Of Sheep and Scribbling: Women and Writing in (Mostly) Early Modern England

Books reviewed in this article: Kevin Pask, The Emergence of the English Author: Scripting the Life of the Poet in Early Modern England Carol Barash, English Women’s Poetry 1649-1714: Politics, Community and Linguistic Authority Anna Battigelli, Margaret Cavendish and the Exiles of the Mind Helen Wilcox (ed.), Women and Literature in Britain 1500-1700 Jeni Williams, Interpreting Nightingales: Gender, Class and Histories     

From here to eternity?: The practice of knowledge transfer in dispersed and co-located project organizations

This paper extends theoretical and empirical debates on knowledge transfer practices in geographically dispersed project teams using a range of communications media. It presents quantitative data comparing work interactions between dispersed and co-located teams in five international, project-based firms. It shows that contrary to conventional wisdom, their respective practices are similar for many work activities such as search and routine information exchange. However dispersed team members validate, verify and consult differently to the respective co-located teams. Qualitative data from interviews and observation then illustrates typical interactions using the differing means and media available to the observed project teams, such as task decomposition and emergency corrective work. Due to an unfortunate oversight one of the references in this article is incomplete. It can be found here.     

Consuming Ethics: Articulating the Subjects and Spaces of Ethical Consumption

Geography's debates about how to maintain a sense of morally responsible action often emphasise the problematic nature of caring at a distance, and take for granted particular kinds of moral selfhood in which responsibility is bound into notions of human agency that emphasise knowledge and recognition. Taking commodity consumption as a field in which the ethics, morality, and politics of responsibility has been problematised, we argue that existing research on consumption fails to register the full complexity of the practices, motivations and mechanisms through which the working-up of moral selves is undertaken in relation to consumption practices. Rather than assuming that ethical decision‐making works through the rational calculation of obligations, we conceptualise the emergence of ethical consumption as ways in which everyday practical moral dispositions are re‐articulated by policies, campaigns and practices that enlist ordinary people into broader projects of social change. Ethical consumption, then, involves both a governing of consumption and a governing of the consuming self. Using the example of Traidcraft , we present a detailed examination of one particular context in which self‐consciously ethical consumption is mediated, suggesting that ethical consumption can be understood as opening up ethical and political considerations in new combinations. We therefore argue for the importance of the growth of ethical consumption as a new terrain of political action, while also emphasising the grounds upon which ethical consumption can be opened up to normative critique.     

Voices from the Top of the Pile: Elite Perceptions of Poverty and the Poor in the Philippines

How do elites perceive poverty and the poor? In this article, we present the results of interviews with eighty members of the Filipino elite, undertaken as part of a larger six‐country study of elite perceptions of poverty and the poor. Poverty, we argue, is a highly subjective phenomenon. People's perceptions of poverty, of who is and who is not poor, of how poverty affects them and others, and of how poverty can be effectively tackled, vary enormously between different types of people (defined in terms of class, status, occupation, nationality, ethnicity, gender or a myriad of other social identities). Wherever people cohere as groups, classes or other social constructs, perceptions of poverty are aggregated and refined and then embedded in social dynamics. The study of elite perceptions of poverty and the poor, we conclude, can both add to our understanding of the social dynamics of poverty and inequality and inform pro‐poor public policy.     

From 'industrial districts' to 'knowledge clusters': a model of knowledge dissemination and competitive advantage in industrial agglomerations

This paper integrates knowledge-based theories of the firm withgeograph-ical studies of industrial agglomeration to producea model that helps explain the competitive advantages enjoyedby proximate firms located in geographical clusters. We proposea hierarchy of specialized knowledge stocks at both firm andcluster levels and suggest that the comparative advantage conferredby knowledge resources at each level is protected, in part,by asymmetries in knowledge flows from level to level. The paperargues that codified component knowledge is more easily spreadthan firm-specific architectural knowledge. Nevertheless, overtime, agglomerations may develop a cluster-specific form ofarchitectural knowledge that facilitates the rapid disseminationof knowledge throughout the cluster by increasing the learningcapacity of proximate firms and thereby conferring cluster-specificcompetitive advantages.     

