Intersectionality and planning at the margins: LGBTQ youth of color in New York

Through an intersectional lens, this article reflects on the dialog between planning and gender, feminist, and queer studies to analyze the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth of color (YOC) community in New York City (NYC). The community is subject to multiple disenfranchisements, given their ethno-racial status, class, age, gender, and sexual orientation. This community's limited access to safe public spaces and amenities, housing, health services, job training, and other opportunities is an urban planning challenge insufficiently understood or addressed. Our methodology includes participant observation and analysis of an LGBTQ YOC tour of West Village in NYC, interviews with LGBTQ individuals and NGO staff, life stories, observations in LGBTQ-friendly meetings and facilities, and content analysis of LGBTQ reports and media coverage. The research shows the agency of an LGBTQ youth group as a resilient community organization effectively participating in planning processes and exerting rights to public space and services. Finally, it offers recommendations to planners and policy-makers to facilitate the recognition and expansion of rights to the city for LGBTQ, particularly YOC, by committing to understanding their unique conditions and needs and expanding their access to safe housing and public spaces, poverty reduction programs and job opportunities, and health and social support services.     

Gendered livelihoods and the politics of socio-environmental identity: women's participation in conservation projects in Calakmul,Mexico

A livelihoods approach positions individuals, situated within households, as active agents within processes occurring at various scales. Environmental conservation efforts represent one such process with direct implications for local sustainable livelihoods and the gendered nature of livelihood strategies. In this article, I examine collective processes of socio-environmental identity construction as gendered sustainable livelihood strategies, articulated in and through the activities of women's agricultural organizations in communities bordering the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve in rural southern Mexico. I present group histories and visual evidence from group activities – adapted from participatory rural appraisal (PRA) methodology – to highlight two important concepts. These are: (1) that gendered livelihood strategies are outcomes of negotiations within households and communities, in response to specific gendered opportunities and constraints; and (2) that gendered livelihood strategies consist of linked material and ideological aspects.     

Comparison of Original and Modern Mortars at the Herculaneum Archaeological Site

ABSTRACT

This paper aims to evaluate mineralogical, elemental, and thermal differences among original Roman joint mortars and those used in twentieth-century restoration campaigns taken from different areas at the Herculaneum archaeological site. The purpose is to improve the compatibility of restoration mortars. Roman and modern mortars were studied with petrography, thermal analysis and x-ray fluorescence investigations. The results indicate significant differences between the Roman and modern mortars which could facilitate the degradation process. Roman mortars, in particular, were composed of a coarser aggregate which was present in a lower ratio with binder in comparison with modern mortars.     

Taphonomy and dispersion of bones scavenged by New World vultures and caracaras in Northwestern Patagonia: implications for the formation of archaeological sites

Scavenger birds can feed on large- to small-sized vertebrates and may contribute in the formation of archaeological sites. To evaluate the modifications and dispersal patterns of bones produced by New World vulture and caracara from Northwestern Patagonia, samples of adult sheep, young sheep, and hare carcasses were offered and subsequently analyzed. New World vultures and caracaras quickly fed on the samples. Taphonomic and bone dispersal patterns suggest two types of accumulations: (1) open-air sites with large and medium-sized vertebrates represented by complete, fractured, scratched, notched, and punctured elements and (2) rock shelter or cave sites dominated by small vertebrates represented by broken, corroded, fractured, and digested elements.     

Empire as network: Spheres of material interaction in Late Bronze Age Anatolia

Hegemonic dominance relationships and the limited intentional material expressions of imperial power they usually encompass pose an interesting and well-known problem for the archaeology of early empires. One way of approaching domination in the archaeological record is through the synthetic analysis of different modes of imperial-local interaction at overlapping socio-political levels and spheres of culture. In this paper, four material culture categories are considered with the aim of characterizing Hittite imperial relationships in Late Bronze Age Anatolia and northern Syria. They include pottery traditions and their degree of susceptibility for central influence, diachronic settlement developments, the distribution of imperial administrative technology, and an ideological discourse carried out through landscape monuments. From the spatial and chronological signatures of these overlapping networks of interaction, a more nuanced understanding of the process of empire is beginning to emerge.