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Pigmentation and Candidate Gene Variation in Northern Island Melanesia

Heather L. Norton, George Koki, and Jonathan S. Friedlaender

in Population Genetics, Linguistics, and Culture History in the Southwest Pacific

This chapter reviews the skin and hair pigmentation variation across Northern Island Melanesia. Advanced reflectance instruments now allow for detection of considerable regional variation in ... More

This chapter reviews the skin and hair pigmentation variation across Northern Island Melanesia. Advanced reflectance instruments now allow for detection of considerable regional variation in pigmentation both in the skin and hair. An island-by-island cline in skin pigmentation is revealed, with increasing M Index (heavily pigmented) values towards Bougainville Island. The skin pigmentation M values for Bougainville populations are as high as any surveyed population elsewhere, including West Africans. Papuan speakers in different islands have somewhat lighter hair pigmentation than their Austronesian-speaking neighbors. The distribution of six candidate genes for possible association/causation with pigmentation suggests that at least two (OCA2 and ASIP) could be associated with melanin phenotype variation in this region. While natural selection clearly must have an effect on pigmentation in this intensely irradiated region, it clearly does not dictate the pattern of melanin variation among these groups, which must be the result of ancient population associations.Less

The Contemporary Peace Agreement

Christine Bell

in On the Law of Peace: Peace Agreements and the Lex Pacificatoria

This chapter sets out a common substance to contemporary framework peace agreements. The centre-piece of peace agreements is the provision they make for the holding and exercising of political power. ... More

This chapter sets out a common substance to contemporary framework peace agreements. The centre-piece of peace agreements is the provision they make for the holding and exercising of political power. Peace agreements across conflicts evidence strikingly similar arrangements and devices for accommodating the competing demands of the conflict's protagonists. An analytical conceptualization of the common peace agreement framework with respect to how power is to be held and exercised, is provided. In general terms, peace agreements attempt conflict resolution by (i) redefining the state; (ii) disaggregating power; and (iii) dislocating power. The chapter illustrates the analytical framework with reference to a varied range of conflict types rather boldly suggesting that virtually all peace agreements reaching the framework stage — and many more proposals for resolution — exhibit this common framework, completely or in substantial part.Less

The Power of Mary in Secessionist Warfare: Catholicism and Political Crisis in Bougainville, Papua New Guinea

Anna-Karina Hermkens

in Powers: Religion as a Social and Spiritual Force

This chapter examines the religious dimension of a complex power struggle at Bougainville, a small island group in Papua New Guinea, and elaborates the double role of ... More

This chapter examines the religious dimension of a complex power struggle at Bougainville, a small island group in Papua New Guinea, and elaborates the double role of religion as empowerment and inspiration of resistance. From 1988 until the late 1990s, people on Bougainville Island were immersed in a vicious war that destroyed nearly all infrastructure and social services. Religion, particularly Catholicism, played a major role during and after the crisis. The Bougainville struggle for independence was conceptualized as a holy war, whereby God was called upon in “an ideology of resistance”. People believed that peace could be achieved through prayers, especially pleas directed to Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ. Thus, Mary's power became intertwined with national identity constructions and attempts to realize a more just and responsible society at Bougainville. The Bougainville crisis demonstrates how nationalism, custom, and religion are intertwined and how they mutually enforced an ideology of warfare.Less

Geology of Granite

Piotr Migon

in Granite Landscapes of the World

The unifying theme for granite landscapes of the world is the granite itself, hence it is logical to start with a brief account of granite geology. For obvious reasons ... More

The unifying theme for granite landscapes of the world is the granite itself, hence it is logical to start with a brief account of granite geology. For obvious reasons of space and relevance, this chapter cannot provide a comprehensive and extensive treatment of granite as a rock. Rather, its aim is to provide background information on those aspects of granite geology which are relevant to geomorphology and may help to explain the variety of landforms and landscapes supported by granite. The survey of literature about the geomorphology of granite areas reveals that in too many studies the lithology of granite and the structure of their intrusive bodies have not received adequate attention, especially if a ruling paradigm was one of climatic, or climato-genetic geomorphology. Granites were usually described in terms of their average grain size, but much less often of their geochemistry, fabric, or physical properties. Even the usage of the very term ‘granite’ may have lacked accuracy, and many landforms described as supported by granite may in fact have developed in granodiorite. On the other hand, it is true that granite may give way to granodiorites without an accompanying change in scenery. In the Yosemite National Park, Sierra Nevada, California, these two variants occur side by side and both support deeply incised valleys, precipitous slopes and the famous Sierran domes. Likewise, wider structural relationships within plutons and batholiths, and with respect to the country rock, have been considered in detail rather seldom. In analyses of discontinuities, long demonstrated to be highly significant for geomorphology, terms such as ‘joints’, ‘faults’, and ‘fractures’ have not been used with sufficient rigour. But it has to be noted in defence of many such geologically poorly based studies that adequate geological data were either hardly available or restricted to a few specific localities within extensive areas, therefore of limited use for any spatial analysis of granite landforms. Notwithstanding the above, there exist a number of studies in which landforms have been carefully analysed in their relationships to various aspects of the lithology, structure, and tectonics of granite intrusions. Less

Paradise

Christian Ayne Crouch

in Nobility Lost: French and Canadian Martial Cultures, Indians, and the End of New France

This chapter argues that the sacrifice of 150 years of North American colonization was assuaged by colonial experiments in the 1760s and the hope for a more positive experience that would reinforce, ... More

