Explaining Canada–US Differences in Attitudes Toward Crime and Justice: An Empirical Test of S.M. Lipset’s Account

Despite cultural similarities between Canada and the United States, some observers contend that significant differences remain in attitudes and values between the two countries. For example, Lipset has observed that “efforts to distinguish Canada and the United States almost invariably point to the greater respect for law and order and those who uphold it north of the border”. Lipset’s argument is that Canadian values are based on the nation’s founding principles of “Peace, Order and Good Government” while American values stem from the country’s revolutionary origins and are based on the values of “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” We test Lipset’s observations, and those of some of his critics, using parallel surveys administered to university students in two institutions on either side of the Canada–US border. This is a very demanding test of his arguments so the supportive evidence we uncover for his arguments is significant.     

Gender,Legend, and the Icelandic Countryside in the Long Nineteenth Century: Re-Engaging the Archives as a Means of Giving Voice to the Women of the Past

This article addresses the way in which, in spite of their accepted drawbacks (which often include an over-emphasis on male informants), folklore archives can be used to reconstruct the oral traditions of women from earlier times, especially when used in combination with other archival sources that are increasingly becoming available online. In Iceland, the recorded interviews by the folklore collector Hallfreður Örn Eiríksson in the 1960s and 1970s have proven to be a particularly useful source for engaging with the reconstruction of women’s narrative traditions in Iceland. These interviews not only provide us with women’s narratives told in their own voices, but also yield a wide range of additional information about the context of women’s storytelling within the rural society of previous centuries.     

Between political emancipation and creole hegemony: Viscardo’s Letter to the Spanish Americans (c. 1791)

Viscardo’s Letter to the Spanish Americans inaugurates a tradition of nonconformist political writing against Spanish colonial rule during the second half of the eighteenth century, a period characterized by the Crown’s attempt to reorganize several aspects of the colonial administration. As an ex-Jesuit living in exile after the expulsion of the Society of Jesus from all Spanish territories in 1767, Viscardo had a political as much as a personal motive in designing a project that would cut the colonial ties between Spain and the New World. His plans for emancipation included the instauration of a monarchical form of government, but his design was out of touch with reality and would have hardly been taken seriously by the inhabitants had a British-backed expeditionary force reached the coasts of Chile and Peru, as he had planned. While Viscardo’s Letter may have stirred a sense of creole patriotism some years after his death, the political scruples of the ancien regime based on social privileges and racial distinctions were too strong to be dismantled by mere ideals of freedom, justice and equality. Thus, effective political participation was restricted to the creole elite, whom Viscardo saw as the legitimate guarantor of social order and economic prosperity.     

Innovations in cultural policy and development in Latin America

ABSTRACT

This essay looks at two major tendencies in cultural policy recommendations in Latin America: (1) the economic contribution of arts, heritage and especially the cultural and creative industries; and (2) cultural rights, with a focus on inclusion, access, empowerment, and the integral development/well-being of citizens. The two tendencies, which are part of cultural development policies, are not easily integrated into an all-encompassing policy because they follow different logics and management strategies. Nevertheless, both of these tendencies, which emerged in the heyday of neoliberalism (the 1990s), continue to provide the major justifications for cultural funding, although the current economic crisis has led to budget cuts. After a review of cultural development policies, this essay examines innovative strategies to compensate for scarce funding, including those that seek to bridge both tendencies. The cases examined below correspond to discussions of cultural policies in Latin American forums with hundreds of policy-makers and analysts over the past 20-plus years.

Abbreviations: BBC: British Broadcasting Corporation; CadenAgro: Centro de Apoyo para el Desarrollo de Denominaciones de Origen y Sellos de Calidad de Productos Agroalimentarios; CCI: Cultural and Creative Industries; CEDE: Centro de Estudios de Desarrollo Económico; CMD: Centro de Diseño Metropolitano; CVC: Cultura Viva Comunitaria; ECLAC: Economic Commission for Latin America; ILO: International Labor Organization; IMF: International Monetary Fund; MDG: Millennium Development Goals; MDG-F: Millennium Development Goals Fund; MICA: Mercado de Industrias Creativas de Argentina; MICSUR: Mercado de Industrias Culturales del Sur; MSME: Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises; SEGIB: Secretaría General Iberoamericana; SELA: Latin American Economic System; UCLG: United Cities and Local Governments; UNCTAD: United Nations Conference on Trade and Development; UNDP: United Nations Development Programl; UNESCO: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization; US: United States of America     

