La persistance des relations pre-politiques entre agents de l'autorite et classes populaires pendant la revolution francaise (le discours public de l'autorite en situation d'emeute)

This article provides an intellectual history of the status of wage earners as conceptualized within the natural law paradigm by European writers both on the Continent and in Britain. Historians of political discourse have mostly investigated the consequences of such a status for the political rights of labourers. This article shows that the crucial moves were made by different authors analysing the relation of servant to master either in the domestic sphere or in private contracts. The article further contends that that resulting deeply ambiguous analyses implied a far from complete personal freedom for wage earners. This had a decisive impact on different visions of commercial society in early modern times, and left a significant legacy for moderns.     

Scaling heritage. The construction of scales in the submission process of alpinism to UNESCO’s intangible cultural heritage list

ABSTRACT

For the last two decades, the polysemous notion of ‘scale’ has drawn an increasing amount of attention among scholars studying heritage policies and practices, often with regard to UNESCO conventions. Significantly, in many of these works, terms such as ‘global’, ‘national’ and ‘local’ are connected to categories of ‘scale’ or ‘level’ that are taken for granted by the scholars who use them to guide their analysis. This paper, in contrast, promotes a different, constructivist understanding of the notion of scale. From our perspective, there is an added value to be found in focusing—without using any preconceived or external conception of scale—on the ways in which stakeholders conceive of and use scale throughout the processes of heritage making. Using the case of alpinism and the creation of its file for submission to the Intangible Cultural Heritage list, we show that the interest of this approach lies in its comprehensive ability to highlight how people define, elaborate and use scale in order to qualify their practices or to achieve specific goals.     

A Microfacies Toolkit for Revealing Linkages Between Cultural Discontinuities and Exceptional Geogenic Events: the Tell Da’de Case Study (NE Syria)

High-resolution multi-archive studies have been promoted to reveal abrupt discontinuities that would express rapid social reactions (days to decades) to sudden exceptional geogenic phenomena (climatic, volcanic, tectonic, geomorphic, or cosmic). We expose here how we have adopted this approach for examining the causal linkages between a series of cultural discontinuities encountered through the cultural deposits of Da’de (Syria) and cosmic airbursts. Cosmic events, known to be rare, erratic, and unpredictable, are traced by exceptional debris that formed from aerosols when violently compressed during entry through the earth atmosphere of hypervelocity cosmic collider. They consist of singular organo-mineral materials in the form of volatile-rich hydrocarbon fuel with resistant metal-rich carbonaceous composites and colorful polymers. The archaeological sequence comprises Da’de phases 0 to III that represent a nearly continuous accumulation for 1,000 years during the Pre-pottery Neolithic period (ca. 9,900–8,900 years bp) and two short-term occupation phases during the pre-Halaf (Da’de IV) and early Bronze Age periods (Da’de V). Study of the exceptional debris in virgin soils and occupation deposits at Da’de has allowed to distinguish an intact debris assemblage that pulverized at the ground following an airburst (type 1 natural singular signal) with the ones that have been processed by humans (type 2 anthropic singular signal). Type 1 singular organo-mineral materials were found intact at the contact of the virgin soil with the earliest Pre-pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) occupation layers (Da’de phase 0, area [SB]), at the top part of the virgin soil with the PPNA occupation layers (Da’de phase Ia, area [B]) and just under the lower slabs of the EB III/IV burials (Da’de phase V, area [SB]). This has allowed to establish a strict contemporaneity between cosmic airbursts and remarkable historical events: initial settlement at phase 0, establishment of the magnificent communal building at phase 1, EBIII/IV cemetery after a long period of abandonment. Evidence for the collection of the singular materials (type 2) and meticulous processing of the related hydrocarbon fuel in occupation floors, earthen construction, coloring materials, and objects have been traced from the initial settlement (phase 0) through the successive cultural periods. This correlation has revealed a long-lasting transmission of the value of memorial natural resources which were only available from time to time in the surroundings. The close timing between changes in the use of the singular organo-mineral materials (preparation techniques, types of by-products) and cultural phases has enabled us to identify social discontinuities which correlate to distinctive geogenic events and search of the related exceptional resources. Based on the long-term record from Da’de, cosmic airbursts are suggested to be considered as a new class of dual-discontinuous signal of historical dimension, which have led to sudden (days to months) geogenic shifts in the availability of singular fuel resources and, simultaneously, to rapid cultural responses in their exploitation and use, depending on reactivity of local landscapes to the induced changes at short time scales (decades).     

Industrial Policy in Wallonia: A Rupture with the Past?

One of the main issues facing almost all European regional policy-makers is how to ensure a smooth adaptation of their industrial structure in the face of changing societal and technological parameters. In the case of the Belgian region Wallonia, industrial decline has particularly marked the economy during recent decades and the need to promote structural change has been a central preoccupation of national and, subsequently, regional governments. At the same time, the highly complex system of governance in Belgium renders the definition and application of a coherent regional industrial policy difficult. This paper explores the development of industrial policy in the Walloon region with particular attention to the period since 1990 and the pertinence of the instruments and delivery mechanisms with respect to the underlying structural issues facing the regional economy. The paper is divided into four sections: the first offers a historical profile of the industrial development of the Walloon economy and in particular identifies some of the factors which provoked a serious structural crisis. The section reviews the economic impact of the successive phases of rationalization and diversification which have taken place since the 1970s and discusses how the industrial strategies adopted by the business sector and supported by the regional government have influenced the speed of economic regeneration. The second section considers the complex federal system of government in Belgium and how it influences the freedom of action for regional industrial policy. The governance of the economy by the numerous public or semi-public institutions active in the field of industrial policy is a crucial issue. A critical review of the main initiatives, instruments and targets of industrial policy in Wallonia is offered in section three, while the paper concludes by contrasting the Walloon industrial policy with initiatives taken in the neighbouring area of South-West Flanders and ponders the issue of whether in the end the key factor arresting the development of Wallonia is the insufficient level of 'social capital'.     

The identification of cultivated pearl millet (Pennisetum) amongst plant impressions on pottery from Oued Chebbi (Dhar Oualata,Mauritania)

The majority of the neolithic pottery from Dhar Tichitt and Oualata bears abundant plant impressions on its surface. The present study involves direct examination of these impressions and comparsion with a control series in the laboratory. The criteria for differentiation between impressions made by wild and cultivatedPennisetum are clearly defined. In the pottery from Oued Chebbi (Dhar Oualata), the existence of many many impressions of pearl millet (Pennisetum), including both wild and cultivated strains, is confirmed. It is concluded that the area around Dhar Tichitt and Oualata belongs to a non-centre zone of origin (Harlan 1975) and that,ca 3000 bp, its inhabitants knew how to use cultivated strains in an area where wild strains were also found in some abundance.

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Résumé La céramique néolithique des dhars Tichitt et Oualata présente une abondance d'empreintes végétales en surface. La présente étude—basée sur la lecture directe des empreintes sur la céramique—s'appuye sur une série de référence fabriquée en laboratoire. Les critères de différenciation, dans le genrePennisetum, des empreintes de formes sauvages et de formes cultivées sont clairement précisées. L'existence, dans les céramiques de Oued Chebbi, de nombreuses empreintes de mil du genrePennisetum et, parmi celles-ci, de formes cultivées, est affirmée. Les différentes analyses d'empreintes permettent de penser que le secteure des dhars Tichitt et Oualata appartient à la zone d'origine non-centre définie par J. Harlan (1975) et qu'aux alentours de 3000 ans bp, ses habitants savaient exploiter des formes cultivées dans un cadre où les populations de forme sauvage avaient une certaine abondance.