Shifting Sands: Towards an Anthropological Praxis

This paper reflects on some of the dilemmas within my shifting roles over the last twenty years as helper/friend/member of the Katherine Indigenous community in the Northern Territory of Australia and then, as anthropologist. During this period, indigenous calls for land rights have been increasingly interpreted in the terms of ‘bourgeois law’ (Collier et al. 1995). Indigenous identities have become the focus of intense public scrutiny as they define eligibility for scarce resources. Fighting over the scraps of what was once a wholistic indigenous landscape, some of Australia's indigenous peoples have begun to turn upon each other, in the struggle for recognition. Anthropologists as the scribes of indigenous identities are placed in invidious positions, and are easily accused of participating in (neo)colonial endeavours. This paper takes some small steps towards locating an anthropological praxis in this land rights/native title arena of power.     

Lactantius's “Modern” Conception of Religio*

Scholars of religion sometimes argue that a distinctively modern conception of religion takes religion to be a trans-cultural category, divisible into “true” and “false” versions, of which Christianity is the core type. Thus, according to the so-called modern conception of religion, every culture has its own religion. Some are true (paradigmatically Christianity), some are false. This paper argues that these ideas were present in Lactantius's (c. 250–325) conception of religio. It shows this by presenting Lactantius's development of a theory of religio. This theory was the product of Lactantius combining one Ciceronian conception of religio and a Christian origin-story about where religio comes from. Lactantius used this theory to analyse Christianity and what he took to be its competitors.     

ENGINEERING SPATIAL FIXES: RELATIONAL SPATIAL PRACTICES,STRATEGIC‐TOPOLOGICAL APPROACH AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF A FINNISH SCIENCE‐TECHNOLOGY DISTRICT

It can be argued that the relational approach, and especially the so‐called relational economic geography, would benefit from deeper engagement with the practical and strategic dimensions of spatial relations. The article proposes a notion of engineering spatial fix as a way to conceptualize these dimensions. The idea is to widen the conceptual sphere of relationality from spontaneous ties or abstract networked power effects towards relational spatial practices. Theoretically, the article aims to bridge the strategic‐relational and the network‐topological approaches through a stylized meso‐level practice‐oriented approach. It is suggested that in economic geography, relations can be grasped through two basic perspectives: relations as analytical lenses and relations as spatial practices. The article proposes that the relational spatial practices can be divided into two dimensions: topological and strategic. The article presents a case study of a science‐technology district of Turku in 1985–2001, which fleshes out the theoretical elaborations. In the process, the relational concept of synergy is utilized as a context‐specific strategic resource as the district evolves from an initial separate building to a distinct and materialized geographical structure.