The uses of racism: whitewashing new Europeans in the UK

In many respects, recent East European migrants in the UK look like past migrants to the UK: they left poorer parts of the world in search of work and the better life in the UK. But in other respects, they look different: they are white. Their putative whiteness, however, has not exempted them from the effects of racism. But while there is growing evidence of how they have been targets of racism, less attention has been focused on how they are also perpetrators of racism. The purpose of this paper is to compare the ways Hungarians and Romanians wield ‘race’ to assert and defend the relatively privileged position their putative whiteness affords them in the UK's segmented labour market. I argue that these migrants mark, evaluate and rank difference in racialized ways to secure both social-psychological and material benefits.     

A white side of black Britain: The concept of racial literacy

Opposition to transracial adoption on both sides of the Atlantic, has been based, in part, on the assumption that white parents cannot understand race or racism and thus cannot properly prepare children of multiracial heritage to cope with racism. In this article I draw on a seven-year ethnographic study to offer an intensive case study of white transracial birth parents that counters this racial logic. I draw on a subset of data collected from field research and in-depth interviews with 102 members of black-white interracial families in England. I provide an analysis of three practices that I discovered among white transracial birth parents who were attempting to cultivate ‘black’ identities in their children of multiracial heritage. I offer the concept of ‘racial literacy’ to theorize their parental labour as a type of anti-racist project that remains under the radar of conventional sociological analyses of racism and anti-racist social movements.     

Some comments on the case for Early Pleistocene hominids in South-Eastern Spain

Several sites in the Orce Basin have revealed evidence of the presence of hominids in the Early Pleistocene. These remains are dated to over 1.0 million years, while they may be as old as 1.6 million years. The skeletal remains from Venta Micena in the Orce Basin show a molecular “fossil protein” pattern which aligns them with hominids, but not with equids. This is supported by the anatomical evidence of the two humeral shafts from theEstrato Blanco in the Venta Micena deposits. The biparieto-occipital partial calvaria shows some unusual features if VM-0 is a hominid specimen. the presence of a prominent crest on the internal surface of the occipital fragment adjacent to the point lambda is decidedly unusual for a modern human calvaria. Moreover, theimpressions gyrorum, in the region where the superior parietal lobule of the cerebral hemisphere abutted against the calvaria, point to a bipartite superior parietal lobule with anterior and posterior moieties which, on the endocast, are clearly separated by a depression that represents a sulcus. These morphological traits are rather puzzling if VM-0 is a hominid, and at first they led me to hesitate over the anatomical identification of VM-0. However, the studies of Campillo (1989) and of Campillo and Barcelo (1986) suggest that the features of the fragment VM-0 are compatible with those of a hominid. Because I believe that we do not possess sufficient information on the variability of the endocranial and ectocranial manifestations of the sagittal suture and of its variance with age of the individual, in different hominid species and different equid species, I have not adduced this pattern as evidence in support or rebuttal of the hominid status of VM-0.     

Developmental,genetic, and environmental components of aerobic capacity at high altitude

The aerobic capacity of 268 subjects (158 males and 110 females) was evaluated in La Paz, Bolivia situated at 3,750 m. The sample included 1) 39 high altitude rural natives (all male); 2) 67 high altitude urban natives (32 male, 35 female); 3) 69 Bolivians of foreign ancestry acclimatized to high altitude since birth (37 male, 32 female); 4) 50 Bolivians of foreign ancestry acclimatized to high altitude during growth (25 male, 25 female); and 5) 43 non-Bolivians of either European or North American ancestry acclimatized to high altitude during adulthood (25 male, 18 female). Data analyses indicate that 1) high altitude urban natives, acclimatized to high altitude since birth or during growth, attained higher aerobic capacity than subjects acclimatized to high altitude during adulthood; 2) age at arrival to high altitude is inversely related to maximum oxygen consumption (V?O² max) expressed in terms L/min or ml/min/kg of lean body mass, but not in terms of ml/min/kg of body weight; 3) among subjects acclimatized to high altitude during growth, approximately 25% of the variability in aerobic capacity can be explained by developmental factors; 4) as inferred from evaluations of skin color reflectance and sibling similarities, approximately 20 to 25% of the variability in aerobic capacity at high altitude can be explained by genetic factors; 5) except among the non-Bolivians acclimatized to high altitude during adulthood, the aerobic capacity of individuals with high occupational activity level is equal to the aerobic capacity of high altitude rural natives; and 6) the relationship between occupational activity level and aerobic capacity is much greater among subjects acclimatized to high altitude before the age of 10 years than afterwards. Together these data suggest that the attainment of normal aerobic capacity at high altitude is related to both developmental acclimatization and genetic factors but its expression is highly mediated by environmental factors, such as occupational activity level and body composition. © 1995 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

Lockdown strictness and mental health effects among older populations in Europe

This paper investigates whether lockdown policies aggravated mental health problems of older populations (50 and over) in Europe during the first COVID-19 wave. Using data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE COVID-19 questionnaire) and from the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker for 17 countries, we estimate the causal effect of lockdown policies on mental health by combining cross-country variability in the strictness of the policies with cross-individual variability in face-to-face contacts prior to the pandemic. We find that lockdown policies worsened insomnia, anxiety, and depression by 5, 7.2 and 5.1 percentage points, respectively. This effect was stronger for women and those aged between 50 and 65. Interestingly, lockdown policies notably damaged the mental health of healthy populations. We close with a discussion of lockdown policies targeted at individuals above 65 and/or with pre-existing conditions.     

Late pleistocene climatic reconstruction in North Africa and the emergence of modern Europeans

A critical evaluation of a replacementist hypothesis regarding the origin of modernH. sapiens in Europe as suggested byN. T. Boaz D. Ninkovitch & M. Rossignol-Strick (1982) is presented. These authors have contended that harsh desertic conditions in North Africa between 40 ky — 30 ky B. P. resulted in the movement of modern humans from this region around the Mediterranean littoral into Europe. Two additional tenets of this hypothesis are the claim that Neandertals were islated in Europe during the first half of the Würm and also the assertion that formation of a landbridge at the Dardanelles ca. 34 ky B. P. ended this isolation and facilitated an influx of modern humans into Europe at this time. This hypothesis is found to be unsupported by the balance of the available data. The specific points discussed include the following: a) climatic and archaeological indicators of a hospitable environment in North Africa between 40 ky — 30 ky B.P., b) the likelihood of landbridge formation at the Dardanelles throughout the last glacial cycle, c) the technological capabilities and uncertain taxonomic identity of the North African source group and d) the similarities between west Asian and European Neandertals which indicate that a prolonged separation of the two groups is unlikely.     

山东临淄周-汉代人骨种族属性的讨论

本文指出植田信太郎等用同样比较方法先后发表的山东临淄周汉代人骨遗传学研究文章结果的不一致 ,提示这种遗传学研究结果可能受到一些未知的因素影响。同时认为他们文章中提出的 2 5 0 0年以前山东人、2 0 0 0年以前山东人、现代山东人分别具有与现代欧洲人、现代中西亚人、现代东亚人相近的遗传距离的结果与中国境内古代人骨的种族形态学研究结果不相符合。