The Langkawi Global Geopark: local community’s perspectives on public education

The study reported in this paper represents one of the first attempts at exploring the perspectives of the local communities on the designation of Langkawi Island in Malaysia as a UNESCO Global Geopark. It is premised on the widely acknowledged assertion that the local communities constitute an important group of stakeholders in the planning and implementation of development activities. Hence, the communities living in the geopark areas in Langkawi are considered important stakeholders who play a crucial role in the development of heritage tourism in Langkawi Global Geopark. This paper examines their views on their appreciation of the geopark as heritage, the interpretation of their shared values, the benefits and opportunities afforded by the geopark, and the extent of their involvement in the implementation of geopark activities. The findings point to the need for more support for public education programmes, and awareness initiatives aimed not only at ensuring community engagement with the development of Langkawi Geopark but also at generating stewardship actions from the community.     

The Challenges of Managing an Archaeological Heritage Site in a Declining Economy: The Case of Khami World Heritage Site in Zimbabwe

Abstract

This paper explores the case of the Khami archaeological site, whose degradation by the local communities in recent years was as a result of socio-economic problems caused by the collapse of the Zimbabwean economy combined with the inability of the Zimbabwean government to support the site. We argue that the negative attitude by the local communities towards the management of cultural heritage sites is embedded in the colonial history of the country, and has been driven by the socio-economic difficulties emanating from the collapse of the Zimbabwean economy in recent years. We begin by explaining the history of Khami, its architecture, and the local communities residing around it. We then show and assert that the subsequent degradation of Khami and the landscape around it by the local communities is linked to the socio-economic problems of the country and poverty, which emanated from the collapse of the Zimbabwean economy. In the end, we contend that the economic constraints are part of the reasons why the local communities have from time to time failed to respect the importance of protecting cultural heritage sites in the country.     

A vernacular way of “safeguarding” intangible heritage: the fall and rise of rituals in Gouliang Miao village

This paper documents a vernacular method of interpreting and safeguarding intangible heritage in an ethnic Miao village in China. Tracing the conflicting discourses of ritual in different stages of the past and the present, it shows how ritual practices were transformed by imperial Qing officials in the mid-nineteenth century, demonised and denounced as feudal superstition during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), exploited as cultural resources for ethnic tourism since the early twentieth century and involved in the evaluation system of intangible cultural heritage in the twenty-first century. Based on ethnographic materials collected in 2008 and 2009, this paper argues that it is the inherited vernacular narratives and ritual performances that are negotiating with the state’s constant effort of shaping the ritual through various discourses, constructing the meaning of inheritance and safeguarding the intangible heritage within the community.     

Introduction

The city has been ubiquitous in cultural analysis of the Victorian period and continues to provide the impetus for some of the most exciting and innovative work in nineteenth-century studies across a range of disciplines. While showing how new work is building on earlier studies and theoretical models, this Introduction demonstrates the emergence of a new agenda characterized by three fresh emphases: on demographic mobility, on material culture and everyday life, and on social networks. Accordingly, the essays in this collection have identified new sources: archaeological excavations of household objects, unpublished diaries, tracts and archival records of late-nineteenth-century missions, articles published in the periodical press and cartographic material, as well as literary texts. All of the essays in this collection concentrate on London, but London now is construed as a meeting point or intersection in a web of national and international relations. The city is newly conceptualized as a hub in wider networks of exchange and communication, and the critical attention moves between the local and its relationship to the transnational. There is a fresh attention to scale, as the minutiae of everyday life reveal stories of much larger significance.     

