Discovering the invisible Puerto Rican slave family: demographic evidence from the eighteenth century

Traditional notions that family life among slaves during the pre-plantation period in the non-Hispanic Caribbean was necessarily unstable are fading in light of new research. Although marriage among this segment of the population in Caguas, Cayey, San Germán, and Yauco--rural parishes in Puerto Rico--involved only a fraction of the overall number of marriages in these communities, the marriage of slaves was much more frequent than previously assumed. Family life among the eighteenth-century Puerto Rican slave population appears to have been quite stable, as shown by the reconstruction of birth intervals for both married and unmarried mothers. Married and unmarried mothers exhibited similar reproductive behavior. These results strongly suggest that a majority of the unmarried slave mothers lived in unions that were not institutionally recognized, but that were nevertheless stable, as indicated by the high percentage of their children born at intervals comparable to those of married mothers. If unmarried mothers were living in stable consensual unions, then our understanding of these slave family units during the colonial period must be reassessed not only for Puerto Rico but possibly for the rest of the Caribbean and Latin America.     

Preparing for the afterlife: death,dying, and religious practice in eighteenth-century Puerto Rico

Every society possesses deeply rooted attitudes about death, yet much of what we know about the religious practices of ordinary people in colonial Latin America overlooks the way(s) in which people prepared for death and the afterlife. Sacramental records from eighteenth-century Puerto Rican communities provide insights into both religious elements and social aspects of death. The time period selected is important because new sensibilities toward death emerged in the late eighteenth century, with a movement away from elaborate status-affirming funerals toward the embracing of interiorized piety. This article uses sacramental records to examine reception of the last rites, funerary practices, and burial customs in eighteenth-century Puerto Rico. Three questions guide my inquiry: first, did reception of the last rites (penance, Eucharist, and anointing of the sick) decline in Puerto Rico and, if so, was this related to religious factors or demographic and socioeconomic ones as well; second, how successful were religious authorities in reshaping religious practices manifesting ‘baroque piety’ with a ‘more inward looking piety’: in peripheral areas of the Americas; and third, in what ways did burial customs reflect growing concern with the fear of Hell and time spent in purgatory?     

New institutionalism,critical junctures and post-crisis policy reform

Two accounts of change dominate with new institutional literature. The first emphasises ‘punctuated equilibria’ in which change is shock-driven, sudden and radical enough to loosen path dependencies. The second emphasises a more gradual-incrementalism and a view of change that is more or less constant. This article argues that neither account is suitable for the policy scholar interested in understanding the complexity of a post-crisis reform period and that a synthesis between these two views would better serve those interested in the nuance of post-crisis change. The article provides this synthesis in the form of a reconceptualization of the critical juncture. This reconceptualization merges the punctuated equilibrium and the gradual-incremental views and, in doing so, presents a much more realistic institutional account of the fine print of policy change post-crisis. The reconceptualization is subsequently justified empirically through the analysis of a specific post-crisis reform period (the Queensland floods of 2010–11).     

Monks on the move? An assessment of mobility at the medieval Nubian monastery of Ghazali,Sudan (ca. 680–1,275 CE)

The location of Ghazali monastery away from the Nile valley within the relatively isolated environs of the Bayuda desert presents a landscape suggestive of mobility toward the monastery by those who chose to reside there as monks. To assess this potentiality, a sample of 37 individuals from the monastic cemetery (Cemetery 2) were analysed for ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr and δ¹⁸O to assess residency during dental enamel formation. The data generated bring into question the nature of mobility to Ghazali monastery, particularly in regard to the potential movement of people from the Nile valley, adjacent desertic landscapes, and further afield.     

Citizen participation,community resilience and crisis-management policy

This article presents two arguments. The first relates to the relevance of citizen participation vis-à-vis the design and implementation of public policy. More specifically, the article empirically demonstrates how a model of community decentralisation can have a number of practical benefits for crisis-management policy. The second argument relates to a question that has come to characterise studies of citizen participation in public policy. Why is it that there is so much rhetoric in support of participation but so little action in terms of the day-to-day realities of policy implementation? We place this question in a crisis-management context so that we might ask: why is it that crisis-management systems built around the principles of community resilience continue to fail on these very grounds? We find our answer to this question in state-centric governance settings which devolve authority, but do not relinquish it.

本文提出两个观点。第一个观点涉及公民参与对于公共政策设计和实施的意义。具体地说,本文用实证的方法说明社区分权模式如何对危机管理政策产生一系列实际效益。第二个观点涉及公民参与公共政策的问题：为什么对公民参与口头上不吝支持,而日常政策的实施上却不见动静？这个问题可以放在危机管理的语境中重新提问：为什么围绕着社区弹性原则的危机管理体系仍以这样的理由失效？我们的答案是：以政府为中心的治理环境虽然转移但并未放弃权威。     

The Transition to History in Southeast Asia: An Introduction

Studies of the transition from prehistory to history in Southeast Asia have traditionally relied primarily on documentary sources, which tend to emphasize foreign influences, rather than on the archaeological record, which suggests a series of indigenous developments. The papers in this journal issue and the next discuss strategies for using both documentary and archaeological evidence to study the transition to history and the emergence of early states in the region. These papers investigate how political units were structured and integrated in Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, and South China, and illustrate how historical and archaeological data can cross-check each other to inform on Southeast Asian sociopolitical and economic developments during the early historic period.     

Current Issues in Ceramic Ethnoarchaeology

The last decade has seen a surge in ceramic ethnoarchaeological studies worldwide, covering such important topics as ceramic production, technological change, ceramic use and distribution, and social boundaries. Some of the most exciting new Americanist research helps archaeologists refine models of ceramic production. Increasing numbers of non-Americanist studies use a technology and culture framework to examine manufacturing variability, the dynamics of cultural transmission between generations, and the articulation between ceramic technology and social boundaries. This review summarizes these recent trends, places current ethnoarchaeological research in its theoretical contexts, and looks to the future of research in a dynamic landscape in which ceramic production systems are undergoing rapid change. Many varieties of research currently now fall under the rubric of ceramic ethnoarchaeology, and Americanist archaeologist are encouraged to look beyond their own regionalist and theoretical paradigms to consult this wider literature.