Packaging of Identity and Identifiable Packages: A study of women–commodity negotiation through product packaging

In the age of post-Fordist flexible production, a consumer realizes her/his identity in part through the act of consumption. The visual aspect of commodity–consumer negotiation acquires importance, as commodities must be visually differentiated to attract the gaze of a particular consuming group. The act of visual differentiation is achieved through symbolic packaging, which creates a cognitive link between commodity and consumer. I draw from Baudrillard, who states that in postmodern consumption the sign value of products becomes more important than their actual usefulness (use value). Baudrillard, however, overlooks the importance of gender, race and space in this visual mediation. Through an empirical study of the packaging of women's skin and hair products in two different stores catering to two different income groups in Worcester, Massachusetts, I indicate how gendered identities that are created are complex, porous and materially rooted in space. The geographic situatedness of the exercise checks overgeneralizations allowing it to be studied as an object–subject mediation in a particular spatial context.     

Seismic Waves in Heterogeneous Crust-Mantle Layers under Initial Stresses

This article investigates the propagations of SH-waves and Rayleigh-type waves in a pre-stressed heterogeneous half-space and also Love-type waves in a pre-stressed heterogeneous layer overlying a pre-stressed heterogeneous half-space. Wave-velocity relations for SH-waves, Rayleigh-type waves, and dispersion equation for Love-type waves are derived. The results reflect that initial stress and inhomogeneity decrease the phase velocity of the SH-waves and Rayleigh-type waves. The phase and damping velocities of Love-type waves decrease with wave number, initial stress of the upper media, and inhomogeneity of the lower media, whereas they increase with initial stress of the lower media and inhomogeneity of the upper media.     

Leaf galls on Dicroidium hughesii (Feistmantel) Lele from the Triassic of India—a new record

Disc-like galls are reported on the Triassic corystosperm leaf Dicroidium hughesii (Feistmantel) Lele from the Parsora Formation of South Rewa Gondwana Basin, central India. Although there have been numerous reports of arthropod–plant interactions from Permian and Lower Cretaceous successions, this is the first unequivocal report of arthropod–plant interactions from the Triassic succession of Peninsular India. The new record adds to global evidence that arthropod herbivory and gall formation, in particular, had rediversified by the Late Triassic in the wake of the end-Permian mass extinction.     

Problematizing ‘Knowledge‐for‐Development’

This article argues that measures designed to improve the availability and accessibility of information as a key strategy to facilitate development have become ends in themselves, de‐linked from their potential to have an impact on Southern knowledge systems that may lead to improved development outcomes. The production and dissemination of ever‐greater volumes of information in response to concerns about the uneven availability of information, particularly for individuals and intermediaries based in the global South, are unable to address the persistent problem of the fragmentation of knowledge systems that result from knowledge for development (K4D) initiatives in which information and knowledge are treated as isolated entities. The article presents the findings of a study into the K4D practices of a network of women/gender information intermediaries. It reveals that attempts to strengthen Southern knowledge systems are forestalled by efforts that merely improve the supply of information rather than engaging with knowledge processes in their entirety, thus limiting their potential to promote improved development outcomes. Proxy measures of success are used that fail to challenge the typically neoliberal underpinnings of the dominant knowledge infrastructure. The author concludes that, if knowledge‐based development interventions are to be made more effective, K4D stakeholders need to find ways to engage not just with the supply but with the demand for information, as part of broader efforts to strengthen entire knowledge systems in ways that take account of concerns around hegemony.     

Combined pollen and macrofossil data as a source for reconstructing mosaic patterns of the early medieval urban habitats – a case study from Gdańsk,N. Poland

Plant macrofossils, pollen, fungal spores and other non-pollen palynomorphs (NPPs), were analyzed in three archaeological exposures established in a small area in the oldest part of the historic city of Gdańsk. One of the aims was to investigate how precisely the combined pollen and macrofossil data may reflect the diversity of local habitats within an urban archaeological site and to compare the range of information obtained using each of the methods separately. The other aim of the study was to reconstruct the environmental conditions in the earliest occupied area of the historic centre of Gdańsk. The repeatable composition and, in many points, consistency among pollen and macrofossil data in all three profiles strongly suggest that the apparently biased structure of these fossil remains in fact reflects a mosaic pattern of the vegetation in the area of the site. The combined pollen and macrofossil data enabled separation of local elements from those transported to the site by different means. The results show that already at the beginning of the 12th c., the area was almost totally deforested, but up to the mid-13th c. the settlement organization was still relatively loose, resembling a rather rural structure with well-developed ruderal plant communities and patches of semi-natural vegetation. At the coring area, strongly eutrophic riparian vegetation was bordering patches of dry grassland on a sandy holm. The large proportion of pollen of various entomophilous plants mostly from meadows and pastures is explained as a result of the presence of dung, as confirmed by the abundances of coprophilous fungal spores. The study indicates that parallel pollen and macrofossil analysis is essential for correct interpretation of fossil assemblages. Application of both methods enables broadening of the range of remains representing various organisms and obtaining more precise tools for environmental reconstruction and better understanding of the taphonomic processes at the archaeological site.     

