Contested Understandings in the Global Garment Industry after Rana Plaza

This Introduction synthesizes the key themes of this special cluster of articles and explores the implications of the three contributions on garment supply chains after the Rana Plaza disaster. The three articles examine the perspectives of key stakeholders in garment value chains — global buyers, managers of garment factories in Bangladesh, and workers at these factories — and analyses their responses to the new governance initiatives that emerged in the aftermath of Rana Plaza. Placing the contrasting perspectives of these stakeholders alongside each other starkly reveals how their different positions within hierarchically organized global value chains form the particular lens through which they view post-Rana Plaza initiatives. This special cluster scrutinizes the particular understandings of these stakeholders and reveals the very different capacity for voice and influence that they bring to bear in shaping outcomes. It reflects on the contradictory imperatives faced by actors in the garment industry caught between a logic of competition on the one hand and global labour standards norms on the other. The Introduction concludes by examining the prospects for a re-embedding of the market in global value chains via the activation of civil society.     

Deliberation in representative institutions: an analytical framework for a systemic approach

This article presents a novel analytical account of the relationship between deliberation and representation by reconstructing the specific institutional logics that guide deliberative action in parliaments. In contrast to the dominant generalised paradigm in empirical deliberation research it develops a contextualised-systemic approach. The article argues that the parliamentary context is characterised by a tension between two equally legitimate institutional logics: a discursive one, institutionalised through parliamentary procedures, and a positional one, constituted by relations of representation. The resulting theoretical model links the specific institutional and situational conditions to different forms and functions of deliberation. Depending on the specific balance between both logics deliberation fulfils functions of either integration or contestation. The model is applied to a comparative analysis of different cases of parliaments demonstrating how this account can advance both the comparative analysis of deliberation in representative institutions and the development of deliberative democracy after the systemic turn.     

The Thrill of the Line,the String,and the Frond,or why the Abelam are a non-cloth culture

With few exceptions, weaving was traditionally unknown in Oceania. Yet soft, pliable bark cloth — often richly decorated — was produced, and used like textiles, especially in Polynesia. This cloth was artistically draped around objects and people and in turn ritually removed. These cloth cultures are based on a system of aesthetic values radically different from those of inland groups especially in New Guinea. This article demonstrates that within Oceania there are two different cultural traditions with opposing aesthetic fundamental values. Taking as an example the Abelam (East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea) whose aesthetics is based on the principle of ‘visual open-work’, the fundamental aesthetic values of a non-cloth culture and the gender specific attributes associated with them are analyzed.     

Dietary reconstruction in Migration Period Central Germany: a carbon and nitrogen isotope study

This study presents bone collagen carbon and nitrogen isotope data from the Migration Period cemeteries (fifth/sixth century AD) of Obermöllern and Rathewitz in Central Germany. The human average δ ¹³C ratios of ?19.8?±?0.3 ‰ and δ ¹⁵N ratios of 9.6?±?0.9 ‰ (n?=?43) reflect a mixed diet in a temperate C3-based ecosystem without significant difference between the two sites. The average offset between human and faunal δ ¹³C and δ ¹⁵N values indicates a significant contribution of plant food to the human diet that has different isotope ratios from the forage of the animals. It furthermore suggests the influence of land management on the δ ¹⁵N values. One adult male from Obermöllern stands out due to his elevated nitrogen isotope ratio, body height, grave goods, and burial position. The collagen isotope data of this study are comparable with data from other central European sites and confirm rather stable communities with moderate variation in the environmental conditions of arable land.     

Glückliche Fügung: Experiments’ Potential to Integrate Disciplines**

This essay reviews the discipline-connecting potential of experimentation. Two examples are used to illustrate how researchers in the first half of the twentieth century profitably combined resources from different disciplines in their experiments. These experiments were designed to test mechanism models describing chemical processes underlying the behavior of biological systems. The researchers had clear expectations about how certain interventions should affect the behavior of the organisms studied, if that behavior was indeed based on the presumed chemical processes. They manipulated the organisms in the relevant ways and determined how the behavior of the organisms changed as a result.     

Ancient DNA insights from the Middle Neolithic in Germany

Genetic studies of Neolithic groups in central Europe have provided insights into the demographic processes that have occurred during the initial transition to agriculture as well as in later Neolithic contexts. While distinct genetic patterns between indigenous hunter-gatherers and Neolithic farmers in Europe have been observed, it is still under discussion how the genetic diversity changed during the 5,000-year span of the Neolithic period. In order to investigate genetic patterns after the earliest farming communities, we carried out an ancient mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis of 34 individuals from Wittmar, Germany representing three different Neolithic farming groups (ca. 5,200–4,300 cal bc) including Rössen societies. Ancient DNA analysis was successful for six individuals associated with the Middle Neolithic Rössen and observed haplotypes were assigned to mtDNA haplogroups H5, HV0, U5, and K. Our results offer perspectives on the genetic composition of individuals associated with the Rössen culture at Wittmar and permit insights into genetic landscapes in central Europe at a time when regional groups first emerged during the Middle Neolithic.     

Digital containment and its discontents

This essay explores a set of existential risks that accompany digital storage capacities, devices, and promises: the anxious exhaustion of digital housekeeping; the disorientation of self-archiving; and the annihilating sense of loss that strikes when digital containment fails.