Placing man in the New West: Masculinities of The Last Picture Show

The Last Picture Show does not fall within the genre of the Western, yet the cinematic narrative mourns the loss of the iconic Westerner — a man — and the passing of his home places that constitute the Old West. This paper is concerned with the ways in which this man and his places are transformed along with the embryonic but inexorable emergence of the New West — and its attendant demand for recognition of hitherto unheard voices (e.g., women, Latinos) — that accompanied significant social, cultural and political shifts that were beginning to emerge within the country as a whole in the represented early 1950s. His represented sites of contestation are found within the frame of the small west Texas town of Anarene, created by Larry McMurtry's novel of the same name as the film, both of which reflect contexts of the era in which they were constructed — the mid 1960s to early 1970s. We suggest that the film shows a great sensitivity to the ways in which particular masculinities are constituted in specific places, to the tensions that arise from the changing nature and definitions of masculinity as they are linked to these places, and with his sense of nostalgia and loss that accompanies his inevitable decline. But there is no clear and empowered place for women in these new places, only a recontextualized form of a patriarchal order which is not relational and which still maintains essentialist assumptions of gender. The Old West has taken new shape, much to the chagrin of man, but it is hardly a New West, with its emerging and representative voices. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The feeling of participation: Everyday spaces and urban change

Initiatives around ‘public participation’ and ‘community involvement’ have become increasingly central to UK government policy programmes, particularly within interventions aimed at disadvantaged neighbourhoods. These initiatives have been the subject of extensive critical comment, essentially focusing on the ways in which power is often maintained by state agencies, whatever the surrounding rhetoric. This article attempts to consider what more productive forms of participation might feel like, through drawing on fieldwork with two small community groups on housing estates in Stoke-on-Trent, UK, to look at how and why they were able to generate successful participation in their activities. The importance of the small-scale interactions and feelings that made up their spaces of participation is explored. These can be characterised through ideas such as ‘feeling comfortable’, ‘feeling at home’, ‘helping out’ and ‘keeping going’, and involve everyday sociability and informal forms of volunteering. If government is serious about supporting political participation in such contexts it needs to consider how official projects might learn from these kinds of spaces.     

Making spaces: The ethnic Brao people and the international border between Laos and Cambodia

On December 6, 1904 the present international border between Laos and Cambodia was unilaterally established when the French colonial government extracted Stung Treng Province from Laos and transferred it to Cambodia. The ethnic Brao people living in the border region were not well known to the French, and in any case, their views were not deemed important. But since then the Brao have utilised this state administrative boundary in ways not intended by its designers, or governments since then, to give them more power to create new spaces. When conditions in Cambodia have been deemed unfavourable, the Brao have often crossed into Laos, and similarly, when circumstances have been less advantageous in Laos they have moved to Cambodia.This paper traces the history of the Brao as it specifically relates to the international border between Laos and Cambodia. While this administrative boundary was created to help national governments keep populations confined within nation-states, Brao human agency has sometimes confounded these efforts, through transforming its significance and role. The boundary has separated Brao populations in ways that are sometimes upsetting to them, but it has also allowed the Brao to position themselves at the margins of different nation-states, in spaces where they have been able to, at least temporarily, avoid or reduce state control over them. These are not non-state spaces; they are fundamentally constituted by a state-established boundary, even if the Brao have been able to mobilise this resource to empower themselves, and sometimes to resist the state itself.     

Contextualising gender empowerment at the grassroots: a tale of two policy initiatives

The policy environment on gender is fraught with contradictions and contestation of varying degrees in India that does not disappear even as recent transformative mode of participatory initiatives seem to place women’s agency at the core of empowerment agenda. Drawing from two collaborative projects at the grassroots, the paper argues that even well conceptualised projects miss the cutting edge distinction between women and gender and continue to engage with an instrumental logic of women’s development and empowerment at the expense of issues of gender equality and equity in translating the intention into action. It is also observed, however, that spatially embedded social and cultural specificities impact policy discourse resulting in very different outcomes of conceptually comparable policy formulations. According to the author acknowledging spatiality of experiences provides a vantage point to critically engage with context-specific strategies to resolve gendered conflicts and tensions resulting from confining social relations and normative gender codes.     

