Fluctuation in the Random Spatial Economy and The Control of Inflation

A self-contained spatial economy is set out as the steady-state of a harmonic oscillator under Gaussian excitation. A dollar bill performs a random walk on a line with elastic barriers at each end and represents payments for traded goods. Diffusive surges of money and the fluctuations in zonal incomes are examined. The center, being less dependent on extra-zonal trade, has fewer brakes on price levels and can more easily begin “inflation.” Imposing a uniform deflationary policy would cause the periphery to be squeezed without reason while the center would be affected too little and too late. The organization of a futures market in construction is analyzed as a spatially discriminating form of control.     

‘My Daughter was Genetically Drafted with me’: US‐Vietnam War Veterans,Disabilities and Gender

This article examines war's lasting bodily legacies by focusing on the Vietnam veterans’ Agent Orange movement that arose in the mid‐1970s. This movement pushed for the recognition of the disabling effects of Agent Orange not only on veterans themselves but also on their children. By taking biological responsibility for miscarriages or children's birth defects, veteran‐fathers challenged gender norms that blamed women and required men to hide their grief about both war and children. They also reinforced pitiful representations of children with disabilities in seeking to win benefits for their children. This article studies the representations of and discourses about these children, including how race and gender informed media coverage of the Agent Orange movement. Although women fought on behalf of Vietnam veterans and their families, their roles nevertheless remained circumscribed within conventional gendered expectations and domestic arrangements. The article uses the methods of disabilities, gender, social and cultural history to analyse veterans’ movement records as well as newspapers, Congressional hearings, television news and documentary films. It underscores the centrality of disability as a category of historical analysis and the value of (re)considering the fields of war, gender and reproduction through the analytical lens of disability.