The Name Game: Archaeologies of the Land of the Bible,Eretz Yisrael,the Holy Land and Palestine

In post-modernist terms, archaeology, like history, is not practiced for itself but for someone or something. That much is clear with the archaeology of the cis-Jordanian region of the Near East where it has served to sustain anthropological-ethnological models driven by biblical and nationalistic-based theories. Words, terms, labels and names have meanings that not infrequently are consequential thus, constructing an archeology-abetted past of spaces named Holy Land, Eretz Yisrael and Land of the Bible belies the discipline’s claim to scientific neutrality. No less, naming the cis-Jordanian territories of the Bronze and Iron Ages a “Palestine” is anachronistic and not uniformly acceptable. As long as Archaeology is tasked with proving the veracity of ancient epigraphy and texts and legitimizing claims of ancestral privilege and ur-ownership of ancient lands, the more glaring its failure and the greater the impediment to settling the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.     

Land,Labour and Ambivalence: Lutheran Missionaries Managing Land Disputes at Cape Bedford Mission

This article provides a close reading of a land dispute between Lutheran missionaries at Cape Bedford mission during the 1920s and 1930s in order to extrapolate understandings of missionary ambivalence, power, and privilege within colonial processes of dispossession. The main contention is that missionaries felt compelled to promote Aboriginal engagement in agricultural labour in order to ensure that they could visibly demonstrate the land's productivity, and then maintain access to it. It also contributes to understandings about missionary power and privilege within the colonial context and how at times the authority of missionaries was undermined by bureaucracy. It points to the discrepancies between settler and humanitarian discourses around Indigenous land use in Queensland's north during this period, and the relationships between missions and the state.     

The Peasant,His Land and Money: Land Transactions in Late Sixteenth-century East Bothnia

Ilkka Mäntylä, Suomalaisen juoppouden kasvu, Kustavilaisen kanden alkokolipolitiïkka [The Growth of Finnish Drunkenness, the Alcohol Policy of the Gustavian Era]. (Jyväskylä, 1995.)

Eeva‐Iüsa Lehtonen, Säätyläishuveista kansanhuveiksi, Kansanhuveista kansalaishuveiksi. Maaseudun yleishyödyllinen huvitoiminta 1800‐luvun alusta 1870‐luvun loppuun [From Upper‐Class to Popular Entertainments. From Popular to Public Entertainments. Fund‐raising Entertainments in Rural Finland During the 19th Century]. (Helsinki: Societas Historica Finlandiae, 1994).

Ilkka Liikanen, Fennomania ja kansa, Jonkkojärjestäytymisen läpimurto ja Suomalaisen puolueen synty [Fennomania and the People: The Breakthrough of Mass Organization and the Birth of the Finnish Party]. (Helsinki: SHS, 1995) Diss.

Mervi Kaarninen, Nykyajan tytöt, Koulutus, luokka ja sukupuoli 1920‐ja 1930‐ luvun Suomessa [Modern Girls. Education, Class and Gender in Finland in die 1920s and 1930s]. Bibliotheca historica 5 (Helsinki: Finnish Historical Society, 1995). 297 pp. ISBN 951–710–019–1.

Kerstin Smeds, Helsingfors‐Paris. Finländarna på vårldsutstallningama 1851–1900 [Helsinki‐Paris. Finland at die Universal Expositions 1851–1900]. Vammala. Skrifter utgivna av Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland, nr. 598. 397 pp. ISBN 951–583–024–9.

Pekka Mervola, Kttja, kirjavampi, saanomalehti. Ulkoasukierre ja suamalaisten sanomalehtien ulkoasu 1771–1994 [The Appearance Spiral and die Outward Appearance of Newspapers in Finland 1771–1994]. Suomen historiallinen seura, Biblioteca Historica 1 (Vammala, 1995). 429 pp. ISBN 951–710–013–2.

Antti Kujala, Venäjän hallitus ja Suomen tvöväenliike 1899–1905 [The Russian Government and the Finnish Workers’ Movement 1899–1905]. Hist, tutk, 94 (Helsinki: Societas Historica Finlandiae, 1996). 459 pp. ISBN 951–710–024–8.

Jussi M. Hanhimäki, Rinnakkaiseloa patomassa. Yhdysvallat ja Paasikiven linja 1948–1956 [Containing Coexistence]. Bibliotheca historica 10 (Helsinki: Suomen Historiallinen Seura, 1996). 191 pp. [English summary].

