Climate change and the Syrian civil war revisited

For proponents of the view that anthropogenic climate change will become a ‘threat multiplier’ for instability in the decades ahead, the Syrian civil war has become a recurring reference point, providing apparently compelling evidence that such conflict effects are already with us. According to this view, human-induced climatic change was a contributory factor in the extreme drought experienced within Syria prior to its civil war; this drought in turn led to large-scale migration; and this migration in turn exacerbated the socio-economic stresses that underpinned Syria's descent into war. This article provides a systematic interrogation of these claims, and finds little merit to them. Amongst other things it shows that there is no clear and reliable evidence that anthropogenic climate change was a factor in Syria's pre-civil war drought; that this drought did not cause anywhere near the scale of migration that is often alleged; and that there exists no solid evidence that drought migration pressures in Syria contributed to civil war onset. The Syria case, the article finds, does not support ‘threat multiplier’ views of the impacts of climate change; to the contrary, we conclude, policymakers, commentators and scholars alike should exercise far greater caution when drawing such linkages or when securitising climate change.     

Forging political entrepreneurs: Civil war effects on post-conflict politics in Italy

How does violent mobilization affect post-conflict elections? This article studies the impact that violent collective mobilization has on local electoral behavior after domestic conflict. We argue that post-conflict democratic politics at the local level can be dramatically affected by local experience of civil war. The use of violence during the war and especially local political entrepreneurs who have emerged from the conflict can influence post-violent politics. We use as case-study the civil war that took place in Italy during the last phase of World War II. Using new spatially disaggregated data on armed groups' location and violent episodes, we assess the impact of the violent mobilization on the 1946 elections, which took place after the conflict. We find that partisans' mobilization and, more weakly, Nazi-Fascist violent acts influenced local politics, shifting votes towards more radical positions. Our findings hold across numerous robustness checks.     

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.     

Colonial rule,colonial repression and war crimes in the Italian colonies

A strange silence has long reigned in the public memory as well as in Italian historical studies regarding possible crimes committed by Italy in its colonial territories. The aim of this article is to reflect on the reasons for this silence through an examination of the major historiographical questions and a review of the few studies available on the subject. The historiographical use of the judicial category of ‘crimes’ or ‘war crimes’ should not be taken for granted, above all in examining the history of the colonial experience. The most important authors have ignored the risk that the sensationalistic use of the category ‘crime’ – in itself an extraordinary and exceptional event – can make one forget the weight of the ordinary running of a colonial power. With these precautions, the article offers a list of the principal episodes historians now unanimously define as crimes. These episodes eliminate any possibility of taking refuge in the self-absolving and vague appeals to stereotypes of Italians as ‘good people’. The article concludes by defining precisely the triple order of silences that together produced the general silence that the author considers an obstacle and a post-colonial stain on the memory of colonial Italy.     

A spatial analysis of human fertility in Scotland: Reappraisal and extension

In an earlier study of Scottish fertility (Jones, 1975) it was concluded that a substantial part of the areal variability in county and major city Crude Birth Rates could be attributed to variations in age structure and, to a lesser extent, socio‐economic composition. Because Crude Birth Rate levels are affected by population composition this study seeks to determine the extent to which areal variations in reproduction can be attributed to behavioural rather than structural effects. It is suggested that areal differences in Scottish reproductive behaviour reflect well defined, deeply ingrained and temporally persistent differences within Scottish society.     

试论抗战时期国民政府的工矿行政

抗战初期大规模的厂矿内迁运动和战时后方地区工矿建设的勃兴,都与国民政府的工矿行政有密切关系.在战争状态下建立和运作的国民政府战时经济及工矿行政机构,根据国民政府制定的总体经济方针,参与制定并实施了一系列与战时工矿业相关的法规和措施,表现出若干带有时代特征的新气象,取得了比较明显成效,在一定程度体现了政府在发展后方工矿业中的积极作用和主动精神.     

Geopolitical boundary narratives, the global war on terror and border fencing in India

This article investigates how expansive new security projects have gained both legitimacy and immediacy as part of the 'global war on terror' by analysing the process that led to the fencing and securitising of the border between India and Bangladesh. The framing of the 'enemy other' in the global war on terror relies on two crucial shifts from previous geopolitical boundary narratives. First, the enemy other is described as not only being violent but also as outside the boundaries of modernity. Second, the enemy other is represented as posing a global and interconnected threat that is no longer limited by geography. These two shifts are used to justify the new preventative responses of pre-emptive military action abroad and the securitisation of the borders of the state. This article argues that in India the good and evil framing of the global war on terror was mapped onto longstanding communal distinctions between Hindus and Muslims. In the process, Pakistan, Bangladesh and increasingly Muslims generally are described as violent, irrational and a threat to the security of the Indian state. These changes led to a profound shift in the borderlands of the Indian state of West Bengal, where fencing and securitising the border with Bangladesh was previously resisted, but now is deemed essential. The article concludes that the framing of the war on terror as a global and interconnected problem has allowed sovereign states to consolidate power and move substantially closer to the territorial ideal of a closed and bounded container of an orderly population by attempting to lock down political borders.     

