The corporeal,the social and space/place: exploring intersections from a midwifery perspective in New Zealand

This article explores the interrelations between the corporeal, the social and the spatial as they operate to shape the discursive and material realities of childbirth in the obstetric hospital setting. It draws on interviews conducted with midwives throughout New Zealand and embodies key insights derived from the work of Michel Foucault and Elizabeth Grosz. The obstetric hospital is theorised as a product of particular socio-political relations that privilege biomedical constructions of the body and childbirth. Midwives, however, proffer an alternative construction of childbirth and the space/place it is enacted. It is one that requires a woman to actively engage with a variety of birth spaces and take up a range of subject positions that enable her to be a more active agent in the process of parturition. The limited and limiting spatial and discursive arrangements of the obstetric hospital, it is argued, shape the behaviour, subjectivity and corporeality of the maternal body confined within it and therefore the practises of midwives. Unfortunately, and as this article demonstrates, the opportunity to take up such an alternative is limited in the obstetric hospital despite some recent cosmetic attempts to render it more welcoming.     

Trauma and pathology of a buried dog from San Nicolas Island,California, U.S.A.

To date more intact dog remains have been found on San Nicolas than on any of the other seven California Channel Islands. However, little is known about them. During the 2007 summer field season we excavated a medium sized young male dog in a flexed burial position from a pit at CA-SNI-25, a large Native American village site. The dog exhibits hypodontia, noticeable tooth attrition, severe scapular trauma, and vertebral, rib, and phalanx pathologies. Most of the injuries appear to have resulted from a severe blunt force trauma of unknown origin and it is likely the dog would not have survived without human care. The results of our analysis contribute to the, somewhat limited, published data on archaeological dogs in California. In this paper we describe the biological characteristics of the dog especially his anomalies and pathologies and compare them with published reports of other North American archaeological dogs with similar conditions.     

The use and abuse of hostages in later Anglo‐Saxon England

This paper explores the use of hostages in political relations in Anglo‐Saxon England, often between different ethnic groups. Although much of the evidence relates to the ninth century when hostages were used as a means of guaranteeing the peace agreements made between King Alfred and his Viking adversaries, consideration will be given here to the use of hostages in the broader context of the late Anglo‐Saxon period. The paper discusses whether the significance of these arrangements lay in their projection of imperial power or in their practicality as a crude political tool whose effectiveness in maintaining an agreement lay in a tangible threat. Both of these aspects of Anglo‐Saxon hostageship are examined, especially with regard to peacemaking, the extent to which it could be successful, and why.     

Where are the witches of prehistory?

Why are certain common classes of ritually destroyed objects (persons, artifacts, or architecture), such as persecuted witches, so difficult to identify in the archaeological record? Although a common topic in cultural anthropology, witches seldom receive the attention of archaeologists. The difficulties archaeologists face in the study of religion derive, in part, from the lack of correlates linking ritual activities to the formation of archaeological deposits. This paper defines ritual as a technology and employs an object life history approach that draws upon ethnographic, archaeological, and experimental research to begin building such linkages—including those describing the presecution and deposition of witches, sorcerers, and other victims of ritual violence. These new directions are illustrated through a case study of anomalous deposits of human skeletal remains from the North American Southwest     

Rereading Rape and Sexual Violence in Early Modern England

In the early modern period, the inapplicability of certain discourses of sex and violence impeded allegations of rape whilst facilitating denials of rape. Women who asserted rape (and men who spoke out in support) engendered those same discourses which incriminated them with their own semantic and expressive intent. Male violence was stressed and feminine agency discursively denied in these accounts. Sex was largely occluded, except when it appeared in particular forms: when rape was conceptualised as the tragic antithesis of healthy, procreational sex; through metaphors which implied the violation of a woman's most private boundaries; and as a brutal expression of unrelenting, and often obsessive, masculine love. Rape narratives produced in legal contexts cannot provide evidence of repressed memory. But they can demonstrate how, from a position of weakness, women nevertheless attempted to negotiate their way through a web of cultural restrictions.     

TROPICAL DEFORESTATION AND FOREST MANAGEMENT UNDER THE SYSTEM OF CONCESSION LOGGING: A DECISION-THEORETIC ANALYSIS*

ABSTRACT. Deforestation caused by concession logging is often the result of harvest decisions which focus on short-run profits rather than on long-run sustainable harvest yields. A sequential-decision model of this type of behavior is here developed which focuses on a logger's annual decisions of whether or not to remain in compliance with the terms of a concession contract. The contract stipulates harvesting procedures for a sustained forest yield, and noncompliance is taken to result in deforestation. An optimal decision policy for the concession logger is characterized in terms of optimal-stopping theory, and is employed to construct payoff incentives which encourage compliance. In particular, a forest management problem is formulated which focuses on the effectiveness of partial inspection policies in deterring noncompliant behavior. General necessary and sufficient conditions for the effectiveness of such policies are established, and are given a more operational form for the Markov case. A numerical example based on actual concession-contract data is also developed which suggests certain policy implications.     

From temporary to permanent townsmen: migrants from the Malalaua District,Papua New Guinea

An attempt is made to explain how a group of people moved from being newcomers to town in the 1940s to being one of the most permanent and stable residential elements in Papua New Guinea's towns in the 1970s. Circular and permanent migration, as Young maintains, are not 2 distinct processes, and both initial rural urban movements and migrants' decisions to return or not to return home are examined simultaneously. The hypothetical career of a migrant is considered all the way from village residence to permanent urban residence along with the different decision points that might vary this career. In this case study focus is on 2 sets of factors that affect migration decisions: an imbalance in rural and urban economic conditions and the effects of the migration process itself. The people discussed come from what is now known as the Malalaua District of the Gulf Province and are referred to as Malalauas. Historically, there are several feastures of Malalaua urban migration that are important. Malalaua migration began earlier than that of most urban migrant groups in Papua New Guinea. In the 1963 urban population there were a number of Malalauas who first came to Port Moresby before or during World War 2. Migration from the Malalaua District has continued in a steady stream from the 1940s to the 1970s, although there is no evidence on absolute numbers of new migrants in any 1 year. The pattern of Malalaua migration to towns over the entire period has been largely one of the movement of young single adult males and young female adults moving to town on marriage. Both the absolute numbers of migrants and the proportion of Malalauas absent from the District have risen rapidly over the 20 years to 1972. Finally, children are being born to Malalaua migrants in town. Malalauas are possibly the migrant group most firmly established in town. The Malalauas are one of the most longterm and residential groups in Port Moresby. In Papua New Guinea as a whole they must be one of the migrant groups with the greatest commitment to urban living. Economic factors have been very important in Malalau decisions to leave the village, particularly the decisions of adult males. The migration process itself has increasingly affected migrant decisions: factors such as the diminished attraction of a depopulated rural community, a change in tastes towards urban based ways of living, the growth of strong personal and family ties among urban residents, and a simultaneous reduction in such ties with rural residents. It is argued that this 2nd set of factors over time increases in importance relative to rural-urban economic imbalance as an explanation of migration behavior. In general, rural urban economic opportunities have become less important over time. So in the 1970s and 1980s it would be argued that many Malalauas would not respond to increases in urban unemployment of rural incomes by moving back to the village. They would be permanent townspeople. This explanation of migration decisions is dynamic: in the history of individuals and groups the context and thus the explanation of decisions change.