bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Why Religion Went Obsolete
Authors: 9780197800744  , Smith Christian
Published: February 2025

This book explores the decline and obsolescence of traditional American religion, particularly among post-Boomers, attributing that to major societal shifts over time in technology, economics, culture, and beyond. It highlights the role of long-term trends in the particular American context, rather than “secularization” as an inevitable or uniform result of modernization. While traditional religion has diminished, new spiritual and occult practices have also re-emerged. It also challenges the idea of cyclical religious revivals, arguing that contemporary forces continue to accelerate religious decline. Struggling to adapt, religious institutions face no-win situations where their efforts appear insincere or outdated. Factors like higher education, evolving family dynamics, and economic changes have further eroded religion’s influence. Rather than validating received secularization theory, however, this book argues for a re-enchantment of American culture that presents complications both for religion and secularism.
The 2000s
Authors: Smith Christian
Published: February 2025

This chapter discusses the growing obsolescence of traditional American religion in the 2000s, a trend exacerbated by the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. These events deepened negative perceptions by linking religion generally with violence. Despite efforts to separate Islam from terrorism, media coverage reinforced this connection. The New Atheism movement, led by figures like Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins, further discredited religion, portraying it as irrational and harmful, which influenced the views of some. The third sexual revolution and increased LGBTQ+ visibility also challenged traditional religious values as younger generations embraced more liberal attitudes, identities, and practices. Religious pluralism and immigration exposed Millennials to diverse beliefs, leading them to see religions as human constructs and weakening the authority of any particular faith. Additionally, the rise of belief in “good without God” and a “spiritual but not religious” identity reflected a broader cultural shift away from organized religion.
Currency
Authors: Graham Aaron
Published: February 2025

The quantity and quality of the currency were of vital concern to the colonial state, both for economic reasons and to support taxation. Initially the assembly used its power to uphold the local coinage, but increasingly it took measures to circulate its paper debt as a form of currency. This was institutionalized in 1821 with the creation of island cheques, a form of paper money which enjoyed widespread circulation even though they rested on little more than the credibility of the assembly’s unenforceable commitment. Before, during and immediately after the Baptist War they played an important role in supporting the colonial state until the assembly could obtain funds from Britain. The island cheques collapsed instead in 1839, after a combination of financial interests in Britain and Jamaica undermined for their own ends the credibility of the informal political commitment which had underpinned them, and forced the colonial state to withdraw them from circulation.
Enhancing General Resilience in Forests
Authors: Burton Philip J.
Published: February 2025

General principles explaining resilience in complex adaptive systems can be applied to the management of forest ecosystems and to forest management policies and enterprises. Promoting diversity at all levels is a key strategy, with resilience variously promoted through mechanisms such as functional redundancy, dilution effects, spatial disruption, and higher-level ecosystem effects. Risk and uncertainly can be buffered through preparedness, contingency planning, and the implementation of reserves, maintaining sufficient capacity and flexibility to cope with disruptions. The “Precautionary Principle” has wide applications, with the long-term benefits of conservation generally preferable to any short benefits of overexploitation of resources, especially under conditions of uncertainty. Maintaining a modular structure facilitates responsive place-specific planning and isolation from contagious threats. Modularity, however, must be balanced with the networking benefits of connectedness, especially important for information exchange and response to local disruptions. Broadly scoped situational awareness, both internally and externally focused, is important in order to guide management responses as part of an overall program of adaptive management.
Climatic Influences and Forest Vulnerabilities
Authors: Burton Philip J.
Published: February 2025

The warming atmosphere is having direct and indirect effects on forests today. Heatwaves, droughts, windstorms, and extreme rainfall events are contributing to tree mortality, wildfires, floods, and landslides. Global circulation models (GCMs) are used to project future climates under a range of scenarios describing the degree to which greenhouse gases (GHGs) are controlled. Those projections are then downscaled to inform bio-envelope modeling of the potential range of species and ecosystems, the growth and yield of forests, and other applications. Localized projections of potential future climates also inform vulnerability assessments of forests and the socioeconomics of forest uses and forest communities. Vulnerability can be considered the product of exposure and sensitivity, minus the adaptive capacity of the element or system under consideration. Forest productivity and the distribution of species and ecosystems are partially constrained by prevailing regimes of temperature and precipitation. Those parameters are changing to different degrees around the world at a pace unprecedented in the recent history of the planet. Forest ecosystems may not be able to adjust smoothly to such changes, owing to inertia of mature trees and the pace of climate change, and because forests are fragmented by human land uses. A changing climate is but one expression of global change faced by forests.
Southern Yauyos Quechua
Authors: Shimelman Aviva
Published: February 2025

