BEYOND THE OPPIDA: POLYFOCAL COMPLEXES AND LATE IRON AGE SOCIETIES IN SOUTHERN BRITAIN

Terms such as ‘oppida’ have often obscured how we understand the nature and role of the dyke complexes which emerged at the end of the Iron Age. Developing from recent research at the Late Iron Age complex of Bagendon in Gloucestershire, this paper argues that a group of such polyfocal complexes share common characteristics, most significantly a relationship with ‘banjo’ enclosures, as part of wider landscape constructs. The paper suggests that the topography and morphology of these complexes have important implications for understanding the role of these sites and the nature of social change in the Late Iron Age.     

4. TECHNOPOLITICS IN THE ARCHIVE: SOVEREIGNTY,RESEARCH, AND EVERYDAY LIFE

This article explores the place of the archive in the context of land claims research. This essay develops a critical approach to identity technopolitics with the aim of helping historians working with indigenous communities to ask new kinds of questions about the relationships and subject positions opened up by archivization and the myriad other technologies of land claims research. Since researchers first began preparing for the Canadian case, Delgamuukw’ and Gisday'wa v. The Queen, four decades ago, the immense stores of documentary evidence generated for the trial have given ground to numerous new claims and conflicts. Tracing the experiences of one prominent Gitxsan historical researcher who has leveraged his own archive and expertise to build genealogies for hundreds of individuals, I explore the intimate disappointments and impossible obligations that indigenous historians must mediate.     

Artists in rural locales: market access, landscape appeal and economic exigency

The period 1971 to 1991 saw a significant increase in the proportion of Canadians employed in the 'arts'. While still concentrated to a large extent in urban Canada, artists do seek out rural locations to pursue their craft. This paper identifies, interprets and classifies communities in rural Canada that specialize in the production of visual, performing and literary art. Location quotients are calculated from a custom-tabulated run of 1991 census data on employment in the arts in all Canadian census subdivisions. We propose several factors that may account for high concentrations of artists in some rural places. Cluster analysis is used to develop a classification of Canadian rural arts communities. We identify 371 small arts centres in Canada, ranging from Cape Dorset in the Northwest Territories to Elora in southwestern Ontario. Market access, landscape appeal and economic exigency are among the location determinants isolated. Further analysis reveals that five types of arts communities exist in rural Canada. Future research on a localized scale is now necessary to uncover specific factors responsible for the prevalence of artists in the rural ecumene.     

The creative destruction of Niagara-on-the-Lake

Heritage shopping villages are becoming increasingly commonplace in rural North America. Their creation reflects the demands of post-modern consumers to purchase symbolic capital in the form of unique products and experiences reflecting a bygone era. Entrepreneurs have responded to this by commodifying heritage and tradition; a process that leads to the creation of new landscapes and a perceived destruction of the old. This transformation has been described in the model of creative destruction (Mitchell 1998). In this paper the model is applied to Old Niagara-on-the-Lake, a heritage shopping village located in southern Ontario, Canada. Data on functional change, visitor numbers and residents' attitudes are analysed for the period 1950–1998. It is concluded that historic Niagara-on-the-Lake is in the early stages of 'advanced destruction'; one characterized by major investment, large numbers of visitors and partial destruction of the rural idyll. Results of this analysis confirm that while the basic premise of the model is sound, modifications are required to accommodate some of the study's findings.     

MEGALITH SIZE AND THE IMPLICATIONS FOR OUR UNDERSTANDING OF CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY,WITH PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO CUMBRIA,NORTH‐WEST ENGLAND

The possibility that a comparison of the size of all stones in megalithic monuments might contribute to an understanding of the societies which built them is explored. Although a number of interpretational problems are recognized, the results appear meaningful. They show that there is no simple relationship between the diameter of a stone circle and the numbers of people involved in its construction, and that larger numbers contributed to the erection of some individual standing stones. Previous suggestions that individual families consisted of four to five active adults are supported.     

Woman,Body, Space: Rio Carnival and the politics of performance

The practices and aesthetics of carnival are hotly debated in Brazilian society, as it is taken to be the expression of 'the essence of Brazilianness'. In this paper, an attempt is made to understand the Rio de Janeiro carnival in ways which are not only sensitive to its maps of power and meaning, but also able to explore the subtle ways in which value hierarchies are displaced. To this end, we suggest that cultural categories 'constitute' what they appear to 'describe'. In this way, the mobilisation of categories of 'woman' make women's bodies seemingly both material and intelligible, while foreclosing on the instability of that category. This paper shows that Rio Carnival is a site not only where categories of high and low value are presented and sometimes inverted, but also where the sight of the female body is both made to bear the full weight of contradictory and unstable cultural values, and to disguise and deny those tensions and instabilities. Yet, the performance of 'woman' in Rio Carnival constantly unfolds through power, knowledge and social equivocation about what 'woman' is- or might be. From here, we argue that the performers are not merely dupes to this system of meaning and power, nor do they merely convey cultural norms through their bodies, but are actively performing and masquerading femininity, and this actually renders femininity indeterminate and unknowable, opening up the possibility that the performance can act as a site of resistance .