Success In Place Research Articles

Household Gods on the Altar of Freedom

In the nineteenth century, the American West was imagined as a place brimming with opportunity and prosperity. While many found material success in places like Gold Rush era California, the relationship that Black Americans had to the region and to what they hoped would be afforded to them in the West was marked by racial exclusion. Drawing upon primary sources that include newspaper clippings and Colored California Convention reports, this article considers the various strategies of resistance that Black western arrivants waged to not only attain material wealth but also agitate for their civil rights. “Household Gods” argues that Black western arrivants used religion and religious rhetoric as an adaptive and subversive strategy to shape conceptions of citizenship discourse, which contributed to how Black westerners sought to make space for themselves within a multiethnic society. This article is part of a special issue of Pacific Historical Review, “Religion in the Nineteenth-Century American West.”

Technological complexity and the global dispersal of modern humans.

Anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens) dispersed out of Africa roughly 120,000 years ago and again after 75,000 years ago. The early dispersal was geographically restricted to the Arabian Peninsula, Levant, and possibly parts of southern Asia. The later dispersal was ultimately global in scope, including areas not previously occupied by Homo. One explanation for the contrast between the two out-of-Africa dispersals is that the modern humans who expanded into Eurasia 120,000 years ago lacked the functionally and structurally complex technology of recent hunter-gatherers. This technology, which includes, for example, mechanical projectiles, snares and traps, and sewn clothing, provides not only expanded dietary breadth and increased rates of foraging efficiency and success in places where plant and animal productivity is low, but protection from cold weather in places where winter temperatures are low. The absence of complex technology before 75,000 years ago also may explain why modern humans in the Levant did not develop sedentary settlements and agriculture 120,000 years ago (i.e., during the Last Interglacial).

Imagining Shared Space

Murals have long been used in communities to express solidarity and voice political opinions. As neighborhoods become increasingly diverse, complex economic and political motivations emerge for making murals that reflect new claims and contests over space. Focusing on recently designated ethnic “-towns” in the Greater Los Angeles area, the study finds that murals reveal multiple narratives and motives, including negotiations over space, identity, place-branding, and border-making as well as interethnic competition and reconciliation. It is argued that understanding the evolving functions and multivalent potentials of murals is critical for the success of place making and community planning. In particular, we draw attention to the trend of businesses and local government agencies using murals to make statements on identity and intercultural relations.

Structuring land restitution remedies for peace and stability in fragile states.

Abstract Large-scale dislocation of populations due to land expropriations and armed conflict presents significant difficulties for political stability and food security in fragile states. With increased use of mass claims programs by the international community and governments in order to attend to the problem, attention is focusing on what works. While organizing mass claims programs is challenging, the real difficulty is deriving remedies that are realistic, effective, implementable and that fit the wide variety of circumstances that people, communities and nations find themselves. Although the temptation can be to simply transfer specific remedies from one country to another, in reality these can be difficult to implement with success in places with different cultures, histories, grievances, aspirations and ethnic, sectarian, religious and class divisions. This paper argues that what is more important is the 'structure' of remedy approaches and how these can be adapted to local and national realities. As well, the necessity of any mass claims program to navigate constraints involving inadequate compensation funds, a lack of alternative lands for reparation, a low-capacity administrative environment and a variable willingness to evict current occupants, means that such structures need to be flexible, permutable and adaptable. This review examines the restitution remedy structures that fit these requirements, and that have been successfully implemented in a variety of land and property mass claims programs.

African Americans on the Great Plains: An Anthology (review)

Reviewed by: African Americans on the Great Plains: An Anthology Diane Quantic, Professor African Americans on the Great Plains: An Anthology. Edited by Bruce A. Glasrud and Charles A. Braithwaite. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2009. 395 pages, $35.00. African Americans on the Great Plains offers the reader an opportunity to examine the lives of African Americans in a region that is not often acknowledged in the history of civil rights in the United States. Gathered from the journal Great Plains Quarterly, these essays, ranging from accounts of the military experiences of black soldiers and the region’s role in the civil rights struggle to the contributions of artists and musicians from the region, present a vibrant African American history on the Great Plains. Kansas is central to a number of essays, perhaps because of its historical significance in the abolitionist unrest before the Civil War or because of the persistence of discrimination in the state or simply because the scholars’ interests led them to investigate this state. Analyses range from studies of the frontier fort-town conflicts in Fort Hays and of “Pap” Singleton’s failed Exoduster colony in eastern Kansas to accounts of the civil rights activism in Topeka before 1954 and of the Sit-In Movement in Wichita and Oklahoma that predated similar resistance in the South. Two other Kansas essays focus on the Afro-American Council’s attempts to realize civil rights for African Americans in the segregated state and the relationship between race and homicides in four eastern Kansas counties. Essays that concentrate on Nebraska, Texas, and Oklahoma round out the discussions of social issues. One essay compares the relatively benign treatment that African American troops enjoyed at Fort Niobrara in Nebraska with the violent response to the troops’ arrival in Texas and another examines the efforts of Canada to prevent the migration of African Americans from Oklahoma. Yet another study highlights the broad inclusion of economic classes in Nebraska’s African American Masonry as opposed to the more restrictive national African American Masonry. African American cultural contributions to the Great Plains are of importance as well. Era Bell Thompson’s American Daughter, her autobiography of her years in rural North Dakota, is examined through the oppositions in her life. An account of Aaron Douglas, an artist of the Harlem Renaissance who grew up in Great Plains towns, focuses on his work in New York and other venues beyond the Great Plains. Finally, music gets its due in two essays: one on Alphonso Trent’s jazz orchestra that enjoyed success in places as disparate as Kansas City [End Page 405] and Deadwood, South Dakota, and another one on the development of gospel music in Omaha. Arranged chronologically, these critical works underscore the importance of the Great Plains as a region that anticipated many of the issues and experiences of African Americans in twentieth-century America. Those familiar, perhaps, with one of these subjects will find their understanding of the Great Plains experience shifting as they take into account other factors that make this region even richer and more interesting. An index makes it easy for readers to follow their own threads through the anthology. Diane Quantic, Professor Wichita State University, Kansas Copyright © 2010 The Western Literature Association

I'm the new head of HR, now what? The first 90 days

PurposeHR leaders face a range of challenges on assuming responsibility for the function in their organizations. This paper aims to argue that if managed well, the actions of HR leaders over the first 90 days offer a significant opportunity to put the fundamentals for success in place; in turn, badly managed transitions can hurt the leader's effectiveness at building key relationships, defining the strategic agenda, assessing needs for improvement and developing the plan for creating value for the business.Design/methodology/approachThis paper draws on the authors' experience with dozens of new heads of HR. It synthesizes this work to offer a practical framework for action and specific tips on how HR leaders can make the most of the first 90 days.FindingsIt is shown that as a new leader, one has a unique opportunity to shape a new agenda for the HR department.Originality/valueThe paper is written as if the authors are coaching the reader through this transition by asking the right questions that increase the chance of success.

Voices Inside Schools: The Poet, the CEO, and the First-Grade Teacher

Using the poetry of Walt Whitman (the Poet), an MIT graduation speech by Carleton Fiorina, the chief executive officer of Hewlett-Packard (the CEO), and the words of a teacher (the First-Grade Teacher), high school English teacher Mary Ellen Dakin shares with readers the transformation of her understanding of student achievement. Dakin expands her notions of intelligence and achievement to validate and incorporate ideas she had previously rejected. Through an introspective process, Dakin is able to find success in places she never thought to look. This essay encourages teachers to challenge and broaden the assumptions that they bring to teaching and learning. (pp. 269-284)