Three visions of the bomb: Australian thinking about nuclear weapons and strategy

This article argues that, over the decades, Australians have held three different, coherent, long-lived ‘visions’ of nuclear weapons and strategy. Those visions—which we have labelled Menzian, Gortonian and disarmer—compete on four grounds: the role that nuclear weapons play in international order; the doctrine of deterrence; the importance of arms control; and the relevance of nuclear weapons to Australia's specific needs. We believe this ‘textured’ framework provides a richer, more satisfying, and more accurate understanding of Australian nuclear identity, both past and present, than previous scholarship has yielded. Moreover, the competition between the three visions might not be at an end. Changes in international norms, in proliferation rates, in regional strategic dynamics, or even in the deterrence doctrines of the major powers could easily reawaken some old, enduring debates. Australian nuclear identity faces an uncertain future.     

ARID-LAND FORAGING AS SEEN FROM AUSTRALIA: ADAPTIVE MODELS AND BEHAVIORAL REALITIES

This paper reviews assumptions guiding earlier models of social and economic behavior among arid land hunter-gatherers, especially those models that argued for the ‘original affluent society’ and concepts requiring groups of fixed size and composition operating within stable, bounded territories. A close look at socioeconomic behavior among ethnographic Ngatatjara Aborigines of the Western Desert challenges these assumptions and introduces an adaptive model based on ‘strategy switching’. In order to minimize risks imposed by droughts, the Ngatatjara responded in their movements and group composition by means of two alternative strategies: drought escape and drought evasion. Drought escape involved temporary abandonment of entire areas by individual households or by individuals to distant, better-favored areas. Drought evasion involved retreat by small family groups into areas within their ‘home’ country where relatively dependable water resources were available. Drought escape and drought evasion strategies are briefly considered as factors in early plant domestication in the context of prehistoric arid-land foraging societies in places like the Tehuacan Valley on the Mexican Plateau.     

New life in Japan's ‘endingness’ business

The Japanese deathcare and Buddhist goods industry is a growing field, emerging out of radical shifts in the socio-economic conditions of everyday life: smaller households, an ageing population and more irregular employment/lifestyle patterns. Based on fieldwork, this article reports tectonic ruptures within Japan’s household-based mortuary system and Buddhist practice. It takes readers to ENDEX, the premier convention for Japan’s ‘ending industry’, where new ‘life’ emerges from the falling away of older death rites that get remixed and remade into newer experimental practices, businesses and business subjectivities. Examples range from high-tech gravestones and drones to competitions for the ‘Hottest Priest’ and best encoffiner. This article engages with these new necro-technologies and asks why the old deathcare system is falling apart. What are the socio-material effects of its unravelling? And what does the futurity of necro-praxis look like in Japan (and elsewhere) when the existential fabric of mortality may be torn apart?     

Hard rocks and heavy science

Earl Swanson, ed. Lithic Technology: Making and Using Stone Tools. The Hague and Paris: Mouton Publishers, 1975. Distributed in North America by Aldine Publishing Company, vii + 251 pp. Illustrations, tables, figures, biographical notes, and indices. $27.50.     

On the Case: Method in Public and Community Archaeology

This paper seeks to initiate a conversation about methodology in public and community archaeology through an examination of the use of case studies. Case studies enable the exploration of situations that are, by their nature, not easily reduced to statistical data. The challenge is that unless they are carefully structured, case studies may contribute little beyond anecdote to the field. Other disciplines that rely on case studies have addressed the methodological challenges aggressively. This paper explores these issues in four sections: First, the rationale for methodology in public archaeology is examined. Second, actual practice—through analysis of papers published in Public Archaeology and, to a limited degree, in the ‘grey literature’—is reviewed. Third, alternative case study methods, gleaned from diverse disciplines, are presented. Finally, the potential for method-based case study research is illustrated through an example of the use of one such method.     

Population geography and HIV/AIDS: The challenge of a ‘wholly exceptional disease’

This paper justifies and elaborates Huw Jones’ identification of HIV/AIDS as a ‘wholly exceptional disease’. It identifies the global pattern of the disease and how geographers have dealt with it, and considers its exceptional character in respect of its medical, demographic and behavioural dimensions. Implications of these dimensions are integrated into discussions of geographers’ use of two major conceptualisations in population analysis: the demographic transition model and disease diffusion models. It is argued that HIV/AIDS is wholly exceptional in that its essentially behavioural character — both in terms of spread and control — must strengthen the case for more explicit behavioural perspectives in population geography.