Accompaniment Through Carceral Geographies: Abolitionist Research Partnerships with Indigenous Communities

This article approaches “ea”—a Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) concept meaning life, breath, and sovereignty—as a vital mode of abolition ecologies, and proposes accompaniment as a methodology for mutual collaboration toward this endeavour. Research draws from ethnographic fieldwork on the Wai‘anae Coast of O‘ahu in Hawai‘i, a predominantly Native Hawaiian community, and reflects upon the author’s positionality on Wai‘anae’s insider–outsider borderlands. The argument is multifold: Carceral geographies inscribe racism by cleaving humans from the environment and each other, depriving life‐giving resources from populations deemed a threat to a dominant socioenvironmental order. At the same time, abolition ecologies entail worldmaking predicated on the interdependence of all life forces, employing syncretic practices that join disparate struggles, people, and places to generate possibilities greater than the sum of its parts. Accompaniment works against racism’s practices of criminalisation and containment while contributing to radical, syncretic placemaking as part of an expansive liberatory practice.     

Socio-cultural aspects of the high masculinity ratio in India

The paper aims to explicate those factors accountable for the continuing imbalance in the sex ratio and its further masculinization over the whole of the 20th century. Here it is contended that the traditional practice of female infanticide and the current practice of female foeticide in the contemporary period, especially in the north-west and Hindi-speaking states, have significantly contributed to the high masculinity ratio in India. In addition, increasingly higher survival ratios of male children, particularly from the 1951 census onward, have been the prime reason for a declining proportion of females in the Indian population. As the Indian value system has been imbued with a relatively higher preference for sons, improvements in health facilities have benefited males more than females, giving rise to a highly imbalanced sex ratio in the country. This scenario, however, has steadily tended to alter in favour of greater balance in sex ratio.     

Historical perspective: The British contribution to the understanding of neurocysticercosis

Neurocysticercosis, or brain infestation with the larval stage of Taenia solium, is the most common risk factor for epilepsy in many endemic regions of the world. Hardly any cases are seen in Western developed countries, including Britain. However, a sizeable number (n = 450) was seen among British soldiers returning from deputation to India, then a British colony, first reported by Col. MacArthur at the Queen Alexandria Military Hospital in 1931. Here, we review the influence of the perceptive observations of British Army medics on the understanding of the parasitic disorder. The majority of these people presented with epilepsy. Among the contributions of the army medics were establishing the diagnosis, initially by histological examination of subcutaneous and muscular infestation, and later by radiography, clarifying the prognosis and the role of medical and surgical treatments and uncovering the close relationship between the larval (cysticercosis) and adult (intestinal tapeworm) stages of T. solium.     

Identification of Modal Parameters of a Multistoried RC Building Using Ambient Vibration and Strong Vibration Records of Bhuj Earthquake, 2001

Modal parameters of an instrumented multi-storied reinforced concrete building (G +9) have been studied using strong motion records of Bhuj Earthquake, 2001. The Ambient Vibration Testing (AVT) is also conducted to measure the modal parameters of the same building under ambient environmental forces. Frequency Domain Decomposition (FDD) or Peak Picking (PP) in frequency domain and Stochastic Subspace Identification (SSI) technique in time domain is used for extracting the modal parameters. The observed natural frequencies during strong motion are smaller than the ambient vibration testing. The difference in the frequencies may be caused by interaction between structure and soil due to high level of strain during strong motion earthquake. The modal pattern of first five modes obtained from strong motion records and ambient vibration records are identical.     

First ancient bovine DNA evidence from India: difficult but not impossible

Ancient DNA isolation from the tropical countries has been shown to be very difficult in the past. Here for the first time we have been successful in isolating ancient DNA from Indian cattle samples. We were able to obtain DNA and sequence the partial mitochondrial D-loop in 3 of the 15 bovine fossil samples ranging in age from 2000 BC to 1000 AD, and were able to further identify the most recent sample as being of Bos indicus origin. Our results on ancient DNA extraction from India will encourage other researchers in this field to carry out further studies of ancient DNA from Indian bovine samples. Our results represent the first successful extraction and amplification of bovine ancient DNA from India, and thus may pave the road for a better understanding of demographic and historical processes of cattle domestication that has taken place in this region.     

