Ideal Coconut Country: Commodified Coconuts and the Scientific Plantation in Pohnpei,Micronesia

ABSTRACT

Pohnpeians regard human beings, natural forces, and supernatural forces as equally important agents in the making of their island’s past. Pohnpei’s rapid transition from an island where families maintained only a small number of coconut plantings to one whose 20th century skyline was dominated by coconut palms should therefore draw our attention to the entanglement of human and nonhuman agents that facilitated the growth of the copra trade on Pohnpei at the end of the 19th century. This article focuses on the modern proliferation of coconut trees on Pohnpei, its link to a powerful scientific agricultural discourse, and the coconut’s attendant effects on Pohnpeian relationships and ecology. It argues that Pohnpeians and coconuts, commodified as copra, remade the land and one another as indigenous and foreign visions of the coconut collided.     

Modifying sense of place in a federal company town: Sunflower Village,Kansas, 1942 to 1959

The federal government built Sunflower Village, Kansas, to house employees of the Sunflower Ordnance Plant and their families during World War II. The community existed in this fashion until 1959 when a private real-estate developer bought the land and buildings. The Village evolved out of many perspectives in urban planning including those of federal ownership, ‘Garden City’ communities, and private company towns. This study examines a modified, or unique, development of sense of place that evolved here due to these varied urban forms and despite evidence of mobility and a short residence. Landscape analysis, archival searches and personal interviews also reveal a distinct difference in the experiences of youth and adults that resulted in varying processes of attachment within the community.     

Canada's history wars: indigenous genocide and public memory in the United States,Australia and Canada

In this article, I explore the slow development of a national debate in Canada about genocide in the Indian residential schools, which I compare to earlier ‘history wars’ in Australia and the United States. In the first section I begin with a brief introduction to the history of the IRS system and some of its legacies, as well as attempts at redress. These include financial compensation through the 2006 IRS Settlement Agreement, an official apology and the creation of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), which has been a nodal point for articulating claims of genocide. I follow this in the second section with an analysis of the history wars in the United States and Australia over indigenous genocide, before engaging in the third section with debates about genocide in Canada. Overt debates about genocide have been relatively slow in developing, in part because of the creation of a TRC, mandated with collecting the ‘truth’ about the IRS system while similarly engaging in ‘reconciliation’ (a contested term) with settler Canadians. While Canada's history wars may seem slow in getting off the ground, the TRC's more ‘balanced’ approach and wide-ranging engagement with non-Aboriginal societal actors may have a greater effect in stimulating national awareness than in the United States and Australia.     

The “Ideological Offensive” in Education: the Portrayal of the United States in Secondary Curricula and Textbooks in Poland during the Stalinist Period (1948–1956)

During the period of the People’s Republic of Poland (1952–1989), schools played a decisive role in transmitting the official ideology of the ruling Communist regime and cultivating young supporters. One of the most important aspects of indoctrination was constructing in students’ hearts and minds a particular image and disposition towards the United States. While existing research has examined the high level of political propaganda in the content of textbooks and curricula during the Communist period in Poland, no one has specifically analysed how these materials depicted the United States during the critical Stalinist years (1948–1956). Analysis of official curricula and textbooks for civics and history courses in secondary schools indicates that over this period, school materials increasingly depicted the United States as ‘predatory,’ ‘imperialist,’ and ‘exploitative.’ This study illustrates how curricular materials aligned with the foreign policy objectives of the Polish United Workers’ Party and the Soviet Union.     

'When the shooting starts': Atlanticism in British security strategy

The evolution in the international system from bipolarity to unipolarity has led to shifting patterns of alliances in world politics. Since 9/11, the United States has demonstrated a willingness to use its overwhelming military power to deal with potential or real threats. Contrary to its policy of embedded power in the economic and security institutions of the post‐1945 period, the United States increasingly views the multilateral order as an unreasonable restraint on the exercise of hegemonic power. What does this new context mean for Britain? Going back to 1997, the first New Labour government added an internationalist dimension to the traditional roles of acting as a loyal ally to the United States and serving as a bridge across the transatlantic divide. The Iraq war of 2003 showed that the bridge could not bear the weight of the disagreement between ‘Old Europe’ and the new conservatives in Washington. The Prime Minister's decision to be there ‘when the shooting starts’ shows that Britain continues to place the bilateral connection with the United States above all other obligations. This article questions whether the Atlanticist identity that underpins the strategic rationale for the special relationship is likely to succeed in delivering the interests and goals set out in the recent UK security strategy document.     

