Time perspectives,palimpsests and the archaeology of time

This paper explores the meaning of time perspectivism, its relationship to other theories of time used in archaeological interpretation, and the ways in which it can be implemented through an analysis of the palimpsest nature of the material world we inhabit. Palimpsests are shown to be a universal phenomenon of the material world, and to form a series of overlapping categories, which vary according to their geographical scale, temporal resolution and completeness of preservation. Archaeological examples are used to show how different types of palimpsest can be analyzed to address different sorts of questions about the time dimension of human experience, and the relationship between different types of processes and different scales of phenomena. Objections to the apparently deterministic and asocial character of time perspectivism, and its apparent neglect of subjective experience and individual action and perception, are dealt with. The line of thinking developed here is used, in its turn, to critique other approaches to the archaeology of time, and conventional understandings of the relationship between past, present and future.     

Between the cosmopolitan and the parochial: the immigrant gentrifier in Koreatown,Los Angeles

This paper questions the currently lopsided relationship between the cosmopolitan and the parochial, in which the former is favored both conceptually and empirically. In response, we propose a relational framework for bringing them into conversation, simultaneously recasting and re-animating longstanding debates via three framing devices – the process of relationality/territoriality, disposition, and spaces of encounter – embedded in and through the subject of the immigrant-gentrifier in Koreatown, Los Angeles, itself a novel category that has hitherto eluded systematic research. We present the results of 25 interviews of Korean immigrant-gentrifiers and 10 key informant interviews. The results constitute a parochial critique that emerges as a series of conflicted paradoxes but also productive tensions: between an ostensibly transnational process compromised by a profoundly homegrown, parochial set of investors and outlooks; between a set of dispositions that seek inner-city diversity and density, yet simultaneously sheltered from its spillover costs; and spaces of encounter marked by a gap between the promise of truly open spaces and the reality of guarded and self-segregated ones. Ultimately, this paper does double duty – conceptually rebalancing the cosmopolitan-parochial relationship, but in doing so empirically elevating the emergence of the understudied immigrant-gentrifier category.     

From productivism to post-productivism … and back again? Exploring the (un)changed natural and mental landscapes of European agriculture

This paper has evolved out of a growing dissatisfaction with the relatively uncritical acceptance in contemporary debates that agriculture in advanced societies has moved from 'productivism' to 'post-productivism'. A brief review of current conceptualizations of productivist and post-productivist agricultural regimes reveals inconsistencies in current understandings these dualistic terms. The problem has partly been that the conceptual literature on post-productivism has largely failed to take into account the wealth of actor-oriented and behaviourally grounded research. Productivist and post-productivist agricultural regimes have also been conceptualized from a UK-centric perspective that has largely failed to discuss whether the concept has wider applicability within Europe and beyond. The paper discusses the time-lag and spatial inconsistencies in the adoption of post-productivist action and thought, and emphasizes that different localities are positioned at different points in a temporal, spatial and conceptual transition from 'pre-productivist' to 'post-productivist' agricultural regimes. The notion of the 'territorialization' of productivist and post-productivist actor spaces highlights the wide-ranging diversity that exists within the productivist/post-productivist spectrum, and that productivist and post-productivist action and thought occurs in multidimensional coexistence leads one to question the implied directionality of the traditional productivist/post-productivist debate. It is suggested that the notion of a 'multifunctional agricultural regime' better encapsulates the diversity, non-linearity and spatial heterogeneity that can currently be observed in modern agriculture and rural society.     

Does the Punitive Need the Supportive? A Sympathetic Critique of Current Grammars of Urban Injustice

Abstract: This paper is a sympathetic critique of mainstream grammars of urban injustice, arguing that they are frequently too one‐sided and selective to adequately grasp the full complexity of urban realities. Most prominently, I contend that urban injustice and punitiveness co‐exist with, if not sometimes depend upon, more supportive responses within urban space. I therefore counterbalance the spectacular logics of punitive urbanism and the everyday logics of control with a tripartite approach to logics assembled within the urban voluntary sector (abeyance, care and survival) as a way to reconnect to a broader set of practices. Two case studies are used to illustrate these contentions.     

Rethinking the Double Movement: Expanding the Frontiers of Polanyian Analysis in the Global South

Over the last two decades a rich and diverse body of literature has emerged which uses the ‘double movement’ to analyse social, political and economic change in the global South. The main aims of this article are to expand the boundaries of this scholarship and improve our understanding of how to use the concept to analyse capitalist development in the region. It seeks to achieve this by explaining and extending the original formulation of the double movement, creating a dialogue between scholars who follow alternative readings of the concept, and proposing a revised formulation which builds on the existing literature while moving in new directions. The article concludes by signposting potentially fruitful areas of Polanyian analysis.     

The Value of an Ocean View: an Example of Hedonic Property Amenity Valuation

This paper presents a method of quantifying variation in quality in an amenity as a component of an hedonic property amenity valuation. The paper considers the residential land amenity of an ocean view, a situation where there is typically substantial variation in the quality of the view between sites. The method is effectively a scoring system based on three sub-characteristics of the ocean view. It is illustrated by application to a coastal housing subdivision in Western Australia. The results provide an estimate of the increase in the sale price of a site attributable to the quality of the site’s ocean view. The method has a potential role in coastal land use management decisions.     

