Sexual citizenship, political obligation and disease ecology in gay Seattle

While rights and freedoms of sexual citizenship have been foregrounded in geography, vaguer attention has been given to questions of political obligation. Feminist work on political obligation, grounded with a framing in political ecology of disease, however, provides a means to correct this neglect. Empirically, I narrate a story of local public health politics in Seattle, WA. There, a cultural panic played out in the media over the alleged failure of political obligations by gay men around sexually transmitted infections. Political obligation and ecology usefully extend the concept sexual citizenship on its own terms by moving beyond a rights-versus-obligation polarity, highlighting the biophysical realities of sex, recognizing the spaces in which sex occurs, and noting the social relations inherent in sex and sexuality. Thus, this paper contributes to deeper thinking for activists involved in working through these questions as well as bolstering the notion of sexual citizenship in political geography.     

LAND PRICES IN ESSEX COUNTY, ONTARIO 1798 TO 1852

This paper examines land prices in Essex County, Ontario, for the period to 1825 and from 1826 to 1852 in terms of overall accessibility to market and the physical environment. The prime source material was the Abstract Index to Deeds , and data drawn from this source were used in a series of multiple regression analyses. The results confirm the importance of accessibility. However, the physical environment did not affect land prices significantly. The article concludes by considering future refinements of the analysis.
L'article examine les prix des terres dans le comté d'Essex, Ontario pour la période jusqu'à 1825 et de 1826 à 1852 en ce qui concerne I'accessibilité générale, I'accessibilité au marché et I'environnement physique. La source principale de la recherche était l' Abstract Index to Deeds et les données de éette source étaient utilisées dans des regressions multiples. Les résultats affirment l'importance de l'accessibilité. Pourtant, l'environnement physique n'a pas eu une influence significantive sur les prix des terres. L'article se termine en considérant des ragginements futurs pour l'analyse.     

Book reviews

Tsuyoshi Kato. Matriliny and migration: evolving Minangkabau traditions in Indonesia. 267 pp. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1982. $28.10.

E. M. Beekman (tr.). The poison tree. Selected writings of Rimphius on the natural history of the Indies. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1981. (Library of the Indies.) $20.

Nigel Phillips. Sijobang: sung narrative poetry of West Sumatra, xi, 255 pp. Cambridge, etc: Cambridge University Press, 1981. (Cambridge Studies in Oral and Literate Culture, I.) £22.50.

Bernd Nothofer. Dialektatlas von Zentral‐Java. vi, 32 pp., 337 maps. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1981. DM 64.

Marlene van Doom and cthers (ed.). Improving access to Indonesian collections in the Netherlands: contributions to a survey of Dutch library and documentation activities in the field of Indonesian studies. Edited by Mavlene van Doorn, Irene Farjon, Ciska Pattipilohy, Gerard J Telkamp. [iv], 78 pp. Leiden: Centre for the History of European Expansion (University of Leiden) in cooperation with the Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen for the Contactgroep Documentatie Indonesie, 1981. (Intercon‐tinenta, No. 2.)

Leo Suryadinata. Eminent Indonesian Chinese: biographical sketches. Revised edition. 218 pp. Singapore: Gunung Agung, 1981.

A. Ed. Schmidgall‐Tellings and Alan M Stevens. Contemporary Indonesian‐English dictionary: a supplement to the standard Indonesian dictionaries with particular concentration on new words₃ expressions, and meanings, xv, 388 pp. Athens, Ohio, etc: Ohio University Press, [^C1981].

Peter B R Carey (tr.). Babad Dipanagara. An account of the outbreak of the Java War (1825–30). “ The Surdkarta court version of the Babad Dipanagara with translations into English and Indonesian Malay, lxxiii, 344 pp., front., 4 plates, map. Kuala Lumpur: printed for the Council of the M.B.R.A.S. by Art Printing Works Sdn. Bhd., 1981. (Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. Monograph No. 9.) M$55.     

A Mediaeval Case of Lepromatous Leprosy from 13–14th Century Orkney, Scotland

Erosion in the 1960s resulted in exposure of human skeletal remains from a Norse Christian cemetery at Newark Bay, Orkney, Scotland. One set of remains showed osteological evidence of advanced lepromatous leprosy, but the absence of bones from the lower limbs precluded definitive diagnosis. The aim of the present study was to determine whether Mycobacterium leprae could be detected in bone extracts, as a means of confirming the diagnosis of leprosy. Bone samples were examined from the suspected leprosy case and from a second contemporary burial thought to be free of disease. DNA was amplified by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) using primers specific for a repetitive element (RLEP) characteristic of M. leprae. Additional PCR tests specific for Mycobacterium tuberculosis and for amelogenin (a human gene suitable for sex determination) were also applied to the samples. M. leprae DNA was detected only in the skull sample from the suspected leprosy case. The DNA sequence was identical to that found in present day isolates of M. leprae. Positive results were obtained only using a PCR reaction designed to amplify relatively short stretches of DNA (<175 bp), suggesting the microbial DNA had undergone extensive fragmentation. There was no evidence of M. tuberculosis DNA in bones from the leprosy suspect or control individual. The ability to recover ancient samples of DNA provides an opportunity to study long-term evolutionary changes that may affect the epidemiology of microbial pathogens.