The symbolism of the Arab flag in modern Arab states: between commonality and uniqueness*

ABSTRACT. The national flag, anthem and emblem are the three symbols through which an independent country proclaims its identity and sovereignty. Although each state has its distinctive flag, there are similarities in the flags of certain countries, such as in Scandinavia (the cross) and Africa (colours). These symbolise certain propinquity in terms of ideology, culture and history. Similarity is also to be found in the flags of the Arab countries: out of the twenty‐two current members of the Arab League, ten share the same colours on their flags (green, white, black and red), while a certain Islamic symbol (eagle, star) in some flags represents the uniqueness of that country. Of the other twelve countries, most rely on one colour of the four (usually red or green) while nine use Islamic symbols (stars, crescent and sword) on their flags. In spite of the importance of this national symbol, the study of the modern Arab flag is almost non‐existent. This article explores the modern evolution of the Arab flag and the reasons for the similarities in many Arab flags. In particular, it will deal with the pan‐Arab flags of the Hashemites Kingdom of the Hijaz (1916–26), Jordan, Iraq, Palestine, Syria and Egypt.     

Governing relations between people and things: Citizenship, territory, and the political economy of petroleum in Ecuador

Ecuador is the fifth largest producer of petroleum in Latin America. Petroleum has brought prosperity to many Ecuadorians, effectively becoming the nation's most important natural resource. It also has inspired intense political mobilizations. While the best known of these are led by Amazonian indigenous peoples, petroleum has also generated other important but not as well-recognized mobilizations. This paper focuses on the political mobilization of Amazonian agricultural settlers and petroleum workers in relation to petroleum. While these actors do not share common livelihood or cultural struggles, the discourses that frame their mobilizations in relation to petroleum have common elements. Their dissatisfaction with the political economy of petroleum in the 1990s and 2000s, for example, generated high profile protests and civil unrest that centered not on stopping production, but on demanding a more ‘responsible management’ of petroleum by the state. The paper brings together political economy, mechanisms of subject formation, and the material qualities of petroleum to explore how petroleum production in Ecuador has shaped common views on citizenship among these actors that center on petroleum as a site of regulation of social life.     

Brands of youth citizenship and the politics of scale: National Citizen Service in the United Kingdom

This paper explores the politics of scale in the context of youth citizenship. We propose the concept of ‘brands of youth citizenship’ to understand recent shifts in the state promotion of citizenship formations for young people, and demonstrate how scale is crucial to that agenda. As such, we push forward debates on the scaling of citizenship more broadly through an examination of the imaginative and institutional geographies of learning to be a citizen. The paper's empirical focus is a state-funded youth programme in the UK – National Citizen Service – launched in 2011 and now reaching tens of thousands of 15–17 year olds. We demonstrate the ‘branding’ of youth citizenship, cast here in terms of social action and designed to create a particular type of citizen-subject. Original research with key architects, delivery providers and young people demonstrates two key points of interest. First, that the scales of youth citizenship embedded in NCS promote engagement at the local scale, as part of a national collective, whilst the global scale is curiously absent. Second, that discourses of youth citizenship are increasingly mobilised alongside ideas of Britishness yet fractured by the geographies of devolution. Overall, the paper explores the scalar politics and performance of youth citizenship, the tensions therein, and the wider implications of this study for both political geographers and society more broadly at a time of heated debate about youthful politics in the United Kingdom and beyond.     

Cartographies of supranationalism: Creating and silencing territories in the “Arab Homeland”

In the predominately Arab states of north Africa and southwest Asia, a geopolitical entity exists that is rather uncommon elsewhere in the world. The “Arab Homeland,” as it is referred, is a readily accepted cartographic discourse throughout much of this extensive region. The construction of this entity emerged at the same time as the pan-Arab movement of the mid-twentieth century, which was fueled and motivated by 20th century geopolitical conflicts between Arabs and European imperialists, and between Arabs and Israelis. Through a critical reading of its cartographic construction since the fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1919, I provide unique insights into the numerous, complex, and even contradictory geopolitics of the construction of the Arab Homeland. My analysis of several hundred maps produced in eight different states of the Arab Homeland reveals that from the mid 1950s onward that the Arab Homeland was not only commonplace, but also how this supranational territorial entity confused and at times defied generally accepted divisions of the world. Expanding upon literature on supranational entities and the state, I show that territory is not only still important in our globalized world, but that it also has a complex and at times contradictory relationship with the concepts and scales of the state and the supranational. In emphasizing the role of territory in its construction, I also inject the importance of geography and territory for the pan-Arab movement, which is a factor that has been greatly under-theorized.     

