Recent writing on New Zealand politics

Geoffrey Palmer, Unbridled Power, second edition, Auckland, Oxford University Press, 1987, pp.322. NZ$29.95 (paper)

John Roberts, Politicians, Public Servants and Public Enterprise, Wellington, Victoria University Press for the Institute of Policy Studies, 1987, pp. 179. NZ$22.95 (paper)

Keith Jackson, The Dilemma of Parliament, Wellington, Allen and Unwin Port Nicholson Press, 1987, pp.204. NZ$29.95 (paper) Stephen Levine and Raj Vasil, Maori Political Perspectives, Auckland, Hutchinson, 1985, pp.206. NZ$15.95 (paper)

Hyam Gold (ed.), New Zealand Politics in Perspective, Auckland, Longman Paul, 1985, pp.357. NZ$29.95 (paper)

Jonathan Boston and Martin Holland (eds), The Fourth Labour Government, Auckland, Oxford University Press, 1987, pp.273. NZ$21.95 (paper)     

Antipodeans Abroad: Trends and Issues in the Writing of New Zealand Mission History

There has been a paucity of reflective and contextual analysis of New Zealand's historical involvement in the international missionary movement. This article suggests that existing literature falls into four categories: denominational/organizational histories; biographies and personal narratives; unpublished university theses; and a small body of more reflective and contextual works. Historical analysis since 1990 reflects wider historical discourses, rather than being the specific product of mission history. Valuable analysis has focused on women's involvement, culture contact, and the relationship between New Zealand missions, European colonialism and indigenous nationalist movements. Yet the theological nature of missionary involvement has been less extensively understood, obscuring the nuanced nature of things like missionary motivation and the relationship with colonialism. A lacuna still exists with respect to: a comprehensive and comparative analysis of post‐1945 missionary involvement; micro and macro‐historical analysis of missionary support; the gendered nature of missionary support; and the role of children and young people in missionary structures and discourse.     

Recent Trends in Northwestern America

The Northwest Coast has long held a seminal role in the ethnographic and theoretical development of anthropology in North America. Both that role and the saliency of Native American Indigenous peoples have seemingly waned over time. Almost invisibly, however, a critical mass of new ethnographic perspectives and a new aspiration toward synthesis have emerged across the sub-disciplines and subject areas of Americanist anthropology in the United States and particularly in Canada. The Northwest Coast as the quintessential culture area has become a more fluid continuum of contact zones intersecting across Northeastern North America, as reflected in the works discussed here.     

Some Recent Trends in the Archaeology of Predynastic Egypt

The traditional explanation of the origin of Egypt credits the legendary Menes with founding the state through the conquest of the Delta region, but this is more of a political legend than explanation. Anthropological archaeologists and Egyptologists are bringing new methods and questions to their search for an adequate explanation for the development of one of the world's first territorial states. Early investigations of cemetery sites in Upper Egypt and settlements in the Delta have been supplemented by the excavation of more Upper Egyptian settlement sites, while cemeteries and other important settlements are now being uncovered in the Delta. Three trends are particularly important for the development of social complexity in ancient Egypt: (1) a growing appreciation of regional differences in Predynastic culture; (2) chronological refinements; and (3) an emphasis on group social and political developments, and trade. A consensus appears to be developing that stresses the gradual development of complex society in Egypt, in which a number of small polities coalesced into three or four larger entities during the late Predynastic, followed by the assimilation of the northwestern Delta by the Thinite rulers. The effort to control trade with the southern Levant and Mesopotamia seems to have encouraged expansion of Upper Egyptian cultural and political influence northward.     

Recent Trends in Computer Applications in Archaeology

Publications of computer applications in archaeology are reviewed for the period between 1990 and 1996 inclusive. The influence of technological developments on research effort is noted, and particular areas of growth are described. One of the major trends during the review period has been the increase in use of geographical information systems (GIS), but these have still to fulfill their potential. The increased uses of computers for education, communication, and electronic publication are also regarded as important growth areas.     

驾临新西兰 感受人间梦幻田园

<正>了解新西兰是从一本英文小册子开始的,册子的开头这样写道:新西兰(又译纽西兰)是国土面积比英国略大,比日本略小的国家,人口439万。经过两周的申请,我终于拿到了入境签证,踏上了驾临新西兰的神奇而难忘旅程。     

驾临新西兰 感受人间梦幻田园

<正>了解新西兰是从一本英文小册子开始的,册子的开头这样写道:新西兰(又译纽西兰)是国土面积比英国略大,比日本略小的国家,人口439万。经过两周的申请,我终于拿到了入境签证,踏上了驾临新西兰的神奇而难忘旅程。     

Recent Trends in Theorizing Prehispanic Mesoamerican Economies

Theoretical frames for modeling prehispanic Mesoamerican economies have been informed mostly by political economy or agency approaches. Political economy models examine the ways in which power is constructed and exercised through the manipulation of material transfers, mainly production and distribution. Research along these lines emphasizes regional redistribution, wealth and staple finance, debt and reciprocity, and regional integration through core/periphery relations. Agency models, on the other hand, explore the social aspects of manufacture, circulation, and consumption to infer the processes by which power is negotiated and contested. Work using this framework focuses on the manner by which meaning and value are assigned to, and become fixed in, social valuables, as well as the moral and emotional dimensions of allocation and consumption. Political economy and agency approaches are converging in Mesoamerican research to forge a new, hybrid theoretical construct, “ritual economy,” which strikes a balance between formalist and substantivist views by considering the ways that belief systems articulate with economic systems in the management of meanings and the shaping of interpretations.     

Some Recent Trends in the Study of Religion and Youth

From the beginning of the twenty‐first century there has been a sharp increase in research on the ways in which young people engage with religion and spirituality. Three trends are apparent: first, there has been a shift away from focusing on the formal processes of young people's religious socialisation and a realisation that youth exercise considerable agency in their construction of personal and group identities; second, the 1970s and 1980s assumption that religion was in decline in developed countries and was of little interest to young adults has been challenged by the growth of trans‐national religions including Pentecostal Christianity, and by the emergence of a myriad spiritualities and identity‐conferring subcultural groups including Paganism, Satanism, Goth culture and vampirism; and third, there is an increased acceptance that youth is less a uniform stage that all human beings undergo, and is more intimately connected to the specific historical, geographical, economic, and social context in which it is experienced. This article reviews four recent publications on religion, spirituality and youth, three of which are from Australia. The fourth volume is an international edited collection containing studies from the United States, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Australia, and a small number of European countries.     

去新西兰找寻那一片奇幻森林

正新西兰是个名副其实的徒步天堂,打开新西兰官方旅游局的网站,满眼都是自然风光和徒步路线,吸引着世界各地的徒步爱好者。这些徒步道会带你远离尘嚣,领略最壮观的景色,不过往往需要提前半年预订,而且每一条都要耗费3~10天的时间。     

风雨纽村 战壕外的黄眼企鹅

<正>新西兰南岛是一个真正见仁见智的地方,爱者恨不得马上移民过去,但也有些人感觉这里的境况让人一言难尽,我就是后者。好在新西兰独特的野生动物甚得我心,作为生态摄影爱好者,秉承一贯的拍写过程,来讲述一下这里珍稀的黄眼企鹅。