They would if they could: class, gender, and popular representation of English divorce litigation, 1858-1908

A systematic sample of the petitions presented to the English Divorce Court from 1858 through 1908 makes it possible to assess the differential contribution of discrete social and economic subgroups to the litigation the Court oversaw. An examination of four of these -- the titled aristocracy, those employed in the theater, those in receipt of financial aid, and laborers -- shows that English divorce litigants exhibited a broader social profile than commonly attributed to it by the newspaper coverage of divorce litigation, which gave a skewed impression of its social profile. Analysis of these cases underscores the gendered, class, and geographically inflected demand for divorce in a judicial setting that imposed severe restrictions on access to divorce as a remedy for marital breakdown.     

Organic Public Geographies: “Making the Connection”

Abstract: A new field of “public geographies” is taking shape ( Fuller 2008 ) in geography's mainstream journals. While much is “traditional”, with intellectuals disseminating academic research via non‐ academic outlets ( Castree 2006 ; Mitchell 2008 ; Oslender 2007 ), less visible is the “organic” work and its “more involved intellectualizing, pursued through working with area‐based or single‐interest groups, in which the process itself may be the outcome” ( Ward 2006 :499; see Fuller and Askins 2010 ). A number of well‐known projects exist where research has been “done not merely for the people we write about but with them” ( Gregory 2005 :188; see also Cahill 2004 ; Johnston and Pratt 2010 ). However, collaborative writing of academic publications which gives research participants authorial credit is unusual ( mrs kinpainsby 2008 ; although see Sangtin Writers and Nagar 2006 ). This paper is about an organic public geographies project called “Making the connection”. It is written by a diverse collection of (non‐)academic participants who contributed to the project before it had started, as it was undertaken, and/or after it had finished. This is a “messy”, process‐oriented text ( Cook et al. 2007 ) working through the threads (partially) connecting the activities of its main collaborators, including a referee who helped get the paper to publication.     

Gender in the frame: photography and the performance of the nation narrative in early twentieth-century Ireland

This article considers the role of visualising in the formation of the nation narrative. It foregrounds the significance of gender performance in early twentieth-century Irish cultural nationalism. Prior to the consolidation of a hegemonic narrative of state, spaces existed for the exploration of a range of possible projections of identity. This study focuses on one of those possibilities, namely a series of costume photographs where gender is literally performed. A contextual reading of these photographs is offered in order to situate them within the formation of the nation narrative. The gender of the nation is enacted through performativity, which through its repetition comes to be seen as natural. The photographs under consideration here undermine that process of naturalisation by revealing a more complex and contradictory history of the relationship between gender and nation. The omission of this more complex representation in the Irish narrative, it is argued, reveals how monopoly of narrative is integral to both hegemonic control in the visual field and how we understand the nation.     

Developments in Harnessing and Draught in the Roman World

Material remains of harness elements from different parts of the Roman Empire have contributed to a new interpretation of the harness depicted on funerary reliefs of the second‐third centuries AD from north‐western Europe and on other figured documents, such as Trajan's Column in Rome (dedicated in 113 AD). As recent experimental reconstruction has shown, the curved wooden plaques, held firmly in place by a metal bow, may have formed a precedent for the collar and hames developed during the Middle Ages into the form still in use today. The most important innovation was the introduction – no later than the second century AD – of single draught between shafts, replacing traditional paired draught with pole and yoke. There is even some evidence that other elements of modern harness, such as traces and the whippletree, hitherto considered to be medieval inventions, were also known during the period of the Roman Empire.     

Feminist geographies in Aotearoa New Zealand: cultural,social and political moments

Abstract

Aotearoa New Zealand is a nation of promise, potential and enigma: it was the first country in the world where women gained the vote in 1893 and now boasts the youngest woman world leader in 2017. It is also a postcolonial nation where structural racism, homophobia, and sexism persist, yet it has also given legal personhood to a river. Our Country Report foregrounds Aotearoa New Zealand feminist geographic scholarship that responds to, reflects, and sometimes resists such contrasts and contradictions at the national scale. We employ the lens of the 2017 national election to critically engage with current gendered and indigenous politics in the country. Analyzing these politics through three ‘feminist moments,’ our paper highlights the breadth and scope of current Aotearoa New Zealand feminist geographic scholarship and directions.