An anthropological manifesto: Or the origin of the state (Respond to this article at https://www.therai.org.uk/publications/anthropology-today/debate)

In his anthropological manifesto in this issue, Marshall Sahlins argues that our main theories of ‘economic determinism’ represent a self‐consciousness of modern capitalist societies masquerading as the science of others. He suggests that, in the great majority of societies known to anthropology and history, power consists in the direct control of people, from which comes the ability to accumulate wealth, rather than control of their means of livelihood, of capital wealth, from which comes the control of people.     

Contesting Marshall Sahlins on Kinship

In a recent two‐part article on the nature of kinship, Marshall Sahlins maintains that performative criteria for kin‐reckoning are at least as salient as procreative ones, and that, at conception, an individual is endowed with a wide circle of kin, including the ancestral dead. For both reasons, he argues, there is no warrant for granting privileged status to what anthropologists have called ‘primary’ kinship. The contentions here are that performative criteria are modeled upon procreative ones; that ties to ancestral figures are seen as antithetical to procreative ties; and that, therefore, all kinship constructs are derived from nuclear family relationships. Evidence in support of these contentions is provided from the Mae Enga, Fiji, the Trobriands, and Aboriginal Australia.     

Norfolk Island: history,people, environment,language. By Peter Mühlhäusler and Joshua Nash

The Apotheosis of Captain Cook. European Mythmaking in the Pacific. By Gananath Obeyesekere. Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1992. xvi, 251 pp. ISBN 0–691–05680–3 How ‘Natives’ Think. About Captain Cook For Example. By Marshall Sahlins. Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1995. 318 pp. ISBN 0–226–73368–8     

Neither confirm nor deny: WikiLeaks evidence and the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations in the judicial review of the Chagos Marine Protected Area (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

The Chagos Islanders have faced various legal barriers in their campaign for the right of return to the Chagos Archipelago. Here, Laura Jeffery presents one more twist in this long winding road, namely how the courts regard WikiLeaks evidence revealing how British politicians hatched plans to turn these islands into a nature reserve, thus effectively maintaining the status quo of the existing no‐return policy.     

孔子、苏格拉底思想比较研究

孔子和苏格拉底分别被誉为东西方的伦理学之父,作为轴心时代的文化英雄,他们的思想言行对后世产生了巨大的影响。本文就孔子对中国历史、伦理本位及注入式教学等的影响,苏格拉底对西方理性、平等、自由及启发式教学的影响等进行了比较研究,以期探讨当下人类面对的文化困境和生存危机。     

The National Academy of Sciences: Goodbye to all that (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

In this guest editorial, Marshall Sahlins' gives his reasoning for leaving the National Science Foundation behind.     

Missionaries and Cannibals in Nineteenth‐century Fiji

This article examines the controversies concerning both customary cannibalism and missionary ethnography. Focusing on Fiji, it supports the conclusions of Marshall Sahlins about both issues, demonstrating that the attempts of William Arens, Gananath Obeyesekere and others to debunk “cannibal talk” are flawed in several ways. The eyewitness testimony of numerous missionaries and non‐missionaries in Fiji from the 1830s to the 1870s provides an extensive evidentiary basis for examining both controversies. Some of the testimony comes from indigenous witnesses, moreover, including Thakombau, who became known—or notorious—to Europeans as “the King of the Cannibals”. The article briefly recounts Thakombau's role in the processes of conversion and colonization. Two key texts that are closely analyzed as examples of missionary ethnography are Reverend Joseph Waterhouse's The King and People of Fiji and Reverend Thomas Williams's Fiji and the Fijians.     

Britannia rules the waves? (Respond to this article at https://www.therai.org.uk/publications/anthropology-today/debate)

An international arbitration tribunal recently found the United Kingdom to have breached its obligations under international law in declaring a Marine Protected Area in the Chagos Islands (British Indian Ocean Territory). The ruling has potential implications for the indigenous people of the islands, the Chagossians, who continue to wage a political campaign for the restoration of their right of abode in Chagos. In this comment, I update readers on the tribunal's ruling and other related current events.     

Earmarks and Elections to the U.S. House of Representatives

Popular treatments of earmarks abound with allegations that members of Congress use them to aid their reelection campaigns, but the academic literature has yet to examine whether earmarking influences elections. To begin to fill this void, we search for relationships between earmarking and several facets of electoral competition and outcomes in the 2008 and 2010 House elections. There are three principal findings. First, in both election years, active earmarkers faced weaker primary election competition than other members. Second, in 2008 there was a positive correlation between earmarking and campaign receipts. Third, both of these correlations exist only among Democrats. These findings suggest that earmarks critics might be correct in charging that members, particularly Democrats, benefit from the earmarks they place into spending bills.     

