Queering the family home: narratives from gay,lesbian and bisexual youth coming out in supportive family homes in Australia

Geographical literature has predominantly presented the heterosexual nuclear family home as an oppressive environment for gay, lesbian and bisexual (GLB) youth, reporting that homophobic abuse, violence and expulsion are not uncommon outcomes of coming out at home. While not denying the widespread reality of these experiences, little consideration has been given to GLB youth whose disclosure at home is affirmed by parents and siblings, nor the reasons for and consequences of this acceptance and support. This article begins to fill this gap, contributing to geographies of sexuality, home and family. Through a critical reading of autobiographical coming out narratives from Australia, I reconsider the experience of the nuclear family home for well-supported GLB youth, arguing against the normalization of the homophobic nuclear family home. Through the support of parents and siblings, family homes can become sites of resistance to wider practices of heterosexism, and support for GLB youth. Heterosexual identity does not ‘essentially’ generate heterosexist reactions and attitudes: some heterosexual parents and siblings welcome and nourish sexual difference, and this provides fissures in overarching structures of heteronormativity which allow for the generation of non-heterosexual subjectivities and desires. I contend that this actually ‘queers’ the family home, providing a space for the fluorescence of non-heterosexuality within an apparently heteronormative site.     

Nested or exclusive? The role of identities on blame attribution during the Great Recession

Despite an increasing number of studies assessing the importance of institutions as regards to accountability, it still remains to be known whether and how an individual's national and regional identity shapes the attribution of responsibilities in multi‐level settings. By focusing on the economic crisis that affected Europe since 2008, we argue that identity‐based assessments of responsibility for the crisis will occur solely among individuals who hold exclusively national or regional identities and who live in regions that have nationalist aspirations. This will be in contrast to individuals that have exclusively identities who live in regions that lack nationalist aspirations, as well as dual‐identity individuals, irrespective of where they live. We test our arguments by using data from Catalonia and Madrid (Spain) and Bavaria and Lower Saxony (Germany). In line with our expectations, our results show that, in minority nationalist regions such as Catalonia, an individual's identity will crucially determine which level of government is blamed for the economic crisis, while this will not occur in regions with no nationalist aspirations. The article reveals the existence of an additional determinant of blame attribution in some specific multi‐level arrangements and contributes to the understanding of the tensions between identity politics and blame avoidance.     

Marriage Migration,Gender Transformations,and Family Values in the ‘Global Ecumene’

The metaphor of the market is a poor explanatory tool for the growth in international web-brokered marriages, between (mainly) men from rich countries and women from poor countries. States play an important role in regulating particular forms of migration including creating the ‘need’ for spousal migrants, as well as permitting their entry. The characterisation of the men who seek spouses through international agencies as powerful agents in the world system has to be mediated through understandings of the ways in which gender identities are not simple binaries that the contemporary global order is reproducing on an expanded scale. The characterisation of the women obscures the manner in which they are acting out of their own aspirations; and when a marriage is contracted, the man and woman enter into a personal relationship that cannot be reduced to a commodity exchange. These marriages involve people in negotiations about new forms of personal attachment involving intimacy, spousal roles and family relations. They are constitutive of the social networks of the ‘global ecumene’, a new kind of known world whose borders are constantly expanding. Gender relations are not constituted simply in the realm of the economic. We cannot assume family relations are merely expressions of dominant economic forms. The space of international web-brokered marriages is one in which women can be seen as active subjects in a transnational space that allows them to act outside, to certain degrees, of kinship-based power.     

Ancient soil resources of the Usumacinta River Region,Guatemala

In this study we present the results of a combination of methods used to identify possible agricultural activity of the ancient Maya in the Usumacinta River Basin in Guatemala. These methods included stable carbon isotope analysis of bulk soil organic matter, soil profile investigations and a spatial model of gentle slopes and well-drained soils to identify favorable agricultural conditions. Stable carbon isotope analysis of bulk soil organic matter in particular offers potentially direct evidence of agricultural activity. The δ¹³C results suggest that there is a strong signature of C₄ plants, such as maize and tropical grasses, throughout the study area. Further, the current soil conditions and extent of relatively gently sloped areas are favorable to agriculture. Overall, the results are supportive of the hypothesis that the area, located between the polities of Piedras Negras and Yaxchilán, was agriculturally important to surrounding areas.     

Narco-Cattle Ranching in Political Forests

In Central America, drug traffickers are deforesting the region's remaining forests and protected areas through a process known as narco-ganadería, narco-cattle ranching. Drawing on the case study of Laguna del Tigre National Park, this article argues that narco-cattle ranching is a key driver of deforestation in Guatemala's Maya Biosphere Reserve. Using ethnographic and remote-sensing methods, we describe narco-cattle ranching's money-laundering practices, its territorial dynamics, and its environmental impacts. We draw on theorisations of “political forests” to explain how drug trafficking organisations transform land use in the reserve, and along the way, remake its ecology, territories and subjects. Our work illustrates that drug policy is inextricably linked to conservation policy in the Americas. More specifically, we argue that community-based resource management improves forest and protected area residents’ abilities to resist drug-trafficking related land use change by strengthening local governance and land tenure regimes.     

