Re-inventing Malta's neolithic temples: Contemporary interpretations and agendas

This article suggests that in spite of numerous excellent contributions and promising new developments, the work of European and American students of politics on the southern and eastern areas of the Mediterranean (in particular, the Arab World) continues to exhibit various worrying weaknesses. The shortcomings in question do not necessarily represent a distinctive characteristic of existing scholarship on this part of the world. The aim of this contribution is not to claim or demonstrate that research and writings on the Middle East and North Africa are more inadequate than work done on other parts of the world, but simply to illustrate where and in what respect such work is inadequate. I will attempt to highlight the shortcomings by emphasizing possible improvements, referring to positive rather than to negative examples. Several dimensions of the literature concerned appear particularly relevant to this exercise: perpetual essentialist temptations; the subdivision of the world into “regions” or “areas”, frequently defined in cultural terms, and their reification; the lack of balance between empirical and theoretical ambitions; the degree of methodological and conceptual rigour; and theoretical, empirical and methodological selectivity.     

The Environmental History of Tigray (Northern Ethiopia) in the Middle and Late Holocene: A Preliminary Outline

This paper outlines the environmental history of the Tigrean Plateau (northern Ethiopia) during the Holocene, based on the available geomorphological, palynological, archaeological, and historical evidence. At present, it seems that (1) the plateau experienced a more humid climate with a denser vegetation cover during the Early Holocene; (2) Soil erosion due to clearing vegetation began in the Middle Holocene; (3) agricultural activity was intensified in the Late Holocene, as a consequence of the rise of a state; (4) demographic pressure increased from the early first millennium BC to the mid–first millennium AD, causing soil erosion; (5) environmental degradation and demographic decline occurred in the late first millennium AD; (6) the vegetation cover was regenerated in the early second millennium AD; and (7) progressive vegetation clearance started again in the second half of the second millennium AD.Cet article trace l'histoire ambiante du Plateau Tigréen dans l'Holocène en utilisant les données géomorphologiques, palynologiques, archéologiques et historiques. Il semble que (1) dans l'Holocène ancien le plateau était caractérisé par une phase humide avec une dense végétation; (2) l'érosion causée par l'abbattage de la végétation commen¸a dans l'Holocène moyen; (3) l'activité agricole s'inténsifia à la fin de l'Holocène, par conséquence de l'essor d'un état; (4) la pression démographique augmenta de plus en plus du début du premier millénaire av. J.-Ch. à la moitié du premier millénaire ap. J.-Ch.; (5) la dégradation ambiante et la diminution démographique se vérifièrent à la fin du premier millénaire ap. J.-Ch.; (6) une régéneration de la vegetation se vérifia au début du seconde millénaire ap. J.-Ch.; et (7) l'abbatage de la végétation recommen¸a dans la seconde moitié du seconde millénaire ap. J.-Ch.     

Politics of the Anthropocene: Formation of the Commons as a Geologic Process

In the Anthropocene humanity acquires a new collective geologic identity. There are two contradictory movements in this Anthropocenic thought; first, the Anthropocenic trace in the geologic record names a commons from below insomuch as humanity is named as an undifferentiated “event” of geology; second, the Anthropocene highlights the material diversities of geologic bodies formed through historical material processes. This paper addresses the consequences of this geologic subjectivity for political thought beyond a conceptualization of the commons as a set of standing reserves. Discourses of limits and planetary boundaries are contrasted with the exuberance and surplus of fossil‐fuelled energy. Drawing on the political economy of Georges Bataille and the material communism of Maurice Blanchot, I argue for the necessity of a political aesthetics that can traverse the difference between common and uncommon experience in the formation of an Anthropocene commons.     

A Transformed Life? Geoffrey of Dutton,the Fifth Crusade,and the Holy Cross of Norton

Despite the volume of scholarship dedicated to crusade motivation, comparative little has been said on how the crusades affected the lives of individuals, and how this played out once the returned home. Taking as a case study a Cheshire landholder, Geoffrey of Dutton, this article looks at the reasons for his crusade participation and his actions once he returned to Cheshire, arguing that he was changed by his experiences to the extent that he was concerned with remembering and conveying his own status as a returned pilgrim. It also looks at the impact of a relic of the True Cross he brought back and gave to the Augustinian priory of Norton.     

‘What has Ghana Got That We Haven't?’ Party Politics and Anti-Colonialism in Botswana, 1960–66

This article offers a re-examination of the period leading up to independence in Botswana, formerly known as the Bechuanaland Protectorate, between 1960 and 1966. With the use of original archival material from Botswana and the United Kingdom, it aims to explain why the Bechuanaland Democratic Party overwhelmingly defeated the Bechuanaland People's Party in the March 1965 elections for self-government. Botswana's post-colonial transition was unusual for being without a mass, social movement for national self-determination. The Democratic Party, led by Seretse Khama, favoured close cooperation with the British colonial authority and a gradualist transition to independence, while the People's Party closely adhered to the ideology of anti-colonialism and demanded immediate independence. This article will argue that the Democratic Party won independence due to its sacrifice of anti-colonial credentials, in the short term, in favour of a political platform that addressed the long-term challenges of Bechuanaland's quest for viable statehood. The research helps to explain why Botswana was slow to develop closer relations with fellow independent African states. As a provincialised history of decolonisation, this article shows the potential for variance within the wider anti-colonial movement, which incorporated diverse actors, agendas and geopolitical conditions.     

‘My Dog is My Home’: multispecies care and poverty politics in Los Angeles,California and Austin,Texas

My Dog is My Home is an art activist project in Los Angeles dedicated to sharing testimonies about the redemptive bonds of care and love between homeless persons and their canine companions. These testimonies politicize the structural violence and oppressive norms about propertied citizenship and notions of home that operate to render homeless human and animal lives disposable and ungrievable. Informed by the experts’ testimonies on multispecies homelessness and an engagement with feminist care theory, we bring relational poverty studies into conversation with critical animal studies to reject this framing of homeless lives as disposable and to trouble the idea of property as the fundamental basis for value. We problematize these notions by highlighting the insights gained from witnessing the entangled empathetic relationships forged between homeless humans and dogs. These relationships are not only a window into the political economic material conditions and discourses that reproduce homelessness and the animal-as-property. We conclude that studying these bonds offers a collective politics of multispecies mutuality, care, and love.