Genetic testing: When is information too much?

In this guest editorial, the author addresses some of the challenges DNA self‐analysis poses in anthropology.     

Zimbabwe's ‘Fast Track’ Land Reform: What about women?

The wave of occupations of commercial farms in Zimbabwe starting in the year 2000 captured worldwide attention. By the end of that year, the government of Zimbabwe initiated the ‘fast track’ land reform process meant to formalize the occupations, and encourage further land appropriation and redistribution. Where are women in this process? The Women and Land Lobby Group (WLLG) was formed in 1998 by Zimbabwean women activists committed to the land issue. Since 1998 they have lobbied government to include women's interests in the design of land reform, and have made some inroads in improving women's formal rights to land as stated in policy documents. However, the current ‘fast track’ practices continue to privilege men as primary recipients of resettlement land, and the emerging role of traditional authorities in the land reform process marginalizes women. Other legal provisions that may help women struggle for changes remain weak. The contradiction between customary law, practices and attitudes and modern individual rights represents a complex battleground for women and land in Southern Africa, and calls for new feminist conceptualizations of the state as a vehicle for gender justice.     

Monte albán: Collecting,analyzing, and publishing information about a prehistoric city

Richard E. Blanton. Monte Albán: Settlement Patterns at the Ancient Zapotee Capital. New York: Academic Press, 1978. 451 pp. $24.50.     

Thirty Years on: Iran's “Silent Revolution”

2009 is the thirtieth anniversary of the Iranian Revolution. In 2006 the Bush administration ranked Iran as posing arguably the greatest single threat to America. And throughout 2008 that administration insisted all options were open in dealing with Iran, including preventative strikes. Yet, unlike its decisive intervention to establish Iran as a client state in the 1950s, the US has thus far been unable to force the changes it desires in and from Iran's leadership. This article argues that to help understand this situation it is important to recognize that the Iranian Revolution was and remains nurtured by a contemporaneous “silent revolution” in the international oil industry, even if the Ahmadinejad regime's economic policies especially threaten currently to squander some of the potential afforded by it.     

“Doing” Agency: Introductory Remarks on Methodology

As a theory of social reproduction, agency provides an attractive framework for understanding how material culture relates to everyday social action, to long-standing cultural institutions, and to wholesale culture change. What remains under-explored in archaeology is the question of how to proceed in linking observable material patterning to the agency of ancient social reproduction and how to understand the role of material culture in this dynamic process. This introduction (to this and the next issue of JAMT (Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory)) explores why there is a need for archaeology to develop explicitly articulated “middle range interpretive methodologies” that are appropriate for agency-oriented research in the past.     

Chiang Kai-shek's reading: an inquiry based on Chiang's diary, 1920s–1940s

At different times of his life, Chiang Kai-shek entertained three different images of himself: saint, hero and revolutionary guru. The orientation of his reading roughly corresponded with these roles: to be a saint, he emphasized moral learning and self-improvement; to be a hero, he stressed military strategy and politics; and to be the guru for a revolution, he had an enduring interest in the histories of revolutions in other nations. He seldom took an interest in books about knowledge, leisure or entertainment, which had little connection with these three roles. Chiang was closer to a traditional Chinese intellectual than to his predecessor Dr. Sun Yat-sen in his knowledge structure, value orientation and behaviour codes. Although Mao Zedong was as devoted to old Chinese books as Chiang, Mao preferred history and classical literature while Chiang preferred Confucian classics. Mao read old books from a historical materialist point of view, whereas Chiang synthesized “Three Principles of the People” (Sanmin zhuyi) with Confucian doctrines.     

Taking center stage: Early modern women’s tragedies on the contemporary stage

Abstract

From wife murder to cloak-and-dagger plays, female bodies, minds, and financial status are, for the most part, disempowered and abused by male protagonists with societal compliance. Since the 2000s, coinciding with the approval of the Ley Integral contra la Violencia de Género (2004), a wave of stage adaptations emerged in Spain that questioned the marginalization of women characters in the comedia. I claim that this trend in performance has become a sociocultural phenomenon that uses the symbolic capital of the comedia to raise awareness of women’s misrepresentation and gender violence and inequality.     

“Dear Diary” revisited: reflecting on collaborative journaling

The genesis of this article was a request from the Journal of Geography in Higher Education to provide a reflection piece about our article ‘Dear Diary: Early Career Geographers Collectively Reflect on their Qualitative Field Research Experiences’ (2011) that won the journal's biennial award for 2009–2011. This request has afforded us the opportunity to reconnect as a team and, through self-directed interviews, to reflect upon how writing ‘Dear Diary’ continues to influences our current perceptions of journaling in qualitative research. More specifically, we focus here on the relationships between journaling and our approach to research, team-based collaboration, and our current teaching and mentoring practices. We all continue to keep fieldwork journals and perceive reflexive journaling as a crucial tool for qualitative methods and other collaborative ventures.     

“Everybody is Centennializing”: White Southerners and the 1876 Centennial

The one hundredth anniversary of American independence was celebrated with a huge world’s fair or “International Exhibition” in Philadelphia, commonly referred to as “The Centennial,” a central theme of which was post-bellum reconciliation. This article argues that the Centennial served as a catalyst for reflection about sectional distinctiveness. It examines the highly politicized discourse around the commemoration, the ways in which white southerners’ self-definition was bound up in perceived differences from their Northern counterparts and the extent to which exaggerated or re-affirmed southerness in reaction to the Centennial detracted from post-war affirmations of renewed American nationalism.     

