‘Walking … just walking’: how children and young people's everyday pedestrian practices matter

This paper considers the importance of walking for many children and young people's everyday lives, experiences and friendships. Drawing upon research with 175 9- to 16-year-olds living in new urban developments in south-east England, we highlight key characteristics of (daily, taken-for-granted, ostensibly aimless) walking practices, which were of constitutive importance in children and young people's friendships, communities and geographies. These practices were characteristically bounded, yet intense and circuitous. They were vivid, vital, loved, playful, social experiences yet also dismissed, with a shrug, as ‘just walking’. We argue that ‘everyday pedestrian practices’ (after Middleton 2010, 2011) like these require critical reflection upon chief social scientific theorisations of walking, particularly the large body of literature on children's independent mobility and the rich, multi-disciplinary line of work known as ‘new walking studies’. In arguing that these lines of work could be productively interrelated, we propound ‘just walking’—particularly the often-unremarked way it matters—as a kind of phenomenon which is sometimes done a disservice by chief lines of theory and practice in social and cultural geography.     

Children's experiences of participating in research: emotional moments together?

This paper reflects upon emotional moments in research with children and young people. In particular, we seek to contribute to the now-extensive literature on emotions in social scientific research practice by: (i) attempting to acknowledge the often-overlooked emotions experienced by children and young people whilst participating in research; (ii) highlighting the complex, multiperspectival nature of emotions in research. We suggest that these complexities can, simultaneously be problematic and an opportunity to celebrate the achievement of doing research together.     

Gallican Liberties and the Catholic League

Summary

Theorists of Gallican liberty took as their premise the idea that France had an exceptional status amongst the national Christian churches. However, as contemporaries had noted, the precise definition of Gallican liberties remained at stake; Antoine Hotman noted in his treatise on the subject that ‘it is a strange phenomenon that everyone talks of the liberties of the Gallican Church and, most of the time, very few people know what they are and cannot account for their origins or for their progress’. Within the context of French reactions to the papal excommunications of Henri III and Henri de Navarre, and reception of the Tridentine decrees, the question of how to define Gallican liberty was an extremely pertinent one. This article examines the treatment of Gallican ideas in Catholic League treatises as they negotiated a balance between arguments for Gallican independence and indirect papal power. Despite accusations from their contemporaries that they were attacking the Gallican church, Leaguer discussions of Gallican liberty frequently proved to be an integral part of the argument that Catholicity was a ‘fundamental law’ of France.     

Ein Blick in die Tiefe der Seele: Hypnose im Kultur- und Lehrfilm (1920–1936)

Gazing into the Depths of the Soul: Hypnotism in Documentary and Instructional Film (1920–1936). Although part of the medical fold since the 1870s, hypnosis was long relegated to the margins, recognised and used by only a relatively small group of medical professionals. In the decades around 1900 hypnotic techniques were monopolised as a form of medical treatment through a long and in no way linear process. Hypnosis of laymen was vehemently opposed, however, denounced as being far too dangerous. And yet, medical participation in the aura of spectacular intervention into the human psyche garnered support. The medium of both documentary and instructional film served an important function in this regard, conveying popular interest in acknowledging hypnosis as a scientific method. On the basis of four medically accredited films on hypnosis from 1920 to 1936, this paper attempts to investigate how medical experts and these genres, as part of their effort to claim hypnosis from the realm of public spectacle and parapsychological experimentation, worked to stabilise hypnosis as a purified form of medical and psychiatric practice.     

2Precious2Mine: Post‐politics,Colonial Imaginary,or Hopeful Political Moment?

Radical democrats and geographers have argued that democracy requires a vibrant contestatory politics to challenge the contemporary “post‐political” conjuncture. Despite suggestions of post‐political processes in Aotearoa New Zealand, there are signs of a more vibrant politics. In 2010 an environmental campaign called “2Precious2Mine” captured the national geographic imaginary. Drawing on this example, we argue that although a space was opened for a vibrant contestatory politics, its effects were paradoxical. The campaign both reinforced the hegemonic narratives of neoliberal (post)colonial Aotearoa New Zealand, and simultaneously produced moments that challenged this apparent post‐politicising trajectory. While we argue that such frameworks are useful, there is a risk that without cognisance of the situated nature of politics and closure, they both lose their political and academic explanatory purchase. Post‐politics becomes at risk of constructing that which it seeks to describe, while radical democracy ends up falling short of its aims.     

An emerging anti-reform green front? Farm interest groups fighting the ‘Agriculture 1980’ project, 1968–72

Ten years after the creation of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), the so-called Mansholt Plan was the first attempt at radically transforming European agriculture and modernising agricultural structures. Drawing upon archives of national and Community-level farm interest groups as well as records of the European Commission, this article analyses the reactions of farm interest groups to the Mansholt Plan and their strategies to oppose it between 1968 and 1972. It explores the resistance of farmers and their professional organisations to agricultural change. In particular, the article sheds new light on the reasons behind the spectacular failure of the plan and examines the long-term consequences of that failure for farm interest groups, the Commission and the member-states. It scrutinises initial reactions from farm organisations, examines the debates over the family farm (a core economic and cultural element of European agriculture), and discusses the national and transnational lobbying and protest strategies used by farmers to oppose the plan. The article contributes to a deeper understanding of the origins of transnational societal mobilisation in post-war Western Europe and highlights the impact of national and European interest groups in EC-level policy-making.     

Experimental investigations into edge performance and its implications for stone artefact reduction modelling

This paper details an experimental investigation into stone artefact performance and use, and examines the implications for maintenance and rejuvenation activities. Controlled experiments testing the performance of differently shaped working edges reveal that rates of use attrition are not constant; they are dependent upon the blank morphology's suitability to particular tasks. The evidence contributes to a broader understanding of the principles of reduction analyses by showing that morphological differences in blanks are accompanied by differences in the artefacts’ functional capacity. These differences in turn affect the rate at which maintenance and rejuvenation activities will be required and therefore the extent of reduction exhibited at discard.