The trauma of war rape: A comparative view on the Bosnian conflict and the Greek civil war

This paper explores the practice and the political context of war rapes in the former Yugoslavia (1992-1995) and in the Greek Civil War (1946-1949). It argues that conceptions about accountability and expected gender roles may lead social actors to commit atrocities that transgress the moral codes of their own society, while condemning their victims to silence. On the other hand, a change in the political context may undermine the impunity enjoyed by the perpetrators and ultimately lead war rape victims to break their silence and bear witness. This argument is illustrated by a detailed analysis of one particular interview, in which a woman raped during the Greek Civil War decided to break her silence fifty years after the event. The interview material offers the opportunity to explore the effects of trauma and the multiple ways in which war rape victims may try to cope with past trauma and give meaning to a shattered life.     

Climate shocks and conflict: Evidence from colonial Nigeria

This paper offers a historical micro-level analysis of the impact of climate shocks on the incidence of civil conflict in colonial Nigeria (1912–1945). Primary historical sources on court cases, prisoners and homicides are used to capture conflict. To measure climate shocks we use the deviation from long-term rainfall patterns, capturing both drought and excessive rainfall. We find a robust and significant curvilinear (U-shaped) relationship between rainfall deviations and conflict intensity, which tends to be stronger in agro-ecological zones that are least resilient to climatic variability (such as Guinean Savannah) and where (pre-) colonial political structures were less centralized. We find evidence that the relationship is weaker in areas that specialize in the production of export crops (such as cocoa and palm oil) compared to subsistence farming areas, suggesting that agricultural diversification acts as an insurance mechanism against the whims of nature. Additional historical information on food shortages, crop-price spikes and outbreaks of violence is used to explore the climate–conflict connection in greater detail.     

Archaeology,assistance, and aggression along the Euphrates: reflections from Raqqa

ABSTRACT

This paper traces the cultural missions and salvage archaeology programs along the Euphrates River around Raqqa from the 1950s onwards. We suggest that the varied investments from international expeditions, conservation programs, and technical assistance in Syria have an important, untold history that is relevant to recent developments and conflicts in northern Syria. We explore the intersecting practices of archaeology and assistance, illuminated by archives drawn from international agencies such as UNESCO, as well as companies, consultants, bureaucrats, and archaeologists. Our focus is upon foreign intervention around imperiled heritage, considering not only internal politics but also UNESCO’s 1960s shift from fully funded campaigns to global appeals reliant on foreign governments, corporations, and universities. The outsourcing of salvage allowed specific patrons – national and international – to privilege particular pasts; and it is these histories and legacies that further require us to reassess the place of Raqqa in the current civil war.     

A wider Europe: the view from Minsk and Chisinau

The expansion of NATO and the enlargement of the EU will produce outside states in which perceptions and policies will be influenced by feelings of exclusion and isolation. Building on an earlier article published in International Affairs (January 2000) on Russia and Ukraine, this article analyses two countries 'inbetween' in which these feelings are particularly strong. Belarus and Moldova, two classic borderlands, are small, new states with borders not of their own choosing and little sense of identity. Their economies are in dire straits and each has a large problem that hampers European integration. For Belarus the problem is its president; for Moldova it is the separatist regime controlling 12 per cent of its territory. Based on elite interviews, opinion surveys and the analysis of focus group discussions, this article compares and contrasts the attitudes towards NATO and the EU in these two countries.     

Field work: A view from the third world

André Béteille and T. N. Madan, eds. Encounter and Experience. Honolulu: The University Press of Hawaii, 1975. viii + 225 pp. Bibliography. $8.00.     

Exhibiting atomic culture: the view from Oak Ridge

In the aftermath of World War II, residents of “nuclear cities” like Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Los Alamos, New Mexico, where America's atomic weapons were produced struggled to interpret the nation's atomic history as well as their own stories, for themselves, for tourists and for other visitors. Once literally hidden cities, they remain steeped in Cold War culture and ideology, yet they face uncertain futures as weapons production needs change, hazardous waste dangers become more apparent and homeland security is threatened. “Atomic museums” established at these and other sites have become focal points of such dilemmas. Their evolving interpretations of America's atomic heritage play a significant role in shaping public understanding of the Bomb.     

The Haida: A view from 1966

Mary Lee Stearns, Haida Culture in Custody: The Masset Band. Seattle, University of Washington Press, 1981. xiii and 322 pp. Illustrations, maps, bibliography, index. $24.50 cloth.     

