Polycrisis: Prompts for an emerging worldview

Taking the realms of business, finance and economic history by storm, polycrisis captures the complexity of an increasingly uncertain world in a state of flux and transition. Proponents of the polycrisis model, such as prominent economic historian and Financial Times contributing editor Adam Tooze, propose polycrisis as a marker of our age, capturing overlapping and interconnected crises beyond cause and effect. In his article, the authors offer some prompts for considering the usefulness and limitations of polycrisis for the anthropological toolkit. The authors cautiously welcome the polycrisis trope as a multidimensional means to account for the consequences of interrelated crises in an unprecedented era.     

CULTURAL ECONOMY AND THE CREATIVE FIELD OF THE CITY

I begin with a rough sketch of the incidence of the cultural economy in US cities today. I then offer a brief review of some theoretical approaches to the question of creativity, with special reference to issues of social and geographic context. The city is a powerful fountainhead of creativity, and an attempt is made to show how this can be understood in terms of a series of localized field effects. The creative field of the city is broken down (relative to the cultural economy) into four major components, namely, (a) intra‐urban webs of specialized and complementary producers, (b) the local labour market and the social networks that bind workers together in urban space, (c) the wider urban environment, including various sites of memory, leisure, and social reproduction, and (d) institutions of governance and collective action. I also briefly describe some of the path‐dependent dynamics of the creative field. The article ends with a reference to some issues of geographic scale. Here, I argue that the urban is but one (albeit important) spatial articulation of an overall creative field whose extent is ultimately nothing less than global.     

Pandemics,transformations and tourism: be careful what you wish for

Abstract

Disease outbreaks and pandemics have long played a role in societal and economic change. However, the nature of such change is selective, meaning that it is sometimes minimal and, at other times, and change or transformation may be unexpected, potentially even reinforcing contemporary paradigms. A comprehensive overview of pandemics and their effects is provided. This is used to help contextualise the COVID-19 pandemic, its impact on tourism and government, industry and consumer response. Drawing on the available literature, factors that will affect tourism and destination recovery are then identified. Some measures will continue or even expand present growth orientations in tourism while others may contribute to sustainability. It is concluded that that the selective nature of the effects of COVID-19 and the measures to contain it may lead to reorientation of tourism in some cases, but in others will contribute to policies reflecting the selfish nationalism of some countries. However, the response to planetary limits and sustainable tourism requires a global approach. Despite clear evidence of this necessity, the possibility for a comprehensive transformation of the tourism system remains extremely limited without a fundamental transformation of the entire planet.     

Assessment of material characteristics of ancient concretes,Grande Aula,Markets of Trajan,Rome

The Grande Aula, or Great Hall, of the Markets of Trajan (AD 96 to 115) is an intact example of the domed, concrete architecture of imperial Rome. Petrographic, x-ray diffraction, chemical, and SEM analyses demonstrate that wall mortars contain Pozzolane Rosse volcanic ash aggregate (harenae fossiciae) and strätlingite, a complex calcium aluminate cement hydrate (C₂ ASH₈) that gives modern cements good durability and compressive strength. Specific gravity tests and a new petrographic method for assessing bulk densities indicate unit weights of about 1750 kg/m³ for the wall mortars and 1430–1640 kg/m³ for the pumice bearing, vaulted ceiling mortars. Innovative point load source tests record the tensile strengths (f_t) of the aggregate and interfacial elements of the conglomeratic concrete fabric. These suggest f_t of about 2.7 MPa for brick, 1.2 MPa for Tufo Lionato tuff, and 0.9 MPa for Tufo Giallo della Via Tiberina tuff coarse aggregate (caementa), based on a tentative, approximate correlation with splitting (Brazilian) tests. The pozzolanic mortar and interfacial zones have lower f_t in the range of 0.8 MPa to 0.5 MPa. The relatively low mortar strength and its somewhat tenuous adhesion to the coarse aggregate suggests that the caementa may have arrested the propagation of tensile microcracks that formed in the mortar, thereby increasing the composite tensile strength of the concrete. Roman builders selected the complex aggregate mixes to optimize the performance of the wall and vault concretes.