The Archaeology of Global Encounters Viewed from Banda, Ghana

West African societies have long been enmeshed in interregional, subcontinental, and intercontinental relations. Documents tell us little about how local life was shaped by its intersection with global processes, especially in coastal hinterlands. In this paper I report on archaeological investigations into the changing contours of local life in the Banda area of west central Ghana over the past seven centuries. Excavations at three temporally distinct occupations on two sites—Makala Kataa and Kuulo Kataa—document changes in settlement, craft production, subsistence, and exchange, providing insights into the dynamics of local life during a period of expanding global networks. A concluding section addresses why this type of research is important for our understanding of ancient African societies. Les sociétés Ouest Africaines sont depuis longtemps parties prenantes dans les relations inter-régionales, sous-continentales et inter-continentales. Les documents ne nous disent pas grand chose sur la manière dont la vie locale a été façonnée par cette interaction avec les processus mondiaux, particulièrement dans les arrières pays côtiers. Dans cet article, je rends compte des recherches archéologiques concernant les changements dans la vie locale intervenus dans la région de Banda au centre ouest du Ghana au cours des sept derniers siècles. Les fouilles dans trois occupations temporellement distincts sur deux sites—Makala Kataa et Kuulo Kataa—mettent en évidence les changements dans l'occupation, la production artisanale, les modes de subsistances et les échanges, donnant un aperçu des dynamiques de la vie locale durant une période d'expansion des réseaux mondiaux d'échange. La conclusion aborde les raisons pour lesquelles ce type de recherche est important pour notre compréhension des anciennes sociétés africaines.     

中国传统漆器的“经典之作”

中国的传统漆器工艺是人类文化遗产宝库中的一颗明珠,本文介绍了在漆器工艺发展史上代表当时世界最高水平,并对中外漆器工艺发展进程起过重要作用,奠定中国传统漆器工艺基本特征的四个漆器工艺品种。     

清中晚期双龙五凤点翠冠饰材质与工艺研究

为从科学分析的角度研究清代点翠首饰的材质与工艺,本研究以陕西旬邑县唐家大院清中晚期双龙五凤点翠冠饰为研究对象,通过超景深三维视频显微镜和扫描电子显微镜观察点翠冠饰的显微形貌、X射线能谱仪分析点翠冠饰制作材料的化学成分、傅里叶显微红外光谱仪分析点翠中使用胶黏剂的种类。研究表明,点翠冠饰的胎体以金属和木质为主,辅以花丝、捻金线、鎏金等细金工艺制作而成,使用动物胶将翠羽黏接在胎体上,点翠所用的翠羽主要是蓝色的羽枝。双龙五凤点翠冠饰的材料较少使用黄金等贵金属,而是以纯铜、纯银或铜银合金为基体、表面鎏金的金属材料或者木质材料制作,充分节省了冠饰制作的成本并减轻了重量。研究成果为传统点翠工艺提供详实的数据支持,对点翠工艺的传承、发展、创新提供一定的帮助。     

Expressing Islamic feminism in Mariama Bâ's So Long a Letter

This article examines the presence of a strictly Qur'anic base shaping the Islamic feminism of Ramatoulaye, the narrator and main protagonist of Mariama Bâ's francophone classic So Long a Letter (1979). I argue that the widely circulated insistence by critics and readers of Bâ's epistolary style novel on the practice of Islam in West Africa, particularly in Senegal, as a syncretic presence eagerly adapting to indigenous non-Islamic beliefs and practice, has led to an overly generalized and somewhat inaccurate perception of Islam in Africa. Through my reading of some key Islamic concepts described in Bâ's novel, such as the mirath, polygamy, prayer and sunna, I situate my reading of Ramatoulaye's expression of Islamic feminism within an African and Islamic feminist reading and further position these within the cultural context of the practice of Islam in Senegal. By her ‘strategic self-positioning’, as defined by Islamic feminist Miriam Cooke, among others, within a small group of Senegalese Muslims – locally known as ibadu Muslims – Ramatoulaye succeeds in enacting Islamic feminism in her spiritual persistence for a strict adherence to the Qur'an and in her resistance to the temptation to expand the Islamic precepts of her faith.     

Narrating feminisms: what do we talk about when we talk about feminism in Estonia?

