Essentializing ‘Black Pete’: competing narratives surrounding the Sinterklaas tradition in the Netherlands

The Netherlands’ most important tradition, the celebration of the feast of Saint Nicholas, (Sinterklaas) has become subject to nation-wide contestation. As Dutch society has become more multicultural, partly due to the immigration from the former Dutch colonies in the West-Indies, new sensitivities have arisen about this institutionalised heritage practice. At the core of the controversy is the figure of Black Pete (Zwarte Piet), Saint Nicholas’ black-faced companion. Some communities within Dutch society perceive this figure as highly menacing and insulting. To the majority of the population, however, Zwarte Piet is an essential part of its heritage and identity. The ensuing controversy can be understood as a matter of heritage narratives conflicting. These narratives do not just give meaning to the tradition, but are also instrumentalized by actors in the debate to achieve their goals. They are used to justify or reject the appearance of Zwarte Piet, and to critically debate Dutch identity. In this article we reconstruct the Zwarte Piet narratives, and explain why these are so incommensurable. Naturally, we also pay attention to what is at stake for the activists on all sides.     

Bringing Daesh to Justice: What the International Community Can Do

This paper explores the response of the international community to the atrocities perpetrated by Daesh in Syria and Iraq. The paper focuses on the crime of genocide and the recognition of the crime by several international institutions and states. Within this discourse, we argue that the Christian minorities should be included as victims of the Daesh genocide. The paper finds that the international community failed to respond to the Daesh atrocities adequately and explores the legal options to ensure that the Daesh fighters are brought to justice. The paper considers the legacy of previous responses to mass atrocities and explores their plausibility. The paper further scrutinizes the progress made to date to bring Daesh to justice and considers other options how the criminal justice can be achieved.     

A Late‐18th‐Century Merchantman Wrecked in the South Edinburgh Channel,Thames Estuary,England

The South Edinburgh Channel wreck consists of the remains of a large, unidentified armed merchant ship whose cargo included a rare consignment of Swedish plate‐money, among other goods. The wreck was lost some time in the later part of the 18th century in the Thames Estuary and was uncovered briefly by natural means between 1972 and 1977. This allowed archaeological investigation, which was undertaken in very poor environmental conditions in the early days of maritime archaeology in the UK.     

Variety of Urban Tourism Development Trajectories: Antalya,Amsterdam and Liverpool Compared

Savitch and Kantor explain divergent trajectories of urban development with the help of four variables, namely, market conditions, inter-governmental support, local culture and popular control in their theory. In this article, we apply Savitch and Kantor's theory to the urban tourism development of Antalya, Amsterdam and Liverpool. The case study is partly based on written documents and partly on face-to-face interviews with representatives from public, semi-private and private organizations of the tourism sector. We found that Savitch and Kantor's theory of urban development is only partly helpful in explaining divergent urban tourism development trajectories. A centralized unitary state does not necessarily lead to a social-centred urban development trajectory but can be just as good a pre-condition to a neo-liberal urban development strategy as seen in Antalya and Liverpool. And although market conditions are favourable, an integrated inter-governmental support, a well-developed popular control, and a post-materialist culture have enabled Amsterdam to follow a social-centred urban policy, it has unintentionally and paradoxically resulted in gentrification and a commodification of heritage and culture. A strong social-centred urban policy in a first stage has created an urban milieu that has become exploited by gentrifiers and the tourism industry in a later stage.     

Macronutrient-based model for dietary carbon routing in bone collagen and bioapatite

Carbon stable isotope ratios (??¹³C), measured in human bone collagen (??¹³C_collagen) and bioapatite (??¹³C_bioapatite), are commonly used indicators in ancient human diet reconstruction. The underlying assumption is that human tissues broadly reflect the ??¹³C signal of dietary food sources (??¹³C_diet) plus an isotopic offset. However, interpretation of results may be confounded by the differentiated routing of macronutrients (energy, that is carbohydrates and lipids, and protein) having associated different isotopic signals (??¹³C_energy, ??¹³C_protein). Multiple regression analyses were conducted on data from controlled animal feeding experiments compiled by Froehle et al. (J Archaeol Sci 37:2662?C2670, 2010). We derived a simple algebraic macronutrient-based model with ??¹³C_bioapatite?=?10.1?+???¹³C_diet (??) and ??¹³C_collagen?=?4.8?+?0.74 ??¹³C_protein?+?0.26 ??¹³C_energy (??). While the established relationship for ??¹³C_bioapatite is similar to previously known results, the model also suggests that ??¹³C_collagen signal contributions originate from surprisingly consistent proportions of protein and energy macronutrients. Given that feeding experiments explore extreme variations in the proportion of diet macronutrients, the applicability of the proposed model and its predictions were tested in a variety of well-known, wild animal and human, natural contexts. Possible biochemical mechanisms explaining these empirical results are discussed.