Motive forces behind the new social policy after 1870. Norway on the European scene∗

Ida Blom (ed.), Cappelens kvinnehistorie, vol. 1: urtid, oldtid, middelalder til ca. 1500, vol. 2: renessanse, reformasjon, revolusjon ca. 1500 til i dag, vol. 3: Asia og Afrika. Tredje verden (Women's history, vol. 1: prehistoric times, antiquity, the Middle Ages until 1500, vol. 2: renaissance, reformation, revolution from 1500 to now, vol. 3: Asia, Africa. The Third World). (Oslo: Cappelens forlag AS, 1992–1993), 448 pp., 638 pp., 351 pp. ISBN 82–02–14078–1.

Johan Söderberg, Civilisering, marknad och våld i Sverige 1750–1870. En regional analys (Civilization, market, and violence in Sweden 1750–1850. An analysis of regions). (Stockholm: Almqvist &; Wiksell International, 1993). 290 pp. ISBN 91–22–01543–4.

Jean‐Pierre Mousson‐Lestang, La Scandinavie et l'Europe de 1945 à nos jours (Presses universitaires de France 1990).     

Pressure groups and protest∗

This paper builds on the work of Michael Lipsky concerning protest groups. I argue that his analysis can be applied to ‘relatively resourceless’ pressure groups in general, and that these groups need to work through the target's ‘reference publics’ in order to pursue their aims. This creates an impetus towards particular styles of action designed to attract media coverage. There are, however, certain aspects of this process which make it extremely precarious for the group itself, because it must lose a good deal of control over the process of influence.     

Chapels and chantries in late medieval and early modern Besançon: the record book of Jean Ferreux,chaplain

During the fifteenth-century reform of the Poor Clares by St. Colette, many new convents were built in France and Flanders. Their chapels were endowed by local benefactors with perpetual chantries. Much later, a diligent chaplain in Besançon reviewed the state of the chantries entrusted to his care. His record describes their condition after a decline of over two centuries, owing to currency devaluation, the collapse of the local aristocracy, and the nuns' neglect of their duties. The chaplain's book shows that these chantries, though founded in perpetuity, maintained their original function for only a few years. After that, even as the benefactors were themselves forgotten, so their chantries slowly fell into disrepair and decline.     

Views on “Golden Key： 17-Article Agreement”

The book entitled Golden Key： 17- Article Agreement, co-authored by Zhou Aiming and Yuan Sha, probes in a most comprehensive way the Agreement between the Central Government and the Local Government of Tibet for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet. The book runs to more than 640,000 words and has good illustrations.     

Knives for the Slaughter – Notes on the Reform and Governance of Indigenous Reindeer Slaughter in Norway

Abstract

Drawing on historical records and ethnographic fieldwork, the present article examines the history of the so-called curved knife, or krumkniv, as a window on the governance and regulation of indigenous Sámi reindeer slaughter in Norway. Originally developed by scientific activists in the 1920s, in the context of a series of experimental field trials held at a farmstead in Røros, the knives were designed to combine efficiency and ease of use with the elimination of visible animal pain, thus bringing indigenous slaughter in line with the shifting aesthetic and moral concerns of the time. The innovation was highly successful, and the knives rapidly adopted as essential tools of the herding trade – to the point where today, most users disregard their origins. Moving forward to the early 21st century, the situation had shifted almost entirely: animal welfare activists now decried the same knives as a barbaric anachronism, while herders defended them as part of their cultural heritage. Historical narratives of moral progress articulated with other discourses to produce a homogeneous present moment of the state, a moment that threatened to exclude herders from participation in the ongoing nation-building project – constituting them instead as objects of intervention and reform, targeting the successes of previous reform. Herders, meanwhile, challenged such negative constructions by defining the knife as an indigenous tradition, invoking the international commitments of the state to preserve their cultural heritage. Comparing these two historical moments, the article draws out how the technical minutiae of slaughtering practice could operate both as an instrument of social engineering, and as an arena within which complex, large-scale issues – to do with matters such as social inclusion and participation, the value of history, the function and obligations of the state – could be settled, contested and redrawn.