Engagement in a Public Forum: Knowledge,Action, and Cosmopolitanism

Facing challenges to the civic purpose of higher education, some scholars and administrators turn to the rhetoric of engagement. Simultaneously, the political philosophy of cosmopolitanism has gained intellectual favor, advocating openness to the lived experiences of distant others. We articulate linkages between these two discourses in an extended case study, finding that a cosmopolitan ethos of engagement in a rural context can improve (1) understanding among people ordinarily separated by spatialized social‐ecological differences, (2) prospects for longer term environmental sustainability, and (3) the visionary potential of collaborative inquiry. Despite globalization of food systems and neoliberal shifts in fishery management, an annual fisheries forum facilitates coalitions that overcome dichotomies between technocratic and local knowledge, extending benefits to fishing communities, academia, and public policy. Iterative and loosely structured capacity building expands informally through affective processes of recognition and care, as decentralized leadership supports collective mobilization toward alternate futures.     

Late Holocene Neotropical agricultural landscapes: phytolith and stable carbon isotope analysis of raised fields from French Guianan coastal savannahs

This paper summarizes phytolith analyses from four pre-Columbian agricultural raised-field sites of the coastal savannahs of French Guiana—Savane Grand Macoua, Piliwa, Bois Diable and K-VIII—and carbon isotope analyses from the first-named site. The combined phytolith and ¹³C isotope analyses evidence the transformation of the landscape from a relatively homogeneous wetland vegetation comprised of a mixture of C4 and C3 plants (the latter including Cyperaceae and other herbaceous monocots such as Marantaceae and Heliconia, Oryzoideae grasses, and other plants typical of frequently flooded areas) to the construction of raised fields that were dominated by C4 plants (maize and other Panicoideae grasses). Our analysis proves the utility of phytoliths for tracing the agricultural history of landscapes, showing that, as in other parts of the Central and South American lowlands, maize (Zea mays) was one important crop cultivated in raised fields. We also estimated the productivity of raised-field agriculture, showing that in combination with other subsistence activities, it certainly had the capacity to sustain sizeable populations.     

Still methodologically becoming: collaboration,feminist politics and ‘Team Ismaili’

This article mobilizes a feminist analytic to examine team research and collaborative knowledge production. We center our encounter with team research – a collectivity we named ‘Team Ismaili’ – and our study with first- and second-generation East African Shia Ismaili Muslim immigrants in Greater Vancouver, Canada. We draw upon feminist politics to highlight the ways in which ‘Team Ismaili’ at once destabilized and unwittingly reproduced normative academic power relations and lines of authority. A ‘backstage tour’, of ‘Team Ismaili’ shows the messiness and momentum of team research and sheds light on how collaborative knowledge production can challenge and reconfirm assumed hierarchies. Even as we are still methodologically becoming, through this discussion we strive to interrupt the prevailing silence on team research in human geography, to prompt more dialogue on collaboration and to foreground the insight garnered through feminist politics.     

The question of ‘the political’ in critical geopolitics: Querying the ‘child soldier’ in the ‘war on terror’

After two decades of scholarship on ‘critical geopolitics’, the question of whether it is largely a discursive critique of prevailing knowledge production and geopolitical texts or critique with an implicit, normative politics of its own remains open. These positions are not incommensurate, and much scholarship on critical geopolitics does both. This paper analyzes critical geopoliticians' concern with this question in the present historical moment and probes the possibility of a post-foundational ethic as the basis for ‘the political’ in critical geopolitics and beyond. Empirically, this paper explores these theoretical tensions within ‘critical geopolitics’ by tracing the disparate fates of two young men, both child soldiers at the time of their capture. ‘Child soldier’ is an unstable category subject to geopolitical valence and stigma during the ‘war on terror’. The deployment of extra-legal tactics and spaces of violence, such as those faced by detainees at Guantanamo Bay, point to the rise of biopolitics combined with geopolitics, illustrating the intersection of sovereignty and governmentality as important political fodder for critical geopolitics two decades after its inception. The stories of Canadian Omar Khadr, one of the youngest prisoners at Guantanamo and the only citizen of a Western state still held there, and Ismael Beah, a rehabilitated soldier who fought as a boy from Sierra Leone, illustrate too how geographical imagination strongly shapes access to provisions of international law and the victimized status of ‘child soldier’ in particular.     

