Representing Doi Moi: history,memory and shifting national narratives in late-socialist Vietnam

In late-socialist states, what are the drivers of shifts in national narratives and how can a focus on the museum method reveal the way state institutions construct national myths and nationalist ideologies? This paper addresses these questions by focusing on a behind-the-scenes ethnography of an exhibition celebrating 30 years of Doi Moi – the economic reform period in Vietnam that commenced in 1986. Focusing on the museum as method – the process of documenting how curators deliberate over labels, objects, photos and so forth – the paper analyses how national narratives are authored and transformed through curatorial exchanges and expert forums. By focusing on how aesthetics and achievement provide a foundation for inclusive interpretative strategies that integrate official histories alongside personal memories, this paper reflects on the alienating effects of official histories in state institutions and the strategies by which people appropriate these to reclaim their past.     

Between Monoculture and Cultural Polarization: Agent-based Models of the Interplay of Social Influence and Cultural Diversity

Social influence is one of the most important processes in human social interaction. Very often in human social interaction, influence is assimilative in that individuals become more similar to others they interact with. Nevertheless, cultural differences continue to remain in many realms of human life, for example, in the form of technological boundaries. Research on social influence points to a range of possible reasons for persistent cultural diversity, but there is much less clarity about the interplay of various factors and conditions for cultural influence with fundamental processes of social interaction at the micro-level. In this article, I show how agent-based computational modeling can be used as an approach for unraveling the complex interplay between simple first principles of interpersonal social interaction and emergent societal outcomes. I give a brief overview illustrating some of the main approaches agent-based modelers have developed in recent decades to understand conditions and processes of the emergence of cultural diversity. Models will be discussed that generate mainly cultural consensus as long-term behavior, but also models that generate clustering of cultural attitudes in geographical or social space, and models that imply cultural polarization with sharp cultural boundaries between emergent factions. It will be discussed how model dynamics depend on further assumptions, for example about random events, or the scaling of cultural attitudes, and what are further developments in the literature, possible future directions and challenges for the application of computational agent-based modeling in archeological research on cultural boundaries.     

Emotional masking and spill-outs in the neoliberalized university: a feminist geographic perspective on mentorship

This paper addresses the emotional dimensions of academic mentorship from a student mentee perspective and contributes to an emerging literature on geographies of emotion in higher education. It presents a pedagogical practice of self-reflexive co-mentorship – self-peer-ceptive feminist mentoring – and deploys it methodologically to analyze three biographical narratives. From different student mentee vantage points, these narratives reveal how the scales of the body, the family, and the nation are interwoven within the geopolitical and manifest within mentoring relationships. We argue that self-peer-ceptive feminist mentorship allows people at different academic career stages to share personal experiences of navigating the academy as a means to challenge institutional systems of power. Our argument answers three questions: How and why do we express and manage our emotions in mentoring relationships? What spatial scales are invoked through our emotional experiences and with what implications? How are different power structures embedded in the requirements, practices, successes, and failures of emotional management? Our discussion highlights how emotional masking and spill-outs are tools to navigate the emotional terrain of the neoliberalized academy. We conclude that self-peer-ceptive feminist mentoring can unsettle the structural hierarchies that require a “masking” of feelings for the sake of professional distance.     

Selling is Poverty,Buying a Shame: Representations of Work,Effective Leadership and Market Failures on Wallis

This paper seeks to answer the question why there is no central market on the Polynesian island Wallis, and relates the answer to indigenous representations of work and to cultural constraints on leadership. The title of this paper ‐ Selling is Poverty, Buying a Shame ‐ contains the answer in a nutshell, requires contextualisation in relation to the main cultural, socioeconomic and political features of the society on this island. More specifically, it raises the following questions: What do we mean when we speak about a market? Have there been markets in the past? Are there (other) market‐like structures today? And what do we mean by representations of work?     

