The Transnationalisation of Competing State Projects: Carbon Offsetting and Development in Sumatra's Coastal Peat Swamps

Indonesia's peatlands can be considered as conflict arenas where different state projects and actors compete. The case presented here stands for a new conservation controversy. The Berbak Carbon Initiatives overlap with a settlement project, inducing struggles among different state apparatuses, transnational actors, and peasants. This article is based on a novel conceptual approach building on political ecology, politics of scale and state theory for investigating divergent and transnationalised state projects. Empirically we draw on qualitative research conducted in the province of Jambi, Sumatra. We argue that the territorial conflicts mirror the contradictory interests of different state apparatuses influenced by conservation‐oriented and development‐oriented actors in society but also by supra‐national planning institutions. In our case, the contestation becomes visible through inconsistent notions of development and property. We show how political change challenges the implementation of a forest carbon project, illustrating the high risks of mitigating climate change through offsetting.     

Rubber plantations and their implications on gender roles and relations in northern uplands Vietnam

Abstract

In recent years, rubber plantations have been strongly promoted in the northern uplands of Vietnam–especially in the northwest, where it is an ill agro-ecological fit–with an aim to improve ethnic minority livelihoods and to modernize peasants by transforming them into rubber workers. A large area of land has been taken away from farmers to make way for rubber plantations. This land acquisition and agrarian transformation have impacted local people and their livelihoods in various ways. Drawing on ethnographic research, in combination with interviews with authorities and studying related documents, this article focuses on the gendered consequences of rubber plantation in northern uplands Vietnam. It argues that the process of becoming a rubber worker and adapting to the new way of living has indeed added new roles and responsibilities for women. At the same time, it has undermined men’s values and reshaped gender relations both within and outside the home.     

From Traditional Farming in Morocco to Early Urban Agroecology in Northern Mesopotamia: Combining Present-day Arable Weed Surveys and Crop Isotope Analysis to Reconstruct Past Agrosystems in (Semi-)arid Regions

ABSTRACT

We integrate functional weed ecology with crop stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis to assess their combined potential for inferring arable land management practices in (semi-)arid regions from archaeobotanical assemblages. Weed and GIS survey of 60 cereal and pulse fields in Morocco are combined with crop sampling for stable isotope analysis to frame assessment of agricultural labour intensity in terms of manuring, irrigation, tillage and hand-weeding. Under low management intensity weed variation primarily reflects geographical differences, whereas under high management intensity fields in disparate regions have similar weed flora. Manured and irrigated oasis barley fields are clearly discriminated from less intensively manured rain-fed barley terraces in southern Morocco; when fields in northern and southern Morocco are considered together, climatic differences are superimposed on the agronomic intensity gradient. Barley δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N values clearly distinguish among the Moroccan regimes. An integrated approach combines crop isotope values with weed ecological discrimination of low- and high-intensity regimes across multiple studies (in southern Morocco and southern Europe). Analysis of archaeobotanical samples from EBA Tell Brak, Syria suggests that this early city was sustained through extensive (low-intensity, large-scale) cereal farming.     

On Recent Developments in Scholarly Engagement with (the Possibility of an) Orthodox Political Theology

Exotic as the very notion of an Eastern Orthodox political theology at times seems to be, a fair share of attention has been recently directed to the possibility of it through a number of conferences, workshops and publications. In this Review Essay, I am discussing three recent edited volumes on Orthodox political theology, broadly conceived. These exhibit a certain continuity between them and, as edited volumes should, are characterized by a hermeneutic framework, in the context of which particular contributions/chapters appear. Apart from presenting the books and their content, I will be discussing their framework and rationale. Focusing on the books’ treatment of contemporary Greek political theology, I argue that an observable trend in these recent attempts consists in forcing valuable individual contributions into a grand, yet narrow, narrative that is limiting the project’s scope rather than the other way around – and this, in spite of the important contribution that these volumes without question constitute. Liberated from such objectives and frameworks, as well as of certain by now obsolete schematizations of intellectual currents in mainly Orthodox countries by taking into account more recent research, the quest for exploring the possibilities of an Orthodox political theology could prove to be considerably more fecund.     

