The Many Tongues of the King: Indigenous Language Interpreters and the Making of the Spanish Empire

General language interpreters of Lima's High Court of Appeal (Audiencia) played a significant part in gaining access to the Spanish system of justice for the indigenous populations of Peru. These interpreters worked as translators in lawsuits, notarial transactions, and other legal and administrative procedures conducted or supervised by the viceroy, the justices of the Audiencia, the public defender of the Indians, and other officials stationed at the viceregal court. But they also served as legal agents and solicitors for native leaders and communities litigating in Lima or aspiring to take their cases to the Supreme Council of the Indies in Spain. Through formal and informal dealings, these interpreters brokered between the king and his native subjects, thus connecting indigenous groups with the Habsburg royal court. The careers of these official translators illustrate the crucial roles played by indigenous subjects in the formation of what can be termed the ‘Spanish legal Atlantic,’ an organic network of litigants, judges, lawyers, attorneys, and documents bridging courtrooms on both shores of the ocean.     

From Conditionality to Europeanization in Central and Eastern Europe: Administrative Performance and Capacity in Cohesion Policy

Abstract

This article assesses the role of administrative capacity in explaining the performance of eight Central and Eastern European countries in managing Cohesion policy over the 2004–2008 period. Drawing on a conceptual framework from the Europeanization literature, it explores whether pre-accession administrative adjustment to comply with the “acquis” continued in the post-accession period, against a backdrop of critical assessments about the state of administrative capacity for managing Cohesion policy. We conclude that administrative capacity was developed faster and more substantially than commentators predicted. The findings have implications for our understanding of the post-accession compliance record of the EU8, challenging the contention that they fall within a “world of dead letters”. Administrative capacity has been underestimated and insufficient attention has been given to the dynamics of capacity evolution and learning.     

The Lisbonization of EU Cohesion Policy: A Successful Case of Experimentalist Governance?

This article traces the emergence of a new “experimentalist governance architecture” in EU Cohesion policy and assesses its effectiveness. Following trends in other EU policy areas, the core features of the architecture are the joint setting of objectives between EU institutions and the Member States, (semi-)autonomous implementation by the Member States and regions, the use of performance reporting and peer review mechanisms at the EU level and the periodic revision of policy objectives. The new architecture—characterized by a hybrid mix of soft and hard new modes of governance—has been instrumental in driving policy and governance change in the 2007–2013 strategies and delivery arrangements, although a direct and exclusive “EU-driven effect” is not always easy to discern. More fundamentally, the effects on mutual learning have so far been weak and are unlikely to improve unless a more structured and robust assessment and peer review process is introduced.     

“El plato ma´s sabroso”: Eucaristı´a,plagio diabo´lico,y la traduccio´n criolla del canı´bal

Canibalia El canibalismo ha sido un concepto fundamental en la definicio´n de la identidad cultural latinoamericana desde las primeras visiones europeas del “Nuevo Mundo” como monstruoso y salvaje, hasta las narrativas y produccio´n cultural del siglo XX en las que el can?´bal se ha re-definido de diversas maneras en relacio´n con la construccio´n de identidades (pos)coloniales y “posmodernas” y ha ocupado numerosos debates acade´micos. La presencia constante y a la vez mutante del canibalismo, as?´ como su centralidad en discursos de alteridad/identidad lo hace un tropo axial de la representacio´n e imaginacio´n de la identidad cultural latinoamericana. El can?´bal es—pudiera decirse—un signo o cifra de la anomal?´a y alteridad de Ame´rica al mismo tiempo que de su adscripcio´n perife´rica a Occidente. El presente ensayo se refiere a diferentes escenarios histo´ricos y articulaciones discursivas en las que dicha adscripcio´n ano´mala ocurre durante los siglos XVI y XVII, y en los que el canibalismo no so´lo fue un dispositivo generador de alteridad, sino tambie´n un tropo cultural de reconocimiento.     

Reduction of topography effect in inductive electromagnetic profiles: application on coastal sambaqui (shell mound) archaeological site in Santa Catarina state, Brazil

We present results of electrical conductivity profiles obtained with inductive electromagnetic geophysical method in Santa Marta archaeological site, Santa Catarina State, southern Brazil. This site is a sambaqui (shell mound), in which several human occupation remains are found during pre-colonial period such as buried lithic and bone artifacts, fire-place, etc. Most of these mounds include as well many human burials, which, in many cases, point to funerary ritual as a main agency for mound building. A set of profiles of apparent electrical conductivity and magnetic susceptibility was acquired in two sites aiming the identification of geophysical anomalies with potential interest for excavation. To enhance conductivity data, we applied an effective procedure to remove topographical effects in the apparent conductivity measurements, which are rather conditioned by the presence of a variable water table depth or conductive sediment layer. A linear dependence among conductivity values and the site elevation provided a simple linear model to remove the influence of topography. Corrected electric conductivity maps substantially improved the definition of anomalies, many of them rather subtle in raw data images. Corrected maps also show a better adherence with magnetic susceptibility maps, both of them identifying archaeological structures of interest: a well-structured fire-place and a concentration of ceramic fragments.     

Vices Are Not What They Used To Be: The Archaeological Importance of the Term “Vices” in Argentinean Historical Military Documents of the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century

This article characterizes the sense and use of the word vicios (vices) in historical documents in nineteenth-century Argentina. The term was frequently used among soldiers, indigenous people, and criollos who occupied the border. The “vices” consisted of a range of highly appreciated edible goods (including tobacco, yerba mate [Ilex paraguariensis], and sugar). Documentary sources do not agree what products fall under the term vicios. We propose some archaeological expectations with regard to each of these products.