Front and Back Covers,Volume 28, Number 1. February 2012

Front and back cover caption, volume 28 issue 1 Front and back cover MEAT STILL ON THE MENU? Communities around the world are experiencing changes in the price and availability of animal products. In many places, meat, which was once eaten rarely, if ever, is now more readily accessible. In the top picture, a recently built international supermarket in the Guatemalan highlands stocks its shelves with packaged sandwich meat. The bottom image shows a meal served to mark a momentous occasion in the same community. Both of these images illustrate a change in dietary patterns that is manifesting in many regions of the world. Several international organizations, concerned about balancing the environmental costs of meat with human nutritional needs, have begun to address what they typically describe as ‘the increasing worldwide demand’ for meat. But how might we understand this narrative? What assumptions underpin these representations of demand? What are the implications of this kind of economic framing? In this issue, Emily Yates‐Doerr takes up the question of how anthropologists, with their attention to local contexts and realities, might add to discussions of global transitions. How might ethnographers engage with and respond to the representations of global trends employed by international institutions? What might these questions say about the discipline of anthropology's own engagement with questions of material needs and demands? The front cover shows how entomologists in Wageningen, The Netherlands, are responding to concerns about the ‘growing demand’ for livestock by working to cultivate edible insects, in this case mealworms, as ‘the next white meat’.     

Narrating the Self among Arab Americans: A Bridging Discourse between Arab Tradition and American Culture

This article expounds the nature of Arab American identity through an exploration of discourses and practices related to traveling and movement at global and local levels, with a particular emphasis on personal narratives of both men and women of different ages and socioeconomic backgrounds. Travel is dealt with here in its broad meaning and connotes migratory travel, and immigration. It also indicates traveling back and forth between the homeland and new land. Despite the fact that cross‐cultural studies of travel are scant, population movements and transnational migration are currently the focus of broad academic debates and surround such issues as transnational cultural relations, the renovation of migrants' social cosmologies, ¹ and the dynamics of identity reconstruction ( Axel, 2004 ; Clifford, 1988 ; Cohn, 1987 ; Coutin, 2003 ; el‐Aswad, 2004, 2006a ; Euben, 2006 ; Hall, 1990, 1992 ; Julian, 2004 ; Kaplan, 1996 ; Kennedy & Danks, 2001 ; Mintz, 1998 ; Tsing, 2000 ). This inquiry is contingent on ethnographic material gathered from 20 case studies addressing various experiences of Arab Americans living in the community of Dearborn, in the metropolitan Detroit area of Michigan. ² These case studies reveal some important and comparative theoretical insights that help us understand core features of the unity as well as the multiplicity, diversity, and plasticity of Arab American identity. The study concentrates on narratives of personal experience, defined as verbalized, visualized, and/or embodied framings of a sequence of actual or possible life events, through stories, narrations, diaries, memoirs, and letters ( Herman & Vervaeck, 2009 ; Ochs & Capps, 1996 ). Although personal narratives encompass a wide range of daily experiences, they are prototypes that express people's views of other cultures generated by travel or direct contact. Travel is used here to mean a range of material and spatial practices that generate knowledge, stories, traditions, books, and other cultural expressions ( Clifford, 1997 ; Euben, 2006 ). Cultures are understood by studying sites of dwelling, the local ground of collective life, and the effects of travel ( Clifford, 1997 ). Travel and migration or Diaspora ³ are prototypical rites of passage involving transition in space, territory, and group membership. They transform people's sense of themselves and others. For instance, migrants experience profound changes in their outlook and orientation as they move from the state of belonging to the homeland to that of belonging to the new land, generating a unique sense of multiple identities. The article aims to answer these questions: To what extent have travel and migration of the Arabs transformed their worldviews, including images of themselves, of others, and of new and old homelands? To what extent have these experiences of movement been incorporated into Arab American identities and articulated in their narratives as well? Do they view themselves as having one unified transnational identity, as being “Arab American,” or multiple identities? Is there a conflict of having multiple identities and maintaining one encompassing identity? And to what extent can Arab Americans be viewed as cultural mediators or agents bridging the West and the East (the Middle East) as well as the north and the south? These questions are examined within the perspectives and views of both Arab American writers and ordinary Arab immigrants of the Detroit metropolitan area. ⁴     

