Exploring the associations between cooling centre accessibility and marginalization in Montreal,Toronto, and Vancouver,Canada

Cooling centres provide respite, safety, and social support during extreme heat events for populations that do not have the resources to own or operate in-home air conditioning. The objective of this study was to measure the spatial accessibility of cooling centres and analyze the associations between cooling centre access and marginalization in Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver, Canada. The potential spatial accessibility of cooling centres within a 15-minute walk was measured at the dissemination area scale using the two-step floating catchment area method. A two-stage modelling approach was used to analyze the associations between cooling centre access and marginalization. Approximately 62%, 58%, and 54% of the populations in Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver had access to at least one cooling centre. In Montreal and Vancouver, high marginalization areas were more likely to have cooling centre access than low marginalization areas. Of the areas with cooling centre access, smaller access scores were observed in areas with high residential instability. Approximately one-fifth of the areas in each city had no cooling centre access and high marginalization, and may be considered for future cooling centres or programs that improve accessibility to existing centres.     

Resisting the sacred canopy over U.S. ways of war

This article explores the “omnipotent sacrificial sacred canopy” in US war-culture. I argue that sacrificial linguistic habits and patterns of logic in the US successfully discipline citizens, such that the violence of our current wars remains mystified, and clear analysis of the wars' true costs is disabled. Rather than attempt to arrive at one universal theory of sacrifice to analyze and better understand sacrificial US war-culture, I demonstrate that diverse theoretical methods of analysis better help us to understand the pluralistic nuances and permutations of these smothering dynamics. I further argue that increased awareness of the sacrificial sacred canopy over war and militarism in the US finally must lead to self-examination on the part of Christians regarding the way in which sacrificial civil religious admonishments regarding war merge with and are mutually reinforced by theological and ecclesial soteriological habits of Christians in the US Lastly, I advocate a two-fold approach for addressing this disturbing and destructive reality in the nation.     

Ceramic Production and Interaction in the Northern Range of Trinidad

Regional syntheses based on data recovered mostly from outside of the Northern Range have characterized the mountainous region in northern Trinidad as a boundary between two distinct interaction spheres during the Early Ceramic Age (ca. AD 350–650/800) (Boomert 2000 Boomert, A. 2000. Trinidad, Tobago and the Lower Orinoco interaction Sphere: An Archaeological/Ethnohistorical Study. Alkmaar: Cairi Publications. [Google Scholar]). Changes occurring on Trinidad, other islands of the southern Lesser Antilles, and the South American mainland resulted in the disintegration of these earlier style zones during the final centuries of the Early Ceramic (Boomert 2000 Boomert, A. 2000. Trinidad, Tobago and the Lower Orinoco interaction Sphere: An Archaeological/Ethnohistorical Study. Alkmaar: Cairi Publications. [Google Scholar], 2010). This period of Late Ceramic cultural realignment was characterized by climate change, the renegotiation of political and social networks, and demographic transformations. We consider newly recovered ceramic evidence from the central Northern Range in order to evaluate the characterization of the region as a boundary and the region's role in broader Caribbean trends. We examine participation in interaction spheres to provide a more nuanced understanding of regional dynamics as they were expressed locally. Ceramic data indicate that occupants of the central Northern Range interpreted regional styles using locally derived materials, thus simultaneously engaging regional traditions and constructing local patterns of resource exploitation.     

广州榄园岭遗址先民祭祀遗迹的炭屑和植硅体分析

祭祀是先民生活的重要组成部分之一。尽管贵族祭祀活动的研究较多,但平民祭祀遗迹却由于发现较少而难以深入分析。广州榄园岭遗址春秋时期墓葬群中发现了越文化中常见的碎物祭祀坑。本研究对若干墓葬和相关祭祀坑中的填土开展了炭屑和植硅体分析。结果表明,先民在祭祀坑中有意燃烧过植物类祭品;用作祭品的植物种类较杂,包含扇型、棒型、方型或刺球型等植硅体。结合其他遗址中出现的类似现象,榄园岭先民的祭祀活动,应是在因地制宜、就地取材的基础上,吸收了苗蛮文化的因素,同时影响了其他地区。这一发现为探索先秦古人的祭祀行为提供了丰富信息;此外,炭屑和植硅体分析为确定祭祀遗迹提供了新的研究范式。     

