Diaspora and identity in the Viking Age

This article investigates the implications of the recent application of the term ‘diaspora’ to the overseas settlements of the Viking Age and offers a speculative assessment, based on literary, historical, archaeological, sculptural and onomastic evidence, of how the concept might contribute to our understanding of the cultural dynamics of the period. This exploratory look at connectivity in the ‘viking world’ considers the respective roles of the Scandinavian homelands and overseas settlements in the interplay of cultural forces from the ninth to the eleventh century.     

Review Article: The Basque Diaspora in the New World

Richard Overy. The Dictators: Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia. London: Allen Lane, Penguin, 2004. Pp. xl, 848. £25.00.     

美国印度裔族群的形成及其经济成就探析

论文概述了美国印度裔族群艰难的移民历程,分析了其族裔人口在新时期快速增长的原因,并着重探讨了它近年来的经济成就和成功的动因。作为当今美国的一个新兴少数族裔群体,印度裔族群已发展为仅次于美国华人的第二大亚裔族群。尽管其真正意义上的发展开启于美国1965年新移民法案的出台,但它却在短短四十余年间逐步取得了令人瞩目的经济成就,并在收入、商务、个人发展等方面得到了清晰的展现。美国印度裔族群杰出经济成就的取得并非偶然,而是与它族裔整体上的精英特性密切相关,这一特性在很大程度上保证了其发展目标的顺利实现和对美国主流社会的平稳融入。     

Low-Fired Earthenwares in the African Diaspora: Problems and Prospects

Local earthenware associated with enslaved African populations in the Americas, variously called Colono-Ware, Afro-Caribbean Ware. Yabbas, and Criollo ware, has received considerable attention from researchers. What unifies this disparate group of ceramics is not method of manufacture, design and decoration, or even form and function but the association or potential association with African diaspora populations. The ceramics incorporate some skills and techniques possibly brought by African potters to the Americas, as well as skills reflecting European and Native American traditions, and local adaptations in form, function, and manufacture. Analogies linking African ceramic traditions to American industries have at times been employed uncritically and have relied on generalized characteristics to infer overly specific meanings. With particular reference to low-fired earthenwares from Jamaica, this paper examines the historical and cultural context of these ceramics and the methodological and theoretical problems faced in their interpretation.