United in revolt and discourse: urban and noble perceptions of ‘bad government’ in fifteenth-century Brabant (1420–1)

This case study on the Brabantine uprising of 1420–1 reveals common ground between noble and urban political values, calling into question the dominant historiographical cleavage between noble and urban ideologies. In 1420, one of the most severe political conflicts in Brabantine history caused a coalition of members of the upper nobility and Leuven city councillors to remove Duke John IV from the throne and convict his councillors. Preceding these drastic events, both parties had written texts together to legitimise their political position and attract supporters. By analysing the writings of the insurgents, this article illustrates how these noblemen and urban councillors combined their political ideas in practice to create a coherent discourse that supported their claims to power. The analysis also emphasises the insurgents’ appropriation, interpretation and use of key notions, such as the ‘common good’, to criticise Duke John’s government and promote their cause.     

Images of ‘Wild Africa’: nature tourism and the (re)creation of Hluhluwe game reserve, 1930–1945

This paper explores the relationship between new discursive constructions of South African nature and the material imperatives that influenced game reserve management in Zululand in the 1930s and 1940s. It also investigates the social consequences of these developments. The paper traces the emergence of marketable constructions of ‘wild nature’ linked to the development of tourism and their expression in the increasing exclusion of Africans from game reserves. At Hluhluwe, this process was tentative and its outcome far from inevitable. Yet while the question of an African presence in game reserves remained open in the early 1930s, in the longer term it was clear that black people could not be part of Zululand's new, purified ‘space of nature’ – or, more correctly, they would participate only as employees and not as residents or tourists. The management of the Hluhluwe game reserve as a tourist destination ultimately entailed the more systematic exercise of spatial controls over its landscape, contributing to the dispossession and exclusion of local Zulu people. The paper argues that enhanced social controls and a new brutal geography of forced removal are implicated in the (re)creation of Hluhluwe as a romantic space in which tourists could experience wild nature and an ‘unspoilt’ African landscape.     

‘Sword and plough’: settling Nazi stormtroopers in Eastern Europe, 1936–43

ABSTRACT

Most histories of the National Socialist stormtroopers (SA) come to a close with the Night of the Long Knives in the summer of 1934. For the remaining eleven years of National Socialist rule, the stormtroopers are usually regarded as a peripheral ‘nostalgic drinking companionship’ of early Nazi activists who, apart from their involvement in the persecution of the Jews, did not wield much influence. In contrast to such views, this article argues that the SA remained an important mass organization in the Third Reich that not only helped to stabilize the Nazi regime within the boundaries of the German heartlands but also contributed importantly to German expansionist policies from 1935 onwards. My argument is developed in three stages. First, I assess the SA’s contribution to the German settlement movement in the 1930s that was originally concerned with the ‘inner colonialism’, the population transfer within the existing borders of the German Reich in order to stimulate agriculture and economy in disadvantaged German regions, in particular in the northern and eastern provinces. Second, I concentrate on the analysis of the plans and initiatives of the so-called ‘commissioner of the SA Chief of Staff for the placement of new farmers and matters of ethnicity’ between 1938 and 1942. In a third and final part, I discuss these plans and the actual developments in the light of the expansionist Nazi policies of de- and reterritorialization during the war years, advanced in particular by the SS. Although the SA’s extensive pre-war ambitions in ‘Germanization’ suffered a serious backlash with the outbreak of the war, it still contributed in important ways to the formation of the Volksgemeinschaft in the occupied territories.     

‘It shocks me,the place of women’: intersectionality and mining companies’ retrogradation of indigenous women in New Caledonia

Indigenous women’s social positionings are complex and dynamic, informed by culture and post-colonial politics; gender and ethnicity intersect with age, socio-economic status, and social hierarchies. This article uses an ethnographic study of Kanak women’s engagements with mining in New Caledonia, to examine three questions. First, how do indigenous women’s dynamic social positionings shape their possibilities for negotiation with and resistance to industry? Secondly, how do women’s possibilities for engagement in turn shape the wider community’s possibilities for negotiation with or resistance to industry? Finally, what is the companies’ role in shaping women’s possibilities for such engagement? I draw on the critical feminist concept of intersectionality, bringing this into conversation with concepts of symbolic and cultural violence and hegemony. Over time, women began to actively negotiate with and resist industrial projects, in line with growing gender equity in New Caledonia, but the mining companies referenced – and thus reinforced – women’s dominated social position as an excuse to sideline their concerns, a type of cultural violence I term ‘retrogradation.’ Thus, this article recognizes indigenous women’s increasing agency in engaging with external actors, such as industrial projects, yet also shows how outsiders can commit retrogradation to further marginalize young, rural, poor community women. I discuss how such marginalization limits options for the larger group. Finally, I point to a way out of oppression, through transformation of hegemonic ideologies.     

