Research Trip Research Articles

Gongs & Pop Songs: Sounding Minangkabau in Indonesia by Jennifer A. Fraser

Reviewed by: Gongs & Pop Songs: Sounding Minangkabau in Indonesia by Jennifer A. Fraser Megan Collins (bio) Gongs & Pop Songs: Sounding Minangkabau in Indonesia. Jennifer A. Fraser. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2015. Research in International Studies, Southeast Asia Series, no. 127. xv + 270 pp., photos, tables, musical examples, discography, glossary of Minangkabau-language terms, index, online audio and video resources. ISBN: 978-0-89680-294-0 (hardcover), $60.00; ISBN: 978-0-89680-295-7 (paperback), $23.00; ISBN: 978-0-89680-490-6 (e-book), $23.99. In this richly detailed ethnographic work, Jennifer Fraser explores how people who identify as Minangkabau use a local gong music called talempong (small, bronze kettle gongs) to frame and construct identity in West Sumatra, Indonesia. An important theme of the book is that the arts "actively foster and create ethnic sensibilities" (134). However, within that, Fraser reminds us that it is imperative to recognize localized difference within moments of ethnic sameness. Talempong music is one mechanism that mobilizes such feelings. I have written about talempong in connection with its Malaysian counterpart, cakelempong, and I am happy to see this ethnography now devoted to it (Collins 2002). Using a cognitive approach to ethnicity through Thomas Turino's concept of cosmopolitanism (2000), Fraser divides talempong into indigenous and cosmopolitan ensembles. The indigenous ensembles, of which there are two types, talempong duduak (a row of kettle gongs on one wooden frame, with one or two players, seated) and talempong pacik (inter-locking handheld kettle gongs, two or three players, processional) are centered in nagari (a village polity specific to Minangkabau) and played at weddings. Intervallic differences between kettle gongs in these ensembles are not standardized and vary from ensemble to ensemble, village to village, as a deliberate aural marker of village autonomy. Specifically, the indigenous ensembles explored in this book, which remain contemporaneous with the newer ones, are talempong Unggan and Paninjauan, that is, from the villages Unggan and Paninjauan. The cosmopolitan ensembles, for example, orkes talempong (implying a large ensemble, orchestra), which later became talempong kreasi baru (talempong for new creations/new talempong), typically contain kettle-gong sets, on multiple wooden frames, which are tuned in a diatonic-chromatic idiom and employ functional harmony. These, Fraser associates with schools, tourist performances, elite weddings, and music institutions, in particular the tertiary-level Indonesian Arts Institute (Institut Seni Indonesia [ISI]), in Padangpanjang. While for many Minangkabau people, cosmopolitan talempong is now understood as a sonic marker of themselves within Indonesia, Fraser suggests the music was developed in a process typical of elite reformist projects (Turino 2000), where "local elements are plugged into foreign frameworks" (140). The [End Page 134] site of this development was ISI, which Fraser attended as an exchange student in 1998–99 and to which she returned in subsequent research trips. Fraser traces the trajectories of the scene, through extensive interviews, analysis of commercial recordings, notational representation of the music (both Western and cipher), video recordings (accessed on the web), and personal experiences. In chapter 1, Fraser explores Minangkabau ethnicity within a cognitive frame, sets up her subsequent discussions on the professionalization of West Sumatran performing arts, and introduces the talempong gongs and the Minangkabau pop songs of the title. When considering exchange between money and music, Fraser chooses to use "monetization" rather than the more loaded term "commodification" and advises that it is very important to consider the ethnographic specifics of such exchanges (33). Chapter 2, "Talempong and Community," is based on fieldwork in the villages of Unggan and Paninjauan. It contains insightful observations about the sonic construction of local identity through talempong music, as performed predominantly at weddings and organized through adat (customary) practices. Fraser was apprenticed to a senior player, and the women performers of these seated talempong ensembles are given a strong voice in the text. The village-specific repertoire, kettle-gong tuning, and the distinct order of gongs on their wooden stand, which changes from piece to piece, combine to express what it "sounds like to be from Unggan, but not Paninjauan or Sialang" (63). While she acknowledges that payment is important to the players, it is not paramount. Rather, music is seen as part of gift-exchange processes...

