The ‘invisible scars’ of breast cancer treatments (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

Drawing on 38 fieldwork interviews with women living with breast cancer conducted in Spain between 2006 and 2008, I draw attention to the significance of what Ludica (2013) refers to as the “invisible scars of cancer” for a holistic understanding of women's experiences. I highlight two under acknowledged thematic concerns that emerged during our conversations: (1) the impact of treatments on women's ability to experience sexual pleasure; (2) the pain caused by axillary lymph node dissection (ALND) or armpit surgery. The present article is a timely reminder of the fact that for a shockingly high number of women diagnosed, the experience of breast cancer is emotionally and physically painful and quite often disabling. An understanding of women's experiences is essential to provide resources more sensitive to women's needs.     

1 samuel 19: David and the Teraphim. and the Emplotted Narrative

This article interprets the use of teraphim in 1 Sam 19,13 through a historiographical lens. A close reading of 1 Sam 13-19 reveals Saul's doomed kingship (a lack of God's presence) and God's continual presence with David. Drawing on Hayden White's historiography, archaeological material, and textual sources, one can see how the teraphim functions as part of the emplotted (arranged) narrative of David and Saul, emphasizing the leitmotiv that runs through David's rise and Saul's decline. The author of the 1 Sam 19 arranged the narrative vis-a-vis David and Saul in such a way that her or his audience would understand.     

Environment and Subsistence of the Early Inhabitants of Coastal Southwestern Nigeria

From where did the early inhabitants of the Badagry coastal area of southwestern Nigeria originate? Has the area been occupied from “ancient times,” as claimed by oral traditions? What was the nature of the environment and subsistence of these early inhabitants? Excavations at Apa, west of Badagry, provided answers to these questions. A radiocarbon date of 2670 ± 90 bp showed that human occupation there is at least 3000 years old, and implied occupation during the Late Stone Age. The occupation was in two phases: a prehistoric phase, during which Apa site 1 (Ap1) was occupied, and an historic phase, with occupation of Apa site 2 (Ap2). Sedimentological and archaeological data also showed that the environment at the beginning of occupation was similar to today. The presence of a groundstone axe, charred palm kernels, and charcoal at the Ap1 site is interpreted to imply the clearing and burning of vegetation, probably preparatory to planting and the exploitation of oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) from about 2670 ± 90 bp. D'où sont venus les premiers habitants de la région côtiere Badagry du sud-ouest du Nigeria? Est-il vrai que la région a été occupé depuis les temps anciennes, comme confirme les traditions orales? Quelle étaient la nature de l'environnement et du subsistence de ces habitants préhistoriques? Des fouilles archéologiques à Apa, a l'ouest de Badagry, ont fourni des réponses nécessaires à ces questions. Un date radiocarbone de 2670 ± 90 bp a montré que les activités humaines de ce site date au moins de 3000 années, qui indique que l'occupation des habitants à c'endroit étais durant la periode de l'Age de la Pierre Recent. L'occupation de cette region était en deux phases: un phase prehistorique, la période pendant lequelle le site d'Apa 1 (Ap1) était occupé, et la phase historique, qui a marqué l'occupation du deuxième site d'Apa 2 (Ap2). Les données de la sedimentologie et de l'archéologie ont aussi montrent que l'environnement au commencement d'occupation était similaire de nos jours. On pense que la presence d'un hache “groundstone,” de l'amande de palmier et du charbon à la site d'Ap1 indiques la déstruction de la vegetation, preparant probablement la terre pour la semence et l'exploitation du l'huile de palme (Elaeis guineensis) d'environ de 2670 ± 90 bp.     

Engels and the question about cities

In his 1969 Trevelyan Lectures, Franco Venturi argued that Kant's response to the question “What is Enlightenment?” has tended to promote a “philosophical interpretation” of the Enlightenment that leads scholars away from the political questions that were central to its concerns. But while Kant's response is well known, it has been often misunderstood by scholars who see it as offering a definition of an historical period, rather than an attempt at characterizing a process that had a significant implications. This article seeks (1) to clarify, briefly, the particular question that Kant was answering, (2) to examine – using Jürgen Habermas’ work as a case in point – the tension between readings that use Kant's answer as a way of discussing the Enlightenment as a discrete historical period and those readings that see it as offering a broad outline of an “Enlightenment Project” that continues into the present, and (3) to explore how Michel Foucault, in a series of discussions of Kant's response, sketched an approach to Kant's text that offers a way of reframing Venturi's distinction between “philosophical” and “political” interpretations of the Enlightenment.     

