Gender and Colonial Space

The aim of this article is to highlight the gendered nature of colonial space. I aim to destabilise the assumption that imperial masculine idealised/desired space is the only spatial relation within colonial contexts, by focusing on the spatial relations of British and indigenous women at an idealised level and at the level of the 'contact zone'. Through an analysis of the complexity of different spatial relations within the colonial context, I hope both to bring to the fore different kinds of actors and actions from those generally considered within post-colonial theory, and also to make it possible to inflect the theoretical terminology developed within post-colonial theorising in a more materialist way.     

The new resource politics: can Australia and South Africa accommodate China?

The material transformation of the Chinese economy is forcing a concomitant process of political adjustment—and not just in China. Other states are being forced to accommodate the ‘rise of China’. In this context, this article first presents a comparative analysis of China's impact on two countries, Australia and South Africa, which have little in common other than a wealth of natural resources and a possible status as middle powers; this is a particularly useful exercise because these states are geographically distant and have very different political structures and general developmental histories. Second, the authors consider how China's bilateral ties look from a Chinese perspective in these two very different relationships. Such an analysis serves as a reminder that resource dependency is a two‐way street. The article argues that underlying material realities are constraining and to some extent determining the domestic and foreign policies of three very different states that otherwise have little in common.     

ANALYSING ARCHAEOLOGICAL BASALT USING NON‐DESTRUCTIVE ENERGY‐DISPERSIVE X‐RAY FLUORESCENCE (EDXRF): EFFECTS OF POST‐DEPOSITIONAL CHEMICAL WEATHERING AND SAMPLE SIZE ON ANALYTICAL PRECISION*

Energy‐dispersive X‐ray fluorescence (EDXRF) has been commonly used to determine geological sources of volcanic glass artefacts, but its ability to discriminate between basaltic sources is less developed. We examine the precision and accuracy of non‐destructive EDXRF for basalt artefacts by analysing varying size and weathering characteristics. The experiments identified no appreciable effect in reproducibility or measured composition due to thickness (down to 1 mm) or natural weathering of pre‐contact flake scars for the 17 elements measured in this study. Samples with surface area less than 100 mm², however, show significant variability in measured composition and reproducibility.     

Gender and Mahalle (Neighborhood) Space in Istanbul

Studies of gender have an important place in studies of Turkey because the discourses of Islamism and secularism, and modernity and tradition, make the bodies and practices of Turkish women the site of debate. However, few studies have used a spatial analysis to examine the production of gender in daily life. This article is simultaneously a study of how gender is produced through space and of the creation of various kinds of spaces in an Istanbul mahalle (neighborhood). The mahalle is the space of intimate daily life in the Turkish urban context, and narratives of and ways of life in the mahalle articulate competing notions of what it means to be a woman in Turkey. This study of gender and mahalle space reveals the linkages between space and gender to be multiple and shifting and the boundaries between private and public spaces to be fluid. Furthermore, this reading of gender and urban space, when brought back to the Turkish context, also contributes to research which interrogates the idea of modernity at the core of national identity in Turkey, of which gender is a central and constitutive element.     

A SAMPLING STYLUS FOR USE WITH THE ELECTRON PROBE

A simple device is described which enables inconspicuous samples of entire objects to be taken for electron microprobe analysis without introducing background contamination. Transport of artefacts and their exposure to vacuum are thereby obviated.