Internal borders and external factors in outermost island regions. The case of the Canary Islands

The defining element of island regions is their isolation, the separation of the islands from the mainland; there is an inherent notion of natural border. This condition has preserved ecosystems and protected against outside threats, stimulating ‘coevolution’ between man and the environment, a fundamental ingredient of sustainability. But insularity also means the evident added costs of access to markets which, together with territorial limits and the scarcity of basic resources, especially on small islands, hinders their socioeconomic development. These costs are even greater in the case of outlying islands, which suffer from a ‘double insularity’ in the form of both external and internal borders. For this reason, it is common for governments to establish various forms of support, from tax exemptions to the creation of permanent aid funds, like those implemented by the European Union for the outermost regions. This article discusses these aspects in the case of the Canary Islands, an example of a European outermost island region. The findings show that the support measures have not always been favourable for all the islands.     

Intersectionality in feminist geographies

This paper introduces a special themed section that arose from an International Conference on Feminist Geographies and Intersectionality: Places, Identities and Knowledges, held in 2016 at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Six scholars of Canada, France, Greece, New Zealand, United Kingdom and United States seek to deal in five short papers with the intersectional dynamics of power structures and the central role of place within them. Here we situate the developments of intersectionality in feminist geographies in relation to the role of place and space in constituting intersectional relations, the relevance of context for the development of intersectionality and the use of different methodologies for research on it.     

A Cost-Based Ripley’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">K</Emphasis> Function to Assess Social Strategies in Settlement Patterning

Most quantitative approaches to distributional analysis in archaeology assume a homogeneous study surface that is amenable to easy generalisations. This framework has been widely used to describe settlement processes, disregarding the spatial heterogeneity inherent to geographic reality. In other words, researchers have often assumed that the correlation between the elements of a spatial distribution is a function of the Euclidean distance (i.e. straight line distance) between them. Other archaeological studies have tested alternative measures to Euclidean distances, such as cost-based ones, both to describe optimal routes and to assess spatial autocorrelation in a point pattern. Nevertheless, until now there has been no suitable model to introduce these measures into spatial statistical equations. In order to overcome this obstacle, we approach the implementation problem inversely by embedding the spatial pattern under study into a Euclidean frame of reference based on its cost-distance pairwise matrix. This paper describes the application of this methodology on one of the main tools used by archaeologists to assess settlement patterns: Ripley’s K function. We present two case studies, covering both macroscale and mesoscale, with significant variations in the results depending on the use of the Euclidean or cost-based approach. Data, functions and results have been R-packaged for the sake of reproducibility and reusability, allowing other researchers to build upon our methods.     

Protection of the State of Prehistoric Mounds in Hungary: Law as a Conservation Measure

According to the Act of 1996 on nature protection, mounds (kurgans) are natural monuments protected nationally in Hungary. According to the law, all kurgans in Hungary were to be surveyed by 2002, and 1692 were included in the cadastre. Fewer than half of the kurgans remained intact due to numerous anthropogenic impacts. A high number of disturbing artificial buildings together with soil erosion, soil removal, and afforestation have significantly reduced the landscape value of kurgans. In 2002, 51.5% of the surveyed kurgans still represented some kind of a value and thus their protection became one of the most urgent tasks of nature conservation and archaeology. According to a Hungarian ministerial decree, established on the basis of an EU Council decree, the area of kurgans under cultivation must be removed from cultivation. By 2015, in the area of 90% of the kurgans under cultivation this land use, which caused significant erosion, was terminated.     

