Where is the state? How is the state? Accessing water and the state in Mumbai and Johannesburg

This article examines the water distribution systems in Johannesburg and Mumbai to argue that the political and institutional contexts of service delivery shape people’s access to the state and its resources, and also mediation between citizens and government institutions by councillors. Through ethnographies of water supply and distribution systems in Mumbai and Johannesburg, I explain how the organizational structure of the water utility, institutional arrangements of service delivery, regulatory systems, councillors’ proximity to decision makers and their relationship with municipal officials, civil servants and party members variously influence councillors’ mediation capacities and their ability to fulfil the claims of their constituencies for piped water supply and connections.     

Teaching terrorism,saving the state? Education and geopolitical imaginations of terrorism in 12 violently challenged states

The role of education in political socialisation and the importance of terrorism discourses in promoting (or silencing) certain interests have long been acknowledged. This study combines both themes by asking: How do school textbooks, sanctioned by states that are violently challenged by internal opposition, discuss the issue of terrorism? I draw on, and contribute to, four distinct, yet related streams of research: critical geopolitics, critical terrorism studies, geographies of education, and young people's geographies. Simultaneously, while most work on the topic focuses on individual cases (typically of Western countries), I conduct the first comparative analysis of twelve countries from different world regions: China, Egypt, India, Kenya, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Philippines, Russia, Spain, Sri Lanka and Turkey. Contrary to recent claims, considerable heterogeneity persists regarding geopolitical imaginations of terrorism, while US-coined discourses are only infrequently adapted. However, there is still recognisable functionalist convergence as the states under analysis utilise their control of the education system in their internal struggles, mainly by portraying their opponents as evil, by ascribing a positive identity to themselves, and by calling for support by their citizens (including restrictions of human rights and democracy).     

In the name of God: translation and transformation of Chinese culture,foreign religion,and the reproduction of “Tianzhu” and “Shangdi”

Translation between one language and culture into another assumes that a fundamental set of commonalities exist between the two cultural and linguistic contexts. In the case of the Christian Bible, Chinese translations not only involved translating words into Chinese, but also adapting and transforming an exotic Western religion for local sensibilities in such a way that Christianity might be recognized as a legitimate system of thought within a Chinese cultural milieu. Focusing on the perspective of different Chinese translations of the name of the Christian God, this article examines the history of the debate regarding the issue of translation, and the approaches adopted by the Catholic and Protestant faiths. It examines the reclamation and evolution of traditional Chinese vocabulary into new terminology through the application of Western religious concepts, and the ways in which indigenous Chinese society accepted these concepts, with an eye towards examining the course of historical progress through the history of social adoption of these ideas.     

The Little Nyonya and Singapore’s national self: reflections on aesthetics,ethnicity and postcolonial state formation

Singapore’s postcolonial state formation process has combined the appeal/distress of a multiracial society with the nationalistic pride of economic development. In recent years, the city-state has witnessed a revival of Peranakan culture and history, referring to the descendants of early Chinese immigrants who integrated into Indigenous societies before becoming prized mediators for British colonisers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We question how these references are strategically deployed as part of the process of postcolonial state formation and how their aesthetic representations support public discussions and debates about what defines contemporary (Chinese) Singaporean identity. By examining Peranakan representations in the television series The Little Nyonya from a Deleuzian perspective, it will be argued that Peranakan history and culture are mobilised to de-territorialise previous meanings of national ethnic markers, specifically Chineseness, and to re-territorialise a local sense of Indigeneity. In reaction to concerns over Mainlander identity, representations of Peranakan culture and history in The Little Nyonya support the indigenisation of a specific Chinese identity that is accessible to all Singaporeans, offering an aesthetic framework in which the ongoing process of negotiating between Singapore’s national self and other unfolds.     

The “informer” and the political and organisational culture of the Irish republican movement: old and new interpretations

This article will analyse recent interpretations of the “informer” as a subject of political and historical significance for a balanced understanding of the trajectory of the Provisional Republican movement. It will do so in part through a discussion of some recent fiction and memoir-writing devoted to the figure of the informer. Specifically, this will involve an exploration of the recent fictional re-imagination of the real-life case of Denis Donaldson, by the French journalist Sorj Chalandon (Mon traître, 2007 and Retour à Killybegs, 2011) (These novels have been translated into English as My Traitor (2011) and Return to Killybegs (2013)). All subsequent references are to the English versions. In the first section, the article analyses the historical evolution of the phenomenon and recent revelations regarding the apparently widespread existence of informers in the movement during the Troubles. This section engages with the academic debate concerning the effects of these revelations upon the morale and internal political culture of the republican movement; it is argued here that the “Republican family” has been significantly affected by these disclosures in the “post-conflict” era, and that they have become an important element in the contestation between leadership supporters and “dissenters” within contemporary republicanism. The second section utilises old and new literary representations of “the informer”, particularly based around Liam O’Flaherty’s The Informer and Chalandon’s work, to discuss continuities and changes in the image and perception of this phenomenon. It is argued that the interweaving of fiction with real-life and factual historical detail is a particularly appropriate means of interpreting the role and effects of the informer.     

