The Achaian Vapheio Cup and Its Afterlife in Archaic South Italy

Summary.   This article publishes an Archaic Greek cup of individual form from the extramural sanctuary of the Achaian colony of Sybaris at Francavilla Marittima in south Italy. The Francavilla cup, which is Achaian or Achaian-style, is fully discussed and similar Archaic cups from the site of Incoronata, near the Achaian apoikia of Metapontion, are assembled. These vessels find no immediate parallel among contemporary Greek or indigenous pottery of the seventh and earlier sixth centuries BC, but bear a remarkable similarity to the characteristic cylindrical, so-called Vapheio cups of the Aegean Bronze Age which are known in metal, clay and stone versions from as early as the Early Minoan III period through the Late Helladic era. It is argued that these cups represent the Archaic creation or re-creation of a well-known Bronze Age shape in the Achaian apoikiai of south Italy.     

Warriors and blacksmiths: Mediating ethnicity in East African spears

Ethnoarchaeology offers some ability to transform contemporary forms of social constitution into a method for interpreting prehistoric social patterns and for understanding the coevolution of symbolic and utilitarian technologies. In north-central Kenya, one social caste of Lokop pastoralist actors (warriors) interacts with another (blacksmiths) to build a technology for socially constituting gender and social age. Three aspects of this process can help to direct analogous archaeological research in prehistoric contexts. First, this case reiterates that symbols for and symbolic acts of gender and social age continually help actors to constitute or negotiate their places within varied social fields. It is clear, however, that the connection between social prestige—essentially the goal of Lokop personal adornment—and real economic or political power is not necessarily direct. For Lokop herders, foreign traits of spear morphology are the stylistic raw material for constituting internally defined social fields. Ethmic distinctions are more pasively constituted, almost as an epiphenomenon. Second, the constituative significance of material symbols may be grasped without appealing to or understanding the cultural meaning of forms (in an emic sense) from only the archaeological evidence. In fact, prehistorians should not concern themselves with attempts to reconstruct the meaning of cultural phenomena. Rather, archaeological inquiry should attempt to infer the meaningfulness of formal traits within a specific social context, based on significant material patterns in the archaeological record. Third, the items of meaning themselves are constituted with their own material means of production, and these systems may be interpreted through economic models more familiar to archaeology. The Lokop case encompasses producers and users both as specialists. Blacksmiths rely on their marginal positions in herding society to make them the brokers of morphological traits. Warriors, also accustomed to marginal status, effectively collaborate with blacksmiths to set up their own future place as elders. For archaeological applications in prehistory, the exchange and processing of raw materials should reconstitute economic hierarchy in a very clear manner.     

The Organization of Late Paleoindian Lithic Procurement Strategies in Western Wisconsin

Abstract

The applicability of employing an organization of technology framework to the analysis of prehistoric lithic procurement strategies is demonstrated here. Analysis reveals that a spatial separation is present in the distribution of lithic raw materials used by Late Paleoindian populations in western Wisconsin. This raises the possibility that lithic raw material functioned as a stylistic indicator of group membership. To evaluate this suggestion microstylistic traits present on a large sample of diagnostic Late Paleoindian projectile points were examined. Significant differences in stylistic traits were observed between sample areas. Furthermore, these differences correspond to spatial differences in raw material use. The correlation between lithic raw material use and microstylistic traits is consistent with the idea that lithic raw material serves as a stylistic marker of group membership, and indicates the presence of some form of social boundary within western Wisconsin during the Late Paleo indian Period.     

A power elite in the cultural field. A story of Norwegian neo-corporatism

The organizational culture elite is studied as a new elite group emerging within a stable neo-corporatist state. Does this new elite adopt existing modes of operation or place itself at bay from the more established elite groups? The emergence of and changes in the culture elite are discussed from a historical perspective in terms of social background, recruitment processes, occupational careers, gender composition, political outlooks, lobbying, and media strategies. The culture elite is systematically compared to two other elites: the university elite, the most similar among the elites, and the economic elite, assumedly representing the greatest contrast. Despite special characteristics in the social situations and political views of the culture elite, it is concluded that the mode of operation of this group indicates a high degree of adaptability to the general system of elites. A main reason is assumed to be the integrative power and liberal quality of the state in a neo-corporatist regime.     

