Teaching and learning on a transnational education programme: opportunities and challenges for flying faculty in Geography and related disciplines

Within the context of the internationalization of UK higher education, an increasing number of UK-based institutions are developing collaborative degree programmes with overseas institutions, of which partnerships with institutions in China are the most common. This paper employs a critical reflective approach to explore, from different perspectives (self-reflection, student feedback, our colleagues’ experiences), some of the opportunities and challenges that exist for flying faculty through critical reflection on the author’s own flying faculty experiences delivering an introductory Physical Geography module in China. Teaching in an unfamiliar environment brings with it a plethora of challenges, however; for staff in Geography and related disciplines, active engagement with the external world through field-based learning is perhaps the most challenging aspect of any overseas teaching experience. As such, a particular focus of this paper is on the challenges, and potential solutions, of incorporating field-based learning and teaching in the international classroom. Ultimately, faculty with international teaching experience are best placed to develop and enhance the internationalization of their own institution’s curricula.     

Magnetic Gradient Survey of the Marpole Period Dionisio Point (DgRv-003) Plankhouse Village,Northwest Coast of North America

Architectural reconstructions of plankhouses are central to the study of household and community organization on the Northwest Coast of North America. However, the sample of substantially excavated houses is constrained by their size, stratigraphic complexity, and typically limited surface expression. We present the results of a magnetic gradiometry survey of the Dionisio Point site (DgRv-003) village, occupied ca. a.d. 500–700 on the coast of British Columbia, Canada. Survey of four house platforms reveals patterning of magnetic anomalies consistent with the structure of shed-roof houses, a design recorded ethnographically and identified archaeologically at the site. These results suggest a consistent pattern of spatial and, potentially, social organization of the households. The similarity of patterns suggests that magnetometry may be useful for guiding plankhouse excavations elsewhere on the Northwest Coast, providing a means for expanding our knowledge of houses without relying solely on traditional excavation methods.     

Heterosexuality and migration in Asia

There have been few analyses of heterosexuality in the context of migration, particularly within Asia. As a corrective, in this themed issue we bring together four articles to contribute to debates on the fluidity of heterosexuality and how the performance of heterosexuality has particular spatialities within East and South-East Asia. Each article uses ethnographic methods to produce nuanced analyses of specific and spatially contingent performances of heterosexuality. A migration focus illuminates how spatial dislocation provides opportunities for both men and women to play out different heterosexual identities. At the same time, migrants come across challenges and obstacles to their performances of heterosexuality, such as the state regulation of the migrant body, economic necessity, and gendered and ethnicised behavioural norms.     

'Heart' and 'Wing', Nation and Diaspora: Gendered discourses in Singapore's regionalisation process

In this article the authors offer an analysis of Singapore's state-vaunted 'go-regional' policy as a case study to illustrate the argument that not only are the 'nation-state' and 'diaspora' structurally interdependent and embedded in the discursive frame of each other, but also that the way they interlock is shaped by particular gender ideologies and relations. In the same way as the state articulates nationalism by appealing to men and women as gendered subjects, the appropriation of transnational space as part of the regionalisation drive serves to extend and elaborate 'genderic modes of discourse'. Beyond state discourse, the authors examine individual and family strategies in straddling the gap between 'nation' and 'diaspora', between being at 'home' and 'away'. In arguing that the 'go-regional' policy is a pervasively masculine construction, the authors give specific attention to the way gender divisions of labour are transnationalised and further entrenched, the gendering of diasporic workplaces, and the construction of women-in-diaspora as 'moral wives'. The arguments are grounded mainly in research material garnered from in-depth interviews with Singaporean economic migrants (and non-migrants) to China.     

A link in ‘the great chain of Empire friendship’: the Victoria League in New Zealand

With the objective of exploring New Zealand women's part in imperialism, this article focuses on the history of the Victoria League. Through its activities during war and peace, the League promoted New Zealand's place as a loyal part of the British Empire. The League in New Zealand was part of a ‘female imperialism’ whereby elite women in the ‘white’ settler societies performed gendered work to promote the strength and unity of the Empire. Women's work considered suitable for empire friendliness and unity ranged from hospitality and socialising in the ‘private’ female world, to the support of immigration and education. Wartime saw patriotic ‘mothers of empire’ in full force. The article covers the League's work into the second half of the twentieth century when, despite the ‘end of empire’, imperial loyalty endured, entwined with emerging national identities. Maternal imperial identity slowly waned, the legacy of Queen Victoria lasting until local challenges to the process of colonisation became vocal.     

A Housing Crisis,a Failed Law,and a Property Conflict: The US Urban Speculation Tax

In 1978 the local government in the District of Columbia approved a measure to tax up to 70% of the profits made on residential speculation. The tax was the first of its kind in the USA. But, it was quickly overturned and deemed by supporters and opponents a failure. Based on 10 months of archival research and interviews in Washington, DC, this paper examines how property rights became a narrative barrier that tax supporters could not overcome. By narrative barrier, I mean the set of rules that shaped how speculation was discussed. Tax supporters did not publicly convey a counter‐hegemonic vision of how tenure security and economic wealth could be achieved for black residents through means other than private ownership and real estate investment. This paper contributes to understandings of housing markets, housing crises, and intersections between housing justice and property rights.     

Embodying the Colonial Encounter: Explaining New Zealand's ‘Grace Darling’, Huria Matenga

Focusing on the heroine of an 1863 New Zealand sea rescue, this article is concerned with gender, race and the colonial encounter. The rescue became an example of harmonious race relations, advocating Maori service as part of settler society governance. The article analyses Huria Matenga's place in the rescue as white settlers endorsed, rewarded and constructed her in relation to the imperial reference point of British heroine Grace Darling. It is argued that the gendered imperial narrative of Grace Darling combined with transcultural representations of women and the sea to accord Huria Matenga a central place in the rescue. While in the early twentieth century Grace Darling's memory was more entrenched in mainstream New Zealand society than Huria Matenga's, by the beginning of the twenty‐first century, Grace Darling as imperial signifier had disappeared, and the legend of Huria Matenga existed alone in a state of postcolonial irony. The article demonstrates that mythologies of and commemoration for heroines are constantly recast and operate across a complex network of local, national and transnational levels.