Ethnicity, development and gender: Tsáchila indigenous women in Ecuador

In recent decades, indigenous populations have become the subjects and agents of development in national and international multicultural policy that acknowledges poverty among indigenous peoples and their historic marginalization from power over development. Although the impact of these legal and programmatic efforts is growing, one persistent axis of disadvantage, male–female difference, is rarely taken into account in ethno-development policy and practice. This article argues that assumptions that inform policy related to indigenous women fail to engage with indigenous women's development concerns. The institutional separation between gender and development policy (GAD) and multiculturalism means that provisions for gender in multicultural policies are inadequate, and ethnic rights in GAD policies are invisible. Drawing on post-colonial feminism, the paper examines ethnicity and gender as interlocking systems that structure indigenous women's development experiences. These arguments are illustrated in relation to the case of the Tsáchila ethno-cultural group in the South American country of Ecuador.     

AMS C dating the Protoaurignacian/Early Aurignacian of Isturitz,France. Implications for Neanderthal–modern human interaction and the timing of technical and cultural innovations in Europe

This paper presents new AMS radiocarbon dating results of six ungulate bones from the current excavation of Isturitz Cave, France, layer C 4c4. The assemblage from this layer exhibits a suite of traits closely aligned with the Early Aurignacian, but with some aspects that bear strong similarities with the Protoaurignacian, with possible in situ technological transformation. Accurate and precise dating of the late Middle Palaeolithic and the early Upper Palaeolithic periods is critical to our understanding of the possible relationship between final Neanderthals and early modern humans in Europe. As such, a rigorous set of sample selection and evaluation protocols was developed and used in this research. Among these, only cutmarked bones were selected and a total of 31 targets were made, giving a weighted average of 37,180 ± 420 BP for this assemblage and providing a terminus ante quem for the ornaments, decorated artefact and amber pendants beneath it. The implications and importance of these results to debates concerning the chronological relationship between the Châtelperronian, Protoaurignacian and Early Aurignacian and associated debates regarding hominin dispersal, interaction and the timing of technical and cultural innovations are discussed.     

迷醉在普罗旺斯的香气里

没有未曾到过欧洲,未曾见过普罗旺斯,我却执意流连于普罗旺斯四个字。我想再没有哪个词会比普罗旺斯更让我觉得浪漫了。在杭州这个城市浸淫五年,终于找到了普罗旺斯。     

荷兰皇家航空：万米高空的奢华享受

＂去欧洲是会上瘾的,＂Sarah一直这么认为。自从杭州开通了首条直飞欧洲的线路后,荷航成为了她飞欧洲的首要选择。除了直达,她选择荷航的最大理由在于：订位服务一切均按乘客的喜好而安排。它悉心安排的航班时间和见微思著的服务素质。     

Ideas from ‘across the ditch’? Wedge politics in the 2005 New Zealand election

The 2005 New Zealand election campaign saw the use by the opposition National Party of a racialised and highly divisive ‘wedge politics’. Tensions between Mäori and Pakeha that had previously been managed through care and compromise were inflamed by talk of a New Zealand mainstream and the need for ‘one law for all’. In the context of a difficult national debate about Mäori rights to foreshore and seabed, this talk had strong echoes of recent Australian political discourse. It also had the effect of dramatically increasing the National Party vote in the election, and this research note speculates that, in a different electoral system, this may have been enough to see National form government.     

Re-Politicising Poverty: Relational Re-conceptualisations of Impoverishment

This collection of essays extends cross-disciplinary conversations between co-authors that began as part of a podcast series by the Relational Poverty Network, “New Poverty Politics for Changing Times”. The authors engage impoverishment as a relation, as an outcome of intersecting political projects of racialised oppression, political-economic injustice and socio-legal control. Across various sites, the collection’s essays trace poverty politics, providing conjunctural and multi-scalar analyses that illuminate the operations of power in producing impoverishment. They direct our attention beyond topics typically associated with poverty studies, showing how processes such as bordering, migrant illegality, racial capitalism and caring community politics intersect in poverty politics today. Our introductory essay argues for a relational poverty analysis that addresses the entanglements of cultural politics, those that produce classificatory schemes, together with political-economic processes that produce various forms of poverty politics in the current conjuncture. We chart thinkable and unthinkable poverty politics across the collection’s essays in order to analyse current hegemonic formations of poverty governance as well as alternative imaginations and actions that are resisting and reworking relations of impoverishment. Ultimately, this collection expands vocabularies and analytical repertoires for understanding the ongoing ways in which impoverishment is produced and resisted, positing relationality as key to re-politicising poverty towards a more just future.     

Biodiversity and Business: Coming to Terms with the 'Grand Bargain'

The Convention on Biological Diversity incorporates an exchange that has been described as a 'grand bargain' which balances the needs of both technologically and biologically endowed countries. The role of genetic resources in R&D and sales varies by industry sector, however, so it is difficult to generalize on company demand for genetic resources and fair and equitable benefit-sharing. It is important, therefore, to examine the particular features of industry R&D programmes, providers of genetic resources, and trends in benefit-sharing partnerships in specific industry sectors. This article examines markets for genetic resources, costs and duration of R&D, types of genetic resources accessed, providers of genetic resources and benefit-sharing partnerships in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, crop protection, seed, botanical medicine, horticulture, and personal care and cosmetic industries. The article concludes that experience and 'best practice' in benefit-sharing have progressed quite significantly on a number of fronts in the past decade, including the development of corporate policies in response to the CBD. The most effective form of benefit-sharing, and realization of the ' grand bargain' envisaged by the CBD, is found through partnerships between private-sector and source-country institutions that link commercial use with sustainable development and biodiversity conservation.