Blockchain Papers

Redento B. Recio, Erich Wolff, Ashraful Alam, Sanjeev Routray · 8 authors

… the right to be counted is a struggle for legibility, visibility, and enlisting; it is a contingent and contextual struggle to lay claims to space and infrastructure in the city. (Routray, 2022a, p. 267). As signalled in the above quote, The Right to be Counted offers a unique perspective into the tactics deployed by communities to achieve urban citizenship in India. The book is structured around eight chapters and guides the reader through an investigation of how ‘the poor respond to the contradictory intentions and goals of various state agencies by either partaking in or subverting the quotidian practices of the state’ (Routray, 2022a, p. 266). It does so by delving into the experiences of the urban poor, who are portrayed as active agents in the production of new forms of citizenship in response to calculative state governmentality. The book is theoretically solid and empirically grounded and contributes to the literature on the right to the city. Centred on the concept of ‘numerical citizenship’, the book sheds light on how the urban poor struggle to be seen and accounted for in contemporary Delhi. Numerical citizenship is ‘the systematic, protracted, and incremental political process by which the poor become entrenched in the city’ (Routray, 2022a, p. 2). It involves the struggle of the urban poor ‘to be visible, to be identified, and to be recognised, and to be made eligible for food, shelter, and basic amenities and infrastructure in the city’ (Routray, 2022a, p. 2). The urban poor's incremental efforts to become visible to the local state are characterised by complex relationships in which the urban poor sometimes operate within the purview of state calculative governmentality and sometimes challenge and subvert governmental plans. In this sense, the book offers a timely and provocative expansion of the ideas of insurgent citizenship and other forms of representation as proposed by key authors such as James Holston (2009) and Asef Bayat (2000). The book draws on ethnographic insights to develop a series of arguments regarding numerical citizenship. Against a backdrop of the daily practices and institutionalised tactics deployed by city residents, the experiences discussed in the book illustrate how bureaucratic frameworks are applied in practice and how communities respond to them. In doing so, the book reveals how communities find ways to counter technocratic visions of the city and the processes that shape urbanisation (Wolff, 2020). These community narratives serve as immersive explorations of what it means to fight for recognition and access to public services for the residents of India and, to some extent, for millions of people in the Global South. The key arguments in this ethnographically rich volume contribute to the ongoing SEED conversation series focused on scholarship from peripheralised places, unpacking the spatial politics of uneven geographies of North and South as well as bringing marginalised indigenous, racial, sexual, gendered and ‘other’ narratives to the fore. SEED, the Space for Engagement and Epistemic Diversity, is an international platform hosted within the University of Melbourne's Informal Urbanism Research Hub.1 Routray's book is an epitome of scholarly work that enriches our understanding of the multiple forms, relations and spatial politics of grassroots political agency in different parts of the globe. In what follows, we offer our collective reflections on the book and Sanjeev, as the author, responds. Using a dialogical format, our respective voices are denoted in what follows as ‘review collective (RC)’ and ‘Sanjeev Routray (SR)’. Review collective (RC): Your book draws on an ethnographic study of three state-recognised settlements and their different levels of entrenchment in the city's political landscape. There is a rich discussion of the complex negotiations undertaken by the residents to be visible and assert their numerical strength. Your choice of research sites—a jhuggi jhopri (hutments) settlement, a transit camp and a resettlement colony—provides a nuanced understanding of the varying processes that shape the built environment in Delhi. The diverse research sites offer the opportunity to explore some of the similarities and differences among the various tactics that residents adopt to navigate their precarious living conditions and engage with state authorities. Your long engagement with the residents in your research sites and other urban poor networks in India comes alive through your writing about how caste, class and gender intersect in the urban poor's struggle for citizenship. You identify Muslim women and the oppressed castes as the most vulnerable groups, both facing severe daily struggles and often having restricted means to achieve socio-political mobility. Your descriptive account also shows that, as well as being spaces of discrimination, urban informal settlements can also be emancipatory spaces. Over time, the caste-specific clustering of houses merges with the surrounding settlements, leading to a more heterogeneous community. Additionally, residents adopt a myriad of ways to break caste oppression, such as changing surnames, engaging in identity-based politics and renaming their settlements. It is important to understand better what occurs when residents set aside their caste, class, gender differences and prejudices and come together to demonstrate their numerical solidarity. When do these differences flare up and fragment the community? Sanjeev Routray (SR): The primary objective of my book was to examine how the poor incrementally secure housing and a range of citizenship entitlements in the city. I show how they