The Last Big Man: Development and Men's Discontents in the Papua New Guinea Highlands

Big Men achieve that status by making good things happen for others as well as for themselves. In the minds of many Papua New Guineans development promises a direct route to becoming Super Big Men and Women. Mostly, however, it produces inequality and conflict. This is striking in places peripheral to major developments and in situations where not everyone benefits (e.g. compensation to ‘local landowners' - narrowly defined by mining companies - and lucrative urban employment - enjoyed only by the few, mostly male elite). Uneven development pits men and women, parents and children, and whole communities against one another as those less fortunate fail to match the generosities or competition of more prosperous exchange partners. In this article, I look at development through the eyes of one self-proclaimed ‘last Big Man’. As a youth, Ruge participated in male initiation and worked for the colonial outsiders, hoping to manipulate both old and new systems. He married several wives in the tradition of past Gende leaders but chose one because she had been to school, knew the ways of Europeans and had a keen business sense. In spite of what looked like the right moves and a sincere concern for his followers, Ruge could not prevent his society from being ravaged by inequality or help a growing number of bachelors afford expensive brideprices as more and more village girls married wealthy strangers from other parts of Papua New Guinea. In the end, a clan brother killed Ruge in an argument over land, making Ruge a victim to capitalist development's indifference to local traditions of family, reputation, and leadership.     

Integrating History and Archaeology in the Study of Contact Period Philippine Chiefdoms

Malay texts, Philippine oral traditions, Chinese tributary records and geographies, early Spanish writings, and archaeological evidence from Philippine sites present divergent views of political structures and political economies in Philippine chiefdoms of the late first millennium to midsecond millennium A.D. While some sources claim a political landscape dominated by a few large-scale, highly centralized polities almost wholly supported through foreign trade, others suggest the presence of more heterogeneous and politically segmented configurations of varying scale and complexity and with eclectic economic bases. These disparate narratives are evaluated in terms of methodological biases, their cultural context, and the historical circumstances of their production.     

Winter Daily Precipitation Variability over Northern Scotland

Daily winter (December, January and February) precipitation variability over mainland Northern Scotland (1994–2004) is analysed using 99 rain gauges. Principal component analysis (PCA) is used to identify four main patterns of rainfall variability that collectively account for nearly 75% of the variance. The most important pattern (PC 1) shows a west to east decline in rainfall; and is associated with a westerly wind flow, orographic enhancement and rain shadow effects. PC 2 shows a south to north decline in rainfall, a distribution that is generated disproportionately by southerly winds and a more southerly storm track than PC 1's pattern. PC 3 produces the most rainfall in Aberdeenshire and the least in Inverness-shire and Argyll. This spatial distribution is caused mostly by south-easterly flows, with the lowest pressure occurring in eastern Scotland or over the North Sea. PC 4 exhibits a localised precipitation maximum in Nairnshire and Moray, which tends to occur on days with a north to north-easterly wind. Cluster analysis is used to identify six rainfall regions, with regionalisations being derived for each wind direction. The most important sub-division in the region's rainfall climatology is between Aberdeen and Banff and the remainder of the mainland; rainfall variability over time in these two eastern counties thus differs considerably from other parts of Northern Scotland. The Caithness Plain also emerges as a distinct region despite its small area. Distinct rainfall regions are most evident on days when the wind blows from the westerly quadrant.     

Graffiti Revelations and the Changing Meanings of Kilmainham Gaol in (Post)Colonial Ireland

Kilmainham Gaol (1796–1924) became the de facto holding center for political prisoners in Ireland by the mid-nineteenth century. Officially closing in 1910, it reopened a number of times for “emergencies” before its final closure after the Irish Civil War (1922–23). After 1924 it lay abandoned until reopening as a heritage attraction in the early 1960s. It was taken into state protection in 1986. Using a range of graffiti assemblages predominantly dating from 1910 onwards this paper will explore the “imperial debris” of contested narratives of meaning, ownership, and identity that the prison walls continue to materialize.     

