A FIELD METHOD FOR INVESTIGATING the DISTRIBUTION of ROCK ART

Summary: Recent studies of prehistoric rock art have analysed its position in the landscape and have suggested that it played an important role in a mobile pattern of settlement. But the distribution of petroglyphs is usually taken as given, with the result that it is difficult to assess the significance of this kind of patterning. We argue that such evidence should be compared with the distribution of uncarved rocks across the surrounding area, and illustrate this procedure by two case studies from northern England. In these examples rock carvings were carefully sited at viewpoints and may have overlooked important routes across the landscape.     

Children and Urban Regional Planning: Participation in the Public Consultation Process through Story Writing

Blue Mountains City is a unique urban area of 75 000 people, located along a narrow mountain ridge and within a world heritage national park, between 60 and 120 kilometres west of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The Blue Mountains City Council is currently developing a regional city strategy to guide development over the next 25 years. All sections of a very diverse community have been consulted in the public participation process, including children aged between six and 12 years. This paper deals with the analysis of 269 entries for a children's story-writing competition organised by the council. The children had to imagine that they were adults in 2025 and write a story about what their home and city would be like at that time. The paper discusses the complex problems of consulting with children on strategic regional planning matters, and the results from analysis of these competition entries in the light of those problems. The most important issues for the children as a whole were the impact of traffic, the impact of urban development on residential neighbourhoods, places for children to play, protection of the natural environment, for which the city is famous, and the ability to keep domestic pets. One of the most significant impressions emerging from the analysis is that children were far from optimistic about the future. Thirty-five per cent of entries had a negative tone, whereas only 24% were positive. The remaining 41% were written in a matter-of-fact narrative style that indicated neither enthusiasm nor disappointment with the future of the city. The children were more or less evenly divided on whether the future would be strongly based on advances in technology, much the same as now, or based on simpler technology than at present. The technique of story writing, despite some methodological difficulties in this particular case, was a useful tool for consultation with children of this age group.     

Interrogating borders: a transnational approach to refugee research in Vancouver

Immigration is predicated on the centrality of the nation‐state. The authors argue that analyzing settlement patterns and successful integration within a strictly national context is insufficient to understand the political, social, and economic relations which shape the lives of refugee immigrants in Canada. To support this claim, a less state‐centric theoretical framework of transnational migration is outlined. The paper examines methods emerging from transnational migration, focussing in particular on research with Burmese refugees who have settled in the Greater Vancouver Area. Based on 50 personal interviews conducted with refugee newcomers from Burma who are now settled in the Lower Mainland, the authors use the case study as a basis to raise methodological and theoretical questions about immigration research. We argue that the very politics of doing research with this group of refugees and other immigrant groups are shaped by the relations of power experienced before arriving in Canada. Les auteures soutiennent que l'analyse des schémas d'établissement et d'intégration réussie dans un contexte strictement national s'avère insuffisante pour comprendre les relations politiques, sociales et économiques qui définissent l'existence des réfugiés immigrants au moment de l'arrivée. Dans le but d'appuyer cette proposition, nous définissons un schéma théorique moins axé sur l'état, c'est‐à‐dire le transnationalisme. La recherche examine ces facteurs en relation avec les expériences des ‘immigrants non‐traditionnels’ au Canada, en particulier les réfugiés Burmans installés dans la région de Vancouver. Basés sur 50 entrevues personnelles menées avec des réfugiés nouvellement arrivés du Burma et qui sont maintenant installés dans le ‘Lower Mainland’, les auteures utilisent l'étude de cas comme une base permettant de soulever des questions de méthodologie pour la recherche en immigration. Nous avançons que les implications politiques de la recherche avec ce groupe de réfugiés et d'autres groupes d'immigrants dépendent des relations de pouvoir vécues avant l'arrivée au Canada.     

1914 and 2014: should we be worried?

The outbreak of the First World War remains a great historical puzzle and a source of concern, for if we do not understand how it came about we run the risk of stumbling into a similar catastrophe. This article draws parallels between the world of 1914 and the present. It starts with comfortable assumptions made by so many, then and now, that a major conflict was impossible or improbable and then looks at the paradox that globalization not only made the world more interdependent and linked, but also fostered intense local and national identities. It suggests factors that propelled Europe to war in 1914, including national rivalries, imperialism, the arms race and a shifting power balance between rising and declining powers, as well as ideologies and assumptions such as Social Darwinism and militarism, and points out that similar forces and ideas are present today. The article also stresses the dangerous complacency that can arise as a result of decision‐makers having successfully dealt with a series of crises. European decision‐makers also assumed that they could successfully use war as an instrument of policy and largely ignored or explained away the mounting evidence that the advantage in conflict was swinging to the defence. Again, as the author points out, there are disquieting parallels with the present.