The politics of identity: Ethnicity, minority and nationalism in Soviet Estonia

Identity has become one of the core concepts of political geography. This reflects the wide recognition of a post-structural conception of society and space, as well as the acknowledgement of the political character of identity. The present article focuses on the politics of identity, and discusses the politicized forms of identity as related to the Soviet state building policies and the Estonian spaces of resistance. It will be argued that neither identity nor the political demand in Soviet Estonia can be viewed in isolation from their historical and social contexts. Both Soviet state politics and the Estonian spaces of resistance reflected the prevailing conceptions of past and the contemporary political realities. This article examines those preconceptions of the political and territorial development in Soviet Estonia, and also illustrates the interdependent character of state politics and non-state activism. The first part of the article concentrates on the Soviet state building practices – the use of power, symbols, education – and the second part examines the various forms of non-state activism of Estonians.     

Masculinities and femininities of drinking in Finland,Italy and Sweden: Doing,modifying and unlinking gender in relation to different drinking places

In this article we analyze how Finnish, Italian and Swedish men and women are doing, modifying and unlinking gender in relation to different drinking places and situations. In the study, Finland and Sweden represent the Nordic intoxication-oriented drinking cultures, whereas Italy, in turn, represents the Mediterranean meal drinking cultures. The data were collected in a similar way in Finland, Italy and Sweden from 2007 to 2010, covering four different age groups. From each country at least eight male and eight female groups were selected, i.e. two male and two female groups from each age group, one representing higher and the other lower social status professions. All focus groups were asked to interpret a set of pictures representing different kinds of drinking places and situations, such as a couple’s moderate wine drinking at a sidewalk table, heavy drinking among men in a bus, and playful drinking among women while dancing. In the analysis we emphasize the flexibility of doing gender and the possibility of challenging conventional gender performances. We assume that doing gender is a multi-dimensional process mediated by structures, hierarchies, identities, situations and agency. Our analysis presents a mosaic repertoire of masculinities and femininities that change shape depending on how the place is seen in terms of a drinking space or situation. The masculinities and femininities are not reducible to any single hierarchy of dominant and subordinate masculinities and femininities. Rather, the doing, modifying and unlinking of masculinities and femininities vary by geographical area, age and/or education, as well as by drinking situation.     

四川盆地南部早古生代海相页岩微观孔隙特征及发育控制因素

利用环境扫描电镜(ESEM)、原子力显微镜(AFM)、比表面积分析仪对四川盆地南部早寒武世筇竹寺组以及早志留世龙马溪组页岩气储层的微观孔隙类型、结构特征进行了系统研究。四川盆地南部筇竹寺组和龙马溪组页岩气储层微观储集空间类型多样,包括黏土矿物层间孔、有机质孔、晶间孔、矿物铸模孔、次生溶蚀孔等基质孔隙。ESEM和AFM两种方法结合,能客观地反映页岩气储层的微观孔隙结构特征,具有互补性。本区筇竹寺组和龙马溪组页岩气储层以极为发育的微孔为主,为页岩气储层提供了大量孔体积和表面积,但是筇竹寺组页岩比表面积和孔体积都较龙马溪组的小。笔者认为有机碳含量、黏土矿物类型及其含量、干酪根类型及其热演化程度是控制本区筇竹寺组和龙马溪组页岩气储层微观孔隙结构的主要因素,其中,热演化程度的影响最为明显。在一定范围内,热演化程度与比表面积、孔体积与黏土矿物中伊/蒙间层含量具有正相关性,随着热演化程度、有机碳含量、Ⅱ型干酪根含量的增加,表现为微观孔隙数量增加,比表面积和孔体积增大。     

