Altersgerechtes Wohnen im Quartier

Standort - Im Alter nimmt das Quartier aufgrund geringerer Aktionsradien an Bedeutung zu. Der Beitrag befasst sich mit der Frage, welche Besonderheiten sich bei Senioren-Haushalten im Hinblick auf...     

The Role of Fire in the Life of an Adhesive

The use of fire is essential for the preparation of hafting adhesives; both are suggested to be a proxy for distinguishing the technological expertise and complex cognition among Palaeolithic populations. While use of fire has been argued to exist from about 1.0 Ma onwards, evidence for adhesives in the Palaeolithic record is rare and fragmented. In spite of the close link between fire places and adhesives, no study has ever focussed on examining the impact of heat on adhesive deposition and preservation. This paper discusses the results of a combustion experiment that was undertaken to understand the impact of heat exposure on hafting adhesives. The results have significant implications for archaeological interpretations. Deposition in or near a fire proves to severely impact the types of residues that preserve on a stone tool. The vertically transferred heat is responsible for the loss of adhesives but also for the incidental production of adhesives and their deposition on stone tools. It can be hypothesised that the rare survival of adhesives on archaeological stone tools might not only be the result of direct contact with the fire but also the result of degradation due to heat from overlying fireplaces. If we are to improve our understanding of the preservation of adhesives, it is important to unstand the taphonomic processes that affect these adhesives, in particular heat alteration.     

Alone or together in the neighbourhood? School choice and families’ access to local social networks

This study explores how the everyday geographies of city life and families’ access to social networks in the neighbourhood influence families’ school choices. The data consist of thematic interviews with parents of 8–14-year-old children (n?=?170) in three urban areas located in the cities of Paris (France), Milan (Italy) and Espoo (Finland) and are analysed via qualitative content analysis. The findings indicate that the families’ access to local social networks influences the reasoning behind school choice to the local school. The children’s relationships with other children and adults in the neighbourhood are considered important, but additionally, the parents’ networks with other parents in the area, mediated by the school, play their role. School choices as practices should therefore be analysed not merely as choices of an institution, as they comprise various aspects concerning the surrounding neighbourhood as a physical and social space.     

The notebook and the laboratory – types of knowledge in German piano-making, 1880–1930

ABSTRACT

Between the second half of the nineteenth century and the 1930s, German piano making changed from a craft to an industry. Nevertheless, piano makers still needed specific working knowledge to produce quality instruments. This knowledge was bound to individuals and transmitted informally from one person to another. The piano makers took working knowledge as the core of their practice. But in the shift to industrial methods of production, the key question was how to translate working knowledge into formal knowledge—to articulate what such knowledge meant and how it might be applied. Using the case study of the German piano making factory Grotrian-Steinweg, I show how the piano maker Kurt Grotrian used his notebooks to grapple with the problem of formalizing his working knowledge. At this company, an acoustic laboratory was established, in whose reports formalized knowledge was stored due to the transition of piano making from a craft to an industry.     

Liebe Leserin, lieber Leser,

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

"New Governance" and Associative Pluralism: The Case of Drug Policy in Swiss Cities

Throughout the 1990s, hierarchical administrative governance structures have been replaced by self-governing networks for various motives, one of which is to improve the authenticity and democratic quality of public decisions. Thus, "new governance" has been praised for its propensity to provide a plurality of civil society organizations with access to the decision process. This article explores these claims based on the case of drug policy in Swiss cities. We show that self-governing networks indeed seem to have increased the involvement of civil society organizations in the policy process. However, we also find evidence that self-governing networks may in the longer run induce state control over civil society organizations, thus ultimately reducing associative pluralism. They do so either by imposing a policy paradigm or by excluding actors who do not comply with the dominant paradigm from the networks. We conclude by arguing that self-organizing networks should not be dismissed, given that former hierarchical bureaucratic approaches to drug-related problems have failed even worse. Rather, their long-term effects should be subject to further examination aimed at developing adequate responses to their shortcomings.     

Migrations- und Integrationsforschung in der Praxis

Das aktuelle Interesse an Fragen der Migration und Integration von Ausl?ndern und eingebürgerten Deutschen hat zu einer gro?en Vielfalt an Forschungsans?tzen geführt. Die M?glichkeiten zur Analyse von Migrations- und Integrationsprozessen werden in einem hohen Ma?e durch die verfügbaren statistischen Daten und empirischen Umfrageergebnisse bestimmt, die spezifische Anforderungen erfüllen müssen. Der folgende Beitrag führt kurz in die besonderen Erfordernisse der Migrations- und Integrationsforschung ein und stellt eine Auswahl an Datenquellen vor. Im Mittelpunkt des Interesses steht der aktuelle Integrationssurvey des Bundesinstituts für Bev?lkerungsforschung, dessen Analysem?glichkeiten exemplarisch gezeigt werden. Correspondence to:Frank Swiaczny     

Scales of grievability: on moving children and the geopolitics of precariousness

This article investigates legal performativities of grievability in contemporary child migration and argues for a scalar approach to analyse and understand the cultural politics underpinning current debates on the ‘moving’ child. I turn to two court cases in the Dutch context that involve alleged child trafficking in international adoption on the one hand and the threat of deportation in child asylum on the other. These two forms of child migration have rarely been investigated in tandem although both concern the transnational movement of children from the global South to the wealthy North. By focusing on the legal concept of ‘the right to family life’ and ‘the best interest of the child’ I point to the performativity of law and the ways in which cultural constructions of the child, childhood, kin and humanitarianism intervene in our work of justification. My contention is that placing these ‘different-but-same bodies’ within a scalar dimension – one that takes into account spatio-temporal conditions of grievability – enables us to understand modern investments in child-bodies and the complexities of justice in globalization.     

What is the use of shaping a tang? Tool use and hafting of tanged tools in the Aterian of Northern Africa

We present the results of detailed microscopic examination of tanged tools from the site of Ifri n'Ammar. The rock shelter has a particularly rich and well-preserved stratigraphy that has yielded a large variety of tanged tools, thus offering a possibility to test hypotheses on the possible links between tangs and hafting. Earlier methodological work has demonstrated that patterned wear forms on the non-active part of the tool as the result of hafted tool use, and that the characteristics of the wear traces depend on the exact hafting arrangement used. In the present study, wear analyses were combined with further experiments that involved the hafting of tanged tools with various materials and arrangements and aimed at understanding the development of this important morphological innovation. We suggest that functional data are needed to understand the relevance of the "Aterian tang" for hafting (or use), and whether this innovation was triggered by functional, cultural or environmental factors.