Collectanea

In emphasizing equivalences with conceptions of evil eye, accounts of Ethiopian buda understate the capacity of these beings to transform into hyenas. The case study presented here highlights how this element of the buda belief reveals a social realm that extends beyond the strictly human.     

Angola 2025: The Future of the “World's Richest Poor Country” as Seen through a Chinese Rear‐View Mirror

Abstract: As Africa's foremost “emerging market” Angola is receiving increasing recognition for its oil wealth, leading to attempts to engage it as a strategic partner, especially amongst the “rising powers”. In particular, there has been considerable escalation in development cooperation between Angola and China recently, though relatively little is known about the precise terms of this “partnership” despite China's key role in Angola's post‐conflict reconstruction. The growing importance of Chinese credit lines and increasing presence of Chinese corporate agencies across Angolan territory raise important questions about development, poverty reduction and inequality; governance and labour relations; and Angola's institutional capacity and the social structure of its cities. This paper critically examines the specific outcomes of Angola's “partnership” with China along with the hybrid conceptions and tangled geographies of “development” produced as a result. In particular, it seeks to interrogate the visions of Angola's future articulated by the Angolan state and the reference points and “models” of development that they draw upon.     

Deconstructing twinned towers: Lisbon's Expo '98 and the occluded geographies of discovery

This paper develops a critique of Western representations of discovery, centrality and self-identity via a focus on Portugal's Expo '98. Two of the towers of the title were incorporated into the site of Expo '98 (the last universal exposition of the twentieth century), which offered the chance to reiterate the importance of Portugal's imperial discoveries on a global stage and to reaffirm Portuguese national identity in the process. The paper examines how historical and geographical narratives of imperialism and the ‘Portuguese voyages of discovery’ were reworked in Expo '98 to resurrect a national sense of pride in belonging to and pioneering Europe. Critical postcolonial perspectives which break with Eurocentrism are required if the role of other cultures and histories in the Portuguese contribution to the making of modernity is to be appreciated. Such perspectives enable wider reflections about the constitution of the West and the non-West in the making of a multifaceted modernity of which expositions (and monumental towers) are concentrated expressions.

Portugal's was the pioneer empire in more ways than one, and it exhibited all the defects as well as all the glories of the age it inaugurated. No Nation of the fifteenth or sixteenth century ever saw more, reported a greater variety of things, or left more of its imprint on the modern world, whose chief characteristic, after all, is mobility. (Diffie and Winius 1996 Diffie, B.W. and Winius, G.D. 1996. Foundations of the Portuguese Empire 1415–1580, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.  [Google Scholar]: 434)     

The Indigenous Land Corporation's First Land Management Policy: Reconciling National Policy with the Contingencies of Local Context

The Indigenous Land Corporation was established to acquire lands for Indigenous peoples who were unlikely to benefit from recognition of native title. The Corporation is also charged with assisting Indigenous peoples manage their lands. The First Land Management Policy of the Indigenous Land Corporation is examined, and the strengths as well as the omissions and flaws of this initial policy approach to land management are noted. Ways to improve the assistance that the Corporation provides to Indigenous landowners in the management of their lands are proposed. The paper suggests that the Corporation's approach to land management needs to resolve the demands of a national policy mandate with the contingencies of local context.     

Where is Lowland Maya archaeology headed?

This article isolates three important trends in Lowland Maya archaeology during the last decade: (1) increased use of the conjunctive approach, with renewed appreciation of context and provenience; (2) waning use of the label unique to describe the Maya; and (3) an effort to use the Lowland Maya as a case study in social evolution.     

A COMMERCIAL-BLIGHT PERSPECTIVE ON METROPOLITAN COMMERCIAL STRUCTURE

More and more attention is being paid to issues associated with urban decline. Many types of decline affecting different locations and functional usages in the city have been identified, including 'deterioration' (Simmons, 1966), 'decay' (Medhurst and Parry Lewis, 1969), 'stagnation' (Alexander, 1974), 'dereliction' (Bugler, 1972), 'obsolescence' (Davies and Whinston, 1966), and 'blight' (Berry, 1963;McKean, 1977). This list, although not exhaustive, indicates the confusion surrounding the issue of decline, since distinctions are rarely made among these conditions in terms of timing, effects, or types of remedial or preventive action. In this paper we focus on the concept of 'blight' and in particular the classifications of commercial structure that have been used to further our understanding of this issue. In the process our understanding of the other forms of decline may also have been advanced.     

The 1989 Tasmanian election: The green independents consolidate

This paper provides an analysis of the election of 13 May 1989 which was a major watershed in Tasmanian politics. Independent members of parliament were elected in each of Tasmania's five electorates with the result that neither the Liberal Party nor the ALP could govern in their own right The period following the election was marked by continuing political drama punctuated by several key events. These events included the development of the Tasmanian Parliamentary Accord between the ALP and the Independents, continued pressure from supporters of the Liberal Party for a fresh election, and arrests in relation to an alleged attempt to bribe a newly‐elected ALP member to cross the floor and support the Liberal Party. The defeat of the Gray government in a vote of no‐confidence following the recall of parliament, and the resignation of Premier Gray, led to the commissioning of a minority ALP ministry, relying on the support of the Independents.