Russian Peasant Farms and Household Plots in 2003: A Research Note

An American specialist on Russian agriculture surveys the current legal status of peasant farms and subsidiary agriculture ("private plots") in Russia following the enactment of two important new laws in 2003. In the process, he highlights differences between peasant farms and subidiary plots in terms of the quantity and type of food produced, the size of land plots utilized, and their legal status. Also reviewed are selected aspects of the recent economic perfomance of these two pillars of private-sector agriculture. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: O13, O18, Q15. 16 references.     

Village Inventions: Historical Variations Upon a Regional Theme in Uiaku,Papua New Guinea

Anthropologists have come to realize that even the most ‘traditional’ Melanesian practices and ideologies may be historically shaped by the people's experiences within encompassing regional systems. This article examines the reshaping of local understandings of the village among the Maisin people of Oro Province over the past century. I distinguish three contexts within which Maisin notions of the village have been formed: colonial models of village government imposed before the Second World War; Christian village cooperatives in the post-war colonial period; and village meetings in the 1980s. The paper shows that the idea of the village has a complex evolution, shaped within overlapping dialogues between villagers and significant outsiders and between elder and younger village leaders who have had differing experiences of the outside world and the place of their own community within it.     

The Myth of Authority and the Authority of Myth

The view of local governors in the Russian Empire as all-powerful is overly simplistic and cannot in itself explain the Russian Revolution of 1917.     

历史与神话:天地会西鲁故事由来及天地会起源

有关创教和起会的历史神话是我国民间教派和帮会共同的现象。合理解读这些神话,既是民间教派和帮会研究的任务,也是进一步探明民间教派和帮会历史的一把钥匙。本文抓住“戏剧化”这一关键环节,对明清民间教派和帮会创教、起会历史神话中的“昏(君)奸(臣)与功(臣)”故事结构模式进行探讨,进而用天地会的历史解析其起会历史神话“西鲁故事”的形成过程,力求廓清笼罩在天地会起源问题上的迷雾。     

The Carnival of Custom: Land Dives,Millenarian Parades and Other Spectacular Ritualizations in Vanuatu

ABSTRACT This paper deals with the aestheticization and commoditization of culture in specific grand rituals held in Vanuatu. Through political, commercial and juridical processes, the traditional referent of these neo‐ritualizations has been replaced by a celebration of the kastom theme itself; the official value of a regional, national, and global cultural heritage. The examination of two iconic rituals, the Nagol land dive on Pentecost island and the 15th February annual commemoration of John Frum on Tanna island, reveals them as similarly invoking a Christian and colonially inspired reverence in their idealization of an ancestral past. Nevertheless, the increasing monetarization of village communities through the global promotion of kastom spectacles by media and for touristic purposes is ever more frequently considered locally as a factor of inequality or division.     

Myth and mobilisation: the triadic structure of nationalist rhetoric

Drawing on the theory of collective action frames, this essay analyses the use of images of a primordial ‘golden age’ in the rhetoric of national mobilisation. Such idealised images of the past, juxtaposed with exaggerated depictions of a degraded present and a utopian future condition, constitute a rhetorical triad that is an effective instrument for motivating mass political movements. The model developed here emphasises the links between identity formation and political mobilisation, analysing how narratives of communal decline and redemption play a central role in defining the agendas of nationalist movements.     

Beyond the Fringe: Transfer-Printed Ceramics and the Internationalization of Celtic Myth

During the Romantic period of the nineteenth century, a wholesale invention of cultural myth and tradition took place in what we now think of as the industrialized West. One of the more interesting aspects of this invention of tradition was the development of the mythic Celtic past in Western Europe, particularly Scotland and Wales. This reinvention of the past is reflected in aspects of material culture, including contemporary transfer-print patterns, many of which contain scenes based on the themes of the mythic past. This paper surveys some of the more common Scottish- and Welsh-related patterns and attempts to place them in their appropriate cultural and historical context as well as demonstrating how they reflect certain cultural trends of the period. Some of the broader issues and implications surrounding these patterns, especially regarding their use as a vehicle for disseminating an ideological perspective internationally, are also examined.