Detached from Their Homeland: The Latter-day

Over the past few decades, the homeland concept has received an ever-increasing amount of attention by cultural geographers. While the debate surrounding the necessity and applicability of the concept continues, it is more than apparent that no other geographic term (including culture areas or culture regions) captures the essence of peoples' attachment to place better than homeland. The literature, however, provides few examples of the deep-seated loyalty people have for a homeland despite being physically detached from that space. Employing land use mapping and informal interviews, this paper seeks to help fill that gap by exemplifying how the daily lives of Mormons living in Chihuahua, Mexico reflect their connection to the United States and the Mormon homeland. Our research revealed that, among other things, the Anglo residents perpetuate their cultural identity through their unique self-reference, exhibit territoriality links reflected in their built environment, and demonstrate unconditional bonding to their homeland through certain holiday celebrations. It is clear to us, as the Anglo-Mormon experience illustrates, that the homeland concept deserves a place within the geographic lexicon.     

明代陕西逃户:徭役与环境的博弈

明代逃户是因徭役而逃的编户,由于西北地区其特殊的地理位置和环境,使这里徭役的种类、应役频率等都呈现出与其他地区显著不同的特点,明代陕西逃户就是当时特定的徭役制度与环境博弈的产物,也复杂而深刻地改造着逃出地与逃入地的环境。     

Transnational practices and language maintenance: Spanish and Zapoteco in California

The theoretical framework of transnationalism has become more prominent within migration studies, examining how (im)migrants maintain connections with communities in their homeland (Sánchez, P. 2007a. “Cultural Authenticity and Transnational Latina Youth: Constructing a Meta-narrative Across Borders.” Linguistics and Education 18: 258–282). Children's identities are also affected by maintaining ties to their parents’ homeland through language. In California, a group of (im)migrants from Mexico, of Zapotec-speaking backgrounds, were among the families who wanted their children to maintain their Spanish language by enrolling in a dual immersion school. Although California has exhibited anti-immigrant rhetoric and legislated against bilingual education, some programs supporting heritage language maintenance continue to exist. This article presents interview data from 10 students who attended this school and their parents. Students maintained transnational and intergenerational ties to their families and communities in both Mexico and southern California through the maintenance of Spanish, but a subset of students who spoke Zapoteco as a heritage language also valued this language and used it as social capital.     

The remedies of the machi: visualizing Chilean medicinal botanicals in Alonso de Ovalle’s Tabula geographica (1646).

This art historical study analyzes images of colonial-era medicinal botanicals in South America within a little known seventeenth-century map, the Tabula geographica regni Chile, and proposes that these renderings were central to a visual program by which their author Alonso de Ovalle attempted to construct a positive image of his homeland before the Spanish Crown. These renderings of specific Chilean plants and their expressed medicinal applications are examined in relation to the rise of materia medica for commerce in southern Europe and the Spanish interest to locate botanical medicines for profit. This approach allows us to consider pre-Linnaean botanical renderings as persuasive documents, as purveyors of indigenous knowledge, and as instruments of negotiation (prospecting for new commercial goods) for the advancement of criollo agendas. Finally, looking at Ovalle's images of Chilean medicinal botanicals in comparison with later documents demonstrates that while early pictured conveyances across the Atlantic formulated conceptions of American nature, the transference of actual specimens to Europe involved their adaptation for new functions and uses.     

Of love and national borders: the Croatian anthem ‘Our Beautiful Homeland’

Croatia became a UN member only in 1992, after the violent break‐up of Yugoslavia. Its anthem is marked by historically founded ambivalences as to the nature and territorial extent of the nation in question. This article offers an interpretation of the current version of the anthem and an analysis of the narrative and imagery of the nineteenth‐century poem from which the anthem originates. Three of the anthem's four stanzas speak about the Croats’ love for their homeland and their people and of the steadfastness and immortality of their love; the remaining stanza extolls the beauty of the homeland. By addressing the homeland's rivers and the sea directly, its singers appropriate this geography and so demarcate the borders of their much‐loved homeland. The anthem thus asserts Croatia's unity (against potential pretenders) and its unbreakable ties with its people. In contrast, the original fourteen‐stanza poem ‘The Croatian Homeland’, written in 1835, is a paean to the Croats’ ties to nature, their simple life and bravery – the romantic virtues of pure national souls. On their path to anthemhood, the four stanzas drawn from this poem have undergone significant modifications and additions, the result being a song that is doubly reassuring: it reassures the singers first of the people's love for themselves as a people, and second that this love is the means by which the ‘natural’ territory of the homeland is maintained.     

