Diamond Mining in Canada's Northwest Territories: A Colonial Continuity

Abstract: The Canadian diamond industry has been lauded as a new approach to resource extraction, one whose institutions are characterized by a greater attention to Indigenous rights and the environment. However, an institutional analysis obfuscates the terrain of unequal relations that is the context for the Canadian diamond boom; an analysis of the effectiveness of social and environmental policies in relation to the extraction of diamonds in the Canadian North suggests that there is an intent on the part of those instigating this extraction (that is, the Canadian state, Canadian capitalist interests and international capitalist interests) to protect the Northern environment and to provide economic benefits to Northern Indigenous communities. This piece argues, instead, that this assumption is erroneous and that the Northern mining industry is part of Canada's project of internal colonization of Indigenous communities, a project that has intensified and expanded in the neoliberal era.     

Communities of discourse: Ideology and social structure in the reformation,the enlightenment,and European socialism

In contrast to the conventional view of Ludwig Feuerbach as a left-wing Young Hegelian, this article argues that his primary contribution to philosophy is to be found in his later ethics, the basis of which may be discerned in his earlier writings. Over and above recent work on Feuerbach's aesthetics, his relation to Herder, and the relationship between aesthetics and ‘theological politics’ in his thought, Feuerbach's philosophy can re-evaluated, in relation to Epicurus and the French libertin tradition, as articulating an ethics of hedonism. In The Essence of Christianity (1841), the Nachlass fragment ‘Elementary Aesthetics’ (1843), and his Principles of the Philosophy of the Future (1843) Feuerbach moves towards the vitalist materialist position that culminates in his (proto-Nietzschean) insight in ‘Against the Dualism of Body and Soul, Flesh and Spirit’ (1846) into the world as an ‘aesthetic phenomenon’, thus laying the foundations for his recognition of the centrality of sensuous pleasure to the ethical life.     

Progressive localism for an ethics of care: Local Area Co-ordination with people with learning disabilities

In the UK devolution to ‘new’ nations and localities is generating differences in the tone and substance of social care. In Scotland there is an apparent rejection of the ‘personalisation’ model dominant in England and other neoliberal welfare states; in its place, there is an emphasis on locally based co-produced care provision, involving local organisations, practitioners and individuals. The paper argues that this is an outcome of the open and deliberative nature of policy-making, and the further devolution of social care provision to local authorities in Scotland. Local scale networks and spaces of provision are generating a ‘progressive localism’, contesting the association between the local scale and financial austerity, drawing on a relational understanding of place. Non-commodified and locally-based provision expands the discourse of care from ‘caring for’ individuals to ‘caring about’ people and places, in what is termed an ‘ethics of care’. The paper uses the example of people with learning disabilities to examine a more broadly conceived ‘caring’ within local communities, offering possibilities for inclusion and belonging. The paper draws on interviews with key policy makers and place-based care practitioners, known as ‘Local Area Co-ordinators’.     

Reviews of books

The publication in July 1998 of the Government's White Papers on integrated transport marked the most comprehensive review of transport policy for 30 years. In spite of this, the measures brought forward by the Government are timid and are unlikely in their present form to tackle the underlying problems of increasing car dependence. This paper reviews the Government's Scottish document, Travel Choices for Scotland, and highlights key policy debates in which the voices of geographers should be better heard.     

Book reviews

Atif A. Kubursi. Oil, Industrialization and ‘Development in the Arab Gulf States. London: Croom Helm, 1984. 144 pp. No price given.

Giacomo Luciani. The Oil Companies and the Arab World. London: Croom Helm, 1984. 197 pp. $31.95.

Freda Hawkins. Critical Years in Immigration: Canada and Australia Compared. Kingston and Montreal: McGill‐Queen's University Press, 1989. xx + 368 pp. $Can 35.00.

Keith Suter. Is There Life After ANZUS? Sydney: Pluto Press, 1987. v + 91 pp. $9.95. Peter Jennings. The Armed Forces of New Zealand and the ANZUS Split: Cost and Consequences. New Zealand Institute of International Affairs, Occasional Paper No. 4, 1988. xi + 108 pp. $12.00.

Alan Powell. The Shadow's Edge: Australia's Northern War. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1988. 346 pp. $24.95.

