Strategies for public libraries in the 21st century

Abstract: Taking our reference point from the French cultural sociologist Pierre Bourdieu's idea of the Social field, in this paper we will seek to identify and discuss a number of characteristics which define the public library. As changes within the public library system are often instigated by external factors we will place special emphasis on an analysis of the status, which the library holds in society. On the basis of the above we will, while concluding, put forward our idea of strategies needed to make the public library visible in the 21st century.     

Immigrant Policy Developing in Copenhagen and Ishøj in the 1970s

This article analyses the development of municipal immigrant policies in Denmark in the 1970s through a case study of two municipalities, Copenhagen and Ishøj. The two municipalities encountered immigration in the earliest phase of Danish integration policy. In this period, national policies were limited and immigrants’ integration was primarily a municipal responsibility. As a result, the two municipalities had the opportunity and obligation to develop their own local solutions to the problems caused by migration during this period. The cases illustrate two trajectories in municipal policy-making. Copenhagen followed the national tendency to include guest workers and immigrants in the existing administrative body of the municipality and the welfare system, whereas Ishøj chose a different path with a coherent municipal immigrant policy. Through this case study of city-level policy-making in Denmark, this article contributes to research on municipal policy-making as well as research on the development of immigrant and integration policy.     

ARE EMOTIONS A KIND OF PRACTICE (AND IS THAT WHAT MAKES THEM HAVE A HISTORY)? A BOURDIEUIAN APPROACH TO UNDERSTANDING EMOTION

The term “emotional practices” is gaining currency in the historical study of emotions. This essay discusses the theoretical and methodological implications of this concept. A definition of emotion informed by practice theory promises to bridge persistent dichotomies with which historians of emotion grapple, such as body and mind, structure and agency, as well as expression and experience. Practice theory emphasizes the importance of habituation and social context and is thus consistent with, and could enrich, psychological models of situated, distributed, and embodied cognition and their approaches to the study of emotion. It is suggested here that practices not only generate emotions, but that emotions themselves can be viewed as a practical engagement with the world. Conceiving of emotions as practices means understanding them as emerging from bodily dispositions conditioned by a social context, which always has cultural and historical specificity. Emotion‐as‐practice is bound up with and dependent on “emotional practices,” defined here as practices involving the self (as body and mind), language, material artifacts, the environment, and other people. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu's concept of habitus, the essay emphasizes that the body is not a static, timeless, universal foundation that produces ahistorical emotional arousal, but is itself socially situated, adaptive, trained, plastic, and thus historical. Four kinds of emotional practices that make use of the capacities of a body trained by specific social settings and power relations are sketched out—mobilizing, naming, communicating, and regulating emotion—as are consequences for method in historical research.     

The Construction of the League of Nations Secretariat. Formative Practices of Autonomy and Legitimacy in International Organizations

This article investigates the formative staffing practices of the League of Nations Secretariat. Drawing on the social theory of Pierre Bourdieu, it argues that core traits of the League's institutional capacity and identity was produced through the institutionalization of recruitment practices in the League's formative years from 1919 to 1923. Through an exploration of early negotiations and practices of staffing, we show how the League built and balanced legitimacy, by combining a clearly international make-up of the League Secretariat with acute sensitivity to state interests, and autonomy, by defending the Secretary-General's exclusive prerogative of staffing, in a way that has been defining for the trajectory of international organizations (IOs) until today. The article thus turns to the institutional landscape where the individual and its surroundings meet: through the daily staffing practices of the Secretariat, it explores how an institution came to be, function and assert its influence as an autonomous and legitimate diplomatic agent in a broader international field. As such, the article, as an innovative contribution to the field, argues that international historians should connect thorough institutional investigations with elements of the ‘cultural turn’ in International History, in order to properly engage with and understand IOs as diplomatic actors.     

On the side of the angels: altruism in Danish development aid 1960–2005

Based on a theoretical definition of altruism the article investigates the relationship between this and other motives in Danish official development assistance 1960–2005. In the historical unfolding and general mode of operation of the Danish aid regime altruism has been an important, but only vaguely specified motive, endorsed by those involved on all levels: politicians, interest groups, specialists, activists and voters. However, other important motives, of an economic and political and even structural-systemic nature, both national and international, can also be identified. Some of these are deemed reconcilable with an altruistic core motivation while others exercised a disruptive and competing influence. The multiplicity of agency and the derived need for consensus has tended to obstruct accountability and dilute responsibility in the aid system. Unfortunately, the frequent invocations of altruism in order to justify the aid programme may have served to downplay the importance of problems with aid efficiency and to marginalise criticism.     

