Taking Space: Moments of Rupture and Everyday Life in Occupy London

Taking space has been a common feature of recent social movements worldwide, and was a defining act of the Occupy movement. This article examines the taking of two spaces by Occupy London in October 2011, and argues that there was a tension between taking space as a moment of rupture, lived space‐times of intensity that provide an opening to new possibilities, and everyday life, the routines and rhythms through which social life is reproduced. My argument builds on the work of Lefebvre, bringing together his conceptualisation of “moments” and everyday life, and his radical theory of the production of space. I argue that examining the tensions over taking space provides a useful angle to explore some of the challenges faced by the Occupy movement, such as an unequal division of labour on camp, and may help in negotiating them.     

Struggling Pasts: A Commentary

This commentary is organized into three parts. The first discusses the papers presented in this volume, notably divided into two themes: those that looked at past struggles and those that look at struggling in the present. The second part deals more critically with the unifying analytical theme of the papers: a dialectical approach to historical archaeology and how it can be implemented through the theory of internal relations. The final section of this commentary takes this idea and applies it to the archaeology of landscape and the production of social space.     

Book reviews

THE UNITED STATES IN THE WORLD ARENA: AN ESSAY IN RECENT HISTORY. W. W. Rostow. New York, Harper & Brothers, 1960. Pp. xxii + 568. $8.75.

LORD LOTHIAN (PHILIP KERR) : 1882–1940. J. R. M. Butler. London, Macmillan & Co., 1960. Pp. xiii + 385. Australian price 57/9.

THE SOVIET BLOC: UNITY AND CONFLICT. Zbigniew K. Brzezinski. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1960. Pp. xxii + 470. Australian price 85/3.

THE SOVIET DICTATORSHIP. Herbert McClosky and John E. Turner. N.Y., McGraw Hill Book Company Inc., 1960. Pp. xiv + 657. $7.95.

FRANCE, TROUBLED ALLY: DE GAULLE'S HERITAGE AND PROSPECTS. Edgar S. Furniss. For the Council on Foreign Relations. N.Y., Harper and Brothers, 1960. Pp. xiii + 512. $5.75.

THE NEXT FIFTEEN YEARS. Pierre Mendes‐France. Cambridge University Press, 1960. 3/6.

NATIONALISM AND THE RIGHT WING IN JAPAN. Ivan Morris. Under the auspices of the Royal Institute of International Affairs. London, Oxford University Press, 1960. Pp. xxviii + 476. Australian price 81/3.

ELECTIONS IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES. T. E. Smith. With an introduction by B. Keith‐Lucas. London, Macmillan, 1960. Pp. xvii + 272.

THE BELGIAN CONGO. Some Recent Changes. Ruth Slade. For Institute of Race Relations. London, Oxford University Press, 1960. Pp. viii + 55. 3 maps. Australian price 8/6.

RACIAL PROBLEMS IN SOVIET MUSLIM ASIA. Geoffrey Wheeler. For Institute of Race Relations. London, Oxford University Press, 1960. Pp. xii + 66. 2 maps. Australian priee 10/‐.

THE DIPLOMACY OF SOUTH‐EAST ASIA, 1945–1958. Russell H. Fifield. N.Y., Harper and Brothers, 1958. Pp. xiii + 584. $7.50.

POLITICAL FORCES IN PAKISTAN, 1947–1959. Keith B. Callard. N.Y., Institute of Pacific Relations, 1959. Pp. 48. $2.00.     

Book reviews

Barry Hindess, Discourses of Power: From Hobbes to Foucault. Oxford: Blackwell, 1996. 183 pp. $34.95 (paper).

David Beetham and Kevin Boyle, Introducing Democracy: 80 Questions and Answers. Cambridge: Polity Press/UNESCO, 1995. xiv + 135 pp. £10.95 (paper).

Jurgen Habermas (interviewed by Michael Haller), The Past as Future, translated and edited by Max Pensky. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994. xxvi + 185 pp. $34.95 (paper).

Jacob Bercovitch (ed.), Resolving International Conflicts: The Theory and Practice of Mediation. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1996. xiv + 279 pp. $US19.95 (paper).

Georgina Waylen, Gender in Third World Politics. Buckingham: Open University Press, 1996. xi + 163 pp. $34.95 (paper).

