Sociobiology and discrimination: A rejoinder

The history of Malay nationalism traces a path from secular issues before World War II to religious issues in the post‐independence period. Before the War Malay nationalists were concerned with the encroachment upon their freedom by British colonialists and non‐Malay immigrants. The establishment of Malay political power after the War effected important economic changes, creating new class‐divisions in Malay society. These divisions provide a basis for the rise of Malay religious nationalism. The reactions of the non‐Malay population to these changes were expressed as non‐Muslim religious revivalisms. The role of the state in regulating religious movements through a process of ethnic rationalization cannot be understated.     

The politics of culture or a contest of histories: Representations of Chinese popular religion

Conclusion What then are we, a Chinese and a Western anthropologist, doing? As anthropologists we are commenting on the representative character, rather than the truth of all these accounts, the close and the remote. But by bringing them together, we are in addition forcing each others' issues upon them. To unreflective policy and scientific accounts, we bring critical anthropological inquiry. To the uncommitted anthropology of the distant object we ask questions about its political and historical implications.The political equivalent of the anthropologists' straining after a cultural holism is the claim to national unity. National unity and sovereignty in China, as everywhere on the globe since the birth of nationalism in Europe, are asserted with passion. The Chinese nation's cultural soul and moral principle are in acknowledged crisis. The nation is the object of a politics of culture, which requires a research of the singular, if conflictual, history of its necessary emergence. Such a history is a teleology of the nation in the eternal existence of its tradition, already there in culture but not yet entirely apparent or alive to its population. Thus in the PRC, academics, cultural officials, ideological workers, and propagandists insist on national integration and engage in the search for its spiritual civilization. Sometimes, as at present for diplomatic and economic reasons, some provincial autonomy and its restoring of a local cultural identity is encouraged. Cultural workers still, like most Western anthropologists of China, seek answers to the question: what is Chinese-ness? In the PRC the question includes an additional word: what is modern Chinese-ness? The search for the prehistory of modern Chinese-ness for these workers therefore bears a selective project in addition to the teleology of national emergence. Their search is determined by what is meant by modern and therefore what is backward and represents the burden of the past, which has then to be distinguished from what is progressive and represents the future in the past. Western anthropologists are more eclectic, and perhaps less aware, certainly less conscious of their selectivity as an historical act. In China, modern bears the weight of dispute over what stage China has reached in variously conceived histories of human development toward socialism. Modern is not a consistent or a clear set of criteria. It is a contested terrain. The emphasis on socialist modernization can conflict with emphasis on modernization of productivity, technical renewal, and keeping pace with universal scientific knowledge and education. Here is a contest of priorities between ideological and political transformation on the one hand, material incentives, school education, specialization, and economic reform grounded in political and ideological stability on the other. In either case, popular religious practices are superstitious, representing a past that should be left behind.But emphasis upon the necessity for ideological work means a more active attempt to eliminate superstition and in its place construct ideological institutions satisfying the spiritual needs of a new civilization, socialist with Chinese characteristics. This is itself given varied interpretations in action, for even if basic principles can be stated, they are contestable in practice since socialism itself is always in dispute, as is its accommodation to Chinese history and conditions. But such contests always receive the arbitration of one authority, and they become its internal struggles. According to the four basic principles which define patriotism as the party's monopoly of political organization, only the Party can say what the current interpretation of socialism with Chinese characteristics is. It mediates, not Heaven and Earth, but a history of the future and the Chinese people.The second emphasis, on schooling and universal science as instruments of increased production and efficiency, whether that of market forces or of planned growth and improvements of livelihood and social security, merely ignores popular religious practices as relics.A third emphasis focuses upon transformation, rather than neglect or elimination and replacement, stressing the importance of cultural modernization and at the same time the importance of preserving cultural treasures and records.The three emphases in this politics of culture distinguish three strands of state agency: the Party as a Communist organization; the Party and the State Commissions and Ministries—including those of education—as a government of urgent economic and livelihood tasks; and the Ministry of Culture. The Party as communists may hold sway over the others, or the Party and its administration as government of an economy may hold sway over its revolutionary communism. The Ministry of Culture never holds sway. It holds a line, in its task of preserving (establishing) national heritage. Between the two poles of its own emphasis, on cultural modernization and on preservation, its workers register the disputes and changing balances of emphasis coming from the other agencies.Public security organs also hold a line, that of securing national sovereignty and unity. As guardians of Party authority they are the most severe agents of the first emphasis, the emphasis upon elimination. They are charged with the task of eliminating challenges to that authority, ideologically suspended in the current mixture of versions of socialist modernity. In performing this job, practices—such as a spirit-medium heralding a new order, or a spirit-writing sect organizing secretly—which represent counterrevolution, according to the current balance of authority, are the target. But more basically, they are charged with the preservation of national sovereignty and its unity. Here the target is the celebration of any religious and cultural autonomy, which is interpreted as splittist or as unpatriotic.For all these emphases on modernity, popular religious practices in the countryside are local and remote. The alternative emphases of their representations are superstition or survival, ignorance and backwardness, or disappearing history. Academic and museum researchers, social scientists and folklorists have passed through channels of schooling and higher education whose teachers and curricula have been among the chief generators of these very emphases on modernization and national construction. Rural and local religious practices are studied in social science as pathological symptoms of spiritual or economic deprivation, in folklore culturology as historical relics or as local elements of a national heritage.But their research as an activity and its results as data are also resorts and resources for an inversion of the distance at which the local and the remote is held. Writers, artists, and film-makers who have passed through the same passages to modern urban life, have used research into popular rural culture rebelliously.⁵⁰ Chinese modernizing nationalists participate no less than nationalists of other countries in the romanticism which is the inverse of socialist or liberal modernization and rationality. The search for tradition is not confined to current policies of scientific progress, cultural transformation, or of governmental establishment of a national ethos.The perspective of distance from urban heights upon the local and the remote can be turned rebelliously upon a populist leadership or into a hankering for the sources of a blocked and polluted creativity. The peasant roots of the communist revolution have been invoked to comdemn old veterans and feudal workstyles. They have on the other hand been remembered as a lost but revivable sense of community and responsiblity before it was corrupted. Or they are remembered ambivalently as a continuing, betrayed, yellow earth of despair.⁵¹ The Western anthropology of Chinese rural religion and ritual is removed from the Chinese polity but participates in the same distancing perspective. Foreign social science which respects the local and the remote can be condemned as out of order, politically hostile, or shallow—not understanding Chinese culture. On the other hand, these qualities can be put in positive terms—knowledge for its own sake, acquired independently, revealing truths hidden from the partial and the Party-bound.When translated back into Chinese, such foreign research is doubly exotic. It comes from the widest reaches of aspiration to human science, but deals in local detail and cultural holism. It can serve the purposes of the emphasis on folklorist preservation and the emphasis on the national heritage of local elements. On the other hand, it can serve the purposes of romantic rebellion. Its exoticism favors the second. In either case, it simply extends the adoption of humanist categories in the construction of national polities. But as internationally authenticated academic science, it is clearly a challenge to the modernizing social policy science of Chinese academics and policy makers. It discloses and respects the contemporary social life of what they condemn, with increasing enforcement, as backward relics, as pathological symptoms, as anti-patriotic local culture, or secret organizations.Where does that leave us, who have brought these strands together in a single overview? Not in the comfort of celebrating a postmodern mish-mash of representations. For there are definite clashes involved in these differences of emphasis and representation, and unequal forces are involved. We do insist on resisting the temptation to see in any one of them the truth, the correct representation. We see them as histories, or rather as history-making tendencies. But we are left in the uneasy position of requiring recognition of conflicting histories and the necessity of negotiation between them.Stephan Feuchtwang and Wang Ming-ming are, respectively, Principal Researcher and Research Scholar in the China Research Unit of the Department of Social Sciences, University of London     