This chapter sketches the major phonological and morphosyntactic features of the southern dialects of Yauyos [ISO 369-3: qux, Glottocode: yauy1235], a critically endangered Quechuan language spoken in the Peruvian Andes. Yauyos is of particular interest to the study of Quechuan languages because the region in which it is spoken is located on the border of the two large, contiguous zones where the languages of the two major branches of the Quechuan language family are spoken, and the various dialects of SYQ share features with both branches. Yauyos is additionally of interest to the study of evidentials, as it employs a set of three evidential modifiers.
Jaqaru
Authors: Coler Matt
Published: February 2025

This chapter offers a grammatical description of Jaqaru [ISO 639-3: jqr, Glottocode: jaqa1244]. Jaqaru is an is agglutinative, suffix-only Aymaran language, spoken in the Peruvian Andes. After providing an overview of the Aymaran family, this contribution describes the complex phonology and phonotactics before moving on to the morphology. The morphology begins with an outline of parts of speech and the transcategorical operations in the language. Thereafter, readers will find descriptions of nouns and nominal morphology followed by verbs and verbal morphology prior to outlining other suffixes which are neither nominal or verbal. After this morphological description, there is an overview of syntax, including grammatical relations, constituent order, clause types, coordination and negation, among other topics. The chapter concludes with an overview of the literature. Throughout this description, there are frequent comparisons made with Jaqaru’s sister language, Aymara, to better facilitate comparison between Andean languages.
Kallawaya
Authors: Muysken Pieter
Published: February 2025

This chapter gives an overview of the main properties of Kallawaya [ISO 639-3: caw, Glottocode: call1235], and tries to provide a scenario for its genesis. Kallawaya is a language or language variety spoken by wandering healers from around Charazani in the provinces of Bautista Saavedra and Muñecas, department of La Paz, Bolivia. It functions above all as a language accompanying healing rituals, used by the healers (all men) of the community. Kallawaya is a mixed language which combines a Quechuan morphosyntactic matrix with words from other languages. Many of these come from Puquina, a language spoken in the region earlier.
Language diffusion and state agency
Authors: Itier César
Published: February 2025

Research on the social history of Andean languages has traditionally de-emphasized the role of states in language spread processes. This chapter deals with the spread of the Quechuan family in Inca and colonial times. It first reconstructs the communicative functions performed by different Quechuan varieties in the Inca empire and carves out the factors that determined the formation of koine varieties and their rapid diffusion. It then shows how the colonial regime drastically intensified the centrifugal dynamics that have been exerted on Andean communities since the Inca era, making the Spanish economic sphere (cities, mines, and haciendas) the focus of a new expansion and vernacularization of Quechuan speech. Finally, it compares the historical-linguistic evolution of the northern and southern Central Andes in colonial times.
The Late Antique and Byzantine Context to Early Islamic Mercantile Activity
Authors: Sarris Peter
Published: February 2025

This chapter begins with a discussion of the early Islamic conquests and the effect these had on breaking down barriers to trade, which had previously been maintained by the Sasanian Empire. It then goes on to challenge the widely held argument that the early Islamic elite was trade- and commerce-orientated in contrast to a late Roman elite whose focus was on office and landownership. In this period, bureaucrats and soldiers often had commercial interests in trade and banking and the legal systems of the Empire permitted and even encouraged the operations of lending and credit. The contrast with the early Islamic elite is more a reflection of the different evidence available to us than of a historical reality.
Introduction
Authors: Kennedy Hugh
Published: February 2025

This chapter argues for a model of the early Islamic economy in which a number of forces and processes interact to create what might be described as a virtuous circle. The structure of demand, generated at first by the tax revenues collected by the government and dispersed in the form of cash salaries, encouraged the expansion of agriculture in the marginal lands of Greater Mesopotamia. At the same time it generated a widespread demand for semi-luxury goods, textiles, ceramics, glass, and paper which in turn led to the development of industries, not just in the heartlands of the caliphate but in more distant provinces like Armenia, Khurāsān, and even the distant Comoro Islands.
Power and Money on the Ḥajj
Authors: Webb Peter
Published: February 2025

The early Abbasid Caliphs (750–800 ce) lavishly patronized the Hajj though the funding of pilgrim roads, embellishing the Meccan sanctum, and personally leading the pilgrimage. Whereas leadership of the Hajj was evidently central to Abbasid political legitimacy, their Umayyad predecessors afforded the Hajj markedly less attention. We can explore the status of Hajj in nascent Islam by investigating and seeking explanations for the contrast between Abbasid and Umayyad patronage, and this chapter approaches the issue with an economic lens that investigates the specifics of early Caliphal expenditure allocated to Hajj patronage, and augments the findings via critical analysis of the Hajj expressed in contemporary poetry composed for the Caliphal court.
The Imams as Economic Actors
Authors: Hayes Edmund
Published: February 2025

