Toronto's Health Department in action: influenza in 1918 and SARS in 2003

This article compares the Toronto Health Department's role in controlling the 1918 influenza epidemic with its activities during the SARS outbreak in 2003 and concludes that local health departments are the foundation for successful disease containment, provided that there is effective coordination, communication, and capacity. In 1918, Toronto's MOH Charles Hastings was the acknowledged leader of efforts to contain the disease, care for the sick, and develop an effective vaccine, because neither a federal health department nor an international body like WHO existed. During the SARS outbreak, Hastings's successor, Sheela Basrur, discovered that nearly a decade of underfunding and new policy foci such as health promotion had left the department vulnerable when faced with a potential epidemic. Lack of cooperation by provincial and federal authorities added further difficulties to the challenge of organizing contact tracing, quarantine, and isolation for suspected and probable cases and providing information and reassurance to the multi-ethnic population. With growing concern about a flu pandemic, the lessons of the past provide a foundation for future communicable disease control activities.     

“Our Journey,Our Choice,Our Future”: Huu‐ay‐aht First Nations’ Self‐Government enacted through the Maa‐nulth Treaty with British Columbia and Canada

In 2011, Huu‐ay‐aht First Nations became one of five Nuu‐chah‐nulth Nations on the west coast of Vancouver Island in Canada to implement the Maa‐nulth Treaty with the Province of British Columbia and Canada. Modern treaties are dense and lengthy legal documents that exhaustively set out the obligations of each signatory party. They are heavily criticised for being unjust extensions of colonialism that limit Indigenous self‐determination and transform homelands under settler colonial property regimes. Yet, some First Nations accept these agreements as their chosen path for self‐government in state structures. We document Huu‐ay‐aht First Nations’ decision‐making that resulted when the Maa‐nulth Treaty was implemented and replaced the Indian Act by analysing the Maa‐nulth Treaty and interviews conducted with Huu‐ay‐aht First Nations leadership. We demonstrate how ?iisaak (respect) and ?uu?a?uk (taking care of) guided Huu‐ay‐aht First Nations’ self‐government, while nesting this discussion in the complexities and critiques of modern treaties.     

Blurred lines: the home front,the battlefront,and the wartime relationship between citizens and government in the Republic of Vietnam

In the Republic of Vietnam, the blending of the home and battle fronts shaped the relationship between citizens and their government. Civilians viewed the national government as the institution responsible for various forms of social welfare related to the war and the resulting militarisation of non-combatants’ lives. An examination of citizens’ letters to its ministries shifts the focus from questions of political legitimacy to citizens’ expectations of their government. The role of gender in family and social structures also shaped how Vietnamese civilians perceived their war experiences and their relationships to the government.     

New World Paleoethnobotany in the New Millennium (2000–2013)

This article evaluates the current state of paleoethnobotany since Hastorf’s 1999 review published in this journal. We discuss advances in methods, ancient subsistence reconstructions, the origins and intensification of agriculture, and how plants inform on issues of political economy and identity. Significant methodological developments in the extraction, identification, and analysis of starch grains and phytoliths have led to advancements in our knowledge of early plant domestication and the transition to food production. Paleoethnobotanists increasingly are using more complex quantitative techniques to characterize their data, which have resulted in more nuanced interpretations of plants that fall within the purview of social archaeology and allow us to address issues related to gender, identity, and ritual practice.     

‘Our ongoing fight for justice’: the pasts and futures of genocidio and justicia in Guatemala

ABSTRACT

After the abrogation of the guilty verdict against Efrain Ríos Montt, young people from the group Sons and Daughters of the Disappeared (H.I.J.O.S.) issued the following statement: ‘More than a failure, this can breathe life into our ongoing fight for justice’. While this affirmation seems at first eccentric, or incidental, this article demonstrates how H.I.J.O.S.’s claim situates the Ríos Montt verdict within a longer history of justice and genocide in Guatemala. First, I trace the history of the meaning of justice and genocide among urban ladino university students from the 1940s to the 1990s. Next, I discuss youth politics and culture in the postwar period and locate H.I.J.O.S. within this context. Finally, I demonstrate how H.I.J.O.S.’s ongoing fight compels us to rethink the meanings of justice. Against apparently objective sums of the dead and disappeared that might be calculated and have their debts settled, a call emerges for ‘justice-ongoing’ after the annulment of the Ríos Montt verdict, one that insists upon incalculability and the imperative to remember and to remain provoked. For H.I.J.O.S.’s justice-ongoing, the past is not merely passed.     

Early European Experience in Marine Spatial Planning: Planning the German Exclusive Economic Zone

Marine spatial planning is emerging as an integrated, resource management-led approach to governing the use of the seas. Recent initiatives include those of some north European countries, including Germany, which has now completed a plan for its federal offshore territory. In this article, an analysis is presented of this pioneering plan and the consultation process behind its production, with a particular emphasis on the treatment of different sectoral interests around which the plan was structured. This revealed the attempts to coordinate not only the different demands at sea by means of allocation of areas and cross-sectoral considerations, but also the uneven representation of activities with certain interests gaining strongly and others effectively marginalized. This study provides early empirical evidence of the tensions involved in the attempt to adopt a spatial approach to marine governance. This new domain for planning is situated in the overlapping, but distinct domains of marine management and spatial planning. The conceptual backgrounds of both are drawn upon in assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the plan and in suggesting how marine plans might gain by giving close attention to the broader principles of marine and strategic planning.