National purities and ecological disasters: Greek modernity and the war on nature

The ecological peculiarities we have experience lately are unintended consequences of the intellectual, scientific, and political patterns of modernity. This paper aspires to discuss nationalism as a cultural mechanism at the service of man’s scientific quest and domination over nature. As a major force and a by-product of the political project of modernity, nationalism appropriated designated landscapes and allowed their transformation into polluted environments. Through a strong alliance between state and industry, the pure and the pristine have mutated into the polluted and the contaminated. This paper will focus on the narratives of modernity, chemical agriculture, and environmental pollution in Greek Macedonia. It will discuss how our past emphasis on national politics and identity overshadowed early local concerns for environmental pollution, illness, and death. The mantle of nationalism can be held accountable for the miasmatic geographies that modernity created, threatening the nation with pollution, and vulnerable citizens with dreadful diseases and ailments, such as cancer.     

Definitions of national identity,nationalism and ethnicity in post-Soviet Azerbaijan in the 1990s

This article examines the major political debates in post-Soviet Azerbaijan vis à vis the very assumptions of individual autonomy, equality, national culture and citizenship, and universalism upon which modern nation-states have historically been based. The information presented in this article is based on personal interviews conducted with the leading and influential members of the Azerbaijani political elite in 1998. The interviews were based on two broad themes. The first relates to the perceptions of the Soviet period and on what grounds the Azerbaijanis differentiate the new Republic of Azerbaijan from the former Soviet Azerbaijan. The second relates to their perceptions of both the outside world and themselves with regards to differing understandings of nationalism, national culture, and national/ethnic or local identities. The study of the Azerbaijani example of post-Soviet political culture may help us to understand the dynamics of nation-building on the basis of the major political debates and of conflicting national, ethnic and local identities in Azerbaijan.     

Beitrag zur Kenntnis der tschechoslowakischen Cnidion venosi-Wiesen

Zusammenfassung In der vorliegenden Arbeit wird die Charakteristik und das Verbreitungsareal der Überschwemmungswiesen des Verbandes Cnidion venosiBal.-Tul. 1965 näher behandelt. Es handelt sich um einen kontinentalen Verband, dessen zusammenhängendes Areal in Mitteleuropa einerseits in Ostdeutschland, anderseits in Südmähren, Österreich und Nordost-Kroatien ausklingt. Den tschechoslowakischen Cnidion venosi-Wiesen: Lathyrus paluster — Gratiola officinalis-Ass.Bal.-Tul. 1963, Gratiola officinalis — Carex praecox-suzae-Ass.Bal.-Tul. 1963, Cnidium dubium — Viola elatior-Ass.K. Walther Mscr. inR. Tüxen 1954, Cnidium dubium — Viola pumila-Ass.Korneck 1962 und Serratula tinctoria — Plantago altissima-Ass.Ilijani 1967, wurde ein besonderes Kapitel gewidmet (Seite 202–205). Ihre Zusammensetzung ist auch aus Tabelle II ersichtlich.

---

Summary The characteristics and area of the flood meadows of the alliance Cnidion venosiBal.-Tul. 1965 are treated extensively. This is a continental alliance, whose area is delimited in Central-Europe on the one side in eastern Germany, on the other side in southern Moravia, Austria and north-east Croatia.A special chapter treats the types of meadows which in Czechoslovakia belong to this alliance.

     

The resurgence in resource nationalism and private protected areas: Through the lens of Save Valley Conservancy's indigenisation

It has been observed that the resurgence in resource nationalism in the past decade worldwide has profound implications for all economic sectors including protected areas. However, a review of the international protected area literature reveals a paucity of studies that make use of the construct of resource nationalism as an analytical framework. This paper addresses this gap by bringing to the fore how Zimbabwe's ZANU PF (the political party that brought the country's independence in 1980) has deployed and extended this construct from the 2000 land reform programme to one of the world's largest private wildlife sanctuaries, namely the Save Valley Conservancy (SVC). In doing so, the paper relies extensively on the narratives, debates and legitimations of the ruling elite and other stakeholders around the recent ‘indigenisation’ of the SVC. It was found that a range of actors attempted to use resource nationalism as a ‘resource’ to further their own private economic and political interests whilst others resorted to the conservation discourse. One of the main conclusions of this paper is that managers of protected areas need to be sensitive to the resurgence in resource nationalism. In this connection, it is argued that the ability to negotiate the resurgence in resource nationalism will determine the fate of some private protected areas. The study suggests possible solutions around the indigenisation of SVC and points to future research priorities.     

