The Asaba massacre and the Nigerian civil war: reclaiming hidden history

This article explores the consequences of a massacre of civilians in Asaba, a town on the west bank of the river Niger, during the early stages of the Nigerian civil war. While ethnically Igbo, Asaba was not part of the Igbo-dominated Biafra, remaining part of the ethnically diverse midwest region. In the international memory of the war, the midwest action, which claimed several thousand lives, has been eclipsed by the catastrophic events east of the Niger, after the federal blockade of Biafra. This article sheds new light on the human cost of the war on civilian populations outside Biafra. Drawing on interviews with survivors and their descendants, we describe the killings, pillaging and rapes that followed the arrival of the federal troops, and trace the long-term impact and memory of the physical and human devastation in Asaba on family structure, gender roles, educational opportunities and social structure. We show how the official suppression of the massacres, coupled with Biafran awareness of the events, contributed to the subsequent course of the war, and we suggest that this suppression has left a legacy that perpetuates resentment and has kept ethnic tensions alive to this day.     

The selected representation of contested prison history: memorial exhibitions and tourist experiences

The Jing-Mei Detention Centre, Taipei, is one of the primary sites associated with the ‘White Terror’, which took place during the imposition of Martial Law in Taiwan (1949–1987), by the authoritarian post-war regime of Chiang Kai-shek. Taiwan’s intelligence agencies violated civil rights and liberties. Suspects suffered arrest, interrogation, torture, trial, and imprisonment. The former detention centre has become Jing-Mei Human Rights Memorial and Cultural Park, which is one of two penal facilities dealing with the processing of political prisoners and for the suppression of activists who struggled for human rights. This study focuses on the interpretation by visitors of exhibitions at the site and the process of historical representation at the memorial park. The roles of the relevant parties were identified through interviews with former prisoners. The selection criteria, and the approaches to interpretation employed by the exhibition planners to represent a contested history, were examined. An analysis of visitor experiences and interaction with historical interpretation and layout in the exhibition demonstrated the visitors’ disoriented, yet unified, perceptions. A model of prison history has been developed that selects the memories and materials used to depict the past, unifying the multiple layers of histories during the ‘White Terror’.     

The view from Lima: Recent publications on Andean Colonial history in Peru

Relación de la religión y ritos del Perú hecha por los padres agustinos. Edited, preliminary study and notes by LUCILA CASTRO DE TRELLES. Lima: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, 1992. Pp. lxxxvii, 75.

Curacas, reciprocidad y riqueza. By FRANKLIN PEASE G.Y. Lima: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, 1992. Pp. 208.

Perú. Hombre e historia. Vol. II. Entre el siglo XVI y el XVIII. By FRANKLIN PEASE G.Y. Lima: EDUBANCO, 1992. Pp. vii, 347.

Pachacamac y el Señor de los Milagros. Una trayectoria milenaria. By MARIA ROSTWOROWSKI DE DIEZ CANSECO. Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 1992. Pp. 214.

Las visitas a Cajamarca 1571–72/1578. Documentos. Preliminary studies and edition by MARIA ROSTWOROWSKI DE DIEZ CANSECO and MARIA DEL PILAR REMY. Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 1992. 2 vols. Pp. vi, 416, 463.

Instrucción al licenciado Lope García de Castro (1570). By EL INCA TITU CUSI YUPANQUI. Edited and preliminary study by LILIANA REGALADO DE HURTADO. Paleography by DEOLINDA VILLA E. Lima: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, 1992. Pp. lviii, 84.     

Pilgrim routes as contested spaces in Norway

Abstract

Many of today’s pilgrim routes are not only conceived of as religious thoroughfares. They are also seen as historical and cultural routes and are embraced by heritage polices and the tourism industry. It follows from this that contemporary pilgrim routes are endowed with many meanings and expectations, both in the public and private spheres. While much research has focused its attention on the diversity of motives, experiences and symbolic meaning processes among those who embark on journeys along pilgrim routes, less attention has been paid to the varieties of stakeholders involved. By exploring how different types of stakeholders engage with a recently reinvented pilgrim route in Norway, it is shown how this route represents a contested space. Among various stakeholders involved in the development and the management of the pilgrimage, as well as stakeholders who take an interest in the material and symbolic benefits one could possibly draw from it, there are disagreements on what kind of heritage pilgrimage should represent. The differing approaches are basically represented by those who want to promote religious motivations, traditionalist outdoor recreation interests and stakeholders who primarily want to develop and market the pilgrim route in a touristic context. While distinctions between categories such as pilgrims and tourists, or vacationers and religious travellers, are becoming more and more blurred, opposing and partly intersecting discourses among stakeholders tend in this case to result in the upholding of these kinds of distinctions. This implies that travellers along pilgrim route are not left to themselves with their experiences and practices. While some stakeholders take an interest in what pilgrims are doing, in the sense that they want to profit from it, others are concerned about questions of whom a pilgrim is and for whom a pilgrim route is for.     

