Ontology of the self and material culture: Arrow-making among the Awá hunter-gatherers (Brazil)

The Awá are a group of hunter-gatherers in transition to agriculture living in the Brazilian Amazon forest. After contact with mainstream society from the 1970s onwards, their culture, and especially their material culture, has undergone important transformations. Many traditional technologies and artifacts have been lost, especially those related to women. In this context, the persistence of arrow-making, although threatened by the spread of shotguns, is remarkable. During ethnoarchaeological work conducted between 2005 and 2009, we have been able to observe that the everyday making and use of arrows cannot be explained in neither functional nor symbolic terms alone. From our observations, we conclude that making and using arrows is indissolubly woven with the self of Awá men and, for that reason, we consider that only a relational-ontological approach can help us understand the deep relationship between men and arrows. Finally, we argue that the Awá case offers new possibilities to investigate technologies of the self in other non-modern societies.     

Culture and Politics,Behavior and Biology: Seeking Synthesis among Fragmentary Anthropological Perspectives on Hunter-Gatherers

Hunter-gatherers define humanity's Pleistocene evolutionary past. Yet, hunter-gatherer societies in the 20th–21st centuries are examples par excellence of cultural marginalization, domination, and resilience. This review of six recent works on hunter-gatherers—spanning Paleolithic archaeology, bioarchaeology, behavioral ecology, and cultural anthropology—underscores that human forager diversity can be explained neither by culturally embedded political processes nor by ecologically situated evolutionary factors alone. Yet, theoretical bridging frameworks remain elusive, with a narrowing but persistent culture-biology divide. Recent developments in evolutionary life-history theory provide a robust biocultural foundation for understanding human sociality and the symbolic constitution of embodied cultural practice.     

Cultural policy in the United Kingdom: Collapsing rationales and the end of a tradition 1

The aim of this article is to critically assess the content and rationale of the French 2003 law on private patronage and foundations. More specifically, it investigates the extent to which this law can truly encourage companies to become more involved in arts support. Before reviewing and explaining the major aspects of the reform and the advantages it is meant to bring to corporate donors, a short historical account is offered to demonstrate that even though the involvement of the private sector in the support of the arts has been on the agenda of various Ministers of Culture over the last forty years, the development of adequate and effective measures to encourage such an involvement has been difficult and erratic and, above all, has been met with little success. The third part of the article questions the relevance of a law largely based on tax reductions to support the arts in France and wonders whose interests it will really serve.     

Cultural Events and Cultural Tourism Development: Lessons from the European Capitals of Culture

One of the major forms of cultural tourism development undertaken throughout Europe has been the staging of a growing number of cultural events. The event of European Capitals of Culture (ECOC) is probably the best example of the new trends of cultural tourism in Europe, which is therefore used in this article to demonstrate some of the key issues surrounding the event-led strategy for cultural tourism development. Based on case study, historical approach and document analysis, this study reviewed systematically the cases, documents and literatures of ECOC over a 20-year period. The research findings point to a number of ways in which the ECOC constitutes a boost for the development of cultural tourism in terms of realizing experience economy, enhancing city image, facilitating urban regeneration, promoting cultural production and consumption, as well as establishing partnerships.     

从若干项文物科技成果看我国文物保护技术的发展

20世纪末,我国的物保护科学技术基本形成了具有中国特色的完整的科学体系。在石质物、金属物、纸张物、竹木漆器物、壁画物、石窟物等的保护技术方面取得了多项科研成果,并且达到或接近世界先进水平,使我国许多珍贵的化遗产得到了抢救和有效地保护。     

Differences in Manufacturing Traditions and Assemblage-Level Patterns: the Origins of Cultural Differences in Archaeological Data

A relationship between behavioral variability and artifactual variability is a founding principle of archaeology. However, this relationship is surprisingly not well studied empirically from an explicitly “microevolutionary” perspective. Here, we experimentally simulated artifactual variation in two populations of “artifact” manufacturers, involving only a single behavioral difference in terms of their “tradition” of manufacturing tool. We then statistically analyzed shape variation in the resultant artifacts. In many respects, patterned differences might not have been expected to emerge given the simple nature of the task, the fact that only a single behavioral variable differed in our two populations, and all participants copied the same target artifact. However, multivariate analyses identified significant differences between the two “assemblages.” These results have several implications for our understanding and theoretical conceptualization of the relationship between behavior and artifactual variability, including the analytical potency of conceiving of artifacts as the product of behavioral “recipes” comprised of individual “ingredient” behavioral properties. Indeed, quite trivial behavioral differences, in generating microevolutionarily potent variability, can thus have long-term consequences for artifactual changes measured over time and space. Moreover, measurable “cultural” differences in artifacts can emerge not necessarily only because of a strict “mental template” but as the result of subtle differences in behavioral ingredients that are socially learned at the community level.     

