Hiriira Spatiotemporalities: Mapping Oromo Women’s Liberation in Post-Imperial Berlin

In September 2020, Oromo women marched through the streets of Berlin, Germany, demanding recognition for their struggle. This protest march, called a Hiriira in the Oromo language, offers a case study into the entanglements between settler colonial Ethiopia, Germany’s post-empire, and the forces of oppression which link them. This paper uses the spatiotemporal reckonings generated from the Hiriira perspective to understand violence and elucidate the practices of resistance that have emerged despite it. These contrasting ways of viewing space and time are expressed through the tension between imperial spatialising, a way of knowing the world that is imperial and oppressive in nature, and geography guraacha, a Black and Blackened way of knowing space with a particularly Oromo perspective. The result is a type of mapping, tracing the Hiriira route across Berlin while describing the histories that shadow these streets, and the pathways towards liberation that Oromo women are organising.     

Crossing the Threshold: Negotiating Space in the Vernacular Houses of the Isle of Lewis

This paper explores the construction of boundaries and thresholds as a means to examine the ways in which space is delineated and used within the house. Focusing on examples of vernacular housing from the Isle of Lewis, the most northerly of the Western Isles, the types of boundaries and thresholds that existed within the house are examined, alongside their role in establishing, reinforcing and manipulating social relationships among the inhabitants, both human and animal. As the houses in Lewis developed during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries AD, boundaries and thresholds lost or gained significance as they were moved, adapted, added and abandoned. Such developments reflected not only changing social conventions, but also the changing relationship between Lewis tenants and their cattle.     

When Policy Goes Wrong: The Problem of Transmitted Risk

Why do policies fail? There are many answers to this question, and many ways of answering it. In this paper, we use the tools of policy framing and systems thinking to investigate two recent Australian examples of public policy failure, each involving a different policy milieu and time-span. We show that, in both these cases, unintended consequences arose because governments lost control of the implementation process while remaining politically accountable for the outcomes. We develop the concept of transmitted risk to show how this occurred. We argue that governments expose themselves to this kind of risk when they make policy decisions involving a combination of excessive incentives and poorly controlled third parties.     

Book review

Bruce Grant What Kind of Country? Australia and the Twenty First Century. Ringwood, Vic.: Penguin Books, xii +178pp. $ 11.95.

Phillip W. Jones. Australia's International Relations in Education. Hawthorne, Vic: The Australian Council for Educational Research Ltd, 1986. 123pp. $8.95.

Ronald H. Linden. Communist States and International Change: Romania and Yugoslavia in Comparative Perspective. Boston: Allen & Unwin, xviii+201pp. $87.50.

Christopher Tugendhat Making Sense of Europe. Harmond‐sworth: Penguin Books, 1987.240pp. $12.95.

A. J. Marques Mendes. Economic Integration and Growth in Europe. London; Croom Helm, 1987.141pp. £22.50.

Miles Hewstone. Understanding Attitudes to the European Community: a social‐psychological study in four member states. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. xviii+306pp. $98.00.

Sonia Mazey and Michael Newman (eds). Mitterrand's France. London: Croom Helm, 1987. xi+253pp. $105.00.

Tom Gallagher. Glasgow: The Uneasy Peace. Religious Tension in Modern Scotland, 1819–1914. Manchester. Manchester University Press, 1987.ix+382pp.$114.00.

Anthony Hall and James Midgley (eds). Development Policies: Sociological Perspectives. Manchester. Manchester University Press, 1988. 154pp £21.00.

Stewart MacPherson and James Midgley (eds). Comparative Social Policy and the Third World. Brighton, Sussex: Wheatsheaf Books, 1987.228pp. $69.95.

Edward J. Lincoln. Japan: Facing Economic Maturity. Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1988. xii+298pp. $US11.95.

Harry Harding. China's Second Revolution: Reform after Mao. Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1987. 369pp. $US12.95.

Zakaria Haji Ahmad (ed.). Government and Politics of Malaysia. Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1986. xii + 178pp. No price given.

Raul P. de Guzman and Mila A. Reforma (eds.) Government and Politics of the Philippines Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1988. xii+289 pp. $S45.00.

Fred Greene (ed). The Philippine Bases: Negotiating for the Future. American and Philippine Perspectives. New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1988. xv+ 158pp. $US9.95.

Ed Garcia and Francisco Nemenzo. The Sovereign Quest. Freedom from Foreign Military Bases. Quezon City: Claretian Publications, 1988. xv+ 120pp. No price given.

Stella R. Quah and Jon S. T. Quah. Friends in Blue: The Police and the Public in Singapore. Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1987. 209 pp. No price given.

Lim Chong Yah and Associates. Policy Options for the Singapore Economy. Singapore: McGraw‐Hill, 1988. xv + 499 pp. No price given.

Muthiah Alagappa. The National Security of Developing States: Lessons from Thailand. Dover, Mass: Auburn House, 1987. xiv + 274 pp. No price given.

R. A. Cramb and R. H. W. Reece (eds). Development in Sarawak. Monash Paper on Southeast Asia, No. 17. Melbourne: Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, Monash University, 1988. 190pp. $16.00.

Mavis Rose. Indonesia Free: A Political Biography of Mohammad Hatta. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Modern Indonesia Project, 1987. vii + 245pp.$US10.50.

Leonard Blusse. Strange Company: Chinese Settlers. Mestizo Women and the Dutch in VOC Batavia. Dordrecht Foris Publications, 1986, xiii + 302pp. Df1.35.

Mary Brooks. Fleet Development and the Control of Shipping in Southeast Asia. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1985,x+113pp.$SI8.00.

Robert H. Taylor. The State in Burma. London: C Hurst/Orient Longman, 1987, xvi+395pp. £27.50.

W. David McIntyre. New Zealand Prepares for War — Defence Policy 1919–39. Christchurch: University of Canterbury Press, 1988. 287pp. $NZ44.00.     

Book Reviews

THE DYNAMICS OF THE WESTERN NEW GUINEA (IRIAN BARAT) PROBLEM. Robert C. Bone, Jr. Cornell University, Modern Indonesia Project, Interim Reports Series, 1958, $1.50.

THE WEST NEW GUINEA DISPUTE. J. M. van der Kroef. Institute of Pacific Relations, New York, 1958, $1.50.

THE ECONOMY OP PAKISTAN. J. Russell Andrws and Azizali F. Mohammed. Oxford University Press, 1958. Pp. xviii + 517. Australian price 64/9.

AN ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY OF EAST PAKISTAN. Nafia Ahmad. Oxford University Press, 1958. Pp. xiv + 361. U.K. price 50/‐.