Introduction: Global Migrant Media

Introduction:Global Migrant Media Robert Jackson (bio) A few years ago, as I was working on a book about film history from the silent era to mid-century, it struck me that everything I was writing about refused to sit still. The films, of course, were simply irrepressible, crossing enormous spaces and borders with such abandon that it seemed as though the physical movement of film canisters—by train, steamship, and bicycle—constituted a more vital feature of the medium than the fundamental fact that motion pictures portrayed pictures in motion. Film censorship quickly emerged as a kind of border patrol or carceral apparatus, with many censors themselves appearing confused as to whether motion pictures were animate beings. They spoke ominously of waves of movement and created networks of informants to keep vigil against imminent invasions of their territories. One 1920s censor wrote with typical apprehension about an unlicensed film's screening, warning a colleague that "the film has been turned loose in Virginia without any recognition of our authority" (Jackson 2017, 258). Motion pictures didn't just flicker across the screen; they literally traveled through time and space, and nothing, in the end, could stop them. I traveled, too, spending more than a decade trying to find them—by automobile, airplane, subway, and when necessary, by internet—and these research trips revealed to me in a concrete way just how mobile the film medium had always been. Meanwhile, it seemed to me, the people themselves were just as mobile. I had taken up the study of the US South, but so many millions of people were coming and going to and from the region that I began to doubt such a place actually existed in any meaningful way. It was one thing for a wealthy landowner, worried about his dwindling labor force, to lament "the restless tide of humanity which is rushing toward the cities like flocks of fireflies" (Jackson 2017, 18). This, after all, was a familiar story of the modern South, as legible as a pull-down elementary school map with an enormous red arrow pointing due north to signify the outmigration of its impoverished, restless, ambitious hordes in search of employment, citizenship rights, and dignity. But when the story is told by way of a medium this mobile—this contemptuous not just of political geography but also of shooting locations, filmmakers' origins, and the deep histories of places like Manteo, Cumberland, Vicksburg, Atlanta, New [End Page 1] Iberia, and Mound Bayou—it becomes difficult to believe anything like "the South" matters anymore. Even as the US South had become a transferable commodity in itself, its authenticity avowed by the likes of D. W. Griffith and David O. Selznick—beware the coma-inducing consensus of empire-builders from different parts of the world!—millions of others had different ideas about its fixity, creating far more complex and ambiguous patterns and networks and deriving their own identities not as Heideggerian trees rooted in the soil but as dynamic beings with eyes for the horizon who moved, sometimes eagerly, sometimes grudgingly, and then moved again. At some point, too, these migration patterns—for there were many, not just one—transcended US geography and became a global story. Some of my southerners went to Europe, to Latin America, to Africa and Asia, just as people and forces from the far reaches of the world contributed to what I had come to call the "southern cinema." And I began to wonder about the migrations of southerners as part of a world film and media history, and how international migration as a force in world affairs has shaped the history of the medium. If every medium created by people has an anthropomorphic dimension, I imagined, perhaps this inexorable mobility has carried over from human to medium, not just in a single film's sojourn in a classical-era road show or latter-day streaming platform, but in these major patterns of cultural identity formation; engagement with the broad international structures of politics, economics, and law; and the complex, even contradictory, impulse to aspire to know the whole world even while acknowledging the necessity of limits according to the local, the regional, the...

“Dear Comrade,” or Exile in a Communist World: Resistance, Feminism, and Urbanism in Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky’s Work in China (1934/1956)

In the 1930s and the 1950s China recruited thousands of foreign "experts” to consult on programs to modernize the country. Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky (1897–2000), an Austrian architect and postwar member of the Communist Party, was invited to participate in these programs in both periods. Today Schütte-Lihotzky has been canonized in this history of architecture for her interwar contributions to modern housing and educational institutions in Austria, Germany, the Soviet Union, and Turkey. Recent scholarship has shown, however, that both, her architectural and political efforts, spanned more than eight decades. Schütte-Lihotzky was actively involved in the Austrian Communist Resistance in the 1940s, as well as the Austrian women’s movement, the international peace movement, and transnational architectural organizations such as the International Congress of Modern Architecture (ciam), and the Union of International Architects (uia) in the postwar years. By focusing on two extended research trips Schütte-Lihotzky made to China in 1934 and 1956, this essay positions her work in a wider discourse about the agency of female architects as well as the networks of communist intellectuals during the Cold War. It presents Schütte-Lihotzky’s endeavors in China as a lens for examining the complex entanglements of gender, class, and ethnicity in international women’s organizations as well as instances of “othering” perpetuated by European architects who served as foreign “experts” abroad. Finally, the essay also argues that Schütte-Lihotzky’s travel coincided with moments of China’s effort to build relationships with countries abroad. While her book manuscript Millionenstädte Chinas, completed in 1958, thus serves as a document chronicling these exchanges in design culture, at the time Schütte-Lihotzky understood it as a preparatory text for devising a global architectural history written from a communist vantage point.

