Caddoan Area archaeology since 1990

This paper summarizes recent archaeological research efforts, and changing perspectives, about the native history of the Caddo peoples who lived in the Caddoan Archaeological Area, which centers on the Great Bend of the Red River in Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana. Of particular focus are the origins and early developments of the Caddoan tradition, regional diversity, subsistence changes and agricultural intensification, sociopolitical dynamics, and Caddoan-European interaction.     

Refining Woodland Period Chronology and Interactions in Northeastern Missouri: Contributions from the Avenue of the Saints Project

The recently completed Avenue of Saints (AOS) highway project in the Mississippi Valley of northeastern Missouri resulted in the documentation of Woodland period sites ranging from approximately 200 cal BC to AD 1200. This article updates the existing Woodland chronology for this locality based on new information collected during the project. Data pertaining to Early, Middle, and Late Woodland sites are presented. The approximately 1,400-year occupation span provided researchers an opportunity to view diachronic trends in tool manufacture, subsistence economy, and landscape use. Based on regional comparisons of ceramic and lithic technologies and vessel decoration, the Woodland sequence in northeastern Missouri was influenced by population movements originating from east of the Mississippi River and from southern sources in the Salt River valley.     

Appeasing the Spirits Along the ‘Highway of Horror’: Civic Life in Wartime Republic of Vietnam

During the Easter Offensive hundreds of Republic of Vietnam soldiers and civilians were killed while fleeing Qu?ng Tr? city along Highway One, earning this stretch of the road the name ‘the Highway of Horrors’ [??i L? Kinh Hoàng]. This article examines this understudied event and the efforts of ordinary people, particularly the staff of the daily newspaper Sóng Th?n, to collect and bury the corpses left on the highway. In focusing on this humanitarian endeavour, it highlights the spiritual consequences of mass death, people’s agency in countering the violence of the Vietnam War, and the dynamism of South Vietnam’s civil society.     

The Making of an ‘All Weather Friendship’ Pakistan,China and the History of a Border Agreement: 1949–1963

China and Pakistan share what is widely known as an ‘all weather friendship’. The historical roots of this friendship can be traced to 1963, when the two countries entered into a border agreement that divided territory in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Since then, China has provided missile and nuclear technology to Pakistan. It has limited the potential for escalation in the time of war between India and Pakistan and is the largest economic investor in Pakistan. The benefits of this friendship for Pakistan are clear. Yet, there is little detail on what led to the making of the ‘all weather friendship’. This article provides a detailed account of Sino–Pakistani relations between 1949 and 1963. It argues that whilst the 1963 agreement led to a turning point, the Pakistani establishment – military and civilian – sought to engage China since 1949. They did so to create strategic options for themselves in the event that the US and the UK – Pakistan's main allies following independence – limited or worse, ended their support for Pakistan in its troubled relations with India. This article is based on primary sources available in the US, Britain, as well as recently declassified and hitherto unused papers in India.     

Single female tenants in South Delhi – gender,class and morality in a globalizing city

Based on ethnographic data gathered over 12 months of fieldwork with unmarried women living alone or in flat-shares in different middle class South Delhi localities, this article traces the way shifting gendered norms – often epitomized by growing numbers of single women households – are negotiated within class specific and highly localized contexts of the residential neighborhood. Despite growing economic opportunities for middle class and elite women, cultural anxieties surrounding the notion of ‘delayed’ marriage and women living outside of the familial or marital home persist and obstruct attempts at establishing independent households. Single women experience difficulties finding apartments to rent; have to contend with hostile intrusions from neighbors; or feel obliged to self-monitor their behavior within their neighborhoods. As South Delhi’s liberalised urban landscape has become home to an increasingly globalized, consumerist middle class, disciplinary measures such as curfews, regulations over houseguests and increased surveillance simultaneously indicate a middle class recalibrating its gendered social coordinates by proving its commitment to values of female propriety. While popular discourses draw juxtaposed imaginaries of the ‘modern’ and the ‘traditional’ in their depictions of increasing individualism and a loosening of ‘traditional’ role expectations, this article demonstrates the need to consider the different structural conditions and local inflections in which struggles over women’s agency take place. Looking beyond the supposedly universalizing forces of globalized consumer modernity, the residential neighborhood hereby provides a view into the lived experiences of – at times incongruous – mechanisms at play in societies undergoing social change.     