Political ecology and development: Intersections, explorations and challenges arising from the work of Piers Blaikie

While most contributions to this collection focus centrally on political ecology (PE), this paper approaches the work of Piers Blaikie through a somewhat different lens, situating his political ecological contributions within the broader context of his engagement with related themes in development studies. I trace and discuss his work in approximately chronological terms, from the spatial organization of North Indian villages through the political economy of agrarian change and of peripheral capitalist (under-)development in Nepal to political ecology, pathbreaking work on the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Uganda, more general disaster vulnerability and recoverabililty, and a survey of post-structural challenges in development theory. Not only does this approach provide a distinctive view of Blaikie’s evolving concerns over the course of his career and thematic connections between them, but it also reflects my personal experience of his work and its influence. This foundation then enables an exploration of several issues about current directions in, and possible future extensions of, PE which should help to ensure that PE does not, as some critics claim, have only limited remaining shelf-life.     

黑色岩系及相关矿产——以扬子地台为例

黑色岩系是指含有机碳及硫化物较多的深灰-黑色的硅质岩、碳酸盐岩、泥质岩及其变质岩石的组合体系,属于一种还原性岩石。黑色岩系中含铜、镍、锰、铀、磷、重晶石、铂族元素、铅-锌-银矿、油气等矿产,尤以铜、镍、钼、钒、钛最为典型,称为"五元素矿床"。近几年来,国内外关于黑色岩系中的非金属金属矿床的研究越来越多,黑色岩系的矿产经济意义也日益引起人们的重视。本文以扬子地台为例,研究震旦系-寒武系黑色岩系及其相关的矿产,为相似层位(如中晚泥盆统、石炭系、上二叠统、白垩系等)提供借鉴。通过对比云南晋宁梅树村震旦-寒武系界线的层型剖面与峡东地区震旦系剖面可以发现,两条剖面富磷层位具有可对比性,陡山沱组是扬子东部重要的含矿(磷)层位;而渔户村组是扬子西部最重要的含矿(磷)层位;过渡地段的贵州北部两个层位均重要;说明从陡山沱期到渔户村期,形成的磷矿活动中心逐渐从扬子东部向扬子西部迁移。     

Fission-track dating of the western border of the Bohemian massif: thermochronology and tectonic implications

 Since 1985, apatite fission-track analysis was applied to more than 70 samples from surface outcrops and shallow boreholes at the western margin of the Bohemian massif. Apatite ages were determined by the grain-population method. Additional information from the frequency distributions of fully confined spontaneous tracks was used for modelling of t–T paths in the low-temperature range (<120 °C). Seven zircon samples were dated by the external detector method. Zircon ages between 283 and 215 Ma indicate unroofing during the Permian molasse stage and the Triassic. Tectonic quiescence and slow subsidence prevailed from the Jurassic until the middle Cretaceous. In the basement area south of Weiden, a Mesozoic partial annealing zone (for apatite fission tracks) is now exposed at the surface. Farther north, the basement was affected by stronger Cretaceous and Palaeogene erosion, which yielded cooling ages between 110 and 49 Ma. This second period of post-Variscan denudation was correlated to reverse faulting along the Franconian Line. Received: 30 June 1996 / Accepted: 24 October 1996     

Stamps as iconography: Celebrating the independence of new European and Central Asian states

Stamps are products or `windows' of the state that illustrate how it wishes to be seen by its own citizens and those beyond its boundaries. The topics of the first issues reveal what messages the state considers most important. The first issues from nineteen new East European and Central Asian states illustrate the importance of maps, flags, coats of arms and prominent religious and political symbols; overt propaganda and ideology were lacking.     

