A new non-marine Early Cretaceous gastropod species from Lightning Ridge,New South Wales

A new species of thiarid snail attributable to the extant genus Melanoides is described from the Early Cretaceous (middle-late Albian) non-marine deposits of the Griman Creek Formation at Lightning Ridge in northern New South Wales. It represents the oldest Australian record of the genus and the family. Implications for the palaeoecology and distribution of Australian Cretaceous non-marine gastropods are discussed.     

Material constraints to popular imaginaries: The extractive economy and resource nationalism in Bolivia

Widespread neoliberal-era privatizations in South America's extractive economies rekindled longstanding social movement demands for nationalist control of non-renewable resources and propelled the region's left political turn over the last decade. In Bolivia, where resource extraction has dominated exports since colonial times, social movements employing resource nationalist master frames overturned governments in 1952, 2003, and 2005. In 2005 indigenous leader Evo Morales was elected president promising to direct resource wealth to generate economic development, but the structural constraints created by an extractive economy have made these goals impossible to achieve over the short and medium term. This article suggests that the clash between resource nationalist imaginaries embedded in contentious social movements and the realities of long-term extractive dependent economies not only limits government policy options but also fuels continued social protest.     

Detached from Their Homeland: The Latter-day

Over the past few decades, the homeland concept has received an ever-increasing amount of attention by cultural geographers. While the debate surrounding the necessity and applicability of the concept continues, it is more than apparent that no other geographic term (including culture areas or culture regions) captures the essence of peoples' attachment to place better than homeland. The literature, however, provides few examples of the deep-seated loyalty people have for a homeland despite being physically detached from that space. Employing land use mapping and informal interviews, this paper seeks to help fill that gap by exemplifying how the daily lives of Mormons living in Chihuahua, Mexico reflect their connection to the United States and the Mormon homeland. Our research revealed that, among other things, the Anglo residents perpetuate their cultural identity through their unique self-reference, exhibit territoriality links reflected in their built environment, and demonstrate unconditional bonding to their homeland through certain holiday celebrations. It is clear to us, as the Anglo-Mormon experience illustrates, that the homeland concept deserves a place within the geographic lexicon.     

Algérie: Les retours de la mémoire de la guerre d'indépendance

After independence, the history of national liberation in Algeria was largely managed by the single-party state. Founding figures of Algerian nationalism such as Messali Hadj and Ferhat Abbas were shrouded in silence. Since 1988 a plurality of voices has emerged and a number of historic figures have been rehabilitated. The state of quasi-civil war which has existed since 1992 between government forces and Islamic insurgents has, nevertheless, continued to inhibit discussion of human rights abuses during the war of independence. The recent resurgence in France of the debate over the use of torture during the Algerian war has been largely ignored by the Algerian government. The status of harkis , Algerian Muslims who fought on the side of the French during the war of independence, also remains acutely sensitive in official Algerian circles. Events such as the 'Berber Spring' of 2001 are continuing to press the authorities towards greater openness.     

UNESCO’s project to ‘Revive the Spirit of Mosul’: Iraqi and Syrian opinion on heritage reconstruction after the Islamic State

ABSTRACT

Following the devastation of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul by the Islamic State (IS), UNESCO launched a project to ‘Revive the Spirit of Mosul’. This article critically reflects on this UNESCO-led project, drawing on 47 interviews with Syrians and Iraqis, as well as documenting the implications of UNESCO’s efforts in earlier (post-)conflict heritage reconstruction projects in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Mali. Specifically, this article focuses on two sites in Mosul, both deliberately destroyed by the IS and both nominated by UNESCO for reconstruction. The data analysed reveal that heritage reconstruction projects, especially in complex (post-)conflict environments such as Iraq, requires ongoing, nuanced and careful engagement with local populations to succeed. Failure to do so leaves both local people and their heritage sites vulnerable to renewed attacks and therefore ultimately undermines UNESCO’s broader mission to foster peace.     

The global spread of preferential voting: Australian institutional imperialism?

In recent years, a number of countries have adopted versions of the ‘Australian’ electoral system of preferential voting for both national and sub‐national elections. This article examines the diffusion of preferential voting systems around the world. It distinguishes between various types of preferential voting manifested in both majoritarian (eg alternative vote) and proportional (eg single transferable vote) contexts. It then examines the empirical record of the adoption of preferential voting in Europe, North America and the Pacific, identifying three ways in which the ‘Australian’ system has been transferred to other countries, via colonial transplanting, international imitation, and normative appeal. While the first two approaches have been traditionally influential, in recent years the normative appeal of preferential voting systems has become paramount. This is in part because of the globalisation of electoral assistance, which has provided an important opportunity for the diffusion of what have been, until recently, distinctively ‘Australian’ electoral procedures.     

Early modern or late imperial philology? The crisis of classical learning in eighteenth century China

The discourses of classical scholars during the eighteenth century reinforced a shift from Song-Ming rationalism to a more skeptical and secular classical empiricism. By making precise scholarship the source of acceptable knowledge, Qing classicists contended that the legitimate reach of ancient ideals should be reevaluated through comparative delineation of the textual sources from which all such knowledge derived. This turn to empirically based classical inquiry meant that abstract ideas and rational argumentation gave way as the primary objects of elite discussion to concrete facts, verifiable institutions, ancient natural studies, and historical events. In general, Qing classicists regarded Song and Ming “Learning of the Way” as an obstacle to verifiable truth because it discouraged further inquiry along empirical lines. The empirical approach to knowledge they advocated placed proof and verification at the heart of analysis of the classical tradition. During this time, scholars and critics also applied historical analysis to the official Classics. Classical commentary yielded to textual criticism and a “search for evidence” to refortify the ancient canon. Representing a late imperial movement in Confucian letters, Qing classicists still sought to restore the classical vision. The early modern power of their philology, however, yielded the forces of decanonization and delegitimation as modernist trends, which went beyond the intellectual limits they had imposed on their own writings.