Book reviews

Gareth Evans and Bruce Grant. Australia's Foreign Relations: In the World of the 1990s. Melbourne University Press, 1991. xx + 389 pp. $34.95.

Hugh Smith (ed.). Australia and Peacekeeping. Campbell, ACT, Australian Defence Studies Centre, Australian Defence Force Academy, 1990. viii + 137 pp. $10.00.

Alan Dupont. Australia's Security Interests in Northeast Asia. Canberra Papers on Strategy and Defence No.84. Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, 1991. xii + 131 pp. $13.50.

Desmond Ball. Building Blocks for Regional Security. Canberra Papers on Strategy and Defence No.83. Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University, 1991. xv + 109 pp. $12.00.

Francis G. Castles (ed.). Australia Compared: People, Policies andPolitics. North Sydney, Allen & Unwin, 1991. xvii + 291 pp. $22.95.

C. Carstairs and R. Ware (eds). Parliament and International Relations. Buckingham, UK, Open University Press, 1991. xii + 195 pp. $34.95.

Mark Turner. Papua New Guinea: The Challenge of Independence. Ringwood, Vic, Penguin Books Australia, 1990. viii + 200 pp. $16.99.

Sean Dorney. Papua New Guinea. People, Politics and History since 1975. Sydney, Random House Australia, 1990. vii + 330 pp. $16.95.

A.D. Couper (ed.). Development and Social Change in the Pacific Islands. London and New York, Routledge, 1989. x +203 pp. $99.95.

Peter Bauer, Savenaca Siwatibau and Wolfgang Kaspar. Aid and Development in the South Pacific. St Leonards, Centre for Independent Studies, 1991. ix + 120 pp. $15.95.

Jeremy Carew‐Reid. Environment, Aid and Regionalism in the South Pacific. Canberra, National Centre for Development Studies, Pacific Research Monograph No.22, 1989. xi + 185 pp. $25.00.

Viberto Selochan (ed.). The Military, the State, and Development in Asia and the Pacific. Boulder, Westview Press, 1991. xix + 288 pp. $US34.95.

Robert McKinlay. Third World Military Expenditure. London, Pinter Publishers Ltd, 1989. 154 pp. $63.75

Chandran Jeshurun (ed.). Arms and Defence in Southeast Asia. Singapore, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1990. $US19.00 (hardcover), $US14.00.

Takashi Inoguchi. Japan's International Relations. London, Pinter Publishers/Boulder, Westview Press, 1991. xii + 190 pp. £10.95.

Kenneth M, Wells. New God, New Nation. Protestants and Self‐Reconstruction Nationalism in Korea 1896–1937. Sydney, Allen & Unwin, 1991. xi + 222 pp. $24.95.

Maila Stivens (ed.). Why Gender Matters in Southeast Asian Politics. Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, Monash University, 1991. 123 pp. $16.00.

Ruth Havelaar. Quartering: A Story of a Marriage in Indonesia During the Eighties. Clayton, Vic., Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, Monash University, 1991. xxvi + 125 pp. $14.00.

Max Lane. ’Openness’. Political Discontent and Succession in Indonesia: Political Developments in Indonesia, 1989–91. Griffith University, Centre for the Study of Australia‐Asia Relations, Australia‐Asia Papers No.56, 1991. iii + 74 pp. No price given.

M.C. Ricklefs (ed.). Islam in the Indonesian Social Context, Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, Monash University, 1991. 82 pp. No price given.

John Taylor. Indonesia's Forgotten War. The Hidden History of East Timor. London, Zed Books, 1991. xvi + 230 pp. $22.46.

E.J. Hobsbawm. Nations and Nationalism since 1780. Programme, Myth, Reality. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1990. viii + 191 pp. $39.95.

Urmila Phadnis. Ethnicity and Nation‐building in South Asia. New Delhi, Sage, 1990. 328 pp. Rs.225.

Barry M. Schutz and Robert O. Slater (eds). Revolution and Political Change in the Third World. Boulder, Lynne Rienner Publishers/London, Adamantine Press Limited, 1990. x + 260 pp. £14.50 (paper), £28.50 (cloth).

Geoffrey C. Gunn and Jefferson Lee. Cambodia Watching Down Under. Institute of Asian Studies Monograph No.47. Institute of Asian Studies, Chulalongkorn University, 1991. xxx + 328 pp. No price given.

Archie Brown (ed.). Political Leadership in the Soviet Union. Basingstoke, UK, MacMillan, 1989. ix + 245 pp. £14.99 (paper). £35.00 (cloth).

