Intimacy and angst in the field

This article explores the paradoxes of angst and intimacy in ‘the field.’ One aim of feminist research is to attend to overlooked day-to-day practices through which difference and power work. Yet, this focus on intimate and submerged experience is also risky, potentially asking that people share their most intimate experiences with the researcher. How does such attention to the personal lives of others intersect with ethical demands and postcolonial critiques of representation? A desire to understand the submerged life of the geopolitical in women's day-to-day life in India's Ladakh region has driven my research on the politics of marriage and contraceptive choices. Taken by a feminist approach to the geopolitical, I sought out the ways that intimate life was inflected by territorial struggles, without adequately comprehending either the promise or the risks of making intimacy and the body a subject of research. This work was complicated and enriched by my status as a foreigner married into a local family, which provides a not-quite-outsider positionality. This article reflects on the role of intimacy in fieldwork in two senses: doing research on intimacy, and navigating intimacies in and after the field. I argue that intimate fieldwork is full of both promise and peril for feminist researchers. I call then for careful engagement with such topics, and for a rethinking of the boundaries of the field as they relate to the researcher, who carries these boundaries in his or her own body when navigating social relations in the field.     

Complicating hetero-normative spaces at school formals in New Zealand

The school formal in New Zealand constitutes a rich site of analysis for researchers interested in gender and sexuality performances. As a social space, the formal both shapes bodies and is shaped by them. In this article, we explore the school formals of three different types of schools: a single sex girls’, a single sex boys’ and a co-ed. high school, all from an urban centre. Using the theoretical tools provided by poststructuralism and queer theory, we conducted a discourse analysis of observations conducted by the first author at two school formals, interviews with staff and students and interviews with peer researchers. We demonstrate how same-sex practices do not necessarily map onto queer bodies, masculinity onto ‘male’ bodies or femininity onto ‘female’ bodies. Such fluidity challenges the rigid heterosexual/homosexual and masculine/feminine binaries so that schools are more inclusive of gender and sexual diversity.     

Caring practices: the connection between logics of state and domestic violence in Cairo,Egypt

This article analyzes the multiscalar relationship between state violence and domestic violence among low-income residents of Cairo, Egypt. To do so, I look at the concept of care and how notions of care are intimately linked with interpretations of violence within daily life. In the accounts of research participants, acts of violence are instances that are understood as lacking regard for the other’s well-being. Violence is juxtaposed against ‘discipline’ and is generally understood as an act of care meant to correct inappropriate behavior. Here, discipline can encompass acts of physical force. Finally, findings show that for low-income Egyptians, the violence of the state not only shapes but also happens simultaneously to violence in the home.     

Viewing obesogenic advertising in children's neighbourhoods using Google Street View

The advertising of unhealthy food and beverages forms an important component of obesogenic environments. Such marketing to children is a key health determinant because of its impact on dietary preference and food purchasing behaviour. The location of outdoor advertising is important in exploring obesogenic environments and children's neighbourhoods. The aim of this study is to explore issues involved in the use of Google Street View to examine outdoor food and beverage advertising. The implications for using Google Street View in the context of neighbourhood built environment research and grass‐roots advocacy are discussed. The study was conducted within walkable distances from 19 primary and intermediate schools in Auckland, New Zealand, where “walkable” was defined as limited by 800 m road network boundaries, which are equivalent to school buffer boundaries. Google Street View allows for centrality of data collection, coding, and storage. However, challenges exist with the method because 727 (29.4%) of a total of 2,474 outdoor advertisements that were identified were not able to be categorised because images were unclear, not in English, blocked, or at angles where detail cannot be deciphered. Specific to outdoor advertising for food and beverages, the results presented here show that children are exposed to a significantly greater number of unhealthy advertising than other advertising, P=0.001, eta‐squared statistic (0.45) indicates a large effect size. Overall, the results show promise for the use of Google Street View in the study of obesogenic environments.     

The Shifting Fortunes of War: Patronage of the Wurttemberg Hofkapelle during the Thirty Years War

German courts have long been renowned for their support of music.How long could this support continue in times of war? This articleconsiders the fate of the Württemberg Hofkapelle duringthe Thirty Years War (1618-48), a conflict that forced manydistinguished Hofkapellen to close their doors for much of thewar's duration. The Hofkapelle (literally ‘court chapel’or music ensemble) was the focus of much music patronage atearly modern German courts, and typically consisted of an orchestraof strings, horns, and percussion, as well as adult male singersand a boys’ choir. Based on an analysis of church councilaccounts that list all expenditure for court music throughoutthe war, the article asserts that demand for music during religiousservices under both Protestant and Catholic control of the duchyremained relatively constant. This demand enabled the Hofkapelleto continue musical performances, despite the enormous constraintsthe war placed on court expenditure. Music patronage was significant in several ways. Payment forperformers and composers could be highly competitive among Germancourts, with the best musicians earning salaries often far exceedingthose of other officials. Foreign musicians were much in demandin Württemberg as elsewhere, such as English lutenist JohnPrice, who founded a group of English lutenists at the Württembergcourt in 1618 that lasted until the death of Duke Johann Friedricha decade later. While the hardship of wartime effectively endedthe payment of large salaries, forcing many top performers toleave, members of the court still called for music at church,even if they had to pay for performances themselves. A studyof music patronage during the Thirty Years War thus revealsnot only the extent to which the court sought to support thearts, but also how that support reflected the shifting fortunesof war.     

The in situ preservation of archaeological remains: using lysimeters to assess the impacts of saturation and seasonality

Recent research has studied the effects of seasonal variability on waterlogged burial environments. In a new approach to the study of archaeological contexts, the use of controlled laboratory conditions via lysimeters has enabled new insights into the nature of short term fluctuations in saturation, and the impact that these can have on burial contexts. In addition, the protocols used have facilitated interesting insights into burial environments and the way in which fluctuations in saturation and seasonality can impact on the contained organic components within them.     

Bone diagenesis in the European Holocene II: taphonomic and environmental considerations

We have applied cluster analysis to mercury intrusion porosimetry data from 219 archaeological bones (121 human and 98 animal) and soil chemistry data from 219 accompanying soil samples (1 per bone sample), to investigate the influence of soil chemistry on bone preservation. The samples chosen for the study were obtained from sites ranging in time from the pre-modern to the Mesolithic and were representative of burial environments across Europe (from the Baltic to the Mediterranean). These results represent the single largest database for archaeological bone preservation in the European Holocene to date and demonstrate the potential for large-scale diagenetic studies to help develop long term preservation strategies for our European heritage. Despite the variety of sites and environments, bones could be categorised into only four main diagenetic types. Furthermore, soil chemistry appears to significantly affect only one type of preservation, the pathway characterised by loss of mineral. In neutral to basic soils, taphonomy and in particular the differences between the treatment of human and animal remains, becomes the dominating factor in determining preservation. Using these results, strategies for heritage management of archaeological sites can be suggested; grouping sites into those requiring immediate excavation and those where in situ preservation is viable.