Did Women Have a Transformation of the Roman World?

Despite intense and interdisciplinary interest in the transition from antiquity to the middle ages, work on women and gender generally remains marginal to the dominant paradigms for understanding political and social change in the period from c. 300 to c. 800 ce . This article critiques these interpretations from a gendered perspective and also reviews recent work on women and gender in late antiquity, Byzantium and the early medieval Europe. By outlining similarities and contrasts between women's lives in early medieval western and Byzantine cultures, it emphasises the diversity of women's experience. Suggestions about how to envisage a fully gendered history of this period conclude with a call for radically new approaches to the study of the transformation of the Roman world.     

A Step to the Left? Or Just a Jump to the Right? Making Sense of the Third Way on Government and Governance

Since the early 1990s, Left-of-Centre political parties around the world have been engaged in an attempt to redefine their politics under the banner of the 'Third Way'. In attempting to understand the Anglo-American versions of the Third Way, this article argues that while there are clear continuities between the governments of the Third Way and their conservative predecessors, a more accurate precedent can be found in the successive Labor governments in Australia between 1983 and 1996. While this connection has been noted elsewhere, this article seeks to draw it out in terms of the underlying rationale and conception of government. It argues that the proponents of the Third Way share a common perception that government has become 'overloaded' with responsibilities and that they utilise market mechanisms as a pragmatic response to this, which distinguishes them from the New Right's moral critique of the state. The conclusion suggests that although this has the potential to open a space for thinking about how government might proceed differently, the Third Way has thus far failed to realise this potential.     

IMMORTALITY YET? Or,the permanence of Mary Douglas

There is no absolute measure for the lasting impact of work by anthropologists. However, the scholarship of Mary Douglas has achieved wide‐ranging interdisciplinary recognition. Here the author considers ways in which her work has impacted scholarship.     

Palaeontology of the Chatham Islands,SW Pacific—a review

Despite their small area, the Chatham Islands host diverse and abundant fossils. Fossil assemblages of Permian to Late Cretaceous age preserved in terrestrial to shallow marine deposits represent the only record of plants and animals that once inhabited the eastern extension of Zealandia. Lower Cenozoic sediments have yielded a shallow marine fauna, including a rich molluscan assemblage linked to the oceanic inundation of this landmass. The late Cenozoic biota documents the re-emergence of the Chatham Islands and the establishment of major oceanic currents, which meet along the Chatham Rise. This review summarizes the fossil record of the Chatham Islands and the Chatham Rise, integrating data from published and unpublished sources.     

The evolution of the responsibility to protect: at a crossroads?

The Responsibility to Protect doctrine (R2P), now ten years old, has been widely accepted at the international level. As the books under review demonstrate, debates around its legitimacy are over. Instead, we see a developing second generation of literature focusing on how the R2P needs to be understood more concretely in both academic and policy terms, as well as how it affects the linked issues of humanitarian intervention and state‐building. Within this literature, we see new and important questions emerging. These include how and when we should intervene and whether we can be successful at it; how we can assist states to ensure they fulfill their own responsibilities towards their populations; and where international authority lies. Unfortunately, the answers to these questions are hard ones. Implementation, and how it reflects embedded culture at the international level, may be as hard—if not harder—as introducing the doctrine originally.     

The Game: Or, ‘the making of migration’ along the Balkan Route

‘The Game’ is how many refugees describe their attempts to informally travel to Western Europe via the so-called Balkan Route. This article conceptualises The Game as a spatial tactic implemented by refugees as a response to the impossibility of legally entering the EU and as a gray area in the governance of informal migrant mobilities. It does so by engaging with the recent literature on the Balkan Route to analyse how The Game has been performed and ‘managed’ in Serbia, a key ‘buffer state’ along this corridor. Drawing from Tazzioli's work on ‘The Making of Migration’, and in particular on her understanding of refugee forced mobility as a form of ‘migrant management’ on the part of the authorities, this article shows how the ambivalent connotations of The Game reveal the troubling configurations of EU border politics and of its formal and informal geopolitical arrangements. At the same time, it argues that the practices related to The Game ultimately reflect the extraordinary determination of the refugees in creating new itineraries, spatial interstices, invisible networks and ‘holes in the border walls’ that allow them, despite all the difficulties, to challenge such border politics. We conclude by proposing to understand The Game as part of the biopolitics of migration and by suggesting that it represents a powerful manifestation of the condition (and the field of possibility) of thousands of refugees along the Balkan Route today.     

From the Atlantic to the Bug,from the Arctic to the Tigris? The Transformation of the EU and NATO

Both the European Union and NATO are now committed in principle to substantial enlargement. It remains doubtful, however, how far member governments are making a success of further enlargement, let alone thinking through its strategic implications. Yet the process of dual enlargement will define the future security, political and economic structures of the European region. During the past year west European governments have extended promises of eventual membership to the western Balkan states and to Turkey; while the future positions of Ukraine, Russia, the Caucasus states and the southern Mediterranean associates all raise delicate policy issues. Hard choices remain to be made about the adaptation of these organizations to eastern enlargement, and about the management of relations with the near neighbours who will remain outside.     

The New Museum Folkwang in Essen. A Contribution to the Cultural and Economic Regeneration of the Ruhr Area?

