Surveying Sisters

Over the past few years there had been a dramatic increase in the number of women entering the surveying profession. Fewer than five per cent of practising surveyors were women, but women comprised twenty per cent of students. Originally published in 1991, Surveying Sisters explores the question of whether ‘more’ would mean ‘better’, either for women surveyors themselves, or for women as consumers of the built environment. Clara Greed investigates the experiences of individual women surveyors, as well as studying the nature of the male majority. Taking a broadly feminist perspective and using an ethnographic approach, she develops a strong theoretical basis, incorporating the gender, class, and spatial dimensions of the situation, centring round the concept that surveying has its own distinct professional subculture. She traces the historical roots of the profession, and its attitudes to women, and makes constructive suggestions for improving the position of women surveying today. This was a highly topical study, at a time when the surveying profession was eager to attract more women in order to allay the effects of declining numbers of school leavers and potential ‘manpower’ shortages. It will be of interest to people concerned about issues of gender in disciplines such as sociology, management studies, higher education, urban geography, and women’s studies, and to the women and men who work in the surveying and other built environment professions.

A comprehensive and practical guide to surveying for archaeologists, with clear instructions in how to record their field work effectively, archaeological mapping and detailed case studies from the UK, Europe and the US.

Walter and Katie Hume coped with isolation from family and the deaths of five infants while working to establish their financial future, secured promotions for Walter and created a place for themselves among the colonial elite. They attained the ideal middle-class family life with Walter's career success providing sufficient income to educate their children overseas, reside in elite homes and angage in genteel and philanthropic pastimes.

In Colonial Survey and Native Landscapes in Rural South Africa, 1850 - 1913, Lindsay Frederick Braun explores the technical processes and struggles surrounding the creation and maintenance of boundaries and spaces in South Africa in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The precision of surveyors and other colonial technicians lent these enterprises an illusion of irreproachable objectivity and authority, even though the reality was far messier. Using a wide range of archival and printed materials from survey departments, repositories, and libraries, the author presents two distinct episodes of struggle over lands and livelihoods, one from the Eastern Cape and one from the former northern Transvaal. These cases expose the contingencies, contests, and negotiations that fundamentally shaped these changing South African landscapes.

Fifty years ago, nearly 200,000 religious sisters worked in Catholic schools, hospitals and other institutions throughout the United States. American Catholics honored these women of faith who founded and built these flourishing works of mercy. Then came the ideological shifts and moral upheavals of the 1960s, and ever since, most women's orders in the United States have been in a state of crisis. Now the sisters are aging, with fewer and fewer younger women to take their place. Perhaps related to this demographic shift is the continuing doctrinal confusion that has come under the scrutiny of the Vatican. Using the archival records of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and other prominent groups of sisters, journalist and author Ann Carey shows how feminist activists unraveled American women's religious communities from their leadership positions in national organizations and large congregations. She also explains the recent and necessary interventions by the Vatican. After examining the many forces that have contributed to the crisis, Carey reports on a promising sign of renewal in American religious life: the growing number of young women attracted to older communities that have retained their identity and newly formed, yet traditional, congregations.

Map Worlds plots a journey of discovery through the world of women map-makers from the golden age of cartography in the sixteenth-century Low Countries to tactile maps in contemporary Brazil. Author Will C. van den Hoonaard examines the history of women in the profession, sets out the situation of women in technical fields and cartography-related organizations, and outlines the challenges they face in their careers. Map Worlds explores women as colourists in early times, describes the major houses of cartographic production, and delves into the economic function of intermarriages among cartographic houses and families. It relates how in later centuries, working from the margins, women produced maps to record painful tribal memories or sought to remedy social injustices. Much later, one woman so changed the way we think about continents that the shift has been likened to the Copernican revolution. Other women created order and wonder about the lunar landscape, and still others turned the art and science of making maps inside out, exposing the hidden, unconscious, and subliminal “text” of maps. Shared by all these map-makers are themes of social justice and making maps work for the betterment of humanity.

Addresses the difficulties faced by women who embark on careers in the professions and considers the future of equal opportunties policies at a time of recession and high unemployment. It also explores the need to de-gender the concept of career in order to encompass women's expectations

This book provides a bridge between the introductory research methods books and the discipline-specific, higher level texts. Its unique feature is the coverage of the detailed process of research rather than the findings of research projects. Chapter authors have been carefully selected by their expertise, discipline and location to give an eclectic range of perspectives. Particular care has been taken to balance positivist with interpretivist approaches throughout. The authors focus is on the practical consequences of research philosophies, strategies and techniques by using their own research and by evaluating the work of others. Advanced Research Methods in the Built Environment addresses common topics raised by postgraduate level researchers rather than dealing with all aspects of the research process. Issues covered range from the practicalities of producing a journal article to the role of theory in research. The material brought together here provides a valuable resource for the training and development of doctoral and young researchers and will contribute to a new sense of shared methodological understanding across built environment research.