Spinning Yarns: The Archaeological Evidence for Hand Spinning and its Social Implications,c ad 1200–1500

THIS PAPER EXAMINES the archaeological evidence for hand spinning in medieval Britain from c 1200 to c 1500. Ceramic, stone and baked clay spindle whorls have dominated the excavated finds, but a new corpus of lead-alloy spindle whorls, recorded through the Portable Antiquities Scheme and Scottish Treasure Trove, is presented here. Analysis of the metal whorls’ distribution, manufacture, dating and decoration is provided, illuminating the wide social and economic contexts in which they were used. From memento mori of pious spinners to sexually potent objects representative of lubricious gossips, the ubiquitous spindle whorl was a universal tool that had a powerful agency. The artefacts are small finds embodying daily life but also tie into the wider national economy of the High and Late Middle Ages.     

Enacting parenting policy? The hybrid spaces of Sure Start Children's Centres

This article draws on research in three UK Sure Start Children's Centres which explored them as particular kinds of spaces, with the intention of understanding how policy imperatives and discourses interact with other dynamics. The role of the material spaces of the buildings, of ambivalent interactions of users with staff, and friendship groups among users are seen as key to understanding the centre as a ‘hybrid’ space in which policy intentions were exceeded by other aspects of everyday life. This has implications not only for understanding policy programmes in action, but also for how academic analysis and theory positions itself in relation to these spaces.     

Stumbling Towards Union: Policymaking in the EU

Desmond Dinan (Ed.), Encyclopedia of the European Union .
Pierre-Henri Lament and Marc Maresceau (Eds.), The State of the European Union
John McCormick, The European Union: Politics and Policies .
Stelios Stavridis, Elias Mossialos, Roger Morgan, and Howard Machin (Eds.), New Challenges to the European Union: Policies and Policy-Making .
Helen Wallace and William Wallace (Eds.), Policy-Making in the European Union .     

To Watch or Restrain: Female Convict Prisons in 19th-Century Tasmania

As institutions established to manage exiled British felons, the Tasmanian female factories consisted of four women's prisons located throughout the island colony. The material world of these institutions mediated internal power relations. Superintendents, Convict Department Officials, and the female prisoners themselves manipulated site landscapes. Today, one of these institutions remains as a managed historic site. Tourists experience a tidy and unthreatening landscape of Australia's heroic convict heritage. By juxtaposing excavated archaeological remains with public presentations of convict sites, I explore the position of female convicts from the original penal landscape to the shadows of Australian history.