assert their numerical strength and deploy various tactics and counter-tactics to be visible, identified and counted in their political struggles. So, my first goal was to zero in on social spaces that provided an analytical anchor to examine the processes and temporal dynamics of settlement, displacement and resettlement at different historical conjunctures. As I have argued in the book, the social spaces do not represent stable categories or mental abstractions, as Lefebvre has reminded us in his work (Lefebvre, 1991). Rather, as I show, these spatial settings are suffused with social relations, which both enable and constrain the entrenchment of the poor in extraordinary ways in Delhi. As the state routinely under-enumerates and arbitrarily deems a considerable segment of the poor ineligible for housing and welfare, the primary challenge is to assert numerical strength and presence from a particular cutoff date. To claim welfare entitlements, the residents challenge state enumeration procedures and carry out a multitude of documentary and inscriptive struggles in the city. In all these neighbourhoods, the poor build varied social, economic and political relationships, forge kinship ties, and initiate alliances with politicians, state officials, activists and interlocutors across the social and political spectrum. Their fundamental aim is to systematically build collective solidarity, even if it is fraught, tenuous and often contingent. Despite the above overlaps, there are differences that underpin the tactics of the poor across these spaces. As the primary struggle of jhuggi jhopri residents is to build jhuggis, gain recognition from the local state, claim welfare services, prevent demolition and demand resettlement upon demolition, the poor routinely auto-archive their individual biographies and the life histories of the communities, especially if they intersect with key social and political events in the city, so as to establish authentic presence in the city. Moreover, in the jhuggi jhopri neighbourhood, the residents invoke the memory of their neighbours and kin if state officials reject their proof documents and deem them ineligible for resettlement. While the residents of the transit camp also fight against demolitions and claim basic services, they reclassify and recategorise themselves as ‘regular’ or ‘legal’ by challenging state enunciations and categories, including ‘transitory’, ‘temporary’ and ‘illegal’ through their unique legal tactics to contest their lack of numerical entrenchment in the city. In refining my arguments about collective solidarity, I have emphasised how the poor deploy their demographic calculus as a significant tactic in their claims to housing and citizenship entitlements in general terms. I have emphasised how the tactic of demographic calculus is preeminent in the resettlement neighbourhood as the residents leverage their numerical strength to contest host populations, nominate successful electoral candidates and assert numerical presence in demonstrations. As I have emphasised in the book, the poor do not represent a homogenous category. The collective solidarity marked by bhaichara (brotherhood) and ristedari (relationships) is often disrupted over material and identity-based struggles. For instance, the dalits (oppressed communities at the bottom of the caste hierarchy) of the jhuggi jhopri neighbourhood (oppressed communities at the bottom of the caste hierarchy) often remain alienated from the upper and intermediate-caste leaders and the language of the court due to their low literacy levels. When the court made a distinction between eligible petitioners and ineligible non-petitioners and approved resettlement flats only for the petitioners, a few dalit members expressed their disappointment. They even casually demanded a return of their monetary contributions as a threat. Often the dalit residents (who carried out ‘scavenging’ and recycling work and earned the least) lacked the time and social connections to navigate the labyrinthine bureaucratic structures to demand their entitlements. Similarly, the purchasers of flats/plots in the transit camp and resettlement neighbourhoods often appropriate scarce resources due to their relative economic power and social/political connections if you compare them with the original allottees. Nevertheless, the purchasers also have a precarious existence because the state may reject their sale-purchase affidavits as legitimate documents in offering housing in the city. Thus, at key historical conjunctures, the purchasers share the vulnerabilities of residents who lack legible error-free documents. To give you another example, the intermediaries who mediate between residents, state and different actors are divided along the lines of caste, gender, class, regional origin, and so on. While they engage in significant activities that support the residents, they often foster dependencies and arbitrary exclusions in their so called ‘public dealings’. Moreover, a stark division between male and female chiefs disrupts collective solidarity in the neighbourhood. Male chiefs consistently disparage the work of female chiefs by classifying various activities in gendered terms. They label their own work as contributing to ‘development’ in the neighbourhood, whereas they regard the work of female chiefs as merely contributing to domestic dispute resolutions. At times, the residents also resort to character assassination and rumour-spreading about female intermediaries despite receiving support from them. Most importantly, the passing of the Citizenship Amendment Act in 2019 has exacerbated the divisions between Hindu and Muslim residents. The ensuing protests against the law, riots and police have the Muslim and