Employment Deconcentration: A New Perspective on America's Postwar Urban Evolution

In this study we show that during the postwar era the United States experienced a decline in the share of urban employment accounted for by the relatively dense metropolitan areas and a corresponding rise in the share of relatively less dense ones. This trend, which we call employment deconcentration , is distinct from the other well–known regional trend, namely, the postwar movement of jobs and people from the frostbelt to the sunbelt. We also show that deconcentration has been accompanied by a similar trend within metropolitan areas, wherein employment share of the more dense sections of MSAs has declined and that of the less dense sections risen. We provide a general equilibrium model with density–driven congestion costs to suggest an explanation for employment deconcentration.     

Feminism,the false consciousness of neoliberal capitalism? Informalization,fundamentalism, and women in an Indian city

Neoliberal globalization produces complex terrains of gender exploitation, with – some feminists argue – contradictory impacts on women. On the one hand, it subjects more women to increasing domination and devalorization by capital; on the other hand, women often ‘work’ globalization in ‘enabling’ ways. Informal jobs are often preferred sites for crafting economic emancipation and breaking away from patriarchy at home. Another body of literature argues that the feminization of informalization does not dismantle androcentric, neoliberal capitalism; moreover, reading these moments as women ‘working’ globalization represents a co-optation of women. Using examples of the feminization of informalization and ethno-religious gender violence in Ahmedabad city, India, this article critiques the concept of co-optation and argues that ‘actually existing women’ forge complex negotiations in the context of diverse exploitation, which can be conceptualized better with Marxian and Gramscian notions of false consciousness. The article also contends that understanding false consciousness as an assemblage where gender, class, caste, and ethnicity intersect in myriad ways will create possibilities for resistance.     

Integration Processes in European Research and Development: A Comparative Spatial Interaction Approach Using Project Based Research and Development Networks,Co‐Patent Networks and Co‐Publication Networks

This study focuses on integration processes in European Research and Development (R&D) by analyzing the spatiotemporal dimension of three different R&D collaboration networks across Europe. The studied networks cover different types of knowledge creation, namely project‐based R&D networks within the European Union (EU) Framework Programmes (FPs), co‐patent networks, and co‐publication networks. Integration in European R&D—one of the main pillars of the EU Science Technology and Innovation policy—refers to the harmonization of fragmented national research systems across Europe and to the free movement of knowledge and researchers. The objective is to describe and compare spatiotemporal patterns at a regional level and to estimate the evolution of separation effects over the time period 1999–2006 that influence the probability of cross‐region collaborations in the distinct networks under consideration. The study adopts a spatial interaction modeling perspective, econometrically specifying a panel generalized linear model relationship, taking into account spatial autocorrelation among flows using eigenfunction spatial filtering methods. The results show that geographical factors are a lower hurdle for R&D collaborations in the FP networks than in co‐patent networks and co‐publication networks. Furthermore, it is shown that the geographical integration is higher in the FP network.     

‘English Vinglish’ and Bollywood: what is ‘new’ about the ‘new woman’?

Bollywood’s transnational mechanisms offer a unique space to study gendered subjectivity. My article studies a specific Bollywood movie, English Vinglish (2012) to draw out the profile of the ‘new woman.’ Persistently, I question the ‘new-ness’ to the construction of women when the ‘new’ reiterates the values of tradition, nation, and family. The ‘new’ seems to exist as a particular and unique transaction between local traditions and the global spread of populations that make limiting conceptions of woman, nation, or family, anomalies in a world propelled by expanding market needs and demands. The ‘new’ while offering possibilities for women, concomitantly carries different exclusions based on class, religion, language, and other identities. Understanding the formation of gender under contemporary conditions of transnationalism requires attentiveness to an insidious partnership of possibilities and exclusions that makes it simplistic to think in terms of progress or regress.