Linking Up to Development? Global Value Chains and the Making of a Post‐Washington Consensus

Over the last decade, the global value chain (GVC) approach, with its associated notions of chain governance and firm upgrading, has proliferated as a mode of analysis and of intervention amongst development institutions. This article examines the adoption and adaptation of GVCs at four multilateral agencies in order to understand the purchase of value chain approaches within the development field. Mixing GVC perspectives with other theoretical influences and applied practices, these institutions deploy value chain frameworks to signal a new generation of policies that promise both to consolidate, and to advance beyond, the market fundamentalism of the Washington Consensus. To achieve this, value chain development frameworks craft interventions directed toward various constellations of firm and non‐firm actors as a ‘third way’ between state‐minimalist and state‐coordinated approaches. The authors identify key adaptations of the GVC framework including an emphasis on value chain governance as an instrument to correct market failure in partnership with state and development agencies, and upgrading as a de facto tool for poverty reduction. They find that efforts are ongoing to construct a ‘post’ to the Washington Consensus and that the global value chain is enabling this process by providing a new language and new object of development intervention: ‘the chain’ and the local–global linkages that comprise it.     

The Icelandic medieval monastic garden - did it exist?

In the multidisciplinary project presented here, 12 known monastic grounds in Iceland were surveyed by a group of medievalists from different fields in the summers of 2009, 2010 and 2011. The aim of the survey was to increase knowledge of the Icelandic monastic garden and of the plants that were known and used there; to look for possible medieval cultural relict plants; to observe continental influence on the island; and to vitalize discussion and research. Landscape and plants were surveyed at the 12 monastic sites, and full botanical investigations made. Many of the plants found have a medieval past as medicinal and utility plants, and some of their properties may have been common knowledge to medieval Icelanders. An investigation of written sources and archaeological and archaeobotanical findings from excavated sites added to the investigators’ knowledge. So were there monastic gardens in Iceland in the Middle Ages? The answer is a rather confident yes. With all the evidence combined, the investigators were able to trace the deliberate use of medicinal, food and utility plants in the monastic contexts. Whether they were cultivated, tended in situ, gathered growing wild or imported is another matter. Continental influence was more evident than has previously been observed.     

Conciencia nacional y devoción jacobea en el Poema de Fernán González

Jacobean devotion and national awareness are closely related in the Poema de Fernán González (PFG). The great advance of the Reconquest in the thirteenth century and the reevaluation of the past that it caused enabled the broad Hispanic perspective of the PFG. Spain is not only a distant and longed-for reality (“regnum Gothorum”) but a current political concept. This is the frame of the PFG's intense Castilian sentiment. Castile is the bastion of the Visigothic monarchy, which did not yield to the Muslims and was the foundation for the recovery of Spain. The territorial diversity becomes the outstanding feature of this country, in which the “Montaña” takes an important role. Confronting the proposal of the cult of Saint Millán by the Monastery of San Millán de la Cogolla, the author of the PFG, aware of the damages that such a cult was causing to his monastery, clings to the Jacobean devotion that achieved a broad Hispanic scope.     

Jiří Procháska (1749–1820): Part 1: A Significant Czech Anatomist,Physiologist and Neuroscientist of the Eighteenth Century

Ji?í (George) Procháska (1749–1820), a Czech anatomist, physiologist, and neuroscientist of the eighteenth century, ranks among the major figures of Czech and European cultural history. The works of Ji?í Procháska, due to historical circumstances, were published mostly in Latin and only some in German. However, given that only one treatise was partially translated into English, the results of his extensive research activities are currently unavailable to the international scientific community. The achievements of Ji?í Procháska undoubtedly belong to the major intellectual heritage of European science and certainly deserve attention as such, although his research reflected the time in which he lived and therefore has been reevaluated by later researchers. Undoubtedly, it is our duty not only to remember the work and legacy of Ji?í Procháska, which significantly influenced the development of our knowledge, but also to try to critically assess his contribution in terms of today. This article surveys the important biographical events of Ji?í Procháska’s life, taking into account the significance of his research.     

On the Informational Basis of Regional Innovation Policy: From Growth to Capabilities

The shift from the linear to the innovation system-based approach has resulted in the emergence of differentiated regional innovation policy. However, certain common presumptions bind these location-specific policies together. The set of information that is used to design these policies and the set of information excluded are fairly similar. The theoretical sections of this paper provide a critical review on the informational basis of regional innovation policy by contrasting the interpretations of the welfare effects of technological change in the utilitarian tradition and in Sen's capability approach. The empirical sections analyse the correspondence of the innovation capacity and welfare (well-being) situation in a Hungarian micro-regional data set. We conclude that the conventional informational basis of innovation policy is too narrow from a welfare perspective. Not only should the differences in the innovation systems, but also the peculiarities of the region's welfare situation be considered during the design of innovation policy.     

What is a Burin? Typology,Technology, and Interregional Comparison

Classification of artifacts has long marked a significant edge between theory and practice in archaeology. While considering classification to be a necessary methodological device, most practitioners also recognize that it carries with it built-in assumptions. This essay approaches the issue by way of a specific stone tool type from Old World sites: the burin. By asking “what is a burin?” the study shows the need to reconsider typologies to reflect changes in research questions and progress in dating methods, especially when working with museum collections and secondary data between regions and across national traditions, and the need to study whole collections from the perspective of technological choices.     

When the Revolution Reached the Countryside: Use and Destruction of Imported Wares in Alta Gracia,Córdoba, 1810

During the 1970s, excavations were conducted in Alta Gracia, Córdoba, Argentina, in a compound that once was a seventeenth and eighteenth-century Jesuit Convent and is presently a museum. During the excavation, an amazing amount of historic material never studied before was discovered inside a sealed privy. After studying the material, we were able to identify the objects as once belonging to Santiago de Liniers, a man who successfully resisted and expelled British invaders from Buenos Aires. As a result, he was appointed Viceroy, though eventually he was shot in 1810 for confronting the Independence movement. Our hypothesis is that these objects were thrown into the privy as a gesture of contempt associated with his capture and execution.     

Urban development in peripheral regions of the New Europe: The case of Vigo in Galicia

The paper discusses the development of peripheral cities and regions in a world where economic integration is growing. The paper argues that the development of peripheral cities and regions depends on their development potential and accessibility to markets. Their sustainable development, however, lies in the functioning of the forces of development: the organization of the productive system, the diffusion of innovation, the territory's urban development and the change and adaptation of the institutional system. These are forces that govern the economic growth process, generate externalities, and reduce production costs through reciprocal interaction. The paper's discussion is based on the analysis of the dynamics of the city of Vigo in Galicia, a peripheral region of the European Union.     

The Historic Port of El Real de Salinas in Campeche, and the Role of Coastal Resources in the Emergence of Capitalism in Yucatán, México

The emergence of capitalism in the peninsula of Yucatán is generally presented as a process resulting from the capitalization of the agricultural sector and the export of products from its sugar, cotton, and henequén plantations in the nineteenth century. In addition to these products, the peninsula also had a dynamic coastal economy in which the harvesting of salt and the extraction of logwood (Haematoxylum campechianum), played a major role and contributed to the flow of goods to international markets. We present a preliminary archaeological survey and historical documentation of El Real de Salinas, a salt-producing port on the north coast of Campeche, which was also involved in the extraction of other coastal products and closely linked to the inland plantation system.