Resurrection: who is it good for? The price of achievement at the London Hospital

The London Hospital, located in the heart of the East End, grew in tandem with the industrialization and increasing population of an impoverished area of the capital. It provided care and emergency facilities to employees of local industries amongst others. Archaeological excavations uncovered a forgotten burial ground for poor patients. Osteological and documentary evidence combined to reveal that many of the dead were first given to the hospital medical school for anatomical study. Human dissection no doubt contributed to scientific development within the medical profession, but the practice came with consequences that many at the time found unpalatable.     

LANGUAGE POLICY AND THE POLITICAL ORGANIZATION OF TERRITORY: A CANADIAN DILEMMA

Within the Official Languages Act of Canada, 1969, a territorial concept was incorporated to facilitate the extension of federal services in English and French and attend the spirit and purpose of the act. This was to be accomplished through the designation of bilingual districts. In spite of the recommendations of two commissions, however, no districts have been designated in Canada. Elements that have tended to prevent the application of this concept are therefore analysed, and an alternative form of application to accommodate the act is suggested. Lorsque l'Acte des Langues officielles du Canada fut formulé (1969), il y avait considérablement de confiance dans le concept du territoire bilingue, ce qui devait faciliter l'accroissement de service fédéral en anglais et en français. II était anticipé que l'essence ou l'esprit de l'acte serait réalisé par la désignation des districts bilingues. En dépit des recommendations de deux commissions aucun district n'a été designé. L'objet de la présente communication est d'analiser les éléments qui ont eu tendance à empêcher l'application du concept de tels districts et de suggérer une autre forme d'application de l'acte.     

Capacity,scale and place: pragmatic lessons for doing community-based research in the rural setting

Community-based research (CBR) represents a particularly timely approach to rural research. Rural areas in industrialized nations are undergoing dramatic and rapid processes of economic, social and political restructuring. These forces, combined with a trend towards place-based development and territorial policy make CBR an appropriate rural method given its flexibility and sensitivity to local context. The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the use and methods of CBR in the rural setting, drawn from our collective research experience in northern British Columbia. There has been increased attention paid to CBR, signalling a form of acceptance within the academy towards community-based and participatory methods. However, gaps exist in addressing the various approaches to conducting CBR and in considering the relevance of CBR in different contexts. Researchers also note the need for better training in the use of community-based methods. We reflect upon our rural CBR experience to offer insights and pragmatic lessons on effective methodological practices using a simplified framework of the key research process stages: preparing for community engagement, doing community-based research and after the fieldwork.     

Changing views in Canadian geomorphology: are we seeing the landscape for the processes?

Geomorphology in Canada, as elsewhere, has evolved into an essentially bipartite discipline focusing either on ‘process’ or broader ‘historical’ (Quaternary) landscape interpretation. A growing emphasis on process‐oriented research that relies increasingly on instrumentation and computational technologies has occurred. Critics of such research note limited applicability for landscape evolution, fashionability of methods and limited societal relevance. Indeed, some say we are not seeing the landscape for the processes. This article discusses the changing nature of geomorphology since the Quantitative Revolution of the 1950s including new advances, recent trends and challenges. Publication trends and recent advances suggest that the discipline is very healthy (following a slump in the early 1990s) and continues to evolve, which may reflect increasing research infrastructure and/or funding opportunities and new publications spotlighting Canadian research. Unfortunately, fundamental (less applied) research is threatened by funding program shifts, changing institutional pressures and a decline in research capacity from retirement attrition, and student recruitment challenges. Three research priorities are recommended: (1) continued fundamental research, (2) more integrated modelling to link micro scale processes to macro scale landform behaviour and (3) improvements in profiling our discipline amongst students and related professionals.