Big fish and great auks: Exploitation of birds and fish on the Isle of Portland,Dorset, during the Romano-British period

Abstract

The paper considers the assemblage of bird and fish bones from a Romano-British settlement on the Isle of Portland, on the southern coast of England. Compared with contemporary sites, the assemblage includes an unusually large number of fish bones from a wide range of marine species, including large cod, other Gadidae, several species of seabream, scad and bass. The bird assemblage includes bones of a butchered great auk. This provides the first evidence that this extinct species was nesting off the shores of central southern England and being exploited for food in this period. Other seabirds identified included razorbill, great northern diver and gannet. The species represented are discussed in relation to other Romano-British sites, particularly the Roman town of Dorchester, situated 15 km away. Many of the species have been discovered on only a few contemporary sites and the presence of the seabream in particular indicates that seawater temperatures may have been warmer than until very recently. Possible cultural changes in diet and food procurement in the Roman period are also considered.     

Death as the border: Managing missing migrants and unidentified bodies at the EU's Mediterranean frontier

The paper explores how the management of migrant bodies by national and EU authorities reflects particular understandings of contemporary borders and how the failure to address such bodies has implications far from the frontier. The study of the management both of the dead and of the data that can serve to identify missing migrants, can benefit our understanding of the contemporary border, and has to date received only limited scholarly attention. To address this gap we draw on field research carried out on the Greek island of Lesbos, one of the key migrant entry points to the EU, that has seen repeated incidents of deadly shipwrecks. Based on interviews with families of migrants and local stakeholders the paper explores how death at the border introduces novel – and often invisible – borders and categories of inclusion and exclusion. By shedding light on the experiences of the families of the dead we aspire to introduce a critical set of actors who have been marginalized from the study of the border. In exploring the remote effects of deaths on such families in migrant countries of origin, the paper shows that bordering practices have transnational impacts at the human level, thereby broadening our conceptualization of the border.     

Of burning monks,unidentified churches and the last Cistercian foundation in the East: Our Lady of Camina in the principality of Achaia

The existence of the monastic church of Camina in Frankish Morea has long been noted by historians of Frankish Greece, but its history has never been thoroughly investigated and its location remains unknown. Moreover, some of the documents pertaining to this church have not been published while others have been published in faulty editions that have obscured their full significance. In the present study the surviving documents are edited and the church's history is reconstructed and its location identified. It is suggested that some of the original Benedictine inhabitants of Camina were the only Latin religious to have been burnt at the stake for heresy in medieval Greece. It is also argued that Camina was the last Cistercian abbey to be founded in the Latin East, and that it may be identified as the present monastery of Our Lady of Blachernae near Glarenza (Killini).     

Between space and place in mountaineering: navigating risk,death, and power

Abstract

The liminal status of mountains makes them attractive destinations for adventure, and related tourism and recreation activities. Stemming from critiques of Nepal’s growing adventure tourism industry, and recognising the centrality of Sherpas’ roles within it, of interest are the ways Climbing Sherpas experience liminality in mountaineering. Liminality, an anthropological concept introduced by Arnold van Gennep (1960 van Gennep, A. (1960). The rites of passage. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. [Google Scholar]), becomes transformative as Sherpas use encounters with death and periods of uncertainty to take stock of the purpose of their lives. Moreover, analysis of narrative findings reveal that Sherpas assert individual freedom and collective agency in response to the dangers and demands of Nepal’s commercial mountaineering industry, thereby shifting power relations on the mountainside. These findings challenge assumptions of immobile host populations that underlie some of the current understandings within tourism scholarship. Additionally, exploring the liminal landscapes of the mountainside draws attention to critical concerns regarding tourism (and its associated industries) as a mechanism for economic development.     

Between Water Abundance and Scarcity: Discourses,Biofuels, and Power in Piura,Peru

In 2006, transnational ethanol corporations arrived in Chira, a semi‐arid zone located in the Piura region of northern Peru. Large expanses of land were used to produce sugarcane for ethanol, which triggered local concern over the pressure this would mean on the regional water balance. From political ecology, I examine how the state and a corporation produced discourses on the idea of water abundance in the Chira Basin in order to secure water rights, which increased the risk of water scarcity for small communities, pastoralists and farmers in the region. In doing so, I call attention to the discursive strategies aimed to facilitate processes of dispossession under a technical ethos that reinforce capital accumulation. Finally, I argue that water abundance discourses contributed to produce a “waterscape” that not only produced unsustainable water use but also reinforced social inequalities.     

Tourism Lobbying in Bavaria: Between Ignorance,Parochialism and Opportunism

Abstract

The subject of lobbying in the context of destinations is still a largely unstudied research field both in relation to specific destinations and from the perspective of planning. This is all the more remarkable when we consider that—despite its ambivalent public perception—successful lobbying is a crucial success factor in the positioning of destinations on a highly globalized tourism market with its rapidly changing supply and demand structures. In this article, we analyze the current lobbying structures in Bavaria, one of the leading European destinations. Bavarian tourism finds itself in an exceedingly complex situation today caught between diminishing competitiveness, especially considering the persistent investment backlog, and exceedingly ambitious tourism policies. Using semi-structured interviews we investigated how key policy-makers and representatives of the tourism business currently appraise tourism lobbying in Bavaria. From their assessments, we derive recommendations that should help to optimize lobbying structures and processes.     

