Duty to God/my Dharma/Allah/Waheguru: diverse youthful religiosities and the politics and performance of informal worship

This article was published in the journal, Social and Cultural Geography [© Taylor & Francis] and the definitive version is available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2012.698749This paper draws on a case study of the Scout Movement in the UK to explore the everyday, informal expressions of ‘worship’ by young people that occur outside of ‘designated’ religious spaces and the politics of these performances over time. In analysing the explicit geographies of how young people in UK scouting perform their ‘duty to God’ (or Dharma and so forth), it is argued that a more expanded concept of everyday and embodied worship is needed. This paper also attends to recent calls for more critical historical geographies of religion, drawing on archival data to examine the organisation's relationship with religion over time and in doing so contributes new insights into the production of youthful religiosities and re-thinking their designated domains

Early incidence of occupational asthma among young bakers, pastry-makers and hairdressers: design of a retrospective cohort study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Occupational exposures are thought to be responsible for 10-15% of new-onset asthma cases in adults, with disparities across sectors. Because most of the data are derived from registries and cross-sectional studies, little is known about incidence of occupational asthma (OA) during the first years after inception of exposure. This paper describes the design of a study that focuses on this early asthma onset period among young workers in the bakery, pastry making and hairdressing sectors in order to assess early incidence of OA in these "at risk" occupations according to exposure duration, and to identify risk factors of OA incidence.</p> <p>Methods/Design</p> <p>The study population is composed of subjects who graduated between 2001 and 2006 in these sectors where they experience exposure to organic or inorganic allergenic or irritant compounds (with an objective of 150 subjects by year) and 250 young workers with no specific occupational exposure. A phone interview focusing on respiratory and 'Ear-Nose-Throat' (ENT) work-related symptoms screen subjects considered as "possibly OA cases". Subjects are invited to participate in a medical visit to complete clinical and lung function investigations, including fractional exhaled nitric oxide (FE_NO) and carbon monoxide (CO) measurements, and to collect blood samples for IgE (Immunoglobulin E) measurements (total IgE and IgE for work-related and common allergens). Markers of oxidative stress and genetic polymorphisms exploration are also assessed. A random sample of 200 "non-cases" (controls) is also visited, following a nested case-control design.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>This study may allow to describ a latent period between inception of exposure and the rise of the prevalence of asthma symptoms, an information that would be useful for the prevention of OA. Such a time frame would be suited for conducting screening campaigns of this emergent asthma at a stage when occupational hygiene measures and adapted therapeutic interventions might be effective.</p> <p>Trial registration</p> <p>Clinical trial registration number is NCT01096537.</p

Towards a History of Mass Violence in the Etat Indépendant du Congo, 1885-1908

The present article provides an up-to-date scholarly introduction to mass violence in the Etat Indépendant du Congo (Congo Free State, EIC). Its aims are twofold: to offer a point of access to the extensive literature and historical debates on the subject, and to make the case for exchanging the currently prevalent top-down narrative, with its excessive focus on King Leopold's character and motives, for one which considers the EIC's culture of violence as a multicausal, broadly based and deeply engrained social phenomenon. The argument is divided into five sections. Following a general outline of the EIC's violent system of administration, I discuss its social and demographic impact (and the controversy which surrounds it) to bring out the need for more regionally focused and context sensitive studies. The dispute surrounding demographics demonstrates that what is fundamentally at stake is the place the EIC's extreme violence should occupy in the history of European ‘modernity’. Since approaches which hinge on Leopoldian exceptionalism are particularly unhelpful in clarifying this issue, I pause to reflect on how such approaches came to dominate the distinct historiographical traditions which emerged in Belgium and abroad before moving on to a more detailed exploration of a selection of causes underlying the EIC's violent nature. While state actors remain in the limelight, I shift the focus from the state as a singular, normative agent, towards the existence of an extremely violent society in which various individuals and social groups within and outside of the state apparatus committed violent acts for multiple reasons. As this argument is pitched at a high level of abstraction, I conclude with a discussion of available source material with which it can be further refined and updated

Writing and remembrance: new directions in Livingstone Studies

This volume of essays contains some of the best recent work on the Victorian missionary and explorer David Livingstone (1813–1873), gathered together for the bicentenary of his birth. The following introduction delineates ‘Livingstone Studies’ as a field of research and directs attention to its inherently interdisciplinary nature. It summarises the various papers in the collection, gathered together under the two broad thematic categories of ‘writing’ and ‘remembrance’. Additionally, this introduction argues that the papers speak well beyond their Livingstone focus. In the first section scholars are directed to the margins of empire, as the articles articulate the importance of ‘peripheral’ spaces and intercultural interaction in shaping Victorian identities and geographical and imperial knowledge. The analytic approach and broader context of the papers, moreover, as they delve into the archive of exploration, will be of general interest to scholars of print culture and travel literature. The second section extends the collection’s value beyond the nineteenth century altogether. For those interested in reception and reputation studies, the detailed examination of one heroic reputation will offer productive ways for thinking about the legacies of public figures

Off the beaten track? Critical approaches to exploration studies

Since the 1980s, studying histories of exploration has become an increasingly prominent area of scholarship and has attracted critical attention from a range of different academic perspectives. Whether framed as a process of imperial expansion, as a quest for the production of new knowledge, or as a means for certain individuals to establish or advance their reputations, the complex motivations that lay behind European travellers' desire to venture overseas has been examined and critiqued by scholars situated in a number of different disciplines. Growing attention has been paid to those groups or individuals who have historically been written out of traditional, hagiographic exploration accounts, and we have seen the key roles played by women explorers, “indigenous intermediaries,” and various others exposed and investigated more thoroughly. The purpose of this paper is to review these diverse scholarly literatures, with a particular focus on those which centre their analysis on the long nineteenth century. In doing so, we demonstrate that the study of exploration is not just of narrow historical interest, but rather offers a means in which to shed new light on many wider social, political, and cultural processes that were taking place during this period