This contribution explores the institutional link that tied the Imami Shiʿi community to their Imams from the mid-eighth century until the late ninth century ce. It is argued that the collection of what the Shiʿa referred to as God’s money (māl allāh) or the Imams’ dues (ḥuqūq) and the redistribution of wealth was a key part of the social framework that allowed an Imam to act as an Imam. Within this ‘sacred economy’, different types of value (economic, ritual, and theological) overlapped and were exchanged. Through it, the Imam demonstrated his generosity, exerted his moral influence and maintained a physical connection with far-flung communities through the circulation of objects associated with him.
The Islamic Trade Network in the Indian Ocean (Ninth to Eleventh Centuries)
Authors: Ducène Jean-Charles
Published: February 2025

The Persian Gulf served as the main departure point for Muslim merchants up until the beginning of the eleventh century, when the focus shifted to the Red Sea. For travel to East Africa, India, and South-East Asia, the key starting points were Sīrāf and the Oman ports. The merchants would sail as far as Sofāla in Africa, with coastal towns serving as stop-off points along the way. These towns became city-states and served as the interface between the Swahilian-language communities and the Arab Muslim traders. Travelling beyond Sri Lanka, out towards the East, the main destinations were first Kalah and then the port of Srivijaya, where Palembang now lies. The merchants traded under Sunni or ibāḍīte Muslim law, and trade partnerships were based on shares in limited partnerships. In India and South-East Asia, there were local Muslim representatives who were able to join the local trade guilds. Transactions were carried out either by bartering or using currency. The wrecks that have been found beyond the Strait of Malacca show the ‘triangular’ aspect of trade during this period.
Defining Religion
Authors: Spencer Nick , Waite Hannah
Published: February 2025

This chapter outlines a number of higher profile and influential attempts to define religion over the last hundred years or so, drawing on various legal, anthropological, philosophical, and sociological contributions. There has been a significant shift in the Western conception of religion over this period, moving from something that resembles Christian monotheism to something much more capacious and amorphous. While the law has, necessarily, tried to home in on workably tight definitions, the work of anthropologists, sociologists, and religious studies academics has broadened the category, and generated a widening wake in which the courts have eventually followed. The result is an extensive, variegated, and sometimes confusing definition, from which, nonetheless, certain features can be discerned, and thus we can start to build up a Wittgensteinian ‘family resemblance’.
Introduction
Authors: Pulignano Valeria , Domecka Markieta
Published: February 2025

The Introduction presents the book’s main object and it unveils its main argument around the politics of unpaid labour. It brings out the principal themes (i.e., stigma and resilience) at the core of the book, it sheds light on the underpinning research questions, and it initiates its analytical contributions. In sum, the Introduction paves the way for the book’s central aim, that is to address inequality in precarious work for both waged (i.e., employees) and non-waged (i.e., self-employed workers) labour by an approach examining the politics of unpaid labour, delving into the dynamics and processes surrounding its occurrence and the extent to which individuals sustain it.
The Paid/Unpaid Labour Dichotomy
Authors: Pulignano Valeria , Domecka Markieta
Published: February 2025

The chapter develops the critique stated in Chapter 1, discussing the implications of unpaid labour and precarious work for socially reproductive and gendered labour. It argues that precarious work is a complex and constantly evolving process requiring sophisticated analyses of the increasing reliance of workers and individuals on unpaid labour inside and outside the market. Unpaid labour inside the market accounts for new interdependencies as it requires resources—including socially reproductive (unpaid) labour outside the market—for it to be sustained as being how people build resilience. As access to such resources to build resilience is dependent on individual, household, and institutional circumstances, class-based inequality may arise, to the extent that certain occupations become out of reach for those less endowed with such resources.
Dance ‘for the Sake of Art’
Authors: Pulignano Valeria , Domecka Markieta
Published: February 2025

The chapter empirically illustrates the politics of unpaid labour in dance (ballet) in Sweden and the Netherlands. Dance is a field that has suffered from sweeping austerity-driven funding cuts, especially in the Netherlands where it has become increasingly difficult to build up resilience against precarious work. These cuts have led to a decline in permanent employment and a rise in freelancing in the form of project work. Young people enter creative dance not for financial gain but for the sake of art. As much of the work is un- or underpaid, survival in dance relies heavily on having access to family resources, whether financial or social. Consequently, the sector has become class based, meaning that an individual’s social position and opportunities within this field are strongly influenced by their inherited socio-economic status, leading to the perpetuation of prestige and advantage through family connections and access to resources.
Care ‘for the Sake of Others’
Authors: Pulignano Valeria , Domecka Markieta , Riemann Me-linh
Published: February 2025

