Citizenship as contingent national belonging: married women and foreigners in twentieth-century Switzerland

The relationship between marriage and citizenship was implicit in the practices of most democratic states during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The policy of depriving women who married foreigners of their citizenship was legally codified only with the process of 'nationalisation'. In the particular case of Switzerland, the practice was not codified until 1941, at the height of the movement of peoples unleashed by the Second World War, and it was only fully dismantled in the 1990s. This article analyses the discursive webs linking gender construction, nation state and legal system during the controversies surrounding the marriage rule in Switzerland between 1917 and 1952. It explores the formative role of gender in the process of delineating the practices of inclusion and exclusion and in shaping the internal boundaries within the nation between foreigners and those who belonged: citizens.     

Robert Weston,Medical consulting by letter in France, 1665-1789

This review investigates Robert Weston’'s Medical Consulting by Letter in France, 1665–1789. Weston uses correspondence between physicians and patients to explore perceptions of health and methods of treatments in early modern France. He also approaches the theme of how authority was expressed and perceived in epistolary communication. This book is important in its exploration of an underutilized source and its contribution to an understanding of how medical relationships were constructed in the past. With a rigorous structure and a high volume of information, Weston’'s work is an invaluable contribution to historical literature on early modern France.     

Ideology and Realpolitik: East German Attitudes towards Zionism and Israel

Over several decades, the East German stance towards Israel was marked by condemnation of Zionism, a unilateral position on the Arab-Israeli conflict and denial of reparations and restitution claims. This position had its ideological background in the communist approach to the “Jewish question,” anti-Semitism and nationalism, while the most important criterion in shaping attitudes towards Israel was the incorporation of the German Democratic Republic's Middle East policy into the foreign policy of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. In addition, the East German political elite followed its own political interests when it tried to break through the West German Hallstein doctrine with the help of some Arab countries.     

Attitudes towards Heroin Addicts and Addiction in Inter-War Greece

Abstract

This article concentrates on the ‘drug scare’ caused by the introduction of heroin to Greece in the inter-war period. It will first retrace the story of heroin’s introduction into the Greek drug scene and assess the reasons for its speedy diffusion among drug users. Following this, it will examine some central themes in the discourse on drugs and heroin in particular, such as the actual or projected harm caused to individuals, society, or the nation as a whole. Then the focus will shift to perceptions of heroin and its users, considering broader debates which circulated in Greek inter-war society, for example, the country’s identity and its position within two parallel and interrelated conceptual frameworks: traditional vs. modern and ‘East’ vs. ‘West’. The paper will conclude by addressing drug users’ self-representations that were influenced, to a certain degree, by the prevailing approaches to drug addiction.     

Language Attitudes towards Gender Differences in Communication Style

This paper examines if behaviors that deviate from gender stereotypes during initial,dyadic,mixed-gender interaction produce less positive perceptions of a target than does behavior conforming to gender stereotypes.     

Memory,history and national identity in Vichy France

Vichy France mobilised memory-managers to explain that the Revolution was over, to promote a deeper understanding of the French past and to help find a place in a European 'New Order' invigorated by the Germanic peoples. They demonstrated that a time of elites, or of 'knights', had returned. New people of old stock would displace the rabble risen in the Jacobin Empire and renew France by re-rooting her in her authentic past and collective memories. As Pe´tain toured the revered places of France's memory, the Republican rites and rituals were displaced by older symbols and ceremonies. Jewish and Masonic over-representation under the Third Republic encouraged a serene consensus for their exclusion. Vichy's search for a people's rooted, communitarian identity and heritage mustered prodigious, selfless, energies. The French wanted to be who they 'really were' and so vigorously sought themselves in their traditions and their past, with pernicious results.     

Intersecting Identities: Race,Military Affiliation,and Youth Attitudes towards War

Abstract

African-Americans in the U.S. military encompass at least two distinct identity groups: a racial status associated with lower support for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and a military status which tends to be more ‘hawkish’ in perspective. This study examines the intersection of these two status characteristics utilizing survey data of American military academy cadets, Reserve Officer Training Corp (ROTC) cadets, and civilian students (n = 5,051). Majorities of military cadets, regardless of race, supported both of these wars more than their civilian counterparts, but African-Americans are significantly less supportive of the wars relative to their peers within each group. African-American cadets support both wars less so than whites and cadets of other races, but African-American cadets supported both wars more than African-American civilians. It appears that racial and military affiliations combine to yield a unique perspective on war, adapting elements of both statuses. These findings support the concept of intersectionality.     

Producing-resisting national borders in the United States,France and the Netherlands

Since the 1990s, governments in the United States, France, and the Netherlands have expanded their capacities to police their national borders against immigrants. The paper examines how such efforts have contributed to the growth of centralized policing agencies and the devolution of powers to individualized border enforcers (local police, service providers, nonprofit organizations, etc.). The paper argues that bordering strategies have closed some “holes” in national walls, but they have also introduced countless disagreements, disputes, and resistances by undocumented immigrants, legal permanent residents, national citizens, and frontline border enforcers. Many of these small resistances stay small and do not evolve into large contentious struggles. Others scale up and present more important challenges to government efforts. Rather than simply producing smooth governing machines that sharpen boundaries between the national citizen and the foreign Other, bordering strategies generate waves of small and big struggles that puncture and blur these facile boundaries.