Marriage as a Marker of Secular Inclusion? Oral History and Lesbian and Gay Narratives on Marriage in Contemporary Australia

Same‐sex marriage has been one of the most widely discussed social issues in contemporary Australia for some time. In late 2017, after holding a contentious national postal survey that year, the Australia government introduced legislation allowing same‐sex couples to marry. This article draws on a major national lesbian and gay oral history project conducted in partnership with the National Library of Australia between 2012 and 2015, when discussions of same‐sex marriage were becoming increasingly widespread. It investigates the way interview subjects incorporated marriage into their narratives. In doing so, it highlights how understandings of marriage — both amongst lesbian and gay people and heterosexual people — have shifted and evolved over time. While some subjects saw marriage as a somewhat outdated, religious, and patriarchal concept, many others invested personal significance in the institution, arguing that allowing gay men and lesbians access to marriage would be a strong symbol of social progress and equality in a secular society. We conclude with one young interviewee who had managed to reconcile his faith with his sexuality and desire for marriage equality.     

Weathering the Storm: Social Policy and the Great Recession

This review discusses recent challenges to the welfare state arising from the Great Recession (GR). The GR was a significant event for social policy analysts, as it tested the responsiveness of welfare systems in the midst of a recent trend toward austerity politics in advanced economies. Social policy changes were part of the toolkit advanced democracies used to respond to the GR, and the welfare state mitigated the consequences of the GR. However, a stark limitation of the social safety net in the United States was the failure to assist immigrant households. The nexus of immigration and social policy is likely to be a significant controversy as we consider the meaning of social citizenship.     

Designing a socially efficient cultural policy: the case of municipal theaters in Warsaw

While public support for culture has become a less self-evident privilege than in the past, the economic evidence for benefits a society gains from these goods has become essential for both cultural economics and cultural policy. The aim of our study is to investigate socially preferred ways of allocating scarce public resources among municipal theaters in Warsaw. The problem investigated is a current issue for local policy-making, but in a broader sense, it illustrates how state-of-the-art stated preference methods can be employed to support cultural policy. We find that inhabitants of Warsaw assign a positive value to the broader accessibility of the theaters, and their willingness to pay for making them a truly public good (by introducing a program of highly discounted tickets) exceeds the costs of such a policy. However, we also find that the cost-benefit relationship varies across theaters with different types of plays in their repertories. Our results imply a different level of socially efficient support for experimental, drama, children’s and entertainment theaters.     

Unofficial Road Building in the Amazon: Socioeconomic and Biophysical Explanations

Roads have manifold social and environmental impacts, including regional development, social conflicts and habitat fragmentation. ‘Road ecology’ has emerged as an approach to evaluate the various ecological and hydrological impacts of roads. This article aims to complement road ecology by examining the socio‐spatial processes of road building itself. Focusing on the Brazilian Amazon, a heavily‐studied context due to forest fragmentation by roads, the authors consider non‐state social actors who build ‘unofficial roads’ for the purpose of gaining access to natural resources to support livelihoods and community development. They examine four case studies of roads with distinct histories in order to explain the socio‐spatial processes behind road building in terms of profit maximization, land tenure claims, co‐operative and conflictive political ecologies, and constraints as well as opportunities afforded by the biophysical environment. The study cases illustrate the need for a multi‐pronged theoretical approach to understanding road building, and call for more attention to the role of non‐state actors in road construction.     

Der „Mitteleuropäische Kristall“ – zwischen „Blauer Banane“ und „osteuropäischem Pentagon“

Der deutsch-tschechische Grenzraum liegt gewisserma?en in einer Sandwich-Position zwischen verschiedenen europ?ischen Makroregionen; auf europ?ischer Ebene wird er bislang eher als Verbindungselement wahrgenommen. Seine innere Struktur ist von einer relativ geringen Besiedlungsdichte und ausgepr?gten Stadt-Land-Unterschieden gekennzeichnet. Im Frühjahr 2006 gründeten die beiden nationalen Regierungen eine deutsch-tschechische Arbeitsgruppe für Raumentwicklung. Der Artikel skizziert, welche Ziele und Erwartungen damit verbunden werden und welche Funktionen ein solches Gremium übernehmen kann. Dazu wird zun?chst die Ausgangssituation dieses Raumes skizziert. Abschlie?end wird das m?gliche Leitbild des „Mitteleurop?ischen Kristalls“ vorgestellt.     

What's in a name? Possible names for a legislative body and the birth of national sovereignty during the French Revolution, 15-16 June 1789

Historians disagree over the meaning of the declaration on 17June 1789 by Third Estate deputies, along with a few clergy,that they constituted a ‘National Assembly’, onethat could act in place of the Estates General and despite theabsence of most Noble and Clerical deputies. This article reconstructsthe debates of 15–16 June 1789 leading up to this declaration,finding in deputy memoirs, letters and newspaper accounts fifty-eightspeeches given by thirty-eight deputies supporting several alternativeproposals. Careful analysis of the speeches demonstrates thatselection of the title National Assembly was a result of contingentevents and political compromise, primarily chosen as a meansto end the stalemate between the Orders over verification ofdeputy credentials and over whether voting in the Estates Generalwould be by head or by Order. It thus calls into question argumentsthat the declaration was the necessary outcome of a pre-revolutionaryprocess.     

Traditions and transitions in Korean bronze technology

Metallurgical examination of Korean bronze artifacts shows that a technical tradition based on casting and use of leaded high-tin alloys was established in Korea at the early stages of bronze use. After the subsequent discovery of quenching methods that suppress formation of the brittle δ phase, new thermo-mechanical techniques were introduced between the 7th and 10th centuries AD. Lead-free alloys were used, and tin contents near that of the peritectic point in the Cu–Sn phase diagram were chosen. Leaded high tin alloys continued in use, but only in cast objects, and with significant composition variation. The unique conditions during the time of innovation suggest that the transition to new metallurgical techniques was gradually achieved through domestic technical innovation inspired by external influences.     

The in situ preservation of archaeological remains: using lysimeters to assess the impacts of saturation and seasonality

Recent research has studied the effects of seasonal variability on waterlogged burial environments. In a new approach to the study of archaeological contexts, the use of controlled laboratory conditions via lysimeters has enabled new insights into the nature of short term fluctuations in saturation, and the impact that these can have on burial contexts. In addition, the protocols used have facilitated interesting insights into burial environments and the way in which fluctuations in saturation and seasonality can impact on the contained organic components within them.