Towards a geography of tolerance: Post-politics and political forms of toleration

This paper argues for a closer inspection of how tolerance and politics interact. Within geography and beyond there is rising concern about post-political situations, whereby potential disagreements are foreclosed and situated beyond the remit of political debate. This is conceptualised as a process of de-politicisation that operates ‘much more effectively’ than alternative ways in which politics can be and has been disavowed (?i?ek, 1999: 198). While ?i?ek associates liberal tolerance with the post-political condition, however, theories of tolerance are at odds over whether it represents an everyday enactment of the political. Although some authors have indeed associated tolerance with a depoliticising tendency (Brown, 2006), others insist that certain types of tolerance are capable of nurturing simultaneous recognition and disagreement, which directly contradicts the conditions of post-politics (Forst, 2003). We therefore ask, contra ?i?ek, whether certain forms of tolerance can be an antidote to the post-political practice of foreclosing politics, and offer a set of considerations pertinent to the geographical analysis of this issue.     

The geoarchaeology of Mycenaean chamber tombs

This study presents a revised methodology for the excavation and analysis of the stratigraphy in Mycenaean chamber tombs and other multi-use burials. For our excavation of chamber tombs at Ayia Sotira and Barnavos, Nemea, we followed a geoarchaeological approach to provide details about the process of backfilling and re-opening of the tombs and to identify the location, number, and slope of these re-openings.     

Making and remaking Tibetan diasporic identities

The fifty-year long Chinese occupation of Tibet has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands and has produced a refugee flow that continues today. Although the plight of Tibetans commands international attention, this diaspora remains understudied and undertheorized. To speak to this silence, we follow Patterson and Kelley (2000) and argue that the Tibetan diaspora can be analysed as both a condition and a process. Diaspora as condition emphasizes the structural features of an exile population, such as race, gender, class and religion. Diaspora as process draws attention to lived refugee experiences--the making and remaking of diasporic identities. In the Tibetan diaspora, His Holiness the Dalai Lama holds a central position. Through his global profile, and a transnational nationalist political structure, he creates images of Tibet, builds community and works toward Tibetan self-determination. Within this nationalist frame, Tibetan identities assume a singular, unified and homogeneous form. Further analysis that focuses on individual voices, however, shows how Tibetan diasporic identities are contested, complex and embedded in not one but multiple narratives of struggle.     

Stories of crossings and connections from Bawaka,North East Arnhem Land,Australia

This paper engages with Indigenous peoples' conceptualisations of borders, arguing that these unsettle dominant Eurocentric constructs of the border as terrestrial, linear, bound and defined through western legal frameworks. It does this by drawing on one aspect of the many storytelling experiences offered by members of the Indigenous-owned Yolngu tourism business Bawaka Cultural Experiences in northern Australia. We argue that stories told to visitors about multiple and diverse connections between Yolngu and Makassan people from Sulawesi, Indonesia, are intentional constructions which challenge dominant conceptions of Australia as an isolated island-nation. The stories redefine the border as a dynamic and active space and as a site of complex encounters. The border itself is continuously recreated through stories in ways that emphasise the continuity and richness of land and sea-scapes and are based on non-linear conceptions of time. The stories invite non-Indigenous people to engage with different kinds of realities that exist in the north and to re-imagine Australia's north as a place of crossings and connections.     

A CONCEPTUAL AND METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK FOR DESIGNING AND EVALUATING COMMUNITY‐BASED AFTER‐SCHOOL ART PROGRAMS

The objective of this paper is two‐fold. First, various perspectives that have been adopted in the discursive context of the benefits of engaging children and youths in artistic endeavors are examined. Second, in the hope of maximizing the quality of arts programs that enrich the lives of youth, a conceptual and methodological framework for the development of community‐based art programs for youth is presented. The aim is to provide a clear way to conceptualize and operationalize arts programs, and to delineate methods for the evaluation of their effectiveness.     

Towards a computational cultural policy studies: examining infrastructures of taste and participation

Like other disciplines within the humanities and social sciences, cultural policy studies has had to respond to the influence of computing technologies. Researchers have explored the changes wrought to the management of cultural organisations, to the models of the creative industries and to new forms of access to culture and the arts. This paper suggests that these emphases might miss how computing technologies are re-shaping the project of cultural policy in a more fundamental direction. The paper draws on the work concerned with the cultural values of computing technologies and their influence on contemporary modes of government. These values, of instrumental reason, categorisation and calculation underpin a range of technologies, which are increasingly present in and important to the management of everyday life. Reflecting on how cultural taste and participation are being re-shaped by computing technologies, the paper argues these infrastructures are informed by specific visions of the kinds of people who live with and through them and how such people can be governed. The long-standing focus of cultural policy studies – about how states are concerned with the cultural formation of their citizens – are keenly present in the strategic ambitions and imperatives associated with computation.     

Technology and gay identity: the case of the pre-Second World War male flight attendant

This article examines 1930s aviation in the USA through an unconventional lens – the male flight attendant, a figure who served as a cultural touchstone for negotiating gender roles in the emerging business of commercial air transport. As aviation had broad resonance as a symbol of modern and cosmopolitan life, the male flight attendant, too, became bound to this larger context of technological development and the futuristic transformations of society it promised. My aim is to detail these connections between the flight attendant and technological innovation, but also to make a deeper claim: that the occupation of flight attendant, the place of gay men therein, and the cultural acceptance and resistance to this fact were constituent, not ancillary, to the history of the 1930s. In the process, I am arguing not only that gender serves as a fundamental category of historical analysis – via the assumptions and power relations through which historical actors make history – but also that issues of gay identity and homophobia are integral to such analysis