Letter from the vatican: 26 April 2015

This narrative deals with the author's experiences while attending a human trafficking panel at the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences (PASS) in the Casina Pio IV, Vatican City, 7–21 April 2015.     

South–South Cooperation and Neoliberal Hegemony in a Post‐aid World

The current iteration of South–South Cooperation (SSC) differs fundamentally from the first manifestation in the early 1970s, largely because of differences in assumptions about who is cooperating with whom and to what end, in the context of SSC. These differences are significant for the material practice of SSC and the ideological function of SSC rhetoric. In this article, the authors argue that contemporary ideas about SSC do not retrieve the radical potential of the original formulation, but rather expand the hegemonic neoliberal world order into a new phase through a reframed idea of the relationships between North and South and between states and markets. This promotes a new common‐sense understanding of the contemporary international political economy while further depoliticizing the idea of development. It hijacks the critical force of dependency theory, harnessing the terminology of the 1970s and a nostalgia for state‐led development to an ideological fix that in fact shores up the neoliberal world order in the context of a potentially destabilizing shift in the functioning of global capital.     

Exchange on the quantitative measurement of ethnic and national identity*

In recent decades, there has been a noticeable increase in the use of quantitative techniques in the study of ethnicity and nationalism, without, however, a sufficient amount of reflection on how these techniques have contributed to our understanding of ethnic and national identities. As such, in this exchange three sets of authors answer questions about the degree to which it is possible to use quantitative data to measure ethnic and national identities, which types of methods are most suitable in measuring these identities and what the major research findings of this quantitative research are that were not possible using qualitative approaches.     

The Scientific and the Scientistic: Roger Scruton on the Consequences of Modern Science

How should we learn to think about scientific advancement and technological mastery to limit our potential for causing additional irreparable damage to ourselves and nature? Roger Scruton's account of science is a necessary reminder of the dangers and limits of technological dependence, the scientific method, and scientistic thought. His analysis is inseparable from his project for the restoration of conservatism. Because he acknowledges that most individuals are partisans of science, he encourages us to consider precisely those aspects of the human experience that are compromised by science and technology to mitigate the damaging effects we have on the environment and our way of life.     

Heritage designation and scale: a World Heritage case study of the Ningaloo Coast

As heritage research has engaged with a greater plurality of heritage practices, scale has emerged as an important concept in Heritage Studies, albeit relatively narrowly defined as hierarchical levels (household, local, national, etcetera). This paper argues for a definition of scale in heritage research that incorporates size (geographical scale), level (vertical scale) and relation (an understanding that scale is constituted through dynamic relationships in specific contexts). The paper utilises this definition of scale to analyse heritage designation first through consideration of changing World Heritage processes, and then through a case study of the world heritage designation of the Ningaloo Coast region in Western Australia. Three key findings are: both scale and heritage gain appeal because they are abstractions, and gain definition through the spatial politics of interrelationships within specific situations; the spatial politics of heritage designation comes into focus through attention to those configurations of size, level and relation that are invoked and enabled in heritage processes; and researchers choice to analyse or ignore particular scales and scalar politics are political decisions. Utilising scale as size, level and relation enables analyses that move beyond heritage to the spatial politics through which all heritage is constituted.     

Giving new meaning to religious conversion: Churches,redevelopment, and secularization in Toronto

Research on secularization has increased in recent years, particularly amongst urban geographers. Yet the debate is still dominated by competing theories that generally fail to account for the many institutions that impede and facilitate religiosity on the urban landscape. This article is about the role that land use planning regulations have had on changes to the religious landscape in Toronto. The empirical focus is on former churches that have recently been converted to residential uses. The larger conceptual goal is to explore the extent to which these transitions affect the religious landscape in the city and to determine what they can tell us about broader processes of secularization.     

X-ray fluorescence analysis of late Roman and Sassanian silver plate

About 200 analyses have been made on late Roman and Sassanian silver objects using energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence. This has shown that the main feature of the composition of the silver throughout the period and across the geographical area studied was towards high fineness (average silver percentage about 95%). Compositional differences are found between Roman and Sassanian silversmiths' products for the elements copper and lead. Much of the material analysed came from hoards, and using a statistical technique on the analytical data (Discriminant Analysis) broad compositional differences between hoards were found to emerge. The use of different compositions of silver for different joined parts of a single object are discussed.