论“孔子未作《春秋》”说的生成逻辑

面对两千多年以来"孔子作《春秋》"之成说,20世纪20年代以顾颉刚、钱玄同为首的疑古派力倡"孔子未作《春秋》"说,此说竟在近一个世纪内风靡学术界,至今仍不乏持论者。然而,内置于这一论点形成和推证整个历史过程的深层逻辑,实际上是一种"指向性历史构境",是由对史料的截断式去取或臆解误读造成的。这种构境已经超出了史学研究"适度的想象"的范围,带有明显的主观蓄意性;欲在理论上加固这一推理逻辑的尝试同样是不能成立的。     

Composite bows at ed-Dur (Umm al-Qaiwain, U.A.E.)

This article discusses seven bone fragments excavated during the second Belgian archaeological campaign at ed-Dur (tomb G.3831, area N). Rather than weaving implements, these objects are identified as the reinforcing bone laths of composite bows. Information on the composite bow in general—origins, structural composition and technical advantages—will be given. Additionally, the question of which types of composite bows could have been present at ed-Dur and what role these weapons could have played at the site are discussed.     

A first meeting place: John Webber’s An Interview Between Captain Cook and the Natives (January 1777)

On 26 January 1777, on the first stage of his third voyage to the Pacific, James Cook anchored in Adventure Bay on what is now called Bruny Island, Tasmania. Cook encountered the local Nuonenne people on two occasions, the second of which was recorded in an unfinished drawing (possibly done on the spot) by the expedition’s artist, John Webber. Comments in their journals from officers and sailors on board Cook’s ships indicate that the European perceptions and representations of Aboriginal people were initially mediated by the explorers’ stereotypical understanding of other races. However, through a close reading of a number of structural features of Webber’s composition – symmetry, resemblances in opposition, chiasmus, a figure who acts as a spectatorial stand-in, spatialisation – it is argued that Webber’s drawing recognises the Aboriginal people encountered by the British as individuals, attends to the dramaturgy of the encounter, and is marked in various ways by a powerful and grounded indigenous agency. It is proposed that anthropologist Marshall Sahlins’ paradoxical aphorism ‘structure of the conjuncture’ might be used to illuminate and designate the particular quality of events, the ‘indigenous countersigns’, depicted by Webber in this drawing.     

Our Dear Cousins the Americans: Sara Jeannette Duncan in Washington

As a young woman, Canadian author Sara Jeannette Duncan (1861–1922) spent nearly a year writing for the Washington Post on literary and cultural matters, and published many of her assessments of American society in The Week, Goldwin Smith's journal of Canadian affairs. Her articles repay close scrutiny not only for their inherent interest as witty observations of America by an engaged Canadian observer, but also for the manner in which they reveal Duncan's national preoccupations and biases. Approaching the Republic with neither antipathy nor deference, Duncan turned her newspaper sketches into an occasion for wide-ranging cultural comment on the nature of the republican experiment – especially concerning America's claims to freedom and human flourishing. She found the results encouraging, if not without salutary warnings, for Canadian efforts in the same direction.     

Climate change and anthropology: The importance of reception studies (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

Climate change anthropology to date has devoted itself primarily to ‘observation studies’: investigations of how communities perceive and respond to the local physical impacts of global warming. I argue for the utility, and necessity, of a complementary research programme in ‘reception studies’: investigations of how communities receive, interpret and adopt the global scientific discourse of climate change that is now spreading rapidly to even the most remote societies. Using the Marshall Islands as a case study, I demonstrate the powerful influence of this discourse on local views of environmental change, belying recent arguments that anthropologists wishing to access emic notions of climate change must exclude the influence of foreign scientific education from their analysis.     

The Gaza Freedom Flotilla: Ethnographic notes on ‘othering violence’ (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

This narrative recounts the events that unfolded around the Gaza Freedom Flotilla as witnessed by an anthropologist invited onboard one of its ships. It shows a pervasive preoccupation of neocolonial states with Othering violence. This is defined as the ability to transform spaces of liberation and solidarity into spaces of deviation and imprisonment. The choice to be an outspoken participant‐observer opens up novel spaces for reflection and research otherwise left to the sensationalist tendencies of journalism and the propaganda machinery of states. Moreover, acting as witnesses to events such as these, in our professional academic as well as in our personal capacity, could also be a last line of defence against expanding Othering violence.     

