‘Black Economic Empowerment’, Business and the State in South Africa

‘Black Economic Empowerment’ (BEE) has been a major policy thrust of the democratic governments in South Africa since 1994 in attempting to redress the effects of apartheid. In this article, we explore the historical precedents to BEE in South Africa, review the different steps taken in promoting it, and assess some of its outcomes to date. We argue that BEE can take only limited forms because of the economic policy constraints in which it has been incorporated. Moreover, these forms have an increasingly managerial logic that further restricts what can be achieved. Short of a major shift in conceptions of — and policy for — BEE, meaningful ‘empowerment’ is unlikely to take place.     

Investigating Identity and Life Histories: Isotopic Analysis and Historical Documentation of Slave Skeletons Found on the Cape Town Foreshore, South Africa

Isotopic analysis of skeletons excavated during the 1950s has confirmed that they are the remains of shipwreck victims: slaves on board the Portuguese slaving brig Pacquet Real when it sank on 18 May 1818. Twenty-five slaves drowned and the remaining 133 became Prize Negroes at the Cape. The isotopic signatures are consistent with values expected for people living in an African village eating a terrestrially based diet. Analyses of different skeletal elements, i.e., teeth, long bone, and rib, are shown to be a valuable tool in tracing change or consistency in diet during a person's life, because different skeletal elements form at different stages of life and, subsequently, remodel at different rates. A comparison of isotope ratios from different skeletal elements indicates a change in diet in all these individuals, probably coincident with their enslavement. Variation between individuals in the isotopic composition of diets eaten early in life is sufficiently large to deduce heterogeneous origins for the group.     

Local diversity in settlement,demography and subsistence across the southern Indian Neolithic-Iron Age transition: site growth and abandonment at Sanganakallu-Kupgal

The Southern Indian Neolithic-Iron Age transition demonstrates considerable regional variability in settlement location, density, and size. While researchers have shown that the region around the Tungabhadra and Krishna River basins displays significant subsistence and demographic continuity, and intensification, from the Neolithic into the Iron Age ca. 1200 cal. BC, archaeological and chronometric records in the Sanganakallu region point to hilltop village expansion during the Late Neolithic and ‘Megalithic’ transition period (ca. 1400–1200 cal. BC) prior to apparent abandonment ca. 1200 cal. BC, with little evidence for the introduction of iron technology into the region. We suggest that the difference in these settlement histories is a result of differential access to stable water resources during a period of weakening and fluctuating monsoon across a generally arid landscape. Here, we describe well-dated, integrated chronological, archaeobotanical, archaeozoological and archaeological survey datasets from the Sanganakallu-Kupgal site complex that together demonstrate an intensification of settlement, subsistence and craft production on local hilltops prior to almost complete abandonment ca. 1200 cal. BC. Although the southern Deccan region as a whole may have witnessed demographic increase, as well as subsistence and cultural continuity, at this time, this broader pattern of continuity and resilience is punctuated by local examples of abandonment and mobility driven by an increasing practical and political concern with water.     

Augustine's Ciceronian Response to the Ciceronian Patriot

This article argues that in the City of God Augustine takes up Cicero's project of cultivating good citizens through philosophy and rhetoric. He addresses the same audience, the dedicated citizen, with a new teaching, echoing the Ciceronian concern with Rome's moral decline and affirming the Ciceronian longing for justice, peace and true community. Yet, in teaching why neither Rome nor the Roman is better off when the citizen devotes himself completely to his earthly patria, Augustine challenges Cicero's construal of good citizenship. In this way, he offers dedicated citizens a new paradigm that remains true to Ciceronian concerns while surpassing the Ciceronian framework.     

Mitochondrial DNA from 3000-year old chickens at the Teouma site,Vanuatu

Chickens were part of the Lapita cultural complex, transported into and through the Pacific by prehistoric colonists; as such they can be used as a proxy for tracking prehistoric migration and interaction. The Lapita site of Teouma in Vanuatu is well known for the recovery of complete dentate stamped pots and a cemetery containing the largest collection of Lapita period skeletons ever found. Chicken bones recovered from these excavations provide the first ancient DNA sequences from any commensal organism directly associated with a Lapita context. The ancient mtDNA sequences obtained from two Teouma chicken bones are compared with previously published archaeologically derived ancient DNA sequences to extend our understanding of the spread of chickens in Pacific prehistory. The results also show that the haplogroup E signature was present in very early populations of chickens transported into Remote Oceania. This study also adds to the suite of available data relating to isotopic signatures for commensal animals during the early settlement of Vanuatu and may reveal a different diet for Teouma chickens than those from other early prehistoric assemblages in the Pacific.