BOOM AND BUST: THE EFFECTS OF HOUSE PRICE INFLATION ON HOMEOWNERSHIP PATTERNS IN MONTREAL, TORONTO, AND VANCOUVER

it is widely supposed that urban house price inflation has recently put ownership beyond the reach of many potential home buyers. In fact, between 1974 and 1982 this was not uniformly the case in Canada's three largest cities. Homeownership rates declined in Vancouver, held steady in Toronto, and increased in Montreal. In Montreal all social classes shared in an ownership boom. In Toronto, the middle class fared well, blue-collar workers rather poorly. In Vancouver, blue-collar workers held their own, but the middle class lost ground. Everywhere the relative position of the self-employed declined. The geographical impact of house price inflation has been variable while the social and political implications merit study. There is a need for synthetic studies of specific cities.     

Fire and its roles in early hominid lifeways

Discovery of the uses and later the invention of fire-making are fundamental to humanity. Following reports over the last decade of traces of fire found on Lower Pleistocene archaeological sites in eastern Africa, the dating of the control of fire by hominids has become a controversial issue. In this paper we critically review the contexts and, in the light of a battery of archaeometric techniques, the nature of reported instances of fire from Koobi Fora and Chesowanja in Kenya, and from Gadeb and the Middle Awash in Ethiopia. We conclude with a discussion of the roles fire may have played in the lifeways of early Pleistocene savanna-living hominids.

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Résumé La découverte des usages du feu et ensuite de sa préparation est fondamentale pour l'humanité. Suite à des rapports au cours de la dernière décennie signalant des traces de feu relevées dans des sites archéologiques du Pléistocène inférieur dans l'est de l'Afrique, la datation du contrôle du feu par les hominiens est devenu une source de controverse. Dans cet article, nous révisons d'un oeil critique les contextes et la nature des cas de feu signalés à Koobi Fora et à Chesowanja au Kenya, et à Gadeb et dans l'Awash moyen en Éthiopie, à la lumière d'une suite de techniques archéometriques. Suit en conclusion une discussion sur les rôles qu'aurait pu jouer le feu dans les modes de vie des hominiens vivant dans les savannes du Pléistocène inférieur.

     

More than Cleaning and Caring: The Profession of Dental Hygiene in Canada, 1951–2010

Dental hygiene has been a female-dominated profession that worked primarily for dentists who, until very recently, were usually male. This article explores the early history of dental hygiene in Canada during the 1950s and 1960s; its explosive growth in the 1970s; the influence of feminism on the profession; and the battles dental hygienists fought to improve the status of their profession including better educational opportunities; professional self-regulation and the right to practice independently of dentists. It argues that dental hygienists have made important gains, and yet the culture of ‘caring’ continues to complicate their professional status.     

Exchange on the quantitative measurement of ethnic and national identity*

In recent decades, there has been a noticeable increase in the use of quantitative techniques in the study of ethnicity and nationalism, without, however, a sufficient amount of reflection on how these techniques have contributed to our understanding of ethnic and national identities. As such, in this exchange three sets of authors answer questions about the degree to which it is possible to use quantitative data to measure ethnic and national identities, which types of methods are most suitable in measuring these identities and what the major research findings of this quantitative research are that were not possible using qualitative approaches.     

The imperial word and its margins. Language and colonization in the Americas

Nouveau Monde et renouveau de l'histoire naturelle, vol. 2. Edited by Marie‐Cecile Benassy and Jean‐Pierre Clement. Paris: Presses de la Sorbonne Nouvelle, 1993. Pp. 135.

Langues et cultures en Amérique espagnole coloniale. Edited by Marie‐Cecile Benassy‐Berling, Jean‐Pierre Clement and Alain Milhou. Paris: Presses de la Sorbonne Nouvelle, 1993. Pp. 328.

Relecturas del Barroco de Indias. Edited by Mabel Moraña. Hanover, New Hampshire: Ediciones del Norte, 1994. Pp. xii, 334.

Early Images of the Americas: Transfer and Invention. Edited by Jerry M. Williams and Roberte. Lewis. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1993. Pp. xviii, 319.

Discursos sobre la “invención” de América. Edited by Iris Zavala. Amsterdam and Atlanta: Editions Rodopi, 1992. Pp. 294.