Rethinking the place of emotions in the field through social laboratories

The insights of feminist science and technology studies (STS) into the constructed and situated nature of knowledge have proved crucial to informing feminist geography. Since the rise of emotional geographies, feminist methodologies no longer simply reflect on questions of positionality, partiality, and power relations, but also on the role of emotions in the field. In this article, we argue that a feminist STS perspective has much to offer when thinking about the way emotions are engineered, controlled, and negotiated in research processes. Our engagement with what we call ‘social laboratories’ – i.e., spaces in everyday life where (experimental) research is conducted with human beings – advances debates in feminist geography, as these laboratories crystallize the emotional entanglements feminists encounter in the field. Looking at economic experiments in Ghana and fertility clinics in Mexico, we discuss the difficulties of doing feminist fieldwork in these experimental research spaces. We argue that the constant negotiation of emotions and ethics is crucial to access, assess, and do fieldwork in research settings that do not adhere to feminist ideals, but nevertheless have gendered effects on women's and men's lives. Rethinking ‘the place of emotions in research’ (Bondi 2005, in Emotional Geographies, edited by Joyce Davidson, Liz Bondi, and Mick Smith, 231–246, Aldershot: Ashgate) through social laboratories forges instructive links across feminist/emotional geographies and social studies of science.     

Stable carbon- and nitrogen-isotope ratios and electron spin resonance (ESR) g-values of charred bones: changes with heating and a critical evaluation of the utility of g-values for reconstructing thermal history and original isotope ratios

Changes in the stable carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios of modern bone samples heated to a variety of times and temperatures were used to determine the effect of heating on isotope ratios and the retention of organic matter in charred bones. For organic extracts produced by slow demineralization in weak acid, δ¹³C values were unchanged, while δ¹⁵N values increased by up to 5‰ and were primarily determined by heating temperature. Changes in the electron spin resonance (ESR) g-value of whole bone and organic extracts were also measured. For organic extracts from charred bones, the g-value was well-correlated with δ¹⁵N and temperature, suggesting that g-values could be used to estimate the charring temperature and original δ¹⁵N values of charred bones. Thus, g-values from demineralized extracts could be very useful in forensic investigations where it would important to reconstruct the thermal history of burned bones. Isotope ratios and g-values of demineralized extracts from four prehistoric components at three sites that produced cremated human bone were used to test whether the same approach can be applied to archaeological materials. While carbon isotope ratios of the prehistoric samples were similar to those of uncharred specimens, nitrogen isotope ratios were increased and the g-value corrections for nitrogen isotope ratios were not effective.     

Timing the Neolithic transition: the application of fluoride dating at Tell Halula,Syria

The study of Near Eastern Neolithic villages provides a unique means of tracing subsistence strategy, population growth, health, and emerging social inequality associated with agricultural origins. However, disentangling these patterns requires a detailed comprehension of the chronological placement of individual households in the site. In this paper, we present a test to determine the reliability and applicability of the fluoride dating method (a relative dating method) on human dentition of 40 samples from 28 Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (or PPNB) burials from the site of Tell Halula, in Syria. This method, applied here for the first time on a Neolithic Near East case study, is an alternative when other dating methods, like radiocarbon dates, do not provide the required temporal resolution to address particular research problems. Nonetheless, the results obtained in the fluoride analysis show how both the age at death of individuals, and the integrity of the burial plug enormously affect the amount of fluoride absorbed by teeth, so that only a small subset of the full dataset was suitable for fluoride dating. Although the distribution of fluoride values of dentine from the small sample of burials from suitable contexts matches the expected chronology, and corroborates the hypothesis that the occupation at Halula extends from the Middle to the Late PPNB, our analysis illustrates the need for a better understanding of the different sources of error in fluoride dating to improve the method itself, and to obtain more reliable fluoride chronologies.     

