Violent Inaction: The Necropolitical Experience of Refugees in Europe

A significant outcome of the global crisis for refugees has been the abandonment of forced migrants to live in makeshift camps inside the EU. This paper details how state authorities have prevented refugees from surviving with formal provision, leading directly to thousands having to live in hazardous spaces such as the informal camp in Calais, the site of this study. We then explore the violent consequences of this abandonment. By bringing together thus far poorly integrated literatures on bio/necropolitics (Michel Foucault; Achille Mbembe) and structural violence (Johan Galtung), we retheorize the connections between deliberate political indifference towards refugees and the physiological violence they suffer. In framing the management of refugees as a series of violent inactions, we demonstrate how the biopolitics of migrant control has given way to necropolitical brutality. Advancing geographies of violence and migration, the paper argues that political inaction, as well as action, can be used as a means of control.     

Healing Charms in Use in England and Wales 1700–1950

The collection and analysis of Anglo-Saxon and early medieval healing charms has long generated an active interest in their content and application. However, despite the quite extensive ethnographic evidence concerning the content of healing charms in use from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries, there has been no attempt, so far, to make an extensive collection of charm formulae from this period. This paper seeks to begin that task. It is hoped that this inventory, not only serves to highlight an important aspect of the English and Welsh tradition of folk medicine, but also serves to indicate the long history of that tradition. An examination of these charms also provides an illustration of the importance of the written word in the transmission of popular knowledge.     

A possible early age for a diprotodon (Marsupialia: Diprotodontidae) fossil from the Papua New Guinea highlands

MENZIES, J., DAVIES, H.L., DUNLAP, W.J. & GOLDING, S.D., June, 2008. A possible early age for a diprotodon (Marsupialia: Diprotodontidae) fossil from the Papua New Guinea highlands. Alcheringa 32, 129–147. ISSN 0311-5518.

A fossil diprotodon jawbone coated and impregnated with a well-cemented fine breccia or tuff was recovered from weakly consolidated Pleistocene lacustrine sediments near Yonki in the Papua New Guinea highlands. The fine breccia includes angular rock and mineral fragments derived from country rock, accretionary lapilli and clay minerals. It does not include any identifiable primary volcanic material. The presence of accretionary lapilli and lack of volcanic clasts suggests an origin by phreatic eruption—an explosive eruption driven by the violent escape of gas. Minerals in the fine breccia have an age of 13.2 ± 0.2 Ma, middle Miocene, as indicated by ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar analysis. This is the age of the country rock that was blasted by the phreatic eruption. Igneous activity in the Yonki area is thought to have ceased at 7.4 Ma (younger age limit of Elandora Porphyry; late Miocene), and so it is likely, but not certain, that the phreatic eruption occurred not later than 7.4 Ma. The jawbone, as far as can be told from its poor condition, is dentally similar to the late Pliocene and possibly Pleistocene ‘Kolopsis’ watutense recovered from other sites in New Guinea. Probably, the jawbone, or the living marsupial, was buried in the fine breccia at the time of the phreatic eruption, and its remains were subsequently reworked by river erosion and redeposited in the lacustrine sediments. Recrystallization and loss of primary texture in some of the bone may be a result of heating at the time of, or preceding, the eruption.     

Spatial variation of biologically available strontium isotopes (Sr/Sr) in an archipelagic setting: a case study from the Caribbean

This paper presents the results of strontium (Sr) isotope analysis of modern and archaeological animal remains and modern plant samples from the Caribbean region. The goal is to assess if patterns of human mobility can be determined from the archaeological record in an archipelagic setting. The range of variability and spatial distribution of biologically available strontium isotope signatures is reported and data evaluated to determine if sufficient heterogeneity exists to permit the identification of mobility despite the presence of potentially large contributions of marine strontium in island and coastal ecosystems. The (is)landscape is divided into several sub-regions based on the age and lithology of underlying geology and the variability of ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr ratios is reported as; mean ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr ± 2 standard deviations, number of samples: 1) Volcanic and Intrusive rocks (0.7077 ± 0.0019; n = 162); 2) Cretaceous–Miocene Limestone (0.7085 ± 0.0009; n = 50); 3) Pliocene–Quaternary Limestone (0.7091 ± 0.0004; n = 54); 4) Sedimentary Deposits (0.7094 ± 0.0015; n = 16); 5) Metamorphic Deposits (0.7104 ± 0.0014; n = 6). There are substantial differences between expected ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr values based on associated geology and measured ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr in flora and fauna samples. These differences emphasize the importance of focusing on bioavailable strontium, as opposed to geological proxies, for estimations of Sr isotope ranges, especially in archipelagic environments. While some overlap exists between the ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr ranges of certain sub-regions, other sub-regions possessed limited variation and could be distinguished based on strontium isotope data. This spatial patterning of biologically available strontium indicates that strontium isotope analyses can be successfully applied to the archaeological study of human mobility within the Caribbean region.     

