Cocoons as a space of their own: a case of Emirati women learners

This article focuses on ‘cocooning’ as a spatial practice of Emirati higher education women learners in a single-sex learning context, which emerged from exploring the intersectional and intertwined relationship of gender, place and culture with its unique cultural formation that informs women learners’ spatiality. To understand women’s spatiality and explore these intersecting relations, I conducted an ethnographic qualitative inquiry, applying multiple levels of data gathering and analysis. I also utilised social theories of space as a theoretical framework, specifically the social construction of space and Lefebvre’s triad of perceived, conceived and lived space. Cocooning, represented in these women learners’ unique spatial appropriation in their quest for a space of their own, emerged as a pervasive socially constructed spatial theme. As a spatial practice, it was largely influenced by the women learners’ cultural model, including socio-cultural status and gender roles, rooted in their national, historical colonial and traditional past as well as current economic, political, demographic, academic-institutional and global positions and demands. Furthermore, cocooning is a spatial representation of what also seems a universal longing among women, beyond context and culture, for a space of one’s own. Such a spatial need is manifested differently in the perceived space while shared in the conceived and lived.     

The Poor Man’s Goldmine?

This article analyses the career paths of Swedish and Finnish sailors from the mid-19th to the mid-20th century. The article shows that, for the most of the men, the seaman’s occupation was just a passing phase before taking up a job on shore, but many of them also created a long-lasting and advancing career by going to sea. There was not necessarily, however, a clear distinction between job opportunities at sea and those on shore in those days: men worked both at sea and on shore. We therefore argue that an individual’s advancement in a maritime career was a context-specific socio-economic phenomenon. In Scandinavia, work on board ships was dependent on features that characterized the division of labour in a predominantly agricultural domestic economy on land and emerging industrialization during the turn of the century. Here we present an analysis of the career paths of almost 60,000 men recruited to serve on Swedish and Finnish merchant vessels from the 1840s to late 1940s.     

Surplus Production and Marine Resource Use in the North Norwegian Iron Age

The coast of northern Norway was an important dried‐cod production area during the Medieval period. During the Iron Age, marine resources had also played a vital role in the economy of the inhabitants in the region. The increase in marine harvesting post c.AD 600, as substantiated by archaeological finds, suggests that mass maritime goods, in addition to those goods of a prestigious character, were a significant part of the chiefly provisioning system of the Iron Age.     

The Dynamism of Integral Liberation: Reconsidering Gustavo Gutiérrez's Central Concept after “the End of History”

This essay questions Daniel Bell Jr.'s claim that liberation theology is ignorant of the links between the cultural and structural formations of capitalism. Focusing especially on Bell's treatment of the thought of Gustavo Gutiérrez, the article argues that Gutiérrez's concept of integral liberation provides a complex account of the manner in which the structural, cultural, and theological levels of liberation are interrelated. It contends, contra Bell, that Gutiérrez's concept does not reduce politics to “statecraft” but instead provides an illuminating framework for understanding the integrity of Christian life within the contemporary neoliberal globalization project. Finally, the paper moves to consider the manner in which Gutiérrez's concept might be fruitfully paired with Leslie Sklair's theorization of global capitalism in order to specify the process of liberation today.     

Liberation Theology and Zombies: Paralysis and Praxis

In Fredric Jameson's formulation it may now be “easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism.” What Jameson suggests is that our current preoccupation with the drama of the apocalyptic belies a deeper paralysis of the imagination, and with this the concomitant loss of actions conducive to a new politics. Jameson's comments here foreground a contradiction in our experience of late capitalism, representations of dramatic rupture which obscure fundamental political stasis. This paper takes Jameson's reflections and the contradiction of action which is also non-action as the point of departure to query the current state of Liberation Theology, particularly the work of Ivan Petrella, to defend the work of Gustavo Gutiérrez, and ask how our contemporary predicament might be illuminated by Danny Boyle's zombie film, 28 Days Later.     

Land-beach-risk-scape: deciphering the motivators of risk-taking at the beach in Australia

Abstract

This article considers risk-taking associated with the popular leisure activity of beach going in Australia. It investigates the risk-taking proclivities and cultural protocols in Australian beach use which, to date, have received little research attention. Drawing on the testimonies of beachgoers, we provide a discussion on how risk can be both voluntary as well as accidental at the Australian beach. While accidental risk-taking can be attributed to a lack of beachscape safety or lack of hazard knowledge, it is often the result of peer, sociocultural and psychodynamic influences that result in the production and reproduction of a pervasive culture of risk-taking. This culture is explored via the influence of the enculturation of risk into Australian beach practices, the attenuation of safety perceptions among beachgoers, and the attraction to risky behaviours that affect those in the beach space. The reproduction of risk in Australian beach use and the feeling of attachment observed among research participants have been conceptualised as the embodied societal subject, as identified through geographic psychoanalysis. A psychoanalytic geographic interpretation of participant attitudes and beliefs concerning risk-taking and beach use has been used to theorise how the prevailing discourses and fantasies of Australian beach use shape this site-specific culture of risk.     

Italian Public Opinion in the Atomic Age: Mass-market Magazines Facing Nuclear Issues (1963–1967)

Through the analysis of a wide range of Italian mass-market magazines and a selection of public opinion surveys, this essay investigates widespread images and perceptions about nuclear issues in Italy during the Sixties. It considers the views of Italians about nuclear weapons within foreign policy debates, as well as the wide range of fears expressed about the atomic bomb. The article also analyses the image of anti-nuclear movements, as well as Italians’ views on disarmament and the easing of international relations after 1962. Deeply influenced by ideological divides and filtered through the mechanisms of mass culture – which tended to trivialise the bomb – these widespread representations of nuclear issues offer a unique perspective on Italians’ beliefs, fears, and hopes during a time of deep socio-economic change and shifting political equilibriums in the country.     

地域文化与旅游规划

旅游业作为一项与文化相关程度极高的产业,它的各个部门和环节无时无处不是在与文化发生着联系,而在旅游规划这一"经过一系列选择决定合适的未来行动的过程"^[1]当中,文化尤其是地域文化,它既是一个原则和视角,又是重要的素材。本文试对文化在旅游形象策划、旅游产品规划、旅游商品开发规划、旅游市场营销和旅游管理中的运用作初步探讨。     

16、17世纪英国政治文化中的父权主义

父权主义是在英国从封建主义向资本主义过渡的历史背景下,为适应秩序和稳定的需要而产生的,是16、17世纪英国大多数人共同的政治态度,为英国君权的扩张和君主实施社会控制提供了合法性依据,也在一定程度上阻止了暴君和暴政在英国的出现。英国率先完成从封建主义向资本主义过渡,父权主义是一个重要的因素。     

皖北、豫东地区大汶口文化的分期与性质

近年来,随着皖北、豫东地区大汶口文化材料的丰富以及山东南部大汶口文化的新发现和新认识,对皖北、豫东地区的大汶口文化进行深入研究已具备了条件。本文就该地区大汶口文化的分期与性质等有关问题作初步探讨,望方家给予指正。一 本文的皖北地区是指安徽北部淮河以北,包括今淮北市、亳州市、宿州市全部和阜阳市一部分。（图一）皖北地区大汶口文化遗存的发现要追溯到２０世纪５０年代①,２０世纪６０年代发掘萧县花甲寺遗址②时,就发现大汶口文化时期的地层堆积和遗物（曾被归入龙山文化）,在山东地区确认了大汶口文化后,随即把花…