Jeffrey Simon (ed.). European Security Policy after the Revolutions of 1989. Washington, D.C., National Defense University Press, 1991. xvi + 639 pp. No price given.

Amin Saikal and William Maley. Regime Change in Afghanistan: Foreign Intervention and the Politics of Legitimacy. Bathurst, NSW, Crawford House Press in association with the Australian Institute of International Affairs, 1991. xiii + 190 pp. $37.95.

David:Butler and DA. Low (eds). Sovereigns and Surrogates: Constitutional Heads of State in the Commonwealth. Houndmills, Macmillan, 1991. 365 pp. £45.00.

Jeffrey T. Richelson and Desmond Ball. The Ties that Bind. Sydney, Unwin Hyman, 1990. 426 pp. $19.95.

Desmond Ball and Cathy Downes (eds). Security and Defence: Pacific and Global Perspectives. Sydney, Allen and Unwin, 1990. 517 pp. $29.95.

Jonathan Unger (ed.). The Pro‐Democracy Protests in China: Reports from the Provinces. North Sydney, Allen and Unwin, 1991. xii + 239 pp. $24.95.

G. Linge and D. Forbes (eds). China's Spatial Economy. Hong Kong, Oxford University Press, 1990. xiii + 223 pp. $29.95.

Colin Mackerras, Kevin BucknaU and Russell Trood. The Beijing Tragedy: Implications/or China and Australia. Griffith University, Centre for the Study of Australia‐Asia Relations, 1991. Australia‐Asia Papers No.51. vii + 93 pp. No price given.

P. Alston and G. Brennan (eds). The UN Children's Covenant and Australia. HREOC, Australian National University Centre for International and Public Law, ACOSS, 1991. ix + 133 pp. $10.00.

Adam Jamrozik. Class, Inequality and the State. South Melbourne, Macmillan Australia, 1991. xx + 348 pp. $29.95 (paper), $59.95 (cloth).

R. Ovendale. The United States and the End of the Palestine Mandate 1942–1948. Studies in History No.52. Woodbridge, Suffolk, Boydell & Brewster Ltd for the Royal Historical Society, 1989. 332 pp. £37.50.

R. Springborg. Mubarak's Egypt. Fragmentation of the Political Order. Boulder and London, Westview Press, 1989. xi + 307 pp. £31.00.     

Chemical durability of lead-bearing glazes in sulphuric acid solutions — Laboratory experiments performed on Zsolnay architectural ceramics from Budapest (Hungary)

This study aims to simulate the long-term deterioration of architectural glazes exposed to open air in a highly polluted urban environment. A laboratory experiment—a 14-day long accelerated weathering test—on glazed roof tiles has been performed to reveal the damaging influence of contacting acid solutions originating from dissolved gaseous pollutants, mainly SO₂. The studied tiles are made by the Hungarian Zsolnay factory and applied on two buildings in Budapest in the 19th and 20th century. The ceramics were covered mainly by lead glazes in the construction and lead-bearing alkali glazes in the renovation periods.

The solution of pH2 induced a greater dissolution, especially of alkali and alkaline earth metals (up to 2886 ppm), but less lead (up to 21 ppm) from the lead glazes of the construction periods. Newly formed lead sulphate (anglesite) on the corroded glaze parts precipitated on some lead-bearing alkali glazes, with moderate dissolution of alkali and alkaline earth metals (up to 396 ppm) accompanied by higher amount of lead (28–39 ppm). Based on the results, the main determining factor in the durability of glazes is mostly their chemical composition and less their preliminary degradation state.     

Disequilibrium in Development Finance: The Contested Politics of Institutional Accountability and Transparency at the World Bank Inspection Panel

This article examines the dynamic nature with which independent accountability mechanisms operate. Focusing on the World Bank, the authors argue that its Inspection Panel evolves according to internal and external pressures. In seeking to achieve equilibrium, and protect its authority and independence, the Panel has gone through several distinct phases: negotiation, emergence, protracted resistance, assertion of independence and authority, renewed tension, and contestation. The core novelty of the article is its application of concepts from outside the field of development studies — notably institutional accountability from the governance literature, and judicialization from the legal studies literature — to the topic of the Inspection Panel. Examining the Panel in this way demonstrates that accountability mechanisms represent a hybrid of transnational governance influenced by a range of actors including project‐affected peoples, national governments, managers and development donors. Accountability in development finance is about competing interests as well as competing conceptions and expectations of accountability. In such a complex and multi‐scalar system, the Panel is not only concerned with delivering well‐researched investigation reports; it is also an entity seeking to ensure its own survival, as well as an arbiter of its own brand of legitimacy and accountability.     