Book Reviews

A Feng 阿风, Ming Qing shidai funü de diwei yu quanli: yi Ming Qing qiyue wenshu, susong dang’an wei zhongxin 明清时代妇女的地位与权利——以明清契 约文书,诉讼档案为中心 (The status and rights of women during Ming and Qing times: focused on contractual documents and litigation archives of the Ming and Qing);Eli Alberts, A History of Daoism and the Yao People of South China;Robert Ford Campany, Making Transcendents: Ascetics and Social Memory in Early Medieval China;Barbara Hendrischke, The Scripture on Great Peace: The “Taiping Jing” and the Beginnings of Daoism (Daoist Classics);Jin Jiang, Women Playing Men: Yue Opera and Social Change in Twentieth-Century Shanghai;Ma Liangkuan 马亮宽, Fu Sinian shehui zhengzhi huodong yu sixiang yanjiu 傅 斯年社会政治活动与思想研究 (A study of Fu Sinian’s thought and social-political work);Daniel J. Meissner, Chinese Capitalists versus the American Flour Industry, 1890–1910: Profit and Patriotism in International Trade;Rong Xinjiang 荣新江, Sui Tang Chang’an: xingbie, jiyi ji qita 隋唐长安: 性别, 记忆及其他 (Sui-Tang Chang’an: gender, memory, and other);Wen-hsin Yeh, Shanghai Splendor: Economic Sentiments and the Making of Modern China, 1843–1949     

Currents and trends in the archaeological sciences

Here I use ISI Web of Knowledge to build on a recent paper by Butzer (2009) and track current trends in the archaeological sciences. I researched eight thematic keywords replete in the title, abstract, keywords and main body of archaeological science literature for the period 1970–2008. For all keywords investigated a steady rise in archaeological science research is evidenced after 1980, with pronounced growth occurring after 2000. I attribute this pattern to the standardisation of research production and academic evaluation, in addition to the democratisation of new information technologies, notably the Internet. The evolution of 10 leading archaeological science journals was also tracked. Since the 1970s, the bibliometric data show that nine of the ten journals have successfully expanded on an annual basis. I found that the biggest growers (the Journal of Archaeological Science [JAS], the Journal of Human Evolution and the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology) are all published by Elsevier. In 2008, the JAS was ranked first for five of the eight thematic keywords by ISI, underlining the popularity and interdisciplinary scope of the journal. According to the 2008 Journal Citation Reports, the JAS ranks second for total citations (4219) in archaeological science and third for its overall impact factor (1.779).     

pXRF: a study of inter-instrument performance

Integrating portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) instrumentation into archaeological investigations has generated as much interest as skepticism because several characteristics of the technique limit analytical accuracy and precision. This paper seeks to explore inter-instrument performance in order to assess the potential pXRF instrumentation has in examining the elemental composition of lithic raw materials. Two pXRF instruments, Delta and Omega models both manufactured by Olympus Innov-X Systems, were utilized to obtain the trace element signatures of five fine-grained volcanic sources and four obsidian sources in the Great Basin. We compared the two portable instruments to a wavelength-dispersive instrument extensively calibrated with geologic standards and to a commercial benchtop energy-dispersive system. Our results suggest that the relationships between the data produced by these different instruments are complex, and as we look to the future of pXRF use in archaeological analysis we argue that that the same strict protocols applied in laboratory-based XRF analyses, involving instrument calibration, evaluation of inter-instrument performance, and comparison to accepted geologic standards, need to be applied in pXRF analysis.     

Approximating the Face of ‘Aunty’: A Question of Likeness

This paper describes two approaches to the facial approximation of three individuals from the Wairau Bar burial site (New Zealand). Two individuals were approximated working in direct reference to the remains and incorporated manual drafting. The third individual, ‘Aunty’ (the respectful title given by the iwi Rangitane elders) was approximated from CT scans and using computer graphics. The computer graphic approach enabled a greater level of precision in the application of the research and recommendations that inform a facial approximation, and facilitated collaboration with appropriate expertise. The computer-graphic approach, however, also resulted in a more photographic facial appearance, which can imply a greater level of knowledge about hard/soft tissue relationships than is currently available.