Sports,Politics and Ethnicity in the North. Workers’ Sport in Western Finnmark in the Late 1930s

Abstract

Internationally, ethnicity in sports has become an independent field of research amongst sports historians focusing on phenomena such as colonialism, immigration and indigenous populations. Studies demonstrate that sports have simultaneously been able to assimilate different groups, promoting majority concepts of identity and majority values, and enable groups to fashion their own singular ethnic identities in contrast to those of majority societies. In Norwegian historical research, sport and ethnicity has been given only scarce attention. Norwegian sports historians have mainly seen Norway as an ethnically homogenous society where sport has played an essential part in creating a unifying national identity. A major concern for Norwegian sports history research has been the political split in Norwegian sports in the 1930s. Research on this event has mainly been occupied with the relationship between the Workers’ Sports Association (AIF) and the “bourgeois” National Sports Federation (NLI), and by AIF's significance as a political movement. Less attention, however, has been given to its cultural impact. This article investigates the establishment and function of AIF in the multi-ethnic area of West Finnmark, a geographically and politically peripheral region of Northern Norway, at the end of the 1930s. The town of Alta, the main focus of attention, was in the 1930s a small fiord community with an ethnically mixed population of indigenous Sámi, Kvens and Norwegians, sharp political divisions and a vibrant sporting milieu. Although the political division of Alta's sports establishment displays many of the traits that characterize similar events in the country at large, the ethnic factor brought another, important, dimension to it. This highly politicized period in Finnmark sports underlines the importance of sports as an arena for the construction and reinforcement of not only political identity, but also for the production of ethnic and local identities.     

The shaping of a market for technical know‐how in Latin America 1870–1930

Ingar Kaldahl, Arbeid og miljø ved Follafoss tresliperi og Ranheim papirfabrikk 1920–1970 [Work and work environment at Follafoss pulp‐mill and Ranheim paper mill 1920–1970]. (Trondheim, Norway: Department of History, University of Trondheim, 1994). 525 pp. ISBN 82–7765–002–7.

Britta Lövgren, Hemarbete som politik [Housework as politics. Discussions on housework in Sweden in the 1930s and the 1940s and the establishing of The Home Research Institute (Hemmenes Forskningsinstitut)]. (Stockholm: Almqvist &; Wiksell International, 1993). 232 pp. ISBN 91–22–01556–6.

Sidsel Eriksen, Sester Silfverbergs sorger [Sister Silfverberg's sorrows. A story about how a Sunday‐school teacher became a temperance agitator and a feminist]. (Copenhagen: Spektrum, 1993). ISBN 87–7763–088–2.

Alexandra Ramsay, Huvudstadens hjärta. Filantropi och social förändring i Helsingfors: två fruentimmers föreninger 1848–1865 [The heart of the capital. Philanthropy and social change in Helsingfors ‐ two ladies’ societies 1848–1865]. (Helsingfors: Finska Vetenskaps‐Societeten‐Suomen Tiedeseura, 1993.) 183 pp. ISBN 951–653–248–9.

Elina Katainen (ed.), Kotomaan koko kuva. Kirjoituksia elokuvasta ja 1930‐luvun sosiaalikistoriasta [Full Portrait of the Homeland. Studies in Cinema and the Social History of the 1930s]. (Helsinki: Suomen Historiallinen Seura. Historiallinen Arkisto 100. Helsingin yliopiston talous‐ ja sosiaalihistorian laitos. Talous‐ ja sosiaalihistoriallisia tutkimuksia 2, 1993. 232 pp. ISBN 951–8915–68–7, ISSN 0073–2540.

Erik Tudeer, Det åländska folkets historia V:1 1920–1990 [The History of the Åland Islanders]. (Ekenäs:Ekenäs Tryckeri Aktiebolag, 1993). 287 pp. ISBN 952–9848–02–1.     

