Why do caravans matter? Australians, like others, holiday in them, travel in them, cook, eat, drink, play, sleep and have sex in them. They also live in them, often involuntarily. Caravans have a longer history than this, however caravan life has almost no presence in existing historical or cultural sociology scholarship. Our immediate interest is in caravans in Australia, modernity and mobility. Some broader interest is apparent. Theoretical arguments about mobility on a global scale have been developed by Bauman and (...) Urry. Sociologists like Jasper have connected mobility, masculinity and automobility in Restless Nation. The sociologist and writer Marina Lewycka has used caravans as the locus of everyday life study in her novel Two Caravans. In this paper we background some of these broader issues, and offer a case study of postwar caravan manufacturing. This paper anticipates a larger possible research project in these fields. We anticipate this project raising themes like freedom, mobility, escape, utopia; images of domesticity on wheels, décor and design, materials, technology, DIY production and Fordism; caravan parks as homes and as itinerant and long-term accommodation. These themes and images are also necessarily interwoven with class, gender, sex and age. We are interested in the possibilities of using the caravan as a carrier for making sense of postwar Australia. (shrink)

Greg Macainsh is a major actor in the Australian popular music scene. He was the pioneer ethnographic filmmaker of the youth gang the Sharpies, and then bass player and songwriter for the most innovative band of the seventies, Skyhooks. Skyhooks combined new composition, driving music, sarcastic and local lyrics, and keen attention to visuals and costume. This article backgrounds Macainsh and his context. The interview that follows looks further into musical history and performative culture in Melbourne and its suburbs in (...) the period. (shrink)

The work of Ivan Vladislavić is well established in his native South Africa, and increasingly recognized on the larger world stage of writing, editing and publishing. If his work nevertheless eludes scrutiny in some quarters, this may also have to do with its nature, and not only with its origin. The works differ and vary; there is no formula or project which proceeds neatly by sequence. No single work can be second-guessed from any other. This is a project full of (...) surprises, connecting variously to art, photography, architecture and to urban studies, setting to work images and practices at once realist and surreal, absurdist and layering, and given to time and place and the universal. How then do we read it, and how does he write? For the purposes of this paper, we explain and locate our enthusiasm with reference to two works, The Restless Supermarket and Portrait with Keys. We seek to identify some key tropes about place and place-writing and cities and city-writing with reference to Johannesburg and the way in which Vladislavić plays his subjects and his readers, placing not only fiction under question but placing writing itself closer to the editor’s deletion mark. This may be, we suggest, a kind of writing sideways. (shrink)

The work of Ivan Vladislavić is well established in his native South Africa, and increasingly recognized on the larger world stage of writing, editing and publishing. If his work nevertheless eludes scrutiny in some quarters, this may also have to do with its nature, and not only with its origin. The works differ and vary; there is no formula or project which proceeds neatly by sequence. No single work can be second-guessed from any other. This is a project full of (...) surprises, connecting variously to art, photography, architecture and to urban studies, setting to work images and practices at once realist and surreal, absurdist and layering, and given to time and place and the universal. How then do we read it, and how does he write? For the purposes of this paper, we explain and locate our enthusiasm with reference to two works, The Restless Supermarket and Portrait with Keys. We seek to identify some key tropes about place and place-writing and cities and city-writing with reference to Johannesburg and the way in which Vladislavić plays his subjects and his readers, placing not only fiction under question but placing writing itself closer to the editor’s deletion mark. This may be, we suggest, a kind of writing sideways. (shrink)

Janina Bauman was a sociologist of everyday life. Her autobiographical texts, Winter in the Morning (1986), A Dream of Belonging (1988), and the synthetic volume Beyond These Walls (2006), manage a kind of personal poignancy combined with world-historic content and attention to the detail of everyday life that sets her work apart. This essay responds to these attributes and offers a contribution to her remembrance as a writer, an actor in and observer of everyday life in Warsaw and Leeds across (...) the 20th century. (shrink)

The purpose of this survey was to gather individual’s attitudes and feelings towards privacy and the selling of data. A total (N) of 1,107 people responded to the survey. -/- Across continents, age, gender, and levels of education, people overwhelmingly think privacy is important. An impressive 82% of respondents deem privacy extremely or very important, and only 1% deem privacy unimportant. Similarly, 88% of participants either agree or strongly agree with the statement that ‘violations to the right to privacy are (...) one of the most important dangers that citizens face in the digital age.’ The great majority of respondents (92%) report having experienced at least one privacy breach. -/- People’s first concern when losing privacy is the possibility that their personal data might be used to steal money from them. Interestingly, in second place in the ranking of concerns, people report being concerned about privacy because ‘Privacy is a good in itself, above and beyond the consequences it may have.’ -/- People tend to feel that they cannot trust companies and institutions to protect their privacy and use their personal data in responsible ways. The majority of people believe that governments should not be allowed to collect everyone’s personal data. Privacy is thought to be a right that should not have to be paid for. (shrink)