“This is the Circle of the Art World”: Joe Gumbula and the Value of Digital Repatriation in Australia and Beyond

AbstractThe title of this article was inspired by a filmed interview that I conducted with Joe Gumbula in France in July 2007 during one of his ARC-funded research trips in response to a sceptical European curator who wanted to know why the Yolŋu wanted to have their materials back. Was it because they had lost their culture? Drawing on Joe’s eloquent response, I outline his pioneering perspective on museum collaborations and the digital repatriation of knowledge. Rather than transfixing things on computers, repatriation processes should be seen as modern pathways that link Indigenous peoples to their past, as well as present and future visions, enabling renewed performances of culture. This article has been adapted from my closing plenary address in tribute to Joe Gumbula at the 2017 Information Technologies and Indigenous Communities Symposium in Melbourne.

“The Person Herself is not Interesting”: Lucy Evelyn Cheesman's Life Dedicated to the Faunistic Exploration of the Southwest Pacific

Lucy Evelyn Cheesman (1881-1969) was a key figure in 20th-century entomology. During both world wars, she used her fluency in German and her practical knowledge of remote New Guinea to assist allied governments; in between wars, she was the first female curator of the Insect House of the Royal Zoological Society. Her first research trip was to the Galápagos Islands (1923-1925) at age 42; her last was to Ane-ityum Island (Vanuatu) some 30 years later. She published scientific and popular literature until shortly before her death at the age of 88 and donated more than 70,000 specimens to the collections of the Natural History Museum. Many of these were new not only to the museum but also to science. In 1948, the museum's board of trustees made Evelyn an honorary associate, and her contribution to science was further recognized in 1955 with an Order of the British Empire. This article draws on the rich store of Cheesman's personal papers, held in the Library and Archives of the Natural History Museum, to place her work as an entomologist in a biographical framework. As a scientist, she was remarkable, and as a woman unwilling to accept age- or gender-based limitations, she is inspirational.

Printing Cosmopolitanism, Challenging Orthodoxies: Cao Đài Journals in Twentieth Century Vietnam

Abstract In the first part of the twentieth century, some members of the French- or Chinese-educated but indigenous religious, economic, and political elite in southern Vietnam (Cochin-China) intensively engaged in spirit-medium practices. Many of them set up or joined the new Cao Đài religion and its spirit-medium séances. Integrating in their pantheon religious figures from Buddhism, Daoism, Confucianism, and even Catholicism, Cao Đài leaders deliberately challenged the orthodoxies at that time, tactically undermining the local religious elites, but also proposing a universal theological redemption and moral reform through the publication of their new set of spirit medium messages. Very quickly after the creation of Caodaism in 1926, various groups branched off, borrowing and adapting this reformed and orthodox posture within the Cao Đài community itself. While the Cao Đài canon may be well-known to scholars, Cao Đài community journals have yet to be examined in detail, although they often served as incubators for the Cao Đài quest for orthodoxy and a modern path to salvation. Based on archival studies and field research trips to the relevant areas, this paper aims to show how collective and individual actors of these Cao Đài groups have mobilised institutional, rhetorical, ideological, media-based, and other resources to assure and legitimise their authority. Simultaneously, we will see how the Cao Đài religion emerged from very unique kinds of “redemptive societies,” combining both Western and Eastern esotericism to articulate new Asian expressions of orthodoxy, universal values, and cosmopolitanism.

Qatar in Egypt: The politics of Al Jazeera

This article argues that, although Al Jazeera may have been founded with the idea of giving Qatar influence in the Arab world and beyond, it was through a form of slow Islamist takeover within Al Jazeera Network that first the new Al Jazeera Mubasher Misr (Al Jazeera Live from Egypt) and second the classic Al Jazeera Arabic were ideologically transformed. This transformation led both of these Al Jazeera subsidiaries to damage Qatar’s political relations with its neighboring states of Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Analysis reveals that Al Jazeera and Qatar’s foreign policies are not identical. Rather, each institution manifests its own internal logic and enforces external ties. Moreover, there are many Al Jazeera(s): Al Jazeera Arabic (AJA), Al Jazeera English (AJE), Al Jazeera Mubasher Misr (AJMM), Al Jazeera Documentary etc. Each one is different. The article also examines the case of the three Al Jazeera English journalists who were jailed, tried, and eventually pardoned, in Egypt, as an example of the worsening political relations that developed between Qatar and Egypt as a result of confusing AJE’s professional work with the ultimately shut down AlJazeera Mubasher Misr’s Islamist editorial policy and unprofessional journalistic practices. Methods include: examining primary documents, qualitative content analysis of officials’ media interviews, fieldwork research in Egypt, and anthropological research in Qatar, interviewing journalists, public officials, and academics on various research trips between 2007 and 2017.

