Being from the Land: Memory,Self and the Power of Place in Indigenous Southern Chile

Connection with ancestral land is a central tenet of indigenous identity claims. In a departure from constructivist approaches to the role ancestral land in identity politics, this article focuses on the discursive and experiential manifestations of Mapuche theories of emplacement, according to which land is actively involved in the making of selves. By drawing upon the notion of tuwün, a term roughly translatable as place of origin, I argue that ancestral land acts as a potentiality of selfhood through the articulation of sameness and otherness within Mapuche society and with canonical others (winka). The ethnographic analysis of the relation between landscape and memory will illustrate how ancestral land works to situate the present between two poles of alterity, namely past dwellers and winka. Such a focus allows us to acknowledge the significance of ancestral land without resorting to genealogical and essentialist interpretations of indigenous subjectivity.     

Indigenous in the city: the politics of urban Mapuche identity in Chile

In this article, I analyse how urban Mapuche indigenous organizations in Chile conduct politics, both externally in relation to the state and internally in relation to other Mapuches. I suggest that the state creates the context for their politics through enacting centuries of policies that put Mapuche identity ‘under siege’. My analysis shows that urban Mapuche organizations respond to this context in three central ways. Some organizations refuse the moniker ‘urban’ and are temporarily urban. Others embrace their urbanity and are adamantly urban. Still others try to overcome the rural-urban divide to become reconciled urban. Each of these strategies deploys ideas of authenticity in different ways, opening possibilities for different kinds of political alliances. My research argues that when the stakes are high for claiming a racial or ethnic identity, choosing which aspects of identity on which to base political demands has profound political consequences.     

Searching for Guarantees in the Midst of Uncertainty: Negotiating Aboriginal Rights and Title in British Columbia

In this article, I analyze the concern over the concept of "certainty" in relation to Aboriginal rights, treaties, and economic prosperity in the province of British Columbia, Canada. In the context of treaty negotiations in British Columbia, certainty requires that the Aboriginal rights of a First Nation be legally transformed into a set of treaty rights. This transformation moves these rights from a state of "uncertainty" to a state in which they are "certain," and is said to encourage investment in resource industries like forestry and mining. I argue that treaty negotiations are a form of governmentality that helps regulate a population, mediates between Aboriginal-rights claims and the demands of global capital, and produces effects of state sovereignty. I also argue that the focus on undefined Aboriginal rights as the source of economic uncertainty fails to acknowledge the lack of certainty inherent within capitalism.     

New concepts in the law of the sea

Abstract

Current ocean law negotiations reflect conflicts between two old and competing approaches: the view that the coastal state should control activities in any large adjacent ocean area, and the view that most of the ocean should be left open to the free use of all nations. Both approaches are laissez‐faire, leave the distribution of benefits to arbitrary factors, and are based on national exclusivity. In the negotiations this conflict is exhibited in competing claims regarding navigation, mineral resources, fishing, environmental protection, and strategic uses. A possible resolution has emerged in the concept of the whole ocean as a common resource of humankind, according to which no individual state has a right to benefit from the ocean except pursuant to arrangements sanctioned by the community, and rights to benefit are determined not arbitrarily but by membership in the community. The regime now likeliest to be produced by such an approach includes (1) a narrow territorial sea and various navigation guarantees, (2) a wide coastal band coupling coastal state managerial functions with permanent international prerogatives, and (3) purely international manage‐ment of the deep seabed.     

Traditional Mapuche ecological knowledge in Patagonia,Argentina: fishes and other living beings inhabiting continental waters,as a reflection of processes of change

Background

Understanding how people interpret environmental change and develop practices in response to such change is essential to comprehend human resource use. In the cosmology of the American indigenous peoples, as among the Mapuche people, freshwater systems are considered a living entity, where animals have an enormous role to play in the universe of meaning. However, human adaptive responses to freshwater system dynamics are scarcely examined. In this work a survey is carried out in three Mapuche communities of Argentine Patagonia to assess their traditional knowledge of the fishes and other non-human living beings that inhabit lakes and rivers. Both material and symbolic aspects are included, as are the differences in knowledge and use of the fishes between past and present times.

Methods

Our methods were based on a quali-quantitative fieldwork approach. In-depth interviews were carried out with 36 individuals from three rural Mapuche populations in Neuquén province (Patagonia, Argentina). Free listing was used for inquiring about fish knowledge and use. Fishes were identified scientifically and ethnotaxonomically. In-depth analysis of the discourses was conducted, documenting the recognition, perception, and cultural significance of fluvial environments and their inhabitants. Quantitative survey results were analyzed with categorical statistical methods.

