Nationalism versus constitutionalism in Fiji*

Abstract. Since Fiji became an independent state in 1970 it has experienced three coups against elected governments. On each occasion, intervention has been justified on the grounds that the rights and interests of indigenous Fijians have been under threat from a government controlled by Indo‐Fijians, the country's second largest ethnic group. This is despite the fact that the constitutions under which these governments were elected contained extensive provisions for the protection of indigenous rights and interests precisely to meet such concerns. Since the coup of May 2000, the 1997 constitution has been resurrected through the legal process and fresh elections held. Although this represented a formal victory for the forces of constitutionalism, the election itself resulted in the return to office of the post‐coup interim administration that had been appointed by the military and which had pledged to uphold the primacy of Fijian interests against other claims. The story of nationalism versus constitutionalism in Fiji is one in which all the efforts of institutional designers seem to have been consistently trumped by the successful manipulation of ethnic identity, especially (although not exclusively) by Fijian nationalists. But it also suggests that there is more to the problems of stability in Fiji than the fact of ethnic difference. In addition, the article critically assesses arguments which favour the development of a new form of constitutionalism which dispenses with the liberal ‘rule of uniformity’ in favour of principles and practices that give explicit recognition to cultural difference.     

A Spatial Economic Analysis of Urban Land Use and Obesity*

Abstract. We analyze an urban spatial model to examine the possible link between urban land use and obesity. Households maximize utility defined over housing, weight, and food subject to a fixed time budget allocated to commuting, calorie expenditure, and work. Our model explains the observed correspondence between high obesity rates and low development densities, but implies that these are determined endogenously in a spatial market equilibrium. We study the sorting of residents by attributes such as income, initial weight, and weight preferences, and examine the impacts on weight and density of urban design modifications that lower the costs of calorie expenditure.     

Fl?chenmonitoring in der Regional- und Bauleitplanung Neue M?glichkeiten durch die Analyse von Satellitenbildern

Deutschland hat ein umfassendes und in der Praxis bew?hrtes Planungssystem einschlie?lich integrierter Umweltprüfung, das auch für zus?tzliche bzw. erweiterte Prüfinstrumente günstige Voraussetzungen bietet. Das Fl?chenmonitoring in der Regionalplanung, aber auch für die St?dte und Gemeinden in der vorbereitenden Bauleitplanung kann mit Hilfe einer gezielten Ver?nderungsanalyse der Landbedeckung als ein Baustein eines umfassenden Monitoringsystems und zur Unterstützung des Nachhaltigkeitsprinzips verstanden werden. Da jedoch insbesondere für einen l?ngeren Beobachtungszeitraum kaum bzw. keine (digitalen) Informationen über die Landbedeckung existieren, stellt die Auswertung von Satellitendaten einen L?sungsansatz dar. Inwiefern sich die semiautomatische Analyse von Satellitenbildern als ein geeignetes Instrument zur Bewertung und Ver?nderung der Nutzung eines Landkreises eignet bzw. worin Analyseprobleme sowie M?glichkeiten und Grenzen der Anwendung in der Regionalplanung existieren, soll im folgenden Beitrag am Beispiel des Landkreises Osnabrück thematisiert werden.     

Getting “Out of Africa”: Sea Crossings,Land Crossings and Culture in the Hominin Migrations

Palaeoanthropologists and archaeologists have advanced a wide range of explanatory narratives for the various movements of Homo erectus/Homo ergaster, and the first modern Homo sapiens, “Out of Africa”—or even back again. The application of Occam's razor—a parsimonious approach to causes—gives a more cautious approach. There is nothing in the available evidence that would require the ability for a human water crossing from Africa before the later Pleistocene, whether across the Strait of Gibraltar, the Sicilian Channel or the southern Red Sea (Bab el-Mandab). A parsimonious narrative is consistent with movements across the Sinai peninsula. The continuous arid zone from northern Africa to western Asia allowed both occupation and transit during wet phases of the Pleistocene; there is no requirement for a “sponge” model of absorption followed by expulsion of human groups. The Nile Valley as a possible transit route from East Africa has a geological chronology that could fit well much current evidence for the timing of human migration. The limited spatial and temporal opportunities for movements “Out of Africa,” or back again, also puts particular difficulties in the way of the gene flow required for the multiregional hypothesis of the development of modern Homo sapiens.     

From the Ground Up: Agency,Practice, and Community in the Southwestern British Bronze Age

Embodied, sensual, engagements between people, earthly elements, and celestial bodies during focused, periodic acts of ritual construction and artifact deposition in the southwestern British Bronze Age resulted in the remaking of identities, local communities, symbolic/mythical knowledge, and the landscape itself. To appreciate how material culture, time, and space were employed to define the criteria by which people understood themselves and their world necessitates an archaeological focus upon shared practices in particular settings that served to define rules of engagement with the environment based upon shared human perceptions. Agency appears in this encounter as central in the construction and perpetuation of symbolic perception, shared social memory, and community identity.     

Linking Theory and Evidence in an Archaeology of Human Agency: Iconography,Style, and Theories of Embodiment

Many of the theories that inspire agency approaches in archaeology identify deep philosophical problems with other lines of thought. This creates challenges for identifying methods: do radical theories require radical methods? Choosing as a case study one of agency’s interpretive frameworks (embodiment) and, further, a single class of evidence (anthropomorphic imagery), I argue that the answer is “no.” In this case, familiar art historical methods, deliberately played off one against the other, provide a middle range framework for linking theory and evidence.     

Zooarchaeology and Historical Archaeology: Progress and Prospects

This review assesses the development and current status of zooarchaeological research in historical archaeology. Analytical issues in recovery, identification, quantification and interpretation are discussed with particular reference to assemblages from historical sites. The results section summarizes the substantive contributions zooarchaeological studies of historical assemblages have made to our understanding of past diet, food production systems, social and cultural variation, and archaeological interpretations. The last four decades of research has provided a strong basis for future analyses that draw together diverse strands of zooarchaeological, historical, scientific, and anthropological evidence.