Linked (im)mobilities and the relational politics of movement in post-earthquake Nepal

ABSTRACT

This article highlights the importance of various (im)mobilities that were induced by the massive 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck Nepal on 25 April 2015. It analyzes over 120 news articles published in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, arranging these into a mobility-centric narrative that highlights the politics of movement in the disaster’s wake. Drawing on the theoretical and methodological “mobilities turn”, I introduce the concept of linked (im)mobilities to demonstrate the complex dialectics structuring (im)mobilities after the disaster. More specifically, Nepal’s post-earthquake (im)mobilities intersected with one another and with a variety of geographic and political factors to produce a mutually constitutive web of contingent movements. Attending to these not only underscores the centrality of (im)mobilities themselves. By raising questions of scale, inequality, bordering, and “islanding”, the approach advanced here widens our analytical frame. It offers a conceptual architecture capable of encompassing more factors (beyond mobility), thereby facilitating a broader understanding of the disaster event and its various outcomes.     

Improving Sanitation in the Slums of Mumbai: An Analysis of Human Rights-Based Approaches for NGOs

Human rights-based approaches (HRBAs) can challenge the underlying structures and power relations that perpetuate poverty. They have thus emerged in the development field as a prominent instrument for addressing development issues. Access to clean water and sanitation are now internationally acknowledged as human rights, and have become a stand-alone Sustainable Development Goal of the international community’s commitment to international development. This paper analyses the potential use of HRBAs by local Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) working on sanitation issues in slums in Mumbai. It is argued that it is more productive for local NGOs to build (i) partnerships with duty-bearers (in this case the state and the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai) and (ii) the capacity of rights-holders, in particular women, than to rely on litigation strategies to create momentum for change. HRBAs are more useful as a political tool for NGOs for establishing good working relationships with government agencies rather than as a legal instrument, which can be counter-productive to the poverty reduction objectives of NGOs.     

Two Remarks on Michael Attaleiates’ Account of the Preliminaries to the Battle of Mantzikert†

The ability to extract fully the contextualized interpretations of Michael Attaleiates’ Historia is a rather difficult task without the parallel study of sources chronicling the same period. This article reconsiders Attaleiates’ justification for the division of the army by Diogenes before the battle of Mantzikert in 1071, and argues that the author is as critical of this emperor’s strategy as his close contemporary, Psellos, though his criticism is more subtly formulated. Another section discusses a gap in the narrative structure of the Historia and goes on to fill it with information derived from the Hyle Historias of Bryennios and from the chronicles of al-Bundari and Ibn al-‘Adim.     

Collaborative Networks for Effective Ecosystem‐Based Management: A Set of Working Hypotheses

Ecosystem‐based management (EBM) represents a comprehensive approach to better govern the environment that also illustrates the collaborative trend in policy and public administration. The need for stakeholder involvement and collaboration is strongly articulated, yet how and for what purposes collaboration would be effective remains largely untested. We address this gap by developing and evaluating a set of hypotheses specifying how certain patterns of collaborations among actors affect their joint ability to accomplish EBM. Content analyses of management plans drawn from five EBM planning processes in Sweden are combined with analyses of the collaborative networks through which these plans have been developed. Our results indicate that system thinking and the ability to integrate across different management phases are favored by collaborations between different kinds of actors, and by project leaders being centrally located in the networks. We also find that dense substructures of collaboration increase the level of specificity in the plans in regards to explicating constraints on human activities. Having many collaborative ties does however not enhance the overall level of specificity. Our results also show that different network characteristics can give rise to similar EBM outcomes. This observed equifinality suggests there is no single blueprint for well‐performing collaborative networks.     

The White Marble of the Arch of Augustus (Susa,North‐Western Italy): Mineralogical and Petrographic Analysis for the Definition of its Origin

The Arch of Augustus in Susa (north‐western Italy) was built in 9–8 bc by King Cottius, to celebrate the treaty between the Romans and the Gauls. It is made of white marble, which was considered for a long time to be locally extracted, but no archaeometric studies have been performed up to now. Therefore, a multi‐analytical study based on petrographic (optical and scanning electron microscopy), electron microprobe and stable isotope analyses was carried out on the marble from the arch and from reference samples, with the aim of defining the provenance. All the data confirmed that white marble belonging to the metamorphosed carbonate cover of the Dora Maira Massif, known as Foresto marble, was used for the Susa Arch. This choice was probably made for economic reasons, but also due to the relative independence of the ruling family of the Alpes Cottiae, which was obviously interested in promoting a local marble.     

