Le droit a l'adhyayana selon la Mīmāmsā

Summary This paper is a short survey of five Mmms authors - in chronological order, abara, Kumrila, Prabhkara, likantha, Prthsrathi Mira - in reference to the right (adhikra) of learning by heart the Veda (adhyayana). More or less explicitly, they dismiss it for the social class of the dra, and their gloss on the first stra of the dra is highlighted with the help of this view. The paper summarizes also a number of points raised by this complicated stra.     

Defining dreams: young mothers’ agency in constructions of space

Understanding young mothers’ emic, or insiders’, spatial experiences is critical to realizing how their agency manifests in constructing and producing spaces, as opposed to common images of them as passive, vulnerable women living in deprived neighbourhoods. Set in the shrinking region of Parkstad Limburg in the Netherlands, this article draws on in-depth interviews and long-term participant observation in order to explore which modalities of agency emerge from young mothers’ spatial engagements with their neighbourhoods and homes. This article contributes to greater diversity and more agentic representations of young mothers than commonly perceived, and to a nuanced understanding of agency. The findings reveal that these women are continually navigating the social, physical and economic–political dimensions of space, from which four modalities of agency emerge: (1) ‘adhering to norms’, (2) ‘defining dreams’, (3) ‘challenging rules’ and (4) ‘considering options’. Contrary to understandings within a dominant independence-oriented discourse of agency as taking subversive action, this article shows that agency occurs in tacit, routine spatial practices, whilst navigating through individual circumstances and sociospatial structures and norms.     

Detecting hidden violence: The spatial distribution of excess mortality in Rwanda

Existing sub-national studies on the geography of armed conflict mainly focus on observed battle events. Other dimensions of the conflict cycle, including battle events that remain undetected in news reports, one-sided violence against civilians and the indirect death toll, have gone largely unstudied due to lack of systematic data. This article demonstrates how these different dimensions of a conflict cycle can be detected and how their relative importance can be assessed. The basic tools include population census data, principal component analysis and spatial analysis. When applied to the Rwandan case, the method reveals high excess mortality from the civil war, genocide, (counter)insurgency and the refugee crisis. Hidden violence is detected by presenting the first quantitative evidence to date of high excess mortality in Gisenyi, the northwestern province which was the location of (counter)insurgency and served as a corridor for more than a million refugees. The spatial regression analysis indicates that both the refugee crisis and (counter)insurgency contributed to a high death toll in Gisenyi. This latter finding is important because it provides empirical weight in support of contentious qualitative reports by various human rights groups.     

Formation processes of desiccated and carbonized plant remains – the identification of routine practice

The taphonomic or formation processes of desiccated and carbonized plant remains are reviewed and compared. Both types of assemblage frequently consist of material of mixed origin, but despite a high degree of mixing, the various routes of entry are still identifiable, and it is concluded that archaeological plant assemblages are more robust than often assumed. Case studies where the accurate identification of the formation processes has been critical are examined and guidelines on how to assess the formation processes are presented. It is argued that the coherence of archaeobotanical assemblages is due to the fact that they represent day-to-day routine behavioural practices. As these routine practices are socially and culturally structured, the identification of formation processes of plant remains can help identify social and cultural behaviour and changes therein.