On Making Fathers in Lesu: The Historical Anthropology of a New Ireland Society

ABSTRACT This article examines the initiation of boys in Lesu, New Ireland, in 1929‐30. It is argued that these rituals not only transformed the initiands but also their fathers and thereby created counterpoint notions of social continuity in an openly ‘matrilineal’ society. Discursive and iconic symbolism identified and made manifest an alternative male cultural modality, not generally accessible to women. The neophytes' socially ascribed fathers, not necessarily their actual genitors, were in the world of female presuppositions ritually very marginal to their discursively defined children, but circumcision established a new sort of iconic fatherhood. Male social continuity involved the construction of flows in two directions, the future being dependent on the establishment of a past.     

New Ireland Malanggan Art: A Quest for Meaning

ABSTRACT Sustained scholarly interest in the malanggan carvings of New Ireland has achieved consensus regarding the social, political, and economic functions of the ceremonies in which they are used but inconclusive interpretations of the iconography of the art objects themselves continue. This paper finds an interpretation of recurring motifs in a reexamination of early reports, published and unpublished, of former burial customs. The perspective presented here supports but cannot confirm informants' insistence that the carvings are not religious but just pictures. No conclusions are reached regarding pre‐ or post‐Christian beliefs in general, but doubt is cast on their role in malanggan art. Some theoretical implications and further research directions are suggested.     

Style in New Ireland Art and Culture: Grasping the Native's Point of View

A review of definitions of style and studies of particular people suggest that while many studies of art discuss iconography, social relationships, structure, identity, form, function, and so on, few discuss style; and fewer discuss style as world view, ethos, values, or gestalt. In this paper, I report some findings of field work in the arts and cultures of New Ireland and New Hanover in support of research in cultural anthropology on style in this larger sense. I will provide some documentation for ‘the Native's point of view’ on this subject, which affirms its importance in any study of culture.     

新中国成立后历史考证学的新境界

在1949年以前业已取得很大成就的20世纪中国历史考证学,进入新中国以后,由于一批原先熟悉严密考证方法的史学家接受了唯物史观的指导,他们做到既发扬广搜史料、互相参证的优良传统,又能把握历史演进的大势,由表及里,探求历史事件之间的联系和发展演变的趋势,达到对历史本质的认识,因而使历史考证学达到了新的境界。他们的卓越成就为20世纪中国史学谱写了出色的篇章,留给我们许多重要的启示。     

The dilemmas of ontological insecurity in a postcolonising Northern Ireland

ABSTRACT

Since the signing of the Belfast Good Friday Agreement of 1998, Northern Ireland has made significant progress towards a postcolonising transformation of its political culture and its major political and social institutions, as it has shifted away from violence and the dominance of political ideologies structured by the friend–enemy distinction. These ideological formations and the practices of social and political antagonism that they prescribed have been challenged by adversary–neighbour ideological formations that construct identities and relations through more inclusive norms of recognition and that support a more complex emotional constellation. However, as this cultural transformation has been neither thoroughgoing nor universal, Northern Ireland finds itself in the somewhat counter-intuitive situation in which the shift away from the violence of the past has increased, rather than reduced, the ontological insecurity of its citizens. Moreover, as ontological security may be supported by either friend–enemy or adversary–neighbour ideological formations, two distinct ways in which ontological security may collapse or re-configure have emerged in Northern Ireland.     

留英学生与五四新文化运动——以《太平洋》杂志为中心

五四时期留英学生的思想活动鲜见论者讨论.本文以留英学生1917年初创刊于上海的<太平洋>杂志为中心,讨论其同人群体及其文化思想和教育主张.作为留英学界的一股知识力量,<太平洋>同人所提供的新思想观念,对于五四新文化运动具有积极推动和引导作用,这与以<新青年>作为运动的指导力量并无二致.但<太平洋>的思想背景有着浓厚的英伦调和主义色彩.     

Turning Stone into Bread: The Millstone Quarries of Medieval and Post-medieval Ireland

This article has two components; a discussion of an Ireland-wide inventory of millstone quarries and a detailed regional case study in order to study the development of the millstone industry at both micro and macro levels. The first component highlights the use of certain stone types used in Ireland and also uniformity in methods to extract each specific type of bedrock. Factors determining the commercialisation of millstones are also addressed. This is followed by intensive field-based investigation focusing on millstone quarries in Waterford Harbour in the south-east of the country. Research questions concerning geology, transport, typology, what techniques were used to transform a ‘rough-out’ piece, and the role individual quarries and local people played in the overall industrialisation of millstone production are addressed.     

Masshouses and Meetinghouses: The Archaeology of the Penal Laws in Early Modern Ireland

Archaeology has demonstrated that it can provide added insight into the study of early modern Ireland, although there has been a notable tendency for research to concentrate on secular aspects of society. Investigations into the period, however, would benefit from a greater awareness of contemporary religion, since this was a factor that played a major role in political, social, and economic life. An example of this is the introduction of Penal legislation by the Protestant-dominated Irish parliament in the early eighteenth century, directed at those whose religious outlook did not correspond to that of the Established Church.     

