The maritime landscape of Kilwa Kisiwani and its region,Tanzania, 11th to 15th century AD

East African coastal archaeological research has traditionally concentrated on the stone towns. In contrast, this study adopts a maritime cultural landscape approach by examining one of those towns, Kilwa, in its wider setting towards the peak of its economic success. Using archaeological evidence derived from coastal and inter-tidal survey and excavation, it identifies the environmental advantages of Kilwa′s estuarine location and resources that are exploited by a series of settlements providing marine produce and construction materials. The maritime approaches to the town also provide the context for a cultural display of religious allegiance and power through the symbolism of conspicuously sited mosques and a more perplexing series of causeways. Knowledge of the wider integrated coastal environment is seen as key to understanding the culture and economy of the region.     

Agricultural slope management and soil erosion at La Laguna,Tlaxcala, Mexico

Several superimposed systems of agricultural terracing are preserved at the archaeological site of La Laguna in central Mexico. Excavations uncovered complex stratigraphic sequences of terrace fills and colluvial deposits. Their chronology was established by radiocarbon, optically stimulated luminescence (OSL), and the presence of diagnostic features and artifacts. The Formative occupations of the site (ca. 600–400 BC and 100 BC–AD 100) resulted in severe erosion and exposure of indurated subsoil horizons. In the Middle to Late Postclassic (AD 1150–1520) stone-walled terraces were built to recover the degraded slopes for cultivation. Renewed reclamation works have been undertaken since the Colonial period, eventually taking the form of sloping-field terraces with berms planted in maguey. The reconstructed sequence of local land use underscores the risks of dating agricultural features by association with sherd scatters, as well as the complexity of the relationships between demographic variables, agricultural intensity and terracing.     

Small firm finance and economic geography

This paper argues that firm finance is something of a ‘black-box’in economic geography, a largely take-for-granted aspect ofproduction. Focusing on small firms, the paper argues that firmfinance warrants analysis, not simply to ‘add’ toknowledge and to form another sub-discipline of economic geography,but in order to further develop and refine our understandingof uneven development. The paper explores the neglect of firmfinance in economic geography and highlights some of the contributionsof literatures in eco-nomics and business. Finally, the paperoutlines three points of intersection between these disparate,usually disciplinary-bound, literatures in business, economics,and economic geography: the place-bound nature of firms, thesocial character of economic relations, and third, the powerrelations and asymmetries inherent in financial relationships.These intersections are used to critique existing small firmfinance literatures and to outline the contours of an emergingresearch agenda in economic geography.     

House-Yard Burials of Enslaved Laborers in Eighteenth-Century Jamaica

Four burials were excavated from discrete house-yard compounds in an eighteenth century African Jamaican slave settlement at Seville plantation. Though only four in number, these individuals provide significant information on burial practices and physical conditions within a clearly defined African Jamaican community. The analysis of material remains illuminate living conditions and social relations within the African Jamaican community. Each individual was interred within a separate house-yard and with a unique set of artifacts that yield information about their unique identities and positions within the Seville community. Bioarchaeological assessments describe the osteological remains and detail findings concerning pathologies. To date, they are the only excavated individuals who represent the African Caribbean practice of house-yard burial.     

‘One in,all in?’ NATO’s next enlargement

In 1999 NATO heads of state invited three states to join the alliance and are set to invite yet more states to join in November 2002 at the Prague summit. At present there are ten states that have declared their interest in gaining accession to NATO councils, and the prospect is that even more states will most likely be interested in joining in the years to come. The question for NATO is no longer whether to enlarge but how to manage enlargement. This article argues that NATO should invite seven of the ten currently declared aspirant states to join the alliance, on the condition that before actual accession occurs, each state must subsequently meet political, military, economic, security and legal standards that are set forth in an annexe to the official invitation. Furthermore, NATO should determine to hold a summit meeting of the North Atlantic Council triennially, for the purpose of assessing the candidates' membership progress in meeting the criteria, and to this end establish a mechanism, in the form of identified bodies, for the assessment of the candidate members' progress. Such a formal process sets forth a graduated yet assured process that aspirant states must progress through that will result in guaranteed accession to NATO councils and protection. A formal process such as this will ameliorate many of the problems that will almost surely arise from proceeding in a more ad hoc, piecemeal manner, while at the same time keeping the door open to other states who may want to join in the future.     

NATO, the Baltic states and Russia: a framework for sustainable enlargement

In this article the author discusses the projected enlargement of NATO, focusing on the candidacy of the three Baltic states. He examines the factors that have induced the Baltic governments to seek NATO membership, the steps the alliance has taken in the lead–up to the Prague summit in November 2002, the evolution of US policy with regard to the potential entry of the Baltic states into NATO, and the arguments that have sometimes been raised against Baltic membership. He argues that the admission of the Baltic states into NATO will be a step forward both for the alliance and for European security, but he believes that it should be accompanied by a restructuring of the alliance that would give much greater weight to its political dimension. One key objective of this restructuring would be to establish a closer relationship with Russia, moving beyond the NATO–Russia Council that was set up in May 2002. The way to do this is not by treating Russia as a special case, but by encouraging the Russian government to apply for NATO membership (as other countries have) and then helping Russia to carry out far–reaching political and military changes that would eventually qualify it to enter the alliance.     

Cleaning up after the Celtic Tiger: scalar 'fixes' in the political ecology of Tiger economies

This paper explores intersections between political economy and nature in the so-called Tiger economies that have risen to prominence since the 1960s. Whilst Tiger states are in many ways emblematic of the extremes of late capitalism, they are nevertheless characterized by socio-natural environments that are distinctive, both in terms of the political and economic interests that have underpinned them and their rates of production. Whilst produced under a distinctive set of capitalist social relations, the dialectical reading offered herein chooses to foreground the agency that socio-nature itself possesses in relation to prevalent class interests. This agency is conceptualized in terms of a series of cultural wars over transformed nature. Using a theoretically provocative case study that examines the politics of waste management in Ireland, the paper argues that in reflecting upon the role of such culture wars in the constitution of dominant social relations in Tiger states, the concepts of scalar strategies and struggles over scale may prove useful. Whilst social contests over the scaling of governance have tended thus far to focus upon the dialectical relations between scale and political economy, the paper argues that ecological projects too are fundamentally produced by and implicated in the structuration of scale. In calling for dialogue between political ecological studies and recent work in geography that has sought to theorize scale as a social process, the paper hopes to contribute towards the development of a political ecology of Tiger states.