Livelihoods Limitations: The Political Economy of Urban Poverty in Dhaka,Bangladesh

Research in Bangladesh reveals the limitations of actor‐oriented frameworks for understanding urban poverty that assess household livelihoods on the basis of a household's portfolio of assets or capitals. The narrow focus of these frameworks on households and their depoliticized definition of social capital overlook the political roots of urban poverty. The informal systems of governance that dominate resource distribution within low‐income settlements ensure that the social resources necessary for long‐term household improvement are confined to a small elite. Only through extending our analysis beyond the household level, to explore their position within this local political economy of employment and enterprise, can we recognize the limitations placed on household efforts to improve their livelihoods.     

Spears,style, and time among Maa-speaking pastoralists

Stylistic change in Maasai spears is examined in light of their use as symbolic instruments. Importation, selection, use, and abandonment of formal traits in spears are analyzed for pastoralists of Samburu District, Kenya. The ever-changing form of spears helps males to move through a sequence of age grades, where graduation to each new grade changes one's status and social networks. Ethnoarchaeological significance of the Maasai example lies in how and why material styles both aid and reflect interaction between males of varying social status and how change in material styles helps to reinforce relatively stable social roles. Archaeologically, these Maasai socioeconomic processes may serve as analogs for Paleolithic and Mesolithic social structures that exhibited aspects of both egalitarianism and ranking.     

传授、规训与共享:非正规旅游经营者的群体学习与知识流动

不同于精英阶层获取知识的正式教育模式，以非正规群体为代表的社会基层群体更多依靠非正式教育渠道实现知识技能的学习。本文将广州电视塔周边的非正规旅游摄影经营者作为研究对象，在个体访谈和非参与式观察的基础上采用质性研究方法探究其知识技能学习与管理的过程。研究发现非正规旅游经营群体的知识学习表现出明显的集体行为特征，知识在群体组织网络中高度依靠关系导向实现流动共享，并且在群体内部形成了“核心-次核心-边缘”的等级体系，知识的流动又被作为维护等级权威的规训管理手段反作用于群体组织。此外，群体通过知识技能的标准化来增强集体的共享互惠效果，形成非正规旅游经营群体“自下而上”的群体学习与知识流动的有力保障。     

背包旅游者的特征及其对中国旅游目的地发展的意义探究

与国外已十分深入的背包旅游研究相比,我国对背包旅游的研究远远落后,而且理论研究落后于实践的发展。本文结合背包旅游者的消费行为特征、人口统计特征和社会行为特征,从经济、生态和社会意义三方面阐述了发展背包旅游对中国旅游目的地建设的重大意义,提出背包旅游者是中国现实国情下具有先导作用的旅游者,应当成为中国旅游目的地优先开发的客源市场。     

Facing Up to the Centre: The Emergence of Regional Elite Associations in Angola's Political Transition Process

This article compares two regional elite associations in Angola's southern Huíla province — the Associação dos Naturais e Amigos de Kuvango, Jamba e Chipindo (Anakujachi — Association of Natives and Friends of Kuvango, Jamba and Chipindo) and the Associação Solidariedade Nyaneka‐Humbi (SNH — Nyaneka‐Humbi Solidarity Association). It demonstrates how these associations have gained increasing political significance through their representation of local interests. This is facilitated by deeply felt social and political exclusion resulting from war and a centralized state that hardly reaches the periphery where these associations are based. Until now, the central Angolan state has refused to grant the regions more autonomy despite an official gradualismo decentralization policy which introduces elected bodies at district level. In response, the strategy of these associations has been to ensure that their representatives obtain positions within the state, both nationally and locally, so that they could represent the interests of their specific region. Using the example of these regional elite associations, the article retraces the struggle over resources and citizenship, which is embedded in contemporary urban–rural interactions that mark political change in Huíla province.     

