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This article presents information on the fourth "Work, Employment and Society (WES) Conference," which was held in Manchester, England during September 1-3, 2004. The conference was hosted by the University of Manchester of England. WES 2004 was a lively and international three-day event. Over 200 delegates attended from 20 countries across Europe, North America and Australasia. They came from a variety of disciplines. The papers presented by the delegates represented subjects like anthropology, economics, geography, history and applied psychology.

In England the macro context of adoption practice is characterised by radical change across administrative, political and organisational systems. The adoption regionalisation programme is underpinned by a policy commitment to speed up 'matching' processes. The Adoption and Children (Coronavirus) (Amendment) Regulations 2020 states that adoptions should 'proceed swiftly' and some agencies are pioneering online and virtual introductions between children and prospective adopters. This paper offers a timely contribution to practice debates and scholarship in this area. Drawing on a collaborative doctoral study, 'everyday' practices are considered through an emergent theoretical framework, the 'liminal hotspot'. The analysis hones in on the transformative practices generated in the early matching stages and the role of the social worker in their mediation and management. This paper supports findings from other studies that suggest that when matches are rushed necessary processing of complex dynamics is by-passed, creating unnecessary vulnerabilities in the fabric of new families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper highlights key characteristics of memorialisation processes linked to dying and death. The study demonstrates that, in all periods, the mnemonic triggers engendered by multi-sensory experiences surrounding the treatment of the dead serve as fundamental elements of the memorialisation processes which generate lasting impacts on the living through people's engagement 'in a collective social act'. Roles attributed to the dead are 'active and powerful', and the links between the living and the dead are imbued with myriad meanings, articulated through a variety of activities. These resonate across time and exist in many aspects of contemporary practice. We could argue that dying itself is not simply a social process, and in reality, it is an inherently, and on occasion an aggressively, anti-social act that is negotiated and 'normalised' by the social conventions that society has developed to cope with dying and death. With a focus on the British context, this study explores the ways in which society has dealt with the troublesome and anti-social aspect of death, and dying, through a consideration of past social praxis. It considers the ways in which a broadening of contemporary societies understanding of the variety of approaches to death, burial, bereavement and mourning in a deep time perspective can offer legitimate and authorised options for future practice at a time when there a crisis in available burial space is occurring in England (e.g). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With most surname research undertaken within the fields of anthropology and population genetics, geographers have overlooked surnames as a credible data source. In addition to providing a review of recent developments in surname analysis, this paper highlights areas where geographers can make important contributions to advancing surname research, both in terms of its quality and also its applications. The review discusses the emerging applications for surname research, not least in the mining of online data, and ends by suggesting three future research themes to ensure the building momentum of surname research continues to grow across disciplines.

abstract The paper describes a developing sociological and psychoanalytic approach to the study of 20 London families in the early 1950s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Autscape is an autistic-led conference, organised annually in varying locations around England. Governed by a strict set of rules and regulations, Autscape is a social and spatial setup explicitly devised to accommodate the tendencies, sensitivities, and preferences of people on the autism spectrum. It is a design, in other words—as organisers and participants alike often profess—for an altogether autistic space. The uniqueness of the event, and consequently its value to anthropological theory, lies in the shared imagination of the setting by those who inhabit it as one in which neurotypical masks, otherwise worn daily in keeping with hegemonic society's expectation of conformity, can finally be removed. I introduce the concept of un-festival as a means of depicting this event, similar to festival in its goals of defiance and inversion, but different from—and in important ways, opposite to—festival in its style and architecture, in the dispositions it encourages and mobilises, and in its potential implications. The un-festival offers a powerful comment on this moment in history, whereby masks are no longer seen as an item that affords freedom, but as one that stifles it. While Autscape participants remain doubtful as to the actual effect of this event on neurotypical society, they do nevertheless express a desire that this project will have some longstanding effects. That once a space has been designed for autistic people that considers their specific needs and tendencies, autism may then finally cease to be interpreted through a neuro-normative prism and freed to be understood in autistic people's own terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay follows Alfred Russel Wallace back from the field in 1862, tracing how his views on human evolution developed after his field experiences in the East Indies and how he articulated them within the social structure of British science during the 1860s. It analyses his involvement in the metropolitan scientific institutions dedicated to the study of man, the Ethnological Society of London and its breakaway counterpart, the Anthropological Society of London, which offered differing visions for a science of man and its intersection with political commitments. Using evidence from his participation in society meetings, the reception of his own anthropological papers, and the responses to the views he expressed in his field travel narrative, The Malay Archipelago, I show that although Wallace's involvement was initially enthusiastic, over time his views came into conflict with both groups. His involvement in established human science institutions declined, and Wallace turned towards other social locations for cultivating his knowledge of and engagement with questions involving the study of humanity.

