheid Movement, whose membership included Labour ministers. Concurrently, Pretoria was viewed as an important Cold War ally, particularly in the context of the build-up of Soviet naval incursions into the Indian Ocean from 1968 onwards. This article will analyse how British officials attempted to navigate its military relations with South Africa under such heated circumstances.     

Coles Creek fauna procurement strategies: subsistence diversity among late prehistoric hunter-gatherer-horticulturalists in the Lower Mississippi Valley

In the late 1980s, a collaborative effort between Harvard University’s Lower Mississippi Survey and Tulane University’s Center for Archaeology launched a study examining the causes and consequences of subsistence change in the Lower Mississippi Valley. The Osceola Project contributed the first formal study of late prehistoric faunal remains within the Alluvial Plain, becoming the standard against which all subsequent Coles Creek faunal assemblages have been measured. Recent evidence recovered from three sites located in the Eastern Uplands presented the opportunity to compare and contrast vertebrate subsistence in these two distinct physiographic regions. We hypothesize that a clear distinction exists between lowland and upland Coles Creek procurement strategies. This article evaluates this claim by examining species diversity, spatial patterns, and temporal trends evident within an eight-site sample. The results suggest that the primary factor influencing Coles Creek fauna procurement was the immediate environment, and that the composition of Late Woodland period diets may be a reflection of efficiency of effort rather than food access or scarcity.     

The ICC pre-trial chamber decision on jurisdiction over the situation in Myanmar

The transfer and deportation of ethnically Rohingya people from Myanmar into Bangladesh is a crime against humanity demanding an international response. What role, however, should the International Criminal Court (ICC) play? On 6 September 2018 an ICC Pre-Trial Chamber ruled that the Court has jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute such crimes as they are completed on the territory of a State party, Bangladesh. Myanmar is not a party to ICC Statute and has invoked the principle that treaties do not bind third parties without their consent. The case put in this commentary is that while the Pre-Trial Chamber’s approach to the law was arguable as an interpretation of the ICC Statute, it was unwise as a matter of policy. The argument is threefold. First, the Pre-Trial Chamber’s ruling is as a matter of legal method only the first-move in a process of norm-creation and persuasion. Second, it does not follow that because territorial jurisdiction in international law includes ‘objective’ jurisdiction over transboundary acts completed on a State’s territory that such jurisdiction was delegated by member States to the ICC in all cases. Finally, it is argued that international criminal tribunals do not succeed when the cooperation of necessary territorial governments (here, Myanmar) is withheld. Proceeding in this case risks becoming a quagmire of the ICC’s own creation at a time when it can little afford further risks to its legitimacy.