The Wairarapa Wealthy in Public and Private, 1876–1913

<p>Social histories of New Zealand’s colonial wealthy usually focus on those who left personal papers, ignoring those who left no major records. What is more, histories of the wealthy have tended to focus on the South Island—there is no reason to assume that the North Island rich were the same. This thesis attempts to address both these imbalances by approaching wealthy individuals in colonial Wairarapa systematically—locating all testators who died between 1876 and 1913, leaving estates worth £10,000 or more. This process produces a cohort of sixty-five, mainly farmers and mostly of middle-class origins. Testamentary records demonstrate that in private, the rich stayed true to their origins by splitting their wealth evenly. Other forms of biographical information, most notably newspaper obituaries and Cyclopedia entries, show that public life was different. Here, the rich departed from their origins; whereas community involvement and charitable works had been an important aspect of middle-class identity in Britain, the colonial experience forced wealthy capitalists to redefine public status. Throughout, this thesis demonstrates the importance of regional social histories in New Zealand by thinking ‘under as well as across the nation’—extending South Island scholarship of the wealthy into the North Island and examining the manifestation of large historical forces close-up in communities of individuals.</p>

The Wairarapa Wealthy in Public and Private, 1876–1913

<p>Social histories of New Zealand’s colonial wealthy usually focus on those who left personal papers, ignoring those who left no major records. What is more, histories of the wealthy have tended to focus on the South Island—there is no reason to assume that the North Island rich were the same. This thesis attempts to address both these imbalances by approaching wealthy individuals in colonial Wairarapa systematically—locating all testators who died between 1876 and 1913, leaving estates worth £10,000 or more. This process produces a cohort of sixty-five, mainly farmers and mostly of middle-class origins. Testamentary records demonstrate that in private, the rich stayed true to their origins by splitting their wealth evenly. Other forms of biographical information, most notably newspaper obituaries and Cyclopedia entries, show that public life was different. Here, the rich departed from their origins; whereas community involvement and charitable works had been an important aspect of middle-class identity in Britain, the colonial experience forced wealthy capitalists to redefine public status. Throughout, this thesis demonstrates the importance of regional social histories in New Zealand by thinking ‘under as well as across the nation’—extending South Island scholarship of the wealthy into the North Island and examining the manifestation of large historical forces close-up in communities of individuals.</p>

Relevance of Adopting a Hybrid Strategy Mixing Single-Use and Reusable Ureteroscopes for Stones Management: An Economic Study to Support the Best Strategy

Endoscopic procedures such as ureteroscopy (URS) have seen a recent increase in single-use devices. Despite all the advantages provided by disposable ureteroscopes (sURSs), their cost effectiveness remains questionable, leading most teams to use a hybrid strategy combining reusable (rURS) and disposable devices. Our study aimed to create an economic model that estimated the cut-off value of rURS procedures needed to support the profitability of a hybrid strategy (HS) for ureteroscopy. We used a budget impact analysis (BIA) model that estimated the financial impact of an HS compared to 100% sURS use. The model included hospital volume, sterilization costs and the private or public status of the institution. Although the hybrid strategy generally remains the best economic and clinical option, a predictive BIA model is recommended for the decision-making. We found that the minimal optimal proportion of rURS procedures in an HS was mainly impacted by the activity volume and overall number of sterilization procedures. Private and public institutions must consider these variables and models in order to adapt their HS and remain profitable.

Brazilian Black Feminism in Rural and Urban Spaces

Brazilian Black feminism has changed and grown more influential and diverse in the past two decades. One of the major challenges is to understand what these changes mean for women’s agency in the different contexts in which they emerge, both rural and urban. To examine the transformations of Black feminism in Brazil, this article investigates three generations of activists over the periods of re-democratization, democratic expansion and crisis of democracy, bringing focus to Black women in the quilombola movement, young Black feminists on the Internet and intersectional feminism. The article analyses traditional and new activist networks that claim multiple identities for themselves, as well as public status as collective action strategies to seize traditional spaces for political activism, grounding themselves in feminism and anti-racism against the multiple forms of oppression in urban and rural spaces.