This paper focuses on the response of the Royal Society to the increasing contact with parts of the globe beyond Europe. Such contact was in accord with the programme of Baconian natural history that the early Royal Society espoused, but it also raised basic questions about the extent and nature of the pursuit of natural history. In particular, the paper is concerned with the attention paid to one particular branch of natural history, the study of other peoples and their customs. Such scrutiny of other peoples in distant lands raised basic questions about what methods natural history should employ and the extent to which it could serve as a foundation for more general and theoretical claims. By taking a wide sweep from the beginnings of the Royal Society until the end of the eighteenth century it is hoped light will be shed on the changing understanding of natural history over this period.

The article reports on a conference titled ""L'autre et ie sacré" which was held at the French Institute in London, England on September 24-27, 1992. The conference was organized by Institut Français au Royaume-Uni in association with the European Humanities Research Centre at the University of Warwick. The conference focused on the some of the important by-ways both of French anthropology and its association with other disciplines.

For Akan-speaking Ghanaians in London, public events and rites of passage are constitutive of their diasporic subjectivity and sociality, re-establishing and reinforcing material and symbolic connections within the diaspora and the home country. Their participation reasserts their ontological presence in the world and renders them visible and distinct in the eyes of fellow migrants, thus denying their social marginality. This ontological presence is produced through a uniquely Akan aesthetic, realised in linguistic terms, through proverbs, mottoes and wise sayings; in material terms, through sartorial ostentation and the use and display of elaborate dresses and other material objects; in taste, through the consumption of ethnic food; and in visual terms, through the use of videos and photographs. By drawing on a range of ethnographic examples from London and Ghana, this paper shows the complex overlap between the discursive and the material in the formation of Akan migrants’ aestheticised subjectivity as they reassert their place in the London diaspora. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides an analysis of assessment practices on one university-led teacher-training course in England, delivered across a network of further education colleges. After establishing that assessment practices are bound up in texts of different kinds, this article draws on two theoretical frameworks - institutional ethnography and actor-network theory - in order to explore how the work done by tutors and students on the course is mediated by texts. Through analysing the ways in which texts are used and the ways in which students and tutors respond to them, the paper suggests that assessment practices are in fact characterised by complexity and contingency which are masked by the dominant discourses of quality assurance and managerialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

THIS PAPER investigates the archaeology and history of 'productive' sites, estate centres and towns between A.D. 600 and 1100 in north-western East Anglia. Whilst it concentrates on a specific sub-region (NW. Norfolk), an argument is developed on the nature of the relationship between archaeological assemblages and administrative structures that can be applied more widely for this period. In particular, the nature of 'productive' sites is discussed, and it is suggested that these places were centres of estate administration and tax collection. The later history of 'productive' sites in western Norfolk is then examined, focusing on the effect that the Viking wars and subsequent (short-lived) Danish rule may have had on them. How this background may have affected the decision by Herbert de Losinga (first Bishop of Norwich) to site a priory, port and new town at Lynn is then explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the presence of anthropological reports and data in the National Archives at Kew in England. Preservation of unpublished materials in the archive that provide some interesting sidelights on the history of anthropological studies in Great Britain; Proliferation of items relating to anthropology in the Colonial Office papers; Relationship between anthropologists and government officials in the country.

Purpose — This paper aims to provide an overview of the development of a computer system designed to aid historians in the reading of the stylus tablets from the Roman fort of Vindolanda. It proposes outlining the different stages in developing the system, and giving the preliminary results. Design/methodology/approach — The paper provides a literature review regarding Vindolanda, stylus tablets, and the process of reading an ancient document. Knowledge elicitation techniques are used to model explicitly expert processes used to read an ancient document. A corpus of character forms and lexicostatistics is gathered. An advanced cognitive imaging system utilising artificial intelligence techniques is implemented to produce plausible interpretations of the document. Findings — This paper describes the developmental stages undertaken to construct a system that can read in images of an ancient document and produce plausible interpretations of the document, to aid the historians in the lengthy process of reading an ancient text. In carrying out the development, an explicit representation of how experts approach and reason about damaged and deteriorated texts was formulated, and a large corpus of letter forms and linguistic data were captured. Preliminary results from the resulting computer system are presented which demonstrate the usefulness of the technique, although more work is needed to develop this into a stand-alone computer system. Research limitations/implications — The study is focused on the Roman stylus tablets from Vindolanda, near Hadrian's Wall, although the technique could be extrapolated to cover other types of ancient documents from any period. Practical implications — It is demonstrated that using techniques from artificial intelligence and cognitive psychology can result in further explicit understanding of humanities expert processes, which allow computational systems to be constructed. The resulting computational system is a tool for the humanities expert, which carries out a task in a similar manner, allowing for faster reasoning time and quicker hypotheses development. Originality/value — The paper presents the first known system to intake an image of an ancient text and output a plausible interpretation of the text in a reasonable time frame, assisting the papyrologist in resolving ambiguities in the damaged and abraded text. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights the anthropology and genomics workshop at the University of Durham in England. Encouragement of anthropologists to present papers on genomics-related topics to a small invited audience to respond to the themes and issues raised; Discussion of the global and transnational dimensions of genomics; Exploration of human cloning within Sri Lanka's Theravada Buddhist tradition.

This article presents ethnographic research with in situ seed savers and seed activists in London. Unpicking the knotty relations between kinship, place, and generation among seed savers and their seeds, this article focuses on how the intrinsic and extrinsic get woven through generations and how the situ or environment of an entity is (and is not) recognized in its identity and multispecies kin relations. I argue that thinking about seeds and the worlds in which they grow suggests that they are not only embedded in their environments, but also embody their environments. If seeds bring with them their worlds, then they are inherently malleable, so seed savers are concerned about how commercial seed breeding and ex situ conservation denatures seeds' embodied relationships with their environments and, with that, their inherent intergenerational malleability. [seed saving, multispecies kinship, generation, environment]. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information on a workshop by the Centre for Anthropological Research on Childhood, Youth, and Education (CARCYE) held at the Brunel University in Middlesex, England on December 5-6, 2011 is presented. Topics include the association of anthropology and schooling, development of children's skills despite the absence of formal school education, and value of egalitarianism. The workshop featured several individuals including David Lancy, Aude Michelet, and Ditte Strunge Sass.

Information about several papers discussed at the conference entitled "21st-Century Anthropology: Global Process and Power," held at Rhodes House in Oxford, England on June 28-29, 2007. The conference has focused on the aspects of anthropology. Among the speakers include Thomas Eriksen, Gerhard Anders, and David Gellner.

European conference on fieldwork for graduate students and junior researchers, will be held at the University of Oxford, from December 17-19, 2003. This conference on anthropological fieldwork organized by the Oxford University Anthropological Society and Anthropology Matters, drew over 70 postgraduate students from more than 25 British and European universities. There were 36 papers addressing a variety of issues and methodological problems, dominant among which were questions of place and ethical issues. Ethical issues were also raised in accounts of research in conflict situations. In her keynote lecture Judith Okely argued that textbooks and methodology courses often leave the people underprepared for the complexity of life and learning "in the field."

The article focuses on the debate on Anthropological Theory in Manchester, England on November 6, 2010. The discussion was debated by Casper Bruun Jensen and Morten Pedersen as the defenders and James Leach and Gillian Evans as the challengers. Jensen argued that regardless anthropology invents relation, still it is their task to invent them. However, Leach disagreed on invention concept due to conflicting facts in intelligence, power, and control. Furthermore, voting favors the negative side.

The article highlights the Interior Insights conference, organized by Alison Clarke and Inge Daniels of the Center for the Study of the Domestic Interior, Arts, and Humanities Research Council, held at Royal College of Art in London, England on November 24-25, 2005. The event convened people from a wide range of disciplines from the worlds of architecture and design and anthropology.

Highlights the Applications of Anthropology seminar at the Loughborough University in England on March 31 and April 1, 2003. Presentations summarizing the history of the distinctions between the pure academic and 'impure' applied spheres in social anthropology; Nature of anthropological allegiance; Anthropologists engaged in applied activities.

