Book reviews

Analysing Polycentrism—An Extended Review

J. D. B. Miller and T. H. Rigby, eds.: The Disintegrating Monolith — Pluralist Trends in the Communist World, Australian National University, Canberra, 1965, pp. 264 + xiii, $6.

I.W.W. Advice to Shearers: “Give the warm weather and the blow flies a chance.”

I. Turner: Industrial Labour and Politics, Australian National University, Canberra, 1965, pp. 272, $5.25.     

MEGA-CHAINING, CORPORATE CONCENTRATION, AND THE MEGA-MALLS

This article provides a framework for the evaluation of West Edmonton Mall within the broader context of the national regional shopping centre system. A particular focus is placed on the tenant mix and functional structure for those 37 shopping centres with a minimum gross leasable area of 750 000 sq. ft The analysis illustrates the similarity in the degree of chaining and corporate ownership in these major shopping facilities and describes their structural characteristics. The article concludes by evaluating both the development of the mega-mall phenomenon and speculates about the future position of these malls in the retail system.     

New evidence for the Byzantine Church of the Holy Apostles from Fatih Camii, Istanbul

The Church of the Holy Apostles was one of the most important buildings in Byzantine Constantinople. The mausolea of Constantine the Great (the main imperial burial place until the eleventh century) and of Justinian I were in the complex surrounding this vast cruciform church. Nothing of this complex appeared to have survived its demolition to clear the site of the Ottoman mosque complex of Fatih Camii after 1461. Fieldwork in 2001 recorded walls pre–dating the fifteenth–century phase of the mosque complex, still standing above ground level and apparently including a large rectilinear structure. This is identified as the Church of the Holy Apostles and an adjacent enclosure may be that containing the mausoleum of Constantine the Great. The reconstructed church plan resembles those of St John of Ephesus and St Mark's (San Marco), Venice – churches known to have been modelled on the Church of the Holy Apostles, Constantinople.     

Partnerships for Social Change in the Canadian North: Revisiting the Insider–Outsider Dialectic

In the two decades since Alexander Lockhart's seminal article on the insider–outsider dialectic in native socioeconomic development, a great deal of change has occurred in the Canadian North and new challenges have emerged for community‐based participatory research and development. This is particularly the case in the Northwest Territories, where Aboriginal communities are facing for the first time the triple challenges of Aboriginal land claims implementation, Aboriginal self‐government, and a boom in mining and petroleum development. Increasingly, participatory methods in research and community development are being co‐opted to serve state or corporate interests, far from their radical origins in movements for social change. A historical analysis is called for that accounts for the contradictory and contested social contexts in which participatory activities are imbedded. This article suggests that a return to the roots of the participatory method requires the creation of a new autonomous space of resistance. The academic outsider is uniquely positioned to facilitate critical interventions in both community and university contexts. The resulting convergence of critical outsider and insider has great potential in the forging of new knowledge that can contribute to self‐determination beyond the bounds of the state.