Delocalization,Humanitarianism, and Human Rights: The Mediterranean Border Between Exclusion and Inclusion

By reflecting on both the exclusionary and the inclusionary role of humanitarian migration and border management in the Central Mediterranean, this paper explores the relationship of humanitarianism with the delocalization of the EU border and with human rights. First, the paper analyses the role of human rights in the institutional humanitarian discourse about migration and border management at the Mediterranean EU border. The paper then analyses the Italian operation Mare Nostrum and, more generally, Italian humanitarianized border management in the Central Mediterranean. In doing this, it shows that humanitarianism contributes to the discursive legitimation and spatial delocalization of exclusionary policies and practices. Moreover, humanitarianism contributes to a symbolically and legally subordinate inclusion of migrants in the European space. While such humanitarian inclusion can be more inclusive than what human rights would require, it is posited as an act of grace rather than an enhancement of human rights. In both its exclusionary and inclusionary dimension, humanitarianism transcends and expands territorial boundaries by outsourcing responsibilities and enhancing delocalized border management.     

Value chains,business conventions,and market adaptation: A comparative analysis of Norwegian and Icelandic fish exports

Business transactions’ value chains can constrain their capacity to maximize market value from limited resources. Seafood markets exhibit a strong demand for fresh, high‐quality seafood yet empirical studies show large variations in value chains’ adaptation and exploitation of market opportunities. This article presents a comprehensive model that identifies the main drivers and constraints in value chains for wild harvested seafood that generate differences in market adaptation. The model is built on theories of value chains, business conventions, competitive behaviour, governance conventions, legal regulation, and direct ecological and economic constraints. The model is applied in a comparative case analysis of market adaptation by value chains for North Atlantic cod products in Norway and Iceland, which explains why business conventions in Iceland are more consumer market adapted than those in Norway.     

Making space for fish: the regional,network and fluid spaces of fisheries certification

In this paper, we examine the multiple spatialities of Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certifications. The MSC uses its ecolabelling scheme to promote sustainable fisheries management; its logo may be used on the products of certified fisheries. The certification process involves the definition of a ‘fishery’. This involves the designation of boundaries around a particular location. While these boundaries suggest exclusivity for each fishery, these regional spaces are also entwined in the MSC's network, whereby they are viewed relationally. The utility of areal boundaries is also rendered problematic by the materiality of the seas: coastlines change, fish swim, water moves and ships travel. To operate its scheme successfully, the MSC has to recognise this spatial fluidity, acknowledging the rupture of boundaries and the movement of actors. We argue that attention to a multiplicity of spatialities helps direct attention to the role of non-humans in the acting out of hybrid geographies.     

Between Marx and Heidegger: Politics, Philosophy and Lefebvre's The Production of Space

This article argues that the work of Martin Heidegger is extremely important in understanding Henri Lefebvre's intellectual project. It suggests that Lefebvre's trio of influential thinkers—Hegel, Marx and Nietzsche—are partnered by Heidegger. But this is Heidegger read in a particular way, and subjected to a Marxist critique—turned back on his feet, grounded, made real.
This is pursued in detail through a rereading of Lefebvre's The Production of Space . The two terms in this title need to be examined, and while the importance of space develops a number of insights from Heidegger, the stress on production shows the political and Marxist nature of this research. The Production of Space is therefore situated, and needs to be read, between Marx and Heidegger. The article closes with some comments on the interrelation of history, space and politics, and offers the possibility of a left-Heideggerianism.     

Surviving Between the Trenches: Planning Research,Methodology and Theory of Science

Planning research-understood as research aiming to improve the body of knowledge on which spatial planning is based-includes issues rooted both in the social sciences, natural science and the humanities. Spatial planners need knowledge about the likely consequences of different alternatives of action, as well as understanding of the role of plans and planning processes in the development of society. This is reflected in the two-fold focus of planning research on both substantive and procedural issues. Whereas research on the role of plans and planning processes takes place mainly within a non-positivist social science paradigm, the research aiming to provide planners with the knowledge needed in order to make good plans is often situated in the battlefield between opposing positions within theory of science. Because planning research has both society and the physical as its subject of inquiry, a reflective opinion about the interaction between the physical environment and human actions is crucial. Traditionally, many spatial planners have conceived of this in a quite näive way, assuming that human behaviour can to a high extent be shaped or controlled by manipulating the physical environment. During recent decades, this view has been sharply criticized by anti-positivist scholars, and some theorists point out the great uncertainty, close to impossibility, in predicting human actions, even at an aggregate scale. The latter position has dramatic implications to spatial planning, as it would then be impossible to assess whether a certain physical solution is likely to have positive or negative social and related environmental consequences, e.g. in terms of travelling distances and modal split. Our own position is that the physical environment, along with a number of individual and non-physical structural factors, influences human activities and quality of life. To some extent, this influence can be predicted at an aggregate scale, but not for a particular individual (except those actions rendered impossible by the laws of physics). How strong influence the physical environment exerts, is a question requiring empirical research in order to be answered.