Beyond All Price: Victorian Hair Jewelry, Commemoration & Story-Telling

When the Rothschild Foundation and National Trust commissioned the artist Jane Wildgoose to present an exhibition at Waddesdon Manor, the country mansion built for Ferdinand de Rothschild (1839–1898) containing his magnificent collection of eighteenth-century French decorative arts and European paintings, she focused not on the grandeur of the house or the luxury of its contents, but on a simple lock of hair and a tiny photograph of Ferdinand’s wife, Evelina (1839–1866). This essay gives an account of how these humble objects held the key to a deeply personal story relating to Ferdinand and Evelina. Focusing on the materiality of human hair, and the complex codes for mourning in the late Victorian period, Wildgoose unravels some of the meanings associated with nineteenth-century mourning jewelry, including examples selected from the Rothschild collections and the Royal Collection to accompany Evelina’s hair and photograph in her exhibition Beyond All Price. It also discusses her research trip to Leila’s Hair Museum in the USA, where she learnt techniques for making wreaths from human hair in order to be able to make new pieces of hairwork for the exhibition. The essay concludes with discussion about Wildgoose’s ongoing work with donated human hair, and her associated research into the historical circumstances that led to a “unique status” being ascribed to human remains in collections, in the UK government’s Guidance for the Care of Human Remains in Museums.

Mälestamisrituaal tšekan nüüdisaegse udmurdi küla etnokultuurilisel maastikul

The Chekan Commemoration Ritual in the Cultural Landscape of the Contemporary Udmurt Village In investigating the chekan ritual of commemorative sacrifice carried out in Kalašur and Dubrovski Villages in the Kiyassovo region of the Udmurt areas, it emerged that certain changes had taken place at various levels. The term chekan has become demythologised in the Udmurt language, but scholars believe that its roots go back to Turkic languages, and that as a cultural sign it means ‘offering sacrifice/sacrificing’ and is related to the cult of the dead. Commemorative practices that bear some likeness and similarity have been seen in the traditions of local groups among the Udmurt peoples, as well as among other Finno-Ugric peoples (the Zyrian and Perm Komis, and the Maris) and neighbouring peoples (Russians and Chuvass). Yet chekan is a unique ritual with specific attributes: it takes place only in June of leap years and is dedicated to those who died abroad, loved ones buried elsewhere and people who committed suicide. Through the commemoration, the Udmurts in this group devote attention to their ‘special’ category of deceased, the belief being that otherwise they may become demonic spirits. Research trips spanning sevaral years (2008, 2012 and 2016) have shown that the traditional structure and rules governing the ministrations have changed. For example, the sacrificial animals are not bled on the eve of the ritual, but on the day of the ritual itself. The ritual food is no longer cooked all night long but from morning to mid-day, and the ceremony no longer is presided over by a priest. Both linguists and the author have observed that fewer and fewer people take part in the ritual and people living in more distant parts no longer make the trip, which makes the older generation concerned. It is presumed that the ritual was previously held every three years, as in the case of similar customs mentioned in scholarly literature (Chekaskon Chokskon) and only later was it scheduled to coincide with leap year, referring to the symbolic semantics of the year with the extra day. The biggest changes concern the site of chekan. In 2008 and 2012, the ritual and the rites for the departed souls were relocated, without any procedures related to the change of venue, but solely based on consensus reached by local inhabitants. The main reason cited for the change of venue is that the original place had become overgrown by brush, and it was difficult to reach the original sacral ‘centre’ and the spruce tree where the offerings were laid. The rituals carried out in 2008, 2012 and 2016 also pertained to another shrine on the village’s ethnocultural landscape, the sacral place where once the worship was held in honour of the god Aktash. This led a number of older inhabitants to enquire into the feasibility of the whole development. The given shrine took on a double sacral quality as fieldwork showed that among young people, knowledge of this place, which became inactive in the 20th century, was no longer salient. All of the topographical sites where the sacrifices took place in recent years are marked with the commemorative ritual in question. To sum up, it can be said that the chekan, a commemorative ritual in the calendar cycle of the Udmurts of Kiyassovo region, is changing, which is leading to a transformation in the village’s cultural landscape. The spatial changes related to the local population’s sacral sphere lead to a specific mode of behaviour and regimentation of rites in space and time.

