“Protect the women!” Trans-exclusionary feminist issue framing and support for transgender rights

An increasingly salient policy innovation pursued by LGBT+ rights groups and socially liberal policy entrepreneurs is the right of trans people to bring their legally recorded sex in line with their lived gender by way of self-identification. In response to these moves toward trans inclusion, a unique coalition of trans-exclusionary (gender critical) feminists and traditionalist conservatives has emerged to challenge these reforms. This coalition of policy opponents, mirroring historical issue frames that present homosexuals as predatory sexual deviants, campaign on a salient issue frame that presents transgender individuals and the expansion of trans rights as an inimical threat to the security, safety, and welfare of (cisgender) women, particularly in single-sex spaces. In this paper, we address two questions. First, we ask: do trans-exclusionary “protect women” issue frames over the alleged threat of trans persons to (cis) women shape mass public opinion? Second, we ask: in a relatively LGBT+ friendly policy environment, who supports the right to self-identification for trans individuals? We answer these questions via an original pre-registered survey experiment embedded within the 2021 Scottish Election Study. We find that trans-exclusionary issue frames appealing to (cis) women's safety significantly depress support for trans rights, particularly among women respondents. Highlighting these concerns is an effective means of increasing already robust opposition to reforms designed to improve the welfare of transgender individuals, which should be of concern for proponents of self-identification policies.     

Selected Characteristics of Soviet Foreign Trade and Implications for the Foreign Trade of the Commonwealth of Independent States

This paper provides observations on recent patterns of the Soviet Union's foreign trade in the context of factor endowment trade theory and two models drawn from the new trade theory. Empirical analysis indicates that recent Soviet foreign trade was not based on differing factor intensities between Soviet goods and the those of the rest of the world. Instead, the recent geography of Soviet foreign trade suggests that it conformed more to the trade in differentiated products expected under the new trade theory. These results suggest that Soviet foreign trade had developed in such a way that, at least with respect to merchandise trade, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) has a strong potential for fairly rapid integration within the group of industrial countries.     

Picking up the Pieces: Goa's endangered traditional craft

Three sewn boats surveyed in 1838 are used to evaluate traditional Goan sewn craft. Types additional to those recorded in the 19th century were located during fieldwork. The West Coast provided an abundance of raw materials exported to countries which lacked them; unknown is the extent of the export of local expertise. A consistency of sewing methods, materials, waterproofing, and antifouling are evidence for an indigenous boatbuilding tradition. In Goan pirogues the weight of the crew and nets is carried at the level of the sheer‐strake seam. In prehistory large pirogues of Goan type could have made long‐distance voyages using an outrigger to confer stability. To date archaeological evidence is lacking.     

Rebranding the State: Uganda's Strategic Use of the International Criminal Court

When governments invite the International Criminal Court (ICC) to conduct investigations within their own borders, they seem to indicate acceptance of global norms of accountability for wartime atrocities. The first of these self‐referrals came from Uganda, whose government requested investigation into its conflict with the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), a conflict within which it, too, committed large‐scale human rights violations. This article argues that Uganda used the ICC to help solve a problem faced by many of the world's least powerful states, whose domestic politics are often structured through patron–client networks. Their rulers need to distribute basic state resources, including physical protection, to loyal clients without alienating donors who demand provision of these same resources by right to all citizens. By inviting external scrutiny and manipulating the investigative process, the Ugandan government received an international seal of approval for practices that the ICC would normally punish. This strategy has system‐wide consequences in that repeated mislabelling of rights violations as compliant with international norms causes the meaning of compliance to become incoherent, and norms are less able to constrain the behaviour of all states in the long run.     

Quantifying woodland resource usage and selection from Neolithic to post Mediaeval times in the Irish Midlands

The antiquity and context (site or feature type) are the two principal factors that act as a framework for interpreting charcoal and wood data from archaeological sites in the recreation of past woodland environments. This research addresses these parameters through the analysis of over 18,000 charcoal fragments from 57 archaeological excavations carried out along a 61?km road scheme in the midland region of Ireland. Observations on spatial vegetation dynamics and woodland resource patterns are also reported on. The data were analysed through percentage frequency and multivariate analyses. The results reveal woodland resource usage in terms of wood types selected for use as fuel or as structural wood as well as patterns of change and variability in taxonomic composition in relation to site types, feature types and time periods. Selection was found to be low in prehistoric times and in particular at burnt mound sites/fulachta fiadh but became increasingly important as time progressed. This has important implications when charcoal from archaeological settings is used in environmental reconstructions.     

The Mesolithic–Neolithic Transition in the Channel Islands: Maritime and Terrestrial Perspectives

This paper investigates the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition in the Channel Islands. It presents a new synthesis of all known evidence from the islands c.5000–4300 bc , including several new excavations as well as find‐spot sites that have not previously been collated. It also summarizes – in English – a large body of contemporary material from north‐west France. The paper presents a new high‐resolution sea‐level model for the region, shedding light on the formation of the Channel Islands from 9000–4000 bc . Through comparison with contemporary sites in mainland France, an argument is made suggesting that incoming migrants from the mainland and the small indigenous population of the islands were both involved in the transition. It is also argued that, as a result of the fact the Channel Islands witnessed a very different trajectory of change from that seen in Britain and Ireland c.5000–3500 bc , this small group of islands has a great deal to tell us about the arrival of the Neolithic more widely.     

A Forest of Contradictions: Producing the Landscapes of the Scottish Highlands

While total global forest cover is decreasing, in many parts of the world forests are on the rebound. Uncritical examinations of this phenomenon credit the benign diffusion of capitalist development for this "forest transition." More critical readings of this question—including green Marxian and poststructuralist approaches—might conclude something very different, however. In this paper, we explore the question of expanding forest cover, using the case of the Scottish Highlands, where forestland has tripled since the 1920s, in an attempt to critically explain regional land–cover change. Drawing upon historical sources and Scottish Executive and Forestry Commission data, we examine the specific environments currently forming in the Highlands under conditions of economic change. We conclude that two divergent forestry practices and ecologies have been formed in the wake of economic restructuring: those geared towards industrial production and those targeted at consumption through ecotourism. We conclude, therefore, that capitalism's spatial fix to declining industrial power in the region is an inherently ecological one that takes the form of "schizophrenic forestry," in which forest expansion leads to the rise of degraded monocultures alongside "pristine" sites of conservation.     

Modelling land use around an early Neolithic timber ‘hall’ in north east Scotland from high spatial resolution pollen analyses

A methodology is described by which spatial patterns of land use were reconstructed from pollen analyses on anthropogenic sediments at a recently excavated early Neolithic timber ‘hall’ in north east Scotland. The anthropogenic sediments were from a deep, small diameter pit within the building. They present numerous taphonomic and interpretative challenges to the analyst, but from this type of deposit, the power to estimate quantitatively the vegetation structure around the archaeological site makes such difficult deposits very significant. A rigorous methodology is firstly described, therefore, by which confidence in ecological interpretation can be established. Secondly, the source of pollen in the deposit is evaluated. Thirdly, the possible pollen source area and structure of the surrounding vegetation are estimated by quantitative simulation modelling. Finally, these analyses are compared with region-scale pollen analyses from nearby conventional wetland deposits with much larger pollen source areas. The pollen assemblages recovered probably reflect land uses adjacent to the ‘hall’ and up to 2.5 km around. Cereal cultivation was the most important land use immediately around the ‘hall’, possibly grown between stands of scrub Corylus (hazel) woodland. These intensive but local-scale land uses cannot be discerned in region-scale pollen analyses.