The European Union as a Gated Community: The Two‐faced Border and Immigration Regime of the EU

Abstract: Within the European Union, an internal liberalisation of cross‐border labour mobility for EU citizens is currently being combined with the tightening of control and management efforts at the external borders. At the same time, attempts are being made to strategically select immigrants from new member states as well as from outside the EU who will be of economic value. In this paper we argue that by implementing such protectionist and selective immigration policy, the EU has come to resemble a gated community in which the bio‐political control and management of immigration is, to a large extent, the product of fear. Often fear manifests itself in terms of fear of losing material gain, eg the anxiety of losing economic welfare or public security. More often, however, this fear relates to the entrance of the immigrant, the stranger and is, as such, associated with a fear of losing a community's self‐defined identity. These perceived threats to a community's comfort lead to the politicisation of protection, whereby the terra incognita beyond the border is justifiably neglected due to the indifference and the intentional blindness shown to the outside. Hiding in a gated community in order to protect this comfort zone and trying to exclude outsiders, ‘Others’, from the community, is not only in vain since the desire for completion of the Self can never be fulfilled, but what remains still more troublesome, is that this tendency will sustain and reproduce global inequality and segregation, both in the material as well as symbolic sense.     

Making a Mountain Out of a Molehill? A Low-Cost and Time-Efficient Molehill Survey of the Lost Medieval Harbor Site of Monnikerede,Belgium

Grasslands pose a particular problem for archaeological survey involving artifact assessment, as no material is plowed up to the surface. Although finds in molehills are often the only source of information available on sites with such low visibility, an archaeology of molehills has thus far been largely disregarded. Yet, by applying a low-cost and time-efficient methodology, both the potential and the pitfalls of molehill archaeology come to the forefront. At the medieval harbor site of Monnikerede, it was possible to assess material culture and to locate certain structural elements. However, when artifact densities were compared with the underlying geophysical anomalies, a more complex relationship appeared at the level of individual features.     

Morgawr: an experimental Bronze Age‐type sewn‐plank craft based on the Ferriby boats

This paper reports on the construction of a full‐scale Bronze Age‐type sewn‐plank boat based on the Ferriby boats. The boat, which was named Morgawr, was constructed in the National Maritime Museum Cornwall in Falmouth, England, during 2012 and the first months of 2013, as part of a larger exhibition in the museum. This paper provides the background and context of the project, describes the process of building the craft, and reflects in particular on differences between Morgawr and the ‘hypothetical reconstruction of a complete sewn‐plank boat’ published in 1990 by Ted Wright and John Coates which formed the basis for this project.     

The Politics of Emotion in Participatory Processes of Empowerment and Change

In this article I reflect on the role of critical analysis and emotions in participatory approaches to empowerment and change. I argue that, in participatory research and practice, certain cognitive and analytical knowledges are prioritized as principal catalysts of empowerment and transformation at the cost of recognizing, and making full use of, the empowering potential of emotional and embodied knowledges. This argument is developed based on 2 years of fieldwork in a local youth participation project in Mejicanos, a poor and violent neighborhood in El Salvador, aiming at empowering young people by involving them in participatory action research (PAR). ¹ As part of my research, I looked critically at the young people's PAR process, asking whether and how they felt empowered by it and whether and how social change came about. Originally, the research did not focus on emotions, yet, in an inductive fashion, emotions and embodied knowledges evolved from fieldwork as crucial elements in understanding participation, empowerment and social transformation.     

Continental Patterns in Stone Tools: A Technological and Biplot-Based Comparison of Early Late Pleistocene Assemblages from Northern and Southern Africa

The technology of the end products i.e. blades and points in Late Pleistocene stone artefact assemblages from Klasies River, South Africa, and the Nile Valley, Egypt, are compared. The comparison includes univariate and multivariate analysis of metrical attributes enhanced by graphical biplot displays. The end products in these assemblages are either dominantly points or blades and this is related to the core reduction strategy adopted. The MSA 11 from Klasies River and the Nubian Complex industry from the Nile Valley are point industries made in the Levallois tradition, while the MSA 1 from Klasies River and the Taramsan from the Nile Valley may be non-Levallois or adapted Levallois blade industries. Dating of the assemblages shows the changes between dominant core reduction strategies are sequential and time restricted in both South and North Africa. It is concluded that variability of the same kind occurs in Middle Stone Age and Middle Palaeolithic assemblages south and north of the Sahara in the early Late Pleistocene.Dans cet article, les technologies des produits recherchés, des lames et des pointes, pour certains ensembles lithiques de Klasies River, Afrique du Sud et la Vallée du Nil, Egypte, sont comparées. Cette comparaison implique des analyses univariées et multivariées de variables métriques biplot. Les produits recherchés sont bien des pointes que des lames, selon les stratégies dexploitation adoptées. Le MSA II de Klasies River et le Complexe nubien de la Vallée du Nil sont des industries à pointes issues de la tradition Levallois. Par contre, le MSA I de Klasies River et le Taramsien de la Vallée du Nil évoquent une technologie de production non-Levallois ou Levallois modifiée. Les éléments de datation disponibles indiquent que les changements dans la prépondérance des stratégies dexploitation senchaînent dans une séquence chronologique bien identifiable, aussibien dans lAfrique du Sud que lAfrique du Nord. On arrive à la conclusion quune variabilité du même caractère est attestée dans les ensembles du Middle Stone Age et du Paléolithique moyen au sud et au nord du Sahara, pendant le Pléistocène supérieur ancien.     

"Jehovah Will Provide": Lillian Gobitas and Freedom of Religion

In 1935, twelve-year-old Lillian Gobitas and her siblings heard the words of Joseph Rutherford, the head of the Jehovah's Witness group the Watchtower Society, on the radio in their kitchen. He implored Witnesses to refuse to salute the American flag since it amounted to the worship of a false idol, which violated the law of God as set forth in the Bible. ¹ Rutherford made reference to the courage of Witnesses in Germany who refused to salute Hitler in the face of the unbelievable oppressions of the Nazi regime and similarly called for American Witnesses to refuse to salute the flag. It was a message that struck a chord with Lillian Gobitas.     

Gendered Violence: Castration and Blinding as Punishment for Treason in Normandy and Anglo‐Norman England

The use of castration as a punishment for treason and other forms of misdemeanour was a specific trait of the Norman realms of medieval Europe. In the post‐Carolingian kingdoms of France, Germany and Italy, it was rarely practised and only known as a punishment for sexual crimes. In Scandinavia, Normandy, Anglo‐Norman England and Norman Sicily, however, blinding and castration were regarded as an appropriate equivalent of the death penalty. The particular emphasis on masculinity implied in the Norman construction of noble honour, rendered the Norman warrior's body particularly vulnerable. Since his testicles were regarded as the prerequisite of his social existence, they became a legitimate point of attack whenever the ruler felt betrayed and decided to use force against his enemies. This gendered violence constituted a constantly renewed frame of reference, which defined political power as male and reinforced the notion that authority required a fully functional masculine body.