The chapter empirically illustrates the politics of unpaid labour in residential care in the United Kingdom and Germany. Women—generally with a working-class background—enter the sector knowing full well that it is easy to enter and poorly paid. Motivated by a work ethos characterized by sacrifice for the sake of care, they find themselves exploited, with working schedules dictated by the stopwatch, and performing unpaid labour. This unpaid labour in turn impinges on their private lives, forcing them to choose whether to prioritize their poorly paid but emotionally fulfilling work or family life. Carers often resort to part-time or unconventional working hours in their pursuit of a satisfactory work-life balance. This comes at a cost, with meagre precarity-engendering financial resources and compromised social well-being and health.
Reading and the mind’s eye
Authors: Thomas Julia
Published: February 2025

This chapter identifies a key Victorian debate about the role of illustration: how illustrative images affected the mind’s eye and the mental visualization that was said to accompany the reading of literature. The chapter breaks down these debates into two oppositional experiences of reading that were described in Victorian discourses, including in the work of Francis Galton and contemporary psychologists. On the one hand, illustration was regarded as a hindrance to mental visualization because the concrete image either prevented the mind’s eye from functioning or ‘moulded’ the mental image of the words. On the other hand, illustration was seen to come to the aid of a weak or non-functioning mind’s eye (a condition recently diagnosed as ‘aphantasia’) by presenting concrete pictures of the text. The chapter argues that these Victorian debates were bound up in ideas about the relation between the author and the reader and the cultural politics of gender, class, and labour.
Administration of Estates in Roman Law
Authors: Lohsse Sebastian
Published: February 2025

Roman law was governed by the principle that administration of the estate lay with the heirs (in the technical sense). A Roman testator was thus free to choose an administrator if only he appointed this person as heir. At the same time, testamentary freedom allowed the testator to burden his heirs with testamentary dispositions which, potentially, might exhaust the estate and leave the heir with nothing but administrative tasks. Such dispositions, however, threatened the acceptance of the inheritance by the heir, which, in turn, was a precondition for the validity of these dispositions and thus for the carrying out of the testator’s wishes. Accordingly, Roman law had to find a balance between testamentary freedom, the interests of the heir, and the interests of other testamentary beneficiaries. In effect, this balance meant that the testator could not appoint an heir as administrator without leaving him at least a minimum beneficial entitlement.
Administration of Estates in Italy
Authors: Christandl Gregor
Published: February 2025

The key actor in the administration of estates in Italy is the heir, who is the person nominated as such by the deceased’s will or by virtue of the rules on intestacy. The heir succeeds to the entire patrimony of the deceased, which consists of all transferable rights and obligations of the deceased at the time of death. Yet, as there can be no heir without prior acceptance, the law provides a system of temporary administration until acceptance occurs. This is accomplished by granting those called to inherit but who are not (yet) heirs certain limited powers to preserve the estate and to prevent the dispersal of assets. Where possession of the estate assets is not yet taken by these persons, the court, on its own motion or at the request of an interested person, can appoint a curator with extensive powers to wind up the estate.
Administration of Estates in Germany
Authors: Zimmermann Reinhard
Published: February 2025

The rules on estate administration in the German Civil Code remain within the conceptual framework of Roman law. At the same time, it was clear to those who drafted the Civil Code that the ‘contemporary’ version of Roman law could not be taken over without modifications. In particular, it was seen to be insufficiently attentive to the interests of the estate creditors. The other major systems prevailing in nineteenth-century Germany also did not commend themselves as models to be adopted. An attempt was therefore made to devise a new set of rules. This resulted in an extraordinarily intensive drafting process and in a sophisticated regime of unparalleled complexity. It has, unfortunately, failed to meet the requirements of legal practice.
Administration of Estates in England and Wales
Authors: Kerridge Roger
Published: February 2025

In England and Wales, the administration of the estates of deceased persons is carried out by personal representatives, so called because, until the late nineteenth century, they did not deal with realty but only with personal property. Personal representatives appointed by will are called executors, and the formal confirmation of their authority is by grant of probate. Where there is no appointment by will, personal representatives are appointed by the court and are then called administrators. It is the personal representatives’ duty to gather in the deceased’s assets, to pay the estate’s debts, and then to make distribution to the beneficiaries. Executors may be beneficiaries, and administrators are normally chosen from among the beneficiaries, but personal representatives who are beneficiaries should take care not to confuse their duties and their entitlements. Although their histories differ, there are many similarities between personal representatives and trustees.
Administration of Estates in Scotland
Authors: Reid Kenneth G C
Published: February 2025

