The development of the longbow in late medieval England and ‘technological determinism’

Traditional understandings of the development of the medieval English longbow and its role in the fourteenth-century ‘infantry revolution’ have recently been challenged by historians. This article responds to the revisionists, arguing based on archaeological, iconographic and textual evidence that the proper longbow was a weapon of extraordinary power, and was qualitatively different from – and more effective than – the shorter self-bows that were the norm in England (and western Europe generally) before the fourteenth century. It is further argued that acknowledging the importance of the weapon as a necessary element of any credible explanation of English military successes in the era of the Hundred Years War does not constitute ‘technological determinism’.     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed:
M. Steiner (ed.), Clusters and Regional Specialisation. On Geography,Technology, and Networks
Denis J.B. Shaw, Russia in the Modern World. A New Geography
Ron Martin, Money and the Space Economy     

Java's forgotten pearls: the history and disappearance of pearl fishing in the Segara Anakan lagoon, South Java, Indonesia

Pearls have been a valued resource in most cultures that had access to them. A number of historically important pearling grounds were situated in the waters around today's Indonesia. One of these areas, now largely forgotten, was the Segara Anakan lagoon in South Java. In the seventeenth century, Dutch colonists exploited the lagoon's pearls. Afterwards, the lagoon's oysters were locally exploited as a food item until the late 1970s. While the pearl fishery attracted considerable attention in the colonial literature, its disappearance, by contrast, went largely undocumented. Nowadays, the oysters no longer are found in the lagoon as a result of extensive sedimentation processes. Their former existence is only preserved in the memory of local people. This article examines the history and fate of the pearls of Segara Anakan, providing an example of a formerly valued species whose existence simply became forgotten outside the area.     

Island Biocultural Assemblages — The Case of Kinmen Island

ABSTRACT A growing mass of research contributes to our understanding of how biological and cultural diversity are related in complex and important ways. This paper presents an assembling process of biodiversity and cultural diversity on an island, Kin‐men (Quemoy), based on 1600 years of its environmental history. The study shows that the island's biocultural assemblages are a result both of external relations with the island's surrounding environment and internal relations within the island's changing human ecology. Distant political powers and economic forces are the two major external influences that have affected the flow of natural and cultural elements to and from the island, while ‘screening effects’ and ‘isolation effects’ are two factors that explain internal interactions. The island's biocultural assembling processes reveal that the openness of the island facilitates increase in the diversity of biocultural elements, while its less disturbed isolated condition fosters natural succession and co‐evolution. The study suggests that biocultural assemblages and the associated processes of co‐evolution and nature–society interactions are accomplished through the intermittent opportunities purposively provided by or inadvertently found in the openings and closures of boundaries, setting the scene for both boundary crossings and bounded shelter, by intent or chance.     

“In Front of the World”: Translating Beatriz Nascimento

This collection translates some of the work of the influential Black Brazilian thinker and activist Beatriz Nascimento (1942–1995) for the first time into English, in collaboration with her only daughter, Bethânia Gomes. Historian, poet, theorist and organiser, Beatriz Nascimento was a key figure in Brazil’s Black Movement until her untimely death in 1995. She dangerously wrote at the height of Brazil’s Military Dictatorship (1964–1985), and theorised extensively on the Black condition in Brazil; the unique experience of Black women; and quilombos—Brazilian maroon societies that she imagined as spaces of both historical and contemporary fugitivity. Following Alex Ratts, this introduction outlines her contribution to radical geography, in particular Black geographies, territoriality and embodiment. It also positions Nascimento within the trans‐Atlantic Black radical tradition. We present two of Nascimento’s essays in translation here. The first, “The Concept of Quilombo and Black Cultural Resistance”, introduces a crucial strand of her scholarly work, on the history and socio‐political significance of quilombos (maroon communities). The second, “For a (New) Existential and Physical Territory”, shows Nascimento in a different mood: philosophical, reflective and iconoclastic. In addition, two of her poems—“Dream” and “Sun and Blue”—are also translated here for the first time.     