De los Estados Unidos a México y Perú. Paul Fejős y Pál Kelemen, dos húngaros buscando las huellas de los pueblos precolombinos

El director de cine, Paul Fejős (1897-1963), es conocido sobre todo por su carrera cinematográfica desarrollada en Hungría, Dinamarca, los Estados Unidos y otros países. Desde la segunda mitad de los años 30 del siglo XX, deja su carrera para dedicarse a sus investigaciones antropológicas y arqueológicas. De esta manera, llega a Perú donde hace un viaje de investigación explorando 18 sitios arqueológicos en la región de Machu Picchu y, posteriormente, estudia un pueblo amazónico, los yagua que viven en regiones fronterizas con Colombia y Brasil.
 El arqueólogo e historiador del arte, Pál Kelemen (1894-1993), llega a los Estados Unidos en 1932 y empieza una larga carrera profesional durante la cual realiza varios estudios de viaje en diferentes países latinoamericanos, siendo autor de un considerable número de libros sobre el arte precolombino y colonial, reconocidos internacionalmente. 
 En mi ponencia, mi objetivo es estudiar las actividades antropológicas y arqueológicas de los dos investigadores, llevadas a cabo en el Perú (Paul Fejős) y en México (Pál Kelemen) durante la década de 1930.

The lay of the land: The public, participation and policy in China’s fracking frenzy

This perspective paper examines the current policy landscape for hydraulic fracturing in China, with a focus on the role of public attitudes toward shale gas in China. We highlight the need for further research on public perceptions and responses in a non-democratic society, both for the potential protection of residents who might be affected by the technology as well as the valuable research data that can be contrasted with public perspectives and engagement in other countries.Although the empirical findings presented here are limited due to this being very preliminary research, our goal is to shed light on what existing data shows about current understanding and perceptions. We discuss preliminary data collected during a research trip to Beijing in late December 2017, and contrast it with the few empirical studies on China that exist to date (Sher and Wu, 2018; Yu et al., 2018). Our research demonstrates the need for further investigation of understanding and perceptions of shale gas in China, particularly as other countries (such as the United Kingdom and Poland) are beginning to look at expanding their own shale gas resources. A reflection on this will also lead to a discussion of the extent to which data from China does or does not relate to that from other nations.

Upriver: The Turbulent Life and Times of an Amazonian People

Upriver is as much a book about the ethnohistory of the Awajún, a people formerly known as Aguaruna, as it is a psychological perspective into how we all change over time both as societies and as individuals. In 1976, Michael F. Brown was a graduate student at the University of Michigan when he went to Amazonia in search of dissertation material. Beginning with romantic illusions of writing about magic and shamanism, he did not find warrior headshrinkers and sympathetic shamans willing to reveal their secrets. Instead, he found several groups of amiable Awajúns wearing Western clothes and attending missionary schools and Christian Sunday services. Though he earned a PhD in cultural anthropology with a dissertation titled “Magic and Meaning in the World of the Aguaruna Jívaro of Peru,” and continued his career in search of a broad range of related topics, culminating in his present position (president of the School for Advanced Research in New Mexico), he can now candidly tell readers that as a young scholar he mostly avoided anything he did not fully understand. This included the prevalent Awajún suicides and the Awajún’s fears of sorcery.As Brown was digitizing and typing his notes from long ago, he revisited his experience with insights garnered from a lifetime of research, resulting in Upriver, part memoir, part analysis of the present and near future for the Awajún people as they leave their Amazonian habitats to earn PhDs, win seats in political office, and utilize their warrior spirit to defend indigenous rights. In his words, “Upriver offers a portrait of a resourceful people fighting to sustain their place in a world largely indifferent to their fate. It also conveys affection for an intellectual tradition, arising from the ferment of the Enlightenment, that asks practitioners to see past their own habits of mind in search of the internal logics of other societies” (15).Part 1 (1976–78) focuses on his time among the Awajún, while the unfortunately much shorter part 2 covers 1980–2012, mainly dealing with Brown’s 2012 research trip to Peru’s Amazonia, where he interviewed still surviving Awajún. Many people he had met in the 1970s were dead, often victims of suicides or vendettas. Awajún people whom he newly met in 2012 live in cities. Of particular interest was Eduardo Nayap, born in the Alto Marañón village and educated by missionaries. Today, he holds a theology degree. After the tumultuous Baguazo of 2009, he ran for public office to demand respect for the rights of Awajún people. Newspaper profiles and television interviews made Eduardo Nayap the most familiar Awajún person to Peruvians, which together with his knowledge of Awajún traditions has helped him win 100 percent of votes in some of the local Awajún and Wampis village communities.Regarding widespread assumptions that indigenous spirituality is incompatible with the Christian Bible or that missionaries brought God to Amazonia, Nayap tells Brown that “there is no lie bigger than this. We lived with God. We had God. God was with us. Biblical language, themes of salvation, can be recontextualized so that indigenous people can be Christians without ceasing to be indigenous. I’m not going to transform myself into a white man to achieve eternal salvation” (254). Dina Ananco, a young San Marcos University graduate in Lima who became involved in indigenous rights while at the campus, discusses women’s rights and some of the reasons for Awajún women’s high suicide rate. According to Ananco, Brown tells us, Awajún women were valued only when they maintained their husbands’ good image. “We call this complementarity now, but I’m not so sure. . . . It is surprising and curious: The woman was given great importance and at the same time . . . nothing.” She sees change coming, though: “There are female leaders of indigenous groups here in Lima. They’re constantly battling for space. They are given responsibilities with the hope that they’ll fail” (258).The Awajún today are committed to defending their land and their right to govern themselves with Jivaroan determination. They oppose the Peruvian government and agencies, which intend to turn the Amazon into an immense industrial park. In Ananco’s formulation, “It’s not as if you can fight as a warrior now. You fight with your knowledge” (268).

