Opus signinum is a lime mortar mix that includes crushed pottery as an aggregate. Because it is water-resistant, it was used to line hydraulic structures like pools and aqueducts. While there have been numerous recreations of Roman ‘concretes’ in the past, hydrophobic linings have received little attention, and all preliminary studies in these recreations have paid more attention to the dry components and the lime than to the hydric needs of the mortar. The experiment presented here was to gain a better understanding, with the help of traditional builders, of the process of mixing and applying hydrophobic linings and calculate the water consumption of individual samples. The data obtained contribute to assessing the water consumption needs on Roman construction sites, what associated logistics these volumes required, and what the technicalities of applying this specific type of lining were.

The roles of family care partners of older persons living in long-term care homes (LTCH) were severely disrupted during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. Our aim was to describe their experiences and to solicit their recommendations for supportive actions. We conducted a critical ethnography with 24 care partners who cared or had cared for an older person living in an LTCH in Québec during the COVID-19 pandemic. We collected data during interviews and used Spradley’s method to analyse them. Care partners experienced a forced separation from the older persons they cared for, which resulted in significant distress. Care, including post-mortem care, was considered inadequate and sometimes even inhumane. Communication was inconsistent, and this variability was also noted in visitation rules. Care partners perceived LTCHs as a neglected community. Supportive actions were recommended. The results illustrated the essential contribution of care partners, and the supportive actions they recommended must be a catalyst for change toward more humane care in LTCH settings.

Cet article a pour point de départ la querelle épistémologique survenue entre Anthony D. Smith et Jon E. Fox et Cynthia Miller-Idriss concernant les différentes approches du champ d’études du nationalisme. Alors que Fox et Miller-Idriss rejettent la pertinence d'une approche sociohistorique dans l’étude ethnographique du nationalisme, Smith considère l'ethnographie comme une pratique descriptiviste dénuée d'intérêt scientifique qui, de surcroit, fait abstraction des recherches sur la nation conduite au cours des dernières décennies. Afin de dénouer cette impasse, nous proposons une démarche méthodologique visant à concilier ces deux approches par l'entremise du concept de lieu de mémoire. À partir d'une étude de cas, la bataille des Éperons d'or et sa résonance dans les pratiques discursives, nous illustrons comment l'historicité du fait national peut s'avérer essentielle pour comprendre le fonctionnement de la nation au quotidien et nous éclairer sur la manière dont les Flamands se construisent en tant que sujets nationaux.

This paper analyses policy documents and interviews conducted in federal prisons to trace the emergence and early effects of Canada’s recent wave of groundbreaking trans correctional reforms. I show that prison authorities were forced to adopt more inclusive policies due to the legal, financial, and reputational risks generated by new trans rights protections. Yet, by examining what rights both enabled and foreclosed once they materialized in the everyday of prison life, I argue that reform’s implementation was fraught with ambivalence. Namely, this ambivalence was felt by the correctional administrators tasked with translating nebulous policy principles into concrete guidelines; by staff, whose front-line duty involved weighing rights against risks; and by trans prisoners, who grappled with how to balance their new entitlements with risks and uncertainties. What trans correctional reforms reveal, then, is that rights and risks are caught in an ambivalent and co-constitutive relationship in Canada’s regime of prison governance.

In the United States, state-based efforts to curtail the spread of methamphetamine (“meth”) have targeted domestic producers through heightened regulation of precursor chemicals used in the clandestine meth-production process. This article examines the impact of these efforts on the exercise of police power in a rural community affected by methamphetamine. As the author shows, the targeting of local meth production has incorporated residents of rural communities into the policing process by variously encouraging and requiring them to adopt a new way of perceiving the local landscape, centred around methamphetamine. Under the new legislation, previously benign objects such as cold medicine, batteries, and drain cleaner have been re-signified as objects with criminal potential that residents of rural communities are called upon to police. This has led to the expansion of police power within and beyond the formal domains of law enforcement. Through the targeting of local production, civic volunteers, pharmacists, retail clerks, natural resource officers, and others have been drawn into the policing of the meth problem. This reveals a key dynamic in the localization of police power: as police power is localized, the local is reimagined in terms of police power.

The paper argues that Claude Lévi-Strauss’ thought was influenced by Marcel Mauss’ works in a much deeper way than has been remarked in the literature. Far from being restricted to Lévi-Strauss’ seminal 1949 work on The Elementary Structures of Kinship Mauss’ constitutive impact can already be found in Lévi-Strauss’ early ethnographic studies (starting in the mid-1930s). Moreover, it can be shown that decisive theses and arguments of Lévi-Strauss’ later thought – ranging from the anthropology of kinship to classification theory and the specifics of the “savage mind” – are clearly prefigured in these early texts. In the end, the arguments presented here do not only call into question the well-known and widespread portrayal of Lévi-Strauss as a solitary scientist and “born structuralist” but also show how the specific interpretation of Mauss by Lévi-Strauss directed and restricted the further reception of Mauss’ works.

Aim: This study was undertaken to determine the care needs of Canadian seniors living at home with advanced chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

Background: COPD is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Although hospitalizations for illness exacerbations and end-stage care may be common, most persons with COPD live out their lives in the community. Little is known about the care needs of this significant population.

Methods: This study was guided by the research question: “What are the care needs and care priorities of senior citizens with end-stage COPD?” An ethnographic qualitative approach was used to address this question. Twelve community-dwelling seniors living in a Canadian city and diagnosed with advanced COPD were interviewed three times in their homes over an eight-month period in 2006.

Findings: Three themes emerged, each with concrete care needs: (a) self-reliance and independence through adaptation, (b) stable health through maintenance, and (c) living with constraints. The predominant theme was that all participants wanted to maintain their independence. This required considerable adaptation, as well as assistance from others.

Conclusions: Ensuring and improving assistance is important to prevent additional suffering and reduce exacerbations requiring hospitalization, a particularly important aim given the high and rising incidence of advanced COPD. A number of other insightful findings reveal the significance of learning directly from the persons who live with chronic illnesses about their lives.