Northern Ireland Representation at Westminster: Constitutional Conundrums and Political Manœuvres

This article focuses on the issue of Northern Ireland's representation at Westminster. It investigates the political context of the decision to increase Northern Ireland's representation in the house of commons at Westminster from 12 members to 17 in 1978–9. Exploring this episode in more detail, it is argued, provides a more informed overall understanding of the history of devolution in the UK and of the way issues concerning Northern Ireland often overlapped with questions of constitutional change in Scotland and Wales. The article also throws light on the matter of Northern Ireland MPs and their voting rights at Westminster during Northern Ireland's experience of devolution prior to 1972.     

A Sign of the Times: Scandinavian Town Directories as Sources for Urban Historical Geography

The position of town and trade directories as sources for the reconstruction of former urban geographies of Scandinavia is discussed. Scandinavian directories have a long history which, in the case of major urban centres, can be traced back to the eighteenth century. They contain valuable information with respect to the social, economic, political and demographic organization of modern Scandinavian urban environments through extensive listings of names and addresses. Despite the wealth of information contained therein, directories remain an underused and unresearched data source due mainly to their perceived incompatibility with the themes pursued by research in urban historical geography and the diversity of alternative high quality sources available. Admittedly, the use of directories is not without problems and an assessment of the accuracy, availability and reliability of directory information is presented in this paper. Nevertheless, to dismiss directories represents a serious oversight: the continued history, rapid rate of update and spatial ubiquity of publication across the region after the onset of industrialization make directories a powerful source for comparative urban historical geography research in Scandinavia. Moreover, directories are highly versatile data sources and represent powerful artefacts of modernity insofar as they function as mirrors of cultural change and consumption.     

Landscapes of triumphalism,reconciliation, and reclamation: memorializing the aftermath of the Dakota-U.S. War of 1862

The Dakota-U.S. War of 1862 resulted in the largest mass public execution in U.S. history and the forced exile of Dakota people from their homeland. Drawing on work on memorials and commemoration in cultural geography, we explore how events in the immediate aftermath of the conflict have been remembered and marked in the landscape of southern and central Minnesota. Through three case-studies we show how various material practices and discourses of remembrance have emerged in different communities at different times and on different scales. While markers and statuary commemorating Taoyateduta (Chief Little Crow) in the town of Hutchinson represent a triumphalist discourse, memorials at the site of the mass public hanging of 38 Dakota warriors in Mankato have sought reconciliation and mutual forgiveness between European Americans and Dakota people. Unlike these permanent site-specific memorials, the biennial Dakota Commemorative March physically retraces the 150-mile forced march of Dakota women, children, and elders in 1862 and involves the ceremonial placing of wooden markers at every mile along the route—a large-scale commemorative practice that goes beyond reconciliation to promote the formulation of a collective “counter-memory”, reclaim Dakota culture, and decolonize their traditional and sacred homeland.     

‘Westward on the high-hilled plains’: the literature of Shropshire and the early twentieth century imagination, 1896–c.1939

This article explores English national identities in the early twentieth century through the regional case study of Shropshire. Building on existing research on English regions, this article addresses the scarcity of border case studies. I argue that Shropshire was perceived as a border region that, at the same time as being incorporated into the model of the South Country, was also powerfully shaped by its proximity to Wales. Shropshire was valued as an escape from commercial modernity through its countryside landscapes, as a gateway to the past through its buildings, place-names, and folk customs, as a borderland of medieval conflict with Wales, and as a mysterious region of superstitions and the supernatural. This article suggests that the motifs and themes which worked through the images of ‘Shropshire’ and ‘England’ supported an imagination of diversity, multiplicity and contradiction—not solely one of national unity.     

Revisiting the snake burials of the Late Dilmun building complex on Bahrain

The well-known snake burials from the Late Dilmun building complex at Qalat al-Bahrain are discussed in the context of pre-Islamic Arabian, Mesopotamian, Elamite, Avestan, and Vedic Indian evidence. Ancient attitudes towards snakes are reviewed with the aim of confirming or eliminating one or more of these traditions as the likeliest cultural context for the snake sacrifices of Bahrain.     

Resistance and the Rule of Law in Mexico

Judicial reform and promotion of the rule of law are at the very top of the political agendas of many developing countries. Moreover, in the context of democratization and a growing concern for human rights and citizenship, many social groups are prepared to use the law as a means to challenge the State. This article looks at how a group in Mexico used the law to resist the State's attempt to expropriate land for urban development. The law was used as a method of opposition as well as a symbol, by allowing the resistance to be represented in the form of ‘rights’. In so doing, the legal discourse exposed deeper concerns for justice, ethnicity and nationhood. The solution to the conflict, however, is shown to bear little relation to either the legal framework which structured the resistance or the legal principles which the confrontation sought to establish.