Class structure and social reproduction in new Spain/Mexico

Conclusions These regional histories are not presented as an end in themselves, but as a way to transcend the theoretical and conceptual impasse of debates such as the one over the capitalist or non-capitalist nature of colonial institutions. Spanish conquest brought a unity — political, economic, ideological — to Latin America. Preconquest social formations became part of a system of merchant capital, the Spanish empire, and the Catholic church, but the local/regional response to these forces was not uniform. As Kay points out, there is a fundamental flaw in the dependency argument:... these [dependency] economists have made an important discovery. In contradistinction to the classic Marxist view that capital breaks down all pre-capitalist modes of production and creates a world in its own image, i.e., developed world; they have shown that capital despite its corrosive effects, has bolstered up archaic political and economic forms through a series of alliances with powerful elements in pre-capitalist orders .The dependency argument requires an analysis of how capitalist penetration occurs, but this same argument can be applied to Kay's discussion of merchant capital. As one reviewer has noted, it is a theory of superimposition, not penetration . Here, I propose one possible solution, namely, the examination of class structures and social reproduction.Class structure sets the limits and possibilities through which merchant capital can operate . In the three regions examined, diferent forms of surplus extraction, and, hence, different class structures, occurred: labor service developed in the Yucatan; coerced trade was extracted in Oaxaca; and wage labor was combined with debt peonage in northern Mexico. These various forms imposed different limits on how the initial economic crisis and demographic collapse under colonialism were resolved in each of the three regions. In the crisis of the 17th century, areas such as Oaxaca and the Yucatan could revert to self-sufficiency, but in the northern mining districts great hardships and depopulation occurred as markets for hacienda products declined along with silver production .Similarly, regional responses to economic recovery and reintegration depended upon their particular class structures. In the Yucatan, attempts to produce new crops — sugar and henequen — during the 19th century led to factional disputes among the elites and the rebellion of the Indian work force. In Oaxaca, increased cochineal production homogenized the Indian social formation with famine, depopulation, and occasional rebellion in the monoculture areas — the result when trade was disrupted or when the price of cochineal fell. As in the Yucatan, a dependent merchant capitalist elite was a source of factionalism in the nascent bourgeoisie in Oaxaca. In northern Mexico, the integration of mining, manufacturing, and agriculture in the Bajio resulted in an independent regional economy which freed itself from Mexico City's mercantile capital in the late 18th century . These differences reveal how unevenly merchant capital penetrates and how it can produce centrifugal forces within the same national or regional economy.Social reproduction is also important, it broadens the range of the inquiry from simple biological/demographic reproduction, to the reproduction of social/class relations; the reproduction and accumulation of capital. Too often demography is either reified into a simple cause, or neglected altogether. This expanded explanation of social reproduction begins a theoretical process linking demography, social relations, and capital accumulation . In each region, the problem of a declining population was met, not simply at the level of demographic reproduction, but at the level of social relations as well.The regional shifts in reproduction patterns are important. Regional differences can be characterized into two broad types: one, which includes the Yucatan, Oaxaca and the remaining Indian highland areas, retains Indian communities as labor reserves; the other, including the Bajio and the northern mining districts, formed estates and attracted wage laborers from such labor reserves into new social relations, though, in fact, the two types were often combined and should be considered only as analytic isolates. Demographic shifts in these two types, viewed as part of an expanded notion of social reproduction, can ground an analysis of their inter-relationship and their relation, in turn, to larger political economic systems.Alone, the concept of labor shortage is an unsatisfactory explanation of the 17th century in New Spain. Labor was available for the colonization of the northern mining districts precisely during the disastrous declines in population, and the mining industry actually experienced a boom in the early part of the era . This underscores one vital point: laws of population are not independent of the economy .The growth of New Spain during the colonial period is not reducible to the two-stage Malthusian agrarian-economic cycle of feudal societies. Rather, it is tied to the demands of an unevenly developed mercantile, and later capitalist system, but this issue must be developed elsewhere. It is precisely these differences in social reproduction that can become a way to measure the process of penetration under merchant capital. For example, highland Indian villages have been conceived as isolated labor reserves, and many anthropologists have taken isolated to mean static and unchanging. The highlands, however, experienced drastic shifts throughout the colonial period. Population shifts can be traced to increased demand for certain products, such as cochineal in Oaxaca, or labor, as on the sugar plantations in the Yucatan. Shifts in demand can turn a population surplus into a shortage without any apparent change in the demographic situation.Regarding social reproduction, the way in which merchant capital extracts surplus from areas, such as the highlands, affects demographic reproduction. Recent studies of the development of coffee plantations in the Mexican highlands have shown that this is accompanied by an increase in both population and fertility rates . In the Yucatan, conditions forced married workers to take their families to work in the fields with them . It is also possible that the repartimiento encouraged high fertility rates . In short, many of the present capitalist complaints about overpopulation or a population explosion can be attributed to the development of capitalist exploitation in these areas.What is obvious from the above discussion is the need for a theory which does not homogenize regional differences, or turn them into static, geographic areas. Analytic concepts such as class, social reproduction and merchant capital need refinement, but in the light of concrete case studies, rather than through formalized theory. Capitalist penetration from the prehistoric phase of primitive accumulation to the present remains a problem for analysis through a method recognising regional differences in class and social reproduction. It is this method which lies at the heart of a dialectical and critical anthropology.Timothy C. Parrish is a doctoral candidate in anthropology at the Graduate Faculty, New School for Social Research, New York.

---

     

Social mobility of ethnic minority students in Laos

Idealistically speaking, schools are engines for upward social mobility. Education for ethnic minorities in Laos was set up to achieve nationalist, political, economic and sociocultural goals of ‘equity’ and ‘equality’. It was hoped that education would shift ethnic minorities from a lifestyle based on superstitious beliefs to a modern one, so that they could participate and enjoy ‘equality’ through educational equity. The purpose of this paper is to provide a case study of how equality as a promise in education has impacted on students’ upward mobility, particularly the political discourse of the ‘big man’. This paper explores social mobility provided by national education for ethnic minorities through boarding schooling. It finds that such education has yet to reposition ethnic minorities into the ethnic Lao sociocultural hierarchy. As a result, regardless of their educational success, students are still ranked as ‘ethnic minorities’ and as being ‘poor’ in the eyes of urban students, middle class and rich students, and the ethnic Lao elite.     

How does l-glutamate transport relate to selection of mixed nitrogen sources in Rhizobium leguminosarum biovar trifolii MNF1000 and cowpea Rhizobium MNF2030?