Reviews: Australian

Richard Lucy, The Australian Form of Government, Melbourne, Macmillan, 1985, pp.460. $19.95 (paper)

Greg Whitwell, The Treasury Line, Sydney, Allen & Unwin, 1986, pp.308. $17.95 (paper)

Dean Jaensch, Getting Our Houses in Order: Australia's Parliament, Ringwood, Penguin, 1986, pp.192. $9.95 (paper)

Lionel Murphy, The Rule of Law, edited by Jean and Richard Ely, Amcliffe NSW, Akron Press, 1986, pp.xx,309. $17.95 (paper)

The Whitlam Phenomenon: Fabian Papers, Melbourne, McPhee Gribble/Penguin, 1986, pp.202. $8.95 (paper)

Malcolm Saunders & Ralph Summy, The Australian Peace Movement: A Short History, Canberra, Peace Research Centre (distributor Social Alternatives), 1986, pp.78, $3.75 (paper)

David McKnight (ed.), Moving Left: The Future of Socialism in Australia. Sydney, Pluto Press, 1986, pp.221. $11.95 (paper)

Braham Dabscheck, Arbitrator at Work: Sir William Raymond Kelly and the Regulation of Australian Industrial Relations, Sydney, Allen & Un‐win, 1983, pp.169. $14.95 (paper)

C. D. Rowley, Recovery: the Politics of Aboriginal Reform, Ringwood, Penguin, 1986, pp. 169. $8.95 (paper)

James Walter, The Ministers’ Minders: Personal Advisers in National Government, Melbourne, Oxford University Press, 1986, pp.237. $25.00 (cloth), $12.00 (paper)

Warren Osmond, Frederic Eggleston: An Intellectual in Australian Politics, Sydney, Allen & Unwin, 1985, pp.357. $29.95 (cloth)

Barry Gustafson, From the Cradle to the Grave: A Biography of Michael Joseph Savage, Auckland, Reed Methuen, 1986, pp.369. $35.00 (cloth)

J. M. Mitchell, International Cultural Relations, London, Allen & Unwin, 1986, pp. xvi, 253.

Leslie Holmes, Politics in the Communist World, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1986, pp.401. $32.00 (paper)

Bronislaw Misztal (ed.), Poland After Solidarity: Social Movements versus the State, New Brunswick, Transaction Books, 1985, pp.167. US$20.00 (cloth)

David S. Mason, Public Opinion and Political Change in Poland. 1980–1982, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1985, pp. 275. $74.00 (cloth)

Robert F. Miller and T.H. Rigby (eds), Religion and Politics in Communist States, Canberra, Occasional Paper No. 19, Department of Political Science, Research School of Social Sciences, The Australian National University, 1986, pp.141.

John Rayenhill, Collective Clientelism: The Lome Conventions and North‐South Relations, New York, Columbia University Press, 1985, pp.389. $49.00 (cloth)

E.J. Clay and B.B. Schaffer (eds) Room for Manoeuvre — An Exploration of Public Policy in Agriculture and Rural Development, London, Heinemann, 1984, pp.209. $ 13.50 (paper)

Kenneth Fox, Metropolitan America: Urban Life and Urban Policy in the United States, 1940–1980, London, Macmillan, 1985, pp.274. $19.95 (paper)

K.J. Holsti, The Dividing Discipline: Hegemony and Diversity in International Theory, London, Allen and Unwin, 1985, pp.165. $39.95 (cloth)

Richard Clutterbuck (ed.), The Future of Political Violence, London, Macmillan, 1986, pp. 206. $19.95 (paper)

Christopher Lee, War in Space, London, Hamish Hamilton, 1986, pp.242, £10.95 (cloth); and E.P. Thompson (ed.), Star Wars, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1985, pp.165, $6.95 (paper)

Kevin Boyle and Tom Hadden, Ireland: A Positive Proposal, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 1985, pp.127. $7.95 (paper)

Malcolm Slater, Contemporary French Politics, London, Macmillan, 1985, pp.xv + 259. $13.95 (paper)

Olajide Aluko and Timothy M. Shaw (eds), Southern Africa in the 1980s, London, George Allen and Unwin, 1985, pp.327. $45.00 (cloth)

Commonwealth Group of Eminent Persons, Mission to South Africa: The Commonwealth Report, London, Penguin Books for the Commonwealth Secretariat, 1986, pp.176. $6.95 (paper)

N.P. Hepworth, The Finance of Local Government, rev. 6th edition, London, Allen & Unwin, 1985, pp.344. $22.95 (paper)

Government, 2nd edition, London, Allen & Unwin, 1986, pp.164. $14.95 (paper)

Anthony Giddens, The Nation‐State and Violence, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1985, pp.399. $58.50 (cloth)

Donald Home, The Public Culture: The Triumph of Industrialism, Sydney, Pluto Press, 1986, pp.264. $12.95 (paper)

Mark Cousins and Athar Hussain, Michel Foucault, London, Macmillan, 1984, pp.278. $18.95 (paper)

J.A. Downie, Jonathan Swift, Political Writer, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985, pp.391. $35.95 (paper)

Robert Young, Personal Autonomy: Beyond Negative and Positive Liberty, London & Sydney, Croom Helm, 1986, pp.123. $44.95 (cloth)

David Muschamp (ed.), Political Thinkers, Melbourne, Macmillan, 1986, pp.259. $29.95 (cloth), $14.95 (paper)

Alistair Mant, Leaders We Deserve, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1985, pp.250. $16.95 (paper)

Richard J. Badham, Theories of Industrial Society, London, Croom Helm, 1986, pp.188. $49.95 (cloth)

Derek Phillips, Toward a Just Social Order, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1986, pp.490. US$50.00 (cloth)

John Burnheim, Is Democracy Possible? The Alternative to Electoral Politics, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1985, pp.205. $39.95 (cloth).

Philip Green, Retrieving Democracy: In Search of Civic Equality, London, Methuen, 1985, pp.278. $53.95 (cloth)