The Unthinkable and the Unseen: Community Archaeology and Decolonizing Social Imagination at Okeeheepkee,or the Lake Jackson Site

Recent decolonizing scholarship examines how Indigenous ways of knowing can transform archaeology. This article discusses community-based research undertaken with a Muskogee tribal town in North Florida, focusing on the archaeology of the Lake Jackson site (1100–1500 A.D.). Centering on the historical narratives circulated in this community illuminates gaps in the dominant archaeological discourse, or what Trouillot (Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History, 1995) calls the silences of history. Examples such as iconographic representations of “genderless” moths and possibilities of “invisible” mound structures render the limits of colonial imagination visible. Archaeology can move beyond these constraints by bridging the center and margins of archaeological production.     

Theoretical models of polar-cap convection under the influence of a northward interplanetary magnetic field

The unexpected patterns of high-latitude auroral luminosity and ionospheric convection that are observed when the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) has a northward orientation have inspired a variety of theoretical interpretations. The existing models, all referring to steady-state conditions, can be classified according to the topology of the polar magnetic field lines and of the polar-cap convection streamlines. The classes of model include: (1) a closed magnetosphere model, (2) a conventional open model with a distorted, but topologically unchanged, polar-cap boundary, (3) a conventional open model with distorted, but topologically unchanged, polar-cap convection cells, (4) a modified open model with ‘lobe convection cells’ contained wholly on open magnetic-field lines, and (5) a modified open model with a bifurcated polar cap. The third and fourth types require significant regions of sunward flow on open polar-cap field lines, a concept that presents serious theoretical difficulties. The other three types appear equally viable from a theoretical point of view, and the comparison against observations is an ongoing enterprise. Outstanding theoretical questions include (a) how do observed structures in the polar ionosphere map along magnetic field lines into the magnetosphere?, (b) what is the mechanism that drives the observed sunward convection at highest latitudes on the day side?, and (c) what role does time dependence play in the observed phenomena?     

A Blaze in the Northern Sky: Black Metal and Crimes Against Culture

Abstract

This paper focuses on an act that can be seen to typify what heritage organizations might con?dently describe as a ‘crime against culture’: the deliberate destruction by ?re of a twelfth-century wooden stave church at Fantoft in Norway in 1992. This paper uses the case study of Fantoft to challenge the ways in which heritage organizations (in this case Norway’s Directorate of Cultural Heritage) establish and protect mono-cultural narratives and push interpretative agendas predicated on an uncritical concept of universal ‘value’ and its equation with material authenticity. It also examines how distinct minority communities construct new meanings, values, and traditions without reference to institutional narratives, a process that, whilst arguably initiating a more meaningful dialogue with the past, brings in train a new set of problems.     

The limits of oral history: ethics and methodology amid highly politicized research settings

In recent years, oral history has been celebrated by its practitioners for its humanizing potential, and its ability to democratize history by bringing the narratives of people and communities typically absent in the archives into conversation with that of the political and intellectual elites who generally write history. And when dealing with the narratives of ordinary people living in conditions of social and political stability, the value of oral history is unquestionable. However, in recent years, oral historians have increasingly expanded their gaze to consider intimate accounts of extreme human experiences, such as narratives of survival and flight in response to mass atrocities. This shift in academic and practical interests begs the questions: Are there limits to oral historical methods and theory? And if so, what are these limits? This paper begins to address these questions by drawing upon fourteen months of fieldwork in Rwanda and Bosnia-Hercegovina, during which I conducted multiple life history interviews with approximately one hundred survivors, ex-combatants, and perpetrators of genocide and related mass atrocities. I argue that there are limits to the application of oral history, particularly when working amid highly politicized research settings.     