When growing on a mixture of ammonia and l-glutamate as nitrogen sources, Rhizobium leguminosarum biovar trifolii MNF1000 utilizes ammonia exclusively, while cowpea Rhizobium MNF2030 utilizes both compounds at similar rates. l-Glutamate transport in both strain MNF1000 and MNF2030 is active, giving rise to a 60-fold concentration gradient across the membrane of cells of strain MNF2030. Both strains produce two kinetically distinguishable glutamate transport systems under all conditions of growth — a high affinity system with an apparent K _m of 0.06–0.17 M but of relatively low V _max, and a low affinity system with a K _m of 1.2–6.7\ M, but of higher overall capacity. l-Glutamate transport activity in cells of MNF2030 was relatively insensitive to the presence of ammonia in the growth medium. By contrast, ammonia in the growth medium resulted in low activities of glutamate transport in cells of MNF1000 which were provided with a carbon source, offering one explanation for the failure of this strain to use glutamate in the presence of ammonia. However, in cells of MNF1000 growing on glutamate as sole source of carbon and nitrogen, the glutamate transport system is synthesized, even in the presence of accumulated or added ammonia. This suggests that the regulation of the glutamate permease also depends on availability of carbon source.Abbreviations CCCP carbonyl cyanide m-chlorophenyl hydrazone - HEPES N-hydroxyethylpiperazine-N-2-ethanesulphonic acid     

Infection with “Escaped” Virus Variants Impairs Control of Simian Immunodeficiency Virus SIVmac239 Replication in Mamu-B*08-Positive Macaques

An understanding of the mechanism(s) by which some individuals spontaneously control human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/simian immunodeficiency virus replication may aid vaccine design. Approximately 50% of Indian rhesus macaques that express the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I allele Mamu-B*08 become elite controllers after infection with simian immunodeficiency virus SIVmac239. Mamu-B*08 has a binding motif that is very similar to that of HLA-B27, a human MHC class I allele associated with the elite control of HIV, suggesting that SIVmac239-infected Mamu-B*08-positive (Mamu-B*08⁺) animals may be a good model for the elite control of HIV. The association with MHC class I alleles implicates CD8⁺ T cells and/or natural killer cells in the control of viral replication. We therefore introduced point mutations into eight Mamu-B*08-restricted CD8⁺ T-cell epitopes to investigate the contribution of epitope-specific CD8⁺ T-cell responses to the development of the control of viral replication. Ten Mamu-B*08⁺ macaques were infected with this mutant virus, 8X-SIVmac239. We compared immune responses and viral loads of these animals to those of wild-type SIVmac239-infected Mamu-B*08⁺ macaques. The five most immunodominant Mamu-B*08-restricted CD8⁺ T-cell responses were barely detectable in 8X-SIVmac239-infected animals. By 48 weeks postinfection, 2 of 10 8X-SIVmac239-infected Mamu-B*08⁺ animals controlled viral replication to <20,000 viral RNA (vRNA) copy equivalents (eq)/ml plasma, while 10 of 15 wild-type-infected Mamu-B*08⁺ animals had viral loads of <20,000 vRNA copy eq/ml (P = 0.04). Our results suggest that these epitope-specific CD8⁺ T-cell responses may play a role in establishing the control of viral replication in Mamu-B*08⁺ macaques.A few individuals spontaneously control the replication of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) or simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) to very low levels. The precise mechanisms underlying this control are of great interest, as a clear understanding of what constitutes a successful immune response may aid in developing an AIDS vaccine. Particularly pressing questions for vaccine design include which proteins to use as immunogens, the extent to which increasing the breadth and magnitude of responses is advantageous, how immunodomination affects T-cell responses, and if biasing the immune response toward particular effector profiles is beneficial. Characterization of immune responses made by elite controllers (ECs) may reveal patterns that can then be applied to vaccine formulation and evaluation.HIV ECs are generally not infected with grossly unfit viruses (6, 42). Instead, elite control of immunodeficiency virus replication is correlated with the presence of particular major histocompatibility complex class I (MHC-I) alleles (11, 12, 18, 32, 41, 55). The association of MHC-I alleles with the control of viremia implicates CD8⁺ T cells as being mediators of this immune containment. Several lines of evidence support this hypothesis. These lines of evidence include the correlation between the appearance of CD8⁺ T-cell responses and the resolution of peak viremia during acute infection (7, 29), the finding that alleles associated with viral control restrict dominant acute-phase CD8⁺ T-cell responses (3), and the finding that responses directed against epitopes restricted by these alleles frequently select for viral escape variants (4, 27, 38). Perhaps most compelling is the observation that for a few HIV-infected individuals, the selection of escape variants by an immunodominant HLA-B27-restricted T-cell response temporally preceded substantial increases in viremia (17, 21, 53). While viruses exhibiting escape variants in epitopes restricted by protective alleles are often detectably less fit in vitro (10, 38, 43, 51), recent data have found normal, high levels of replication in vivo upon the transmission of some of these variants (15).The association of control with MHC-I alleles does not, of course, implicate solely CD8⁺ T cells. MHC-I molecules are also ligands for killer immunoglobulin receptors (KIRs), which are predominantly expressed on natural killer (NK) cells. Genetic studies of HIV-infected humans suggest a model in which individuals with particular KIR/HLA combinations are predisposed to control HIV replication more readily than those with other KIR/HLA combinations (36, 37). These data were supported by functional studies of this KIR/HLA pairing in vitro, which demonstrated an inhibition of HIV replication by such NK cells (2). The relative contributions of NK and CD8⁺ T-cell responses to control have yet to be elucidated and may be closely intertwined.Previously, the experimental depletion of circulating CD8⁺ cells from SIVmac239-infected ECs resulted in a sharp spike in viremia, which resolved as CD8⁺ cells repopulated the periphery (19). During the reestablishment of control of SIV replication, CD8⁺ T cells targeting multiple epitopes restricted by alleles associated with elite control expanded in frequency, providing strong circumstantial evidence for their role in maintaining elite control (19, 31). However, CD8 depletion antibodies used in macaques also remove NK cells, which, at least in vitro, also inhibit SIV replication (19). It was therefore difficult to make definitive conclusions regarding the separate contributions of these subsets to maintaining the control of SIV replication in vivo.Here we investigate elite control in the rhesus macaque model for AIDS. We focused on the macaque MHC-I allele most tightly associated with the control of SIVmac239, Mamu-B*08. Approximately 50% of Mamu-B*08-positive (Mamu-B*08⁺) animals infected with SIVmac239 become ECs (32). Peptides presented by Mamu-B*08 share a binding motif with peptides presented by HLA-B27. Although these two MHC-I genes are dissimilar in domains that are important for peptide binding, each molecule can bind peptides that are presented by the other molecule (33). This striking similarity suggests that the elite control of SIVmac239 in Mamu-B*08⁺ animals is a good model for the elite control of HIV.Seven SIVmac239 epitopes restricted by Mamu-B*08 accrue variation in Mamu-B*08⁺ rhesus macaques (30, 31). For an eighth Mamu-B*08-restricted epitope, which is also restricted by Mamu-B*03 (Mamu-B*03 differs from Mamu-B*08 by 2 amino acids in the α1 and α2 domains [9, 32]), escape has been documented only for SIV-infected Mamu-B*03⁺ macaques (16). Variation in these CD8⁺ T-cell epitopes accumulates with different kinetics, starting during acute infection for those targeted by high-magnitude responses.In this study, we addressed the question of whether the elite control of SIVmac239 in Mamu-B*08⁺ animals is mediated by the known high-frequency CD8⁺ T-cell responses targeting Mamu-B*08-restricted epitopes. To this end, we introduced point mutations into eight epitopes, with the goal of reducing or abrogating immune responses directed against these epitopes during acute infection. We hypothesized that Mamu-B*08⁺ macaques would be unable to control SIV replication without these Mamu-B*08-restricted T-cell responses.     