From Cosmopolitan to Vernacular in the Language Sciences: A Global History Perspective

Sheldon Pollock's justly famous work on cosmopolitan orders and processes of vernacularization in the worlds of Latinity and Sanskrit invites questions of a comparative and global-historical character. I will raise such questions in the context of the Persianate cosmopolitan order, especially as exemplified by the early modern Ottoman Empire, focusing on the wave of vernacularizations this empire witnessed in the seventeenth–eighteenth centuries. In this process of vernacularization, new vernacular forms of philological learning appear to have played a crucial role. Building on Bourdieu's work, I will try to analyze the Ottoman cosmopolitan as a pre-modern form of linguistic domination, and vernacularization as a form of resistance. Moving beyond Bourdieu, I will be arguing for a genealogical approach that is alive to premodern non-European philological traditions, and to the historically variable relation between (philological) knowledge and power.     

Fostering and planning urban regeneration: the governance of cultural districts in Copenhagen

Policy-makers and urban planners struggle to find the right formula to implement urban regeneration processes based on cultural assets, often focusing on the desired outcomes, but rarely questioning how the policy process can shape them. This paper examines different governance models for the implementation and organization of cultural districts, and evaluates how they can affect their actual realization by investigating three cases in Copenhagen, Denmark. The deindustrialization of Copenhagen left many of the city’s harbour areas disused and in turn provided the opportunity to develop three new cultural districts in the city centre. The paper contributes to the literature on cultural districts by matching specificities and contingencies attached to a particular urban area with the governance model adopted for its development. The paper claims that temporal experimentation has to be included in cultural planning and a mix of bottom-up and top-down approaches is more desirable than both a totally unregulated initiative and a real estate-driven development and a totally unregulated initiative, as it ensures that initiatives remain financially viable and that the creative workers and companies retain a certain control of the area development, and in turn counteracts gentrification.     

Defiance to compliance: Visions of the computer in postwar Britain

In a climate of profound uncertainty over Britain’s postwar status, some industrialists and policymakers sought solace in a ‘defiant modernist’ aesthetic, proposing radical technological transformations to circumvent economic constraints. The British computer industry, which briefly challenged that of the USA for technological sophistication, presents a revealing instance of this approach and its limitations. Early promoters, notably Vivian Bowden of Ferranti, shrewdly laid the rhetorical groundwork to position the new machines as the natural outcome of a uniquely British technological trajectory. Into the 1960s, however, their agenda was disrupted not only by economic realities, but also by the increasing importance of software and compatible systems as opposed to individual machines, and by growing public and industrial familiarity with computing in general. Promoters sought new points of differentiation, but had made little headway when a combination of national policy changes, growing market dominance by US-based corporations, and Anglo-French rapprochement rendered the British national exception largely unworkable. Its powerful rhetorical appeal, however, ensured that it never entirely disappeared.     

场域理论视角下的国际移民研究——以安徽内陆新侨乡为例

论文介绍了场域理论,并运用场域理论对中国内陆山区新侨乡的国际移民潮进行分析。通过对场域、资本和村民＂习性＂的研究,从外在的社会结构和内在的个体心理结构两方面来考察新移民活动,为新侨乡研究提供一种新的观察解读模式。笔者认为新移民场域内资本的流动和转换是推动国际移民潮出现和变化的关键因素。随着各种资本向内陆山区农村的转移,新侨乡的范围和国际移民的数量将会继续扩大。     

Envisioning Seoul as a World City: The Cultural Politics of the Hong-dae Cultural District

This article explores how the vision of a world city influences local cultural politics, by looking at an attempt to construct a cultural quarter in Seoul, South Korea. The Hong-dae area of Seoul has a reputation as a vibrant place of urban amenities, emerging cultural forms, and neighbourhoods of cultural workers and artists. In 2003, the city government announced a policy to create a Cultural District in the area. Subsequently, local conflict over defining Hong-dae culture emerged, and the plan was later postponed. This study elucidates how the proposed policy, framed by a vision of Seoul as a world city, led local actors to territorialise, fossilise, ethnicise and capitalise Hong-dae culture. It argues that competition for world city status may politicise and territorialise urban cultural scenes, rather than enhancing the urban amenities of diversity, openness and tolerance.     

