Refugee Shelter in a Logistical World: Designing Goods for Supply‐Chain Humanitarianism

Focusing on the design and production of the IKEA Foundation “Better Shelter” and on its use in a camp on the island of Lesvos, Greece, this article explores the role of logistical calculative rationales in the provision of emergency shelters to refugees. It argues that an engagement with the critical geographies of logistics contributes to the study of such “humanitarian goods” in two main ways. First, it foregrounds the technologies that allow emergency shelter products to circulate across production sites and disaster and border zones, and their connections to broader infrastructures and commercial networks in what recent literature has called “supply‐chain humanitarianism”. Second, a logistical lens highlights the disruptions that characterise the production and usage of emergency shelter products. The analysis adds to a body of work that exposes humanitarian technology and design as sites of friction, deeply embedded in global processes of bordering and accumulation.     

On Abolition Ecologies and Making “Freedom as a Place”

This introduction calls for political ecology to systematically engage with the ways that white supremacy shapes human relationships with land through entangled processes of settler colonialism, empire and racial capitalism. To develop the analytic of abolition ecology, we begin with the articulation of W.E.B. Du Bois’ abolition democracy together with Ruth Wilson Gilmore’s spatially attuned analytic of abolition geography. Rather than define communities by the violence they suffer, abolition ecologies call for attention to radical place‐making and the land, air and water based environments within which places are made. To that end, we suggest that an abolition ecology demands attention to the ways that coalitional land‐based politics dismantle oppressive institutions and to the promise of abolition, which Gilmore describes as making “freedom as a place”.     

Topic Modeling and Text Analysis for Qualitative Policy Research

This paper contributes to a critical methodological discussion that has direct ramifications for policy studies: how computational methods can be concretely incorporated into existing processes of textual analysis and interpretation without compromising scientific integrity. We focus on the computational method of topic modeling and investigate how it interacts with two larger families of qualitative methods: content and classification methods characterized by interest in words as communication units and discourse and representation methods characterized by interest in the meaning of communicative acts. Based on analysis of recent academic publications that have used topic modeling for textual analysis, our findings show that different mixed‐method research designs are appropriate when combining topic modeling with the two groups of methods. Our main concluding argument is that topic modeling enables scholars to apply policy theories and concepts to much larger sets of data. That said, the use of computational methods requires genuine understanding of these techniques to obtain substantially meaningful results. We encourage policy scholars to reflect carefully on methodological issues, and offer a simple heuristic to help identify and address critical points when designing a study using topic modeling.     

Bringing Chinese Law in Line with Western Standards? Problematizing “Chinese” and “Western” in the Late Qing Debate over the New Criminal Code of Great Qing

This article examines the intense debates over the New Criminal Code of Great Qing (Da-Qing xin xinglü) in the National Assembly (Zizheng yuan) during the Qing empire’s New Policy Reform (1901–11). The focus is on the conflict between those who drafted and supported the new code and those who expressed reservations, especially over reform of the laws on filial piety and fornication. The issue of reconfiguring the family and social order through law was closely related to the overarching agenda of twentieth century legal reform in China—making an empire that “ruled through the principle of filial piety” into a modern nation-state that had direct relationships with its citizens. More importantly, an analysis of the late Qing debate over family law enables this article to problematize such concepts as “Chinese” and “Western” during this crucial moment of China’s empire-to-nation transformation. It showcases the paradox of China’s modern-era reforms—a contradiction between imposing Western-inspired order with a largely indigenous logic and maintaining existing sociopolitical order in the name of preserving national identity.     

近代中国邮政空间的“国进民退”

近代中国邮政空间主要是以民信局、国营邮政、侨批等多种企业实体构成。清朝邮政成立后即开始蚕食小额民间资本支持下的民信局经营空间,而基于对1936年《中华民国邮政舆图》的数字化工作发现,历经40余年经营,国营邮政基本整合了全国范围内的邮政空间,也基本完成了本领域的“国进民退”。在此过程中,国营邮政审慎模仿民信局的经营方式,使用多种创新经营策略,除了在大中城市内部和城市之间构建了便捷快速的邮政网络空间,更借助邮政代办的方式以极低的成本将营业网络“下沉”到铁路和公路无法覆盖的农村地区,较好地与传统农村“定期市”网络完成耦合,基本达到了通商处必通邮的效果。国营邮政点和邮路集聚所形成的“邮政聚集区”也成为一种显著的近代化外在空间表征,同时成为界定所谓“核心—边缘”结构的系统可信、定量可验证的空间指标。     

Self‐determination and a shattered star: Statehood and national identity in the Somali Horn of Africa

This article explores the articulation—in different forms, at different periods, and by different actors—of ‘national self‐determination’ in Somalia and across the Somali‐speaking regions of the Horn of Africa. It explores how this concept can be understood in the context of protracted political fragmentation in Somalia—considering unresolved debates over the ideological foundations of state reconstruction, disagreements about the suitability of federalism, aspirations for the recognition of an independent Republic of Somaliland, and the distinctive trajectory of the Somali Regional State in Ethiopia. Taking a comparative, cross‐border and wide‐angled historical approach, the article argues that ideas of an ethno‐linguistically, culturally and religiously defined Somali ‘nation’ continue to coexist (and be reproduced, updated and used) within an environment of extreme political fragmentation and across multiple ‘state’ boundaries. This argument is made through comparative analysis of contemporary examples of the performance of Somali state and nationalist identities within and beyond the region and the distinctive transnational Somali‐language media environment within which these ideas circulate and compete.     

