The Ties that Unwind: Civic and Ethnic Imaginings in New Zealand

Abstract. This paper argues that examining the interweaving of ethnic and civic elements best explains current tensions in ethnic politics in New Zealand in elite state and nation‐building and how these shape patterns of inclusion or exclusion of aboriginal and immigrant minorities. Theories of ethnic and civic nationalism are discussed briefly and the distinctiveness of settler societies is explored. Recent trends promoting biculturalism and multiculturalism are examined. A discussion of legal citizenship since 1840 reveals the linkages and persistence of three historical trajectories – the decolonising of aboriginal people (Maori), the de‐colonial movement among Pakeha (‘white Europeans’), and the partial de‐alienising of immigration. These trajectories, I conclude, reflect in‐built tensions between different historical and current ethnic and civic representations of the New Zealand nation‐state.     

Building Anderita Late Roman Coastal Defences and the Construction of the Saxon Shore Fort at Pevensey

The construction of the Roman coastal installation at Pevensey (East Sussex) in the late third century represented a building project of considerable importance, size and complexity. A study of the surviving material has identified the lithologies employed in the fort's construction, the approximate quantities in which they were present and the likely areas from which they were quarried. Local sources were exploited wherever possible, although an insufficient supply of brick seems to have forced the builders to look further afield for a substitute material for use in the bonding courses. The location of the quarries suggests that the majority of raw materials were moved by boat, and that the transport fleet required was remarkably small. Estimates of the length of construction for the later series of Shore Forts range from less than three years to over four decades. The labour and transport requirements have been calculated for Pevensey, allowing a discussion of the feasibility of each of these proposed time scales. It is argued that all were achievable, although in the briefer scenarios the army would have been unable to provide sufficient manpower, necessitating a draft of civilian labourers.     

Exile at home: A matter of being out of place

This article employs Hannah Arendt's theorizing about assimilation to consider how sovereign citizens of a nation state might nevertheless experience a sense of exile. It builds on Aziza Khazzoom's notion of a ‘chain of Orientalism’ to suggest that the assimilation of Europe's Jews to Enlightenment ideals has had ongoing repercussions among Jews in the modern state of Israel. The article focuses on what it means to be Jewish in terms of religious observance, and who feels at home in the Jewish state. Employing vignettes from recent ethnographic fieldwork, it raises questions about the modern nation state's capacity to create conditions in which its own ‘people’ can flourish. In this case, Israel has claimed to make it possible for the Jews to flourish, in Arendt's terms, ‘as Jews’, but it is far from clear what ‘as Jews’ would, could or should mean. This leads the author to suggest that Israel has a Jewish problem.     

Cartographic ideals and geopolitical realities: international maps of the world from the 1890s to the present

This paper charts the attempts to construct an international map of the world using a standard projection and common conventions and symbols. The first part of the paper discusses the original incarnation of this idea, the International (1:1 Million) Map of the World (IMW), initially proposed by the German geographer Albrecht Penck in the early 1890s. The IMW was designed to challenge the idea that cartography was an inherently national science undertaken by, and for, specific nation states. Despite endless negotiations, delays and compromises, two world wars and the withdrawal of American support, the IMW project continued through the early and middle decades of the twentieth century, initially at the British Ordnance Survey and subsequently at the United Nations, only to fizzle out in the 1970s. The second part of the paper examines the Global Mapping Project (GMP), the latest manifestation of the same idea. Global Map, the first version of which was released in 2000, is an attempt to construct a single world map for the digital age. Like the IMW before it, Global Map is designed to facilitate a common, trans-national understanding of global problems. However, the technical, institutional and application challenges facing the GMP are different from those that confronted the IMW. Whereas the primary purpose of the IMW was never consistently defined, Global Map has a clearer environmental and educational objective. But if Global Map is to become an effective tool for sustainable environmental management and development, its advocates will need to learn the lessons of the IMW's failure and secure renewed international commitment to the value of international mapping.     

Dendrochemical analysis of a tree-ring growth anomaly associated with the Late Bronze Age eruption of Thera

The most marked tree-ring growth anomaly in the Aegean dendrochronological record over the last 9000 years occurs in the mid 17th century BC, and has been speculatively correlated with the impact of the Late Bronze Age eruption of Thera (Santorini). If such a connection could be proved it would be of major interdisciplinary significance. It would open up the possibility of a precise date for a key archaeological, geological and environmental marker horizon, and offer a direct tie between tree-ring and ice-core records some 3600 years ago. A volcanic explanation for the anomaly is highly plausible, yet, in the absence of a scientifically proven causal connection, the value of the proposed correlation is limited. In order to test the hypothesis, dendrochemical analysis via Synchrotron Radiation Scanning X-ray Fluorescence Microscopy (SXFM), Inductively Coupled Plasma Atomic Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-AES) and Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectroscopy (ICP-MS) was carried out on growth-ring series from four trees displaying the anomaly. Increases of sulfur, calcium, and rare earth elements following the onset of altered growth, plus concentration spikes of zinc and hafnium in the first affected growth-ring provide promising new evidence in support of a volcanic causal factor. Although a volcanic association is implied, the new data are not sufficient to prove a link to the exact eruption source.     

Urban foraging and the relational ecologies of belonging

Through a discussion of urban foraging in Seattle, Washington, USA, we examine how people's plant and mushroom harvesting practices in cities are linked to relationships with species, spaces, and ecologies. Bringing a relational approach to political ecology, we discuss the ways that these particular nature–society relationships are formed, legitimated, and mobilized in discursive and material ways in urban ecosystems. Engaging closely with and as foragers, we develop an ethnographically grounded ‘relational ecologies of belonging’ framework to conceptualize and examine three constituent themes: cultural belonging and identity, belonging and place, and belonging and more-than-human agency. Through this case study, we show the complex ways that urban foraging is underpinned by interconnected and multiple notions of identity, place, mobility, and agency for both humans and more-than-human interlocutors. The focus on relational ecologies of belonging illuminates important challenges for environmental management and public space planning in socioecologically diverse areas. Ultimately, these challenges reflect negotiated visions about how we organize ourselves and live together in cosmopolitan spaces such as cities.