Barrio resurgence in Buenos Aires: Local autonomy claims amid state-sponsored transnationalism

This paper argues that observing neighborhood movements through the lens of territorial state restructuring holds theoretical promise. Contemporary struggles over municipal decentralization need to be located within broader state re-scaling processes. Seeking to contribute a Latin American perspective to the largely Anglo-American field of urban neoliberalization research, this study engages with the emergence of local autonomy claims in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Middle-class activists and organizations advanced such claims against the background of thorough transnationalism, in what may be interpreted as a localist political reaction to the socio-spatial consequences of urban and state restructuring. Field evidence is used to assess the ultimate political efficacy and democratic implications of their political agency, particularly in what concerns municipal decentralization. It is argued that curtailing the empowerment of barrio districts were the following conditions: mayoral opposition to communal reforms; ongoing cross-scalar tensions between the city and national government; and the barrio-centric issue framings of activists, which hampered social recruitment in an increasingly heterogeneous and transnationalized urban space.     

Hunter–gatherer responses to environmental change during the Pleistocene–Holocene transition in the southern North Sea basin: Final Palaeolithic–Final Mesolithic land use in northwest Belgium

Situated along the southern fringe of the North Sea basin, northwest Belgium holds great potential for understanding hunter–gatherer responses to environmental change at the Pleistocene–Holocene transition. Recent intensive fieldwork has yielded valuable data on the palaeoenvironment, chronology, and hunter–gatherer mobility and land use in this region. At the Late Glacial/Early Holocene transition this region was comprised of a landscape of coversand ridges and lakes that flanked the northern part of the Scheldt river basin. This landscape was highly productive for hunter–gatherer populations. As the landscape developed in response to the increasing water table caused by the inundation of the North Sea populations responded by changing their forms of mobility and land use. These changes are indicated by the reduction in the number and density of sites, as well as their geographical settings, from the Late Glacial (Federmesser) and Early Mesolithic to the Middle-Final Mesolithic. Late Glacial/Early Mesolithic sites indicate much higher mobility comprised of rapid displacements of camps and re-occupation of the same coversand ridges over long time-spans. Middle/Late Mesolithic sites indicate a reduction in mobility, increasing focus on prolonged riverside settlement, and a more rigid organization of residential sites.     

Measuring Paleoindian range mobility and land-use in the Great Lakes/Northeast

Distance and direction to source data were compiled on the main toolstones employed at 83 Paleoindian sites with concave-based points (ca. 11,000–10,000 B.P.) from across the recently deglaciated Great Lake-Northeastern area of North America. These data were used in order to more rigorously evaluate several much debated ideas about annual range mobility scale and land use patterns and how they changed over time as these groups colonized and settled into the area. Movements are significantly biased to north–south axes, strongly suggesting these represent mainly seasonal moves and procurement of toolstones during regular travels rather than by specialized task groups. Means of comparing the scale of range mobility to ethnographic norms are explored and the results clearly show that these groups, especially the earliest occupants, had large annual range mobility scales and distinctive patterns of land use that are rarely seen or approached historically. They had to have been intensively targeting widely spaced but relatively abundant resources on the landscape. The only ethnographic groups who come close to such patterns historically were all caribou hunters, a perspective consistent with the idea these groups regularly exploited that resource. As long suggested, these land use patterns are probably related to the colonization of new lands in which there were little or no existing populations.     

‘Personifying the coloured community’: Sonny Leon and the ambiguities of the politics of co-option and resistance in the apartheid state

Abstract

The traditional focus regarding the Angolan Civil War, 1974–1976, has been on the nature of Soviet and Cuban involvement, the American response to communist activities, and South Africa's invasion. A point often mentioned, but rarely elaborated upon in the literature, is the degree to which the United States of America (USA) encouraged South Africa to intervene in the Angolan conflict. This paper investigates the extent and nature of American collusion with South Africa in the civil war, and the degree of complicity of senior American officials. The paper argues that on balance, the evidence suggests that senior elements of the United States executive branch, covertly and informally, colluded with South Africa. South African politicians overestimated the depth and extent of American support for its intervention, and when the USA ceased its assistance, they felt betrayed by Kissinger.     

