SMOG IN A TIME OF TOBACCO CONTROL

This article reflects on the irony of the Conference of the Parties to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control taking place in north India during the worst smog in Delhi's history. It is presented as both a material reminder that tobacco is not the only cause of respiratory disease and as a symbol of the permeation of the conference by tobacco industry interests. A further ironic connection is the proximity of the conference venue to Bisrakh, the birthplace of the demon king Ravana, whose statue was despoiled in the months preceding the Diwali festival which celebrates his vanquishing by Ram. Older Bisrakh residents are reported as mourning rather than celebrating Ravana's death during the festival, although younger people are turning their backs on such practices. A new statue of Ravana had recently been vandalized. With the smog which occurred being attributed partly to fireworks from Diwali, the set of anthropological knots unravel to reveal a continuous thread: the message that it is necessary to respect your demons, whether they be tobacco or part of the Hindu pantheon.     

Relative frequency of butchering cutmarks produced by obsidian and flint: an experimental approach

An experimental approach was used to determine how stone tool materials affect the frequency of observed cutmarks. Five whitetail deer were butchered by an expert butcher using flint and obsidian tools and the skeletons were prepared and analyzed. The authors found that the deer butchered with obsidian tools generally displayed fewer incidents of cutmarks than their flint-butchered counterparts. Consideration of this variable may prove to be important to archaeologists attempting to answer questions of specialization or when making comparisons of cutmark data between sites.     

Beyond the Local Trap: New Municipalism and the Rise of the Fearless Cities

The Fearless Cities summit, coordinated by Barcelona en Comú in June 2017, marked the first global gathering of the nascent “new municipalist” movement. Responding to the “imperative that geographers engage critically and creatively with the way localism is being articulated”, this paper argues that the new municipalist initiatives are developing urban political strategies that successfully avoid the Local Trap. Rather than essentialising cities as inherently progressive or democratic, the municipal is instead becoming framed as a “strategic front” for developing a transformative politics of scale. Given this critical awareness, this nascent movement demonstrates how local loyalties can be mobilised as part of a progressive scalar strategy without falling into the trap of a “particular localism”. What remains to be seen is whether these initiatives are able to develop a variegated scalar strategy of transformation that retains the democratic essence that underpins them.