Until 1964 in Scotland, the deceased’s moveable estate was administered by an executor, chosen by the deceased by will or appointed by the court, while the immoveable estate devolved to the heir nominated by law who, as universal successor, succeeded to both the assets of the deceased and the liabilities. Today, both moveable and immoveable property are administered by the executor or executors, whose appointment must be confirmed by the court, following an application supported by an inventory of the deceased’s assets. Confirmation transfers the estate to the executors, who hold it in a patrimony separate from their private patrimony. In relation to the deceased, they are universal successors; in relation to the beneficiaries, they are trustees and subject to fiduciary duties. There is a simplified procedure for estates of £36,000 or less; even so, more than half of all estates are wound up informally and without obtaining confirmation of executors.
Administration of Estates in Australia and New Zealand
Authors: Vines Prue , Peart Nicola
Published: February 2025

The modern law governing administration of deceased estates in Australia and New Zealand originated from English law, and the needs and customs of the indigenous people were almost completely ignored. Estate administration relies on the idea of the separate estate which is administered by an executor or administrator. The modern law is strongly focused on efficiency and dispute resolution. In recent years, the values and customs of First Nations people in Australia and the Māori people in New Zealand have become better recognized, as has the acknowledgement that they had sophisticated legal systems that continue to operate. Succession law in Australia is a matter for states, and thus multiple systems varying from the English pattern arise. This chapter outlines the processes to be carried out by legal personal representatives in administering the separate estate of the deceased, going through the process of paying debts and distributing assets to the beneficiaries.
Administration of Estates in the People’s Republic of China
Authors: Pißler Knut Benjamin
Published: February 2025

Due to the sharp increase of private wealth since the 1980s, estate administration has become of considerable importance in the People’s Republic of China. As the existing rudimentary rules were insufficient to give adequate protection to the interests of the parties involved, a comprehensive reform was carried out as part of the Chinese Civil Code of 2020. A key institution of the new regime is the estate administrator, who mandatorily intervenes in every succession case and who has a duty to protect the safety and integrity of the estate and to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of the heirs, legatees, and creditors. Another core element of the reform is the concept of overlapping liabilities. However, even after the reform, there are a number of issues that are not explicitly solved, regulated, or addressed.
Epilogue
Authors: Reid Kenneth G C , Schmidt Jan Peter , Zimmermann Reinhard
Published: February 2025

Systems of administration of estates should be quick, simple, and cheap to operate. Equally, they should make sure that estate assets are given the correct persons in the correct order of priority. These twin aims exist in a state of tension, for the simpler the system, the greater the risk of unpaid creditors and beneficiaries and of successors being burdened with excessive liabilities. Simple systems typically employ the ‘integrated’ mode of administration, where the deceased’s estate is absorbed into the estate of the heir. This is only used in civilian countries. The more complex ‘separate’ mode of administration is characteristic of common law countries, but is usually also found, as an option, in civil law systems. In reality, however, the option is not often chosen, and the integrated mode of administration predominates. That this should be so is, in some civilian countries at least, a source of criticism and concern.
From Mutual Insults to Mutual Respect (and Back)
Authors: Wolf Reinhard
Published: February 2025

During the Trump presidency, US–North Korean relations experienced an astounding shift from disrespect to respect, making these years particularly useful to assess the impact of regained respect. As expected, the initial escalation of mutual insults and other status infringements first worsened the nuclear crisis Trump had inherited from his predecessor, Barack Obama. By contrast, the later turn to respect had less dramatic consequences: whereas Trump rewarded Kim’s personal flattery and ‘friendship’ with numerous US concessions, newly attained respect exerted much less influence on Pyongyang’s policy—even though the Kim–Trump summits had accorded North Korea unprecedented status recognition. Overall, the case confirms the theoretical expectation that disrespect is more consequential than respect. Thus, it cautions against hopes that respectful gestures can rapidly overcome decades of mistrust and military confrontation.
The Many Roads to Gettysburg
Authors: Smith Adam I. P.
Published: February 2025

There were many roads to Gettysburg, but all began with slavery. White people debated whether the Civil War was “really” about the enslavement of human beings on American soil, but African Americans knew it was. In Pennsylvania, Black people faced multiple layers of discrimination, but they still knew from personal experience that there was a stark and terrifying difference between a society in which it was legal to own human property and one in which it was not. This chapter explains how slavery shaped the American republic in the years leading up to the war, including the society of a small town in a free state like Gettysburg, PA.
HONK! Activism
Authors: Garofalo Reebee
Published: February 2025