Geopolitics and visuality: Sighting the Darfur conflict

In the many considerations of visual culture in geography, there are few works concerned with the visual culture of contemporary geopolitics. In seeking to rectify this lacuna, this paper outlines elements of a research project to consider the way visuality is a pivotal assemblage in the production of contemporary geopolitics. Signalling the need for a conceptual exploration of the importance of vision and visuality to all forms of knowledge (rather than just those associated with or manifested in specific visual artefacts like pictures), the paper argues that understanding the significance of visuality for geopolitics involves recasting visual culture as visual economy. This enables the constitutive relations of geopolitics and visuality to shift from the social construction of the visual field to the visual performance of the social field. This argument is illustrated through an examination of some of the documentary photography and photojournalism covering the most recent outbreak of war in Darfur, Sudan, beginning in the summer of 2003. Exploring the tension in these pictures between the established disaster iconography of ‘Africa’ and the desire to image genocidal violence and war crimes, considering in particular the way photography captures identity, the argument concludes with reflections on the way the visual performance of the social field that is Darfur structures our encounters with others.     

Types of democracy and modes of conflict management in ethnically divided societies

The Western democratic nation–state is a model state in the world state system. It appears in two variants: individual–liberal and republican–liberal. Both are grounded on individual rights only. In the West there are also several cases of consociational democracy in which separate national communities and their collective rights are recognised. Since World War II the liberal nation–state has been under global and internal pressures to change. It has kept its basic character but partially decoupled nation and state and recognised group differences. Along with individual–liberal democracy, republican–liberal democracy and consociational democracy, multicultural democracy and ethnic democracy are taking shape as alternative types of democracy. This fivefold typology can contribute to the fields of comparative politics and comparative ethnicity. It serves as a broad framework for the analysis of five states in this special issue: Northern Ireland, Estonia, Israel, Poland and Turkey.     

The global and regional constitution of nations: the view from East Asia

ABSTRACT. While the origins of nationalism are sought in global historical trends, few analysts have shown how nations themselves are constituted and re‐shaped by circulating global power, ideas and models. The view from East Asia shows that these circulations are mediated by regional developments and interactions which bind these nations together in rivalry and interdependence. The histories of China, Japan and Korea have been closely tied together since the end of the nineteenth century and, with a gap of about thirty years during the Cold War, have intensified once again. The global and regional constitution of nations produces a dialectic between its global form and aspirations and misrecognition of this constitution arising from the self‐perception of nationalism as historically immanent. This tension between the global constitution and national misrecognition contributes to the tenacity of nationalism. It also allows us to get a better grasp of the relationship between historical change and structure in nationalism and the relationship between state and popular nationalisms in the countries of the region.     

The prehistory of the Austronesian-speaking peoples: A view from language

Prior to the European colonial expansions of the past several centuries the Austronesian (AN) language family had the greatest geographical extent of any on earth, including in its territory areas that had never previously been settled. Although predominantly distributed in a tropical or subtropical environment, AN-speaking peoples exhibit a wide range of physical types, material cultures, and types of social and political organization. This paper addresses ways in which linguistic comparison can contribute toward answering such questions as the following: Where was the AN homeland? What was the nature of early AN material culture, social and political organization? What can we infer about early AN pathology? How did early AN speakers view the spirit world? It concludes with a discussion of culture loss, many examples of which can be inferred both from the Pacific and from insular Southeast Asia.     

Evolution of marine mammal hunting: A view from the California and Oregon coasts

Marine mammals constitute … an integral part of the marine ecosystem usually as top predators. Hunting of cetaceans and pinnipeds for skins, meat and blubber has of course gone on from the earliest recorded times. At various periods … the hunting of them intensified to the point at which it caused serious depletion. Although accurate records are not available, there is little doubt that many marine mammal populations were reduced to a small fraction (perhaps no more than a tenth or so) of their former levels. Some like the sea otter, disappeared from parts of their range …     

合作与冲突：劳资纠纷中的资本家阶级

20世纪上半叶劳资纠纷日趋激烈.在认知层面,资本家阶级高倡劳资合作主义,鲜有例外.无论是以发展中国实业为抱负,抑或以追求利润最大化为目的,劳资合作,共谋发展,对资方都有利而无害;但作为不同的阶级、阶层或利益群体,劳资两方自有天然的矛盾和冲突,在实践层面,资方往往能本合作主义之精神,做出某种程度的妥协,求得冲突的缓和或解决,但亦不乏坚持顽抗者.资方是否做出妥协,主要取决于对其利益得失的权衡.