Abstract

The “Bilbao effect” shows that major cultural investments can contribute to the regeneration of old industrial cities and regions. Four different contributions can be distinguished: the (1) direct economic effects of such an investment; (2) social functions of a cultural institution which often serves as a point of contact for local and regional elites; (3) symbolic functions as an expression of a new regional identity and (4) cognitive functions, for example, the contribution to regional diversity and the cross-fertilization of ideas. Taking the example of a major cultural investment in Germany, namely the renovation of Museum Folkwang prior to the European Capital of Culture RUHR.2010, this article discusses the economic, social, symbolic and cognitive contributions of this investment to the economic transformation of the town and the Ruhr area, which is now one of the largest urban agglomerations in Europe. A Bilbao effect was not intended and did not take place. The museum, however, contributed to the incremental transformation of the town by creating a different image of the town, its role as a meeting place and point of identification for local elites and companies and its contribution to the emergence of an integrated cultural district.     

The “Battle of Seattle” revisited: Or,seven views of a protest-zoning state

Increasingly, the expression of dissent at major events is controlled with a territorial strategy – it is banned from some areas and confined to others. One of the more notable uses of this strategy was in Seattle in 1999 during the ministerial conference of the World Trade Organization. After widespread unrest forced the cancellation of the conference's first day of events, the City of Seattle erected what it termed a “restricted access” zone, and what its critics termed a “no protest” zone. I use the Seattle events to consider what it means for the state to zone the expression of dissent in such a fashion. I extend and complicate Mitchell's notion of a “dialectic of public space” by outlining seven different perspectives from which one can view the protest-zoning state. This multiplicative nature of the state, I suggest, provides yet more reason to be skeptical of state efforts to confine dissent. Because the state is inherently a contested object, it must remain susceptible to robust discussion of its practices.     

Climatic Collapse at The Hague: What Happened,Why, and Where Do We Go From Here?

This article analyses the meeting of the Sixth Conference of the Parties to the Climate Change Convention that took place at The Hague in November 2000. Billed as the summit that would put the final touches to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the meeting adjourned without reaching substantive conclusions. The authors explain what happened, underlining salient features that have led to the current impasse. They suggest that agreement is still possible if major players understand the need to work within the structures, institutions and processes created by the Convention and Protocol as a result of the ten years of hard negotiations. Intransigence, an overloaded agenda, abandonment of familiar procedures and, above all, an inability to consider creative ways of forging common positions from divergent national positions are some of the lessons that need to be learnt.     

Living on the Edge? Transformation of a Marginal Pleistocene Landscape Into a Settlement Area in the Northeastern Part of the Netherlands

ABSTRACT

This paper will examine settlement location during the Iron Age in the northeast part of the Netherlands, an area shaped by Pleistocene geology. In recent years, a number of Late Iron Age/Early Roman settlements situated on the low lying slopes of sand ridges and nearby stream ridges revealed traces of an earlier Iron Age occupation. Palynological data revealed that this part of the landscape was used by humans before it was transformed into an area of settlement. An analysis of excavation data from two key sites at Denekamp-De Borchert and Groningen-Helpermaar, as well as other known sites, lead to the conclusion that the transformation of ‘peripheral landscapes’ into permanent settlement locations was preceded by a phase of arable cultivation which left no trace of permanent habitation. It is also suggested that the impact of human behaviour on the natural landscape in the Early and Middle Iron Age was much bigger than previously anticipated. When excavating this type of settlement areas dating to the Late Iron Age, archaeologists must be aware that only of a small group of archaeological features exist. The proposed model for the choice of settlement location may be more widespread, because of similarities in landscape between the study area presented here and other landscapes in Northwest-Europe (e.g. parts of Germany and Denmark).     

Coming to Grips with a “New” State of Consciousness: The Study of Rapid-Eye-Movement Sleep in the 1960s

Since antiquity yawning has attracted a moderate interest among philosophers, psychologists, physiologists, as well as educators, moralists and physicians. Organisms from birds to men and from the womb to the deathbed were found to be displaying it. While sometimes satisfying to the producer, its display is offensive to the lay observer. Hippocrates had it on his lists of useful ‘natures.’ Aristotle dropped a few words on the matter. Boerhaave elevated its function to the intellect of animals. Haller has commented on its relation to the acoustic system, blood-flow, and baby sleep. Darwin mentioned it in connection with emotional behavior. Some modem authors praised its beneficial effects on respiration and smell. In the 1960s, Ashley Montagu tried to correct the contemporary failure to explain the behavior by the fact of raised CO 2 and arterial compression. It also interested some neurologists, especially in its association with the encephalitis lethargica in the 1920s, with ‘spasmodic yawning,’ with epilepsy, not to speak of hysteria. As to boredom or its stimulus, a 40-page dissertation survives from the court of Frederick the Great of the 18th century condemning idleness, a subject that also inspired Blaise Pascal and William James. But in the Hindu world, public yawning was a religious offense.     

Mirage in the Desert? Access to Educational Opportunities in an Area of Social Exclusion

While for British policymakers the route out of social exclusion is paid work through the acquisition of educational qualifications, research shows that academic achievement in areas of social exclusion is often poor. Based on a study undertaken on an inner London council estate, this paper explores the experiences of a group of carers and their children's access to secondary school education. It demonstrates the importance of a geographical focus on inequality, and the need for a nuanced approach in explaining educational opportunities in socially excluded areas. It also counters the notion of working class people as an undifferentiated group, devoid of cultural capital, whilst at the same time acknowledging the structural constraints of place which limit the full exercise of agency, so that for many, the opportunities apparently open to them turn out to be illusory.