The Revisionist Union and Britain: From declarations of “loyalty” to the employment of “methods of bullying”

The nature of British rule in Palestine, as it settled down after the approval of the Mandate in 1922, had its critics among the Zionist ranks. Using original sources, this paper examines the attitudes of the leadership of the Revisionist Union (RU) towards the British from the first quarter of the 1920s till the mid-1930s. Unlike the later paramilitary organizations, the Revisionist founders, convinced, in their own words, of the common interests shared with the British Empire, had no intention of terminating the British presence, but sought to transform it in order to serve Zionism’s objectives. While official Zionism preferred backstage diplomacy, the RU pursued a different strategy – appealing directly to the masses and making its cause as public and vocal as possible. Eventually, the RU’s strategy combined the principle of pro-British orientation with merciless criticism of Palestine policies on the ground. As far as the British were concerned, the Colonial Office was at best willing to tolerate a set of proposals they saw as unrealistic. Once these started to actively erode the integrity of British policy in the region, unsolicited “enthusiasm” was reclassified as dangerous “extremism.”     

Counter-narratives of coping and becoming: Karen refugee women’s inside/outside figured worlds

The purpose of our research is to understand the socially and culturally constructed architecture within which refugee women produce and negotiate identity. This ethnographic case study discusses findings from data collected through participant observation and informal interviews in two refugee camps along the Thai-Burma border. As Karen refugee women described their positionality within and negotiation between the socially constructed Inside and Outside Figured Worlds of the refugee camp, they depict the negotiation of a hybrid Third Space. Created at the intersection of the refugee camp structures that dominate individual agency and the discourses of gender and displacement that influence the social practices of women, this third space is characterized by the response strategies Karen women engage to support individual, family, and community health. Within the transformational spaces that refugee women constructed, the processes of coping and becoming reflected the relationship between structure and agency. Within these intersections a woman could express her resistance to a system that in its design represented a majority she was not a part of. As Karen refugee women moved to redesign their position within these systems, shifts in meaning of cultural norms resulted, inclusive of those that influence or define the role of women.     

‘Culture’, ‘sustainable development’ and cultural policy: a contrarian view

Abstract

This essay offers a critical analysis of the ‘culture and sustainable development’ discourse, notably among cultural activists and in actually existing cultural policy. It interrogates the utility of the narrative, seeks to uncover the semantic manoeuvres it employs and challenges the conventional wisdom it represents. The essay first explores the itinerary of the ductile notion of ‘sustainability’, the ways in which it has been stretched far beyond the original intent of those who coined the term, and identifies the conceptual discontents that this semantic multiplication has entailed. It hypothesizes that precisely because the term ‘sustainable’ and its derivatives are so acceptable and malleable at the same time, they have been easy to yoke to the bandwagon of the many-faceted and totalizing process that is ‘development’, allowing many different actors to project their interests, hopes, and aspirations under this composite banner. The essay then analyses the campaign to make culture ‘the fourth pillar of sustainability’ under the banner of the movement called ‘Agenda 21 for Culture’. It concludes with a plea for a return to the original ecological focus of the term ‘sustainability’ – notably as regards climate change – and outlines some cultural policy responses such a focus can and should generate.     

Two Remarks on Michael Attaleiates’ Account of the Preliminaries to the Battle of Mantzikert†

The ability to extract fully the contextualized interpretations of Michael Attaleiates’ Historia is a rather difficult task without the parallel study of sources chronicling the same period. This article reconsiders Attaleiates’ justification for the division of the army by Diogenes before the battle of Mantzikert in 1071, and argues that the author is as critical of this emperor’s strategy as his close contemporary, Psellos, though his criticism is more subtly formulated. Another section discusses a gap in the narrative structure of the Historia and goes on to fill it with information derived from the Hyle Historias of Bryennios and from the chronicles of al-Bundari and Ibn al-‘Adim.     