Liberal nationalist versus postnational social integration: on the nation's ethno‐cultural particularity and ‘concreteness’*

Abstract. Liberal nationalists advance two claims: (1) an empirical claim that nationalism is functionally indispensable to the viability of liberal democracy (because it is necessary to social integration) and (2) a normative claim that some forms of nationalism are compatible with liberal democratic norms. The empirical claim is often supported, against postnationalists' view that social integration can bypass ethnicity and nationality, by pointing to the inevitable ethnic and cultural particularities of all political institutions. I argue that (1) the argument that ethno‐cultural particularity demonstrates the need for nationalist integration depends on an implausible reification of national identity at the level of social theory, and that (2) this reification ironically serves to undermine liberal nationalists' normative claim.     

Reconstructing an urban and regional political economy: on the state,politics, scale,and explanation

This paper begins from the premise that a number of now fashionable institutionally focused accounts of urban and regional political economy often begin at a point that is analytically flawed (or at least partial) in that the institutional ensembles themselves—whether analyzed as an urban `regime', regional `thickness' or a local `regulatory mode'—are automatically assumed to be a pre-given part of the explanation. However, the authors contend that for a deeper analysis of urban and regional political economy to be advanced, these institutions themselves need to be explained. In order to proceed with such an explanation three key factors require more serious consideration. These are: (1) the need to outline one's chosen research object of enquiry, and all that this entails in terms of research methodology, theory selection, and an uncovering of the `constitutive properties' of causation; (2) a greater readiness to analytically interrogate the relational interplay between economic development, political governance and scale; and (3) an obligation to pay due respect to the politics of representation and active processes of state restructuring and political strategizing through and around which economic development is itself constituted. In order to explore these themes, the authors draw, variously, on a methodological (re-) reading of the regulation approach, recent theoretical innovations on the `politics of scale', Jessop's state-theoretical writings and his recently developed neo-Gramscian methodology for analyzing urban economic governance, alongside Jenson's political sociological approach towards the `politics of representation'. Where appropriate, they explore, briefly, ways in which these theoretical themes may be deployed in empirical research, by considering certain restructurings in and of the political economy of Britain during recent decades.     

Children's nomination of friendly places in an urban neighbourhood in Shiraz,Iran

This study investigates how children conceive of and value the outdoor environment as a child-friendly one with particular reference to an urban neighbourhood in Shiraz, Iran. It utilizes Chatterjee's (2005. “Children's Friendship with Place: A Conceptual Inquiry.” Children, Youth and Environments 15 (1): 1–26) place friendship construct to find out friendly places and their attributes from children's points of view. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 106 middle childhood children. Findings suggest that a child-friendly neighbourhood is made up of diverse places that children use to meet their different needs. However, formal and informal open spaces, private precincts, and streets in the neighbourhood afforded highest contributions to place friendship.     

Noril'sk Nickel: A Global Company?

Two specialists on Russia's minerals industries examine the evidence supporting the argument that the Russian mining conglomerate Noril'sk Nickel can be viewed as a global company. Included among the criteria they assess are the geographic dispersion of the company's markets and operations, the diversified and multinational character of its ownership, whether it has matched the performance standards set by its major international competitors, and the effect of the company's ownership presence on the management style of its foreign operations. A particular focus is on how an ongoing conflict between two major Russian oligarch shareholders (Vladimir Potanin and Oleg Deripaska) has shaped Noril'sk Nickel's ownership and management structure, which is characterized by the continued (background) presence of the state, the lack of any organized policy for training a multinational management cohort, and the absence of a major block of foreign shareholders. In the end, they conclude that Noril'sk Nickel is not a genuinely global but rather a Tier-1 Russian company, albeit one with a global scale of operations.     

