Money,Manipulation and Misunderstanding on Manus Island

The treatment of asylum seekers at the Manus Island Regional Processing Centre in Papua New Guinea (PNG) has attracted much international attention, but there has been little analysis of its local and transnational impact. This article investigates the repercussions for the communities on Manus Island, on domestic affairs in PNG, and on the relationship between PNG and Australia. Overall, it concludes that the costs arising from the money, manipulation and misunderstanding generated by the centre seem likely to outweigh the purported benefits, particularly for Manusians and other ordinary Papua New Guineans.     

Community gardens as third places

As the world population becomes increasingly urbanised and mobile, “third places” take on greater importance for incorporating new residents into their neighbourhood and reducing social isolation. The third place concept has been applied to a range of public space research and embraces informal public meeting places outside of home (first place) and work (second place). This article critically investigates the connection between community gardens and third place, applying a framework based on the characteristics of third places to qualitative case studies of three Australian community gardens. The article highlights the role community gardens can play as third places in alleviating some of the challenges associated with population mobility. The findings show that two of the case study community gardens exhibit all characteristics of third places facilitating informal interactions between people of the neighbourhood while one does not for reasons considered. Findings also suggest that third place community gardens act as dynamic sites of placemaking, helping to connect people to the place. Community gardens can function as third places with a communal purpose inclusive across socially diverse neighbourhoods, within and beyond the garden boundaries. The article suggests appropriate design and location features for community gardens that best facilitate third place interactions.     

A Case of Murderous Sensibility: James Hackman,Interiority and Masculine Agency in Late Eighteenth‐Century England

After murdering Martha Ray in April 1779, James Hackman enjoyed an improbable media celebrity that rested largely on his ability both to embody and complicate the performative conventions of the late eighteenth‐century discourse of sensibility, which tied virtue to its embodied visibility. Supporters who lauded Hackman, but wanted to conserve his and their own moral agency, disentangled his character from his crime by attributing to him an interior space in which that character resided. Thus, while spectators delighted in the way that Hackman's sensible body registered his anguish at Ray's death, they could also paradoxically insist that his true intentions were hidden inside that suffering body, uncoupled from his violent deed. Such attributions of interiority helped to conserve both Hackman's masculinity and his agency by distinguishing his body from feminine bodies whose lack of such interior space rendered them vulnerable to a disordered and hysterical sensibility. The rhetorical energy devoted to defending Hackman provides a valuable case study of the ways that reconciliation was sought in the late eighteenth century between masculinity and agency within the discourse of sensibility and suggests that the differential, gendered distribution of interiority helped assuage fears about feeling's feminising potential.     

Effects of distance from stone source on landscape-scale variation in Oldowan artifact assemblages in the Paleo-Olduvai Basin,Tanzania

Ongoing excavations at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, reveal tremendous variability among stone artifact assemblages across the Plio-Pleistocene Olduvai Lake Basin during Bed I and lower Bed II times. Theoretically, stone artifact traces of Oldowan hominin land use are determined by the distribution of larger mammal carcasses and arboreal refuge from predation as well as proximity to stone material sources.     

Doing gender and development: understanding empowerment and local gender relations

A major dilemma in Gender and Development (GAD) work is why it is that sometimes women may feel better off colluding with gendered structures that ensure their continued subordination rather than seeking approaches that will allow them to break free of this. Kandiyoti (1988 Gender and Society 2 274–90) has identified this apparent collusion as 'patriarchal bargains', which offer women greater advantages than they perceive can be achieved by challenging the prevailing order. Such women are therefore reluctant to engage in empowering activities that may challenge their gendered bargain. This paper explains this dilemma in the context of GAD work undertaken with Bedouin women in Southern Egypt.     

Palaeolithic radiocarbon chronology: quantifying our confidence beyond two half-lives

It is now three decades since Waterbolk introduced evaluation criteria to ¹⁴C chronology. Despite this, and other subsequent attempts to introduce quality control in the use of ¹⁴C data, no systematic procedure has been adopted by the archaeological community. As a result, our databases may be significantly weakened by questionable dates and/or questionable associations between dated samples and the archaeological phenomena they are intended to represent. As the use of chronometric data in general becomes more ambitious, we must pause and assess how reliable these data are. Here, we forward a set of evaluation criteria which take into account archaeological (e.g. associational, stratigraphic) and chronometric (e.g. pre-treatment and measurement) criteria. We intend to use such criteria to evaluate a large ¹⁴C dataset we have assembled to investigate Late Glacial settlement in Europe, the Near East and North Africa, supported by the Leverhulme Trust. We suggest that the procedure presented here may at least form the basis of the development of more rigorous, scientific use of ¹⁴C dates.