In the opening scene of the final act of Romeo and Juliet, our “hero” seeks out a poverty-stricken apothecary in Mantua and demands that the apothecary sell him deadly poison so that he can take his own life in an overblown gesture of romantic love.

The apothecary informs Romeo that, under Mantuan law, the sale of such drugs is punishable by death but Romeo counters that the law is only there to protect and serve the privileged (people like Romeo), and that wretches like the apothecary should not expect to accrue any benefit by playing by the rules. The only option for the apothecary if he wanted a better life, according to Romeo, was to break the law and accept the forty ducats on offer. Continue reading →

Class and spatial divisions in 1969 Los Angeles

There are three main characters in Quentin Tarantino’s film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. They appear in close proximity to each other but are clearly separated in terms of class and space.

Sharon Tate (the moneyed elite) lives at the summit of society in the Hollywood Hills on Cielo Drive. She never travels outside her tightly-knit social and spatial circle, at most a 20-minute drive from home. Sharon is friendly to everyone she meets in her limited and insulated world because she does not see anyone as a threat – even Charles Manson gets a tentative wave hello.

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When Japan’s most famous poet and travel writer Basho visited the remote mountain temple of Risshakuji in the summer of 1689, he wrote, in The Narrow Road to the Deep North (奥の細道):

The whole mountain was made up of massive rocks thrown together, and covered with age-old pines and oaks. The stony ground itself bore the colour of eternity, paved with velvety moss… As I moved on all fours from rock to rock, bowing reverently at each shrine, I felt the purifying power of this holy environment pervading my whole being. Continue reading →

It is almost exactly the same distance, about 4.5 kilometres, from London’s Marble Arch to Ladbroke Grove Tube Station as it is from Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate to Kottbusser Tor U Bahn Station in the heart of Kreuzberg.

But it is not just proximity to major landmarks that connects these two inner city areas: Both districts played a key role in the history and development of London and Berlin after the Second World War, as vibrant working class communities, centres of immigration and social activism, music and culture, and now seemingly relentless gentrification. Continue reading →

When more than 80 percent of the workforce are trade union members in secure, well-paid employment, you might be forgiven for getting a little complacent. Not so the Icelandic Confederation of Labour (ASI), the umbrella organization which represents 123,000 workers across the island. Founded more than a hundred years ago in 1916, ASI is still determined to get the best deal for Iceland’s workers and to address major social issues such as the growing gap between rich and poor, the housing shortage and gender inequality.

The most pressing issue for the union at present, according to ASI General Secretary, Guðrún Ágústa Guðmundsdóttir, is the forthcoming round of collective bargaining. This is important because there is no single minimum wage in Iceland, rather it is the job of the trade unions in each sector to negotiate a minimum wage, based on skills and seniority, with the relevant employers’ organization.  In 2017, the minimum pay of a 22-year-old general worker in the construction industry was 262,515 Krona per month and 260,728 Krona (about 2,100 Euro) in the restaurant and catering industry. For more qualified workers such electricians, carpenters and plumbers, the minimum wage increases to 354,430 Krona (2,835 Euro).  Individual workers are also free to personally negotiate higher wages with their employer.  Continue reading →

I’d always wanted to live under a glacier so I was lucky when I met my husband Ólafur whose family had farmed here for three generations.

At the beginning of a short documentary on Þorvaldseyri, the farm directly below the Eyjafjalljökull volcano, which famously erupted in 2010, shutting down all air traffic in northern Europe for a about a week, Guðný A. Valberg, explains why she came to live and raise a family in such a potentially life-threatening place.

Throughout the 20-minute film, shown regularly at the Þorvaldseyri Visitor Centre in southern Iceland, Guðný discusses the eruption and her family’s response to it in a phlegmatic, no-nonsense manner, singularly lacking in the hysteria that engulfed the rest of the world at the time. Indeed, she expresses surprise and amusement at all fuss in other parts of the world caused by their “little volcano.” Continue reading →

April and early May in northern Australia’s Kakadu National Park is known as Banggerreng, the season of knock’em down storms. It marks the transition from Gudjewg, the monsoon season, and Yegee, the beginning of the dry season. In all, there are six seasons in Kakadu, all of which describe not just the climate but the entire ecology of the region; the plants to harvest, the animals to hunt, and most importantly how to manage the land in accordance with traditional practice.

During Banggerreng, the local Bininj/Mungguy people say that the chirruping of Yamidji the green grasshopper signals that it is time to harvest the cheeky yams, while in Yegee, the flowering of the Darwin woolly butt means that it is time to take advantage of the drying winds and burn the woodland in a patchwork pattern so as to clear deadwood and encourage new plant growth. Continue reading →

FRIDAY evening at La Residence, an opulent French restaurant on 214^th Street where a dinner for two costs a month’s wages for most people, Phnom Penh’s elite are gathering for a party. Everyone is smiling and happy, perfectly at ease amid the marble and chandeliers as they sit down for a meal of foie gras, wagu beef and lobster with fine wine and brandy. Their children, dressed in princess ball-gowns and little suits with bow-ties, run up and down the corridors and spiral staircase without a care in the world.

On the other side of town, down by the Old Market, children exactly the same age are playing in the garbage: They use a blue plastic water barrel, cut in half, as a rocking chair and chase each other with plastic bottles. They are dressed in rags, some of the younger ones are naked, and none have any shoes. Their parents are nowhere to be seen. Their dinner tonight, if they have any, will be rice and vegetables and maybe a scrap of fish from a roadside food vendor. Continue reading →

The clock above the entrance to Battambang railway station reads two minutes past eight. It has been two minutes past eight ever since the railway closed down and the station was abandoned in 2009. Today, the track and the marshalling yards are overgrown with weeds and cows graze amid the dilapidated, graffiti-covered locomotive sheds. The 1930s-station building itself however is still in relatively good condition and has even been recently repainted to highlight its deco-inspired facade. Continue reading →

Saigo Takamori stares out from a box of peanut cookies at passengers arriving at Kagoshima’s Central Railway Station. Saigo is probably the most famous son of Kagoshima: He played a key role in the Meji Restoration and was immortalized as Japan’s “last samurai” after taking a fateful stand against the new Meji government in 1877 but today, like many other historical figures in Japan, he plays a key role in selling his home town to tourists at the railway station gift shop.

Alongside Saigo in the gift shop you will find boxes of miniature cakes representing Sakurajima, the very active volcano that looms over the city from across the harbour, giant radishes grown in the mountain’s volcanic soil, air-dried ham and a wide variety of other meat products from the region’s famous black pigs and cattle, plus Satsuma shochu, made from local sweet potatoes. Continue reading →