Abstract

Drawing on interviews with women who identify as feminists in Estonia, this article explores how the stories we tell about feminism and its past influence the kind of theoretical and political work we are able to do. Zooming in on the story of the emergence of feminisms in postsocialist Estonia which has not been thoroughly researched yet, this article calls upon feminists in Estonia to reflect critically on how they conceptualize feminisms, while at the same time building a framework to think about local feminism within transnational feminist context. Starting from stories of how women became feminists in Estonia since the fall of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, I reflect on the gaps, chance encounters and tensions that my fieldwork revealed to narrate feminism differently, to bring forth new aspects of feminism in this context. In particular, I focus on two moments: the common imaginary of ‘real’ feminism as Western mass movement and the tensions between the local context and ‘Western feminism’. I complicate the narrative in the article through including interludes in between the main text to highlight how the incidents that happened outside and around the interviews shape my story of feminism in Estonia.     

Between friendship and justice: on Lincoln’s political thought

Reading Aristotle and applying his notion of philia, or political friendship, across 26 centuries sheds significant light into Abraham Lincoln’s career. It is precisely in Lincoln’s embodiment of the Aristotelian notion of friendship that we come to understand his unique greatness. Perhaps he alone of all Americans proved capable of such extraordinary feats as leading the Republican party to victory in 1860, holding the Union together through the secession crisis and four long years of bloody civil war, ending slavery without white backlash, and offering reconciliation with the incredible magnanimity expressed in the ringing phrases of the Second Inaugural address. The basis of Lincoln’s preternatural political genius proved to be his ability to comprehend all sides, a comprehension that can only come from a profound belief in the importance of friendship. Americans, Lincoln argued throughout a terrible war as he had his entire life, were not enemies but friends who shared a commitment to nature and nature’s law as expressed in the Declaration.     

Specialized Salt Production During the Ancient Maya Classic Period at Two Paynes Creek Salt Works,Belize: Chan b’i and Atz’aam Na

Underwater excavations at the Classic period (a.d. 300–900) ancient Maya salt works of Chan b’i and Atz’aam Na in Paynes Creek National Park, Belize, reveal activity areas associated with a substantial salt industry for distribution to nearby southern Maya inland sites where this biological requirement was scarce. Wooden architecture and salt making artifacts are abundantly preserved in a peat bog composed of red mangrove. Excavations, screening, and analysis of recovered material at the submerged underwater sites reveal that the artifacts are overwhelmingly briquetage: pottery vessels used to evaporate salty water by heating over fires to make salt. The spatial distribution of briquetage in relation to the interior and exterior of buildings reveals that salt production was occurring indoors. The plethora of briquetage and the scarcity of domestic artifacts indicate that the sites were specialized salt works and not physically attached to households.     

国际关系的演化变迁与中印\"兄弟\"情谊的大起大落

中印\"兄弟\"情谊的大起大落,是尼赫鲁时代中印双边关系最引人注目的特征。尼赫鲁时代中印\"兄弟\"情谊的大起大落与许多因素相关,国际关系的演化变迁即是其中的重要因素。全球冷战背景下的印巴敌视、中美对抗、中苏友好、美巴结盟催生了中印兄弟情谊的到来;而中苏分歧、印苏友好、中美敌对、印美接近、印巴对抗、中巴联合则加剧了中印关系的恶化与破裂。尼赫鲁时代中印\"兄弟\"情谊的大起大落,从国际关系演化变迁的视角,为当代和未来中印关系提供了值得反思和借鉴的经验与教训。     

Enacting parenting policy? The hybrid spaces of Sure Start Children's Centres

This article draws on research in three UK Sure Start Children's Centres which explored them as particular kinds of spaces, with the intention of understanding how policy imperatives and discourses interact with other dynamics. The role of the material spaces of the buildings, of ambivalent interactions of users with staff, and friendship groups among users are seen as key to understanding the centre as a ‘hybrid’ space in which policy intentions were exceeded by other aspects of everyday life. This has implications not only for understanding policy programmes in action, but also for how academic analysis and theory positions itself in relation to these spaces.     

Why Does the Cook Islands Still Need Overseas Aid?

The Cook Islands Government spends more than 40 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP). Its tax revenue is capped at 25 per cent of GDP under a 1998 austerity package agreed with its creditors New Zealand, Nauru and the Asian Development Bank. Non-tax revenue is 5 per cent of GDP, and external aid fills the resulting gap. This recently renewed reliance on aid contrasts sharply with the strong performance of the economy’s private sector, driven by a booming tourism industry, which has pushed the balance of payments into a huge surplus and raises important questions about the allocation of the gains from growth.