Mothering,digital media and emotional geographies in Hamilton,Aotearoa New Zealand

This article traces a line between two literatures that can usefully be drawn into deeper conversation: geographies of digital media, and geographies of emotion. Its broad theoretical aim is to ascertain what insights might be gleaned by increasingly bringing together these two literatures. The more specific and primary aim, however, is an empirical one and that is to offer a materially grounded example of 35 mothers who live in Hamilton, Aotearoa New Zealand who use digital media to communicate with their children. Particular attention is paid to the capacities of different digital media, both individually and combined, to help facilitate, but certainly not guarantee, different emotions. The research is informed by a feminist geographical reading of theories of digital media and emotion. Findings illustrate that increasingly mothers are making use of digital media, both singularly and collectively, to increase the chances of a particular desired emotional outcome with their child or children. This article concludes that bodies, devices, screens, sounds and images comingle to mediate emotions over time and space.     

Probable human hair found in a fossil hyaena coprolite from Gladysvale cave,South Africa

Until now, the oldest known human hair was from a 9000-year-old South American mummy. Here we report fossil hairs of probable human origin that exceed that age by about 200,000 years. The hairs have been discovered in a brown hyaena (Parahyaena brunnea) coprolite from Gladysvale cave in South Africa. The coprolite is part of a hyaena latrine preserved in calcified cave sediment dated between 195,000 and 257,000 years ago. This find supports the hypothesis that hyaenas accumulated some of the early hominin remains found in cave sites, and provides a new source of information on Pleistocene mammals in the Sterkfontein Valley.     

Planning for Culture in Urban Australia

This paper offers a selective overview and assessment of cultural planning in urban Australia from the perspective of a cultural geographer. It is argued that in theory cultural planning adopts a fluid and broad definition of culture similar to that used by contemporary cultural geographers. In practice, however, a narrow, material definition of culture is found in cultural plans, and the relations between cultural practices and place are construed unidimensionally.     

FEMININITY, PLACE AND COMMODITIES: A RETAIL CASE STUDY

Recent accounts of the significance of consumption and commodities in the constitution of femininity have stressed the fluidity of consumption practices and the indeterminacy of their meaning for the oppression of women. The role of place in the construction of femininity has not been considered in these accounts, and as such uni-dimensional portraits of the consumption-femininity nexus have prevailed. In this article I offer an alternative place-based account of the construction of femininity through consumption, demonstrating the constitution of gendered relations of consumption in place. In so doing, some of the contradictions in the consumption-femininity nexus are highlighted. Using a case study of one facet of consumption - retailing - I demonstrate the importance of place and context in the construction of femininity through consumption, in three substantive ways. First, the selling of commodities by retail institutions entails the creation of place. Second, the construction of femininity - shopping as an important component of domestic labor and shopping as feminine, is part of this creation of place. Third, this environment and the process of shopping influence the meaning of commodities and associated constructions of femininity.     

Place in legal geography: Agency and application in agriculture research

Systemic failure of our land management, legal, and regulatory institutions is revealed by the serious and adverse social and environmental impacts of land use practices in private agriculture, evident in severe land and water degradation, precipitous decline in biodiversity, and reduced resilience to natural hazards and climate change. The efficacy of the standard treatment of environmental law and regulation is often hampered by the cultural and legal priority of property rights. We take a different approach, using legal geography to refocus attention on the salience and agency of place and responses to degradation, such as conservation farming and regenerative agriculture, which are reforming dominant land management cultures and institutions from within. By recognising the role of place in leading geographically responsive land use decision-making and more sustainable, resilient, and productive agricultural practices, an alternative model of private land ownership may be possible, as well as greater environmental sustainability. For researchers, our approaches too must be sensitive and responsive to place agency and our methodologies must evolve to acknowledge the agency of place. Place agency in legal geography has great potential for application in reforming suboptimal industrial agricultural practices and legal models of property ownership, and also for revitalising our scholarship.     

(Ad)dressing Pregnant Bodies in New Zealand: Clothing,fashion, subjectivities and spatialities

The article examines the ways in which pregnant women in the West use clothing as a means of constructing a range of complex and seemingly contradictory gendered subjectivities in public spaces. The article draws on interview data collected from 19 first-time pregnant women in Hamilton, New Zealand. These women were asked about maternity wear, body image, fashion, activities they had continued, reduced or stopped during pregnancy, and the places/spaces they occupied during pregnancy. The article focuses on four different ‘looks’ and subjectivities that pregnant women in this research tried on: the thrifty, self-sacrificing mother to be; the sexy, proud pregnant woman; the growing woman who fears her body will be read as fat; and the pregnant professional. For first time pregnant women making the transition to motherhood clothing the body can be a complex act. What women wear during pregnancy speaks volumes about their subjectivities—what they reveal, what they conceal, what images they create, for whom and where.

Este artículo examina las maneras en que mujeres embarazadas en el Oriente utilizan ropas como medio de construir una gama de complejo y evidentemente contradictorio subjetividades de género en espacios públicos. Este artículo emplea información se dedujo de 19 entrevistas de mujeres se embarazan por primera vez en la ciudad de Hamilton, Nueva Zelanda. Se preguntaron estas mujeres sobre ropas maternidades; sus imágenes de cuerpos; moda; las actividades normales ellas han continuado, reducido o detenido; y los lugares/espacios ellas ocuparon durante sus embarazos. Este artículo enfoca las 4 ‘apariencias’ diferentes y los subjetividades que las mujeres embarazadas en esta investigación se han probado: la económica, abnegada, futura madre; la sexy, orgullosa mujer embarazada; la mujer engordada que tiene miedo de que su cuerpo se interpretaría como gordo; y la profesional embarazada. Para las mujeres embarazadas por primera vez y que hacen la transición a la ropa de maternidad, el cuerpo pueda ser un acto complejo. Lo que llevan las mujeres durante sus embarazos habla fuerte de sus subjetividades—lo que revelan, lo que ocultan, cuales imágenes crean, para quien y por donde.     

The Constitution and Democracy in Victoria: Westminster on Trial

This article provides a broad overview and critical appraisal of the major changes to the role and rationale of government and public administration in Victoria brought about by the Kennett Liberal‐National Coalition government (1992–99). It does so in order to revisit and highlight the fading relevance and viability of the Westminster system of 'responsible government' in the constitutional systems of the States. We show how the Victorian Constitution provides very few restraints upon a government seeking to undermine civil and political rights, weaken the Opposition, marginalise contestatory institutions and restrict information. Against the Westminster system, we defend a republican constitutional arrangement that is able to maintain the contestability of public power. To this end, we suggest a range of workable reforms designed to strengthen democracy and to improve the accountability of public power, particularly that of the political executive.