JEWISH AND MORMON AGRICULTURAL SETTLEMENT IN WESTERN CANADA: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

Mormons and Jews established agricultural settlements in western Canada around the turn of the century. Mormon colonization was generally successful, characterized by its great stability. Abandonment of the land by Mormon communities was rare. In contrast, almost all the Jewish settlements failed. Settlers abandoned their land and retreated to the urban centres of the West. A comparative analysis of the two groups suggests that this difference in agricultural stability may not have been a reflection of prior experience, nor was it necessarily attributable to vagaries of the physical environment. Social structures, religious demands, and institutional backing, along with the geographical concentration and inter connectivity of settlements were critical elements in determining success or failure in agriculture colonization.
C'est au début du siècle que les Mormons et les juifs etablirent dans l'Ouest canadien leurs colonies agricoles. La colonisation des Mormons, caractérisée par sa grande stabilite, réussit dans l'ensemble; rares furent les colonies qu'ils abandonnèrent. Par contre, presque toutes les colonies juives echouerent; abandonnant leurs terres, les colons se retirerent dans les centres urbains de l'Ouest. Une analyse comparative des deux groupes permet de conchre que leur stabilite agricole relative ne fut pas necessairement fonction de leur experience prealable en agriculture; elle ne fut pas non plus attribuable aux seules contraintes géographiques et clirnatiques.
Les structures sociales, les exigences religieuses, l'appui de leurs établissements en plus de la proximité d'autres colonies et leurs interrelations, tous ces facteurs s'avérèrent cruciaux pour déterminer la reussite ou l'échec de la colonisation agricole.     

Geographies of Policing: Domestic Violence,Mandatory Arrest,and Police Liability

For most of United States history, the police did not intervene in domestic violence. To redress for this history, police departments began implementing mandatory arrest policies in the 1980s. These policies require police to arrest in cases of domestic violence when injuries are present, regardless of victim consent. Drawing on two years of ethnographic research conducted in central Pennsylvania, including participant observation in a domestic violence unit of a police department and interviews with police officers, this paper examines how mandatory arrest policies extend the spatial reach of the state into private space and intimate relationships. Specifically, I argue that the policing of domestic violence positions police officers as neoliberal subjects responsible for mediating abusive relationships on behalf of the state. This paper contributes to geographic research on policing in the private sphere, while also offering a detailed accounting of the mechanics of police practice.     

Book reviews

Classical Persian Music: An Introduction. By Ella Zonis. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973. xv + 233 pp. $16.50.

Sasanian Remains from Qasr‐i Abu Nasr: Seals, Sealings, and Coins. Edited by Richard N. Frye. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973. 132 pp + 26 pp. of plates. $12.50.

The School Principal. By Jalal Al‐e Ahmad. Translated by John K. Newton, with an introduction and notes by Michael C. Hillmann. Minneapolis, Minn.: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1974. 144 pp. $5.00.     

Prospecting for Economic Returns to Research: Adding Informational Value at the Market Fringe

Abstract.  Private markets constantly assess project investment opportunities across a spectrum of such possibilities. The market's perspective on the boundary of viable projects, however, may be more limited than socially optimal due to informational constraints. In the case of economic development projects in particular, this boundary could be extended by public researchers. This paper constructs a method to estimate the private and social value‐added of such research, providing a new means to understand and assess the public/private sector interface. The framework uses agents' evolving subjective perceptions through Bayesian updating to value research information, along with methods to estimate functional forms and relative optima. Two case studies of regional development research on value‐added agriculture in Colorado highlight the utility of the approach.     

Archaeopedological analyses around a Neolithic hearth and the beginning of Sabaean irrigation in the oasis of Ma'rib (Ramlat as-Sab'atayn,Yemen)

Archaeopedological analyses in the oasis of Ma'rib (Yemen) yield new information of Neolithic land use, Bronze Age soil formation, and Sabaean irrigation. The AMS radiocarbon age of a Neolithic fireplace buried under Sabaean irrigation sediments in the Southern oasis indicates Pre-Sabaean human activities in Wadi Dhana about 5600 years ago. The associated Mid-Holocene palaeosol, developed in fluvial sediments of Wadi Dhana and also in the filling of the hearth, marks the Bronze Age-land surface before it was covered with irrigation sediments. Based on AMS radiocarbon data from charcoal in reservoir sediments of the “Great Dam” and an estimated time span of pedogenesis of the Mid-Holocene palaeosol in this region, we propose the beginning of the irrigation in Ma'rib in the period of 2500–1000 cal yr BC.