Symbolism rehashed and symbolism rethought

Edmund R. Leach. Culture and Communication: The Logic by Which Symbols Are Connected. An Introduction to the Use of Structuralist Analysis in Social Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1976. 105 pp.

Dan Sperber. Rethinking Symbolism. Translator, Alice L. Morton. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1975. xiii + 153 pp.     

Glyphosate regulation and sovereignty politics around the world

Bayer's best-selling herbicide, glyphosate, is a once in a generation product. This pesticide has come to symbolize widespread opposition to corporate influence over agrochemical regulation and led to calls for greater democratic accountability in science. In the 1960s, the modern environmental movement was born from campaigns against the insecticide DDT. In the 2010s, glyphosate is helping to foster new coalitions between environmentalists and nationalist groups calling for chemical sovereignty. This guest editorial describes how glyphosate has helped shape these movements in postwar Sri Lanka and the European Union before and after Brexit.     

The predicament of pastoral sovereignty

This paper seeks to understand the conditions of possibility of “sanctuary” – the claiming of a “sacred” space of (humanitarian) exception - in the midst of civil war. Sanctuary codifies an exceptional space where sovereign and pastoral registers of power converge into a form of “pastoral sovereignty” that can temporarily “interrupt” the law of violence of sovereign power. In civil war this can enable civilians to be saved and protected from killings and suffering. However, this pastoral sovereignty is precarious as it depends on the belligerents' good will and tacit authorization: this is what we call the predicament of pastoral sovereignty. Using the case study of Church sanctuary in Sri Lanka's civil war, this paper explores how this predicament of pastoral sovereignty comes into effect in moments of acute crisis. Throughout Sri Lanka's brutal civil war, Catholic priests provided “sanctuary” to Tamil civilians in the form of territorial sanctuary (Church compounds), bodily sanctuary (the priests' bodies providing protection), and numerous other humanitarian activities. Our ethnographic material illustrates the force and fragility of the Church's claims to pastoral sovereignty and its sanctuary practices and provides detailed accounts of numerous constellations. The paper thereby raises fundamental questions about the ontology of sovereignty and its operability in moments of humanitarian crisis.     

Ethiopian evil eye belief and the magical symbolism of iron working

Whilst undertaking an archaeological survey in the area around the northern Ethiopian town of Aksum in late 1995 I spotted what appeared to be an obvious short cut on our map. Suggesting to my Ethiopian colleague that we could take this route, he dismissed me with the statement: “we cannot go through that village. They are all Buda there.” What, I asked, was the Buda? The answer came back that these people were variously mad, dangerous, strange, outcast and had the power of the evil eye; they would be liable to curse us. This was not the first time that I had come across such a belief; it was well known in the town itself that many of the artisans engaged in metalworking possessed the power of the evil eye, and walking past green pea fields, what I had mistaken to be simple scarecrows (pieces of rag and plastic tied to poles) actually turned out to be amulets protecting the crop from those with the power to blast it.     

Ambition and temporal sovereignty in recent Scottish cultural policy

ABSTRACT

This paper is a study of the figure of ‘ambition’ in Scottish cultural policy since about 2010. The argument of the paper is established through the development of the concept of ‘temporal sovereignty’. Through ‘ambition’ cultural policy attempts to subject culture and cultural agents to the formation of the Scottish government’s temporal regime, and in particular the relation between creative industries and the effects of economic temporality. The study examines the temporal properties of ‘partnerships’ as a key strategic mechanism in that project. The focus of the study is an analysis of authoritative Scottish cultural policy texts which show that the subject of culture becomes the organisation of temporal sovereignty. The paper explains the conditions for the emergence of the problem of ‘temporal sovereignty’ and discusses its consequences for structures of rule and logics of cultural policy formation. It concludes by indicating the location of culture in a politics of temporalities.     

Magnificent entrances and undignified exits: chronicling the symbolism of castle space in Normandy

Recent years have seen an increase in the number of studies on the symbolism of the castle, particularly in relation to lordship. Such studies are interdisciplinary in nature and often employ the language of the use of space in order to determine how castles functioned and how they were perceived. This article considers what the chroniclers of eleventh- and twelfth-century Normandy meant by castle space. This analysis can help us to determine how space was used, its connection to ideas about social relationships, including gender, and the chroniclers' purpose in including the events they described in their narratives. Many of the episodes described by the chroniclers relate to ideas about the authority and legitimacy of both men and women. As such the spatial setting of the castle is a means of holding up good examples of how authority should be exercised as well as illustrations of what happens when people either fail to uphold that authority or appropriate it in an illegitimate manner.     

Nationalism as legitimation: the appeal of ethnicity and the plea for popular sovereignty

Walker Connor is seemingly both a primordialist and a modernist: Nations emanate from basic human sentiments but emerged in late modernity. Is this not an aberration, a contradiction both conceptual and causal? Connor, a champion of academic clarity, obviously thought not, and he was right. What accounts for Connor's unique take on nationalism, and why, for many, does it still seem odd? The answer to both quandaries, I argue, lies in Connor's own unique splice: He effectively delved into, and fused, two thorny matters that most scholars shy away from, let alone try to bring together: human nature and legitimation. Both underpin his remarkable scholarship and its solitude standing. I explore both facets: first, Connor's take on human nature; then, more extensively, his analysis of legitimation – via ‘popular sovereignty’ and ‘self‐determination’.     

The UK,threshold status and responsible nuclear sovereignty

The example of the UK is used to explore two linked ideas relevant to the current international politics of nuclear weapons: that of the threshold state, whereby a state moves from possession to non‐possession of weapons rather than in the opposite direction; and that of responsible nuclear sovereignty, adapting the notion of responsible sovereignty to the nuclear context. The UK regards itself as an exemplar of responsible nuclear sovereignty and is closest to the disarmament threshold, being driven closer by military and economic stresses. Nuclear disarmament will require all nuclear‐armed states to approach and cross this threshold, a journey assisted albeit ambiguously by the shared practice and norms of responsible nuclear sovereignty. Yet the nine nuclear‐armed states' relations to the threshold differ markedly, raising more questions about the feasibility of the popular model of coordinated disarmament. Although coordination remains desirable, the UK seems more likely to abandon its nuclear force by deciding that ‘enough is enough’ than through the conclusion of a grand multilateral initiative.