Fast Activism: Resisting Mobile Policies

“Fast” urban policy is increasingly common as city leaders draw on globally mobile policy models to accelerate the policymaking process. Critics have responded with new types of “fast activism” strategies. Fast activists plan temporary and strategically timed campaigns, use relationally local messaging that jumps between global and local political critiques, and organise ideologically diverse coalitions to mobilise quickly against policy proposals. This was observed in protest campaigns against Olympic bids in Boston (USA) and Hamburg (Germany). Protesters successfully opposed mega‐event planning in both cities by combining all three tactics within a short period of time. The paper presents a comparative study of the Boston and Hamburg protests, drawing from qualitative fieldwork on the campaigns in both cities. The paper contributes by conceptualising an emerging mode of urban opposition, and by evaluating how this type of resistance changes local receptions of fast and mobile urban policy.     

工艺生产与中国古代社会的复杂化进程

社会复杂化的表层是社会分层和政治组织形式上的专制统治,但社会复杂化无疑是建立在经济发展的基础之上的。文德安(Anne P.Underhill)教授的《中国北方地区手工业生产与社会变迁》(Craft Production and Social Change in Northern China)一书,就是从陶器生产探讨社会复杂化过程的一部专著,本文是该书的第一章,主要介绍作者的研究意图和书中将要采用的阐释理论。作者长期从事黄河中下游地区史前至夏商考古学研究。她注意到,当时社会的一个显著特征是陶质或铜质饮食器具在贵族奢侈品中占有异常重要的地位。作者认为,饮食器具地位的凸现,显示的是社会上层对高级食物和饮品以及生产、制作这些食品所耗费的劳动力的占有,是社会上层集团为了在竞争中彰显自身财富和威望这一社会行为的反映。为了适应这种社会需求,陶器手工业者不断改进生产技术,提高生产效力,增加产品种类,其结果是导致了陶器的专业化生产;而这些因素又反过来影响了生产组织的变化。在社会复杂化过程中,贵族总是在谋求对经济、政治、意识形态和军事上的控制权,而经济控制权是实现一切权利的基础。鉴于高级饮食器具在社会上扮演的异常重要的角色,控制高端陶器的生产、流通和消费,尤其是对最为关键的“生产”阶段的控制,也便有了不寻常的社会意义。精英阶层通过对专业陶匠及其相关的专业化生产的持续投资,实现了对这种高端陶器生产的有效地控制,而陶器生产技术的日益复杂,也使得对其生产的控制变得相对容易。这种“资助式”专业化或称附属式专业化生产,实际上是最早出现的“官营”手工业。判断附属式或官营手工业与独立的非专职的专业化生产的主要标准是器物的标准化程度。为了了解中国早期陶器生产,文德安博士曾屡次亲赴贵州、云南和新疆各省区,采集人类学、民族学第一手资料,并有长篇调查报告发表。这是北美人类学考古学家的治学路数。这种亲历的经验,使得作者在对中国史前陶器生产的研究上受益良多。陶器标准化程度主要是靠测量数据来体现,苦于国内考古发掘报告中往往缺少“典型器物标本”以外陶器的测量数据,作者数度穿梭于山东、河南各地的博物馆和考古工作站,测量必须的陶器数据。她认为龙山文化陶器已经属于附属式手工生产。作者的这一认识,已经从制陶技术的研究中予以证实。两城镇龙山文化制陶所反映的工艺流程,清楚地显示了陶器生产专业化发达程度。关于宴享在社会复杂化进程中的作用,国外人类学界与考古学界已有许多成果。越来越多的研究者认为,宴享是个人用以显示自身财富、维持或提高自身权力的一种手段。在我国,龙山时代存在饮品酒已经得到证实,但史前和原史时代宴饮的社会功能却并非一个不证自明的命题。实际上,我国后代文献如《国语·周语中》所记“饫以显物,宴以合好”,就道出了宴饮的性质。《周礼·春官·大宗伯》所言,“以饮食之礼,亲宗族兄弟”;“以飨燕之礼,亲四方之宾客”,说得更为直白。也正是因为宴饮容易“合族”、“聚众”,故立足未稳的西周年统治者规定民众不得“群饮”,违者“尽执拘”、“其杀”(《尚书·酒诰》)。这是从反面理解宴饮功能的文字记载。本文对于我们的最大启示,与其说是作者得出的结论,不如说是在研究方法方面。作者实际上是把考古学上最为常见的陶器,放到政治经济领域加以考察,即把陶器的生产、流通与消费过程放在特定的历史背景下,考察器物所具有的社会性质或者产品蕴含的象征意义。史前时代晚期某些陶器所具有的礼器性质早就为学界所公认,但对于陶器礼器化的过程却缺乏有说服力的论证。作者假设,贵重食物、饮品和盛放它们的饮食器具及其背后所隐含的劳动,导致了精英阶层对某些高端陶器生产的控制与独占;而控制陶器生产的结果,直接引发了隶属式专业化生产组织的出现(这本身就是社会复杂化的一个体现),其在考古学上的表现形式,就是陶器本身所反映出来的生产效率和产品质量的提高。前一个假设,通过对高端陶器与高等级墓葬等共存现象的考察很容易得到证实;后一个假设,则通过统计测量得出的陶器标准化程度和陶器工艺流程的复原得以验证。所谓先有假说,再加以验证,这是一个很好的个案。     