Holliday Junction Resolvases

Four-way DNA intermediates, called Holliday junctions (HJs), can form during meiotic and mitotic recombination, and their removal is crucial for chromosome segregation. A group of ubiquitous and highly specialized structure-selective endonucleases catalyze the cleavage of HJs into two disconnected DNA duplexes in a reaction called HJ resolution. These enzymes, called HJ resolvases, have been identified in bacteria and their bacteriophages, archaea, and eukaryotes. In this review, we discuss fundamental aspects of the HJ structure and their interaction with junction-resolving enzymes. This is followed by a brief discussion of the eubacterial RuvABC enzymes, which provide the paradigm for HJ resolvases in other organisms. Finally, we review the biochemical and structural properties of some well-characterized resolvases from archaea, bacteriophage, and eukaryotes.Homologous recombination (HR) is an essential process that promotes genetic diversity during meiosis (see Lam and Keeney 2014; Zickler and Kleckner 2014). However, in somatic cells, HR plays a key role in conserving genetic information by facilitating DNA repair, thereby ensuring faithful genome duplication and limiting the divergence of repetitive DNA sequences (see Mehta and Haber 2014). As shown in Figure 1, HR is initiated by a DNA double-strand break, the ends of which are resected to produce single-stranded (ss) 3′-overhangs (see Symington 2014). Homologous strand invasion by one of the 3′ overhangs (e.g., one catalyzed by Escherichia coli RecA or human RAD51) leads to the formation of a displacement loop (D-loop) (see Morrical 2014). The invading 3′ end of the D-loop can then be extended by a DNA polymerase, which uses the homologous strand as a template for DNA synthesis. Recombination then proceeds in one of several different ways, some of which involve second-end capture, such that the other resected 3′ end anneals to the displaced strand of the D-loop (Szostak et al. 1983). In the resulting recombination intermediate, the two interacting DNAs are linked by nicked Holliday junctions (HJs). Additional DNA synthesis and nick ligation lead to the formation of a double Holliday junction (dHJ) intermediate. In eukaryotes, dHJs are removed primarily by “dissolution” (Fig. 1, bottom left) (see Bizard and Hickson 2014). This pathway involves the combined activities of a DNA helicase and a type IA topoisomerase, which catalyze branch migration and decatenation of the dHJ into noncrossover products (Manthei and Keck 2014). In somatic cells, this is essential for the avoidance of sister-chromatid exchanges (SCEs) and loss of heterozygosity. Alternatively, dHJs can be processed by “resolution” in reactions mediated by canonical or noncanonical mechanisms of endonuclease-mediated cleavage into either crossover or noncrossover products (Fig. 1, bottom middle and right).Open in a separate windowFigure 1.Pathways for the formation and processing of Holliday junctions. Resected DNA double-strand breaks invade homologous duplex DNA to create a joint molecule, or displacement-loop structure. The invading 3′ end then serves as a primer for DNA synthesis, leading to second end capture and the formation of a double Holliday junction. In eukaryotes, these structures are removed by “dissolution” (bottom left panel) or “resolution” (bottom middle and right panels). Canonical Holliday junction resolvases introduce a pair of symmetrical and coordinated nicks across one of the helical axes (bottom middle panel) to generate nicked DNA duplexes that can be directly ligated. Alternatively, noncanonical resolvases cleave Holliday junctions with asymmetric nicks to produce gapped and flapped DNA duplexes that require further processing prior to ligation (bottom right panel). *Mitochondrial Holliday junction resolvase.     

Transylvania,land beyond reason: Toward an anthropological analysis of a contested terrain

Conclusion In this paper I have tried to show how a new Hungarian consciousness emerged out of the chaotic situations since the end of World War II in East-Central Europe. The East European version of socialism has not been idealized here. On the contrary, I wanted to acknowledge that patterns of domination and suppression relating to ethnicity, ethnic past and division of groups into national minorities existed long before socialism was established in Eastern Europe, and remain characteristic of inter-state relations today. This situation, of course, helps hegemony of the Soviet bloc by the Soviet Union, itself facing similar socioeconomic and minority problems. The antagonism between the Romanian and Hungarian states has been created in part by a number of historic events: the making of the Supplex Libellus Vallachorum, the 1848–1849 War of Independence, the Compromise, the Treaty of Trianon, the 1940–1944 occupation of Transylvania by Hungary, the Potsdam, Yalta and Helsinki agreements and others playing significant roles in the development of the modern Hungarian and Romanian nation-states. Existing for hundreds of years on the periphery of the capitalist world-system and, then, both becoming part of the Soviet bloc placed the two countries in a vulnerable position experiencing different repercussions in their economic, social and cultural lives.The adoption of Marxism-Leninism and the overall role of the communist party produced statist societies each with it unique set of problems, while old problems were not solved despite the promises. The regimes facing severe external and internal pressures tried to implement economic and cultural policies reversing these trends. As conditions further deteriorated, the Hungarian and Romanian governments resorted to extreme measures and helped the creation of individual versions of Euronationalism. By trying to control the present and the future, they also designed the systematical control of the past to justify their present actions. Current minority problems are viewed as resulting from past injustices that are not forgotten. The Marxist slogan-men make their history but they do not make it according to their own wishes-serves for such dogma in the minds of policymakers. Most scholarly pursuit is manipulated into a rigid historical deterministic framework in order to serve statist hegemony by producing evidences for primacy over a historic terrain which, in turn, legitimizes control over populations living there in the present.As a contested terrain, Transylvania so fraught with contradiction and poignant conflict, is frustratingly paradoxical. The Romanian state's Daco-Roman myth serves the government to fight Hungarian nationalist attempts that focuses upon the idea of uniting sixteen milliin people based on their common culture, history and language. However, it also helps the Romanian regime to divert attention from the bleak socioeconomic conditions Romanians, Germans, Hungarians and others must bear. It is not as some nationalists would want us to believe that Hungarians suffer more because they are Hungarians, rather the truth is that everyone suffers equally under this system of oppression, misguided politics and unrealistic economic planning. Concentrating solely on ethnic superiority and historical righteousness is unlikely to yield appropriate solutions to solve the Hungarian-Romanian controversy and to place the mythical land of Transylvania in its proper context, except, most tragically, to reinforce existing nationalism and regressive ethnic bias.Hungarians and Romanians, villagers and urbanites, workers, peasants and intellectuals, are at the core of a highly charged nationalistic climate, imbued with unresolved tensions, unwarranted accusations, and subjective responses. Nationalism plays a key role in creating a festering wound for Hungarians and Romanians compelled to cling to age-old myths about their past sufferings and a deeply held sense of entitlement to an area. The current outbreak of interethnic tension and controversy is fueled by governments' interests coping with their weaknesses and failures at a critical moment when they try to reassess themselves. This mentality is neither to the benefit of discovering viable solutions to current problems nor of settling grievances of the past. It is obvious that a new perspective is needed to solve this ferocious controversy, a global view that takes into account its complexity while transcending the narrow-mindedness that has haunted it from the beginning. Only then will the land beyond reason become the real place of Transylvania for all its people.Laszlo Kurti is an instructor at the University of Massachusetts, (Amherst).     

