Making the emotional connection: transnational eldercare circulation within Sri Lankan-Australian transnational families

The scholarship on care for older parents within transnational families focuses mainly on the experience of unskilled migrants and is presented largely from the perspective of caregivers. Few studies consider the case of affluent, skilled migrants, and their wealthy older parents who also cross borders to visit and provide care for their migrant adult–children. Through Baldassar and Merla’s concept of ‘care circulation’ and the lens of emotional transnationalism, the article illustrates that despite affluent transnational family members’ mobility and access to resources that should facilitate successful circulation of care, care is not easily exchanged at an intimate level. Drawing upon 30 transnational family case studies of skilled migrants residing in Australia and their urban, high to middle-income older parents from Sri Lanka, I argue that older parents construct both caring across distance and in proximity as an attentiveness to their emotional care needs, and the time and effort taken to engage in emotion work; a task that is more challenging for migrant sons than daughters. The article reveals the manner in which gendered care practices both enable and inhibit care circulation between transnational migrants and their older parents.     

Early Imports in the Late Bronze Age of South‐Western Iberia: The Bronze Ornaments of the Hypogea at Monte da Ramada 1 (Southern Portugal)

The composition and manufacture of Late Bronze Age metallic artefacts from funerary and domestic contexts of southern inland Portugal was studied. The prevailing trend comprises binary bronzes (10.3 ± 2.1 wt% Sn) showing deformed equiaxial grains, annealing twins and slip bands. The alloy composition is somewhat independent of artefact type, while the manufacture seems to rely on artefact function and the skilfulness of the metallurgist. The technological characteristics were linked with archaeological and chronological features, disclosing some artefacts of uncommon composition, such as low‐tin bronze bracelets (4.3–7.1 wt% Sn) associated with ornaments of exotic materials (glass and Egyptian faience beads, and also ostrich egg shell beads). The assemblage testifies to an archaic trade with the Mediterranean region before the establishment of the first Phoenician colonies on the southern Iberian coast.     

Intersectionality and transnational mobility between Brazil and Spain in travesti prostitution networks

The aim of this article is to highlight the ways in which Brazilian travestis negotiate and strategise transnational mobility in order to work as prostitutes in Spain. Brazilian travestis working illegally in Spain are subject to gendered, sexualised and racial marginalisation. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted between April and September 2008 with 10 Brazilians acting as providers of sexual services in Spain. The interviews were systematised by means of content analysis, which allowed the preparation of a map of meanings around the spatial and lived experiences of travestis. We argue that travestis identities are constructed at the intersection of gender, sexuality, class and race. This fluid intersectionality allows the group to simultaneously manage their positions of both privilege and oppression.     

In Situ Flat-Jack Testing of Traditional Masonry Walls: Case Study of the Old City Center of Coimbra,Portugal

Single and double flat-jack tests are presently used widely for assessing the mechanical characteristics of stone masonry. This technique remains as one of the most versatile in situ test procedure for the estimation of the main mechanical properties of masonry walls. Nevertheless their application is still controversial due to the difficulty of accepting in some cases the results as reliable. This article presents and discusses the results of an experimental campaign resorting to flat-jack technique carried out with the scope of the rehabilitation process of the historical city center of Coimbra.     

Ceramic Technology of the <Emphasis Type="Italic">Asurini do Xingu,Brazil</Emphasis>: An Ethnoarchaeological Study of Artifact Variability

This article presents some of the results of ethnoarchaeological research on ceramic technology I have conducted among the Asurini do Xingu, an Amazonian indigenous population inhabiting a village in the margins of the Xingu River, Pará, Brazil. Based on collected data, presented throughout the article, I discuss the reasons behind the formal, quantitative, spatial and relational variability of the Asurini ceramic vessels. This work will demonstrate that these distinct dimensions of variability are related to the potters’ technological choices during the vessels’ production process, the ceramic teaching-learning structure, and the type, frequency, method and context of use of the same vessels. I try to make clear the different practical and symbolic aspects that may influence the production, use, reuse, storage and discard processes of the vessels. Furthermore, I compare the Asurini context with other ethnographic contexts and try to distinguish regularities that may serve as interpretative references to the study of archaeological ceramic assemblages.

Uncrowned kings: rituals and ritual objects in eighteenth–nineteenth century Portuguese royal acclamation ceremonies

ABSTRACT

This article examines the royal acclamation ceremonies of the Portuguese crown in order to grasp the responsiveness of the institution of the monarchy and regime to the challenges of modernity throughout the delicate watershed period of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The Portuguese Catholic and absolutist monarchy of the ancien régime had a strict protocol and a set of insignia of power that acted together at the moment of the acclamation and legitimation of each new king. The purpose of this research is to assess the adaptation and reinvention of these insignia and rituals according to the revolutionary demands of social change and secularization brought about by the turbulent period of the beginning of the nineteenth century: the French military invasions (1807–11); the departure of the royal family, court and administration to Brazil (1807); the liberal constitutional revolution (1820); and the civil war pitting liberals against absolutists (1832–34). The new constitutional monarchy that came out of this revolutionary flow faced many challenges of legitimacy, including the test of its capacity to create a modern royal imaginary updated to the cultural mindset of national and secular societies, and capable of bonding rulers with their people. The authors believe that the study of the acclamation ceremonies in the Portuguese constitutional monarchy can give us an accurate perspective on the quality of the symbolic image of the crown, therefore assessing the political efficiency of rituals as one of the structural aspects for institutional legitimization.     

Thinking Politically about Sustainable Development in the Tropical Forests of Latin America

This article examines a number of factors which facilitate the adoption and success of policies and projects to promote grassroots sustainable development – that is, the sustainable, multiple use of forests at the community level, including aspects of local self-reliance and control of economic resources. I will argue that the extractive reserve legislation in Brazil and community forestry projects in Mexico and Peru depended on the formation of pro-grassroots development coalitions. The exact make-up of those coalitions depended on three factors: (1) the initial disposition of key governmental and dominant class actors to such policies; (2) the intensity of local conflicts and the extent of community organization; and (3) the involvement of international actors. The cases suggest that in the absence of serious government or upper class opposition, the adoption and durability of such policies and projects can be promoted by the formation of a coalition of organized communities, domestic non-governmental organizations (NGOs), some allied government agencies, and support from international actors. However, when key government agencies and socio-economic élites are fundamentally opposed to sustainable development initiatives at the grassroots level, much higher levels of community organization, conflict, and domestic and international support appear to be necessary.     

Feminist geographies: fight and achievement of a place in the Brazilian scientific production

Abstract

This paper examines the development of the field of feminist geographies in Brazil, proposing a reflection upon the different aspects of the policy (personal, institutional and national/international) which are intertwined with the geographical scientific production on gender and sexualities. This research is based on a data survey comprising 17,636 papers published between 1974 and 2015 in 90 scientific journals kept by Brazilian geographical entities at all levels of the ranking established by the government. The study emphasizes that there was an expansion of the gender and sexualities approach after the 2000s, characterized for its production from the peripheral universities, by young researchers and its publication in scientific journals of lower scientific impact, when the formal criteria of evaluation recently set in Brazil are taken into consideration. The gender studies field can be considered consolidated in Brazil, however, the approach of sexualities in the Brazilian geography still requires some work to be finally recognized.