The UK's on-going sex-selective abortion (SSA) controversy remains a major obstacle to the liberalization of national abortion governance, and is an issue broadly attributed to a "cultural" preference for sons among South Asian women. We conceptualize how healthcare professionals "arbitrate" requests for SSA by exploring the tension between its legal status and how requests are encountered by abortion providers. SSA is framed in this article as a legitimate care service that can support providers to meet the diverse reproductive health needs of women to the full extent of the law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of English medieval funerary practice have paid limited attention to the curation of human remains in charnel houses. Yet analysis of architectural, archaeological and documentary evidence, including antiquarian accounts, suggests that charnelling was more widespread in medieval England than has hitherto been appreciated, with many charnel houses dismantled at the sixteenth-century Reformation. The survival of a charnel house and its human remains at Rothwell, Northamptonshire permits a unique opportunity to analyse charnel practice at a medieval parish church. Employing architectural, geophysical and osteological analysis, we present a new contextualisation of medieval charnelling. We argue that the charnel house at Rothwell, a subterranean room constructed during the thirteenth century, may have been a particularly sophisticated example of an experiment born out of beliefs surrounding Purgatory. Our approach enables re-evaluation of the surviving evidence for charnel practice in England and enhances wider narratives of medieval charnelling across Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The experiences of men facing fertility disruptions are understudied. For British Pakistanis, the impact of infertility is heightened for women because of normative pressures to bear children. But what of men? I present data from in-depth interviews in North East England with infertile British Pakistani Muslims and relevant health professionals. British Pakistani men's level of participation in clinical encounters and responses to diagnoses of male factor infertility must be understood in the context of kinship, the construction of Pakistani ethnicity in the UK, and the subordinated forms of masculinity which accompany this identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information about the "Past Bodies," symposium which was part of a series of meetings sponsored by the Royal Anthropological Institute and the Leverhulme Research Programme at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research in Cambridge, England is presented. It featured studies of the human body in the past and discussed the challenges of interdisciplinary research.

This article interrogates the complex ways in which 'community' is constructed in a Sussex town. It contributes to long-standing debates in anthropology about the meaning of community, considering the relevance of these to current policy agendas of localism and 'Big Society.' The article opens with an account of apparently strong community resistance to changes induced from outside. Drawing on long-term ethnographic research, it goes on to argue that the ways in which people relate to this community are complex. The extent to which individuals engage in more or less formalized group activity and how this intersects with class, education, and mobility are important aspects of this complexity. The article finds that as some groups become more professionalized, processes of exclusion are consolidated: those who become most able to effect change ironically become distanced from the community they seek to represent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I begin this article with a brief history of the use of “the normative” in anthropology, starting with Kant and concluding with discussion of the concept within theories of practice. This is followed by an account of an ethnographic study of blue-jeans wearing in North London. The importance of becoming ordinary is exemplified in that study by migrants’ experience of being comfortable in blue jeans. I argue that jeans are the first postsemiotic garment, an antithesis to identity. I end by considering the challenge represented by the concept of “the ordinary” for anthropology's foundational presumption of the normative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights the 10th International Forum United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization and World Archaeological Congress Inter-Congress at the International Centre for Cultural and Heritage Studies in Newcastle, England. Discussion of the cultural landscapes in the 21st century; Participation of 230 delegates from 51 countries; Theme of the event.