Knowledge bases and regional development: collaborations between higher education and cultural creative industries

This paper builds on the assumption that cooperation between higher education institutions (HEIs) and creative and cultural industries (CCIs) stimulates innovation and economic growth at the regional level. It further assumes that HEIs and CCIs hold different perspectives on their intention to cooperate with external actors and, thus, there is a need for joint arenas to develop and integrate knowledge and practices among stakeholders across academia and industry. With this rationale in mind, the paper’s main objective is to discuss how universities’ roles in the establishment and development of locally embedded CCIs change or evolve over time. Taking a process economics perspective and building on a case study from the South of Norway, two questions are addressed: (1) What are the barriers – structural and cognitive-cultural – hindering cooperation between HEIs and CCIs in Southern Norway? and (2) How can long-term win-win cooperative arrangements between HEIs and CCIs be enhanced? Different knowledge bases, combined with lack of knowledge and understanding of the other sector’s expertise or knowledge content, and thus the lack of common language, were found to be the biggest barriers that must be overcome to stimulate strategic cooperation between HEIs and CCIs in Southern Norway. The findings support the need for a diverse and flexible policy where target initiatives are adjusted to CCIs’ needs and academic departments’ fields of knowledge to decrease barriers to cooperation, with the ultimate aim of moving from a situation of ‘lock-in’ towards the creation of new innovative and valuable relationships.     

Culture-led urban regeneration policies in the Ibero-American space

ABSTRACT

This article examines cultural policy strategies supporting urban regeneration, focusing on its particular characteristics in the Ibero-American context. We start by developing a systematic contrast between the different circumstances that have led to the emergence of these strategies in the Ibero-American sphere and in other parts of the world. Our examination of the Ibero-American regenerative experience also includes a consideration of the paradigmatic cases that arose initially in the Iberian Peninsula and the typological analysis of subsequent Latin American experiences. The consideration of all these different elements ends up providing a global vision of the specificity of the phenomenon in its Ibero-American context.     

Partial mummification and extraordinary context observed in perinate burials: a complex osteoarcheological study applying ICP-AES, μXRF,and macromorphological methods

Very small, green colored, partially mummified remains of a perinate individual were found buried in a ceramic pot with a copper coin in the Late Medieval cemetery of Nyárl?rinc-Hangár út (“Nyárl?rinc 3. lel?hely”) in southern Hungary. The remains must date back to the second half of the nineteenth century AD. In this paper; we present data gathered in a series of multidisciplinary investigations targeted to the partially mummified remains (ind. no. 14426) and two other non-mummified perinates (ind. no. 10662 and no. 14336) possibly buried under similar circumstances in the cemetery. Besides standard macromorphological and stereomicroscopic examinations, we compared Cu concentrations in the remains using ICP-AES and mapped Cu concentration changes using μXRF. The partially mummified perinate showed the highest Cu concentrations, while the individual buried without a possible Cu source showed the lowest. Body parts in the closer proximity of the copper coins always showed higher concentration. The mummified individual showed 497 times higher Cu values than average, and even the perinate buried without copper coin measured higher than the otherwise normal Cu content of the soil. Extremely high Cu values may be related to the corrosion of the coins included in the burials. Mummification must have been facilitated by copper deriving from the coins. Uneven Cu concentrations and only partial mummification of one of the individuals refer to the importance of other environmental factors involved in a possible quasi-natural mummification process. However, the Nyárl?rinc perinate burial no. 14426 may be the first solely copper-driven mummification case ever reported, and hopefully, more cases are to appear in the future.     

Characterization of concrete from Roman buildings for public spectacles in <Emphasis Type="Italic">Emerita Augusta</Emphasis> (Mérida,Spain)

The aim of this work is to characterize the original concrete from Roman buildings for public spectacles, theatre and amphitheatre, from Emerita Augusta, Mérida, Spain. An advanced knowledge of the Roman concrete composition is required for a reliable restoration and preservation of these ancient monuments. The concrete was studied through mineralogical (optical polarized microscopy and X-ray diffraction) and petrophysical (bulk and real density, open porosity to water and Hg, mechanical strength and ultrasonic velocity) analyses. With this work, it is possible to fill the gap that exists in this field and the characterization of the materials used in the Roman concrete from these two buildings, never previously studied, despite the significance of this archaeological ensemble, declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1993. The results allowed us to determine the composition of the Roman concrete and to infer the provenance of the aggregates used in these monuments.