Tools for the Disempowered? Indigenous Leverage Over Mining Companies

Rather than passively accepting development, some Indigenous communities have forced their demands into corporate decision-making. Accordingly, recognising and responding to community expectations becomes a matter of prudent strategy and ‘enlightened self-interest’. This paper examines the case of Century Zinc Mine in Queensland's Gulf of Carpentaria where the miner undertook negotiations and reached agreement with local Indigenous communities. It was later held to account by communities concerned about insufficient implementation of this agreement. Discussion then explores the campaign against Jabiluka uranium mine in Australia's Northern Territory, especially why multinational miner Rio Tinto deferred to local community wishes surrounding development. These experiences show that Indigenous communities are most effective in bringing leverage over mining companies when they impact upon profit or future profit (often related to reputation with specific audiences). The parameters and consequent limitations of a company's responsiveness to community demands reinforce fundamental roles for the state as ultimate regulator and provider.     

Oxygen isotopic evidence of residence and migration in a Greek colonial population on the Black Sea

Oxygen isotope analysis was performed on the enamel of the first and third permanent molars of 60 individuals excavated from the Kalfata-Budjaka necropolis associated with the ancient Greek colony of Apollonia Pontica (5th–3rd centuries BC) on the Black Sea coast of Bulgaria. The objective of this study was to examine the geographic origins and residential histories of these individuals and to compare the isotopic data with archaeological evidence derived from the burials in an attempt to distinguish ‘locals’ from ‘non-locals’. The analysis revealed that 55 of the 60 individuals sampled were either locally born or came from areas outside of Apollonia with isotopically similar δ¹⁸O values. Five individuals were identified as ‘non-local’, and their isotope values suggest that they originated from areas with higher δ¹⁸O_w of precipitation, most likely the Aegean region. Unfortunately, the archaeological evidence associated with these five skeletons provides no clues as to their place of origin.     

Dietary adaptation during the Longshan period in China: stable isotope analyses at Liangchengzhen (southeastern Shandong)

Rice and millet were staple crops at Liangchengzhen, a late Neolithic Longshan site in Shandong, China, but the degree of dietary variation is not known. This study uses stable isotope analysis of human and faunal skeletal remains to quantitatively address the importance of these crops as well as terrestrial domesticates and aquatic resources in the diet at Liangchengzhen. Although no collagen could be extracted from the poorly preserved human bones, the δ¹³C stable isotope results for 2 apatite sample and 16 tooth enamel samples averaged −9.8‰ suggesting that diet was based on foods averaging from −24‰ to −18‰, with millet and millet-fed animals comprising at most approximately 25–30% of the diet. Pig faunal δ¹³C isotope values suggested that during the earlier Longshan period pigs were fed mainly millet with more C₃ foods such as rice included by the later Longshan period. Solid ceramic residues from two guan jar sherds produced δ¹³C values averaging −18‰ and δ¹⁵N values averaging +16‰, suggesting both vessels contained fish. The results of the study indicate that by the Longshan period, people in southeastern Shandong no longer relied as heavily on millet and that the agricultural crop of rice had increased in importance at Liangchengzhen. Unfortunately, without human collagen samples to provide nitrogen isotope results, we cannot estimate the relative contribution of aquatic and terrestrial protein to the diet of people at Liangchengzhen. In general, however, the pattern of a diverse agricultural system on the basis of the macrobotanical remains from Liangchengzhen is supported by the isotopic results.     

Valkeapää's Use of Photographs in Beaivi áhčážan: Indigenous Counter-History versus Documentation in the Age of Photography

This article examines the photographic material of the Sámi cultural mobilizer Nils-Aslak Valkeapää's Beaivi áh?á?an (The Sun, My Father), published in 1988, with theoretical perspectives from anti- and postcolonial studies. The analysis focuses on how Valkeapää's use of photographs involves that the colonial past is examined from the vantage point of the anti-colonial present of the 1980s. Valkeapää's re-contextualization of photographs from ethnographic collections assembled in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in a book he called a family album of the Sámi is discussed as an example of Sámi counter-history that is part of the decolonization process. When analysed with perspectives from anti- and postcolonial studies, the documentation of the way of life of the Sámi people in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries exemplifies a practice which has constructed the Sámi as the others of modern society. The article discusses how the construction of the Sámi as the others of modernity is deconstructed and challenged in present-day indigenous identity politics.