Geographical notes

An earlier reference to the term ‘social geography’ than those described by Dunbar (Scot. Geog. Mag., 93 (1977) 15–20) has been identified in a MS. by H. Gougeon dated 1873. The broader circumstances of the movement to reform geography teaching and the secondary school curriculum at the beginning of the IIIrd Republic are described as a necessary context for evaluating the Gougeon MS. An English translation of Gougeon's views of ‘social geography’ is provided, and although his outline provides no more than a sketch of the possible content of social geography several of the traditional topics of this sub‐field are readily recognizable.     

Elusive Security in the GDR: Remigrants from the West at the Faculty of Journalism in Leipzig, 1945–61

Abstract

This article explores how the GDR dealt with intellectual remigrants, in particular ‘bildungsbürgerlich Marxist intellectuals’, who had survived the Third Reich in Western exile. It analyses the political biographies of three such remigrants, namely the journalist Hermann Budzislawski, the publisher and author Wieland Herzfelde, and the journalist and party functionary Hans Teubner. In the late 1940s and 1950s, these three men were appointed to professorships at the Faculty of Journalism at Leipzig University, a future training school of party journalists, and thus ?lled important strategic positions at the intersection of higher education, mass media, and politics. However, their biographies testify to more than just individual success stories. They point to the dif?culties of returning Communists in adapting to the political realities of the GDR in the 1950s, marked by widespread distrust and coercion. Behind the scenes, the remigrants in question here were put under enormous pressure to bow to Party command. As Budzislawski and Herzfelde were Jewish, the article also discusses to what extent their problems were related to antisemitic prejudices in the Stalinist period of the GDR. Regardless of individual differences, this article demonstrates that one of the central hopes of the remigrants, that is, to erase the scars of emigration, remained unful?lled.     

Metaceratodus kaopen comb. nov. and M. wichmanni comb. nov., two Late Cretaceous South American species of an austral lungfish genus (Dipnoi)

Cione, A.L. & Gouiric-Cavalli, S., June 2012. Metaceratodus kaopen comb. nov. and M. wichmanni comb. nov., two Late Cretaceous South American species of an austral lungfish genus (Dipnoi). Alcheringa 36, 203–216. ISSN 0311-5518.

Metaceratodus wollastoni, an Australian species, was reported from Upper Cretaceous beds of Patagonia in 1997. Later, three new species (Ceratodus wichmanni, Ptychoceratodus kaopen and Ptychoceratodus cionei), based on scarce material, were described from the same region. Two of these species were later referred to Ferganoceratodus. After examining much more abundant and better-preserved material, we conclude that neither the occurrence of Metaceratodus wollastoni nor those of Ptychoceratodus and Ferganoceratodus in the Cretaceous of South America are supported. We consider that C. wichmanni and P. cionei are synonyms and we reassign the three putative species to Metaceratodus under two new combinations: M. kaopen comb. nov. and M. wichmanni comb. nov. Both differ from the other species of the genus in having pits over most of the occlusal surface and a different occlusal profile of the tooth plate, and most have four ridges in the lower and upper tooth plates. Metaceratodus wichmanni differs from M. kaopen in oclussal profile, inner angle, and symphysis development among other features. Metaceratodus kaopen is known from the upper Santonian–lower Campanian Anacleto Formation of Río Negro province and M. wichmanni from upper Campanian–lower Maastrichtian units of Chubut, Río Negro, Neuquén and Mendoza provinces, Argentina. The occurrence of Metaceratodus in southern South America corroborates a close biogeographical relationship with Australia in the latest Cretaceous.

Alberto Luis Cione [acione@museo.fcnym.unlp.edu.ar] and Soledad Gouiric-Cavalli [sgouiric@museo.fcnym.unlp.edu.ar], División Paleontología Vertebrados, Museo de La Plata, Paseo del Bosque s/n, W1900FWA La Plata, Argentina. Received 23.11.2010, revised 11.7.2011, accepted 7.8.2011.

