A Late Reverberation of Antiquity in Vernacular Architecture of Moravia

This study examines in detail an extinct building tradition in the territory of central and southern Moravia, where the earthen constructions of the Moravian-Pannonian house type were widespread in the lowlands. The greatest attention has been paid to a specific building technology which utilizes cobs, namely mud-lumps called války. These represent a unique construction solution that goes beyond the central European context of earthen building. Different variations of this building technique were used in the studied area for the construction of barns, some houses, detached storage buildings and fences.     

Tradition,myth and the dilemma of Australian foreign policy

For a middle power with a relatively short history of framing a self determined foreign policy, Australia has actively sought to engage with both its immediate region and the wider world. Elite agreement on this external orientation, however, has by no means entailed consensus on what this orientation might involve in terms of policy. Consequently, two, often conflicting, traditions and their associated myths have informed Australian foreign policy-making. The most enduring tradition shaping foreign policy views Australia as a somewhat isolated bastion of Western civilisation. In this mode Australia's myth is pragmatic, but uncertain and sees Asia as both an opportunity and a potential threat which requires the support and counsel of culturally similar external powers engaged in the region to ensure stability. Against this, an alternative and historically later tradition crafted a foreign policy that advanced Australian independence through engagement with a seemingly monolithic and increasingly prosperous Asia. This paper explores the evolution and limitations of these foreign policy traditions and the myths that sustain them. It further considers what features of these traditions continue to have resonance in a region that has become more fluid and heterogeneous than it was during the Cold War and which requires a foreign policy flexibility that can address this complex and strategically uncertain environment.     

RESISTANCE AND STRATEGIC RESPONSES IN FOOD SUPPLY NETWORKS: METRO CASH & CARRY IN BANGALORE

The transnational expansion of large retail and wholesale companies such as Metro, Carrefour and Wal‐Mart has caused changes in the market situation and consequent power shifts, not only in the retail sector but also in the supply networks in host countries. These developments at least potentially endanger the livelihoods of old established retailers, intermediaries and employees of these businesses. Thus, it is not surprising that the investments of the transnational companies can result in resistance from those affected. As an analysis of Metro and its activities in the federal state of Karnataka in India shows, this resistance can influence the activities of the company to develop a modern supply network. This study analyses the way in which the actors of resistance develop and exercise power and how this in turn influences Metro. The global production network (GPN) approach is used as an analytical framework. The results emphasize the importance of networks external to the firm for the analysis of processes of globalization. The company's behaviour cannot be understood unless the resistance is taken into account. The study shows that the GPN framework provides the tools to analyse the influence of actors such as civil society groups, trade unions and associations as part of the production network. However, up to now this option has rarely been used.     

Priestley on materialism and the essence of God

ABSTRACT

The paper focuses on Priestley’s complex views on the essence of God in connection with his materialism, elaborated in the Disquisitions Relating to Matter and Spirit (1777/ 1782). This issue is crucial if one wishes to get a clear idea of what Priestley’s materialism amounts to; whether it is mainly a thesis about the material grounds of the human mind (“psychological materialism”), or a more far-reaching one about what kind of substances exist in the world (a version of “ontological materialism”). The claim that God may be material allows for the most radical version of ontological materialism according to which everything in the world is material, without altogether denying that God exists. In fact, Priestley considers and partially defends at least three different views on the potential materiality of God: (1) an agnostic stance that is his official view, (2) materialism about God based on his own theory of matter, and (3) “gross” materialism about God. The aim of the paper is to analyze these three views, in particular concerning what kind of materialism they support and whether they can contribute to the consistent Christian materialism Priestley envisaged.     

Anti-Prostitution Politics and Militarised Urban Prosperity in the US Military Camptown in Korea

Camptowns (kijich'on) are neighbourhoods located near US military bases in Korea that are organised around the military service economy, especially the sex industry. While most studies of Korean camptowns point to the US military's involvement with the camptown sex industry as evidence of US military imperialism, this article argues that since 2004 anti-prostitution polices have been essential to stabilising American militarisation in Korea's urban realm. Focusing on Anjeong-ri, a camptown located adjacent to Camp Humphreys, the largest overseas US military base on the planet, the article examines how Korean development actors invoke hierarchies of race, gender, sexuality, and class to distance the camptown from the sex industry and to construct the camptown as a space of militarised urban prosperity. By showing emerging ways in which US military empire works through anti-prostitution policies and through the urban system in Korea, the argument poses a challenge to anti-prostitution feminists who have long located evidence of American empire in the sex industry itself.