How does transportation shape intrametropolitan growth? An answer from the Regional Express Rail

This paper analyzes the influence of transportation infrastructure, and in particular of the Regional Express Rail (RER), on employment and population growth in the Paris metropolitan area between 1968 and 2010. In order to make proper causal inference, we rely on historical instruments and control for all other transportation modes that could be complement or substitute to the RER. Our results show that proximity to an RER station increases employment and population density and, in particular, employment and population growth. The latter effects are higher in municipalities located near RER stations and close to employment (sub)centers. They are also found to be particularly strong for jobs in the service sector, for factory workers, and for highly educated population. We find no impact of the RER expansion on employment growth during the first part of the period, while the effect on population growth appears earlier but declines over time.     

ROCK ART SITES IN JAMAICA AND THEIR ETHNOGRAPHIC INTERPRETATION

26 sites with Pre‐Columbian (Taíno) rock art are known in Jamaica, most with petroglyphs only, but there are four with painted images, and three of these are discussed: Mountain River Cave, Potoo Hole, and Spot Valley Cave. In addition, an account is given of the Warminster rock shelter, which has petroglyphs described as among the best remaining in Jamaica. Spot Valley Cave was newly surveyed in 2005, with the help of the Jamaican Caves Organization, and in the same year a rescue operation to restore the Warminster petroglyphs was carried out, in cooperation with Dr Johannes Loubser. Comparisons are made, where appropriate, to Taíno artefacts in different materials, and also to Pre‐Columbian images on other islands in the Caribbean, notably Puerto Rico. The interpretation of the Taíno images, in Jamaica and elsewhere, relies to a considerable extent on the “Account of the Antiquities of the Indians”, compiled by Fray Ramón Pané in 1494–1498, on the express instructions of Columbus. Whatever the shortcomings of a narrative compiled by an outsider, we would be much worse off without it.     

Sovereign Power,Biopower, and the Reach of the West in an Age of Diaspora‐Centred Development

Why at this particular historical moment has there emerged a rousing interest in the potential contribution of diasporas to the development of migrant sending states and why is this diaspora turn so pervasive throughout the global South? The central premise of this paper is that the rapid ascent of diaspora‐centred development cannot be understood apart from historical developments in the West's approach to governing international spaces. Once predicated upon sovereign power, rule over distant others is increasingly coming to depend upon biopolitical projects which conspire to discipline and normalize the conduct of others at a distance so as to create self‐reliant and resilient market actors. We argue that an age of diaspora‐centred development has emerged as a consequence of this shift and is partly constitutive of it. We develop our argument with reference to Giorgio Agamben's “Homo Sacer” project and in particular the theological genealogy of Western political constructs he presents in his book The Kingdom and the Glory (2011). We provide for illustration profiles of three projects which have played a significant role in birthing and conditioning the current diaspora option: the World Bank's Knowledge for Development Programme (K4D); the US‐based International Diaspora Engagement Alliance (IdEA); and the EU/UN Joint Migration and Development Initiative Migration4Development project (JMDI‐M4D). Drawing upon economic theology, we make a case for construing these projects as elements of the West's emerging Oikonomia after the age of empire.     

1500 Years of Pottery: Neutron Activation Analysis of Northern Chilean Domestic Ceramics from Caleta Vitor and Clay Samples from Nearby Valley,Coast and Highland Contexts

This paper presents the findings arising from neutron activation analysis (NAA) of northern Chilean domestic ceramic samples from Caleta Vitor (n = 38) and clay samples (n = 15) from nearby valley, coast and highland contexts. This study presents the first NAA data set of ceramics spanning a temporal period of 1500 years (c.2000 to c.476 bp ) from the Vitor Valley as well as the first attempt to use NAA to characterize potential clay sources in the region. On the basis of this study, we argue that the majority of domestic ceramics from Caleta Vitor share compositional similarities with clay samples collected from nearby valleys, allowing us to infer that the Caleta Vitor populations primarily procured their clay for domestic ceramics from local sources throughout a 1500‐year period. Thus, despite the fact that there were inter‐regional interactions during this period that included the influence of powerful Andean polities, it would appear that domestic ceramics continued to be produced locally, and by implication it can be argued that such interactions did not substantially affect this sphere of material culture production. Further, the apparent continuities in domestic ceramic production allow us to reflect on local decision‐making processes throughout the cultural phases considered in this research.     

