Heritage,amenity, and the changing landscape of the rural American West

The production landscapes that once dominated the rural American West are being transformed into amenity landscapes intended largely for consumption by in-migrants and visitors. However, once people settle in the rural West, a newly realized amenity may be recognized: the region's relic cultural landscape. This paper builds upon a 2007 study that used resident-employed photography to assess the varying environmental perspectives of, and social interactions between, newcomers and long-established ranchers in a rural Colorado valley. Photographs taken by both lifelong ranchers and newer nonagricultural residents highlighted two relic landscapes in the valley: its cemetery and one-room schoolhouse. This study investigates these particular cultural landscapes, their histories, meanings, and what their futures in this region may hold, given the in-migration. Using archives, landscape interpretation, and interviews with key informants, this paper analyzes how newcomers may appropriate these relic landscapes and further develop them as cultural amenities in their new environment. Simultaneously, long-established ranchers may defend these landscapes of their own heritage against such co-optation. The interests of newcomers in these historic relics impacts how they are, and will continue to be, managed, possibly creating new opportunities for social interaction among these groups.     

Irish Female Emigration in the 1930s: Transgressing space and culture

Following the establishment of the Irish Free State in the 1920s, the continuing levels of emigration from Ireland came as a disappointment to many who believed that British colonialism had caused and perpetuated the emigration problem. Within this context, there was a need to explain emigration in ways that deflected blame away from the new state authorities. In this article, the author contributes to a gendered analysis of these shifting constructions of emigration. Drawing upon Irish newspapers of the period, she suggests that the figure of the 'emigrant girl' was central to post-colonial discourses on emigration. During the 1930s, the emigration of thousands of young Irish women to English cities such as London sparked widespread comment and criticism. The Irish press and the Catholic hierarchy in particular propagated an image of these vulnerable young women as lost and alone in the big, bad cities of England. The author analyses the ways in which the 'emigrant girl' embodied specific representations of place, culture and gendered identity; the 'emigrant girl' embodied an Irishness marked by religion, culture and landscape. Through her transgression of physical, cultural and religious spaces, she encountered loneliness, danger and the risk of denationalisation.     

Gendered and generational experiences of place and power in the rural Irish landscape

The out-migration of young people from rural regions is a selective and highly gendered process suggesting considerable differentiation in the way young men and women identify with and experience rural life. Gender imbalance in rural youth out-migration has prompted feminist researchers to consider more carefully linkages between the gendered nature of rural space and place and the social and spatial mobility of rural young men and women. Based on 11 months of ethnographic fieldwork in a rural Irish fishing community, this article explores the gendered dimensions of rural youth experience. Theoretically grounded in the conceptual triad of gender, power and place, this article considers how young men and women experience ‘the rural’ as masculine and feminine subjects. Special attention is given to the ways in which relations of power in ‘the rural’ are articulated, contested and accommodated in the everyday lives of local young men and women. As well as highlighting the ways in which rural space and place is male-dominated, this article foregrounds other power relations at play in the rural. As part of this effort, I problematize male power and point to the ‘effectivity of girls as conduits of power’. I argue that subjectivities of intra-gender relations are a critical dimension of rural youth experience and cannot be overlooked in research on rural youth experience and emigration.     

Dynamics of Disintegration: Diaspora,Secession and the Paradox of Nation-States

Abstract. The underlying logic of an international system based on nation-states should lead to the gradual elimination of trans-national loyalties, intra-national divisions and stateless communities. Paradoxically, current realities indicate that the reverse is true, with these phenomena becoming more and more prevalent. The article proposes a comprehensive analytical framework for the study of the complex relationships between diaspora formation, secessionist (and irredentist) drives and the existing nation-state system. It traces the genesis, and the subsequent effects, of differing variants of diaspora formations and secession (irredentist) movements to the interplay between two distinct independent variables: (1) the formation and disintegration of different nation-types (ethno-focal or ideo-focal); and (2) the modus operandi of different regime-types (libertarian or authoritarian). The processes produced by these interactions generate a perennial source for the rejuvenation of old identities and the awakening of new ones, which in turn constitute an incessant challenge to the prevailing state system. Thus rather than becoming an anomalous anachronism of the past, diasporas and separatist sentiments appear to be not only an endemic feature of the international system, but a pivotal element in comprehending the direction of present and future trends in it.     

Diaspora, kinship and loyalty: the renewal of Jewish national security

This article assesses the new thinking on Jewish security, both inside and outside the state of Israel, since the collapse of the Oslo peace process and in the aftermath of 11 September 2001. To what extent are Jewish diaspora voices and concerns being heeded in Israel, and how are new manifestations of anti‐Semitism being addressed in this context? What is the new role that Israel ascribes to the diaspora in its redefinition of itself and its security environment? In addition, how is the diaspora responding to these new challenges and how is it defining its own role? All of these elements are examined by the authors in the different contexts of Israel, western Europe and the United States.     

New Britain,new heritage: The consumption of a heritage culture

Abstract

Each month in Britain marks a further, official, distancing from the past and its memorials, as we move closer to the selected Millennium marker. Heritage has a particularly low profile at present with policies for destruction of the House of Lords encouraging increasing ridicule aimed at legacies from the past. In terms of media coverage, at least, the heritage bubble has burst, as indeed it had to. As soon as modest, individual or community, breaths were marshalled into corporate puff, the sheer size of the national preservation and presentation enterprise hinted at its own demise. Nicholas Howard, he of Castle Howard, provided an appropriate caution in 1993, when he noted: