Negotiating meaning and change in space and material culture : an ethno-archaeological study among semi-nomadic Himba and Herero herders in north-western Namibia

Bibliography: pages 194-207.This contextual archaeological narrative explores the relationship between material culture and social relations, with reference to social, economic, environmental and political changes taking place in Himba and Herero settlements in far north-western Namibia. A starting point is that changes in the organization of space and use of material culture cannot be understood as merely expressing changed social and economic conditions and/or changed value systems. It is necessary to examine how socio-economic conditions and cultural values and ideas work together to transform, produce and maintain cultural representations. By focusing intimately on one semi-nomadic herding community over a five-year period,(where domestic space has to be reconstituted, both physically and conceptually, each time a group relocates,} the study probes how meaning is differentially invested in the spatial order that people build and live in, how the material goods they make, borrow, lend, buy and use recursively come to have and hold meaning, and how and why this meaning changes. In mapping space and material goods at more than 100 wet season and dry season camps and homesteads, a number of discourses are tracked: changing gender relations, changing relations between different generations, people's relationships with natural resources, the spatial relations of former hunter-gatherers now living as herders, as well as material culture conformities and nonconformities between Himba and Herero households. A key concern is to re-empower social actors, past and present, in the creation of (archaeological) meaning. A number of case studies show that meaning is not inherent in space or material goods; people activate meaning by their strategic interpretations. This has implications for both method and theory in archaeology, as well as for the contemporary research and rural development process in Africa. While challenging assumptions about what is knowable from the past's material remains when such remains are, inevitably, recontextualized in a particular present, the thesis contributes to knowledge about material culture and social change and thus offers a number of research directions which could contribute to a more reflexive, dialogic and socially relevant archaeology

The Unanimous Verdict: Politics and the Jury Trial

This Article proposes that the rule of unanimity is not an essential element of justice in a criminal trial if political and judicial settings are carefully distinguished

The Best Laid Plans: Disappointments of the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign

As part of its war on drugs, the U.S. government spent nearly $1 billion between 1998 and 2004 for the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign. The campaign had three goals: educating children and teenagers (ages 9 to18) on how to reject illegal drugs, preventing them from starting drug use, and convincing occasional users to stop. Analyzing the effects of this campaign is important not only for future funding decisions but also for more effective targeting of future efforts. This Issue Brief summarizes a Congressionally-mandated evaluation of the campaign’s effects on youths’ cognitions and behavior around marijuana use

A practical approach for applying best practices in behavioural interventions to injury prevention

Behavioural science when combined with engineering, epidemiology and other disciplines creates a full picture of the often fragmented injury puzzle and informs comprehensive solutions. To assist efforts to include behavioural science in injury prevention strategies, this paper presents a methodological tutorial that aims to introduce best practices in behavioural intervention development and testing to injury professionals new to behavioural science. This tutorial attempts to bridge research to practice through the presentation of a practical, systematic, six-step approach that borrows from established frameworks in health promotion and disease prevention. Central to the approach is the creation of a programme theory that links a theoretically grounded, empirically tested behaviour change model to intervention components and their evaluation. Serving as a compass, a programme theory allows for systematic focusing of resources on the likely most potent behavioural intervention components and directs evaluation of intervention impact and implementation. For illustration, the six-step approach is applied to the creation of a new peer-to-peer campaign, Ride Like a Friend/Drive Like You Care, to promote safe teen driver and passenger behaviours

Gender-Based Differences in Counseling Time in a Community Health Worker

Smoking represents a serious public health burden that crosses gender, racial, and socioeconomic lines. Although the majority of smoking cessation counseling traditionally occurs in the setting of a Primary Care Providers office, clinicians often lack the necessary time and/or cultural and language skills to provide adequate help to smokers prepared to quit. A Community Health Worker (CHW) smoking cessation project utilizing CHWs in San Diego, CA evaluated by Woodruff, et al effectively increased patient\u27s abstinence rates in the intervention group. A similar project undertaken by the University of New Mexico Department of Family and Community Medicine employed bilingual CHWs to counsel patients regarding smoking cessation in a clinic with both Spanish and English-speaking patients. This study analyzes the differences in CHW counseling time required (using visitations and phone calls) based on gender. Ancillary outcomes of counseling time required based on language and ethnicity are also evaluated. Female smokers (N = 25) averaged mean total counseling times of 247.4 minutes (80-410) and male smokers (N = 9) averaged 217.8 (90-350), a difference that did not reach statistical significance (p = 0.4343). English speakers (N = 20) averaged total mean counseling times of 198.8 minutes while Spanish speakers (N = 14) averaged 297.9 minutes, a statistically significant result (p = 0.0017). Our findings are inconclusive with respect to the influence of gender on counseling times for a Community Health Worker based smoking cessation project. The difference in counseling times between men and women, though not reaching statistical significance, could be of clinical importance but would require further study with a larger sample size. Although several limitations exist in this project, these results indicate it is necessary to design counseling strategies to better treat certain target populations based on gender, language, and ethnicity more effectively and more research is needed to determine the most appropriate method.\u2