NGOs,Civil Society,and the State in Bangladesh: The Politics of Representing the Poor

The established rhetoric of opposition between state and NGOs as development agents has shifted to one of complementarity and common interest. Along with this, the ‘comparative advantage’ claimed for NGOs has expanded from economic and welfare benefits to encompass also the political goods of civil society and popular participation. This paper reviews these developments in the context of Bangladesh. It argues that they need to be assessed critically in ways which are both theoretically informed and locally contextualized. While recognizing that there are, indeed, areas of common experience and interest between the state and NGOs in Bangladesh, it questions whether these necessarily coincide with the interests of those they all invoke: the poor.     

Revisiting the Cuban Missile Crisis

Book reviewed in this article:
Ernest R. May and Philip D. Zelikow (eds.), The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House during the Cuban Missile Crisis     

Marked occupational dental abrasion from medieval Kent

A medieval male skeleton displays marked dental abrasion which is considered to be occupational, possible related to carpentry. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

TESTING FOR CAUSALITY BETWEEN PRODUCTIVITY AND AGGLOMERATION ECONOMIES

ABSTRACT The productivity effects of agglomeration economies are often treated as endogenous in empirical work due to the potential for reverse causality. The extent to which these relationships are actually simultaneously determined, however, remains largely unobserved. This paper estimates panel data vector autoregressions for different sectors of the economy to test for bidirectional causality between productivity and both localization and urbanization economies. The aim is to address some key questions that will help to identify the extent of the endogeneity problem. Can we actually observe bidirectionality in the data? Does it feature more for some industries than for others? Is it more prevalent for localization or urbanization economies? The results show that agglomeration economies are not strictly unidirectional and that higher levels of productivity can induce growth in the scale of local urban and industrial environments. The paper discusses the difficulties that these issues pose for the estimation of agglomeration economies.     

Landscape bioarchaeology at Pacatnamu,Peru: inferring mobility from δC and δN values of hair

Stable carbon- and nitrogen-isotope ratios were measured for segments along the shafts of hair from eight individuals from the site of Pacatnamu, located in the Jequetepeque Valley on the north coast of Peru. All are from known grave contexts dating from Moche (ca. 450–750 A.D.) to Lambayeque periods (ca. 900–1100 A.D.). The mean δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N values of hair segments from individuals are comparable to those of bone, and demonstrate increased consumption of marine resources in the Lambayeque times relative to the Moche period.     

The Pervasive Nature of Heterodox Economic Spaces at a Time of Neoliberal Crisis: Towards a “Postneoliberal” Anarchist Future

Abstract: Re‐reading the economic landscape of the western world as a largely non‐capitalist landscape composed of economic plurality, this paper demonstrates how economic relations in contemporary western society are often embedded in non‐commodified practices such as mutual aid, reciprocity, co‐operation and inclusion. By highlighting how the long‐overlooked lived practices in the contemporary world of production, consumption and exchange are heavily grounded in the very types and essences of non‐capitalist economic relations that have long been proposed by anarchistic visions of employment and organization, this paper displays that such visions are far from utopian: they are embedded firmly in the present. Through focusing on the pervasive nature of heterodox economic spaces in the UK in particular, some ideas about how to develop an anarchist future of work and organization will be proposed. The outcome is to begin to engage in the demonstrative construction of a future based on mutualism and autonomous modes of organization and representation.     

Influence of seabird guano and camelid dung fertilization on the nitrogen isotopic composition of field-grown maize (Zea mays)

Organic fertilizers have the capacity to alter the nitrogen isotopic composition of plants. Camelid dung and seabird guano are two potentially important fertilizers in the agricultural systems of western South America, particularly Peru and Chile. This paper presents isotopic data (δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N) from field grown plants (maize, Zea mays) fertilized with the following four treatments: CO (control, no fertilizer applied), AS (ammonium sulfate, a chemical fertilizer), DU (camelid dung), and SG (seabird guano). Plants were grown in experimental plots in the Virú Valley, northern Peru. Plants fertilized with the chemical fertilizer presented very similar isotopic compositions compared to the control. Conversely, the camelid dung fertilized plants were characterized by higher δ¹⁵N values compared to the control plants (by 1.8 to 4.2‰ depending on the plant part). The seabird guano fertilized plants were greatly enriched in ¹⁵N in comparison to the control plants (by 11.3 to 20.0‰). The results of this study have important implications for the reconstruction of human diet using isotopic data derived from bone collagen and related tissues, particularly in the prehispanic Andes, but also in Europe and North America during the 19th century, when Peruvian seabird guano was used extensively. Specifically, the interpretation of the relative contributions of plant and animal protein to the diet on the basis of bulk isotopic compositions of bone collagen (or similar tissues) may be confounded by camelid dung fertilization if the carbon isotopic compositions of the two sources are similar. Likewise, the interpretation of the relative contributions of maize and marine protein may be confounded by seabird guano fertilization.