Feminist geography in the UK: the dialectics of women-gender-feminism-intersectionality and praxis

Abstract

Feminist praxis has always been about both the individual and the collective; one of the revolutionary and utopian promises of feminism is that of being, bringing, and working together. This piece provides a brief account of some of the significant scholarship and collective activities within British feminist geography over the last twenty five years, with a particular focus on the work of the Women and Geography Study Group/Gender and Feminist Geographies Research Group. We underscore the importance of intersectional approaches to scholarship and praxis in UK feminist geographies in this period, and in going forward, as well as signalling some of the dialectical opportunities and tensions arising from this approach.     

The Queen’s Dolls’ House within the British Empire Exhibition: encapsulating the British imperial world

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House, designed by Edwin Landseer Lutyens and unveiled to the public in 1924 at the British Empire Exhibition. The Dolls’ House epitomised the characteristics of Britain as a nation and an empire through its English exterior and British world objects within. Marginalised in academic discourses and regarded as a plaything, this article brings the Dolls’ House back to discourses of British material and visual culture as well as Lutyens scholarship. To this end, it analyses how the design and contents of the House encapsulated the British imperial world and materialised Britain’s position in the postwar world.     

“We're socialists not nationalists”: British labour and the national question(s)

The UK Labour Party, which in government delivered devolution to Scotland and Wales, has struggled to adapt to a multilevel and increasingly territorialised political space, where demands for significant territorial reform grow ever louder. These challenges intensified with the Scottish independence referendum and the United Kingdom's exit from the European Union. During this prolonged constitutional moment, the Labour Party has had to articulate the case for a plurinational and multicultural British identity and for the Union, and to a large degree, has struggled to do so. Capturing the period from 2012 to 2020, this article examines the discursive strategies adopted by the Labour Party and individuals within it. It identifies a deep discomfort, more pronounced in London and Edinburgh than in Cardiff, with the national questions and a reliance on largely instrumental arguments, albeit ones rooted in traditional left-wing values of welfare and social solidarity between working people.     

An Irish Party and the British Parliament: Conor Cruise O'Brien's Parnell and His Party

This essay reassesses the importance of Conor Cruise O'Brien's Parnell and His Party, 1880–90, originally published in 1957, with particular reference to its significance in the history of the British parliament. While establishing the book's continuing relevance, both as a study of a specific political phenomenon and as a model for analysing political movements, the essay questions aspects which do not hold up in the light of subsequent research. In particular, O'Brien's account and interpretation of Parnell's behaviour in 1890–1 in the aftermath of the O'Shea divorce case is shown to be inadequate in the light of more recent research and writing.     

Colonial Australia,the 1887 Colonial Conference,and the Struggle for Imperial Unity

ABSTRACT

For historians interested in the settler colonial world, one of Professor John Darwin’s most important interventions has been to argue for the reintegration of the dominions into the wider history of the British empire. In re-engaging with the history of Britain’s white settler colonies in North America, Australasia, and South Africa, Darwin’s work has sought to emphasize the place of the dominions in relation to the rise and fall of the British world system, as well as their value as vantage points from which to consider imperial and global history more generally. In this regard, Darwin’s systemic approach has encouraged a more dynamic conception of ‘British world’ history – one deeply embedded in a series of overlapping imperial, regional, and international contexts. This article focuses on a particular moment in imperial history where some of the internal dynamics of the late-Victorian British world system, and the changing place of the settler colonies within it, were brought into sharp relief: the 1887 Colonial Conference. It argues that we might look to the conference as a valuable window onto the impact of Anglo-Australian relations upon the wider struggle for imperial unity in the 1880s.     

Ireland in the imperial imagination: British nationalism and the Anglo-Irish Treaty

ABSTRACT

The signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty on 6 December 1921 was a watershed moment in modern Irish history. In addition to copper-fastening the partition of the island, the agreement catalysed the bifurcation of revolutionary Sinn Féin and set in train the processes that culminated, ultimately, in the outbreak of a bitter Civil War the following June. The events that led to the Treaty and the debates on it in Dáil Éireann have received extensive treatment from historians. However, scholars have paid far less attention to the impact of the Treaty on British politics; in particular, they have neglected to explore how the concession of limited Irish self-government impacted Britain’s national self-image at a time of crucial imperial adjustment following the Great War. This article will examine the range of arguments proffered for and against the Treaty in the House of Commons and the House of Lords and suggest that Parliamentary opposition to the settlement was underpinned by a sense of imperial-national feeling, one guided by an attitude of conscious superiority to non-British elements that can be understood productively as a form of British nationalism.     

An examination of skulls from two British sites for possible evidence of scurvy

Skulls and mandibles from the Romano‐British site of Poundbury, Dorset and a medieval site at Abingdon in Oxfordshire were examined for porosity which has been considered to be indicative of the presence of scurvy. In addition, a number of skulls from various locations in Peru were examined. Virtually all the skulls had porosity at at least one site and in all cases the palate was most frequently affected. The rank order of affected sites showed some differences between the three samples but the most striking change was the frequency with which the cranial vault and maxilla were affected in the Peruvian skulls compared with the British. The differences were not statistically significant, however. None of the appearances was consistent with those of known cases of infantile scurvy and we doubt whether scurvy can be diagnosed on the basis of porosity in the skull and mandible unless it conforms to recognized clinical patterns. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.