The racialization of the globe: an interactive interpretation

This article argues that racist belief systems are global although they are neither uniform nor universal. It suggests that racist belief systems share a common language based on science, that they have a common political tension derived from an egalitarian philosophy and that they can also diverge considerably according to local cognitive traditions and political agendas. The article contends that an interactive approach alone can take into account how racist belief systems were negotiated, appropriated and transformed within historically specific contexts, and it provides a number of detailed discussions of cases ranging from Rwanda to China.     

Retrieving the Red Continent: settler colonialism and the history of American Indians in the US

While present in the contemporary academy, American Indian history remains marginalized by being associated with regional and national histories of the United States. Recently, postcolonial scholarship has provided a pathway out of that marginalization. The postcolonial critique of traditional anthropological and historical writing about indigenous peoples suggests a new way to imagine the relationship between American Indian history and other areas of scholarship. The most promising aspect of this critique is the formulation of ‘settler colonialism’. That framework first emerged among geographers and has recently been embraced by historians and anthropologists. The settler colonial framework offers a way to conceive of the Native past in a transnational context as well as to understand indigenous encounters with modernity as an ongoing struggle with colonial rule rather than as a campaign to accommodate Native people to ‘progress’ and ‘civilization’ or to ‘assimilate’ them into a nation state.     

A new species of Lesticus Dejean, 1828 (Coleoptera,Carabidae) from the Finisterre Range,Papua New Guinea and a key to the genera of pterostichine-like Harpalinae of New Guinea

Lesticus finisterrae (Carabidae: Pterostichini) sp. n. (type locality: Finisterre Range, Papua New Guinea), is described and characters to differentiate it from other “Trigonotomi” species are given. A key to the genera of pterostichine-like Harpalinae of the island, including all genera of Morionini, Cratocerini, Drimostomatini, Abacetini, Loxandrini and Pterostichini, is provided. The genus Rhytisternus (Pterostichini) is for the first time reported from New Guinea, represented by the likely adventive species Rhytisternus laevis (Macleay). The previously unknown male of Stegazopteryx ivimkaensis Will (Drimostomatini) is described.     

Review article: The alkali treatment of straws

The Beckmann method of alkali treatment consists of soaking straw in dilute alkali solutions for 24 hours and then washing it with clean water. Straw digestibility is increased from about 40 to about 70%. While this process has been known for 50 years, it has not been much used because treatment costs are too high. Also, it cannot be industrialised. The spray process, in which the straw is wetted with an alkali solution (Wilson and Pigden, 1964) is an improvement from both points of view, but poses nutritional problems since straw is not washed after treatment. So great is the potential, however, that within the last seven years nearly 100 research reports have been published on the production and use of spray-treated straw. These reports are reviewed in this article.Straws are poorly digested by ruminants because of their high cell-wall content. Alkali treatment disrupts the cell-wall by dissolving hemicellulose, lignin and silica, by hydrolysing uronic and acetic acid esters and by swelling cellulose. Digestibility in vitro increases from about 40 to about 80% with $\text{10}\text{g NaOH}\text{100}\text{g straw}$. Equally large increases are not, however, obtained in vivo because of unreacted alkali and/or high sodium concentration. Several hypotheses concerning the depression of digestibility in vivo are reviewed. In general $\text{3–6}\text{g NaOH}\text{100}\text{g straw}$ is the optimum. For maximum effectiveness the volume of the alkali solution must be between 50 and $\text{200}\text{ml}\text{100}\text{g straw}$. The usefulness of neutralising unreacted alkali has not yet been determined. Crop and industrial residues with lower initial digestibility than straw (e.g. paddy hulls, bagasse and some types of sawdust) are usually still too poor after treatment (digestibility 30–50%) to be useful feeds. Pressure and temperature increase the effectiveness of alkali, but add to the cost of treatment. The pelleting of treated straws probably increases the effectiveness of alkali treatment. The length of time treated straw is allowed to “cure” before being fed does not affect its digestibility. Chemicals other than NaOH, like chlorine, ammonia and peroxides, are also effective in treating straws but are more expensive and/or more difficult to apply.Animal feeding experiments with sprayed straw have shown its utility for livestock normally fed poor straw diets, in high concentrate diets for growing, finishing and milking stock, and as an extender of silage. The factors affecting the degree of improvement to be expected in digestibility, growth and production from the treatment of straw need to be identified and studied.In spite of its high pH and Na content, sprayed straw has not been found to cause any health problems in livestock when treatment is in the range of 3–8 g NaOH/100 g straw. The extra sodium is excreted in the urine. Water intake and urine volume increase. Milk composition is unaffected.Several factories producing alkali spray-treated straw-based diets in pelleted form are already in operation in Europe. The process is briefly described.     

