Facilitating the transition: doing more than bridging the gap between school and university geography

This paper explores issues, perceptions, and experiences related to the transition from studying geography at school to university. The findings seek to highlight that there are a range of stakeholders that can be engaged in this transition process, as well as a range of strategies for doing so. The transition from school to university geography has a number of implications for both students and educators, and this paper seeks to discuss reinvigorate discussions around transitions in the geographical community.     

The Construction of the Myth of Survival

A myth has come into being that the poor household/family is able to survive in spite of a lack of resources and the presence of macroeconomic policies that foster unemployment and poverty. It has an accompanying fable that tells of how the poor manage to implement survival strategies that are based on their endless capacity to work, to consume less and to be part of mutual help networks. This myth has become a useful tool for policy makers as they design more aggressive neoliberal economic adjustment policies. This contribution examines anthropological and sociological insights regarding the life of the poor and the organization of their households, in which women's paid and unpaid work is an integral part. Through the lens of a researcher in the field of urban poverty and household organization, the article re‐examines the fable of the good survivor. Evidence debunks the myth, showing that the optimistic message of this fable does not match with the realities of the impact of economic change on women's lives. But the myth is sustained, as this more negative story is not one that supra‐national policy actors want to hear.     

A parasitological paradox: Why is ascarid infection so rare in the prehistoric Americas?

Ascaris lumbricoides (giant roundworm) and Trichuris trichiura (whipworm) are the most common intestinal parasites found in humans worldwide today and they almost always co-occur. However, we find two distinct patterns in archaeological material. In historical North American and Old World contexts, the association of A. lumbricoides and T. trichiura is similar to the modern epidemiological picture. In contrast, the co-occurrence of A. lumbricoides and T. trichiura eggs in prehistoric South America is rare. For prehistoric contexts, T. trichiura is the most common parasite found in archaeological material. Recently molecular biology techniques pointed to a subdiagnosis of roundworm infection in pre-Columbian South American populations. This is contrary to the modern epidemiological picture in which A. lumbricoides infection is predominant. This is a paradox, especially when one considers the number of eggs laid by female daily, 200,000 and 20,000 thousand per day, for A. lumbricoides and T. trichiura respectively. By reviewing the records of these parasites, this paradox is presented and explanations for the paradox are explored. Taphonomy, prehistoric behavior patterns and medicinal plant use seem to be most relevant to the explanation of the paradox. Nematophagous fungi is a less likely factor creating the near absence of A. lumbricoides eggs in the prehistoric New World.     

Power and Historical Figuring: Rachael Pringle Polgreen's Troubled Archive

Rachael Pringle Polgreen, a freed‘mulatto’ woman who owned an infamous brothel/hotel in Bridgetown, Barbados during the 1770s and 1780s became known to her contemporaries through her role in the (sexual) entertainment of transient naval officers and the visits of Prince William of England. Piecing together ‘evidence’ from her will, estate inventory, a nineteenth‐century novel, a lithograph and an interview with a British officer, I engage Polgreen's complicated and fragmented archive, revealing how Polgreen represents an example of the problems with sources depicting women of African descent who lived in a slave society and the silences that inundate their archive. The first part of this article critically re‐examines pieces of her archive, through which an image of Polgreen emerges incommensurable with narratives of her triumphs. Next, through an analysis of the processes by which Polgreen is historically confined by powerful archival and subsequent historical representations, I challenge previous assumptions about her life. Finally, introducing material from the British parliamentary debates in which an incident involving Polgreen is described and new material from Barbados deeds left by Polgreen's former slave, I expose the nuances of Polgreen's ‘agency’ in a slave society – that which depended upon her sexual subjugation of other women of African descent.     

Xing: The Discourse of Sex and Human Nature in Modern China

In Modern Chinese, xing is the character most commonly used to denote sex, gender and sexuality. However, the character was a specialist Confucian term originally meaning ‘human nature’ in Classical Chinese, and only came to signify both sex and human nature in the early twentieth century. This usage was invented by Japanese intellectuals in the late nineteenth century for their translations of sexological texts from Europe, in which they encountered the concept of sex as a natural drive and the fundamental core of individuals. This article investigates the convoluted linguistic career of xing, and argues that in China in the 1920s, sex/xing became the point of anchorage for a new politics, which naturalised sex, legitimised talk about reproduction and desire, and made imperative the intensification of the production of scientific knowledge on sex (and by extension ‘human nature’). It is emphasised that the history of xing in China in the 1920s is not just a curiosity or appendage to more ‘mainstream’ history of sexuality; rather, it is impossible to appreciate the global nature of modernity without a thorough understanding of the circulation of sexual ideas.     

Iberian seventh-born children,werewolves, and the dragon slayer: A case study in the comparative interpretation of symbolic praxis and fairytales

This article examines an obscure custom found in Iberian ethnography: that of having one's eldest children serve as godparents for their own youngest siblings, starting with the seventh. The paper's main working hypothesis is that this custom is to be understood in the context of underlying conceptions that fairytales convey in a symbolical guise. The argument highlights the relationship of examined notions with the “Dragon Slayer” theme, to bring out stable themata concerning ontological complexity and metamorphosis, in the light of which the Iberian custom is interpreted.