The State,the Rebel and the Chief: Public Authority and Land Disputes in Assam,India

Based upon an ethnographic study of two land disputes in the rural Assamese district of Karbi Anglong (India), this article challenges the idea that the entry of new institutional players, with their multiple sets of rules, inevitably leads to open institutional conflict. Although a wide range of political actors are involved in the regulation of land tenure in Karbi Anglong, they cannot be regarded as institutional structures ready to undercut one another. As in other parts of Northeast India, none of the claimants of public power involved —‘the state’, ‘the rebel’ or ‘the chief’— attain full sovereignty, which forces them to exercise authority predominantly through practices of negotiation and accommodation, and only selective contestation. If open institutional conflict does occur, as in the Dhansiri forest and the Singhason plateau cases studied here, this is due to the fact that one of the institutional players has overstretched and attempted to exercise authority beyond its realm of power. This article thus argues for a more agency‐oriented method of analysis in the study of land relations. The focus on everyday interactions between ‘the state’, ‘the rebel’ and ‘the chief’ in Karbi Anglong is a first attempt in that regard.     

Anglo-American Rivalry in the Middle East: The Struggle for the Buraimi Oasis, 1952–1957

Some French writers, most notably Jean-Baptiste Duroselle and André Tardieu, have argued that French strategic interests during the early decades of the twentieth century had been seriously harmed because, alone among the Great Powers of Europe, France lacked a ‘diaspora’ in the United States. As a result of this, they have claimed, France had no advocacy group prepared to defend the interests of the European ‘kin state’ at a time when France’s great rival, Germany, was amply endowed with a sizeable demographic presence in the United States, willing to speak out in defence of Germany and its foreign policy. Moreover, a second large European diaspora had become established in the United States, whose numbers would swell after the mid nineteenth century: the Irish. Not necessarily committed to promoting German interests, the Irish-Americans did militate strongly and consistently against British interests, such that by the time France and Britain had become close security partners preceding and during the First World War, what worked against British interests would also work against French ones. This article constitutes a critical examination of the Duroselle-Tardieu thesis regarding France's allegedly ‘missing’ diaspora, and cautions against attributing too much geo-strategic influence to either the German-American or Irish-American ‘lobby’.     

Planting Roots,Making Place: Urban Autochthony in Port Vila Vanuatu

A contentious issue for Pacific Islanders, as well as researchers of the Pacific Islands, is ni-Vanuatu notions of ‘belonging’ to urban centres. Previous research in Vanuatu has shown that despite generations of people born and raised in Port Vila, the nation's capital, the urban centre is not generally perceived as a ‘place’ to which urban migrants can say they are from. For many, exclaiming that one is ‘from’ town is tantamount to admitting one has ‘no place’. This paper, based on fieldwork among a group of urban young men in Freswota, a residential community of Port Vila, argues that in contrast to this, Freswota young men are generating a new locative identity. Their urban community rather than their parents' home island places is emerging as their primary location of belonging and the source of their sense of self, personhood and social identification. As such, these young men are the urban autochthones of the country.     

The Everyday Geography of the Homeless in Kansas City

Homelessness in the United States is a multifaceted problem that appears to be growing. However, very little is known about the geography of homelessness. This paper will document the daily lives of the homeless in Kansas City, Missouri, within the milieu of the emergency shelter. The purpose of this study continues in the humanistic tradition, which is attempting to restore human subjectivity to a field considered to have been dominated for too long by scientific objectivism. Fieldwork took place in Kansas City from 1988 to 1993. Two types of shelters were identified: street and transitional. The street shelters primarily served individual men and were best characterized by the rescue mission. Transitional shelters, on the other hand, catered for men and the more recent additions to the homeless population, single women and families with children. The spatial activity of the homeless was constrained as a result of living in a shelter. One typical response to homelessness was apathy and depression. After approximately 30 days in a shelter, a homeless person often underwent a change in physical appearance and activity. This shelterization meant that homeless men and women became increasingly isolated and conformed to the view of themselves imposed by their fellow homeless, the caretakers, and society at large. Homelessness is more than simply lacking a roof over one's head; it is a process of institutionalization into the milieu of the emergency shelter. Shelter facilities in the US are transforming into long-term caretaking institutions.     