This chapter traces the ancestry of the HONK! Festival of Activist Street Bands back to the military brass and percussion units that led invading armies into battle and discusses inversions of the military model as civilian populations acquired and adapted these weapons of war to local cultural practices, including civic functions and religious ceremonies, as well as opposition and protest. Topics include transforming tools of conquest into instruments of resistance, joy, and celebration; alternative pedagogies for teaching and learning diverse cultural forms and styles; putting the public back into public space, as privatization threatens to limit public discourse; and using instrumental music as an activist strategy and a political statement. Initially written in 2016 and updated after that, the chapter can be read as a period piece describing a particular moment in the history of HONK! activism, but its lessons continue to be relevant to the current situation.
Anglophone Political Song in Eighteenth-Century Ireland
Authors: Haslett Moyra
Published: February 2025

Among the earliest-printed songs in Ireland are the political songs of Dublin’s prosperous English-speaking population—politicians, lawyers, clergy, tradespeople, and gentry. With the political campaigns and controversies which arise across the eighteenth century—particularly the Wood’s halfpence affair (1722–1725), the candidacy of Charles Lucas for a parliamentary seat (1748–1749), and the Volunteer movement (1779–1784)—the printing of partisan song becomes a marked feature of Dublin print culture and, increasingly, that of Irish regions: Belfast, Cork, and Downpatrick, for example. These three political controversies of the eighteenth century can be seen to inaugurate the strong traditions in which print culture bolsters the dissemination of political song, which would proliferate in the revolutionary years of the 1790s and beyond.
Indigenous Ontology and International Law
Authors: Clark Cristy , Poelina Anne
Published: February 2025

This chapter examines the ontological foundations of international law and their impact on Indigenous peoples, with a particular focus on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Australia. It argues that international law’s concepts of sovereignty, civilization, nature, and rights are grounded in a distinctly Western, modernist ontology that has been used to justify colonialism and environmental exploitation. This ontological framework contrasts with many Indigenous ontologies, which tend to emphasize relationality, reciprocity, and obligations to Country. The chapter explores how this ontological clash has affected Indigenous peoples through the imposition of international law norms in domestic legal systems. It then considers how Indigenous peoples are actively challenging and reshaping international law’s ontological foundations through interventions in both international and domestic forums. Key examples include the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the successful human rights communication regarding climate change made by Indigenous claimants from the Torres Strait Islands, and recent Australian jurisprudence recognizing Indigenous ontologies. By unsettling international law’s foundational concepts, these Indigenous legal interventions open up possibilities for ontological and legal pluralism. The chapter argues that such pluralism is necessary to address the global environmental crisis and achieve social and ecological justice. It concludes that embracing Indigenous wisdom and ontologies in international and domestic law could transform our collective response to planetary challenges.
Global Perspectives on Indigenous Archaeologies
Authors: Smith Claire , Pollard Kellie , Kumar Kanungo Alok , May Sally , López Varela Sandra L. , Watkins Joe
Published: February 2025

This handbook examines the transformative shifts in Indigenous archaeology, driven by Indigenous peoples’ calls for control over their intellectual and cultural heritage, and the discipline’s growing embrace of Indigenous methods, values, and theoretical frameworks. It highlights how interdisciplinary approaches and Indigenous priorities are reshaping archaeology into a field that addresses global challenges such as climate change and food security, while fostering equitable and ethical partnerships with Indigenous communities. This volume explores key themes, including the decolonization of archaeological theory and practice, the integration of Indigenous worldviews, and the recognition of Indigenous science as a critical contributor to sustainable futures. It underscores the importance of Indigenous leadership in research, ethical relationality, and the potential of archaeology to promote social justice and cultural survival. Ultimately, this handbook advocates for a reconceptualized archaeology—one that is inclusive, multivocal, and dedicated to community building and addressing humanity’s shared challenges.
Section IV: Ethnoarchaeology
Authors: Kumar Kanungo Alok , Smith Claire
Published: February 2025

This section explores the integration of Indigenous oral histories, ethnohistorical, ethnoarchaeological, and archaeological methods to advance understanding of Indigenous knowledge systems and their contributions to sustainable futures. It highlights the challenges of preserving oral traditions amidst colonization, modernization, and legal disruptions, emphasizing their role in safeguarding alternative worldviews and ecological wisdom. Case studies from India, Australia, and the Torres Strait Islands demonstrate the nuanced interplay between traditional practices, material culture, and modern conservation efforts, advocating for collaborative approaches with Indigenous communities. It underscores the importance of treating Indigenous science as rigorous and valuable, displaying its potential to enrich archaeological research and policy initiatives. Ultimately, the chapters in this section call for renewed commitment to ethnoarchaeology as a vital discipline for reconstructing lost knowledge and addressing contemporary challenges by fostering respectful, long-term relationships with Indigenous peoples.
Agrarianism
Authors: Kent-Carrasco Daniel
Published: February 2025