The Upper Mississippian Occupation at the Collier Lodge Site (12PR36): Ceramics and Chronology on the Eastern Edge of Oneota

The Upper Mississippian Fisher/Huber occupations of northwestern Indiana are part of the easternmost extension of Oneota. Excavations at the Collier Lodge site (12PR36) found 18 Upper Mississippian features from a seasonal encampment on the edge of the Kankakee Marsh. The ceramic assemblage and radiocarbon dates indicate the site was created during the late fifteenth century, placing it in the northwestern Indiana temporal sequence between the previously known Fifield site occupation and the Huber phase component at the Griesmer site. The ceramic decorative elements include relatively low proportions of medium trailing and cordmarking, with higher proportions of wide trailing and smooth surfaces, suggesting a very late pre-Huber occupation (fine trailing is virtually absent). The assemblage could also reflect a Late Fisher occupation followed after a short period of time by a terminal Fisher/early Huber occupation. Oneota sites in northwestern Indiana appear to have been relatively rare, widely distributed, small, and seasonal.     

Introduction

This editorial theorizes the emotional entanglements that constitute spaces of fieldwork. Drawing on Sara Ahmed's notion of sticky and circulating emotions, we develop the concept of emotional entanglements as a way to engage with the methodological implications of the emotional turn in geographic research. Beyond providing empirical evidence for research on emotional geographies, we argue that an attention to emotions in fieldwork has the potential to reinvigorate feminist practices of reflexivity and positionality. In addition, a critical engagement with emotions can offer novel epistemological techniques for studying the politics of knowledge production and the landscapes of power in which we, as researchers, are embedded. As the papers of this themed section demonstrate, analysis of emotional entanglements in research pose critical questions with regard to power relations, research ethics and the well-being of research participants and researchers alike. They also make visible how the power relations of sexism, racism, capitalism, nationalism and imperialism permeate and constitute the emotional spaces of the field. We use the notion of emotional entanglements as a way to situate the five articles of the themed section and to highlight the contribution of each paper to debates about the emotional field.     

Genes, language, and culture: an example from the tarim basin

Summary. The Tarim Basin ‘mummies’ of western China continue to fascinate scholars and the general public alike due to their ‘Caucasoid’ features, well‐preserved material culture, and putative ‘European’ origins. However, there have been some uncritical efforts to link these archaeological cultures to those of other ancient Eurasian groups (e.g. the Celts) by applying syllogistic reasoning to multi‐disciplinary evidence. In an attempt to provide a more cautious synthesis of the prehistory of the Tarim Basin, this paper will briefly summarize the archaeological, physical, and linguistic evidence that has been used to model human settlement of this region. These data will then be related to recent molecular anthropology research on modern populations of Central Asia, focusing especially on the Uighur in relation to their neighbours. While the genetic history of the modern peoples of a particular region is not necessarily related to their prehistoric antecedents, it is argued that the Tarim Basin experienced a surprising cultural and biological continuity despite immigration from both east and west into Xinjiang Province. This conclusion has a number of possible political ramifications in the present day that must be addressed in future literature on the subject.     

Who Deserves Solidarity? Unequal Treatment of Immigrants in Swiss Welfare Policy Delivery

Rising immigration rates in Western Europe concur with increasing anti‐immigrant attitudes. While assessments of welfare eligibility in the United States demonstrably hinge on how public servants perceive different racial groups as deserving, we know less about ethnically motivated discrimination in the European context. This paper argues that Switzerland is a critical case for studying such developments. It combines social construction theory and the deservingness heuristic to analyze how social constructions of Swiss natives and immigrants influence 90 disability benefits insurance procedures. Findings reveal that immigrants are perceived as less deserving and less powerful than Swiss applicants. Thus, Swiss welfare workers do not allocate welfare benefits independently of an applicant's nationality. Our results raise fundamental questions about the equal treatment of welfare applicants in times of rising immigration and anti‐immigrant attitudes. The feed‐forward effects of social constructions imply longer‐term consequences for good administrative practices and society that require scholarly attention.