Risk and security on the Mexico-to-US migrant journey: women’s testimonios of violence

In this article, I argue that immigrants’ meanings, perceptions, and feelings of risk and (in)security are relational, multi-scalar, and contextual to lived experiences before, during, and after the migration journey. Paying attention to and analyzing Mexican women’s testimonios of intimate experiences uncovers why they migrate, how migration is experienced, and how migrant women frame their lives in the US. In this article, I compare how national and transnational policies of the War on Drugs in Mexico, which increased militarization of the US-Mexico border and created tougher immigration policies in the US (all in the name of US national security), form and transform intimate experiences of risk and (in)security across the migration journey for the same population. This comparative approach challenges and expands US-Mexico literature that does not read across experiences in the three sites of the migration journey.     

Staying on Top: Why is Munich so Resilient and Successful?

This article seeks to explain why Munich, Germany's most economically successful city in recent decades, has proved so resilient despite various challenges and shocks. It begins by discussing different theoretical understandings of resilience and our methodological approach which builds on complex adaptive systems and evolutionary economic geography perspectives. Using a blend of historical analysis and in-depth investigation of the dynamics of one of the city's most innovative clusters, we argue that Munich's resilience essentially stems from the complex interplay of Germany's distinctive political history and federal system, which has promoted multi-level governance and a strong urban system, longstanding city regional leadership and entrepreneurialism, Munich's inherent assets and diverse economy and the combined strength of its many knowledge institutions, innovation system and networks. The evidence suggests that historic, structural and locational factors and agglomeration effects largely explain Munich's rise to prominence but that sustained urban and regional leadership and effective governance and policy especially in the technological, scientific and educational spheres coupled with intelligent urban planning have played an increasingly important role in sustaining its competitiveness.     

All is quiet on the Russian front: ceasefires and the pursuit of legitimacy by self-proclaimed “republics” in Ukraine

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the pursuit of legitimacy by the self-proclaimed “republics” in Ukraine. While these “republics” are illegal, questions of their legitimacy are commonly discussed almost entirely through Weberian rule-conformity. We argue that this one-dimensional view of legitimacy overlooks the rich context of normative aspects of power relationships. If the occupied Donbas is to be reintegrated into Ukraine, it is essential to understand the perceived legitimation of the political institutions in this region. We use David Beetham’s framework of legitimacy—consisting of legality, morality, and consent—to analyze the “republics’” pursuit of legitimacy. Our analysis leads to the proposition that while the “republics” are illegal, their supporters’ normative perceptions of the right to govern have ascribed more validity to the fake “governments” than what would have been expected from a legal point of view. Additionally, while a ceasefire between the Russian proxies and Ukraine’s forces has reduced violence, it has also levied temporal effect on the legitimation of illegitimate institutions. Our treatment of the process of legitimation over time helps us identify potential strategies of delegitimization should DPR and LPR reincorporate with Ukraine-controlled territory. Without dismantling internal perceptions of institutional legitimacy among inhabitants of nongovernment-controlled areas, a re-integration could not be accomplished.     

Crustcrumbs in the carriage: a cognitive reading of Leopold Bloom in the “Hades” episode of Ulysses

This article investigates a commonly held critical conception of Leopold Bloom by questioning where his cognitive processes are situated. It argues that throughout Joyce's “Hades” episode, Bloom's mind seeps out into the storyworld, offloading onto his material setting. Bloom reflects on his dilemmas using different cognitive markers throughout his environment. As representational cues, they allow him to process his insecurities about his paternal and conjugal roles. A cognitive frame reveals how Bloom's kind acts often originate from his personal and familial preoccupations rather than what has been previously represented as genuine human sympathies. It shows Bloom as even more purposefully strategic than the Homeric parallels identified by most critics have traditionally conceived. Not only do we gain a greater depth of understanding about Bloom's character through an analysis of the situated mind; we also see thematic threads unfolding through objects and characters in ways previous scholarship has not seen. These thematic threads constitute substrata that further disclose the complexity and depth not only to Bloom's character but also Ulysses as a whole.     

“There is rosemary,that's for remembrance: And there is pansies,that's for thoughts.”

Irene Dowsing, Curtin of Australia, Acacia Press, Melbourne, 1969, pp. 175 + vii, $3.90.

Sir Lloyd Dumas, The Story of a Full Life, Sun Books, Melbourne, 1969, pp. 226 + vii, $4.95.

Sir Arthur Fadden, They Called Me Artie, Jacaranda Press, Brisbane, 1969, pp. 196, $4.50.

Frank C. Green, Servant of the House, Heinemann, Melbourne, 1969, pp. 173, $4.95.

Leslie Haylen, 20 Years Hard Labor, Macmillan of Australia, Melbourne, 1969, pp. 211, $4.95.

Edgar Holt, Politics is People, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1969, pp. 144, $3.75.

David Nicholas, The Pacemaker—The Playford Story, Brolga Books, Adelaide, 1969, pp. 190 + xvi, $3.95.

Alan Trengove, John Grey Gorton: An informal biography, Cassell Australia, Melbourne, 1969, pp. 251, $4.95.