Projecting the prison: the depiction of the uncanny in The Shawshank Redemption

The space of the prison is no longer on the margins in relation to societal `centres', but instead acts as an adjunct to the urban environment. With the disappearance of the Gothic prison from the archi-texture of contemporary cities, the meaning conveyed by its façade has lost much of its potency. It is now contemporary prison drama, as opposed to the physical façade, that represents the interface between the public and the prison. This article explores a dramatic representation of the prison (The Shawshank Redemption) through the lens of Freud's (1919/1955) notion of the uncanny and Bachelard's (1958/1994) poetics of domestic space. Incarceration, as depicted in film and television, reinforces the `place myths' of the prison (Shields, 1991). Contemporary prison drama portrays the prison as a marginal space in much the way that the Gothic façades of the 19th-century prison projected a particular message. The prison, as depicted on screen, is a simulacrum. It is a facsimile of an architectural idea that only ever existed as a façade - a façade that occluded as much as it projected.

The food multimix concept: new innovative approach to meeting nutritional challenges in Sub-Saharan Africa

Food insecurity, chronic hunger, starvation and malnutrition continue to affect millions of individuals throughout the developing world, especially Sub-Saharan Africa. Various initiatives by African governments and International Agencies such as the UN, the industrial nations, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation to boost economic development, have failed to provide the much-needed solution to these challenges. The impact of these economic shifts and the failures of structural adjustment programmes on the nutritional well-being and health of the most vulnerable members of poor communities cannot be over-emphasised. The use of ad hoc measures as an adjunct to community-based rural integrated projects have provided little success and will be unsustainable unless they are linked to harnessing available local resources. The present paper therefore focuses on exploring alternative ways of harnessing the scant agricultural resources by employing a scientific approach to food-related problem-solving. The food multimix (FMM) concept offers a scientific contribution alongside other attempts currently in use by the World Food Programme, WHO and FAO to meet the food insecurity challenges that confront most of the developing world in the twenty-first century. It is an innovative approach that makes better use of traditional food sources as a tool for meeting community nutritional needs. The FMM concept employs a food-based approach using traditional methods of food preparation and locally-available, cheap and affordable staples (fruits, pulses, vegetables and legumes) in the formulation of nutrient-enriched multimixes. Developed recipes can provide >= 40% of the daily nutritional requirements of vulnerable groups, including patients with HIV/AIDS and children undergoing nutrition rehabilitation. The FMM approach can also be used as a medium- to long-term adjunct to community-based rural integration projects aimed at health improvement and economic empowerment in Sub-Saharan Africa.