The development of the longbow in late medieval England and ‘technological determinism’

Traditional understandings of the development of the medieval English longbow and its role in the fourteenth-century ‘infantry revolution’ have recently been challenged by historians. This article responds to the revisionists, arguing based on archaeological, iconographic and textual evidence that the proper longbow was a weapon of extraordinary power, and was qualitatively different from – and more effective than – the shorter self-bows that were the norm in England (and western Europe generally) before the fourteenth century. It is further argued that acknowledging the importance of the weapon as a necessary element of any credible explanation of English military successes in the era of the Hundred Years War does not constitute ‘technological determinism’.     

Java's forgotten pearls: the history and disappearance of pearl fishing in the Segara Anakan lagoon, South Java, Indonesia

Pearls have been a valued resource in most cultures that had access to them. A number of historically important pearling grounds were situated in the waters around today's Indonesia. One of these areas, now largely forgotten, was the Segara Anakan lagoon in South Java. In the seventeenth century, Dutch colonists exploited the lagoon's pearls. Afterwards, the lagoon's oysters were locally exploited as a food item until the late 1970s. While the pearl fishery attracted considerable attention in the colonial literature, its disappearance, by contrast, went largely undocumented. Nowadays, the oysters no longer are found in the lagoon as a result of extensive sedimentation processes. Their former existence is only preserved in the memory of local people. This article examines the history and fate of the pearls of Segara Anakan, providing an example of a formerly valued species whose existence simply became forgotten outside the area.     

Island Biocultural Assemblages — The Case of Kinmen Island

ABSTRACT A growing mass of research contributes to our understanding of how biological and cultural diversity are related in complex and important ways. This paper presents an assembling process of biodiversity and cultural diversity on an island, Kin‐men (Quemoy), based on 1600 years of its environmental history. The study shows that the island's biocultural assemblages are a result both of external relations with the island's surrounding environment and internal relations within the island's changing human ecology. Distant political powers and economic forces are the two major external influences that have affected the flow of natural and cultural elements to and from the island, while ‘screening effects’ and ‘isolation effects’ are two factors that explain internal interactions. The island's biocultural assembling processes reveal that the openness of the island facilitates increase in the diversity of biocultural elements, while its less disturbed isolated condition fosters natural succession and co‐evolution. The study suggests that biocultural assemblages and the associated processes of co‐evolution and nature–society interactions are accomplished through the intermittent opportunities purposively provided by or inadvertently found in the openings and closures of boundaries, setting the scene for both boundary crossings and bounded shelter, by intent or chance.     

MORE THAN MEETS THE FACT: THE UNIVERSALITY OF HISTORY AND THE COLONIAL MEDIATION

This article examines how mediation is not just limited to the format that's selected to convey the findings of previously conducted research that supposedly followed the conventional protocols of the historical discipline. Rather, it considers mediation as a fundamental part of building historical knowledge, for it assumes that every part of the historiographical operation can be defined as “mediation.” Specifically, it deals with colonial historical mediation, a concept that refers to the combination of an overt or concealed agenda, intentional or unnoticed bias, commonsense assumptions, inherited academic and political traditions, conceptual constellations, and more or less informed theoretical beliefs that configure the subtext upon which historical explanation is built, particularly in Latin America.     

Rediscovering regional science: Positioning the field's evolving location in science and society

This study aims to provide a comprehensive examination of the evolution of regional science, a scholarly domain in the social sciences that applies analytical and quantitative approaches and methods to understand and address urban, rural, or regional problems. We conducted a bibliometric analysis of 8509 articles published in six regional science flagship journals (including the Journal of Regional Science, Annals of Regional Science, Regional Science and Urban Economics, Papers in Regional Science, Regional Science Policy and Practice, and International Regional Science Review) from 1958 to 2021. The analysis presents an objective data-driven and unprecedented visualization of the field's intellectual, social, and conceptual structure and trends from the beginning to the present. It also provides a rich portrayal of the epistemology of regional science and illuminates matters related to regional science education and training. We find that regional science has moved well beyond its origins, shifting away from a heavy focus on theory and abstraction to modeling/simulation, empirical analysis, and policy research. We also find that there has been increasing attention to “people” in regions and the spatial characteristics of social problems, and some important shifts in the regional science community itself, particularly in terms of patterns of collaboration and the geography of scholarship. The findings of this paper provide implications for future directions of research and education for regional science.     

Of Market Vendors and Waste Collectors: Labour,Informality, and Aesthetics in the Era of World-Class City Making

A growing literature demonstrates the significance of aesthetics within processes of world-class city making, as decisions about who gets to live and work in the city are increasingly made on the basis of codes of appearance. However, less attention has been paid to how such codes are (re)produced and (re)directed by informal workers and their organisations in everyday practice. Drawing upon a multisided ethnography in Kampala and Delhi, this paper explores the ways in which market vendors and waste collectors have responded to the proliferation of three aesthetic technologies: the identity card, the uniform, and the code of conduct. We show that workers have appropriated these technologies in creative ways in order to defend their livelihoods against the threat of displacement. However, this act of appropriation has come at the cost of the exclusion of the more vulnerable workers, who now find their activities policed not only by the state but also by a range of non-state organisations. These findings contribute to debates on labour organisation and world-class city making by demonstrating the ways in which aesthetic rationalities emerge through an encounter with the tactics of everyday life.     

Current archaeological research in the Middle Atlantic region of the eastern united states

A major theme of current archaeological research in the Middle Atlantic region of Eastern North America is the recognition of cultural variability across space and through time. The most significant culture change experienced during the entire time frame of regional prehistory occurred ca. 5000 B.P., when there were major changes in regional environments. Before 5000 B.P., adaptations were characterized by small groups of mobile hunters and gatherers. After 5000 B.P., there were continued growth in regional populations and increases in sedentism, intensive use of a limited range of food resources, social group size, and social complexity.     

The coming of age of the history of archaeology

Publications and organizational developments relating to the history of archaeology from 1989 until June 1993 are critically examined. Attention is paid to the changing motivations for producing such publications, their shifting intellectual orientation, controversies, especially as they relate to internal vs external approaches and the epistemological status of explanations, problems of verification, and the status of these studies as a subfield within archaeology.     

Discourse on the Docks: Containerization and Inter-Union Work Disputes in US Ports, 1955–85

Research on labour markets has often focused on the economics of work location. Far less attention has been paid to how labour markets are constructed discursively. In this paper, I analyse how the creation of rival discourses concerning traditions of work were central elements in the efforts of two unions to structure local labour markets, in order to retain work for their members in the face of technological innovation. The struggle between the two unions centred on their abilities to construct rival discourses concerning the historical geography of work in the industry. These formed the basis for judicial interpretations concerning whether the actions of the dockers' union represented a legal work preservation action or an illegal work acquisition measure. Such interpretations shaped the subsequent evolution of work and labour markets in the industry. The ability of economic actors to shape discourse in their favour can be a powerful force in the regulation of local labour markets, and thus in the production of economic landscapes.