The Making(s) of an Alternative Urban Policy: What Happens When Free Fares Come to Town?

While many urban policies and practices claim to offer an “alternative” to the “mainstream” of urban entrepreneurialism, they remain under-theorised and prone to alignment with entrepreneurial agendas. In this paper I examine fare-free public transport (FFPT) as a salient example of an alternative urban policy. Looking at Aubagne (France) and Tallinn (Estonia), I explore what happens when an alternative policy “comes to town”. I detect how FFPT enters local urban regimes, and study the (non-)participation of public transport passengers and workers in the decision-making process about whether and how to abolish public transport fares. My analysis reveals that albeit alternative policies such as FFPT seem to oppose entrepreneurialism, they may hinge on urban regimes that span across institutions, leave the local configurations of power unchallenged, and strenghten local elites. The adaptability of alternatives to diverse political and intellectual positions explains their resilience. Consequently, their radical character cannot be taken for granted and remains an object of political struggle.     

Monks on the move? An assessment of mobility at the medieval Nubian monastery of Ghazali,Sudan (ca. 680–1,275 CE)

The location of Ghazali monastery away from the Nile valley within the relatively isolated environs of the Bayuda desert presents a landscape suggestive of mobility toward the monastery by those who chose to reside there as monks. To assess this potentiality, a sample of 37 individuals from the monastic cemetery (Cemetery 2) were analysed for ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr and δ¹⁸O to assess residency during dental enamel formation. The data generated bring into question the nature of mobility to Ghazali monastery, particularly in regard to the potential movement of people from the Nile valley, adjacent desertic landscapes, and further afield.     

Global Gay and Soviet Queen: Polish Transformation and Discourses of Homosexual Gender Variance

The paper discusses the ways in which gender variance of gay, male-bodied persons was positioned within the East/West divide after 1989. The critical media reading is based on gay press columns from the 1990s. While in Polish culture, as in the West, homosexuality was traditionally linked to gender variance, in the 1990s the new gay identity was established as gender-normative — a task much facilitated by the fact that in Poland the development of gay identity was preceded by a medicalized and heteronormative concept of transsexuality. The study shows that gay imagery was highly influenced by the ‘global gay’ capitalist ideal and the ‘chasing the West’ narrative of progress and liberation. After 1989, homosexual gender variance became a taboo that was only discussed in the gay erotic press in satirical columns in which the term ciota was used (queen, auntie). In the columns, cioty were ridiculed and degraded, but also positioned as more authentic and noble. Their femininity was framed in the misogynist discourse of flawed, uncontrollable physiology and emotional instability, which corresponds with the second meaning of the word ‘ciota’ in Polish — menstruation. Ultimately, the change from the Soviet queen to the respectable Western gay was legitimized by the use of nostalgic rhetoric and the fact that ciota was equated with the fallen communist regime and ‘gay’ with blooming capitalism.     

Dressed ‘as if for a Carnival’: Solving the Mystery of the Origins of Children’s Fashion. A New Perspective on the History and Historiography of Children’s Dress

The article has a double focus: explaining the so-far obscure origins of children’s fashion in the later eighteenth century and putting its emergence in the context of the ‘grand narrative’ concerning the ‘discovery of childhood’ during this pivotal period. Contrary to Rousseau’s famous dismissal of the hussar suit, the role of ‘fancy dress’ inspiration in the development of children’s fashions for the first time purposefully meant to distinguish the (male) child from the grown-ups and, concurrent with the Enlightenment’s ideas on childhood, emerges as central rather than marginal. The repertory of styles adopted for boys’ wear is shown to have been inspired by various ethnic and historical dress traditions rooted in the fascination with masquerade characteristic of the Rococo culture but harnessed to express the emerging new attitudes. Among them, special attention is given to inspirations by Polish national dress.

Second, the article takes on the argument presented by Daniel Thomas Cook in his inspiring article in Textile History, 42, no. 1 (2011). Having acknowledged the foundational role of fashion history in the emergence of childhood studies, Cook regards its present status as peripheral. He dismisses the underlying premise of its principal ‘grand narrative’ as based on a fruitless distinction between utility (and functionality) and fashion rather than the invention or discovery of the ‘child’ and ‘childhood’. While partially accepting Cook’s criticism, the article argues that the ‘grand narrative’, thus modified and expanded, retains its usefulness. In the nineteenth century, the ‘fancy dress’ and ‘playfulness’ theme continued, reflected in the most popular children’s styles (sailor suit, Little Lord Fauntleroy suit) and a range of others, temporarily or locally prominent, and intertwining with multifarious cultural, artistic, social and commercial developments.     

Animal Exploitation and Behaviour of the Latest Middle Stone Age Societies in the Middle Nile Valley: Archaeozoological and Taphonomic Analysis of Late Pleistocene Fauna from the Affad Basin,Sudan

With the research on the issue in its initial phases, the behaviour and hunting strategies of MSA communities inhabiting the Nile Valley in the Late and Terminal Pleistocene have been fragmentarily recognised thus far. Osteological materials from the area of the Affad Basin in the Middle Nile Valley, recorded in archaeological contexts and dated to the sixteenth millennium BP using OSL methods, have significantly enhanced our knowledge in this regard. It is the first time that an opportunity has occurred to construct a reliable model of the environment exploitation and the behaviour of human groups producing lithic tools using Levallois methods in the Terminal Pleistocene. Archaeozoological analyses have allowed the identification of taxa, species and anatomical origin of remains and enabled the establishment of a database of osteometric measurements. The animals hunted in the Sudanese Nile Valley during the Terminal Pleistocene have been classified with a view to refer the data to the results of analogous studies on MSA in South Africa. The behaviour of the communities occupying the Affad Basin 15,000 years ago was connected to the environment of the tree-covered, swampy savannah and extensive backwaters. Medium-sized antelope (kobus) was hunted most often. People hunted also, albeit less frequently, for large ruminants (buffalo), guenons and large rodents. Remains of fish and mega-fauna (hippopotamus and elephant) have been found in isolated concentrations, away from the camp sites. Remains of molluscs or ostrich eggs have not been registered. The condition of the osteological materials, notably their anatomical distribution, is shown to have been largely affected by wetland environment, rich in iron and manganese.