Putting Geography in its Place

Work on the history of geographical knowledge and practice frequently draws inspiration from theoretical insights developed elsewhere in the academy. After briefly touching on some of these historiographical matters, I argue that geographers might make some telling interventions into this debate by attending to some of their own key concepts – space, site, location – and disclosing their significance for elucidating the history of intellectual traditions. The fact that historians of science have begun to remark on the role of ‘place’ in knowledge production and consumption further confirms the value of this ‘geographical turn’. Subsequently I dwell on the implications of a spatialised historiography for work on the history of geography itself, and urge that ‘the history of geography’ might profitably be reconceptualised as ‘the historical geography of geography’.     

Cuban Landscapes: Heritage,Memory, and Place

Growing individual mobility has been a key element in the re-evaluation of the links between (national) place and identity in what has been labelled a'borderless world'. In this paper, an alternative perspective is provided by exploring the ways in which discussions around travel are used to redefine the nation as a bounded, familiar and homely place.

In the first section, a number of key themes in the wider literature on ‘home’ are identified and applied to the nation, notably the idea that ‘homely spaces’ are imagined and experienced in relation to journeys elsewhere. This idea is then evidenced by a range of empirical data, which shows how individuals are often made aware of their own national identity and allegiances, when negotiating encounters with other people and cultural forms.

In discussing the discomfort and uncertainty they experience in ‘foreign’ locales, the national home is defined as a secure base from which to proceed and, most importantly, to return. Interestingly, these types of views were expressed by a range of social actors, ranging from college students, who travelled widely and with great enthusiasm, to retired people, who were increasingly restricted in their ability to visit foreign locales.     

The German question in Jakarta Indonesia in West Germany’s foreign policy, 1955–65

This article explores a hitherto unexamined chapter of German Cold War politics: West Germany’s relations with Indonesia between 1955 and 1965. Indonesia was a peculiar case, as in the late 1950s and early 1960s, President Sukarno turned his country into a radical champion of ‘anti-imperialism’. This included actions directed against the Netherlands, Britain, Malaysia, and the United States. As part of a comprehensive strategy to isolate East Germany in the ‘Third World’, West German diplomacy nevertheless tried to maintain solid relations with Sukarno’s increasingly unpredictable Indonesia, even if that meant undermining the position of Western allies.     

Learning to belong? ‘Culture’ and ‘place making’ among children and young people in Hull,UK City of Culture 2017

ABSTRACT

Despite the rise of ‘child-friendly cities’ internationally, and a growing interest in youth engagement in urban planning, the role of children and young people in culture-led regeneration and ‘place making’ schemes, remains under-researched. Notwithstanding the wealth of research into childhood and youth cultures, little is known about the ways in which the abstract (and perhaps predominantly ‘adult’) notions of ‘culture’ and ‘place’ are negotiated by younger citizens. Drawing on participative research with schools across Hull, the UK City of Culture 2017, this contribution explores children’s and young people’s understandings of culture and place within this cultural regeneration event. Although our findings suggest that the City of Culture designation has brought benefits to children and young people in a marginalised city, there is still much to be learned from their often personal and informal interpretations of ‘place’ and ‘culture’, as well as the role played by schools in this context.     

自然与城市历史的缠绕 ——草海之城堪萨斯城的变迁

堪萨斯城崛起于密苏里河与堪萨斯河的交汇处,是一个依赖大平原的农牧业所建立的美国中西部都市。铁路助力资本打破了自然的种种限制,令大平原转化为堪萨斯城的腹地。虽然征服自然以实现城市经济的永续增长,一直是堪萨斯城,乃至整个资本主义制度与经济文化的野心,但是成为腹地并不意味着自然完全受到资本与技术力量的操纵,更不意味着自然的消失。作为一种自发的、独立的力量,自然以其丰饶奠定城市发展的基础,也以其极限挑战着城市发展的野心和规划。在堪萨斯城的故事中,1930年代的尘暴与1951年的洪水以灾难的形式迫使这个城市去适应新的生态现实。     

The garden city idea in Australia

Ebenezer Howard's Garden City idea occupies an important place in the history of British planning, and in various guises it made a significant international impact. A preliminary exploration of the history of the idea in Australia is attempted, focussing on its meaning as a schema for social reform and on its impact on the landscape. The first two ‘phases’ saw the rise of ‘garden city principles’ to describe a model house and garden suburbia which was to redeem urban Australia. In the 1920s these ‘town planning principles’ were used mainly to sell land, but in a fourth phase beginning in the early 1930s they were refined into neighbourhood planning ideas, combining with previously neglected concepts of the satellite town and green belt to approach more closely the original vision of a garden city. This reformist text emerged as town planning was finally accorded professional respectability; however, with the ambiguous exception of Canberra, the promise of neither has been realized.     

