Performing the global through the local—globalisation and individualisation in the spatial practices of young East Germans

This paper aims to show how young people in former East Germany respond to the globalising processes that are part of the transformation of their society from a state-socialist to a capitalist one. It focuses particularly on the differential ways in which young people perform their identities as global/local subjects through the uses that they make of urban space. While emphasising the agency of young people, the paper seeks to examine the dialectic between globalising forces that are largely beyond their control and the negotiation of these forces in everyday practices of identity-formation. Conceptually, the paper draws particularly on the work of Beck (2000) Beck, U. 2000. “What is Globalization?”. Cambridge and Oxford: Polity Press.  [Google Scholar], Beck and Gernsheim (2002) Beck, U. and Beck-Gernsheim, E. 2002. Individualization. Institutionalized Individualism and its Social and Political Consequences, London: Sage.  [Google Scholar] and Giddens (1994) Giddens, A. 1994. Modernity and Self-Identity. Self and Society in the Late Modern Age, Cambridge: Polity Press.  [Google Scholar] in order to conceptualise the connections between globalisation and individualisation, as well as on feminist and recent geographical work on performativity (Butler, 1990 Butler, J. 1990. Gender Trouble. Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, London and New York: Routledge.  [Google Scholar], 1993 Butler, J. 1993. Bodies that Matter. On the Discursive Limits of ‘Sex’, London and New York: Routledge.  [Google Scholar]; Rose, 1996 Rose, G. 1996. “As if the mirrors had bled: masculine dwelling, masculine theory and feminist masquerades”. In BodySpace: Destabilising Geographies of Gender and Sexuality, Edited by: Duncan, N. 56–74. London and New York: Routledge.  [Google Scholar]; Gregson and Rose, 2000 Gregson, N. and Rose, G. 2000. ‘Taking Butler elsewhere: performativities, spatialities and subjectivities’. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 18(4): 433–452. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] [Google Scholar]; Thrift, 1996 Thrift, N. 1996. Spatial Formations, London: Sage.  [Google Scholar]; Dewsbury, 2000 Dewsbury, J.-D. 2000. ‘Performativity and the event: enacting a philosophy of difference’. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 18(4): 473–496. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] [Google Scholar]; Dewsbury and Naylor, 2002 Dewsbury, J.-D. and Naylor, S. 2002. Practicing geographical knowledge: fields, bodies and dissemination. Area, 34(3): 253–260.  [Google Scholar]) in order to gain an embodied understanding of the ways in which individuals construct themselves as global/local subjects.     

Recent research into oldowan hominin activities at Kanjera South, Western Kenya

This paper presents the initial results of excavations at Kanjera South, located on the Homa Peninsula in Western Kenya. Since 1995, our exploration of this locality has yielded a combination of artefacts and well preserved faunal remains in a sedimentary context that also allows for environmental reconstruction. Here we examine the history of exploration of Kanjera and its significance in the development of palaeoanthropological research in East Africa. We also summarise our findings from the recently discovered Oldowan site. Taphonomic analyses suggest that the archaeological layers were formed at least partially by hominin activity. Artefacts made from a wide variety of raw materials are abundant, as are animal bones. Results of our first analyses confirm that Oldowan hominins had considerable behavioural flexibility and occupied a range of habitats.Cet article présente des résultats préliminaires de nos fouilles au site de Kanjera South, situé sur la péninsule de Homa au Kenya occidental. Depuis 1995 nos explorations à cette localité ont produit une combinaison des outils lithiques et des restes fossils dans un bon état de conservation venant d’un contexte sédimentaire qui permet également les reconstitutions paleoenvironnementaux. Ici nous examinons l’histoire de l’exploration de Kanjera et de son importance dans le développement de la recherche paleoanthropologique en Afrique de l’Est. Nous récapitulons également nos résultats du gisement récemment découvert d’Oldowan. L’étude taphonomique suggère que les couches archéologiques ont été formées au moins partiellement par l’activité des hominins. Les objets fabriqués faits à partir d’une grande variété de matières lithiques sont abondants, de même que les os animaux. Les résultats de nos premières analyses confirment que les hominins d’Oldowan ont eu une flexibilité de comportement considérable et ont occupé une gamme d’habitats différents.     

