Being seen in your pyjamas: the relationship between fashion,class, gender and space

Over the last decade class has re-emerged as a significant concept within British sociology, with prominent academics calling for a more Bourdieuian approach which focuses on class distinctions in cultural practices and tastes. Within this discussion, several note the important role fashion plays as a means of class distinction, though few have fully explored just how the fashion–class relationship operates. Based on empirical research, carried out as part of qualitative study into fashion practices and fashion discourse, this article examines the fashion–class relationship, by considering its links to both gender and space. It argues that the way in which women judge visibility and public space differs with class status and that this, in turn, has significant implications for women's fashion choices, and more specifically, dressing up. Indeed, whilst middle-class participants tend to view almost any space as public and one in which they are visible, for working-class participants neighbourhood and local spaces are seen to constitute semi-private spaces, whose audiences' opinions and judgements do not matter. As a result, being dressed in your pyjamas is not deeply problematic for these working-class women in the context of their everyday lives, whilst for their middle-class counterparts being seen in your pyjamas is something which should be avoided, at all cost. Moreover, as the article demonstrates, the wearing of pyjamas is often considered by middle-class respondents as indicative of working classness. And thus, being seen in your pyjamas is undesirable on two counts.     

‘The face of the one who is making for Jerusalem’: The Angel Choir of Lincoln Cathedral and Joy1

This paper examines the Angel Choir of Lincoln Cathedral (c. 1256–80) from the perspective of two interrelated concepts: the heavenly Jerusalem and joy. Building on previous scholarly discussions of the choir’s unusual creativity and profusion of organic and iconographic decoration, it traces connections between the choir and the rich corpus of writing on the joys of the heavenly Jerusalem. In juxtaposition with the hagiography of St Hugh, this opens a valuable seam of meaning and offers a possible explanation for the choir’s decorative intensity. It also reveals a number of ways, previously unnoted, in which Hugh of Avalon and his spirituality are recalled by the choir built to house his relics.     

Trends in African Agricultural Trade

Sub-Saharan agriculture, with few exceptions, has stagnated despite official goals of achieving self-sufficiency and increasing export earnings. African agriculture has suffered deteriorating terms of trade, inadequate technology and infrastructure, and policies which severely discourage agricultural enterprise. In some countries structural adjustment and policy reform are occurring, and there remains great potential for agricultural development due in part to prospective advantages in natural resources and abundant labor. Discussed here are a specific set of institutional reforms needed to mobilize agricultural entrepreneurship.     

Bone stable isotope studies in archaeology

Stable isotope ratios of carbon and nitrogen in bone have become increasingly frequent inclusions in archaeological reports over the past few decades. The majority of such studies has been done in North America, where the use of marine foods and the introduction of maize have been monitored. Similar questions have been addressed in Mesoamerica and South America. In Europe, stable isotope ratios have documented the shift from marine fishing and gathering to agriculture in coastal areas and the introduction of millet in parts of eastern and southern Europe. Much work remains to be done in Asia, where millet replaced early C3 plant foods and, in turn, was replaced by rice. In Africa marine adaptations, freshwater fishing, agriculture, and pastoralism all yield diagnostic isotopic signatures. We review these studies, discuss areas requiring further study, and close with discussions of areas promising interesting future developments.     

Do you never get tired of salmon? Evidence for extreme salmon specialization at Prince Rupert harbour,British Columbia

Faunal evidence from five village sites at Prince Rupert harbour, British Columbia reveals very high levels of dependence on one food resource, salmon, during the period from 500 BC to AD 1000. At some of these sites, it appears that little else in the way of vertebrate fauna was consumed. Comparisons with faunal data from other parts of the Northwest Coast show that the Prince Rupert villagers during this period were extreme salmon specialists, as highly focused on this one resource as any the Northwest Coast culture, and among the most highly resource specialized hunter–gatherer cultures worldwide.     

Making space,making race: reconstituting white privilege in Buckhead,Atlanta

The comfortable relationship between the overwhelmingly white, southern Atlanta neighborhood of Buckhead and a major hub of nightlife in the region unraveled in the early 2000s as the entire nightclub cluster was delegitimized, discursively constructed as dangerous and out of control, and ultimately razed to make space for luxury shopping. This paper sets out to query what social and cultural relations account for this massive and unpredicted reconfiguration of urban space in the epicenter of wealth, whiteness, and power in Atlanta. By mobilizing the concept of the socio-spatial dialectic (Soja 1980, Annals of the Association of American Geographers 70: 207–225), we draw on Pulido's (2000, Annals of the Association of American Geographers 90: 12–40) work on the construction and perpetuation of white privilege to argue that the racialized production of space is a relevant framework for understanding the processes at work in Buckhead. We argue that race was an unstated but deeply important social relation shaping the process by which this particular space was remade. In so doing, we seek to advance the literature on whiteness by demonstrating the ways in which it articulates with the political economy of cities in the present conjuncture.     

On plantations,prisons, and a black sense of place

The complexities of black geographies—shaped by histories of colonialism, transatlantic slavery, contemporary practices of racism, and resistances to white supremacy—shed light on how slave and post-slave struggles in the Americas form a unique sense of place. Rather than simply identifying black suffering and naming racism (and opposition to it) as the sole conceptual schemas through which to ‘understand’ or ‘know’ blackness or race, it is emphasized that a black sense of place, black histories, and communities are not only integral to production of space, but also that the analytical interconnectedness of race, practices of domination, and geography undoubtedly put pressure on how we presently study and assess racial violence.