Money,museums, and memory: cultural patronage by black voluntary associations

While the middle- and upper-class is typically cast as using museum patronage to support narratives that reinforce the position of dominant racial groups, this paper presents an alternative perspective. Drawing on ethnographic and archival data, I conceptually and empirically elaborate how gifts by black middle- and upper-class voluntary organizations to African American museums are enabled by racial uplift ideology and directed at nurturing counter-narratives about African Americans. As patrons of memory they aim to reconstitute recollections of African Americans by challenging master narratives of national life where they are either absent or marginalized. Gifts to black museums also support the inclusion of their own organizations and members as protagonists in this counter-memory. By turning attention to cultural patronage among black middle- and upper-class voluntary organizations, this paper demonstrates how museum patronage among elites can unsettle, rather than reinforce, master racial narratives.     

Hate groups targeting unauthorized immigrants in the US: discourses,narratives and subjectivation practices on their websites

The narratives and images on websites of US hate groups that oppose undocumented immigrants represent and reproduce discourses that contribute to the subject formation of group members, who feel ethically obliged to counter unauthorized immigration. Left alone by the government, which is seen as unreliable and uncaring of patriotic values, they position themselves as heroic saviours of the nation. We argue that these hate groups’ ‘games of truth’ develop in response to the perception that irregular immigration threatens specific social orders and values, for instance about citizenship, national identity and otherness. This article helps to understand the ways in which anti-immigrant narratives serve the functions of countering these threats and of asserting the group members’ ethical obligation as a form of care of the self. In other words, from a Foucaultian viewpoint, we interpret the problematizations of ‘illegal’ immigration as discursive practices for the subject formation of hate group members.     

世界蜘蛛的分布格局及其多元相似性聚类分析

蜘蛛是一类种类繁多、数量巨大、分布广泛的捕食性生物。至2012年底,全世界共有蜘蛛43678种（包括亚种）,隶属于112科3898属。科、属、种3个分类阶元的分布域非常悬殊,90%的种分布在一个界内,90%的科是跨界分布或全球分布。按行政区域,亚洲种类较多,欧洲较少,南极洲没有蜘蛛记录;按动物地理区域,古北界和新热带界较多,新北界较少。根据地理条件、生态条件和蜘蛛的分布状况,将全球陆地分为53个基础地理单元,用申效诚等新近提出的相似性通用公式和据此创立的多元相似性聚类分析方法,分别对属、种两级的分布进行分析,得到两个聚类结构相同、聚类关系合理的支序图,而且属级的支序图层次更为分明,在相似性水平为0.32时,53个基础地理单元聚为17个小单元群,在0,22水平上,又聚为8个大单元群。这些大、小单元群的组成单元地域相邻相连,生态条件相对一致,可以作为蜘蛛地理区划的界、亚界两个层级。和华莱士主要以哺乳动物建立的世界动物地理区划相比,主要差异是：1、古北界东、西两部分差异显著,可分设两界;2、新西兰和澳洲大陆相似性较低,可单独设界;3、新几内亚和太平洋岛屿与澳洲大陆的关系远于和东洋界的关系,华莱士线在两界间的作用似乎不存在; 4、新热带界的中美地区似乎属于新北界更为合适,并由此产生了南北美洲间的紧密联系;5、新北界与古北界的相似性关系弱于与新热带界的关系,全北界的概念几近消失。前两点差异可以从地球板块构造的变动得到解释,第3、5个差异已在植物和其它生物类群得到佐证,第4个差异尚不稳定,需要更多类群的比较与分析。使用多元相似性聚类分析方法对于如此典型的点状分布的生物类群和如此海量的数据,能够得到如此精细的,既符合地理学、统计学的逻辑,又符合生物学、生态学逻辑的定量分析结果,这在国内外都是首次成功尝试,其简便性和合理性将会促使在其它类群中的应用。     

Taking the devil into your mouth: ritualized American weight-loss narratives of morality, pain, and betrayal

Abstract:This article examines narratives of the U.S. Christian weight-loss movement alongside secular U.S. weight-loss narratives and explores how these two movements express similar themes. In particular, I investigate shared themes of sin, the impurity of the body, the body as a temple for the self (a temple that can be defiled), salvation, and the need to prove that one is saved or at least trying to be saved. Through examining stories from individuals who have lost weight and popular dieting advice, I explore how a "spiritual hunger" that is essentially unrelated to physiology but that suggests personal pathology and responsibility is central to mainstream stories of weight loss.     

