A tribute and a review

On 8–9 May 2010, a deprived chengzhongcun (urban village) in the city of Hefei hosted a session of the Second Hefei Contemporary Art Biennale. In this article, we focus on the artistic practices and the online and offline discussions that they evoked. Drawing upon literature on citizenship, public art, public space and public pedagogy, we analyse the exhibition and its social and political potentialities. Looking at a case study in a country where fear of an aggressive crackdown is part and parcel of the psychology of urban protest, we reflect upon the pedagogical potential of public art in the struggle for equal rights to housing, education and urban space. By paying special attention to the geographical and the pedagogical dimensions of this extraordinary event, we demonstrate that public art can play a role in Chinese citizenship struggles.     

The Broken Past: Fractals in Archaeology

Many archaeological patterns are fractal. Fractal analysis, therefore, has much to contribute to archaeology. This article offers an introduction to fractal analysis for archaeologists. We explain what fractals are, describe the essential methods of fractal analysis, and present archaeological examples. Some examples have been published previously, while others are presented here for the first time. We also explain the connection between fractal geometry and nonlinear dynamical systems. Fractals are the geometry of complex nonlinear systems. Therefore, fractal analysis is an indispensable method in our efforts to understand nonlinearities in past cultural dynamics.     

NATIONAL INDUSTRIAL POLICY AND ECONOMICALLY DISTRESSED COMMUNITIES

Industrial policy refers to deliberate government actions to affect the growth or decline of firms or industries for the sake of aggregate national prosperity and international competitiveness. This paper presents empirical evidence that policies designed to promote these objectives would be targeted differently from those designed to promote development of economically-distressed regions and communities. Facing multiple objectives, it is difficult for the public sector to pursue industrial growth directly as effectively as can private entrepreneurs. However, government aid to economically-distressed locales and dislocated workers and firms may indirectly support national industrial policy goals.     

“‘I just don’t ever use that word’: investigating stakeholders’ understanding of heritage”

Abstract

Understanding the value of heritage sites for diverse stakeholders requires both paying attention to the fields of power in which the sites operate and applying methodologies that are open to user-defined paradigms of value. In the U.S., official discourse often frames the value of heritage sites associated the deep Native American past as archaeological sites, an interpretation that is consistent with settler colonial ideologies. This narrative generally obfuscates connections between the heritage of the sites and contemporary peoples, and it effaces the history of colonialism and dispossession. A study of stakeholder-defined heritage at two contested sites in the central Midwest revealed both congruencies and conflicts among diverse constituencies’ articulations of the sites’ value. At Mounds State Park a proposed dam and reservoir ‘Mounds Lake’ project would inundate a large portion of the site. At Strawtown Koteewi, Native American tribes have made repatriation claims under the federal Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA).The study also problematised the term ‘cultural heritage’ as it is understood and used by the different constituencies, particularly for culturally and historically affiliated Native Americans. It also highlighted the positions of the constituencies within the broader fields of power implicated in these contested sites.     

The politics of expressive forms,ethnographic practice,and indigenous–state relations

This review examines four recently published ethnographies of North American Indian communities in both the United States and Canada, each reflecting the ways in which sovereignty and self-determination are realized and compromised. The evolving indigenous polities discussed in these works each articulate with the nation-state that encompasses them in different ways, in large part by virtue of the kinds of resources the communities are perceived to manage by salient institutions in the dominant society. These works are also insightful concerning the possibilities and limitations of ethnography in highly politicized settings.