CONNECTING THE DOTS: TOWARDS ARCHAEOLOGICAL NETWORK ANALYSIS

In recent years network analysis has been applied in archaeological research to examine the structure of archaeological relationships of whatever sort. However, these archaeological applications share a number of issues concerning 1) the role of archaeological data in networks; 2) the diversity of network structures, their consequences and their interpretation; 3) the critical use of quantitative tools; and 4) the influence of other disciplines, especially sociology. This article concerns a deconstruction of past archaeological methods for examining networks. Through a case study of Roman table wares in the eastern Mediterranean, the article highlights a number of issues with network analysis as a method for archaeology. It urges caution regarding the uncritical application of network analysis methods developed in other disciplines and applied to archaeology. However, it stresses the potential benefits of network analysis for the archaeological discipline and acknowledges the need for specifically archaeological network analysis, which should be based on relational thinking and can be expanded with an archaeological toolset for quantitative analysis.     

Amnesty International in Crisis, 1966-7

During 1966, Amnesty International, which had been establishedin 1961 to campaign for the release of ‘prisoners of conscience’,was shaken by a severe internal crisis. It was alleged thatAmnesty had been penetrated by British Intelligence agents,and that it had channelled secret British government fundingto the families of political detainees in Rhodesia. Althoughthe organization survived the crisis, it resulted in the resignationof Amnesty’s founder Peter Benenson as President, andprovoked a re-evaluation of its operational methods. This articleoffers the first detailed account of this episode, drawing onhighly significant new archival and documentary sources.     

Sounding Gender(ed): Vocal performances in English university teaching spaces

Voices may tell many stories about the bodies that produce them, but their role in the authoring and reading of gendered and sexualised identities has been neglected. Work within linguistics on voices and gender has focused primarily on voice production and the role of anatomy, using quantitative measurements of vocal features and evaluations of 'disembodied', recorded voices in laboratory settings. Some commentators have argued that, within the constraints of vocal anatomy, voices are performed, in that speakers stylise their voices to some extent in order to cohere with gendered norms. Drawing on the work of linguists and other commentators, this article discusses voices as combinations of the physiological and the discursive. Using teaching spaces at universities in England as an example, it is argued that voices have a geography, being produced and interpreted in particular ways within these interactional spaces. Comments about staff and student voices in teaching spaces, derived from interviews with undergraduates at universities in the north of England, illustrate the importance of audiences. They demonstrate how voices are evaluated in conjunction with other elements of self-presentation, and how vocal performances of gender are read in close conjunction with the performance of instructor and student roles in these spaces. Interviewees also draw attention to problems that the vocal performance of heterosexual masculinity creates in these spaces, highlighting links between gendered and sexualised readings of voices. Drawing on the work of Judith Butler, the author concludes that voices should be regarded as a form of 'drag'.     

British government policy in sub-Saharan Africa under New Labour

British government policy in Africa under Labour has been motivated by a combination of humanitarianism and self-interest. The policy has been shaped principally by the Department for International Development (DFID), but also by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and by Prime Minister Tony Blair himself, as he has become more interested in Africa issues. The main focus of the policy has been on poverty reduction and development. The approach has been multi-dimensional, aiming to tackle the principal obstacles to development such as conflict, HIV, debt, governance and trade barriers. The UK has sought to increase its leverage in Africa by working multilaterally with its allies and through the UN, the World Bank and the EU. But the policy has been hampered by the inherent difficulty of promoting sound development policies in weak states, by a lack of UK leverage to affect change, and by a UK preference for statist solutions. Strategic and commercial objectives pursued by the FCO and the prime minister have sometimes appeared as being at odds with the developmental objectives of DFID. Post-9/11 concerns have reinforced the UK's motivation for dealing with Africa's problems, particularly the problems of weak and failed states. But western policies related to the war on terror may give rise to new contradictions and complicate the UK's developmental efforts in Africa.     

Indo-Arabian stone anchors in the western Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea

This paper describes the current state of knowledge in the study of Indo-Arabian stone anchors in the western Indian Ocean, Red Sea and Arabian Gulf, and speculates on what they may be able to tell us about the provenance, size and handling of Arab and Indian ships and shipping during the period sixth-sixteenth centuries AD.     

BEYOND THE OPPIDA: POLYFOCAL COMPLEXES AND LATE IRON AGE SOCIETIES IN SOUTHERN BRITAIN

Terms such as ‘oppida’ have often obscured how we understand the nature and role of the dyke complexes which emerged at the end of the Iron Age. Developing from recent research at the Late Iron Age complex of Bagendon in Gloucestershire, this paper argues that a group of such polyfocal complexes share common characteristics, most significantly a relationship with ‘banjo’ enclosures, as part of wider landscape constructs. The paper suggests that the topography and morphology of these complexes have important implications for understanding the role of these sites and the nature of social change in the Late Iron Age.     

4. TECHNOPOLITICS IN THE ARCHIVE: SOVEREIGNTY,RESEARCH, AND EVERYDAY LIFE

This article explores the place of the archive in the context of land claims research. This essay develops a critical approach to identity technopolitics with the aim of helping historians working with indigenous communities to ask new kinds of questions about the relationships and subject positions opened up by archivization and the myriad other technologies of land claims research. Since researchers first began preparing for the Canadian case, Delgamuukw’ and Gisday'wa v. The Queen, four decades ago, the immense stores of documentary evidence generated for the trial have given ground to numerous new claims and conflicts. Tracing the experiences of one prominent Gitxsan historical researcher who has leveraged his own archive and expertise to build genealogies for hundreds of individuals, I explore the intimate disappointments and impossible obligations that indigenous historians must mediate.     

MEGALITH SIZE AND THE IMPLICATIONS FOR OUR UNDERSTANDING OF CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY,WITH PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO CUMBRIA,NORTH‐WEST ENGLAND

The possibility that a comparison of the size of all stones in megalithic monuments might contribute to an understanding of the societies which built them is explored. Although a number of interpretational problems are recognized, the results appear meaningful. They show that there is no simple relationship between the diameter of a stone circle and the numbers of people involved in its construction, and that larger numbers contributed to the erection of some individual standing stones. Previous suggestions that individual families consisted of four to five active adults are supported.