A SPATIAL MULTIVARIATE COUNT MODEL FOR FIRM LOCATION DECISIONS

This paper proposes a new spatial multivariate model to predict the count of new businesses at a county level in the state of Texas. Several important factors including agglomeration economies/diseconomies, industrial specialization indices, human capital, fiscal conditions, transportation infrastructure, and land development characteristics are considered. The results highlight the need to use a multivariate modeling system for the analysis of business counts by sector type, while also accommodating spatial dependence effects in business counts.     

Early Permian Foraminifera from Eastern Himalaya and their palaeobiogeographic significance

Foraminiferal assemblage from Permian rocks of Eastern Himalaya, India are recorded for the first time. Twenty-two genera and twenty-eight species are documented from the Garu Formation, Eastern Himalaya. The foraminiferal assemblage supports previous age determinations based on megafauna. The distinctive foraminiferal assemblage from India supports the recognition of Australian and Afghanistan-Indian provinces in the Early Permian Austral realm. An appreciable number of common species in these provinces is indicative of close geographic links.     

Hindu cosmology and the orinetation and segregation of social groups in villages in Northwestern India

This paper presents a cultural analysis of the directional orientation and segregation of castes in villages in a part of the northwestern plains of India. It interprets the built environment in terms of Hindu cosmology. Recent literature in cultural geography interprets the landscape "as text" or through symbols. The symbolic approach has greater relevance for traditional societies where clear schemata are discernible in built environments. This paper attempts a critical appraisal of Hindu cosmology as a schema for interpreting built environments in Indian villages.
Challenging the widely held view that Indian villages lack order, the paper demonstrates that there is a religiously ordained order in the landscape. The order is manifested in the form of orientation of several features of landscape, especially the caste mohallãs (wards) to the cardinal directions. Orientation of caste mohallãs to the 'sacred' directions in a settlement follows a system evolved by Indian civilization to harmonize the fractured social order with the segmented cosmic order. The paper also demonstrates that segregation is an inherent characteristic of orientation.
As a background for regional diversities, empirical evidence reveals that in the study region Hindu cosmology is impressed on villages, though often in a modified form. Villagers believe that the social space known as khenúã slopes down from west to east, while the southern sector is the 'lowest' segment of the village. Dominant castes characteristically reserve for themselves the best western site of the village and low castes are placed in lower social spaces, with scheduled castes being generally placed in the south.     

Rising Sino-Japanese competition: perspectives from South-East Asian elites

One of the biggest challenges for the East Asian region today is the Sino-Japanese relationship. Starting with the fishing trawler incident in September 2010, followed by Japan's nationalisation of the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, this relationship is experiencing an escalation of tensions in most, if not all, areas of the bilateral relationship. In response to the intensifying competition, China and Japan have elevated the importance of South-East Asia and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in their foreign policy strategies. Focusing on how elites from five South-East Asian states—Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam—perceive the engagement of China and Japan with the region, this article poses two questions: (1) How do South-East Asian elites view the Sino-Japanese competition? and (2) How do South-East Asian elites view the role of ASEAN in managing the competition? The analysis here concludes that while some South-East Asian elites see opportunities in the Sino-Japanese competition, they nevertheless do not perceive it as an issue of critical significance. Instead, the concern lies generally with major-power dynamics, and particularly with Sino-US relations. ASEAN is viewed to lack the ability to manage the negative consequences of the Sino-Japanese competition, although its external balancing function has perceptibly helped to restrain any escalation of major-power tensions.     

Ethno-archaeology of the Meitei’s of Thongjao Village: A Pottery Making Village of Manipur,North-East India

An ethno-archaeological study of the people of Thongjao village considered to be one of the ancient pottery makers in Manipur provided a detailed account of the techniques and procedures of pottery making. The present study attempts to bridge the gap between the present ethnographic account and past archaeological account in respect of the ceramics of Manipur by drawing similarities between the Thongjao village and prehistoric ceramics of Manipur on the one hand and by making analogical interpretations of the latter on the basis of parallelism that exists between the two on the other. This study also highlighted the use of raw materials and their techniques used in making pottery and their prehistoric similarities in respect of their composition. The paper studies the different types of pottery found in this village and also reveals the socio-cultural association of the people, changes and continuity.