of as the collective solidarity and the in these that they a of to proof documents and in their to secure housing and citizenship entitlements in the city. the of the in the this book offers timely Your sheds light on the between the the class, different state and In the court the poor on public by residents the of urban or state officials in the informal these that the urban poor are and who have to the of the and have their You engage with these in their with the of urban in in which a from a and technocratic in the to a and in the You also examine the complex surrounding the resettlement the of eligible and ineligible informal and the of the of resettlement In unpacking the complex politics of in you have deployed and a set of and to what extent, has the urban poor's struggle for numerical citizenship or urban and processes in what grassroots and counter-tactics have to successful against a demolition and in what have the collective not To understand urban and I deployed a to the the calculative in the state governmentality over a temporal in Delhi. As the to urban resources if has to by I show how these have up ideas around class city, city and city So, the state at the have and through and and displacement and resettlement of the In that I illustrate how the poor challenge and of to the of I show how the poor assert their numerical strength in their of a community and solidarity. I have how the state enumeration practices are marked by arbitrary of and and state which and experiences of among the practices often to documentary especially and To these the poor around and engage in of on Nevertheless, the numerical citizenship struggles a of counter-tactics of Thus, the poor and and to in their documents. the state agencies in the poor the politics of and the tactics of the state by the of the Right to They carry out to challenge enumeration and by the state the state agencies reject their the poor their with a host of actors to and their claims of authentic presence in the At times, the tactics documents to authentic documents or challenge state Similarly, to contest legal the poor challenge and of and carry out and around and and The urban poor have social because of the of displacement and resettlement. I have how the and of has to demolitions and social in Delhi. Nevertheless, there are of successful I have how the poor and to displacement the the to the transit camp neighbourhood. The poor their numerical state officials and politicians, deployed members and residents, and carried out including and, most importantly, to prevent the demolition of their neighbourhood. In most of the residents in resettlement against demolition in their of Your book a of not only how work on the in the three sites also how shape the of negotiations and … political (Routray, 2022a, p. for in the of their displacement and resettlement in the of Delhi. It is well in the literature that lack legal due to their and a lack of to urban which them to into precarious relations with urban to secure living to their and often in the city, state often from urban services The of has a on their settlements and of in the city. So, at a it is to that there is for these to claim citizenship and entitlements. you that the urban poor's in is a citizenship is over time and As long as the urban can assert their ‘numerical strength and community (Routray, 2022a, p. to themselves as a (Routray, 2022a, p. they can a range of social and entitlements in the city. Your of the numerical citizenship the a within which informal residents are as agents and, are provided with services in for you for a of the collective and political (Routray, 2022a, p. of the urban that agency only through the of a that is to the (Routray, p. that politicians, state and urban often in their for the the book, your of offers a the informal and the of the urban poor in For example, the the and incremental political in means and means shows how temporal and numerical politics intersect to resettlement and citizenship The choice of the reader to the better and the practices of the poor from the in you show the of and and so numerical power is to these of that, be with of While there is the book on the of the urban it does not from within some of the on or the of the you us more about how this concept on and I have to a and to understand urban citizenship in the Global South. In so I the general arguments about the to city’ I remain to the and of urban citizenship the of In this I build on from the frameworks of James and Asef James I the that the poor build to demand citizenship entitlements in the city. I also on his of to understand how the poor build and navigate in the urban the of the poor do not claim citizenship as and in Delhi. The poor are from a resettlement or if they own in Delhi. the poor do not contest relations in they in and with these relations and the in their they do not to a of urban operate with a complex of tactics and Nevertheless, my also (2009) claims that citizenship claims and are homogenous and While I on Asef of how the poor claim housing and in I offer a nuanced understanding of how the poor navigate the in the city. Moreover, in to the of the the of collective solidarity citizenship struggles is in of India. The struggles of the poor do not merely represent and claims of by an extraordinary of and with to understanding how the poor engage in and local practices to navigate the of bureaucratic and political on an I show how the activities of the poor do not merely contest the state, and the of activists and negotiations with a multitude of in the city. In this I examine an of and to understand how power relations, of legal and historical the Most importantly, my arguments on from concept of political work is important