THE HISTORY OF THE LAWRENCE BERKELEY NATIONAL LABORATORY INSTRUMENTAL NEUTRON ACTIVATION ANALYSIS PROGRAMME FOR ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND GEOLOGICAL MATERIALS

The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory pottery provenance group developed standards and instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) methods that are used at many archaeometry laboratories around the world. The background and development of ‘Standard Pottery’ and of methods for INAA are described. Early pottery provenance studies are described, and other research programmes, involving obsidian and magmatic mixing, the origin of the stone used for the Colossi of Memnon, and the ‘Plate of Brass’, are mentioned. Research work by the Laboratory included the discovery of the world‐wide iridium anomaly and extensive subsequent research on what has come to be known as the ‘Asteroid Impact Theory’. Characteristics of the analytical programme for pottery provenance work, including overall aims, precision and accuracy, intercalibration, and irradiation and measurement protocols, are discussed. New research areas developed in the past 15 years, to broaden the usefulness of chemical compositional data for archaeological investigation, and examples of recent work, are described. This research, which makes use of high‐precision X‐ray fluorescence analysis in addition to INAA measurements on sample splits, includes distinguishing the products of different workshops located at the same production site, studies on the significance of the distribution of silver in archaeological pottery and the use of high‐precision chemical compositional data as an aid for making chronological distinctions.     

Nakomaha: a Counter‐Colonial Life and its Contexts. Anthropological Approaches to Biography

ABSTRACT In the anthropology of Melanesia, local life‐histories or biographies have all too often been presented in a non‐problematic, acritical manner. Instead of repeating this hide‐bound style in an unthinking manner, I attempt to be more ethnographically sensitive to local realities and to open up the genre by presenting information about a ni‐Vanuatu leader in a deliberately achronic style. By providing relevant data in terms of their sources, I put up front the biases and blindspots of each source, to enable easier assessment of their worth and to forestall premature closure. In the process I examine the conflictive dialogue between locals and expatriate officials in Vanuatu between the 1940s and 1960s. The final aim is that the open‐ended approach adopted here makes the resulting text more accessible to indigenous readers, who might wish to produce their own version of the subject's life‐history. Writing this kind of biography can thus be viewed as a further attempt towards decolonizing the anthropology of former colonial states.     

Heterogeneous impacts of China's economic and development zone program

This paper examines the impact of economic and development zones (EDZs) on the productivity of incumbent firms in China. To deal with the selection issue, I first take into account potentially different selection mechanisms across two popular types of EDZs—economic and technological development zones (ETDZs) and high‐tech development zones (HTDZs)—by relying on multiple treatment propensity scores matching techniques. Next, I apply the difference‐in‐differences estimator to the matched sample and conduct an event study analysis. The results show that the respective effects of ETDZs and HTDZs on firm productivity are positive, but subject to a nonlinear trend over time. The size of the productivity gains depends critically on the type of EDZ, however. A new HTDZ (ETDZ) leads to an average productivity gain of up to 30.2% (18.4%) for incumbent firms in the 5 years after the zone was created. These findings suggest that the size of productivity spillovers for spatially targeted firms differ quite significantly depending on the strategic development and policy goals of the EDZ: HTDZs that focus on promoting indigenous‐based factors of learning lead to higher productivity spillovers compared with ETDZs that focus on promoting extra‐local linkages.     

High‐speed railway to success? The effects of high‐speed rail connection on regional economic development in China

We find that high‐speed railway connection in China has led to a reduction in GDP per capita for connected peripheral prefectures. We use the least‐cost path‐spanning tree network to address the nonrandom route placement issue. We find that the reduction of GDP per capita is driven by significant contractions in capital input, industrial output, and skilled labor outflow. We present evidence to support a trade‐based channel in light of falling transportation costs between peripheral and metropolitan regions. Our finding highlights the importance of the cost of human transport.     

Out of the outhouse: The impact of place‐based policies on dwelling characteristics in Appalachia

The Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) administers and partially funds investment projects designed to improve economic conditions in the Appalachian region, an area of persistent poverty and reduced economic opportunity in the eastern United States in and around the Appalachian mountains. Previous research on the effectiveness of ARC programs is mixed. We analyze the impact of ARC investment projects related to expanding sewerage and waste water treatment on dwelling characteristics. Results from a difference‐in‐differences model using a quasi‐experimental approach show that ARC investment projects improved access to running water, and increased sewer hookups and indoor bathrooms in dwellings.     

Contradictions of Spatial Governance: Bioeconomy and the Management of State Space in Finland

In recent years, the bioeconomy has emerged as a key policy idea in liberal western states. This paper analyses the bioeconomy as a state strategy. By building on theoretical strands by Poulantzas, Moore, and Castán Broto, the paper argues that the bioeconomy has to be understood simultaneously as an accumulation strategy within the capitalist world‐ecology and as a transformative agenda through which tensions in the state space can be governed. The politics of bioeconomy do not concern its outright endorsement or rejection but the ways its contradictions are interpreted and articulated. The empirical part of the paper scrutinises the bioeconomy strategy adopted in Finland. Our main concern is that the bioeconomy strategy has been appropriated by the traditional forest industries in such a way that fails to address the problem of uneven development and ignores the potential of the bioeconomy as part of a transformative agenda.     

LEVINAS,HISTORY, AND HISTORIOGRAPHY

In this book Anton Froeyman has provided us with a colorful and intriguing account of a Levinasian approach to historical inquiry and historical writing. In my discussion of his book I describe central features of his account and notice how he uses, to develop his view, recent developments in historiography—including the work of figures like Natalie Davis and Carlo Ginzburg, in philosophical thinking about history and historiography, and in various postmodern developments. I sketch central features of Levinas's ethical metaphysics and show that Froeyman's focus on Levinas's interest in our relations with other persons and in particular with their relative differences from us is too narrow. A proper understanding of our infinite responsibility to and for all others, as Levinas portrays it, leads to a broader account than the one Froeyman gives and one that enables us to understand with greater clarity how historiography fits into the Levinasian understanding of our temporal and interpersonal relations with others.