Rationalization and Conservation: Ecology and the Management of Nature in the United Kingdom

Nature conservation in the UK comprises not only a response to the perceived impacts of rationalization on nature but is itself a dimension of that process of rationalization. The paper describes the development of conservation institutions and ideologies in the UK and considers the ways in which ecology (and particularly ideas of nature as equilibrium) have provided the intellectual framework for conservation. Ecology underpinned the establishment of government conservation institutions, provided intellectual strategies for classifying and objectifying nature, and provided the knowledge base for the control and management of nature. The paper discusses the implications of non-equilibrial ideas in ecology for ideas and practice in conservation and the implications of responses to them in the form of re-rationalization.     

North Korea’s participation in the Universal Periodic Review of Human Rights

North Korea’s participation in the UNHRC’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR)—a peer review in which states make recommendations to one another for improving human rights implementation—is a notable exception to its rejection of other human rights mechanisms. What explains North Korea’s willing participation in the UPR? This essay analyses North Korea’s participation in the first (2008–11) and second (2012–15) UPR cycles through its written submissions, responses to recommendations, and recommendations to other states. It finds that North Korea has consistently accepted weak recommendations, rejected more specific policy changes, and implemented accepted recommendations on a limited basis, allowing it to claim compliance with human rights at minimal cost. The UPR’s reliance on states’ self-reports and its inability to adjudicate competing factual claims allow North Korea to reject claims of egregious abuses, openly advocate for a radically state-centric vision of human rights, and challenge the legitimacy of human rights mechanisms like the Commission of Inquiry and Special Rapporteur while building support from other states with similar views. Notably, the Commission of Inquiry appears to have motivated North Korea to increase its cooperation with the UPR, demonstrating that the UPR complements but cannot replace other UN human rights mechanisms.     

Bighorn hunting,resource depression,and rock art in the Coso Range,eastern California: a computer simulation model

The extraordinary record of prehistoric rock art depicting tens of thousands of animal images in the Coso Range of eastern California provides an opportunity to study the relationship between aboriginal hunting, forager ecology, bighorn prey population levels, and the production of rock art. We review archaeofaunal evidence that the Coso desert bighorn sheep population was strongly depleted during the Newberry era after 1500 B.C. We discuss the dating of the rock art and show a correlation between bighorn depletion and increased rock art production. These data are consistent with the arrival of Numic foragers ca. A.D. 600 who competed with the Coso Pre-Numics and eventually terminated the Coso rock art tradition. An ecological predator-prey computer simulation of the human populations (Numic and Pre-Numics), the sheep population, and the rock art “population”, demonstrates these proposed interconnections and gives a reasonable fit to the observed rock art production rate.     

Crops and weeds: the role of weed functional ecology in the identification of crop husbandry methods

This paper brings together the results of five present-day studies of arable weed ecology, and applies these to the identification of past crop husbandry regimes on the basis of archaeobotanical weed assemblages. The contrasting husbandry regimes covered by the present-day studies include irrigation and dry farming, fallowing and rotation, intensive and extensive cultivation, and autumn and spring sowing. The weed floras associated with these regimes were analysed in terms of the functional ecology of the species represented. These same functional attributes, that distinguished contrasting regimes, were then measured for the weed species found accompanying crop seeds in two archaeobotanical studies, of the Islamic site of Khirbet Faris, S. Jordan and Neolithic sites in central Europe. Analyses using these functional measurements resulted in the identification of irrigation at the former and in the identification of sowing time and intensive cultivation at the latter.     

Interpreting abundance indices: some zooarchaeological implications of Martu foraging

Indices of taxonomic abundance are commonly used by zooarchaeologists to examine resource intensification, overexploitation and gender-divisions in foraging labor. The original formulation of abundance indices developed a clear interpretive framework by linking the measure with foraging models from behavioral ecology. However, using the same basic tenets of behavioral ecology, archaeologists disagree about how to interpret variability in abundance index values: some suggest that high proportions of large prey remains represent higher overall foraging efficiency, while others argue the opposite. To help solve this problem, we use quantitative observational data with Martu hunters in Australia’s Western Desert to examine how foraging decisions and outcomes best predict variation in the abundance index values that result. We show that variation in the proportional remains of large to small game is best predicted by hunting bout success with larger prey and the time spent foraging for smaller prey. A declining abundance index results from decreasing hunting success with larger prey, increasing time invested in hunting smaller prey, or both; any of which result in a lower overall return rate than if large prey were acquired reliably. We also demonstrate that where large prey acquisition is stochastic, high index values are correlated positively with men’s proportional caloric contribution of large unreliable game, while low index values are correlated with women’s proportional foraging time for small reliable game. We discuss these results with reference to evidence of resource intensification and gender-specific foraging.