Care as mundane politics: contested familial refugee lives in Finland

Refugees often find themselves in challenging positions regarding their familial relations while seeking asylum. Whereas transnational human rights agreements and institutions identify families as units of protection and sources of care with variable compositions, many immigration policies and humanitarian practices regard familial relations also problematic and interpret refugees’ rights to family life narrowly. This leaves refugees’ attempts to draw from and manage their transnational family lives poorly recognized and supported. In result, refugees may end up in paradoxical subject positions of having to give up and take responsibility for their families, with their own experiences and understanding of familial life remaining secondary. These contradictions are heightened when familial concerns are among the reasons for seeking asylum, involving caring and uncaring relations. In this article, we analyze familiality as a form of mundane care politics in refugee situations, based on our study with asylum seekers and refugees in Finland.     

The Dutch Colonial House And the Colonial Revival

The Colonial Revival was a major movement in twentieth-century American domestic architecture. The Dutch Colonial house, one of many Revival styles, provides a useful index of Colonial Revival popularity, which was greatest between 1905 and 1940. This popularity was based upon a nostalgic idealization of the nation's colonial past, and was apparently tied to white Protestant dissatisfaction with urbanizing, industrializing America. The persistence of Colonial Revival styles in the landscape throughout this century and a recent resurgence in their popularity suggest that the idealization of colonial America continues to be an important feature of American popular culture and cultural geography.     

Languages as Women: The Feminisation of Linguistic Discourses in Colonial North India

This article locates and analyses the gendered discourses of Hindi and Urdu linguistic identity in late nineteenth‐century colonial north India. Using a new concept of language woman, it characterises the multiple discourses of feminisation through three distinctive terms of linguistic femininity, linguistic morality and linguistic patriarchy. These three modes of representation and articulation of feminised discourses over Hindi and Urdu languages are explored using the concept of heteronormativity as a political, ideological and social–cultural construct. The paper argues that language woman established an intimate bond between nationalisation and feminisation of the dominant Hindi linguistic identity in private and public domains as not mutually opposed but complementary and reproducible of each other.     

The Evolution of American Colonial Assemblies as Legislative Organizations

I examine the organizational evolution of the American colonial assemblies. The assemblies, like their modern progeny, established organizational boundaries, created standing committees, adopted increasingly complex rules and procedures, evolved apprenticeship and seniority norms in regard to leadership positions, and acquired specialized staff and facilities. After documenting the rise of these common legislative features, I turn to the question of how we can explain their existence at a far earlier time than most political scientists realize. I conclude with an examination of the implications of these findings for our understanding of how legislative institutions evolve.     

The commonwealth as history

The Imperial Dream: The British Commonwealth and Empire 1775–1969 by Edward Grierson. London: Collins, 1972. Pp. 320. £2.50. It is a pity that no one has troubled to read the proofs; the bibliography is peppered with spelling mistakes.

Commonwealth: A History of the British Commonwealth of Nations by H. Duncan Hall, with an introduction by Sir Robert Menzies. London, New York, Cincinnati, Toronto, Melbourne: Van Nostrand Reinhold Co., 1971. Pp. xxxvi+1015, maps, illustrations. £10.00.     

A contested legacy: the Kennedy Committee revisited

The Kennedy Committee Report on Ireland's reformatory and industrial schools, published in 1970, is an important, though contested, milestone in the history of Ireland's childcare policy. The Committee found its genesis in Church/state conflict and conducted much of its work in the teeth of state and religious opposition. Its published report was watered down on the understanding that the state would act to curb the worst excesses of the system without the need for some of the more damaging discoveries reaching the public realm. Notwithstanding this the published report became the focus of political manoeuvring that stifled its potential effectiveness. Its legacy, therefore, is mixed, marking the beginning of the slow painful modernisation of the Irish childcare system whilst being an opportunity lost in terms of its potential to ameliorate the suffering of children detained in the system for a further three decades.     

The Cold War as history

Jonathan Haslam's Russia's Cold War is the latest effort by a western scholar to synthesize new research and findings on the Soviet role in the Cold War. Citing an array of published Russian archival material, Haslam seeks to resuscitate the traditional western Cold War view that the conflict was the inevitable result of communist expansionism. However, the material cited by Haslam does not support such a conclusion and he ignores conflicting evidence and views. The Cold War was a war of choice not necessity, the result of distorted perceptions and calculations by both sides, aided and abetted by generations of ideologically aligned historians.     

The politics of holding: home and LGBT visibility in contested Jerusalem

This article explores LGBT politics of space in Jerusalem, a contested and fractured city. By interpreting the challenges and contradictions inherent in the Jerusalem Open House (JOH), a social movement and community space in Jerusalem, the article will show how the discourse and the practice of the JOH lead to a politics of holding. This LGBT spatial politics consists of striving to include oppositional politics, emphasizing the consolidation of public and private LGBT politics of home. The JOH persistently maintains a politics of holding, continually balancing inclusion, creating a home-like space and framing the organizational space as a shelter for all LGBT individuals in Jerusalem, while adopting a politics of visibility. This visibility enhanced processes of politicization which at many points stand in contrast to the JOH’s goals of being accessible, inclusive, and safe. The politics of holding illustrates the religious, political, national, and ideological fractures’ at work in producing a unique kind of LGBT spatial politics in the conservative Jerusalem space.