Am I going mad?: Adverse meditation events and the anthropology of ethics

There has been growing interest in meditation adversities amongst mindfulness communities in recent years. This article documents US meditator distress upon experiencing incoherence in the eclectic resources supporting their practice. How might the anthropology of ethics consider self-cultivation practices when the traditions supporting them fail due to incoherence? We need further research on moral bricolage to answer that question.     

The Census as an Accurate Source of Information: The Value of Mid-Nineteenth Century Manufacturing Returns

Every census of the United States contains numerous errors, as many in the population returns as elsewhere, but on this account it has never been concluded that these returns are useless. In the absence of better data they afford an approximation of good value and the results they exhibit are treated as matters of verity. Such in their aggregate they are, while in many of their details they may be grossly defective.     

Paleocene flora from Seymour Island,Antarctica: revision of Dusén’s (1908) angiosperm taxa

The Paleocene flora from Seymour Island, Antarctica, is one of the most diverse floras of this age in the Southern Hemisphere. First collected on the Swedish South Polar Expedition (1901–1903), it was described by Dusén in 1908 as having 87 leaf taxa. Forty-seven angiosperm taxa were described and/or illustrated. Many species are based on single specimens, and the flora has not been re-examined in its entirety since it was first described. This study is the first reassessment of the flora updating the original research using current methodologies, and permitting evaluation of the flora in the context of modern ideas on plant evolution and palaeogeography. This paper continues the revision of the material first studied by Dusén; a previous paper described the ferns and gymnosperms; here we describe the angiosperms. The revision is based on the original collections held at the Swedish Museum of Natural History, together with the first major new collections held at the British Antarctic Survey. Among the taxa recognized by Dusén, we recognize only three entire-margined and 11 tooth-margined angiosperms. This revision to 14 species notably lacks the two tropical elements originally described from the flora, Mollinedia seymourensis and Miconiiphyllum austral. Hence, its status as a ‘Mixed Flora’ comes into question and influences climatic interpretations based on Gondwanan floras. Anne-Marie Tosolini^? [a.tosolini@unimelb.edu.au], Department of Earth Sciences, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK, and Environmental Geoscience, Latrobe University, Victoria, 3086, Australia; David Cantrill [david.cantrill@rbg.vic.gov.au], National Herbarium of Victoria, Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne, Private Bag 2000, Birdwood Ave, South Yarra, Victoria, 3141, Australia; Jane Francis [j.francis@earth.leeds.ac.uk], Department of Earth Sciences, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK. ?Present address: School of Earth Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia. Received 5.5.2012; revised 13.12.2012; accepted 7.1.2012.     

Friendship as a Political Challenge

Abstract

Blitz argues for the necessity and possibility of political philosophy by uncovering its origins in the thought of Plato. By tracing its emergence from the political and moral, Blitz explains the nature of philosophy.     

Living with crime: spaces of risk for homeless young people

This paper reports on a study of victimization, offending and fear among homeless young people in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, which employed a participatory methodology. These young people live in marginal and often invisible spaces, yet are subject to a high degree of regulation which structures their experiences of risk. Their accounts demonstrate that an ‘either/or’ distinction which often structures understanding of offenders and victims, feared and fearful, and safe and dangerous spaces has led to their experiences being poorly represented. Homeless young people are often multiply positioned in relation to crime, an understanding which challenges the current political climate in Britain.