Boerhaave's Furnace. Exploring Early Modern Chemistry through Working Models

This article discusses the (re)construction and use of an Early modern instrument, better known as Herman Boerhaave's (1668–1738) little furnace. We investigate the origins, history and materiality of this furnace, and examine the dynamic relationship between historical study and reconstructing and handling an object. We argue that combining textual analysis with performative methods allows us to gain a better understanding of both the role of lost material culture in historical chemical practice, pedagogy, and knowledge production, and provide a deeper understanding of the embodied experiences and knowledge of historical actors. Having made and used two versions of Boerhaave's furnace, we provide insight in what present-day working models can tell us about historical materials and practices approximately three centuries ago.     

Spatial and temporal variation in vulnerability of crop production to drought in southern Alberta

Growing evidence of global climate change has led to global concerns over the vulnerability of agriculture to drought. Located in a semiarid environment, southern Alberta has suffered significant losses of agricultural productivity due to drought hazards in recent decades. Understanding the relationship between crop production and drought conditions is essential for coping with increasingly uncertain climate conditions. This study attempts to quantify the magnitude of crop production vulnerability to drought in southern Alberta. The standard precipitation index is used to measure drought stress in the region. The empirical results provide a detailed picture of the spatial variation in crop production vulnerability to varying drought conditions. Vulnerability maps from this study reveal that pockets in the study area may experience significant productivity loss given the existing level of adaptive capacity. While the irrigation districts have been associated with a lower level of vulnerability than dryland outside the irrigated region, uncertain water supply under varying climatic conditions coupled with increasing water allocation for non‐agricultural uses may increase the vulnerability in these districts.     

“Partitioning the Sensible” at Park 51: Rancière,Islamophobia, and Common Politics

Abstract: This paper uses Jacques Rancière's conception of the partition of the sensible to interrogate the aesthetic regimes and spatial coordinates that animated public debate about Park 51—the Islamic community center near the World Trade Center site in Manhattan. Understanding conflicts over mosques as potential struggles over the conditions of membership in a community, I suggest that many of the arguments in favor of Park 51 reinforced a partition of the sensible in which Islamophobia could resonate. At stake in these debates—which turned on different understandings of the distance that separated the proposed center from the WTC site—is the relationship between American Muslims and the narratives of trauma constructed around the September 11th attacks. I conclude by exploring the projects proposed by Park 51 organizers as potential sites of everyday micropolitics that could subtly “jolt” existing orders in the interest of reconfiguring the “common sense” of a community.     

Accessibility interrupted: the Shimshal road,Gilgit‐Baltistan,Pakistan

Geographers working in mountainous northern Pakistan note that gains in accessibility following the Karakoram Highway's official opening in 1978 significantly reshaped social organization, economic activity, and land use across the region. These valuable regional‐scale analyses provide few insights regarding the contingent and variable ways new roads are conceived and experienced at the community and household level by the people whose mobility they drastically impact. This article addresses that limitation of regional research by focusing on an individual agricultural community called Shimshal that in 2003 completed a 40‐kilometre link‐road connecting it to the highway. Drawing from qualitative information gathered before and after the Shimshal road's completion, we briefly describe the community's motivation for constructing the road, villagers’ accessibility‐related hopes and concerns as it was being built, and some of the social, cultural, and economic changes that followed the road's completion. The article concludes by summarizing the community's response so far to landslide‐induced destruction of over 20 kilometres of the Karakoram Highway which, since January 2010, has left community members without vehicular access to the rest of Pakistan just seven years after their link‐road's completion.     

La frontière asymétrique : Franco‐Ontariens et Anglo‐Québécois dans la région de la capitale nationale

The francophone and anglophone minorities of Gatineau‐Ottawa appear to benefit from a privileged location. Living very close to their respective majorities, they simply have to cross the border in order to access resources to live in their own language and share their culture. However, a qualitative analysis of the discourse by Anglo‐Quebeckers and Franco‐Ontarians about their everyday life in the Nation's Capital Region shows that the border has more complex and often contradictory effects. In this article, we focus our attention on four particular manifestations of the border: (1) the border is transparent so that one can cross the Ottawa River without hindrance in certain contexts yet rather opaque in others; (2) one may transcend minority status through the strategic use of the border; (3) it creates a multi‐topic imaginary geography in which the border itself often becomes mobile; and (4) finally, the border can act as a mirror when the cross‐cultural intermixing it allows causes the Anglo‐Quebeckers and Franco‐Ontarians to question their identities, a questioning which would not be as intense in the absence of the border. The comparison of these two minorities makes it possible to highlight the asymmetrical nature of the effects of the border on their everyday life, identities, and sense of belonging.