Ribbon Pulls in Wedding Cakes: Tracing a New Orleans Tradition

The ritual of cutting the wedding cake at weddings in the New Orleans area is preceded by another ritual tradition: unmarried female friends of the bride each “pull a ribbon,” to which a silver charm or “favour” is attached, from the cake. Charms can include a ring, a heart, a thimble, a button, a horseshoe, and a clover, each with a traditional meaning. An exploration of the possible derivations and routes of diffusion of this custom reveal that it has much more complex origins and meanings than is commonly assumed by most New Orleanians.     

Readjusting Cultural Codes: Reflections on Anti-Semitism and Anti-Zionism

In this article I seek to apply the notion of anti-Semitism as a cultural code, which I initially developed 25 years ago with relation to the antimodernist trends in late-nineteenth-century Germany, to the phenomena of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism today. From the 1960s anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism formed part of a larger ideological package consisting of anticolonialism, anticapitalism, and a deep suspicion of US policies. In the eyes of members of the developing countries, Jews became a symbol of the West and legitimate targets for hatred. Thus, the position on the Jewish question, even if not in itself of paramount importance, came to indicate a belonging to a larger camp, a political stand and an overall cultural choice. The question is whether the position towards Israel today, which has become a central issue for the European left, can still be considered a cultural code or whether it rather indicates a more direct anti-Jewish attack, above all as a result of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.     

山西兴县红峪村元至大二年壁画墓

2008年5月,考古工作者在山西兴县康宁镇红峪村发掘了一座壁画墓。墓葬坐西朝东,由墓道、封门石、甬道、墓门及墓室组成,墓室为八角形,为夫妇合葬墓。墓顶和墓室皆绘有壁画,包括花卉、鞍马、墓主夫妇对坐图、备茶图及孝行故事等。西壁墓主夫妇之间有一牌位,题有墓主武庆及其妻景氏名字,其后座屏上题传马致远所作《天净沙.秋思》。西南壁上题记中有元代至大二年(1309年)纪年。     

Civiliser en Grèce Ancienne Adoucir la Nature et Naturaliser la Force

Ancient Greeks had neither a single notion nor a single word to express the idea of civilization. As a process of living since the origins, civilization appears as a serie of acquisitions or losses that lead to an ambivalent human condition. As a state, it is a blend of three factors: a diet and an education that tame nature; a legal political system and just foreign politics. But in the Greek language, the same word expresses a political system and domination (archê). Dionysius of Halicarnassus by speaking of the Roman domination as a just and natural phenomena, makes it a civilizing power.     

A coalbed methane ‘stratum’ for a low-carbon future: A critical inquiry from the Lorraine Basin (France)

Coalbed methane exploration in Lorraine (France) is part of a rush to unconventional natural gas around the world. These resources are envisioned as a “transitional bridge” to a low-carbon economy dominated by renewable generation. This paper tackles the idea that such a “fuel bridge” could lead to a more sustainable transition. It studies the network of actors and interests involved in exploring a coalbed methane ‘volume’, its modelling and how it becomes public. Through this lens, it shows how a ‘volume’ endures in a ‘stratum’, as well as the political issues related to this reconfiguring of the underground in Lorraine.The article contributes to three debates in relation with political geology. First, it proposes a renewed definition of ‘volume’ based on the work of Michel Serres. The ‘volume’ is not a property of the underground nor a geometric ideality but defined as a transitory ordering of the ‘multitude’ that encompasses material, knowledge and political issues. It enables the development of a more continuous analytical strategy to follow geological and political crossed influences, and contributes to this project by going beyond existing divides (e.g. vitalist/constructivist). Second, the paper provides the reader with a complementary perspective (from the field instead of a compilation of data at an international level) about what it means to assess an unconventional resource. The proposed definition of ‘volume’ does not reduce uncertainty to a matter of knowing but makes it constitutive of the making of a gas potential. This enables one to follow the chain of mediations through which uncertainty is framed and strategically managed to meet industrial, scientific and political interests, while taming local oppositions. Third, the paper analyses why this coalbed methane ‘stratum’ may be democratically contested and transitory instead of preparing the ground for a low-carbon transition. This case study looks at a unique situation in France, namely a private company receiving public support in the context of political tensions about unconventional gas, and shows the country's internal contradictions and delays in updating its institutions and strategy concerning the use of underground resources for a low-carbon transition.     

