History and Tradition

English-speaking soldiers of the Great War created a large ‘trench press’, a body of periodicals by, for, and about their experiences. They contain a wealth of folkloric material and indications of its significance and functions. While acknowledging the constraints involved in retrieving once-living traditions from the fragmentary survival of mostly makeshift periodicals, this article describes and discusses the processes involved in the creation and development of an especially well-defined folk culture in unprecedented and extreme circumstances. While some elements of soldier folklore, especially song, verse, and language, have been the subject of usually discrete interest by folklorists, this is the first attempt to understand a range of folkloric practice and expression in the context of a particular set of combat circumstances.     

Spectral geographies: haunting and everyday state practices in colonial and present-day Alaska

Haunting is an analytic that foregrounds connections between the past and the present day. I employ haunting to analyze everyday practices of the colonial state in Alaska, thereby reinforcing the material connections between everyday activities and narratives and the imaginaries they create, questioning the timeless character of many studies of everyday geographies, and demanding attention to justice. A case study from Alaska involving federal non-recognition of the Qutekcak tribe demonstrates connections between colonial histories and present-day practices of the state, connections that take shape as a ‘spectral geography.’     

Gender,work and technology in the information workplace: from typewriters to ATMs

We consider the relations between gender and technology in the workplace, focusing on clerical work in the information workplace, especially the finance and insurance sector. Our goal is to excavate a ‘hidden history’ of how clerical work and the artifacts which sustain it have been understood and deployed under different cultural and economic circumstances. We employ an analysis of technosocial relations developed in Science and Technology Studies in which meanings about ‘technology’ and ‘society’ are mutually constitutive, changeable, and in need of maintenance in order to sustain their conceptual coherence. By drawing on examples from the USA and Canada, we argue that at various points over the twentieth century particular office technologies became ‘feminized’, or associated with characteristics coded as feminine, as a means of shaping spatial practice and social relations in the workplace.     

Climate change perceptions and responses in Scotland's ski industry

The negative impacts of climate change for the ski industry have been well documented. However, research has largely focused on key ski markets in North America and Continental Europe. The study presented in this paper addresses climate change perceptions and responses in the more marginal ski destination of Scotland. Using a qualitative, interpretivist methodology, this paper contributes through a local-scale, single-site study of a ski area where technical adaptations are not utilised and which therefore relies on business responses to climate change. Findings suggest that while local weather is perceived to be a large and unmanageable risk to the industry, and a downward trend is identified in terms of snow reliability, these risks are not perceived to be connected to the wider anthropogenic climate change discourse. Waiting for knowledge to increase before taking adaptive action appears to be the most popular business strategy; however, autonomous adaptation is taking place in the form of business diversification, which mitigates against risks including, but not limited to, climate change. This paper concludes that experiences and perceptions of climate change will be highly localised and as a result so too will adaptive behaviours. Marginal ski destinations such as Scotland will be facing a range of non-climatic impacts which will contribute to their contextual vulnerability to climate change and capacity to adapt.     

Who Knew the Minds of the People? Specialist Knowledge and Developmentalist Authoritarianism in Postcolonial Ghana

By the mid-1960s, local-level development workers in Ghana were expected to act as the eyes and ears of the state, reporting on ‘the minds of the people’ and explaining their reactions to President Kwame Nkrumah's project of socialist reconstruction. This articles argues that through mass education, social welfare and community development plans, both the late colonial and early independent state sought to make its presence manifest in the everyday lives of its citizens, to bind them to a broader vision for their country, and to present their successes to the outside world. By identifying some of the competing models of social development that were promoted by British, Ghanaian and African-American experts in the aftermath of independence, this article investigates the role of specialist knowledge in the developmentalist authoritarianism which is often presented as a generic legacy of the colonial state in Africa.     

Exhibiting enterprise: how New Zealand museums generate revenue

Museums in New Zealand are not a homogeneous group in terms of their level of incomegenerating activity or the nature of those activities. The gap of knowledge consequent on this situation led to the National Services unit of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, commissioning primary research into the revenue‐generation activities of the sector. This paper presents the results of that research, specifically the data gathered through a questionnaire. The results provide a profile of respondents in relation to their operating contexts, the sources of financial and non‐financial support they received (from the local community, local authorities and central government), and the types of income‐generating activities they undertook. The results contribute to a better understanding of both how organisations within the sector generate income (from traditional sources and new, more innovative activities) and what factors influence their ability to do so.     

Small Towns and Agriculture: Understanding the Spatial Pattern of Farm Linkages

Agricultural policy and farm lobby groups often stress the role of farm production in sustaining local economies. This paper considers the spatial pattern of upstream and downstream agricultural transactions of farms in North East Scotland and, in particular, the extent to which they take place within the locality of the farm holding. Three alternative definitions of “local” are considered: a distance-based measure; a measure which takes into account the location of the farm in relation to the nearest town; and a measure which takes into account the location of agribusinesses, defining a transaction as local if the farmer buys from (sells to) the nearest available input supplier (output purchaser). The results highlight the importance of allowing for context when explaining farmer purchasing and sales decisions. They also reveal a highly complex pattern of production-related linkages in the region, with many farmers choosing to bypass their most proximate agribusinesses. Certain towns are found to dominate agriculture-related transactions in the region, reflecting the spatial concentration of upstream and downstream agribusinesses. The findings provide new insights into theoretical debates on the role of small towns in the urban system and the changing importance of geographical distance in determining business transactions.     

Beautiful face,beautiful place: relational geographies and gender in cosmetic surgery tourism websites

Cosmetic surgery tourism is a significant and growing area of medical tourism. This article explores the gendered construction of cosmetic surgery tourism in different geographical locations through an analysis of destination websites in Spain, the Czech Republic and Thailand. We examine the ways in which gender and other intersections of identity interact with notions of space, place and travel to construct particular locations and cosmetic surgery tourist experiences. The relational geographies of skill, regulation and hygiene in discourses of cosmetic surgery risk are also explored. We conclude that accounts producing cosmetic surgery tourism as undifferentiated experience of ‘non-place’ fail to acknowledge the complex constructions of specific destinations in promotional materials targeting international consumers in a global marketplace.