The evolution of nonhuman primate social behavior

A review of the recent literature concerning evolutionary mechanisms and possible genetic contributions to social behavior reveals a concentration on function rather than mechanism. Although functional consequences may influence future genetic changes in a population, they do not necessarily reflect evolutionary history. More important, genes cannot code for functions. Only when the anatomical structures and behavioral patterns of individuals are described can we study genetic contributions to social organization. Discussions of function in the abstract, without specification of mechanism, do not fall within the realm of scientific testing.     

On the Viability of Conspiratorial Beliefs

Conspiratorial ideation is the tendency of individuals to believe that events and power relations are secretly manipulated by certain clandestine groups and organisations. Many of these ostensibly explanatory conjectures are non-falsifiable, lacking in evidence or demonstrably false, yet public acceptance remains high. Efforts to convince the general public of the validity of medical and scientific findings can be hampered by such narratives, which can create the impression of doubt or disagreement in areas where the science is well established. Conversely, historical examples of exposed conspiracies do exist and it may be difficult for people to differentiate between reasonable and dubious assertions. In this work, we establish a simple mathematical model for conspiracies involving multiple actors with time, which yields failure probability for any given conspiracy. Parameters for the model are estimated from literature examples of known scandals, and the factors influencing conspiracy success and failure are explored. The model is also used to estimate the likelihood of claims from some commonly-held conspiratorial beliefs; these are namely that the moon-landings were faked, climate-change is a hoax, vaccination is dangerous and that a cure for cancer is being suppressed by vested interests. Simulations of these claims predict that intrinsic failure would be imminent even with the most generous estimates for the secret-keeping ability of active participants—the results of this model suggest that large conspiracies (≥1000 agents) quickly become untenable and prone to failure. The theory presented here might be useful in counteracting the potentially deleterious consequences of bogus and anti-science narratives, and examining the hypothetical conditions under which sustainable conspiracy might be possible.     

From Serbia with Hate: A Case Study in Globalization, Trauma, and Language

This article analyzes a set of five postcards, purchased from a street stand in Belgrade, the capital of Yugoslavia, shortly after the NATO bombing of the country took place in the spring of 1999. While the postcards obviously serve as protests against the bombing, as well as testimonies of the nation-wide trauma caused by it, they also reveal a careful negotiation between representations of trauma — keeping it displaced enough to avoid vicarious traumatization for individual survivors, but focused enough to translate it into a part of the national Serb identity and relying on the symbolism available in historical public narratives. However, since all the postcards analyzed here use English language in one form or another, they can also be read as peculiar interpretations of globalization on a local level. The article is an examination of the function of English, both in the negotiation of private/public trauma as described above, and its role in the complex reconfiguration of the phenomenon of globalization as embedded with local meaning given the context of the narrative within the Serbian popular culture. While these pop culture artifacts offer an assurance to the Serb national spirit, they also express a multifaceted national take on globalization visible in the use of English as the language of the Western ‘enemy’. Overall,the postcards can be read as a curious traumatic figuration of postmodernism which seems to be battling modernism in Belgrade's streets, while the Serb nationalism faces off with the global world in the realm of the imaginary.     

