(Anti) Queer: Introduction

Thumbnail images depicting the face of a social actor were the most common type of image used in hard-news stories on the home page of the Sydney Morning Herald online (smh online), a high-circulation Australian daily broadsheet, between 2002 and 2006. While not all online newspapers use such images to the same extent as the smh online, close-up thumbnails of faces are commonplace on online newspaper home pages in general. This paper examines the use of these “thumbnail faces” on the smh online home page. Over four years (and across four page-design periods), these images were used more frequently, despite the fact that they function in a very different way to traditional hard-news images. Thumbnail faces cannot “tell stories”, nor “provide evidence”, but they play an important interpersonal role in individual news stories, collectively on the home page, and over time in the discursive relationship between the smh online and its readership.     

Resistance in hopeles’: Assimilating queer theory

This paper seeks to assimilate Queer Theory, i.e. to bring it within the gambit of a ‘mainstream’ or ‘dominant’ space: the academy. It does so by historicising Queer Theory, and investigating, if not what it is, then at least what it has been. This makes it possible to engage critically with Queer Theory, Suggesting that Queer Theory has often employed tropes of assimilation, the paper turns to another cultural site at which such language is popular—science fiction—in order to investigate the assumption of these metaphors. It goes on to suggest some of the assumptions about cultures which underlie these metaphors. Finally, it points to other sites in Queer Theory which undermine these assumptions, and provide other ways—quite uninterested in assimilation—in which to think Queer.     

The changing geography of metropolitan opportunity: The segregation of the poor in U.S. metropolitan areas, 1970 to 1990

Abstract

This analysis uses census tract data to measure the segregation of the poor in U.S. metropolitan areas in 1970, 1980, and 1990. Two measures of segregation are used: the indices of dissimilarity and isolation.

In 1990 the mean dissimilarity of the poor in the 100 largest U.S. metropolitan areas was 36.1, which is substantial but below the 60.6 dissimilarity of blacks. The 1990 isolation of the poor was 21.0. From 1970 to 1990, the dissimilarity of the poor increased by 11 percent, and the isolation of the poor rose by 9 percent; in contrast, racial segregation declined. Exploratory regression analyses reveal that income segregation in metropolitan areas was significantly greater in 1990 and increased more from 1970 to 1990 in the Northeast than in the South and West. Midwest areas generally were not significantly different from Northeast areas in 1990 segregation levels or in changes from 1970 to 1990.     

The Feminisation of Agriculture with Chinese Characteristics

The objectives of this article are to assess whether or not the feminisation of agriculture is occurring in China, and if so, to measure its impact on productivity. To meet these objectives, we rely on three data sets that allow us to explore who works on China's farms and the effects of the labour allocation decisions of rural households on productivity. We find that since the late 1990s, the role of women has increased in both the supply of farm labour and in the duties that they take on in the management of farms. While this expansion is important, we further demonstrate that when women do a majority of farm work or manage the farm, their farms are equally efficient as farms managed by men.     

Acute Psychosis Induced by Bath Salts: A Case Report with Clinical and Forensic Implications

Bath salts are new designer drugs with stimulant effects on the central nervous system. White or brown powder sold online and in mini‐marts under different brand names, bath salts can be used by injecting, snorting, smoking, or ingesting with food or drink. The case of a 30‐year‐old Caucasian male who developed acute psychosis within a few hours of injecting himself with bath salts is described. The patient was hospitalized with a complaint of hearing voices. The drug also induced in the patient a state of euphoria, increased energy level, along with decreased need for sleep and decreased appetite. The psychological effects of the bath salts subsided within a few hours of injection and his reality testing remained consistently intact over the next 3 days of hospitalization. This case brings to attention the fact that bath salts were legal throughout the United States until recently and is still not completely controlled. This report informs clinicians of harmful effects of bath salts, including severe agitation with possible rhabdomyolysis, psychosis, suicidal ideation, hypertension, tachycardia, and death.     

Punk Subculture in Mexico and the Anti-globalization Movement: A Report from the Front

This article explores some strands of the current movement against capitalist globalization. It examines the affinity between punk subculture and autonomous politics taking the Mexican punk scene as an example. Based on participant observation it describes what Bourdieu would call the habitus of punk in Mexico. Recorded music, subcultural style and political ideas arrive into this habitus where they are selectively adopted. Thus, attempts to articulate punk in Mexico to the "anti-globalization" movement are somewhat different than in the United States and Canada.     

The agricultural crisis in Egypt

The paper probes the historical origins of and current responses to the agricultural problems of Egypt. Much of the difficulty stems from the fact that the class structure, the distribution of resources, and the social bases of both Nasser's and Sadat's regime have blocked either the mobilization of the peasantry on the one hand or the provision of decentralized incentives on the other. After a brief assessment of Nasser's land reforms, price policies, and investment strategy, the current responses of changing crop patterns and mechanization are assessed. Such a strategy seems unlikely to succeed, but no other obvious alternative strategy is at hand.     