The contested interpretation of heritage landscapes in northern Ireland

Abstract

Because the nature of society is both negotiated and contested, cultural artefacts, including heritage landscapes, will be invested with differing and conflicting meanings by various social groups. This is but one aspect of what might be termed the dissonance of heritage. The present discussion is framed within the context of the argument that relics of the past are a resource to be selectively exploited in accordance with contemporary political and cultural demands. The paper uses the example of Ulster's Folk and Transport Museum to examine these issues. It concludes that while consumers do appreciate the cultural complexity of the Museum's role as one medium of communication of identity in a contested society, the institution's effectiveness in this regard is undermined by the middle‐class bias of those consumers.     

Historic storms and shipwrecks in Ireland: a preliminary survey of severe synoptic conditions as a causal factor in underwater archaeology

A number of authors have dealt with the historical reconstruction of synoptic conditions from shipping records during isolated incidents, notably naval events. The paper presents a broad survey of Irish shipwrecks that correlate with historic storms in an attempt to quantify the extent of these incidents, and relate the weather observations of the distressed vessels to those at meteorological stations, as well as those put forward by meteorologists reconstructing past conditions.     

Jack Goody: The Anthropology of Unequal Society

In almost four decades Jack Goody has published a score of books seeking to explain the divergence of Africa from the Eurasian continent, and latterly to refute historical claims of western superiority to Asia. Since the millennium, he has sought to clarify his own vision of modern capitalism at a time when western hegemony is coming under pressure from globalization. Yet this achievement has not received the recognition from anthropologists that it deserves. This article, in reviewing six books published during the last decade, makes a case for reassessing Goody's project from the mid-1970s until now. It singles out two books for special attention, The Theft of History and his latest volume, Metals, Culture and Capitalism. A consistent theme of his recent work is to juxtapose his own account of the history of western capitalism with those of Marx, Weber and other writers in the classical tradition of social theory. Jack Goody remains to this day an anthropologist whose sensibility was formed by long-term ethnographic fieldwork. But he knew that, if he aspired to throw light on the human predicament as a whole, he would have to become a world historian too.     

Cromwell,Parliament, Ireland and a Commonwealth in Crisis: 1652 Revisited*

This article investigates an episode in 1652 which is usually ignored and has never been explained. On 19 May 1652 the Rump Parliament, without forewarning, voted not to renew the office of lord lieutenant and thereby stripped the lord general, Oliver Cromwell of one of his highest and most significant offices. The article seeks to penetrate the wall of silence in the press and in the parliamentary records to see what lay behind this decision, which split the Commons down the middle. It seeks to relate the decision to two very different visions of the settlement to be imposed on Ireland following the rebellion of 1641 and the ‘Cromwellian conquest’ and it suggests that it is likely that the subsequent act of the Rump, which sought the execution of tens of thousands of Irish royalists, the exiling of many tens of thousands more and the herding of almost all of the rest of the catholic population into four counties in the west of England – known to history as the ‘Cromwellian settlement’– was precisely a settlement Cromwell did not want.     

The Anthropology of Christianity: Context,Contestation, Rupture,and Continuity

Still in its developmental stages, the anthropological study of Christianity is unsettled. This essay assesses the study of a faith tradition that has been relatively ignored until recently. The books under review offer examples of the emerging anthropology of Christianity. Four themes receive attention: challenges to the anthropology of Christianity, the comparative enterprise, authority and order, and the nexus of continuity and rupture. These themes provide a glimpse into anthropology's ongoing evolution in its own right and within the larger academy.     

科学实证与文化阐释:中国新史学之双轨

中国新史学中最常见的两种历史研究方式是科学实证与文化阐释,前者旨在建立历史事实之真或寻求历史演变之理,后者则以探寻历史之意义或彰显切实之史识为目标,此二者可谓中国新史学之"双轨"。中国新史学正是沿此"双轨"向前发展的。从新史学之"双轨"着眼,并依据"新异性的标准",中国新史学界应有"八大家",他们分别是:梁启超、王国维、陈寅恪、胡适、顾颉刚、傅斯年、郭沫若和钱穆。科学实证与文化阐释,这两种不同的历史研究取径,展示了中国新史学研究的多元面相,二者之间是相互融通的,并无根本性的冲突与对垒,其在治史观念与方法上亦可做到相互补益,相得益彰。许冠三在《新史学九十年》中因陷入"科学"迷思的褊狭"新史学观",以科学实证拒斥文化阐释,故而未能将钱穆基于"文化"视角来研究历史的文化史学视为新史学。钱穆的新史学特质主要表现为:在继承中国传统史学遗产之基础上,注重历史研究主体与客体的统一,以文化为本位,以阐释为取径,其典型表现是"以士释史";以中国为立场,注重探寻本国历史文化之意义,探求与本国历史文化相符合之史识,强调历史学的经世致用功能。钱穆的新史学观与后现代主义在批判科学主义历史学、反对文化一元论和西方中心主义历史观等方面多有契合之处,但其以"于客观中求实证"为基础的历史认识论与走向历史虚无主义的后现代主义有着本质的区别。     