The political ecology of recovery from armed conflict: the case of landmines in Mozambique

The devastation wrought by landmines on local populations is well known. However, the broader effects of mine presence on postwar recovery, and the progress of a ‘peace process’, remain largely unexamined. Both the academic and the practitioner literature regarding landmines lack a framework within which the mix of economic, political, social, agricultural, and ecological repercussions of mine presence in a context of postwar recovery can be investigated. Here, we consider the utility of political ecology to examine the influence of landmine presence on the socioecological relations important to postwar recovery in Mozambique. Landmines constitute the primary obstacle to the reconstruction and development in Mozambique. Because mine presence influences different aspects of recovery differently, we have selected three cases in the country where mine presence has impacted important components of recovery: agriculture, transportation corridors, and international investment. Peace process and recovery efforts by the international community do not presently address the broader, non-medical influences of landmine presence on recovery, and it is the intention of this article to contribute to an initial examination of these issues.     

The impacts of extra-territorial voting: Swings,interregnums and feedback effects in New Zealand elections from 1914 to 2011

How are elections affected by the votes of people living abroad? The majority of states now allow extra-territorial voting in some form, but the research literature on this topic remains underdeveloped. Moreover, even though extra-territorial voting raises issues about the relationship between territory and political obligation that are relevant to political geographers, political geography has been under-represented in discussions on the topic. Against this background, this research examines a century of overseas voting impacts in New Zealand, a country with an unusually long recorded history of such activity. The study identifies three types of extra-territorial voting impact over the period 1914-2011, referred to as swings, interregnums and feedback effects.     

“乞休”与“挂冠”:晚明弃官现象与政治文化嬗变

在明代君臣关系中,君权一直处于强势地位,并左右着官员进退。明中后期,这种情况出现了微妙的变化。时值万历朝出现大范围缺官,以京官为首的文官群体以此为契机,引发了群体性的致仕乞休现象,不惜以影响政府的正常运作为代价,孤立皇帝,从而扭转了在致仕问题上长期处于被动的局面,并由此引发了官员对于君臣关系、权力分配及仕隐哲学的再思考,影响了主流舆论的变化以及政治力量在中央与地方之间的转移等。这种主动弃官的现象所折射出的理性精神和反传统思想在一定程度上催生了晚明政治文化的进步因子,并为中国日后具有近代意义的民主政治发展奠定了基础。     

Voting Technology,Political Institutions,Legal Institutions and Civil Society: A Study of the Hypothesis of Cultural Lag in Reverse

The 2000 Presidential election was plagued by butterfly ballots and ‘pregnant chads’. Electronic voting systems, lacking verifiable paper trails that are subject to possible fraud, promise to wreak havoc with the 2004 Presidential election. There is a great diversity of systems of voting technology in the 50 states: from paper ballots, lever‐operated machines and punch cards to optical scanners and electronic systems. Associated with each technology is an estimated error rate. The underlying theory of this paper was set forth by William F. Ogburn in his famous book entitled Social Change, published in 1922. Dividing culture into material and non‐material elements, Ogburn argued that non‐material elements lag behind material elements. His explanation for this lag is that technology, which underlies material culture, changes at a faster rate than elements of non‐material culture. Obgurn did not contemplate the possibility of a reverse lag, viz., technology lagging behind non‐material culture. In analyzing the anomalous relationships between voting technology, political institutions and legal institutions, a striking instance of a ‘reverse cultural lag’ is discerned. To eliminate the phenomenon of the reverse cultural lag, there is a need for a federally‐funded program of a uniform, state‐of‐the‐art voting technology, plus an amended Help America Vote Act, to implement the innovations in the 3,114 counties. The complex problems reviewed in this paper point to a vexing question: how do we educate an electorate in a democratic society—such as the United States in the twenty‐first century—to be responsible for ensuring that periodically‐elected representatives implement the will of the people?     

Designing the model European—Liberal and republican concepts of citizenship in Europe in the 1860s: The Association Internationale pour le Progrès des Sciences Sociales

The formation of citizenship as a concept to define the rights of participation in the formation processes of modern territorial states is well known. But the transnational dimensions of defining citizenship and how to combine national legislations with enlightened universal and natural law rules in the mid-19th century is not very well known. The article aims to explore the transnational discourses on the political, economic and moral rights and duties of the citizen in the pan—European liberal Association Internationale pour le Progrès des Sciences Sociales. During the 1860s, its congresses should serve as a vast commission of enquiry and should eventually lead to a general definition of citizenship in Europe which could be implemented in national legislations. The article shows how the Association Internationale tried to deduce universal moral rules from national legislations and peculiarities by the means of moral or positive social science. In combining moral unity with national and regional diversities, the Association Internationale tried to give an elastic framework for a European civil society in which national subjects should become active citizens.     

