Integrating Landsat and Land Systems for Cover Maps in Southern Inland Queensland

Digital analysis of Landsat data is applied to up-dating land cover maps for the Goondiwindi district of southern, inland Queensland. The imagery was paired with climax cover maps obtained from land systems reports with analysis conducted separately for each of three climax cover types (open forest, woodland and open woodland). Computer classification using this approach produced readily interpreted and reliable results. This work demonstrates that Landsat can be used in conjunction with existing, land systems derived maps to produce data that combine the advantages of two approaches to environmental survey, the former being based on current land cover/land use and the latter on the original environment and its land use potential.     

COMPLEXITY IN THE RURAL CANADIAN HOUSING LANDSCAPE

Rural housing conditions and needs across Canada are as complex as the rural landscape itself, yet within the research literature rural housing is often treated as a single and unproblematic unit. This paper makes two arguments about rural housing research in Canada. The first is that the ‘rural’ is a complex housing landscape, not simply an undifferentiated ‘other’ in comparison to urban housing. The second is that this complexity has important implications for assessing changes to the local housing stock. The empirical content of the paper is drawn from three study areas in Canada where there is a mix of rural / agricultural and cottage area properties. Questions of housing stock change within these rural-recreational countryside examples are examined using questionnaire and building permit data. The findings presented here support the contention that the rural landscape is in fact a complex housing landscape, and also support the view that unless this complexity is recognized, a coherent portrait of rural housing will not emerge. Les conditions et les besoins d'habitations rurales au Canada, sont aussi complexes que le paysage lui-même, même si la littérature traite I'habitat rural en tant qu'unité“unique, dénuée de problèmes. Cet article présente deux arguments concernant la recherche sur I'habitat rural au Canada. En premier lieu, ‘rural’ decrit un paysage contenant des habitations complexes et pas simplement une ‘autre chose’ non-déstincte par rapport a I'habitat urbain. Deuxidmèment, cette complexité a des conséquences importantes qui ont un rapport avec les changements dans I'inventaire local des habitations. Le contenu de l'article est basé sur trois Études de cas au Canada où il y a un mélange de propriétés rurales, agricoles et vacancyères. Les questions concernant le changement dans I'inventaire des habitations pour ces examples ruraux et vacanciers, sont reliées à des donnés de questionnaires et aux permis de construction. Les résultats présentés ici, confirment l'argument qu'un paysage rural est en fait un paysage complexe d'habitations. lis confirment aussi I'idée qu'un portrait cohérent de I'habitat rural n'apparaitra pas, sauf si cette complexity est reconnue.     

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.     

Native 'land claims', Russian style

In Russia, as in Canada, Native peoples are attempting to gain greater control over their homelands. In the last decade, legislation at both the federal and sub-federal (provincial, republican, etc.) level has sanctioned the transfer of land to Native 'possession', though not ownership, for the pursuit of traditional activities. This paper surveys the legislative basis that authorizes the creation of Native 'communes' (obshchinas) and their territorialization. After examining how the process works in theory, it examines the paths taken, and obstacles met, in establishing obshchinas in three Native communities in the Sakha Republic (Yakutia).     

The Politics of Emergency

Military and humanitarian interventions have become commonplace in recent years, provoking some to suggest that the right to intervene in the face of an emergency has become a new global norm. Emergencies and interventions pose unique challenges for political and legal theories of sovereignty, legitimacy, and democracy. Political anthropologists and other social scientists have focused on critiques of sovereign power and military and humanitarian interventions, but more attention to the cultural aspects of how emergencies operate and to the positive and negative effects they might have on political and social life is needed.     

RETHINKING the OPPIDA

Summary: The appearance of large sites known as oppida, and generally qualified as urban or proto-urban, is a central feature of all accounts of late Iron Age Europe. But the category of oppidum groups together sites that are very diverse in morphology, scale and function, and excludes other sites that share many of the same features, but lack fortifications and/or are located outside the supposed heartland of the oppida civilisation. Few oppida seem to be at the centre of differentiated settlement networks of the kind usually associated with urbanism, and few display a higher level of intra-site zoning than do rural farms or hamlets. A reassessment of late La Tène settlement, focusing on its technological and cultural unity, contributes to an analysis of late prehistoric Europe which stresses the contrasts between the social trajectories of temperate European and Mediterranean societies.     

The creative destruction of Niagara-on-the-Lake

Heritage shopping villages are becoming increasingly commonplace in rural North America. Their creation reflects the demands of post-modern consumers to purchase symbolic capital in the form of unique products and experiences reflecting a bygone era. Entrepreneurs have responded to this by commodifying heritage and tradition; a process that leads to the creation of new landscapes and a perceived destruction of the old. This transformation has been described in the model of creative destruction (Mitchell 1998). In this paper the model is applied to Old Niagara-on-the-Lake, a heritage shopping village located in southern Ontario, Canada. Data on functional change, visitor numbers and residents' attitudes are analysed for the period 1950–1998. It is concluded that historic Niagara-on-the-Lake is in the early stages of 'advanced destruction'; one characterized by major investment, large numbers of visitors and partial destruction of the rural idyll. Results of this analysis confirm that while the basic premise of the model is sound, modifications are required to accommodate some of the study's findings.     

'A bit fast money, a bit white shoe brigade'? Freedom of Information and Australian History

In the second of our series on Freedom of Information and theHistorian, Greg Terrill writes on the impact of Freedom of Information(FOI) upon the writing of Australian history. Historians inAustralia have barely engaged with FOI—they do not havea record of being good agitators for their professional interests,and they have never been active campaigners for FOI. This isunfortunate, but need not be repeated in Britain. To forearmthe British historian, this article outlines the relationshipbetween FOI and history in Australia, and points to some issuesfor consideration in Britain.