RESIDENCE PATHS AND COMMUNITY PERCEPTION: A CASE STUDY FROM THE TORONTO URBAN FIELD

A typology of residence paths to Toronto urban field locations is developed to explore the importance of urban emigrants to the resettlement of the city's countryside and path relationships with local community perceptions. Residence paths are described by childhood and prior community types, current urban field residence location, and length of residence. Paths are dominated by large city residential experiences, but rural residential backgrounds are evident. Community perceptions, emphasizing satisfaction, are positive. Multiple classification analysis, in three model forms, identifies path-based variations in community satisfaction, and the strength of paths as predictors of satisfaction. Interpretations include links to ideas on the urban field advanced by Russwurm. L'auteur essaie de développer une typologie des sentiers de résidence dans le champ urbain de Toronto pour evaluer l'importance des émigrants urbains dans la colonisation de la périphérie rurale des villes. De plus, i l analyse les attitudes de la communauté locale en rapport avec ces sentiers. Ceux-ci sont tracés d'après les souvenirs d'enfance, les indications de cornmunautés antérieures, I'emplacement actuel de residences urbaines et la durke de residence. Les sentiers sont caracterisés par les expériences résidentielles propres à la grande ville mais on dégage également des arrière-fonds résidences rurales. Les attitudes de la communauté, qui révèlent une certaine satisfaction, s'averent positives. Une analyse à classement multiple, sous forme de trois modèles presente les variations de la satisfaction de la communauté fondées sur les sentiers et le poids des sentiers comme prédicteurs de satisfaction éventuelle. Parmi les interprétations, on trouve des liens avec les idées de Russwurm sur les champs urbains.     

The corporeal,the social and space/place: exploring intersections from a midwifery perspective in New Zealand

This article explores the interrelations between the corporeal, the social and the spatial as they operate to shape the discursive and material realities of childbirth in the obstetric hospital setting. It draws on interviews conducted with midwives throughout New Zealand and embodies key insights derived from the work of Michel Foucault and Elizabeth Grosz. The obstetric hospital is theorised as a product of particular socio-political relations that privilege biomedical constructions of the body and childbirth. Midwives, however, proffer an alternative construction of childbirth and the space/place it is enacted. It is one that requires a woman to actively engage with a variety of birth spaces and take up a range of subject positions that enable her to be a more active agent in the process of parturition. The limited and limiting spatial and discursive arrangements of the obstetric hospital, it is argued, shape the behaviour, subjectivity and corporeality of the maternal body confined within it and therefore the practises of midwives. Unfortunately, and as this article demonstrates, the opportunity to take up such an alternative is limited in the obstetric hospital despite some recent cosmetic attempts to render it more welcoming.     

Where are the witches of prehistory?

Why are certain common classes of ritually destroyed objects (persons, artifacts, or architecture), such as persecuted witches, so difficult to identify in the archaeological record? Although a common topic in cultural anthropology, witches seldom receive the attention of archaeologists. The difficulties archaeologists face in the study of religion derive, in part, from the lack of correlates linking ritual activities to the formation of archaeological deposits. This paper defines ritual as a technology and employs an object life history approach that draws upon ethnographic, archaeological, and experimental research to begin building such linkages—including those describing the presecution and deposition of witches, sorcerers, and other victims of ritual violence. These new directions are illustrated through a case study of anomalous deposits of human skeletal remains from the North American Southwest     

Rereading Rape and Sexual Violence in Early Modern England

In the early modern period, the inapplicability of certain discourses of sex and violence impeded allegations of rape whilst facilitating denials of rape. Women who asserted rape (and men who spoke out in support) engendered those same discourses which incriminated them with their own semantic and expressive intent. Male violence was stressed and feminine agency discursively denied in these accounts. Sex was largely occluded, except when it appeared in particular forms: when rape was conceptualised as the tragic antithesis of healthy, procreational sex; through metaphors which implied the violation of a woman's most private boundaries; and as a brutal expression of unrelenting, and often obsessive, masculine love. Rape narratives produced in legal contexts cannot provide evidence of repressed memory. But they can demonstrate how, from a position of weakness, women nevertheless attempted to negotiate their way through a web of cultural restrictions.     

TROPICAL DEFORESTATION AND FOREST MANAGEMENT UNDER THE SYSTEM OF CONCESSION LOGGING: A DECISION-THEORETIC ANALYSIS*

ABSTRACT. Deforestation caused by concession logging is often the result of harvest decisions which focus on short-run profits rather than on long-run sustainable harvest yields. A sequential-decision model of this type of behavior is here developed which focuses on a logger's annual decisions of whether or not to remain in compliance with the terms of a concession contract. The contract stipulates harvesting procedures for a sustained forest yield, and noncompliance is taken to result in deforestation. An optimal decision policy for the concession logger is characterized in terms of optimal-stopping theory, and is employed to construct payoff incentives which encourage compliance. In particular, a forest management problem is formulated which focuses on the effectiveness of partial inspection policies in deterring noncompliant behavior. General necessary and sufficient conditions for the effectiveness of such policies are established, and are given a more operational form for the Markov case. A numerical example based on actual concession-contract data is also developed which suggests certain policy implications.     

Comparison of four ballistic and thrusting target materials: An experimental and Bayesian approach using static testing of stone and steel arrow tips

Researchers use a variety of target materials, and sometimes combinations of materials, in their archaeological experiments to examine thrust-spear or projectile penetration, impact angle, durability, and other issues involving prehistoric hunting weaponry. This variety of target materials is beneficial to archaeological science in several ways, but it may also hinder the comparison of results because many of these target materials do not necessarily share similar physical properties. Here, we assess the penetration properties of four different target materials—store-bought meat, clay, and two types of gelatin—via static penetration tests of a modern broadhead-tipped arrow and a stone-tipped projectile attached to an Instron Universal Materials Tester. Our analyses of load-deflection curves, peak load, and work energy demonstrate how the four target materials are similar in some ways but different in others, which suggests that researchers may strategically employ one or several depending on the question asked or hypothesis tested.     

Formalization and its Discontents: Conceptual Fallacies and Ways Forward

The concept of formalization has long underpinned policy interventions and measures intended to connect informal entities with state institutions or formal economic structures. However, despite the policy enthusiasm, the outcomes of formalization policies have frequently been disappointing. This article argues that this disconnect lies in the concept of formalization itself and that common approaches to formalization are often rooted in three conceptual fallacies: a binary distinction between formal and informal economic actors, a lack of appreciation for the diversity of informal economic actors and the idea that ‘becoming’ formal necessarily spurs positive externalities. These conceptual confusions pay insufficient attention to contextual complexity and the political and social dynamics that shape informality in a given context and they are frequently rooted in the practicalities and power structures that shape knowledge creation in this area. This article demonstrates this through case studies of tax registration and property titling. Thus, it argues for a new research agenda on formalization that challenges both its conventional conceptual foundations and the practices of research that engage with it.