Account of a Roman Sepulchre at Geldestone,Norfolk

Rescue excavation between 1988 and 1990 in advance of river erosion examined a substantial part of the small medieval rural hospital of St Giles by Brompton Bridge and later post-medieval farm. Established in the latter half of the twelfth century for the infirm, including lepers, the hospital layout consisted of a detached stone chapel adjacent to the river crossing, with a timber hall to the west. This hall was destroyed by fire, and a sequence of timber buildings were then constructed in adjacent areas. By the fifteenth century these structures also included a stone building, possibly a refectory. The first small chapel was replaced in the thirteenth century by a larger structure, which went through a period of expansion and then subsequent contraction by the fifteenth century. Only in the fourteenth century were a hall, probably a guesthouse or the master's lodgings, and dovecote built adjacent to the chapel. The cemetery to the south of the chapel was partially examined. The site appears to have been a largely economically self-sufficient unit with an attached farm. The hospital was abandoned during the latter half of the fifteenth century, but the site and some of the buildings were subsequently reoccupied as a farm from the mid-seventeenth century. The farmhouse underwent conversion from a longhouse to a house of hearth-passage plan in the early eighteenth century. The former chapel was reused as a byre and additional stables constructed. The farm was moved to its present location to the south in the mid-eighteenth century and the former hospital site finally abandoned.     

Foucault, fields of governability, and the population–family–economy nexus in China

It was only in the early twentieth century that China discovered that it had a population, at least if a population is understood not as a simple number of people but instead in terms of such features as variable levels of health, birth and death rates, age, sex, dependency ratios, and so on—as an object with a distinct rationality and intrinsic dynamics that can be made the target of a specific kind of direct intervention. In 1900, such a developmentalist conception of the population simply did not exist in China; by the 1930s, it pervaded the entire social and political field from top to bottom. Through a reading of a series of foundational texts in population and family reformism in China, this paper argues that this birth of the Chinese population occurred as a result of a general transformation of practices of governing, one that necessarily also involved a reconceptualization of the family and a new logic of overall social rationalization; in short, the isolation of a population–family–economy nexus as a central field of modern governing. This process is captured by elaborating and extending Foucault's studies of the historical emergence of apparatuses (dispositifs) into a notion of fields of governability. Finally, this paper argues that the one-child policy, launched in the late 1970s, should be understood not in isolation from the imposition of the “family-responsibility system” in agriculture and market reforms in exactly that period, but as part—mutatis mutandis—of a return to a form of governing that was developed in the first half of the twentieth century.     

‘Together apart’ or ‘apart together’? – middle-class parents’ choice of playgrounds and playground interactions in socially diverse neighbourhoods

Taking an everyday life setting, namely playgrounds, as a starting point, the paper foregrounds a nuanced analysis of the internal differentiations of the middle class’s positioning in regard to social diversity. In so doing, the paper contributes to debates on contemporary segregation research, (dis-)affiliation of the middle classes in inner-city diverse neighbourhoods and geographies of encounter. Empirical findings are based on an analysis of the narratives and daily spatial routines of middle-class parents in three inner-city neighbourhoods in a major German town. The findings contradict the conventional wisdom that middle-class parents would always seek a socially homogeneous environment in which to raise their children and show the presence of a middle-class fraction with a collective orientation. The analysis highlights the need for a closer look at playgrounds as a setting for cross-social interaction and, in terms of micro-level politics, a setting to promote diverse and inclusive neighbourhoods.     

A city of sanctuary: the relational re-imagining of Sheffield's asylum politics

In June 2007, the city of Sheffield officially declared itself to be the UK's first 'City of Sanctuary', a gesture that sought to instil a spirit of 'welcome and hospitality towards asylum seekers and refugees'. Drawing on a series of interviews and ethnographic work, this paper critically examines this gesture by considering how City of Sanctuary sought to enact a relational account of place through which the responsibilities of Sheffield towards both proximate and distant strangers were highlighted. The paper argues that while the City of Sanctuary movement integrates both relational and territorial political practices, it also actively pursues a relational imaginary through presenting the city as a space of political connections and responsibilities. This is achieved through a twin focus upon the role asylum seekers and refugees play in constituting the city and the role that Sheffield might come to play in national discussions of asylum. Following this discussion, the paper looks to the implications of City of Sanctuary's work for a relational account of spatial politics, arguing that a dual orientation of spatial responsibilities 'within' and 'beyond' place may be more easily articulated in reference to some networks and flows than others. The experiences of City of Sanctuary therefore suggest that relational accounts must present a space of negotiation between territorial practices, political networks, spatial responsibilities and geographical imaginations. The development of City of Sanctuary into a national network of towns and cities promoting hospitality indicates the importance of such negotiations for developing a culture of refuge across British cities.     

