Empirical Futures Baca, George; Khan, Aisha; Palmi, Stephan
12/2009
eBook
Since the 1950s, anthropologist Sidney W. Mintz has been at the forefront of efforts to integrate the disciplines of anthropology and history. Author ofSweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in ...Modern Historyand other groundbreaking works, he was one of the first scholars to anticipate and critique "globalization studies." However, a strong tradition of epistemologically sophisticated and theoretically informed empiricism of the sort advanced by Mintz has yet to become a cornerstone of contemporary anthropological scholarship. This collection of essays by leading anthropologists and historians serves as an intervention that rests on Mintz's rigorously historicist ethnographic work, which has long predicted the methodological crisis in anthropology today.Contributors to this volume build on Mintzean interdisciplinarity to provide productive ways to theorize the everyday life of local groups and communities, nation-states, and regions and the interconnections among them. Consisting of theoretical and case studies of Latin America, North America, the Caribbean, and Papua New Guinea,Empirical Futuresdemonstrates how Mintzean perspectives advance our understanding of the relationship among empirical approaches, the uses of ethnographic and historical data and theory-building, and the study of these from both local and global vantage points.Contributors:George Baca, Goucher CollegeFrederick Cooper, New York UniversityVirginia R. Dominguez, University of IllinoisFrederick Errington, Trinity CollegeDeborah Gewertz, Amherst CollegeJuan Giusti-Cordero, University of Puerto Rico at Rio PiedrasAisha Khan, New York UniversitySamuel Martinez, University of ConnecticutStephan Palmie, University of ChicagoJane Schneider, City University of New York Graduate CenterRebecca J. Scott, University of Michigan
We deployed a dense geodetic and seismological network in the Atacama seismic gap in Chile. We derive a microseismicity catalog of >30,000 events, time series from 70 GNSS stations, and utilize a ...transdimensional Bayesian inversion to estimate interplate locking. We identify two highly locked regions of different sizes whose geometries appear to control seismicity patterns. Interface seismicity concentrates beneath the coastline, just downdip of the highest locking. A region with lower locking (27.5°S–27.7°S) coincides with higher seismicity levels, a high number of repeating earthquakes and events extending toward the trench. This area is situated where the Copiapó Ridge is subducted and has shown previous indications of both seismic and aseismic slip, including an earthquake sequence in 2020. While these findings suggest that the structure of the downgoing oceanic plate prescribes patterns of interplate locking and seismicity, we note that the Taltal Ridge further north lacks a similar signature.
Plain Language Summary
Deformation along plate boundaries can occur seismically (i.e. through earthquakes) as well as aseismically (i.e. slipping slowly), and it is important to understand where each of these modes is dominant. Along the Chilean subduction contact, North‐Central Chile is the only place where aseismic deformation episodes have been observed so far. In order to study these processes in detail, we deployed and operated dense geodetic and seismological networks in this region. Analyzing the data collected by these networks, we find notable relationships between seismic and aseismic processes. Thousands of small earthquakes are found at the boundaries of locked regions, whereas no small earthquakes are found at their interior. Thus, implying such regions are mechanically coupled, that is, currently accumulating elastic deformation energy that will 1 day be released during a large earthquake. Along the North‐Central Chilean plate boundary, there is one region (around 27.5°S) that shows many signs of aseismic deformation. It is located where a chain of seamounts is being subducted, which is likely responsible for the different behavior of this segment.
Key Points
Microseismicity catalog and map of interplate locking derived for the Atacama 1922 seismic gap in North‐Central Chile
Seismicity in vicinity of plate interface coincides with downdip edge of high coupling
Seismo‐geodetic signals due to the subduction of the Copiapó ridge are prominent but negligible for the subducting Taltal Ridge
In early 1922, in the wake of a global depression followed by rapidly deteriorating labour and economic conditions, several thousand white mine workers on the Witwatersrand in the Union of South ...Africa went on strike. These miners armed and organised themselves into commandos and took to the streets. During the opening phases of the unrest, these paramilitary units clashed with the South African Police. By the beginning of March, the strikes transformed into a violent insurrection with railway workers also joining its ranks after negotiations between the mine workers, mine owners, and the government failed and new militant leadership assumed command. As chaos and disorder engulfed large tracts of the Johannesburg goldfields and levels of violence assumed new proportions, the state's legitimacy increasingly came under threat. In response, martial law was declared, and elements of the Union Defence Force were deployed to quell the so-called 1922 Rand Revolt. Historically unaccustomed to urban warfare and without an appropriate doctrine, the defence force became involved in several high-intensity urban counterinsurgency operations against the strike commandos. Drawing from a variety of archival material, this article investigates the combat operations undertaken by the UDF to suppress the 1922 Rand Revolt.
