The student is not the fisherman: temporal displacement of young people's identities in Tanzania

This paper examines how young Tanzanians have their identities as environmental actors displaced into the future by local adults, teachers, educational institutions and teaching materials which seek to educate them about environmental sustainability and conservation. Whilst there has been considerable attention to young people's agency in reproducing their own identities, I argue here that the temporal displacement of young identities operates through a network of interlinked structures which act on young people's lives, including the identity work of young people themselves. Educational material produced by non-governmental organisations and the discursive work of adults both seek to position young people as having agency to act in and make decisions about the environment at an undetermined time in the future. Young people themselves can perform different identities within the space of the school and in the community or family, yet they may also understand their own identities as only having agency at a temporally distant point. The displacement of young identities has important implications for pedagogy which relates to environmental education, and for how the reproduction of young people's identities is conceptualised.     

The UK and ‘genocide’ in Biafra

In late August 1968, following a British proposal, Nigeria announced that it would allow an international observer team into the country to show that it was not pursuing a campaign of genocide in Biafra. This article analyses why the United Kingdom pushed for the creation of the observer team, and shows how the team's work was incorporated into the British government's justifications for its support of the Nigerian government. The experience of the observer team illustrates the difficulties of providing an ‘objective’ view regarding whether or not genocide is taking place.     

3800年前北美东部本地作物群的最初形成

在遗传学家和考古学家们的共同努力下,越来越多关于动植物最早被驯化的时间和地点方面的研究,在全球范围内不断取得进展。尽管如此,对于全世界那十几个农业独立起源的中心而言,其多样化的作物最终形成不同的作物组或群的重要背景,学者们却依然知之甚少。北美东部作为农业独立起源中心地之一,考古证据丰富。本文主要介绍了该区作物群的最初出现过程。距今4000年前,北美东部只有单个本地驯化物种出现的孤立证据,尚未出现作物群。到了距今3800年前,在北美东部的河谷走廊地带,至少有五种驯化的种子植物组成了明确的作物群。伊利诺斯州的一个短期营地里弗顿遗址为此提供了坚实的证据。考古学家获取的AMS测年数据以及对该遗址植物考古遗存的再分析表明,遗址居民同时栽培了驯化的葫芦(Lagenaria siceraria)、假苍耳(Iva annuavar.macrocarpa)、向日葵(Helianthus annuus var.Macrocarpus)、两种伯兰德氏藜(Chenopodium berlandieri)、南瓜(Cucurbita pepo squash)和小大麦(Hordeum pusillum)。北美东部最早的作物群出现在资源丰富的河谷地带,它的出现既不是本地文化突破性发展的标志,也不是对人口或资源压力的回应。相反,这种作物群似乎是在对资源丰富的河谷聚落长期适应的背景下形成的。     

The Indigenous Challenge to Westphalian Sovereignty

Indigenous peoples achieved a diplomatic success in 2007 when the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly endorsed the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. This paper analyses why this occurred, and assesses what the Declaration means for state sovereignty. It highlights two reasons why the Global Indigenous Caucus gained widespread endorsement for a Declaration that strongly affirms Indigenous self-determination. First, as a transnational advocacy network the Caucus used a boomerang pattern of lobbying, by engaging the support of powerful allies. Second, the Caucus understood that the concerns of African states about territorial integrity differed from the concerns of states like Australia about external scrutiny of human rights. The Declaration enhances the likelihood of such scrutiny without threatening the territorial integrity of states.     

Transnational Migration and the Economy of Funerals: Changing Practices in Ghana

Migrants are increasingly leading transnational lives, impacting the institutions that shape local economies both in their place of residence and in their home communities. One example of this is the institution of funerals in developing countries. Funerals are becoming multi‐sited events as migrants from developing countries play important roles in the organization, financing and practice of funeral ceremonies in their home countries. Funerals thus give rise to flows of money, goods and people across national borders, ultimately affecting different economies around the world. This article uses a multi‐sited research design to follow the flows associated with a funeral held in a village in the Ashanti Region of Ghana. Detailed data were collected simultaneously in four locations involved in the funeral, and a multiplier analysis was used to trace funeral spending in different locations and sectors. The analysis shows that funeral spending supports various economic sectors in Ghana and across the globe, reinforcing the nature of funerals as (partly) economic events, which should be included in economic analyses of remittances and migration. Funeral practices are modified in various ways to accommodate transnational elements. At the same time, funerals continue to act, even in a transnational context, as occasions for reaffirming ties and a sense of belonging; they form a way for home communities, both rural and urban, to keep migrants interested in them.     

The Archaeology of South Asian Cities

Urbanism in the Indian subcontinent occurred in three distinct time periods in which cultural cohesion over large regions is archaeologically demonstrated through the architecture and artifacts of social, ritual, and economic activity. In the Indus (2500–1900 B.C.) and Early Historic (3rd century B.C. to 4th century A.D.) periods, cities were not necessarily tied to political territories or guided by strong political leaders, but by the Medieval period (after the 9th century A.D.), urban zones were the base for political growth, warfare, and aggrandizement. The comparison of these three eras is undertaken within a framework for defining cities that balances quantitative criteria such as population size and areal extent with two types of qualitative criteria: internal specialization on the basis of materials found within archaeological sites, and external specialization on the basis of data recovered through regional analysis. Cities from the three eras also are evaluated from the perspective of the ordinary inhabitant through the examination of the social, religious, and economic factors that prompted and rewarded urban residence. While the Indus and Early Historic cities were attractive because of the networks of opportunity found there, Medieval cities additionally benefitted from a “push” factor as ordinary inhabitants allied themselves to urban areas in times of political stress and uncertainty.

Talking to strangers (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

The language used by politicians and its social effects have been of long‐standing interest to social anthropology. Opinion‐formers on both sides of the North Atlantic have recently argued that this language can inflame tensions and reinforce divisions. In the UK, the discussion has centred on relations between a white majority and a Muslim minority, while in the US, in the aftermath of the attempted assassination of a Democratic Congresswoman in Arizona, it has focused on the risk of political language provoking violence. The antidote to inflammatory language is often assumed to be moderation, defined as a (self‐) disciplined engagement with divided publics. Drawing on the insights of Danielle Allen's Talking to strangers, here I suggest that moderation might be re‐imagined, not as a vague commitment to centrism and the ‘middle ground’, but as a powerful resource for citizens and communities to challenge the ideological excesses of politics, religion and the market in the twenty‐first century.