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This chapter uses symbolic interactionism as a theoretical framework for considering data produced during two in-depth ethnographic investigations: one at Orco, a minerals processing facility; the other at RTE, the Rail Transport Executive of an urban region in Australia. It discusses the value of symbolic interactionism in revealing the detailed importance of interaction between managers and workers and, particularly, within specific workgroups. It argues that regular, repeated and intense interaction such as characterizes daily work in high-pressure occupations helps establish subcultures. It is then comparatively easy for a subculture group to develop its own values and meanings in opposition to those promulgated by management. The two case studies differ significantly around the organizational value placed on investigating injuries and accidents. In the Orco workplace, injury statistics are clearly communicated and workers believe that the “zero injury workplace” is a management priority. In the RTE, transit officer injuries are kept confidential and workers believe that a major purpose of investigations is to show how individual workers are at fault. In both cases, however, the work group has developed an informal safety culture at odds with that promoted by managers.The conclusion drawn by the end of the chapter is that managers seeking to influence the safety cultures of workers in dangerous and fraught occupations should pay close attention to the ways in which those workers operate at a symbolic distance from management. They should engage with the workers to understand the symbolic value placed by frontline staff upon the meanings attributed to safe work practices, and should collaborate together to develop a shared safety culture in which workers are protected by active management engagement in their symbolic reality. Where this occurs, workers’ perspectives are appreciated at the same time as their practices become more regulated and aligned with managerial wishes. Symbolic interactionism offers a rich perspective that takes into account the dynamism of changing circumstances and that works outwards from the thought processes of individuals through to interactions across entire organizations.

David L. Altheide, Ph.D., is Emeritus Regents’ Professor of the Faculty of Justice and Social Inquiry in the School of Social Transformation at Arizona State University, where he taught for 36 years. His work has focused on the role of mass media and information technology in social control. His most recent books are Qualitative media analysis (2nd ed., Sage, 2012) and Terror post 9/11 and the media (Lang, 2009). Altheide received the Cooley Award three times, given to the outstanding book in symbolic interaction, from the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction: In 2007 for Terrorism and the politics of fear (2006); in 2004 for Creating fear: News and the construction of crisis (2002); and in 1986 for Media power (1985). Altheide received the 2005 George Herbert Mead Award for lifetime contributions from the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction, and the society’s Mentor Achievement Award in 2007.

Rarely are we invited to know the where of a writer’s writing; not the stance or angle or point of view they take on their narrative, but rather, the physical space and time they occupy as they write. This, of course, is an integral facet of the writer’s craft – and perhaps art. Writers (or in this case, ethnographers) may write “winter wonderland” tales in summer, or pieces exploring the inner workings of mind while on an impressive, event-packed holiday. They may write with calm and ease while flying at 11,277 meters above the Tasman Sea in a jostling, raucous ride that tests the resolve of all who fly. They may end up taking notes at their chosen “site,” transcribing in cramped student quarters, and writing in between early-morning feedings. Does place (and, come to it, time) affect what they have to say? What they choose to write? How they – or we – interpret what “facts” or “data” or “evidences” they call to bear on their individual take of the “truth”?

Sane and civilised people, capable of thinking clearly, now recognise that if the peace of the world is to be secured, and that if another and even greater cataclysm is to be prevented, the Huns and their accomplices must be crushed, and crushed so completely that their recovery of the power to do evil shall be rendered utterly impossible. The persons who are “Pro‐German” for reasons at present best known to themselves, and the peace‐at‐any‐price cranks, may be left out of consideration except in so far as the advisability of placing the former under lock and key and the latter in lunatic asylums demands attention. A premature and inconclusive peace which would make it possible for our abominable enemies to rise again and threaten civilised mankind is unthinkable, and the Allied Powers must of necessity carry on the war until the Thugs of Europe have bitten the dust and have been compelled to sue for peace without terms or conditions. When the “Central Powers” have been forced to their knees, and the Allied armies of occupation have made them taste the bitterness and humiliation of invasion, the surviving criminals will be placed at the bar to receive the sentence of their judges, while the populations who have approved and applauded their hideous acts must also have adequate punishment meted out to them. What form is that punishment to take? The long and ghastly account has got to be read out and settled—so far as it can be settled in this world. What is to be the settlement?

