How clothing design and cultural industries refashioned frontier masculinities: a historical geography of Western wear

Gendered subjectivities emerge historically and geographically, not only in situ, within an ‘authentic’ origin period or site, but through later retrospective commodifications and fantastical popular culture depictions. This article traces the masculine identity of the cowboy as commodified and performed through clothing. The cowboy emerged from colonial origins as a model and myth of frontier masculinity: the ‘rugged outdoor type’. But it was then formularized and stylized when subject to popular culture diffusion, and as accompanying clothing design evolved. Through clothing – advertised by metropolitan manufacturers and consumed across America and beyond – an archetypal, sexualized cowboy ‘look’ thus emerged. The author traces a historical geography of cowboy masculinities in clothing design, from early ‘frontier garments for the outdoor man’ to later Western-wear ‘for that long, lean look’. Related constructions of femininity are also considered, after women's Western-wear clothing lines were produced in the 1950s. To illustrate, I draw on archival brochures, catalogs, and advertising materials from the 1920s to 1970s, as well as discuss the material design of the clothes themselves. I focus especially on the Western snap shirt – an apparel item never actually worn on the nineteenth-century colonial frontier, but that became an ‘essential’ element of the cowboy look, and a vehicle for masculine appearance. Western-wear epitomizes how gendered subject positions are visually constituted in relational fashion via bodies, materials, media, and imagined geographies.     

The sky is the limit: reconstructing physical geography from an aerial perspective

In an era of rapid geographical data acquisition, interpretations of remote sensing products are an integral part of many undergraduate geography degree schemes but there are fewer opportunities for collection and processing of primary remote sensing data. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) provide a relatively inexpensive opportunity to introduce the principles and practice of airborne remote sensing into field courses, enabling students to learn about image acquisition, data processing and interpretation of derived products. Two case studies illustrate how a low-cost “DJI Phantom Vision+” UAV can be used by students to acquire images that can be processed using Structure-from-Motion photogrammetry software. Results from a student questionnaire and analysis of assessed student reports showed that using UAVs enhanced student engagement and equipped them with data processing skills. The derivation of bespoke orthophotos and Digital Elevation Models has the potential to provide students with opportunities to gain insight into various remote sensing data quality issues, although additional training is required to maximize this potential. Recognition of the successes and limitations of this teaching intervention provides scope for improving future UAV exercises. UAVs are enabling both a reconstruction of how we measure the Earth’s surface and a reconstruction of how students do fieldwork.     

Trends in pig product processing at British Neolithic Grooved Ware sites traced through organic residues in potsherds

Gas chromatography (GC), GC-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and GC-combustion-isotope ratio MS (GC-C-IRMS) analyses of absorbed and surface lipid residues preserved in potsherds were used to explore the extent of pig product processing exploitation in the later British Neolithic Grooved Ware tradition. Assessments were made regarding whether porcine lipids were associated with specific Grooved Ware traits, i.e. decoration, substyle, geographical area and type of site. Two hundred and twenty-two Grooved Ware potsherds were analysed, 70% of which contained lipid concentrations considered significant (>5 μg g⁻¹). All the lipid residues were dominated by animal fats, although plant and beeswax were also detected in a small number of extracts. δ¹³C values of the major fatty acid components of degraded animal fats (C_16:0 and C_18:0) were determined for 126 extracts and used to assign ruminant or porcine origins to the residues; 16% of these were found to have a predominantly porcine isotope signature. Statistical associations with pig exploitation were shown to exist with substyle, geographical area and site type, whereas, no relationship was seen between decoration and the type of commodity processed. Intact triacylglycerols were preserved in 19% of the sherds; half of these had distributions consistent with the identifications based on δ¹³C values, the remainder differed either due to the presence of mixed commodities or because lower molecular weight homologues had been lost due to degradation. In addition to the detection of pig exploitation, results from lipid residue analysis showed a good correlation with faunal assemblages, suggesting that stable isotope analysis may be used as a proxy for animal exploitation at sites where bones have not survived.     

Rural Transformation and Cultural Industries: Popular Music on the New South Wales Far North Coast

This article explores the emergence of popular music as a niche cultural industry, connected to economic and social transformations on the New South Wales Far North Coast (also known as the ‘Northern Rivers’ region). The various images of the New South Wales Far North Coast as a ‘lifestyle’ region, ‘alternative’ locale and coastal retreat have attracted a diverse mix of ex–urban professionals, unemployed persons, youth subcultures, backpacker tourists and retirees. Yet, despite population growth, the region continues to suffer unemployment rates among the highest in Australia. Against this backdrop, diverse popular music ‘scenes’ have emerged, constituting an industry with linkages to cultural production in Sydney, Melbourne and overseas. While the region’s unique cultural mix has been suggested as a key site of comparative advantage, future employment is likely to remain transient, insecure, and governed by industry–wide labour relations. This case study illustrates some of the complexities underpinning contemporary urban–regional change in Australia, and provides cautious assessment of the capacity of the cultural industries to reinvigorate rural economies.     

Cartographies of the Colonial/Capitalist State: A Geopolitics of Indigenous Self-Determination in Australia

'Indigenous self-determination' is a multivalent term that has come to represent various meanings in different political and cultural contexts. Indigenous peoples' strategies for self-determination have become increasingly prominent in the domestic polities of many 'first-world' nations, and in the sphere of international law and human rights. These strategies have challenged the cartography of the nation-state with competing claims to land ownership, sovereignty, and self-governance. In Australia, indigenous strategies for self-determination are diverse and holistic and revolve around issues including land rights, law, environmental management, and control over service provision. These are evident in a variety of both 'elite' and 'popular' geopolitical texts. Meanwhile, Australian governments have created new structures that have attempted to encapsulate meanings of 'self-determination,' allowing some indigenous decision-making control, whilst entrenching the nation-state's ultimate hegemony over land. The geopolitics of indigenous strategies for self-determination, and tensions concerning the meaning of the term, are examined, revealing some ways in which discursive trends and material structures interact in locally produced relations of power.     

Domestic Economy and Daily Practice in Guadeloupe: Historical Archaeology at La Mahaudière Plantation

Archaeological research has made significant contributions to the study of the African Diaspora in the Caribbean, but until recently researchers neglected the French islands. This paper reports on archaeological fieldwork at Habitation La Mahaudière in Guadeloupe, focusing on the economic and social lives of plantation laborers and exploring articulations between local realities at this sugar plantation and broader historical process of the Caribbean region and the French colonial world.