南宋川陕战区兵力部署的失衡与吴曦之变

南宋在川陕战区兵力部署中,基于战略防御和节制武将的考虑,形成兴州、金州、兴元府三大屯驻重心。在具体兵力分布上,由于吴氏武将集团的影响,兴州驻军的数量与实力最为强大,呈现出严重的失衡状态。兴州驻军力量过于强大是吴曦据兴州叛变的关键因素。吴曦叛变平定后,南宋对兴州军事力量予以分化,又导致兵力分散和不利于边疆防御的弊端,体现出南宋削弱地方军事力量与加强边疆防御的两难困境。川陕战区兵力部署的演变,蕴涵着南宋加强中央集权的真实内容。     

Digging Deep for Justice: A Radical Re-imagination of the Artisanal Gold Mining Sector in Ghana

Abstract:  This article explores the concept of "contact zones" to counteract misrecognition and exclusion in the artisanal gold mining sector of Ghana. The large majority of the 300,000–500,000 Ghanaian artisanal miners work without an official license, illegally. Due to their encroachment on corporate concession lands, the use of toxic mercury in the gold extraction process, and the social disruption caused by their migratory activities, these miners are often marginalized and criminalized. Yet, devaluation and misrecognition hamper environmental stewardship and participation in political decision-making. Through parity-fostering participatory research, I propose a radical re-imagination of the sector that encourages agency and flourishing among these ostracized men and women diggers.     

“If I were hungry,I would not tell you” (Ps 50, 12): Perspectives on the Care and Feeding of the Gods in the Hebrew Bible

Abstract

In the Hebrew Bible, sacrifices are described as food for Yahweh and thus the sacrificial system corresponds with the general Ancient Near Eastern system of the “care and feeding of the gods” At the same time, human-divine commensality is problematized in narrative texts such as Judges 6 and 13, where the burnt offering is stressed as the only and necessarily different way the deity may consume food. Finally, some passages, such as Psalm 50, quoted above, explicitly reject the notion that sacrifices and offerings should be required as sustenance for Yahweh since he is the creator and owner of the world and everything in it.

This article offers a survey of various views on sacrifice as food for the deity in the Hebrew Bible and discusses these views in their Ancient Near Eastern context. It is suggested that the main understanding of sacrifice as meal in the Hebrew Bible is one that emphasizes difference through commensality and stresses the incompatibility of the human and the divine sphere through the social locus of the meal.     

Inferring attitudes from behavior

Abstract

The Middle East has long been a conflict zone; the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has been a persistent factor for decades, and there have been wars over natural resources, ideological causes, and national or religious cleavages as well. How does a historian begin to compile a documentary record of such a struggle? At the beginning of my research stay in the Middle East in 2007, I decided to keep a diary about my experiences and assessments in the field. In this article, I recount and reflect about those experiences in order to propose potential solutions to the problem of on-site research in unstable areas. While field research generally requires a particular kind of preparation, and always faces obstacles and challenges, the success of fieldwork under difficult and hostile research settings is dependent on the skills of the researcher, and his or her ability and preparedness for the problems the nature of the research inevitably will bring forward.     

Experimental territoriality: Assembling the Kaesong Industrial Complex in North Korea

This paper examines the interactions of sovereignty and political economy that shape North Korea's Kaesong Industrial Complex (KIC)—an economic zone jointly operated by North and South Korea. Drawing on contemporary literatures concerning sovereignty, territoriality, and sites of political economic experimentation in East Asia, we argue that the KIC represents an experimental form of territoriality: one that is particularly volatile due to its unique geopolitical location where interaction among the various actors that compose it periodically shuts down or threatens to suspend the project. This volatility cannot be reduced to the structure of the North Korean regime alone, however. Rather, it must be situated within the continuation of a framework of enmity on the Korean peninsula as well as the ethical and political conundrums raised by the largely capitalist nature of the KIC as a form of inter-Korean economic cooperation.