Sovereignty from ‘ground zero’: Power through performance in independent South Sudan

Through a reading of the South Sudanese independence ceremony as a ritual of statehood, I show how state actors in South Sudan declared and performed their claim to sovereignty in the face of extraordinary challenge. Central to their performance was their rendering of a national chronotope and their assertion of what I call rebel sovereignty: their articulation of themselves as both saviours from oppression and legitimate wielders of state power. State actors' equal appeal to local antipathy to centralised power and international norms of statehood, as well as their performative redefinition of international undermining as partnership, demonstrates the necessity of contemporary sovereign performance to define both the content and context of extant political realities. More broadly, the ritual demonstrates the performative basis of sovereignty and the increasing necessity of sovereign aspirants to acknowledge the impossibility of sovereign control and redefine challenges and critiques of this power as they assert it.     

Dimensions and dynamics of residential segregation by income in urban Canada, 1991–1996

This paper examines the trends in residential segregation by income (post-transfer, pretax income) in the thirty-nine largest Canadian urban areas between 1991 and 1996. The study is motivated by the relative lack of attention paid to residential segregation by income in the Canadian context and by conceptual arguments linking compromised life chances and increased social tensions for the populations of highly segregated cities. We investigated several dimensions of segregation using five different measures (we focus on three of these here given the correlation structure of the measures) to examine changes in segregation between 1991 and 1996, a period characterised by economic recession, cutbacks in social programs and a widening of inequality in market incomes at the national scale. Overall, income segregation increased in most urban areas across all dimensions of segregation during the time period, with particularly high degrees of segregation observed in prairie cities (Winnipeg, Saskatoon and Regina). Of the three largest metropolitan areas (Vancouver, Toronto and Montréal), Montréal was the most consistently segregated. We also find that increases in spatial separation and spatial concentration by income occurred despite the fact that at the national scale, the tax and transfer system appeared to be adequately redressing a rise in inequality in labour and market incomes (as demonstrated by the lack of change in post-transfer national income inequality measures during a period when inequality in market and labour incomes rose sharply). This implies that the lived experience of changes in income distribution are unlikely fully captured by aspatial, national-scale measures and that intra-urban measures with a spatial dimension are an important indicators of inequality in Canadian society.     

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.     

Landscapes of impunity and the deaths of Americans LaVena Johnson and Sandra Bland

On July 19th, 2005, American Army Private First Class LaVena Johnson died in Balad, Iraq, just 8?days shy of her 20th birthday. On July 13th, 2015, almost 10?years later, 28-year-old Sandra Bland’s life came to an abrupt end in a jail cell in Waller County, Texas. Both women’s deaths were ruled suicides, and both women’s families and friends reject these judgments. Instead, they insinuate foul play by the state, which directly governed the militarized spaces within which the women both died. At first glance, these women appear to have had very different life trajectories, one a United States soldier and the other a Black Lives Matter activist. However, in both of their cases, the ruling of the suspicious deaths as suicides illustrates the state’s attempt to render their deaths banal, and thereby diminish the state’s own culpability. In understanding the unremitting acts of violence, on women’s bodies, especially women of color, this paper focuses on how a Black feminist praxis extends feminist notions of an ethics of care.     

Obsidian sources and distribution systems in Island Southeast Asia: a review of previous research

This paper summarises research on obsidian findings across the region of Island Southeast Asia (ISEA), from the first reporting of obsidian on Sumatra as a result of cave excavations in the early 1900s through to the latest published discoveries in 2009. These results are the background for the first region-wide research project focussing on obsidian characterisation and its role in prehistoric inter-island exchange. It is commonly held that distribution of obsidian in ISEA was only localised and inter-island transportation limited. The review, however, suggests that this hypothesis derives from an incomplete knowledge of obsidian distribution in the region rather than typifying prehistoric social patterns. Obsidian sourcing has been carried out only intermittently in ISEA since the 1970s and has generally been focussed only at the single site level, thus explaining this very partial understanding.     

The stepping test: a step back in history

The stepping test is a valuable part of the neurological examination that is used to localize labyrinthine pathology. The test is known by two eponyms: the "Fukuda Test" in the United States and Asia and the "Unterberger Test" in Europe. Some controversy exists as to which name is correct. Siegfried Unterberger was an Austrian otolaryngologist who initially described the test in 1939. It was modified in 1959 by Tadashi Fukuda, a Japanese otolaryngologist, who introduced a method to better quantify the test results. Thus, the test should be called the "Unterberger Test," unless Fukuda's methods for measurement are used.     

Paleo-Eskimo kitchen midden preservation in permafrost under future climate conditions at Qajaa,West Greenland

Remains from Paleo-Eskimo cultures are well-documented, but complete preservation is rare. Two kitchen middens in Greenland are known to hold extremely well-preserved organic artefacts. Here, we assess the fate of the Qajaa site in Western Greenland under future climate conditions based on site characteristics measured in situ and from permafrost cores. Measurements of thermal properties, heat generation, oxygen consumption and CO₂ production show that the kitchen midden can be characterized as peat but produces 4–7 times more heat than natural sediment. An analytical model from permafrost research has been applied to assess future thawing of the midden. Results show that the preservation conditions are controlled by freezing temperatures and a high water/ice content limiting the subsurface oxygen availability. Threats to the future preservation are related to thawing followed by drainage and increasing subsurface oxygen availability and heat generation. The model predicts that the unique 4000-year-old Saqqaq layer below more than 1 m of peat is adequately protected against thawing for the next 70 years.     

Infrared radiofluorescence (IR-RF) dating of middle pleistocene fluvial archives of the Heidelberg Basin (Southwest Germany)

The infrared radiofluorescence (IR-RF) dating technique was applied to eight fluvial samples that were collected from two sediment cores at the Heidelberg Basin located near Viernheim and Ludwigshafen in southwest Germany. Based on the IR-RF derived ages of the samples it was possible to establish a chronological framework for the Mid-Pleistocene fluvial deposits of the Heidelberg Basin. The results allow us to distinguish between four main periods of aggradation. The lowermost sample taken from 100 m core depth lead to an IR-RF age of 643 ± 28 ka pointing to a Cromerian period of aggradation (OIS 17–16). For the Elsterian it is now possible to distinguish between two aggradation periods, one occurring during the Lower Elsterian period (OIS 15) and a second during the Upper Elsterian period (OIS 12–11). For the so called Upper interlayer (or “Oberer Zwischenhorizont” — a layer of organic-rich and finer-grained deposits), the IR-RF results point to a deposition age of around 300 ka, with samples taken directly on top and out of this layer yielding IR-RF ages of 288 ± 19 ka and 302 ± 19 ka, respectively. Hence, the measured IR-RF ages clearly point to a deposition during the Lower Saalian period (OIS 9–8) whereas earlier studies assumed a Cromerian age for the sediments of the Upper Interlayer based on pollen records and also mollusc fauna. The new IR-RF dataset indicates that significant hiatuses are present within the fluvial sediment successions. In particular the Eemian and Upper Saalian deposits are missing in this part of the northern Upper Rhine Graben, as the 300 ka deposits are directly overlain by Weichselian fluvial sediments. It is obvious that time periods of increased fluvial aggradation were interrupted by time periods of almost no aggradation or erosion which should have been mainly triggered by phases of increased and decreased subsidence of the Heidelberg Basin.