Recent Studies on Violence: What's In and What's Out

Focusing on four recent books about violence gives a reader an idea of what current anthropological wisdom is and what it tends to omit (peace, domestic violence). Since most studies deal not with direct observation of violence but with representations of it, questions of representation loom large in terms of how anthropologists represent violence in these books and elsewhere in the literature, and what possibilities of representation might round out readers' understanding.     

Milieux innovateurs: Determinants and policy implications

National and regional differences are more and more frequently explained by differences in milieux. This type of explanation raises three questions: Can we identify milieux? What are the determinants of milieux? Are there differences between industries in the matter of determinants of milieux? Most studies on milieux innovateurs are based on case studies and qualitative data. This paper is quantitative and comparative in nature. It attempts to identify milieux and their determinants by using data from the 1999 Statistics Canada Innovation Survey. Based on two synthetic indicators of interactions (weak/strong) and learning (weak/strong), four categories of milieux innovateurs are differentiated which become the dependent variables. In order to see what the determinants of the various milieux innovateurs are and to see in what ways the most favorable milieux innovateurs compare to the others, binomial logit models have been estimated for four industries using the following independent variables: competitive pressures, barriers to knowledge exchange, use of government support, number of employees, collaborative arrangements, R&D activities, regions.     

Explaining Third‐Party Intervention in Ethnic Conflict: Theory and Evidence

Abstract. One of the most challenging developments for students of international relations is the resurgence of ethnic strife, including secessionism and irredentism. Basic questions are only beginning to be addressed in the post‐Cold War era. Why are some states more likely than others to intervene in ethnic conflicts? How can international norms about third‐party intervention in ethnic conflicts be evaded or ignored by some states but respected by others? Why are some states inclined to use force rather than mediation to resolve ethnic strife? In short, what accounts for the emergence of adventurous and belligerent foreign policies with respect to internal ethnic conflicts? These questions are of increasing importance to students of international politics, yet the dynamics and internationalisation of ethnic conflict are far from fully understood. This study focuses on the dynamics of third‐party intervention in ethnic strife and implications for peaceful resolution. The first section presents a model that identifies the general conditions under which ethnic strife is most likely to lead to intervention by third‐party states. The second uses four cases to illustrate, within the context of the model, different processes with respect to internationalisation of ethnic conflict. The third and final stage identifies implications for policy and theory, along with directions for future research.     

Household Archaeology in the Andes

Data from domestic contexts can be used to address significant anthropological research questions. Archaeological investigations in the Andes (areas once incorporated into the Inka empire, including northwestern Argentina, highland Bolivia, northern Chile, Ecuador, and Peru), like many parts of the world, rely on ethnohistory and ethnography to interpret the archaeological remains of domestic areas and make inferences about households. In this review I describe the ideas about Andean households that archaeologists are using and how domestic remains are being examined to infer social, economic, and political processes. Household archaeology in the Andes requires ethnoarchaeology and theory-building in order to understand the complex social dynamics at the foundation of ancient Andean societies.     

Marginal or mainstream? Migrant centres as grassroots and official heritage

Abstract

Migrant heritage, as a grassroots practice seeking to commemorate pre- and post-war migrant communities and their contributions, emerged in Australia from the 1980s. Since that time, its appeal has continued to grow. It now receives, in some form, state sanction and is policed by the same state and national legislation as other cultural heritage, both tangible and intangible. This article seeks to complicate understandings of migrant heritage as a marginal practice, specifically by interrogating the use-value of particular narratives in the Australian context – that is, how do individuals, communities and other groups (the grassroots) draw on sanctioned and publicly circulating narratives to mark their site as heritage-worthy? Ideas of what constitutes official and unofficial heritage can be mutually inclusive – a dialectical process. I analyse this in relation to the commemoration of former post-war migrant reception centres in Australia.     