Review article: Zimbabwe: The politics of ethnicity

Joshua Nkomo, Nkomo: The Story of my Life. London, Methuen, 1984, 270 pp., £9.95.     

A new species of hagfish (Myxinidae: Eptatretus) from Papua New Guinea

A new species of seven‐gilled hagfish Eptatretus astrolabium (Myxinidae) is described from a 400 mm total length female trapped 1 km east from Planet Rock, Astrolabe Bay, Papua New Guinea, at c. 500 m depth. This is the first hagfish species reported from the waters around New Guinea. It can be distinguished from other hagfishes by a combination of characters including seven pairs of gill apertures, three‐cusp multicusps on the anterior and posterior rows of cusps, 10 posterior unicusps, 52 total cusps, 18–19 prebranchial pores, five branchial pores, 48–49 trunk pores, 83–84 total pores and no nasal‐sinus papillae.     

Women and development: A highland New Guinea example

This paper presents an analysis of household variables and their relationship to success in cash cropping among the Gainj of Madang Province, Papua New Guinea. Censuses and household surveys from 1978, the year in which cash cropping began, and 1983 provide data that show different patterns of change in household structure for more and less commercially successful households. The results illustrate the importance of women's labor in economic development and the dynamic nature of the relationship between household structure and economic development.     

Cargo Cults and the Politics of Alterity: A Review Article

This review article is a critical evaluation of recent ethnographic contributions and theoretical debates concerning cargo cults. It examines how Foucault's genealogical and discursive methodologies can be used in a way that undercuts their valuable insights. The recent self‐reflexive turn, where anthropology focuses on the moral politics of its own discourses, can lead to a silencing of the moral political discourses of others. Moreover self‐reflexivity can become an authorising strategy for academics keen to downplay race and resistance in millenarian movements where these are important features.     

The Taste of Public Places: Terroir in Papua New Guinea's Emerging Nation

This paper considers the relationship between persons, land and food as seen in the sociality of public gatherings and gardening spaces. For Biangai speakers in the Upper Bulolo Valley of Morobe Province (Papua New Guinea), intimacies of place are often read through the work of tending to the land, the symbolic association of crops and people as well as rituals where male and female persons are made. By examining the intersection of taste and place in a public multi-language gathering, the paper offers a critical assessment of the French concept of le goût du terroir, or the taste of place, suggesting that tastes matter substantially in defining intergroup sociality. The paper reveals the significance of terroir for organising and strengthening group identity in Papua New Guinea, and its problematic extension to ideas of national foodviews. Ultimately, it is argued that such grounding informs how Biangai imagine the nation and its public places.     

A host-parasite list of the protozoan and helminth parasites of New Guinea animals

Ewers W. H. 1973. A host-parasite list of the protozoan and helminth parasites of New Guinea animals. International Journal for Parasitology, 3: 89–110. This paper provides a hostparasite list for protozoan and helminth parasites recorded from native animals of New Guinea. The synonomy of both hosts and parasites are given together with references to the literature of each species of parasite.     