A Review of “Cultures of the Erotic in Spain, 1898–1939, and A Virtual Wunderkammer: Early Twentieth Century Erotica in Spain”

Abstract

Christopher Rivers. Face Value: Physiognomical Thought and the Legible Body in Marivaux, Lavater, Balzac, Gautier, and Zola. The University of Wisconsin Press, 1994. xii + 275 pp.

Brian T. Fitch. The Fall: A Matter of Guilt. (Twayne's Masterwork Studies.) New York: Twayne Publishers, 1995. xii + 136 pp.     

‘Unity,stability, continuity’: heritage and the renovation of Franco’s dictatorship in Spain, 1957–1969

Spain between 1957 and 1969 – the period in the history of the dictatorial regime of General Francisco Franco known as desarrollista (development‐guided) – presents a peculiar case of a state‐driven heritage industry. The present article examines the desarrollista policy aimed at creating and coordinating heritage tourism, focusing on periodical publications, official speeches, films and promotional materials. It looks at late‐Francoist heritage as a vehicle for achieving, simultaneously, an ideological and an economic effect. Economically, heritage was conceived as a tool for diversifying and individualising Spain’s tourism product in the Mediterranean market, and above all, for confronting the uneven territorial and seasonal distribution of ‘sun and beach tourism’. At the same time, ideologically, the models and uses of heritage examined here served the regime’s interest in securing the country’s territorial unity, maintaining the high profile of the Catholic Church, and re‐legitimising the Civil War (1936–1939) which had brought Franco to power.     

Images of towns in Frankish Morea: the evidence of the ‘Chronicles’ of the Morea and of the Tocco

Abstract

In the summer of 1205 Raimbault of Vacqueyras, the troubadour who had shared Boniface of Monferrat's exploits in central Greece, exclaimed enthusiastically in Salonica:

‘Never did Alexander or Charlemagne or King Louis had such a glorious expedition, nor could the valiant lord Aimeri or Roland with his warriors win by might, in such noble fashion, such a powerful empire as we have won, whereby our faith is in ascendant; for we have created emperors and dukes and kings, and have manned strongholds near the Turks and Arabs, and opened up the roads and ports from Brindisi to St. George's Straits'.     

The persistence of the rural idyll: peasant imagery,social change and nationalism in Spain 1939–1978

In this article the authors propose a historical analysis of the role of romantic rural imagery in the Spanish (state and peripheral) re-nationalization processes during the Franco dictatorship through the scope of the political and identity meanings assigned to it. Their goal is to better comprehend twentieth-century Spain by examining the use (and abuse) of the rural imaginary by Spanish, Basque and Galician nationalisms, particularly during the time of the totalitarian regime of General Franco, giving special attention to the cultural loans between the ideological (and national) blocs traditionally interpreted as monolithic and irreconcilable: Francoism (1936–1975) and its political opposition.     

‘Running Away with Itself’: Missionaries,Islanders and the Reimagining of Cricket in Samoa, 1830–1939

Missionaries were among the first and most influential bearers of European social practices in Oceania. While they sought to reshape the lives of Indigenous peoples, missionaries frequently found that Islanders reconfigured introduced practices in distinctive and sometimes disruptive ways. This essay explores this process using the example of sport and games, and particularly cricket, in Samoa. Despite initial reservations, by the late-19th century most missionaries considered European sports to be inoffensive and even useful in furthering their objectives. Samoan pastimes, however, were irremediably bound to ‘un-Christian’ practices such as lewd dancing, revelry and excess. This neat dichotomy was disrupted by the manner in which Samoans adapted papalagi (foreign) sports – principally cricket – in ways that obliterated their European character and instead catered to Samoan expectations of what recreation should be. After initial efforts to control and proscribe cricket, missionaries grew resigned to its place within increasingly ‘Samoanised’ churches.     

Suburban women and the ‘glocalisation’ of the everyday lives: gender and glocalities in underprivileged areas in Sweden

This article presents results from two case studies of marginalised housing areas on the outskirts of two major cities in Sweden. The areas have been analysed through the lens of glocalisation of the everyday lives. The aim is to illustrate and gain a deeper understanding of the meaning of, and relationship between, place, gender and transnationalism. The article contests the simplified image of migrant women in these marginalised areas as local-bound and isolated. It analyses their everyday lives as spaces of glocality, with a particular focus on local and global networks, local and global meeting places, and relationships to local authorities. The aim is to disseminate new knowledge about the complexities of these women's lives in a global–local context, which also has implications for the theoretical concept of glocality. Through the concept of glocality, the beneficial as well as the negative aspects of these women's lives in marginalised neighbourhoods are illustrated.     