A “Supertanker” Against Bureaucracy in the Wake of a Housing Crisis: Neoliberalizing Planning in Netanyahu's Israel

This paper critically questions the state's hostile takeover of planning regulation followed by experimentation initiated by the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who has been seeking to subordinate the planning apparatus to market calculus and to short‐term political ends. To substantiate this argument, I have examined a large corpus of documents (official government documents, planning records, and court appeals and rulings, and NGO reports) and analyzed the media coverage between 2011 and 2016. By introducing fast‐track planning that is firmly controlled by the central state and focusing on the fictitious delivery of housing units, the structure of the planning regulation has dramatically changed. Further, two already‐dominant government ministries (Finance and Defense) have been significantly empowered, becoming the supervisors of the reformed planning system. In a state captivated by neoliberal fixation and embroiled in a housing crisis, the restructuring of planning governance has been a means to an end.     

A third road to the past? Historical scholarship in the age of big data

Is a third passage to the past possible, beyond Elton's and Fogel's two roads of narrative history and scientific/quantitative history? One that would combine narrative history's focus on the event, on individuals and their actions, at a particular time and place, to scientific/quantitative history's emphasis on explicit behavioral models based on social-science theories? That is the question this article addresses. It illustrates a computer-assisted methodology for the study of narrative—quantitative narrative analysis (QNA)—that does just that. Based on the 5 Ws + H of narrative—Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How—QNA quantifies events without losing the event itself, without losing people behind numbers, diachronic time behind synchronic statistical coefficients. When used in conjunction with dynamic and interactive data visualization tools (and new natural language processing tools), QNA may provide a third unforeseen road to the past.     

Canada and the United States—Trading Partners and Transfer Pricing Opponents?

Given the significant trading relationships between Canada and the United States, their transnational corporations and their tax authorities share more than a border. However, differences in transfer pricing regulations, tax rates, and regulatory enforcement philosophies have exacerbated many existing risks, and created new risks for executives in these corporations. These risks must be managed proactively, yet attempts at risk management are often incompatible with one tax authority or the other. Assuming that an operational transfer pricing framework is in place, there are several proactive strategies available to mitigate transfer pricing risk and potentially satisfy both tax authorities. An operational framework and proactive strategies, including documentation and advance pricing agreements, are discussed from the Canadian and US perspective, including expert interviews.     

The Dor 2001/1 Byzantine Shipwreck,Israel: final report

Dor 2001/1 was a Byzantine coaster, about 16.9 m long, with an estimated displacement of 50 tonnes, dated to the first third of the 6th century CE, and loaded with building stones. It was excavated over five seasons, recorded under water, and a section of the shipwreck was retrieved and studied on land. The hull construction was based on frames without any type of planking edge‐fasteners. It is thus among the earliest frame‐based shipwrecks found so far in the Mediterranean. The origin of its construction tradition, with flat frames amidships, hard chine and straight sides, might have been related to a riverine tradition.     

Freemasonry as a playground for civic nationalism

This article explores correspondences between the ideals of ‘civic nationalism’ (hereafter CN) and the practices of Freemasonry, a worldwide male fraternity. Freemasons practice an elitist stance of civilizing the self, translated into a collective mission of society‐building. Though not a national movement, Freemasonry shares conceptual similarities with CN and was implicated in civic‐national revolutions in the Americas and the Middle East. Drawing on ethnographic research on Israeli Freemasonry, the study explores Masonic sociability as a playgound for practicing civic friendship and negotiating the inherent tensions of CN. Freemasons straddle between particularist and universalist understandings of fraternity, virtue and charity, which carry over to questions of citizenship, patriotism and nationalism. This boundary work over collective attachments represents a pragmatic attempt, not to resolve universalist and particularist preferences, but to contain and incorporate both within exclusivist Masonic practices. Far from marking the failure of CN, Masonic sociability illustrates its political significance, envisioning the nation as a social club of chosen friends.     

Insecure bodies/selves: introduction to theme section

This short piece introduces a three-paper theme section on the theme of ‘Insecure bodies/selves’, growing out of a conference session held in 2012. Using the brief example of a brain-injured soldier's ‘shattered world’, creating a thoroughly ‘unsecured’ self/body, attention is given to how contemporary human geography has gradually opened itself to engaging with the multiple spaces of insecure bodies/selves. The three papers are then formally outlined and situated within these new currents of geographical and trans-disciplinary scholarship.