The Arizona community data set: a long‐term project for education and research in economic geography

Abstract

The teaching of economic geography has received considerable attention in the literature over the last three years. This paper contributes to the debate by illustrating and analyzing a project based at the University of Arizona, the Arizona Community Data Set (ACDS). The ACDS is a long‐term field‐project that has given students the opportunity to go in the field to collect and analyze regional economic data and to apply theory and techniques learned in the classroom. This unique data set has yielded additional benefits in the area of basic research. It is argued that projects such as the ACDS complement some of the theoretical and analytical curriculum developed and recently published by other instructors in economic geography. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that some of the limitations commonly associated with field projects, especially the cost, can partly be overcome through sponsorship by community agencies.     

Choosing Peace and Order: National Security and Sovereignty in a North American Borderland, 1837–42

This article considers the international ramifications of the Canadian Rebellions of 1837, in particular their impact on US politics and policy-making as well as on the state of the international border. The Rebellions and the ensuing border raids led to the deployment of US and British forces in the borderlands, not in pursuit of war but in the interest of peace. Ignoring popular agitation in the Canadian colonies and in border states, the British and US governments expressed their commitment to peace and recognised that continued friendly relations required further assertion of central state authority on both sides of the boundary line. Thus, the events of 1837–42 mark an important advance in the development of national security and national sovereignty in North America. This paper expands upon purely national depictions of the Canadian Rebellions and integrates international developments by utilising a borderlands approach and traditional diplomatic history.     

Location or dis-location? Towards a conceptualization of people and place in the care-giving experience

Over the last two decades we have seen an increased interest in informal care within both political and academic communities in the UK. This has stemmed in large part from an increased emphasis on the home-space as the preferred site of care provision and a resultant increase in the complexity of the care-giving relationship. The explicitly spatial dimensions of this caring relationship, however, are vastly under-researched. This paper represents one attempt to redress the gap by examining the importance of place, and its conceptualization, in the care of frail older people. In doing so, the paper focuses, firstly, on the spatial manifestation of care at various scales, identifying some of the processes behind variations in the care-giving experience and, secondly, using the example of dementia care, it considers how Auge´'s concepts of anthropological place and non-space, when applied to domestic and institutional care settings, can facilitate a more nuanced understanding of the importance of people and place in the construction and delivery of care to frail older people.     

Neanderthal Survival in the North of the Iberian Peninsula? Reflections from a Catalan and Cantabrian Perspective

In the debate over Western Europe??s Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition we need to consider the importance of both the chronology and the ecological context of the different techno-complexes, as well as the organization of production and consumption activities. In this article we study the adaptative strategies of Middle Palaeolithic human communities based on the information obtained from archaeological sites north of the river Ebro. This transition in the northern part of the peninsula presents a chronological and geographic dichotomy, with the appearance of the Upper Palaeolithic and survival of the Middle Palaeolithic. The geographic distribution appears to indicate intergroup competition and the existence of contact, albeit of an unverified nature. This competition would explain the time that elapsed before one of the cultural, and perhaps biological, groups triumphed over the other in a process culminating in the expansion of Upper Palaeolithic technology.     

Is there a relationship between wartime violence and postwar agricultural development outcomes? The case of concessions and community grants in Mozambique

This paper studies if intensity and recentness of wartime violence is related to the trajectory of post-conflict agricultural development. We consider the case of Mozambique, where the government has made agricultural concessions to corporations, as well as land grants to communities. These uses may stand in competition with one another, and we test if violence affects the awarding of concessions or land grants. We analyze district-level, GIS-generated data on concessions, grants, and civil war events. We find wartime violence intensity is associated with more concessions and fewer grants. We conversely find recentness of violence is associated with fewer concessions and more grants. Embedding our empirical analysis in a community resilience framework, we suggest the intensity of wartime violence may erode local institutions – be they traditional governance structures, or agricultural cooperatives seeking community lands – or limit their access to government bodies and local NGOs tasked with vetting, delimiting, and monitoring proposed concessions. Paradoxically, recentness violence may mobilize those same institutions.     

Relational spaces and the geopolitics of community participation in two Tasmanian local governments: a case for agonistic pluralism?

The 'success' of sustainability is often premised on public participation and consensus among members of diverse communities. An analysis of two experiments in participatory governance in Tasmania underpinned by explicit commitments to sustainability and by tacit investments in deliberative democracy allows detailed reflection on claims about the efficacy of deliberative democracy, and encourages speculation about whether and to what extent an alternative model of agonistic pluralism may better accommodate conflicts in communities wrestling with resource use and distribution.     

