Insurgent Building: Spatial Practices of Resistance in the Bedouin-State Conflict in Southern Israel

In the con?ict between Bedouin representatives and government authorities in the southern Israeli Negev, the term ‘insurgent building’ refers to the construction of buildings erected in the full expectation that they will be demolished by the Israeli police shortly thereafter. This article analyses how insurgent building is employed as a spatial practice by emerging political actors to claim contested Bedouin landownership. Importantly, insurgent building relies on the ability of media and advocacy organizations to mobilize behind the issue. Most of the relevant scholarship takes the interpretative categories advanced by these actors at face value. Following anthropological debates regarding objecti?cation and categorization, I examine the context of a speci?c case of insurgent building. Emerging political actors who employ insurgent building often rely on prede?ned ethnic categories and clear-cut people–state polarities. This case demonstrates the need for a more differentiated understanding of multilayered local dynamics than the one offered by mainstream linear interpretations. At a more abstract level, political actors contribute to the reproduction of the very categories against which they mobilize.

A Probe-Goal Approach to Agreement and Incorporation Restrictions in Southern Tiwa

Southern Tiwa (Tanoan) exhibits agreement with up to three arguments (ergative, absolutive, dative). This agreement is subject to certain restrictions resembling the Person-Case Constraint paradigm (Bonet 1991). Moreover, there is a correlation between agreement restrictions and conditions on (the obviation of) noun-incorporation in Southern Tiwa, as explicitly and elegantly captured by Rosen (1990) in terms of a heterogeneous feature hierarchy and rules of association. We attempt to recast Rosen’s central insights in terms of Anagnostopoulou’s probe-sharing model of Person-Case Constraint effects (Anagnostopoulou 2003, 2006), to show that the full range of Southern Tiwa agreement and (non-)incorporation restrictions can be given a single, unified analysis within the probe-goal-Agree framework of Chomsky (2001). In particular, we argue that Southern Tiwa’s triple-agreement system is characterized by (a) an independent class probe located on the heads T and v, and (b) a rule that allows this class probe to be deleted in the context of local-person T-agreement. The various restrictions on agreement and non-incorporation then reduce to a single source: failure of class-valuation with DP (as opposed to NP) arguments.

Le origini di Gubbio (Gubbio, Italy):The origins of Gubbio

6 month exhibition in Palazzo dei Consoli, Gubbio consisting of major archaeological discoveries and c.250 objects+ text and photographs.

Review of: Whitehouse, R. 1993 Underground Religion: cult and culture in prehistoric Italy. Accordia Specialist Studies on Italy 1. London, University of London.

Malone , C., . Antiquity, 1993. 67(256): p. 686-7.

The Greek Debt Crisis and Southern Europe: Majoritarian Pitfalls?

Although widely debated in broader socioeconomic terms, the Eurozone crisis has not received adequate scholarly attention with regards to the impact of alternative political systems. This article revisits the debate on majoritarian and consensus democracies drawing on recent evidence from the Eurozone debacle. Greece is particularly interesting both with regards to its potential ‘global spillover effects’ and choice of political system. Despite facing comparable challenges as Portugal and Spain, the country has become polarized socially and politically, seeing a record number of MP defections, electoral volatility and the rise of the militant extreme right. The article explains why Greece, the country that relied most extensively on majoritarian institutions, entered the global financial crisis in the most vulnerable position while subsequently faced insurmountable political and institutional obstacles in its management. The article points to the paradox of majoritarianism: in times of economic stress, the first ‘casualties’ are its strongest elements – centrist parties (bi-partisanship) and cabinet stability.

Italy's got talent. How Italian leading companies in confectionery industry overcame the crisis

The crisis that spread worldwide since 2007 started from the financial sector and ended to affect also real economy. This process has attracted the attention of many scholars seeking to study its causes and impacts. Notwithstanding many works on this topic, the impact of the crisis on specific industries is still rather unexplored. The present work seeks to address this issue by analyzing the confectionery industry, with particular emphasis for Italian market leaders, Ferrero S.p.A. and Perfetti Van Melle S.r.l.. The aim of the study is to assess if they have been successful in tackling the crisis, keeping a satisfactory level of profitability associated to a good financial health notwithstanding ongoing difficulties. Moreover, we seek to analyze the strategies the companies employed to survive the crisis. The concern of the paper is both quantitative and qualitative. Thus, we calculated a complete set of indicators using a specific methodology for financial statement analysis which has been conceived especially for studying Italian firms; these data have been integrated with other information retrieved from the annual reports of the companies (especially the notes to the accounts and the directors’ report). The analysis highlights that both the firms benefit from a good financial health, with Perfetti Van Melle presenting a large amount of liquidity. On the contrary, liquidity should be the main concern of Ferrero because of an excessive reliance on current liabilities. Both the firms have a good level of profitability, even if Perfetti Van Melle’s one is decreasing. The key-strategies for the success of these firms are ongoing investments in state-of-the-art plant and machinery, an increasing use of equity as the main source of funding, along with huge investments in research and advertising.

