The Sherwood Foresters of 1916: memories and memorials

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the memorialisation of the Sherwood Foresters who fought during the Easter Rising of 1916 in Dublin. These men, from Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire in the English midlands, suffered the greatest casualties of the British regiments involved in the insurrection, and participated in the firing squads that executed the rebel leaders. Yet the public and artistic memorialising of these English soldiers is not widely known, and this interdisciplinary paper seeks to tell the unfamiliar story of what happened to the Sherwood Foresters after the fighting of Easter Week ceased. We use archival material in order to explore how, at the time of the Rising, these men believed that they would be remembered. We examine the way that the Sherwood Foresters of Easter Week subsequently appeared in literature and drama. And we analyse the way that those soldiers have been commemorated in funerary memorials.     

The secret life of Ian Fleming: spies,lies and social ties

This article explores the fascinating interactions and experiences of James Bond creator, Ian Fleming, with the real world of intelligence. It has long been known that Fleming worked in Naval Intelligence during the Second World War. However, accounts of his time there tend to portray him as a lowly and slightly eccentric administrator. Drawing on newly discovered archival materials, plus memoirs and histories, it is argued here that Fleming was a respected and influential figure in the great game of espionage for some three decades. During the war, he was a central cog in the machinery of naval intelligence, planning operations, working with partners in American intelligence and liaising with secret Whitehall departments, including the Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park. Before and after the war, he was involved in a range of intelligence networks, often using journalistic cover to hide his clandestine connections. Throughout his life, his social circle was a ‘who’s who’ of spies and saboteurs, including CIA Director Allen Dulles. In short, he straddled the state-private divide. Taken together, these dealings with real intelligence paved the way for and gave veracity to his fiction, which continues to shape public perceptions of intelligence to this day.     

Terrorism and the banlieues: the Charlie Hebdo attacks in context

In January 2015, French society was shocked by a sequence of fatal attacks at the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket in Paris. In the wake of these tragic events, many social and political commentators interpreted the killings as an assault on freedom of expression and core French values of liberty, equality and laïcité. Prime Minister Manuel Valls described the perpetrators as disciples of Islamofascism. More than this, the terrorists were represented as the extreme manifestation of a deviant and nihilistic ‘other’—largely concentrated in France’s infamous banlieues—that rejected the Republic and embraced a form of ideological extremism that originated beyond France’s borders. Yet this interpretation fails to adequately consider the complexity of the situation. Drawing on the work on radicalisation by Wiktorowicz, and illustrated with lessons learned from research into the causes of the 2005 French riots, this article has two objectives: to highlight the importance of everyday exclusion in the web of causal factors that frames the path to violent extremism in France; and to offer an alternative view of the role and influence of the banlieues in this context.     

Mothers in the making? Exploring liminality in cyber/space

This paper makes a case for cyberspace and geographical space coexisting simultaneously as an interconnected dyadic cyber/space combining the virtually real and the actually real. Based on empirical evidence from a study examining the role of the Internet in the life of new mothers, we investigate the simultaneity of online/onsite experiences through an exploration of cyberspace as a performative liminal space, one where the women 'tried out' different versions of motherhood. We suggest that liminality, as a concept that can denote both a space and time of 'betweenness', is a useful tool in the virtual geographers 'conceptual handbag' as it enables a more lively understanding of cyberspace. But although cyberspace can result in the production of new selves, these selves have residual attachments to embodied experiences and practices. This suggests that new theorizing about cyber/space must combine a consideration of liminality with everyday corporeality.     

“Now let me share this with you”: Exploring Poetry as a Method for Postcolonial Geography Research

Abstract: In this article we attempt to “seize back the creative initiative” to uncover whether poetry might be a useful postcolonial research method. In exploring the possibilities and limitations of poetry as a means of re‐representing and interpreting data collected through in‐depth qualitative interviews, our conclusions are ambivalent: we are attracted to poetry but troubled by it too. For instance, poetry does hold promise through its ability to imaginatively project thoughts and ideas, opening up space so new perspectives can emerge. However, as academics we are always complicit in the knowledge creation process (albeit to varying degrees), and so the representative qualities of poetry are never unproblematic or straightforward. Thus although poetry does have potential as a method for postcolonial geography research, we are making a cautious and careful appeal for its use. We use the case of ecotourism research conducted in Boabeng‐Fiema Monkey Sanctuary in Ghana to explore these ideas.     

