Unpacking “Accumulation By Dispossession”, “Fictitious Commodification”, and “Fictitious Capital Formation”: Tracing the Dynamics of Bahrain's Land Reclamation

We explore the interrelationships between the concepts of fictitious commodities, fictitious capital and accumulation by dispossession. We do so through a detailed examination of the dynamics of land reclamation in the Kingdom of Bahrain during the years 2001–2014. Particularly, we dissect in‐depth the ensemble of social relations and chain of events involved in two specific real estate projects, Norana and Bahrain Financial Harbour, that have come to symbolize Bahrain's neoliberal era. Reclamation was a unique process in which land was explicitly produced as a commodity for market purposes. Primary material of land deeds, company registration documents, and news articles were used to map out the social relations across the state–finance–real estate nexus. We emphasize that our understanding of accumulation by dispossession involving land is greatly enhanced if we view it as a process of reconfiguring the ensemble of social relations using fictitious commodification and fictitious capital formation.     

Are Monarchies Exceptional to the Arab Uprisings? The Resilience of Moroccan Monarchy Revisited

With the onset of the Arab uprisings at the end of 2010 and the emergence of popular demonstrations that raised the issue of crises of legitimacy across the Arab states, the literature on democratization in the Middle East and North African (MENA) studies has taken on new dimensions recently. One of the primary theoretical debates that has surfaced in the post‐2011 era has revolved around on whether or not the demonstrations will lead to regime change or increased authoritarianism in the MENA region. One of the crucial developments of the Arab Spring has, then, been the overthrow of some long‐standing rulers like Ben Ali of Tunisia and Mubarak of Egypt, as well as the questioning of authoritarian regimes by the masses. The public protests submerged some Arab republics, but monarchies found ways to overcome the public outcry through containing the opposition. This paper, therefore, takes the monarchy of Morocco as a case study with the aim of analyzing the methods and regime‐survival strategies the regime has employed to sustain itself and consolidate power in the post‐2011 Arab uprisings era. Additionally, the role of the Justice and Development Party as an emerging threat in the postdemocratization era, and the changing nature of the party’s relations with the palace, will be addressed.     

Experimental characterization of the constitutive materials composing an old masonry vaulted tunnel of the Paris subway system

A significant proportion of the Paris metro tunnels comprise a masonry vault built out of stone blocks and mortar joints, and sidewalls and slabs made of unreinforced concrete. In order to provide the necessary data for future structural evaluation, an extensive laboratory testing programme has been conducted to characterize the materials of the tunnel separately, i.e., mortar, stone, and concrete. The tests, carried out on specimens taken from cores extracted from a 1930s tunnel, enabled to determine the mechanical properties, including direct tensile, shear strength, and mode I fracture energy, as well as the properties of the stone-mortar interface. Results show that the masonry mortar joints could reach 10 cm in width, and that blocks of stone varied in composition and porosity, thus producing a wide range of mechanical properties. The concrete was composed of large-sized aggregates and showed low stiffness and strength. Based on these experimental results, ratios between mechanical characteristics are hereby proposed. Perspectives on the use of this experimental data in a finite element model are then discussed.     

Mapping the Stone Age of Mozambique

Under the auspices of the Portuguese colonial government, Lereno Barradas and Santos Júnior (coordinator of the Anthropological Mission of Mozambique) carried out several archaeological field surveys from 1936 to 1956 that resulted in a data set that includes a total of close to 90 sites, mostly attributed to the Stone Age. This early research added to the previous work of Van Riet Lowe in the Limpopo Valley of southern Mozambique. With the new millennium, Mozambique has emerged as a crucial geographic area in which to understand the various hypotheses about recent human evolution. Specifically, its coastal location between southern and eastern Africa is ideal for testing ideas about the link between early coastal adaptations and the appearance of anatomically modern humans (AMH). Except for the recent work by Mercader’s team in northern Mozambique, the number of researchers and projects on this topic in Mozambique is still limited because of the general predominance of interest in later periods among archaeologists working in the country, mainly due to their focus on issues related to precolonial heritage and national identity. Based on the early maps from Santos Júnior and more recent data acquired through various projects, we present a series of maps for the Stone Age prehistory of Mozambique. The maps are also based on a critical evaluation of the sites and a review of some of the materials that are presently curated at the Instituto de Investigação Científica e Tropical (IICT) in Lisbon, Portugal, as well as the materials stored at the Department of Archaeology of Universidade Eduardo Mondlane, Maputo. The sites are also presented in an online database with the information on all sites used in this study. This database is open to all and will be updated continuously. A preliminary interpretation of the regional distribution of the sites is also attempted, linking aspects that include region, topography and altitude, geomorphology, and cultural phase. These results will be the first step for research and knowledge in Mozambique on Stone Age prehistory and the emergence and settlement pattern of AMH.