‘Well weather is not a girl thing is it?’ Contemporary amateur meteorology,gender relations and the shaping of domestic masculinity

Although there is a growing scholarship on the history of amateur meteorology, contemporary amateur meteorology has tended to remain a largely invisible social phenomenon. Moreover, questions of female involvement and gender relations therein have tended to be overlooked. This paper seeks to address this gap by drawing on interviews with members of one of the most important amateur meteorological networks in the UK—the Climatological Observers Link. The research identifies a predominantly male bias within amateur meteorology in the UK, offers insight into why and how this bias has emerged and explores the implications of this bias for gender politics in the home. It also considers the way in which, as a pursuit that is very much situated within the domestic sphere, amateur meteorology complicates traditional framings of the home as a female realm and contributes to a domestic masculinity.     

Gender,Imperialism and Domesticity: British women repatriated from India, 1940‐47

In this article, the author draws on women's personal accounts to explore the repatriation processes of white, British, middle-class wives of army officers and civil servants who returned to Britain from India between 1940 and 1947. Conventional images overwhelmingly constructed departure from the subcontinent and arrival in Britain as a time for celebration. However, women's personal sources suggest that both their expectations and experiences of repatriation were often, at best, equivocal. Feelings of uncertainty and unease about their return were coupled with a more positive anticipation connected to the idea that Britain was home. Once in Britain, women were shocked by the unfamiliarity of life there—at both national and household scales—and they struggled to construct a sense of belonging or self. Considering memoirs and oral histories, the author focuses on imperial domesticity and explores the influences of gender on expectations and experiences of repatriation. In so doing, she reflects on the ambiguous position that repatriates can occupy between forced and voluntary movement and highlights the problems in attempting to define either a beginning or an ending to journeys home.     

Narratives of climate change: introduction

This paper introduces a special feature on narratives of climate change, containing papers by Richard Hamblyn, Sverker Sörlin, Michael Bravo and Diana Liverman. The feature reflects the rising cultural profile of climate change in the public sphere, as represented, for example, by Al Gore's documentary film, An Inconvenient Truth, and art exhibitions devoted to the subject.     

The Ethics of Philanthropy

Abstract

This essay considers the ancient antecedents to the “new field” of the ethics of philanthropy, arguing that key questions such as “to whom should we give our money?” have already been explored by ancient authors and that the answers they give to these questions can be quite different to the answers given by contemporary scholars. By analysing the treatment of giving in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Cicero’s De Officiis, and Seneca’s De Beneficiis, I argue that the focus of ancient thinkers upon giving within one’s own community can be viewed as a possible response to a number of issues that have been raised by modern scholars, including the “problem of acting at a distance” and the “problem of accountability.” Moreover, these ancient thinkers have additional, positive reasons for thinking that philanthropy should take place within one’s own community, based upon their ideas of man’s natural duty to his political community, and the social benefits that can be derived from local philanthropy. The integration of ancient perspectives, then, into these modern debates, can serve to complement and broaden research in this emerging field.     

Abbott’s ‘budget crisis’, CALD women’s loss? Service providers explore the impact of funding cuts

Women have been disproportionately affected by funding cuts to services following the 2008 global financial crisis. Using a feminist intersectional analysis of austerity measures applied to family violence (FV) services in Victoria, Australia, including 11 service provider interviews, we find that: the Australian government drew on global narratives of austerity in constructing a ‘budget crisis’, with subsequent cuts to funds addressing FV; budget cuts negatively impacted services’ abilities to address the needs of culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) women; there is a lack of qualified interpreters and multilingual services, and; there are missed opportunities to engage and support young CALD people in FV services. Policy recommendations to support FV services and their abilities to help CALD women and young people are provided.