Being genealogical in digital geographies

In this intervention, I trace the genealogies of the recent heralding of digital geographies as a boundary object for scholarship and scholars foregrounding the digital in geography. Building off of previous efforts to be technopositional in digital geographies, I make an entreaty for further being genealogical by attuning to the insider/outsider positionalities that have informed this particular endeavour of intellectual community‐making in Anglo‐American geography. While genealogy is not an exercise in historical narration, it works against dehistorical narratives of digital technologies and of the disciplinary frameworks within which they are engaged, destabilizes technopositional privileges, and has the potential to engender more inclusive digital geography futures.     

Inca builders at Machu Picchu National Archaeological Park

Knowledge about the Inca measurement system is based on information from the colonial chronicles and modern studies of the 16th-century Quechua dictionaries. Based on those texts, we can presume that the Incas used an anthropometric system of measurement adopted from the proportions of the human body. Using cosine quantogram analysis and statistical verification, it is possible to verify the existence of the measurement system used by the Inca architects. For this purpose, a measurement series of architectural and water infrastructure elements were collected from 3D point cloud of the Chachabamba and Machu Picchu settlements in Machupicchu National Archaeological Park.     

Feminist digital geographies

At a moment when disciplinary attentions are turning to the digital as a subject and object of geographic inquiry, we consider enduring contours and new directions in feminist digital geographies scholarship. We revisit the centrality of feminist critiques of Science to critical digital geographies and their predecessors, identifying axes of scholarly engagement that have emerged from feminist theory and praxis. Simultaneously, we acknowledge the resounding whiteness and heteronormativity of these theoretical origins. In the second half of the article, we trace new horizons of contemporary digital geographies scholarship that engage queer and critical race theory, postcolonial feminism, and black and queer code studies. These theoretical moves give voice to longstanding silences and are indispensable to a political and ethical digital geographic scholarship and praxis, as well as to re-making our technologies and ourselves as digital subjects.     

How to deal with migrants and the State’s backlash – Polish cities’ experience

Over the last decades, Poland has witnessed a relatively dynamic increase in the number of immigrants. At the same time, current Polish central authorities, politicians of the ruling party and the majority of the population perceive migrants mostly as a threat and a challenge. Municipal authorities lack complex support from central authorities. However, the situation is slowly changing. Some Polish cities are adopting migration policies or including migration issues in the local development strategies. Considering this, the article aims to examine migrants’ integration policies in selected Polish cites considered leaders in this field: Lublin, Gdańsk, Kraków and Wroc?aw. The main research question is: how do Polish cities deal with the backlash from the national government and absence of clear legal regulations on their role and competences in the area of migrant integration? The research method is that of a legal-institutional analysis and case study. The former is used to interpret the legal acts and other documents. Its application is justified by the fact that this paper examines strategic documents adopted at the level of urban governments regarding the integration of migrants. Case study methods made it possible to examine the migrants’ integration policy in four Polish cities.     

Near infrared spectroscopy as a tool for archaeological wood characterization

Archaeological wood, as most of natural materials, is slowly decomposing on the archaeological site due to various biological factors. Rapid and accurate estimation of the degradation level is extremely important for optimal restoration and conservation. The goal of this research was to verify the effectiveness of Fourier transform near infrared (FT-NIR) spectroscopy for archaeometry. The important advantage of the NIR spectroscopy is its accuracy, simplicity and ability to perform very high number of tests without needs of any destruction to the workpiece. Five oak pieces of the archaeological wood collected from waterlogged sites in Poland have been used. Cellulose and lignin contents, as well as crystallinity and the degree of polymerization were measured with standard reference methods and compared to the contemporary wood. The near infrared spectra represent all the physical/chemical changes of the wood due to waterlogging. This technique was successfully validated in rapid estimation of the cellulose and lignin contents. The method explored in this research might be a novel tool assisting experts in evaluation of the degradation state of archaeological and historical wooden materials.     

The age of the subfossil trunk horizon in deposits of the Warta River valley (central Poland) based on <Superscript>14</Superscript>C dating

The present study focuses on investigations carried out in the Late Vistulian succession of the Warta River deposits (central Poland) in which a horizon of subfossil trees was excavated. Prelim-inary conclusions on time record and past environmental conditions of a forest existence determined from radiocarbon dating, pollen analyses and geological evidence appear promising with view of tree-ring chronologies.     

Holocene sediments of the Ustka Cliff (Northern Poland) in view of radiometric dating

The cliff in Ustka is an active one. The area is one of the most eroded sea shores of the Polish coast. The Ustka Cliff mainly consists of Holocene sandy deposits, but its basis is built of glacial till and clay. Field search allowed to recognize the structure and sedimentary conditions of Holocene deposits exposed in the cliff. A comparison of dating results obtained for fossil soils and peat as well as aeolian deposits, using ¹⁴C and TL methods, respectively, with available literature records is presented. The evaluation of results obtained allowed to define three main dune-forming phases for the first time for this part of the Polish coast. During the research studies new data on the processes and environmental conditions was gained and the development of structure of the area during the last 10 thousand years was reconstructed. The analysis of available data from other sections of the southern Baltic coast shows that results obtained are age similar to those determined for the ?eba Spit. The research is part of a project concerning the geomorphology of the Ustka Bay.     

The oldest root-eating beetle from the Middle Jurassic of China (Coleoptera,Monotomidae)

Cai, C.-Y., ?lipiński, A. & Huang, D.-Y., 31.3.2015. The oldest root-eating beetle from the Middle Jurassic of China (Coleoptera, Monotomidae). Alcheringa 39,488–493. ISSN 0311-5518.

Jurorhizophagus alienus gen. et sp. nov., a new fossil root-eating beetle, is described and figured based on an exceptionally well-preserved impression fossil from the Middle Jurassic Daohugou beds (ca 165 Ma), Inner Mongolia, northeastern China. It represents the earliest fossil Monotomidae known to date. Jurorhizophagus can not be assigned to either of two subfamilies Monotominae or Rhizophaginae based on the unique combination of many unusual characters, including an 11-segmented antenna with a 3-segmented club, the presence of a distinct frontoclypeal suture and transverse pronotum with a median longitudinal groove. The discovery of a new genus from the Middle Jurassic highlights the antiquity of Monotomidae and provides new information about the phylogenetic relationships between Monotomidae and its allied families.

Chen-Yang Cai [caichenyang1988@163.com], Di-Ying Huang [dyhuang@nigpas.ac.cn] (corresponding author), State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008, PR China; Adam ?lipiński [adam.slipinski@csiro.au], Australian National Insect Collection, CSIRO National Collections Australia, GPO Box 1700, Canberra ACT 2601, Australia.     

Measuring or Creating Attitudes? Seventy Years of Australian Public Opinion Polling about Indonesia

This article critically evaluates the relationship between public opinion polling and foreign affairs. It plots key trends in public opinion polls of Australian attitudes towards Indonesia from the 1940s to the present day. Despite variations in polling companies and questions, Australian attitudes to Indonesia appear surprisingly stable, especially since the 1970s. Reading across multiple polls over this period reveals that, both as a mass and among individuals, Australians held complex views in which positive appraisals of Indonesian people and culture co-existed with an underlying fear of Indonesia as a potential military threat. Yet rather than accepting these findings at face value, this article calls for nuanced scrutiny of the role played by polling companies and the media in the construction and representation of so-called “public” opinion. Sensitive to recent developments in the historiography of public opinion polling, it suggests that public opinion polls not only attempted to measure Australian attitudes towards Indonesia, but also helped construct Indonesia as an object of popular and political concern.