Size does matter: methodological comments on sieve size and species richness in fishbone assemblages

Vale and Gargett (J. Archaeol. Sci. 29 (2002) 57) discuss the finds from sieving experiments through 6 mm, 3 mm, and 1 mm mesh sizes from Arrawarra-I, a coastal midden site in Australia. They claimed that the relationship between sieve mesh size and both taxonomic richness and abundance is not straightforward. We reanalyzed Vale and Gargett's data to estimate species richness in larger sample sizes. By fitting logarithmic series to the data, we calculated the alpha diversity, and used that statistics to predict number of species expected at a given sample size. This statistical method is called “the equivalent alpha diversity method for abundifaction”. We demonstrate that taxonomic diversity would have been higher (14 species rather then 10) for an NISP of 2000 bones, sieved through a 1 mm mesh. We also demonstrate that Vale and Gargett's conclusion is flawed due to their small sample size (432 identified bones out of 60,000), inadequate sampling methods and poor analytical methodology. By using Vale and Gargett's data, we reach the opposite conclusion, and show that the use of 3 and 1 mm mesh sieves is indeed important in measuring diversity of archaeological assemblages in general, and of fish assemblages in particular.     

Living in commodified history: constructing class identities in neotraditional neighbourhoods

This paper examines how residents of neotraditional neighbourhoods in the Netherlands socially construct a ‘classed’ place identity and what role the historicised architecture plays within that process. Given that place identity is constructed through social and cultural practices, the paper argues that residents' consumption of historicised environment is bound up with drawing symbolic boundaries that have been explored here by analysing residents' narratives. Three prominent types of narratives were found: (1) residents' locational choice, (2) their aesthetic judgement of the residential environment and (3) the way they use it. Through these layered narratives, all interviewees appear to use historicised aesthetics to classify themselves as part of a valued social category. However, the way of boundary drawing took several forms, based either on fostering moral judgements of social behaviour accompanied by sophisticated efforts to keep neighbourhoods' historicised image unchanged, or by conducting cultural practices shared with fellow residents by which ‘the other’ living outside the neighbourhood is ‘bracketed out’ symbolically and socially.     

Nietzsche,Perspectivism, Anti-realism: An Inconsistent Triad

“Philosophical perspectivism” is surely one of Nietzsche's most important insights regarding the limits of human knowledge. However, the perspectivist thesis combined with a minimal realist metaphysical position produces what Brian Leiter calls the ‘Received View’: an epistemologically incoherent misinterpretation of Nietzsche which pervades the secondary literature. In order to salvage the thesis of perspectivism, Leiter argues that we must commit Nietzsche to an anti-realist metaphysical position. I argue that Leiter's proposed solution is (1) epistemically weak, and (2) inconsistent with much of Nietzsche's views on truth, knowledge and the psychological make-up of human beings. I argue that we need to abandon the scheme/content distinction on which both the Received View and Leiter's anti-realist construal of perspectivism are predicated and instead construe perspectives as environments of power.     

Assessing South Carolina's 1990s congressional districting

In this study, the authors employ a computer-intensive method to assess the factual basis for a race-as-predominant-factor claim against South Carolina's congressional districting plan. They use four algorithms that weight traditional districting criteria (equal population, the preservation of county integrity, and district area compactness) to generate 10,000 alternative plans containing a total of 60,000 congressional districts. Based upon the analysis of these plans, the authors conclude that: (1) race is a factor in the design of South Carolina's congressional districts; (2) race predominates over the preservation of county lines; and (3) race may predominate over district compactness.     

Study of stafne's defects in Late Neolithic,Late Roman,Medieval and Modern skeletal samples from Portugal

Lingual mandibular cortical defects (Stafne's defects) are relatively uncommon in recent as well as past populations, but while this condition is often discussed in clinical reports, they are rarely the subject of anthropological research. In this paper, the prevalence of Stafne's bone defects in skeletal samples from Late Neolithic, Late Roman, Medieval and Modern Portugal is investigated (N = 704 complete mandibles and 111 incomplete mandibles). The aims of this paper are threefold: (1) to present and analyse for the first time in Portuguese osteological record prevalence data on Stafne's bone defect, (2) to analyse variations in defect prevalence between skeletal samples from a wide temporal array and (3) to verify if more tenuous lesions in which resorption of the lingual cortex was not yet extensive had the classic radiographic appearance described by Stafne in order to validate the hypothesis that lesions are present clinically in many more cases than published figures indicate. In all cases, differential diagnosis against other conditions that mimic Stafne's defects, namely odontogenic lesions, cysts and neoplasms, was done. In all samples, the evidence of Stafne's defect occurred in 12 individuals (1.7%), and males (2.84%) were more frequently affected than females (0.61%). When incomplete mandibles were considered, only one left fragment (0.90%) exhibited Stafne's defect. Accurate identification of all examples of Stafne's bone defects in antiquity is thought to represent an important contribution to elucidate which factors may be responsible for this trait's cultural, ecological, temporal and geographical patterning. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Salafism in Modern Egypt: Panacea or Pest?