Despite widespread recognition of the importance of place in entrepreneurship research, much less attention has been paid to the methodological challenges that inquiries into place presents. Understanding the relationship between place and entrepreneurship is becoming increasingly important as focus turns to sustainable entrepreneurship and as policy makers turn to ‘place-based’ approaches to regional sustainability challenges. This chapter provides insight one researcher’s experiences engaging stakeholders in discussions about the relationship between a place-based university programme for sustainability and local sustainability agendas. The chapter reveals the struggles experienced by both researcher and participants in articulating what places and the local region means to both individuals and to the programme. The findings provide an important insight into how researchers studying place need to be cognisant of the limitations and flexibility of language when engaging research participants in discussing the relationship between place, sustainability, and entrepreneurship.

In a recent issue of the Municipal Journal there appeared a short but apparently inspired article on the subject of London Government, in which is foreshadowed another drastic and apparently imminent alteration of the system of local administration at present in operation in the Metropolis.

AN older librarian, we think, looking at the Annual Report of the Library Association, which is the principal publication of June, must almost rub his eyes in bewilderment at the recent progress made. In the outer world of libraries, that part which the public sees, there are symptoms, and actual signs, of development; new branch libraries, such as those at Sheffield, at Croydon, and at Dartford, are portents of a sort—pleasant substitutes, and most effective ones, for the larger, orthodox (in size at least) branches such as Yardley Wood, Crossgates, Firth Park and Leith. Greater development must be a problem for a few years to come, as every librarian must acknowledge. It is in the development of librarianship and bibliology that this record of the L.A. is so significant. The bare fact that the Centenary Year sees the L.A. with a membership rapidly approaching ten thousand and an income of £36,000 seems almost incredible. Even more so is the fact, not quite so pleasing, that by £347 this income proved insufficient; but, on reflection, that, too, is a sign of activity. The Association has almost ceased what was once thought to be its main pre‐occupation; its own organization, or, as one of our writers called it, “the moving about of its domestic furniture.” It is now deeply concerned with international librarianship, an attitude which in no small measure it owes to Mr. H. M. Cashmore and to Mr. Welsford's flair as host at Chaucer House; its gradual adjustment of its benefits, including the education ones, so that they appeal to other than public librarians, as they formerly did, and to such an extent that over one thousand special and university librarians are grouped in it; the immense, for it is that, educational and examination scheme, which from the accounts appears to cost: the administration about £1,900 more than the candidates' fees provide; its extending publishing business, now costing in all £12,150 a year, but bringing in returns more valuable than the substantial sales would suggest, and the quite remarkable library, information, and research work. The Association has become a large business, influencing the life of every librarian and energizing most of the work now done in libraries. The Report has a general acknowledgment paragraph recording the debt owed to the chairmen of committees. It is a modest tribute to a group of men who give great labours to our interests. To be the chairman of a Library Association Committee today is to be a leader and hard‐driven worker. We owe them much. And this does not reduce our admiration for the manner in which the official staff of the Association do their work.

IN the nature of things the Library Association Conference this year cannot have the spectacular character of the jubilee one of 1950; but that does not mean it will be less effective or less useful. Edinburgh is the second city of the United Kingdom, at least in appeal to bookmen, and probably Scots would object to our order of the hierarchy. Apart from the public libraries, a place that has the National Library of Scotland, the Advocates, the Signet and the University libraries, to name only the principal ones, with many associations and treasures, must have great attractions. On looking over conference reports generally, one can infer that the one institution in a town that is not frequented by librarians in the week is the public library. The obstacle is no doubt occupation with the meetings, which many delegates are naturally unwilling to miss. But we do suggest that library visits by newcomers to Edinburgh might be quite as important, in present impression and lasting effect, as most ordinary meetings can be. Since it must be admitted that our business at Edinburgh is to attend meetings, restraint is essential, but at least the Central Library and the fine Leith Library should be squeezed into the personal programme.