Occurrence of early post-hatching Jurassic Nautilida in Normandy, France: palaeobiologic, palaeoecologic and palaeobiogeographic implications

Nautilida are present and sometimes abundant in various sedimentary environments of the Jurassic series (Sinemurian to Kimmeridgian) in Normandy, but in the majority of cases the individuals are mature or at a late stage of ontogenetic development. Comparative analysis of the palaeobiogeographic distribution of Nautilida according to their ontogenetic stages shows that early post-hatching specimens are present only in particular palaeoenvironments which are rarely visible and laterally limited in outcrop. The sedimentologic and palaeoecologic originality of the Carixian, Aalenian and Bajocian deposits bearing these peculiar specimens is related to their palaeogeographic position along the western border of the Anglo-Paris Basin, on the eastern margin of the Armorican Massif, where Jurassic deposits overlie Palaeozoic rocky reefs or shoals. The egg-laying places of the Jurassic Nautilida show palaeoenvironmental features similar to those of the recent Nautilus, having been controlled by the water temperature and the nature and morphology of the sea bottoms. A hard, anfractuous and stable substratum, low sedimentation rates and warm and well-oxygenated marine waters appear to have been required for egg-laying and for the embryonic development of these cephalopods. The discovery of early post-hatching fossil Nautilida is fundamental to a better understanding of their palaeobiogeographic distribution at local to global scales. The stenotopic nature of their egg-laying places explains the segregation between newly hatched individuals and the rest of the population and leads also to a distinction between the notions of ‘dispersal potential’ and ‘settlement potential’ for populations of Nautilida. Three palaeobiogeographic maps show that Nautilida were absent in the Jurassic Boreal realm. This exclusion could be closely dependent on the thermal requirements that govern their reproduction. By comparison, the contemporary occurrence of ammonoids in this realm appears to reflect differences in reproductive strategies.     

Populations with Explicit Borders in Space and Time: Concept,Terminology, and Estimation of Characteristic Parameters

Biologists studying short-lived organisms have become aware of the need to recognize an explicit temporal extend of a population over a considerable time. In this article we outline the concept and the realm of populations with explicit spatial and temporary boundaries. We call such populations “temporally bounded populations”. In the concept, time is of the same importance as space in terms of a dimension to which a population is restricted. Two parameters not available for populations that are only spatially defined characterise temporally bounded populations: total population size, which is the total number of individuals present within the temporal borders, and total residence time, which is the sum of the residence times of all individuals. We briefly review methods to estimate these parameters. We illustrate the concept for the large blue butterfly (Maculinea nausithous) and outline insights into ecological and conservation-relevant processes that cannot be gained without the use of the concept.     

The Dialogics of Southern Quechua Narrative

Southern Quechua conversational narratives are dialogical in four senses. First, at the formal level, the narrative is produced between interlocutors; second, narrative embeds discourse within discourse by means of quotations or indirect discourse; third, implicit or hidden dialogue between texts is brought out through the intertextual reference to other coexisting narratives; and, fourth, there is a complex pattern of participation through which dialogue takes place not only between actual speaking individuals but between distinct, intersecting participant roles that evoke multiple interactional frameworks. Rigorous attention to each level allows us to integrate narrative analysis more closely into ethnographic study, in terms of both the social tactics of specific narrative events and the broader discursive frameworks that they illuminate.     

Sex assessment on the basis of long bone circumference

Discriminant functions have long been used to classify individuals into groups according to the dimensions of their bones. Although lengths, widths, and diameters have been extensively used, the circumferences have not been adequately validated. In this work, the importance that the circumferences of long bones can have in assigning the sex of ancient human remains is demonstrated. The functions produced by using just one circumference achieved accuracies higher than 80%, and circumference at the radial tuberosity of the radius is able to classify 92.8% of skeletons from the Late Roman site of Mas Rimbau/Mas Mallol (Spain). When functions are produced by using more than one circumference, they can achieve the uppermost classification attained in this sample. The functions also showed that the arm circumference functions are more useful than those of the leg, probably because male individuals of the population had greater mechanical stress than did females. The classification percentages, as well as other statistical values for the functions, demonstrated the great ability of long bone circumferences in helping to classify the sex of individuals of other sites of the Mediterranean area besides the ones examined in this study.     

Information,Representation, Biology

Biosemiotics contains at its core fundamental issues of naturalism: are normative properties, such as meaning, referent, and others, part of the natural world, or are they part of a second, intentional and normative, metaphysical realm — one that might be analogically applied to natural phenomena, such as within biological cells — but a realm that nevertheless remains metaphysically distinct? Such issues are manifestations of a fundamental metaphysical split between a “natural” realm and a realm of normativity and intentionality. This problematic metaphysical split derives from conceptual problems originating with the Pre-Socratics; transcending that split requires correcting those problems. In particular, transcending that split requires a model of metaphysical emergence, and, in particular, normative emergence. This paper will limn that argument regarding metaphysical emergence, but focus most strongly on an overview of a model of normative, representational emergence that overcomes that metaphysical diremption.     

