Social Contradictions in Southern Italy in the Late 5th — First Half of the 6th Centuries

This research examines the relations between forest decrease and legal property security in Mato Grosso State, Brazil. The study area encompasses 133,090.4 km2 of the Amazonian biome, belonging to the Brazilian Legal Amazon, located at the arc of deforestation where agriculture and cattle ranching compete with the native vegetation cover. Cadastral monitoring and certification of productive land plots are Brazil’s public policies to implement to tackle these environmental challenges. In this context, we crossed the Land Management System (SIGEF) dataset launched in 2013 from the National Institute for Agrarian Reform and the Amazon Deforestation Monitoring Program (PRODES) dataset from the Brazilian National Institute of Space Research (INPE). The analysis considered the 2013–2018 period with public and private land plots and evaluated the differences in smallholders and large landowners’ deforesting behavior. The results demonstrate that the primacy of certified properties was in private land (94%), with a small portion of the public land (6%). Most properties have <80% forest coverage on certification, corresponding to 85% on private properties and 95% on public properties. This fact is important because environmental legislation in the Amazon region establishes a legal reserve of 80% in forest areas. The results show that the smaller the property, the greater the percentage of proportional deforestation in the certification. In the biennium, considering before and after certification, a proportion of 8% of private properties and 28% of public properties with vegetation cover had deforestation. The results demonstrate the tendency for smaller properties to deforest proportionally more than larger ones. The annual difference series in properties registered in 2015 demonstrates that the highest deforestation occurrence was in the year of certification in private properties and the subsequent year in public properties. The SIGEF system is relatively new, requiring more time to establish a consolidated trend. The combination of property rights and effective compliance with environmental legislation allows the conservation of the forest. However, it is essential to improve inspection. Land ownership inserts the owner into a system of rules to properly use natural resources, constituting a legal instrument to guide human action.

Restoring farmlands for food and nature

During the archaeological excavations in the north-eastern part of the thermae at Constantine the Great?s villa in Mediana, in the 2022 campaign, in a layer of debris two fragments of marble relief with a representation of Nike/Victoria standing on a globe were discovered. The fine grain white marble used for the icon, with its exquisite modelling, suggest that it was made from expensive marble by the hands of a skilful artisan in the period from the 3rd to the 4th century. The fact that the relief was discovered in the area of an imperial residential complex relates it to other known Central Balkan finds with Victoria representations, discovered in Galerius? imperial domain Felix Romuliana and Moesia Superior?s capital Viminacium. All these mythological objects can be dated into the period of the 3rd and the 4th century, attesting that the goddess? symbolism did not lose any of its popularity in the period of Late Antiquity - on the contrary, it announced the transformation of the goddess into an angel and, later on, as the one who blessed the emperors during their coronation. Thus, the question of Victoria?s different roles (goddess or personification) again arises, gaining a new meaning in the early Byzantine period.

The paper is concerned with the issues of the voluntary land consolidation using the exchange method at land relations reforming. The objective of the article is the substantiation of the exchange method aiming at the large and small land owners (land users) land tenure optimization and the formation of approaches with the help of which the mutual alignment of their interests can be achieved. Land plot ownership and tenure rights exchange by the relative value has been substantiated. It is suggested to define the relative value based on the principle of juxtaposition of land plots by their qualitative, spatial and technological characteristics. The land plots exchange modelling has been improved according to the relative value application and due to the existing land plots boundaries retaining at the exchange. The effectiveness of the suggested land plots exchange method has been demonstrated at the land tenure optimization of an agricultural enterprise and some households in Kyiv Region. Alternative land consolidation projects based on the land plots exchange have been developed, the results of which demonstrate the advantages of the voluntary land consolidation based on the suggested methodology.

Knossos was an important city on Crete and within Mediterranean networks in terms of trade and political status, though its status differed throughout the Hellenistic, Roman and Late Antique periods. This paper uses stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis to consider whether people at Knossos had differential diets due to the social, political, cultural, and economic changes across this time frame, factoring in age, sex and social status. Samples of human bone were selected to represent this range of time periods and variables.In this initial study, a small but insignificant increase in δ13C values was observed between the Hellenistic and Roman periods and there was a significant increase in δ15N values for the Late Antique period. No relationship between δ13C or δ15N and age was observed and while the female and male means were similar, the females had wider ranging values. No significant differences were detected by social status as represented by tomb type but there were small sample sizes for several of the tomb types.The results indicated a C3 terrestrial diet with meat or other animal products included for most individuals. The slight increase in δ13C values in the Roman period may represent either the introduction of a small amount of C4 plant or marine food, or very low trophic level marine foods into some Roman diets. The higher δ13C and, in particular, δ15N values observed in the Late Antique samples, suggests an increased consumption of seafood, potentially linked to Christian dietary practices or advances in fishing technologies and preservation techniques. The wider spread values of females compared to males, indicating a more varied diet, could have resulted from differential participation in religious institutions connected to food or may have been caused by greater nutritional stress in females in relation to pregnancy and reproductive issues.This study does not show a pattern of higher animal protein consumption in times of economic and cultural growth and prosperity but differences were detected between the different time periods in connection with the concurrent socio-economic changes.

