Finding a Relatively Flat Archaeological Site with Minimal Ceramics: A Case Study from Iraqi Kurdistan

ABSTRACT

We present a new technique to detect flat archaeological sites with minimal ceramics using an unmanned aerial vehicle that maps surface stone concentrations. Methods deployed include point pattern analysis of stone concentrations and a machine-learning technique using unsupervised classification of visible stone signature qualities, which are used in simple linear regressions to compare with geophysical and ceramic surface survey results of a site in Iraqi Kurdistan. There is a stronger fit (r^2?=?0.77) between surface stone concentrations and architecture identified by geophysical measurement, while surveyed ceramics show a weaker fit to defined architecture (r^2?=?0.31). Surface stone concentrations are potentially a better proxy than ceramics for determining the presence of past settlement in regions where stone was commonly used, sites are relatively flat, and ceramics are found in low concentrations. The methods advanced here can be scaled to wider areas, particularly in mountainous regions, where surface stone features are present.     

Major foreign policy challenges for the next US President

President Obama has been elected to office in the United States during a crisis of confidence in America's capacity to exercise effective leadership in world afairs. National self-indulgence, greedy financial irresponsibility and an unnecessary war have discredited that leadership, a situation that has been compounded by the current global economic crisis. Added to these self-inflicted wounds, this article suggests, are two transformational developments on the world political scene. First, the 'global political awakening' to issues such as climate change, health and social inequality; and second, a shift in the distribution of global power from the West to the East. However, although this shift is occurring, it is a slow process and in the foreseeable future there is no state, or combination of states, that can replace the role America plays on the international scene. What is also clear is that without an American recovery, there will be no global recovery. The American recovery will be a monumental task. But four small, telling words—unify, enlarge, engage and pacify—summarize the essence of the needed response. There needs to be an effort to re-establish a sense of unity between America and Europe; an enlarged coalition of principal players is necessary to promote more effective global management; dialogue engaging a wider circle of partners key to global geopolitical stability should be promoted and maintained; and a deliberate effort not to get bogged down politically and militarily in the Middle East is essential.     

The challenges confronting US extended nuclear assurance in Asia

This article aims to explore the credibility of future US extended nuclear assurance in Asia. Extended nuclear assurance, all too frequently confused with extended nuclear deterrence, faces a daunting series of challenges: a US strategic mainstream fractured on the roles and purposes of nuclear weapons; an Asia where assurance demands are high during a period of strategic uncertainty; and a US theatre‐ and tactical‐range nuclear arsenal much depleted from its heyday. Meanwhile, nuclear latency is growing in Asia as more countries reach the technological level that the US attained in 1945, as nuclear skill sets become more prevalent, and as delivery vehicles appropriate to nuclear weapons become more typical in regional arsenals. The US now provides extended nuclear assurance to nearly 40 countries worldwide, agreeing to run nuclear risks on behalf of its allies and friends. The bulk of those assurances derive from the NATO alliance, but it is the non‐NATO‐related assurances—and settings—that seem likely to be the more controversial ones over the next decade or two. Asia is coming into its own at a time when extended nuclear assurance needs reinvigoration as a key ingredient in US strategic policy.     

Theorizing Power in Community Economies: A Women's Cooperative in Northern Kurdistan

Under the Democratic Autonomy project, Turkey's Kurdish Movement has pursued self-governance since the mid-2000s and promoted cooperatives and communal modes of production across Northern Kurdistan. Drawing upon the engagement of diverse and community economies studies with assemblage thinking, this article utilizes assemblage thinking to expand our understanding of power dynamics in community economies, and to reveal the power-led processes involved in building and maintaining community economies. The article focuses on the case of a women's cooperative spearheaded by the Kurdish Movement, which managed to circumvent state oppression and stay in business, despite the turmoil that erupted in Northern Kurdistan after the collapse of peace negotiations between the Turkish state and the Kurdish Movement in 2015.     

Performance Traditions of Kurdistan: Towards a More Comprehensive Theatre History

This study addresses the gap in the contemporary scholarship on Kurdish oral and performative culture by, for the first time, presenting a review of some of the performance traditions in Kurdistan. By describing these traditions, the article demonstrates that performance has for centuries comprised a vital and meaningful element of Kurdish cultural life. Further, it shows that a more inclusive approach to writing theatre histories enhances understanding of Middle Eastern and, in particular, Iranian performance culture—for the Kurds, as an Iranian people and the fourth largest ethnic group in the Middle East, play an intrinsic part in the culture of the region. All combined, this comprehension fosters a deeper appreciation and fuller picture of Middle Eastern theatre, in general, and Iranian theatre, in particular.     

