London’s Olympic waterscape: capturing transition

The waterways of London are an essential component of the city, with the River Thames playing a prominent role in the heritage, history and identity of place. The upcoming 2012 Olympics are highlighting the Lea Valley waterways in east London as another important part of London’s waterscape, expanding London’s global presence as a ‘water city’. As part of the Creative Campus Initiative, we undertook a project based on the broad themes of water, London and the Olympics that would give voice to the changes taking place. The result is London’s Olympic Waterscape, a 20-minute film comprising both ‘expert’ interview material discussing broad themes and developments and an embodied record of our engagement with the Olympic area during a brief period in the construction process. The present article is about the journey we took through and around the east London ‘Olympic’ waterways as we attempted to capture this transitional moment on video.     

Reviews

Joseph Rykwert, The Dancing Column. On Order in Architecture, Cambridge, Mass. and London: The MIT Press, 1996. xviii + 598 pp., 316 b. & w. illus. ISBN 0–262–18170–3. £49.95.

Janet Lang and Andrew Middleton (eds.), Radiography of Cultural Material, Oxford: Butterworth‐Heinemann, 1997. xii + 193 pp., 23 col. and 157 b. & w. illus. ISBN 0–7506–2621–6. £45.00.

Chris Rojek and John Urry (eds.), Touring Cultures: Transformations of Travel and Theory, London and New York: Routledge, 1997. x + 214 pp., 11 b. & w. illus. and 1 fig. ISBN 0–415–111225–0. £13.99.

Peter Mandler, The Fall and Rise of the Stately Home, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1997. viii + 523 pp., 99 b. & w. illus. ISBN 0–300–06703–8. £19.95.

Susan M. Pearce (ed.), Experiencing Material Culture in the Western World, London and Washington: Leicester University Press, 1997. xiv + 274 pp., 1 b. & w. illus. ISBN 9–7185–0022–9. £18–99.

Steven Parissien, Station to Station, London: Phaidon, 1997. 240 pp., 191 col. and 146 b. & w. illus. ISBN 0–7148–3467‐X. £39.99.

David Phillips, Exhibiting Authenticity, Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1997. xi + 234 pp., 61 b. & w. illus. ISBN 0–7190–4797–8. £16.99.

Phillip Lindley (ed.), Sculpture Conservation: Preservation or Interference?, Aldershot, England: Scolar Press, 1997. xxxii + 237 pp., 18 figs., 97 b. & w. and 65 col. illus. ISBN 1–85928–254–7. £35.00.

George (Rip) Rapp Jr. and Christopher L. Hill, Geoarchaeology: the Earth‐science Approach to Archaeological Interpretation, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1998. xiii + 274 pp., 80 figs. ISBN 0–300–07075–6. £28.00.

Brian J. Shaw and Roy Jones (eds.), Contested Urban Heritage: Voices from the Periphery, Aldershot, Brookfield USA, Singapore, Sydney: Ashgate, 1997. ix + 205 pp., 19 figs, 42 b. & w. illus. ISBN 1–85972–554–6. £37.50.

Dianne Sachko Macleod, Art and the Victorian Middle Class: Money and the Making of Cultural Identity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. xx + 530 pp., 8 col. and 76 b. & w. illns. ISBN 0–521–55090–4. £65.00.

Nicholas Barton, Stone Age Britain, London: B. T. Batsford in association with English Heritage, 1997. 144 pp., 7 figs., 16 col. and 113 b. & w. illus. ISBN 0–7134–6846–7. £15.99.

Paul Bidwell, Roman Forts in Britain, London: B. T. Batsford in association with English Heritage, 1997. 128 pp., 12 col. and 80 b. & w. illus. ISBN 0–7134–7100‐X. £15.99.

Peter Marsden, Ships and Shipwrecks, London: B. T. Batsford in association with English Heritage, 1997. 128 pp., 11 col. and 85 b. & w. illus. ISBN 0–7134–7536–6. £15.99.

Trevor Rowley, Norman England, London: B. T. Batsford in association with English Heritage, 1997. 144 pp., 12 col. and 94 b. & w. illus. ISBN 0–7134–8060–2. £15.99.     

The use of OSL dating in unstructured sands: the archaeology and chronology of the Hutton Sands at Canteen Kopje (Northern Cape Province, South Africa)

Archaeological research at the site of Canteen Kopje, Northern Cape Province, South Africa, has focused on the rich Earlier Stone Age assemblages recovered from the Younger Vaal Gravels. This paper presents the results of excavation and optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating of the overlying Hutton Sands. We discuss the evidence for colonial period interaction between diamond miners and indigenous groups at the site, as well as the presence of an earlier phase of terminal Middle Stone Age/early Later Stone Age occupation. The OSL analyses demonstrate the potential distortion of OSL ages due to substantial bioturbation and its effect on the dating of archaeological sites situated in unconsolidated sands.     

Purity and Power: Anthropology From Colonialism to the Global Hierarchy of Value

These four books focalize the links between sociocultural anthropology and the national or cultural identities of its theoreticians and empirical practitioners. Historically caught between the forces of nationalism and colonialism, the subdiscipline has largely transcended its now rejected past, of which significant traces nonetheless remain embedded in its conceptual inheritance. Ranging from vernacular as well as English-language Indian writings to the compromised achievements of German scholars and to the sharp divergences within and among the dominant traditions, the material of these books indexes the emergence of a self-conscious marginality that has engendered a distinctive and productive idiom of sociocultural critique.     

The quest for coordinates in space and time

Hall, Edward T. The Dance of Life: The Other Dimension of Time. Garden City, New York: Anchor Press, 1984. 250 pp. including appendices, glossary, bibliography, and index. $15.95 cloth; $5.50 paper.

Pinxten, Rik, Ingrid van Dooren, and Frank Harvey. Anthropology of Space: Explorations into the Natural Philosophy and Semantics of the Navajo. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983. xi + 240 pp. including appendices, bibliography, and name and subject indices. $32.50 cloth.     

Hard times for culture theory in South Asia

Khare, R. S. The Untouchable as Himself. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985. xv + 189 pp. including bibliography and index. $34.50 cloth.

Fox, Richard G. Lions of the Punjab: Culture in the Making. Berkeley: University of California Press, xv + 259 pp. including appendix, reference notes, and index. $29.95 cloth.

Barth, Fredrik and Miangul Jahanzeb. The Last Wali of Swat: an Autobiography as Told to Fredrik Barth. New York: Columbia University Press, 1985. 199 pp. including photographs, references and index. $30.00 cloth.

Moore, Erin. Conflict and Compromise: Justice in an Indian Village. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, 1985. xviii + 137 pp. including glossary, bibliography, and index. $23.25 cloth, $11.25 paper.     

Baiting a master and his masterwork

Francis Korn. Elementary Structures Reconsidered: Levi‐Strauss on Kinship. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1973. xv + 168 pp. Figures, tables, appendix, bibliography, name index, and subject index. $8.50.