Introduction: towards trans geographies

Gender geographies have focused on normatively gendered men and women, neglecting the ways in which gender binaries can be contested and troubled. Trans people question hegemonic conventions that link sexed bodies, gender roles and lives. This collection spans a range of theoretical fields in this context, including trans theories, queer engagement, feminist geographies, gender geographies and sexualities geographies. It offers empirical investigations of trans lives, while addressing the often theoretical use of ‘trans’ to render gender fluid, incoherent and unintelligible. As a whole this themed section questions geography's presumption of man/woman and male/female.     

Making space for fish: the regional,network and fluid spaces of fisheries certification

In this paper, we examine the multiple spatialities of Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certifications. The MSC uses its ecolabelling scheme to promote sustainable fisheries management; its logo may be used on the products of certified fisheries. The certification process involves the definition of a ‘fishery’. This involves the designation of boundaries around a particular location. While these boundaries suggest exclusivity for each fishery, these regional spaces are also entwined in the MSC's network, whereby they are viewed relationally. The utility of areal boundaries is also rendered problematic by the materiality of the seas: coastlines change, fish swim, water moves and ships travel. To operate its scheme successfully, the MSC has to recognise this spatial fluidity, acknowledging the rupture of boundaries and the movement of actors. We argue that attention to a multiplicity of spatialities helps direct attention to the role of non-humans in the acting out of hybrid geographies.     

Book Reviews

George, Alexander L., and Juliette L. George. Presidential Personality and Performance. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998. Pp. x, 304. $75.00, hardbound; $25.00, softbound.

Epstein, David, and Sharyn O'Halloran. Delegating Powers: A Transaction Cost Politics Approach to Policy Making Under Separate Powers. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Pp. xvi, 320. $59.95, hardbound; $19.95, softbound.

Kahn, Kim Fridkin, and Patrick J. Kenney. The Spectacle of U.S. Senate Campaigns. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999. Pp. xiv, 278. $57.50, hardbound; $18.95, softbound.

Michaels, Judith E. 1997. The President's Call: Executive Leadership from FDR to George Bush. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Pp. x, 348. $50.00, hardbound; $22.95, softbound.

Savage, James D. Funding Science in America: Congress, Universities, and the Politics of the Academic Pork Barrel. New York, Cambridge University Press, 1999. Pp. xiii, 219. $49.95, hardbound.

Stid, Daniel D. The President as Statesman: Woodrow Wilson and the Constitution. Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 1998. Pp. xi, 231. $35.00, hardbound.

Steven Shull. American Civil Rights Policy from Truman to Clinton: The Role of Presidential Leadership. Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1999. Pp. xv, 294. $64.95, hardbound.

Yalof, David Alistair. Pursuit of Justices: Presidential Politics and the Selection of Supreme Court Nominees. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999. Pp. x, 296. $27.95, hardbound.     

The Legacy of Nineteenth-century Replicas for Object Cultural Biographies: Lessons in Duplication from 1830s Fife

The St Andrews Sarcophagus and Norrie's Law hoard are two of the most important surviving Pictish relics from early medieval Scotland. The entanglement of their later biographies is also of international significance in its own right. Soon after discovery in nineteenth-century Fife, both sets of objects were subject, in 1839, to an exceptionally precocious, documented programme of replication through the enlightened auspices of an under-appreciated antiquarian, George Buist. This well-evidenced case study highlights how and why replicas, things that are widely prevalent in Europe and beyond, are a ‘thick’ and relatively unexplored seam of archaeological material culture that we ignore at our peril. These particular replications also offer new insights into the vision, intellectual and practical energies of early antiquarian societies, and their web of connections across Britain and Ireland.