Anthropology, ‘Native Schooling’ and Maori: the Politics of ‘Cultural Adaptation’ Policies

This paper examines three policies of ‘cultural adaptation’ formulated in colonial contexts in the 1920s and 1930s — that of the British Colonial Office for education in Africa, that of the New Zealand Native Schools and that of Maori leaders. While clearly inter-related, these policies were developed and promoted by their respective proponents to serve widely different political goals. Particularly significant is the role played by anthropology in that context. Proponents of all three policies looked to anthropologists for insights and scientific validation of their political agendas. Anthropologists, in turn, not only accepted this role but, particularly in the case of the British Colonial education policy, actively claimed it, involving themselves in the processes of colonial control.     

Social capital determinants and labor market networks

We explore the links between determinants of social capital and labor market networks at the neighborhood level. We harness rich data taken from multiple sources, including matched employer–employee data with which we measure the strength of labor market networks, data on neighborhood homogeneity that has previously been tied to social capital, and new data—not previously used in the study of social capital—on the number and location of nonprofit sector establishments at the neighborhood level. We use a machine learning algorithm to identify the potential determinants of social capital that best predict neighborhood‐level variation in labor market networks. We find evidence suggesting that smaller and less centralized schools, and schools with fewer poor students, foster social capital that builds local labor market networks, as does a larger Republican vote share. The presence of establishments in a number of nonprofit‐oriented industries are identified as predictive of strong labor market networks, likely because they either provide public goods or facilitate social contacts. These industries include, for example, churches and other religious institutions, fire and rescue services including volunteer fire departments, country clubs and golf courses, labor unions, chamber music groups, hobby clubs, and schools.     

Earliest Evidence for the Ivory Trade in Southern Africa: Isotopic and ZooMS Analysis of Seventh–Tenth Century <Emphasis Type="SmallCaps">ad</Emphasis> Ivory from KwaZulu-Natal

KwaGandaganda, Ndondondwane and Wosi were major Early Farming Community settlements in what is today the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa. These sites have yielded, among other remains, abundant evidence of ivory and ivory working dating to the seventh–tenth centuries ad, pre-dating by approximately 200 years the better-known ivory artefacts from sites in the Limpopo River Valley and surrounding regions. We report the results of carbon, nitrogen and strontium isotope analysis to explore the origins and procurement of this ivory, in combination with Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS) to identify the species of animals from which it was derived. All of the ivory studied using ZooMS was elephant, despite the presence of hippopotamus remains on all three sites. Some ivory was probably obtained from elephant herds that lived close to the sites, in the densely wooded river valleys favoured by both elephants and early farmers. Other material came from savannah environments further afield. Ivory found at these three sites was drawn from different catchments, implying a degree of landscape/resource partitioning even at this early stage. These communities clearly invested substantial effort in obtaining ivory from across the region, which speaks to the importance of this commodity in the economy of the time. We suggest that some ivory items were for local use, but that some may have been intended for more distant markets via Indian Ocean trade.     

Uncommon Groundings: Fred B. Kniffen's Place in Current Cultural Geography

Fred Bowerman Kniffen's academic career started in the 1920s at a time when cultural geography in North America was getting underway. For more than 60 years, Kniffen played a prominent role in its formation and elaboration. His contribution centered on material cultural studies, particularly folk housing, and the patterns and processes of the diffusion of the cultural elements of ordinary people. However, Kniffen's legacy within contemporary cultural geography extends beyond these central concerns. This essay examines Kniffen's relation to mass or popular culture studies, material culture studies, Berkeley school cultural geography and the "new" cultural geography. It considers the bases for Kniffen 's appeal to a diverse following, and suggests why his contributions will not be soon outmoded.     

The Mafia,the market and the state in Italy and Russia

Pino Arlacchi (1983) La mafia imprenditrice (Bologna: II Mulino); translated by Martin Ryle as Mafia Business: The Mafia Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (London: Verso, 1986), $13.95, ISBN 0‐86091‐892‐0.

Raimondo Catanzaro (1988) II delitto come impresa: storia sociale della mafia (Padua: Liviana Editrice); translated by Raymond Rosenthal as Men of Respecc: A Social History of the Sicilian Mafia (New York: Free Press, 1992), $22.95, hardback, ISBN 0‐02‐905325‐0.

Diego Gambetta (1992) La mafia siciliana: Una industria della protezione privata (Turin: Einaudi revised paperback edn, 1994); translated as The Sicilian Mafia: The Business of Private Protection (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993), $39.95 hardback, ISBN 0‐674‐80741‐3.

Salvatore Lupo (1993) Storia della mafia dalle origini ai giorni nostri (Rome: Donzelli Editore).

Alexander Stille (1995) Excellent Cadavers: The Mafia and the Death of the First Italian Republic (New York: Pantheon), ISBN 0679425799.

Stephen Handelman (1995) Comrade Criminal: Russia's New Mafiya (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press), $27.50, hardback, ISBN 0‐300‐06352‐0.

Robert Putnam (1993) Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press), $39.95, hardback, $14.95, paperback, ISBN 0‐691‐03738‐8.