Expansionary dynamics of the nascent Monte Albán state

The Monte Albán state emerged in the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico, between 300 and 100 BC. Archaeological evidence indicates that this case of state formation was linked to the territorial expansion of the Monte Albán polity. We argue that rulers at Monte Albán adopted an expansionist strategy in order to acquire resources they could use to fund campaigns against rival polities and to bolster their position in a competitive sociopolitical environment. Logistical challenges associated with expansion favored experimentation with new (state) forms of administrative control, while importation of exotic goods contributed to the development of social stratification. Multiple lines of evidence—including excavation data from Tilcajete and Yaasuchi, survey data from the Sola Valley, and a GIS model of potential transportation routes—indicate that the Pacific coast of Oaxaca likely was a target of Monte Albán’s expansion. Our model explains the variable nature of that expansion and its impact on the developmental histories of neighboring regions, as well as the synergistic increase in complexity among interacting societies in Late Formative Oaxaca. Cross-cultural comparison demonstrates that key factors in the formation of the Monte Albán state (e.g., status rivalry, inter-polity conflict, territoriality, militarism, trade) are evident elsewhere in the world.     

Assessing individual systemic stress through cortisol analysis of archaeological hair

As a product of physiological status and the social and physical environments, stress has significant impact on health and well-being in both ancient and contemporary societies. In bioarchaeological research, stress is characterized using an array of skeletal indicators that record stressful periods during childhood and adulthood. In modern clinical research, exposure to stress can be assessed using systemic cortisol levels that have been shown to fluctuate in response to experienced stress. Analysis of cortisol levels in archaeological hair should enable assessment of stress during a short, but critical, period of an individual's life. For this pilot study, we selected hair samples from ten individuals from five different archaeological sites in Peru, and analyzed them in segments to determine cortisol levels. These data demonstrate that it is possible to observe biogenic patterns of cortisol production, and that individual experiences of stress can be reconstructed for the period of time represented by each hair sample. Analysis of cortisol levels in hair has the potential to be a valuable short-term dynamic stress indicator that will complement paleopathological and biochemical studies of health and stress, and permit the reconstruction of increasingly detailed life histories.     

Getting Behind the Grain: The Politics of Genetic Modification on the Canadian Prairies

Abstract: In 2001 a coalition of actors including farm, consumer, health, environmental and industry organizations announced its opposition to Monsanto's attempts to commercialize GM wheat in Canada. Although this coalition consisted mostly of rural and agricultural groups, the three arguments that came to dominate the discourse advanced by the coalition seem, at first glance, to characterize a politics of consumption. These three arguments revolve around market acceptance, environmental risk, and the lack of democratic and transparent process in biotech regulation and policy. This paper argues that producer interests were not displaced by, but rather articulated alongside and through consumer‐driven discourses. In fact, farmers used claims about the supremacy of the consumer and impending environmental change to advance their vulnerable political and economic positions as producers of food.     

The Disappearance of the State from "Livable" Urban Spaces

Abstract:  This paper examines the absence of the state from the discourses and practices of "livable" urban spaces. Drawing from an ethnography of Atlantic Station, the USA's largest new urbanist infill development, we argue that "livable" urban spaces are increasingly arenas for luxury, theater, and consumption, and that the state, while an important actor in the creation of urban spaces such as Atlantic Station, has largely been made invisible. We see this in the absence of public institutions, such as schools, parks, and libraries, and in the absence of a collective political identity among Atlantic Station patrons. The disappearance of the state in the material spaces of the city suggests that the neoliberal project of individualism and consumerism is transforming the very notion of livability and the democratic possibilities of what makes urban space "livable".     

Multi-disciplinary research on the past human ecology of the east Arabian coast: excavations at Hamriya and Tell Abraq (Emirate of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates)

The results of two seasons of research at Hamriya and Tell Abraq (Sharjah, UAE) by an international team of researchers are presented. The research has revealed extensive evidence for occupation from c. 5000 BC to the recent past adjoining lagoon areas that face the Arabian Gulf. C¹⁴ analysis of shells has contributed to understanding the chronology of settlement and also assisted our understanding of species-specific deviation from the global reservoir effect.     

Articulating minority nationhood: cultural and political dimensions in Québec's reasonable accommodation debate

Given their precarious position within larger states, national minorities cannot rely on federal governments to affirm their nationhood. Moreover, insofar as nationhood is predicated on a shared history, language and culture, immigrants place additional strains on the maintenance of national distinctiveness and the political claims that derive from it. In 2006–2007, following a series of confrontations over religious practices in the public sphere, Québec's provincial government appointed the Bouchard–Taylor Commission to investigate avenues for the accommodation of immigrant‐related cultural and religious differences. While it failed to generate policy, the commission did provide a discursive space for the (re)assertion of Québécois nationhood. Analysing the production of national identity in newspaper debates of the Bouchard–Taylor report, we offer an alternative to the ethnic–civic paradigm in nationalism theory. Rather than treat ethnic and civic as two separate ends of a single continuum, we conceptualise a relationship between two dimensions: one of culture and one of politics. We show that in contemporary articulations of Québec national identity, the prerequisites of political membership derive their meaning from a productive tension between blood‐based and adoptive conceptions of national culture.     

Economics,Politics, and Storytelling in the Yangzi Delta since 1949

Empirically rich and historically illuminating, Gilded Voices contributes a new and important perspective to the growing field of scholarship dedicated to rethinking PRC cultural history beyond the conventional dichotomy of Mao-era state domination and Reform Era autonomy, By corroborating a range of historical source materials-from personal interviews, municipal archives, periodicals, and audiovisual recordings-Qiliang He constructs a convincing argument that market competition and pursuit of individual livelihood played a much larger role in early PRC culture than previously thought, a pattern that, He shows, continues in the Reform Era, rather than emerging after the Cultural Revolution as something new.     

From Politicization to Policing: The Rise and Decline of New Social Movements in Amsterdam and Paris

This paper analyzes the rise and decline of social movements in Amsterdam and Paris, focusing in particular on the organizations of left‐wing immigrant workers. These organizations performed crucial roles for new social movements in the 1970s and 1980s but were isolated and coopted in the 1990s and early 2000s. To explain why this is so, we engage in a dialogue with Jacques Rancière and develop an understanding of cities as strategic sites for both politicization and policing. Cities serve as sites of politicization because they are incubators of the relational conduits that enable activists from different sectors to engage with one another's struggles and look beyond narrow temporal and spatial horizons. However, cities also serve as sites of policing because authorities constantly attempt to reconfigure governmental arrangements in such a way that civil society serves as an extension of the government and comes to fulfill an instrumental role in the development and implementation of policy. Just as politicizing implies the widening of temporal and spatial horizons, policing implies the narrowing of such horizons. The analysis shows the social movements of the 1960s lost steam in two of the major hubs of the new left and reveals some of the more universal mechanisms through which cities generate or quell dissent.     

Beautiful face,beautiful place: relational geographies and gender in cosmetic surgery tourism websites

Cosmetic surgery tourism is a significant and growing area of medical tourism. This article explores the gendered construction of cosmetic surgery tourism in different geographical locations through an analysis of destination websites in Spain, the Czech Republic and Thailand. We examine the ways in which gender and other intersections of identity interact with notions of space, place and travel to construct particular locations and cosmetic surgery tourist experiences. The relational geographies of skill, regulation and hygiene in discourses of cosmetic surgery risk are also explored. We conclude that accounts producing cosmetic surgery tourism as undifferentiated experience of ‘non-place’ fail to acknowledge the complex constructions of specific destinations in promotional materials targeting international consumers in a global marketplace.