Independent creative subcultures and why they matter

Independent creative subcultures, in their various hybrids of music, theatre, art, and new and old media, are the primordial soup of cultural evolution. They have the capacity for a highly definitive influence on their participants – catalysing the transition from consumer to producer for instance – often conferring much broader cultural and social benefit. Creative subcultures make continuing, well-documented, contributions to established city cultures for relatively low outlay. Indie creative activities in particular do not make much money and they do not cost much to set-up. They tend to cluster in areas characterised by low rents and non-residential uses such as retail and industrial areas, but as third wave gentrification reaches into the dark pockets of many cities, cheap rental properties are becoming scarce. This article uses time-series maps of inner Melbourne to show a pattern of tighter and tighter clustering of indie cultural activities as alternative spaces disappear. It looks at where they are going and why, considers the implications of this pattern for the ‘creative city’, and suggests some policy initiatives to help maintain and nurture independent creative scenes. As Melbourne’s live music scene is particularly vulnerable to displacement from increasingly dense and contested inner-urban space, the article focuses on interventions relating to music venues.     

Policing the Holy Nation: The State and Righteous Violence in Vanuatu

ABSTRACT In Vanuatu, the police force has in recent years been strengthened by foreign government aid. AusAid and NZAid are heavily involved inside the police force, seeking to create ‘good governance’ and to shape Vanuatu's national developments. However, these measures also coincide with some other unexpected developments. Recent cases of violence, and especially of sorcery, have led the police to intervene in a quest for moral order. Police are becoming part of the articulation of new occult understandings of wealth and power. These developments are traced back partly to the history of colonial governance and the idea of righteous violence, but also to current restructurings of the Vanuatu state and growing Christian conceptions of Vanuatu as a holy nation.     

The motives behind the foreign political decisions of Frederick VI during the Napoleonic Wars

At the conclusion of peace at Kiel in 1814, the Danish state had to cede Norway to Sweden. Thus, Denmark was one of the greatest losers of the Napoleonic Wars. Denmark allied with France in 1807 after the British bombardment of Copenhagen and seizure of the Danish navy; Denmark stuck by Napoleon until the bitter end. After the crushing French defeat in Russia in 1812, King Frederick VI more than once received an offer from the Allies to change sides and break with Napoleon; however, he dismissed them. In Danish historiography, the king has therefore been seen as stubborn, incompetent, and motivated by a misconceived loyalty towards Napoleon. A more recent Danish historiographical trend stresses the fact that the Danish state was multi-territorial, and among other areas it contained the kingdom of Norway; consequently, this multi-territorial state formation was, in the mind of the Danish political decision makers, especially the exposed situation of Norway, dependent on grain imports and the subject of Swedish territorial ambition. But how did Frederick VI see things himself? What were his motivations for his foreign political decisions? Based on letters written by the king and instructions to Danish diplomats abroad it is argued that the grain provision and ongoing possession of Norway by the Danish state were crucial factors in the king’s decision to stick with Napoleon. This can be further nuanced: the king was expecting the wars to end with an international peace conference with Napoleonic representation, and so the king’s strategy was to stay loyal to Napoleon, in order to get his support for keeping Norway.     

Military Orders Between Territorialization and Periphery from the 12th to the 16th Century

Military orders have historically played a key role in defining borders, both in a mental sense, by favouring an awareness of alterity in the most peripheral territories (Christians against Muslims and Christians against Pagans), and also in more direct ways, as owners of land in these territories. This article¹ discusses both the influence, in the broadest sense, of territory and periphery upon the medieval military orders, and the relationship between the crown and the military orders. It will be done through a comparative historical analysis of two cases: Portugal and Denmark in the 12th–16th centuries. Both countries were placed at the periphery of the Western world in the Middle Ages, and they were both active agents in the Crusading movement.     

Screening The Social Face of Denmark to the Nazis

Looking into the state-sponsored creation and presentation of a German-language film on the Danish social state, this article discusses the complexities of Danish–German relations during the German occupation of Denmark, 1940–1945. The film, Das soziale Gesicht Dänemarks, was screened in Berlin to a full house, including a number of Nazi notables, and followed by a presentation by the Danish Minister of Labor and Social Affairs. Based on archival research and film analysis, the article argues that the screening in Berlin informs an understanding of an asymmetrical power relationship between occupiers and occupied, in which the promotion of the Danish social model countered the hegemony of the dominant Nazi state. It did so by seeking to assert Danish sovereignty on social policy in accordance with German intentions to respect Danish sovereignty as stated at the very beginning of the occupation; in other words, for the Danish state, social policy became a means for an intentional but subdued resistance – even a form of counter-power – to the power of the German occupier.     

