A study of social‐market interventions in the shaping of the field of cultural production

A social analysis based on extensive evaluation of the Dance and Drama Awards programme reveals the social‐market political paradigm underpinning the formation of cultural policy in the UK underthe New Labour government. This specific intervention in the field of cultural production is placed in the context of broader government interventions in the cultural domain that seek to give respect to undervalued social and cultural groups. There is a political analysis of the characteristics of the social‐market political formation that underpin New Labour’s “affirmative” actions, and the political strategies informing the government’s “access” and “inclusion” agendas and their impact on the cultural and creative industries. The authors argue that the construction of a “social‐market” position in New Labour’s cultural policy represents an attempt to bridge or “hyphenate” the contradictory claims of social democracy, on the one hand, and economic fatalism, on the other. Despite the rhetoric of social and cultural “transformation”, the authors argue that a “faith” in the market prevents New Labour from transforming the political‐economic and cultural structures that generate economic and cultural injustices.     

Climate Leviathan

Abstract: While there is much justifiable attention to the ecological implications of global climate change, the political implications are just as important for human well‐being and social justice. We posit a basic framework by which to understand the range of political possibilities, in light of the response of global elites to climate warming and the challenges it poses to hegemonic institutional and conceptual modes of governance and accumulation. The framework also suggests some possible means through which these responses might be thwarted, and political stakes in that construction of a new hegemony—which, to avoid suggesting we know or can yet determine the form it will take, we call “climate X”.     

Moving peoples,changing diets: isotopic differences highlight migration and subsistence changes in the Upper Mun River Valley,Thailand

The dramatic growth of dietary isotope studies in archaeological literature attests to the significant potential this technique has for shedding light on past societies. Human diet reflects complex, inter-linked factors such as status, cultural preferences or environmental constraints on food production. In this study dietary isotope analysis is used to examine the human skeletal remains from Ban Non Wat, northeast Thailand. The study aims to use isotopic data to give insight into patterns of migration and subsistence strategy during prehistory. Ban Non Wat is the most comprehensively excavated site in the Upper Mun River Valley (UMRV), and understanding of prehistoric society in this area is crucial to answering questions of how social complexity arose in the region. Carbon isotope analysis has highlighted migrant individuals invisible to strontium isotope analysis and shown links between unusual burial practice and differences in diet. Results also indicate that diet changed substantially through time, with more reliance on rice in the Bronze Age, correlated with an increase in social differentiation. There is a move away from reliance on rice agriculture in the Iron Age, a time when oxygen isotopes show that environmental conditions were becoming drier, possibly resulting in rice agriculture becoming less viable.     

Taphonomic resolution and hominin subsistence behaviour in the Lower Palaeolithic: differing data scales and interpretive frameworks at Boxgrove and Swanscombe (UK)

The identification of human butchery-signatures on fauna from Lower Palaeolithic sites is well documented and readily identifiable. Such bone surface modifications have the potential to provide not only information about past hominin meat-procurement behaviour but address the wider issue of competition for resources with other carnivore species. To understand and discuss these broader issues both hominin and natural bone surface modifications must be understood and contextualised within a site-specific spatial and temporal framework. This paper presents new results from faunal analysis at two key British Lower Palaeolithic localities: Boxgrove and Swanscombe. It illustrates that different depositional environments and excavation histories have resulted in different scales and resolutions of available data and hence in varying interpretive potentials. At Swanscombe the archaeological record has been disturbed by both fluvial activity and excavation history providing a coarser-grained record of anthropogenic behaviour than previously acknowledged. Conversely, at Boxgrove, a finer-grained, higher resolution record of human behaviours has been preserved; this, combined with both an extensive and intensive excavation strategy, has allowed for a broader discussion of hominin landscape use, resource competition and meat-procurement behaviour. This paper highlights that assessing the specific depositional environment at each site is crucial to understanding Palaeolithic faunal assemblage formation and, consequently, the available data-resolution and behavioural interpretation.     

The South Australian Election of 18 March 2006

The South Australian election on 18 March 2006 saw the Labor Party; led by Mike Rann, storm out from the shadows of minority government to record a decisive victory which has the potential to set a platform from which the party could govern for at least the next eight years. Labor won 28 of the 47 seats in the House of Assembly gaining 45.2% of first preference votes. However, the decisiveness of its victory in the Lower House was not matched by the result in the Legislative Council. Voters turned away from both major parties giving 4 of the 11 seats contested to minor parties and independents. This continued a trend that has been evident in South Australian elections for the last two decades, although on this occasion its dramatic acceleration was explained by the extraordinary result of the ‘No Pokies’ independent Nick Xenophon who won 23.5% of the vote and easily secured two quotas. The election campaign itself marked new heights in the trend towards presidential style campaigning on the part of the Labor Party which used extensive television advertising to make the most of its popular leader. The Liberals, on the other hand, lacked both a leader to counter Rann and the funds to match Labor's advertising budget. The election also saw the confirmation of Family First as a significant player in South Australian politics, and may mark the beginning of the end of the Australian Democrats. The Democrats failed to make any impact and were effectively replaced by the Greens, who in winning a seat in the Legislative Council enjoyed their first South Australian electoral success.     

Towards an Integrated Spatial Planning?

The notion of “spatial planning” has emerged as something of a new planning orthodoxy. Underpinning it lie various notions of integration—of policy communities and agendas, for example. This paper considers the evolution of integrated spatial planning in the various UK territories, focusing particularly on the experiences of Scotland. It analyses horizontal and vertical forms of integration using the notion of “governance lines”. These help explore the interaction between policies and actions at various spatial levels to examine how governance action can be re-scaled. A focus on Scotland highlights both divergence from European experience and a number of long-standing, but often subtly different, concerns for planners. Notable among these are the power spatial planning has in other policy sectors to pursue integration, and the co-ordination of land-use issues and infrastructure delivery. These issues present challenges for agendas of integration and highlights their political nature, raising as they do questions such as: how far can integration be pursued in the contemporary governance landscape; and thus to whom and on what might focuses on integration be directed? Such an analysis suggests potentials and limitations for a spatial planning agenda in the future.