The peasantry has always acted in the production of food as a condition of maintaining its existence. Threatened continuously by large landowners, governments, national and multinational corporations, peasants organize themselves in movements or other institutions to resist the expropriation processes. The peasant movements of Latin America are the most active in the world. One of the reasons for their high level of organization is their history. Formed in territories dominated by colonizers, enslaved and subordinates, they fought for independence and freedom. Since the 1960s, agribusiness has become territorialized on the ruins of peasant communities; again, the perseverance of the peasantry promotes persistent resistance in the continuous struggle for land and agrarian reform. Knowing the realities of the peasant movements in Latin America makes it possible to understand the reason for their existence—not for the development of capitalist agriculture but by the continuous process the formation of family agriculture that distinguishes more and more conventional agriculture. Since the 1970s, the peasantry has built an agroecological path against agribusiness that increasingly develops commodities with pesticides for the production of ultraprocessed foods. These realities are permanently in people’s daily lives and make them pay attention to the types of food that are on their tables for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Few people understand the importance of the peasantry in their daily lives.

The natural and cultural landscape of Naples (southern Italy) during the Graeco-Roman and Late Antique periods

This study examines a group of graffiti board games found in the public areas of Stratonikeia, one of the important cities of the Inner Carian Region in the Late Antique Period (Late 5th and 6th centuries AD), and Lagina, which was politically affiliated to it, and aims to contribute these games to the existing literature. This game, known as “ ludus duodecim scriptorum” or “duodecim scripta” during the Roman Imperial Period and resembling backgammon, continued to be played under the name alea in the Late Antique Period. The 5 examples of alea identified in Stratonikeia and Lagina show less prevalence compared to other graffiti games documented in the city – three-in-arow, nine men’s morris, and mancala. These games were created by carving them practically and carelessly into the marble surfaces of architectural elements, rather than using specially produced luxury gaming tables. Four of these games are located in the public areas of Stratonikeia that are open to the public, while one is located on the stylobate of the Hekate Temple in Lagina. Although a decline in pagan beliefs was observed with the collapse of the Roman Empire and the acceptance of Christianity as the official religion of the state, it is understood that board games continued to be played in many cities under Imperial rule. In this context, this study conducted through the examples of Stratonikeia and Lagina aims to reveal how the religious and social transformations experienced in the Late Antique Period were reflected in leisure and entertainment practices—especially board games—through archaeological data.

:<i>La villa dopo la villa 2: Trasformazione di un sistema insediativo ed economico nell’Italia centrale tra tarda Antichità e Medioevo</i>

Reviewed by: The Bride of Christ Goes to Hell: Metaphor and Embodiment In the Lives of Pious Women, 200–1500 by Dyan Elliott Ericka Swensson Dyan Elliott, The Bride of Christ Goes to Hell: Metaphor and Embodiment In the Lives of Pious Women, 200–1500 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press 2011) 472 pp. Dyan Elliott’s monograph is a natural outgrowth of her previous work on spiritual marriage in the Christian church and her more recent scholarship on the relationship between the inquisition and the early modern European witch craze. In The Bride of Christ Goes to Hell, Elliott examines the metaphor of the sponsa Christi, or bride of Christ, as it evolved from the abstract to the literal. Elliott shows how the female mystics of the Middle Ages were “one link in the chain” (6) that united them to the so-called witches of the early modern period by examining the evolution of the sponsa Christi in western Europe from 200–1500 CE. Beginning with her analysis of the works of early church fathers, Elliott’s focus then travels northward to conclude her examination with the Beguines. In her first chapter, Elliott casts Tertullian, who was decidedly against marriage, as the unlikely originator of the sponsa Christi imagery. Elliott argues that in the late antique period there were two ways that early Christians understood the relationship between gender and chastity. The first was represented by the image of the virile woman whose chaste body, like the Desert Mothers and St. Perpetua, became male. The second category was that of the vita angelica which represented a “realized eschatology” (12) on earth in which the bodies of the chaste became androgynous like that of the angels. However, for Tertullian, the notion of the vita angelica became increasingly problematic as it created the context for miscegenation between (female) virgins and angels. Tertullian’s response was to cast the sexed human body as the point of difference between humans and angels, even in the afterlife. Tertullian then used the imagery of the sponsa Christi to place female virgins, not on par with angels or men, but at the mercy of their bridegroom. In chapter 2, Elliott broadens her scope to show how subsequent church fathers, including Cyprian, Origen, Athanasius, Ambrose, and Augustine, used the imagery of the sponsa Christi to moderate women’s dress and behavior, and to situate male clerics as authorities over consecrated virgins. One of the more interesting developments during this period was the way in which women increasingly began to embrace the imagery of the sponsa Christi which afforded them both a place of honor and a recognized legal and social status, albeit at great sacrifice. In her third chapter, Elliott examines the bride of Christ in the Barbarian West, demonstrating how the term came to include widows and mothers, as manifested in Aldhelm’s three degrees of female chastity. Elliott also explores the case of Queen Radegund, and her male and female hagiographers, who deployed the rhetoric of the sponsa Christi in various ways. In particular, Elliott focuses on Baudonivia’s life of Radegund claiming that her vita both anticipated the writings of subsequent female mystics and demonstrated how the sponsa Christi had become a “point of identification” not just imposed upon women but readily embraced by them. [End Page 258] Elliott explores the emergence of chaste heterosexual couples such as Abe-lard and Heloise in the eleventh and twelfth centuries in chapters 4 and 5, which coincided with increasing importance of the idea of consent in medieval marriage. Elliott also analyzes the unique relationship between women and their male confessors: labeling the phenomenon “heteroasceticism,” she describes it as a intense emotional attachment between a man and a women who are committed to a celibate life. Elliott argues that partners in these heteroascetic unions described themselves as participating in a quasi-conjugal union and, in doing so, directly engaged with the language of the sponsa Christi. However, the distinction between what she deems the “forebears” of heteroasceticism, represented by the relationships between Jerome and Paula or Fortunatus and Radegund, and the contemporary examples, such as Peter Damian, is not always clear. In chapter 6, Elliott discusses the emergence...

