The nation remembers: national identity and shared memory in television documentaries

Abstract. This article explores the impact of recent trends towards globalisation on the ways in which national identity and ‘shared memory’ find expression in the media. Concentrating on television documentaries produced through international co‐ productions, I show how national consciousness became a key ideological component in the construction of televised narratives. This illustration will be made through the examination of a particular co‐produced television documentary, The Fifty Years War. To make this programme possible, funding from three television networks was secured, with each source given the right to use the produced footage to construct its own version of the final product. The completed series thus exists in three distinct versions, British (BBC2), American (PBS) and Middle Eastern (MBC). Since the final product of this co‐production was split into several national/cultural versions, the content of the different national/cultural projects became translated into different presentations of ‘reality’. In analysing the similarities and differences among the three end‐products, this article offers some reflections regarding the three‐sided interplay between television, shared memory and national identity in an age of globalisation.     

Claiming Space: Aboriginal Students within School Landscapes

There is an emerging body of theoretical, historical and design research that examines the ways in which race and cultural identity are understood to be produced and represented in the landscape. Yet, there remains a dearth of research examining both the historic and contemporary effects of race upon the development of school geographies. This paper has two broad purposes. It highlights the experiential aspects of racialized geographies within schools and, at the same time, it grapples with the processes that maintain or challenge the spatial conditions for the construction of whiteness. Drawing upon in-depth case study research this paper highlights the experiences of Aboriginal students and staff at four different schools, with a particular focus on cross-cultural schools, in Manitoba, Canada.

What is needed is a concept of landscape that helps point the way to those interventions that can bring about much greater social justice. And what landscape study needs even more is a concept of landscape that will assist the development of the very idea of social justice. (Henderson, 2003, p. 196)     

香港春节欢乐颂

<正>在普天同庆的新春佳节,东方之珠香港以最原汁原味的传统习俗,谱写出一曲阖家团圆、共贺新春的欢乐颂。春节花车巡游大年初一的夜晚,以开年、开运、开心为主题的春节花车巡游,与香港市民共同演绎了一场开心街头大派对!夜色下,五彩缤纷光影流转,锣鼓喧天声声入耳,喝彩欢呼声此起彼伏。舞龙舞狮热闹恢宏,中国功夫技压全场,现代热舞与卡通表演交相辉映,还有热情似火的国际啦啦     

Claiming and Controlling Space: Combining heterosexual fatherhood with artistic practice

This article is structured around nine short vignettes that explore the complex and embedded gendered relations of fatherhood for heterosexual male contemporary Canadian visual artists at different stages of life. In contributing to the geographical literature on work, gender, and identities, this article answers the questions: What form does hegemonic masculinity take in the visual arts? How do male artists organize and conceptualize work life and family life? What impact does fatherhood have on artistic identity construction? In formulating answers to these questions, I argue that dominant discourses of masculinity have left some men feeling illegitimate as both artists and fathers, and reliant on spatial control as a mechanism to ‘fix’ their artistic identities.     

Claiming disability in the field of geography: Access,recognition and integration

The topic of physical disability has long been neglected in the field of geography. Geographers have challenged this neglect by undertaking studies of, for, and by persons with disabilities. This paper extends that challenge by examining the roles that disability and persons with disabilities play within the field of geography itself. The recognition and integration of persons with disabilities includes concerns with physical access, but also requires an examination of the institutional means by which geography departments, publications and conferences have worked and can work to challenge ableism: the neglect of disabled people's lives and perspectives. After centuries of exclusion, the recognition and integration of disability into society will surely be an issue of profound importance in coming years. We need geographers prepared and willing to study these processes.     

Quoting television: a cross-national analysis of regulatory intervention in the independent television production industry in the UK and Spain

In order to understand the advent and consolidation of the independent television production industry, it is necessary to consider the essential role that quotas have played. This article offers a comparative empirically grounded analysis of the impact generated by a variety of quotas applied to independent production in the UK and Spain. First, it describes how quotas originating from the Television without Frontiers Directive are implemented in different ways. Second, through a sample of prime-time television in both countries, and in-depth interviews, the article analyses the strength of independent producers, their regional diversity and, in the Spanish case, the volume of investment in them by broadcasters. The results highlight the limitations of quotas and the need to intervene in different areas with alternative tools if the objectives originally pursued by the Directive for this sector are to be achieved.     

