The Biography of a Settlement: An Analysis of Middle Iron Age Deposits and Houses at Howe,Orkney

The extensively excavated enclosed broch village at Howe, near Stromness on Mainland, Orkney, was one of the most important excavations of the latter half of the twentieth century in Scotland. The near-complete excavation of such an extensive and well-preserved settlement, with a large material assemblage, allows a detailed analysis of depositional practices. Little attempt was made in the published report to explore the spatial and contextual distributions of finds, and this article reconsiders the evidence, providing an analysis of settlement deposits during the main phase of occupation in the Middle Iron Age. The study aims to develop a broader understanding of the nature of settlement space on this highly structured and complex settlement. The analysis has demonstrated that a number of patterns are visible in the deposition of materials, and the temporality of the deposits suggest that the majority of depositional events were connected with major structural changes on the site. Transitional moments in the lifecycle of the settlement were thus marked in specific ways by the occupants. The analysis highlights the entangled nature of people, objects and constructed spaces in the Iron Age.     

Evo's jumper: identity and the used clothes trade in ‘post-neoliberal’ and ‘pluri-cultural’ Bolivia

Since the election of Latin America's first indigenous president, Evo Morales, in 2005, Bolivia's ruling party, the ‘Movement Towards Socialism’, has nationalised resources and instituted a ‘post-neoliberal’ and ‘pluri-cultural’ constitution that emphasises the importance of recognising cultural, linguistic and economic plurality. This article explores gendered economic identities in this context via the case study of an informal trade that is explicitly excluded from this vision of development: the globally controversial used clothes trade (UCT). In Bolivia, political debate on the trade demonstrates gendered tensions inherent in the government's ‘post-neoliberal’ agenda of nationalisation, protection of cultural identity and the well-being of the poor in an increasingly liberalised and globalised market place. Working with women in the city of El Alto, this article examines how women's involvement in the UCT challenges understandings of identity and development in post-neoliberal Latin America and the dynamics involved in women's continued marginalisation from global economic and political processes.     

Tony Abbott and Abortion: Miscalculating the Strength of the Religious Right

In the context of analyses of the rise of the religious right, this article examines the passage and outcomes of the ‘abortion debate’ from 2004 to 2006. It analyses the reasons for the then Health Minister Tony Abbott's pursuit of the issue, and his strategies to place abortion on the public agenda, through his encouragement of church lobbies and conservative allies in parliament. Although it is commonly argued that the influence of right-wing Christian lobbyists is growing, this exploration of the abortion debate indicates that this influence is limited, and that it was misunderstood and overstated at the time by politicians like Abbott, and by many political commentators.     

Poverty in Depth: New International Perspectives

This volume on the archaeology of urban poverty arises from a three-day symposium hosted by York Archaeological Trust and the University of York in July 2009 to establish the wider intellectual framework for the investigation of the nineteenth- and twentieth-century archaeology of the Hungate neighborhood of York. In this opening article, the trajectory of medieval and post-medieval archaeology in Britain is contrasted with historical archaeology in the United States and Australia, and the influence of the pre-modern history of the Hungate neighborhood on its development since 1800 is explored.     

Folk-Medicine in County Cork

The records of fabulous stones associated with birds are here examined systematically for the first time. Some were purported to be obtained from within the bird and others obtained from the nest. Zahir mora, the Adjutant Bird Stone, was used against snake bite, whilst Alectorius (the Cock Stone), Aetites (the Eagle Stone) and Vulturis (the Vulture Stone) shared a multiplicity of medicinal applications. Quirin (the Hoopoe Stone), Chloritis (the Wagtail Stone) and Corvina (the Crow Stone) supposedly possessed occult powers. The Penguin Stone, Ostrich Stone and Pigeon Stone were probably gastroliths.     

Independent creative subcultures and why they matter

Independent creative subcultures, in their various hybrids of music, theatre, art, and new and old media, are the primordial soup of cultural evolution. They have the capacity for a highly definitive influence on their participants – catalysing the transition from consumer to producer for instance – often conferring much broader cultural and social benefit. Creative subcultures make continuing, well-documented, contributions to established city cultures for relatively low outlay. Indie creative activities in particular do not make much money and they do not cost much to set-up. They tend to cluster in areas characterised by low rents and non-residential uses such as retail and industrial areas, but as third wave gentrification reaches into the dark pockets of many cities, cheap rental properties are becoming scarce. This article uses time-series maps of inner Melbourne to show a pattern of tighter and tighter clustering of indie cultural activities as alternative spaces disappear. It looks at where they are going and why, considers the implications of this pattern for the ‘creative city’, and suggests some policy initiatives to help maintain and nurture independent creative scenes. As Melbourne’s live music scene is particularly vulnerable to displacement from increasingly dense and contested inner-urban space, the article focuses on interventions relating to music venues.     

Introduction: The International Politics of Resources

Abstract

China, Japan and Korea’s international relations are shaped by the fact that all three are significant importers of resources. This Introduction proposes two conceptual frameworks for understanding the politics that is taken up in the papers of this Special Issue. The first is to consider the extent to which there is an East Asian model of resource procurement. We find that there are some similarities in the approaches taken by all three countries; for example, their development assistance shares a focus on infrastructure building and a reticence to purposefully influence domestic politics. There are, however, also significant differences due in large part to the individual nature of the states as international actors. The second conceptual framework is the broad contemporary theme of the end of Western dominance of the world order. The main way this affects the international politics of resources in Northeast Asia is through the belief that the activities of those countries are threatening in some way. In some cases Northeast Asian approaches to resources are seen as a problem because they are not sufficiently liberal, whereas in others the problem is that Northeast Asian powers are seen as replacing Western powers in exploiting resource-rich developing countries.     

Gender,Risk and Micro‐financial Subjectivities

Abstract: This article analyses the gendered contradictions of microfinance's celebrated “double bottom line” of social and financial impact. The example of microfinance is used to illustrate the gendered and colonial constructions of “risk” and “responsibility” that underpin neoliberalism and its gendered paradoxes. After revisiting the discursive critique of these terms, I draw on how indigenous women participating in a microfinance institution in Bolivia describe their experience to suggest how gendered ideas of risk and responsibility are framing their negotiation of and resistance to the market. While the gendered and colonial construction of risk creates dynamics that perpetuate indigenous women's exclusion from the market, the terms of the resistance and use of the intervention also challenge feminist critiques of neoliberal governmentality developed mostly with reference to advanced modernity and welfare regimes.