Beyond hagiography: new books on gay and lesbian life writing

Abstract

The records of women's rights organisations active in Birmingham during the 1870s and 1880s indicate that these societies were dominated by women and men from families connected with the city's leading Unitarian chapel, the Church of the Messiah. In this article, I explore this phenomenon as a way of illuminating the relationship between religious belief and feminist activism. The shared social, economic and political values and progressive outlook of the Unitarian elite underpinned their emergence as a feminist network. This collective reformist consciousness was channelled into concern to improve the position of women by the ‘feminist gospel’ preached by Henry Crosskey, the minister of the chapel from 1869 to 1893. Furthermore, Crosskey's influential role, along with the substantial presence of other Unitarian men in local women's rights associations, reveals how denominational affiliation could operate to stimulate male support for feminism.     

Assessing the impact of women's movements: Sisterhood and after

Sisterhood and After: The Women's Liberation Oral History Project, illuminates the impact of women's movements in the UK in tracing the life histories of key UK-based activists and intellectuals, but it more directly eludicates the biographical consequences of activism. This, I suggest, has a different but also important value, not simply in terms of understanding the impact on the many individuals who do become life-long activists, but as a contribution to cultural memories that show how gender relations can be different and better. In this respect, oral history projects can be part of a process of feminist influence that goes beyond the more measurable aspects of campaigns.     

Healthy ageing--a patients' rights perspective

The demographic development is a challenge for the European healthcare systems, and to meet these challenges it is crucial to develop efficient health preventive strategies to ensure that the population is, and stays fit as long as possible. However, along with demographic development, Europe is also facing a boom in lifestyle diseases which constitute an impediment for healthy ageing. Smoking and obesity are considered to be the major causes in this regard. Both internationally and nationally there has been a strong commitment to reduce smoking, and it seems that a combination of information, economic incentives and legal regulation have been successful. The article explores whether the same public health strategy could be useful fighting obesity, and discusses whether such public health measures are compliant from a human and patients' rights perspective. Special questions regarding public health initiatives targeting elderly patients will also be addressed.     

Elections and landmark policies in Tanzania and Uganda

Much of the relevant literature on Africa downplays the salience of elections for policy-making and implementation. Instead, the importance of factors such as clientelism, ethnicity, organized interest groups, and donor influence, is emphasized. We argue that, in addition, elections now motivate political elites to focus on policies they perceive to be able to gain votes. This is based on analyses of six landmark decisions made during the last 15 years in the social, productive, and public finance sectors in Tanzania and Uganda. Such policies share a number of key characteristics: they are clearly identifiable with the party in power; citizens are targeted countrywide; and policy implementation aims at immediate, visible results.     

The objective interpretation of histopathological data: an application to the ageing of ovine bruises

Muscle and adipose tissue from a total of 178 experimental bruises inflicted on sheep and aged from 1 to 72 h old were processed for light microscopic examination. Five observed histopathological features of inflammation and repair were scored semiquantitatively on a scale of 1-4 according to their degrees of change from the normal state. These data were evaluated mathematically using a Bayesian probability model designed for the purpose. The model was able to age bruises with an acceptable degree of accuracy only as either 1-20 h or 24-72 h old but within these constraints a degree of confidence in excess of 90% was achieved. The exact performance of the model depended on the nature and number of tissue samples examined but mathematical ageing was superior to interpretative ageing based on personal experience.     

Land governance as grey zone: the political incentives of land reform implementation in Africa

Weak state capacity has often been in focus when explaining why land reform in sub-Saharan Africa is not implemented. However, an analysis of the deeper politics of land reform brings our attention to a set of incentives which allow rules governing land to be open to interpretation. This article demonstrates that in Uganda, the need to maintain the ruling coalition in a clientelist political settlement to build electoral support, and the desire to attract economic investors, constitute political incentives to maintain land governance as a grey zone, even if there is apparent political will to implement land reforms.