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.     

Bushfires,Human Health Economics,and Pyrogeography

Bushfires (landscape fires) are a key Earth system process that affects humans and our societies and economies. In a recent article, we explored the coupling of humans to landscape fire through the lens of human health impacts of bushfire smoke. We noted that such an approach demands recognition of the indirect impacts and costs of bushfires that cannot be captured by simplistic proxies such as deaths directly attributable to a fire front. Evaluation of direct and indirect economic costs of bushfire disasters, and bushfire fire management remains a poorly developed research frontier that demands collaboration of expertise from a broad cross‐section of fields that often have limited experience of collaborating together. The need for such synthetic thinking about fire's place on Earth has spawned the discipline of pyrogeography.     

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.     

Flexing Femininity: Female body-builders refiguring 'the body'

This paper considers the built bodies of female body-builders and their training environments. Empirical findings suggest that place of training provides a material and discursive environment that reworks bodies in the feminine/masculine binary. However, the female body-builder works her body within this binary as well as beyond the acceptable feminine/masculine dualism. Three possible, non-exclusive, readings of female body-builders are offered. I argue that the specific materiality of female muscled (built) bodies provides the ground for contestation of the feminine/masculine binary as well as other binaries such as nature/culture, body/mind and sex/gender, thereby opening up new spaces to reconceptualise sexed bodies in geography. The ontological and socio-political status of female body-builders demands a refiguring of sexual difference.