What has Iberia to do with Jerusalem? Crusade and the Spanish route to the Holy Land in the twelfth century

In spite of repeated papal injunctions forbidding them to abandon their homeland, Iberian Christians, like their co-religionists throughout Europe, were energised by a desire to participate in the Holy Land crusades. The most significant and creative attempt in the first half of the twelfth century to respond to this Spanish desire was the development of the idea of the iter per Hispaniam, which was fostered by Iberian archbishops and monarchs such as Diego Gelmírez of Santiago de Compostela and Alfonso I of Aragon. This Spanish route was intended to unite the conflicts in the peninsula and the Holy Land, forming a single Mediterranean-wide crusading theatre and thereby granting the Iberian conflict a deeper connection with the struggle for control of the holiest sites in Christendom. This article explores the development of crusading ideology in Spain and the difficulties of doing so in a venue outside of the Holy Land. Additionally, the development of the Spanish route idea provides a unique opportunity to contextualise recent historiographical discussions about the essence of the crusades and to highlight the way in which different perspectives helpfully offer insight into various aspects of peninsular crusading.     

Homecoming or tourism? Diaspora tourism experience of second-generation immigrants

Diaspora tourism is often considered a form of ‘homecoming,’ but for the children of immigrants who are born in the new country, the question remains as to whether they perceive their parents’ homeland as ‘home’ or destination. Moreover, advancements in transportation and communication technologies allow contemporary immigrants to maintain transnational ties to their homeland, which in turn may affect the nature of diaspora tourism. The purpose of this study is to understand the lived experience of second-generation immigrants when they travel to their ancestral homeland, and explore the extent to which second-generation transnationalism shapes their diaspora tourism experiences. Using a phenomenological approach, 26 second-generation Chinese-Americans who had the experience of traveling in China were interviewed. Four themes were identified from semi-structured interviews: language and appearance, search for authenticity, family history, and sense of ‘home.’ Proficiency in their parental language was found to be a main cause of negative experiences, yet occasionally a source of pride and attachment. Their search for authentic experiences was not unlike other tourists, while familial obligations sometimes limited their experience. Traveling back to the homeland not only allowed them to understand their parents and family history, but also reflect upon their life through experiencing contemporary China. Finally, as the transnational attachment of second-generation immigrants was not rooted in a specific locale, they could feel connected to the homeland without actually visiting their family's place of origin. Findings contribute to transnationalism and diaspora tourism literature by comparing first- and second-generation immigrants and identifying the difference between contemporary transmigrants and classic diaspora groups with regard to their diaspora tourism experience.     

The Politics of Belonging: Complexities of Identity in the Catalan Borderlands

The rise of the European nation–state system profoundly influenced the map of linguistic and cultural minorities. Catalonia in northeastern Spain is no exception. The consolidation of the Spanish and French kingdoms during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries left Catalan speakers without political and cultural sovereignty. Furthermore, in the Treaty of the Pyrenees of 1659, the Catalan homeland els Països Catalans was divided by the Franco–Spanish border. Today, Catalan culture and politics enjoy increasing latitude in both Spain and France. This has encouraged various forms of cross–border co–operation in the Catalan borderlands. It has also led many Catalan nationalists to expect still greater political autonomy. Some activists have voiced claims for independence and even the reincorporation of the Spanish (el Principat) and French Catalonias (Catalunya Nord) . However, political tensions regarding the borderland's development exist between the local actors and the Spanish and French national governments, as well as between Catalan nationalists and the population at large. This article examines these tensions, first by looking at cross–border co–operation efforts in Catalonia, and second by assessing the visible markers of identity that Catalan nationalists have placed in the border landscapes. These are contrasted with the results of a survey charting the opinions and attitudes of 'ordinary' Catalans. The article argues that there are significant cleavages among Catalans, and that the era of the nation–states has left a legacy of complex loyalties at international frontiers.     

