The Dark Side of Transformation: Latent Risks in Contemporary Sustainability Discourse

The notion of transformation is gaining traction in contemporary sustainability debates. New ways of theorising and supporting transformations are emerging and, so the argument goes, opening exciting spaces to (re)imagine and (re)structure radically different futures. Yet, questions remain about how the term is being translated from an academic concept into an assemblage of normative policies and practices, and how this process might shape social, political, and environmental change. Motivated by these questions, we identify five latent risks associated with discourse that frames transformation as apolitical and/or inevitable. We refer to these risks as the dark side of transformation. While we cannot predict the future of radical transformations towards sustainability, we suggest that scientists, policymakers, and practitioners need to consider such change in more inherently plural and political ways.     

Radiocarbon Wiggle-Match Dating in the Intertidal Zone

Radiocarbon wiggle-match dating is a technique that can combine the versatility of radiocarbon dating with chronological information from tree-rings. This makes it useful in contexts where timbers are preserved, but dendrochronological dating is impossible. As intertidal and marine timbers are waterlogged, this can favor their preservation and hence allow wiggle-match ¹⁴C dating, which can be of significant help in deriving relatively precise chronologies for a range of coastal structures. As the technique depends on making multiple radiocarbon measurements towards a single date, efficiency in application is the key and hence a number of practical considerations need to be taken into account in advance of conducting a dating program. This paper discusses some of these practical concerns and reviews them in the context of the intertidal crannogs in the Firth of Clyde on the west coast of Scotland.     

The Death of Beauty: Goya's Etchings and Black Paintings through the Eyes of André Malraux

Modern critics often regard Goya's etchings and black paintings as satirical observations on the social and political conditions of the time. In a study of Goya first published in 1950, which seldom receives the attention it merits, the French author and art theorist André Malraux contends that these works have a significance of a much deeper kind. The etchings and black paintings, Malraux argues, represent a fundamental challenge to the European artistic tradition that began with the Renaissance, an essentially humanist tradition founded on the pursuit of a transcendent world of nobility, harmony and beauty—an ideal world outside of which, as Malraux writes, ‘man did not fully merit the name man’. Following the illness that left him deaf for life—an encounter with ‘the irremediable’, to borrow Malraux's term—Goya developed an art of a fundamentally different kind—an art, Malraux writes, ruled by ‘the unity of the prison house’, which replaced transcendence with a pervasive ‘feeling of dependence’ and from which all trace of humanism has been erased. Foreshadowing modern art's abandonment of the Renaissance ideal, and created semi-clandestinely, the etchings and black paintings are an early announcement of the death of beauty in Western art.     

Would Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) be welcomed by undergraduate students to support their learning during fieldwork?

This paper reports student perceptions of the benefits and challenges of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) in a fieldwork context. Student perceptions from six field courses across two institutions have been gathered using questionnaires and focus groups. Whilst a number of studies have focused on BYOD in a classroom context, little research has been undertaken about BYOD in a fieldwork context. The key findings suggest that around one fifth of students were not willing to use their own device during fieldwork citing loss or damage as the main reason. This key challenge is different to that which are found in a classroom which generally focus on network security, connectivity etc. The findings also suggest that some students believe that BYOD can have a negative impact on group work. There is a misalignment here between student and practitioner thinking with previous literature which suggests that practitioners believe BYOD and smart devices can enhance group work. The one key challenge which is found regardless of learning environment is inequality between those who have a device and those who do not.     

The Burthen of a Mystery

This article is a review of: Sala'ilua: A Samoan Mystery.; By Bradd Shore.; New York, Columbia University Press. 1982. Pp. xiv + 338. Price: $US36.40 cloth; $US18.20 paper.