PurposeThe representation of economic and financial crimes in the mass media can have a significant impact on readers’ and citizens’ perceptions of illegality and on a firm’s propensity to invest in different areas of the country in question. This paper aims to study the possible geographical media bias regarding tax evasion in Italy.Design/methodology/approachThe empirical analysis considers 618 articles on tax evasion published between 2012 and 2016 in two top Italian newspapers, La Repubblica (based in Rome) and Il Corriere della Sera (based in Milan).FindingsExcluding Insular Italy (Sicily and Sardinia), the articles on tax evasion in Southern Italy are systematically shorter. A further analysis shows that La Repubblica is largely responsible for this bias. This result holds after controlling for other events (bank robberies) and for the identity of journalists.Originality/valuePrevious studies considered the possible media bias regarding particularly dramatic criminal events, for example, terrorism acts or murders. This paper considers a less dramatic though more pervasive crime. In addition, an assessment of media attitude towards tax evasion is more complex, because the news reports both the crime and the successful actions that combat it.

This article discusses the relevance of the problems of formation of land relations and land use in the Nalchik district at the beginning of the 20th century. Issues related to the distribution of land plots and their use in the land structure of the region are touched upon. The article analyzes all the land plots of Nalchik, and provides their differentiation by the quality of each of the lands. The author also reveals the importance and role of the factor of pasture economy in the context of land relations. The conclusion is made that the penetration of commercial capital in the period under review played a decisive role in changing land use, radically changing socio-economic relations in the village. In turn, the penetration of capital caused serious problems in the sphere of private land ownership, the reason for this was the inability of the privileged classes to switch to new market relations. Having received the land “on the basis of private property”, many of them found it difficult to effectively organize the landlord economy using hired labor, agricultural machinery, which led to leasing of landowners to wealthy peasants, as a result, most of the land in the district was distributed between large landowners and wealthy peasants.

The role of place in cultivating artistic practice, communities and audiences is well established and the economic, social and cultural benefits that flow from this are becoming better understood. By contrast, the factors impacting and influencing access to these places is poorly theorised. This paper identifies and examines these factors as they apply to live music in Australia, through a qualitative survey of live music patrons and venues. We compare the themes identified from our data with existing theories of access in the arts, with a particular focus on the ways in which place-based music scenes may encourage or exclude participation. We address the question of how access affects participation within these scenes, as well as how access might be improved.

This article discusses the capacity of a division of the Dole company to direct the farming practices, labor use, and production costs of Philippine contract growers. The production of asparagus for the Japanese market was contracted out by a division of Dole Food in the Philippines, and was part of the company’s expansion and diversification program. By utilizing an ethnographic approach, this study contributes to a precise understanding of the interaction between agribusiness and growers. The article describes how control shifted away from hands-off management to an interventionist hands-on management of the contracted farms. In the beginning of the asparagus scheme the company mainly focused on controlling marketing and credit flows. After unforeseen increases in labor costs, management decided to intervene in the labor management practices of growers and to introduce new technologies in an effort to sustain the profitability of the production scheme. The case-study highlights the social and technical shaping of control and reveals the negotiated nature of farming practices.

Corporate Frauds in the World of Corporate Sector: A Critical Analysis