The Shadow Field of Reindeer Management: A Case Study from Finland

Abstract

This article applies the analytical concept of shadow field in relation to reindeer management, to explain why some herders and reindeer herding cooperatives do not adhere to government regulations on herd size. The underlying processes and structures related to reindeer numbers are exemplified through two case studies of two Finnish reindeer herding cooperatives, which for several years have exceeded the total allowable quota of reindeer. The case studies reveal a different reality of reindeer management, which functions according to a logic and agenda not always understood by the State authorities or incorporated into the management decisions. This reality is the outcome of anomalies in the official reindeer management system, including the system's disclosure of herders from the decision-making process, the system's provision of self-determination and self-monitoring regarding the organisation of reindeer herding to the cooperatives, the system's weak external control and a subsidy system which promotes reindeer ownership instead of production. Combined, these anomalies enable and encourage the formation of a shadow field of reindeer management. This paper uses as its theoretical framework Pierre Bourdieu's theory of practice, and focuses especially on the key notion of field and shadow field in addressing the Common Pool Resource discussion related to reindeer herding.     

Urban memory and planning: investigating the use of oral history

Investigation of the reciprocal relation between individuals and space within its cultural and historical evolution allow us to conceive the intrinsic qualities and dynamics of any space in its context and to develop new conceptions to explain what kind of a place it is. Oral history provides opportunities to listen to the voice of space as well as a new way to discover its unique and different characteristics that give the users the feeling of belonging and place attachment. In this study, the place of oral history method in historiography, its use in diverse disciplines related to the shaping of urban space, such as urban planning and architecture, and the possible contribution of oral history to planning and designing urban space are discussed. It is revealed that the use of oral history in research and practice can give effect to develop a sense of belonging for all users and to achieve sustainability of urban memory. For this reason, place-based studies and utilization of oral history method within them are of significant importance, for either acquiring the knowledge embedded in memories or understanding the expectations of users or to provide solutions to place-based problems.     

Language Assimilation During the Modernisation Process: Experiences from Norway and North-West Russia

Abstract

The article gives an analysis of the demographic material for North Sámi in Norway during the last 150 years, and compares it to key tendencies in some of the Uralic languages of the Soviet Union. The present linguistic landscape can be predicted with great accuracy from Friis’ survey of 1860. At that time, bilingualism among the Norwegians was widespread in parishes with predominantly Sámi or Finnish (Kven) population. During the assimilation process, the preservation of Sámi was not due to the size of the Sámi population, but rather to its relative size. Today's Sámi communities are the ones with the least Norwegians one and a half centuries ago. A key factor in the language shift process has been mixed marriages. The Soviet data show a greater degree of language preservation, especially for the Nenets and Mari. The difference is partly a result of the Soviet language policy, but also to the degree of contact between the minority and majority populations.     

Differences in the location of urban museums and their impact on urban areas

Traditionally, museums spaces have tended to be located in the central areas of cities, thereby reinforcing existing dynamics and limiting their potential impact on more peripheral areas. The present study examines the locations chosen for museums that have been opened in three European cities: Barcelona, Paris and Turin, between the years 2000 and 2013. It shows how the locating of museums and galleries has not been homogeneous and how each potential location has its strengths and weaknesses. This is particularly evident when we consider such factors as the environmental impact of museums and how they influence the commercial offer, image and attractiveness of their host city. This paper identifies and examines the different types of impact that museum location strategies have on urban areas.     

Australia's diplomatic asylum initiative at the United Nations: comparing international law rhetoric with foreign policy practice

In 1974, Australia took the initiative to have an item on diplomatic asylum inscribed on the UN General Assembly's agenda for that year. Its original ambition was to procure an international treaty on the subject. This article traces the history of that initiative from its inception to the acknowledgement seven years later that it had come to nothing. It also investigates the impact that Australia's initiative at the UN had on its foreign policy practice in relation to diplomatic asylum through two administrations: the Whitlam government (5 December 1972–11 November 1975) and the Fraser government (11 November 1975–11 March 1983). It demonstrates that, while the initiative generated a great deal of bureaucratic work, it wrought no real change in Australia's practice on the ground.