和战之间--战后中共建国方针之演变(1945年8月-1946年11月)

抗日战争胜利后中共的建国方针实际上经历了以战建国,到和平建国,再到打谈图和,终到弃和就战的过程.从以战建国到和平建国的转变中,美国、苏联的作用不可低估.和平建国方针确立后,中共为之实现付出了真诚而艰辛的努力.     

The Southern Conservative Thought of John C. Calhoun and the Cultural Foundations of the Canadian Identity

Besides the largely ignored fact of general Canadian support for the Southern Confederacy during the American Civil War, the consociational dimensions of Canadian Confederation, as something opposed to American unionism in cultural terms, finds its historical roots legitimized in the Southern conservative writings of John C. Calhoun. It is the tension between an institutionally entrenched foundation of consociational pluralism and growing urban cosmopolitanism within Canadian history that has defined the debates and divides over the meaning of the Canadian identity, just as it is. Alternatively it is the tension between enforced constitutionalist unionism and consociational cultural tradition within the American South that has largely defined their historical experience. Both Canada and the American South find the tensions of their cultural identities rooted in the consociational values originally laid out by nineteenth century Southern conservative political thought.     

Human Responses to Changing Environments in Central Africa Between 40,000 and 12,000 B.P.

Reconstructions of the Equatorial forest in Central Africa fuel the debate on whether hunter-gatherers at the end of the Pleistocene were capable of living in or off the forest prior to the advent of agriculture. Their traces are rare and often reduced to their stone equipment. In an attempt to see to what extent technology and environmental exploitation are interrelated, all Central African sites dated between 40,000 and 12,000 B.P. are analyzed for their material culture, the environmental setting at the time of the occupation, and the exploitation of that environment. Although the evidence is still circumstantial, two large technological traditions have been recognized in Central Africa at the end of the Pleistocene, the Lupemban and microlithic industries, and both are associated with a variety of environments. This, in combination with a fragmented forest and concomitant increase of ecotone during the Last Glacial Maximum, would have enhanced rather than hampered human occupation in the area. It may be argued that the inherent flexibility and capability of exploiting a variety of environments enabled the hunter-gatherer communities to face and adapt to environmental changes regardless of stone technology.     

论二战后期中英美围绕香港战后地位问题的交涉与斗争

在第二次世界大战后期,美国、英国和中国围绕香港的战后地位问题展开激烈斗争。美国政府支持战后由中国收回香港主权。罗斯福总统为此作出许多外交努力。英国拒绝战后将香港主权交还中国。这样,蒋介石将希望完全寄予美国的支持上。但是在战争结束前夕,美国与苏联开始进行冷战,美国需要英国的支持,因此放弃了原来的政策。其结果是英国在战争结束时重新占领香港。     

Exploitation,fascist violence and social cleansing: a study of Franco's concentration camps from a comparative perspective

One of the most noticeable topics within recent Spanish historiography is the analysis of processes of mass violence. Salient among these were the Franco concentration camps, a violent re-educational system made up of more than 180 camps, 104 of which were permanent. The camps operated from 1936 until 1947, under the control of Franco's army, with its corresponding regime of forced labour and exploitation of prisoners of war. Half a million Spaniards and Europeans experienced first hand the Spanish version of the fascist concentration-camp system. This article offers an analysis of the inside history of Franco's concentration camps and then locates them comparatively within a theoretical and empirical Fascist model of internment, exploitation and violence.     

Feasting landscapes and political economy at the Early Horizon center of Huambacho, Nepeña Valley, Peru

The present contribution examines feasting practices at Huambacho (800–200 cal. B.C.), an Early Horizon elite center of the Nepeña Valley, Department of Ancash, Peru. Feasts are approached as long-term strategies essential to the political economy of human societies. Drawing upon data from public architecture, material culture and food remains, the study closely considers feasts as political actions and investigates the organization and social meaning of these special events. At Huambacho, I contend that the diacritical aspects of feasting practices, such as the use of exclusive spaces and special paraphernalia, contributed to the dual celebration of communal identity and prosperity, and the creation and reproduction of social inequalities. The research highlights the dual centripetal and centrifugal dynamics of Early Horizon feasts and demonstrates the role of the Huambacho center in advertising the success of the local community based on new forms of production and innovative rules of commensal hospitality.     

