Dis-placed voices: sense of place and place-identity on the Sunshine Coast

The geographical literature on place interrogates, amongst other notions, sense of place, place identity, and their connections or disruptions. Although notions of place are multiple and very fluid, place transformation in rural and regional areas may be more rapid than the changing understandings of place held by residents. This research examines notions of place held by residents on the Sunshine Coast of Australia, one of the fastest growing ‘sea change’ regions in the nation. It presents a reading of empirical material that suggests sense of place and place-identity cannot be easily equated in the region. Sense of place was more important to rural and long-term residents than was the place-identity. Landscape change in the region is narrated, and images of place-identity interpreted, to suggest that place-identity has been created and imposed by the globalising forces of development, rather than emanating from many resident's perspectives. Those local voices have been, and continue to be, successively displaced and disrupted. Thus discursive power in various ways shapes and is shaped by dominant place-identity in the region, and some voices are blocked by the discourses of urbanisation. The unequal geographies of power shaping the regional landscape need to be acknowledged within place transformation processes. These geographies of power suggest that sense of place can be thought of as a ‘view from the bottom’, while place-identity primarily functions as a ‘view from the top’.     

The Connection of Scotland with the Pilgrims of Grace

The largest and finest products of the Tournai school of brass engravers in the fourteenth century commemorate ecclesiastics and are to be found in northern Germany, to where it seems likely they were transported by the merchants of the important Hanse port of Lübeck. One of these, perhaps the finest brass ever produced by the school, commemorated two bishops of that city and lies in the cathedral. Two others, each to two bishops with the name of Bülow, are in the not very distant cathedral of Schwerin. We know of at least two others, formerly in cathedral churches at Schleswig and at Roskilde in Denmark.

The greatest use of these memorials was undoubtedly made however by the richer members of the merchant class themselves, made possible by their trade with Flanders through the major Kontor at Bruges. Although the number of these brasses surviving in the Baltic ports is disappointingly few there is record that considerable numbers were once there.     

Sheepcotes: Evidence for Medieval Sheepfarming

SHEEPCOTES were late medieval buildings for the shelter of flocks and the storage of fodder, among other functions. They are visible as earthworks and are recorded in documents. This study uses mainly Gloucestershire examples to provide insights into medieval sheep husbandly, and changing patterns of land management.     

Machiavelli against Method: Paul Feyerabend's Anti-Rationalism and Machiavellian Political ‘Science’

Contemporary scholars seeking to advance the study of political phenomena identify their inquiry as a ‘science' that attains success through rigorous method. Thus the ‘methodological anarchism' of Paul Feyerabend's philosophy of science might seem an inauspicious place to find a fruitful disciplinary vision. Nonetheless, it echoes a longstanding conception of the ‘science' of politics articulated by Niccolò Machiavelli. Looking to Feyerabend, we propose to surmount the impasse between Machiavelli's account of politics and the demands of modern science and recover his contribution to the scientific study of politics. In doing so, Machiavelli illustrates the potential of a Feyerabendian political science.