Boats on Bark: an Analysis of Groote Eylandt Aboriginal Bark-Paintings featuring Macassan Praus from the 1948 Arnhem Land Expedition, Northern Territory, Australia

This paper examines a group of Aboriginal bark-paintings featuring Macassan prau s that were collected in 1948 during the American-Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land. These paintings were studied in an effort to understand issues related to Aboriginal and Macassan cross-cultural interaction, stylistic adaptation and change, and maritime technologies. Furthermore it is one example in which the collaborative efforts of maritime and Indigenous archaeologies can achieve a more holistic technological and stylistic cross-analysis of watercraft imagery.
© 2009 The Authors     

Widespread Policy Disruption and Interest Mobilization

We consider the involvement of different interests in policymaking following disruptions that affect the agendas of multiple subsystems. The policy process literature suggests that increased policy uncertainty and jurisdictional ambiguity could lead to substantial upheavals in interest involvement. We address these possibilities in studying the mobilization of different interests after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, for eight disrupted policy subsystems. Contrary to expectations derived from the literature, we find limited evidence of interest upheaval or cross-subsystem spillovers in interest involvement. We suggest this is because policymakers sought to reduce policy uncertainty by calling upon those interests that were best equipped to help craft and implement policy solutions. These findings point to the stabilizing influence of policy subsystems in buffering against the effects of widespread disruptions.     

Day centres for homeless people: spaces of care or fear?

It is now widely argued that the contemporary city is becoming an increasingly hostile environment for homeless people. As basic street survival strategies are criminalized and public space ‘purified’ of those whose ‘spoiled’ identities threaten to ‘taint’ fellow members of the public, city authorities seem to have turned from a position of ‘malign neglect’ to more obviously punitive measures designed to contain and control homeless people. Less widely acknowledged but equally prevalent, however, is a parallel rise in the ‘urge to care’; evident in the growing number of night shelters, hostels and day centres emerging in recent years to provide shelter and sustenance to homeless people. This paper contributes to a small but growing body of work examining the development of the ‘spaces of care’ springing up in the interstices of a ‘revanchist’ city, by examining the development and internal dynamics of day centres for homeless people in the UK. Drawing upon a national survey of service providers, and a series of interviews and participant observations with day centre staff and users, the paper argues that day centres act as important sources of material resource and refuge for a highly stigmatized group. However, it warns against the romantic tendencies implicit in the notion of ‘spaces of care’, emphasizing that what for one person may operate as a ‘space of care’ might, for another, be experienced as a space of fear. The paper concludes by noting the ambiguity and fragility of such spaces within the wider ‘revanchist’ city.

Les centres d'hébergement temporaire pour itinérants: espaces de soins ou de peur?

On affirme couramment que la ville contemporaine est en train de devenir un milieu de plus en plus hostile pour les itinérants. Pendant que les stratégies ordinaires de survie dans la rue sont érigées en crime et l'espace public est «purifié» de ceux dont les identités «souillées» risquent d' «entacher» les autres membres du public, les autorités de la ville sont moins disposées à appuyer une position de «négligence pernicieuse» que des mesures nettement plus punitives conçues pour contenir et contrôler les itinérants. Ce qui est moins reconnu mais aussi courant est la progression simultanée du «désir de donner des soins» que permet de témoigner la croissance depuis quelques années de foyers d'hébergement, de gîtes, et de centre d'hébergement temporaire qui offre un toit et des moyens de subsistance aux itinérants. Cet article contribue à enrichir le corpus d'une ampleur limitée mais grandissante sur l'émergence d' «espaces de soins» dans les interstices de la ville «revancharde» par l'examen du développement et les dynamiques internes de centres d'hébergement temporaire pour itinérants au Royaume-Uni. Cet article a recours à un sondage national sur les fournisseurs de services et à un éventail d'entrevues et d'observations participatives auprès d'employés et d'usagers des centres d'hébergement temporaire. Il y est proposé que ces centres servent de lieu de distribution de ressources matérielles et de refuge pour un ensemble de personnes très défavorisées. L'article prend toutefois ses distances par rapport au penchant romantique implicite dans l'idée d' «espaces de soins», et souligne que les processus à l'?uvre peuvent être le reflet d'un «espace de soins» pour une personne ou celui d'une expérience d'un «espace de peur» pour une autre. Cet article termine par le constat qu'à l'échelle de la grande ville «revancharde», ces espaces demeurent ambigus et fragiles.

