‘Handle with care’: literature,archaeology, slavery

This article examines the relationship between literary and bioarchaeological approaches to slavery, and investigates how the methods and priorities of each discipline might inform each other in understanding what it was like to be enslaved. Both bioarchaeologists and creative writers have attempted to access the inner lives of enslaved people, yet there has been little interaction between them. This paper offers an account of a research project which brought together a literary scholar, two archaeological scientists and seven creative writers to explore how writing might not only communicate a history understood through archaeological evidence, but could itself inform approaches to that evidence. We discuss two key themes which emerged from the project: Conversation and Caring. These themes were crucial to the interdisciplinary process, as it was only through attention to our relationships with each other that we could begin to reassess the nature of material in each of our disciplines.     

Strengthening gender justice in the Asia-Pacific through the Rome Statute

Many conflicts in the Asia-Pacific region have included sexual violence crimes targeted primarily against women. However, in comparison to other regions, Asia-Pacific states have been reluctant to embrace international law innovations to end impunity for such crimes into the future, as evidenced by their unwillingness to become signatories to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Of the 39 countries constituting the Asia-Pacific region, only 17—less than half—have joined the Rome Statute. This article initially surveys some of the reasons for non-ratification of the Statute. It further examines the role of civil society and the potential normative impact of the Statute to enhance national sexual violence legislation and prosecutions. Finally, it identifies some practical steps that the Australian government could take to encourage regional states to ratify, implement and enforce the Rome Statute in order to further protect all victims of international crimes and bolster the broader Women, Peace and Security framework.     

Mother Knows Best? Intergenerational Notions of Fashion and Identity

This paper presents research into intergenerational notions of fashion and identity. It uses examples drawn from the case study interviews with mother–daughter family groups and the participatory method of draw and write with the daughters to illustrate the influences on young girls' fashion choices in the key spaces of childhood: the home, school and community. The findings reveal that young girls both identify and disidentify with fashions and identities available to them. Their mothers play a key role in allowing and restricting certain outfits in certain spaces, with particular distinction being drawn between public and private space. This paper contributes to children's geographies by focusing on intergenerational relationships between mothers and their daughters in relation to theories of identity formation. In doing so this paper highlights how both intergenerational relationships and the girls' identities are mediated through fashion, consumption, peers and the home, school and community spaces.     

A DNA test for sex identification in cattle confirms osteometric results

It is of vital importance to be able to sex identify cattle remains to understand the strategies and importance of cattle husbandry in an ancient society. This is usually done from osteoarchaeological assemblages and often relies on measurements of metapodials. The breadth measurement of the distal trochlea is considered an easy way to identify the sex. Bones from males appears to be easily distinguishable from female counterparts, although it has been complicated to find an external control for the morphological results. Here we investigate the reliability of these particular morphometrics for sex identifying cattle bones with molecular genetics. We use a sex discriminating single nucleotide polymorphism in the ZFXY gene and we apply it to DNA from the bones. To keep the fragment size short and suitable for ancient DNA we base the test on a SNP. The test confirms the osteological sex identification in all cases were DNA could be retrieved. This molecular method can also be used when no fragments suitable for osteological sex identification can be found or when the measurements are non-conclusive.