中古汉语新兴介词成因考察

动词的词汇意义是动词虚化为介词的前提;动词出现的句法位置是动词虚化为介词的条件;类同引申是中古汉语新生介词的一大特色;作为一种主观行为,重新分析从认知的角度把各种虚化过程加以确定,标志着虚化过程的最终完成。内外因素共同作用,促成了动词向介词的转化。     

A Religious Response Veiled in a Presidential Address: A Theological Study of Bush's Speech on 20 september 2001

Abstract

The speech met the moment. The moment was like none experienced before. The speech transformed a presidency and rallied a nation. But what was this pivotal response to a critical moment in American history? Was it a call to a just and holy war? Is God really on the president's ‘side’? This article analyzes the speech delivered by President George W. Bush on 20 September 2001, to a joint session of Congress and to a troubled nation. It was a speech that depended on intimations of righteous indignation, a clear demarcation of good and evil, and a God who is not neutral. The article looks at the religious themes overtly and subtly stated in this speech, to discern what was actually a religious response to a global crisis that took the form of a presidential address.     

The emergence of agropastoralism: Accelerated ecocultural change on the Andean altiplano, ∼3540–3120 cal BP

In the fourth millennium BP, there were major environmental and cultural changes on the Andean altiplano of South America, but the chronology remains vague. A recent synthesis describes a slow, gradual transition from hunting and gathering to agropastoralism. This proposal is tested by refining the date of the onset of more humid and stable conditions, around 3550 cal BP, based on a Bayesian model of 26 dates from Lake Wiñaymarka and an updated calculation of the lacustrine offset. This is compared to Bayesian models of 191 dates from 20 archaeological sites, which incorporate a number of recently processed radiocarbon dates. A synthesis is presented of 15 full coverage surveys, a summed probability distribution, and a Bayesian model of the transition to ceramics, which together support a scenario of a very rapid demographic increase. Fourteen models from archaeological sites are cross-referenced in a composite model, which identifies a brief, altiplano-wide emergence of agropastoralism with starting and ending boundaries of 3540 and 3120 cal BP, respectively. This starting boundary correlates strongly with the onset of improving environmental conditions, indicating synchronous cultural and environmental change. The suite of accelerating cultural changes included a marked reduction in mobility, a demographic surge, increased subsistence diversity, the adoption of ceramics, farming and the integration of camelid herding into a remarkably resilient economic strategy still in use today. This is a highly relevant but yet to be used comparative case study for the variable tempos of ‘big histories’, and ecocultural interactions that generate rapid, emergent episodes of wide-spread and enduring cultural change.     

Rivers of dreams: on the gulf between theoretical and practical aspects of an upland river restoration

This paper is concerned with development and application of a conceptual model of the river restoration process and, through a specific case study, a demonstration of the challenges that arise when combining ecological and geomorphological principles with social and economic issues. Thus, it demonstrates the difference between the ideal goals of river restoration and the practical determinants of the nature of a river restoration that derive from individual and community goals. It begins by exploring theoretically what a river restoration project might involve. It then introduces the options developed for restoration of a particular case study river and the associated decisionmaking process. As a result of strong community involvement, institutional and financial regulations, the location of the restoration site in a National Park, and the influence of governmental and non-governmental organizations, the actual decisionmaking process resulted in a practical river restoration that departed significantly from the idealized goals of a restoration defined in purely scientific terms. It is argued that these practical limitations are likely to remain the dominant influence upon the nature and scope of river restoration projects.     

Hospitality in pre-viking Anglo-Saxon England

This article studies the question of Anglo-Saxon hospitality, that is, in the first place, the gift (from a host to a guest) of food, fodder, roof and bed for a night or for a longer term. Contrary to Romantic visions, it was nothing like a spontaneous and free practice: Marcel Mauss and other anthropologists after him have shown that giving and receiving were obligations, compulsory acts in pre-market societies. In Anglo-Saxon England, hospitality was always a duty, strictly limited and framed by custom. It may have been provided to a single traveller, to a member of a formal or informal network (particularly ecclesiastical), to a king or to his agents in the form of a pastus or feorm: a kind of 'guesting' or compulsory hospitality which was progressively given up by kings as they booked lands to religious institutions. The forms and beneficiaries may vary, but the opposition between 'spontaneous' feasting and 'compulsory' guesting must not be stressed too much: hospitality was always a kind of binding exchange, even when it assumed the shape, the aspect, and even the values of a free and open practice .     

