‘We Can Always Go Back Home’: critical lessons in helping to safeguard and promote the Singing and Praying Bands living tradition

Abstract

The article examines the process of promoting, with a view to safeguarding, the centuries-old Singing and Praying Bands living tradition, an African American musical and spiritual expression that is distinctive to the Chesapeake Bay region of the US. Discussed within the context of US public folklore, the process is understood as a co-intervention, representing an active partnership between the Bands’ community and public folklorists (including the authors) in attempting to reach new members as a means of keeping it alive. The article underscores the need for ‘bottom-up’ approaches in safeguarding living cultural traditions, bringing to light the potential strengths of public folklore work and the benefits its theories and methodologies can bring to the intangible cultural heritage discourse. Moreover, it analyses how community agency has been exercised, and community needs accommodated, through the dialogue-driven, collaborative intervention process. It also investigates how a nuanced view of ‘authenticity’ has been shaped, with regard to changes the living tradition has undergone, and is currently understood by those who embody it.     

Beyond Replication: the Quantification of Route Models in the North Jazira,Iraq

The primary aim of this paper is to present a solution to the issue of the statistical validation of route models. In addition, it introduces a body of theory taken from the broader field of route studies, isolates individual physical variables commonly used to predict route locations and quantifies them against the preserved hollow ways in the North Jazira Survey area, ending with a discussion of the complexity of human travel and the paramount importance of cultural variables.     

Locating Neoliberalism in Dubai: Migrant Workers and Class Struggle in the Autocratic City

Abstract: In recent years, portrayals of neoliberalism in Dubai have often hinged on narratives about the hyper‐exploitation of migrant workers in the city. In this paper I interrogate these narratives by exploring the governance of lower‐waged construction migrants and their recent role in market‐led processes of urbanization. Through a focus on the recent growth of private worker welfare initiatives and dozens of illegal labour strikes led by migrant builders, I draw attention to the fraught and contradictory character of autocratic neoliberalism that operates in the governance of these workers, and point to workers’ bodily capital and the construction labour camp as two emergent sites in which these labour politics are unfolding. I argue that these social reproductive realms of the body and the mass‐worker household have offered a temporary spatial fix to the limitations of autocratic rule in a neoliberalizing city, while also conjuring moments of political possibility for construction migrants.     

Putting on the Brakes or Pressing on the Gas? Media Attention and the Speed of Policymaking

Media attention is fundamental to the policy process and policy change in punctuated equilibrium theory. In this literature, media attention is usually conceptualized as fomenting or contributing to shifts in attention, positive feedback, and large‐scale policy change. This article extends how we understand the role of the media and punctuated equilibrium by arguing that media coverage can also contribute to negative feedback and stability in the political system. Media attention should also slow down the speed of policymaking and the momentum for policy change as new policy participants and problem definitions enter the debate. Using event history analysis, this article tests the effects of media coverage on the length of time it takes legislation, once introduced, to become law for public laws from the 109th U.S. Congress (2005–06). Findings provide support for media attention “putting the brakes” on policymaking. Controlling for other factors, the speed of bill passage slows down as media attention increases. This effect decays over time for high levels of media coverage.