“A handshake across the Himalayas:” Chinese investment,hydropower development,and state formation in Nepal

Abstract

This article examines contemporary patterns of Chinese infrastructure development in Nepal’s Rasuwa District and the ways in which Nepali actors engage with Chinese investments to advance projects of state formation. Particularly in the wake of political volatility and natural disaster, Chinese interventions support the material and imaginative projects of a Nepalese state seeking stability, security, and economic growth. Long perceived as peripheral to the state center, Rasuwa is rapidly becoming central to Sino-Nepal relations, particularly in the context of bilateral investments in hydropower and transportation infrastructure. Drawing on data generated from 30 months of fieldwork in Nepal, we argue that Chinese development in Rasuwa: a) undergirds territorializing practices of the Nepalese state; b) represents a “gift of development” that connects Nepali ambitions of bikas (development) with Chinese anxieties over exile Tibetan populations; and c) reflects a strategic reorientation of geopolitical alliances between Nepal, China, and India. Challenging studies that depict Chinese development as an overwhelming extractive force, we instead show how small states like Nepal in fact use Chinese interventions to advance domestic projects of state formation and national security at home. On the basis of this study, we expand understandings about the place and priority of infrastructure in national state-making agendas, illustrate uneven local experiences with international development interventions, and highlight new configurations of Chinese investment and development abroad – characterized in Nepal as a “handshake across the Himalayas.”     

Belief and ritual: Has anthropology lost its magic?

Brown, Michael F. Tsewa's Gift: Magic and Meaning in an Amazonian Society. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1985. No front matter, 220 pp. including appendices, chapter notes, bibliography, and index. $19.95 cloth.

Elworthy, Frederick Thomas. The Evil Eye: An Account of This Ancient and Widespread Superstition. New York: The Julian Press, 1986. xi + 471 pp. including illustrations and index. $7.95 paper.

Hurley, J. Finley. Sorcery. Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985. vi + 232 pp. including key to principle sources, principle sources, and index. $25.00 cloth.

La Fontaine, J. S., Initiation: Ritual Drama and Secret Knowledge Across the World. New York: Penguin, 1986. No front matter, 208 pp. including notes to chapters and index. $5.95 paper.     

Funding the arts and culture through dedicated state lotteries—Part II: Opening the way for alternative decision making and funding structures

CULTURAL POLICY AND THE POLITICS OF CULTURE, Forum organised by the Remarque Institute, held at White Oak Conference Center, Florida November 19–22, 1998     

Common Ground,Multiple Claims: Representing and Constructing Singapore’s “Heartland”

This article examines the various meanings of “heartland” and “heartlander” in Singapore that emerged as the city-state embarked on its transformation into a global city in the 1990s. It discusses the political and ideological nature of these terms, including the way the state has tended to deploy them and the ways they are used in public discourse. The terms’ usage serves as a measure of the state’s not unproblematic attempts to define its citizenry in order to reinscribe its legitimacy. The deployment of the terms by non-state actors and individuals, however, indicates greater civic involvement in national self-identification, which complicates the official state version. The article focuses on two significant Singapore texts that contribute to the cultural imaginary of the heartland and the heartlander – the novel Heartland by Daren Shiau and the film Eating Air by Kelvin Tong and Jasmine Ng. In implicit opposition to the state view, these creative works seek to convey a sense of the local and of national authenticity through their creative representation of the Singapore heartland and what it means to be a heartlander, disclosing in the process various social tensions, silences and cultural blind spots.     

Defenders of the state: the Irish Labour Party,coalitionism and revisionism, 1969–77

Irish Labour Party politics underwent a significant transformation during the period 1969–77. During these years, the party moved from a position of opposition to coalition and apparent support for socialist politics to involvement in a coalition government with Fine Gael and an abandonment of its previously stated goal, the thirty-two-county socialist republic. This paper locates the main factor behind this shift in Labour’s attachment to the institutions of the Republic of Ireland state. As that state was threatened by the crisis in Northern Ireland from 1969 onwards, so the Labour Party was compelled to shift ground politically and move towards agencies that could offer stability. This led to permanent shifts in Labour policy and strategy.     

Trafficked Enough? Missing Bodies,Migrant Labour Exploitation,and the Classification of Trafficking Victims in Singapore

Critical geographical research has recently drawn attention to representations of vulnerable or exploited groups that articulate racist or neo‐colonial imaginations, including where these geographical imaginations are implicated in the classification and characterisation of groups for legal purposes. In the case of vulnerable groups of migrants such practices can be invoked to create distinctions that justify the socio‐spatial exclusion or containment, thus oftentimes having profound implications for real people who must manoeuvre the consequences of classification. The paper builds on this strand of inquiry by exploring the imaginaries surrounding trafficking victimhood and the implications of classification for temporary labour migrants in Singapore into “trafficked” and “non‐trafficked” categories. I argue that in the Singaporean context government interest in maintaining the current labour/migration regime is equally as significant as racist and neo‐colonial imaginations and intersect with the latter in productive ways to sort vulnerable migrants into categories of trafficked and non‐trafficked.