Recent work by Alfred Gell echoes research methodologies used by anthropologists a century ago, when the new university discipline of anthropology was construed as a scientific subject. The early history of anthropology at Oxford University is explored with particular reference to Henry Balfour's work as curator of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the turn of the 20th century. Balfour and Gell both paid close attention to the formal qualities of things in an attempt to chart the linking threads of design and form which structure ‘distributed objects’. Balfour was concerned with human origins, while Gell tracked shifting ‘networks of transformational relationships’ with no origin, but their methodologies show similarities because they both prioritized the physicality of things. Exploring the strengths and weaknesses of an earlier, scientific approach to people and things helps us to understand and reassess our own intellectual (and material) ancestry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whilst historians’ perceptions of the social organization of early-modern England have recently been dichotomized– perceived from either national or local levels– both interpretations rely on sources that are inherently very rhetorical in their representation of self and others. Is there another way of approaching local social relations? Perhaps there is much to be appreciated by a return to questions of social interaction, in particular at that most basic level of how people addressed each other, demonstrating social distance and closeness, exclusion and inclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article I provide a critical account of the `placing' of England's Ml motorway. I start by critiquing Marc Augé's anthropological writings on `non-places' which have provided a common point of reference for academics discussing spaces of travel, consumption and exchange in the contemporary world. I argue that Augé's ethnology of supermodernity results in a rather partial account of these sites, that he overstates the novelty of contemporary experiences of these spaces, and that he fails to acknowledge the heterogeneity and materiality of the social networks bound up with the production of non-places/places. I suggest that, rather than focusing on the presences and absences associated with the polarities of place and non-place, academics should examine the multiple, partial, dynamic and relational `placings' which arise through the diverse performances and movements associated with travel, consumption and exchange. I then trace the topologies of England's Ml motorway, examining some of the different ways in which the motorway has been assembled, performed and placed over the past 45 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Financial markets and information technologies are key issues for contemporary social theory and the anthropology of globalization. Drawing on fieldwork in Chicago and London, I examine the interplay between processes of technological rationalization and the situated actions of traders in two financial futures markets-one that operates on open-outcry pit technology and the other process online. Both technologies represent the market in numbers. Traders use these symbols to read and interpret the market. Yet each technology configures numbers differently. The technologies influence traders' practices by shaping this basic unit of financial knowledge, [finance, globalization, knowledge, numbers, technology, United States, England] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, US and UK census data are used to compare the propensity for matches between blacks and native born whites in England and the US. Blacks are disaggregated into three ethnic groups: Black Caribbeans, Residual Blacks and, in the US, African Americans. The first group receives the most theoretical attention. Both raw percentages and parameters that control for several covariates – such as age, education and city of residence – are examined. The results indicate that, with or without controls and irrespective of ethnicity, blacks in Britain are significantly more likely to have a native born white partner than their US counterparts. These findings accord with assimilation theory, but the article's conclusion suggests that, in both countries, the assimilation of people of African descent operates differently from the assimilation of whites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the ethnographic methods employed for a doctoral study focusing upon heritage tourism and English national identity. It explains the fundamental principles behind the research and how the field work was conducted. In addition, it examines the issues of practicality which emerged during the research process and discusses how these were resolved. The article concludes by highlighting the importance of ethnography as a tool for understanding and interpreting visitor behaviour. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first two professors of sociology in England thought their major research task to be to examine the writings of historians, anthropologists and others in order to write comparative and evolutionary histories of mankind. The first wave of expansion of sociology after the war changed this emphasis. Small scale studies, using detailed primary, sources, traced short-term developments in a selected area of interest. Studies of' the here and now dominated sociology for some time. Twenty years later a second wave changed the emphasis again towards theoretical speculation, although the concept of time now held primary place, just as it had before the war. Historical sociology nevertheless languished until the impact of second-wave feminism, with its emphasis on women having been hidden from history, gave it an impetus which promises much in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A review is given of the Piltdown ''discoveries'' (1912-15), the revelation of the Piltdown fraud (1953-55), and the search for the perpettator(s) (1955-91). The evidence supports the inference that Charles Dawson and a scientist-accomplice were responsible. The identity of the scientist-accomplice is reappraised, and evidence is adduced that substantially weakens Gould's case against Teilhard de Chardin. New lines of argument against Arthur Keith, coupled with those of Langham and Spencer, lead to the conclusion that, of all the proposals as to the identity of Dawson's scientist-accomplice, the Langham-Spencer hypothesis incriminating Keith is supported by the greatest body of evidence. A hidden agenda emerges to explain Keith's vehement and sustained opposition to the acceptance of Dart's and Broom's claims for Australopithecus: if Australopithecus represented a hominid ancestor, Piltdown could not have been, and its bona fides would have been suspect from 1925. Between 1925 and 1947 no scientist more authoritatively advanced the claims of Piltdown or more authoritatively rejected Australopithecus than Arthur Keith. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a discussion of the Piltdown hoax. It explains that the said hoax had an impact on the development of paleoanthropology that is still being appreciated. It reveals the process and personalities of science. It conventionally interprets that the forgery was a masterful splicing of human and orangutan bones to provide material support for the theories of Grafton Elliott Smith and Arthur Keith. It states that the hoax involves an academic professional. The case for an accomplice has not been focused on, but a review of its arguments shows that it is strong.

Highlights the workshop on the academic application of anthropology in multi-disciplinary departments held at the London Metropolitan University in England on April 27, 2005. Number of participants from across Great Britain and from France; Topics discussed, which include the procurement of anthropological research to solve problems in business and organizations.

Conference reviewed: Fieldworks: Dialogues between art and anthropology: Tate Modern, London, 26–28 September 2003 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents anthropology-related developments in the United States. Announcements of conferences organized by the Cambridge Bioethics Group, University of Kent, German Ethnological Society and the Department of Social Anthropology; Utilization of Dutch East India Company's programme to preserve and study the mutual heritage that the Netherlands share with many countries in Asia and South Africa; Lectures.