Defining “Official” Built Heritage Discourses within the Irish Planning Framework: Insights from Conservation Planning as Social Practice

Conservation of built heritage is a key planning process and goal which shapes urban development outcomes across European cities. In Ireland, conservation of the built heritage is a key part of the planning framework, albeit one that is, in comparative terms, only recently established. While it is widely recognized that the underlying rationale for conservation of built heritage varies considerably (from cultural priorities to place marketing), the literature suggests that heritage and conservation professionals perform a key role in controlling decision-making through an official or “authorized” heritage discourse (AHD), emphasizing expert values and knowledge and based around selective heritage storylines often reflecting elite tastes. Drawing on policy and practice in Ireland, in this paper, we contribute to these debates by further unpacking the AHD, exploring tensions within the heritage policy elite through examination of competing views and representations relating to the purpose of built heritage protection. Based on a discourse analysis following interviews with key national actors, we identify two key narratives—a “museum-curatorial” discourse and an “inclusive heritage” discourse—which in turn frame conservation practices. We argue that subtle variations of heritage meanings have the potential to either reproduce (museum-curatorial discourse) or challenge (inclusive heritage discourse) conventional modes of practice, particularly relating to the relationship between built heritage and identity and the role of public engagement.     

Social Networks and Actual Knowledge Flow in the Irish Biotech Industry

This paper presents an analysis of networks among small and medium-sized enterprises in the Irish biotech sector. The study applies social network analysis to determine the structure of networks of company directors and inventors in the biotech sector. In addition, on the basis of interviews, this article analyses the extent of actual knowledge flow through these industry networks. The paper makes both a theoretical and methodological contribution to innovation network research. In relation to theory, the findings of the social network analysis indicate that the extent and path of knowledge flow are influenced by both the type of knowledge in question and whether the network is of a formal or informal nature. Methodologically, the results of this paper raise questions about the application of social network analysis in innovation studies.     

Restorative justice: deliberative democracy in action?

This paper examines the emergence of restorative justice meetings—in which victims come face to face with offenders—and asks whether they provide an example of deliberative democracy in action. The article analyses some restorative justice initiatives from the United States and Australasia and finds that they exhibit inclusiveness, and create more scope for democratic control, but are less strong on the equality criterion. Accountability has also been identified as a weakness of restorative meetings but, drawing on deliberative democratic theory, the authors suggest a possible solution. In their ability to transform preferences of both victims and offenders, restorative meetings offer both a vivid example to deliberative democrats and a powerful challenge to justice systems that rely heavily on incarceration.     

Strange Relatives: Mutualities and Dependencies between Aborigines and Pastoralists in the Northern Kimberley

In the northern Kimberley (WA) Aborigines and Europeans living and working on pastoral leases have improvised means of staving off, incorporating and generally managing the other's demands on their psychophysical resources. Local racial politics configure a hierarchised social field around a few central figures: founding European lease‐holders and their male children by non‐local, mixed‐descent Aboriginal women, mixed descent head‐stockmen born of a European leaseholder and a local Aboriginal woman, and then local Ngarinyin people who constitute most of the work‐force. In this paper, I analyse the inter‐cultural dynamics of this social field employing R.D. Laing's notion of the ‘family phantasy‘. The subject‐matter also entails theoretical reconsideration of questions concerning the relative openness or otherwise of Indigenous Australian socio‐cultural categories.     

George Washington's America: A Biography through His Maps. By Barnet Schecter

The Library of Congress. The Services and Collections of the Map Division. By Walter W. Ristow. Washington, D.C. 1951. 22 p. Ill.

Paolo Revelli. Il Genovese. Genova. 1951. 273 p. Tabs.

Ermanno Armao. In giro per il Mar Egeo con Vincenzo Coronelli. Note di topologia, toponomastica E storia medieval. Florence. VIII + 426 p. Ill. 1951.

G. V. Yanikov. Velikaya Severnaya Ekspeditsiya (= The Great Northern Expedition). Moskva. 164 p. Maps.

A. V. Efimov. Iz istorii velikikh Russkikh geograficheskikh otkrytiy (= From the history of the great Russian geographical discoveries). Moskva. 1949. 150 p. Illustr. By the same author: Iz istorii velikikh Russkikh geograficheskikh otkrytiy v Severnom Ledovitom i Tikhom okeanakh XVII—pervaya polovina XVIII v. (= Great Russian geographical discoveries on the Northern and Pacific Oceans in the 17th and the first half of the 18th century). Moskva 1950. 318 p. Maps.

Kniga Bol'shomu Chertezhu. Podgotovka k pechati i redakciya K. N. Serbinoy. Moskva‐Leningrad. 1950. 229 p.     

Competing discourses of built heritage: lay values in Irish conservation planning

Built heritage conservation has traditionally been shaped by professionals through an ‘authorised heritage discourse’, emphasising expert knowledge and skills, universal value, a hierarchy of significance, and protecting the authenticity of tangible assets. However, while the purpose of built heritage conservation is widely recognised to be broad, encompassing cultural, social and economic benefits, it takes place in the presence, and on behalf, of a wider public whose values and priorities may differ starkly from those of heritage power-players. Drawing on the perspectives of a range of built heritage actors in three small towns in Ireland, this paper contributes to these debates, exploring the competing values and priorities embedded within lay discourses of heritage. Based on critical discourse analysis of interviews with local actors, the paper identifies that collected memory and local place distinctiveness, contributing to a sense of local identity, are of central importance in how non-experts construct their understanding of built heritage. In the Irish context, this is particularly important in understanding social and cultural statutory categories of heritage interest. The paper concludes on the implications for policy and practice and, in particular, the need to more effectively take account of non-expert values and priorities in heritage and conservation decision-making.