Nations and Nationalisms: Towards More Open Models

Abstract. Starting from the proposition that nationalism is bound up with ethnicity, Barth's view that ethnicity is defined by actors and that ethnicities are situationally variable is drawn upon to argue that narrow definitions of nationalism – as a specifically modem political ideology which is bound up with the nation-state – overstate their case. Instead of nationalism we should be talking about nationalisms, which can only be understood in their local and historical contexts. An open definition of nationalism is offered, which permits abstraction and generalisation while accommodating empirical heterogeneity. Material from Wales, Northern Ireland and Denmark is presented to illustrate some of the differences between local nationalisms.     

Beyond the Discontinuity Paradigm: Towards a Pan-African Church History

The purpose of this article is to suggest: (1) That a particular model of writing African church history inherited from the historiography of European mission has influenced the way in which the trans-African history of Christianity in Africa has been presented. It is argued that this model has encouraged an episodic view of the Christian past, through its documentary emphasis on the last two centuries. (2) That this model was both implicit and unchallenged in the theological trends of the post-colonial period, with their programmatic emphasis on indigenization and inculturation. The work of the vast majority of African theologians, and hence of church historians outside Africa, envisaged a model of the 'discontinuous past' premised on the idea that Christianity was to be understood in terms of export and import or 'early' north African and 'later' southern African engagement. This model is here labelled the 'discontinuity paradigm'. (3) That a new model for the writing of church history in Africa should be attempted. An 'adaptive similarities' model is proposed which sees the history of the church in Africa against the template of analogous conversion–adaptation–fissiparation movements in the earlier periods of the church's existence. The essay proposes a pan-African church history 'project' which focuses its work on constructing this model from regional church history efforts (Sundkler) and which attempts to isolate the recurrent themes and patterns of African Christianity (the thematic–chonological matrix) as interpreted within the wider African context (the geographical–cultural matrix).     

History in Prehistory: The Oral Traditions of the Rarotongan Land Court Records

The records of the early 20th century Rarotongan land courts are an invaluable source of ethnohistoric information regarding pre-contact land tenure, social and political relations, and historical processes affecting tenure and relations. They are analysed here from the point of view of contextualising the archaeological record of the island. Pre-contact Rarotongan society is shown to have been fluid and flexible, although one notable trend is the gradual aggrandisement of ariki power. This trend continues into the missionary and early colonial periods, where political unity and ariki hegemony become established. European intervention was a single, though defining, episode in a long history. Although it transformed the political order, Rarotonga remained resolutely Rarotongan.     

The History and Historiography of American Diplomacy: Principles, Traditions and Values

The Council on Foreign Relations in New York is known throughout the world both as a leading centre for the study of international affairs and as having an influential voice in current debates on the future global role of the United States. Since the First World War the Council has promoted these goals through organizing working groups, sponsoring specialized monographs, and publishing a number of journals and yearbooks. The Council has now sponsored the publication of a multivolume encyclopaedic dictionary of American foreign relations. Michael Dunne's review of these four volumes concentrates on the broad themes which run through the many hundreds of essays, and asks whether the study of the American diplomatic past can help us to understand the special features of the course and conduct of US foreign relations.     

Telling More: Lies,Secrets, and History

This essay argues that secrets and lies are not forms of withholding information but forms by which information is valorized. Lies are constructed: what is to be lied about, what a lie is to consist of, how it is to be told, and whom it is to be told to, all reveal a social imaginary about who thinks what and what constitutes credibility. Secrets are negotiated: continual decisions about whom to tell, how much to tell, and whom not to tell describe social worlds, and the shape and weight of interactions therein. All of this makes lies and secrets extraordinarily rich historical sources. We might not see the truth distorted by a lie or the truth hidden by a secret, but we see the ideas andimaginings by which people disclose what should not be made public, and how they should carry out concealing one narrative with another. Such insights involve a step back from the project of social history, in which an inclusive social narrative is based on experience and individuals' ability to report it with some reliability, and suggests that historians need to look at social imaginings as ways to understand the ideas and concerns about which people lie and with which people construct new narratives that are not true. The study of secrets, however, links the study of social imaginings with the project of social history, as the valorization of information that results in the continual negotiation and renegotiation of secrets shows individuals and publics imagining the experiences labeled as secret because of the imagined power of a specific version of events.     

History Is in the Land: Multivocal Tribal Traditions in Arizona's San Pedro Valley

The San Pedro Ethnohistory Project is a collaborative researchinitiative between the Center for Desert Archeology and fourIndian tribes whose ancestors lived along this ancient naturaltravel route (4). Realizing the substantial data about the SanPedro River Valley reflected few native voices, a team of archeologistsand anthropologists designed the project to include participationfrom four area tribes with ties to the area—the TohonoO’odham, Hopi, Zuni, and Western Apache. Each of the tribeshave "distinct oral traditions that provide an anthropologicalcontext for interpreting the history and archeology" of thevalley (6). The project included fieldwork     

Towards a More Rational IMF Quota Structure: Suggestions for the Creation of a New International Financial Architecture

The authors of this article argue that, in the absence of a well‐founded quota formula, the very basis of the creation of the IMF as an institution at the centre of international financial arrangements was flawed; that there is no clear rationale for the determinants of quota structures and their weighting scheme; and that the quota allocation as an instrument seeks to target too many objectives. As a result, large and arbitrary cross‐country variations exist in the relative impact of different determinants on the quota shares of different countries. The quota formulas therefore need to be reviewed and an alternative approach evolved, in which emphasis is placed on the size of the economy rather than its openness, along with efficiency parameters. The authors suggest some principles which might underpin redefined quota structures in support of a new financial architecture. They provide illustrative calculations using India as a case study, and trace the impact of the redefined quota structures against the backdrop of the impact of the Eleventh General Review on India’s quota position.     

More than Paradoxes to Offer: Feminist History as Critical Practice

Book reviewed in this article:
Only Paradoxes to Offer: French Feminists and the Rights of Man By Joan Wallach Scott