Adaptive strategies or ideological innovations? Interpreting sociopolitical developments in the Jequetepeque Valley of Peru during the Late Moche Period

Environmental perturbations and social unrest are thought to have led to the reconstitution of traditional belief systems and hierarchical political relations on Peru’s North Coast during the Late Moche Period (550–800 AD). Ideological transformations are thus commonly interpreted as adaptive or reactive responses to social, political, and ecological disruptions. Nevertheless, religious practices directly shaped the formation of alternative power structures and ecological systems on the North Coast during the Late Moche Period. This is especially evident in Late Moche Jequetepeque, which witnessed the proliferation of non-elite ceremonial sites and small-scale agricultural facilities throughout the rural hinterland of the valley. Moche-inspired ritual performances orchestrated in the countryside created distinctive new forms of political order which structured economic activities and ecological behavior. In this article, the Jequetepeque case study is mobilized to reassess normative interpretations of the role of religious ideology in cultural adaptation and sociopolitical realignment.     

高中思想政治课生活化教学初探

生活化教学是高中思想政治新课程所倡导的一种教学模式,通过实施生活化教学,使师生的课堂生活更加丰满,充盈学生生活经历,丰富学生情感体验,为学生的可持续发展奠定良好的基础。     

Thomas Mann und Luther

At the center of Sophocles’ Antigone is a struggle to reconcile personal beliefs with the needs or dictates of society. At no time is such a struggle more relevant than in periods of war, so it is not surprising that new adaptations of Antigone cluster around periods of armed conflict, whether between nations or within a single nation itself. In Luis Rafael Sánchez’s The Passion of Antígona Pérez (1968)—the subject of this essay—the nation or territory in question is one not typically featured in Western anthologies of drama: Puerto Rico, in the troubled possession of the United States.     

Taking center stage: Early modern women’s tragedies on the contemporary stage

Abstract

From wife murder to cloak-and-dagger plays, female bodies, minds, and financial status are, for the most part, disempowered and abused by male protagonists with societal compliance. Since the 2000s, coinciding with the approval of the Ley Integral contra la Violencia de Género (2004), a wave of stage adaptations emerged in Spain that questioned the marginalization of women characters in the comedia. I claim that this trend in performance has become a sociocultural phenomenon that uses the symbolic capital of the comedia to raise awareness of women’s misrepresentation and gender violence and inequality.     

让高中语文课堂成为学习的乐园

如何才能让语文课堂充满激情,绽放出生命的光彩,进发出智慧的火花,使课堂成为学生向往的乐园？笔者认为,语文教学应添点“油”,加点“醋”,让其“五味俱全”。这样,语文课堂才会独具魅力,充满生命活力。     

Post-colonial heritage conservation in Africa: perspectives from drystone wall restorations at Khami World Heritage site,Zimbabwe

Abstract

Before colonialism, heritage sites such as Khami were considered resting places for ancestors, valued more for the spirit of place than their monumentality. In this context, local custodians hardly intervened with the fabric of the site. With the introduction of modern conservation principles, which persist to this day, vegetation control and wall restorations became part of routine conservation measures. This paper discusses drystone wall restorations carried out at Khami between 2000 and 2015 focusing on the disjuncture between indigenous and local concepts of heritage, concerned with access and preserving the spirit of ancestors, and ‘western’ principles of restoration. It argues that while ignoring the structural disintegration of Khami would have resulted in possible delisting from the World Heritage List, the ‘neglect’ which Khami experienced was in tandem with its local social context; being a resting place for ancestors. While the reconstructions interfered with an acceptable physical context of local beliefs, restorations maintained the integrity of the site as a tourist destination with positive local economic benefits. Although compromises are by their nature unsatisfactory, modern heritage conservation in Africa must adapt and improvise to achieve a mix of local and international practices to reflect changed and changing realities.     

Ambivalent desires: State formation and dispossession in the face of climate crisis

In this paper, we analyze the politics, experiences and dynamics of state formation in a particular context of climate crisis. Through the study of the implementation of state-led adaptation and mitigation projects in two rural localities of northern Colombia, we interrogate the ways in which these interventions shape the everyday lives of those who happen to be located in the targeted areas. We found that, in spite of the different goals and particular configurations of the adaptation and mitigation interventions, these climate projects engendered the same contradiction. They promised a resilient and environmentally sound future, but the path towards that future has not been available to everyone. Furthermore, we show that the subjects of climate interventions do not embrace state promises in the same way. Local expectations, desires and engagement with the state are ambivalent and heterogeneous, and cannot be taken as a given. This paper develops these ideas by way of three arguments. First, we argue that exclusion, dispossession and marginality are inherent to the promises of climate mitigation and adaptation in the cases we study in the Colombian Caribbean. Secondly, the goals of state-led adaptation and mitigation programs we study are at odds with the material and social conditions of the areas of implementation. And thirdly, paying attention to the dynamics of state formation in the Colombian Caribbean in relation to climate change challenges common binaries opposing state absence/presence, failure/success, and retreat/return.