Localization of genes coding for biochemical traits on the second chromosome of Drosophila imeretensis Sokolov (D. littoralis Meigen)

We have investigated 13 alleles of four genes coding for acid phosphatase, -and -esterases, and malic enzyme. The genes were localized and their positions regarding the centromere are as follows: Acph-1—centromere—Me—cu—dt—-Est—[Inversion 2t]—-Est. The occurrence of crossing-over in Drosophila imeretensis males, as well as the tetrameric structure of malic enzyme, was confirmed.     

Searching tRNA sequences for relatedness to aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase families

tRNA sequences were analyzed for sequence features correlated with known classes of aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase enzymes. The tRNAs were searched for distinguishing nucleotides anywhere in their sequences. The analyses did not find nucleotides predictive of synthetase class membership. We conclude that such nucleotides never existed in tRNA sequences or that they existed and were lost from many of the tRNA sequences during evolution.Based on a presentation made at a workshop—Aminoacyl-tRNA Synthetases and the Evolution of the Genetic Code—held at Berkeley, CA, July 17–20, 1994 Correspondence to: H.B. Nicholas, Jr.     

Chlorophyll f-driven photosynthesis in a cavernous cyanobacterium

Chlorophyll (Chl) f is the most recently discovered chlorophyll and has only been found in cyanobacteria from wet environments. Although its structure and biophysical properties are resolved, the importance of Chl f as an accessory pigment in photosynthesis remains unresolved. We found Chl f in a cyanobacterium enriched from a cavernous environment and report the first example of Chl f-supported oxygenic photosynthesis in cyanobacteria from such habitats. Pigment extraction, hyperspectral microscopy and transmission electron microscopy demonstrated the presence of Chl a and f in unicellular cyanobacteria found in enrichment cultures. Amplicon sequencing indicated that all oxygenic phototrophs were related to KC1, a Chl f-containing cyanobacterium previously isolated from an aquatic environment. Microsensor measurements on aggregates demonstrated oxygenic photosynthesis at 742 nm and less efficient photosynthesis under 768- and 777-nm light probably because of diminished overlap with the absorption spectrum of Chl f and other far-red absorbing pigments. Our findings suggest the importance of Chl f-containing cyanobacteria in terrestrial habitats.The textbook concept that oxygenic phototrophs primarily use radiation in the visible range (400–700 nm) has been challenged by several findings of unique cyanobacteria and chlorophylls (Chl) over the past two decades (Miyashita et al., 1996; Chen et al., 2010; Croce and van Amerongen, 2014) Unicellular cyanobacteria in the genus Acaryochloris primarily employ Chl d for oxygenic photosynthesis at 700–720 nm (Miyashita et al., 1996) and thrive in shaded habitats with low levels of visible light but replete of near-infrared radiation (NIR, >700 nm, Kühl et al., 2005; Behrendt et al., 2011, 2012). Furthermore, Chl f was recently discovered in filamentous (Chen et al., 2010; Airs et al., 2014; Gan et al., 2014) and unicellular cyanobacteria (Miyashita et al., 2014), enabling light harvesting even further into the NIR region up to ∼740 nm, often aided by employing additional far-red light-absorbing pigments such as Chl d and phycobiliproteins (Gan et al., 2014). Whereas the biochemical structure (Willows et al., 2013) and biophysical properties (Li et al., 2013; Tomo et al., 2014) of Chl f have been studied in detail, the actual importance of this new chlorophyll for photosynthesis is hardly explored (Li et al., 2014).Chlorophyll f has been found in cyanobacteria originating from aquatic/wet environments: the filamentous Halomicronema hongdechloris from stromatolites in Australia (Chen et al., 2012), a unicellar morphotype (Strain KC1) from Lake Biwa in Japan (Akutsu et al., 2011; Miyashita et al., 2014) and a filamentous Leptolyngbya sp. strain (JSC-1, Gan et al., 2014) from a hot-spring and in a unicellular Chlorogloeopsis fritschii strain from rice paddies (Airs et al., 2014). In this study, we report on a unicellular Chl f-containing cyanobacterium originating from a wet cavernous habitat and demonstrate its capability of NIR-driven oxygenic photosynthesis. Enrichments of the new cyanobacterium were obtained from a dense dark green-blackish biofilm dominated by globular morphotypes of Nostocaceae growing on moist limestone outside Jenolan Caves, NSW, Australia. The sampling site was heavily shaded even during mid-day with low irradiance levels of 400- to 700-nm light varying from 0.5 to 5 μmol photons m⁻² s⁻¹. Biofilms were carefully scraped off the substratum and kept in shaded zip-lock bags in a moist atmosphere until further processing. Samples were then incubated at 28 °C in a f/2 medium under NIR at 720 nm (∼10 μmol photons m⁻² s⁻¹) yielding conspicuous green cell aggregates after several months of incubation. Repeated transfer of the aggregates into fresh medium resulted in a culture predominated by green cell clusters (Figure 1a), exhibiting orange-red fluorescence upon excitation with blue light (Figure 1b). Transmission electron microscopy revealed that the green clusters consisted of slightly elongated unicellular cyanobacteria (∼1- to 2-μm wide and ∼2- to 3-μm long), with stacked thylakoids and embedded in a joint polymer matrix (Figure 1c). Hyperspectral microscopy (Kühl and Polerecky, 2008) of the clusters revealed distinct troughs in the transmission spectra at absorption maxima indicative of Chl a (675–680 nm) and Chl f (∼720 nm; Figure 1d, red line). In situ spectral irradiance measurements at the sampling site showed strong depletion of visible wavelengths in the 480- to 710-nm range (Figure 1d, gray line), whereas highest light levels were found in the near-infrared region of the solar spectrum at 710–900 nm. The presence of Chl a and f was further confirmed in enrichment cultures using high-performance liquid chromatography-based pigment analysis (Figure 1e, Supplementary Figure S1), while no Chl d was detected. In addition, weak spectral signatures of carotenoids and phycobilins, with absorption occurring at ∼495 and 665 nm, were evident in the hyperspectral data. Cyanobacteria, including those producing Chl d/f, are known to actively remodel