Geoarchaeology and castlescapes: heritage management case studies in Spain and the eastern Baltic

This paper promotes the application of geoarchaeology—joint studies using historical, archaeological and heritage approaches—to the conservation and management practice of castles and landscapes in the context of ‘castlescapes’. Using case studies from recent research on medieval castles in frontier regions of the eastern Baltic and Spain, it demonstrates how geoarchaeology can create synergies between on-site and off-site environments and between cultural and natural heritage and draw valuable information from soils and sediments about the changing form and function of spaces within castles, and about the links between these spaces and activities in their hinterlands. Geoarchaeological approaches can also illuminate the diachronic biographies that hide from visitors in the buried archaeology of castles, which to most visitors would be blank cavasses, but which can provide snap-shots of castle life in the context of a wider landscape. Castles are commonly publicly recognised as being important historical monuments, but from a heritage perspective they are often presented in isolation from their associated historical territories, and often (especially in frontier regions) appropriated within modern politics, which has influenced both heritage management decisions and research frameworks

Food chain management for sustainable food system development: a European research agenda

Food Chain Management is a rather new research domain. As a consequence, the domain and the research challenges within the domain are not yet clearly defined. This corresponds with the variety in the definition of food chains and networks that might focus on either closely cooperating enterprises along the value chain with an executive coordination element or, alternatively, on a network of enterprises in dynamically evolving business relationships. Management challenges in closely cooperating enterprises are closely linked to challenges in enterprise management and can draw on research in this domain; however, management activities in and for networks involve additional challenges that require focused research engagement. The dependency of all participants in the chain on consumers as the ultimate customers and the dependency of the quality of final products on the engagement of all participants in the production and distribution of products require new managerial activities and, in turn, support by research. This article discusses the background of future research needs and formulates priority challenges for managerial improvements toward an increased sustainability of the food sector. [JEL classifications: Q010, Q130, D290, L140] © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Scholarly Labour and Digital Collaboration in Literary Studies

Digital technology can facilitate collaboration and data sharing among humanities scholars, and therefore is sometimes seen as a catalyst for attempts to revise problematic canonical traditions in literary history. In this paper, I interrogate how specific ways of organising scholarly labour make possible certain forms of knowledge, and I study the obstacles scholars face when trying to adapt established organisational models. For this purpose I draw on fieldwork in a large European database project, launched to create empirical knowledge about "forgotten" women writers. Literary studies is characterised by monograph-oriented scholarship, situated in regional disciplinary contexts. The collaborative use of a database, however, requires an integration of individual research practices, and it blurs the division of labour between scholars and information professionals. In the present case, the inertia of established infrastructural arrangements manifested itself as a conflict between what was required to generate the specific type of knowledge the project aimed for, and the need for participants to engage in a more traditional form of knowledge production to advance their individual careers. The tension was better manageable in cases where the project conceded organisational authority to local contexts, an empirical finding with implications for established funding models for collaborative digital scholarship.Merit, Expertise and Measuremen