Ben Lawers: an archaeological landscape in time. Results from the Ben Lawers Historic Landscape Project, 1996–2005

This volume presents the results of archaeological investigations between 1996 and 2005, carried out as part of the Ben Lawers Historic Landscape Project, a multi-disciplinary project based on north Loch Tayside in the Central Highlands of Scotland. Archaeological surveys and excavations formed the core of the Ben Lawers Project, but many other disciplines also contributed to researching this landscape. Some of these partner projects are reported here, while others have been presented elsewhere (Tipping et al 2009), and some have formed part of doctoral research projects (Watters 2007). The results of the 13 field seasons, particularly the nine evaluation and excavation seasons, together with the results of the partner projects, specialist studies and scientific analyses, have provided a body of evidence which permits the story of the land of Lawers to be told. The historical continuum in that story can be used to curate and manage this landscape for generations to come

Action to protect the independence and integrity of global health research

Storeng KT, Abimbola S, Balabanova D, et al. Action to protect the independence and integrity of global health research. BMJ GLOBAL HEALTH. 2019;4(3): e001746

Socialization, legitimation and the transfer of biomedical knowledge to low- and middle-income countries: analyzing the case of emergency medicine in India

BACKGROUND: Medical specialization is a key feature of biomedicine, and is a growing, but weakly understood aspect of health systems in many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), including India. Emergency medicine is an example of a medical specialty that has been promoted in India by several high-income country stakeholders, including the Indian diaspora, through transnational and institutional partnerships. Despite the rapid evolution of emergency medicine in comparison to other specialties, this specialty has seen fragmentation in the stakeholder network and divergent training and policy objectives. Few empirical studies have examined the influence of stakeholders from high-income countries broadly, or of diasporas specifically, in transferring knowledge of medical specialization to LMICs. Using the concepts of socialization and legitimation, our goal is to examine the transfer of medical knowledge from high-income countries to LMICs through domestic, diasporic and foreign stakeholders, and the perceived impact of this knowledge on shaping health priorities in India. METHODS: This analysis was conducted as part of a broader study on the development of emergency medicine in India. We designed a qualitative case study focused on the early 1990s until 2015, analyzing data from in-depth interviewing (n = 87), document review (n = 248), and non-participant observation of conferences and meetings (n = 6). RESULTS: From the early 1990s, domestic stakeholders with exposure to emergency medicine in high-income countries began to establish Emergency Departments and initiate specialist training in the field. Their efforts were amplified by the active legitimation of emergency medicine by diasporic and foreign stakeholders, who formed transnational partnerships with domestic stakeholders and organized conferences, training programs and other activities to promote the field in India. However, despite a broad commitment to expanding specialist training, the network of domestic, diasporic and foreign stakeholders was highly fragmented, resulting in myriad unstandardized postgraduate training programs and duplicative policy agendas. Further, the focus in this time period was largely on training specialists, resulting in more emphasis on a medicalized, tertiary-level form of care. CONCLUSIONS: This analysis reveals the complexities of the roles and dynamics of domestic, diasporic and foreign stakeholders in the evolution of emergency medicine in India. More research and critical analyses are required to explore the transfer of medical knowledge, such as other medical specialties, models of clinical care, and medical technologies, from high-income countries to India

An Age of Transition? Castles and the Scottish Highland estate in the 16th and 17th centuries

In the archaeology of post-medieval rural Scotland, research traditions have inhibited understanding of social change prior to the 18th century as the emphasis has been on the dramatic overturn of ‘traditional’ society with Improvement and the Clearances. This contrasts with the situation for England and, indeed other parts of Europe, where there is an established concern for the much earlier ‘Age of Transition’ from medieval to modern. Here I explore the ancestry of Improvement by considering the genesis of the landed estate in the 16th and earlier 17th centuries, and this is primarily achieved through an analysis of the architecture and geography of castles in one area of the Highlands. This case study concerns the castles of the Glenorchy Campbells, a lineage emerging in the earlier 15th century and proceeding to become one of the most significant of Scottish, and British, landed families. In no small part through a changing approach to castle building, their rise was predicated on the transformation of clan territory into landed estate in the period after 1550. The usefulness of the ‘Age of Transition’ construct, in this specific context and in general, is appraised. In concluding, I argue for the alternative of the dialectical Marxist concept of contradiction. This places the focus on tension, fluidity, and lack of resolution in society, running counter to the idea of transition from one state to another. With contradiction, modern society as a simply definable entity is never established and cannot be delineated in a straightforward way. It is an itinerant process, constantly emerging and changing

Archaeology and landscape ethics

Landscape has emerged as a significant site for archaeological practice: for our explorations of the past, our contributions to heritage conservation, management and planning and our interventions in the lives of others. Given this, it is imperative that we, as archaeologists, engage in an ongoing ethical discourse concerning our landscape work. In this paper, I aim to contribute to that process. I present a thematic review of developments in theory, ethics and practice across the landscape disciplines and provide a selective analysis of archaeological positions on these matters. From there, and drawing in particular on work in the recently-emerged field of ‘landscape ethics’, I develop principles for a relational ethics of archaeological landscape practice – an ethics which should help us to respond to the circumstances of landscape theory, practice and policy as they are emerging in the twenty-first century and to contribute, through our work, to the realisation of landscape justice

Urban myths: rethinking the archaeology of the modern Scottish city

A generation ago, Scotland witnessed a campaign to establish Medieval urban archaeology as a viable proposition. Now, with growing interest in the more recent past, the time seems right to discuss the future of Scotland’s Modern urban archaeology. The Modern urban past is already served by a tradition in industrial archaeology, but there are good reasons to rethink that tradition and to develop a wider approach to the archaeology of urban society. In this paper, with Glasgow as a focus, I discuss some barriers to the type of urban archaeology proposed, namely the preconceptions that the recent past is already familiar and that anything new we might wish to know about it is easily addressed by a trip to the archives. I then review the development of Scottish industrial and urban archaeology, recognising their achievements while highlighting some areas of historical understanding traditionally avoided. From there, I explore some possibilities for the future – especially, not exclusively, in the archaeology of labour and of urban domestic and social life