Larry Diamond, Juan J. Linz and Seymour Martin Lipset (eds), Politics in Developing Countries: Comparing Experiences with Democracy, 2nd edn. Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner, 1995. viii + 592 pp. npg.

Stuart Woolf (ed.), Nationalism in Europe, 1815 to the Present: A Reader. London and New York: Routledge, 1996. vi + 215 pp. npg.

Michael Mandelbaum (ed.), Post‐Communism: Four Perspectives. New York: The Council on Foreign Relations, 1996. vi + 208 pp. npg.

Stelios Stavridis and Christopher Hill (eds), Domestic Sources of Foreign Policy: Western European Reactions to the Falklands Conflict. Oxford: Berg Publishers, 1996. x + 202 pp. £34.95 (cloth), £14.95 (paper).

Ramesh Thakur (ed.), The United Nations at Fifty: Retrospect and Prospect. Dunedin: University of Otago Press and the Peace Research Centre, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, The Australian National University, 1996. xvii + 334 pp. $34.95 (paper).

Emma Matanle, The UN Security Council: Prospects for Reform. London: Royal Institute of International Affairs Discussion Paper No. 62, 1995. vi + 70 pp. npg.

Ross Garnaut and Peter Drysdale (eds), Asia Pacific Regionalism: Readings in International Economic Relations. Sydney: Harper Educational Publishers, 1994. xviii + 433 pp. $39.95 (paper).

Russell Trood and Deborah McNamara (eds), The Asia‐Australia Survey 1995–96. Melbourne: Macmillan/Centre for the Study of Australia‐Asia Relations, Griffith University, 1995. xiv + 586 pp. $95.00 (cloth), $42.95 (paper).

Jim Rohwer, Asia Rising. London: Nicholas Brealey, 1996. 382 pp. $34.95 (cloth).

David Shambaugh (ed.), Greater China: The Next Superpower? Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. ix + 310 pp. $44.95 (cloth).

Anne Blair, Lodge in Vietnam: A Patriot Abroad. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1995. xv + 200 pp. $US25.00 (cloth).

David Mayers, The Ambassadors and America's Soviet Policy. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. xiv + 335 pp. $75.00 (cloth).

Christopher Tremewan, The Political Economy of Social Control in Singapore. London: Macmillan, 1994. xv + 252 pp. $88.00 (cloth).

John A. Larkin, Sugar and the Origins of Modern Philippine Society. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. xvi + 337 pp. npg.

Hermann Joseph Hiery, The Neglected War: the German South Pacific and the Influence of World War 1. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1995. xvii + 387 pp. US$35.OO (cloth).

Anthony Milner (ed.), Australia in Asia: Comparing Cultures. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1996. xii + 300 pp. $26.95 (paper).

Lachlan Strahan, Australia's China, Changing Perceptions from the 1930s to the 1990s. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. xv + 374 pp. $34.95 (paper), $90.00 (cloth).

Graeme Cheeseman and Robert Bruce (eds), Discourses of Danger and Dread Frontiers: Australian Defence and Security Thinking after the Cold War. St Leonards: Allen and Unwin/Department of International Relations, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University, 1996. ix + 317 pp. $24.95 (paper).

John Spoehr and Ray Broomhill (eds), Altered States: The Impact of Free Market Policies on the Australian States. Adelaide: Centre for Labour Studies, University of Adelaide/Social Justice Research Foundation, 1995. 226 pp. npg (paper).     

Reviews

John W. Burton, Global Conflict: The Domestic Sources of International Crisis. Wheatsheaf Books‐Harvester Press, 1984 (paperbacked edition 1987), pp. xiiv + 194. $27.95.

Michael Banks (ed.), Conflict in World Society: A New Perspective On International Relations. Wheatsheaf Books‐Harvester Press, 1984 (paperback edition 1987), pp xxi + 234. $29.95.

Adam Watson, Diplomacy: The Dialogue Between States. Methu‐en, London, 1984, pp. 239. $14.95.

David Steele, The Reform of the United Nations. Croom Helm, London and Sydney, 1987, pp. 191. £22.50.

Brian Urquhart, The United Nations and International Law. The Rede Lecture, 1985. Cambridge University Press, 1986, pp.20. $10.50.

Christine Jennett and Randal G. Stewart (eds), Three Worlds of Inequality: Race, Class and Gender. Macmillan, South Melbourne, 1987, pp. x+395. $24.95.