In October 1920, 15 American women arrived in Plymouth, England, to take part in the first transatlantic field hockey tour. Three more exchanges between the nations would take place before the end of ...the decade, and an Irish team also visited the US in 1925. English physical educationalists had introduced field hockey to America in the late-1890s and numerous physical training college graduates were employed by US colleges to teach the game prior to World War One. But demand for British coaches grew exponentially after the Americans' tour and the subsequent visit to the US of an All England Women's Hockey Association (AEWHA) team in October 1921. After the United States Field Hockey Association (USFHA) was formed in January 1922, one of the first things it did was ask the AEWHA to source suitably qualified coaches to travel to the US. Eight women were selected and would play a pivotal role in not only exchanging sporting knowledge, but also in fostering the friendships and comradery that would influence field hockey's development globally in the interwar period.
This paper revisits Walter Benjamin’s unpublished “Announcement of the Journal Angelus Novus,” one of relatively few texts Benjamin is known to have written in 1922, European modernism’s widely ...recognized annus mirabilis. The announcement followed numerous, transformative essays and fragments of 1921 and was written alongside his dissertation on The Concept of Criticism in German Romanticism, encompassing a pivotal moment in Benjamin’s philosophical maturation. Heralding the new, never realized journal, the announcement articulates what might be deemed “the task of the editor,” which it describes as a quest for “philosophical universality”. The Angelus Novus journal would proceed form the fact of modern social discontinuities toward the elaboration of universal philosophical truths through the criticism of literary works. This paper reconsiders Benjamin’s editorial ambitions as part of his individual philosophical development and within a broader context of “total modernism,” discussing the announcement’s continued relevance for our contemporary world.
As we approach Justice Lionel Murphy's 100th birthday on 30 August 2022, this article explores and renews a significant aspect in the jurisprudence of this truly radical judge: the social relations ...or progressive view of property. Justice Murphy both identified and judicially expounded this view well before the American social relations or progressive schools. And rather than merely identifying it as some intellectual museum piece, the article also builds on it. The article contains five parts. Part I contextualises the jurisprudential debates surrounding property. Part II recounts Justice Murphy's judicial radicalism. Part III explores the elements of Murphy's progressive-relational view of property. Part IV applies the elements of Murphy's progressive-relational property to the High Court's recent native title decision in 'Northern Territory v Griffiths' (Ngaliwurru and Nungali Peoples). Part V offers some concluding reflections on the bright future for property found in Murphy's conception.
•Ruiz and Madariaga (2018) could have made a better use of global catalogues•References to data providers should always be included•the Centennial Catalogue is supplanted by the newer ISC-GEM ...Catalogue
Eliezer Ben-Yehuda’s newspapers, HaZvi and HaOr, played a meaningful role in reconstructing renascent Hebrew culture. They emphasized a secular-national perspective on the Jewish festivals, including ...Hanukka. This festival was portrayed as one of national liberation, relying selectively on Jewish sources demonstrating that the Hasmonaeans’ struggle freed the Jews from the yoke of Greek rule in the Land of Israel. In line with this approach, the religious narrative of Hanukka, centering on the miracle of the cruse of oil and the rededication of the Temple, was muted.
Ben-Yehuda defined the Hasmonaeans as “wonderful, holy national heroes.” Accordingly, the words Hanukka, Hasmonaeans, Matityahu, Modi’im, Judah Maccabi, and Jonathan were thought to be “sacred” and revered in the new cultural order. Ben-Yehuda—who went to great lengths to stir public affection for this festival—judged Hanukka to be “the festival that has become the most beloved among us in recent years.” He portrayed its heroes as sources of consolation for the terrible paucity of Jewish heroism in the modern era. Consequently, his newspapers wished not only to report the news but to inculcate positive sentiment for the holiday among readers, manifested in admiration for the heroes of antiquity and delight in the festive atmosphere of the holiday’s resurgent form.
Schoolchildren and preschoolers were central in the meaningful national ritual that evolved on the basis of Hanukka, one that brought together local celebratory traditions, performances, and plays that included elements harvested from the symbols and lore of the festival. The content of those modern events reflected the shift of emphasis from the theological plane to the national one, as Ben-Yehuda engineered it—a transition that his press dealt with comprehensively. Thus, reportage about Hanukka events was perceived more as coverage of real happenings than an attempt to advocate for a new national agenda.