Using television: Programme content and need gratification

It is shown that audience members actively select amongst available programmes on television. This selection is based upon the social role and situational characteristics of the viewer and it is also directly related to the reasons given by viewers for watching television.

Patterns of programme selection are related to three clusters of needs and reasons. The two most important of these are composed of needs relating to information and diversion. The least important cluster is concerned with the self and social contact.

Escape and diversion needs are satisfied by almost any programme; selection is minimal by those viewers expressing these needs. Information needs are best satisfied by news and other informational programmes, while social and self needs are best satisfied by quiz and variety programmes, popular drama and movies.     

Claiming the high ground: theories of imperial authority and the British hill stations in India

By the 1880s, imperial government's practice of ‘retreating’ to the Indian hill stations for much of the year was well established. Despite the strength of this new tradition, such a relocation of colonial administration never lacked its critics. This paper examines the expanding administrative use of the hill stations from the early nineteenth century through the 1880s. As the nineteenth century ‘scientific’ framework for British control of India was formed, conflicting strategies and practices for maintaining imperial control required mediation and contrasting frameworks for defining duty and loyalty between government and subject vied for dominance. The significance of Utilitarian thought, changing appraisals of climate and constructions of race are evaluated in an analysis of the imperial hill stations.     

Sectarian identity and national identity in the Middle East

This article looks at modern sectarian (here referring to Sunni/Shi'a) identities and their interaction with nationalism in the Middle East. In doing so I make three interrelated claims: 1) the term ‘sectarianism’ is distortive and analytically counterproductive. A better understanding of modern sectarian identity requires us to jettison the term. 2) Once discarded, our focus can then shift to sectarian identity: how it is constructed, perceived, utilized and so forth. A holistic understanding of sectarian identity must recognize the multiple fields upon which it is constructed and contested. The model adopted here frames sectarian identity as simultaneously operating on four fields: doctrinal, subnational, transnational and, crucially for our purposes, the national dimension. 3) Thirdly, this article challenges the assumptions regarding national and sectarian identities in the modern Middle East. Contrary to conventional wisdom, modern sectarian identities are deeply embedded in the prism of the nation‐state and are inextricably linked to nationalism and national identity. The article will rely primarily on the example of modern Iraq but, as will be seen, the Iraqi example is significantly echoed in the cases of Bahrain, Syria and Lebanon.     

Archaeology and British television

Abstract

The years at the turn of the millennium were a period of high synergy between archaeology and British television, as terrestrial broadcasters struggled to maintain their identity in a more competitive, multi-channel environment. Responding to the public's growing appetite for both history and science, these channels, notably BBC2 and Channel4, rebranded the image of their factual output by investing heavily in archaeological programmes, building on the success of mid-1990s series that had established a healthy core audience for TV archaeology. The broadcasting of archaeological documentaries was to increase threefold between 1998 and 2002, with over 650 transmissions in five years. An analysis of the locations, time periods, subjects and styles of presentation of 590 of these demonstrates that the archaeology that was being presented was largely UK-based, but wide-ranging in periods and subject matter, and that the formats most used were ones that focused on the process of archaeological work. The study concludes that, seen as a whole, TV's portrayal of archaeology in these years was less sensationalized than has previously been acknowledged.     

After Cloture: Vote Switching,Credit Claiming,and Position Taking in the United States Senate

Vote switching in the United States Senate is not an uncommon occurrence. Nearly one in 10 cloture-final passage vote pairs involves senators switching their vote. We find that this inconsistency in voting behavior is a result of the combination of electoral pressures and the impact of the traceability of consequences in light of party forces and personal preferences. In general, we find that electorally vulnerable members of the majority party are more likely to engage in vote switching. The same is true of more electorally secure members of the minority party. However, the traceability of consequences is also a governing force in that electorally vulnerable members of the majority party are more likely to use vote switching as a credit claiming opportunity during periods of low media scrutiny. Electorally vulnerable members of the minority party are more likely to engage in position taking when there is greater media scrutiny.     

