Terra Economica: Waste and the Production of Enclosed Nature

Abstract: This essay provides an analysis of the “dirty” history and geography of enclosure, as both an instance of primitive accumulation and a production of nature. Specifically, I reconsider the English enclosures as a struggle over the land‐use designation of “waste”. Whereas both open fields and common waste lands were an essential and valuable part of the common right economy, advocates of enclosure came to see these same lands as wasted commons; lands that were potentially, but not yet, improved. This dialectic of waste and potential permeates the fabric of the nature produced through enclosure, which I name terra economica. Typically, this terrain has been understood as a passive repository of free resources, extending across absolute space. While such accounts consider the making of nature into a universal means of production, it is equally important to consider the ways in which nature is produced as a universal condition of production.     

Rigorous Reasoning, Reflexive Research and the Space for 'Alternative Archaeologies'. Questions for Maritime Archaeological Heritage Management.

As England's heritage policy is shaped around us, it is vital that there is debate, and some consensus, among the maritime archaeological community on core management questions. These include approaches to degrading underwater sites, how to deal with shipwrecks threatened by development, and crucially, who should be driving these decisions. This paper argues that there is a need for self-critical analysis of the meaning of 'heritage'. It problematises the notion of professional archaeologists as 'guardians of the archaeological record' and the conception of 'heritage' formed without reference to ideas of the past being a product of the present and, therefore, the potential for the production of multiple pasts.
© 2007 The Author     

Settlement history in the eastern Rub al-Khali: Preliminary Report of the Dubai Desert Survey (2006–2007)

Regional archaeological survey in desert areas of Dubai, U.A.E., has identified numerous archaeological sites in this rapidly changing landscape. Subsurface geophysical surveys have been undertaken in concert with surface collection and test excavation to document the extent and chronology of each site. Contrary to expectations that deserts were permanently abandoned following the end of the mid-Holocene pluvial phase around 4000 BC, two sites, Al-Ashoosh and Saruq al-Hadid, show evidence of substantial occupation during the late third and early first millennia respectively. These findings suggest that the Rub al-Khali supported human settlement much later than is generally thought, challenging traditional understandings of the region's cultural and environmental histories.     

The Neoconservatives and the Pope: Misreading John Paul II in George Weigel's Biographies

With the recent release of his autobiographical narrative of the composition of the papal biography, Witness to Hope, prominent Catholic neoconservative George Weigel has invited a reexamination of the presentation of John Paul II to the world by Catholic neoconservatives. In his biographies, George Weigel crafts an often misleading portrait of Pope John Paul II as the pope of American liberalism and neoconservativism. Ironically, at the same time, the story of Weigel's biographies contains the story of the rise and fall of the Catholic neoconservative movement in America.