Food,conviviality and the work of mourning. The asado scandal at Argentina’s ex-ESMA

This article addresses a controversial debate raised by an asado-party, which was celebrated by the end of 2012 at the former Navy Mechanics School (ESMA), the main clandestine detention centre where almost 5,000 people were held captive and tortured during Argentina’s last dictatorship (1976-1983). In 2004, the former school was transformed into a “space of memory”. Drawing upon the asado episode, I consider which kind of practices of re-occupation former landscapes of death may allow.

I first provide an overview of the interventions that took place at ESMA within the Kirchnerist period (2003-2015). Second, I bring into play some cultural productions of the new generations, as well as performances and philosophical ruminations regarding the asado as a main theme in the local culture. Finally, I put these materials in the larger context of memory politics to explore how food-reunions – and expanded tables might work as a public pathway for a collective digestion of grief. The question that is ultimately at stake is how to kindle alternative hospitalities and dialogues in landscapes marked by loss. Might the spectrum of activities that took place at the former ESMA during the Kirchnerist years suggest a new conviviality for the aftermath of violence?     

Trace-element evidence for foreigners at a Maya port in Northern Yucatan

The present paper explores the potentials of trace elements in human dental enamel to indicate mobility and to detect the presence of individuals who had migrated into a community after childhood. Three Pre-Hispanic samples of infants from the Yucatán peninsula were chosen, one from the northern coast (Xcambó), one from the coast of the Gulf of Mexico (Campeche) and the last one from the tropical inland rain forest (Calakmul). Infants’ first permanent molars are the term of reference because infants were very likely born in the same place where they died and therefore are supposed to represent the local geo-chemical environment. Their chemical signature was then compared to the one of the adults from the site of Xcambó. The elemental composition was recorded by means of laser ablation-time of flight-ICP-MS. Sr and Ba (and secondly Mg and I) discriminate well the three infant samples. All the Early Classic adults from Xcambó fall within the range of variation of the site’s infants, while 25% of the Late Classic adults fall outside the range in agreement with archaeological, bioarcheological, and isotopic evidence. LA-ICP-Ms analyses of trace elements in archaeological samples can be an important analytical tool to detect foreigners in local populations. The selection of infants as reference values helps reduce the limits faced by trace element analyses in past human populations studies.     

Branding Knowledge-intensive Regions: A Comparative Study of Pisa and Oulu High-Tech Brands

Place marketing and branding have drawn much attention both in the literature and in practice especially in the 1990s and 2000s. However, the research literature of place branding related to the dynamic evolution of knowledge-intensive regions is limited. This article aims at providing an analysis of place branding processes in knowledge-intensive regions in relation to the evolution of their high-tech clusters, in an attempt to identify the relation between brand development and cluster performance from a longitudinal perspective. The article discusses the results of a multiple case study, including Pisa, Italy and Oulu, Finland. The findings suggest that, in these two cases, branding consisted more in labelling an existing economic phenomenon rather than in fostering or having a bet on it in a visionary way. This is related to the political nature of branding which may provoke a mismatch between the timing of the high-tech cluster dynamics and the timing of branding initiatives, a mismatch which is likely to affect branding effectiveness and which should be considered when evaluating branding impacts.     

Access to capital markets and the geography of productivity leaders and laggards

This paper examines whether access to the capital market of convertible and nonconvertible bonds affects total factor productivity (TFP) for the population of Italian joint stock manufacturing companies, based in highly segmented local financial markets, between 2007 and 2017. The hypothesis, well grounded in the literature, is that long-term capital favors investment in intangibles and other risky assets necessary for productivity growth. To identify this effect, we exploit the exogenous shock of the Italian banking deregulation of the mid-1990s as an instrument for firm-level access to capital, interacted with distance from logistic networks. These reforms changed the distribution of the type of branches at the local level, increasing the share of joint stock banks, which have high connections to international capital markets. This geographical reallocation of banking activities ultimately affected firms' financial structure, favouring their access to capital, even when based in peripheral financial areas. Firms which issued instruments of market debt achieved higher levels of productivity and a higher probability to reach top percentiles of productivity distribution.     

Lifestyle,occupation, and whole bone morphology of the pre‐Hispanic Maya coastal population from Xcambó, Yucatan,Mexico

The present bioarchaeological study examines the external diaphyseal geometric properties of humeri, radii, femora and tibiae of the Classic period skeletal population of Xcambó, Yucatan, Mexico. The diaphysial proportions are evaluated using a biomechanical approach together with data from the material context and other osteological information. Our intent is to provide new answers to questions concerning lifestyle, domestic labour division and subsistence strategies of this coastal Maya settlement that was inhabited from the Late and Terminal Preclassic (300 BC–350 AD) to the Postclassic Period (900–1500 AD). Our results provide evidence for a marked sexual division of labour when compared with values from contemporaneous inland populations. The overall male and female loading patterns differ remarkably in terms of form and in bilateral comparison. A high directional asymmetry in the upper limbs is evident among males, a condition related to maritime transportation and trading activities. On the other hand, female upper limbs are characterized by very low side differences. Forces on the arms of women were probably dominated by food processing, in particular the grinding of grains or seeds. In the lower limbs, males show significantly higher anteroposterior bending strengths, which can be explained by greater engagement in transportation tasks and carrying heavy loads. In the course of the Classic period (350–900 AD), diachronic changes affect the male sample only, which suggests a shift of occupational pattern and physical demands. This shift, in turn, reflects Xcambó's changing role as the centre of a densifying settlement area and its place in the trading activities of northern Yucatan. Other topics of discussion relate to general regional trends and local prehispanic subsistence strategies. Our conclusions emphasize the value of geometric long bone analysis in the reconstruction of activity patterns and lifestyles in ancient coastal settlements. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.