What kinds of governance agendas emerge at frontiers of commercial expansion, where routine economic relations traverse differences of ethnicity and degrees of formality? In the Balim Valley in the highlands of Indonesia's easternmost Papua province, mobilities and trade intersect at adjoining peri-urban markets and minivan terminals. The ‘terminal economy’ at the edges of Wamena, the region's bustling hub, is a threshold between rural and urban life, where indigenous livelihoods are subordinated to Indonesia's expanding commercial networks. Here, a cosmopolitan population—including indigenous Papuan highlanders and newcomer merchants from distant Indonesian regions—gathers to buy and sell local horticultural produce and imported commodities, transit between modes of transportation, and engage in a variety of formal and informal economic activities. This article traces the emergence of a multifaceted commercial regulation agenda, in the wake of demands for the recognition of indigenous contributions to the regional economy. It considers recent indigenous-formulated regulation policies in the context of the region's commercial history, one that is marked by a colonial devaluation of indigenous economic life and, more recently, by uprisings, inter-ethnic tensions, and government attempts to control and contain informal vending. The article conceptualizes commercial regulation as a convergence between efforts to contain disruption and demands for the revaluation of marginalized economic practices. It argues that commercial regulation is especially salient in regions that have been relegated to an end-point position in national and global commodity distribution paths.
Scholarship that identifies 'distribution' as the key to inclusive governance has promoted suspicion of development agendas that foreground 'production'. This article analyses controversy around food and cash transfers and decentralized development funding in Indonesia's contested Papua territory. Some observers and recipients allege that these instruments, which have proliferated under 'Special Autonomy' reforms intended to defuse the West Papuan independence movement, have caused a decline of indigenous subsistence agriculture. Papua's various distribution (and distribution-like) mechanisms were instituted under pressure from international agencies, in response to mass unrest, and in the wake of crises that altered Papua's role in Indonesian development. In Papua's Central Highlands, food and cash distribution instruments have addressed farming shortfalls and played a role in the diversification of livelihoods -a shift that animates anxious speculation about the viability of indigenous social reproduction. Such commentary gestures to a contested development horizon featuring extractive and agrarian agendas with divergent implications for the reproduction of distinctive rural livelihoods. Laments about the harm to rural productivity caused by distribution evoke but gloss over threats of devaluation of labour, highlighting tension between popular concerns about social reproduction and scholarly anxieties about the celebration of production.Thanks to Shubhra Gururani, Albert Schrauwers, Aakash Solanki and participants at the Working Paper Series of the Department of Anthropology at York University for providing helpful comments on an early draft of this article, and to Zyler Wang for valuable input at an early stage of argument development. I received useful feedback on a related paper presented at a panel that Marcos Mendoza and Robert Fletcher organized at the 2018 Annual Meeting of the Association of American Anthropologists. I thank Aaron Kappeler and four anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and suggestions.
The blast wave that is generated from the detonation of an anti-personnel mine can induce significant accelerative loading to the head of a deminer, when the wave collides with the victim. The injury potential posed by the resulting head acceleration in the context of demining, has not been previously studied. Instrumented anthropomorphic surrogates were used to evaluate the protective capabilities of various types of helmet systems employed in demining, for a range of mine threats, as defined by the explosive content. The HIC 15 method of assessing injury potential was applied to the measured accelerations. A spectral analysis of signals was also performed. The injury analysis indicates that blast induced head acceleration can reach injurious levels, depending on the type of head protection employed and the explosive content of the anti-personnel mine. For the highest blast loading tested, there was a high probability for a fatal head concussive injury when a military helmet is worn without a visor, or when no head protection is worn. Properly designed helmet systems, which included a full-faced visor mounted on stable helmet platforms, were demonstrated to provide significant protection against blast-induced head acceleration. KEYWORDSBlast-Induced Head Accelerations, Mannequins, Anti-Personnel Mines, Injury Criteria, Helmets IN THE CASE OF AN ACCIDENTAL DETONATION of an anti-personnel (AP) mine, a blast wave is generated, compressing the gases behind it and propagating away in all directions, along with an impulsive burst of fragments and an intense fire flash. The impact and ensuing interaction of the blast wave with the victim can induce violent, uncontrolled, accelerative motion of the body, and between body parts. Under extreme conditions, intense blast loading can lead to shearing of body parts, in the form of traumatic amputations, such as those observed in victims of many terrorist bombings, or victims stepping on landmines. Less dramatic forms of blast injury that have not been well understood or documented include blast-induced accelerations of the head, chest and groin. Although there have been some pioneering studies conducted with human surrogates [Makris, 1997, RCMP, 1996, Fournier, 1995 that have elucidated the potential of blast-induced accelerative injuries in the context of bomb (or explosive ordnance, EOD) disposal, there have been no previous systematic investigations to assess the relevance of these types of injuries in the context of demining.In the clearing of AP mines, the explosive content of AP mines is typically much lower (i.e., less than 500 g of TNT) than other explosive ordnance and devices, however the separation distance between the victim and the source of the explosion is usually relatively short (i.e., less than 1 m). In most demining accidents, the flesh wounds and damage to the extremities, caused by high velocity fragmentation and the overpressure associated with the blast wave, usually receive the most attention. The effects of blast-induced acceleration are rar...
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