Aboriginality and the Northern Territory Intervention

Architects and supporters of the Northern Territory Emergency Response (the intervention) mobilised a range of ideas about Aboriginality to introduce and justify the policy program. These representations link Aboriginality to abuse of Aboriginal children, establishing a debate about the nature and future of Aboriginality in a context that limits the discursive authority of Aboriginal people. Aboriginality is represented as savage and in need of settler-imposed control, and also primitive and in need of development. These constructions understand Aboriginality temporally, situating it in the past but providing moral justification for coercing Indigenous people into the settler present. Aboriginality is also constructed spatially in this discourse, with prescribed communities framed as the location of both authentic Aboriginality and of threatening disorder. The intervention is framed as extending settler authority over this troubling terrain, containing and redeeming Aboriginality through inclusion in the settler nation's moral order.     

The Politics of Memory: History,Biography, and the (Re)-Emergence of Generational Literature in Germany

The existentialist philosopher Karl Jaspers is the father of a discourse on the spiritual consequences of the Holocaust. First addressed as the Schuldfrage (the question of guilt) by Jaspers immediately after the Second World War in his famous Heidelberg lecture, it has reappeared in various forms in German life and letters. Post-unification Germany has witnessed the valorization of the German experience of the Second World War. This ongoing re-evaluation has its antecedents in the generational literature of the 1970s and 1980s. Whereas the Vaterliteratur of the 1970s (by authors such as Christoph Meckel, Uwe Timm, and Peter Henisch) was often embedded in a left-wing critique of the establishment, recent contributions to this growing genre (by Marcel Beyer, Stephan Wackwitz, Wibke Bruhns, and Ulla Hahn among others) speak to the issue of collective identity and transgenerational family trauma outside distinct left- and right-wing interpretations of National Socialism. The current writings on the life during the Third Reich (filtered through the experiences of discrete generations) are a confluence of historical writing, memorial literature, biography, and fiction. They are closely related to the discussions that W. G. Sebald initiated in his 1997 lecture series on the silence of German postwar literature with respect to German suffering. The subsequent debate on how to bring closure to this “German suffering” was intensified by Günter Grass's widening of the concept of German victimization beyond the air war controversy in his book Crabwalk (2002). As Grass distinguishes clearly between the various post-World War II generations (and their different perspectives on historical events), the question becomes whether these recent writings will bring about a final so-called “zero hour” in German postwar history.     

Reproduction, Representation and Authenticity: A Rereading

This essay argues for the moral necessity of retaining connections between the practices of representation and the ideal of authenticity. Using the example of racial representation, the author finds in the political philosophy of Charles Taylor and the cultural criticism of George Steiner resources for engaging in a creative dialogue with the history of our own tradition.     

Remembrance of Things Passed: Memory,Body and the Politics of Feasting in New Ireland,Papua New Guinea1

This paper explores the connection between body and memory for the people of the Lelet Plateau of central New Ireland. Through an examination of the processes by which memories of mortuary feasts are created and circulated, I draw attention to the embodied nature of memory as a central facet in the politics of feasting. The approach taken here differs from other prevailing approaches to the body and memory in its exploration of the ways in which memories are created through and within the body, rather than seeing the body, or things representing the body, as signs that are utilised for remembering. In particular, I examine the forms of sorcery which target the participants' bodies, making them experience diarrhoea as a mnemonic process. It is through this that a significant memory of the feast is created, one which stands out notably from numerous other memories, and is the means by which remembrance of the event is transformed into fame for the host.     

Authenticity,antiquity and archaeology

If nationalism shaped the assumptions and methods of archaeology for well over a century, archaeological concepts and practices made a significant contribution to the nationalist ideal of the distinctive, territorial nation. This is partly because nationalism and archaeology shared a belief in the ethnic uniqueness and tangibility of archaeological cultures, and partly because of the influence of key archaeological concepts and practices. The latter included a profound concern with the authenticity of material cultures; the related belief in ethnic rootedness in the historic territory; archaeology's well‐known interest in the antiquity of civilisations; and its use of the stratigraphic method to analyse continuity and change. Aside from these contributions, the archaeological domain provides a repertoire of vivid symbolism in its often spectacular ‘finds’, which have been able to express and embody the nation's unique culture and the intimate nature of the national bond.     

The Imagineering of Resistance: Pollok Free State and the Practice of Postmodern Politics

The conflict over the construction of the M77 motorway in Glasgow, Scotland, is an example of a subculture of resistance which has emerged within Britain over the past fifteen years. The paper focuses upon the actions of Glasgow Earth First!, with whom the author has participated, and on the role of Pollok Free State – an ecological encampment located in the projected path of the motorway. Such resistance is characteristic of a postmodern political practice. It is heterogeneous, symbolic and extensively media-ted. It eschews the capture of state power but is a lived, immediate resistance, the experience of which may be transmitted over space and time.     

Building Bridges of Memory: The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo and the Cultural Politics of Maternal Memories

In this article, I explore the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo as a site through which social memories are transmitted and connected to the realities of Argentina’s present. The conjuncture or disjuncture between people’s direct and individual memories of the past, their memory of the society’s collective past, and the “official” history can be used as a prism for seeing how power, and resistance, work through and reinforce a complex political economy. By giving testimony and re‐contextualizing the events of the dictatorship, the Mothers have been able to challenge the historical narratives of the state and construct competing ones. Furthermore, the present‐day activism and goals of the Mothers, as individuals and as a collective, are based on political commitments that have arisen in great part out of maternal relationships and maternal memories. Their maternal memories have led to a re‐signification of neoliberalism as a type of structural violence.     

原真性与完整性:质疑、新知与启示

在世界遗产理论发展路程中,对遗产原真性及完整性的质疑和思考是推动理论不断丰富完善的一股重要动力。完整性适用于所有遗产地,整体保护政策正是对完整性这一命题的呼应和阐释。对遗产原真性的质疑主要表现在非物质文化遗产方面,特别是活态遗产,现在遗产界已经越来越认识到非物质遗产不能简单套用物质遗产的原真性,非物质文化遗产环境的原真性要素也可以表现为一种"演进中的原真性"。因质疑而思考,进而获得新知。这一途径启示我们,应以一种开放性的、持续完善的思维和态度来对待遗产事业。     

Challenging a Terrorist Tag in the Media: Framing the Politics of Resistance and an Iranian Opposition Group

Scholars have shown that media framing has a powerful effect on citizen perception and policy debates. Research has provided less insight into the ability of marginalized actors to promote their preferred frames in the media in a dynamic political context. The efforts of an exiled Iranian opposition group to get its name removed from official terror lists in the United States, United Kingdom, and EU provides a valuable platform to examine this problem. Using content analysis, I explore how the group promoted its frames in the opinion sections of major world news publications over nine years (2003–2012). I then examine the extent to which journalists aligned to its frames, as opposed to rival official frames, over time in the larger arena of news. The results support research showing that by nurturing small opportunities, marginalized political actors can expand media capacity and influence, but these effects are mediated at least in part by critical or focusing events that make rival frames less salient. The study sheds light on the complex relationship between activists, the government, and the media. It has implications for the ability of marginalized political actors to get their frames into public discourse. It also has implications for terror tagging and media coverage of other controversial issues.