Irish Female Emigration in the 1930s: Transgressing space and culture

Following the establishment of the Irish Free State in the 1920s, the continuing levels of emigration from Ireland came as a disappointment to many who believed that British colonialism had caused and perpetuated the emigration problem. Within this context, there was a need to explain emigration in ways that deflected blame away from the new state authorities. In this article, the author contributes to a gendered analysis of these shifting constructions of emigration. Drawing upon Irish newspapers of the period, she suggests that the figure of the 'emigrant girl' was central to post-colonial discourses on emigration. During the 1930s, the emigration of thousands of young Irish women to English cities such as London sparked widespread comment and criticism. The Irish press and the Catholic hierarchy in particular propagated an image of these vulnerable young women as lost and alone in the big, bad cities of England. The author analyses the ways in which the 'emigrant girl' embodied specific representations of place, culture and gendered identity; the 'emigrant girl' embodied an Irishness marked by religion, culture and landscape. Through her transgression of physical, cultural and religious spaces, she encountered loneliness, danger and the risk of denationalisation.     

Disintegrating rural development

Ghai, Dharam, and Samir Radwan, eds. Agrarian Policies and Rural Poverty in Africa. Geneva: International Labour Office, 1983. ix + 311 pp. including preface and individual chapter references. $21.40 cloth.

Chuta, Enyinna, and S. V. Sethuraman, eds. Rural Small‐scale Industries and Employment in Africa and Asia. A Review of Programmes and Policies. Geneva: International Labour Office, 1984. x + 159 pp. including preface, individual chapter references, appendix, and selective bibliography. $14.25 paper.     

Further developments in molecular sex assignment: a blind test of 18th and 19th century human skeletons

The identification of sex in human remains recovered from archaeological locations is important in order to understand the social and biological structure of past societies, and to reconstruct past population demographic events. Sex determination is usually based on morphological traits of the skeletons, with the drawback that most methods do not apply to juveniles and require well preserved remains. In cases where morphological methods cannot be used, or are ambiguous, methods of molecular sexing systems are an alternative. In this methodological study we tested and validated the accuracy and usefulness of a molecular sexing method based on the amelogenin gene using pyrosequencing. We did this in a double blind study of documented 18th and 19th century human remains.     

Revisiting the Iranian Crisis of 1946: How Much More Do We Know?

The Iranian crisis of 1946 occupies a significant place in the early history of the Cold War. While this fact has been increasingly acknowledged by scholars, there remain aspects of the crisis, in particular the motivations of the major actors involved, which demand further exploration. This article reconsiders the roles of early Cold War actors, including the United Kingdom, the United States, the Soviet Union and Iran itself in the Azerbaijan crisis and offers a synthesis of different perspectives. In revisiting the crisis it draws upon Cold War and post-Cold War literature including recently available archival material. It aims to combine contributions from International Relations, the Cold War and Iranian history to offer a balanced and integrated narrative of events.     

Tourism and Archaeology in Brazil: Postmodern Epistemology in Two Case Studies

This article discusses the relationship between archaeology and tourism in Brazil. After providing a diachronic perspective of the interaction between both two case studies in which we have been involved are examined: the Palmares maroon (Alagoas) and the Erasmos plantation (São Paulo). They exemplify how since the end of the last dictatorial period archaeology and tourism have been increasingly concerned with the social dimensions of both disciplines.     

Nitrate ruins: the photography of mining in the Atacama Desert,Chile

A photographic album entitled Oficina Alianza and Port of Iquique 1899 illustrates the industrial development of nitrate mining in Chile. From the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth, British capitalists dominated the extraction of Chilean nitrate and its export as a fertilizer and an explosive. The Oficina Alianza, a nitrate works at the centre of British monopoly of the trade, is, as other oficinas across the Antofagasta and Tarapacá regions of the Atacama Desert, a ruin. This article considers the correspondences between Alianza’s photographic album, a record of a working nitrate oficina, and its abandoned industrial structures. It examines the ruin and the photograph as Benjaminian allegories.     

Browsing the Modern Kitchen—a feast of gender,place and culture (Part 1)

Assembling 10 essays from around the globe which engage variously with the space in which food preparation occurs—the kitchen—revealed stunning diversity but also commonalities. In this first of two sets of theme papers on this vital but often unexamined domestic space, the discourse of modernity unites the look and use of twentieth-century kitchens in Australia, Britain and Finland. Imbued with notions of scientific management, the modern kitchen had some common designs which prescribed women's place within it—first as the main occupant and then as the family overseer. The construction of this semi-private space also involved particular domestic technologies which, as the new century dawns, now literally connect the kitchen to the world beyond via the internet fridge. This Introduction begins the two-part feast of gender, place and culture—with an overview of Australia and sketch of subsequent essays—Supski on mid-century migrant Australia, Saarikangas on Finland, Bennett on rural Britain and Watkins on the fridge.

Hojeando la cocina moderna—un banquete de género, lugar y cultura (primera parte)

Reunir diez ensayos de todos lados del mundo que engranan variamente con el espacio donde se prepara la comida—la cocina—reveló no solo diversidades impresionantes sino similitudes. En esta primera de dos ediciones especiales sobre este espacio doméstico esencial aunque poco examinado, el discurso de modernidad une el aspecto y el uso de cocinas del siglo XX en Australia, Gran Bretaña y Finlandia. Imbuido con conceptos de la administración científica, la cocina moderna tuvo algunos diseños comunes que prescribieron el lugar de mujeres dentro de ella—primera como el ocupante principal y luego como capataz de la familia. La construcción de este espacio semi-privado involucró también tecnologías domesticas especificas que, a la vez que amanece el nuevo siglo, actualmente enlazan literalmente la cocina con el mundo externo vía la nevera ‘internet’. Esta introducción empieza el banquete de dos partes de género, lugar y cultura—con un repaso de Australia y un bosquejo de los ensayos subsecuentes: Supski en Australia migratorio a medio siglo, Saarikangas en Finlandia, Bennett en Británica rural, y Watkins en la nevera.