Introduction: The Politics of Order in Contemporary Papua New Guinea

ABSTRACT

This collection of articles seeks to demonstrate that the concept of order – the intensive and extensive coordination of human action across space and time – is useful for answering some of the most pressing theoretical and practical questions in contemporary Papua New Guinea (PNG) today. Building on existing work in this field [Benda-Beckmann, K., and F. Pirie. 2007. “Introduction.” In Order and Disorder: Anthropological Perspectives, 1–15. New York: Berghahn Books] in this special issue we ask: How do people create enduring, stable, and routinised life in contemporary Melanesia today? We position our work as the next step in a growing movement to study contemporary institutions in PNG as order-making projects, rather than attempting to divide them into legitimate projects like ‘government’ and false or ineffective ones like ‘cargo cults’.     

The Death of the Big Men: Depreciation of Elites in New Guinea

Recently, Tolai people of Papua New Guinea have adopted the term ‘Big Shot’ to describe an emerging post-colonial political elite. The emergence of the term is a negative moral evaluation of new social possibilities that have arisen as a consequence of the Big Shots’ privileged position within a global political economy. Grassroots Tolai pass judgment on the Big Shots’ through rhetorical contrast with idealised Big Men of the past, in a particular local version of a global trend for the emergence of new words to illustrate changing perceptions of local elites. As such the ‘Big Shot’ acts as an example of a global process in which key lexical categories that contest, trace and shape how global historical change is experienced are constituted through linguistic categories.     

The multifaceted role of transglutaminase in neurodegeneration: Review article

Summary. A critical role for transglutaminase [TGase] has been hypothesized in the pathogenesis of the CAG trinucleotide repeat diseases, characterized by proteins with abnormal expansions of a polyglutamine domain. In the last few years the involvement of TGase in neurodegenerative diseases [NDS], including its role in aggregate formation, has been broadened to include Alzheimers [AD] and Parkinsons Disease [PD]. It is clear that reduction of TGase activity is beneficial for prolonged survival in mouse models of NDS. The pathological progression of these diseases might reflect in part increases of TGase induced aggregates, or changes in other pathways influenced by increases in TGase activity. Neurodegeneration may be influenced by increased TGase activity affecting apoptosis, modulation of GTPase activity and signal transduction. This review will focus on the leading hypotheses in relation to both old and new experimental results.     

POPREG I: A simulation of population regulation among the Maring of New Guinea

Self-regulation of human populations has been proposed by various authors, despite the fact that no biological or cultural mechanisms have ever been established. POPREG I, a computer simulation of ritual warfare among the Tsembaga Maring of New Guinea, demonstrates that the self-regulatory mechanism proposed by Rappaport (1968) ignores the demographic consequences of external variables. When the effects of epidemics are taken into account, the regulatory nature of the ritual cycle becomes suspect. Future research in anthropological demography requires careful analysis of both internal and external variables; POPREG I provides the basis for a synthetic model of population dynamics in human societies.     

Studies of endemic cretinism in Papua New Guinea: digital and palmar dermatoglyphic patterns

We have tested the hypothesis that the abnormal development of the central nervous system seen in endemic cretinism might be accompanied by concurrent abnormal dermatoglyphic patterns. We compared digital and palmar dermatoglyphics of normal individuals and endemic cretins inhabiting the Huon Peninsula of Papua New Guinea. The population sampled from the Irumu River Valley included 118 males and 114 females with 22 male cretins and 23 female cretins. The population sampled from the Wantoat River Valley included 72 males and 38 females with 12 male cretins. No pathognomonic patterns were found that could identify the endemic cretin subpopulation. However, the occurrence of a number of differences between controls and cretins suggests that subtle changes in dermatoglyphic patterns accompany the anomalous development of the CNS secondary to maternal iodine deficiency. We discuss the significance of these findings and compare the dermatoglyphic patterns of normal Irumu and Wantoat natives and 21 other populations of Papua New Guinea.     

