On the challenge of relevance

Thomas Weaver, ed. To See Ourselves: Anthropology and Modern Social Issues. Glenview, Ill.: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1973. 485 pp. Illustrations, tables, and index. $6.50 (paper).     

Rethinking electoral geography: spaces and practices of democracy in Nicaragua

Despite engagements with Foucauldian and Deleuzian insights by many geographers, concerns remain that we are still failing to understand the difference geography makes to the exercise of power. This article, which focuses on the 2006 Nicaraguan elections, has three main aims. The first is to explore the relationship between power and space through the lens of an electoral campaign. The second is to contribute to recent attempts to theoretically reinvigorate electoral geography. The third is to provide an alternative reading of democratisation in Nicaragua. Ultimately, this article focuses on how ordinary people in the interests of creating a better life for themselves make do with the circumstances in which they live.     

Teaching the Politics of Obesity: Insights into Neoliberal Embodiment and Contemporary Biopolitics

Abstract:  This article reflects on the author's experiences teaching an undergraduate lecture course on the politics of obesity. The course involved a critical examination of the construction and representation of the so-called epidemic of obesity and the major causal explanations for the rise in obesity. Students were unusually discomfited by the course and invoked pedagogical concerns and instructor embodiments in expressing their reactions. Student responses demonstrate how obesity talk reflects and reinforces neoliberal rationalities of self-governance, particularly those that couple bodily control and deservingness and see fatness as weakening the health of the body politic. The course also animated many students to scrutinize more deeply their own diet and exercise practices. I argue that the intensity of reaction stems from the productive power of the discourse of obesity and considerable investment students had in their bodies as neoliberal subjects. Besides classroom observations, the data in this paper are taken from student journals.     

Prouille,Madrid, Rome: the evolution of the earliest Dominican Instituta for nuns

The lifestyles of the three earliest Dominican women's communities were formulated according to their specific historical conditions and exigencies during the years 1206–21. Initially, the women associated with the preaching mission of Diego of Osma and Dominic Guzman were based at Prouille in the Languedoc and followed the Augustinian Rule. The development of the first instituta for Dominican nuns was the result of 15 years of overseeing the lives of the sisters. However, enclosure, and the institutional requirement for its observance, only came about in 1220 with the establishment of San Sisto, when St Dominic wrote an instituta specifically intended for a cloistered nunnery. This paper retraces and elucidates the historical development of the first Dominican instituta for women, and considers the remarkable choice of the Augustinian Rule as the basis for an enclosed women's order.     

The Process is the Outcome

Ethics are the key to what WAC is all about. It is our stated responsibility as WAC members to help shed the dark disciplinary past and forge a future archaeology of solidarity with the aim of fostering equality (but not sameness) among people everywhere. The present Forum section of Archaeologies showcases the scope and depth of the discussions surrounding this core aspect of WAC, which took place at the first meeting of the Committee on Ethics (henceforth CoE) at Stanford Archaeology Center (California, USA) from April 19th to 21st 2007. It is an invitation to WAC members and others to partake in the process of drafting a “General Code of Ethics” for WAC, a process that ultimately is much more about inclusive discussions and decisions on a framework for ethical practice than about writing a text or proscribing how to behave. The second affiliation for Julie Hollowell will be in effect from 15 December 2007.     

Walking the creek: reconnecting place through light projection

In this paper, we explore how a light projection sought to convey a range of qualities: conviviality, a sense of place, playfulness, defamiliarisation, and the affective and sensory capacities that were experienced through walking in the distinctive, liminal realm of Bendigo Creek in Victoria, Australia. The projection aspired to solicit a sensory and affective empathy that chimed with the experiences of an earlier event in which dozens of pedestrians were filmed walking in the creek. The projection contributed to a local campaign to reappraise the much‐maligned creek as a local public amenity. We discuss the productive potential of solitary and collective walking and, subsequently, the attributes of the projection in its static and mobile manifestation. In so doing, we suggest that publicly engaged, inclusive, creative practice can offer potent place‐making possibilities.     

Measuring children's independent mobility: comparing interactive mapping with destination access and licence to roam

Children's independent mobility (IM) lacks a standardised definition and measurement protocol. Interactive mapping applications can capture geographically defined mobility data. In this study of 219 children, independent parental licences (IM Licence) and allowances to travel to certain locations unsupervised (IM Index) were collected through a questionnaire, and compared to IM-roaming areas derived from the Visualisation and Evaluation of Route Itineraries, Travel Destinations, and Activity Spaces (VERITAS-IM) mapping application. Significant relationships were found between the VERITAS-IM-derived measures and traditional measures of IM (IM Licence and IM Index). Results suggest the perceived degree of children's IM is heavily dependent on the assessment method and a combination of methods should be considered.     

Building Bridges Through Performance and Decision‐making: Schools,Research and Public Engagement

Abstract: This paper uses the impact agenda in the UK to realign debate about the relationship between schools, universities and (human) geography. It positions this debate in systemic tendencies within UK higher education. It argues that, whilst impact can be seen as a further instance of neoliberalism, emphasising the gap between accountability and accounting allows an identification with communicative and reflexive knowledge and, more broadly, critical praxis. The paper draws on a year‐long research‐based collaboration with school teachers and their students involving performance work and the development of decision‐making curriculum materials. It argues that working in these ways with schools can provide the basis for public engagement partnerships between schools and universities and a means to constitute diverse research publics. In these ways, it is argued, a wider sense of impact can be reappropriated, to reclaim the critical subject and to constitute academic value     

A systematic approach to the recovery and identification of starches from carbonised deposits on ceramic vessels

Starch granules are being successfully recovered from an increasing range of artefacts. Here we present the recovery of starches from carbonised ceramic ‘foodcrusts’ from late Mesolithic–early Neolithic residues at the site of Neustadt in northern Germany. A method for investigating background loading of residues with contaminant starches is proposed by comparing interior ‘foodcrusts’ versus exterior ‘sooting’, for the purposes of eliminating samples with insignificant quantities of grains from subsequent identification procedures. The classification of starches to plant taxon is traditionally achieved by manual observations and measurement of nominal and ratio morphological variables. Here, we present a method for the automated classification of granules, using software developed in-house. The results show that when multiple granules are considered, the species selected as modern reference examples can be classified to high levels of specificity. When applied to the archaeological samples we show that wild plant resources persist in importance across the transition to agriculture, with high proportions of granule forms consistent with acorn (Quercus sp.) occurring in all samples. Hazelnut (Corylus avellana) types are less well-represented suggesting it was not an important food in the context of pottery, and may have been over-represented in the repertoire of hunter–gatherer resources. Cereals are not represented in any of the samples, supporting the notion that their adoption may have been a slow process, occurring more gradually than for other domesticated foods, or that they were not initially processed in ceramic vessels.