A theory and a model of social change and evolution

The principal theme is that the seeds of a society's evolution are not contained within it; they are sown in the interface of interdependent societies. In particular, it is contended that evolutionary change is a result of transformations in a society's external economic and political relationships. These alterations occur mostly because of advances in the technology of intersocietal trade and other relations which are intertwined with increased concentrations of political authority. A reconceptualization of culture and habitat and a fourfold definition of social change are offered.     

The Privatization of Health Care Cleaning Services in Southwestern British Columbia,Canada: Union Responses to Unprecedented Government Actions

This paper analyzes the political dynamics between a newly elected, right‐leaning provincial government and a left‐leaning public sector union that resulted in the privatization of 4000 health support housekeeping jobs in southwestern British Columbia in less than a year. The article documents how government set the stage for privatization, the struggle that ensued when the union resisted concessionary bargaining, and the new challenges that emerged for both union and management once housekeeping and other support services were taken over by multi‐national service corporations. This case is significant because the size and scope of this privatization and the legislation that facilitated it are unprecedented in Canadian history.     

The Issue of Citizenship for the Bidun Minority in Kuwait after the Arab Spring

Kuwait is a country in which there are many tribes but it is the al‐U'zam tribe which is very dominant and influential in local politics and the economy, in contrast to the other tribes in Kuwait who are recognized by the state as being equal, but have little influence in these things. The Bedouin tribes, such as the Bidun society in Kuwait, who have been excluded from nationality and citizenship and thus have no influence, are an exception. The Kuwaiti government claims that the Bidun themselves gave up these rights so as not to be part of the Kuwaiti state and this has resulted in the Kuwaiti government not granting them any formal economic, political, or social rights. Because of this, the Bidun have had to fight for their rights for decades since the formal establishment of an independent Kuwait in 1961. This article wishes to discuss whether the question of the Kuwaiti refusal to recognize the Bidun as citizens is because of geostrategic reasons, because of the fear of creating a precedent that might lead to the inclusion of other tribes into the Kuwaiti state, or because this is a traditional political strategy for dealing with politically weak tribes.     

Where do we come from,where do we go: Political anthropology looks ahead

Robbins Burling. The Passage of Power: Studies in Political Succession. New York: Academic Press, 1974. xiv + 322 pp. Maps, figures, appendixes and index. $11.50.

Abner Cohen. Two‐Dimensional Man: An Essay on the Anthropology of Power and Symbolism in Complex Society. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1974. xii + 156 pp. Bibliography and index. $8.50.     

Was there an Amerindian Atlantic? Reflections on the limits of a historiographical concept

Proponents of the increasingly prominent “Atlantic history” paradigm argue that ocean-centered, transnational perspectives shed crucial light on connections which tied together Europe, Africa and the Americas in the early modern period, and which older forms of national and imperial histories obscured. In spite of these scholars’ calls for the construction of a truly inclusive history of the Atlantic basin and all its inhabitants, Amerindian peoples have received relatively little attention in the work of Atlantic historians. This article examines the place Amerindians have held in scholarship on the early modern Atlantic. It argues that it is precisely because Atlantic history has been constructed from fundamentally Eurocentric categories like transatlantic empire and commerce that it has accorded little space to Amerindians. It points to this absence as an important shortcoming of such approaches, and suggests that Atlantic history will have to be reconceptualized in fundamental ways in order to bring Amerindians fully into the picture as historical actors.