The Political Consecration of Community in Mauritius, 1948–68

The paper is concerned with the problem, amelioration and contestation of a ‘majority community’ in a decolonising political culture. The late-colonial administration in Mauritius employed repeated and increasingly elaborate constitutional innovation to counter-balance the perceived inability of Mauritians to distinguish between political preference and community affiliation. These measures raised the constitutional profile of the ‘community’, ostensibly in order to offset it politically. The colonial state's determination to derive community definitions from census data was soon frustrated by the calculated identification and sensitisation of corporate identities by political entrepreneurs. The definition and defence of community became a compelling preoccupation of post-war political campaigns on the island. However, this communalism – misunderstood and condemned by Imperial social science as apolitical or even antithetical to politics – concealed a political culture of considerable flexibility and pragmatism. At no point did the colonial administration address the fact that the locus for the generation of communalised political propaganda lay in a political rivalry for leadership of one community – that of the Hindu Indo-Mauritians.     

Gender,Generation, and Race in American Shipyards in the Second World War

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The juridification of nightlife and alternative culture: two UK case studies

Nightlife, the night‐time economy and ‘alternative’ culture have been a source of academic contestation over recent years, with differing views as to the direction and meaning of the contemporary drift of law and policy that serve to regulate this area of social and cultural life. Further, there have so far been few attempts to theorise the nature of change. This article aims to highlight some key theoretical underpinnings that can facilitate an understanding of the kinds of regulatory innovation that pervade nightlife and alternative cultural forms. Using two case studies – free or alternative festivals and Form 696 – it specifically draws on the concepts of disciplinary power and juridification as a way of theorising both the acceleration of regulatory forms and its impact on the production of alternative culture.     

Placing Lefebvre

Geographers have extensively used Lefebvre's concept of space as a social product as a framework guiding urban and political critique. Lefebvre articulates social space through a primarily ontological engagement: he describes a complex and multi‐faceted object that exists in three simultaneous but distinct, co‐producing registers. The famous “triad” has become canonical within Anglophone geography, but the implications of this ontology for knowing or researching the object of “(social) space” often remain implicit. This paper suggests that recent scholarship on place‐making helps to address the latent epistemological challenges of operationalizing Lefebvre's triad. We trace linkages and gaps between Lefebvrian space and contemporary theorizations of relational place. Re‐examining social space through the lens of relational place highlights the potential for links between epistemologically diverse recent research and twenty years of Lefebvre‐inspired critique.     

Towards a Framework for Cooperation: Spatial Public Diplomacy on the Island of Ireland

Abstract

European spatial planning arguments advocate a blend of strategic thinking, coordination and related initiatives to promote and secure territorial cohesion. These ambitions embrace a set of normative agendas around economic, social and environmental convergence, competitiveness, policy coordination and efficient infrastructure provision across space. In practice, territorial management then involves devising interventions across inter-connecting scales of governance which comprise complex agency relations, differentiated places and defined communities. In transnational contexts, attempts to foster appropriate spatial governance arrangements and relations across sovereign borders necessitate re-crafting planning and development cultures and service delivery practices to advance territorial cohesion. Transnational working necessarily involves cooperation across an extended range of institutions, interests, influences and potential actors. This paper examines attempts to secure bi-lateral commitment to a joint planning framework for the two distinct territories on the island of Ireland. Specifically, it traces the formal and informal activities involved in the development of the 2013 Framework for Cooperation between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Informed by ideas of cross-border regionalism, it discusses the necessary spatial public diplomacy involved in the social reconstruction of strategic spatial planning to improve policy coordination and cross-border working.     

Temporal changes in Arikara humeral and femoral cross-sectional geometry associated with horticultural intensification

Humeral and femoral cross-sectional properties from three archaeological variants of the Arikara, an American Great Plains Indian tribe, were analyzed for temporal (16th to 19th centuries) changes in long bone architecture, asymmetry, and sexual dimorphism associated with intensification of horticulture during the late protohistoric and early historic periods. There were a number of significant changes in long bone, especially femoral, cross-sectional morphology and asymmetry among females through time that probably reflect increases in the workload necessary to produce surplus crops. Changes in long bone architecture among males are restricted to the humerus and may reflect a greater reliance on firearms. The pattern of sexual dimorphism also changes through time among the Arikara due to a combination of environmental (nutrition and disease) and mechanical factors.     

Devolution,decentralization and dispersal: Asserting the spatiality of the public sector in Scotland

Through a case study of Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH), a Non-Departmental Public Body in Scotland, this article considers the arguments associated with changes in public sector location in the UK in the wider context of devolution and decentralization. The policy issues of location and relocation are discussed in light of the wider government interest in modernization, spatial planning and regional development. The case study illustrates an active concern in Scotland with the decentralization of decision-making, and a move to community planning. Notwithstanding the perceived benefits of the government's policy objectives, however, the relocation process, in this instance, has proved to be difficult and protracted in practice, illustrating many of the tensions in a policy which seeks to deliver different and layered policy objectives.