艰难的握手：中美实现平民回国问题谈判的历程

1954～1955年,处于敌对状态的中美两国实现了日内瓦会议上的外交接触,并最终就平民回国问题达成协议。这对于冷战时期的中美双方具有特殊意义。根据两国解密的外交档案来看,中美在参加日内瓦会议前都曾有意识地就解决平民回国问题做了准备,新中国政府采取以静制动的策略争取了主动,最终促成这次看似偶然实则必然的外交谈判。谈判本身及最终协议的达成,对此后中美关系的发展产生了重要影响。     

European cultural diplomacy: diaspora relations with Kazakhstan

Abstract

Cultural diplomacy using diasporic communities as facilitators of interaction between states has long been important. This article suggests a typology of networks of communication derived from a case study of long-established diasporas living in post-independence Kazakhstan and their relationship with their European ‘homelands’. The typology juxtaposes the official stance of homeland governments expressed in formal and legal provisions with the lived experience of the diaspora communities. The study highlights the benefits of developing vibrant ‘valued’ networks of communication embracing both local diasporas and homeland embassies and agencies. In such cases, diplomatic benefits accrue to the homeland and local communities are empowered. Similarly, failing to capitalise on positive sentiment with some infrastructural support may leave an ‘expressive’ network as one of neglected potential.     

Dreaming of a Golden Bengal: Discontinuities of Place and Identity in South Asia

This article analyses five different representations of the homeland category “Bengal”. The region of Bengal was partitioned twice in the twentieth century and imagined in a multitude of forms at different historical moments. The article describes the conditions that allowed different territories and peoples to crystallise as “Bengal” and “the Bengalis”, and investigates why some versions of the Bengali homeland proved durable as others faded away. Rather than asking who is the real Bengali and where is the real Bengal, it investigates how particular identity categories become popularly practised and why particular images of the homeland come to be perceived as true, legitimate and authentic. It concludes that homeland categories are never fixed and finalised, but are rather always in a process of becoming, and are contested, reimagined and redefined as socio-political contexts change.     

Welsh migration to England in the mid-nineteenth century

Conventional migration theory suggests that rural to urban movement was a one-way once and for all movement which resulted in the severance of ties to a rural homeland and the gradual adoption of an urban lifestyle and culture. Analysis of Welsh migration to English towns in the mid-nineteenth century suggests that by no means all migrants conformed to this stereotype. Whilst Welsh migrants displayed similar characteristics to other rural-urban movers and fitted easily into an urban labour market, they were able to retain many of their rural traditions and customs in an English urban environment. They also maintained close links with Wales whilst some engaged in return migration. Although easily accepted into English urban society, the Welsh were able to live in two culture worlds for much of the nineteenth century. It is suggested that detailed longitudinal studies of other migrant groups will demonstrate diversity in the extent to which rural traditions were subsumed by urban culture in the nineteenth century.     

Making a homeland,constructing a diaspora: The case of Taglit-Birthright Israel

The study of diaspora policies in political science, international relations, and political geography has moved away from conceiving diasporas as bounded entities to conceptualizing diasporas as a process to be made. One body of literature maps different strategies employed to bond diasporas to their country of origin, while another body of literature pays specific attention to diasporic identities and the ways such identities are reproduced and constructed abroad. This article seeks to bring these two literatures together by focusing on homeland tourism as a diasporization strategy, i.e. the construction, reproduction, and transmission of diasporic identity. Through the case of Taglit-Birthright – a free educational trip to Israel offered to young Jewish adults – the article identifies the specific mechanisms and micro-practices used in order to transform Israeli territory into a Jewish homeland, reproduce the narrative of dispersion, and demarcate group boundaries. Incorporating insights from theories of territorialization and based on the program's educational platform and existing ethnographies of Taglit-Birthright, this article unpacks the notion of the homeland and demonstrates how the homeland itself – as an embodied, affective, and symbolic site – is strategically used in order to cultivate diasporic attachments.     

