Economic despondency and social division: A political review of the year, 1996

Verschave, F. X., La Françafrique. Le plus long scandale de la république (Stock 1998). 379 pp. 130F ISBN 2 234 04948 2

Gourévitch, J.‐P., L'Afrique, le fric la France. L'aide, la dette, l'immigration, l'avenir: vérités et mensonges (Le pré aux Clercs, 1997) 372 pp., 110F. ISBN 2 84228 022 9     

Bad news from an aberrant city: a critical analysis of the British press's portrayal of organised crime and the refuse crisis in Naples

This article examines the coverage of Naples since 2000 in the Guardian and the Independent, paying particular attention to their portrayal of the Camorra and the refuse crisis. It argues that this coverage was not simply riddled with stereotypes but was also characterised by significant inaccuracies and omissions. Analysts in Italy have detailed how the trash emergency in 2008 was the outcome of corporate malpractice and institutional complicity and that organised crime, although intent on exploiting the situation, was not a determining factor. The British press, instead, tended to conflate the breakdown of the urban waste cycle with the dumping of toxic waste and, by inverting cause and effect, to point the blame at the Camorra. These accounts, it is argued, are partially explained by the very nature of foreign news that seeks out dramatic and clear-cut stories for an otherwise disinterested audience. They also reflect the heightened interest in the Camorra following the Secondigliano War and the English translation of Roberto Saviano's Gomorrah. However, the article suggests that it is the press's assumption that Naples is already an ‘out of the ordinary’ urban setting that ultimately precludes the possibility of an informed coverage of the city and its predicaments.     

Book reviews

Frontiers

Poststructualist geographies: the diabolical art of spatial science. Marcus Doel. Pp. ix + 229. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999. Price: £45.00 (hbk), £14.95 (pbk). ISBN 0 226 48720 2 (hbk), ISBN 0 226 48721 0 (pbk).

Sleight‐of‐hand

New works in geography

Geography and enlightenment. Edited by David N. Livingstone & Charles W.J. Withers. Pp.viii + 455. Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, 1999. Price £17.50 (pbk), £36.50 (hbk). ISBN 0 226 48721 0 (pbk), ISBN 0 226 48721 2 (hbk).

Secure from rash assault. Sustaining the Victorian environment. James Winter. Pp. xi + 342. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. Price: £ 24.95 (hbk). ISBN 0 520 21609 1.

Perspectives on British rural planning policy, 1994–97. Andrew W. Gilg. Pp. viii + 154. Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999. Price £35.00 (hbk). ISBN 1 85972 641 0 (hbk).

Exploring contemporary migration. Paul Boyle, Keith Halfacree & Vaughan Robinson. Pp. 272. London: Longman, 1998. Price £18.99 (pbk). ISBN 0 58225 161 3.

Focus on Scotland

Urban highlanders: Highland‐lowland migration and urban Gaelic culture, 1700–1900. Charles W.J. Withers. Pp. 271. East Linton: Tuckwell Press, 1998. Price £20.00 (pbk). ISBN 1 86232 040 5.

Girls in trouble: sexuality and social control in rural Scotland, 1660–1780. Rosalind Mitchison & Leah Leneman. Pp. viii + 144. Edinburgh: Scottish Cultural Press, 1998. £10.95 (pbk). ISBN 1 898218 89 7 (pbk).

Girls in trouble: sexuality and social control in urban Scotland, 1660–1780. Rosalind Mitchison & Leah Leneman. Pp. viii + 164. Edinburgh: Scottish Cultural Press, 1998. £12.95 (pbk). ISBN 1 898218 90 0 (pbk).     

‘They never pass me the ball’: exposing ableism through the leisure experiences of disabled children,young people and their families

In this paper, we explore the participation of disabled children, young people and their families in leisure activities. Drawing on the accounts of disabled children, young people, and their parents and careers, we reflect on the leisure spaces that they access and record some of their experiences within them. Using the concept of ‘ableism’ [Campbell, F. K. 2009. Contours of Ableism. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan] we interrogate the data gathered as part of a two-year project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council Does Every Child Matter, post-Blair? The interconnections of disabled childhoods' (RES-062-23-1138). By doing so we identify some of the inherent and embedded discriminations in favour of those children and young people who are perceived to be ‘able’ that simultaneously work to exclude the young ‘kinds of people’ [Hacking, I. 2007. “Kinds of People: Moving Targets.” Proceedings of the British Academy 151: 285–318] categorised as ‘disabled’ and their families from leisure facilities and opportunities. We suggest that currently, disabled families and children occupy a mix of ‘mainstream’, ‘segregated’ and ‘separate’ leisure spaces. We discuss the impact of occupying these spaces and ask what the experiences of accessing leisure by disabled children, young people and their families reveal about the processes and practices of ableism.     

An Anatomy of Spatial Planning: Coming to Terms with the Spatial Element in UK Planning

“Spatial planning” is a phrase that now resonates throughout many planning systems across the globe. It is being used as a label to describe pan-national, regional, strategic and even aspects of local planning processes. Within the UK, spatial planning is being utilized alongside, or even in place of, more traditional phraseology associated with planning, such as “town and country planning”. It is being used by a range of institutions of the State, professional groups and academic commentators to describe the processes of planning reform, modernization, policy integration, and strategic governance that politically are now required to make planning fit for purpose in the 21st century. The precise meaning and definition of spatial planning remains difficult to pin down, as does its origins within the UK. This paper attempts to dissect the various components of the spatial planning phrase and set out the meaning and origins of the term in the UK context. It covers re-territorialization, Europeanization and integration origins of spatial planning thinking and provides a conceptual, rather than practical, debate on the anatomy of spatial planning, situated within ongoing processes of institutional transformation, through the lens of governance and distinctiveness in state policy development.     

A Play of Three Suitors: A Neglected Middle Dutch Version of the “Entrapped Suitors” Story (ATU 1730)

The wide diffusion of the “Entrapped Suitors” story-type has often been observed: examples are found in a remarkable number of literatures, ranging from English, French and Greek in the West, to Persian, Arabic and Kashmiri in the East. However, a text of this type that is often overlooked is the Middle Dutch play Een Speel Van Drie Minners (“A Play of Three Suitors”). This is despite the fact that it represents a highly idiosyncratic variation on the story, as it replaces the central moral with something more scabrous. We offer here a comprehensive discussion of this singular text and its narrative form, with an English verse-translation appended.