Economic Development,Entrepreneurial Embeddedness and Resilience: The Case of Pubs in Rural Ireland

Public houses, or “pubs”, have and always had an important role in the Irish culture, economy and society. Even more, pubs located in the Irish countryside represent vital networking places for local communities, and provide a significant contribution to local supply chains with their purchasing. Their decline in number, registered in recent decades, significantly affects local communities, determining the vanishing of many jobs and business opportunities in areas frequently characterized by small population catchments, infrastructural deficit and spatial remoteness. This paper explores the impact of pubs in creating economic development in rural areas of Ireland. The paper examines the current pattern of procurement and employment associated with pubs in the Irish countryside and its effects upon local supply chains. In addition, the paper investigates pubs' activities and publicans influence with regard to concepts such as entrepreneurial embeddedness and resilience. The authors present and discuss findings from an analysis conducted on a unique data set obtained with the use of a survey questionnaire, corroborated by information gathered from interviews with pub owners and managers. Results increase the level of knowledge about the formation of social networks and economic capital in rural Ireland, and provide valuable insights for practitioners and policy-makers about the role played by pubs within rural supply chains.     

Understanding Policy Change Using a Critical Junctures Theory in Comparative Context: The Cases of Ireland and Sweden

Utilizing a new theory for examining critical junctures, we seek to better understand the nature of industrial policy change in Ireland during the 1950s and macroeconomic policy change in Sweden in the 1980s. Did these policy changes constitute critical junctures, or something less, and if so why? The theory consists of three elements—economic crisis, ideational change, and the nature of the policy change—that must be identified for us to be able to declare with some certainty if a policy change constitutes a critical juncture. Herein, we will be examining the roles of a variety of change agents including the media, central banks, and politicians. Our findings will help explain why Irish industrial policy was transformed in the late 1950s, while Swedish macroeconomic policy underwent only minor change in the early 1980s.     

The Partisan Impacts of Non-Partisan Redistricting: Northern Ireland 1993–95

Space is manipulated for political purposes in a great variety of ways, and its restructuring is frequently a focus of conflict. The nature of such conflict is explored here.¹ Legislation requires that all parliamentary constituencies in the United Kingdom are periodically reviewed by independent Boundary Commissions. The Fourth Periodic Review in Northern Ireland began in 1993 and coincided with a period of intense political activity, associated with what was commonly termed 'the peace process'. Political parties, anxious to ensure that the resulting boundaries favoured their partisan interests (and, in the case of Sinn Fein, keen to establish their democratic bona fides ), invested considerable effort in their attempts to influence the outcome. The Commissions' recommendations became the subject of claim and counter-claim regarding bias towards one or other of the province's two main communities – Nationalist and Unionist – and as a result of that conflict, they were revised with priority given to a different criterion. This paper evaluates those claims with a close inspection of the redistricting process, illustrating how an ostensibly non-partisan process is partisan in both its conduct and its outcome.     

The historical significance of President Kennedy's visit to Ireland in June 1963

President John F. Kennedy's visit to Ireland in June 1963 was the first by a serving American President. Using materials from archives in London, Dublin, and Boston, this article re-assesses the motives behind Kennedy's decision to visit Ireland and concludes that it was largely a personal journey. However, the trip was not without wider historical and political significance and was surrounded by controversy. The visit was unpopular in the United States, proved a security nightmare, and provoked much discussion amongst the political leadership in Belfast, Dublin and London over Kennedy's attitude to partition. The visit marked a major development in the history of Irish-American relations as it eased tensions over Ireland's neutrality, marked a shift towards White House activism in Irish affairs, boosted Irish tourism, and fostered increased trading and cultural links between the two countries.     

Home stories: immigrant narratives of place and identity in contemporary Ireland

This paper discusses immigrant identity and place in contemporary Ireland. It draws from a longitudinal research project that involved recent immigrants to Ireland. Participants in the project came from 18 different countries, and ranged in age from 22 to 68. Their reasons for moving to Ireland were varied, and included work, adventure, and personal relationships. Combining insights from sociolinguistics and human geography, the paper first considers the different ways in which immigrants to Ireland narrate place and identity, paying particular attention to content and linguistic strategies. It then provides a more detailed discussion of the relationship between immigrant identity and place through a focus on the concept of “home,” highlighting the linguistic strategies and means that immigrants used to discursively construct notions of home and identity in their interviews. The paper concludes by arguing that detailed discourse level analysis of people's narratives of place offers new insights into the relationship between immigrant identity and place.