Jabotinsky and Jewish autonomy in the Diaspora

This article examines the customary assumption that ultra-Orthodox memory of the Holocaust is a counter-memory, which confronts, consciously and unconsciously, the dominant secular, Zionist memory of the Holocaust. However, in the early postwar period, the memory of the Holocaust in ultra-Orthodox society was variegated and multifaceted. The article shows that not only did some members of ultra-Orthodox society adopt part of the Zionist narrative on issues such as the lessons of the Holocaust and the centrality of the Land of Israel but that they even took part in its creation and consolidation. During the 1960s some of the ultra-Orthodox spokesmen shifted their commemoration efforts to within their own community for a variety of reasons. Nonetheless, the sectorial barriers between the secular majority and the ultra-Orthodoxy minority in Israel in the first decades were not as high or as rigid as they appear to be today.     

Managing gendered expectations upon resettlement: the experiences of Iraqi Kurdish Muslim women in the UK

This article discusses research surrounding the migration experiences of Iraqi Kurdish Muslim women migrants who have settled in the UK. Looking at some of the important and influential works by post-colonial feminist writers, what is revealed are arguments that provide some false senses of separation between different women. These writers' concepts provide for a stagnation of extreme oppositionally based models of power that fail to recognise the existence of current and future transgressive, positive and empowering relationships of power which exist between women; and that happen in ways that remake the process, whereby transnational feminisms reach out, speak to, touch and reject each other – often all at the same time – and yet, in fresh and reconstituted forms. Considering both oppressive and transgressive relationships of power revealed complex combinations of often contradictory and simultaneously negative and empowering experiences. The Kurdish women practise strategies of Othering, of distance and of proximity corresponding to a variety of different concepts held within several different forms of feminism; they demonstrate an eclectic approach to their self-determination and to the development of rethinking forms of transnational feminism.     

The Islamic State,the Kurdistan Region and the future of Iraq: assessing UK policy options

The fall of Mosul in June of 2014 was followed in July by the establishment of a self‐proclaimed Caliphate by the Islamic State of Abu Bakr al‐Baghdadi. Since then, the Islamic State has continued to expand its operations, persistently pushing into Sunni‐dominated parts of Iraq and Syria, nearly defeating the Kurds of Iraq, and moving against the Kurds of Syria, in Kobani, as well as army units of the Syrian state. By doing so, it has maintained an astonishingly high tempo of operations and has shown itself capable, agile and resilient. It has also proved itself to be adept at utilizing social media outlets, and in pursuing brutal tactics against civilians and prisoners that have been aimed at shocking adversaries—potential or actual—and observers both in the region and beyond. The rise of the Islamic State poses a challenge not only to the security of Iraq and Syria, but to the state system of the Middle East. Western powers have been drawn into a conflict in a limited fashion—through air strikes and advising ground forces; the UK, while engaging slightly later than other countries against the Islamic State, has followed this pattern, though targeting Islamic State forces solely in Iraq. This article considers the nature and scale of the threat posed by the Islamic State, and assesses three possible areas of further policy engagement that they UK may, or may have to, follow.     

The Kirkuk Problem and Article 140 of the Iraqi Constitution

This article will discuss the issue of Kirkuk and its development, going back to its historical roots and development. The Kurdish and non‐Kurdish arguments will be presented. Also, the issue will be analyzed in the light of the current situation in Iraq. Some solutions to the problem will be proposed, to help keep Iraq intact as a federal state.     

The arc of autonomy in Georgia's Ajara

Drawing on the case study of Georgia's Ajara region, this paper makes the argument for foregrounding autonomy as a strategy used by states for managing diverse territories. Particularly salient to the concept of autonomy is its flexibility as a spatial fix, one which can be variously deployed depending on the form of political relations between center and periphery. Empirically, we draw from a set of 22 interviews conducted in Tbilisi and Ajara's capital of Batumi to trace the arc of autonomy in the republic through its Soviet and post-Soviet history. Established on cultural grounds, the form of Ajara's autonomy has subsequently been institutional, instrumental, and nominal. The republic today maintains its autonomous status, though its competences are delimited from Tbilisi; rather, this status serves as a model for the future—albeit unlikely—reincorporation of South Ossetia and Abkhazia into the Georgian state. In conclusion, the paper endorses greater engagement with autonomies that fall short of conflict and separatism but nonetheless provide valuable insights into the suite of strategies that states employ in the management of territory. Autonomies are possibly entering a new, more unstable period of centralizing pressures that will challenge their original purpose and perhaps also regional peace and stability.     

The Use of EMDR in Treatment of Traumatized Iraqi Children

The purpose of this article is to determine the prevalence of post‐traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among Iraqi children and the effectiveness of eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) treatment in traumatized Iraqi children. The participants in the present study were Iraqi children, ages 7–12; mean age = 10.17 years. There were 29 boys and 31 girls who immigrated to Malaysia during the recent war in Iraq. Those children were assessed for PTSD. Following the assessment, 37 children were assigned to two groups: 12 to the experimental group and 25 to the control group. The 12 children in the experimental group were treated with EMDR and were compared with the 25 children in the control group. This was done in order to determine the effectiveness of EMDR in reducing PTSD symptoms among traumatized children. UCLA PTSD DSM‐IV (Revision 1) was used to determine the prevalence of PTSD among Iraqi children. The results suggested that EMDR was effective in reducing PTSD symptoms.