Book reviews

English Maps: A History. By Catherine Delano‐Smith and Roger J. P. Kain. London: The British library, 1999. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999. ISBN 0 7123 4609 0 (cloth); 0 7123 4660 0 (paper). Pp. xiv, 320, illus., col. plates. STG£25.00 (cloth).

Abraham Ortelius and the First Atlas: Essays Commemorating the Quadricentennial of his Death, 1598–1998. Edited by Marcel van den Broecke, Peter van der Krogt and Peter Meurer. Utrecht: HES Publishers, 1998. ISBN 90 6194 388 4. Pp. 430, illus.,. 19 col. plates. DFL371.00(cloth).

A Biographical Index of East India Company Maritime Service Officers 1600–1834. By Anthony Farrington. London: The British Library, 1999. ISBN 0 7123 4647 3. Pp. 886. STG£85.00 (cloth).

Catalogue of East India Company Ships’ Journals and Logs 1600–1834. By Anthony Farrington. London: The British Library, 1999. ISBN 0 7123 4646 5. Pp. 789. STG£85.00 (doth).

Ordnance Survey Small‐Scale Maps: Indexes: 1801–1998. By Roger Hellyer. Kerry, Newtown, Montgomeryshire: David Archer, 1999. ISBN 0951757954. Pp. xxiv, 264, illus. STG£35.00 (cloth). [David Archer, Kerry, Wales SY16 . 4PD.]     

Magic,Memory & Mimesis—the “Power” of the Historical Moving Image to Possess?

In 1936 and 1937, Diana and Antoinette Powell-Cotton made a film that purported to show a healing practice involving possession. Over seventy years later, the film produced the start of a possession state in an audience from the same region in which the film was made. This paper uses the explanations given by those in the audience for this near possession to challenge some frequently cited thinking on the mimetic, magical power of film to possess. It offers an alternative approach to the viewing of archive film drawing on a form of mimesis rooted in habitual bodily memory. This mimetic relationship allows for an immanence of past in the present dependent on the past experience of the viewer rather than the power of the image.     

Assessing Representation at Different Scales of Decision Making: Rethinking Local is Better

The nature and quality of representation in public participation is crucial to reaching acceptable environmental decisions that can be implemented. Ten case studies of natural resource management groups involved in agriculture in south western Australia were conducted at four spatial scales—state, regional, land conservation district (shire or county), and subcatchment. Qualitative analysis identified the desirable qualities of representatives, and then compared perceptions of current practice at the four scales against these ideals. Desirable qualities were being an active participant, competency (skills and knowledge), credibility, adopting the group identity and commitment, communicating outside the group, having established social networks, and an ability to function in multiple roles. Analysis across scales suggests that for groups at broader spatial scales of organizing, such as the state level, representation was closer to achieving the desired qualities than at other scales. This finding is contrary to much of the current rhetoric in natural resource management, and environmental management more generally, that "local is better." The article concludes with some thoughts as to why this is the case, suggesting that the success or otherwise of representation, and the public participation in which representatives are involved, is influenced not only by the scale of decision making but also by how representatives are selected and what they are expected to achieve.     

Requiem or rebirth? Internal labour markets and labour market restructuring in the Kitchener and Sault Ste. Marie regions

Since the 1980s, social scientists and economic geographers have stressed that 'standard' forms of employment and internal labour markets (ILMs) which characterized Fordism have declined and have been displaced by post-Fordist non-standard and contingent employment arrangements. However, some researchers are critical of the assumptions of a universal decline in ILMs and stress that although ILMs have been significantly restructured, they remain an important part of firm employment strategies. On the basis of a postal survey and interviews conducted with ninety firms and institutions in Kitchener-Waterloo and Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, in 1995–1996, I assess the role of ILMs. Although shifts towards non-standard arrangements are evident, employers are clearly aware of the need to maintain if not develop ILM structures. Finally, I argue that geographers need to reconceptualize the relationships between ILMs and external labour markets (ELMs) as integrated phenomena. Thus firms do not use contingent or ELMs and ILMs in exclusion to each other but as part of a continuum of strategies leading to increased blurring of the ILM and ELMs.     

Zoning and Neighbourhood Change: the Annex in Toronto, 1900–1970

Most models of neighbourhood change envisage an insignificant role for zoning, whereas contemporary analyses of the politics of land use change treat it as a major means of controlling change. In the Annex neighbourhood, where zoning was potentially able to prevent all major land use changes after 1900, it proved to be only a minor influence, whether in its enforcement or through new zoning restrictions. In the long run, zoning and the political control of zoning responded to, rather than modified, the dominant economic and social forces which produced change in the neighbourhood.
La plupart des modèles de changement de quartier envisagent un rle peu important en ce qui concerne l'aménagement de tenitoire tandis que les analyses contemporaines de la politique du changement du développement des terrains le traitent comme un moyen principal de contrbler les changements. Dans le quartier Annex, après le début du siècle, l'aménagement du tenitoire aurait pu virtuellement empêcher tout changement en ce qui concemait le développement des terrains. Au contraire, l'aménagement du tenitoire n'est aujourd hui qu'une influence secondaire soit à cause de la manitre de son application soit h cause des nouvelles restrictions qu'il a entamées. En fin de compte, l'amknagement de temtoire aussi bien que son contrble politique ont suivi plutht que de modifier les forces économiques et sociales dominantes qui ont à leur tour produit des changements dans le quartier.