The Transmission of Early Bronze Technology to Thailand: New Perspectives

In the four decades since the discovery that a discrete Bronze Age preceded the Iron Age in mainland Southeast Asia, much has been learned about the dating, technology, production, organization, and use of bronze metallurgy in the region, particularly in prehistoric Thailand. Although independent invention of copper smelting in Southeast Asia has not been considered likely by most regional archaeologists since the 1980s, the source of copper-base technology and the mechanisms of adoption remain poorly understood. Arguments claiming that the primary stimulus for the appearance of copper-base metallurgy in Southeast Asia came from early states in the Central Plain of China have dominated recent discussions, but anthropological approaches to technology transmission, adoption, and adaptation have yet to be systematically explored. After summarizing the current evidence for early bronze metallurgy in Thailand, this paper proposes an alternative to the predominant Sinocentric view of the source for Southeast Asian bronze technology. It will be proposed on both chronological and technological grounds that the first bronze metallurgy in Southeast Asia was derived from pre-Andronovo late third millennium BC Eurasian forest-steppe metals technology, and not from the second millennium, technologically distinctive, élite-sponsored bronze metallurgy of the Chinese Erlitou or Erligang Periods. Hypotheses for a transmission route and a research agenda for resolving debates on bronze origins in Southeast Asia are offered.     

Introduction: global perspectives on gender–water geographies

This introduction summarizes the work featured in the themed section of Gender, Place and Culture titled ‘Global geographies of gender and water’. It brings into dialogue scholars investigating a variety of gender–water relationships at different scales, including: poisoned waterscapes; fishing practices; and the implications of neoliberal water policies. The authors featured purposefully engage with the multi-faceted ways in which experiences, discourses and policies of water are gendered, and how gender is created through processes of access, use and control of water resources. In bringing these articles together, we have consciously aimed to support inclusive, feminist collaborative work and to prioritize diversity.     

Ethnodevelopment: Social Movements, Creating Experts and Professionalising Indigenous Knowledge in Ecuador

Indigenous social movements have become important development actors in recent years. As the targets of "socially inclusive" neoliberal policies and protagonists in global anti‐capitalist movements, the position of these social movements in mainstream development is often ambivalent. This ambivalence reflects contradictions between economic neoliberalism and goals of social development as well as different understandings and practices in development‐with‐identity. We explore the relationship between the institutionalisation of ethnodevelopment and the creation of indigenous experts through indigenous social movements' engagement in popular training that emphasises indigenous knowledge. Drawing on Michael Watt's notion of governable spaces of indigeneity, we examine how institutionalisation is occurring in a range of ways that establish new alliances and cut across scales. Analysing the politics occurring at the development policy interface, we focus on the processes of representation, negotiation and embodiment involved in indigenous professionalisation, as activism shapes "scaled up" policy making.     

New Scholarship on the Cuban Missile Crisis

Books reviewed in this article:
Jutta Weldes, Constructing National Interests: The United States and the Cuban Missile Crisis
Philip Nash, The Other Missiles of October: Eisenhower, Kennedy, and the Jupiters, 1957–1963
Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali, "One Hell of a Gamble": Khrushchev, Castro, and Kennedy, 1958–1964     

Australian defence policy and the possibility of war

The Defence White Paper of December 2000 declares that the main task of the ADF is to maintain the capability to defend Australian territory from any credible attack without relying on the combat forces of any other country. Australia is unusual among contemporary Western states in affirming such a policy. Most other states are reordering their priorities to put less emphasis on conventional conflict and more on tasks such as peacekeeping and border protection, while assuming that in the event of major conventional conflicts they are likely to be involved as subsidiary members of a coalition led in most cases by the United States. Should Australia follow this trend? The article reviews this question in the light of a number of scenarios for the use of Australia's armed forces in the period ahead, and concludes that the arguments for change are not persuasive.     

What do the World Bank's Poverty Assessments teach us about Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa?

As part of the World Bank's poverty reduction strategy, Poverty Assessments have been carried out for a number of countries which analyse who the poor are, the causes of poverty and poverty reduction policies. This article reviews what can be learnt from the twenty-five Assessments prepared for countries in sub-Saharan Africa up to 1996. Whilst other factors are acknowledged in identifying the poor, the Assessments over-emphasize income-poverty defined against an inevitably arbitrary poverty line. The Assessments are shown to be weak in addressing the causes of poverty, often ignoring the historical perspective, political context, and international dimensions such as debt and commodity price trends, focusing instead on the lack of growth in recent years as the main cause of poverty. Weak understanding of the causes of poverty undermines the basis for country-specific poverty reduction strategies: policy recommendations are usually an uncritical presentation of the World Bank's three-pronged strategy of growth, investment in human capital and social safety nets. Although the Assessments do not explicitly acknowledge the point, they suggest that the number of poor people in Africa will continue to rise; nor is there any basis for confidence that policies are being put in place to redress the situation.