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Small acts, kind words and 'not too much fuss' 2 Small acts, kind words and "not too much fuss": implicit activisms AbstractIn this paper, we suggest that social scientists' accounts of 'activism' have too-often tended to foreground and romanticise the grandiose, the iconic, and the unquestionably meaning-ful, to the exclusion of different kinds of 'activism'. Thus, while there is a rich social-scientific literature chronicling a social history of insurrectionary protests and key figures/thinkers, we suggest that there is more to 'activism' (and there are more kinds of 'activism') than this. In short, we argue that much can be learnt from what we term implicit activisms which -being small-scale, personal, quotidian and proceeding with little fanfare -have typically gone uncharted in social-scientific understanding of 'activism'. This paper will reflect upon one example of this kind of 'implicit' activism, by representing findings from interviews undertaken with 150 parents/carers, during an evaluation of a 'Sure Start' Centre in the East Midlands, UK. From these interviews emerged a sense of how the Centre (and the parents/carers, staff and material facilities therein) had come to matter profoundly to these parents/carers. We suggest that these interviews extend and unsettle many social-scientific accounts of 'activism' in three key senses. First: in evoking the specific kinds of everyday, personal, affective bonds which lead people to care. Second: in evoking the kinds of small acts, words and gestures which can instigate and reciprocate/reproduce such care. And third: in suggesting how such everyday, affective bonds and acts can ultimately constitute political activism and commitment, albeit of a kind which seeks to proceed with 'not too much fuss'.

A research-oriented system for automated microscopy is described from an operational point of view. The system consists of a microscope, a TV camera, an automatic cell finder and a servo-driven computer controlled stage. The system is interfaced to a NOVA 840 computer having 112,000 words of 16-bit core memory and extensive peripherals. It is capable of performing a wide variety of image processing tasks and is being used to study various aspects of automated microscopy, with applications in, but not limited to, cytology. Results of preliminary performance evaluations are given.

This paper considers some key impacts of public sector neoliberalisation and austerity measures for everyday geographies of childhood and youth in England. The paper develops three claims, with reference to qualitative research conducted at a youth group in 2007, 2009 and 2013. First, I outline a range of ways in which long-run processes of public sector neoliberalisation, and more abrupt cuts to public sector expenditure 'in the current climate' of austerity politics, have substantially transformed geographies of childhood and youth in many minority world contexts. However, I argue that extant research on these transformations has tended to reproduce some rather partial understandings of impacts of service withdrawal, which I critique via a reading of recent geographical work on anticipatory politics. Second, I evidence how political-economic contexts of neoliberalisation and austerity have constituted a particular atmosphere and sense of the future, tangibly affecting everyday relationships, spaces and the efficacy of service provision at the case study youth group. In particular, I emphasise the significance of anticipated futures, noting that the anticipation of funding cuts is having manifold everyday, lived consequences that are arguably more wide-ranging, intractable and troubling than the impacts of funding cuts themselves. Third, in particular, I argue that spaces of anticipated funding cuts and service withdrawal are frequently characterised by an intensification of anxieties about, and hopes for, young people's futures. I note that young people are diversely affected by, and engaged in, the circulation of these anxieties and hopesbut also recognise that young people's geographies go on, and sometimes offer hopeful ways on, 'in the current climate'.

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This article sets out some of the key features of a realist critique of liberal moralism, identifying descriptive inadequacy and normative irrelevance as the two fundamental lines of criticism. It then sketches an outline of a political theory of modus vivendi as an alternative, realist approach to political theory. On this account a modus vivendi should be understood as any political settlement that involves the preservation of peace and security and is generally acceptable to those who are party to it. In conclusion, some problems with this conception of modus vivendi and with a realist political theory more generally are discussed. In particular, the question is raised of whether a realist political theory should be understood as an alternative to liberal moralism or only a better way of doing basically the same kind of thing.

This collection emerges from the intersection of two vibrant, dynamic and expanding academic endeavours. The papers are situated within 'new' social-scientific studies of childhood and youth and also draw upon a burgeoning interest in mobility (for which this journal is clearly a cornerstone). This editorial essay provides an introduction to extant and prospective work at the intersection of these lines of enquiry, and has a twofold structure. First, we provide a sketch-map of recent social-scientific studiesespecially those which have emerged from the academic sub-discipline that has come to be termed 'Children's Geographies' -which have interrogated some of the manifold mobilities fundamental to younger people's lives. We argue, though, that much of this extant research concerning children's and young people's mobilities remains limitedboth theoretically and empirically. So, second, we elaborate a number of ways in which intersections of mobilities and (young) age ought to pose significant questions for future research and enquiry regarding 'mobility', 'childhood' and 'youth', and perhaps those very terms themselves. In so doing, we provide an introduction to the papers in this collection which -though dealing with diverse mobilities and locales, and though showcasing various conceptual and methodological inclinations and new directions -share a concern to take the road less travelled by attending to, and beginning to open out, such challenging, and potentially fruitful, questions. Social-scientific Studies of Childhood and Children's GeographiesOver the past decade, children and young people -and indeed the contested, culturally-specific notions of 'childhood' and 'youth' themselves 1 -have become increasingly important foci for the social sciences, but especially for sociologists,

This paper considers the importance of walking for many children and young people's everyday lives, experiences and friendships. Drawing upon research with 175 9-to 16-yearolds living in new urban developments in south-east England, we highlight key characteristics of (daily,t aken-for-granted, ostensibly aimless) walking practices, which were of constitutive importance in children and young people'sfriendships, communities and geographies. These practices were characteristically bounded, yet intense and circuitous. They were vivid, vital, loved, playful, social experiences yet also dismissed, with ashrug, as 'just walking'. We argue that 'everyday pedestrian practices' (after Middleton 2010, 2011) like these require critical reflection upon chief social scientific theorisations of walking, particularly the large body of literature on children'sindependent mobility and the rich, multi-disciplinary line of work known as 'new walking studies'. In arguing that these lines of work could be productively interrelated, we propound 'just walking'-particularly the often-unremarked way it matters-as akind of phenomenon which is sometimes done a disservice by chief lines of theory and practice in social and cultural geography.