Else Roesdahl and Preben Meulengracht S?renson, eds. The Waking of Angantyr. The Scandinavian past in European culture. Den nordiske fortid i europæisk kultur, Acta Jutlandica LXXI:l, Humanities Series 70 (Aarhus, 1996). 229 pp. ISBN 87–7288–435–5.

Nils Arne S?renson, ed. European Identities. Cultural Diversity and Integration in Europe Since 1700, (Odense University Press, 1995). 269 pp. ISBN 87–7492–976–3.

Atle Thowsen, Handelsflåten i krig 1939–1945. Nortraship: Profitt og patriotisme, vol. 1 (Gröndahl og Dreyers Forlag, Oslo, 1992). 494 pp., ISBN 82–404–1895–6.     

Land,Stone, Trees,Identity, Ambition: the Building Blocks of Brochs

Brochs are impressive stone roundhouses unique to Iron Age Scotland. This paper introduces a new perspective developed from architectural analysis and drawing on new survey, fieldwork and analogies from anthropology and social history. The study of architectural design and constructional detail exposes fewer competitive elements than previously anticipated. Instead, attempts to emulate, share and communicate identities can be detected. The architectural language of the broch allows complex layers of individual preferences, local and regional traditions, and supra-regional communications to be expressed in a single house design. The proposed ‘productive households’ model moves beyond ideas of competing elites at times of stress, and invites a new debate by expanding a more complex broch concept beyond the Atlantic core.     

Singing in a Strange Land: C. L. Franklin, the Black Church and the Transformation of America

C.L. (Clarence LaVaughn) Franklin was probably one of the mostinfluential black preachers of the civil rights era and undoubtedlyone of the most famous black preachers of his generation. Asthe pastor of New Bethel Church in Detroit from 1946 to 1979,he was a key figure in the northern freedom struggle, an advisorto a young Martin Luther King, Jr., and a mentor to Jesse Jackson.He was an immensely popular gospel singer on par with the legendaryMahalia Jackson and Clara Ward, with whom he     

Provincialising God: Anglicanism,Place, and the Colonisation of Australian Land

This article investigates the importance of Anglican religion and the physical structures of faith to how some believers understood their surrounds in a British settler colony. Its central figure, William Grant Broughton, was head of the Church of England in Australia during the 1830s and 1840s. At the time when the position of the Church was changing both at home and abroad, it was his responsibility to establish the physical and spiritual presence of Anglicanism throughout the colony. He faced the particular challenges of negotiating the Church's formal relationship to the land and Anglicanism's cultural contribution to settler notions of local place and community. In meeting these challenges, Broughton “provincialised God” by articulating the Anglican faith with consequences specific to his Australian context and particularly to the British colonisation of Aboriginal territory.     

Planting Islands: Marshall Islanders Shaping Land,Power, and History

This paper reframes encounters between ri-aelōñ-kein (Marshall Islanders) and ri-pālle (outsiders) between the 16th and 19th centuries through a ri-aelōñ-kein cultural lens. It applies a deep ethnographic approach and frameworks of cross-cultural exchange and mutual possession to re-present ri-aelōñ-kein engagements across the beach as purposeful attempts to ‘plant’ ri-pālle on land and within genealogies. It argues that, in addition to violence, ri-aelōñ-kein used ‘gifts’ of land and other exchanges to ‘plant’ ri-pālle within their realms and, in turn, augment their social status. While deployed most often by irooj (chiefs), kajoor (commoner) men and women used similar tactics with some success. Throughout, ri-aelōñ-kein made history by deploying aspects of culture to advance local ambitions through engagements with ri-pālle.     

Land,Law and Courts in India: Tracing Land Rights Debates through Processes of Judicial Decision Making

The pace of industrial and allied infrastructure development in India is encumbered by scarcity in the supply of land. As a result, the state in India has frequently resorted to expropriation of land through conversion of land away from its traditional uses and through displacement of communities. Consequently, land acquisition in the country is mired in disputes over human rights and environmental rights violations. In the face of continued political support for infrastructure‐led development in India, those who stand to lose their land have often resorted to judicial recourse for pressing their rights. This article draws on empirical evidence from court cases related to two urban development projects in the states of Karnataka and Kerala to examine how courts have responded to the question of violation of land rights and appeals against land acquisition for the two projects. The author argues that the courts, while responding to the claims against the two projects, have refrained from holding the implementing agencies or the state governments accountable even in cases where there were recognizable incidents of malfeasance. The article illustrates that the inability of the courts to confront the state lends a tacit assent to the development agenda of the state.