Ancient DNA Clarifies Osteological Analyses of Commingled Remains from Midnight Terror Cave,Belize

In the past two decades, paleogenetics has made a significant impact on the field of archaeology. Interestingly, paleogenetic methods have not been extensively employed in osteoarchaeology despite its ability to address issues that cannot be resolved through traditional osteological analysis alone. This paper tackles a problem concerning the relationship between human remains in a commingled deposit from Midnight Terror Cave, Belize. Paleogenetics demonstrates that the bones in question belonged to multiple individuals, thus resolving an issue that was at the heart of the interpretation of social processes at the site. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Recent Discoveries in the Classic Maya Palace Complex of Nim li Punit,Belize

Nim li Punit is a small Classic Maya (ca. a.d. 150–830) center of Toledo District, Belize. Here I describe excavations of two buildings within the royal palace group: Structures 7 and 8. Structure 8 was built in four stages all dating to the Early to Late/Terminal Classic period. It probably served as a council house. Structure 7 was the residential palace and was built in two stages. An Early Classic burial demonstrates indirect interaction with Teotihuacan. During the Terminal Classic period, the shape of Structure 7 was altered, numerous caches were placed there, and Tomb 5 was dedicated. It contained many important artifacts including a modeled effigy vase displaying the wind god, a chert eccentric, and the second largest piece of carved jade excavated legally in Belize. This, the Nim li Punit “wind jewel,” contains a long historical text and was worn by Late Classic kings. I argue that the pectoral tied Maya kings through ritual performance to breath, winds, rain, agriculture, and life.     

One Europe or Many? Reflections on becoming European

Europe is being re-defined as a result of the combined effects of a complex set of processes. What sort of Europe is emerging from them? What criteria are being deployed to define Europe, Europeans and Europeanness and their respective boundaries? Such questions are considered via exploring a number of themes about and through Europe. They centre on the ways in which, and criteria by which, geo-political and economic spaces in Europe have been defined and divided. These practical cartographic processes are linked to changes in systems of, and the construction of new scales of, governance and regulation. As both supra-nationalism and the emergence of an EU 'super-state' and sub-nationalisms challenged the authority of the national state, new multi-scalar complex systems of governance and regulation resulted. These in turn are related to questions of singular and multiple identities, discussing these in the context of the possibilities for the emergence of a European civil society. Recognizing that the future map of Europe will not be determined by Europeans alone, the legacies of the division within Europe between NATO, the Warsaw Pact and neutral states and implications of the neo-imperialist geo-political ambitions of the USA state and military-industrial complex are then explored. Finally, some conclusions are drawn.     

The Not So Peaceful Civilization: A Review of Maya War

The first Maya encountered by Europeans in the early sixteenth century were exceedingly warlike, but by the 1940s the earlier Classic Maya (AD 250–1000) were widely perceived as an inordinately peaceful civilization. Today, in sharp contrast, conflict is seen as integral to Maya society throughout its history. This paper defines war, reviews the evidence for it in the Maya archaeological record, and shows how and why our ideas have changed so profoundly. The main emphasis is on the Classic period, with patterns of ethnohistorically documented war serving as a baseline. Topics include the culture history of conflict, strategy and tactics, the scope and range of operations, war and the political economy, and the intense status rivalry war of the eighth and ninth centuries AD that contributed to the collapse of Classic civilization. Unresolved issues such as the motivations for war, its ritual vs. territorial aims, and sociopolitical effects are discussed at length.     

Immigration to Tikal,Guatemala: Evidence from stable strontium and oxygen isotopes

This paper presents strontium and oxygen isotopic measurements on archaeological human teeth from the ancient Maya city of Tikal, Guatemala, that illuminate the role that migration played in the history of the state. Stable strontium isotope ratios of human teeth parallel the bedrock geology of the location where foods were grown, while stable oxygen isotope ratios reflect the sources of water imbibed, and track geographic variation in the isotopic composition of rain water. Because tooth enamel forms during childhood and is not remodeled during life, we can identify foreign-born individuals at Tikal by their outlying strontium and oxygen isotope ratios. These data indicate that approximately 11–16% of the sampled Tikal skeletons spent their childhood at distant sites. Most of the migrant burials date from the Early Classic period and are high status contexts. Several royal burials demonstrate long distance movement of both males and females, and shed light on the identification of epigraphically-known individuals. Yet, both Early and Late Classic migrants are found in lower status domestic burials. Interaction with distant peers was important in the rise of the Tikal polity, however, immigration from all social tiers contributed to the city’s rapid population growth.