Access Orders and the ‘New’ New Institutional Economics of Development

This article examines the Access Order theories of development that have emerged as the latest reformulation of New Institutional Economics by Douglass North and his associates. These scholars claim that Access Order theory represents a radical break from previous models of institutional change in developing countries. They argue that at the heart of development is the problem of controlling organized violence. Two distinct social orders, the Limited Access Order and the Open Access Order, have emerged as solutions to the problem of endemic violence. This article traces the evolution of these new ideas within North's institutional theory and examines how violence is treated within the new framework. The article evaluates the underlying economic model on which the theory is based and argues that the conceptual device of the Open Access Order preserves key features of the neoclassical approach within North's work. The article contrasts the Access Order approach with the political settlements framework. To conclude, the article argues that the Access Order approach serves to strip the progressive potential out of development by ignoring how controlling violence may affect human capabilities, rights and freedom.     

‘It’s one of the first times I’ve felt fully engaged’: developing student engagement using blogging as a form of assessment

There is a widespread debate in higher education about how best to support students in becoming more active and engaged learners. Geographers have occupied a central position in these debates having long been concerned with understanding and creating teaching spaces that encourage active and experiential learning. Recent pedagogical innovations have seen a movement away from a reliance on lecturing as the key pedagogical method and a redefinition of the roles of both teacher and learner. In this paper, we look at the role that assessment, specifically assessed blogs, can play in enhancing student engagement. Drawing on interviews with Course Organizers from two case study courses, student focus groups, and course evaluation surveys we show the various ways in which blogs enhance engagement. We draw attention to how blogging enabled students to personalize their learning and make it more meaningful to them, as well as to foster greater engagement with the course materials including making connections across the course as a whole. Further, we show how blogging enabled students to develop transferable skills that would stand them in good stead for the rest of their time at university and in their future professional lives.     

Globalization and the Changing Networks of Food Supply: The Importation of Fresh Horticultural Produce from Kenya into the UK

Set within the context of the global food supply system, this paper examines the growing trade in fresh horticultural produce between Kenya and the UK. The links between UK retailers and Kenyan producers are investigated using the concept of the marketing chain. Two major chains are identified - wholesale and supermarket – and, whilst having no direct investment in Kenya, it is the supermarkets who control production there, through intermediaries who ensure that standards of quality and presentation are met. Importers play a crucial role in facilitating this trade, acting as a vital link between farmers and exporters in Kenya and supermarkets in the UK. The need for quality and traceability dictates that contractual arrangements are made predominantly with large-scale farms using productivist farming methods. The irony is that it is post-productivist demands by 'new consumers' in the UK that are encouraging these productivist horticultural systems in Kenya.     

The Matabeleland Massacres: Britain's wilful blindness

This article explores an episode of post-colonial state violence in the newly independent Zimbabwe, namely state-sanctioned atrocities by the army unit known as Fifth Brigade, perpetrated against the Ndebele of Matabeleland and Midlands region. This episode of political and ethnic violence that occurred between 1983 and 1987 is referred to as both the Matabeleland Massacres and Gukurahundi. Members of the British government in Zimbabwe, which included a British Military Advisory Training Team (BMATT) on the ground, were intimately aware of the violence that resulted in the death of between 10,000 and 20,000 people. This article analyses official British and US government communications between the British High Commission, Harare, and the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Cabinet Office, the Prime Minister's Office and the Ministry of Defence, London, as well as between the US Department of State and the US Embassy in Harare. Analysis of the documents dated between January and March 1983 sheds a critical new lens on Gukurahundi, establishing what knowledge was available to the British and US governments about the persistent and relentless atrocities taking place; the diplomatic approaches pursued by both governments in response; and their rationale for same. The hitherto unavailable material presented here was obtained by Freedom of Information requests to various British Government offices and to the US Department of State. Analysis establishes that the British High Commission, Harare, had detailed knowledge of events unfolding in Matabeleland from an early stage of Gukurahundi, yet senior members of BMATT and the British diplomatic team in Harare, in contrast to their US counterparts, were consistent in their efforts to minimise the magnitude of Fifth Brigade atrocities. That the British government chose to adopt a policy of wilful blindness towards the atrocities undoubtedly constituted naked realpolitik.     

Literatura y realidad histórica en Las conversiones de Martín Recuerda

Abstract

Kathleen M. Glenn and Mercedes Mazquiarán de Rodríguez, eds. Spanish Women Writers and the Essay. Gender, Politics, and the Self. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1998. 294 pp. $34.95.

Watson, Janell. Literature and Material Culture from Balzac to Proust. The Collection and Consumption of Curiosities. Cambridge University Press, 1999. x + 227 pp.

Anne J. Cruz. Discourses of Poverty: Social Reform and the Picaresque Novel in Early Modern Spain. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999. 320 pp.     

Heritage Sailing in Australia: a preliminary schema

Distinguishing between replica and restored sailing vessels in terms of their emphasis on heritage and sailing and between the intellectual and kinaesthetic appreciation of heritage produces a simple classificatory schema. Using this schema enables one to distinguish stationary exhibits, ?museum? vessels, sail training vessels and commercial vessels. The schema suggests several research areas for further enquiry.     

UNIQUE ISOLATION VERSUS NETWORKS OF OPPORTUNITY: THE COMPETING DISCOURSES OF TASMANIA

In order to understand why people move, we must first try to comprehend how they understand their migration decisions and recognize that such understandings are intricately tied to their understandings of places. Place construction – the way people understand and discuss the nature and meaning of places – occurs at all levels from individual constructions to constructions by economic and political interest groups. These place constructions necessarily influence each other, and hence they are in constant flux and reflect power relations evident in society. This article examines these issues in the context of the negative net migration of young adults in the Australian state of Tasmania through an examination of the experiences of thirty young return migrants who participated in in‐depth interviews and group discussions about their experiences of migration. It finds that bounded constructions of Tasmania – which stress the physical isolation and social and political insularity of the state as well as the uniqueness of the state's environment and society – appear to be dominant for these young returned migrants. However, the article argues that these bounded constructions necessarily exist in relation to networked constructions, which focus on the opportunities for people, ideas, goods and money to benefit through connections with other places as well as the loss of the uniqueness of the Tasmanian environment and society. This article concludes with a discussion of the political, economic and social consequences of these different forms of place construction.