Quebec and Canada at the Crossroads: A Nation within a Nation

Abstract. I argue first that there are many different concepts of the nation, and advocate a certain conceptual pluralism. I also argue that a population as a whole cannot constitute a nation unless it has a certain national consciousness. I then show that we must adopt a fundamental principle of tolerance. I also try to attend to the complexities of the relations between Quebec and Canada, and argue that different populations represent themselves as nations in different ways and with different concepts. 1 show that Quebec constitutes a nation within a nation. I then wonder what it would mean for Canadians to accept a Quebec nation. Finally, I try to explain why a very large proportion of the population of Quebec has increasingly been favourable to sovereignty, and favourable to making a partnership proposal to Canada.     

Discovering the Language of Data: Personal Pattern Languages and the Social Construction of Meaning from Big Data

Abstract

This paper attempts to address two issues relevant to the sense-making of Big Data. First, it presents a case study for how a large dataset can be transformed into both a visual language and, in effect, a ‘text’ that can be read and interpreted by human beings. The case study comes from direct observation of graduate students at the IIT Institute of Design who investigated task-switching behaviours, as documented by productivity software on a single user’s laptop and a smart phone. Through a series of experiments with the resulting dataset, the team effects a transformation of that data into a catalogue of visual primitives — a kind of iconic alphabet — that allow others to ‘read’ the data as a corpus and, more provocatively, suggest the formation of a personal pattern language. Second, this paper offers a model for human-technical collaboration in the sense-making of data, as demonstrated by this and other teams in the class. Current sense-making models tend to be data- and technology-centric, and increasingly presume data visualization as a primary point of entry of humans into Big Data systems. This alternative model proposes that meaningful interpretation of data emerges from a more elaborate interplay between algorithms, data and human beings.     

Settlement structures and cemetery at Wadi Shab-GAS1, Sultanate of Oman: Report on the 2002 and 2003 field seasons

Many chronological and cultural facets of Early and Middle Holocene Prehistoric Oman are still unclear. Archaeological excavations of settlements and cemeteries are adding new data to the reconstruction of a chronological and cultural framework. Wadi Shab-GAS1 is a Middle Holocene site found at the beginning of the 1980s and later destroyed by urbanisation. It is located in a rich environmental niche, on a cliff facing the sea and near a permanent freshwater source. Three years of fieldwork at this site brought to light structural remains, a cemetery and interesting material culture.     

Frozen ground in the sub‐arctic region and its biological significance

Abstract

Climate change is increasingly discussed in apocalyptic terms, a spectre-invoking crisis discourse that simultaneously legitimises society-wide action, while de-politicising this very political issue. This paper examines the depoliticisation of climate change adaptation in Kenya, a country which has been recently praised as a developing country with a progressive adaptation policy. Using examples from fieldwork in Kenya, it focusses on Kenya's recently adopted National Climate Change Response Strategy (NCCRS), and argues that Kenya's adaptation discourse is driven by particular imaginaries, specifically: adaptation as a ‘universal apocalypse’, and adaptation as a technical-economic problem. These function as deliberate anti-political strategies, aimed at obscuring the highly charged realities of adaptation. For Kenya's current political elite adaptation is predominantly a matter of reducing the perceived risks to economic growth, and enhancing opportunities to gain revenue from international funding sources. This is achieved through a discursive construction of a particular vision of adaptation, and against a backdrop of a capitalist strategy for growth. The paper concludes that a critical and political interpretation of the NCCRS and similar adaptation strategies is necessary to keep equity and justice at the centre of the climate debate, and to dispel the myth of adaptation policy making as a rational and disinterested process.     

Exploring a Strategic Turn: Case Study of Innovation and Organizational Change in a Productivist Dairy

Some firms within the conventional agri-food processing industry change their business strategy by trying to innovate towards alternative foods, like regional foods. For firms which are part of a larger organization or integrated in a group of companies this is a special challenge. The purpose of this paper is to explore what happens when a firm within a large and complex organization tries to turn from a productivist strategy to a differentiated strategy. This exploration uses a case study from the Norwegian dairy industry. The case shows that powerful industrial conventions and lack of suitable organizational conditions can be a hindrance for organizational change. Organizational capabilities to change routines and conventions have significant influence on the result of the innovation process.     

Site Selection Problem and a Quasi-Satisficing Decision Rule

This discussion and overview of the site selection problem in the context of a quasi-satisficing decision rule combines two major rationality frameworks for locational decision making: utility maximization and bounded rationality. Their empirical and logical validity is discussed. From these concepts a quasi-satisficing rationality framework is developed and operationalized through a reference point approach. A quasi-satisficing decision-support procedure that involves a feed-back exchange of information between a decision maker and a computer-based support system is offered and a numerical illustration of this procedure is presented.