Geographical testimony: a short history of a Yugoslav family

ABSTRACT

I attempt in this essay to travel outside of and beyond the more spectacular or established geopolitical discourses associated with research on post-conflict regions, and follow instead the trail of another more essential or everyday history and geography. Listening to and responding to the testimony of a single Yugoslav family, I draw from and write of memories of former places, initially returning to the traumatic moments of 1992, and a journey across Europe. In so doing, I reflect upon the use of testimony in geographical writing, positioning it as an inherently geographical psychoanalytic technique, which not only eases suffering in individuals and communities, but also offers new possibilities for societal change and transitional justice in post-conflict regions.     

British Postal Packet Hanover, 1757: a legal history

The wrecking of the Falmouth Postal Packet Hanover in 1763 led to three legal disputes and two court cases—in 1766 and 1997. This article recounts the origins and course of these disputes. It examines what the resolution of the 18th‐century case and the second dispute has revealed of the law and practice of marine insurance in the mid 18th century. It further examines what the 20th‐century case has revealed concerning the tension between ancient principles of commercial salvage and modern principles of heritage protection. Somewhat fortuitously, the examination of the case provides an opportunity to advance a simple solution to this conflict.     

Associations of people with disabilities in Italy: a short history

Voluntary associations of persons with disabilities have played an important role in bringing issues related to disability onto the national agenda in Italy in the absence of effective provision by the state or representation by other bodies, such as the political parties and trades unions. At the same time, the nature of Italy's welfare state – weak, clientelistic, particularistic – and its way of conceiving disability as a set of bodily deficits has also shaped the character of disabled persons' organisations in Italy and the ways in which they have framed their demands and policies. These organisations have tended either to represent fragmented subsets of people with disabilities or, more recently, to form large federations that, while they reflect a more comprehensive understanding of disability, have left some categories of people with disabilities feeling excluded or under-represented     

Writing disciplinary history, or why Romano–British archaeology needs a biographical dictionary of its own

This paper reviews the current state of the writing of the history of Roman archaeology in Britain. It brings to Romanists' attention some recent theoretical approaches, attempts to identify the obstacles to future progress and explores one way of overcoming them.     

英国殖民当局与马华公会的成立

针对学术界对马华公会成立过程的不同观点和分歧,在认真研究英国殖民部相关档案的基础上,在马来亚华人社会的分化问题、马华公会领袖们的组织宗旨、英国殖民当局在马华公会成立过程中的作用等方面进行了探讨。得出结论,华社并不总是处于一盘散沙的状态,在某种特定的条件下是能做到团结一致的;马华公会是英国殖民当局发起成立的组织,英国殖民当局在马华公会成立过程中发挥了决定性的作用。英国殖民当局的主要动机是希望马华公会成为协助当局恢复秩序的政治力量;马华公会的华社领袖们则希望与马来族群合作,结束英国殖民统治,建立一个新的民族国家。     

Urine trouble: a social history of bedwetting and its regulation

Bedwetting has confounded the presumed boundaries of the human body, existing in a fluid space, between the normal and pathological, its treatment has demanded the application of a wide array of different technologies, each based on a distinct conception of the relationship between the body and personality, human organs and personal conduct. In tracing the social history of bedwetting and its regulation, this article examines the ontological assumptions underpinning the treatment of bedwetting and how they have changed over the past two centuries. Through the analysis of medical journals, newspaper articles and magazine advertisements, different topologies are identified which redefine the boundaries of the human body and its capacities. From 16th-century naturalism, in which the human body is subordinated to a cosmic totality, to the circumscribed space of 19th-century paediatrics and the expansive circuits of behavioural psychology and modern psychoanalysis, the body has become multiplied, differently enacted through the application of diverse technologies. It was be shown how coordinating the messy and divergent conceptions of the human body has posed an endemic problem for the human sciences, and how the enduring tension between object enactment and subject constitution is an expression of modern "baroque" subjectivity.