Just Farming? Neoliberal Subjectivities and Agricultural Livelihoods among Educated Youth in Kenya

Given the precariousness of graduate employment in most African countries, coupled with intersecting challenges of food insecurity, urbanization and population growth, educated youth are increasingly being encouraged to seek alternative livelihood opportunities in agriculture — a sector traditionally associated with the uneducated rural poor but which has received considerable developmental attention. This article examines how and with what impacts educated youth in Kenya construct and perform new identities as farmers, distinct from the stigmatized smallholder farmers and in keeping with their status as elite, urbanized, social change makers. By developing the concepts of neoliberal youth subjectivities and opportunity space, and examining their life and work histories, the article analyses how educated young farmers construct themselves as productive and socially respectable through different and locally understood neoliberal subjectivities. The author argues that the performances of educated youth who identify themselves as diversified selves, as members of the elite, and as social change makers challenge the normative notions of protracted youth‐hood and, instead, illuminate the neoliberal lives of these young people, facilitated by a liberalized economy and their social positioning in society.     

The Palestinian Museum,Ramallah

Abstract

Whereas recent studies have correctly identified a clan-based social structure presumed in the place names of the Samaria Ostraca, an analysis of the power relations within these structures has not been sufficiently developed. Approaching the evidence from a consumption perspective of the commodities for yn y?n (‘aged wine’) and ?mn r?? (‘washed oil’) suggests that the economic significance of these items is tied to complex social interactions. Specifically, both archaeological and ethnographic studies associate such prestige commodities with elite feasting and ceremonial displays. By gifting these items, the central power engaged in a form of ‘competitive feasting’ to secure political capital for future use from clan leaders of the periphery of Samaria. Accordingly, the Samaria Ostraca hint at the use of redistributive mechanisms to secure power relations at elite gatherings.     

2005 Cultural Heritage Legal Summary

Abstract

Archaeologists studying ancient state societies often divide political economic models into separate prestige goods and subsistence goods systems. For the Maya during the Late Classic period (ca. A.D. 600–900), scholars have suggested that the elite centrally controlled the production and circulation of prestige goods while local communities and households were responsible for subsistence goods manufacture and exchange, which operated in a largely decentralized fashion. We examine an alternative to this dichotomous system through a festival market model that postulates a wide array of social groups engaged in material goods exchange during ceremonial events and public festive gatherings. This model is investigated using modal, petrographic, and Instrumental Neutron Activation analyses (INAA) of Late Classic ceramic figurines from the Motul de San José region, Petén, Guatemala. Ceramic figurines are frequently associated with household affairs because of their presence in household middens. We find that paste types crosscut different household status groups and communities within the region and argue that figurines were exchanged within the context of festival markets. This exchange pattern has important implications for linking households to larger political and regional spheres of social and economic life.     

Book Reviews

Heritage is important for the social and cultural health of communities, whilst local stewardship of cultural heritage has the capacity to empower and recover cultural identity. This paper describes a recent project in Lakhnu – a small rural village in Uttar Pradesh, India – to restore a nineteenth century villa formerly used as the village school as an educational facility. In this discussion, we draw attention to the right of groups to manage their culture. The loss of cultural heritage is linked to a loss of identity. We argue that heritage projects have the capacity to empower communities to sustain their heritage and identity and provide useful places for social and material advancement through the concept of a shared ‘symbolic estate’. At Lakhnu, we plan to evoke grass-root conservation where local communities become the rightful stakeholders and decision-makers who are encouraged and facilitated in the realisation of their right to cultural heritage and to stimulate growth and build capacity for the community.     

The evolution of elite high-rise condominiums in India: from the global to the neo-colonial?

The article focuses on the neo-liberal model of elite residence in India—the high-rise, high-density condominium. The growing presence of this model as an expression of social mobility indicates the critical role played by this new housing type in relation to the socio-cultural transformations advanced by neo-liberalism. This article, then, is an architectural inquiry into this new residential type within the contemporary setting of globalisation. I employ the idea of physical and social thresholds as a conceptual tool to investigate the progress of this spatial and cultural typology, following its injection into the Indian architectural landscape. I explore the multiplicity of physical thresholds within its spatial planning as a signal of manifest social relationships of increasing complexity. The two case studies in the global node of Mumbai explored in this research represent the beginning and the peak of development of this gated housing type. The methods used include spatial analyses of the design of the condominiums, participant observation and a reading of marketing material. The findings reveal that what started as a global residential type devoid of socio-cultural overlays has now evolved into a residential form with deeply entrenched cultural hierarchies echoing many attributes of colonial elite-status building.     

