Cancer and contaminated food: Toxic uncertainties in western Kenya

During fieldwork on cancer in Kisumu, western Kenya, the author slowly began, like those around her, to ask questions about its location and its temporalities, its beginnings and endings, its boundaries and entanglements with toxicants. In this article, the author describes the landscapes of exposure that people in western Kenya associate with an increasingly visible cancer epidemic, including concerns based on partial and tentative knowledge about the toxicity of foods. Starting from conversations about cancer, home, food and toxicity, she moves towards livelihoods, economies and ecologies, and the food and agricultural systems in which these exposures and uncertainties are embedded.     

Investigating self-reported food allergy prevalence in Waterloo Region,Canada

While food allergy prevalence has been studied at the national level, we know little of food allergy prevalence or perceptions of prevalence/management at the local level. This paper uses Waterloo Region as a case study to 1) document self-reported individual and household food allergy and sensitivity prevalence at the local level; 2) investigate perceptions of food allergy prevalence; and 3) explore perceived confidence in anaphylaxis management. Survey data were collected from January to March 2019. Respondents (n = 500) self-reported individual and household food allergy and sensitivity, estimated the percentage of Canadians with food allergy, and were queried about their knowledge of food allergy management. Prevalence estimates were weighted to the structure of the 2016 Canadian Census, and univariate and bivariate analysis were conducted. Prevalence of self-reported food allergy was 12.1% (95%CI, 8.8%-15.3%), and prevalence of self-reported food sensitivity was 26.3% (95%CI, 21.9%-30.7%). When asked to estimate the percentage of Canadians with food allergy, the mean perceived percentage was 35.1% (SD = 22.96). Self-reported prevalence of food allergy appears higher in Waterloo Region, and the estimated percentage of Canadians with food allergy is inflated. Understanding prevalence and perceptions at the local level is important for targeted allocation of public health resources to ensure safe spaces for individuals with food allergy.     

Auguries of Hegemony: The Sex Omens of Mesopotamia

Ancient Mesopotamian scholars examined problematic aspects of male erotic desire within the discourse of divination. They documented an array of sexual acts, reading each as an omen, a sign signifying an aspect of the future. Guinan shows that the omens are informed by a coherent perspective and, in general, are concerned with the impact of erotic desire on notions of male identity and expectations of gender hierarchy. The omens oppose masculine hegemony and male/female eroticism in such a way that the denial of one is the assertion of the other. In these omens, masculine power and agency are both expressed and preserved by the disavowal of erotic interactions with women.     

Landlord villages of Iran as examples of political economy and materiality

SUMMARY: This paper uses a political economy framework to explore the role of external agents of change in Iran, and the impact of foreign trade during the 19th and 20th centuries, particularly with Russia and Britain. The results of an historical archaeology exploring landlord villages in the Tehran Plain are analysed here to show how the extremely long-lived landlord village form of land tenure and economic and social control offers a useful case study through which to approach an understanding of the impact of the political economy on rural populations of the period.