UNDERSTANDING THE UNIQUE IMPACTS OF ECONOMIC GROWTH VARIABLES*

ABSTRACT The paper uses a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model for a small city to examine how expansions in export and local sectors, changes in total factor productivity (TFP), and growth in population impact an economy. We examine the effects of each source of growth and find that the level and distribution of economic activity vary considerably. We also evaluate each source of growth in the context of a variety of policy metrics, which provide guidelines to policy makers, including the types of firms to be recruited in specific regions.     

Wales: Industrial Fallibility and Spirit of Place

Barely noticed in their anonymity and detachment, the mining communities of South Wales are being left isolated through the locational forces of deindustrialization. These monuments to an era of past industrial grandeur now harbor a dispirited people who reflect a growing passivity to their plight, a saturnine resignation to their distress. The collapse of their cultural spirit can indicate what might be expected to occur in other declining industrial areas of Europe and the United States where communities also experience industrial fallibility.     

Book reviews

CHINA

JANE KATE LEONARD. Controlling from Afar, The Daoguang Emperor's Management of the Grand Canal Crisis, 1824–1826. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, The University of Michigan, 1996. 331 pp. Maps, figures, notes, reference list, index. US$50.00, hardcover.

KAM LOUIE and LOUISE EDWARDS, editors and translators. Censored by Confucius: ghost Stories by Yuan Mei. Armonk, New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1996. xxxv, 223 pp. List of stories by theme, illustrations, preface, introduction. US$67.95, hardcover; US$24.95, paper.

KARMA LEKSHE TSOMO. Sisters in Solitude: two Traditions of Buddhist Monastic Ethics for Women. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996. xii, 198 pp. US$19.95, paper.

JAPAN, KOREA

MARK T. BERGER and DOUGLAS A. BORER, editors. The Rise of East Asia: critical Visions of the Pacific Century. London and New York: Routledge, 1997. xii, 308 pp. Introduction, editors’ preface and acknowledgments, figures, tables, index. US$25.99, UK£15.99, paper.

SOUTH ASIA

LISE McKEAN. Divine Enterprise: gurus and the Indian Nationalist Movement. Chicago and London: Chicago University Press, 1996. xviii, 361 pp. Index, plates, bibliography. US$21.99, paper.

STANLEY J. TAMBIAH. Leveling Crowds: ethnonationalist Conflicts and Collective Violence in South Asia. Berkeley: California University Press, 1996. x, 395 pp. Index, plates, maps, bibliography. US$20.00, paper.

SOUTHEAST ASIA

NGUYEN VAN CHINH. Social Change in Rural Vietnam: children's Work and Seasonal Migration. Canberra: Department of Political and Social Change, Australian National University, 1997. 65 pp. A$8.00, paper.

JOHN GILLESPIE, editor. Commercial Legal Developments in Vietnam: Vietnamese and Foreign Commentaries . Singapore: Butterworths Asia, 1997. A$81.25, hardcover.

MARGARET LEIDELMEIJER. Van Suikermolen tot Grooibedrijf: technische Verniewing in de Java‐Suikerindustrie in de Negentiende Eeuw . [From sugar mill to factory: technical innovation in Java's sugar industry during the nineteendi century]. Amsterdam: Neder‐lands Economisch‐Historisch Archief, 1997. 388 pp. Tables, graphs, photographs. Dfl.52.50, paper.

NIELS MULDER. Inside Philippine Society . Quezon City: New Day Publishers, 1997. No price given.

FAYDUMAGAT. Itneg (Tinggian) Justice & Conflict Resolution. Quezon City: New Day Publishers, 1996. No price given.

RAUL PERTIERRA. Explorations in Social Theory and Philippines Ethnography. Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 1997. vii, 262 pp. Foreword by Clive Kessler. Introduction, photographs. No price given, paper.

DAVID M. E. ROSKIES, translator and editor. Black Clouds over the Isle of Gods and Other Modern Indonesian Short Stories . Armonk, New York, London, England: M. E. Sharp, 1997. xxiii, 224 pp. Introduction, notes and comments, suggested readings, glossary, index. US$62.95, hardcover; US$19.95, paper.     

Population density and development potential in rural Zimbabwe: an assessment based on the 1969 and 1982 censuses

"Based on 1969 and 1982 census data, this paper examines the spatial association between high rural population density and development potential in Zimbabwe and its significance for national development policy. A 1982 grid cell density map was compiled on the same geographical frame as an existing 1969 density map, yielding an intercensal density change map. A land classification map and a composite map of development constraints were rasterized on the same spatial framework and subjected to computer analysis. Areas of critically high (and generally increasing) densities showed strong spatial associations with areas of severe development constraints...."