Crossing the Line: The Early Expression of Pattern in Middle Stone Age Africa

This paper provides a synthesis of the currently known evidence for cross-hatch patterning on stone, ochre and ostrich eggshell from Middle Stone Age Africa, between 100,000 and 60,000?BP. The significance of the incised artefacts is that they are used as proxies for an early capacity for symbolic thought, and potentially the emergence of language to convey their meaning. Beyond their significance in theoretical debates, these marked objects demonstrate conjunctions in the expression of design, exhibiting vertical, horizontal and oblique incised or engraved lines, patterns that have been classified as cross-hatching. Yet very little attention has been paid to the patterns themselves. This paper examines the archaeological evidence and looks at why these patterns might be important from a perceptual perspective. Taking a neurological approach, it considers current knowledge of neural, and especially visual, plasticity and the interconnectedness of brain areas relating to vision, learning, memory and emotion.     

Estonian family farms in transition: a study of intangible assets and gender issues in generational succession

This paper, based on interviews, highlights intangible assets in the intergenerational transfer of farms in two Estonian municipalities from a long-term and gender perspective. The study stretches from the interwar period in the twentieth century up to the present. It has been shown that emotional bonds to the land are generally strong in Estonia. This paper aims to highlight how such bonds and feelings may influence decisions on generational succession. The results of the study indicate that family farming and land transfer have had a significant and persistent role in Estonian society, even during the Soviet period under its collectivised system of agriculture. Transfers of intangible assets were important during Soviet rule, for example, the transfer of knowledge about the pre-Soviet property and the value and importance of the farmhouse. Today, family farming is gradually declining in importance, but older traditions of farm and farmhouse transfer can still be found, such as early decisions on who is to be the successor. This is evident among active farmers but also among former farmers with strong emotional bonds to the land. Traditional gender roles tend towards men’s knowledge still generally being more highly valued in the decision about who is to be the successor to the family land.     

Notes,Bibliographies, and Documents

PIERS MACKESY. War without Victory: The Downfall of Pitt, 1799–1802. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984. Pp. xiv, 248. £25.     

Actualites

Nora, P., ed., Les Lieux de memoire (Gallimard, 1984–1993), 7 vols; last published, Les France, 3. De l'archive à l'emblème, 1034pp., ISBN 2 07 072304 6     

Enlivened Geographies of Volunteering: Situated,Embodied and Emotional Practices of Voluntary Action

Abstract

Examining the everyday practices and feelings of volunteering, in particular their situated, emotional and embodied nature, serves to place the experiences of volunteers centrally in accounts of what matters in the doing of volunteering and goes beyond service provision or active citizenship. Using qualitative evidence from three collaborative research projects, we present enlivened geographies of volunteering which focus on: the situatedness of formal volunteering in place and the negotiation of local ‘moral economies’ of norms and expectations surrounding access to volunteering opportunities and the practices of volunteering; complex positionings of informal volunteering in biographies of social participation; and intersections of embodiment and emotions in experiences among environmental volunteers. We contribute to the development of social geographies which are ‘more-than-representational’ and argue that connecting insights on everyday practices of volunteering with wider policy and practice agendas requires a focus on the enduring, but also emergent and excessive nature of the spaces of doing volunteering, on the relational nature of volunteering, and on opening up debates in the networks of research-policy-practice which understand spaces of volunteering as entailing more than volunteering.     

广州 粤色生香

喜欢广州,首先是因为她的温暖。特别是在冬天,北国已经冰天雪地,她还依然花香满城。 更何况,除了温暖和花香,还有选料广博奇异,品种花样繁多,烹调精致细腻,让人想起来就垂涎欲滴的正宗粤菜。     

TECHNOLOGICAL CATCH‐UP AND GEOGRAPHIC PROXIMITY*

ABSTRACT This paper examines productivity catch‐up as a source of establishment productivity growth. We present evidence that, other things equal, establishments further behind the industry frontier experience faster rates of productivity growth. Geographic proximity to frontier firms makes catch‐up faster. Our econometric specification implies a long‐run relationship between productivity levels, where nonfrontier establishments lie a steady‐state distance behind the frontier such that their rate of productivity growth including catch‐up equals productivity growth at the frontier. We use our econometric estimates to quantify the implied contribution to productivity growth of catch‐up to both the national and regional productivity frontiers.