On the impossibility of invariant repetition: ritual,tradition and creativity among Sri Lankan ritual specialists

This article sets out to explore the strategic creativity that underlies supposedly invariant ritual performance. The ethnographic focus is on a group of Sri Lankan ritual specialists and the way they present the past in terms of mythical, historical and genealogical relationships that give power and legitimacy to their performances of healing rituals in the present. The analysis brings together local notions of “tradition” with ideas of performance and embodiment. The conclusion takes up the idea that, far from being the dead weight of tradition, invariance is a performative illusion of considerable ingenuity and persuasive power. Indeed, it is a fundamental means whereby the authority and power of ritual is maximized in performance.     

Handcraft as Cultural Diplomacy: The 1968 Mexico Cultural Olympics and U.S. Participation in the International Exhibition of Popular Arts

Mexican post-revolutionary cultural institutions excelled at implementing Mexican art and popular arts as key elements in cultural diplomacy. However, while there is abundant research regarding these arts and their inclusion in international exhibitions during the first part of the twentieth century, there is little research on their role in international cultural diplomacy during the second half of that century. In the first part of this article I present a historiographical appraisal of the 1968 Mexican Cultural Olympiad and the resolutions of the “First Latin American Seminar on Popular Arts and Crafts” sponsored by UNESCO in Mexico City in 1965. In the second, I examine the case of U.S. participation in the “Exposición Internacional de Artesanías Populares” (International Exhibition of Popular Arts), which was part of the 1968 Cultural Olympiad’s programme – largely neglected by the historiography of the XIX Olympics – to explain how popular arts were made to perform as agents of cultural diplomacy in Mexico and the U.S. during the Cold War. In addition, I argue that U.S. participation in this exhibition also reveals negotiations and redefinitions of the concepts of handcraft and arte popular, and the economic and social situation of their makers in the United States.     

"The Human Condition" as social ontology: Hannah Arendt on society, action and knowledge

Hannah Arendt is widely regarded as a political theorist who sought to rescue politics from "society," and political theory from the social sciences. This conventional view has had the effect of distracting attention from many of Arendt's most important insights concerning the constitution of "society" and the significance of the social sciences. In this article, I argue that Hannah Arendt's distinctions between labor, work, and action, as these are discussed in "The Human Condition" and elsewhere, are best understood as a set of claims about the fundamental structures of human societies. Understanding Arendt in this way introduces interesting parallels between Arendt's work and both classical and contemporary sociology. From this I draw a number of conclusions concerning Arendt's conception of "society," and extend these insights into two contemporary debates within contemporary theoretical sociology: the need for a differentiated ontology of the social world, and the changing role that novel forms of knowledge play in contemporary society as major sources of social change and order.     

Before Marbury: Hylton v. United States and the Origins of Judicial Review

Marbury v. Madison, decided in 1803, is famous for being the first case in which the Supreme Court asserted its power of judicial review. The typical American history textbook includes at least a few lines about how the Court, under the "Great Chief Justice," John Marshall, struck down part of the Judiciary Act of 1789 and claimed its authority to stand as the ultimate guardian of the Constitution.     

The Pleistocene of Rabat (Morocco): Mollusks,Coastal Environments and Human Behavior

The Rabat-Témara region of the Moroccan Atlantic coast reveals a succession of Quaternary palaeobeaches. This coastal area is dotted with numerous prehistoric caves. The study of the Upper Pleistocene coastal landscape associated with these caves is of paramount importance in the knowledge of human population subsistence. During the Upper Pleistocene, the ocean level changes drastically influenced the coastal geomorphology as well as the fauna assemblages. The chrono-lithostratographical analysis of the coastal sedimentary formations allows the distinction of three sequences rich in marine fauna. These sequences date from MIS 11 to MIS 5. The identification of malacofauna species from these deposits revealed 39 species, along with Bryozoans, Crustaceans, and Echinoids. These assemblages show a constant fauna cortege highlighted by the dominance of the amphi-Atlantic species Stramonita haemastoma. This species shows an increase in the number of specimens in the uppermost part of marine deposits, probably in relation with a climate warming in the MIS 5. This fauna of both intertidal rocky substrates and sandy substratum indicates environmental conditions close to the present-day Rabat-Témara coastline. As in other coastal locations of Africa from MIS 5, the Middle Stone Age Homo sapiens population benefitted from a littoral environment rich in coastal resources. Comparison between thanatocenoses and archaeological records allows us to identify both species available for Middle Stone Age population and those preferred for human use.