as it offers a to understand contextual of and of communities in I as a who has some of the most ideas to challenge the and ideas the of and an ethnographic offers a more nuanced understanding of the of the character of the the dynamics of caste, class, gender relations, the of and the of neighbourhood As a I have his ideas for their in understanding the politics of the For instance, I do not the poor as merely an to the state I show how the poor their claims to be and with and and legal and to secure their entitlements. In a I offer a understanding of urban citizenship in different historical by the complex and labyrinthine of tactics and counter-tactics in Delhi. contextual and these my arguments have in the of the Global South. Your discussion of numerical citizenship how support informal settlements to their to the city through recognition to or at within the city. with the literature how of residents are as the for even the process of right to the city. For example, in how often to a to and fight to their right of ‘numerical is also in between residents and state officials, with enumeration The numerical strength often seen by both and officials as the for visible in the urban environment and citizenship and, a of a dispute in either on The of this numerical residents and community to their and public recognition in the informal settlements. your account that alliances with various across the social are in to claims in these You the of the members of the in and among the informal settlements of Delhi. alliances with local politicians, political and the agency from numerical strength to citizenship and services it has also that the the have become of such the of their the or to for residents the demolition of the camp is such of of local residents in local people in India is seen as the of important that the of informal residents and local social a in them. In this what is your on how the urban poor in navigate the alliances of this complex social to their how have the social in the urban poor's political numerical tactics and in to the struggle for social and the right to the fundamental in this book is to examine the politics of the poor on their own terms. As you can I have my from I remain to social and as they shape the political of the In this I systematically how the activities of the poor intersect with and across the social and political spectrum. The poor in the political and bureaucratic in Delhi. they develop alliances by multiple of and collective They contest the of activists and and their and with a multitude of At times, the poor the at other times, they reject the While the work of the activists is the activities are often at with I have and struggles and how these struggles have to a to claim citizenship entitlements in the city. While there are alliances across in housing and citizenship entitlements, it has on the of the activists as well as the poor to forge a social in Delhi. is because there are differences among in of tactics and political and and of The poor and their on They from legal and across spaces and the poor have it to a social a set of in Delhi. In to we to on The work is the of of ethnographic this your book shows how ethnographic can be to explore the of politics and the of offers a that the of and the to light on both the local and of the struggles for numerical citizenship (Routray, p. your with and experiences with urban poor communities, your account shows the of ethnographic engagement in urban that is a or of has a for and both new and ethnographic in sense, economic and and In this sense, you on how your and ethnographic engagement have the of and the for can you on the you for instance, in different jhuggi jhopri settlements and your as a and as an of the of the I to build to understand the of political practices on the of the poor in the of the Global South. The ethnographic over a temporal has to contest and frameworks about how the poor and with the state in their of housing and other entitlements on an I have deployed a to develop my of numerical citizenship to understand the political agency of the I have to how the poor contest as well as to in the city. In this I show how the poor establish and their political and to gain a in the city. I writing a on the of my research and I some of these arguments to at a in (Routray, ethnographic I show how I built what conditions I built and how these my I light on the of with different members of a heterogeneous community. I also into the of for the and of and the of of the in the As a can you give an of your ongoing there another book in the that the scholarly and there new you are At I writing my book on the of Delhi. Most of the in and also in India from particular in the state of primary objective is to compare and how caste negotiations and community and citizenship struggles among communities of in Delhi. is different from my first Nevertheless, I some of my insights to understand how the their citizenship struggles in a that the deploy various tactics and counter-tactics across space and time to become eligible for citizenship entitlements. the poor communities who own or resettlement in various social most of the houses in the city. they are not to secure documents that establish proof of to welfare in the city. As a they are more in the and political in their They routinely to their to and support for their political leaders These are as they the support of local to claim their citizenship entitlements and welfare In the few I have in other to with the and other of the I for my research a to my our of grassroots and has to a significant of with the and for the that this support the to claim welfare from the are for the time and of the has for us to this and on the has the

