A Note on Kalhori Kinship Terms

Despite the great number of studies conducted by Western scholars exploring kinship terminologies in different languages, there seems to have been little attempt at dealing with kin words in Iranian languages like Kurdish. More specifically, Kalhori, as a southern dialect of Kurdish, has rarely been subject to studies of this nature. Underlining the significance of such studies in the wider linguistic and anthropological contexts, this study attempts to explore kin words Kalhori speakers use to refer to or address their relatives. We also make an attempt to investigate the possibility of presenting a formal explanation of the terms by placing them in a componential analysis framework.     

Currents and trends in the archaeological sciences

Here I use ISI Web of Knowledge to build on a recent paper by Butzer (2009) and track current trends in the archaeological sciences. I researched eight thematic keywords replete in the title, abstract, keywords and main body of archaeological science literature for the period 1970–2008. For all keywords investigated a steady rise in archaeological science research is evidenced after 1980, with pronounced growth occurring after 2000. I attribute this pattern to the standardisation of research production and academic evaluation, in addition to the democratisation of new information technologies, notably the Internet. The evolution of 10 leading archaeological science journals was also tracked. Since the 1970s, the bibliometric data show that nine of the ten journals have successfully expanded on an annual basis. I found that the biggest growers (the Journal of Archaeological Science [JAS], the Journal of Human Evolution and the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology) are all published by Elsevier. In 2008, the JAS was ranked first for five of the eight thematic keywords by ISI, underlining the popularity and interdisciplinary scope of the journal. According to the 2008 Journal Citation Reports, the JAS ranks second for total citations (4219) in archaeological science and third for its overall impact factor (1.779).     

Language and Archaeology in Southern Africa: The Search for Post-colonial Reality

Issues to do with languages, particularly those of the former colonizers and the dominant have always been very emotive topics in post-colonial settings. Surely, such languages are living reminders of the bad associated with domination. Ironically, the same languages have emerged as mediums of communication in many post-colonies replete with ethnic groups who speak unrelated languages. For example, the thriving nature of English remarkably contrasts with the fast disappearance of many of the world's languages. However, as archaeologists and in view of the diversity of our languages, how do we communicate and understand each other? We may invent a neutral language or translate every other article into our many languages. But at what cost? Half the world is dying of hunger and disease as we argue over the need to make all languages important; research money is becoming difficult to access. Therefore, the need to communicate is probably more important than the need to perpetuate a victim mentality.     

东南亚华人的人类学研究：以区域及主题为分析焦点

本文的重点在于概述启始于上个世纪中期的人类学东南亚华人研究以及学者在不同时期偏重的各个方向。笔者并不企图在本文中完整、详细地讨论人类学者的东南亚华人研究成果 ,而是希望从不同地区及研究主题两个方面 ,概述半个世纪以来人类学者的东南亚华人研究重心、重要的转折以及新近的研究方向。     

Mobile Humanity: The Delocalization of Anthropological Research

Anthropological research in recent decades has become increasingly multi-sited, envisioning the local as an iteration of world-systemic processes, and following the movement of people, things and ideas across the typical boundaries of sites. This review essay examines four edited volumes concerned with such mobility and dislocation. The cultural anthropological volumes engage with the strengths and perceived weaknesses of multi-sited ethnography, the advantages of following people and themes across space, and the definition of sites by topic rather than by place. The archaeological collections move beyond typologies that have constrained archaeological investigations of movement through the study of the material practices that constituted social landscapes of mobile and settled peoples. Although the reviewed volumes offer important methodological distinctions and theoretical engagements, all four provide numerous ethnographic and ethnoarchaeological views of the delocalization of anthropological research, including claims for the utility of collaborative partnerships, the following of paths across space and time, and the reconsideration of the fixity and centrality of contemporary, historic and prehistoric places.     