Anthony D. Smith, The Ethnic Origins of Nations. Basil Black‐well, Oxford, 1986, pp. xviii + 312. $87.50. Paul Brass (ed.), Ethnic Groups and the State. Croom Helm, London and Sydney, 1985, pp.341. £17.95.

Michael MccGwire, Military Objectives in Soviet Foreign Policy. The Brookings Institution. Washington, D.C., 1987, pp. xiv + 530. $US18.95.

Mark Frankland, The Sixth Continent — Russia and Mikhail Gorbachev, Hamish Hamilton, London, 1987, pp. x+292. $39.59.

Martin Gilbert, Shcharansky — Hero of Our Time, Penguin Books, Harmonsworth, 1987, pp. ix +467. $14.95.

Bundesinstitut fur ostwissenschaftliche und internationale Stu‐dien, Cologne, The Soviet Union 1982–83. Holmes and Meier, London, 1985, pp. xi + 392. No price given.

Arthur R. Day, East Bank/West Bank: Jordan and the Prospects for Peace. Council on Foreign Relations, New York, 1986, pp. x + 166. $US17.5 (doth), $US8.95 (paper).

Michael Petit, Peacemakers at War — A Marine's Account of the Beirut Catastrophe. Faber and Faber, Boston, 1986, pp.229. $36.95.

Research Institute for Peace and Security, Tokyo, Asian Security Annual Report 1986. RIPS/Brassey's Defence Publishers, London, 1986, viii + pp. 204. $77.00 (cloth), $38.50 (paper).

Economics & Pacific Security: The 1986 Pacific Symposium. National Defense University Press, Washington DC, 1987, xi + pp. 260. No price given.

Alan Rix, Coming to Terms. The Politics of Australia's Trade with Japan 1945–57. Allen & Unwin Australia, Sydney, 1986, pp.267. $29.95 (cloth), $17.95 (paper).

David Anderson, An Analysis of Japanese Coking Coal Procurement Policies: The Canadian and Australian Experience. Centre for Resources Studies, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, 1987, pp. xvii + 222. No price given.

Phillip Darby, Three Faces of Imperialism: British and American Approaches to Asia and Africa 1870–1970. Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1987, pp.vii + 267. $US22.50.

Neville and Yu‐Ying Brown, South Africa: Sanctions or Targetted Aid? Muirhead Foreign Policy Papers No 1, University of Birmingham, 1987, pp. 51. £3.50.

William Minter, King Solomon's Mines Revisited: Western Interests and the Burdened History of Southern Africa, Basic Books, New York, 1986.

Jan Knippers Black, The Dominican Republic, Politics and Development in an Unsovereign Slate. Allen & Unwin, Boston, 1986, pp.xi+164. $27.95.

Glenyys Romanes, Eve Scarfe & John Scott‐Murphy: Central America. A Report from the ACFOA Fact Finding Mission to Guatemala, EL Salvador and Nicaragua, August‐September 1986. Australian Council for Overseas Aid, Canberra, 1987, pp.vi + 50. $5.00.

Edward Dommen and Philippe Hein (eds), States, Microstates and Islands. Croom Helm, London and Sydney, 1985, pp. 216. £19.95.

Commonwealth Secretariat, Vulnerability. Small States in the Global Society. Report of a Commonwealth Consultative Group. Commonwealth Secretariat, London, no date (1986?), pp. xii + 126. £5.00.

Te'o IJ. Fairbarin, Island Economies. Studies from the South Pacific. Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific, Suva, 1985, pp. xxi + 442. No price given.     

Urban political ecology in late prehistory: New evidence from El Purgatorio,Peru

One of archaeology's greatest strengths is its reliance on interdisciplinary collaboration and the utilization of multiple lines of evidence to inform archaeological interpretation. For example, through an examination of faunal and floral remains, production and storage facilities, and the isotopic analysis of human skeletal remains one can develop a model for urban political ecology in ancient cultures. In this case study, the political ecology of the Casma capital city, El Purgatorio, Peru, is investigated in order to inform our interpretations and conclusions regarding Casma political, economic and social organization. The results indicate that Casma political ecology was firmly based in coastal resources and oriented towards supporting state-sponsored feasting and ritual activities, suggestive of a largely elite-controlled redistributive economy. In contrast to previous models characterizing this time period as one of factionalism and environmental stress, the data suggest that coastal cultural adaptations produced an era of widespread political and economic stability.