The Contribution of Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) to Understanding Pre‐Columbian Goldwork Technology

This paper highlights the contribution of transmission electron microscopy (TEM) when combined with scanning electron microscopy and energy‐dispersive X‐ray microanalysis (SEM/XEDS) to characterize objects in archaeology. The application of TEM in archaeology is not yet a common tool, but it may provide data that are significant to understanding pre‐Columbian gold metallurgy, specifically the gilding and silvering methods. Two gilded rods were studied using a combination of TEM and SEM/XEDS techniques. The objects were found at the Atacames archaeological site, in the Esmeraldas region, Ecuador, which was occupied between ad 750 and 1526 by the Atacames culture. The microchemical and structural results of the inner and the external gilded part of the artefacts support the hypothesis of a gold diffusion to the surface enhanced by chemical treatment with chloride‐rich solutions, heating and successive annealing processes. The present study reveals that microstructural investigation by TEM provides useful information with which to investigate the techniques used to modify the chemical surface composition of pre‐Columbian artefacts.     

Rethinking the metaphor of light: María Zambrano in dialogue with Jacques Derrida and Hans Blumenberg

ABSTRACT

The notion of metaphor has been broadly discussed during the twentieth century as an essential and necessary part of language and history. This article examines the theoretical dialogue that links the centrality of the metaphor of light in the work of María Zambrano with reflections on this topic by Jacques Derrida and Hans Blumenberg. Through various formulations of this metaphor across different works, Zambrano presents the metaphor linked to poetic reason as not reducible to a mere rhetorical ornament or to a concept. By articulating alternative metaphors to the imperative of clarity as the blinding light of Occidental reason, Zambrano introduces a solid critique to rationalism and introduces the metaphor of the Dawn as a new form of knowledge. This new intonation of the metaphor of light opens up an unexplored direction in Spanish thought not only by thinking the metaphor of light through poetic reason and its critique to the philosophical tradition, but also by assuming the political implications of this metaphor and criticizing its heliopolitical configuration. Indeed, Zambrano states the significance of the metaphor of the sun linked to the sacrificial structure of history, particularly of Spain, and its necessary overcoming as the possibility of a radical democracy.     

A Kingdom of this world: Religion,politics, power,and the Church in Spanish America

Church and State in Bourbon Mexico: The Diocese of Michoacán, 1749–1810. By D. A. BRADING. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Pp. 300.

Ideología y sociedad en Guadalajara (1788–1853). By BRIAN CONNAUGHTON. Mexico: UNAM‐CONACU, 1992.

La venida del reino. Religión, evangelización y cultura en América. Siglos XVI‐XX. Compiled by GABRIELA RAMOS. Cuzco: Centro de Estudios Regionales Andinos “Bartolomé de las Casas”, 1994.

Autobiografía de una monja venerable. By JERONIMA NAVA Y SAAVEDRA (1669–1727). Study and introduction by ANGELA INES ROBLEDO. Bogotá: Centro Editorial Universidad del Valle, 1994. Pp. 187.

El crédito eclesiástico en la Nueva España: Siglo XVIII. By GISELA VON WOBESER. Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1994. Pp. 275.     

Trafficking in US Agriculture

Based on a qualitative methodology that includes in‐depth interviews with 90 Mexican migrant smugglers and 45 Central American farmworkers, this article analyzes the three separate elements of trafficking in US agriculture, namely acts, means, and purposes. We conclude that some US employers participate in human trafficking by financing or helping to recruit and transport Mexican and Central American migrants to the US by means of “abuse of a position of vulnerability” for the purposes of involuntary servitude, debt bondage, and sex exploitation.     

How do Migrant Workers Respond to Labour Abuses in “Local Sweatshops”?

This article aims to provide empirical evidence on understanding how migrant workers’ responses to labour exploitation in low‐wage economies are articulated. Inspired by the low levels of conflict among workers in small urban sweatshops in Italy and Argentina, we ask ourselves what contextual and subjective factors prevent workers from organising collectively. Here we argue that in order to understand the nature of their responses, it is necessary to consider not only the organisation of the labour process, but also the class divisions within migrant communities. We also bring in briefly the role of the state in (mis)regulating migrant labour exploitation. We conclude by showing that workers’ responses are highly individualised and that community leaders with economic interests in sweatshop economies may play a role in securing their continuation by channelling the workers’ responses towards the defence of the “ethnic economy”.     

Rewriting the Latin liturgy of the Holy Sepulchre: text,ritual and devotion for 1149

ABSTRACT

An extraordinary reform of Jerusalem’s liturgy took place under the patriarchate of Fulcher of Angoulême (1146–57). The refocusing of Jerusalem’s rite positioned the commemoration of Easter as its central theological theme. This was effected to a level unparalleled in the liturgical traditions of the West. However, rubrics from extant twelfth-century liturgical books from Jerusalem further reveal how this reform was made to coincide with the 1149 rededication of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and the 50-year celebration of the capture of Jerusalem. From this newly discovered perspective, this study argues that liturgy, through its active rewriting, formed an integral part of a hitherto unexplored religious programme carried out by Patriarch Fulcher. Liturgy, alongside architecture and civic festivities, was used as a central tool to reshape the devotional identity of Jerusalem and the Latin East.