COVID-19, mental health,and rurality: A pilot study

COVID-19 has caused enormous economic and social disruptions that may have lasting effects on employment, income, and working conditions. Critically, these disruptions often have a negative impact on mental health. While significant research has examined the relationship between COVID-19 and mental health, most of these studies focus on urban centres. This paper presents results from a pilot study conducted in two rural counties in Ontario, Canada on the experiences of residents from small and rural communities related to COVID-19. Based on 3496 survey results, this study quantifies the negative impact of COVID-19 on overall mental health and the confounding role of gender, income, and age. Results must be used to expand the dialogue around rural mental health and to ensure appropriate programs and policies are developed.     

MORE THAN MEETS THE FACT: THE UNIVERSALITY OF HISTORY AND THE COLONIAL MEDIATION

This article examines how mediation is not just limited to the format that's selected to convey the findings of previously conducted research that supposedly followed the conventional protocols of the historical discipline. Rather, it considers mediation as a fundamental part of building historical knowledge, for it assumes that every part of the historiographical operation can be defined as “mediation.” Specifically, it deals with colonial historical mediation, a concept that refers to the combination of an overt or concealed agenda, intentional or unnoticed bias, commonsense assumptions, inherited academic and political traditions, conceptual constellations, and more or less informed theoretical beliefs that configure the subtext upon which historical explanation is built, particularly in Latin America.     

Rediscovering regional science: Positioning the field's evolving location in science and society

This study aims to provide a comprehensive examination of the evolution of regional science, a scholarly domain in the social sciences that applies analytical and quantitative approaches and methods to understand and address urban, rural, or regional problems. We conducted a bibliometric analysis of 8509 articles published in six regional science flagship journals (including the Journal of Regional Science, Annals of Regional Science, Regional Science and Urban Economics, Papers in Regional Science, Regional Science Policy and Practice, and International Regional Science Review) from 1958 to 2021. The analysis presents an objective data-driven and unprecedented visualization of the field's intellectual, social, and conceptual structure and trends from the beginning to the present. It also provides a rich portrayal of the epistemology of regional science and illuminates matters related to regional science education and training. We find that regional science has moved well beyond its origins, shifting away from a heavy focus on theory and abstraction to modeling/simulation, empirical analysis, and policy research. We also find that there has been increasing attention to “people” in regions and the spatial characteristics of social problems, and some important shifts in the regional science community itself, particularly in terms of patterns of collaboration and the geography of scholarship. The findings of this paper provide implications for future directions of research and education for regional science.     

“Protect the women!” Trans-exclusionary feminist issue framing and support for transgender rights

An increasingly salient policy innovation pursued by LGBT+ rights groups and socially liberal policy entrepreneurs is the right of trans people to bring their legally recorded sex in line with their lived gender by way of self-identification. In response to these moves toward trans inclusion, a unique coalition of trans-exclusionary (gender critical) feminists and traditionalist conservatives has emerged to challenge these reforms. This coalition of policy opponents, mirroring historical issue frames that present homosexuals as predatory sexual deviants, campaign on a salient issue frame that presents transgender individuals and the expansion of trans rights as an inimical threat to the security, safety, and welfare of (cisgender) women, particularly in single-sex spaces. In this paper, we address two questions. First, we ask: do trans-exclusionary “protect women” issue frames over the alleged threat of trans persons to (cis) women shape mass public opinion? Second, we ask: in a relatively LGBT+ friendly policy environment, who supports the right to self-identification for trans individuals? We answer these questions via an original pre-registered survey experiment embedded within the 2021 Scottish Election Study. We find that trans-exclusionary issue frames appealing to (cis) women's safety significantly depress support for trans rights, particularly among women respondents. Highlighting these concerns is an effective means of increasing already robust opposition to reforms designed to improve the welfare of transgender individuals, which should be of concern for proponents of self-identification policies.