The Ambivalent Thematics of Commodity Fetishism in Contemporary Latina/O Narrative Fiction

One of the chief cultural dynamics in the contemporary United States is the omnipresent commodity fetishism that drives its consumer society, so it comes as little surprise that this figures prominently in the attempts of much contemporary U.S. Latina/o fiction to come to terms with the social milieu of the late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century United States. This essay argues that Helena Maria Viramontes’s Miss Clairol, Sandra Cisneros’s Barbie-Q, and Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao each manifest a deep-seated ambivalence towards commodity fetishism: an awareness of how the agency to break with traditionalist modes of being and some measure of cultural assimilation might be achieved through engagement with fetishized attributes commodities place on offer, yet one that is tempered by an appreciation of the dangers such as alienation and cultural homogenization that also proceed from immersion in a world defined by commodity fetishized relations.     

Evaluation of the spatial and economic effectiveness of industrial land policies in northwest Europe

This article stems from the discrepancy between the lack of attention paid to industrial land policy by academics and the predominant thought among elected representatives and development agencies, i.e. that industrial land policy plays a key role in the creation of growth and new jobs. The article begins with a reflection on the literature, which stresses the need to develop knowledge on industrial land policies. To help fill this research gap, we have developed an exploratory piece of research on the theme of their ‘spatial’ and ‘economic effectiveness’, on the basis of statistical analyses dedicated to seven countries. As regards ‘spatial effectiveness’, the results underline significant national differentials in terms of land consumption on the one hand, while highlighting the economic sprawl that affects France and Belgium on the other hand. As regards ‘economic effectiveness’, our results show that the impact of the development of economic estates on growth depends largely on regional contexts. In particular, the ‘intermediate regions’ in western Germany stand out as belonging to a specific context where land policies seem particularly effective from an economic standpoint. By contrast, the ‘economic effectiveness’ of industrial land policies requires readjustments in the Netherlands as well as in most ‘predominantly rural regions, close to a city’.     

Anglo-American Relations: End of a Special Relationship?

Obama's election in 2008 as the United States’ first self-styled Pacific President drew a hearty round of ‘end of the affair’ editorials about Anglo-American relations. His first term was littered with ‘snubgates’, serious irritations in policy areas regarded as being core to the special relationship, and indications of an accelerating US departure from Europe with his premier foreign-policy strategy declared to be a pivot to Asia. His return for a second term in 2013 augers a continuation of first-term adjustments in US foreign policy and greater domestic focus given a divided Congress and a bitterly split and war-weary United States with domestic priorities to the fore. Doomsayers - or so-called terminalists - have been repeatedly gainsaid by the Lazarus-like quality of the relationship in the past but can the Anglo-American special relationship survive in the Obama environment? This article suggests it can and sets out the author's rather unfashionable argument in four parts: the weight of history; the canons of international-relations theory; the importance of considering interest and sentiment in explaining the special relationship's resilience; and a relativist argument that suggests the United States still really does have no better ally than the United Kingdom.     

Visions of Statesmanship Across The Atlantic: Presidential Masculinity and the American Response to Benito Mussolini

This article explores how hegemonic masculinity forged discourses of modern statesmanship in the United States and Italy in the first three decades of the twentieth century. It unpacks the ‘presidential masculinity’ of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson and compares these gendered performances of political leadership in the United States to Benito Mussolini's Fascist rule in Italy during the 1920s. In doing so, this article contends that the manliness of these three modern leaders rested on a contrasting of pairs: if Roosevelt embodied the hegemonic ideal of the ‘frontiersman-as-president’, Wilson personified its ‘unmanly’, bourgeois-liberal countertype and thereby engendered the initially hospitable view of Mussolini's Fascist masculinity in the United States during the Jazz Age. The article covers the publications in The Atlantic Monthly to reveal how the American disillusion with Wilson's liberal internationalism transformed the Duce into a Fascist surrogate for Roosevelt. In a decade of political, economic and social upheaval, the transatlantic ‘public relations state’ in both the United States and Italy discursively positioned Mussolini as the personification of the masculine ideals of acumen, willpower and virility for the American public; a ‘Doctor-Dictator’ who, akin to Roosevelt, became a symbol of modern manliness that signified stability, progress and reform. In the process, the Duce's Fascist manhood shaped hegemonic ideals of statesmanship across the Atlantic while hinting at the paltry support for the liberal democracies of the West.