Living with crime: spaces of risk for homeless young people

This paper reports on a study of victimization, offending and fear among homeless young people in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, which employed a participatory methodology. These young people live in marginal and often invisible spaces, yet are subject to a high degree of regulation which structures their experiences of risk. Their accounts demonstrate that an ‘either/or’ distinction which often structures understanding of offenders and victims, feared and fearful, and safe and dangerous spaces has led to their experiences being poorly represented. Homeless young people are often multiply positioned in relation to crime, an understanding which challenges the current political climate in Britain.     

TECHNOLOGICAL CATCH‐UP AND GEOGRAPHIC PROXIMITY*

ABSTRACT This paper examines productivity catch‐up as a source of establishment productivity growth. We present evidence that, other things equal, establishments further behind the industry frontier experience faster rates of productivity growth. Geographic proximity to frontier firms makes catch‐up faster. Our econometric specification implies a long‐run relationship between productivity levels, where nonfrontier establishments lie a steady‐state distance behind the frontier such that their rate of productivity growth including catch‐up equals productivity growth at the frontier. We use our econometric estimates to quantify the implied contribution to productivity growth of catch‐up to both the national and regional productivity frontiers.     

Variability in single smelting episodes – a pilot study using iron slag from Uganda

Most archaeometallurgical studies of iron smelting are based on the analyses of slag fragments randomly selected from slag deposits, and assume that these samples are representative of the typical smelting conditions of the given context. However, little archaeometallurgical research has been published to explore the variability in slag composition within a single smelt, or between individual smelts at the same production site. The material used in this pilot study originates from two iron smelting sites identified in the Buganda Kingdom, Uganda, dated to the 18th and 19th centuries AD. The remains represent evidence of the industrial scale iron production that supported the growth and power of the kingdom. The slag survives in large clusters of complete blocks, in some cases weighing over 100 kg, each resulting from a single smelting episode in a pit furnace. A multi-sample analytical approach has allowed an insight into the compositional diversity within the slag from single smelting events, reflecting changing parameters in the smelting systems. The internal variation of the slag blocks is subsequently compared within and between sites, to address issues of standardisation and to differentiate two technological traditions that would appear very similar at the macroscopic level. On this basis, some sampling recommendations are made for future slag block studies.     

Middle Eastern Minorities and Diasporas: Moshe Mo'az and Gabriel Sheffer,eds.

Book reviewed in this article: Muslim Minorities in the West: Visible and Invisible: Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad and Jane I. Smith, eds.