The spaces of modernisation: Outcomes, indicators and the local government modernisation agenda

The modernisation of local government has attempted to reinvent central-local government relations by offering freedoms and flexibilities to facilitate the governance of local issues. At the same time, a shift to outcome focussed targets as a new form of governmental rationality allows central government to delimit these opportunities. Drawing on aspects of governmentality and actor-network theory, the paper explores the tensions between these modes of government. It argues that outcome focussed targets circumscribe the limits of local governance by offering a despatialised technology of government. Using a case study of Local Public Service Agreements, the paper highlights the problems 10 English rural local authorities have experienced in their attempts to construct and negotiate a series of local policy targets with central government. The paper shows how the spatial limitations of statistical governance conspire against the construction of targets which reflect local policy priorities. In conclusion we consider the extent to which these limitations are a deliberate act of control and consider the implications for agency within networks of governmentality.     

The contested spaces of Cuban development: Post-socialism, post-colonialism and the geography of transition

The experience of the (post)socialist South has been marginal to the study of transition, despite the many similarities between processes of transition and development. This paper tries to better understand this overlap by exploring some empirical and conceptual connections between processes of development and processes of transition in Cuba. In doing so it makes two sets of arguments. The first set of arguments concerns the nature of ‘transition’ itself. I use the ‘contested spaces’ of the Cuban (socialist) biotech sector, and specifically its attempts to attract foreign (capitalist) investment as a case study. As a high profile industry, biotechnology functioned in Cuba as a political space within which questions of transition and development could be reconfigured by blurring the boundaries between them. In turn, this has enabled the Cuban State to legitimise responses to transition that would otherwise have appeared contradictory. The second set of arguments try to explain how this was possible. I argue that the slippage between nationalist and socialist visions of development allowed biotechnology (as a specifically developmentalist project) to be variously understood as, for example, a post-colonial socialist, or anti-colonial nationalist project in ways that suited the needs of transition at any one time. Such recombinations in many ways account for the non-linear and reversible nature of transition in Cuba. I speculate as to whether Bruno Latour’s work on the way capitalist societies understand themselves to be ‘modern’, helps explain how, in (post)socialist countries, processees of transition can be shaped through different historical constructions of modernisation and development.     

Anatomy of the Mozambique Belt of Eastern and Southern Africa: Evidence from Tanzania

The Mozambique belt of eastern and southern Africa is polyorogenic and marks the sites for the assembly (collision and suturing) and dispersion (rifting and drifting) of the Proterozoic supercontinents. Subduction zones and collisional sutures in this belt are of variable ages. Reliable isotope and geological data from the Mozambique belt of Holmes (1951) suggest that there existed three major Proterozoic oceans within this belt: the Palaeoproterozoic, Mesoproterozoic and Neoproterozoic “Mozambique Oceans”. However, the accretion and collisional tectonic history of this orogenically coalescent belt are complex and thus still enigmatic.     

Gay men, leisure space and South African cities: the case of Cape Town

In response to the current paucity of geographical research into post-apartheid development of gay leisure space, the paper focuses on the nature and extent of gay leisure space development in De Waterkant, South Africa’s first “gay village”, located in the Cape Town CBD periphery. Despite a new liberal constitutional environment, the gay spaces generated in post-apartheid De Waterkant are not inclusive of most gay South Africans. On the contrary, the legacy of apartheid race, gender and class inequality persists, generating a wealthy, White, male leisure space enclave. As a consequence, De Waterkant’s potential to function as a site of identity formation, development and re-affirmation, seen in many gay villages found in other Western societies, appears unlikely.     

Modernizing the nation: Postcolonialism, postdevelopmentalism, and ambivalent spaces of difference in southeastern Turkey

This paper advances recent conversations related to the need to better engage postcolonial scholarship in development geography. To do so, I bring together analytics offered by postdevelopmental, feminist geographic, and postcolonial scholarship to analyze contemporary development efforts in southeastern Turkey. To provide necessary background for the case study context, the paper considers three key moments foundational for Turkish modernist development aspirations: the foundations of the Republic through Kemalism, the emergence of Kurdish separatism and PKK resistance, and Turkish efforts to gain entry to the EU. Reading these moments, and their culmination in contemporary development efforts focused on the southeastern Anatolia region, through postdevelopmental and feminist geographic literatures invites a reading that highlights socio-spatial difference as underwriting modernist development interventions in this region. Drawing on postcolonial scholarship, particularly Bhabha’s notion of ambivalence, further enables a reading of socio-spatial difference as also undermining Turkish modernist development, signaling precisely the points where the project comes undone. The example thus lends endorsement to the need for enriched engagement between postcolonial theory, feminist and development discussions in geography, suggesting that postcolonial concepts might enable clearer focus on the ambiguities, tensions, and contradictions inherent to development geographies.     

