Innovation,R&D and Technology Transfer: Policies towards a Regional Innovation System. The Case of Lombardy

The evolution of Lombardy's economic structure and international position led the regional government to build up a network of public and private stakeholders in the effort of promoting the creation of new knowledge and supporting innovation at local level. In this article a technology picture of the region and the main policy actions undertaken in recent years in Lombardy to promote a nest of linkages within actors, moving along the approach of regional innovation systems are presented.     

A Cut‐marked and Fractured Mesolithic Human Bone from Kent's Cavern,Devon, UK

An isolated adult human ulna fragment recovered from the ‘black mould’ layer of Kent's Cavern by William Pengelly in 1866 exhibits a series of stone tool cut marks. The specimen has been directly AMS ¹⁴C‐dated to 7314–7075 cal bc (OxA‐20588: 8185 ± 38 bp ) and may be from the same individual as a maxilla fragment dated to the same period. The cut marks are located on the olecranon process, in a position indicative of dismemberment, whereas the fracture characteristics of the bone furthermore suggest peri‐mortem breakage, typical of butchery for the extraction of marrow. We here present and discuss the specimen and consider both ritual mortuary treatment and anthropophagy as possible explanations. Although it is difficult to interpret a single element in isolation, the latter scenario seems to be better supported and is not without parallel in prehistoric Europe, as indicated by a review of the available literature. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An Historian in the Amazon

However private they may seem, emotions depend for their meanings on the communities in which they are expressed. But if emotions are shaped by and for their communities, how can we account for emotional change? After briefly surveying how historians have (1) defined the communities in which emotions have been expressed and (2) explained how and why emotions have changed, this article turns to the community of the Waorani of Amazonian Ecuador. It explores whether anthropological explanations of emotional change in that “test case” may help the historian. The answer is not entirely positive. The article concludes with some thoughts about what sorts of collaborations between historians and anthropologists might be more productive for emotions studies.     

HISTORICAL LEGACY AND POLICY EFFECTIVENESS: THE LONG‐TERM INFLUENCE OF PREUNIFICATION BORDERS IN ITALY

This paper investigates the interplay between cultural traditions and policy effectiveness. It explores the differential impact of a large development program (Cassa per il Mezzogiorno), implemented for four decades, starting in the 1950s, to stimulate convergence between Italy's south and the more developed north, on municipalities with different histories. Namely, we consider a sample of municipalities located on either side of the historical border of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, whose legacy is considered, from Putnam onwards, to be a prime‐facie cause of Southern Italy's underdevelopment. Having been part of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies is associated with a negative impact of development policies, but only when the allocation of development funds through the Cassa per il Mezzogiorno suffered from low quality of governance and was driven by political considerations rather than by efficiency ones.     

Were the Wars of Religion about Religion?

Abstract

William Cavanaugh's The Myth of Religious Violence raises important questions about the role of religion in society. It challenges all-too-common misunderstandings about the relationship between religion and politics and, most valuably, warns against any assumption that religion is peculiarly prone to violence. This essay nevertheless takes issue with his attempt to disprove what he calls “the myth of religious violence” with evidence from the Wars of Religion in sixteenth-and seventeenth-century Europe and his claim that “the story of these wars serves as a kind of creation myth for the modern state” (10). The essay emphasizes the importance of understanding the religious dimensions of early modern Europe's wars but also of recognizing that, in both historical and contemporary situations, religious motivations are best understood not as independent variables but rather as catalysts that could exacerbate-or relieve-tensions rooted in other sorts of divisions or quarrels.     

The Politics of Emotion in Participatory Processes of Empowerment and Change

In this article I reflect on the role of critical analysis and emotions in participatory approaches to empowerment and change. I argue that, in participatory research and practice, certain cognitive and analytical knowledges are prioritized as principal catalysts of empowerment and transformation at the cost of recognizing, and making full use of, the empowering potential of emotional and embodied knowledges. This argument is developed based on 2 years of fieldwork in a local youth participation project in Mejicanos, a poor and violent neighborhood in El Salvador, aiming at empowering young people by involving them in participatory action research (PAR). ¹ As part of my research, I looked critically at the young people's PAR process, asking whether and how they felt empowered by it and whether and how social change came about. Originally, the research did not focus on emotions, yet, in an inductive fashion, emotions and embodied knowledges evolved from fieldwork as crucial elements in understanding participation, empowerment and social transformation.     

Sexual citizenship in ‘the New Tasmania’

The state of Tasmania, the smallest in the Commonwealth of Australia, has recently reformed its law relating to relationships by amending over 100 pieces of legislation to include a range of relationships, including lesbian and gay partnerships, among those given recognition and legal entitlement. This government-sponsored legislation is represented as central to the program of economic revival, social reform and branding described as ‘the New Tasmania’. This article locates the relationship reform in this discourse of Tasmania's newness and in the context of neo-liberal approaches to globalisation. It argues that sexual citizenship takes a multitude of forms and its value, like the value of relationship reform legislation, cannot be easily determined. Indeed, it asks whether sexual citizenship as a form of belonging can ever be disentangled from the various contexts where it is performed. It concludes by privileging the desires and performances of sexual citizenship over the constitution of sexual citizenship in rights or recognition.