Book reviews

Slums of Hope: shanty towns of the Third World. Peter Lloyd, Harmondsworth, England: Penguin. 1979. 246 pp. £1.25 pb.

Agrarian Revolution: social movements and export agriculture in the underdeveloped world. Jeffery M Paige, London: Collier Macmillan. 1978. 435pp. £5.25 pb.

Population and Development: high and low fertility in poorer countries. Edited by Geoffrey Hawthorn, London: Frank Cass. 1978. 210pp. £11.00.

Theory of International Politics. Kenneth N Waltz, Reading: Addison‐Wesley. 1979.304 pp. £2.50.

The Commonwealth Office 1925–68. Joe Garner, London: Heinemann. 1978. 478 pp. £19.50.

Commodity Conflict: the political economy of international commodity negotiations. L N Rangarajan, London: Croom Helm. 1978. 390 pp. £12.95.

Global Fracture: the new international economic order. Michael Hudson, New York: Harper &; Row. 1977. 296 pp. £12.50

The Evolution of the International Economic Order. W Arthur Lewis, Princeton University Press. 1978. 81 pp. £5.00

The Newly Industrialising Countries and the Adjustment Problem. Foreign and Commonwealth Office, London: FCO. 1979. 96 pp.

Nuclear Weapons and World Politics: alternatives for the future. David C Gombert et al, New York: McGraw Hill. 1977. 370 pp. £5.20 pb.

Poverty, Wealth of Mankind. Albert T Tévoèdjrè, Oxford: Pergamon. 1979. 200 pp. £10.00. £5.00 pb.

Hosts and Guests: an anthropology of tourism. Edited by Valene L Smith, Oxford: Blackwell. 1978. 254 pp. £8.00.

Taxation and Economic Development: twelve critical studies. Edited by J F J Toye, London: Frank Cass. 1978. 299pp. £11.50.

The OPEC Market to 1985. Farid Abolfathi et al. Lexington, Massachusetts: Lexington Books (distributed in the UK by Teakfield). 1977. 406 pp. £15.00.

Mosquitoes, Malaria and Man: a history of the hostilities since 1880. Gordon Harrison, London: John Murray. 1978. 314pp. £8.50.

Minerals in African Undervelopment. S A Ochola, London: Bogle‐L'Ouverture. 1975. 148 pp. £5.00. £1.50 pb.

Mineral Economics and Basic Industries in Asia. K P Wang and E Chin, Boulder, Colorado: Westview (distributed in the UK by Ernest Benn). 1978. 358 pp. £16.10.

International Resource Flows. Edited by G and L A Garvey, Lexington, Massachusetts: D C Heath (distributed in the UK by Teakfield). 1977. 202 pp. £13.75.

How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Walter Rodney, London: Bogle‐L'Ouverture Publications. 1972. 316 pp. £0.65 pb.

Britain, the EEC and the Developing World. Matthew McQueen, London: Heinemann Educational. 1977. 115 pp. £1.25 pb.

African History. P Curtin, S Feierman, L Thompson, and J Vansina, London: Longman. 1978. 612pp. £9.75.

African Historical Studies. E A Ayandele, London: Frank Cass. 1979. 314pp. £12.00.

Nigerian Historical Studies. E A Ayandele, London: Frank Cass. 1979. 305pp. £12.00.

West African Resistance: the military response to colonial occupation. Edited by Michael Crowder, London: Hutchinson. 1978. 314pp. £3.75.

The Population of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. Simeon Ominde, Nairobi, Kenya: Heinemann Educational. 1975. 124 pp. £2.50

The Widening Gulf: Asian nationalism and American policy. Selig S Harrison, New York: The Free Press. 1978. 468 pp. $15.95.

US Strategy in the Indian Ocean: the international response. Monoranjan Bezboruah, London: Praeger. 1977. 268 pp. £12.50.

Zionism and the Palestinians. Simha Flapan, London: Croom Helm. 1979. 361 pp. £11.95.

The Trading World of Asia and the English East India Company 1660–1760. K N Chaudhuri, Cambridge University Press. 1978. 629 pp. £37.50.

A Shaft of Sunlight. Philip Mason, New Delhi: Vikas. 1978. 240 pp.

Bhutan: the dragon kingdom in crisis. Nari Rustomji, Delhi: Oxford University Press. 1978. 150pp. £4.50.

Sons of the Soil: migration and ethnic conflict in India. Myron Weiner, Princeton University Press. 1978. 383 pp.

Energy and Economic Development in India. R K Pachauri, New York: Praeger. 1977. 185 pp. £14.00.

Frogs in a Well: Indian women in purdah. Patricia Jeffery, London: Zed Press. 1979. 187 pp. £7.50. £2.95 pb.

Land and Power in South America. Sven Lindqvist, Harmondsworth, England: Penguin. 1978. 333 pp. £2.25 pb.