In search of frameworks for productive comparison of cities in world history

In 2013, The Oxford Handbook of Cities in World History, edited by Peter Clark, was published. Its 44 chapters (a total of 882 pages) aim to develop a framework for understanding urban history comparatively and over long spans of time. The authors of the four chronological chapters on Chinese cities attempt to achieve the following goals: to examine the diversity of Chinese cities over time, to analyze the characteristics of Chinese urban development in general, and to illuminate how changing Chinese cities and urban networks reflect and influence world trends. This essay discusses how the Oxford Handbook can serve as a guide and resource for meaningful urban comparisons and also highlights some of its limitations. It compares the Oxford Handbook to a similar volume, The Routledge Handbook on Cities of the Global South, published in 2014. The essay encourages scholars of Chinese cities to consider widening the scope of their comparisons and contribute to scholarship on the development of urban systems worldwide.     

Sámi Citizenship: Marginalisation or Integration?

Abstract

In accordance with international conventions the Sámi is an indigenous group belonging to two populations and two overlapping civil societies within one nation state. This situation not only influences Sámi political interests and activities in general, but it also affects the individual Sámi's political orientation and decisions. Nevertheless, no thorough study has been conducted, on the individual level, of Sámi political participation and involvement. We know neither how political attitudes and participation vary within this group, nor how it varies in relation to the Norwegian population in general. Thus we know practically nothing about how recent institutional developments have influenced Sámi citizenship.

This article looks closely at variations in political involvement and participation amongst Sámi and non-Sámi living in Norway's Sámi language management area, and compares this with political involvement and participation amongst the Norwegian population in general. The Citizenship Survey shows that in terms of political interest and participation, the Sámi living in the Sámi language management area are on par with others living there, and with Norwegians in general. In several important political areas the Sámi actually show significantly more interest and involvement than Norwegians in general. Furthermore, Sámi political trust and self-confidence are as high as in the general population, and we have not uncovered any particular marginalisation with respect to women and young people's interest and participation.

There is much to suggest that our findings measure not only the Sámi's combined political interest and participation, but also their degree of participation and interest in the Norwegian political system. We do not find a picture of Sámi political segregation, nor of an extensive marginalisation. The findings point towards strong integration in the Norwegian political system, with Norwegian and Sámi public space and civil societies overlapping rather than being competitive or even antagonistic.     

Bias in Fish Bone Recovery from Differential Collection Techniques and Its Impact on Cultural Interpretation in California

ABSTRACT

While studies on recovery bias are numerous in the literature, the current research focuses on defining best practices in field collection techniques to provide a more accurate representative of site constituents, particularly fish remains. Methods to determine best practices included use of 1/4-inch, 1/8-inch, and 1/16-inch mesh to process excavated material from 10 × 10?cm and 40 × 40 cm-sized bulk column samples and from a 1 × 1 m test unit. Fish remains were compared to determine density and diversity differences between the samples and how these different data sets may impact cultural interpretations. This research shows that while collection of larger column samples processed using a smaller mesh size provides a more robust data set, the taxonomic richness present in a 1 × 1 m test unit provides complimentary data that are critical to understanding subsistence trends as a whole.     

‘I don't think it was such an issue back then’: changing experiences of pregnancy across two generations of women in south-east England

Based upon in-depth interviews with recent mothers and their own mothers in London, England, this article uses a cross-generational perspective to examine the changing experiences/perceptions of pregnancy over the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. Pregnancy is a biological process, but exists within social, economic, political and cultural realms and is both spatially and temporally located. In this article we argue that advances in gender equality, maternity benefits, technological innovation and mass media have meant that pregnancy is now increasingly experienced in the ‘public’ sphere, whereas, in earlier twentieth century Britain at least, it was often relegated to the realm of private or domestic life. However with these changes have come new types of surveillance in the form of scientific ‘advice’, medical technologies and media dissemination of cultural ‘norms’ regarding appropriate dress, lifestyle and behaviour during pregnancy. Based upon the findings of our research we examine these changes from two different perspectives: firstly a Foucauldian notion of surveillance in relation to ‘medical’ advice on diet/lifestyle during pregnancy, and secondly new expectations regarding body image and clothing in the context of the emergence of ‘pregnancy chic’ and the figure of the ‘celebrity mum’.     

A Textual Ethnography of Collaboration in Early Sámi Studies

This is an ethnographic study of collaboration for publishing textual representations of the Sámi based on ethnographic experience that reflect acquisition of agency and contingent intertextuality. The textual ethnography unravels early twentieth-century collaborative frameworks in which the investigated works were generated and their historical context. Consequently, my paper proposes to re-evaluate the role and impact of the ethnographic writing by Emilie Demant Hatt in addition to her collaboration with Johan Turi. This entails an exploration into personal histories and relationships, gendered ramifications, intellectual and political context, the creative process, the contingent editorial activities and their reception histories.     

Extra-regional linkages through MNCs in organizationally thick and specialized RISs: a source of new path development?

ABSTRACT

This paper explores how global innovation networks (GIN) within multinational companies (MNCs) act as extra-regional sources for path development in a regional innovation system (RIS) specializing in the oil and gas sector. We combine the literature on intra-firm knowledge dynamics in MNCs’ GIN with the literature on RISs to better understand their interrelatedness and their dynamics. Based on interviews with 15 MNCs located in the south-west of Norway, we find that firms are highly dependent on competence throughout the MNCs’ entire networks, as well as interaction with the overall RIS. The findings expose that MNCs’ GINs can act as extra-regional sources for path ‘extension’ in thick and specialized RISs through intra-firm mobility, observation and sharing of routines and best practice, mainly resulting in incremental innovations. We find some signs of potential path ‘renewal’, including radical innovation ideas. However, there are hampering factors linked to strong internal competition for innovation projects, pressure for local profitability and ownership motivation. At the level of RISs, new initiatives going beyond existing cluster initiatives and specializations need support.     

Country Roads: Travel,Visibility, and Late Classic Settlement in the Southern Maya Mountains

Mayanist archaeology has long been concerned with creating and evaluating explanatory models for the locations of ancient sites relative to one another and to the physical geography of the Maya world. This study combines epigraphic data and spatial analyses to explore motivations for settlement location and to interrogate territorial strategies in Late Classic (a.d. 600–830) kingdoms in the southern Maya Mountains, around the modern towns of Dolores and Poptún, Guatemala. Least-cost path analyses were used to model natural travel corridors and their relationship with site location was assessed. In conjunction, viewshed analyses were applied to evaluate the importance of visual connections to likely travel routes. The results are considered in the context of the socio-politics and economics of the region, and raise questions about the character of and interconnections between travel, exchange, settlement location, and mechanisms for reinforcing territorial claims in the Late Classic Southern Maya Mountains.