To See and to be Seen ראה in Genesis 16 and Genesis 22

ABSTRACT

The aim of this article is to demonstrate: 1) that the root ??? plays a crucial role in Genesis16 and 22, where Hagar and Abraham see and acknowledge Yahweh, and Yahweh sees and shows solicitude; 2) that there is a close connection between Yahweh as ‘he who sees and he who is seen’, i.e. between his solicitude and his appearance, as expressed in the names for God and places in Gen 16,13-14 and Gen 22,14; 3) that there is a link between Yahweh’s appearance, his holy places, and his double promise; 4) that Genesis16 and 22 are variants of the same narrative with the same theological point, namely: Yahweh’s solicitude; and 5) that the theological criticism of God in Genesis 22 as an authoritarian being whose will may lead to violence being committed in his name, ignores the central message of Genesis 22, namely, God’s solicitude in rejecting human sacrifice.     

Space, culture and economy—a question of practice

This article addresses the current debate within geography and other circles studying urban and regional development of the relationship between culture and economy. It revolves around two arguments. First, that the relationship should be seen not only as a question of epochal change, of de-differentiation and culturalisation of the economy; it should be considered as an analytical rather than a historical question. Second, it is argued that a theoretical articulation may be gainfully employed starting from the level of social ontology-particularly an ontology of practice. These arguments are developed starting from a critical discussion of two dominant bodies of thought about the relationship, following which, a demonstration of the inseparability of practice and meaning is used to conduct a theoretical re-articulation of culture and economy. Finally, the spatiality of the culture economy relation is considered, displacing the emphasis from connectivity in bounded regions towards joint involvement in the production of space on different scales.     

Book reviews

Economies of Signs & Space. Scott Lash and John Urry, London, Sage Publications, 1994, IV + 360 pp, £45.00 hb, ISBN 0 8039 8471 5; £13.95 pb, ISBN 0 8039 8472 3

Housing Policy in Action: The New Financial Regime for Council Housing. Peter Malpass, Matthew Warburton, Glen Bramley and Gavin Smart, SAUS Study 8, School for Advanced Urban Studies, University of Bristol, 1993, pp. XV+ 115, £9.75, ISBN 1 873575 47 5

Glasgow: The Forming of a City. Peter Reed (Ed.), Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, V+ 233 pp., £25.00, ISBN 0 7486 0246 1

Urban Land and Property Markets in Germany, European Land and Property Markets 2. H. Dietrich, E. Dransfeld and W. Voss, London, UCL Press, 288 pp, £40.00, ISBN 1 85728 049 0

The Politics of Local Economic Policy: Problems and Possibilities of Local Initiative. Aram Eisenschitz and Jamie Gough, London, Macmillan 1993, XIV + 309 pp, £14.99 pb, ISBN 0 33352 175 7

Planning at the Crossroads. James Simmie, London: UCL Press, 1993, 208 pp, £35.00, ISBN 1 85728 024 5, hb; 1 85728 025 3, pb; £12.95

The Political Culture of Planning: American Land Use Planning in a Comparative Perspective. J. Barry Cullingworth, New York and London, Routledge, 1993, XVII – 350 pp, £45.00, ISBN 0 415 08812 7, hb     

The problem of power: Partial electrification in Northern Uganda

This article considers the relation between infrastructural development and precarious work in the context of the electrification of a village in Northern Uganda. The case of a welder illustrates how partial electrification creates precarious conditions for work and how flexibility and creativity are used to mitigate its effects. In looking beyond precarity at the strategies employed by small-scale business owners in Northern Uganda, this article aims to shed light on how people relate to infrastructural realities and play an active role in shaping the affordances and impact of infrastructures in the Global South.     

Regional development in a resource production system: long distance commuting,population growth,and wealth redistribution in the Western Australia Goldfields

Resource towns often exist on a knife‐edge, largely depending upon global demand for their resource/s and, at the same time, playing a critical role in the development of a nation. The transition from single resource towns to diversified economies has been modelled on several occasions, but their application to other resource locales is difficult given the unique interplay of geographic, political, social, and economic factors. Nonetheless, Innis' Canadian staples theory may explain the political motivations of resource extraction and exportation, not least in relation to the Western Australia Goldfields. This paper seeks to explore the theory's potential in this context by examining the implications of high labour mobility. It employs a two‐step process using, first, a social network analysis to map the entire Australian labour commuting network and, second, a regression analysis of commuting, regional wealth, and population size against population change. While the Goldfields historically grew in line with processes described by Innis' theory, contemporary high labour mobility has created a variegated landscape of different development dynamics and trajectories. This finding carries implications for network patterns of residence and work. Labour acts to extend the distribution of wealth by sending incomes to the metropolitan core and to amenity‐rich regional towns across the State and nation. In such light, regional development scholars must view the resource town in its broader urban system of distinct but interlocked, and sometimes overlapping, activity nodes.