‘The house cannot stay empty’: a case of young rural Nepalis negotiating multilocal householding

Over the past few decades, the mobility of young people abroad for education and labour has been rapidly increasing in Nepal, which has impacted both rural communities and household life. Based on ethnographic field data from Eastern Nepal, this paper explores how multilocality affects the socio-spatial dimensions of householding, i.e. how siblings negotiate their roles as movers and stayers in relation to household obligations, individual aspirations and shifting socio-economic opportunities. This paper draws on and contributes to scholarly debates on how migration impacts social transformation in places, with a particular focus on the dynamics of multilocal householding. We argue that a common agreement between generations and siblings that ‘the house cannot stay empty’ reinforces the importance of the household as a meaningful place exercised through the maintenance of traditional intra- and intergenerational contracts and the practice of rotating presence and absence.     

Archaeology as State Heritage Crime

North American archaeology is evaluated in light of state and heritage crime theory. When analyzed with preexisting typologies, the practice is shown to meet the threshold for state-sanctioned heritage crime. This study also demonstrates how current models of heritage crime do not adequately account for (1) the pivotal role states and state-sanctioned heritage experts play in committing heritage crime and (2) the implications of heritage crime for living descendant communities, not just physical artifacts and buildings. Typically thought of as crime against the state, seeing a state heritage regime as organized heritage crime opens the door to a host of theoretical and practical possibilities, including legal remedies for affected communities. Despite these opportunities, major impediments to meaningful change exist.     

The MSA sequence of Diepkloof and the history of southern African Late Pleistocene populations

This paper presents the first multidisciplinary synthesis of the Middle Stone Age sequence of Diepkloof Rock Shelter (South Africa). We explore the main cultural changes that characterized southern African hunter–gatherer societies from OIS 5 to the beginning of OIS 3. We discuss the tempo of these changes, test the current interpretative hypotheses and explore an empirical model to explain the early appearance of symbolic marking within the Pleistocene hunter–gather societies of southern Africa.     

Museums and cultural sustainability: stakeholders,forces, and cultural policies

This paper explores the relationship between museums, cultural sustainability, and cultural policies. Specifically, it offers a theoretical model for the sustainable development of museums and a process for designing appropriate cultural policies for museums with cultural sustainability in mind. The case of Cyprus is used to demonstrate how strengths and gaps in cultural sustainability can be identified within a broader museum environment. The study examines the main stakeholders (the state, municipalities/ communities, and individuals), types of museums (archaeological, art, ethnographic, etc.) they establish and the forces influencing their decisions (such as politics, a sense of national identity, cultural tourism, economic revitalization, and personal agendas) in order to map the Cypriot museum environment and identify the emphasis placed on different parameters of cultural sustainability. By identifying cultural sustainability strengths and gaps on a national level, it becomes easier for cultural policy-makers to design appropriate cultural policies for museums.     

Rock Art Between Preservation,Research and Sustainable Development—a Perspective from Southern Ethiopia

This paper focuses on southern Ethiopia, along the outer rim of the Rift Valley and not far from the Kenyan border, in an area forming part of a larger region known as a cradle of humankind. However, it also hosts a diverse Holocene rock art heritage, which is still underestimated and underdocumented. Paintings and engravings are widespread in the region, both in rock shelters and open-air sites, often located in remote areas currently inhabited by communities belonging to different ethnic groups. The aim of this paper is to present the first results of a new project in the area around Yabelo, within the broader framework of rock art research in East Africa, integrating archaeological research, preservation and heritage management with a relevant involvement of local communities. The outstanding cultural importance of these contexts offers new prospects for both scholarly research and sustainable development. The recording and study of the artworks is underway, using digital technologies that guarantee a high standard of accuracy of the documentation and non-invasive recording methods. This provides important insights for reconstructing cultural dynamics in the area between the final Pleistocene and onset of the Holocene. Moreover, the focus on rock art makes it possible to enhance local knowledge, increasing the awareness of local communities, with a significant impact on the preservation of this fragile heritage and the development of local, sustainable tourism projects. Differently from other archaeological features, rock art can have a more immediate attractiveness for contemporary observers, in terms of the apparent immediacy of the images and their emotional impact, raising awareness of cultural heritage and fostering major involvement in its preservation.     

Life Sciences in the Netherlands: Weakness in a Strong National Policy

The Netherlands is an example of a European country in which the commercialization of knowledge is hampered by a somewhat risk-averse culture at universities and a shortage of venture capital for early growth of start-up firms. This article addresses the policy programme in the Netherlands to improve the situation for the life sciences since the early 2000s. The target number of newly established firms could easily be achieved and the programme was able to improve the business climate for new firm establishment. However, the programme could not improve conditions for growth of new firms because it could not achieve a comprehensive turn in the business climate, due to the short cycle-time of the programme (4–5 years). In addition, the programme did not take advantage of existing critical mass in the largest cluster or from any other competitive strength of particular clusters. These circumstances were influencing a relatively large number of small and vulnerable firms. The article concludes with a set of insights from which lessons can be drawn.     

Community Collaboration and Other Good Intentions

Collaborative and community-based archaeological research encompasses a broad spectrum of approaches; however, there are often discrepancies between how researchers ‘sell’ the collaborative endeavour in theory and how it is actually practised. Over the past several years, I have had the opportunity to participate in several projects, ranging from those that claimed to be ‘truly collaborative,’ to research that maybe should have asked, ‘what community?’ These experiences raised difficult and disturbing questions concerning the nature and practice of collaborative and community-based archaeology. In this paper, I confront these issues as I have experienced them personally. While community-based practices aim to redress a historical and ongoing power imbalance between the researcher and the researched, constant vigilance is required lest the ‘good intentions’ of anthropologists inadvertently mask an exploitation that may be inherent in the structure of research itself. In considering the corporate nature of academia, I query whether the collaborative research model represents a break with the past, or is instead simply the same old practice dressed up in fashionable new language.     

Seismic Assessment of a Monumental Building through Nonlinear Analyses of a 3D Solid Model

ABSTRACT

The paper analyzes the static behavior and the seismic vulnerability of the “San Francesco ad Alto” building in Ancona (Italy), which is currently used as a Regional Headquarter of the Marche Region by the Italian Army and was formerly a monastery. The global static structural behavior and the dynamic properties have been evaluated using the Finite Element modeling technique, in which the nonlinear behavior of masonry has been taken into account by proper constitutive laws. The concepts of homogenized material and smeared cracking are used to evaluate the capacity of the monastery to withstand lateral loads together with the expected demands resulting from seismic actions (N2 method), using a nonlinear static analysis (pushover). The comparison of seismic demand and capacity confirms the susceptibility of these types of buildings to extensive damage and collapse, as frequently observed in similar buildings. This paper aims to point out that advanced numerical analyses can offer significant information on the understanding of the actual structural behavior of historical buildings. It is believed that the methodology and the overall conclusions of this case study are valid for many historical monasteries in Europe.