     

Late Palaeozoic South American pectinids revised: biostratigraphical and palaeogeographical implications

Neves, J.P., Anelli, L.E., Pagani, M.A. & Simões, M.G., 2014. Late Palaeozoic South American pectinids revised: biostratigraphical and palaeogeographical implications. Alcheringa 38 ISSN 0311-5518.

A revision of the late Palaeozoic South American pectinid Heteropecten multiscalptus (Thomas) and the establishment of Heteropecten paranaensis sp. nov. have important implications for the relationship between faunal realms within South America. Late Palaeozoic bivalve faunas occur in three distinct realms in South America: a Central Gondwanic Realm with endemic taxa showing affinities to Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Namibia, a cold Perigondwanic Realm, and a warm Extragondwanic Realm with tethyan-like affinities similar to faunas of the American Midcontinent. In South America, faunas east of the southern Andes belong to the first two realms and previous interpretations of bivalve faunas suggested biocorrelations with those of the Extragondwanic Realm because they shared the taxon Heteropecten multiscalptus (Thomas). A revision of the Peruvian and Brazilian material does not confirm this. Instead, a re-analysis suggests that two species are present, rather than one: Heteropecten multiscalptus in the Cerro Prieto Formation, Amotape Mountains (Peru; Extragondwanic Realm), and Heteropecten paranaensis sp. nov. in the upper part of the Itararé Group, Paraná Basin (Brazil; Central Gondwanic Realm). Thus, the correlation between the late Palaeozoic faunas of the Central Gondwanic and Extragondwanic Realms in South America can no longer be supported. Heteropecten paranaensis sp. nov. lived in a siliciclastic-dominated, cold, epeiric sea of Brazil and Argentina, and is morphologically similar to some Australian species, whereas the Peruvian H. multiscalptus thrived in the warm seas of the Extragondwanic Realm.

Jacqueline P. Neves [nevesjp.unesp@gmail.com], Instituto de Geociências e Ciências Exatas, Universidade Estadual Paulista, Rio Claro campus, SP, Brazil, 13506-900; Luiz E. Anelli [anelli@usp.br], Instituto de Geociências, Universidade de São Paulo, 05508–080, Brazil; M. Alejandra Pagani, [apagani@mef.org.ar], CONICET-Museo Paleontológico Egidio Feruglio (MEF), U9100GYO, Chubut, Argentina; Marcello, G. Simões [profmgsimoes@gmail.com], Instituto de Biociências, Universidade Estadual Paulista, Botucatu campus, SP, 18618-970, Brazil. Received 19.7.2013; revised 12.11.2013; accepted 19.11.2013     

Russia's Kosovo: A Critical Geopolitics of the August 2008 War over South Ossetia

A noted political geographer presents an analysis of the August 2008 South Ossetian war. He analyzes the conflict from a critical geopolitical perspective sensitive to the importance of localized context and agency in world affairs and to the limitations of state-centric logics in capturing the connectivities, flows, and attachments that transcend state borders and characterize specific locations. The paper traces the historical antecedents to the August 2008 conflict and identifies major factors that led to it, including legacies of past violence, the Georgian president's aggressive style of leadership, and renewed Russian "great power" aspirations under Putin. The Kosovo case created normative precedents available for opportunistic localization. The author then focuses on the events of August 2008 and the competing storylines promoted by the Georgian and Russian governments. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: H10, I31, O18, P30. 7 figures, 2 tables, 137 references.     

War in the feudal zone: state failure and the abandonment of anthropological research in Mexico and Central America

We analysed the extent to which violent, organised crime has disrupted anthropological research in Mexico and Central America by conducting a survey of anthropologists who work in the region. We found that although anthropologists will continue research in regions they perceive to have the socio-economic characteristics of a failed state they are far less inclined to work in areas that they perceive as excessively violent. We continue with examination of the state failure and feudalisation that are affecting the region. We conclude that in the feudal zones, the state has lost its comparative advantage in the use of force and that state intrusion into these areas increases armed collective violence in a manner similar to that described in the literature on warfare in tribal zones.