Multiregional Perspectives on the Archaeology of the Andes During the Late Intermediate Period (c. A.D. 1000–1400)

During the Late Intermediate period (LIP, c. A.D. 1000–1400), the central Andes experienced the decline of the Wari and Tiwanaku states, as well as processes of state formation, regional population growth, and competition culminating in the imperial expansion of the Chimú and Inka polities. The LIP holds the potential to link the archaeological features of early Andean states with the material signatures of the later ones, providing a critical means of contextualizing the intergenerational continuities and breaks in state structures and imperial strategies. The recent proliferation of LIP research and the completion of a number of regional studies permit the overview of six LIP regions and the comparison of highland and lowland patterns of political and economic organization, social complexity, and group identity.     

Inside and outside the school lunchbox: themes and reflections

We examine here the discourses surrounding the lunchbox taken to school by children: aspects both of the contents and of how children consume and understand these.1 The observations presented here form part of the preliminary stages of a broader project examining ‘Men, Children and Food’. The project itself is part of a large research programme – ‘Changing Families, Changing Food’ – funded by the Leverhulme Trust (award number F/00118/AQ) from 2006 to 2008, and situated at the University of Sheffield, working in collaboration with colleagues at Royal Holloway University of London. Our aims, in ‘Men, Children and Food’, are to explore the experiences of fathers (and other male figures in the household) and of children, in relation to food practices, including ways in which the two interconnect. View all notes Examples within and beyond the UK suggest that the lunchbox is a container for various aspects of the private and public. What traces can be found inside of wider social relations, including processes of care and surveillance? We argue that the lunchbox consists of intersecting spatialities, within which children constitute a public face, and create identities, relationships and subjectivities; this perspective frames opportunities for priorities in future empirical research with children.     

Spaces of Utopia and Dystopia: Landscaping the Contemporary City

Some of the most recent literature within urban studies gives the distinct impression that the contemporary city now constitutes an intensely uneven patchwork of utopian and dystopian spaces that are, to all intents and purposes, physically proximate but institutionally estranged. For instance, so–called edge cities (Garreau, 1991) have been heralded as a new Eden for the information age. Meanwhile tenderly manicured urban villages, gated estates and fashionably gentrified inner–city enclaves are all being furiously marketed as idyllic landscapes to ensure a variety of lifestyle fantasies. Such lifestyles are offered additional expression beyond the home, as renaissance sites in many downtowns afford city stakeholders the pleasurable freedoms one might ordinarily associate with urban civic life. None–the–less, strict assurances are given about how these privatized domiciliary and commercialized 'public' spaces are suitably excluded from the real and imagined threats of another fiercely hostile, dystopian environment 'out there'. This is captured in a number of (largely US) perspectives which warn of a 'fortified' or 'revanchist' urban landscape, characterized by mounting social and political unrest and pockmarked with marginal interstices: derelict industrial sites, concentrated hyperghettos, and peripheral shanty towns where the poor and the homeless are increasingly shunted. Our paper offers a review of some key debates in urban geography, planning and urban politics in order to examine this patchwork–quilt urbanism, In doing so, it seeks to uncover some of the key processes through which contemporary urban landscapes of utopia and dystopia come to exist in the way they do.     

Global finance and the German model: German corporations, market incentives, and the management of employer-sponsored pension institutions

Where there was a settled political geography of state power and responsibilities, the remarkable growth of global finance has put enormous pressure on national economic, political and social institutions. Furthermore, the looming crisis facing many continental European social security systems has raised many doubts about the long-term viability of the German model compared to its Anglo-American rivals. In this context, large German corporations have sought ways of sustaining their global competitiveness by, in part, restructuring their national and regional commitments. To illustrate, in this paper we concentrate on the nature and organization of German employer-sponsored pension institutions in relation to Anglo-American management practice. Two issues drive the analysis. One has to do with an emerging coalition between corporate management and shareholders with respect to the market value of the firm. The second issue has to do with the allocation of risk and uncertainty between the social partners when negotiating the financing and final value of promised retirement income. The institutional framework of collective decision-making common to many of Germany's largest firms is under pressure; three models of investment decision making relevant to pension assets and liabilities are used to illustrate this point. In doing so, we suggest that the German model is more fragile than commonly realized. We also suggest that Anglo-American management practices have penetrated and affected German corporate (national and regional) institutions and regulations. The social market lauded by advocates of stakeholder capitalism is changing rapidly, at least in the sphere of large firms and global finance.