1999—2019年珠江三角洲区域一体化进程——基于政府门户网站新闻报道的分析

本文基于广东省和珠江三角洲9市政府门户网站,采集标题中含珠江三角洲以及3大都市圈（广佛肇、深莞惠和珠中江）的新闻报道数据,并根据新闻主题归类到基础设施、经济、社会和制度4个维度,分析1999—2019年珠三角及3大都市圈一体化在4个维度的动态化进程。研究发现：①区域规划编制促进一体化进程推进。珠三角和3大都市圈一体化进程的新闻报道数量受历版区域规划演进的影响;②珠三角和3大都市圈一体化进程存在明显的维度差异。其中,珠三角一体化一直关注基础设施和制度维度,并呈现对社会维度的转向;3大都市圈一体化则在4个维度不尽相同,反映政府在区域一体化的不同诉求。③不同层级政府对珠三角和3大都市圈一体化的关注存在明显差异。其中,广东省政府更关注珠三角一体化,而各市政府更关注各自都市圈一体化。     

Transcending the academic/public divide in the transmission of theory: Raglan,diffusionism, and mid-century anthropology

Anthropology is plural, not singular, and only a section of its history is decided within universities. A critical re-examination of the work of Lord Raglan demonstrates that retaining an overly academic conception of anthropology impoverishes our understanding of its pasts and its futures. The last of the gentleman-scholars in British anthropology, Raglan was a prominent polemicist of the mid-century, who persistently kept anthropological approaches to contemporary concerns within the public eye. Though a postwar President of the Royal Anthropological Institute and praised by scholars in neighbouring disciplines, Raglan’s diffusionism was sharply criticized by standard-bearers of structural-functionalism. Adopting a broader perspective, Raglan can be viewed as both a sharp-eyed scholar and a successful public intellectual; re-assessment of his work and its effects leads to a re-consideration of the historiography of mid-century UK anthropology: particular theories, though denigrated by mainstream anthropologists, may continue to flourish in other disciplines or extra-academic arenas.     

Thick Decisions: Expertise,Advocacy and Reasonableness in the Federal Court of Australia

Drawing from the litigation around the Hindmarsh Island Bridge (especially Chapman v Luminis Pty Ltd 2001) this article provides an analysis of judicial responses to anthropological expertise. Sensitive to the institutional responsibilities of judges, as well as rules of evidence, procedures and legal causes of action, it examines the strategic representation and appropriation of anthropological knowledge and practice. In exploring the relations between law and expertise the article illustrates how their combination shapes outcomes. In the process it explains how the judge could have produced a range of (in)consistent outcomes through the modulation of legal categories and their relations with prevalent images of anthropological expertise. This analysis positions the article to critically reflect on some of the implications for anthropologists working in and around legal or quasi‐legal settings as well as those commenting on that participation.     

Some pig! Exchanging NFTs for the perspective of regeneration

There are a thousand more silly ideas for every utopian blockchain project to heal the planet, foster financial justice, transform cultural production or democratize practically anything and everything. Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are one of them. The funny thing is that the more you pick at them, the more they harmonize with certain longstanding anthropological arguments. Non-fungibility lurks in the anthropological imagination of non-capitalist economies. This article uses the common law of fungibility to explore the elevation of the very idea of non-fungibility presumed in many NFTs. This idea might have more in common with saints’ incorruptible flesh or the Crown Jewels than the standard fictions of capitalist finance. They cut social ties by insisting on their singularity and immutability. In doing so, they crowd out other blockchain conversations about regeneration and ways to reckon the debts we owe any number of possible futures.     

On Language Distribution in Ilam Province,Iran

As is still the case in many parts of Iran, the distribution of languages and dialects in Ilam Province, western Iran, is unevenly documented. There have been several studies on specific language varieties spoken throughout the province but, in large part because of conflicting perspectives on the relationship between language and ethnicity, the situation for the region as a whole has until now remained unclear. The present study first of all brings together existing sociolinguistic and demographic data on language distribution and highlight areas of uncertainty. The main part of the study provides an overview of local perceptions of language distribution and language use based on field research and interviews conducted in each of the province's ten regions (shahrestān) and their twenty-five districts (bakhsh). Here, respondents' assessments of the geographic extent of the province's four main languages—Kurdish, Luri, Laki and Arabic—as well as more minor languages spoken by immigrants from elsewhere in Iran are summarized. For Kurdish in particular, which is the major of the four languages, the article shows the perceived geographic distribution of each major dialect and its affiliation within one of two major Kurdish dialect groups: Ilāmi (or “Feyli”) and Kalhōri. This analysis is followed by a brief discussion of multilingualism. The results of the study are brought together in a map of the province's languages.     