A Critique in Search of a Corpus: Re-visiting Governance and Re-interpreting Urban Politics

One of the most profound changes of the last two decades has been in the form and the function of local government. Its role as part of the local state has been challenged through the re-scaling and re-configuration of many of its aims. This paper examines the growth of business sector involvement and the ascendancy of the partnership model in urban development, as part of an analysis of the changes and the continuities that stretch across the local government – local governance conceptualization of political relations. I start the paper with a discussion of the main issues in the local governance literature as a precursor to a commentary onImrie and Raco's (1999) recent paper, 'How New is the New Local Governance? Lessons from the United Kingdom'. The wider literature is drawn upon to discuss some of the theoretical approaches used to analyse this much-vaunted transformation and three key themes are used to structure the remainder of the paper. I argue that Imrie and Raco caricature the work of other academics in order to make their claims over omissions from the literature. In doing so, they ignore or under-play how state restructuring and the logic of capital has often been the object of analysis, rather that the voluntarist incorporation of business élites into the local governing apparatus. Using empirical examples from three English cities I argue that while, on the one hand, their examples are revealing and serve to sensitize current debates around governance, the state and regulation, on the other hand, there is still a need to interpret these 'local' politics within a broader and more scale-sensitive framework and in more abstract terms. This demands a clear distinction between local governance as a concept, and its investigation in an empirical way.     

Local Markets and the Polarization of Public-Sector Schools in England and Wales

Notwithstanding the recent change of government, UK educational policy continues to stress school performance tables, parental choice and competition – reflecting an acceptance by New Labour of Tory notions concerning the role that market mechanisms play in improving school performance. In view of the 1997 Education White Paper's insistence that the new government's goal was to 'overcome the spiral of disadvantage … passed from one generation to the next', this implies that the DfEE remains unimpressed by long-standing arguments concerning the socially-divisive consequences of market forces in education.
This paper seeks to add empirical weight to this debate. Arguing that recent analyses of aggregate levels of social stratification have masked polarization occurring at the local level, our analysis places schools in the context of the local markets within which they operate. This yields clear evidence that educational markets tend to exacerbate existing differences between schools in terms of both their performance and social status.     

外地游客与本地居民的城镇空间感知差异——以广东省佛山市南海区西部城镇为例

随着全球竞争的不断加剧,地方政府着力于塑造城市形象以吸引外部资源,这种效率导向的建设行为扩大了城市内部的空间差异,并使得外地游客与本地居民的空间感知产生差异。本文以语义差别法（SemanticDifferential）为分析工具,通过对广东省佛山市南海区西部城镇的实证调查,比较分析了外地游客相对于本地居民对城镇感知的评价特征。分析发现,研究对象的空间感知总体呈现平庸化的格局,但是外地游客对城镇生态环境品质、城乡空间差别方面的空间感知评价均优于本地居民,且这种评价与实地场景照片内容具有内在的一致性。研究最后提出,对旅游城镇而言,地方政府往往重点建设外地游客高频活动区域,易忽视对本地居民日常生活场所的建设投资,从而导致了两类社会群体对空间感知的语境差异。     

Design thinking for city dashboard development: Recommendations from a study of smart asset management in Sydney,Australia

The city dashboard has become an integral component of smart city asset management systems. It leverages data collected from multiple sources to monitor performance and enable evidence-based decision making. This article investigates the use of a design thinking framework to develop a functional and easy to understand city dashboard. The Smart Social Spaces project is used as a case study to illustrate how design thinking can be employed to develop an asset management dashboard, enabling efficient management of public space and infrastructure. The article profiles the unique collaboration between a local government, a multi-disciplinary team of university academics, and a street furniture designer and manufacturer, all located in Sydney, Australia. We unpack some of the design practice nuances that led this project to receive national awards and international recognition, and most importantly, created a user-friendly system to track and maintain public micro assets. We conclude with lessons learnt and recommendations for dashboard development through a design thinking process.     

Some manuscript maps recently acquired by the departement des Cartes et plans of the bibliotheque nationale,Paris

Abstract

This paper examines the significance of a rediscovered medieval map (Public Record Office, MPCC 7) of part of the Fenlands of eastern England, previously dated to the mid‐sixteenth century but now recognized as mid‐fifteenth century. The map portrays realistically two important monastic churches, Sempringham Priory and Spalding Priory, which did not survive the Reformation and for which no other contemporary representations are known to exist. Documentary evidence suggests that the map was made at Spalding Priory to record rights to pasture animals in Pinchbeck Fen, and that it passed to the Duchy of Lancaster at the dissolution of the monasteries.