INTRAURBAN MORTALITY VARIATION and INCOME DISPARITY: A CASE STUDY OF HAMILTON-WENTWORTH REGION

This paper characterizes and explains mortality variation among census tracts of Hamilton-Wentworth Region, Ontario, during 1980–82. Analysis is based on the age-specific death rate of the 55 to 64 age group, computed for each sex by categories of major cause. Mosk and lohansson's (1986) four stages of mortality/income relationship and Omran's (1977) theory of epide-miological transition provide context for understanding mortality variations. Logit models and the maximum quasi-likelihood estimation method allow for statistical inference. Research findings show that spatial patterns of mortality are more fragmented and less explainable for females than for males; that mortality is dependent (1) negatively on median family income and the percentage of individuals who are married and (2) positively on unemployment rate and the percentages of individuals who are single, widowed, and divorced or separated; among socioeconomic variables derived from the 1981 census, median family income is the most powerful explanator of intraurban mortality variation and, in this context, other explanatory variables are not statistically significant; and, in terms of the theoretical frameworks of Mosk and johansson (1986) and Omran (1977), mortality patterns for females are shown to have progressed further than for males. Cet essai caractérise et explique les variations de mortalité apparues en étudiant les tracts de recensement de la Région d'Hamilton-Wentworth, Ontario, en 1980–82. L'analyse est basée sur le taux de mortalité spécifique au groupe des 55 à 64 ans, en prenant en considération les deux sexes et les différentes catégories de cause majeure de mortalité. La relation mortalité/revenu en 4 étapes de Mosk et Johansson offre un contexte permettant de mieux comprendre les variations de mortalité. Les modeles Logit et la méthode d'estimation de quasi-probabilité permettent de considérer une inférence statistique. On a trouvé tout d'abord, que les modèles spatiaux de mortalité sontplus fragmentés et moins expliquables pour les femmes que pour les hommes; ensuite, sur la base d'une série d'analyses bi-variées, la mortalité prouve dépendre (1) négativement du revenu familial moyen et du pourcentage d'individus mariés et (2) positivement d'un taux de chomage et de pourcentages d'individus célibataires, veufs, divorcés et séparés; troisièmement, parmi toutes les variables socio-économiques dérivées du rencensementde 1981, le revenu familial moyen est la variable expliquant le mieux les variations de mortalité intra-urbaine et, dans ce même contexte, les autres variables explicatives ne sont pas suffisamment significatives sur le plan des statistiques; et (4) en termes des cadres théoriques de Mosk et lohansson et Omran, cette étude démontre que les modèles de mortalité ont progressé davantage pour les femmes que pour les hommes.     

‘A sense of where you belong in the world’: national belonging,ontological security and the status of the ethnic majority in England

ABSTRACT. The significance of national forms of imagination and organisation has been increasingly questioned in an era of rapid globalisation. While theoretically stimulating, those who stress the importance of global mobility and sociability sometimes overlook what well‐established, “thick” attachments to the nation offer to disparate individuals, notably in terms of anchoring subjectivity. This first part of this paper explores how debates around belonging in England continue to define certain “ethnic” groups as more or less national, because they embody certain traits, practices or norms. It is then suggested that those who claim, and are treated as if, they belong “without question” may be offered a key sense of material and ontological security that is underpinned through routine practices, symbolic forms and institutional arrangements. The second section looks to evidence this argument by exploring how challenges to this ontological order, which focus on the agency of “perceived” others in relation to everyday spaces, practices and material objects, are debated and resisted.     

WOOL AT DANEBURY: A SPECULATION USING EVIDENCE FROM ELSEWHERE

The high proportion of sheep bones and the finding of implements used in cloth manufacture have led to suggestions that this Iron Age hill fort in Hampshire was a centre for wool cloth making. In the absence of textile remains from the site, evidence from other Iron Age sites with such remains is used to suggest that the sheep kept at Danebury are likely to have had mainly primitive hairy and primitive woolly fleeces with an annual moult and a range of colours. the absence of shears suggests a more primitive method of harvesting the wool. White wool and dyed textiles from the other sites indicates the possibility of dyeing. A reassessment of the textile implements suggests that the textile activity was no more than domestic production. the weight of the spindle whorls is discussed in relation to the sort of wool spun, but further experimentation is proposed to answer such questions as the true use of the "weaving" combs. the slingshots might have been hurled with a wool sling and not only at a human enemy or at game, but to control sheep flocks.     

Repairing NATO's motors

NATO moves toward its next summit (to be held in Newport, Wales in September 2014) in a mood of anxiety and uncertainty. This is not simply because telling questions are being asked of the alliance in relation to Afghanistan and Ukraine, but because the twin motors which have sustained NATO now show signs of considerable wear and tear. The first of these motors relates to principles of purpose. This encompasses the activities (or purposes) which NATO has consciously pursued in the last 25 years: namely, operations, enlargement, partnership, transatlanticism and security. The second is principles of function: the means, in other words, by which NATO is kept in motion. Here, American leadership, cohesion and trust, burden‐sharing and credibility all matter. These motors are not about to completely break down (NATO has underlying strengths which make that unlikely) but they do need attention. NATO's good health requires it to focus on a series of core tasks—what this article refers to as readiness, reassurance and renewal. These three tasks speak to an agenda of consolidation and preservation, rather than one of task expansion. But this is not a conservative agenda; grasping the nettle of prioritization and focus requires, in itself, a certain foresight and enterprise. Managed successfully, it is an agenda that will preserve and strengthen NATO in what are increasingly troubled times.     

The costs and consequences of drone warfare

One of the distinctive elements of President Barack Obama's approach to counterterrorism has been his embrace of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), or drones, to target terrorist operatives abroad. The Obama administration has used drones in active theatres of war, such as Afghanistan, but it has also dramatically increased the number of drone attacks launched by the CIA in other countries, such as Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. The conventional wisdom on drone warfare holds that these weapons are highly effective in killing terrorist operatives and disabling terrorist organizations, while killing fewer civilians than other means of attack. This article argues that much of the existing debate on drones operates with an attenuated notion of effectiveness that discounts the political and strategic dynamics—such as the corrosion of the perceptions of competence and legitimacy of governments where drone strikes take place, growing anti‐Americanism and fresh recruitment of militant networks—that reveal the costs of drone warfare. Focusing particularly on drone use in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, the article suggests that the Obama administration's counterterrorism policy operates at cross‐purposes because it provides a steady flow of arms and financial resources to build up governments whose legitimacy it systematically undermines by conducting unilateral strikes on their territory. It concludes that the US embrace of drone technology is a losing proposition over the long term as it will usher in a new arms race and lay the foundations for an international system that is increasingly violent, destabilized and polarized between those who have drones and those who are victims of them.     

Africa Bewitched

Anderson, Robert. Magic, Science, and Health: The Aims and Achievements of Medical Anthropology. Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace, 1996. x + 454 pp. including index. $34.74 paper.

Hahn, Robert A. Sickness and Healing: An Anthropological Perspective. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995. viii + 327 pp. including references and index. $30.00 cloth.

Kleinman, Arthur. Writing at the Margin: Discourse between Anthropology and Medicine. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. xiii + 314 pp. including appendix, notes, references, and index. $40.00 cloth, $16.95 paper.