Partnerships for human security in fragile contexts: where community safety and security sector reform intersect

Implementing sustainable community safety and security sector reform (SSR) in highly unstable and conflict-affected contexts is a significant and growing challenge. Donor-led SSR processes claim to enable transparent, effective and accountable provision of security. Yet, traditional, externally driven SSR processes implemented in a top-down manner have been shown to have important shortcomings. Using the experience of a form of SSR undertaken in the Jenin Governorate in the Palestinian territories, this article highlights some of these shortcomings—in particular, a lack of local ownership, failure to address governance issues, co-optation of political and security elites, and neglect of citizens’ views and needs—as well as describing a viable method for overcoming them to produce a more sustainable approach to community safety in extremely difficult circumstances through the use of outcome-based local crime prevention planning processes. In contrast, the Jenin community safety project was a bottom-up, community-based approach that built effective ‘partnerships’ for crime prevention with both formal security providers (for example, security forces, executive authorities, parliamentarians and governors’ offices) and informal security providers (for example, civil society, the media, and tribal and business leaders) to produce a viable mechanism by which a safer community with stronger local leadership might be created.     

Late medieval copper alloying practices: a view from a Parisian workshop of the 14th century AD

161 late medieval copper-based day-to-day items have been analysed, mostly consisting of small artefacts such as dress fittings. The items were all recently excavated from a 14th century AD metallurgical workshop located in Paris. Eight well-defined copper alloys have been identified that refer to various constraints, the most important one being economics. According to the model proposed, most of the alloys were obtained by dilution of a fresh brass master alloy by scrap metal containing small amounts of zinc, tin and lead. Pure lead was added separately in relatively large quantities, with a limit of 6 wt% Pb marking the boundary between leaded and unleaded alloys. It has been found that the less the cost of the artefact, the more the fresh brass is diluted. For the medium-size castings such as cast vessels, alloys containing large quantities of lead or alloys rich in antimony were used. Such complex alloying strategy pertains more to a small industrial-like plant organisation rather than to craftsman activity, as further supported by a variety of archaeological and historical evidence.     

The counter-revolutionary Atlantic: white West Indian petitions and proslavery networks

Following recent research into imperial networks and their materialities, this paper addresses the geographies of the early-modern Atlantic. Its focus is the defensive response of white West Indian colonists to the emergence of popular antislavery sentiment in Britain during the ‘age of abolition’ (c. 1780–1833), which led to the increasing marginalization of slave-holding interests. This response included the production of corporate legislative petitions that sought to prevent or delay the reform of slavery. The paper argues that these petitions should be understood not as rhetorical forms of ‘influence’ that can be analysed in terms of their language, but as material objects whose potential efficacy derived from how, and in what textual company, they travelled. Tracing these material networks of petitioning provides a means to operationalize ‘circum-Atlantic’ perspectives and thus explore the spaces of the Atlantic. The paper also considers how theories of creolization, which underpin much thinking about the Atlantic, might be informed by a consideration of these petitionary networks.

L'Atlantique contre-révolutionnaire: les demandes des blancs des Antilles et les réseaux favorables à l'esclavagisme

Cet article fait suite aux recherches récentes effectuées sur les réseaux impériaux et leurs matérialités et s'intéresse aux géographies du début de l'époque moderne de l'Atlantique. Il met l'accent sur la réaction défensive des colons blancs des Antilles devant l'arrivée du sentiment populaire anti-esclavagiste en Angleterre pendant «l'ère abolitionniste» (1780–1833) qui a contribué à la marginalisation des propriétaires d'esclaves. Cette réaction comprenait des pétitions légales relevant de sociétés privées dont le but était d'empêcher ou de retarder le projet de réforme de l'esclavagisme. Cet article montre que ces pétitions ne devraient pas être vues comme des formes rhétoriques «d'influence» pouvant s'analyser en fonction de leurs modes linguistiques, mais comme des objets matériels dont la capacité de rendement résultait des manières et des formats textuels par lesquels elles pouvaient voyager. Remonter jusqu'aux réseaux concrets qui ont permis de protester par des pétitions est un moyen d'opérationnaliser les approches «circon-Atlantique» et d'explorer ainsi les espaces de l'Atlantique. Par ailleurs, l'article tente de montrer comment l'étude de ces réseaux de pétitions peut éclairer les théories de la créolisation qui sous-tendent la plupart des réflexions sur l'Atlantique.

El Atlántico contra-revolucionario: peticiones y organizaciones a favor de la esclavitud de la gente blanca de las Antillas

Con referencia a las recientes investigaciones de redes imperiales y su aspecto material, este papel trata las geografías del antiguo atlántico moderno. Se centra en la reacción defensiva de los colonos blancos de las Antillas al surgimiento del sentimiento popular antiesclavitud en Gran Bretaña durante ‘la era de la abolición’ (c. 1780–1833), que dio lugar a una marginación cada vez mayor de los intereses de los negreros. La producción de peticiones colectivas legislativas para tratar de impedir o retrasar la reforma de la esclavitud formó parte de esta reacción. Este papel sugiere que hay que ver estas peticiones no como formas retóricas de ‘influencia’ que se puede analizar por su lenguaje sino más bien como objetos materiales, la eficacia potencial de los cuales viene de cómo, y en qué compañía textual se viajaban. Un análisis del origen de estas redes materiales de peticionar posibilita el funcionamiento de perspectivas ‘circum-atlánticas’ y, por consiguiente, una exploración de los espacios del Atlántico. El papel también considera como teorías de criollización que son fundamentales al pensamiento actual sobre el Atlántico pueden ser informadas por un estudio de estas redes de peticionar.     

Music in French geography as space marker and place maker

For several decades, there have been broad research developments on the links between music and geography in the English-speaking world, initially in the USA, then in Europe and also in Asia, the Middle East and Oceania. In the French-speaking world, although developments are more recent, research bringing together music and geography is well developed, too. However, it was not until the end of the last decade that Francophones began to take Anglophone work into account and even this was inconsistent. In Anglophone publications, the work of the Francophones is almost completely absent. With this commentary, a Francophone–Anglophone dialogue could open new perspectives.