Surviving the belt shop blues: Women miners and critical acts

As concept, policy and practice, affirmative action in Australia has continued to be the subject of political dissension. Currently, Liberal Party policy promises to dismantle the Affirmative Action Agency, while the Labor Government has recently added contract compliance guidelines to the 1986 Act Effective analysis of this institution requires that the political contingencies of policy‐framing and implementation be related to the micropolitics of the workplace. This article begins such an analysis. I argue that the current shape of the legislation enforces its projection as a top‐down ‘policy of persuasion’, a move which reflects and enhances the rhetoric and practices that serve relative advantages to men. Nevertheless, my critique of a ‘best practice’ organisation suggests something more: a dissonance between their expectations and their hostile reception in the workplace can prompt women to mobilise against the imposition of that advantage.     

Chardin et sonPhilosophe

Did “the old character, so intelligent, so crazy”, evoked by Marcel Proust through Chardin’s self-portraits, depict himself in the projective mask of the wise man, in one of his most famous paintings, thePhilosopher of the Louvre? As the master of the still life wanted to rise in the hierarchy of the Academic ranks, he probably tried, in this early work, to make up for “this lack of training” in “the humanities”, through the representation of a character in keeping with current tastes, of a modern philosopher. A Philosopher, A Chemist in his laboratory, A Glass-Blower, or A Philosopher busy reading: is the painting of the Louvre (1734) an emblem? Our hypothesis, that this painting represents a chemist philosopher, not a quack or an alchemist, is constructed by comparing the painting with the lampoon entitledThe Philosopher, circulated, according to Voltaire, in the 1730s.     

Looking for Ancient Fish Products Through Invisible Biomolecular Residues in the Roman Production Vats from the Atlantic Coast

As organic materials, fish and its derivative products are perishable and break down rapidly and ultimately disappear. Unless they include bones or scales, the only means of identifying them in the archaeological record is through the identification of the chemical constituents that are left behind after decomposition. Fish flesh mainly consists of proteins and lipids. Since these molecules are unstable they degrade irreversibly after death or discard, losing a significant part of the original chemical elements, consequently hampering or complicating their identification. In this paper, two main types of fish products are considered: raw, salted or cooked fish, and fermented fish-based products. In the first case, the degradation of the native markers results from chemical post-depositional degradation, and eventually thermal degradation during cooking. In the second case, the biochemical processes involve bacteria that cause the rapid decomposition of fish as part of the process of forming fish sauces, such as Roman garum. To detect and identify fish products we combined experimental archaeology and organic analyses. The identification of the degradation products of cholesterol appeared to provide a strong indicator for detecting the presence of fish sauces. Analysis of samples taken from fish-salting vats located along the Atlantic coast (Marsa, Baelo Claudia, Troia, Kerlaz, and Etel) with samples taken from actual experimental garum sauces made from mackerel (Scomber scombrus), sardines (Sardina pilchardus), and/or oysters (Ostreidae), revealed the presence of common markers of fermented fish-based products. The application of the analytical methodology described here to structures involved in ancient fish sauce manufacture and storage has enabled investigation of the production of the sauces by searching directly for the fish markers on the inner sides of the containers. For the first time the addition of molluscs and fruits in the fish product has been identified as part of the process of manufacturing garum.     

‘YOUTH RIOTS’ AND THE CONCEPT OF CONTENTIOUS POLITICS IN HISTORICAL RESEARCH

This article analyses European ‘youth riots’ as a social phenomenon after World War II. It also uses a specific riot – the 1948 Stockholm Easter Riots – in order to discuss the limits and potential of some theoretical assumptions underlying the field of historical contentious politics studies, primarily ‘contentious politics’ and ‘claims’. Using police reports and newspapers, the article shows that the riots were part of a European repertoire of post-war ‘youth riots’, but that they also bear similarities to an older popular repertoire of contention in Sweden. However, the riots do not really fit into the concept of ‘contentious politics’, as this concept is built on ‘claim-making’ as a key aspect and the participants did not make explicit claims. This leads to the conclusion that other theoretical tools, inspired by the concept of ‘moral economy’, are better suited for understanding the motivations of the rioters, whose actions are interpreted as a way of defending a perceived moral right of access to the urban public space.     

Knowledge Production in European Regions: The Impact of Regional Strategies and Regionalization on Innovation

In the last 15 years, the regional scale was used to implement innovation strategies in European Union. Departing from the discussion of the relevance of innovation policy at the regional level, the article benefits from the knowledge production function framework to estimate patterns considering 175 European regions. It is intended to understand whether regional innovation strategies developed and applied between 1994 and 2001 were successful at an aggregated level in contributing for knowledge creation measured in terms of patents and high technology patents. The results underline the relevance of private R&D expenditure and medium and high technology employment to increase patent numbers. The models suggest also that administrative regionalization may be important to regional innovation and that the creation and implementation of a regional strategy have a positive contribution for high tech innovation.     

L’Économie de la Création le Financement du Film Documentaire

The study of the financing of documentary films in France by its two main sources (TV channels and the film industry) enables us to uncover the conditions of possibility of the autonomy of filmmakers. It reveals an opposition between two patterns: a logic of “flows” within the audiovisual circuit (television) and a logic of “scarcity” within the film circuit, completed by new forms of financial support.     

Notes from the Iberian Algae Belt

In this paper, we explore regional innovation in the use of varieties of algae as inputs to industrial processes. It is important to understand that algae are one of nature's most bountiful products, with an almost infinite variety of applications. Algae have received prominence in the research literature because of the strong evidence that they can make a major contribution to the production and—importantly—storage of renewable energy. Following the introduction to this paper, Section 2 reviews the nature and application of algae in two main aspects of clean energy production: first as biogasolene or biodiesel; second as large-scale storage batteries for electricity. The latter is particularly important as one classic deficiency of electricity is the difficulty in storing it for lengthy periods other than in short-life batteries. However (Section 3), there are other uses for algae, ranging from aquaculture to medicine and the production of cosmetics. In the southwest corner of the Iberian Peninsula, between Faro in Portugal through Huelva to Cadiz in Spain, is a significant research and commercial algae production zone. The paper describes the key system elements in play in this trans-border innovation network and considers prospects for new path creation towards biofuels, the main research and application centres for which are in the San Francisco Bay Area in California. Conclusions and recommendations for policy action are then drawn.     

Efficiency of Innovation Systems in Europe: An Institutional Approach to the Diversity of National Profiles

Globalization did not create convergence to a unique economic model among countries. Even in developed countries, the answers to the pressures of markets underline the existence of a variety of capitalisms. The analysis of innovation systems, in particular at the national level, is adequate as a preliminary approach to understand the diversity of profiles and institutional architectures. The article benefits from the broader notion of national innovation system to understand the profiles of 15 European countries. By analysing central building blocks and institutional complementarities through the creation of indexes based on 64 variables and a cluster analysis, it was possible to understand the different levels of institutional efficiency in the analysed dimensions for the selected groups of countries.