In celebrating the epistemological reform and empowerment of non-white peoples in the academy, we propose a manifesto that seeks to dislodge the complacencies within Sikh Studies and within Sikh communities, and invite non-Sikhs to engage with radical Sikhi social justice. By dwelling at feminist intersections of postcolonial studies, decolonial studies, and decolonization studies, we are inspired to share the radical possibilities of Sikh Studies, and we also urge Sikh Studies and Sikh people to inhabit an explicit political orientation of insurrection (...) and subversion. Importantly, such a feminist decolonial orientation may well hold promise for other fields of study on the margins as well. In particular, we foreground eight points of action: gendering Sikh Studies; de-policing intimate desire and the diversity of relationships; disrupting Eurocentric knowledge production; de-territorializing diasporas; challenging caste politics; disrupting Islamophobia; undoing our roles in contemporary colonialisms; and fostering care and responsibility for the nonhuman world. In this manifesto we hope to develop interdisciplinary connections, critical interventions, and broader alliances to cultivate debates and action that both challenge tradition and participate within broader political campaigns for social justice. (shrink)

In this essay I examine Julia Kristeva’s transgressive body of work as a strategic embodiment of, and argument for, an ethical orientation towards otherness predicated on the image of divided subjectivity identified by Jacques Lacan but powerfully re-theorised as dialogic by Kristeva. I focus on what is, for Kristeva, a stylistically unique essay – “Stabat Mater” – which examines a number of institutional discourses about motherhood from the western philosophical, religious, and psychoanalytical traditions, and simultaneously subverts them with a parallel (...) discourse (and enactment) ostensibly by an actual mother. The text itself, I argue, can be read as a performance of dialogic subjectivity and of Kristeva’s conception of maternality, which implies a radical ethical imperative – termed “herethics” – towards alterity. I propose that this herethical model might heuristically inform current debates regarding the ethical orientations of the study of religions as an academic field. (shrink)

How the Body Knows Its Mind takes you inside the amazing science of how the body affects the mind, and shows how to use that wisdom to live smarter and maximize what your body teaches your mind.

This article investigates agency as a way of being and acting in sustainability leadership. Our primary aim is to enhance understanding of agentic strategies that facilitate transcending systemic complexities in sustainability leadership. We make a distinction in our analytical approach by drawing from Emirbayer and Mische’s conceptualisation of agency as ‘an interactive process of reflexive transformation and relational pragmatics, a temporally embedded process of social engagement, informed by the past, oriented towards the future and enacted in the present’ . We (...) add ontological sources of agency to these dynamics which interact with habit, imagination, judgement and learning in the transformation of social systems. This approach underpins our model ‘Dynamic Interactions of Agency in Leadership’ , an integrative framework for analysing agency in sustainability leadership. We examine the efficacy of our framework in higher education initiatives in which sustainability aspirations, aims and actions are envisioned, articulated and mobilised. We conclude by offering further avenues of research in sustainability leadership designed to advance this burgeoning field and contribute to bridging the gap between sustainability challenges and our abilities to solve them. (shrink)

En Écosse (xvie-xxe siècle) Siân Reynolds Comment se fait-il qu’en Écosse, contrairement aux coutumes de l’Angleterre, une femme mariée ait pu garder son nom de naissance/de jeune fille (maiden name ou birth name) après le mariage? C’est au moment où je co-dirigeais le Dictionnaire biographique des femmes écossaises (première édition 2005) que j’ai constaté qu’en Écosse, par le passé, et jusqu’à une époque relativement récente, les femmes étaient souvent connues par leur propre nom de fami...

Le care : le mot et la chose. Si la chose a toujours existé – le fait de prendre en charge et de soigner les enfants, les malades, les blessés, les vieilles personnes, entre autres – ce terme a connu une modification et revêtu une importance dans les pays anglophones qu’il n’avait pas il y a une trentaine d’années. En France, l’adoption – sans le traduire – du mot anglais dans ce sens moderne serait encore plus récente, datant des années (...) 2000. Que ce soit aux États-Unis, au Royaume-Uni ou en... (shrink)

En 1999, à la suite d’un référendum (1997) organisé sous le gouvernement travailliste de Londres, l’Écosse s’est dotée de nouvelles institutions, un parlement et un gouvernement situés à Édimbourg, dans le cadre de la ‘dévolution’, tout en restant intégrée au Royaume Uni. En septembre 2014, à l’initiative du Parti National Écossais (SNP) qui détient actuellement la majorité à Édimbourg, un nouveau référendum a posé la question de l’indépendance. Quel qu’en ait été le résultat, l’émergence d’u...