Claiming indigenous rights through participatory mapping and the making of citizenship

This paper considers how participatory mapping, through the notion of indigeneity, is involved in the making of participants' political agency and the possible implications for local struggles over customary land and resources. Empirically, the paper draws on a field study of participatory mapping as a cartographic-legal strategy for the recognition of the customary rights to land and resources of the Dayak, an indigenous ethnic group in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. In this paper, we use citizenship as a basis for our analysis. On this basis, we discuss how the notion of indigeneity has assembled actors across different scales and how this has enabled indigeneity to develop as a site for claiming customary rights to land and resources through participatory mapping. One of our main arguments is the need to understand indigenous citizenship as a process that develops over time and through networks of actors that transcend the borders of the state and expand the formerly exclusive relationship between the state and its citizens in the making of citizenship. We challenge Isin's clear distinction between active and activist approaches to making claims of citizenship, suggesting instead that these approaches are mutually constitutive.     

香港出土堆塑陶坛研究

在香港出土的陶瓷器中,有一类特殊的堆塑陶坛。器物修长,上宽下窄,椭圆形腹,腹部堆塑三到五道水波纹凸棱,高圈足。肩部堆贴一圈围栏和模印塑像。有盖,通常做成楼阁或塔刹形。陶坛外施酱黄釉,但大多都已剥落,有的甚至完全脱落,露出灰黄色胎。这类器物通常又被称为魂坛,除香港外,在广东的不少地区也有出土。对于其年代,以往有唐、宋两种不同的观点,也会笼统地说成唐宋时期。     

Heritage and national identity: Exploring the relationship in Romania

Abstract

Within heritage studies the relationship between national heritage and national identity is frequently taken as axiomatic. The construction of a national heritage is an important part of nation‐building, and historic buildings and monuments can be powerful symbols of a nation's aspirations and identity. Yet this relationship has received relatively little empirical investigation. This paper reports an exploratory study of the heritage/national identity relationship in Romania which focuses on just one Roman monument – Trajan's bridge. For many Romanians the monument is a powerful symbol of their identity representing Dacian and Roman origins, Latinity, and the continuity of Romanian settlement in Transylvania. The monument was also seen by some as an important symbol of Romania's attempt to construct a post‐Communist identity, and to forge closer links with western Europe. However, the meanings of the monument are not shared by all Romanians, and in particular are strongly contested by Romania's Hungarian minority.     

Nigeria's Igbo Jews: Jewish identity and practice in Abuja

The now widespread Igbo belief in a Jewish ancestry goes back to the 18th century. However, it was during and after the Nigerian civil war (1967–1970), in which at least one million Igbo died in the failed bid for Biafran independence, that Igbo identification with and as Jews concretized. Igbo saw themselves as sufferers of genocide, like the Jews of World War II in Europe, and as inhabitants of a beleaguered plot of land surrounded by hostile forces, similar to the state of Israel. The civil war and its disastrous consequences initiated a still ongoing period of intense questioning among the Igbo concerning their history, present predicaments, and future prospects. A small number of Igbo began to question why, if they were in fact Jews, they should continue practising Christianity. Their community now numbers between 2,000 and 5,000 people throughout Nigeria. There are three established Nigerian synagogues in Abuja, the federal capital, most of whose members are Igbo. The significance of Biafra, the centrality of the state of Israel, pride in Jewish ancestry and practice, and questions surrounding the range of Jewish skin colour, predominate in Igbo Jews' discussions of their identity. In contrast to the vast majority of Igbo who, if they maintain a sense of Jewish identity, do so while practising Christianity, Igbo Jews have severed themselves from the now dominant religion. Understanding themselves to be part of the global Jewish community of the diaspora and the state of Israel, the Igbo practising Judaism in Nigeria are eager for religious and political recognition from world Jewry and the Jewish state. However, self‐identifying Jewish groups without documented historical connections to more established Jewish communities face considerable challenges in gaining such recognition, particularly as genealogical Jews.