How Spaniards Became Chumash and other Tales of Ethnogenesis

In the 1970s, a network of families from Santa Barbara, California, asserted local indigenous identities as "Chumash." However, we demonstrate that these families have quite different social histories than either they or supportive scholars claim. Rather than dismissing these neo-Chumash as anomalous "fakes," we place their claims to Chumash identity within their particular family social histories. We show that cultural identities in these family lines have changed a number of times over the past four centuries. These changes exhibit a range that is often not expected and render the emergence of neo-Chumash more comprehendible. The social history as a whole illustrates the ease and frequency with which cultural identities change and the contexts that foster change. In light of these data, scholars should question their ability to essentialize identity.     

China in Laos: Enclave spaces and the transformation of borders in the Mekong Region

Where China Meets Southeast Asia: Social and Cultural Change in the Border Regions edited by Grant Evans et al., is among the few works that take borderlands between China and mainland Southeast Asia seriously. A major contribution of this collection of border studies is its attempt to understand how border experiences and the process of bordering have changed since the early 1990s. Various Chinese–local interactions are explored in this book, with an emphasis on complex local responses to border transformations and diverse forms of mobility and network building. This article further examines the role of China and the Lao state, and the new wave of Chinese movement at the border. In establishing an economic integration that spills across the region, the penetration of Chinese power has been effective. The consequent retreat of the Lao state at the border has not only put an end to the old frontier but turned various borderlands into an estranged space of neoliberal enclave.     

Carbon Flux of an Urban System in México

We estimated vertical and lateral fluxes of carbon for the isolated coastal city of Ensenada (Baja California, México). In 2005, the city had a resident population of about 261,000, with tourism adding about 1.5%; it occupied an area of roughly 68 square kilometers (km²). Carbon (C) export was estimated at 400 gigagrams of carbon per year (Gg C/yr); notable sources to the atmosphere were combustion engines (42%), cement production (38%), water heating and cooking (7%), and human respiration (6%). Solid waste (6%) was exported for burial, but efflux to the bay was minor (about 0.1 Gg C/yr). Local deposition was limited to sewage sludge (about 2 Gg C/yr), asphalt, and extremely low primary production. Remote fluxes driven by local demand could be estimated only for electricity (61 Gg C/yr), but local flux from cement and other industrial production might be attributed largely to external demand. The urban system output to the atmosphere was about 6.4 kilograms of carbon per square meter per year (kg C/m²/yr), or roughly 23.6 kg/m²/yr in CO₂ equivalence. By comparison, net ecosystem productivity in the surrounding watershed has been estimated at 0.04 kg C/m²/yr, so the city's atmospheric output of C might be balanced by productivity over about 11,000 km² of the surrounding ecosystems. Between 2000 and 2005, C output increased faster than population growth, particularly from engine fuels.     

Institutional Governance and Refugee Resistance: Displaced Karen in the Thai–Burma Borderlands

Displaced Karen constitute a complex array of actors in the Thai–Burma borderlands. Forms of governance meant to contain and control these actors are framed by practices of territorial sovereignty and bureaucratic processes of identification and resource allocation. This article examines forms of institutional governance through two broad authorities, the state (predominantly the Thai government) and the humanitarian aid apparatus. It argues that the operations of these two authorities establish a series of control over space and movement and a system of administrative categorisation that works to identify and regulate displaced populations. Based on an ethnographic study of displaced Karen residing in the Thai–Burma borderlands, I go on to argue that the Karen challenge these institutional forms of governance because they do not adequately capture their claims for political autonomy. Key features of this political autonomy include Karen understandings of being a refugee and their experience of the refugee apparatus, their advocacy around human rights abuses, and their agitation for political and social change. I argue that these challenges represent a reframing of the discourse around refugeedom, where displaced Karen bring the experience of displacement back into the ‘humanitarian case’ and pursue a desire to be actively engaged in a political resolution to their displacement.