The Shady Side of Consultation and Compensation: ‘Divide‐and‐Rule’ Tactics in Bolivia's Extraction Sector

The rights to prior consultation and compensation have been established within the framework of international indigenous peoples’ rights. However, in practice these processes have often gone hand in hand with adverse social consequences for local populations, such as the exacerbation of conflicts, the division of communities and the weakening of indigenous organizations. These phenomena have received little attention, despite their great relevance for these populations. This article sheds light on the use by the Bolivian state and extraction corporations of exclusionary participation and negotiation processes, on the one hand, and ‘carrot‐and‐stick’ techniques on the other, which have together accounted for negative social impacts on the ground. The article is based on recently conducted field research, focus group discussions and semi‐structured interviews in Guaraní communities in Bolivia. The findings extend the existing literature by providing a fine‐grained and systematic analysis of divisive undertakings and their sociocultural and sociopolitical consequences in neo‐extractivist Bolivia. The broader implications of the study add to academic debates about participation in development, about ‘divide‐and‐rule’ tactics and about the practice of indigenous peoples’ rights.     

The Old and the New: Qualifying City Systems in the World with Classical Models and New Data

Zipf's rank‐size rule, lognormal distribution, and Gibrat's urban growth models are considered as summarizing fundamental properties of systems of cities. In this article, they are used as statistical benchmarks for comparing the shapes of urban hierarchies and evolutionary trends of seven systems of cities in the world including BRICS, Europe, and United States. In order to provide conclusions that avoid the pitfalls of too small samples or uncontrolled urban definitions, these models are tested on some 20,000 urban units whose geographically significant delineations were harmonized in each country over 50 years between 1960 and 2010. As a result, if the models appear not always statistically valid, their usefulness is confirmed since the observed deviations from empirical data remain limited and can often be interpreted from the geohistorical context of urbanism proper to each world region. Moreover, the article provides new free software which authorizes the reproducibility of our experiments with our data bases as well as with complementary data.     

Violence in the Central Iberian Peninsula during the Bronze Age: A Possible Prehistoric Homicide

One of the most interesting sites of the Bronze Age in the central area of the Iberian Peninsula is La Motilla del Azuer (Daimiel, Ciudad Real), dated between 2200 and 1350 bc . The main objective of this study was to investigate interpersonal violence in this site and to report an uncommon case of violent death. No traumatic injury was detected in any child, and men and women significantly differed in the frequency of traumas. More traumatisms were found in men from the earlier stages of occupation, including a young man with at least three blunt force traumas and 26 sharp force traumas. The archaeological findings and trauma patterns in the skeletons of the 65 individuals studied suggest a relatively intense level of exposure to violence for adult men in the earlier stages of occupation of this settlement. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Late Neolithic Case of Pott's Disease from Hungary

The aim of this study was to present classic bone lesions caused by tuberculosis, as seen in a Late Neolithic–Early Copper Age osteoarchaeological sample deriving from the site of Alsónyék‐Bátaszék (the western part of Hungary from the 5th millennium bc ). In one particular case of an adult male skeleton, vertebral bodies' destruction, collapse, ankylosis and marked angulation in the lower thoracic and the upper lumbal region of the vertebral column were observed. The collapse resulted in a severe gibbus formation. The paleopathological analysis was carried out using morphological observation supported by radiological analyses. The results from this study increase our knowledge of the early occurrence of skeletal tuberculosis in past populations. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Reconstructed nationalism in Taiwan: a politicised and economically driven identity

Since the late 1980s, Taiwan has been engulfed in waves of both democratisation and integration with mainland China. These two waves have pulled identity reconstruction in Taiwan in two different directions. In the process of democratisation, a shift to a majoritarian system encouraged a Taiwanese renaissance on the political platform and consequently led to the deconstruction of Chinese identity. On the other hand, in the 1990s, with the high mobility of capital and people across the Taiwan Strait, close economic ties could have put the brakes on Taiwan independence movements. Hence, this paper uses random coefficient models to explore how the democratic transition and increasing cross‐strait relations brought about psychological and structural mechanisms that motivated people to opt for identity change in Taiwan. It also attempts to investigate how people dealt with the dissonance between rising Taiwanese nationalism and the economic interests that deterred a radical Taiwanese identity.