FDI policy and political spaces for labour: The disarticulation of the Bolivian petroleros

Recent literature asserts that labour movements worldwide have been disempowered as a result of the various processes and discourses linked to economic globalisation. But there is a need to explore more carefully the mechanisms by which these processes and discourses affect resources for and constraints on effective union organisation. The purpose of this paper is to understand the construction of political spaces for organised labour and how these have been influenced by one such discourse: the policy discourse on foreign direct investments (FDI). It analyses the relationship between this policy discourse and political spaces for Bolivian petrolero unions through a case study of the period from 1984 to 2006. The policy discourse shifted the function of the state, fragmented symbols of collective identity, introduced flexible contracts, decentralised negotiations, rewarded individual achievement, and fostered competition rather than cooperation between employees. The shift towards an internationally integrated, FDI-driven economy shapes political spaces that allow collective action to be restructured from the workplace-based demands of unions to demands for democratic and indigenous rights of NGOs and other non-labour civil society organisations.     

Bounding difference: Intersectionality and the material production of gender, caste, class and environment in Nepal

Current theorising in human geography draws attention to the relational emergence of space and society, challenging ideas of difference that rely on fixed identities and emphasising the importance of the everyday in the production of social inequalities. Similarly, feminist political ecology has emphasised the role of ‘nature’ or ‘environment’ in the production of subjectivities such that ideas of gender and nature arise in relation to each other. In this paper I build from these insights to explore the ways in which the embodied performance of gender, caste and other aspects of social difference collapse the distinction between the material and the symbolic. Symbolic ideas of difference are produced and expressed through embodied interactions that are firmly material. Through this kind of conceptualisation, I hope to push forward debates in geography on nature and feminist political ecology on how to understand the intersectional emergence of subjectivities, difference and socio-natures. Importantly, it is the symbolic meanings of particular spaces, practices and bodies that are (re)produced through everyday activities including forest harvesting, agricultural work, food preparation and consumption, all of which have consequences for both ecological processes and social difference. Through the performance of everyday tasks, not only are ideas of gender, caste and social difference brought into view, but the embodied nature of difference that extends beyond the body and into the spaces of everyday life is evident. I use ethnographic evidence from rural Nepal to explore the ways in which boundaries between bodies, spaces, ecologies and symbolic meanings of difference are produced and maintained relationally through practices of work and ritual.     

Early Paleozoic Evolution of the NW Gondwanaland: Data from Southern Turkey and Surrounding Regions