Florida's Mystery Wreck

During the summer of 2005 the Florida Bureau of Archaeological Research and the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary investigated an unusual shipwreck in 6 m (20 ft) of water off Marathon in the Florida Keys. Known locally as the 'Mystery Wreck' it remained relatively undisturbed for over two decades until State of Florida and Sanctuary archaeologists conducted a research project to learn more about this fascinating early shipwreck. This paper presents a summary of field investigations and a preliminary interpretation of the shipwreck.
© 2006 The Authors     

Educational Conquest: Schools as a Sphere of Politics in French Mandate Syria, 1936-1946

This article deals with the significance of the school as aspace for colonial and diplomatic power struggles in the FrenchMandate territories of Syria and Lebanon between 1936 and 1945.Often underestimated in their importance to colonial and internationalaffairs, schools were an integral part of France’s precariouspolitical administration in the Levant. Although fiercely anti-clericalat home, the French government relied extensively on long-establishedCatholic missionary schools to entrench its control. These schoolsemerged as a space for conflict, both symbolically and physically,as a result of their association with France’s policyof promoting non-Sunni communities at the expense of the regionalSunni majority. Within the context of these policies, Frenchschools became a symbol of privilege for francophile Christianelites and of oppression for Muslim or pan-Arab groups disaffectedwith the regime. The discussion here addresses the role of schoolsas a focus for conflict and cooperation among French officialsand educators working in the Levant, as a forum for Franco-Syriancolonial interaction and as an object of international diplomaticdispute as Syria gained its independence.     

Biotechnology and Food Safety in China: Consumers’ Acceptance or Resistance?

Although China is one of the world's largest producers and consumers of genetically modified (GM) crops and derived food products, little is known about the level of Chinese consumer awareness, understanding and acceptance of GM food. Initially, China pursued relatively aggressive policies for biotechnology development, but in recent years, the central government has become more sensitive to the potential environmental risks of transgenic food crops. To protect domestic biotech industries, the state plays a critical role in the politics of biotechnology, and does not allow GM food to become a prominent public issue. This contribution reports on a survey of 1,000 urban respondents. It demonstrates that most consumers lack the most basic understanding of biotechnology and its potential risks. The majority of the respondents (60 per cent) were either unwilling to consume GM food or were neutral about the idea, but when given neutrally‐worded information about potential GM food allergenicity, the willingness to buy dropped sharply. This might point to future scenarios of consumer resistance against GM food as has happened in European Union member states. This effect demonstrates the malleability of the Chinese consumer in a context of limited understanding and inadequate access to information.     

Rethinking Middle Bronze Age Communities on Cyprus: “Egalitarian” and Isolated or Complex and Interconnected?

Current views of Cyprus during the Middle Bronze Age (or Middle Cypriot period) depict an island largely isolated from the wider eastern Mediterranean world and comprised largely if not exclusively of “egalitarian,” agropastoral communities. In this respect, its economy stands at odds with those of polities in other, nearby regions such as the Levant, or Crete in the Aegean. The publication of new excavations and new readings of legacy data necessitate modification of earlier views about Cyprus’s political economy during the Middle Bronze Age, prompting this review. We discuss at some length the island’s settlement and mortuary records, materials related to internal production, external exchange and connectivities, and the earliest of the much discussed but still enigmatic fortifications. We suggest that Middle Bronze Age communities are likely to have been significantly more complex, mobile, and interconnected than once envisaged and that the changes that mark the closing years of this period and the transition to the internationalism of Late Bronze Age Cyprus represent the culmination of an evolving series of internal developments and external interactions.