their pigment content in response to the available light spectrum (Stomp et al., 2007; Chen and Scheer, 2013; Gan et al., 2014) and Chl d/f has almost exclusively been found in cyanobacteria grown under far-red light and not under visible light (Kühl et al., 2005; Chen et al., 2010; Airs et al., 2014; Gan et al., 2014; Li et al., 2014; Miyashita et al., 2014). Recent work describes this acclimation response as ‘Far-Red Light photoacclimation'' (FaRLiP), which, in strain JSC-1, comprises a global change in gene expression and structural remodeling of the PSII/PSI core proteins and phycobilisome constituents (Gan et al., 2014). The extent to which this arrangement results in optimized photosynthetic performance is only known for the NIR (=710 nm)-acclimated strain JSC-1, where exposure to wavelengths >695 nm resulted in 40% higher O₂ evolution rates as compared with cells that were previously adapted to red light (645 nm; Gan et al., 2014). Yet the discrimination of actinic wavelengths and their relative effect on gross photosynthesis in Chl f-containing cells needs further investigation. Using an O₂ microsensor and the light–dark shift method (Revsbech et al., 1983) on embedded Chl f-containing aggregates, we found maximal gross photosynthesis rates (∼1.06 μmol O₂ cm⁻³ s⁻¹) to occur at irradiances of ∼250 μmol photons m⁻² s⁻¹ of 742 nm (half-bandwidth, HBW, 25 nm, Figures 2a and b) with light saturation to occur very early at ∼35 μmol photons m⁻² s⁻¹. Further red-shifted actinic light, that is, 768 nm (HBW 28 nm) and 777 nm (HBW 30 nm), yielded lower O₂ evolution rates, which, in all likelihood, are an effect of the diminished overlap with far-red light-absorbing pigments, including Chl f (Figures 2a and b). As O₂ evolution rates were measured on non-axenic cell aggregates, 16S rDNA amplicon sequencing was employed to determine the microbial diversity found within the enrichment culture. This revealed the presence of a variety of bacterial types, including anoxygenic phototrophs, yet all sequences for known oxygenic phototrophs in the data set (∼9.3% of all reads on the order level, Supplementary Figure S2) formed a single operational taxonomic unit (OTU) closely affiliated with the Chl f-containing strain KC1 (Miyashita et al., 2014, Figure 2c).Open in a separate windowFigure 1Imaging and pigment analysis of Chl f-containing cyanobacteria isolated from a cavernous low-light environment. (a) Representative bright field microscope image of cultured cells grown under 720 nm NIR. (b) Fluorescence image of the same cells as in a, excited at 450–490 nm, with emission being detected at >510 nm. (c) Transmission electron microscopy of a Chl f-containing cyanobacterium with densely stacked thylakoid membranes. (d) Transmittance spectrum of cell aggregate determined by hyperspectral imaging (red line). Ambient light conditions at the site of isolation (gray line), as measured by a spectroradiometer. Note the Chl f-specific in vivo absorption at ∼720 nm in the transmittance spectrum (dotted line). Small insert picture denotes the cells and area of interest (black arrow) from which the spectrum was taken. (e) In vitro absorption spectrum of Chl f extracted from enrichment cultures and analyzed via high-performance liquid chromatography. The two Chl f-specific absorption peaks (404 and 704 nm in acetone:MeOH solvent) are indicated.Open in a separate windowFigure 2Taxonomic affiliation and O₂ evolution of Chl f-containing cells as determined by O₂ microelectrode measurements and 16 S rDNA amplicon sequencing. (a) Emission spectra of narrow-band light-emitting diodes (LEDs) used in this study, with peak emissions at 742, 768 and 777 nm indicated by a–c, respectively. (b) Gross photosynthesis measured via an O₂ microsensor placed in a clump of agarose-embedded Chl f-containing cells. Different NIR irradiance was administered by the LEDs in a and by altering the distance of the LEDs to the embedded cells. (c) Phylogenetic affiliation of known Chl f and/or Chl d-containing cyanobacteria (highlighted in gray) and their respective habitat/place of isolation. Taxonomy was determined by clustering all known oxygenic phototrophs found in enrichment cultures from this study (at order level) into a single OTU (=292 bp length, see Supplementary Materials for details). Phylogeny was inferred using Maximum-likelihood in conjunction with the GTR +I +G nucleotide substitution model, tree stability was tested using bootstrapping with 100 replicates. The analysis involved 39 nucleotide sequences each truncated to a length of 292 bp. Here, the green-sulphur bacterium Chlorobium tepidum TLS was chosen as the outgroup.This advocates that cells from our enrichment culture are related to KC1 cells and supports, in conjunction with further morphological-, physiological- and ultrastructural evidence, that Chl f is extending the usable light spectrum for oxygenic photosynthesis in a cavernous low-light environment. Given the lifestyle and known habitats of recognized Chl d/f-producing cyanobacteria (Figure 2c), we propose that many, if not all, surface-associated cyanobacteria are intrinsically capable of producing far-red light-absorbing pigments and to actively employ them in oxygenic photosynthesis as a result of FaRLiP or similar, yet unknown, mechanisms.     

How did the Krummhörn elite males achieve above-average reproductive success?

The wealthy elite males of nineteenth-century Krummhörn (Ostfriesland, Germany) achieved an above-average reproductive success. Membership in the elite class was determined from a list of the 300 richest men in the Ostfriesland district compiled by authorities in 1812. The main components establishing the link between cultural success and reproductive success are

1. differences in the number of offspring owing to differences both in time spent in fecund marriage (mating success) and in rate of reproduction;
2. differences in the probabilities of one’s adult offspring marrying locally vs. emigrating unmarried owing to differential ability to allocate resources that enhance the “social placement” of adult offspring; and
3. differences in the probability of total reproductive failure (lineage extinction).

Contrary to what might be expected, infant survivorship was lowest amongst the richest families. We conclude that to a great extent females’ reproductive decisions contribute to the greater reproductive success of the elite males.     