Unfastening Israel's Future from the Occupation: Israeli Plans for Partial Annexation of West Bank Territory

Israeli plans to partially annex West Bank territory have mainly been perceived as frustrating the two-state solution, and as putting Palestine/Israel on a path leading to the one-state alternative. This paper analyses partial annexation plans without assuming that the future of Palestine/Israel would necessarily abide by either statist resolution. It argues that by ostensibly distancing Israel's hold of the West Bank from an identifiable configuration of a belligerent occupation, partial annexation is offered to Jewish Israelis as a path for detaching the futurity of the two nations, and as a trajectory for normalising the Israeli state, without having to make what much of this public would see as painful concessions. It further explores settlers’ objections to such plans, claiming that even a partial incorporation of West Bank territory into formal Israel is expected to erode the exclusivity of Jewish domination which Israel has been upholding in its settler-colonial frontier.     

The prehistory of Cyprus: Problems and prospects

The archaeological record of prehistoric Cyprus is rich, diverse, well-published, and frequently enigmatic. Regarded by many as a bridge between western Asia and the Aegean, Cyprus and its past are frequently seen from scholarly perspectives prevalent in one of those two cultural areas. Its material culture, however, differs radically from that of either area. Apart from the early colonization episodes on the island (perhaps three during the pre-Neolithic and Neolithic), evidence of foreign contact remains limited until the Bronze Age (post-2500 B. C.). This study seeks to present the prehistory of Cyprus from an indigenous perspective, and to examine a series of archaeological problems that foreground Cyprus within its eastern Mediterranean context. The study begins with an overview of time, place, and the nature of fieldwork on the island, continues with a presentation and discussion of several significant issues in Cypriot prehistory (e.g., insularity, colonization, subsistence, regionalism, interaction, social complexity, economic diversity), and concludes with a brief discussion of prospects for the archaeology of Cyprus up to and beyond 2000.     

Anatomy,behavior, and modern human origins

The fossil record suggests that modern human morphology evolved in Africa between 150,000 and 50,000 years ago, when the sole inhabitants of Eurasia were the Neanderthals and other equally nonmodern people. However, the earliest modern or near-modern Africans were behaviorally (archaeologically) indistinguishable from their nonmodern, Eurasian contemporaries, and it was only around 50,000-40,000 years ago that a major behavioral difference developed. Archaeological indications of this difference include the oldest indisputable ornaments (or art broadly understood); the oldest evidence for routine use of bone, ivory, and shell to produce formal (standardized) artifacts; greatly accelerated variation in stone artifact assemblages through time and space; and hunting-gathering innovations that promoted significantly larger populations. As a complex, the novel traits imply fully modern cognitive and communicative abilities, or more succinctly, the fully modern capacity for Culture. The competitive advantage of this capacity is obvious, and preliminary dates suggest that it appeared in Africa about 50,000 years ago and then successively in western Asia, eastern Europe, and western Europe, in keeping with an African origin. Arguably, the development of modern behavior depended on a neural change broadly like those that accompanied yet earlier archaeologically detectable behavioral advances. This explanation is problematic, however, because the putative change was in brain organization, not size, and fossil skulls provide little or no secure evidence for brain structure. Other potential objections to a neural advance in Africa 50,000-40,000 years ago or to the wider Out-of-Africa hypothesis, include archaeological evidence (1) that some Neanderthals were actually capable of fully modern behavior and (2) that some Africans were behaviorally modern more than 90,000 years ago.     

The Chemical Composition and Production Area of Early Western Zhou Proto‐Porcelain Unearthed from Yejiashan Cemetery,Suizhou, China

The bodies and glazes of 27 early Western Zhou proto‐porcelain samples from Yejiashan cemetery, Hubei Province, were analysed using LA‐ICP–AES, SEM, XRD, a thermal expansion instrument and other analytical methods. The results indicated that the bodies of all samples were characterized by high silicon and low aluminium, and were made with porcelain stone raw materials found in the south of China. The glazes are typical of high‐temperature calcium glazes of the CaO (MgO) – K₂O (Na₂O) – Al₂O₃ – SiO₂ series, with relatively high Mn and P content, which was probably caused by the addition of plant ashes. The physical properties and phase compositions of Yejiashan proto‐porcelain show that firing processes were still in the early stages of development in ancient China. Multivariate statistical analyses indicated that Yejiashan proto‐porcelain might have come from the Deqing area, in Zhejiang Province. These results provide new archaeological evidence for research on issues related to material flow in the Western Zhou dynasty.