Luisito Dela Cruz, Moses Aaron Angeles

Through a careful analysis of official government documents such as national statutes, national agency memorandum orders, policy directives reports, and national and local plans, among others, pertinent to the Philippine Government's response to climate change mitigation and adaptation, the paper elucidated the policy directions of the country concerning climate change response. Aimed at proposing recommendations to enhance the current legal, organizational, and fiscal frameworks of the Philippine Government in its efforts to mainstream its climate change strategy, the paper identified some of the gaps and possible areas of improvement in the standing legal and structural constellations of policies employed in the country. It has been found by the research that though there have been actions related to the international mandate of promoting sustainable development, there are still areas that can be reformed and revisited if the government programs and institutions are to remain in fidelity to the commitments of the Philippines to combat the impacts and mitigate the effects of climate change. As the title suggests, the paper offers policy directions to strengthen government and academic institutions to better respond to this daunting challenge.References2013 Typhoon Haiyan: Facts, FAQs, and how to help. (n.d.). World vision. https://www.worldvision.org/disaster-relief-news-stories/2013-typhoon-haiyan-facts.Asian Disaster Reduction Center. (n.d.). Information on disaster risk reduction of member countries. https://www.adrc.asia/nationinformation.php?NationCode=608&Lang=en.Asian Development Bank. (2012). Addressing migration and climate change in Asia and the Pacific: Final report. ADB.Blair, H. (2000). Participation and accountability in the periphery: Democratic local governance in six countries. World Development 28(1). 21-39.Brillantes, A. & Montes, R. (2007). Federalism: Logical step after devolution? Philippine Journal of Public Administration 51(1-4). 1-32.Brillantes, A. (1987). Decentralization in the Philippines: An overview. Philippine Journal of Public Administration, 31 (2): 131-148.Brillantes, A. (1998). Decentralized democratic governance under the local government code: A governmental perspective. Philippine Journal of Public Administration, 32(1&2): 38-57.Brown, K. (2012). Typhoon Pablo batters ‘typhoon-free’ Mindanao. The Asia Foundation. https://asiafoundation.org/2012/ 12/19/typhoon-pablo-batters-typhoon-free-mindanao/.Capuno, J. (2019). Tugs of war: Local governments, national government. Public Policy Journal, 16 & 17: 98-116.Cheema, S. & Rondinelli, D. (2007). Decentralizing governance: Emerging concepts and practices. Brookings Institution Press.Dorotan, E. & Carizo, J. (2014). Issues and critical actions in local governance. Galing Pook Foundation.Hannah, R. (2014). Climate change and human development. Zed Books Ltd.Griggs, G. (2017). Coasts in crisis: A global challenge. University of California Press.Jha, A. & Geddes, Z. (2013). Strong, safe, and resilient: A strategic policy guide for disaster risk management in East Asia and the Pacific. The World Bank.Local Government Academy of the Philippines. (2013). User’s manual for LGUs: Guidebook for the preparation of LCCAP. Fabi’s Enterprises.Manila Observatory for the Congressional Commission on Science and Technology and Engineering. (2010). COMSTE Technical primer on climate change in the Philippines conference engineering resilience, confronting risk beyond adaptation. Sofitel ManilaMayon mud buries 100 in Bicol amid ‘Reming’ fury. (2006, Nov. 30). GMA News Online. https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/nation/22465/mayon-mud-buries-100-in-bicol-amid-remingfury/story/.National Climate Change Commission. (2021). 2020 Accomplishment Report: Adapting for a sustainable future.National Climate Change Commission. (2011). National climate change action plan.National Climate Change Commission. (2019). The Philippine national climate change action plan.NDCC: Typhoon ‘Frank’ damage estimate now at P 10B. (2008, July 1). GMA News Online. https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/nation/104407/ndcc-typhoon-frank-damage-estimate-now-atp10b/story/.Perez, R. (2017). Assessment of vulnerability and adaptation to climate change in the Philippines coastal resources sector. Natural Disaster Reduction Branch – PAGASA.Remembering Milenyo’s wrath in 2006. (2014, July 15). Philippine Star. https://www.philstar.com/news-commentary/2014/07/15/1346515/remembering-milenyos-wrath-2006.Republic Act 9729, An act mainstreaming climate change into government policy formulations, establishing the framework strategy and program on climate change, creating for this purpose the climate change commission, and other purposes (2009). https://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/2009/10/23/republic-act-no- 9729/.Republic Act 10174, An act establishing the people’s survival fund to provide long-term finance streams to enable the government to effectively address the problem of climate change, amending for the purpose Republic Act 9729, otherwise known as the 'Climate Change Act of 2009', and for other purposes (2012). https://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/2012/08/16/republic-act-no-10174/.Republic Act 10121, An act strengthening the Philippine Disaster Risk Reduction and Management System, providing for the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management framework and institutionalizing the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Plan, appropriating funds therefore and for other purposes (2010). https://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/2010/05/27/republic-act-no-10121/.Republic Act 7160, An Act for a Local Government Code of 1991 (1991). https://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/1991/10/10/republic-act-no-7160/.Walker, R. & Mason, W. (2015). Climate change adaptation for health and social services. CSIRO Publishing.