‘After the break’: re-conceptualizing ethnicity,national identity and ‘Malaysian-Chinese’ identities

Focusing on ethnic Chinese as cultural citizens of the nation, this paper examines national identity in the context of generational change. In so doing, it connects to colonialist conceptions of identity the dominant framework of ethnicity that operates in Malaysia. It argues that this framework allows for the nationalist imagining of ‘Malaysian-Chinese’ as ‘outsiders’. In probing the complex conceptual relationship between ethnicity, national identity and cultural citizenship, this article asks: How does ‘ethnicity’ enter into negotiations over the ‘national’ in the cultural realm? What are the notions of cultural difference and national otherness that operate in the negative dualisms by which nation and ethnicity are defined? How are these dualisms tied to notions of authenticity and cultural citizenship? Using the novel The Harmony Silk Factory by Malaysian author Tash Aw to address these questions, this paper argues the need to rethink current policies and narratives of ethnic and national identity in Malaysia.     

Genetic conflict,kin and the origins of novel genetic systems

Genetic conflict may have played an important role in the evolution of novel genetic systems. The ancestral system of eumendelian genetics is highly symmetrical. Those derived from it (e.g. thelytokous parthenogenesis, haplodiploidy and parent-specific allele expression) are more asymmetrical in the genetic role played by maternal versus paternal alleles. These asymmetries may have arisen from maternal–paternal genetic conflict, or cytonuclear conflict, or from an interaction between them. Asymmetric genetic systems are much more common in terrestrial and freshwater taxa than in marine taxa. We suggest three reasons for this, based on the relative inhospitability of terrestrial environments to three types of organism: (i) pathogens—departure from the marine realm meant escape from many pathogens and parasites, reducing the need for sexual reproduction; (ii) symbionts—symbionts are no more important in the terrestrial realm than the marine realm but are more likely to be obligately intracellular and vertically transmitted, making them more likely to disrupt their host''s genetic systems; (iii) Gametes and embryos—because neither gametes nor embryos can be shed into air as easily as into seawater, the mother''s body is a more important environment for both types of organisms in the terrestrial realm than in the marine realm. This environment of asymmetric kinship (with neighbours more closely related by maternal alleles than by paternal alleles) may have helped to drive asymmetries in expression and transmission.     

“But You Would Be the Best Mother”: Unwomen,Counterstories, and the Motherhood Mandate

This paper addresses and challenges the pronatalist marginalization and oppression of voluntarily childless women in the Global North. These conditions call for philosophical analyses and for sociopolitical responses that would make possible the necessary moral spaces for resistance. Focusing on the relatively privileged subgroups of women who are the targets of pronatalist campaigns, the paper explores the reasons behind their choices, the nature and methods of Western pronatalism, and distinguishes three specific sources of some of the more lasting, and stigmatizing attacks: popular culture, law and policy, and medicine itself. I then argue that because they are construed by motherhood-essentializing, and increasingly popular, pronatalist narratives as, among other things, “failed” or “selfish,” voluntarily childless women are subsequently burdened with damaged identities that can leave them personally othered and uniquely liminal in ways that are destructive to moral agency. Finally, I conclude with a challenge to the pronatalist master narratives by suggesting the possibility of counter narratives to the voluntarily childless woman's liminality that might serve as the ground of moral and political solidarity among differently situated women, regardless of their motherhood status.     