“Bringing Light to our Land… When She was Dark as Night”: Northerners,Freedpeople, and Education during Military Occupation in North Carolina, 1862–1865

When Union armies arrived in eastern North Carolina in 1862, they encountered escaped slaves eager to acquire education. Soon after the armies occupied the region, missionaries and teachers arrived seeking to educate and uplift these former slaves. They brought their own preconceptions of helpless blacks, and a blind confidence in a New England system of education. But they also brought very different ideas of how the educational mission should be accomplished. Disagreements led to conflicts within the benevolent societies, replete with nasty bickering, reprisals for insults, and much uncivil behavior. During wartime occupation, freedpeople utilized their northern benefactors to gain autonomy over their lives and institutions. However, given the often combative nature of the northerners’ relationships with each other, it is remarkable that the freedpeople were able to acquire the educational skills and degree of autonomy that they did.     

Stalin’s humanitarian government: class,child homelessness and state security in a historical perspective (1930s–40s)

Informed by Didier Fassin’s concept of humanitarian government, this article reveals a distinct pattern of secret care provisions imposed under Stalin by the secret police and its successor agencies (NKVD, MVD) first to the peasant children displaced by class war and the famine of 1932–33, and then to the children made homeless by the Great Terror and the 1940s’ national deportations. The article also identifies the under-researched reception centres as crucial sites for both administering emergency assistance and establishing the social classification necessary to apply these discriminatory measures. Affected by the decreasing faith in their possible socialist rehabilitation and lack of any official display of compassion, these children’s lives appeared even less worthy of saving in the course of major emergencies. These findings challenge the official Soviet view of the existence of a universal childhood worth protecting, which guided the first socialist country’s intervention to save other children nationally and internationally.     

Contract-Workers in Swedish Agriculture,c. 1890s–1930s: a comparative study of standard of living and social status 1

In the political and medial discourse of the 1930s the contract-work system (stat/ar/systemet) was depicted as a relic of pre-modern society and contract-workers (statare) as the highly exploited lower class with no legal rights, low incomes, miserable housing conditions and a chaotic family life. This picture has dominated Swedish social history ever since, and the main argument of this article is that it has to be modified. With regard to the material standard of living, for example, employment terms, working conditions, wage levels and housing conditions, contract-workers were no worse off than other worker groups in the countryside. On the contrary, the contract-work system had its own rationality and advantages. It made it possible for young couples without land or a croft to marry and establish their own household since housing was included in the payment, and the yearly employment and large proportion of in-kind payments provided income security. However, the political discourse of the 20th century was based on the growing importance of the town and industry. The more regulated employment conditions, higher wages and better housing for industrial and urban workers became the yardstick by which the contract-workers' situation was judged. Agriculture was an economic sector in decline and the contract-work system appeared to be outdated. The abolition of the contract-work system in 1945 was definitive confirmation of the victory of modernity.     

Impersonating a Voter: Constructions of Race,and Conceptions of Subjecthood in the Franchise of Colonial New South Wales,c. 1850–1865

ABSTRACT

This article investigates the treatment of Aboriginal Australians as politically entitled subjects within New South Wales during that colony's first elections under ‘universal’ male suffrage. Using the case of Yellow Jimmy, a ‘half-caste’ resident prosecuted for impersonating a white settler at an election in 1859, it examines the uncertainties that surrounded Aboriginal Australians’ position as British subjects within the colony's first constitutions. By contrast to the early colonial franchises of New Zealand and the Cape – where questions of indigenous residents’ access to enfranchisement dominated discussions of the colonies’ early constitutions – in the rare instances in which indigenous men claimed their right to vote in New South Wales, local officials used their own discretion in determining whether they held the political entitlements of British subjects. This formed a continuity with the earlier treatment of Aboriginal Australians under settler law, where British authority and imperial jurisdiction was often advanced ‘on-the-ground’ via jurists and administrators rather than via the statutes or orders of Parliament or the Colonial Office.