Brideprice and Prejudice: An Audio-Visual Ethnography on Marriage and Modernity in Mt Hagen,Papua New Guinea

The relationship between bridewealth and women's autonomy is not only discussed amongst anthropologists, development practitioners and other scholars but also amongst brides themselves. Women continue to embrace such marital exchanges, despite their knowledge of ‘modern’ development discourse about the constraints of the practice on women's status and its links to gender-based violence. This paper provides a visual exploration of contemporary brideprice practices and women's autonomy in Mt Hagen. We draw on scenes from our ethnographic film (An Extraordinary Wedding: Marriage and Modernity in Highlands PNG) to explore deliberations and developments that occurred in the case of a particular marriage that took place in 2012. We argue that the institution of brideprice has the potential to enhance the visibility of some women and the importance of their contribution to their own and husbands' kin groups. Despite current tensions regarding brideprice, it can serve as an avenue for the enhancement of women's political participation. The particular brideprice exchange featured in our film, raised concerns for the participants, which we consider in terms of three questions: Does brideprice commodify women? Does it play a role in gender-based violence? Is it inimical to aspirations for modernist individuality? We discuss the importance of bekim (‘return gift’) and suggest that this practice challenges the notion of brideprice as a commodity transaction. We argue that, while there may be an association between brideprice and gender-based violence, brideprice, in and of itself, is not causative of violence. The marriage represented in the film, and discussed in this paper, reveals the creativity of participants in adjusting the values inherent in the customary practice of brideprice to their contemporary aspirations.     

The Maritime Cultural Landscape of Northern Patagonia

This article is a contribution to the study of the indigenous navigation and its boats in the region of northern Patagonia. This article also aims to contribute to the understanding of indigenous navigation practices and technologies and their origins from prehistoric times to the mid-twentieth century. It presents and discusses the concept of Westerdahl’s Maritime Cultural Landscape in relation to other landscape concepts. This model is applied to northern Patagonia in order to discuss if it is possible to speak of a true maritime culture in the region. For this purpose, archaeological, historical and ethnographic data are presented in an integrative and innovative methodology for the discipline. Finally, the Maritime Cultural Landscape model will allow the integration of aquatic and terrestrial landscapes as routes traveled by native inhabitants of northern Patagonia and southern Chile, and propose an important and diversified maritime, river and lake tradition.     

Solidarity within limits: Interkit and the evolution of the Soviet Bloc’s Indochina policy, 1967–1985

This article examines how Interkit, the Soviet-controlled ‘anti-China International’, evaluated the development of Sino-Indochinese relations, and which contribution the Vietnamese and Laotian delegations made to the forum’s meetings. It investigates how the various shifts in Sino-Soviet and Soviet-US relations enhanced or reduced Vietnam’s relative importance in Soviet strategy. It describes how the Kremlin sought to dissuade its East European satellites from responding to Beijing’s overtures by presenting the Sino-Vietnamese conflict as evidence of China’s belligerence, and examines the ideological linkage between Soviet superpower hegemony over Eastern Europe and Vietnamese regional hegemony over Indochina.     

Altamira 1937: <Emphasis Type="Italic">Grotta Aperta—</Emphasis>Conflict Archaeology of a World Heritage Cave

This article addresses the dark and barely known side of one of the most iconic symbols of Spanish heritage: the Palaeolithic cave of Altamira (region of Cantabria). The cave is a benchmark of European rock art and was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1985. Access to the cave’s guestbook (inaugurated on 18 August 1928 with King Alfonso XIII’s signature) has granted us the opportunity to deconstruct the hegemonic discourse therein, and to approach a time, the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), which had been left almost without discussion in historical literature on the archaeological site. Conflict Archaeology can cast light on this unknown reality and raise controversial and contentious issues about the Altamira cave and its role as a wartime cultural asset during the war.     

Nunavik and the Multiple Dimensions of Inuit Governance

ABSTRACT

Over the last five decades, the emergence of a sophisticated and multidimensional set of governance institutions in the predominantly Inuit regions of Canada and the circumpolar north has had a profound impact on the lives of Inuit peoples and the states in which they live. The region of Nunavik in northern Québec has played an important role in the political development of the Canadian and circumpolar Inuit, serving as both an institutional innovator and a key source of leadership at the regional, national, and international levels. Using a multilevel governance framework, this article explores the vertical and horizontal dimensions of Inuit governance in Canada and the circumpolar north. In particular, the article will focus on Nunavik’s contribution to and place in this multidimensional governance structure.     

The quest for a traditional style: architecture and heritage processes in a Pyrenean valley

In this article, I focus on the construction and restoration of houses in the Catalan Pyrenees, on their materiality, and specifically on the relationship between architectural and heritage processes that shapes them. I provide an analysis of how architectural forms, norms and regulations, as well as building aesthetics and materials, were transformed in the past decades following a parallel process of changes in the region. The aim is to explore the relationship between the built environment and the cultural and economic shift of the area in recent times. Drawing on extensive ethnographic research conducted in a valley of the Catalan Pyrenees, I show how the material culture, architecture and built environment evolved in close relationship to the spread of heritage discourses leading to a mutually constituting association that helped shape the elements of the new social realities.     

The voices of female pilgrims in medieval wills. The Jacobean devotion in Apulia (Italy)

The main topic of this study is to contribute to the study of female sacred mobility in the Middle Ages by proposing a new approach for the analysis of historical sources (wills and bequests), combining quantitative and qualitative methodology. We have set three aims: (1) Reinforcing the female presence within historical documents through their empirical analysis; (2) Reflecting upon female participation in the public sphere; (3) Investigating women’s agency in religious terms. Concerning the geographical context of the research, the historical sources have been retrieved from the Historical Archives of the Italian Region of Apulia (Italy); where we have studied the above mentioned topics in relation to the devotion to St. James (Spain). The first part of the article introduces female mobility to the city of Santiago de Compostela; then, it moves to the forms of devotion to the Apostle St. James the Greater and female pilgrims in Apulia. The present empirical study has the differential to propose a transversal interpretation of the selected historical texts according to the following criteria: (1) Devotion to the Apostle St. James the Greater (2) Female devotion. As well as reinforcing the use of these historical documents to investigate female social behaviour, the research contributes to the study of the female role within the geography of pilgrimage in the following terms: sacred mobility; territorial history and experiential and devotional value.     

Las estrategias del juego áulico en las comedias mitológicas de Calderón de la Barca

This article studies the particular case of the mythological plays of Calderón that form a cohesive and recognizable set of works in certain circumstances. This kind of comedy is modulated by specific issues of reception, under the dominant global principle of playfulness, through the mechanisms of admiratio, and different strategies of courtly game that can be summarized in four basic areas: conventional comicity, the writing of a theater full of sensorismo, the importance of the intellect games, and finally, the strategies to point identity marks of a particular social group.