The Lower Paleozoic rock-units in the Eastern Mediterranean can be separated into two distinct zones: the Northern Zone (Carpathian-Balkan, Istanbul, Zonguldak and Main Range terranes) and the Southern Zone (Tauride-Anatolide, SE Anatolian-Arabian, and Central Iranian terranes). A Gondwanan /Perigondwanan origin can only be properly indicated for the Southern Zone, whereas the Early Paleozoic paleogeographic positions of smaller terranes (e.g. Istanbul Terrane) of the Northern Zone remains questionable.During the Infracambrian-Early Cambrian time in the Southern Zone, the Pan-African consolidated NW Gondwanan pericratonic margin was rifted by back-arc extension or transtension, which is represented by the deposition of fault-controlled continental sediments.The late Early Cambrian-Late Cambrian period in the Southern Zone is designated by a regional transgression from northeast suggesting a rapid subsidence in the area to the northwest of Arabian-Tauride platform and hence opening of a relatively deep basin to the north.The Lower Ordovician in the Southern Zone comprising the Tremadoc and Arenig Series is characterized by a monotonous siliciclastic deposition. Towards the end of Early Ordovician shallowing upward sequences and formation of NW-SE trending highs were noticed. The stratigraphic hiatuses, unconformities and irregular distribution of the Caradoc-Ashgill deposits in the Southern Zone has been ascribed to glacio-eustatic sea-level changes.The Early Silurian (Aeronian-Telychian) deepening and deposition of black shales that follows the regression around the Ordovician-Silurian boundary in the Southern Zone is also very probably related to the relatively rapid global sea-level rise. To the north of the Tauride-Anatolide Platform, Wenlock and Late Silurian are represented by deep marine (basinal) sediments with oceanic basalts.The generation of an accretionary complex in the northern margin of the Taurides together with the regional regression in the southern Taurides and SE Anatolia at the uppermost Silurian-Lower Devonian boundary and the regional unconformity at Lower Devonian (Middle Lochkovian) is very probably related to the closure of a “Paleotethyan” oceanic basin to the north of the Perigondwanan terranes.     

西藏南部印度-亚洲碰撞带岩石圈:岩石学-地球化学约束

拟以岩石学和地球化学的研究为基础, 结合地球物理与构造地质学的研究成果, 从一个侧面探讨青藏高原岩石圈、特别是印度-亚洲主碰撞带岩石圈结构、组成及今后进一步的研究方向.印度-亚洲主碰撞带具有青藏高原最厚的地壳, 由初生地壳及再循环地壳两类不同性质的地壳构成; 青藏巨厚地壳是由于构造增厚及地幔物质注入(通过岩浆作用) 增厚两种机制形成的.碰撞以来藏南地壳加厚主要发生在约50~25Ma期间.青藏岩石圈地幔在地球化学和岩石学上是不均一的, 至少存在3种地球化学端元: (1) 新特提斯大洋岩石圈端元; (2) 印度陆下岩石圈端元; (3) 新特提斯闭合前青藏原有的岩石圈端元.在青藏高原还发现了一批壳幔深源岩石包体及高压-超高压矿物, 对于认识青藏深部有重要的意义.可以识别出青藏高原现今存在3种岩石圈结构类型: 第1种, 增厚的岩石圈(帕米尔型); 第2种, 减薄的岩石圈(冈底斯型); 第3种, 加厚-减薄-再加厚的岩石圈(羌塘型).这3类岩石圈是否在时间上具有先后顺序, 尚无明确的证据, 需要在今后加以注意.研究表明, 沿冈底斯带后碰撞钾质-超钾质火山活动, 可能与新特提斯洋俯冲板片在后碰撞阶段的断离及印度大陆岩石圈向青藏的持续俯冲作用有关, 但西段、中段与东段的动力学机制不相同.在青藏高原北部地区(羌塘、可可西里等地区), 后碰撞钾质-超钾质火山活动, 可能与波状外向扩展式的软流圈上隆引起的减压熔融有关.在高原北缘西昆仑、玉门等地区, 其形成机制可能为大规模走滑断层引起的减压熔融.青藏高原后碰撞火成活动具有明显而有规律的时空迁移.同碰撞的林子宗火山活动在65Ma左右始于冈底斯南部, 标志印度-亚洲大陆碰撞的开始.于45Ma左右火山活动向北迁移到羌塘-“三江”北段, 开始了后碰撞火山活动; 然后自内向外迁移, 即北向可可西里、南向冈底斯(在冈底斯内部又自西向东)、东向西秦岭迁移; 最后(6Ma以来), 再分别向高原的西北、东北、东南三隅迁移.结合已有地球物理资料, 一种可能的解释是它可能暗示由印度和亚洲大陆板块碰撞所诱发的深部物质(如中-下地壳、软流圈地幔物质) 流动.