The Atlas of the Languages of Iran (ALI): A Research Overview

There have been a number of important efforts to map out the languages of Iran, but until now no language atlas, or even a comprehensive and detailed country-level language map, has been produced. One of the recent initiatives which aims to fill this gap is the online Atlas of the Languages of Iran (ALI) (http://iranatlas.net). This article delineates objectives of the ALI research programme, atlas architecture, research methodology, and preliminary results that have been generated. Specific topics of interest are the structure and content of the linguistic data questionnaire; the handling of contrasting perspectives about the status of “languages” and “dialects” through a flexible multi-dimensional classification web; and the role of ongoing comparisons between language distribution assessments and hard linguistic data.     

Anthropology and the covert: Methodological notes on researching military and intelligence programmes (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

This article reflects upon the methodological challenges posed by the study of secretive organizations and programmes. In particular, it examines the question: when participant‐observation is not a feasible option, what techniques can anthropologists use to shed light upon covert military and intelligence agencies and the corporations that they contract? After reviewing anthropological research on secret societies from the late 18th and early 19th century, the author turns to contemporary anthropological work on bureaucratic institutions and initiatives that operate in secret. The author's own research into the US Army's Human Terrain System serves as an illustration. By adapting Laura Nader's suggestions for ‘studying up, down, and sideways’, the article suggests that documentary analysis (of both openly accessible and classified documents), interviews, and ‘self‐analysis’ provide a fruitful combination of methods for an anthropology of the covert.     

Evidentiary truths? The evidence of anthropology through the anthropology of medical evidence

Anthropologists have become increasingly concerned about the discipline's lack of 'public engagement' with contemporary issues of late, but a key underlying problem - anthropology's unwillingness to address the nature and evidentiary status of anthropological knowledge itself - has remained largely unacknowledged. Here I approach this problem initially through an analysis of the rise of 'evidence' as a central concept in public policy and practice. Using the exemplar of 'evidence-based' medicine, I analyse anthropological responses to these evidentiary requirements, arguing that this turn to evidence can be seen in many other arenas of research and public policy and presents a fundamental challenge for the credibility and legitimacy of anthropology as a discipline. In the second part of the article comparison with anthropological work on legal issues provides a reflexive opening through which to begin to consider the nature of anthropological 'evidence' itself.     

Language as a public good and national identity: Scotland's competing heritage languages

The preservation of one or several historically and culturally important languages may be a salient political issue in some polities. Although they may not be used as an active means of communication, these languages can also serve a symbolic identitary function. These ‘heritage’ languages can be seen as ‘public goods’ and that even non‐speakers of these languages can have opinions regarding their importance to national identity. In the Scotland example, while Gaelic has been the focus of proactive government legislation and education initiatives, Scots is still struggling for status as a recognised language. Both languages are in some way constituent parts of Scottish identity that at times may seem in competition with one another. Using original survey data, we delve deeper into questions of language, identity and politics in Scotland. First, we describe how public opinion is divided over the importance of Gaelic and Scots to Scottish identity. Second, we use attitudes towards these languages as a dependent variable looking at Scottish identity and attachment. Finally, we use these attitudes towards Gaelic and Scots as an independent variable in models for party identification in Scotland.     

The “tribal spirit” in modern Britain: evolution,nationality, and race in the anthropology of Sir Arthur Keith

ABSTRACT

This article re-examines the anthropological scholarship of Sir Arthur Keith (1866–1955), who served as the president of the Royal Anthropological Institute (1914–1917), the Royal Anatomical Society (1918), and the British Association of the Advancement of Science (1927), who wrote prolifically on anatomy, evolution, and the idea of race. While most commonly associated with the Piltdown man hoax, Keith's contributions to the discipline were far greater and more complex. This essay specifically considers how Keith sought to problematize the concept of the nation, considering the nation-state as an evolutionary unit. The first half of this essay examines Keith's theories on the mechanism of evolution (hormonal instincts) and how this informed his ideas of races and nations as evolutionary units. The second half of the essay considers how Keith deployed his ideas about evolutionary instincts, with the goal of advising Britons about how an evolutionary perspective would help understand, if not resolve, modern political challenges, both international and domestic, that faced the British Empire around the time of the First World War.     