D.K. Craig

Considers two significant (2014–17) reforms in Papua New Guinea and their potential combined significance in strengthening Public Financial Management for Service Delivery. Public Financial Management (PFM)/Budget execution, including an Integrated Financial Information System (IFMS), involves reforms driven principally by the Department of Finance (DoF)); and Public Sector and Institutional (PSI) reform, including decentralization and local service delivery, involves reforms driven by the Department of Provincial and Local Government Affairs (DPLGA). Papua New Guinea’s budget execution reforms emerged from a combination of political and executive leadership, benchmarked against international standards via a robust Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA) review process. While current decentralization remains at an early stage, provincial government, subject to irregular, inadequate resourcing and limited political and executive accountability, has undergone reforms but failed to remedy the difficult three-tier governance arrangements. The new approach to decentralization and service delivery has constituted District Development Authorities (DDAs) as the primary vehicle through which to pursue local development goals.

Februati Trimurni

Deconcentration is simply defined as the delegation of administrative authorities of the central government to the lower level of governments along with the transfer of funds to finance the implementation of the authorities. Deconcentration, in the perspective of public administration, is the transfer of administrative responsibility for specified functions to lower levels within the central government bureaucracy, generally on some spatial basis (Ferguson and Chandrasekharan, 2004). The policy and important decision still lays on the central government and the lower governments or units are merely the implementer of the policy and decision. The practice of the deconcentration in Indonesia has obviously been implementing since the independence of the country with some dynamism and adjustments particularly with the national interest, strategies, economic or even politic. The political reform of Indonesia in the year of 1998 is mainly generated by the demands of some provinces and regions to separate from the country for instance those of demands from Aceh, Papua and Maluku. To respond the demands, central government issued decentralization law notably by the Law No.22/1999 which the revision to the previous Law No.5/1974.

John Connell

Small islands are disadvantaged by conventional development strategies and have sought unusual means of achieving economic development and raising their global profiles. The small Channel Island of Alderney, with a largely non-existent physical resource base, and steady population decline, has sought to develop several service sector activities, increasingly involving the internet and virtual activities. Internet gambling has proved successful. Bitcoin minting offers unique possibilities. Alderney has achieved economic development without significant local assets other than creativity and ingenuity, and a somewhat distinctive political status.