Vernetztes regionales Engagement – Das Beispiel Heilbronn-Franken

At a regional scale, a variety of actors from all three sectors of private, public and civil society act together in a philanthropic field. This article deals with the question of how cooperation in charitable action unfolds in this field. Using the example of the region of Heilbronn-Franconia, the empirical case unpacks the dominance of local and regional forms of philanthropy and reconstructs two successful examples of intersectoral collaboration. However, the analysis also demonstrates the limits of the external designability that are due to the individuality of charitable actors, their diverse objectives and the contextuality of the regional environment. The realization of synergies through regional governance therefore succeeds only by respecting the dedication and self-determination of philanthropic commitment and by creating legitimate and sensitive structures of moderation and facilitation.     

The global countryside: peasant women negotiating,recalibrating and resisting rural change in Colombia

This article utilises a gender lens to consider the notion of the ‘global countryside’ through a case study with four peasant Colombian women living in the mountain town of Toca, Boyacá. In seeking a bottom-up understanding of rural globalisation, as it is experienced in the everyday lives of peasant women in Colombia, we drew on a methodology that included participant observation and photo elicitation interviews. Data reveal the inflections and incursions of the global into women’s work and family lives, in particular, gendered implications of the emergence of a globalised countryside. At the same time, the results demonstrate women’s agency in recalibrating and resisting discourses of globalisation as they create places and strategies for subsistence based on peasant values and economic strategies. Finally, based on our results, we problematise the universalising tendencies of urban/Western feminist critiques of rural women’s lives which have been embedded in assumptions about modernity, development and liberalism.     

Seismic behavior of two Portuguese adobe buildings: Part I - in-plane cyclic testing of a full-scale adobe wall

This article addresses the laboratory testing of a full-scale double-T shaped adobe wall, under in-plane horizontal cyclic loading of increasing amplitude, with the aim of contributing to the understanding of the seismic behavior of adobe structures. The wall was built with lime adobes taken from an existing building and mortar with a traditional composition. The behavior of the wall was assessed in terms of: shear stress versus horizontal drift and moment versus rotation relationships; maximum lateral strength; drift and rotation at peak stress; evolution of stiffness, lateral displacements, dissipated energy, and natural frequency; and damage pattern. The wall exhibited brittle behavior and in-plane strength corresponding to 56% of the vertical load. Cracking was observed with an X-shaped pattern whereas no sliding occurred at its base. This research supported the subsequent development of a repair and retrofit solution and also of numerical models to simulate the seismic behavior of two adobe buildings.     

Timber exploitation during the 5th–3rd millennia BCE at Arslantepe (Malatya,Turkey): environmental constraints and cultural choices

A considerable amount of charcoal remains from the archaeological site of Arslantepe (Eastern Anatolia) has been analysed. The anthracological assemblage comes from seven archaeological periods, ranging from the Late Chalcolithic 1–2 (mid-5th millennium BCE) to the Early Bronze Age III (late 3rd millennium BCE). The woody taxa exploited by the local communities appeared to have only minor changes throughout the investigated periods. For the evaluation of wood use practices, charcoal was chronologically grouped according to depositional context. The categories of depositional context identified differentiate between the uses of wood for structural parts of buildings, object manufacture, fuel, refuse, and wood found in outdoor areas or in burial contexts. Communities at Arslantepe, characterized by different cultural and socio-economic traits, appeared overall to select timber depending on its use: hydrophilous plants prevail in building material, with the exception of the 2900–2500 BCE period when environmental constraints probably motivate the dominance of woodland-steppe plants. The differential occurrence of taxa in the diverse depositional contexts highlighted cases of under/overestimation of remains, in particular in relation to the woods for construction. Finally, taxa have been attributed to different ecological groups. The interpretation of results and the comparison with other available palaeoenvironmental data point out that climatic factors play only a secondary role in the choice of wood exploitation in the area. Human choice may vary even with constant environmental records.