The imperial word and its margins. Language and colonization in the Americas

Nouveau Monde et renouveau de l'histoire naturelle, vol. 2. Edited by Marie‐Cecile Benassy and Jean‐Pierre Clement. Paris: Presses de la Sorbonne Nouvelle, 1993. Pp. 135.

Langues et cultures en Amérique espagnole coloniale. Edited by Marie‐Cecile Benassy‐Berling, Jean‐Pierre Clement and Alain Milhou. Paris: Presses de la Sorbonne Nouvelle, 1993. Pp. 328.

Relecturas del Barroco de Indias. Edited by Mabel Moraña. Hanover, New Hampshire: Ediciones del Norte, 1994. Pp. xii, 334.

Early Images of the Americas: Transfer and Invention. Edited by Jerry M. Williams and Roberte. Lewis. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1993. Pp. xviii, 319.

Discursos sobre la “invención” de América. Edited by Iris Zavala. Amsterdam and Atlanta: Editions Rodopi, 1992. Pp. 294.     

Introduction: Representing Racial Issues

This paper seeks to show why there is a need to theorise race relations as a feature of white Australia's culture and as the context of Aboriginal lives. The violent drama of racial politics as glimpsed on the public media and as experienced by black communities all over the country, demands analytic attention. Anthropologists were once the experts on race, before the field lost its legitimacy. If we turn our attention to exposing the forms of colonial power that saturate Aboriginal social life, Australian anthropology may be saved from becoming an anachronism.     

Whatever Happened to the Mother? A New Look at the Old Problem of the Mother's Brother in Three New Guinea Societies: Gimi,Daribi, and Iatmul

Kinship systems cannot be analysed as straightforward translations of the ‘facts of nature’ when those facts are limited to the production of a child by a heterosexual couple. Based upon analyses of three New Guinea societies (Gimi, Daribi, and Iatmul), I suggest that kinship systems take account – often by denying – certain ‘facts’ of human reproduction when those facts are extended beyond coitus and parturition to include both the very long period of infantile dependence upon one significant caregiver (always the mother in the societies in question and nearly universally) and the subsequent requirement for the child to be extracted from a dyadic maternal universe. Separation from mother is as critical to the survival and development of the individual as is the original prolonged and intense attachment to her. The question, then, is not whether indigenous peoples accurately understand coitus and conception – they do – but rather the ways in which they manipulate that knowledge in rules and rites of kinship in order to manage the growth and development of a child long after parturition. Rules of kinship and social relations neither ignore nor exist apart from theories of procreation as many anthropologists now claim. Rather, it is precisely because theories of procreation indicate and idealise the flow of bodily substance during coitus and pregnancy that they serve as organisational premises for social relations. The fact that kinship is a symbolic construction does not mean that it is wholly ideological nor, like a language, free to vary in ways that are arbitrary and unconnected to the ‘facts of life’ as Westerners understand them. Even when interlocutors openly deny such understanding and knowledge, especially of the male role in coitus and conception, evidence to the contrary is abundantly provided in myth, ritual, and indigenous theories of procreation. What kinship systems often do show, however, is a strategic denial of the role of the mother who, upon deeper understanding of indigenous concepts of procreation, turns out to be a ‘sterile vessel’ or without substantial contribution to her child. I illustrate this premise by extending earlier analyses of Gimi kinship and reexamining certain materials on neighbouring Daribi provided by Roy Wagner and on Iatmul peoples of the Sepik River as originally described in Naven by Gregory Bateson eighty years ago.     

The Politics of Party Leader Survival and Succession: Australia in Comparative Perspective

The processes of replacement of party leaders are well-published events in media outlets across the world's democracies, but are scarcely analysed by political scientists. In this article we examine the extent to which incumbent party leaders are able to control their own fate in the face of various types of challenges that herald a possible end to their rule. It discusses three related research questions derived from this main objective: (1) what makes incumbents quit? (2) How do incumbents respond to various types of triggers heralding a possible end to their rule? (3) To what extent does incumbent behaviour prior to and following succession affect the fortunes of their successors and their party? We draw on a four-country–eight-party data set of leadership successions between 1945 and 2005, and on findings of in-depth studies of Australian cases to show that not only do Australian leaders get challenged and replaced more frequently than do other leaders, but they are also forced to combat more internal rivalry than their counterparts elsewhere.     

Innovation projects and local production networks: A case study of Hertfordshire

This paper evaluates some of the key arguments underlying what is called here the local production network paradigm (LPNP). These are presented as three interlinked hypotheses that turn on the idea that firms competing in world markets need to accommodate continuous change by fostering product or process innovation. The definition of innovation used in this study is “the commercially successful exploitation of new technologies, ideas or methods through the introduction of new products or processes, or through the improvement of existing ones” (EC DG XIII, 1996, p. 54).

One conventionally described organizational response to this requirement to accommodate continuous innovation is to dis‐integrate firms and set up local production networks. Local production networks are defined in this study as “collaborative linkages between local firms and local factors of production”. Such networks are said to rely on local resources of various kinds to enable them to innovate on a continuous and incremental basis. As a result of such dependencies on local factors, and their interconnectedness with each other, the local production network (LPN) firms then become ‘embedded’ in their localities. Such networked economies have been variously described as new industrial districts, areas of flexible specialization, and innovative milieux.

The evidence presented to test these hypotheses is based on a case study of innovative, award‐winning firms in Hertfordshire. The findings show that although these firms do compete successfully in fast‐moving international markets, they do not rely much on local production networks, as defined here, to enable them to do so. The findings call into question the general applicability of the LPNP. Questions are raised particularly with respect to innovation in the important minority of highly innovative core metropolitan regions.

Innovation is argued to be an interactive process that is both driven by a steady supply of technological advances and stimulated by different types of consumer demand. In the case of the firms interviewed in Hertfordshire, most of their innovative projects were developed by the firms working individually, and in isolation, from other local businesses using high quality, knowledge, information, human resources and venture capital. At the same time, these firms were also pulled by demands from military, health and company consumers. Only in the case of the minority of innovations that were purchased in the first instance by private final consumers were local production networks of some significance.     

Domesticated Landscapes: The Subsistence Ecology of Plant and Animal Domestication

Harvesting different species as foods or raw materials calls for differing skills depending on the species being harvested and the circumstances under which they are being taken. In some situations and for some species, the tactics used are mainly behavioral—that is, people adjust, or adapt, their own actions to fit the behavior and circumstances of the species they are taking. Under other circumstances and for other species, the skills and tactics used may call for greater environmental preparation or manipulation. Therefore, instead of trying to distinguish people today and in the past as either foragers or farmers, it makes sense to define human subsistence behavior as an interactive matrix of species and harvesting tactics, that is, as a provisions spreadsheet.