A Socially Engaged Archaeology: Spatiality and Governance of Asylum Seekers in Ireland

This paper draws on Wobst’s concerns ideas of material culture, style and the implications of contemporary archaeology. In a socially engaged “archaeology of now”, I examine the spatiality and material culture of asylum seekers in Irish society as the Irish State governs and thus engineers their social and physical space. Housed in State-operated accommodation centers around the country, the spatial governance of asylum seekers in Ireland creates a structured, exclusionary transnational landscape of difference. The State thereby controls the movement, social borders, place, identity and social relations of asylum seekers in a newly global Ireland.     

Stable isotope analysis of dog,fox, and human diets at a Late Holocene Chumash village (CA-SRI-2) on Santa Rosa Island,California

Stable carbon (δ¹³C) and nitrogen (δ¹⁵N) isotope analyses of dog (Canis familiaris), island fox (Urocyon littoralis), and human bone collagen from CA-SRI-2 (AD 130–1830) on Santa Rosa Island, California provide a proxy of diet and the relationships between humans and these animals. Carbon isotopic signatures indicate that Native Americans and their dogs at CA-SRI-2 subsisted almost exclusively on marine resources, while the island fox ate primarily terrestrial foods. Nitrogen isotopes and archaeofaunal remains indicate that humans and dogs also ate higher trophic level foods, including finfishes, marine mammals, and seabirds with smaller amounts of shellfish. The CA-SRI-2 island foxes appear to have eaten higher amounts of terrestrial foods, similar to the diets observed in modern fox populations. These data generally confirm the commensal relationship assumed to exist between domesticated dogs and people, but the carbon isotopic composition of dogs is enriched ∼2‰ compared to humans. We hypothesize that the difference in carbon isotopes between dogs and humans may have resulted from a higher consumption of C3 plants with lower δ¹³C values by humans, or less likely from the ingestion by dogs of significant amounts of bone collagen, which is enriched by ∼4‰ over associated muscle.     

The Body Embarrassed? Rethinking the Leaky Male Body in Eighteenth‐Century England and France

According to early modern European medical theory, men could menstruate vicariously through various bodily orifices. Although some medical men thought that the flow was pathological, others believed it brought significant health benefits. However, as the ability to control one's body and mind became central to eighteenth‐century definitions of manhood, leaky male bodies became increasingly problematic. The understanding of male bodily flows was complicated by age and class. As such, it is important to examine ‘male menstruation’ within the broader context of masculinity and other flows. Looking at medical literature alongside experiences of sufferers, this article considers the extent to which male bleeding (particularly haemorrhoids) was considered desirable in the eighteenth century. A comparison of England and France also reveals regional differences, with male menstruation being seen more positively in France than in England.     

Embodying brainstorms: the experiential geographies of living with epilepsy

This paper examines how living with epilepsy involves the complex interaction of knowledge of the unstable body, surrounding space and social relations. Through an engagement with written testimonies, it is argued that the spatial extent of everyday life varies with willingness to take socio-emotional and material risks in terms of when and where losses of bodily control (‘seizures’) might occur. I suggest that spaces and activities once taken-for-granted become potentially ‘unsafe’ and require renegotiation as trust in the limits of the body is disrupted. Findings confirm but also build upon previous work by geographers of chronic illness and impairment by engaging characterisations of the temporalities of fluctuating symptoms and of illness as manifesting either visibly or invisibly. Furthermore, it is argued that how people respond to the complete loss of bodily control differs in key ways to people coping with partially impaired control of the body. The paper concludes by asserting the potential for using written testimony as source data to highlight the voices of people whose spaces may otherwise remain silent.     

Honours for Glasgow staff

Political Geography of the Twentieth Century: A Global Analysis. Edited by Peter Taylor, 245 x 184 mm, xiii + 269 pp, Belhaven, London, 1993, pbk ISBN 1–85293–1973, £12.95.

Environmental Management in the Soviet Union. By Philip R. Pryde, 228 x 153 mm, xiii + 314 pp, Cambridge University Press, 1991, pbk ISBN 0–521–40905–5, £10.95.

Green Development: Environment und Sustainahility in the Third World. By W.M. Adams, 216 X 138 mm, 273 pp, Routledge, London, 1992, pbk, ISBN 0–415–08050–9, £12.99.

Debt and Development. By Stuart Corbridge, 230 x 153 mm, 231 pp, Blackwell, Oxford, 1993, hbk ISBN 0–631179046, £35.00, pbk ISBN 0–631181383, £10.99.

Contemporary Rural Systems in Transition: Vol. 1 Agriculture and Environment, Vol. 2 Economy and Society. Edited by I.R. Bowler, C.R. Bryant and M.D. Nellis, 240 x 160 mm, viii + 277 and xx + 314 pp, Wallingford, CAB International, 1992, hbk, ISBN 0–85198–813‐X (two‐volume set), £70.00.

Controlling Tropical Deforestation. By Alan Grainger, 232 x 152 mm, 310 pp, Earthscan, London, 1993, pbk, ISBN 1–85383–142–5, £14.95.

Deforestation in the Postwar Philippines. By David M. Kummer, 228 x 152 mm, xvii + 178 pp, University of Chicago Press (Geography Research Paper 234), Chicago and London, 1992, pbk, ISBN 0–226–46169–6, £13.50.

Nineteenth‐Century Cape Breton — A Historical Geography. By Stephen J. Hornsby, 230 x 153 mm, 304 pp, McGill‐Queen's University Press, Montreal and Kingston, 1992, hbk, ISBN 0–7735–0889–9, £33.95.

Challenge of the Natural Environment. By B.J. Knapp, S.R.J. Ross, and D. McCrae, 236 x 135 mm, 272 pp, Longman, Harlow, 1989, pbk, ISBN 0–582–35597–4, £9.99.