Suchergebnisse

Glen M. MacDonald dispels the myth that Los Angeles is a desert city. But he also warns that a desert is what Los Angeles may one day become. After defining what a desert is and then proving that Los Angeles (for now) is not a desert, Macdonald investigates the origins of the "desert city" myth. This myth has thrived despite the evidence that MacDonald culls from various archives: a missionary's diary entries describing Los Angeles in 1769, nineteenth century newspaper reports and photographs, and a very recent MODIS satellite image of the city. If Los Angeles has yet to be described accurately as a desert, the encroachments that the ever-expanding city is making, particularly on the Mojave, along with climate change, threaten to make the desert city myth real. Nevertheless, MacDonald argues, rather than reify this old myth, perhaps it is time we create a new one.

The Indian state of Chhattisgarh has been continually confronted with violent assaults and murder targeting individuals who are believed to practice witchcraft. By sketching the murder of accused witch, Kulwantin Bai Nishad, in 1995, I highlight the way prevailing assumptions about witchcraft, long held by the media, police and state, were contested. Intersecting with a national and state discourse of modernist ideals, witch-related violence has been transformed into a politicised object that signals extreme underdevelopment in a state whose legitimacy depends upon progress and development. The Indian Police Service (IPS), the foremost organisation to contend with these issues, maintains a crucial role in administering the citizen–state encounter. Commonly associated with attributes of corruption, misuse of authority, violence and partisan politics, the police official emerged in the findings as an ordinary citizen having a special and sometimes difficult public job. By examining a discretionary 'practice' at work in police dealings with witchcraft accusations, I argue that power shapes what is recognised as criminal behaviour, the significance assigned to a crime and therefore, practices of policing. This article concludes that discretionary power opens up a terrain of unpredictability and 'formlessness' that lends hope for citizen rights.

The traditionalism of contemporary British society is most readily visible in institutions embodying a large ritual component, eg, the monarchy & the coronation. However, from a general sociological perspective, institutions such as the Civil Service, the judiciary, the clergy, & the military all play a part in the distribution of power, rewards, & esteem. Accounts of this traditionalism stress the significance of the elite "public schools." Here, based on statistical data on state- vs public-school educated Royal Military Academy Sandhurst graduates, for 1890 through 1983, examined is the claim of the British army that it is moving away from its traditional pattern of recruiting officer cadets from the public schools toward selection on more rational criteria. 6 Tables. Modified HA