15 research outputs found

    A sociology of caravans

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    Why do caravans matter? Australians, like others, holiday in them, travel in them, cook, eat, drink, play, sleep and have sex in them. They also live in them, often involuntarily. Caravans have a longer history than this, however caravan life has almost no presence in existing historical or cultural sociology scholarship. Our immediate interest is in caravans in Australia, modernity and mobility. Some broader interest is apparent. Theoretical arguments about mobility on a global scale have been developed by Bauman and Urry. Sociologists like Jasper have connected mobility, masculinity and automobility in Restless Nation. The sociologist and writer Marina Lewycka has used caravans as the locus of everyday life study in her novel Two Caravans. In this paper we background some of these broader issues, and offer a case study of postwar caravan manufacturing. This paper anticipates a larger possible research project in these fields. We anticipate this project raising themes like freedom, mobility, escape, utopia; images of domesticity on wheels, décor and design, materials, technology, DIY production and Fordism; caravan parks as homes and as itinerant and long-term accommodation. These themes and images are also necessarily interwoven with class, gender, sex and age. We are interested in the possibilities of using the caravan as a carrier for making sense of postwar Australia

    Electron Density Depletion Region Observed in the Polar Cap Ionosphere

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    This paper presents and discusses electron density depletion regions observed with the incoherent scatter EISCAT Svalbard Radar (ESR) located at 75.43°N geomagnetic latitude. The data include several decades of measurements, which make them suitable for studying statistical features and characteristics of the ionospheric parameters. Here we focus on the electron density depletions and their dependence on diurnal and seasonal variations and solar activity. An electron density depletion region is identified in the ESR data in the early morning sector. This depletion region seems to be clearest during equinox and winter and moderate/high solar activity. An enhancement in the ion temperature is often co-located with the electron density depletion region. The ion temperature enhancement could indicate that ion frictional heating is related to the electron density depletion region. However, during summer when the solar activity is low, the electron density depletion is not observed although the ion temperature is enhanced, suggesting that formation of the electron density depletion regions due to ion frictional heating may depend on the background effective temperature and O/N2 ratio. In addition, seasonal changes in the solar zenith angle could also contribute to the formation of the depletion region
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