Camping off the grid in the grid: Between hospitable space and inhospitable land

When the last U.S. Census canvassed Slab City, a remote, self-governed community of artists, retirees, anarchists and homeless people in southern California’s desert, most of its residents claimed ownership of the plots they occupied as “free and clear.” And yet Slab City itself occupies land that is public, as firm in this designation as the resolve of those who live there. Often called the “last free place,” this square-mile plot is one of the remaining Section 36 areas, which were originally reserved for the state’s public schools when each township was laid out by the National Ordinance’s land surveys that blanketed the American West in an invisible but all-encompassing grid. Consequently, the state of California hosts an array of one-square mile pockets of land. Among these, Slab City is a camp that bears the ongoing question of how land—environmentally inhospitable yet relatively hospitable in its public status—might host practices of self-determination, self-regulated community, and national identity. Veritable blind spots of land management, Section 36 areas contrast other more regulated, though comparable, practices on public and private lands. The Bureau of Land Management oversees Long Term Visitor Areas where campers can park trailers across vast territories for extended periods of time, and Walmart plays host to cross-country travelers who overnight in its parking lots—a permutation of recreational camping known as boondocking. But what happens in the absence of oversight? In places where the campsites become permanent? In times when those living there have arrived not only by choice but also in many cases out of necessity? Legacies of a country’s organizational matrix, Section 36’s pockets of land linger as residual pieces of frontier mythologies, as testaments of the arbitrariness of the grid and its land policies, and as fertile ground for alternative practices of adapting to inhospitable environments and making home in improvised communities. This essay seeks to understand how Section 36 land hosts contemporary intersections of public space and freedom.

Patients’ perception of the practice of anaesthesia in a teaching hospital in Northern Jordan: a survey

Background and aim Despite big leaps of progress in its scope, the practice of anesthesia is still suffering from poor public image, especially in developing countries. Little research investigated the public awareness of anesthesia in the Middle East. This study aimed to examine the perception of the practice of anaesthesia among Jordanian patients. Methods A standard questionnaire with 29 questions was administered through personal interview to consenting patients. Questions tested patients’ correct knowledge of the identity of anesthetists, their roles and scope of their practice. Awareness was measured using the frequency of correct answers to each survey question. A total awareness score was calculated as the percentage ratio of the number of correct answers to the total number of questions. We classified this score into: Poor< 50%. Moderate 50–75%, and Good > 75% to reflect patient’s overall perception of anesthetists and their roles. Effects of demographic variables on results were also investigated. Appropriate statistical tests were used to summarize and compare results. A total of 513 patients admitted for elective surgery were sequentially approached for enrolment. Results Five hundred and five patients were enrolled. Most patients identified anesthesia as a separate practice from surgery (86%). The anaesthetist was identified as a physician by only 37% of patients. Equal importance to both anaesthetists and surgeons was assumed by 71.5% of patents. Only 15% of patients showed good level of total knowledge of anaesthetist roles, while 51% scored poorly. Highest awareness was of anaesthetist’s preoperative roles (65.1%). Age was the only demographic factor affecting studied awareness (P = 0.009). Conclusion Although the importance of anesthetist is well perceived among Jordanian patients, there is still some ignorance in their knowledge of the details of anesthesia practice. Active communication efforts and patient education by anesthetists are needed to improve the public status of the specialty.

Wiped Out by the Green Wave

Situated mainly in New York City’s Harlem neighborhood, this chapter examines “green gentrification”—the correlation between environmental improvements and high-end real estate development. Taking an historic look at urban parks and property values, this chapter begins with nineteenth-century discourses about nature, social uplift, and morality. The symbolic value attached to green space soon correlated with material value, as parks boosted nearby property values. Despite their public status, parks became spaces of subtle racial and class-based exclusion. As sustainability gained popularity in the early 2000s and the real estate market boomed, new green spaces became an amenity that drew affluent residents to gentrifying areas. Environmental justice activists in these neighborhoods thus found that the very improvements for which they had been fighting now facilitated gentrification and threatened to displace low-income residents and communities of color.

Feminism: When the Label ‘White’ Gets Attached in Pop Music Industry

This paper describes a qualitative study that investigates the pop music genre starting from the 2000s, relating it to feminism. The investigation focuses on understanding when female artists are considered feminist, and when the label ‘white feminist’ is applied to specific female artists. Based on media press and public perspective, the research hopes to find key characteristics that separates the moment when the label feminism and white feminism are applied, especially in relation to other attributes such as gender orientation, sexual orientation, and race. The purpose of the research is to provide more insight into understanding feminism in the context of today, and to how navigate complex spaces such as media image and personal identity, labels that come with the public status of their profession.

Conclusion

IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY the position of Gaelic in Scotland has become increasingly paradoxical. In terms of day-to-day community use, Gaelic is the weakest it has ever been, while the public status of the language and the level of institutional provision increase every year. This situation may well be unsustainable....