Sexual Desires and ‘Social Evils’: Young women in rural Vietnam

Vietnam's increased integration into the global market economy entails rapid and dynamic changes that foster new ways of acting, interacting and rendering the world meaningful. This article addresses the ways in which an ongoing process of transformation in contemporary Vietnam is epitomised by the ambivalence and ambiguity with which female sexuality is imbued. Female sexuality is ideally restricted to marriage and motherhood, meaning that females' premarital or extramarital sexual relations tend to be associated with the category of ‘social evils’ (te nan xa hoi). The category of ‘social evils’ is vague in definition and was introduced into Vietnamese society by virtue of what was seen as the country's increased involvement in a morally polluted world. By drawing on two periods of fieldwork (1994–1995 and 2000–2001) in a northern rural Vietnamese commune, this article highlights the ways in which female sexuality in a local field site is intertwined with anxieties about the forces of a global and ‘poisonous culture’ (van hoa doc hai) that may lead young women to transgress moral limits: for example, by having premarital sex. For many rural female adolescents sexuality thus means a need of self-imposed and/or governmentally imposed control in order to guarantee appropriate morality. For others, however, sexuality means the involvement in premarital sexual relations and, hence, a crossing of moral boundaries.

Deseos Sexuales y ‘Males Sociales’: mujeres jóvenes en el campo de Vietnam

La integración aumentado de Vietnam en la economía de mercado globalizada implica cambios rápidos y dinámicos que fomentan nuevas maneras de actuar, de relacionarse, y de hacer el mundo significativo. Este artículo trata las maneras en que un proceso continuo de trasformación en Vietnam contemporáneo se ejemplifica de la ambivalencia y ambigüedad de que se ésta empapada la sexualidad femenina. La sexualidad femenina se limita al matrimonio y la maternidad, lo cual significa que las relaciones sexuales prematrimonial o extramatrimonial tienden a estar relacionado con la categoría de «males sociales» («te nan xa hoi»). La categoría de «males sociales» tiene definición imprecisa y era introducida a la sociedad vietnamita en virtud de lo que se veía como la implicación creciente del país en un mundo moral contaminado. Haciendo uso de trabajo de campo que se realizó en dos períodos distintas (1994–1995 y 2000–2001) en una comuna rural en el norte de Vietnam, este artículo destaca las maneras en que la sexualidad femenina, en un sitio local del campo, se entrelaza con ansiedades de las fuerzas de una cultura global y «venenosa» («hai de van hoa doc»), lo que influya a las mujeres jóvenes a transgredir los límites morales, por ejemplo, tener sexo prematrimonial. Así que, para muchos de las adolescentes rurales la sexualidad significa la necesidad de tener control que se impone por ellas mismas y/o por el gobierno para garantizar moralidad adecuada. Sin embargo, para otras la sexualidad significa la participación en relaciones sexuales prematrimoniales y, por lo tanto, una travesía de los límites morales.     

‘We or them,’ ‘you and I,’ and ‘I’: spaces of intimacy and (not so) public displays of affection in Hanoi

Through an exploratory study of romantic heterosexual couples in a public park situated in Hanoi’s outskirts, this article offers a conceptual rethinking of a western understanding of the park’s public/private dichotomy which can then be used to better appreciate how these categories are evolving in western urbanizing societies and their impacts on gender relations. By developing a relational, spatialized understanding of how young romantic couples justify their ‘transgressive’ displays of sexual intimacy in public spaces in contemporary urban Vietnam, this article focuses on how couples, especially women, manage their visibility. This analysis confronts the public civilizational discourse on Vietnamese sexual restraint by analyzing how young couples justify their romantic displays by creating an intimate space within a public environment. This space of visible intimacy is justified through their commitment to marriage. For the individuals involved in these romantic couples, visibility is justified, particularly for young women, through the enjoyment of a newly gained sexual autonomy as they migrate to the city.     

From the Arctic and Antarctic to ‘the back parts of Mull’: The life and career of William Gordon Burn Murdoch (1862–1939)

Published and archival sources are examined to elucidate the career of William Gordon Burn Murdoch, artist, bag‐piper, explorer, geographer, hunter, Scottish nationalist, traveller, whaler and writer. Burn Murdoch's diverse contributions to geography are discussed, as are the roles he played in the Royal Scottish Geographical Society and other Scottish scientific and literary societies. A preliminary list of his extant original works of art is included.