Invisible men: mobility and political change on the frontier of late Roman Africa

The political hierarchies that developed in North Africa in the post‐Roman period have traditionally been ascribed either to invading groups from the Sahara, or to indigenous elites who transformed their political authority to respond to changing circumstances. The present article suggests that such interpretations have neglected the role played by seasonal pastoralists within the emergence of these new polities. Human mobility was a crucial feature of the late antique Maghreb, as analysis of the later Roman frontier system reveals. Equally, contemporary anthropological scholarship emphasizes the influence that mobile groups can have in periods of social and political upheaval and their capacity for hierarchical stratification. The article offers two brief case studies, and argues that Antalas, leader of the ‘Frexes’ in southern Byzacena, and the occupants of the ‘Djedar’ tumulus mausolea near Tiaret, are best viewed as products of a mobile society.     

Broca and Charcot’s Research on Jacques Inaudi:The Psychological and Anthropological Study of a Mental Calculator

In the nineteenth century, French scientific institutions became interested in young “mental calculators,” arithmetical prodigies able to quickly and accurately perform complex mental calculations. The first scientists to study mental calculators were phrenologists who sought to prove the existence of a calculating organ in the frontal lobe. Paul Broca introduced one such mental calculator, Jacques Inaudi, to the Anthropological Society of Paris in 1880. Broca attributed extraordinary faculty for mental calculation to memory functioning (the psychological hypothesis) rather than physiological difference (the phrenological hypothesis). In 1892, prominent French Academy of Sciences member Jean-Martin Charcot produced a noteworthy study of Inaudi on the organization’s behalf. Charcot observed that Inaudi called upon auditory memory rather than visual memory in his mental calculations, unlike most mental calculators who preceded him. Like Broca, Charcot was skeptical of the phrenological hypothesis, though he noted that Inaudi’s skull was markedly plagiocephalic. Interestingly, anthropological examination of Inaudi is consistent with the themes of modern cognitive neuroscience. Thus, Charcot seems to have anticipated present research on the localization of mental calculation and memory for numbers.     

Modeling ground slate knife production and implications for the study of household labor contributions to salmon fishing on the Pacific Northwest Coast

Despite longstanding anthropological concerns with the origins of intensive delayed-return subsistence economies and the timing of the development of increasingly complex political systems on the Northwest Coast, the use and production of slate knives—one of the most archaeologically visible tools used to process seasonally available salmon—has received little attention in the archaeological literature. This can be attributed, in part, to the persistence of artifact typologies that have failed to generate behavioral implications for variability in slate artifact assemblages. In this article, I use data derived from ethnographic, experimental, and actualistic research to develop an approach to the classification of slate artifacts expected of knife-production activities. Emphasis is placed on framing slate knife production as a temporally emergent and situated activity, but also as an operational sequence that can be modeled due to regularity in the decisions and motions expected of tool makers producing functionally specific tools. Using slate assemblages recovered during the partial excavation of seven Late and Contact period Coast Salish houses in southern British Columbia, I then evaluate and demonstrate the utility of this approach by considering variability in household labor contributions to salmon fishing.     

Demographic growth and the “cultural factor” in ireland: rethinking the relationship between structure and event

The structure/event dichotomy has been a bone of contention in anthropology for many decades. The so‐called “synchronic paradigms” such as functionalism and structuralism saw “structure” (defined in various ways) as the object of anthropological analysis, whereas “events” were left to historians. Recent trends in anthropological thought are eager to dismiss the ahistoricity of traditional approaches as they attempt to include the diachronic perspective within anthropological research. Very often, this re‐historization of anthropology has entailed the criticism of the structure/event dichotomy. By using data from Irish demographic history, in this article I postulate the need to recover this dichotomy as a fundamental component of the anthropological approach to human affairs.     

An Historian in the Amazon

However private they may seem, emotions depend for their meanings on the communities in which they are expressed. But if emotions are shaped by and for their communities, how can we account for emotional change? After briefly surveying how historians have (1) defined the communities in which emotions have been expressed and (2) explained how and why emotions have changed, this article turns to the community of the Waorani of Amazonian Ecuador. It explores whether anthropological explanations of emotional change in that “test case” may help the historian. The answer is not entirely positive. The article concludes with some thoughts about what sorts of collaborations between historians and anthropologists might be more productive for emotions studies.