Producing High-Quality 3-D Models for Specimen Research with the Creaform 3-D Scanner at the Sternberg Museum of Natural History

Digitization of natural history collections for specimen accessibility, research, and posterity has been a major push in museums over the past decade. One increasingly common form of specimen digitization is three-dimensional (3-D) surface scanning. There are numerous 3-D scanners on the market, including visible light and laser surface scanners. However, mobility of the scanning device, mesh resolution, and texture fidelity are among the most prominent issues facing regular implementation of 3-D scanning procedures for research purposes. Morphometrics research involving the digitization of Xiphactinus at the Sternberg Museum of Natural History (FHSM) using a Creaform Go!SCAN 50 visible light 3-D surface scanner has necessitated the development of a workflow using this 3-D scanner and the associated VXelements software. This workflow maximizes model quality with minimal loss of speed or efficiency when scanning numerous specimens. Major components of this workflow include proper use of positioning targets, appropriate merging of multiple specimen scans, and how to perform post-processing on models without sacrificing model resolution or texture. The primary benefit of the Creaform 3-D scanner is hardware mobility, allowing for use on large exhibited specimens or digitizing specimens during research trips. Shortcomings include relatively low mesh resolution, (bottoming out at 0.5 mm), difficulty scanning highly complex structures, and low texture fidelity of scanned models. However, texture fidelity can be improved through use of the free software, Meshlab, by overlaying high-quality stacked photographs onto the 3-D mesh. Incorporating Meshlab texture overlays into the workflow allows for the production of digital models with improved color and textural data – ideal for accurate visualization of specimens in 3-D viewers for educational outreach and online databases. While not perfect for all applications, the Creaform 3-D scanner allows for rapid digitization of specimens in an increasingly digital collections environment, and is sufficient for some research applications. The workflow established at the FHSM can serve as a framework for other institutions to use the Creaform 3-D scanner to best suit their digitization needs.

Creating and building a post-conflict fiscal state through global wealth chains

PurposeThis paper aims to assess using a historical approach the challenges facing Somaliland and analyze how the Somalilanders are in the twenty-first century using the globalized financial architecture and system of wealth chains to finance their nascent state and move the debate forward on the calls for self-determination.Design/methodology/approachResearch on this paper included not just a desk review but two research trips to Somaliland and over 20 interviews of politicians, government officials and the private sector and academia.FindingsToday the global wealth chains flowing in and out of Somaliland include some complex ones which include the interactions with other members of the Somali diaspora whether they are in the USA or in Australia where money moves in and out of bank accounts in different countries finally ending up in either Dubai or Djibouti where it is finally transferred through the money transfer agencies into Hargeisa and finally withdrawn by the relative of a diaspora member. The similar wealth chains are those going between traders such as those that already maintain companies in Djibouti because of the war period and continue to live and trade there but have branches in Somaliland. There are simple direct transfers that are easily understood.Research limitations/implicationsTranslators had to be used, as some parliamentarians only spoke Kisomali.Originality/valueNo papers have been written on the global banking and finance system with specific reference to Somaliland.

Won't Fade Away: Intersections of Narrative and HIV and AIDS Activism in Jackson, Mississippi

ABSTRACTThis article demonstrates the therapeutic benefits of storytelling and testimony through qualitative interviews with HIV+ Black gay men in Jackson, Mississippi, in 2017. Sponsored by Project + Connect, a story preservation nonprofit based in New York, the research trip was inspired by a New York Times article claiming that 50% of all gay Black men in the South will contract HIV in their lifetimes. Analyzing the personal narratives of the study's participants against the political and historical contexts of racism and homophobia in the deep South, the researcher argues for the strengthening of the HIV/AIDS movement through storytelling, providing a pathway for theater teaching artists to use their skills to facilitate social change.

