Scientific Discourse and Local Discourses: The Case of African Archaeology

To the extent that knowledge is the product of a complex construction of Nature-Culture facts more or less perpetuated, the challenge, for archaeology as science discovering and explaining the pasts for developees, is to learn how to manage: (1) its scientific “facts” more or less stabilized or hardened in function of precise, reproducible, universal “buildings of facts,” these facts being combined in networks and allied to specific societal facts, according to a dichotomy between Nature and Culture positioned as incommunicable poles of the world, and (2) traditional, ordinary, daily “facts,” local, contextual“facts” encountered during our activities, publications, lectures, and exchanges with everybody. These facts link approximately or unconsciously Nature and Culture, two poles we moderns have created and separated ontologically. How to produce a legitimate cooperation between these two conflicting discourses during the applications and the improvement of the processes which form, even in the case of archaeology, what is currently termed “development.”Pour l’archéologie en tant que science découvrant et expliquant les passés des peuples en voie de développement, le savoir étant le produit, selon les cultures, de fabrications complexes de faits de Nature-Culture plus ou moins pérennisés, le défi consiste à apprendre à gérer ensemble: (1) ses “faits” scientifiques, plus ou moins stabilisés ou durcis selon des “mises en fait” précises, répétables, universelles, ces faits étant établis en réseau et alliés à tel ou tel secteur de la société en question selon une dichotomie établissant la Nature et la Culture comme pôles incommunicants du monde; et (2) les “faits” de savoirs traditionnels, ordinaires, quotidiens, faits locaux, contextuels rencontrés durant nos activités, publications, cours et échanges avec tout le monde. Ces faits lient approximativement ou inconsciemment la Nature et la Culture, ces deux pôles que nous, modernes, avons créés et ontologiquement séparés. Comment légitimement, même en Archéologie, faire collaborer ces deux discours, en conflit lors des applications et améliorations des processus relevant de qu’on appelle couramment le Développement?     

Unexpected Wind Power ‘Potentials’: The Art of Planning with Inherited Socio-Geographical Configurations (France)

Abstract

The deployment of wind power induces deep changes in landscapes and territories. The politicization of wind power generates new ad hoc collectives. In the French case, because of the institutional framing resulting from landscape and wind power policies (centralization, feed-in tariffs, private developers), collectives of emerging wind power landscapes are regularly set apart from wind power planning processes. This paper explores the extent to which these recompositions and new collectives could be part of emerging wind power potentials. The empirical evidence stemming from our case studies shows that wind power technology, like any other technology, is not endowed with a potential per se. Wind power potentials differ – ‘capitalistic’, ‘controversial’, ‘negotiated’, ‘conditional’ – depending on planning processes and inherited configurations. The notions of striated space and smooth space enable us to adopt a relational perspective on these emerging collectives and to account for the role of inherited socio-geographical configurations and planning processes.     

Does size matter? Foreign aid in Taiwan's diplomatic strategy, 2000–8

This article is the first systematic attempt at estimating the size of Taiwanese foreign aid and, thus, the cost of Taiwan's aid diplomacy. It questions the Republic of China (ROC) President Ma Ying-jeou's justification of his ‘diplomatic truce’ with China as necessitated by an ineffectiveness of his predecessor Chen Shui-bian's costly aid diplomacy. Deriving its evidence from the ROC governmental budgets, local media reports and interviews with Taiwanese officials involved in foreign aid implementation, the article argues that President Chen did not engage in ‘generous financial aid’ and proposes that this parsimony, rather than futility of aid diplomacy as a strategy to expand Taiwan's international space, should be considered as contributing to Taipei's diplomatic failures from 2000 to 2008.     

Creating the 1831 Canadian Census Database

The 1831 census database is the newest addition to the series of 19th century Canadian census microdata available for social science research, thanks to a collaboration between the Programme de recherche en démographie historique (PRDH) and FamilySearch. This article presents the work undertaken to prepare this database and the main challenges encountered in the course of this work. While the data extracted from the 1831 census are an invaluable tool for demographic research, particularly on account of the agricultural and industrial questions included in this census, cleaning these data have required particular attention to the age-sex-marital status tallies of the household co-residents. Additional efforts were devoted to integrating missing data for Montréal’s Notre-Dame parish and for other parishes.     

CONSUMER PERCEPTIONS OF SPONSORSHIP IN THE ARTS

This article investigates consumers’ perceptions of three types of sponsors that play a role in backing financially Canadian artistic and cultural organisations: government ministries (or departments), Crown corporations and private companies. In addition to the type of sponsor and the nature of the sponsorship (philanthropic or commercial), the perceived congruence between the sponsor and the sponsored event (strong as opposed to weak), and the form of arts and cultural events (high art versus popular art and performing arts versus heritage arts) are explored in an experimental setting combining within‐subjects and between‐subjects factors. The main hypothesis of this research was that consumers’ perceptions are not the same when it comes to the different kinds of sponsors that evolve in the cultural and art fields. As the researchers explored this issue, they observed that significant differences do exist. It is believed that the rich findings of this study will be useful to civil servants.     

Droit et Théologie Dans la Pensée Scolastique

What place is made for the right of men in a christian society? We will first study the entry of right in exegesis, with Hugues de Saint-Cher, than the case, privileged, of the oath and lie, analyzed here in the work of Jean Olivi (ca 1280). We will see emerging the notions of engagement and obligation — toward our neighbor and toward God. The obligation is realized through the pronunciation of words which take precedence over all other circumstance of the act. It rests upon the recognition of a norm which refers back not only to expressed propositions, but also to implications implicit in a community.