Malthusian Dynamics in a Diverging Europe: Northern Italy, 1650–1881

Recent empirical research questions the validity of using Malthusian theory in preindustrial England. Using real wage and vital rate data for the years 1650–1881, I provide empirical estimates for a different region: Northern Italy. The empirical methodology is theoretically underpinned by a simple Malthusian model, in which population, real wages, and vital rates are determined endogenously. My findings strongly support the existence of a Malthusian economy wherein population growth decreased living standards, which in turn influenced vital rates. However, these results also demonstrate how the system is best characterized as one of weak homeostasis. Furthermore, there is no evidence of Boserupian effects given that increases in population failed to spur any sustained technological progress.

A Late Pleistocene record of climate and environmental change from the northern and southern Kelabit Highlands of Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo

A late Pleistocene vegetation record is presented, using multi-proxy analysis from three palaeochannels in the northern (Bario) and southern (Pa'Dalih) Kelabit Highlands of Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo. Before 50 000 cal a BP and until approximate to 47 700 cal a BP [marine isotope stage 3 (MIS3)], two of the sites were probably being influenced by energetic fluvial deposition, possibly associated with strong seasonality. Fluvial activity declines between 47 700 and 30 000 cal a BP (MIS3), and may be associated with a reduction in seasonality with overall stability in precipitation. The pollen record between 47 700 and 30 000 cal a BP generally shows much higher representation of upper-montane taxa compared with the Holocene, indicating often significantly reduced temperatures. After 35 000-30 000 cal a BP and until the mid-Holocene, hiatuses appear in two of the records, which could be linked to fluvial down-cutting during the late/mid Holocene. Despite the jump in ages, a pronounced representation of Ericaceae and upper-montane taxa, represented both at Bario and at Pa'Dalih, corresponds to a further lowering of temperatures during the Last Glacial Maximum (MIS2). Thick charcoal bands in the PDH 210 record also suggest periods of extreme aridity between 30 200 and 12 700 cal a BP. This is followed by energetic fluvial deposition of sands and gravels, and may reflect a significant increase in seasonality.

Stable Isotope Dietary Analysis of Prehistoric Populations from the Minusinsk Basin, Southern Siberia, Russia: A new chronological framework for the introduction of millet to the eastern Eurasian steppe

We report the results of stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis of 354 human and faunal samples from five archaeological cultures of the Minusinsk Basin, Southern Siberia – Afanasyevo, Okunevo, Andronovo, Karasuk and Tagar (ca. 2700–1 BC) – a key location in Eurasia due to its position on a northern corridor linking China and central Eurasia. The results indicate that the diet of Eneolithic to Middle Bronze Age (Afanasyevo to Andronovo) populations was primarily C3-based, with C4 plants only becoming an important component of the diet in the Late Bronze Age Karasuk and Early Iron Age Tagar cultures. Freshwater fish seems to have been an important constituent of the diets in all groups. The findings constitute the earliest concrete evidence for the substantial use of millet in the eastern Eurasian steppe. We propose that it was probably introduced from Northwestern China during the Karasuk culture at the start of the Late Bronze Age, ca. 1500 BC. We conclude with a discussion of the implications for the nature of pastoralist economies on the steppes.

Enforcing Employment Discrimination Law - Potential Transplants from Italy to Britain and Vice Versa?

While substantive EU non-discrimination law has been harmonized in great detail, the enforcement regime for EU non-discrimination law consists merely of a few isolated elements. Thus, the pursuit of unity through harmonization in substantive EU law is accompanied by considerable regulatory autonomy for Member States in securing the efficiency of those laws, reflecting the diversity of national enforcement regimes, and resulting in twenty-seven different national models for enforcing discrimination law in labour markets. This article pursues two connected arguments through a comparison of rules for enforcing non-discrimination law in labour markets in Britain and Italy. First, it argues that enforcing non-discrimination law in labour markets is best achieved when responsive governance, repressive regulation and mainstreaming equality law are combined. Second, the article submits that diversity of national legal orders within the EU is not necessarily detrimental, as it offers opportunities for mutual learning across legal systems.The notion of mutual learning across systems is proposed in order to analyse the transnational migration of legal ideas within the EU. Such migration has been criticized in debates about the ‘transplantation’ of legal concepts or legal irritation through foreign legal ideas, in particular by comparative labour lawyers. However, EU harmonization policies in the field of non-discrimination law aim to impact on national labour laws. The article develops the notion of mutual learning across legal systems in order to establish conditions for transnational migration of legal ideas, and demonstrates the viability of these concepts by applying them to the field of non-discrimination law