The meaning of the present: hope and foreclosure in narrations about people with severe brain damage

In this article, I consider narratives told within a clinical setting. I argue that personnel in a day center for people with acquired brain damage are constantly involved in narrating about the disabled participants. The negotiation of who the participant is, and foremost will be, is in constant negotiation in regard to issues of hope. I further argue that hope is a meaning-making process and, as such, it has been defined as crucially connected to time. Hope has been said to enable a connection between the present and the future, because action taken in the present could bring about (positive) change in the future. However, I show that hope, in relation to narratives told about people with severe disabilities that are considered "incurable," must be understood within a realm of narrative foreclosure. Time seems to have lost the openness of its horizon for these people, and a narrative that tells of immediacy rather than chronology is created, resulting in hope being established within the present.     

Exposing Diversity: A Methodological Approach to the Use of Video Narratives in Interdisciplinary Practices

This article explores the potential of ethnographic video narratives for collaborative learning in an interdisciplinary context. Previous research describes the area between tacit knowing and explicit knowledge as an area of “muddy water” that creates a space for constructing new understandings and knowledge. In this regard, video narratives can be seen as a pathway to feelings and other sensations, and therefore to tacit commonsense notions about the nature of practices. The question is how the methodical use of video narratives contributes to new understandings of practice. The article outlines a study in which two video narratives were presented in interdisciplinary focus groups in a nursing-home setting. The multilayered complexity of the video narratives, combined with different professional approaches to elderly care, opens up for diverse, opposing and detailed understandings of practice in the dialogue about the narratives. This diversity raises new questions about the nature of practice and seems to fuel a collaborative learning process. In conclusion, the article suggests that future interventions using video narratives would benefit from firmer facilitation and categorization of this diversity in order to enhance the potential for collaborative learning.     

Online mediations in transnational spaces: cosmopolitan (re)formations of belonging and identity in the Turkish diaspora

Abstract

The lives of transnational groups and individuals are marked by a spatial and imaginary split: a phenomenon wherein identity, belonging and representation have become increasingly elusive concepts, and the realm of the ‘cultural’ vastly important. And, the theoretical compasses of cosmopolitanism and transnationalism are particularly relevant and illuminating in considering social space, mediated communication and belonging in relation to urban diasporic communities and gendered subjectivities. The aim of this paper is to address expressions of identity and belonging at the intersection of online communicative practice and offline spatial formations, with a focus on the specificities of gendered constructions of sociality and subjectivity in the diaspora.     

Schizophrenia,Narrative and Change: Andalusian Care Homes as Novel Sociocultural Context

This study explores qualitative changes in the life narratives of persons diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia who were receiving recovery treatment in special care homes in Andalusia, Spain. These narratives are related to patients’ construction of social identity and the recovery process. Initially, 10 narrative interviews were performed. The first five patients (Group 1) had lived at the homes for only 3 months, while the other five (Group 2) had been there for 61.4 months. Two years after the initial interviews, three patients from Group 1 were interviewed once more. The qualitative analysis focuses on two topics: experience of illness and personal relationships. Long-stay patients create their identities by using more categories related to relationships and make fewer references to illness than Group 1 subjects. They also make fewer delusive or hallucinatory utterances, and their narratives have more elements that can be shared in the community than Group 1 narratives. Moreover, long-stay patients show significant language resources and greater capacity for agency. Results suggest that special care homes provide important emotional support and a rich, new network. These results are related to the sociocultural characteristics of special care homes and suggest that the analysis of life narratives could be a very useful instrument for assessing the recovery process.

Writing failure: knowledge production,temporalities, ethics,and traces

This volume follows failures out into the world, exploring how they unfold ethnographically. Taking a longer view shows how objects, narratives, and diagnoses of failures may be crafted, acted on, suffered, resisted – unmade or recomposed. Thus while tropes and diagnoses of failure can temporarily (re)organize, narrate, and stabilize the world, the kinds of failures explored here also indicate a mode of uncontainable excess that refuses the boundedness of knowledge objects, temporalities, and spaces. This volume offers three main interventions. The first concerns knowledge production: how objects of failure are crafted through selective ways of knowing that occlude both other modes of apprehension at different scales and failure's many affective valences. The second thinks through the knotted temporalities – whether pasts, futures, suspended presents, or repetition and sedimentation – that make and are made by failure. Finally, writing about unfurling failures requires careful attention to non-linear reverberations and traces as well as to open-ended and mobile narratives that produce different social and material effects.