Pelagic Sea Snakes Drink Fresh Water at Beginning of Wet Season

The Yellow‐bellied sea snake (Hydrophis platurus) is the only pelagic species of marine snake and ranges from southern Africa across the Indo‐Pacific to the Pacific coast of Central America. It is subject to long‐range movements by drifting with gyres and currents, and it is the only species of sea snake to have reached the Americas. Like other sea snakes investigated recently, this species is dependent on fresh water (FW) and dehydrates at sea during periods of drought. Because of its pelagic marine habitat, the only source of FW for this snake is rainfall that forms a freshwater or dilute brackish‐water lens during intense precipitation over the ocean. In the coastal region of Guanacaste, Costa Rica, there is a 6‐mo dry season without significant rainfall usually ending in May. During a research trip to Costa Rica from 5 to 14 May 2017, we captured H. platurus daily during the morning and returned them immediately to the laboratory where they were air‐dried, weighed, and placed individually in FW. Snakes were held in FW for approximately 20 h, following which they were air‐dried on a towel and reweighed. Drinking of FW was observed immediately when some snakes were placed in FW; others were determined to have ingested water by changes in mass that occurred overnight (5 to 27 % body mass; mean = 14.2 ± 0.87 s.e.m.). When we arrived in Costa Rica, there had not been significant rainfall at the location where snakes were studied; the weather was hot and dry, and there was no precipitation over the ocean. A large proportion of snakes that were captured during the first two days drank FW. Between the second and third day there was heavy rainfall during the afternoon, and we observed that rain fell in large amounts over the Golfo de Papagayo where we collected the snakes. During the next several days, heavy rainfall occurred during the afternoon or evening, and precipitation again fell over the ocean. The percentage of snakes drinking after capture decreased with time, falling from ~ 80% before the rains began to 13% on the seventh day. Our data clearly indicate that fewer and fewer snakes were in negative water balance as the wet season began in context of precipitation we observed over the ocean. Thus, it is appropriate to conclude that thirsty snakes having accumulated a water deficit during the previous dry season were drinking from FW‐brackish oceanic lenses when precipitation began to fall over the Golfo de Papagayo. We were extremely fortunate to be able to quantify drinking behaviors of sea snakes precisely at the transition from dry to wet season when rainfall first impacted the ocean at our location. These data reinforce the importance of fresh water for pelagic sea snakes, which dehydrate in the ocean and are thus susceptible to changing patterns of precipitation that might result from climatic changes related to global warming.Support or Funding InformationNational Science Foundation grant IOS‐0926802 to HBLThis abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2018 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.

What are the main local drivers determining richness and fishery yields in tropical coastal fish assemblages?

Seasonal ecological effects caused by temperature and photoperiod are typically considered minimal in the tropics. Nevertheless, annual climate cycles may still influence the distribution and abundance of tropical species. Here, we investigate whether seasonal patterns of precipitation and wind speed influence the structure of coastal fish assemblages and fishing yields in northeast Brazil. Research trips were conducted during the rainy and dry seasons using commercial boats and gear to sample the fish community. Diversity was analyzed using abundance Whittaker curves, diversity profiles and the Shannon index. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was used to analyze associations between the abundance of species and various environmental variables related to seasonality. A total of 2,373 fish were collected, representing 73 species from 34 families – 20 of which were classified as both frequent and abundant. Species richness was greater and more equitable during the rainy season than the dry season – driven by changes in the precipitation rather than to wind speed. Species diversity profiles were slightly greater during the rainy season than the dry season, but this difference was not statistically significant. Using PCA was identified three groups of species: the first associated with wind speed, the second with precipitation, and the third with a wide range of sampling environments. This latter group was the largest and most ecologically heterogeneous. We conclude that tropical coastal fish assemblages are largely influenced by local variables, and seasonally mediated by annual changes related to precipitation intensity and wind speed, which in turn influences fishery yields.

What are the main local drivers determining richness and fishery yields in tropical coastal fish assemblages?

Seasonal ecological effects caused by temperature and photoperiod are typically considered minimal in the tropics. Nevertheless, annual climate cycles may still influence the distribution and abundance of tropical species. Here, we investigate whether seasonal patterns of precipitation and wind speed influence the structure of coastal fish assemblages and fishing yields in northeast Brazil. Research trips were conducted during the rainy and dry seasons using commercial boats and gear to sample the fish community. Diversity was analyzed using abundance Whittaker curves, diversity profiles and the Shannon index. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was used to analyze associations between the abundance of species and various environmental variables related to seasonality. A total of 2,373 fish were collected, representing 73 species from 34 families – 20 of which were classified as both frequent and abundant. Species richness was greater and more equitable during the rainy season than the dry season – driven by changes in the precipitation rather than to wind speed. Species diversity profiles were slightly greater during the rainy season than the dry season, but this difference was not statistically significant. Using PCA was identified three groups of species: the first associated with wind speed, the second with precipitation, and the third with a wide range of sampling environments. This latter group was the largest and most ecologically heterogeneous. We conclude that tropical coastal fish assemblages are largely influenced by local variables, and seasonally mediated by annual changes related to precipitation intensity and wind speed, which in turn influences fishery yields.