This chapter argues that the sacrifice of 150 years of North American colonization was assuaged by colonial experiments in the 1760s and the hope for a more positive experience that would reinforce, rather than challenge, the mission civilisatrice. When the Crown suppressed the compagnies franches de la marine in 1761 and limited the mobility and influence of elite Canadians who had returned to the metropole, their North American colonial experience was silenced. Until peace was established in 1763, almost all of the Canadian notables in France had hoped for the restoration of their colonial homes so that they would not be obliged to undertake new ventures. France used both innovative, “enlightened” colonialism in the Kourou Colony (1763–1765) and the tightly framed voyages of Louis-Antoine de Bougainville’s expeditions to search for and install a new Atlantic paradigm. Neither strategy referenced New France as an archetype for future colonial encounters, effectively excising it from memory.Less

Epilogue: Mon Frère Sauvage

Christian Ayne Crouch

in Nobility Lost: French and Canadian Martial Cultures, Indians, and the End of New France

This chapter argues that Native peoples nurtured their own memories of the Seven Years’ War and engaged with the war’s legacy in the same way that they interpreted, rejected, or adapted to changing ... More

This chapter argues that Native peoples nurtured their own memories of the Seven Years’ War and engaged with the war’s legacy in the same way that they interpreted, rejected, or adapted to changing environments, politics, and people—on their own terms. Their perspectives, as well as the continued presence of former French colonists, open up a different way of looking at French engagements in North America after the Seven Years’ War. The chapter then returns to Lorimier, lost son of Bougainville and scion of France’s North American empire in order to reconfigure spatial and temporal boundaries to reflect the Indian–French prism and resolve the legacy of French North America and France’s Seven Years’ War in a Native perspective.Less

Finding Nature

in The Terror of Natural Right: Republicanism, the Cult of Nature, and the French Revolution

During the first year of the French Republic, it was commonplace to compare the nascent government to “those days that can be called the true golden age,” a time “when each nation determined on its ... More

During the first year of the French Republic, it was commonplace to compare the nascent government to “those days that can be called the true golden age,” a time “when each nation determined on its own its rights and duties” and when the people “shared more or less equally the advantages of a collective administration.” The myth of the golden age had been naturalized, escaping from the confines of poetry and royalist rhetoric to enter the authoritative narratives of history and ethnography. Perhaps the most eloquent and intriguing proponent of natural republicanism of the pre-revolutionary decades in France was Sylvain Maréchal, who demonstrated how the belief in a society governed solely by natural right was wholly assimilated into the discourse of sensibilité. This chapter examines three critical shifts with respect to natural right: Orientalist studies, new voyages of discovery (in particular French explorer Louis Antoine de Bougainville's visit to Tahiti), and physiocracy.Less

Bougainville: A Source of Inspiration for Conflict Resolution

Volker Boege and Lorraine Garasu

in Mediating Across Difference: Oceanic and Asian Approaches to Conflict Resolution

This chapter illustrates what can be learned from Bougainville, one of the few recent successful cases of postconflict state-building. It clarifies and elaborates on a ‘road to sustainable peace’: a ... More

This chapter illustrates what can be learned from Bougainville, one of the few recent successful cases of postconflict state-building. It clarifies and elaborates on a ‘road to sustainable peace’: a mode of reconciliation that carefully involves emotion and incorporates everyone, including ancestral spirits. This process must resist instrumental and short-term temptations, developing instead a sustainable long-term, step-by-step engagement with different layers of problems. Time is crucial in this approach, which revolves around finding out when exactly which people are ready for which step in the reconciliation process. Reconciliation on Bougainville is thus seen as an ongoing process that involves entwined relationships and contains spiritual and ritual dimensions. The latter are, in fact, an integral and indispensable element of conflict resolution, rather than simply aspects of ceremonial functions.Less

Insurgents and Icons

Anna-Karina Hermkens and Eric Venbrux

in Ritual, Media, and Conflict

The chapter tracks the appropriation and circulation of two very different kinds of images. First, it examines media depictions of a protest action at Rome’s Trevi Fountain, a tourist destination and ... More

The chapter tracks the appropriation and circulation of two very different kinds of images. First, it examines media depictions of a protest action at Rome’s Trevi Fountain, a tourist destination and pilgrimage site. Then it compares this action to the deployment of images of the Virgin Mary on Bougainville Island in the Pacific. In both cases, images are wielded in protest against oppression. Local actors, appropriating the power of these symbols, mobilize them in local media to mark their positions in war or conflict, thereby constellating divergent sentiments and practices.Less

Quality Peace and State Formation Conflicts

Peter Wallensteen

in Quality Peace: Strategic Peacebuilding and World Order

Wars of separatism are treated as a different category, labelled as state formation conflicts, and by analyzing them separately from civil wars, with respect both to negotiated settlements and ... More

Wars of separatism are treated as a different category, labelled as state formation conflicts, and by analyzing them separately from civil wars, with respect both to negotiated settlements and victories, new observations can be made. These wars over territory can be far more protracted, especially when one country is an autocracy with little transparency in its operations. The solutions build on solving the territorial issue first and foremost, but the democracy aspect adds to the quality of the settlement and also helps each side to correctly assess the other. In terms of outcome, it matters whether the conflict leads to a new state or if the state remains intact, with increased autonomy for separatist regions. Examples are Kurdish experiences, Eritrea’s independence and the case of Bougainville, Papua New Guinea. Thus state separation and autonomy solutions are contrasted in relation to quality peace.Less