Indentured servitude and convict labour in the Danish-Norwegian West Indies, 1671–1755

The article explores how indentured servitude and the use of convict labour began and evolved in the Danish-Norwegian West Indies in the period 1671–1755. It examines the intentions and realities behind indentured servitude and convict labour on the islands, and compares these with the workings and use of indentured servants in the British West Indies.

Similar to conditions in the British West Indies, the lowest social strata of white society in the Danish-Norwegian West Indies consisted of a small population of convicts and indentured servants. The use of these groups as part of the labour force took place from the onset of colonisation in 1672 until 1755, the period in which the islands were governed by the West Indian and Guinean Company, WIGC (Vestindisk-Guineisk Kompagni). The analysis reveals that the importation and deployment of indentured servants and convicts can be divided into two distinct periods. Until 1700, the objective of the WIGC was to provide cheap labour for the colony. After 1700, however, the aim was to recruit qualified personnel and to secure the planters against slave rebellion by increasing the white Danish population. As convicts provided neither qualifications nor security, convict transportations to the Danish-Norwegian West Indies ceased after 1700. After 1755, when the Danish-Norwegian Crown purchased the colonies from the WIGC, Danish convict labour and indentured servants were no longer imported to the colony. By contrast, in the British West Indies, imports of indentured servants and convicts continued to play a significant role.

The article explores the physical and legal conditions of the indentured servants and convicts, who constituted the lowest social group in white colonial society and were in some respects considered slaves.     

Rancière,Derrida, and Egalitarian Politics in Pseudo-Dionysius

Abstract

Using the work of Jacques Rancière, I argue for an egalitarian reading of the political hierarchy in Pseudo-Dionysius. I first analyze various historical attempts to derive a political theory from Pseudo-Dionysius in the work of Juan Miguel Garrigues, René Roques, and Dominic O’Meara. I then turn to Jacques Derrida's attempt to distinguish deconstruction from negative theology, and consider especially the political effects of this strategy. I argue that Derrida's attempt to undermine Psuedo-Dionysius's system from within is unsuccessful, and suggest instead that Rancière provides the conceptual tools to identify an egalitarianism within Dionysian political theory     

Apartheid on Trial: South West Africa and the International Court of Justice, 1960–66

The deputation of Basuto chiefs to England in 1907 provides an example of close co-operation between traditional African chiefs, educated black activists, and white humanitarians in pursuing to the heart of empire the claims of Africans seeking remedy for injustices suffered under colonial rule. The deputation arrived at a time when the Colonial Office felt severely constrained in its ability to fulfil its responsibility of trusteeship towards its African subjects in colonies which were ‘on the eve of responsible government’. This article highlights the support provided in England by Frank Colenso, the son of Bishop Colenso of Natal, in partnership with his sisters in Natal, and argues that, though failing in its immediate aim, this black-led initiative led to a strengthening of relationships between black South African activists and white British-based humanitarians. It also provided an impetus for the development in England of a loosely knit informal organisational framework able to provide material, moral, and political support for South African political activists who were to visit England in deputations from the newly formed South African Native National Congress (forerunner of the ANC) to pursue their grievances against the South African government in the second and third decades of the twentieth century.     

Temporal sickness,spiritual healing: Therapeutic remedies and itineraries in Margeride,Lozère

Situated in central southern France, the Margeride in the department of Lozère is a mountainous area which is essentially agricultural, relatively undeveloped economically and which defines itself, in opposition to the town, as devout Faced with the different curative systems on offer — doctors, healers, pilgrimages — the people there choose to segment and superimpose their respective uses within the same treatment in an economy which aims to destroy certain supposed bad effects of their accumulation, in order to reinforce the good effects. Each series of recourses to these three options forms a combination aimed at obtaining the greatest therapeutic efficiency, despite the social contradictions which this implies. Here, the peasant body believes itself to be ruled by two different ways of being: one, governed by God and his ends, the other, by Nature. In addition, a new factor has recently appeared: the imported image, from the town, of the .body. Now, on the symbolic level, taking these non‐homogeneous factors into consideration, it has been necessary for the peasants to negotiate a satisfactory “arrangement”; in order to apply the treatment required for each of these representations, and, on the social level, to satisfy the nonetheless opposed networks of clienteles.

The itineraries constructed by the patient for his cure (and this after the acceptance of the idea) depend on the place occupied within the family and in relation to fellow villagers. The treatment applied will then be more or less intensive, the essential being that certain phases of the montage will be shown, whereas others will remain concealed.

These different therapeutic montages and procedures, the construction of a coherence and the context of access to systems of treatment are described in this article.     

East is East,and West is West? Currency iconography as nation-branding in the wider Europe

This article considers European banknote iconography as an indicator of national branding choices from the early twentieth century up to the present. Systematic quantitative content analysis demonstrates that the values and ontologies expressed on Central/East European banknotes have historically tracked closely with the trends visible on their West European counterparts. This pattern is evident not just since the end of the Cold War, but indeed right from the founding of the modern Central/East European states about a century ago. Even during the Cold War, it did not take long for the trends on Western banknotes to appear on Central/East European banknotes as well. Thus, contrary to the conventional assumption of a deep-rooted normative gulf separating the national identity discourses of so-called “New” and “Old” Europe, the article underscores the fact of intense, longstanding normative cross-pollination between them.