This paper purports to identify the origin of farmland disputes in Myanmar triggered by the 2012 land law reform, and the attitudes of mediators. While 120 interviewed farmers showed a strong perception of the traditional right of farming to their ancestral land Bobwapaingmyae, the land administrators believe such a traditional right was lost with the formal registration of “cultivation right.” To fill such a perception gap, village mediators apply a legal pluralist view that both rights can exist in parallel. Once, however, a farmer separates his “cultivation right” from Bobwapaingmyae and places it in the market through sales or mortgages, the disputes come under the formal system where legal positivism governs. But the authors found the tendency of formal forums which affirm the claims of Bobwapaingmyae lacking the registration upon the proof of “actual cultivation,” revealing a legal postulate that sustains the substantive value of livelihood protection upon a condition of formalistic appearance of the asserted right, as a compromise between plural legal regimes.

Baku, Azerbaijan, is one of the most significant historical sites of industrial oil production in the world. Yet, the oil industry is largely ignored in the official heritage and tourism strategies. Drawing on ethnographic research in Baku, this article examines the place of the industrial past in the top-down and bottom-up heritage practices. It identifies three different heritage discourses pursued by different actors: the government, state-linked corporate actors and city tour guides. It argues that industrial heritage has significant touristic potential which, in the context of a strongly centralized state, can only be unlocked if the official heritage actors incorporate the industrial past into its heritage discourse.

This paper continues the analysis of Schrödinger type equations with distributional coefficients initiated by the authors in a recent paper in Journal of Differential Equations (425) 2025. Here, we consider coefficients that are tempered distributions with respect to the space variable and are continuous in time. We prove that the corresponding Cauchy problem, which in general cannot even be stated in the standard distributional setting, admits a Schwartz very weak solution which is unique modulo negligible perturbations. Consistency with the classical theory is proved in the case of regular coefficients and Schwartz Cauchy data.

Crete’s economy under Roman rule is associated primarily with production and distribution of wine, an interpretation resulting from textual and archaeological data. Several scholars have commented on the potential of oleoculture within the economic structure of Roman Crete, including reference to olive oil as a good for export, but there has been minimal follow up that considers the specific evidence available and its ability to shed light on these practices. This paper critically considers the evidence for oleoculture on Crete during the Roman period and its prospective role in the economic life of the island, including a focus on evidence for olive cultivation and the extent to which this points to surplus production. While there are indications of olive oil production across different parts of Crete, oleoculture may have focused primarily on supporting regional economic needs across the island. Some degree of export likely did occur, perhaps on a small scale and intermittently, but evidence is lacking to develop any interpretation beyond that. Such analysis is important not only for consideration of the Roman economy of Crete but also for addressing questions and concerns around the standard contents of transport amphoras, which remain one of the most important archaeological proxies for studying economic networks and the distribution of different products. Analysis of trade routes and distribution often rely on direct correlations between amphora types and their contents, and this must always be critically assessed.

This article investigates how anthropological knowledge about regions with economic difficulties became part of regional development in France during the pivotal decade of the 1970s. It argues that ethnological fieldwork in French peripheries in the 1960s provided knowledge about regional culture and practices for its maintenance that became the core of a new development tool, the Ecomusée. It was via this tool that French anthropologists sought to intervene in regional development. By analyzing one of the first French ecomuseums, we gain an understanding of how anthropological practices and knowledge nurtured the shift to cultural development politics associated with the “enrichment economy.” Fieldwork in the 1960s, aimed at a professionalized Ethnologie de France, problematized interaction with the local population and produced knowledge about regional culture that identified a region with its economic past. The practices of documentation and participation established during these fieldwork projects shaped the enrichment economy.

A retrospective study evaluating the economic impact on a community teaching hospital of 29 patients with multiple Clostridioides difficile infection admissions in a 4-year period showed an estimated net loss of $2,232,997, posing a substantial economic impact on the hospital.

Transnational corporations pose a dilemma for scholars of normative political economy. On the one hand, many think that such entities must be tamed by instruments of legal accountability and political control, lest they be allowed to act relatively untamed by legal and moral concerns. On the other hand, the very concern about regulating transnational corporations lends itself to suspicion of such efforts. Just as corporate power often reflects the interests of some class or national interest, efforts to extend normative standards can be seen as a vehicle for powerful nations and actors to extend their influence in the guise of moral or legal accountability. Reviewing three books that touch on different aspects of corporate accountability, this essay considers the way business ethics, human rights due diligence, and extraterritorial legal enforcement attempt to find the balance between these concerns. It concludes that meso-level institutions, which play an important role in all three books, may provide unique spaces for the mediation of normative accountability and power politics.

This State-of-the-Art review examines second language (L2) writing assessment research over the past 25 years through a framework of fairness, justice, and criticality. Recognizing the socio-political implications of assessment, the authors argue for a shift toward more equitable and socially conscious approaches. Drawing from a corpus of 869 peer-reviewed articles across leading journals, the review identifies five major themes: (1) features of writing performance, (2) rating and scoring, (3) integrated assessment, (4) teacher and learner perspectives, and (5) feedback. Each theme is reviewed for foundational findings, then critiqued through questions related to fairness and justice using a critical lens. The authors advocate for a multilingual turn in writing assessment, greater attention to teacher and student voices, and questioning dominant norms embedded in assessment practices. The review concludes with a call for future research to engage with fairness, justice, and criticality in both theory and practice, ensuring that writing assessments serve as tools for empowerment rather than exclusion.