Results

The body of knowledge of the communities studied reflects the socio-environmental changes experienced by Patagonian freshwater bodies. According to local perception, non-human beings live in these water bodies, guarding the environment, and they should not be disturbed. At present, five different fish species are identified, three of which are exotic, having been introduced at the beginning of the 20th century by the white man. These exotic trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss and Salvelinus fontinalis) are considered ill omens, indicators of the white man’s presence, and therefore their appearance presages negative events for the families. In addition, we found that Mapuche people differentiate fish species mainly by morphological, organoleptic and ecological attributes. Current consumption of fish by Mapuche communities is sporadic, in accordance with bibliography and ancient tales. Several fishing tools are used, including modern elements.

Conclusions

Our data enable us to characterise dynamic traditional knowledge in these communities, which is flexible in nature and adaptable to new situations, demonstrated by the incorporation not only of new species but also new fishing tools. It also seems that new significances become absorbed in synchrony with the advance or arrival of exotic and invasive species. For the Mapuche, the presence of the white man heralded by exotic trouts speaks of how a recent event, such as the introduction of the salmonids, is already incorporated into Mapuche symbolism. Mapuche traditional knowledge and cosmovision on the use of fish and waters, a vision which promotes respect and the avoidance of actions that could disturb the beings (animals and sacred or mythological characters) that inhabit and take care of them should be fostered as part of management plans of regional natural resources. This paper contributes to the broader literature on freshwater resource management by providing empirical evidence of the critical role of local perceptions in promoting the sustainable management of natural resources.

     

Marine scientific research under emerging ocean law

Abstract

The traditional “fifth freedom”; of the high seas—freedom of scientific research—has been considerably eroded by recent coastal state claims to 200‐mile offshore zones. Insofar as these claims include competence to regulate marine scientific research, they are about to be endorsed in the adoption of a new Law of the Sea Convention by the Third U.N. Conference on the Law of the Sea. The author assesses the significance of the claims and examines the features of the “consent regime”; established through the negotiations at the Conference.     

The Extractive Imperative in Populous Indigenous Territories: The Shuar,Copper Mining,and Environmental Injustices in the Ecuadorian Amazon

During the past three decades, mines have increased in number at the same time that indigenous populations have grown in size and acquired more land. The intersection of these two trends suggests that, increasingly, mining companies have tried to exploit mineral deposits on lands populated and controlled by indigenous peoples. These ventures touched off conflicts between organized indigenous peoples and state supported miners. The copper mining controversy in the Ecuadorian Amazon exemplifies this pattern. Legacies from earlier mestizo land invasions in the form of active NGOs and an extensive land base made Shuar resistance to the mines much more likely. Increasingly assertive national political leaders, pursuing an extractive imperative, reinforced the miners’ efforts to extract copper from deposits near Shuar settlements. To reduce the probability of violent conflict between these parties, indigenous people should have a seat at the table when negotiations between the mining companies and the state occur.     

Science,sovereignty, and the third law of the Sea Conference

Abstract

The international law of marine scientific research is currently in flux. Efforts are under way at the Third Law of the Sea Conference to produce a treaty that, among other things, would make the law of research more uniform and certain. Sortie areas of disagreement certainly still exist in the Conference negotiations. Nonetheless, the negotiations have produced proposed treaty provisions concerning the law of research that have met with substantial approval. At this point, it does not appear likely that the Conference will produce major alterations in the main body of these provisions. These proposed treaty provisions indicate the future direction the law of research will take. Even if a workable treaty does not result from the negotiations, these provisions will undoubtedly inform customary international law. This article examines both the areas of agreement and the areas of disagreement at the Third Law of the Sea Conference in an effort to understand the probable future legal regime under which marine scientific research will be conducted.     

Recreated practices by Mapuche women that strengthen place identity in new urban spaces of residence in Santiago,Chile

The phenomenon of migration to cities by indigenous Mapuche people of Chile is associated with various consequences, such as the loss of ethnic identity and cultural practices. This study aims to describe how ethnic identity is maintained through the recreation of ancestral cultural practices that Mapuche women promote in their families, generating identification to new spaces of residence. This qualitative research draws on analyses of forty-eight interviews conducted with twelve families from four neighbourhoods in Santiago. The study reveals ways in which key traditional Mapuche practices are translated and recreated through the processes of place-referent continuity and place-congruent continuity in new urban areas of residence which in turn express variant forms of ethnic identity and everyday politics of care that extend beyond folkloric notions of rural indigeneity and more static political ideologies of ethno-national autonomy.     

