Articulating minority nationhood: cultural and political dimensions in Québec's reasonable accommodation debate

Given their precarious position within larger states, national minorities cannot rely on federal governments to affirm their nationhood. Moreover, insofar as nationhood is predicated on a shared history, language and culture, immigrants place additional strains on the maintenance of national distinctiveness and the political claims that derive from it. In 2006–2007, following a series of confrontations over religious practices in the public sphere, Québec's provincial government appointed the Bouchard–Taylor Commission to investigate avenues for the accommodation of immigrant‐related cultural and religious differences. While it failed to generate policy, the commission did provide a discursive space for the (re)assertion of Québécois nationhood. Analysing the production of national identity in newspaper debates of the Bouchard–Taylor report, we offer an alternative to the ethnic–civic paradigm in nationalism theory. Rather than treat ethnic and civic as two separate ends of a single continuum, we conceptualise a relationship between two dimensions: one of culture and one of politics. We show that in contemporary articulations of Québec national identity, the prerequisites of political membership derive their meaning from a productive tension between blood‐based and adoptive conceptions of national culture.     

Economics,Politics, and Storytelling in the Yangzi Delta since 1949

Empirically rich and historically illuminating, Gilded Voices contributes a new and important perspective to the growing field of scholarship dedicated to rethinking PRC cultural history beyond the conventional dichotomy of Mao-era state domination and Reform Era autonomy, By corroborating a range of historical source materials-from personal interviews, municipal archives, periodicals, and audiovisual recordings-Qiliang He constructs a convincing argument that market competition and pursuit of individual livelihood played a much larger role in early PRC culture than previously thought, a pattern that, He shows, continues in the Reform Era, rather than emerging after the Cultural Revolution as something new.     

Beautiful face,beautiful place: relational geographies and gender in cosmetic surgery tourism websites

Cosmetic surgery tourism is a significant and growing area of medical tourism. This article explores the gendered construction of cosmetic surgery tourism in different geographical locations through an analysis of destination websites in Spain, the Czech Republic and Thailand. We examine the ways in which gender and other intersections of identity interact with notions of space, place and travel to construct particular locations and cosmetic surgery tourist experiences. The relational geographies of skill, regulation and hygiene in discourses of cosmetic surgery risk are also explored. We conclude that accounts producing cosmetic surgery tourism as undifferentiated experience of ‘non-place’ fail to acknowledge the complex constructions of specific destinations in promotional materials targeting international consumers in a global marketplace.     

Gendered water spaces: a study of the transition from wells to handpumps in Mozambique

In many parts of rural Africa, women and children spend a lot of time collecting water. In the development literature, the water collection task is portrayed as oppressive, arduous, and disliked by women. Eliminating this activity from women's lives is believed to empower them, yet there has been little research investigating what actually happens at the water source or how women themselves perceive the time spent there. This research is based on one year of ethnographic fieldwork in five rural communities in the northern province of Nampula, Mozambique. Over this year, handpumps were constructed in communities where people previously collected water from distant shallow wells and rivers. This article compares the social interactions and activities between the customary water sites and the handpump through the lens of gendered space. The customary water sites are controlled by women and highly valued for their social attributes. While clean water is more accessible at the handpumps, men often regulate access to the technology and social activities are limited. This article contributes to feminist geography and political ecology by showing how differences in the materiality of water spaces interact with local norms to shape social interactions and gendered subjectivities, and how, in turn, men and women contribute to the production and meaning of these spaces. I argue that the handpumps open up new spaces for men and women to negotiate gender roles and (re)define their associations with modernity and development.     

Making waves: Giacomo Balla and Emilio Pucci

Emilio Pucci emerged as an international fashion force in the 1960s with his bold and brilliant, streamlined outfits for the active woman. Delving into Pucci's first career as a bomber pilot and Fascist aviation hero, this article demonstrates his unacknowledged debt to the fashion theories and textile designs of the Futurist Giacomo Balla. Pucci was linked to Futurist aeropittura of the 1930s by the common culture of Fascism, aviation, and the cult of speed. Though Futurism was tainted by its affiliation with Fascism, in the post-war years, the works of Balla and others were kept in the public eye through exhibitions and their influence on a younger generation of modernist artists. In the same period, Pucci began to produce his vibrant eye-popping textile designs, which elaborated the proto-psychedelic imagery of wave-like swells, spinning vortexes, and exuberant floral arabesques developed by Balla between the World Wars.     

Weathering Effects on the Engineering Properties of Sydney (Yellow Block) Sandstone when used as a Building Material

Sydney (Yellow Block) Sandstone is the primary building material used in many nineteenth century buildings in Sydney, Australia. As a natural material, it is subject to deterioration in the salty environment and in extreme cases will need to be removed and replaced. Two cornice pieces have been removed from State Heritage Registered, the Australian Museum due to evidence of visual decay patterns including surface degradation, slight sanding, granular disintegration, contour scaling and flaking, pitting, discoloration, soiling, alga growth and there are missing parts. Stone samples removed from within these building elements were tested for their engineering properties after over 100 years of natural exposure. It was found that the stone has become weaker, softer, less durable, and has an increased capacity to absorb water. The stone was found to be more susceptible to attack from sodium sulfate ingress as opposed to sodium chloride, which would have contributed to the weathering effects noted on the stone. The degree of exposure experienced by each building element was also found to be a factor in the loss of stone quality.     

Italy and the World Bank: The European Foundations of Development Lending, 1947–51

Foreign financial assistance for economic development and the discipline of development economics have traditionally been associated with US Cold War policy toward the Third World. This article, however, suggests that these practices were also shaped by the experiences of foreign aid for European reconstruction after the Second World War. The article traces loan negotiations between the World Bank and the Italian government, and argues that this process played a substantial role in shaping not only the World Bank's lending policies, but also the way its staff understood the institution's mission. The article emphasises Europe's significance as a site in the early history of development, suggesting new ways of understanding the evolution of development ideas, practices, and institutions after 1951.     

‘The brede of good & strong Horsis’: zooarchaeological evidence for size change in horses from early modern London

SUMMARY: Almost 200 horse bone measurements from 38 sites excavated across the city of London, dating to the period AD 1220–1900 were analysed. Results identified three main phases of size change: a reduction in size in the mid 14th to 15th century, and size increases in the mid 15th to 16th century and the 17th century. The decline in size testifies to the disruption of horse breeding in the wake of the Black Death, whilst the increases reflect purposeful attempts to increase the size of horses in England through a combination of regulated breeding and the importation of new bloodlines.