John Kenneth Galbraith. A History of Economics: The Past as the Present. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1987. xi + 324 pp. $39.95.

John Turner (ed.) Britain and the First World War. Unwin Hyman, 1988. No price given.

Neil Elder, Alastair H. Thomas and David Arter. The Consensual Democracies? The Government and Politics of the Scandinavian States. Revised edition. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988. xii + 248 pp. $34.95.

Seong‐Kyu Ha (ed.) Housing Policy and Practice in Asia. London: Croom Helm, 1987. 197 pp. $87.95.

J.D. Conroy. Shelter for the Homeless — Asian Pacific Needs and Australian Responses. Canberra: Australian Council for Overseas Aid, 1987. vi + 141 pp. $5.95.

Diane K. Mauzy (ed.) Politics in the ASEAN States. Kuala Lumpur: Maricans, no date. 343 pp. No price given.

Richard Robison, Kevin Hewison & Richard Higgott (eds.) Southeast Asia in the 1980s: Tie Politics of Economic Crisis. Sydney, London, Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1987. viii + 244 pp. No price given.

Noordin Sopiee, Chew Lay See, Lim Siang Jin (eds.) ASEAN at the Crossroads: Obstacles, Options and Opportunities in Economic Co‐operation. Kuala Lumpur: Institute of Strategic and International Studies Malaysia, 1988. viii + 577 pp. No price given.

Desmond Ball (ed.) US Bases in the Philippines: Issues and Implications. Canberra: Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University, 1988. 90 pp. $10.00.

Niall O'Brien. Revolution from the Heart. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. x + 310 pp. $AUS48.00.

Wilfred Fabros. The Church and its Social Involvement in the Philippines, 1930–1972. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1988. 202 pp. $US8.00 P/Back, $US11.00 Cloth.

Cecil B. Currey. Edward Lansdale: The Unquiet American. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1988. xviii + 430pp. $US24.95.

Ansil Ramsay and Wiwat Mungkandi (eds.) Thailand‐US Relations: Changing Political, Strategic, and Economic Factors. Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, 1988. vi + 335 pp. $US20.00.

R. Cribb. The Politics of Environmental Protection in Indonesia. Working Paper No. 48, Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, Monash University, 1988. 36 pp. $5.00

George Monbiot. Poisoned Arrows. An Investigative Journey through Indonesia. London: Michael Joseph, 1989, 249 pp. $35.00.

Toshio Toyoda (ed.) Vocational Education in the Industrialization of Japan. Tokyo: The United Nations University. Production by University of Tokyo Press, 1987. xii + 267 pp. No price given.

Noor A. Husain and Leo E. Rose (eds.) Pakistan‐US Relations: Social, Political and Economic Factors. Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, 1988. viii + 326 pp. $US20.00.

V.D. Chopra (ed.) Afghanistan: Geneva Accord and After. New Delhi: Patriot Publishers, 1988. 253 pp. Rs30.

C.D. Throsby (ed.) Human Resources Development in the Pacific. Canberra: National Centre for Development Studies, 1987. x + 248 pp. No price given.     

MEDIAN,MEAN, AND OPTIMUM AS FACILITY LOCATIONS*

ABSTRACT The mean and the median are both measures of centrality. In one dimension, the median minimizes the average absolute distance from a facility to a set of customers {x_i}, and the mean minimizes the average squared distance. In two dimensions, the median minimizes the average rectangular distance, and the mean minimizes the average squared distance. This paper investigates the “location penalty” when a nonoptimal location is substituted for the optimal location. In one dimension, the average absolute distance at the mean is never more than twice the average absolute distance at the median. Surprisingly, this happens when the median and mean are close together. In two dimensions, the ratio of the average Euclidean distance at the median to the average Euclidean distance at the optimum is never more than . However, this upper bound depends on an unlikely scenario with just two customers. With three equal-sized customers, this ratio is never more than 1.12. However, if the triangle formed by the customers is rotated relative to the rectangular grid, the ratio never exceeds 1.028.     

The world-systems perspective and archaeology: Forward into the past

This article reviews previous attempts to extend world-system theory from the modern era to prehistoric and archaeological settings. It summarizes major debates among scholars from several disciplines who are comparing the modern world-system with earlier world-systems. Special attention centers on the problems of conceptualizing world-systems, the spatial bounding of world-systems, and understandings of systemic logics.