The Ecology of Command: U.S. Pacific Command and the Environment of the Pacific Rim

Abstract

Environmental ethicists speak fervently about the impact of human activity on the sustainability and survivability of Earth's community. But often these discussions fail to acknowledge one human activity more powerful and with the potential for greater destruction than any other— the United States military and its "empire of bases" encircling the globe. Military operations, both peacetime missions and contingency operations, and military installations stamp a large footprint on the earth's environment. From the atmospheric nuclear tests in the Bikini Atoll to the removal of the coral reef at Diego Garcia, the environment of the Pacific Rim has been shaped by the demands of U.S. national security. This paper examines the environmental footprint of U.S. Pacific Command. Secondly, it suggests that the exigencies of U.S. military presence need to be included in discussions of environmental ethics.     

Fiddling for outcomes: traditional music,social capital,and arts policy in Northern Ireland

Arts development policies increasingly tie funding to the potential of arts organisations to effectively deliver an array of extra‐artistic social outcomes. This paper reports on the difficulties of this work in Northern Ireland, where the arts sector, and in particular the so‐called ‘traditional arts’, have been drawn into a politically ambiguous discourse centred on the concepts of ‘mutual understanding’ and, more recently, ‘social capital’. The paper traces the recent history of these policies and the difficulties in evaluating the social outcomes of arts programs. The use of the term ‘social capital’ in the work of Putnam and Bourdieu is considered. The paper argues, through a rereading of Bourdieu’s articulation of the ‘forms’ of capital and Eagleton’s ‘ideology of the aesthetic’, the concept of social capital can be released from its current neoliberal trappings by imagining a reconnection of the concepts of ‘capital’ and ‘the aesthetic’.     

Chinese Aid in the South Pacific: Linked to Resources?

Abstract

China’s emergence as a global development actor has implications for developing countries and “traditional” donor agencies. Its current provision of foreign aid and other forms of development assistance to developing countries throughout the world presents both opportunities and challenges for all actors. At the same time, China’s growing need for natural resources and its policy of securing access through state-led “resource diplomacy” are causing concern. While most scholars and commentators are focused on the “China in Africa” dimension, China’s engagement in the South Pacific region has also been growing rapidly over the past decade and offers some interesting and unique insights. This article examines the dynamics of China’s provision of foreign aid and its quest for natural resources in the South Pacific region, with comparative references to other regions. Drawing particularly upon interviews and site visits in Fiji and Papua New Guinea, it argues that although major commercial resource contracts do appear to be supported by Chinese Government assistance, resources deals are not explicitly part of Chinese foreign aid in the region.     

First bryozoan fauna from the middle Miocene of Central Java,Indonesia

Di Martino, E., Taylor, P.D., Fernando, A.G.S., Kase, T. & Yasuhara, M. 3 June 2019, 2019. First bryozoan fauna from the middle Miocene of Central Java, Indonesia. Alcheringa 43, 461–478. ISSN 0311-5518.

Despite the publication of several taxonomic studies during the last few years, our knowledge of bryozoans from the diversity hotspot of the Indo-West Pacific remains seriously deficient. Here we describe 11 bryozoan species, comprising two anascan- and nine ascophoran-grade cheilostomes, from the middle Miocene (Langhian–Serravallian) of Sedan in Central Java, Indonesia. Three ascophoran-grade cheilostomes, Characodoma multiavicularia sp. nov. Di Martino & Taylor, Stenosipora? cribrata sp. nov. Di Martino & Taylor and Lacrimula patriciae sp. nov. Di Martino & Taylor, are described as new species. All of the three extant species have an Indo-Pacific distribution today and two are here reported as fossil for the first time. Four species are left in open nomenclature, either because of the scarcity of available material or the absence of crucial morphological features. Two of these, placed in Cosciniopsis and Actisecos, are likely to be new, while Discoporella sp. represents the easternmost known record for this common free-living genus. A single species, Lacrimula asymmetrica Cook & Lagaaij, was already known from the early Miocene of the same region, although from a site further to the east.

Emanuela Di Martino* [e.di-martino@nhm.ac.uk], Department of Earth Sciences, Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, UK; Paul D. Taylor [p.taylor@nhm.ac.uk], Department of Earth Sciences, Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, UK; Allan Gil S. Fernando [agsfernando@yahoo.com], National Institute of Geological Sciences, The University of Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City, Philippines; Tomoki Kase [neritopsis@gmail.com], National Museum of Nature and Science, Tsukuba, Japan; Moriaki Yasuhara [yasuhara@hku.hk], School of Biological Sciences, Swire Institute of Marine Science, University of Hong Kong, Kadoorie Biological Sciences Building, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong SAR, PR China     

Performing arts as cultural heritage in the Federated States of Micronesia

This article explores the performing arts as cultural heritage in the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) in the western Pacific. It examines policies for and ideas about the support, management and safeguarding of the performing arts, first through the colonial lens of historical preservation, then through intangible cultural heritage and finally from recent theorising in music ecology. In presenting an overview of cultural heritage policy in the FSM with regard to the performing arts, this paper discusses the relationship between heritage practices and colonialism, and it reviews the place of music and dance in the cultural management of Micronesia. Drawing on recent work in ethnomusicology, the article argues for considerations of the holistic space of the performing arts and the facilitation of participatory practices to address concerns of cultural demise and to reframe approaches to music and dance as cultural heritage in the Pacific.     

抗战前后中国知识分子对日外交立场之演变 --以中国太平洋国际学会为例

“中日关系问题”是1931-1945年间太平洋国际学会讨论的重点之一。中国太平洋国际学会的会员在“中日冲突”的问题上,先是主张忍让,继而主张抵抗,继而主张彻底打败日本。这种态度上的演变既是中国知识分子对中国及世界局势认识演变的结果,也与列强的对华政策和对日本扩张所持的态度转变有关。     

探究南通民间蓝印花布

探究南通民间蓝印花布的历史渊源、工艺流程和美学价值,探究南通对民间蓝印花布的保护做法和引发的思考,旨在提高我们对保护民间蓝印花布重要性的认识,使民间蓝印花布得到更有力的保护和健康的发展。     

The Origin of Kinship in Oceania: Lewis Henry Morgan and Lorimer Fison

ABSTRACT This article investigates the importance of Oceania in the early study of kinship. It examines the tensions between evidence and analysis from the Pacific Islands in the development of Lewis Henry Morgan's theory of evolving kinship forms. While other sources from the Pacific islands are investigated it is focused particularly on the correspondence between Morgan and Lorimer Fison, Methodist missionary and key figure in the spread of kinship schedules and anthropological theories throughout Oceania in the 1870s. The empirical data gathered by Fison, challenged Morgan's schema and questioned the orthodox evolutionist hierarchy in Asia and the Pacific. Also investigated is the British response to this unruly evidence.     

Maritime interregional interaction in Micronesia: Deciphering multi-group contacts and exchange systems through time

Recent theoretical perspectives focusing on interregional interaction can help explain the evolution of western Micronesian societies. Data from ethnohistoric accounts, oral traditions, and more recently, archaeological investigations, document the interactions between culturally and linguistically distinct island groups in the northwest tropical Pacific. Here, I look at the nature and emergence of these interaction networks between the islands of Yap and Palau in the Western Caroline Islands of Micronesia and the implications they had for transforming indigenous lifeways, exchange systems, and sociopolitics. In particular, I discuss a major facet of these interaction spheres—the Yapese quarrying of their famous stone “money” disks in the Palauan archipelago.