The BBC and decentralisation: the pilgrimage to Manchester

This research critically analyses the decentralisation of the BBC’s Department of Religion and Ethics, from its base in London to the office of BBC Manchester in 1994. It examines the rationale behind the BBC’s decision to move this production unit, and analyses the long-term impact of this policy on both the logistics and programme-making culture of the unit. Using interviews with staff working within the department at the time of the move, this research demonstrates how policy decisions such as this are negotiated by professionals within the Corporation and the conflicts which arise around efficiency and equality. The case of the Department of Religion and Ethics also provides important lessons for the future decentralisation of BBC departments to Salford Quays which is due to be implemented in 2011.     

Hygienisation,Gentrification, and Urban Displacement in Brazil

This article engages recent debates over gentrification and urban displacement in the global South. While researchers increasingly suggest that gentrification is becoming widespread in “Southern” cities, others argue that such analyses overlook important differences in empirical context and privilege EuroAmerican theoretical frameworks. To respond to this debate, in this article, we outline the concept of higienização (hygienisation), arguing that it captures important contextual factors missed by gentrification. Hygienisation is a Brazilian term that describes a particular form of urban displacement, and is directly informed by legacies of colonialism, racial and class stigma, informality, and state violence. Our objective is to show how “Southern” concepts like hygienisation help urban researchers gain better insight into processes of urban displacement, while also responding to recent calls to decentre and provincialise urban theory.     

The Limits of Mastery: Slaveholders,Slaves, and Baptist Church Discipline

Existing scholarship describes early southern evangelical churches as racially radical institutions that, as the eighteenth century surrendered to the nineteenth, capitulated to slavery, implementing accommodations intended to make them more attractive to respectable, slaveholding churchgoers. This essay argues that that transition was never as complete as suggested. Based on a set of 65 Baptist church minutes from congregations located in 4 different southern states, it shows how evangelical churches continued to exercise a degree of authority over slave-owning members and their treatment of bondpeople from the late eighteenth century through the end of slavery itself.