Systemic Flexibility,Production Fragmentation and Cluster Governance

The recent process of production fragmentation and the rapid growth of firm clusters have been explained by the increasing need for output flexibility. Although the mainstream literature relates flexibility mostly to labour adjustments, this paper investigates sources of flexibility as being related to forms of inter-firm production. Two extreme cases are compared: industrial districts and monopsonistic clusters. The nature and the implications of production flexibility are discussed in both settings. It is argued that the governance structure of industrial districts affects the dynamics of inter-firm linkages, which in turn enables systemic flexibility to be achieved.     

Coastal resident perceptions of nature-based adaptation options in Nova Scotia

Climate change risks to coastal communities may overwhelm current management strategies. The emergence of nature-based solutions could provide alternative approaches for climate adaptation; however, studies on their public acceptability are limited. This research focuses on the human dimensions of nature-based coastal adaptation solutions. The research sought to understand the kind of environmental changes participants were experiencing in their coastal communities of Nova Scotia and what management responses they observed being taken, if any. Online focus groups were held with coastal property owners in Nova Scotia to understand how they assess coastal risks and four approaches to nature-based coastal adaptation: living shorelines, accommodation, retreat, and dyke realignment to make space for wetland restoration. Results revealed ongoing trust in traditional hard-line approaches, but also interest in knowing more about nature-based options. There was general support for living shorelines, albeit with scepticism; a concern that accommodation is just a “band-aid” approach; resistance to retreat, despite general recognition of its future utility; and a lack of understanding of dyke realignment. The successful implementation of nature-based coastal adaptation approaches will require more evidence of their viability, better options for financing them, and engagement with communities around the best-fit alternatives for them.     

Technological Change and Economy in the Epipalaeolithic: Assessing the Shift from Early to Middle Epipalaeolithic at Kharaneh IV

Epipalaeolithic hunter-gatherer communities in the Southern Levant exhibit numerous complex trends that suggest that the transition to the Neolithic was patchy and protracted. This paper explores the changing nature of occupation at the Epipalaeolithic site Kharaneh IV, Jordan, through an in-depth analysis of the lithic and faunal assemblages. Focusing on the analysis of a single deep sounding (unit AS42), we address how Kharaneh IV occupations link to the local landscape and environmental changes. As an aggregation site, Kharaneh IV represents an interesting locale to explore the changing nature of aggregation and social cohesion prior to the origins of agriculture, as well as changes in technology and subsistence between the Early and Middle Epipalaeolithic. We explore the tempo and nature of transition from one archaeological culture to the next through changes in technology and how this reflects the people making and using tools, to understand how foragers adapted to a changing landscape.     

Taken with a Grain of Salt: Experimentation and the Chemistry of Archaeological Ceramics from Xaltocan,Mexico

Neutron activation analysis (NAA) of ceramics from Xaltocan (n?=?651) displays high values for sodium and potassium and low concentrations of many transition metals and rare earth elements compared to other sites in the Basin of Mexico. Given that Xaltocan was situated on an island in the middle of a saline lake, the potential reasons for this chemical signature are diverse. On one hand, if the sodium and potassium were elevated due to some behavioral aspect of the potters, the Xaltocan chemical groups provide a glimpse at the behaviors of Xaltocan potters that permit more precise source designations. On the other hand, if this chemical fingerprint arose due to contamination in a saline post-depositional environment, the Xaltocan chemical groups would not be valid references for provenance studies. To evaluate these alternative hypotheses, we employ several lines of evidence: (1) comparison of the Xaltocan ceramics to over 5,000 NAA assays of clays and ceramics from the Basin of Mexico, (2) experimental doping of clays with water of different salinities and fired to different temperatures, (3) leaching experiments of archaeological pottery sherds (n?=?22) recovered from the site of Xaltocan, and (4) laser ablation–inductively coupled plasma–mass spectrometry of the clay and temper fraction of a small sample of Xaltocan ceramics to determine which component is responsible for the elevated sodium and potassium values. The results suggest that the high sodium and potassium values were present in the ceramic paste before firing. We then use these newly established reference groups to better understand the role of Xaltocan in the regional economy. The type of experimentation employed in this study has proven to be an important method for determining the behaviors of ancient potters and distinguishing them from post-depositional processes.     

Anti-Slavery and the Reconstitution of Empire

This survey article combines some recent scholarship on anti-slavery with work on humanitarianism and legal history to explore ways in which anti-slavery fed into the legal transformation of the British Empire in the first decades of the nineteenth century. It argues that campaigns for abolition, emancipation, and the amelioration of slavery did more than use law as a means to the end of slave emancipation. Anti-slavery efforts were integral to a larger process of imperial legal reordering: they often aimed, and invariably worked, to transform the legal relationship among subjects, colonial states and the imperial centre.     

Facing Climate Change: Andrea Juan's Visual Play with Science and the Sublime

Andrea Juan has responded to climate change in her art since 2002, highlighting the potential enjoyment of uncertainty and the pleasure of discovering this ecological crisis. Through an examination of El bosque invisible: Serie Antártica [The Invisible Forest: The Antarctica Series], 2010, this article will examine how Juan represents environmental transformations through her process, aesthetic choices, and work in Antarctica. Antarctica—an emblem of environmental change and advancements in scientific research—serves as one of the main stages for Juan's placement of colorful fabrics and cloth figures that are meant to represent specific natural phenomena connected to climate change. Juan's documentation of these scenes in videos and digital stills quotes the Romantic tradition of the sublime in landscape painting, the artist-traveller, and a heroic notion of scientific fieldwork, which exposes a continued desire for control despite our increasing knowledge of our limitations, as well as two principal means through which we understand climate change: science and the sublime. Furthermore, the pleasing quality of Juan's art, in spite of the crisis to which she alludes, aligns with contemporary trends that favor participation, pleasure and hope. This tendency itself exposes the uncertainty of art's role in the face of such crises.