During the last five centuries, agrarian struggles have been at the heart of most, if not all, popular and massive mobilizations against capitalist imperialism and Western colonialism. This chapter approaches the widespread persistence and impact of agrarian struggles across the Global South by focusing on the political, economic, and discursive dimensions of agrarianism and its vexed relationship with contrasting modernist narratives of revolution and progress. It starts by tracing the main contours of intellectual and ideological debates around the “agrarian question” and the ways in which these influenced political mobilization in the imperialized world. It then follows different trajectories of agrarian struggle in Latin America, Asia, and Africa by focusing on three broad moments. First, it explores the centrality of agrarianism and peasant mobilization in different agendas of anticolonial politics. Second, it focuses on the ways in which agrarianism served as a crucial node of legitimation and tool of transformation for Third World regimes. The last section looks at the resurgence of peasant and agrarian mobilization in the context of the global neoliberal onslaught headed from the North Atlantic in the closing decades of the twentieth century.
Visual Discourses of Identity-Making
Authors: Schlag Gabi
Published: February 2025

NATO’s identity-making is best understood through a discourse approach that investigates the Alliance’s articulation of textual and visual sites. Such an understanding helps uncover the ways in which NATO’s collective identity is made and projected. Visual discourse analysis is applied to NATO’s 2022 Strategic Concept and the accompanying themes of ‘NATO 2030’. Two nodal points are identified in that discourse: seeing NATO as a gender-equalizing alliance and as a perpetual and affective community of people, not only states. A closer look at the textual and visual discourses that establish self-ascribed meanings and truths is key to understanding both change and persistence in NATO.
The North Atlantic Treaty
Authors: Orr R. James
Published: February 2025

The interrogation of the text, history, and significance of the North Atlantic Treaty, NATO’s founding text, is essential for understanding NATO’s evolution since 1949. Building on earlier attempts by European nations to provide for collective defence, the Treaty was a response to the Soviet Union’s looming presence in post-World War II Europe. This chapter explains how the Treaty provisions were drafted so as to authorize roles for NATO that would extend beyond collective defence to include collective support for political and economic security. The language of the Treaty, its foundation on the purposes and principles of the United Nations and the commitment of its membership to common principles of governance (even when those principles are strained) has provided the basis for organizational evolution and enlargement as global circumstances have changed. The Treaty is short in length and flexible in meaning. That economy of articulation has allowed NATO to adapt to myriad challenges and changes of external circumstance in the decades since its first adoption.
The Secretary General
Authors: Hendrickson Ryan C.
Published: February 2025

As NATO has evolved, so too has the role of the Alliance’s political leader, its Secretary General. Recent Secretaries General have exercised leadership in NATO in ways that were impossible during the Cold War. The heightened visibility of NATO summits (organized and chaired by the Secretary General) has helped in this regard. While there is much truth to the proposition that leaders of international organizations often have limited political influence, in NATO’s case the Secretary General can, under certain conditions, have a significant impact on the Alliance’s direction. Here, the United States’ willingness to permit leadership opportunities for the Secretary General is essential. Leadership opportunities have grown considerably after the Cold War as NATO has welcomed new members, adopted new policy initiatives, and managed vastly different military operations that have gone far beyond the mission of containing the Soviet Union.
Burden-Sharing
Authors: Zyla Benjamin
Published: February 2025

The share of gross domestic product (GDP) devoted to defence-spending is an unsatisfactory indicator for assessing an ally’s contribution to NATO. However, it remains a key benchmark for assessing burden-sharing in policy circles and in scholarship. That said, there is an equally significant burden-sharing story to be told that focuses on allied contributions to crisis management operations. NATO interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo in the mid-1990s and in Afghanistan from 2002 to 2014 were intended to stabilize fragile states and suppress belligerent local actors. With the exception of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, the Europeans did not free-ride on the Americans as is commonly believed. On the contrary, at an operational level (or at the output level of analysis), the Europeans exceeded their expected aggregate contribution militarily. This chapter suggests that examining input and output variables is insufficient to judge the quantitative balance of contributions to NATO operations. These variables should be supplemented by two others—outcomes and long-term impacts. Both are currently understudied in the burden-sharing debate.
What Is NATO for (Redux)?
Authors: Clarke Michael
Published: February 2025

NATO’s rationale during the Cold War was derived from its role as a collective defence alliance geared to countering the threat posed by the Soviet Union. During this period, NATO also acted as a collective security alliance designed to maintain cooperative relations among the allies. Because the external threat was clear, Alliance politicians were not called upon to examine NATO’s purposes very closely during the Cold War. The end of the Cold War complicated (even undermined) NATO’s purpose. But the Alliance soon emerged as a robust collective security actor. Collective defence, meanwhile, was restored as a key preoccupation as Russia became more assertive. The Russian invasion of Ukraine renewed NATO’s role as a military alliance; that role was authoritatively set out at NATO’s 2022 Madrid Summit and the follow-on in Vilnius in 2023. Alliance management remains a complex balancing act between the sometimes competing purposes of collective defence and collective security. But NATO will remain relevant and essential to Euro-Atlantic security for the foreseeable future.
Who Is NATO for?
Authors: Wolff Andrew T.
Published: February 2025

