Armorial Lockplates: A Story of Success in Renaissance Rome

This article was prompted by a gilt bronze lockplate in the Rijksmuseum, originally the decorative fastening of a chest and one of a large group of similar objects. Hardly any other metalwork design was more extensively reproduced in Italian Mannerism. Its success was based on the appealing design and the fact this type of lockplate offered the possibility of integrating coats of arms and thus personalizing a chest. The paper presents new examples not yet listed in Charles Avery’s comprehensive overview (2001), identifies a whole series of clients for these lockplates on the basis of heraldic and genealogical analyses and deduces from this an origin in Rome and a dating of the entire group (previously dated 1540) to the last third of the sixteenth century.It has been generally assumed that the specific function of these objects was to decorate marriage chests. Closer analysis argues against this thesis. The lockplate in the Rijksmuseum is particularly significant in this context. The coats of arms on its lateral cartouches identify the Roman Orazio Ruspoli and his wife Felice Cavalieri (marr. 1594) as the clients for the piece. Surprisingly, however, the crest on the hasp belongs to a family that was not related to this couple. A comparable finding is made for a lockplate in the National Gallery in Washington, which has also been misinterpreted so far. In this case, too, the coats of arms on the plate and on the hasp do not point to a family connection, but to neighbouring and presumably friendly families. The analysis of other examples, such as one in the Palazzo Venezia, confirms that these lockplates and the chests to which they were attached were not exclusively bound to the context of marriage. As travelling chests, which became must-have items for the Roman upper class, they seem to have been open to a variety of functions.

Longitudinal cross-national perspectives on female desistance: The role of social and emotional capitals in female narrations of maintaining change

This paper offers a unique longitudinal qualitative perspective on a group of women maintaining desisting pathways in two different European countries: Sweden and England. Applying a social and emotional capital framework, with particular attention given to the friend and family connection, the paper aims to unveil how a resource perspective can enable a more nuanced view of the role of overlapping female identities and network management, the paradoxes of trust within these, and experiences of stigmatisation and emotional expenditure in female desistance narratives across time and space. The cross-national perspective brings to light the importance of situating the desistance process in the particular context in which it plays out, making visible how narratives may be structurally mediated by wider social, cultural, penal – and gendered – conditions and processes. These insights may, in turn, contribute to the identification of desistance support that have the potential to make female desistance paths less socially and emotionally costly.

Families, Relationships, and Technology

Digital media are transforming families and relationships. Whether these changes are best thought of as positive or negative needs to be considered within a larger context of social transformation, in which changing gender roles and labor markets, cultural norms of intimacy and relationships, and globalization and migration are also contributing to rapid changes in family life. Drawing on recent theoretical developments that emphasize family as a set of practices and digital media as simultaneously social and technological, this chapter considers the intersections of family and technology across the life course, from partnering to pregnancy and adoption to parenting, family support, and aged care. The evidence suggests a mixed impact of digital media on family life. The popularity of digital media suggests that there is a strong desire for families to remain in touch and that people use digital media to maintain strong bonds of intimacy and family connection, even when circumstances require them to live at a distance. In some cases, access to digital media is contributing to the democratization of relationships across gender, class, and age groups. At the same time, it appears that digital media are also capable of both reinforcing existing inequalities and generating new asymmetries of power. To illustrate these complex trends, examples are drawn from a rich and growing body of research on how families are using digital media around the world and with what consequences, including the experiences of migrants and refugees.

Remesas y agencia económica de las universitarias en el Valle del Mezquital

The article’s objective is to analyze the economic agency acquired by university students through the international remittances support network. During September and October 2019, five indepth interviews were conducted with female law students from the Actopan Higher School of the Autonomous University of the State of Hidalgo. Young women’s households receive remittances whose function is to help them economically, a network built through the family connection with their maternal uncles. The student’s mothers are sorors which allows young women to obtain economic agency. This analysis contributes to the knowledge about one of the effects of remittances on households in the Mezquital Valley, Mexico. The results of the study only focus on one region of the country.

Pillar of Fire – from Auschwitz to Casablanca

Aim. This study examines the characteristics of the individuals who go on the journey to Poland, which is a key element of the Holocaust education curriculum in Israel, their personal connection to the Holocaust, as well as the socio-political developments in Israel that attempt to bridge the gap between the various poles in society – between East and West. Concept. Holocaust education includes the formal part, which is the historical narrative, and the informal part, which is the journey to Poland. This study follows the development of Holocaust education and commemoration of the victims of the Holocaust – from the narrative of the Holocaust of the Jews of Europe to the narrative of the Holocaust among the communities of North African descent. Results and conclusion. The findings of the study indicate a link between family support and ties to the Holocaust, and the journey to Poland, which appears to be in line with findings of Nitza Davidovitch and Dan Soen (2011), who found a correlation between the students participating in the journey and their personal connections to the Holocaust, in contrast to students with no family connection with the Holocaust. For all its importance, the journey to Poland has been found to perpetuate social polarisation. Practical applications. The current study highlights the challenge of Holocaust education in order to build a bridge of shared historical destiny through this seminal event of the twentieth century. Originality. This work sparks the question of how to make the journey to Poland a unifying factor in collective national memory.