La première édition de cet impressionnant ouvrage (885 pages) est parue en 1997 : Mathilde Dubesset en a fait le compte-rendu pour Clio (n° 7, 1998, p. 254-256). Sa réussite a provoqué des versions américaine et espagnole, et la nouvelle édition en a tenu compte pour réaliser une réactualisation profonde. Une nouvelle génération de chercheurs/ses et d’étudiant(e)s va donc découvrir ce recueil déjà très riche mais qui a été élargi et remis à jour. Ne sous-estimons pas l’énorme travail qui con...

Issu d’une thèse soutenue à l’université de Lausanne, le livre de C. Schoeni est un ouvrage dense traitant d’une question en apparence limitée, mais qui s’insère dans la longue histoire de la division sexuelle du travail : celle des femmes fonctionnaires – institutrices ou autres employées des autorités publiques – lors de la crise des années 1930. L’auteur s’est concentré sur la Suisse et la France comme cas d’études. Le titre, qui suggère une synthèse plus vaste, aurait peut-être pu indique...

Dans ce livre original et provocant, le linge n’est pas qu’une métaphore. On y trouvera beaucoup de matérialité : « les rideaux, les étoffes et tissus, les linges du corps et les uniformes », entre autres choses. Mais le linge y est aussi une métaphore, aux développements insoupçonnés : Le linge est le rappel du faste, du drapé, des brocarts. Linge de maison, il est le rappel des heures et des jours, des ordonnancements quotidiens, des servitudes du privé et du (...) public, des pratiques de l’int... (shrink)

« Aucun siècle n’a commencé avec un aussi grand nombre de femmes de lettres ; aucun siècle, sans doute, n’aura vu l’éducation des femmes plus soignée. » Nous sommes en 1804, il s’agit du jeune xixe siècle, et Fortunée Briquet, 22 ans, dédie son Dictionnaire, que l’on peut qualifier de « proto-manifeste féministe », au… Premier Consul et Président, Napoléon Bonaparte. Ce n’est pas le moindre des paradoxes et particularités de ce livre admirablement commenté, annoté et présenté par Nicole Pelle...

Lors d’une grève dans la bonneterie troyenne en 1921, un incident s’est produit dont les archives ne gardent quasiment pas de trace, mais qui est resté dans la mémoire populaire. Un patron d’usine est séquestré par une foule en colère : on parle même de le faire pendre. L’intervention, paraît-il, d’une femme, syndicaliste, lui sauve la vie : elle propose qu’on l’humilie plutôt,en l’envoyant éplucher des pommes de terre. On se calme, et le patron est conduit aux autorités municipales. Pour...

Dites-moi où n’en quel pays, Est Flora la belle Romaine? Parmi les « outils indispensables de recherche » pour l’histoire des femmes et du genre, il faut compter les dictionnaires biographiques. En n’exagérant que peu, on pourrait dire que les femmes étaient non seulement minoritaires, mais quasiment introuvables dans la plupart des anciens dictionnaires nationaux, mis à part certains personnages ultra-célèbres. Depuis les années 1970 pourtant, un nouveau genre, l’ouvrage de référence consacr...

« Premier achat de notre nouveau couple : un tandem rouge, magnifique. Je l’ai encore. » Il n’est pas étonnant que Louis-Pascal Jacquemond ait reproduit (p. 305) ce témoignage d’une femme ayant vécu 1936, ni que Michelle Zancarini-Fournel l’ait mis en exergue de sa préface à ce « panorama » sur la question des femmes à l’époque du Front populaire. Cela correspond si bien aux images de « l’embellie » célébrée par Léon Blum, ou de « l’euphorie » citée par (...) ce témoin, Marie-Françoise Spannente :... (shrink)

« Héros et héroïnes sont le produit de discours historiques », écrivent Sophie Cassagnes-Brouquet et Mathilde Dubesset dans le numéro 30 de Clio. HFS, consacré aux Héroïnes (2009). C’est aussi le titre d’une collection éditée chez Grasset, dont l’intention n’est pas de célébrer encore une fois les femmes pionnières, connues depuis trente ans par les historien/ne/s du féminisme. Il s’agit plutôt, pour Fiammetta Vener et Caroline Fourest, qui la dirigent, de « sortir de l’obscurité » des femmes...