Oldowan behavior and raw material transport: perspectives from the Kanjera Formation

The archaeological record of Oldowan hominins represents a diverse behavioral system. It has been suggested that exploitation of lithic resources by Oldowan hominins was simplistic and represented mostly use of local sources of stone. Here we investigate the raw material selection and transport behaviors of Oldowan hominins reflected in the stone artifact assemblages from the Kanjera South Formation, South Rachuonyo District, Kenya. Using geochemical methods (ED-XRF) artifacts are linked to primary and secondary source outcrops throughout southwestern Kenya. These data show that hominins selected raw materials for transport at frequencies that are significantly different from their availability on ancient landscapes. Furthermore, a substantial proportion of the assemblage represents transport over relatively long distances (>10 km). Our study further suggests that in the early stages of stone tool use hominins used a wide variety of raw materials and selected these materials at some distance from their eventual discard locations. Early hominin behavior may have incorporated an understanding of raw material source distributions across a more extensive landscape than has been previously documented. This supports the growing perspective that Oldowan technology represents a more complex behavioral pattern than is usually associated with the beginnings of hominin tool use.     

History after the end: post-socialist difference in a (post)modern world

This paper makes an intervention in the debates on postmodernism as dominant social and cultural order of the present from the perspective of post-socialist transformation. Grounded in an analysis of theoretical discourses and of qualitative interviews, it highlights the hierarchical time/space constructions and universalizing tendencies inherent in many proclamations of the postmodern epoch and contests the uncritical acceptance of the 'end of history' metanarrative. Post-socialist transformation is shown to be a complex process that fits uneasily into pre-given categories and disrupts an ordering logic that divides between a western, postmodern 'us' and 'the rest' of the world. My argument is formulated on the basis of research on the transformative processes in former east Germany.     

Raw material quality and Oldowan hominin toolstone preferences: evidence from Kanjera South,Kenya

The role of raw material quality in Oldowan technology has not been fully explored. There are numerous studies suggesting Oldowan hominins preferred certain types of stone for artifact manufacture. Previous studies of the artifact assemblage from the early Pliocene Oldowan locality of Kanjera South (South Rachuonyo District, Kenya) show that raw material selection and transport was an important aspect of Late Pliocene hominin adaptations. Yet the exact properties of stones that hominins were selecting remain enigmatic. Two potentially important features of artifact raw material are durability and fracture predictability. We investigate fracture predictability through mechanical tests of stone and investigations of the affect of stone properties on fracture patterns in archaeological collections. We investigate stone durability with actualistic studies of edge attrition combined with further mechanical tests of various lithologies. Oldowan hominins at Kanjera appear to have selected raw materials based on their durability. The ability for a stone to fracture consistently does not appear to be as important in hominin toolstone preference as previously assumed. Hominins that produced the assemblages at Kanjera South appear to have incorporated an extensive understanding of various attributes of raw material in the transport and production of stone artifacts. When combined with previous research on the transport patterns at Kanjera, the results of this study provide evidence for a more complex raw material acquisition strategy than has previously been suggested for Late Pliocene Oldowan hominins.     

From the Body of Christ to Racial Homogeneity: Carl Schmitt's Mobilization of ‘Life’ against ‘the Spirit of Technicity’

This article traces the semantics of “life” and “vitality” in Carl Schmitt up to the 1930s. It shows that Schmitt deploys these vitalist elements against the modern “spirit of technicity” in his attempt to combat the lack of substantial ideas in modern politics. However, Schmitt himself cannot escape a fundamental political relativism. There remains an unstable tension at the heart of his thought between the quest for substance and the quest for order. The latter is relativist because it is a quest for order as such, any order. Although Schmitt's semantics of life and vitality is not drawn from a biological register, it adopted a völkisch meaning in 1933. Anti-Semitism becomes a form of life and racial homogeneity fills in for substance. The article concludes that, while there are good reasons for criticizing the modern “spirit of technicity,” Schmitt's critical model is fundamentally flawed.