An empirical comparison of selection methods for the improvement of biomass

Summary A single generation of upward truncation selection on families with 20% selected was carried out in each of five replicates using Tribolium castaneum as the test organism. The experiment involved eight lines: N — selected for offspring number; W — selected for pupal weight; B — selected for biomass; Q — quadratic index selected; L₂₁ — linear index selected with relative economic weights of 21 offspring number to pupal weight; L₁₁ — linear index selected with relative economic weights of 11 offspring number to pupal weight; L₁₂ — linear index selected with relative economic weights of 12 offspring number to pupal weight; C — an unselected control.Biomass (weight of offspring per family), offspring number, and pupal weight were measured. No differences in response to selection were found among the linear index lines and the pupal weight line with regard to any trait analysed. Generally, response to selection in the linear index lines and pupal weight line was small for offspring number and high for pupal weight. Selection pressure on offspring number in these lines seemed to be dependent on the correlation between offspring number and pupal weight. As a result, response to selection for biomass was poor in the linear index and pupal weight selected lines. In the case of the linear indices, poor response to selection for biomass appeared to be due to the violation of the assumption of additivity of the traits included in the definition of aggregate genotype.The responses in the quadratic index, biomass, and offspring number selected lines were equal with respect to selection for biomass. The response of the quadratic index selected line was less than the responses of the biomass and offspring number selected lines for offspring number, but the response in the quadratic index line was as large as that of any other line included in the experiment and greater than the biomass and offspring number selected lines where pupal weight was the criterion.Highly significant amounts of variation were found for all traits indicating that more replicates are needed for precise evaluation of selection systems.     

Hutterite belief in evil eye: Beyond paranoia and towards a general theory of invidia

Most studies of evil eye link economic and political inequality to the fear of appropriation of property while tying envy (invidia) to paranoia. In both psychiatric and anthropological studies of evil eye, explanation of the phenomenon is problematic because the data are retroductive — involving a rationalization on the part of the patient or informant in terms of either delusions or world-view respectively. In this paper the connection between invidia and paranoia is questioned by grounding the analysis of Hutterian beliefs in evil eye in social interaction rather than retroductive explanation. In the case of the Hutterites it is envy itself which is feared and linked to high anxiety levels and sometimes to anxiety attacks or even depression.     

Functional activity and ultrastructure of mitochondria isolated from myocardial apoptotic tissue

Apoptosis in myocardial tissue slices was induced by extended incubation under anoxic conditions. Mitochondria were isolated from the studied tissue. A new method of isolation of mitochondria in special conditions by differential centrifugation at 1700, 10,000, and 17,000g resulted in three fractions of mitochondria. According to the data of electron microscopy the heavy mitochondrial fraction (1700g) consisted of mitochondrial clusters only, the middle mitochondrial fraction (10,000g) consisted of mitochondria with typical for isolated mitochondria ultrastructure, and the light fraction consisted of small mitochondria (2 or 3 cristae) of various preservation. The heavy fraction contained unusual structural elements that we detected earlier in apoptotic myocardial tissue—small electron-dense mitochondria incorporated in bigger mitochondria. The structure of small mitochondria from the light fraction corresponded to that of the small mitochondria from these unusual elements—mitochondrion in mitochondrion. The most important functions of isolated mitochondria are strongly inhibited when apoptosis is induced in our model. The detailed study of the activities of the two fractions of the apoptotic mitochondria showed that the system of malate oxidation is completely altered, the activity of cytochrome c as electron carrier is partly inhibited, while succinate oxidase activity is completely preserved (complexes II, III, and IV of the respiration chain). Succinate oxidase activity was accompanied by high permeability of the internal membrane for protons: the addition of uncoupler did not stimulate respiration. ATP synthesis in mitochondria was inhibited. We demonstrated that in our model of apoptosis cytochrome c remains in the intermembrane space, and, consequently, is not involved in the cascade of activation of effector caspases. The possible mechanisms of induction of apoptosis during anoxia are discussed.     

Class,culture, and the Miskito Indians: A historical perspective

Conclusion In this paper I have endeavored to outline a dialectical analysis of the Miskito Indian historical experience of the last 350 years. This history has been divided into three periods, in each of which class processes have been integrally tied to particular ethnic configurations. In the first, pre-contact period, a series of autonomous egalitarian hunting, gathering and horticultural groups, linked in a network of mutual trading and raiding, inhabited the various river basins of the coastal region. In the second period, beginning roughly in the early 17th century, integration as a periphery in the British mercantile empire engendered a political economic transformation in which local headmen emerged as focal points in the articulation of coastal production with British exchange networks. The new level of power over the allocation of social surpluses assumed by these headmen was validated through the symbolic framework of British monarchy. This also served the geopolitical interests of the British. The rise of this incipient tributary mode of production was a central force in the emergence of the Miskito as a new ethnic entity.The decline of mercantilism and the rise of the second phase of the Industrial Revolution saw a shift in British interests in the periphery from commodities to sources of labor and loci for investment. This brought about a second transformation in which the incipient tributary kingship was undermined both from within, by the demise of the slave trade, and from without, by increasing foreign contact coupled with population expansion and the large-scale introduction of wage labor. The Miskito were now integrated fairly uniformly as an underclass in the new coastal class hierarchy. However, wage labor took its place beside kin-ordered production and exchange in a dualistic system, which alternated with continual booms and busts in the local economy. Ethnic groupings now both defined, and were rooted in, class differentiation.As we have seen, due to its theoretically fragmented and inconsistent nature, our received anthropological history of the Miskito also serves us poorly, if we want to develop a critical understanding of the Atlantic coast of Nicaragua and its dilemmas within the revolution. Focusing on the intersection of class and ethnic processes through history gives us a more coherent and analytically convincing picture. It provides us, as well, with a basis for a deeper understanding of the roots of the Miskito/Sandinista conflict. While politics conceived in terms of class or in terms of ethnicity have given rise to ostensibly different social agendas, it is clear that historically the two have never been separate aspects of existence. Miskito culture is an historical creation — evolved in response to the ongoing pressures of integration into a world political economy whose center lay in Europe or the United States and expressive of the class processes set off by these encounters.Yet it is more than just an expression of these processes, for the way in which the Miskito defined and articulated themselves as a cultural unit played a central role in the shaping of those processes themselves. Thus, a Marxist analysis that downplays the importance of ethnic identity in favor of class identity will miss fundamental aspects of what it is to be Miskito, culturally and politically, as well as economically. By the same token, ethnic movements that eschew class analysis in favor of a strictly cultural interpretation will fall into a similar trap, becoming perhaps more vulnerable to acting in ways that go against their own interests. Whatever the outcome of this particular situation, given the size and importance of the indigenous peoples through the Americas, the left's ability to deal with culture as a basis of resistance will have a deep impact on the course of progressive social change throughout the region.Daniel Noveck received his BA degree in anthropology, from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.