A multivariate approach to fingerprint variation in Papua New Guinea: Implications for prehistory

Fingerprint data from three Markham Valley populations of Papua New Guinea are presented. Initial comparisons with data from elsewhere in New Guinea by conventional bivariate methods suggest hypotheses regarding prehistory, but these methods are inconclusive. Because of this shortcoming, the application of discriminant analysis to dermatoglyphic data is justified and cautiously demonstrated. Discriminant analysis is a valid approach to the parsimonious study of fingerprint relationships among human populations. Significant discriminating variables are then used with the limited published data to display historical relationships. These marker traits include the separate frequencies of thumb, middle fingers, and little finger patterning, and the complexity of the thenar eminence. With regard to prehistory, it is concluded that fingerprint data support the hypothesis of separate origins and migrations for Papuan- and Melanesian-speaking peoples. Furthermore, it is suggested that these data support the linguistic hypothesis of a second Papuan migration of Trans New Guinea Phylum speakers, up the Markham Valley into the New Guinea Highlands. Finally, gene flow is indicated from Melanesian speakers of the north coast into the interior through the Sepik and Ramu River valleys, affecting both the Trans New Guinea Phylum and other unrelated Papuan groups. Moreover, there are numerous suggestions of recent reciprocal genetic exchange between neighboring Melanesians and Papuans, without obliterating the older, separate origins of these peoples. These results suggest that fingerprints have greater phylogenetic stability than other biological parameters used in the past.     

The dermatoglyphics of the Elema people from the Gulf district of Papua New Guinea

The present report deals with the digital and palmar dermatoglyphics of the Elema peoples from the Gulf District of Papua New Guinea. The samples involved 91 males and 134 females from the areas of Iokea, Sepoe and Karama. The Elema dermatoglyphics, compared to those of other peoples in New Guinea, were found to have a high pattern intensity index and frequency of whorls, and the highest frequency of ulnar type C line, complete simian creases and patterns in the IV interdigital areas of the palms. On the other hand, their 11/7 ratio of the D line, the main line index, and the frequencies of patterns in the hypothenar, thenar/I and II interdigital areas were lower than most other groups on the island; they also have the lowest R/U ratio. All dermatoglyphic features considered, the frequencies in the Elema group were for the most part found to be near the extremes of the range of the dermatoglyphic frequency distributions in New Guinea populations. The dermatoglyphic distributions of New Guinea as a whole are discussed in terms of those of the other Australasian populations with comments on the dermatoglyphic comparisons between the Australasians and the other major human groups, Amerindians, Orientals, Asian Indians, Caucasians and Negroes.     

Inhibitors of polyamine metabolism: Review article

Summary. The identification of increased polyamine concentrations in a variety of diseases from cancer and psoriasis to parasitic infections has led to the hypothesis that manipulation of polyamine metabolism is a realistic target for therapeutic or preventative intervention in the treatment of certain diseases.The early development of polyamine biosynthetic single enzyme inhibitors such as -difluoromethylornithine (DFMO) and methylglyoxal bis(guanylhydrazone) showed some interesting early promise as anticancer drugs, but ultimately failed in vivo. Despite this, DFMO is currently in use as an effective anti-parasitic agent and has recently also been shown to have further potential as a chemopreventative agent in colorectal cancer.The initial promise in vitro led to the development and testing of other potential inhibitors of the pathway namely the polyamine analogues. The analogues have met with greater success than the single enzyme inhibitors possibly due to their multiple targets. These include down regulation of polyamine biosynthesis through inhibition of ornithine decarboxylase and S-adenosylmethionine decarboxylase and decreased polyamine uptake. This coupled with increased activity of the catabolic enzymes, polyamine oxidase and spermidine/spermine N¹-acetyltransferase, and increased polyamine export has made the analogues more effective in depleting polyamine pools. Recently, the identification of a new oxidase (PAO-h1/SMO) in polyamine catabolism and evidence of induction of both PAO and PAO-h1/SMO in response to polyamine analogue treatment, suggests the analogues may become an important part of future chemotherapeutic and/or chemopreventative regimens.