Lobbying after 9/11: Policy Regime Emergence and Interest Group Mobilization

Does the emergence of a new boundary‐spanning policy regime shift the focus of well‐established organized interests, or does it mobilize new ones? In this article, I show that interest groups with a presence in Washington before 9/11 rapidly—but temporarily—shift their attention to the homeland security issues. Established groups' entrenchment in antecedent subsystems appears to buffer against widespread policy disruption and interest upheaval. However, a new set of previously latent groups opportunistically mobilizes after the regime is institutionalized. Newly mobilized groups replace those that retreat back to the regime's antecedent subsystems. Though the policy regime fails to resolve the jurisdictional turf conflicts that triggered its creation, the institutionalization of homeland security generates its own original, distinct government demand for lobbying. Interests that previously had no business in Washington before 9/11 took advantage of the new opportunities the regime offered without supplanting interests established long before the Department of Homeland Security and its congressional committees existed.     

Research Publications by Raymond E. Crist

As metropolitan Miami's population has experienced a radical change in its ethnic composition since Fidel Castro's revolution in Cuba in 1959, it has become a second homeland for the United States Cuban-American population. This article documents the ethnic change that has taken place in Miami during the past three decades. As evidence of the emergence of Miami as a homeland in absentia the following topics are discussed: the growth and dispersion of the city's Cubans, Miami as a magnet for Cubans living elsewhere in the U.S., the Hispanic economic enclave that has developed in Miami, the emergence of Cubans as a major political force, the development ofmunicipios in exile in Miami, and the possibilities of the return to Cuba by Cuban Americans if the current communist government were to fall in their island of origin.     

The Cultural Landscape

This early article by an economic geographer takes issue with the view that man's influence on the natural environment is accidental, that it Is inadequate to give rise to new landscapes, and that altered landscapes can revert to their original state. Saushkin contends that human activity, on the contrary, introduces far-reaching consequences in the natural environment, that this results in the creation of new cultural landscapes, and that, as a general rule, man-altered landscapes do not revert to their original state when human activity ceases. A separate discipline for the study of cultural landscapes is proposed.     

Circassian Encounters: The Self as Other and the Production of the Homeland in the North Caucasus

Diasporas are an increasingly important phenomenon in the ‘era of globalization’. Transnational networks structure and restructure economic exchanges, familial bonds, cultural identities and political mobilization. This article examines one such diaspora, which traces its origin to the North Caucasus, the Circassians. The break-up of the Soviet Union has enabled some people to journey back to their ‘homeland’ and even take up residence there once again. Through such journeys and the encounters that accompany them, notions of identity, history, culture and tradition are challenged. This has the dual effect of fragmenting ethnic identity while simultaneously transforming the ‘homeland’ from an abstract concept to an everyday reality. The ensuing interplay between nation and diaspora is translated by different individuals in different ways. Three narratives of journeys to the homeland are presented here, showing the complex motivations and consequences of such journeys. Ethnographies of globalization thus reveal that concepts of ‘ethnicity’, ‘nationalism’ and ‘ethnonationalism’ have to be rethought in the context of shifting borders, transnational encounters and the production of diasporas.     

边疆民族关系范例解读——中国朝鲜族聚居区民族和睦成因探析

本文对我国朝鲜族聚居区民族关系和睦的原因进行了探讨。认为作为跨界民族而言,朝鲜族聚居区民族和睦的最根本原因是国家与民族间的双向认同,即中国朝鲜族认同中国为自己的国家,中国承认在华入籍的朝鲜人为中国人,朝鲜族为中国的一个少数民族。而朝鲜族与中国之间双向认同的产生与基本吻合有着历史、文化、政策等众多方面的原因。