Residential mobility and social identity in the periphery: strontium isotope analysis of archaeological tooth enamel from southeastern Arabia

Strontium isotope analysis represents an effective means of assessing mobility and reconstructing geographic residence patterns in archaeological populations. This biogeochemical technique was utilized to test the hypothesis that burgeoning interregional exchange networks and the occurrence of exotic grave goods in local tombs would correspond with a highly mobile population and a considerable immigrant presence during the Umm an-Nar (2700–2000 BC) period in the UAE. This region has been considered peripheral relative to larger civilizations in Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley, but played an important role as a major supplier of copper for the Persian Gulf. Individuals (n = 100) from six monumental Umm an-Nar tombs (Mowaihat; Tell Abraq; Umm an-Nar Island I, II, V; Unar 1) were selected to evaluate the geographic origins of tomb members. Mean ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr ratios from local individuals interred at Mowaihat (0.708863 ± 0.000014; 1σ, n = 12), Tell Abraq (0.708873 ± 0.000020; 1σ, n = 27), Umm an-Nar Island (0.708902 ± 0.000079; 1σ, n = 33), and Unar 1 (0.708805 ± 0.000065; 1σ, n = 25) all display little isotopic variability, indicative of a population that was not highly mobile. However, coupled with archaeological evidence, three immigrants from Tell Abraq (n = 2) and Mowaihat (n = 1) identified by deviant strontium values suggest that this region was actively engaged in interregional interaction. Despite claims that these tombs acted as visible markers of territoriality legitimized by local ancestors buried within them, the presence of non-locals suggests that as commerce became increasingly important, definitions of kinship and social identity may have become more flexible to better meet the needs of the local community and those with whom they interacted.     

Enhancing the mobility of collections and access to cultural heritage: immunity of cultural objects from seizure in Poland

This paper analyses, from the perspective of cultural policy considerations, the legal regime established by the recent Polish law on the immunity from seizure of cultural property on loan (2015). It deals with current trends of international museum exchange and explains the benefits and risks involved in cross-border loans of cultural material. This analysis is carried out by focusing on the actual practice and experiences of Polish museums, national and international regulations in force, and human rights considerations. The authors attempt to situate the Polish model for the protection of foreign cultural property on loan within the broader comparative context of the domestic legislation on museum exchange adopted in selected national jurisdictions. The article also offers a more general cultural policy discussion in the context of international museum exchanges of cultural material. Laws and policies facilitating such exchanges are weighed against other rights and interests encompassed in the protection of cultural heritage and the realisation of all human rights, including cultural rights.     

南京江宁出土刘宋罗氏家族买地券研究——南徐州侨民与晋宋之际的建康社会

南京江宁出土的刘宋罗健夫妇、罗道训三方买地券,为研究六朝建康社会的历史变迁图景,提供了第一手资料。通过释读、考证券文可知,罗健与罗道训为父子关系,其原为堂邑郡高山县人,后南渡过江,著籍南徐州南彭城郡。东晋末年,罗氏父子追随刘裕代晋建宋,活跃于刘宋政治中,由此迁居建康周边,买地营葬。罗氏家族的活动是晋宋之际建康周边社会变动的缩影。     

考古与甲骨学的宝贵收获——读《殷墟花园庄东地甲骨》

《殷墟花园庄东地甲骨》是一部优秀的考古发掘报告,又是一本令人耳目一新的甲骨学著作,本文从报告体例、科学性和技术水平、资料的价值、著者的研究等方面对该书进行了评价。指出该书是一部具有很高科学价值和实用价值的著作。     

Emergence,collapse and continuity of the first political system in the Guadalquivir Basin from the fourth to the second millennium BC: The long-term sequence of Úbeda (Spain)

Over the last decade, a long-running archaeological project in the Guadalquivir Basin (Spain) has identified the emergence (c. 3000 BC) and collapse (between c. 2500 and c. 2300 BC) of a regional inter-settlement hierarchical system centred on the south-western Pyrite Belt and the Lower Guadalquivir Basin.