Carnets de l'incarnation: Textes choisis 2002–2015 by Nancy Huston

Reviewed by: Carnets de l'incarnation: Textes choisis 2002–2015 by Nancy Huston Polly Galis Nancy Huston, Carnets de l'incarnation: Textes choisis 2002–2015. Arles: Actes Sud, 2016. Huston's corpus is commonly characterised by its transnational and multi-generic format, and Carnets de l'incarnation is no exception. Huston draws inspiration from multiple contexts including a research trip to Israel, a gallery in Beijing, a New York book-club, and the Parisian Hebdo polemic surrounding the 2015 terrorist attacks. She also incorporates both public pieces (newspaper articles, critical prefaces, conference proceedings) and personal fragments (diary entries, poetry, and prose), playing with narrative style and shifting from the comic to the tragic. Huston pays homage to a wide spectrum of philosophers, artists, and writers, including Diane Arbus, Anaïs Nin, Nelly Arcan, Kate Chopin, Simone de Beauvoir, as well as Annie Leclerc and Romain Gary, on whom she has written extensively in two eponymous publications. As with her previous amalgamated textes choisis, Désirs et Réalités (1995) and Âmes et corps (2004), Huston brings together a decade's worth of foundational essays centred on an overarching theme: in the case of Carnets de l'incarnation, a gendered mind-body dichotomy. Huston begins by acknowledging problems experienced primarily by women: prostitution and pornography; the Madonna-whore complex; and the reduction of women's identity to their bodily form (be they de- or hyper-sexualised). Huston then addresses male-orientated issues, [End Page 141] namely, men's coercion into violent and dominant social positions, and their implication in paedophilia, crime, and war. Huston situates these analyses at the intersection of biological determinism and social constructionism. On the one hand, Huston claims men have a naturally higher libido than women, and that women are predetermined to solicit the male gaze. On the other, Huston considers instincts to be dangerously distorted by social phenomena such as the sex industry, which exploits men's sexual drives and women's bodies to finance a neo-liberal market. Huston thus highlights the hypocrisy of our contemporary epoch which both denies sexual difference and profits from it. Where women are encouraged to define themselves according to their bodies, moreover, men are paradoxically taught to deny theirs. Huston insists that we should not overlook but learn from sexual difference, to harness its positive potential instead. What could be interpreted as a contradiction thus constitutes an invitation to overcome binaries. The same is true for other dualisms in this collection, as with love-intellect, nihilism-idealism, corporeality-spirituality. As Huston confirms in her introduction, she seeks not coherence but polyphony, and invites us to embrace our material corporeality—men and women alike—to access a mode of spirituality fitting for our modern times. How this spiritual state is to be achieved in practical terms, however, is left unanswered, and the book ends with a fictional tale of disempowerment: the narrator espies an approaching army and is unable to forfend its advance. In true Huston style, this collection refuses neat categorisation and simple solutions. If any conclusive messages do stand out, it is that we can problematize cultural, racial, and gender divides by imagining the position of the Other, and that we must re-evaluate the causes and consequences of gendered bodily experience before it is too late. [End Page 142] Polly Galis University of Leeds Copyright © 2018 L'Esprit Créateur

Analysis of fieldwork methodology in anthropogeographic works of Jovan Cvijić

Interpreting the extensive and varied bibliography of Jovan Cvijić, largely in foreign languages, which apart from the text includes geographic and ethnographic map of the Balkan Peninsula, atlases, notes and drawings, it is concluded that his scientific work was versatile and complex. Cvijić's perception of space, the use of didactic principles, methods and forms of work can be categorized as actual and modern even in the present time. He was the first among the Balkan geographers who simultaneously interpreted natural, historical, sociological, ethnographic and ethno-psychological phenomena and processes. Cvijić pointed to the relationship between the geographic environment and human communities, civilizations and historical events, constantly examining their mutual conditionality. Numerous research trips in almost all regions of the Balkan Peninsula led to his interest in the culture and customs of the people. He noted that in the Balkans, there are different people by origin, religion and mentality. The result of the field research is certainly one of Cvijić's most important work - 'Anthropogeographical problems of the Balkan Peninsula'. His scientific approach has given an outstanding contribution to methodological development of geography.