Centros diurnos para la gente sin techo: ¿lugares de asistencia o de miedo?

Hoy en día se reconoce que la ciudad contemporánea representa un lugar cada vez más hostil para la gente sin techo. A la vez que se criminalizan las estrategias básicas de sobrevivencia en la calle y se ‘purifican’ los espacios públicos, sacando a personas cuyas identidades ‘arruinadas’ amenazan con ‘contaminar’ a otros miembros del público, las autoridades cívicas parecen haber dejado su postura de ‘negligencia maligna’ a favor de medidas más punitivas, concebidas para contener y controlar a la gente sin techo. Menos reconocido, pero no menos corriente, es el aumento paralelo del ‘impulso a asistir’, evidente en el número cada vez mayor de refugios nocturnos, hogares y centros diurnos que han surgido en recientes años donde les dan alojamiento y alimento a los sin techo. Este papel contribuye a un conjunto de trabajo que examina el desarrollo de ‘espacios de asistencia’ que surgen en los intersticios de una ciudad ‘revanchista’, por medio de un estudio del desarrollo y la dinámica interna de los centros diurnos para los sin techo en el Reino Unido. Haciendo uso de un estudio nacional de las organizaciones que proporcionan servicios para los sin techo, y de una serie de entrevistas con funcionarios y usuarios de los centros diurnos, el papel sugiere que los centros diurnos sirven como fuentes importantes de recursos materiales y de refugio para un grupo muy estigmatizado. Sin embargo, argumenta en contra de las tendencias románticas que son implícitas en la noción de ‘espacios de asistencia’ y enfatiza que lo que puede servir como un ‘espacio de asistencia’ para una persona puede ser experimentado como una espacio de miedo por otra persona. El papel concluye por notar la naturaleza ambigua y frágil de estos espacios dentro de la ciudad ‘revanchista’ más amplia.     

Lime Powder Production in the Maya Puuc Region (A.D. 600–950): An Experimental Pit-Kiln

Powdered lime was one of the most significant materials in the daily lives of the Prehispanic Maya, yet archaeologists have uncovered relatively little evidence of production methods or locales prior to the Spanish conquest. The recent identification of a series of pit-kilns dating to the Late and Terminal Classic periods (ca. a.d. 650–950) in and around the site of Kiuic in the Puuc region of the northern lowlands of the Yucatán Peninsula provides the opportunity to investigate a sub-regional Prehispanic lime production technology. Here we present the preliminary excavation results of nine pit-kilns and then describe the experimental reconstruction and firing of a lime pit-kiln. The results indicate that the pit-kilns are more fuel-efficient than the aboveground pyres used during the post-conquest period. This in turn suggests that Prehispanic inhabitants of the Puuc managed their consumption of natural resources for producing lime during a period of sociopolitical, demographic, and environmental stresses.     

Reflections on the Pedagogy of Archaeological Field Schools within Indigenous Community Archaeology Programmes in Australia

In this paper we investigate the pedagogy of archaeological field schools. Specifically, we explore the combination of tertiary level field schools and Indigenous community (or community-based) archaeology. Using a detailed case study of a rock art field school in Arnhem Land, Australia, we explore the processes and outcomes of combining archaeological field training with the ideas and methods of community archaeology. We discuss the relationship and unique challenges faced by such community archaeology field schools, particularly that of balancing the priorities of competing stakeholders. Our discussion illustrates the complexities of training students to work in an environment where cultural belief systems are still strongly linked to sites and landscapes. While the challenges are numerous, the outcomes, particularly for students, provide an unparalleled educational experience, one that cannot be obtained in any other learning format.     

Delayed,deferred and dropped out: geographies of Filipino-Canadian high school students

Models representing the assimilation of post-Second World War immigrants to North America use the academic achievement of children of first-generation immigrants as a benchmark of social mobility. Filipino youths in Canada fall short of this benchmark – they neither meet nor exceed their parents’ academic achievements. While concern with outcomes is a useful starting point, I suggest that there is a need to interrogate how and where students are produced as different. To do this, I attend to the geographies in the narratives of youths gathered from Filipino high school students in Vancouver (unceded Coast Salish Territories). I examine how they negotiate the spaces of transnational migration, their lives as students and spaces where their educational trajectories are deferred and delayed. I argue that the geographies of transnational migration and family should be held together with spaces of the school and education when considering academic outcomes.