The case of Tudmīr: archaeological evidence for the introduction of irrigation systems in al‐Andalus

With a focus on the detail of the archaeological evidence for the introduction of irrigation systems into Tudmīr in south‐east Spain in the eighth and ninth centuries, this paper explores the archaeological contribution to our understanding of the process by which planned irrigation was established in al‐Andalus in the early Middle Ages.     

‘Mr Bourne's dilemma’. Consumer culture,property speculation and department store demise: the rise and fall of Bourne and Hollingsworth on London's Oxford Street

This paper explores the twentieth-century rise and fall of the traditional department store Bourne and Hollingsworth in London's Oxford Street as a means of re-examining the historical geographies of metropolitan consumption cultures. The research moves away from a preoccupation with urban retail's novelty and spectacle towards a consideration of the more conventional and conservative kinds of consumption that have been a vital part of the retail ecology of many major cities in the twentieth century. The paper analyses the intersections of different dimensions of the history of metropolitan consumption: with a culturalist focus on consumer identity and urban microgrographies; but also an examination of this as a family-owned, paternalistic business, and as a material space, both as a building designed and refurbished by its owners, management, architects and shopfitters, and as a particular site within the routes and flows of the West End. The final approach to Bourne and Hollingsworth as urban property, as a distinctive form of capital asset in the city, allows a new understanding of the vulnerability of this kind of retailing by the later twentieth century. The study shows that an emphasis on the significance of cultures of consumption provides at best a partial explanation for changes in the landscapes of consumption: it is argued that cities are the sites of complex intersections between cultural practices and other kinds of geography, in this case those of asset values and opportunities for property speculation.     

‘Draw me your neighbourhood’: a gentrified Paris neighbourhood through its children's eyes

This article aims to contribute to the international research on the relationship between the child and the city, based on drawings and interviews collected from 4th grade children in a socially mixed gentrified neighbourhood of Paris. Its ambition is to reflect on the methodological contribution of drawings to analyse the children's representation of the neighbourhood. In doing so, the article also presents the principal facets of a gentrified Parisian district as perceived by the children themselves, by studying to what extent children's gender and diverse social backgrounds impact their neighbourhood representations and experiences.     

Comparative Seismic Risk Assessment of Basilica-type Churches

ABSTRACT

This paper discusses the seismic risk assessment of a Basilica-type church according to the provisions of the Italian Guidelines. A comparison between the results obtained with local and global approaches is reported, based on a knowledge process aimed to characterize the geometric and mechanical parameters required for a reliable structural analysis. To perform the global analyses the finite element technique was employed, with proper assumptions to account for the nonlinear behavior of masonry. Illustrating a case study, the paper critically discusses about the employability of pushover analysis methods for the seismic assessment of basilica-type churches.     

BUSINESS TAX INTERACTIONS AMONG LOCAL GOVERNMENTS: AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF THE FRENCH CASE

ABSTRACT.  We study the business tax ("taxe professionnelle") behavior of the intermediate level (department) of local government in France and test in the same model the two hypotheses that department tax rates are explained by upper tier (region) tax rates and by tax rates chosen by other departments. We first reject the hypothesis of tax interactions between departments and regions, the two upper levels of local governments. Second, we provide evidence that business tax interactions among departments are significant. Including the vertical dimension in the estimated model does not lead to a decrease in the horizontal tax interactions parameter, nor to its nonsignificance.     

India's response to the 1971 East Pakistan crisis: hidden and open reasons for intervention

Based on recently declassified materials from the Indian government archives and on the private papers of the principal secretary to the Indian prime minister, this article investigates how India formulated its response to the 1971 East Pakistan genocidal crisis that culminated with the third Indo-Pakistani war. India's victory changed the balance of power in South Asia: Bangladesh emerged as a new independent state, while Pakistan was significantly reduced. The 1971 war is cited in the international literature as one of the first cases of humanitarian intervention in world history. The Indian official position, recently reinforced by a new major publication, highlights the ‘humanitarian’ character of the 1971 Indo-Pakistan war, depicting a reluctant India compelled to intervene by international inactivity towards the atrocity. This article contests this interpretation and argues that humanitarian considerations were only one side of the picture. Clear political interests drove the actions of New Delhi, which autonomously formulated a specific strategy aimed at making capital out of the dramatic humanitarian crisis. In advancing this argument, this article contributes to the complex debate about humanitarian intervention by observing that the inability of the UN system to intervene is bound to open the way to two possible outcomes: one is the continuation of the genocidal massacres; the other is the unauthorized humanitarian armed intervention by a regional power, which is likely to act according to its own interests. The specific case under review demonstrates that unauthorized armed intervention cannot per se always be branded as deplorable, since in certain cases such a scenario is better than no intervention at all.