Campaign Promises,Democratic Governance,and Environmental Policy in the U.S. Congress

One important criterion for assessing the quality of democratic governance is the extent to which the policy process effectively translates citizen preferences into collective choices. Several scholars have observed a discrepancy between citizen preferences for strong environmental protection and weak policies adopted in the United States, indicating that the United States may fall short on this criterion. We examine one possible mechanism contributing to this discrepancy—legislator defection from campaign promises. Our data indicate that legislators in the U.S. Congress routinely defect from their campaign promises in environmental protection, undermining the link between citizen preferences and policy choice. We also find that legislators are much more likely to defect from pro‐environmental campaign promises, which moves government policy toward less stringent environmental programs. Finally, the propensity of legislators to defect from their campaign promises is systematic, with defection affected by partisanship, constituency influence, the influence of the majority party, and the likely consequences of defection for policy choice. These findings contribute empirical evidence relevant to the “mandate theory” perspective on how citizen preferences are translated into collective choices through the policy process. These findings may also complement research in comparative politics concluding that legislatures selected through single member districts adopt less stringent environmental policies than do legislatures chosen via proportional representation in that the mechanism for this effect may go through legislator defection from campaign promises.     

Contingent meanings,shifting practices: grandmother to grandmother solidarity as transnational feminist praxis

Abstract

While ‘solidarity’ is frequently evoked in transnational feminisms, it is less clear how this concept is understood and practiced among different actors in different contexts. This article addresses this limitation by investigating a movement of some 10,000 older Canadian women who, drawing on longstanding commitments to feminist advocacy, have mobilized over the past decade in solidarity with ‘grandmothers’ impacted by AIDS in southern Africa. The article investigates one pivotal development within this movement as an entry point to consider the productive friction surrounding transnational feminist practice more broadly: the splintering of the campaign in 2011 into separate advocacy and fundraising networks. Drawing on archival materials and interviews, the analysis depicts how changing perspectives on advocacy within the movement, which became most evident in this splintering, provide critical insights into thinking about the complexities of ‘solidarity’ as transnational feminist praxis. In particular, it extends existing scholarship on solidarity-building, suggesting that theorizing ‘solidarity’ in this context requires an understanding of its contingent practices. It also draws on older Canadian women’s reflections to challenge notions that ‘Second Wavers’ do not adequately grapple with how differences in power and privilege shape and inform their movements.     

Spot On: The Role of Political Advertising in Australia

During an election campaign, political advertising is not the only means by which the Australian political parties seek to persuade voters but it is 'the most expensive one, perhaps the most precise one and the only one over which the parties have complete control' (Mills 1986, 132). Over $30m is now spent on advertisements during federal elections, with up to 70% of the major parties' campaign budgets devoted to television advertising alone. When one considers that 90% of Australians are exposed to televised political advertising, the parties' control over these messages takes on particular significance. This article explores the apparently limited interest among academic analysts in political advertising in Australia, explains that advertising now has a central role in the political process and argues that this needs to be recognised in scholarly research.     

AGGLOMERATION ECONOMIES: MICRODATA PANEL ESTIMATES FROM CANADIAN MANUFACTURING*

ABSTRACT This paper identifies the main sources of urban increasing returns, after Marshall. The geographical distance across which externalities flow is also examined. We bring to bear on these questions plant‐level data organized in the form of a panel across the years 1989 and 1999. Plant‐level production functions are estimated across the Canadian manufacturing sector as a whole and for five broad industry groups, each characterized by the nature of its output. The panel data overcome selection bias resulting from unobserved plant‐level heterogeneity that is constant over time. A related set of estimates using instrumental variables allay persistent concerns with endogeneity. Results provide strong support for Marshall's claims about the importance of buyer‐supplier networks, labor market matching and spillovers. We show that spillovers enhance plant productivity within industries rather than between them and that these spillovers are highly localized.     

Archaeobotanical evidence of prehistoric maize (Zea mays) consumption at the northern edge of the Great Plains

Analysis of starch granules, phytoliths, and plant macrofossils from archaeological features and carbonized food residue provides important new insight into the extent of prehistoric maize (Zea mays) consumption on the North American Great Plains. These data suggest that consumption of maize, and probably other cultigens, was widespread on the eastern Canadian Prairies between approximately AD 1000 and 1600. Domesticated plants may have been grown locally, acquired through trade, or transported into the region following dispersal of family groups from horticultural villages located elsewhere. However, the lack of strong artifactual evidence of gardening, and the small-scale nature of sites on the eastern Canadian Prairies indicate that local horticulture, if practiced, was non-intensive.