The interaction between landmine clearance and land rights in Angola: A volatile outcome of non-integrated peacebuilding

The current approach to peacebuilding by the international community is to focus on the priorities thought to be important to recovery, but this occurs in a largely non-integrated way. With these different endeavors largely isolated from each other in planning, analysis, implementation, and measures for success, little is known about how they interact and whether or not the aggregate effect contributes to, or detracts from durable peace. This is especially important for priorities which in some way interact with each other on the ground among a recipient population. Two of these priorities for recovery, landmine clearance and land rights, while taking place on the same lands at the same time, and for the same people, are regarded separately as crucial to postwar recovery, and their interaction has not yet been examined. This article looks at these two priorities for Angola, and finds in their interaction a number of ways in which they detract from durable peace. This is a result of, 1) the role of areas adjacent to mine contaminated locations, 2) land grabbing, 3) the actions and role of the State, 4) the problematic interaction between different sectors involved in recovery, 5) the ongoing return of refugees and internal dislocatees and their (re)settlement, and 6) the lack of awareness of land tenure issues on the part of ‘mine action’ organizations. Subsequent to an examination of these forms of interaction this article looks at possible ways forward, focusing on, 1) the derivation of a form of ‘forced transparency’ as a deterrent to land grabbing, 2) enhancing the utility of ‘land release’ within the mine action community, 3) linkage of the different sectors concerned with mine action and land rights, and 4) the role that donors of mine action can play.     

The ecology of race and socioeconomic distress: infant and working-age mortality in Chicago

We examine the effects of education, unemployment, and racial segregation on age-, sex-, and race-specific mortality rates in racially defined Chicago community areas from 1989 to 1991. Community socioeconomic factors account for large observed areal variations in infant and working-age mortality, but especially working-age mortality for the black population. For black men, the mortality consequences of living in economically distressed communities are quite severe. Segregation effects on mortality are more modest and largely operate through neighborhood socioeconomic conditions, although some direct effects of segregation on mortality for blacks are apparent.     

Demarcating forest, containing disease: land and HIV/AIDS in southern Zambia

The ongoing HIV/AIDS pandemic in southern Africa continues to manifest itself in unexpected ways. While the consequences of the disease appear straightforward in some aspects—e.g., medical, labor, cost—in other respects the repercussions, while large, are nonetheless highly nuanced and can be counterintuitive. This paper reports on the intersection of HIV/AIDS, migration, livelihood adaptation, land tenure, and forest conservation, to outline how adaptation to the pandemic has reworked significant aspects of land tenure to result in increased forest conservation in southern Zambia in the near to medium-term. The research uses a combination of ethnography, case studies, household survey and spatial analyses and finds that HIV/AIDS is used in customary legal settings to enhance land access. We also draw links to practical and theoretical implications of the relationship between HIV/AIDS, land tenure, and deforestation in Sub-Saharan Africa.     

Coming of age

Those of us who study aging have the unique opportunity to live their subject matter. Whether we learn any personal lessons is a matter of our own reflectivity, but personal experience can make us far better scholars than can scholarship alone. As one ponders the life course, it is clear that a number of institutional influences, temporal patterning, and unexpected intervening variables are involved in the unfolding of one's life. Life-long institutional memberships furnish social capital that helps establish parameters for our personal experience, for how we view our personal trajectories and for our ability to cope with the aging process itself. But how to come to terms with unexpected occurrences that alter the anticipated futures we had in mind? Do our scholarly efforts and our experience come together in ways that enrich one or the other? These are the questions I explore in this personal essay.     

The shape of mortality curves: an analysis of counties in England and Wales, 1911

Previous analysis has shown that life tables may be distinguished by two orthogonal pieces of information, the level of mortality in the population and the relative shape of the mortality curve. We show that both the regions of England and Wales in 1911, and locality types (county boroughs, other urban, and rural) differ in the shape of their mortality curves. Using data for the administrative counties, we examine the underlying correlates of this differentiation, paying particular attention to the socio-economic structure of the counties as reflected in their wealth, opportunity levels, and degree of urbanisation.     

From delusion to play

Winnicott suggested that delusions are a failed form of play. Using Winnicott's theories of the play space, this paper illustrates through clinical material how the therapist can join a delusion and convert it into an area of play. Discussion includes an analysis of the use of play in working with the transference and countertransference as well as the therapist's resistances to engaging in play.     

The periphery of care: Emergency services for homeless people in rural areas

Until recently, homelessness in rural areas has received little recognition because of overwhelming assumptions about the urban-centredness of homeless people and their needs. This paper seeks to build on recent research that has begun to uncover some of the problems and characteristics of rural homelessness, by suggesting two significant dynamics which together can shape the experience of different groups of homeless people in rural environments. First, rural places reflect particular local qualities which contextualise both the circumstances of homelessness and the provision of services in response to those circumstances. Secondly, the contemporary governance of homelessness unfolds rather unevenly in different rural areas, producing distinct local service environments with varying degrees of ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ status in relation to joined-up responses to the needs of homeless people. These dynamics are articulated through three case studies: a remote friary in a deep rural area of southern England; a small hostel run by a vibrant non-statutory organisation in a small town in the west of England, and two advice centres in a coastal resort in the north-east of England. Through these case studies we highlight the importance of both local reactions to the homeless other, and local relations between central government funding, local authority initiatives and charitable organisations, in the production and consumption of spaces of care in settings set in, or serving, rural environments.