Rural–urban divide and identity conflicts of migrant Muslim students in Northwest China

Abstract

A huge flow of internal migrants in China is an indicator of the significant changes in the geographical and cultural patterns brought by China’s recent economic growth. The Hui (10.6 million), as one of the largest ethnic minority groups in China, and the Dongxiang, with almost 100% of them holding the Islamic belief, are migrating from rural areas to urban centers in Northwest China. Analyzing the qualitative data from narrative stories, thematic photos, group discussions, semi-structured interviews, and field observations, this study interprets the cultural experience of rural Muslim migrant students in Chinese public schools and examines their complex and fluid rural–urban identities. This study further discusses the possibilities of including and integrating rural migrant students in cities.     

Peace negotiations in the political marketplace: the implications of women's exclusion in the Sudan-South Sudan peace process

This article investigates the implications of women’s exclusion for the nature and durability of peace processes, and whether factors that undermine peace consolidation post-settlement might be prevented through more inclusive peacemaking. It examines the Sudan-South Sudan peace process that produced the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, the roles women played in peacemaking and their exclusion from official negotiations, and the sources of insecurity post-CPA. South Sudan’s peace process shows that the exclusion of women can be understood as a canary in a coal mine: a highly visible marker of the broader exclusivity of such processes, and the complex dynamics of elite capture in war and peace processes. Women’s exclusion was the product of the region’s political marketplace, in which power and authority is secured by elites through violence and bargaining, to the exclusion of other groups. By understanding exclusion as a deliberate strategic tactic that extends from war into peacetime, I argue that the exclusion of women is not the reason why peace processes fail in and of itself, but rather the product of elite ownership of peace processes and the structure of many peace processes that facilitates and rewards such ownership, with serious consequences for the sustainability of peace post-settlement.     

Middle power,status-seeking and role conceptions: the cases of Indonesia and South Korea

This article examines how role theory can enhance the middle-power literature in understanding the role preferences of middle powers. Rather than treating it as merely a function of material capability or good international citizenship, this article resituates middle power as a concept of international status that states aim to pursue through the enactment of role conceptions. Thus, it reinstates a conceptual distinction between ‘middle-power status’ and ‘middle-power roles’. The article suggests that the notion of role conceptions can analytically connect the status-seeking behaviour of middle powers with their foreign policy agenda. In so doing, it provides a more nuanced explanation of middle-power behaviour, which might differ between one middle power and another. Using Indonesia and South Korea as case studies of middle power, this article contends that foreign policymakers have strategically conceptualised and enacted several main roles that aim to capture historical experience, as well as ego and alter expectations, in order to pursue middle-power status. These role conceptions determine the foreign policy agenda of states in articulating their middle-power status.     

A New View of the ‘Edesö Wreck’: identifying the Swedish naval vessel Bodekull,built 1659–1661 and sunk 1678 from written sources

This article complements the archaeological account of the so‐called ‘Edesö Wreck’ with archival research that has led to its identification. In 1659 the Swedish King Karl X Gustav ordered a number of vessels for transport of horses and soldiers while at war with Denmark. The king died just a few months later, the war with Denmark was aborted, and the unfinished vessels were rebuilt to serve other purposes. One of these was Bodekull, built under English master shipwright Thomas Day between 1659 and 1661. In October 1678 Bodekull sank in the Stockholm archipelago. Alterations made during construction mentioned in written sources have been noted on the wreck and strengthen the argument for the identification.