Young people,place and devolved politics: perceived scale(s) of political concerns among under 18s living in Wales

Despite clear linkages between conceptualisations and perceptions of politics, society, culture and territorial rescaling, research into young people’s political engagement, participation and representation is underrepresented in the field of social and cultural geography. Here the gap is addressed using perceptions of devolved politics, as a form of territorial rescaling, among young people living in Wales. Specifically, it shows the geographical scales at which young people locate their political concerns and where responsibility for these concerns is perceived to lie, with a focus on the National Assembly for Wales and the Welsh Government. This is a key contribution to our understanding of the role devolution plays in youth political engagement in the light of the following: the relative infancy of the devolved U.K. institutions; their asymmetrical development and increasing divergences; the growing variation in turnout among young people for different types of election and referenda; and the lack of research examining the youth engagement dimension of Welsh devolution as a political, social and cultural process of territorial rescaling in the U.K. The paper concludes with a critique of the notion that devolution poses a ‘politics of hope’ for youth political engagement in Wales, a very different picture to Scotland.     

Response to Wet Season Rainfall of an Alluvial Aquifer System in the Lower Herbert Floodplain,Queensland, Australia

Australia is one of the world's largest exporters of raw sugar. The lower Herbert River floodplain, one of the four main cane growing areas in Queensland, is subject to extremes of rainfall. Some areas are prone to waterlogging, which can lead to reductions in cane and sugar yields. This paper examines the risk of waterlogging and the role of surface drains in the Ripple Creek area, a subcatchment of the lower Herbert River floodplain. Following above‐average rains at the onset of this study, a perched water table developed and remained for the duration of the 19 month study. The responses of the perched watertable and a deeper semi‐confined aquifer following rainfall are examined. The rapid response of the perched water table following rainfall is attributed to the shallow depth of the water table, with soil properties exerting a dominant influence on hydrograph response. In the second year of the study, after above‐average rainfall, the water table of the deeper aquifer was on average 1 m higher than during the former months of the study. This trend, however, did not occur in the perched water table, and this is attributed to the efficiency of the surface drainage network.     

Armand Trousseau--some of his contributions to neurology

Trousseau made a remarkably large number of original clinical contributions to medicine and neurology. Best known are Trousseau's syndrome, the combination of venous thrombosis with visceral carcinoma; tache cérébrale, the red streak seen on scratching the skin in acute meningitis; and Trousseau's sign, the cardinal physical sign in tetany. His pioneering work in tracheostomy in diphtheria, haemochromatosis, Parkinson's disease, aphasia and chorea are but a few of his outstanding clinical studies. Based on his famously comprehensive text, Clinique Médicale de l'H?tel Dieu, this paper highlights a few of his discoveries. The name of Armand Trousseau must stand alongside those of Charcot, Oppenheim, Jackson and Gowers in the annals of neurology.     

Southern African San Rock Painting as Social Intervention: A Study of Rain-Control Images

Many aspects of southern African San rock art images can be understood in the light of nineteenth- and twentieth-century ethnography. San beliefs about different kinds of rain-animals and the secrecy that attended rain-control rites informed different kinds of social relations between rain-controllers themselves and between them and other people. San communities were less egalitarian than is often supposed, though ongrounds that are commonly overlooked. These points are made in reference to a hitherto unknown painted site.De nombreux aspects de lart rupestre sud-africain peuvent être compris à la lumière de documents ethnographiques des dix-neuvième et vingtième siècles. La croyance des San en différentes sortes danimaux de pluie et le secret environnant les rites de contrôle de lapluie ont révélé plusieurs types de relations sociales entre les faiseurs de pluie eux-mêmes, ainsi quentreceux-ci et les autres personnes. Les communautés san étaient moins égalitaires quon le suppose souvent, bien que cela napparaisse que sur des bases généralement négligées. Ces points sont développés en référence à un site orné jusquà présent inconnu.     

Asset-based community development as applied to tourism in Tibet

This article is one of the first tourism studies to adopt the asset-based community development (ABCD) approach. It explores the potential of the ABCD approach to tourism development as a poverty alleviation strategy. The study was undertaken in Lhasa, Tibet. Photo-elicitation interviews, focus group interviews, and a questionnaire-based survey were used. It was found that the Tibetan young hosts had a good knowledge of local assets. They identified five categories of local assets as having the most potential to be developed as tourism attractions in the near future. The identified tourism assets were world heritage sites, religious sites, traditional Tibetan yards, daily life and customs, and Tibetan medicines – the last four assets were undeveloped ones. Clear perceptions on the value of the assets, as well as the difficulty and desirability of their development in the future were also mapped, using repeated measures one-way analysis of variance. Through the process of assessing the tourism assets, this study identified in a preliminary way that adopting the ABCD approach to poverty alleviation through tourism is feasible. By mapping other assets in the community (e.g. human, social, financial, and physical), a further and more complete test of the approach can be undertaken. Examining these assets may also reveal more ideas for the community's common future. Theoretically, this work adds to the conceptual approaches for community-based tourism development work. Methodologically, this study illustrates research techniques for obtaining emic voices in a marginal and politically charged environment. The extensive use of the participants’ images as a basis for discussion was of particular note. Practically, this research offers both general and detailed suggestions for the Lhasa Government and its community work, especially ways to approach and access community perspectives.     

Restoring Broken Histories

Between 1936 and 1938, a regeneration project was established in the remote city of Broken Hill, New South Wales. It is now considered one of the earliest examples of ecological restoration. Triggered by dust storms and sand drift, local people, industry and council collaborated to restore a vegetated green belt around their city. This article considers ‘The Regen’ within a history of settler transformations of the Australian environment. Four histories told through plants speak to the emergence of an ecological consciousness and contribute to ethical considerations in ecological restoration amidst shifting contingencies of climate, politics and the global economy.