Colonialism Otherwise and the Poetics of Solidarity: A Methodological Intervention De-b/ordering Kashmir

This paper reflects deeply on possibilities for developing solidarity with Kashmiri freedom struggles by mobilising a memorialisation praxis informed by poetics. We coin the term “colonialism otherwise” to describe the particular instruments and effects of postcolonial colonialism as they appear in the intimate space of family narratives, memories, and feelings. Foregrounding the works of the Kashmiri poet, essayist, and filmmaker, Uzma Falak, we write our memorialisations to respond to the poet's demands to bear witness to Kashmiri people's abjection. Our memorialisation praxis is guided by the questions: how do we know Kashmir as a place, and relatedly, what are the political limitations of our articulated solidarity with the anti-colonial struggle for azaadi?     

Does Nature Always Matter? Following Dirt through History

Despite several decades of impressive scholarship in environmental history, the field remains largely marginal to the discipline as a whole. Environmental stories are still more likely to turn up in introductions, sidebars, and footnotes to political, social, and economic histories than they are to be incorporated into those narratives in a transformative way, though we as environmental historians know that potential is there. As we struggle to identify what precisely it is that we want other historians to do with our work, we run up against questions of definition and mission: What is environmental history? What do we do that is unique? What do we want other historians to learn from what we do? Some scholars in our field have suggested that we can answer these questions by framing “environment” as a category of analysis parallel to race, class, and gender, arguing that careful attention to the environment offers as rich a way of uncovering power relationships in societies as attention to these other categories does. While it is true that power can be read in the environment, and is frequently expressed through it, I argue that “environment” as both concept and fact is so fundamentally different from class, race, and gender that the analogy does not work, and distracts us from another, more fruitful strategy for articulating the broader relevance of our scholarship: demonstrating the significance of material nature for histories beyond the environmental realm. If other historians would join us in our attention to the physical, biological, and ecological nature of dirt, water, air, trees, and animals (including humans), they would find themselves led to new questions and new answers about the past.     

HISTORY'S DEMARCATION PROBLEM

In his 1998 book Heterocosmica: Fiction and Possible Worlds, Lubomír Dole?el put forth a theory of narrative fiction based on the interdisciplinary framework of possible worlds. In Possible Worlds of Fiction and History: The Postmodern Stage, Dole?el takes his earlier theory further and applies it to historiography as well, with the specific aim of showing how the study of history might be defended against the postmodern challenge via the use of possible worlds (PW) semantics. Dole?el's book is essentially an argument against the postmodern views expressed by Roland Barthes and Hayden White, who have claimed that fundamentally, there is no difference between fictional and historical narratives. According to Dole?el, this difference can be saved if the focus of attention is shifted from the textual features of these narratives to the fictional or historical worlds that the narratives project. Dole?el's comparison of fictional and historical worlds to each other is quite illuminating and thorough. However, the question remains whether the application of PW semantics does anything besides offering a detailed analysis of the structure of the different types of narrative worlds. After all, one should not overlook the perhaps more practical way of differentiating between historical and fictional narratives through their institutional status. Furthermore, we argue that by focusing on the properties of the end products, that is, the resulting narratives, Dole?el concedes too much to postmodernists. A stronger way to give postmodernists a taste of their own medicine would be to argue that the rules that historians follow in the process of generating, constructing, and evaluating weighed causal explanations (or historical models of the past) are fundamentally different from whatever rules govern the generation and construction of fiction.     

Emigration,return migration and surprise homecomings in post-Celtic Tiger Ireland

This article explores the cultural and ideological management of mass migration in twenty-first-century Ireland, arguing that narratives of return have come to dominate representations of emigration. The almost universal focus on the moment or experience of return distinguishes the current era from other periods of high emigration in Ireland. The phenomenon of the surprise homecoming video is scrutinised alongside recent cinematic releases, newspaper articles, blogs and cultural events including The Gathering (2013) and the Marriage Equality Referendum (2015). By drawing these sources together, the article exposes how cultural representations of emigration have been shaped to fit with official narratives of a business-friendly nation in recovery. By repeatedly showcasing the emotional pleasures of return these popular culture forms support a fantasy of easy return and mask the real economic and social problems driving the latest wave of emigration.