Finding Thoreau in French Canada: The Ideological Legacy of the American Revolution

Henry David Thoreau’s Yankee in Canada is easily overlooked. Because it is so selective in its depiction of life in the St. Lawrence River valley, historians of mid-nineteenth-century Canada have shown little interest in Thoreau’s first-hand account. To American readers, it offers little of the characteristic Thoreau found in Walden and Resistance to Civil Government. Yet, it is highly significant as an expression of national self-definition. Thoreau borrowed themes at least as old as the American Revolution when noting the pernicious rule of Catholic and British power in Canada. He set out to expose the promise of republican values by emphasizing the contrast between these and the poor and morally stunted life under Old World institutions. His work must therefore be interpreted as a call to his audience to commit more deeply than ever to the ideals that animated the Great Republic’s founding moment. It must also stand as a civic interpretation of American nationality at a time when this perspective was waning. Before long, Old World peoples would be racialized and the ideological embrace of the republican values advanced by Thoreau would no longer suffice in making American citizens.     

Canada and the United States—Trading Partners and Transfer Pricing Opponents?

Given the significant trading relationships between Canada and the United States, their transnational corporations and their tax authorities share more than a border. However, differences in transfer pricing regulations, tax rates, and regulatory enforcement philosophies have exacerbated many existing risks, and created new risks for executives in these corporations. These risks must be managed proactively, yet attempts at risk management are often incompatible with one tax authority or the other. Assuming that an operational transfer pricing framework is in place, there are several proactive strategies available to mitigate transfer pricing risk and potentially satisfy both tax authorities. An operational framework and proactive strategies, including documentation and advance pricing agreements, are discussed from the Canadian and US perspective, including expert interviews.     

Capacity Design of Coupled RC Walls

Capacity design aims to ensure controlled ductile response of structures when subjected to earthquakes. This article investigates the performance of existing capacity design equations for reinforced concrete coupled walls and then proposes a new simplified capacity design method based on state-of-the-art knowledge. The new method is verified through a case study in which a set of 15 coupled walls are subject to nonlinear time-history analyses. The article includes examination of the maximum shear force in individual walls in relation to the total maximum shear force in the coupled wall system, and subsequently provides recommendations for design.     

A TREASURE TROVE OF CHRONOLOGICAL LEARNING

The recent facsimile edition of Henricus Glareanus's Chronology of Livy, prepared by Anthony T. Grafton and Urs B. Leu, provides access to a primary source that is unique from the point of view of the history of science and scholarship and of the book and reading. The basis of the edition, a copy of Chronologia annotated by Glareanus's disciple Gabriel Hummelberg II, now preserved at the Princeton University Library, serves scholars both as a point of departure for outlining hypotheses on the teaching methods of early modern humanists as well as the role of chronology in the humanist curriculum. My reading of their edition is based on three points. First, I put the primary source of their choice in a context that includes provincial early modern educational centers as I believe that their enterprise could clear the way for future narratives on forgotten scholars who dealt with the issues of technical chronology. Second, I show the importance of Grafton and Leu's thesis on the procedures of transmission of teachers’ commentary, which, according to them, is documented by the Princeton copy of Chronologia. Third, I argue that the seemingly conservative decision to publish a paper edition of an annotated volume at the moment when state‐of‐the‐art digital tools for such editions are being tailored through the alliance of scholars and IT specialists should open a discussion among historians of the book and reading, science, and education that would lead to the determination of standards for scholarly editions of libri annotati.     

“FUTURE PAST”: TIME AND TELEOLOGY IN (ANCIENT) HISTORIOGRAPHY

The historian's account of the past is strongly shaped by the future of the events narrated. The telos, that is, the vantage point from which the past is envisaged, influences the selection of the material as well as its arrangement. Although the telos is past for historians and readers, it is future for historical agents. The term “future past,” coined by Reinhart Koselleck to highlight the fact that the future was seen differently before the Sattelzeit, also lends itself to capturing this asymmetry and elucidating its ramifications for the writing of history. The first part of the essay elaborates on the notion of “future past”: besides considering its significance and pitfalls, I offset it against the perspectivity of historical knowledge and the concept of narrative “closure” (I). Then the works of two ancient historians, Polybius and Sallust, serve as test cases that illustrate the intricacies of “future past.” Neither has received much credit for intellectual sophistication in scholarship, and yet the different narrative strategies Polybius and Sallust deploy reveal profound reflections on the temporal dynamics of writing history (II). Although the issue of “future past” is particularly pertinent to the strongly narrative historiography of antiquity, the controversy about the end of the Roman Republic demonstrates that it also applies to the works of modern historians (III). Finally, I will argue that “future past” alerts us to an aspect of how we relate to the past that is in danger of being obliterated in the current debate on “presence” and history. The past is present in customs, relics, and rituals, but the historiographical construction of the past is predicated on a complex hermeneutical operation that involves the choice of a telos. The concept of “future past” also differs from post‐structuralist theories through its emphasis on time. Retrospect calms the flow of time, but is unable to arrest it fully, as the openness of the past survives in the form of “future past” (IV).