Abstract

The aim of the article is to introduce the reader to the nature of Salafism in Egypt and its growing influence on the population. It sets out to explore the degree to which Egypt's current Salafi networks may justifiably be described as a Saudi Arabian phenomenon, and as promoting behaviours that clash with Egyptian religious and cultural traditions. The paper is divided into three sections: (1) It begins with an overview of what Salafism means in the modern global context; (2) It briefly describes Salafism's development in Egypt since the early twentieth century; (3) It explores the ways in which Salafism acts in concert with, as well as confronts, Egypt's cultural and religious traditions.     

Empirical Green's Functions Modified by Attenuation for Sources Located at Intermediate and Far Distances from the Original Source

We present a scheme to modify empirical Green's functions by attenuation considering: (1) geometrical spreading; (2) decay in high frequency; (3) regional attenuation; and (4) phase of the signal. The accelerograms computed with the proposed simulation method are compared, in time and frequency domains, with strong ground motions from subduction and intermediate-depth earthquakes recorded in Mexico. It is shown that this simple empirical Green's functions technique can synthesize both the shape and amplitude of the response spectra in the site, considering a postulated seismic source located at different distances from the original one.     

Playing and affective time-spaces

In this paper I have two objectives. The first is to critically explore definitions of playing that have underpinned a great deal of research in children's geography. In so doing I want to highlight some of the assumptions that various authors within geography have made (often implicitly) about the ontological status of playing. This will in turn, lead me to work with, between and sometimes against three authors who have tried to theorize playing. In following this route, I hope to come to some tentative conclusions about the status of playing, which paradoxically will eschew any (strong) ontological commitment at all. This leads to my second objective, which is to explore four particular aspects of playing—embodiment, affect, objects and time-space—to examine how they are interleaved with spaces and spacing. In necessarily situating this work within my research at Hilltop Primary School1 1. This is a pseudonym, used as part of a confidentiality agreement signed with the school. View all notes in the summer of 2001, I hope to show that geographical studies can contribute to definitions of playing as much as playing can inflect certain notions of space.     

Panchayati Raj in West Bengal: Popular Participation for the People or the Party?

Since 1978 the Left Front government in West Bengal, led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) — CPI(M) — has pursued a strategy of decentralized planning through locally elected panchayats (councils) in the countryside. The stated ideological commitment of the CP1(M) is to support and eventually empower the poor and oppressed and this has resulted in Panchayati Raj assuming the status of not just a state sponsored decentralization strategy, but the institutional forum for the mobilization of the poor and the expansion of the party's base. However the CPI(M)'s strategy is to some extent ambiguous in that it combines a need to maintain an electoral status as a party leading a state government within the Indian Union and a political status as a party promoting the conditions for, and the transition to, a people's democracy and thereby socialism.     

Comments on Yoram Hazony,The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture

Hazony's insightful book advances three theses: (1) The Tanakh, the canonical Hebrew Scripture, is coherent, by virtue of its distinctive vision of the Whole and of the Israelite People's special place in it. (2) The Tanakh is a philosophic as well as a religious text. (3) The study of the Tanakh should find a home in departments of philosophy and political science as well as religion or religious studies. Granting the first and third points, we may raise questions about the second: Does philosophy require a concept of Nature qua Necessity, which is at odds with the Scriptural God's radical freedom? Does Hazony, to present the Tanakh as philosophic, overrationalize it, and therewith offer interpretations that, although fruitful and inspiring, fall wide of the mark? Of particular interest are his translation of the Hebrew word lev, literally “heart,” as “mind”; his sketches of five of the Patriarch Jacob's sons as politically relevant character types; and especially his take on the Patriarch Abraham's near sacrifice of his son Isaac, which understates this text's poignancy and wonder. An alternative reading reveals the Book of Genesis as a set of cautionary tales about the hazards of unaided human reason, for which the Mosaic Law provides a needed corrective. On the other hand, Hazony should not be judged too harshly for his critical comments on a dogmatic strand (but only a strand) of Christian thinking that he associates with the early Church Father Tertullian.