Historical and Anthropological Archaeology: Forging Alliances

Historical and anthropological archaeology have had a somewhat disjointed relationship. Differences in theoretical perspectives, methodological concerns, and material records have led to a lack of cross talk between these branches of Americanist archaeology. This paper presents recent issues in historical archaeology, points out areas of common concern, and argues that both archaeologies would benefit from informed discussions about the materiality and history of the pre- and post-Columbian world.     

Bai Jiao 1—the excavation of a Song Dynasty shipwreck in the Dinghai area, Fujian Province, China, 1995

The ships that sail the Southern Sea and south of it are like houses. When their sails are spread they are like great clouds in the sky… The big ship with its heavy cargo has naught to fear of the great waves, but in shallow water it comes to grief (cited in Guy, 1992: 18).     

Weathering the Ill Wind: The Affective and Embodied Dimensions of Anti-Immigrant Political Discourses on Young African Men in Italy

Using the election of the far-right populist coalition government in Italy in 2018 and resultant legislative changes to immigration it brought about as an analytic lens, I examine the material and emotional impact of these changes on young African men, hosted as “unaccompanied minors” in a reception centre in a northern Italian town. I refer to these changes as an “ill wind” and in this paper examine its impacts using Christina Sharpe’s notion of “weathering” to refer to the totality of the ongoingness of the anti-Black climate and its effect on Black bodies. I contextualise the young men’s experiences within the Italian race landscape, thus drawing attention to the postcolonial legacies of race and racialisation still underpinning Italian society today. I present how historical structures of racial governmentality are integral to the geography of subordination and produce the racialised figure of the migrant, leaving some strangers to remain stranger than others.     

In Battle and in Bed: Wanton Women and Women Warriors in Muslim and Christian Crusade Narratives

This article analyses the parallel representations of enemy warrior women as sexually profligate and inappropriately martial in selected Latin and Arabic texts from the period of the first three crusades (late eleventh to late twelfth centuries). Cross-cultural comparison of depictions of fighting women demonstrates that both cultures portrayed the other side as dominated, and thus undermined, by women who were unnaturally assertive in both sexual and military affairs. Both Muslim and Christian authors sexualised and militarised the bodies of enemy women in order to define which men were the strongest, best and most deserving of battlefield victory in the holy wars of crusade and jihad.     

Shaping childhood risk in post‐conflict rural Northern Ireland

The realities of the ethno‐sectarian conflict have dominated the analysis of social problems within the context of Northern Ireland (NI). As a result of this, issues such as non‐conflict related childhood risk have received less attention than in the remainder of the UK. However, with the rapidly changing agenda of the Peace Process there is now the momentum to take a broader approach to examining Northern Irish society. This paper examines children's own experiences of growing up in rural NI and explores their own and adults' perceptions of the risks that they encounter and the resulting constraints placed on children's activity outside the home. It is evident that the legacy and reproduction of ethno‐sectarian conflict still influences notions of fear and mistrust of ‘an ethno‐sectarian other’. However, as shown within this paper these fears run in parallel with other fears that are constructed around concerns over ‘everyday’ risks that are evident in the range of outdoor play practices reported by the children involved in the study.     

Constructing Sustainable Rural Landscapes: Oil Mallees and the Western Australian Wheatbelt

This paper considers the landscapes of the Western Australian wheatbelt and the possibilities for sustainability signified by the Oil Mallee Project. The Oil Mallee Project aims to develop commercially viable tree crops for the low rainfall wheatbelt region as a means of profitably managing dryland salinity. Interviews with farmers and other stakeholders in the Oil Mallee Project and agriculture are analysed to reveal important elements of landscape construction in the wheatbelt and stages in the emergence of the Project. These elements include historical land clearing, international chemical and machinery companies and the technologies they supply, land of marginal economic productivity, global food markets and alley farming systems. The paper uses material semiotics and actor‐network theory in describing the networks of relationships that shape wheatbelt landscapes. Breakdowns in the dominant networks of industrial agriculture provide spaces for the Oil Mallee Project to build relationships that reconnect industrial systems to the specific ecology of the wheatbelt landscape. However, the networks of industrial agriculture remain powerful and the Project has worked strategically to become integrated with existing agricultural systems, rather than aiming to directly resist or entirely displace dominant patterns of production in the wheatbelt.