Jolie Liston

This thesis investigates the mechanisms underlying the early emergence of monumentality on an Oceanic island and the correlation between the development of monumental architecture and the long-term processes of sociopolitical evolution. Babeldaob in the Palau archipelago of western Micronesia was selected for this study due to the nature of its monumental earth architecture. Monumental in both horizontal scale of interconnected complexes and dimensions of individual structures, Babeldaob's earthworks emerged close to a millennium earlier, and were abandoned several centuries before, the advent of monumentality on other Pacific island groups. Unlike elsewhere in Oceania, Babeldaob's monumental structures form extensive conjoined clusters containing a multitude of morphological forms that served simultaneous practical and symbolic functions. The underlying structure of the investigation is dual-processualism, the co-existing network and corporate political economic orientations chosen by emerging leaders to create and legitimize their power and prestige. These strategies rely on interdependent political, ideological, ritual and economic power sources. Distinguishing between corporate and network modes employed in Palau's Earthwork Era (2400-1100 calBP) is a heuristic tool for assessing the temporal transformations in spatial dimensions, patterning and practical and ideological roles encoded in Babeldaob's earthworks. This research presents a new understanding of the chronological development, construction processes, spatial organization and intertwined tangible and intangible uses of earthworks based on stratigraphic excavations, pedestrian survey, spatial analysis and radiometric dating. These data sources support a new working model of the evolution of Babeldaob's sociopolitical complexity in a dual-processual framework. Babeldaob's sociopolitical organization model posits development from heterarchical kin groups, to competitive chiefdoms and finally to rival decentralized polities. Corporate and network political economic strategies fused to maintain a level playing field driving a volatile sociopolitical period. With a staple economy based on land, labour and the production of surplus, corporate leadership strategies prevailed. However, rival factions and competing polities were extremely dynamic as they manoeuvred for prestige and wealth through network alliances and warfare. By the end of the Earthwork Era, there is a clear expression of economic stratification and personal aggrandizement. The Earthwork Era political economy appears to be based on staple and ritual finance with the most valuable commodity the landesque capital and associated ritual, occupational and defensive earth architecture that further increased the economic value of the built landscape. These structures embodied a complex merger of energy investment, ancestral ties, ritual association, staple wealth and social bonding. Given Babeldaob's high precipitation, sloping land, and the instability and low native fertility of its highly weathered soil, development of step-terraces was an effective strategic choice to prevent land degradation and support a viable agricultural system. The recognition of the complexity and vulnerability of earthwork construction and dryland agriculture in these particular edaphic and climatic conditions led to the development of ritual behaviours associated with both activities. Earth structures dedicated to these performances bind staple finance to the dominant ideology.

Adam M. Silvia

Following Haitian President Jean-Claude Duvalier's flight into exile in February 1986, the President of Haiti's provisional Conseil National de Gouvernement (CNG), Lieutenant General Henri Namphy, and his Minister of Finance, Leslie Delatour, enacted liberal reforms. This study examined their initial doctrine, decrees, and institutions for democratization and free markets, within a historical context of over-centralization and exclusion. Its purpose was to explore the contradiction and consequences of pursuing liberalization by decree, without significant decentralization. The author extracted CNG doctrine from speeches, legislation, and economic records. He then juxtaposed it with the adverse results of market reforms and popular reactions gathered from nine Haitian newspapers and two archival collections. He found that CNG doctrine and institutions were inadequate for resolving exclusion and popular discontent. Rather the deficiency of market reforms and the insufficiency of representative institutions exacerbated exclusion, which the author identified as the source of confrontation and violence in 1987.

