Returning to that which was never lost: Indigenous Australian saltwater identities,a history of land claims and the paradox of return

In this paper I explore the kincentric ecologies that define sea country for Indigenous Australians, in particular the Yanyuwa of Northern Australia. Despite colonial alienation from their coastal territories, Yanyuwa have sustained a four-decade long legal fight for restitution. Using the framework of ‘urgent patience’ as resistance against ‘social death’, this paper tracks the historical legacy of legislative land rights for saltwater peoples.     

‘Every household will be a micro-enterprise’: a youth micro-loan scheme’s role in restructuring Nepal

ABSTRACT

Lack of secure employment mobilized many young people into Nepal’s civil war and a decade of political opposition (1996–2006). As a result, both the post-war government and foreign donors invested in policies aimed to harness the productive capacities of young people in restructuring the nation. This article explores the theme of aspiration on the national and personal level and their convergence through a micro-finance program in post-war Nepal, the Youth, Small Enterprise, and Self-Employment Fund (YSEF). The national-level aspiration to make ‘new Nepal’ hinged on young people fulfilling their personal aspirations. I consider whether post-conflict pacification measures like YSEF can foster the sense of national belonging necessary by analyzing the challenges faced in instituting this loan scheme nationally and locally along Nepal’s open border with India. Analyzing YSEF’s institution from a borderland optic reveals assumptions inherent in peacebuilding intervention and limits YSEF’s ability to wholly accommodate its recipients. I suggest that the government’s attempt to bring marginalized youth into the ‘official’ economic fold through YSEF falls short in accommodating young people’s livelihood aspirations within their lived reality. Instead young people are creating pathways beyond state dependence.     

Concentrations of copper,zinc and lead as indicators of hearth usage at the Roman town of Calleva Atrebatum (Silchester,Hampshire, UK)

Although prima facie evidence for non-ferrous metal-working in the form of slag, crucibles, moulds, etc is present at the Roman town of Calleva Atrebatum at Silchester Hampshire, UK it has not yet been stratigraphically associated with in situ hearths; this can make the location of metal-working difficult to determine. This in turn raises the further question of the range of function of hearths in this urban context. The present study uses a combination of archaeological and analytical methods to attempt to determine the use of several hearth and hearth-related contexts within the on-going excavation at Insula IX. Using X-ray fluorescence (XRF) we were able to distinguish between probable industrial and domestic hearths based on elemental concentrations; for example locally elevated metal concentrations, in particular of copper, show evidence for the probable working of copper alloys at Silchester. Metals were found to accumulate in the silty layers associated with hearth platforms indicating that the tiles themselves do not appear to absorb metal spatter.     

Water resources, institutions, & intrastate conflict

Although linkages between water scarcity and conflict have received a great deal of attention, both in qualitative case studies as well as quantitative studies, the relationship remains unclear since the literature has generally not considered the effectiveness of governance. We distinguish between direct effects and indirect effects linking water resource scarcity and conflict by systematically examining how intervening factors, such as political institutions, might influence the impact of water scarcity on the probability of conflict. We find support for our hypotheses postulating both direct and indirect relationships between water scarcity, governance, and conflict.     

The regulation of employment services: Private employment agencies and labour market policy

Public policy relating to the labour market has undergone significant change over recent years. These changes reflect demands for greater flexibility in the labour market, and respond to pressures of growing levels of unemployment and consequent exacerbation of divisions within the labour market. A conflict is apparent, however, in the mix of policies adopted. Accompanying moves towards a more ‘active’ style labour market policy has been a trend towards greater reliance on private means of delivery such that the dividing line between public (CES) and private employment agencies is becoming increasingly blurred. Evidence from a survey of private employment agencies and employers conducted in Brisbane in 1992/93 suggests that such a trend may reduce the capacity to regulate employment services and facilitate a commitment to employers’ interests at the expense of those of many entrants to the labour market.     

From Sorcery to Laboratory: Pandemics and Yanyuwa Experiences of Viral Vulnerability

The COVID‐19 pandemic has prompted renewed attention among health professionals, Aboriginal community leaders, and social scientists to the need for culturally responsive preventative health measures and strategies. This article, a collaborative effort, involving Yanyuwa families from the remote community of Borroloola and two anthropologists with whom Yanyuwa have long associations, tracks the story of pandemics from the perspective of Aboriginal people in the Gulf region of northern Australia. It specifically orients the discussion of the current predicament of ‘viral vulnerability’ in the wake of COVID‐19, relative to other pandemics, including the Hong Kong flu in 1969 and the Spanish flu decades earlier in 1919. This discussion highlights that culturally nuanced and prescribed responses to illness and threat of illness have a long history for Yanyuwa. Yanyuwa cultural repertoires have assisted in the process of making sense of massive change, in the form of past pandemics and the onset of sickness, the threat of illness with COVID‐19 and the attribution of ‘viral vulnerability’ to this remote Aboriginal community. The aim is to centralise Yanyuwa voices in this story, as an important step in growing understandings of Aboriginal knowledge of pandemics and culturally relevant and controlled health responses and strategies for communal well‐being.     

"But burn - no": the rest of the crowd in three civil disorders in 1960s Chicago

Examining the internal dynamics of three civil disturbances on the West Side of Chicago during the late 1960s, this article describes the presence of numerous people who were not participating in the upheaval. It pays particular attention to “counterrioters,” civilian residents of the neighborhoods and members of local organizations, who tried to persuade those engaging in violence to stop. Local dissent from the tactic of violence suggests that historians should describe these events using the neutral language of social science rather than the politically loaded labels of “riot” or “rebellion.” The article argues that American historians of urban disorders should use the methods of European scholars of the crowd to study the actions of participants in order to ascertain their political content, rather than relying on an examination of their motives.     

A Philosophical Experiment: The Wilberforce Memorial School for the Blind c.1833–1870

This article utilises a case study of the Wilberforce Memorial School for the Blind in York to argue for a more nuanced approach to the history of residential schooling. The early date of the school highlights both the novelty and ambition of its programme. The school's management and the opportunities it offered its pauper and working-class intake contradict the view of the institution as a site of social oppression. Nonetheless considerations of class, gender and funding are seen as dictating and circumscribing the curriculum. The role of the school in educating the wider public concerning the blind and their capabilities is also discussed.     

Defining Jamaica Sloops: A Preliminary Model for Identifying an Abstract Concept

Jamaica sloops were vernacular watercraft designed, built, and utilized by Caribbean colonists beginning in the late-17th century. Despite their popularity, no design or construction records or even a specific definition of their form survive, and many sources simply describe them as an early version of the Bermuda sloop. Vernacular Jamaica sloops were a unique adaptation by English colonists to combat the effects of piracy, and their design was specific to the economic, geographic, and political circumstances of colonial Jamaica. This article proposes a set of characteristics that can be used to define vernacular Jamaica sloops, firstly to distinguish them from the eighteenth-century naval Jamaica-class sloops but also to better understand them as a social response to external stimuli within the complex relationship between maritime economy, piracy and colonial control executed through the navy.