EXTENDED MEANING AND UNDERSTANDING IN THE HISTORY OF IDEAS

Many historians focus primarily on authors' “intended meanings.” Yet all textual interpreters, including historians, need a second kind of meaning. I call this idea “extended meaning,” a new name for an old idea: “P means Q” is the same as “P logically implies Q.” Extended and intended meaning involve different kinds of understanding: even if we grasp exactly what authors meant, we miss something important if we overlook their errors, for example. Crucially, extended and intended meaning are not alternatives: just as some parts of texts cannot be understood without historical analysis, so too some parts of texts cannot be understood without philosophical analysis. Indeed, some historians are adept at using extended meanings to recover intended meanings. But the failure to make this explicit has led many historians to undervalue philosophical analysis. This article thus applies the idea of extended meaning to three practical questions: whether we can deviate from authors' intended meanings, whether we can use anachronisms, and how we can use extended meanings to recover intended meanings. The idea of extended meaning thus strengthens our theoretical foundations and offers valuable practical tools.     

ROUTINE MAGIC,MUNDANE RITUAL: TOWARDS A UNIFIED NOTION OF DEPOSITIONAL PRACTICE

This article seeks to advance ongoing discussions within archaeology concerning the relationship between ritual and depositional practices. Previous researchers have argued that ‘structured’ or ‘placed’ deposits are the result of ritual activities, but also that in many societies the disposal of refuse is governed by social ‘rules’. Distinguishing ‘technical’ actions such as rubbish disposal from deliberately ‘placed’ deposits is extremely difficult, however, and reinforces modern dualistic thought. Instead, this article argues that there was a continuum of practices from formal and ritualized events through to small‐scale, informal acts undertaken on a routine basis, including everyday refuse discard. It also questions purely utilitarian interpretations of storage structures. Drawing on ethnographic and ethnohistorical examples, it explores case studies from the later prehistoric and Romano‐British periods of north central England, and concludes by proposing methodologies through which these practices can be explored more fully in the future.     

GENTRIFICATION AND THE SPATIAL CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE: THE RESTRUCTURING OF LONDON'S DOCKLANDS*

This paper argues that despite recent advances in research concerned with gentrification, the role of the state in this process has not been adequately conceptualised. Existing perspectives largely fail to provide a thorough analysis of the way in which the duality of the states ‘political’ and ‘economic’ functions are related, and how these are represented in concrete spatial situations. Through an empirical focus upon London's Docklands, the way in which the state, through the London Docklands Development Corporation, is spatially constituted and has influenced the gentrification process are examined. First, some conceptual and theoretical questions are discussed. Second, a brief historical context in which gentrification in the Docklands can be situated is provided, followed by an examination of how the restructuring of this area relates to the broader restructuring of state relations. The central role of the state in the gentrification of the Docklands is then considered by looking first, at how the LDDC has aided, through capital subsidisation, the production of a gentrified built environment giving rise to restructured patterns of socio-spatial polarisation. Second, the question of how this action and the inequalities arising from it have been legitimised, through political, ideological and socio-cultural means, is examined. Finally, some of the theoretical and political implications of this analysis are addressed.     

Attempting to Identify Activities in the Past: Preliminary Investigations of the Third Millennium BC Population at Tell Abraq

This paper reviews attempts by osteologists to identify activities in the past through examination of particular alterations to skeletal remains. Following an outline of the history of interest in occupational pathology, the physiology of bone is briefly summarised in order better to understand the potential of investigating occupation in the past. A history of archaeological research and interpretations in this field is then provided, followed by a discussion of a particular case study in which the human skeletal remains and material culture from the site of Tell Abraq were examined by the author in an attempt to identify bone alterations which may be attributed to certain activities.     

Australian Capital City Property Development,Foreign Investment and Investor Attitudes

Recently there has been a substantial change in the role of foreign investment in urban property development in Australia. Now, about 50% of foreign investment each year is directed to urban property sectors, with Asian investors accounting for approaching 50% of this investment. This trend has coincided with the re-emergence of the property development sector from the trough of a recession in the early 1970s to something approaching a boom in the last two to three years. While there are considerable variations in the performance and prospects of the various capital city property markets, Australia is seen in general terms as being a favourable place for foreign investment in urban property development, particularly as a destination for long term equity investment. This paper examines recent trends in capital city property markets in Australia, and in particular the increasing importance of foreign investors. It also discusses the results of a national survey of property developers, investors and intermediaries, and investors, both local and foreign, and reports on their attitudes towards the various capital city property markets, and their investment behaviours. Attitudes towards the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) guidelines and controls are examined, and it is suggested that there is room for further substantial deregulation to encourage direct foreign investment in Australian urban property development.     

Centralised service provision: an examination of the facts

Andrew Parkin has recently advanced the thesis that A ustralian cities generally do not feature large systematic variations in public servicing. The reason, he argues, is because of the centralised nature of the servicing administration. This paper critically evaluates the Parkin thesis based on empirical evidence across a number of urban services. The conclusion reached is that most urban services are provided not only unequally but also inequitably. As such Parkin's thesis perpetuates the Australian myth of egalitarianism, justice and fairness. It is time that such myths were buried and more time given to explaining and rectifying the maldistribution of resources in Australian cities.     

THE REFLEXIVE TEST OF HAYDEN WHITE'S METAHISTORY

This paper assesses Hayden White's Metahistory through the test of reflexivity; that is, it asks whether the book's “general theory of the structure of that mode of thought which is called ‘historical”’ applies, as it should, to its own history of nineteenth‐century “historical consciousness.” Most components of the theoretical apparatus—the various concepts invoked in the “theory of the historical work” and in the “theory of tropes”—fail the reflexivity test; further, it emerges that those same components are also seriously flawed on other grounds. The sole and partial exception is the concept of emplotment, which passes the reflexivity test, albeit with qualifications, but more particularly has the virtue of illuminating the traditional history of history against which Metahistory's own story was pitched; and this result provides an ironic and unexpected vindication of Metahistory's underlying vision. Thus the book's fundamental insight—that the form of historical writing is epistemologically consequential—can be retained, even though its two theories should now be set aside.