First comprehensive peat depositional records for tin,lead and copper associated with the antiquity of Europe's largest cassiterite deposits

Tin, as a constituent of bronze, was central to the technological development of early societies, but cassiterite (SnO₂) deposits were scarce and located distantly from the centres of Mediterranean civilizations. As Britain had the largest workable ore deposits in the ancient Western world, this has led to much historical speculation and myth regarding the long-distance trading of tin from the Bronze Age onwards. Here we establish the first detailed chronology for tin, along with lead and copper deposition, into undisturbed ombrotrophic (rain-fed) peat bogs located at Bodmin Moor and Dartmoor in the centre of the British tin ore fields. Sustained elevated tin deposition is demonstrated clearly, with peaks occurring at 100–400 and 700–1000 calendar years AD – contemporaneous with the Roman and Anglo-Saxon periods respectively. While pre-Roman Iron Age tin exploitation undoubtedly took place, it was on a scale that did not result in convincingly enhanced deposition of the metal. The deposition of lead in the peat record provides evidence of a pre-Roman metal-based economy in southwest Britain. Emerging in the 4th century BC, this was centred on copper and lead ore processing that expanded exponentially and then collapsed upon Roman colonization during the 1st century AD.     

Property,boundary, exclusion: Making sense of hetero-violence in safer spaces

This paper focuses on research conducted over a period of thirty months as part of a wider ESRC-funded initiative on violence. It focuses on the sustainability of safer gay space. This paper shows how the generation of the fear of the 'heterosexual other' functions to enable certain claims to be made on the space from a proprietorial aspect which includes recourse to purity, danger and respectability. This shows how property relations become articulated as a property of the person, demonstrating how entitlement to space is formed. It also explores how boundaries are being constructed and maintained in different (and often novel) ways and shows how different intelligibilities are constructed for understanding one's place through concepts of property and propriety that relate to forms of investment and movement through space. It thus challenges traditional ideas on boundary formation and maintenance. Ultimately it foregrounds how these understandings of bodies in space influence current articulations of citizenship and poltical participation. Cet article analyse des recherches effectuées au cours d'une période de trente mois dans le cadre d'une étude plus large sur la violence, subventionnée par ESRC. Le thème principal est celui de la viabilité des espaces sans risque. Nous démontrons comment le maintien d'une peur de 'l'autre hétérosexuel' sert à fonder certains droits envers ces espaces, droits qui sont reliés à un sens de la propriété faisant appel à des notions de pureté, danger et respectabilité. Notre analyse indique comment ces relations de propriété sont exprimées en fonction de la personne, démontrant ainsi comment se formule l'accès à l'espace. Elle démontre aussi les divers modes de construction et maintien des frontières, et comment ceux-ci élaborent des cadres de perception permettant de comprendre la place de l'individu au sein des concepts de 'rectitude' et 'propriété' qui sont liés à des formes d'interaction avec l'espace. Finalement, notre étude questionne les idées traditionnelles quant à la formation et au maintien des frontières, signalant ainsi comment l'analyse des corps dans l'espace ouvre de nouvelles voies d'étude ayant trait à la citoyennetéet àl'exercise de droits politiques. El enfoque de este papel es una investigación elaborada durante un período de 30 meses como parte de una iniciativa más amplia sobre la violencia fundada por ESRC. El enfoque es sobre la sotenibilidad de sitios más seguros para gays. Este papel demuestra como la generación de miedo del 'Otro heterosexual' facilita ciertas reclamaciones sobre un espacio. Estas reclamaciones incluyen nociones de pureza, peligro y respetabildad y demuestran la manera en que las relaciones propietarias llegan a ser articuladas como propiedad de la persona y de ahí, cómo es formado el derecho a un espacio. También examina como límites están siendo construidos y mantenidos de diferentes maneras (muchas veces nuevas) y indica como uno construye diferentes inteligibilidades para mejor entender su lugar a través de conceptos de propiedad y tenencia vinculados a formas de inversión y movimiento en un espacio. Así desafía las ideas tradicionales de la formación y mantenimiento de límites. Por último destaca la manera en que este entendimiento de 'cuerpos en un espacio' influye en las ideas actuales de ciudadanía y participación política.