Geography,religion and the state: A comment on an article by Michael Pacione

Professor Pacione's call for geographers to consider the role that ‘responsible theology’ might play in assisting the development of ‘relevant’ human geography is examined. Issue is taken with his presentation of religion. Alternative geographical approaches to religion are outlined, and the relationship of the academic to both religion and government is explored.     

Agbonkhianmeghe E. Orobator,SJ, ed., Reconciliation,Justice, and Peace: The Second African Synod

Abstract

The World Social Forum (WSF) emerged in Brazil from a network of grassroots anti-globalization activists and campaigners as an alternative to the World Economic Forum. The WSF focuses on human development in the holistic sense of "social capital" and provides a forum for Southern perspectives to be heard. From its birth, faith-based organizations have been prominent in the WSF. The seventh World Social Forum (WSF) took place in Africa in January 2007. Just before that event, theologians attending the WSF held a pre-meeting of the World Forum of Theology and Liberation (WFTL). This paper offers a brief outline of the World Forum of Theology and Liberation: the event, the programme, an assessment, recommendations for future Forums and transcending moments of the event. In so doing it attempts to express the suffocated cry of an Africa, in large measure, ignored and forgotten.     

J.G. Granö and Edgar Kant: Teacher and Pupil, Colleagues and Friends

This paper is adapted from an address given at the plenary session of the conference ’From Native and Landscape Research to Urban and Regional Studies‘ held in Tartu on 23 August, 2002, to mark the birthdays of J.G. Granö (120 years.) and Edgar Kant (100 years). The Finnish geographer J.G. Granö was Professor of Geography at the University of Tartu from 1919 to 1923, a period during which that university became the birthplace of many original geographical ideas. Edgar Kant was beginning his studies at that time, and a link was forged between the two scholars which lasted until Granö's death in 1956. The nature of this interaction and its significance for the history of geographical studies are discussed.     

The Upper Paleolithic of Northern Asia: Achievements,problems, and perspectives. II. Central and Eastern Siberia

Earlier scholars believed that the Upper Paleolithic of Central and Eastern Siberia appeared very late. However, modern research has shown that not only was there a local Middle Paleolithic, but also there was a very early series of sites in Central Siberia which show both Middle and early Upper Paleolithic traits. These are called the Makarovo horizon and may be 70,000–50,000 years old; features derived from this horizon can be dated to about 30,000 B.P. and can be seen in the early D'uktai culture. The true early Upper Paleolithic is relatively homogeneous in Central and Eastern Siberia and includes artwork. The local Upper Paleolithic reached its florescence in the culture of Mal'ta and Bur'et', which developed out of local antecedents and which is here reinterpreted in light of recent research (including the artwork, structures, and burials). The final stages of the Upper Paleolithic show considerable variability, perhaps including some exotic traits.     

The Nordic 'Cultural Industries': A Cross-National Assessment of the Place of the Cultural Industries in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden

ABSTRACT In this paper an attempt is made to measure the cultural industries in a cross‐national context. The paper starts with a discussion of the definition and delineation of the term the ‘cultural industries’. It is argued that a large range of goods and services may be considered to be cultural industry products and that it is important to place the production and exchange of such products in the context of an industrial systems approach. Following this the concept is operationalised using data on employment and firm activity from Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. Results are presented which suggest that overall growth in both employment and firm numbers has been especially strong in the cultural industries. However, interesting differences between the countries emerged from the data. Thus regional dimensions are then examined resulting in the finding that in all four countries cultural industries have a strong attraction to urban areas but an even stronger propensity to agglomerate. It is suggested that the spatial dynamics observed may be key to the development of the industries' competencies and success. In summary the paper presents results of extensive data analysis that show the cultural industries' important contribution to Scandinavian economies and labour markets.     

Jules Sion,Alan Grant Ogilvie and the college des Ecossais in Montpellier: A network of geographers

The ‘new geography’ propounded by Vidal de La Blache in the early years of the 20th century was diffused by his protégés in France and abroad. Field classes played a significant role in the process, with the Collège des Ecossais, established by Patrick Geddes at Montpellier, providing an ideal base for British students to study the natural and cultural landscapes of the component pays of southern France. The careers of Jules Sion and Alan Grant Ogilvie are explored in this article, and practical links between French and British geographers are exemplified through experiences of fieldwork in the Languedoc before and after World War II. Networks of professional contact and friendship are vital in understanding how the practice of modern geography has been shaped.