Race and hospitality: Allied troops of colour on the South African home front during the Second World War

Though often marginalised in histories of the Second World War, South Africa, in addition to contributing manpower and economic support to the Allied war effort, was a transport hub and a site for military training. Millions of Allied servicemen and women spent time in South Africa, which became an important node in both imperial and Allied wartime networks. Examining the varied experiences of Allied personnel of colour in South Africa, with a focus on the Māori battalion, this essay, working towards a transnational social history of the conflict, highlights the ways in which wartime hospitality both reflected and subverted ideologies and practices of racial segregation.     

Childhoods past and present: anxiety and idyll in reminiscences of childhood outdoor play and contemporary parenting practices

ABSTRACT

Outdoor play is considered an essential aspect of a ‘proper childhood’. However, unsupervised outside play is declining, a decline attributed to parental anxieties about children’s safety. However what drives these anxieties and how this impacts on contemporary outdoor play is less clear. Our paper seeks to explore this through an analysis of adult narratives generated through digital map-making and forum discussion about where they played as children and where they would allow a child to play unsupervised now. Our analysis explores the nature of these narratives and pivotal moments in which adults articulated the disconnect between their own recollections of idyllic spatial freedom and the spatial restrictions they place on contemporary children. This offers a rich understanding of how parents navigate conflicting cultural imperatives on risk-avoidance and children’s rights to a ‘good’ childhood.     

Ten years of peace,bravery and resilience in Aceh

The date 15 August 2015 marks the 10th anniversary of the Helsinki Peace Agreement, which ended a major thirty‐year conflict between the Free Aceh Movement and the Government of Indonesia. In this article I argue that much greater acknowledgement should be given to the creative responses that ordinary conflict survivors have brought to the process of post‐conflict social recovery. The article briefly discusses some observations on resilience made through 17 months of ethnographic fieldwork with Acehnese conflict survivors. I conclude that while Acehnese resilience is impressive, there remains a need for greater recognition of the experiences of conflict survivors, both to support justice for survivors and to enable a deeper understanding of ongoing political complexities in Aceh.     

Ventilating the Commons,Heating the Lords, 1701–1834

In 1833, the Commons chamber was described as a ‘noxious vapour‐bath’, while the Lords deemed the insufferable heat and toxic smoke in its House as injurious to health. This situation was not new, as for more than a century both Houses had been battling with officialdom and technology to improve their working conditions. In their continuing quest for effective heating and ventilation they had drawn in many respected men of science and commerce as well as entrepreneurs and showmen of varying abilities, to little avail. Many machines were tried, Desaguliers's ventilating wheel alone achieving modest success. A notable institution arising from all these experiments was the ventilator in the Commons’ roof, enabling ladies, barred from the chamber, to witness debates, albeit in considerable discomfort. After the 1834 fire, parliamentarians renewed their ventilating mission in their temporary chambers, before projecting their cumulative experience and opinions onto the far larger canvas of the new Victorian Palace of Westminster.