Local meetings and meeting places in early medieval León

This article explores the written evidence for local meetings and meeting places in early medieval León between the tenth and early eleventh centuries. It considers the functions of local meetings, as well as the role they played in the negotiation of social relations within the localities. The analysis of meeting places – among which churches feature prominently in the record – provides further insight into the ways in which links between the localities and the overarching social and political framework developed, and reveals the different forces that could lead to the institutionalization of local meetings.     

Feminicide as ‘act’ and ‘process’: a geography of gendered violence in Oaxaca

Feminicide in Mexico is most notoriously associated with the serial deaths of women in and around Ciudad Juárez. A 2005 congressional investigation expanded, nonetheless, the geographical scope of feminicide, arguing that the phenomenon was present throughout the country. One location that was identified early on as also experiencing a high rate of feminicide was the state of Oaxaca, in the southern part of Mexico. Inscribed within this shifting geopolitical terrain, this article draws on an understanding of feminicide as both act and process in order to offer a critical portrayal of feminicide in Oaxaca. Beginning with a discussion of the profiles of feminicide in Oaxaca, the analysis moves out to explore the multifaceted processes that enable feminicide to occur. In so doing, we also explore how feminicide intertwines with other forms of social and political violence in Oaxaca. From an ethical-moral terrain, this article joins a broader movement in certain corners of feminist geography that is concerned with ‘making bodies count’ and the politics of witnessing acts of violence.     

Cooking Pots and Islamicization in the Early Medieval Vega of Granada (Al‐Andalus,Sixth to Twelfth Centuries)

In this paper we undertake a petrographic analysis of cooking wares in order to explore the relationship between cultural change and issues of production, consumption and distribution of cooking wares, and particularly between political authority and the location of workshops in the early Islamic Vega of Granada, a region in south‐eastern Spain. This work offers the possibility of testing the potential of thin section petrography in combination with a detailed archaeological study and a well‐documented historical background. Examination of both the technology and microprovenance of wares within the Vega has led to a fruitful set of results with an important impact on our understanding of the place of ceramic material culture on both the local and the regional scale.