What is settler colonialism? An anthropological meditation on frantz fanon's "concerning violence"

There has been a tendency in anthropology to read Frantz Fanon referentially, reflectively and phenomenologically. As a consequence, his analyses have been regarded as reductive and simplistic. Promoted here is a relational, reflexive and historical reading of his essay "Concerning Violence" that forms the basis for an alternative deconstructive and political critique to current anthropological studies of colonial discourses reliant on epistemologically based critiques. The intent is to consider some of the effects generated by the use of unexamined concepts and typologies. In particular, this deonstructive and political critique, in significant measure made possible by Fanon's oeuvre, is applied to the concept of "settler colonialism" as used in the discipline over the last three decades via texts as diverse as those of Leo Kuper, David Prochaska and Patrick Wolfe.     

评蒙古帝国衰亡对蒙古社会发展的影响

成吉思汗建立了蒙古帝国,以千户制巩固了统治,国土横跨欧亚。至忽必烈在中原大地建立了蒙元王朝。１３６８年元朝灭亡后,众多蒙古人返回蒙古本土,与当地统治者发生权力斗争。蒙古本土也因无法为骤然增多的人口提供给养而导致经济崩溃。蒙古人不断侵扰明朝边境,迫使永乐皇帝率兵亲征,更加剧了蒙古困难局面。重建蒙古强力政权的努力一再破产。直至达延可汗,蒙古再现生机。     

Local sustainability initiatives: innovation and civic engagement in societal experiments

ABSTRACT

Local sustainability initiatives are studied from two scholarly perspectives: the perspective of sociotechnical innovation, which relates to the capacity of bottom-up initiatives to contribute to the development of sociotechnical alternatives; and the perspective of civic engagement which relates to the capacity of citizens to organize themselves in order to pursue community goals. This paper argues that taking both these perspectives into account overcomes the problem of being too instrumental or the problem of neglecting the role of technology and innovation in local initiatives. The perspective of sociotechnical innovation presents different types of innovation pursued by local initiatives: the creation of new technology, the application of existing technology and the development of social innovation. Furthermore, innovations might diffuse over wider society by: replication, scaling up, and translation. In turn, civic engagement may take the shape of: the strengthening of social capital, the formation of social movements, and the substitution of functions and services. The insights from literature are illustrated and qualified by applying them in the context of concrete local initiatives. Finally, local initiatives will be portrayed as social contexts that are successful in gathering actors with different motivations and world views and that may contribute to the democratization of innovation.     

Osteopathological findings in mummified baboons from ancient Egypt

We present the pathological findings in a historic population of 82 baboon mummies recovered from the animal sanctuary of Tuna-el-Gebel in Egypt, in which we were able to demonstrate a high prevalence of disease. In almost 20 per cent of the baboons, signs were present of chronic malnutrition causing bowing and shortening of the long bones. A further 15 per cent of the animals revealed features of chronic joint or vertebral deformities suggesting poor living conditions in their cages. There were three cases of post-traumatic fractures, three of haematogenous osteomyelitis, one individual showed osteoporosis and one hyperostosis of the scapula of uncertain origin. Additionally, we found one tumour of the pelvic bones with features, which might be attributable to an aggressive osteoblastoma or an osteosarcoma. Our findings clearly demonstrate the high rate of bone abnormalities and the wide spectrum of diseases encountered in Egyptian baboon mummies. These observations contribute significantly to our understanding of the life of ancient Egyptian baboons and particularly to their living conditions.