From toys to automobiles: foreign investment,firm heterogeneity and intermediaries in a Portuguese industry

In the literature on territorial innovation systems there is a constant tension between the effect of endogenous and exogenous factors and their relative importance. In order to address this tension several approaches have sought to conceptualize the relational and multi-scalar dimension of innovation and to explain how external knowledge and economic flows in conjunction with regional contexts combine to produce regional growth, stagnation or decline. This paper will contribute to this debate, while also highlighting that even at the local level there is substantial heterogeneity between firms. It will also shed light on the role of intermediary organizations that can help address information and power asymmetries between multinational corporations and less competitive local firms. Empirically it will draw on the case study of the Portuguese moulds industry, which has successfully adapted to shifts in the global economy by drawing on local resources while also remaining integrated into global value chains.     

Saved by the Civil War: African ‘Loyalists’ in the Portuguese Armed Forces and Angola's Transition to Independence

ABSTRACT

The article examines the trajectories of ‘loyal’ African troops in Angola before and after the demise of Portugal's authoritarian regime in 1974. It starts by placing the ‘Africanisation’ drive of the Portuguese counterinsurgency campaign in a historical perspective; it then explores the rocky transition from colonial rule to independence in the territory between April 1974 and November 1975, describing the course of action taken by the Portuguese authorities vis-à-vis their former collaborators in the security forces. A concluding section draws a comparison between the fate of Portugal's loyalists in Angola and the one experienced by similar groups in other ex-Portuguese colonies. The choice of Angola has the advantage of allowing us to look into a complex scenario in which the competition amongst rival nationalist groups, and a number of external factors, helped to produce a more ambiguous outcome for some of the empire's local collaborators than what might have been otherwise expected.     

Entangled Histories: Translocal Textile Trades in Eastern Africa,c. 800 CE to the Early Twentieth Century

In the recent efflorescence of studies on ‘global’ textile trades, eastern Africa has been mostly conspicuous for its absence. This special volume of Textile History seeks to redress this situation by mapping many of the major historic textile trades of this vast area, and demonstrating their importance to the global story. The introduction provides the rationale for the volume, positions the textile trades of eastern Africa over the longue durée and connects them to wider geographical and conceptual frameworks, and presents its five essays, contextualising them within the unfolding history of the western Indian Ocean and its several ‘cloth zones’, while elucidating their potential contributions to the field.     

Class Interests in Brazilian Archaeology

Archaeology is a practice that exists within various social contexts. As such, the way it is practiced is dependent upon the class interests of those who fund and undertake archaeological investigations. These interests in turn can be influenced by existing political regimes. In this article, I discuss how class interests have influenced the direction of Brazilian archaeology for the past century and a half.     

External Financial Liberalization and Macroeconomic Performance in Emerging Countries: An Empirical Evaluation of the Brazilian Case

This article evaluates the effects of external financial liberalization on Brazilian macroeconomic performance from 1995 to 2016. Its main contributions are to assess the influence of the global financial cycle on the level of external financial liberalization and to analyse the short- and long-run macroeconomic effects of such liberalization on the performance of a peripheral economy in the global currency hierarchy. Methodologically, the article employs the Markov-Switching Vector Autoregressive and Vector Error Correction models. The results show that the global financial cycle directly affects cross-border financial flows and frames the impact of external financial liberalization on the macroeconomic performance. The article concludes that external financial liberalization has negative macroeconomic effects in the short run and generates a trade-off between stability and growth in the long run.     

The Agote Map of Hainan Island,China: A Case Study for Cultural Dialogue in Eighteenth-Century Cartography

The idea of cartography as an example of Western imposition or process of cultural transfer is one that has long fascinated scholars interested in the margins of empires. This article analyses the maps in the possession of Manuel Agote, a Spanish factor in Canton at the end of the eighteenth century. The focus is on the use made by Agote of a Chinese map of Hainan, together with the European maps available already in China for commercial interests, and the way this reflects the cultural dialogue that was operating among local and foreign cartographers engaged in similar European mapping activities in the region.     

Book reviews

Converging Cultures: Art and Identity in Spanish America. Edited by DIANA FANE. Brooklyn: Brooklyn Museum, 1996. Pp. 320.

New World Orders: Casta Painting and Colonial Latin America. By ILONA KATZEW, Curator. New York: Americas Society Art Gallery, 1996. Pp. 144.

Iglesia, Estado y economía. Sighs XVI al XIX. Edited by MARIA DEL PILAR MARTINEZ LOPEZ‐CANO. Mexico: UNAM/Instituto José María Luis Mora, 1995 Pp. 314.

El crédito a largo plazo en el siglo XVI. Ciudad de México (1550–1620). By MARIA DEL PILAR MARTINEZ LOPEZ‐CANO. Mexico: UNAM, 1995. Pp. 208.

The Darker Side of the Renaissance: Literacy, Territoriality, and Colonization. By WALTER D. MIGNOLO. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1995. Pp. xxii, 426.

Entre la retórica y la insurgencia: las ideas y los movimientos sociales en los Andes, Siglo XVIII. Compilado por CHARLES WALKER. Cuzco: Centra “Bartolomé de Las Casas”, 1996. Pp. 362.

Saberes andinos. Ciencia y tecnología en Bolivia, Ecuador y Perú. Editado por MARCOS CUETO. Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 1995. Pp. 215.     

Empirical Formulation for Estimating the Fundamental Frequency of Slender Masonry Structures

The fundamental frequency of a structure enables better assessment of its seismic demand for an efficient design and planning of its maintenance and retrofit strategy. The frequency is independent of the type of external loads, however, depends on structural stiffness, mass, damping and boundary conditions. In the case of slender masonry structures such as towers, minarets chimneys, and pagoda temples, it is influenced by mass and stiffness distribution, connection to adjacent structures, material properties, aspect ratio and slenderness ratio. In this present article, the data collected from various literature reviews on the slender masonry structures regarding dynamic, geometrical, and mechanical characteristics have been correlated to identify the major parameters influencing the fundamental frequency of such structures. The database has been used for developing an empirical formulation for predicting the fundamental frequency of such structures. The comparison between the experimental fundamental frequencies and the estimated fundamental frequencies are carried out in order to define reliability and accuracy of these empirical formulae.     

Estimating meagre (Argyrosomus regius) size from otoliths and vertebrae

This study presents a method for predicting meagre (Argyrosomus regius) body size (total length) from otoliths and vertebrae recovered from archaeological sites. The method involves regression equations calculated from a reference collection of 36 meagre skeletons and 113 meagre otoliths (sagitta) and allows the simultaneous estimation of original body size and minimum number of individuals (MNI) from archaeological bone structures. We selected the following measurements to predict meagre body size: greatest dorso-ventral height, greatest mediolateral breadth, and greatest anteroposterior length of the vertebrae centra; maximum anteroposterior length, medial anteroposterior length, and dorso-ventral height of the sagitta. Our results show that the original body size of meagre can be accurately predicted from many bone measurements (r² range: 0.921–0.992). We exemplify the use of the regressions in the assessment of size variation and MNI of meagre from four Portuguese Mesolithic sites. We show that regression results provide additional insight into the significant role that this fish played in the subsistence of coastal fisher-hunter-gatherers, who targeted medium-sized animals but were also capable of acquiring rather larger specimens.