The Difficult Place of Deserted Coasts in Archaeology: New Archaeological Research on Cooks Beach (Pukaki), Coromandel Peninsula,New Zealand

Sites which have been occupied semi-continuously in the past present some inherent difficulties for archaeology. Here we present new research from a coastal site on the North Island of New Zealand at Cooks Beach where anthropogenic vegetation changes are seen using microfossil analysis of obsidian tools, sediments and pit fill. The results indicate the initial presence of people in AD 1300–1400 followed by subsequent periods of disuse or abandonment and sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) cultivation. Around the time of initial settlement, obsidian from this location is found at sites across the country. After AD 1400 the area appears to be deserted for a century or more, after which we see evidence for the cultivation of sweet potato in AD 1500 as evidenced by extensive soil modification and numerous storage pits. There is no evidence of a permanent settlement at the site. The geographic distribution of Cooks Beach obsidian was constricted while the site was used for sweet potato cultivation, a pattern often attributed to increased warfare. It appears cultivation was abandoned after AD 1650 marking a second secession of use, a fact confirmed in AD 1769 when Captain Cook visited the area. We consider the possible drivers for the late abandonment of cultivation at Cooks Beach.     

A Critical Review of European and American Provisions for the Seismic Assessment of Existing Steel Moment-Resisting Frame Buildings

The publication of Part 3 of Eurocode 8 (EC8-3), dedicated to the seismic assessment of existing buildings, took place a decade ago. However, its application in engineering practice has been limited. Moreover, no studies have been conducted regarding the application of EC8-3 to steel structures. In this paper, a critical review and practical application of EC8-3 and ASCE41-13 are carried out. Issues related to the definition of the performance requirements, compliance criteria, and the consistency of the analysis procedures proposed by both standards are identified. Conceptual differences between both documents are highlighted, and several inconsistencies in EC8-3 are discussed.     

IDENTIFICATION,PROCESSING AND USE OF RED PIGMENTS (HEMATITE AND CINNABAR) IN THE VALENCIAN EARLY NEOLITHIC (SPAIN)

The results of the first elemental and structural physicochemical analyses (SEM–EDX, TXRF, XRD, FTIR, GC and EDXRF) of Early Neolithic red pigment samples from the region of Valencia confirm one of the earliest uses of cinnabar (HgS) in Spain (5300 to 5000 cal bc ). They also inform on the storage of massive quantities of hematite and the development of specific technologies of hematite‐based paint production and use. The samples were recovered at the three most significant Early Neolithic sites of the Mediterranean coast of Spain: Cova de l'Or (Beniarrés, Alacant), Cova de la Sarsa (Bocairent, Valencia) and Cova Fosca (Vall d'Ebo, Valencia), which together have provided the most important European collection of Cardial ceramic ware (chronoculturally diagnostic of the Early Neolithic).     

Medical Hermeneutics of Murder. Race,Medicine and Law in a Murder Case from Finnmark, 1911

Abstract

This article seeks to investigate the investigation of a murder case in Finnmark in 1911, where four siblings killed their young brother. In the legal investigations following the misdeed, a number of medical experts played a prominent role. Their role was to assess the mental condition of the defendants, but also to make sense of the murder. A specific interpretational mode was called for: a “medical hermeneutics” of the murder. The murder investigation becomes an occasion for discussing medical and juridical interpretations of human agency at the turn of the century, and especially of the role of the concept of “race” in these interpretations. For at least some of the physicians involved, the racial make-up of the ethnic group to which the actors belonged constituted an inevitable part of the context that made the act intelligible. Although the concept of race, and the conceptual frameworks offered by degenerationism and medical psychology to a certain degree made the act intelligible, these interpretational schemes had little to offer in terms of assessing the legal accountability of the defendants. Hence, the case illustrates the profound epistemological limits of medical interpretation in facing a legal case.