Creating Difference: A Contemporary Affiliation Drama in the Highlands of New Guinea

Issues of affiliation to groups, important in Papua New Guinea Highlands ethnography during the 1960s and 1970s, have since been overshadowed by other analytical concerns. But the issues have never gone away and they resound clearly in the life of people there, who are dealing with situations of rapid change that make the crafting of affiliations problematic and strategically important. We examine a case in which an affiliation event was staged in order to mediate between inter-ethnic claims on a child and to refurbish practices of securing these claims in the absence of brideprice payments or virilocal residence. The analysis points out how transactions that the actors engaged in fell ambiguously between the categories of gift and commodity, and how ties of nurturance and food-giving continue to play a crucial part in representations and negotiations. At the core of the event was the extent to which the parties involved shared in the understandings of the event at hand. This underlines the fact that transactions and meanings are always inextricably liinked together. Strategies ar made meaningfully and meanings are made strategically.     

Mutual Gains and Distributive Ideologies in South Africa: Theorizing Negotiations between Communities and Protected Areas

With the rise of joint management of protected areas, community representatives are increasingly involved in formal negotiations with state officials, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and other actors. Policy recommendations have commonly idealized “win-win” scenarios. Theoretical work on negotiation from psychology and management studies, however, points to identifiable circumstances under which the goal of a mutually beneficial “win-win” situation may limit the strategies, and ultimately the benefits, available to communities. Instead, an antagonistic, “distributive” approach to negotiations may be more compatible with the pressures on and strategies available to community representatives. The tensions between a “mutual gains” and “distributive” approach to negotiations are evident in two land claims on protected areas in South Africa: the Dwesa-Cwebe Nature Reserves, and the Pafuri Triangle, a portion of Kruger National Park. In each, NGOs that operated with a “mutual gains” strategy, espousing a “win-win” scenario, came to be perceived as collaborating with conservation agencies. Meanwhile, as negotiation theory would suggest, community representatives inclined towards a “distributive” strategy and allied with a second set of explicitly advocatory NGOs. Expecting that communities should embrace a “win-win” scenario from the outset is unrealistic and likely to reduce communities’ power in negotiations.

KINSHIP MATTERS: WOMEN's LAND CLAIMS IN THE SANTAL PARGANAS, JHARKHAND

This article discusses the strengthening of kinship ties amongst the Santal community in a village in Jharkhand state in India. The context of progressive marginalization from the state and markets has resulted in the Santals asserting their adivasi identity by recourse to customary institutions as well as rigidifying patrilineal rules of inheritance. While this leads generally to an erosion of women's rights to inherit land, under certain circumstances women are supported by kin elders when they bring grievances to the legal courts. Women's relationship to their kinship group thus seems ambiguous: kinship can simultaneously be not only a source of deprivation and suppression but also a way of staking claims to resources, especially in the face of the inadequacies of formal state mechanisms.     

Deciphering the Nnorth Korean‐Soviet (Russian) maritime boundary agreements

Abstract

North Korea and the Soviet Union delimited their land and sea boundaries in two treaties, signed in 1985 and 1986. A warming bilateral relationship, joint plans to develop an economic zone near the Tumen River land boundary, and the desire to exploit marine resources, especially offshore oil, probably accelerated the negotiations. The two countries’ straight baseline claims affected the bearing of the negotiated boundaries. The territorial sea boundary may have given half‐effect to the natural coastline, and inexplicably, its terminus falls short of extending a full 12 nautical miles from the respective straight baseline claims. The 1986 continental shelf/exclusive economic zone boundary reflects the baselines and appears to delimit the South Korea—Soviet Union continental shelf, as well as the tri‐point with Japan. It ignores the presence of Liancourt Rocks (Takeshima/Tok‐do), islets disputed between Japan and South Korea. Neither South Korea nor Japan has publicly commented on the treaties.     

Distinguished lecture: Native title—Implications for Australian senses of place and belonging

Can native title, across remote, rural and urban settings, complement and overlap with current and future Australian senses of belonging? This is to explore a form of cultural coexistence that is potentially in tension with a sharp and mutually exclusive categorical distinction between those who embrace Indigenous identity and others. Can such cultural coexistence reinforce legal and economic achievements of land justice for the Indigenous minority yet also contribute to rich senses of place and belonging across the broader Australian society? While anthropology as a social science has a substantial and important practical research role in negotiations for, and outcomes of, particular native title claims, a further challenge is understanding the extent to which post‐claim coexisting identities and interests might enrich Australia's trajectory in resolving legacies of colonialism.     