NATO has established an evolving set of criteria for determining the accession of new members. These criteria have sometimes entailed a tension between an enlargement that is premised upon extending a community of values and one that is more attuned to strategic benefit for the existing membership. This tension goes all the way back to NATO’s founding. It continued with the Cold War accessions of Greece and Turkey, and later West Germany and Spain. Since the end of the Cold War, NATO has doubled its membership through multiple rounds of enlargement to Central and East European countries. Initially, the promotion of liberal-democratic values dominated post-Cold War enlargement thinking, but later rounds of enlargement have displayed more strategic considerations. The chapter concludes with a discussion of possible future enlargements and considers the argument that an expansive membership may undermine the internal cohesion and strategic coherence of NATO.
The Atlantic Coast (Western France, Northern Spain, and Portugal)
Authors: Araújo Ana Cristina , Marchand Grégor
Published: February 2025

The archaeological record accumulated during the time-span that separates the last hunter-gatherer societies of the final Upper Palaeolithic and the first agro pastoral communities of the early Neolithic on the Atlantic coast of Europe is characterized by shell middens scattered along the coasts of Portugal, northern Spain, and western France. The large-scale exploitation of marine resources, especially mollusks, is one of the most distinctive traits of the Mesolithic. These hunter-gatherer-fisher societies also exploited the inland landscapes and resources, creating sheltered and open-air sites, some with dwellings. Hunting was the main activity developed at these locations. During the nearly five millennia of Mesolithic lifestyle, important changes occur, although with specificities according to the geographical areas: human groups become less itinerant, more gregarious and the first cemeteries appear in the same places occupied by the living, explaining the emergence of long-term settlements. The Mesolithic technology carries forward know-how and skills from their Upper Palaeolithic ancestors, but it is also innovative, creating less time-consuming lithic solutions. The production of small and standardized geometric shapes (triangles, trapezes, and crescents) is a further defining feature of the Mesolithic technology. These microliths were embedded in wooden or bone/antler handles, forming different composite-tools used for multiple tasks, from hunting weapons to knives. These ways of life established on the maritime coast from France to Portugal offered enough resilience to provide an alternative to agro-pastoral economies from the middle of the sixth millennium until the beginning of the fourth millennium, with long-term coexistences between these societies.
The Eastern Mediterranean
Authors: Galanidou Nena , Vukosavljević Nikola , Perlès Catherine
Published: February 2025

The chapter offers a succinct account of the Mesolithic archaeology of the Eastern Mediterranean and identifies patterns of similarity and difference across time and space. This large and heterogenous region combines a rugged and mountainous mainland terrain, an extensive and intricate shoreline, and numerous islands. In the east, the Aegean sites offer more examples of cultural and economic discontinuity from the preceding Upper Palaeolithic period as well as novelty, sharp economic transformations, and an overall acceleration of change compared to the Adriatic-Ionian sites in the west. The Aegean Mesolithic record points to a mosaic of people and lifestyles, partly owing to the increasing, yet intermittent, role of the sea in subsistence, partly to the regional proximity to Anatolia and Near East, and partly to a broken geography. The Eastern Adriatic Early Mesolithic record is marked by continuity rather than change, with only a few scanty signs of difference, while the Late Mesolithic brings significant changes, both in technology and subsistence. The eastern Mediterranean region, as a whole, exhibits spatiotemporal variability in the funerary rituals, economic strategies, and technical traditions of stone and bone tool manufacture that can be best explained by cultural differences. Archaeological finds from ‘hunters in transition’ are visible in the record, alongside finds manifesting continuation of the earlier traditions in technology and subsistence, and finds of newcomers with brand new cultural signatures.
Shell Middens and Shells
Authors: Dupont Catherine , Gutiérrez-Zugasti Igor
Published: February 2025

This chapter deals with the variability of anthropogenic shell deposits usually called shell middens and the different uses of molluscs during the Mesolithic in Europe. We present the geographical distribution and environmental setting of these emblematic archaeological sites, as well as their settlement patterns and their roles in symbolic and subsistence systems. The uses by Mesolithic societies of the major component found in the shell middens—i.e. the shells—are addressed. We focus on issues such as the sampling methods, the use of shells as food, ornaments, and tools, and the daily activities related to the exploitation of marine resources, from their collection to their discard. We present the latest methods used in the study of marine molluscs in relation to the main research themes applied to shell middens.