SURFACE SCATTERS of BUILDING STONE: ENHANCING FIELD SURVEY WORK

It is observable - from standing buildings-that the stone used in the study area of the East Brittany Survey has for the most part travelled a very short distance (< 5 km), whether the building is grand or simple. Excavation has demonstrated that the same is true of structures of earlier periods, although Roman building is differentiated by its preference for the very hard stones that occur to the north of the area. Surface scatters of building stone on modern arable fields, if carefully observed, are a useful tool for locating stone-built settlements of the historic period and scatters of Cambrian siltstones can point to the location of medieval seigneurial settlements. Manuring scatters of roofing slate, which can be differentiated by period, are a useful tool for defining the arable worked from settlements, especially in the later and post-medieval periods, and therefore for mapping the changing patterns of land-use. With sufficient training of volunteers or of a research team, a large body of data can be gathered very economically.     

Redfern as the Heart(h): Living (Black) in Inner Sydney

Before the arrival of the ‘white fella’ over 200 years ago, the Gadigal people and others of the Eora Darug occupied the place where the city of Sydney now stands. At the heart of this second tier global city, the inner‐city suburb of Redfern has become a mainstay of urban Aboriginal identity. Yet, this troubled and stigmatised focal point of populist media representations and government policy does not reflect the diversity of urban Aboriginal life in inner Sydney. This paper draws on a range of sources about living in Redfern, from the difficult politics of establishing and retaining an Aboriginal urban space and place in the contemporary gentrifying city – achieved in large part through the establishment of now long‐standing service provision – through to the rise of alternate visions and lives and many more ‘ordinary’ ways of living in the city. This paper seeks to highlight that Aboriginal people variously inhabit, occupy, and sometimes thrive in Australia's first colonial city and the site of invasion. It also provides several of the author's personal experiences of engagement with some of these processes.     

Neoliberalism in (Regional) Theory and Practice: the Stronger Communities Action Fund in New Zealand

Neoliberalism is a term most often used by those working in the field of political economy, including human geographers, to refer to the new political preference for market mechanisms as a way of ensuring social and economic wellbeing. To date, however, analysts of neoliberalism have focused on the decline of the national economy, and on the erosion of universalist conceptions of social welfarism. Much less attention has been paid to the complex and contested processes through which new spaces, socialities and subjectivities are being constituted. Through a case study of the Stronger Communities Action Fund, this paper examines these new spaces, socialities and subjectivities of social policy, including the shift towards heterogeneous conceptions of community, the rise of community based expertise, and the centring of ‘etho‐politics’. It concludes that neoliberalism is a more contradictory phenomenon than is often recognised. If analysts continue to portray neoliberalism as a monolithic project, and to emphasize what has been lost, rather than examining the complex trajectories of the new, they are much less likely to be sensitive to the different political possibilities offered in the current context.     

(Post)Colonial [1] Encounters: gendered racialisations in Australian courtrooms [2]

This article identifies how the Australian legal system has generated knowledge about ‘traditional’ gender relations in Aboriginal Australia. Using a sample of artefact cases from the Australian judicial system, constructions of Aboriginal gender relations are mapped. By tracing knowledge production in these cases, it demonstrates how the non-Aboriginal Australian legal system has fabricated its own versions of ‘Aboriginal Customary Laws’, or Aboriginal ‘traditions’ about violence committed by Aboriginal men, against Aboriginal women. (Post)colonial understandings about the Aboriginal ‘other’ have occupied spaces in legal understandings and then been enforced in law. The Australian judicial system itself is therefore guilty of perpetuating and privileging the ‘colonial’ in these encounters.     

Theorising 'Difference' in Aotearoa/New Zealand {1}

This paper discusses theoretical and political tensions that emerged for me as a result of exploring the implications of 'positionality'. The discussion is set in debates about the differences within and between women in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Many New Zealand feminists, both Maori and Pakeha, have become concerned with the task of establishing an autonomous existence premised on unique identities. While recognising the political imperative that informs this politics and theorising, my own work has led me to theoretical understandings about the constitution of identities that could easily be construed as antagonistic to local aspirations. My dilemma, therefore, is how to produce feminist theory that compromises neither political or intellectual credibility. Positionality, I argue, involves not just positioning in a theoretical and ideological place, but also in a geographical location and, by implication, the politics of that place.     

London-Bahrain Archaeological Expedition excavations at Saar: 1993 season

During 1993, the London-Bahrain Archaeological Expedition conducted a fourth season of excavations at the early second millennium settlement of Saar, Bahrain. A lower level of the temple was cleared, and a range of buildings to its north-west discovered. A new street was found opposite the temple entrance, and several of the buildings along the main street were further investigated. Further environmental research included a new programme of micromorphology and the start of research into the fish remains.