Death,Biography, and the Mapuche Person

The amulpüllün biographical oratory which takes place at Mapuche funerals in southern Chile is said to ‘complete’ the person. Such a perspective challenges the assumption that mortuary practices necessarily constitute a form of analysis, a division of the component parts of the social person. In this paper I explore what it is about the Mapuche person which needs to be ‘completed,’ and how funeral oratory achieves this goal. Utilizing Bakhtin's concepts of consummation and transgredience, and Ricoeur's concepts of emplotment and narrative identity, I suggest that it is only from the position of outsidedness that the necessary totalization of the deceased's person can occur. These processes of synthesis and totalization cast light upon an apparent contradiction between the importance which Amerindians place upon biography as an oral form, and theoretical approaches which stress the instability and divisibility of an Amerindian personhood predicated upon the incorporation of the other. Rather than viewing the totalization which occurs in biography as a critique of such an approach, I see it as a solution to the ontological problem which such an approach describes.     

Comparison of wild edible plant diversity and foraging strategies in two aboriginal communities of northwestern Patagonia

We have compared edible plant richness, diversity and differential patterns of use in two Mapuche communities of Argentina. The populations of Rams and Cayulef are located in a herbaceous steppe, far from the temperate forests of northwestern Patagonia where their ancestors lived in the past. Ecological concepts and methods, such as diversity indices, niche breadth and optimal foraging theory have been used in this comparative study. Our results indicate that the diversity of wild plants used in Rams and Cayulef is associated with the variety of gathering environments they visit. When comparing diversity indices among the three environments within each community, in Cayulef we found the highest diversity indices for steppe species and the lowest for forest plants. In contrast, in Rams the niche breadth is similar in all environments, indicating an ample exploration and use of edible wild plants. Cost and benefit trade-offs seem to be considered in both communities when edible plants are collected. Nevertheless, we found that the people from Rams not only utilize a greater richness of wild plants than the Cayulef people, but also use more nutritious resources, spend more time traveling to the gathering sites and a longer handling time in preparing these edible plants. This study has quantitatively shown that the restricted access to Pehuen forest (Araucaria araucana) is the main factor which seems to limit wild plant diversity used in these Mapuche communities.     

What will a primary care led NHS mean for GP workload? The problem of the lack of an evidence base.

Ongoing negotiations on the general practitioner contract raise the question of remunerating general practitioners for increased workload resulting from the shift from secondary to primary care. A review of the literature shows that there is little evidence on whether a shift of services from secondary to primary care is responsible for general practitioners'' increased workload, and scope for making generalisations is limited. The implication is that general practitioners have little more than anecdotal evidence to support their claims of greatly increased workloads, and there is insufficient evidence to make informed decisions about remunerating general practitioners for the extra work resulting from the changes. Lack of evidence does not, however, mean that there is no problem with workload. It will be increasingly important to identify mechanisms for ensuring that resources follow workload.     

Report: access to land at the northern periphery of Niokolo-Koba National Park, Senegal

Based on research conducted in Senegal in 2004, this field report focuses on the politics of access to land at the northern periphery of the Niokolo-Koba National Park, where a group of villages evicted from the national park were resettled in the 1970s. Conflicts over the allocation of land resurfaced in the 1980s, following the application of laws authorizing rural community councils to allocate use rights in village agricultural lands. The land claims of evicted villages were challenged by the rural council and local state authorities, who sought to define such claims as illegal or ambiguous based on exclusionary discourses of productive use of land, autochthony and citizenship. The politics of access to land at the northern periphery are shaped by land and administrative reforms undertaken since the end of colonial rule in Senegal and the on-going local transformation of authority and property relations under increasing commoditization and insecurity of land use rights.

Ribonuclease A: carbon-13 nuclear magnetic resonance assignments, binding sites, and conformational flexibility

Assignments have been made for 11 methyl, one Gln-C gamma, one Thr-C beta, and all six Tyr-C zeta carbon resonances of ribonuclease A. These partially serve to delineate the binding sites for Cu2+, Mn2+, phosphate, cytidine and its 2'-, 3'-, and 5'-phosphates (Cyd and Cyd-2'-P, -3'-P, and -5'-P), and one or a few urea molecules at low concentration. Evidence is presented for a conformational change, and hence flexibility, in the active site region around the optimum pD for enzymic activity and another such change at around the optimum temperature. The binding of cytidine-containing ligands is shown to have extensive conformational consequences for methyl groups but less for hydrophobic aromatic residues, implying that the former make a special contribution to molecular flexibility. The cytosine ring in Cyd-2'-P, -3'-P, and -5'-P is found to be close but far from parallel to the ring of Phe-120. In contrast to previous claims, ribonuclease A is shown not to unfold even partially before denaturation. On denaturation, it passes to a new but structured state.