Hideki Hasegawa

The “region”, sub-national entity in Europe, plays some more important roles in a place of Nation-States in a context of European integration. However, “island regions” around European Continent have a risk to be more marginalised by the economic integration advanced by the central regions. The island region in Europe has a special socio-economic backwardness caused by its remoteness from the Continent and this special character is called “insularity”.Political autonomy is, I think, one of the best choices that activate an island region without delete its insularity. Thus European insular regions have a special status that is different from the regions in the Continent, that rules their political autonomy. However, there are many cases that island regions have a heterogeneous historic-cultural fact and a strong identity that could appeal to nationalism or separatism from the mainland country. So that autonomous status of island region in Europe is not homogeneous.Corsica, Mediterranean island region that belongs to France, has not been autonomous for a long time because of its special socio-political situations, Corsican nationalism and “clan”, one of patriarchal formations typically observed in some Mediterranean insular regions.In 1982, by the decentralization policies of socialist President Mitterrand, France was reorganized into 22 more autonomous “regions” from the “prefecture” whose prefect has been nominated by the Ministry of Interior, French administrative. Corsica was ruled by an act as a region with a special status. The Regional Assembly of Corsica consisted of 61 representatives elected by the islanders was created in this year and could vote projects of program on mainly Corsican linguistic and cultural education of a supplemental course in a school, regional transportation and development of new energy. The regional administration of Corsica could exert these programs.However, instability in the Regional Assembly because of lack of a strong core party and frequent elections, shortage of competence or finance of the Region of Corsica caused their dysfunction and discredit from the islanders.And in 1991, Corsican act was revised and Corsica changed a Territorial Collectivity, original local entity, from a region, common local entity. Though this renewal act defined Corsica as a “people”, Constitutional Council judged that this definition would be against the French Constitution that rules French national unity and its equality, and deleted Article 1 that contains this definition.However, Corsica was authorized to be more autonomous with an original competence. In addition to education and broadcasting of regional language and culture, special taxation and some economic development program are ceded to Corsica. And Corsican regional organization also was changed. Regional Assembly was divided into Corsican Territorial Assembly and Corsican Executive Council. The president and 6 members of Executive Council exert Corsican regional administrative and vote projects of budget and cultural and economic programs, and these members are elected from the representatives in the Territorial Assembly by election. Executive Councilors are obliged to make some annual reports on the executive situation and their results in the Assembly and to be credited by it. Thus after 1991, Corsica establishes its collegiality and responsibility for the smooth practice of the larger competence.It is doubtful whether Corsica has a political autonomy by the status reform in 1991. Because there is not any articles on Corsican status in the French Constitution though those of TOMs' status, French Overseas Islands, are in it, and those of Sicilian and Sardinian status are in the Italian Constitution. And Corsican Territorial Assembly can vote only motions, some taxation and programs of local cultural and economic development, but not any

Donald Brenneis

n Sound as Social Structure Feld (1984) issued a compelling call for qualitative comparison in ethnomusicology. His article on the Kaluli and Roseman's (1984) on the Temiar demonstrate the complexities and internal diversity of particular musical traditions and the great difficulty of finding a comparative language that neither caricatures nor obscures those traditions. suggesting a framework for comparative sociomusicology, Feld stresses the importance of drawing extensively upon local theories of self, society, aesthetics and the natural world. How those with whom we work conceptualize and enact their lives-both musical and social-necessarily informs how we come to share in their understandings, although this recognition is often lost in the scholarly drive to move from specifics to the universal. The Kaluli and Temiar are fortunate in their chroniclers. The richness and particularity of each musical tradition are striking; we are forced, as we should be, to take them on their own terms. That the musical issues at stake are so complex should not, however, lead us to assume that questions of social characterization are any less problematic. Feld points to one of the major dangers, that of relying upon notions of objectified social structures (405). A subtler but potentially more consequential difficulty lies in the interplay between those two societies, which were represented in a recent symposium,' and the theoretical position argued by at least one of the respondents. Keil (1984) quotes Diamond: In societies the superstructure is not reducible to the economic base; that reductive process begins with the exploitative economic relations of civilization (1984:446). The Temiar and Kaluli cases are cited as proof of this argument, and they indeed demonstrate elegantly complex patterns of economic, social and esthetic integration. The danger lies in the possible assumption, suggested by the quote from Diamond, that the Temiar and Kaluli as primitive societies represent a pre-civilized egalitarianism and that subsequent types of social formation-necessarily inegalitarian-cannot encompass an analogous interpenetration of economic, social and esthetic institutions.