Having her hand in it? Elite women as ‘makers’ of textile art in the Middle Ages

ABSTRACT

In the Middle Ages, elite women acted as creators, donors and recipients of textile art. This article analyses a small but representative group of seventh- to thirteenth-century embroideries in order to examine the motivation for their creation and to investigate the ways in which women could mark their own presence through textile art. It discusses written sources alongside the material evidence; these sources include documentary, hagiographical and literary texts, which provide information about cultural norms and the expectations of society. Set within the context of these sources, the evidence suggests that society both channelled women's creativity into textile art and idealised it. At the same time, as artists and patrons of ornamented textiles, noblewomen had creative control over the medium; embroidery became a field in which their works were noted and celebrated.     

Globalisation,Gentrification and Spatial Hierarchies in and beyond New South Wales: the Local/Global Nexus

Popular visions of globalisation envisage the collapse of physical space as a significant determinant in social relations. The rapid speed at which movements of capital and information occur are touted as evidence that the constraints of physical space are eroding. The emergence of a global network of persons referred to as the transnational elite further supports these popular perceptions. Characterised as highly educated professionals employed in globally aligned industries, the transnational elite seemingly construct their individual and group identities beyond the scale of the local. However, research undertaken in Newcastle and Sydney with gentrifiers actively constructing their ‘global personas’ problematise popular discourses of globalisation as contributing to the decline of space as fundamental to identity construction. As an emergent élite global community, the gentrifiers create complex cognitive maps of spatial desirability reinforcing the significance of specific places. Through this process, places are ranked according to their global significance forming complex spatial hierarchies. Consequently, some places are cast as global and hence desirable, while others are stigmatised as undesirable non-global spaces.     

The Nanjing Courtesan Ma Shouzhen (1548–1604): Gender,Space and Painting in the Late Ming Pleasure Quarter

The city of Nanjing in the late Ming period (1550–1644) was a bustling commercial and cultural centre. In its pleasure quarter along the Qinhuai River, literati and officials mingled with elite courtesans who, educated in painting, poetry and music, used their cultural capital in order enhance their visibility and sociability, and obtain the literati's patronage. The extraordinary gender relations of the entertainment district were specific to its socio‐historical environment, where courtesans, although still highly dependent on men, partook in the public scene and exceeded some gender stereotypes and Confucian values, as they owned material goods and enjoyed higher physical mobility than their female counterparts in the gentry. The geographical space shared by courtesans and literati was principally a social and intellectual space, where they generated cultural productions and established social practices. In order to explore the concepts of gender and space in urban settings, this article analyses the case of the as redundant elite courtesan Ma Shouzhen (1548–1604), who was a renowned painter and poetess. A close look at her case contributes to further understanding the construction of social space and expressions of gendered subjectivity in the southern metropolitan courtesan environment.     

An architectural analysis of the Hot Bath and Cross Bath,Bath, 1997–2003

Abstract

These baths represent two very significant architectural pieces within a city famed for innovation in that field. The Hot Bath was designed by the internationally renowned John Wood the Younger, the Cross Bath by Thomas Baldwin, ‘principal creator of Bath’. As public buildings focused on bathing, their design needed to reflect changing social attitudes as well as the latest architectural fashion. An opportunity to study the buildings between 1997 and 2003 demonstrated how circulation and division within public buildings could be used to help manage ever-changing social demands, whilst maintaining at least some of the integrity of their historic, architectural vision.     

Mission boys, civilized men, and marriage: educated African men in the Missions of Southern Rhodesia, 1920-1945

This paper examines what marriage may have meant to African men within the Christian elite of Southern Rhodesia. Using mission and government sources, it argues that domestic, Christian marriage was important to elite African men as a way of allowing them to achieve adulthood while remaining in good standing with mission sponsors who generally objected to or feared indigenous ideas of patriarchal male adulthood. Tracing life histories of two American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions ministers, one who succeeded in remaining within the mission system and one who left, blacklisted, it explores how domestic, Christian marriage defused many of the missions' suspicions of elite African men, while providing a way to acquire the economic, social and political power associated with full adulthood within the local context.