On the process of national indifferentiation: the case of Bulgarian ‘Czechs’

As national groups are concerned, constructivist argumentation typically follows the process of establishing national identities. Thus, it commonly studies the development of a nationally indifferent population to a population that is nationally conscious. On a general level, this paper analyses and illustrates the opposite process, i.e., the process of ‘denationalization’, or in other words, the emergence of national indifference (i.e. national indifferentiation). I study how nationally conscious groups of Czech colonists from the military frontier, who in the 1820s settled in the village of Svatá Helena in Banat gradually became a nationally indifferent group (mainly after their migration to Bulgaria where they founded the village of Voyvodovo) whose defining mark and principle of organisation became religion.     

PUBLIC LAND SALES AS INNOVATIVE ENVIRONMENTALISM?

During the 1970s, conflict over land development restrictions in the Lake Tahoe Basin intensified. Funding of costly land purchases to preclude development emerged as a key problem in implementing timely and effective environmental protection. This timing coincided with pressures for land sales in and adjacent to urban “islands” in the public land “sea” of the West. One result was enactment of Public Law 95–586, co-authored by Congressmen Santini and Burton. Proceeds from public land sales near Las Vegas, Nevada, would be dedicated to purchase of environmentally sensitive lands in the Lake Tahoe Basin some 450 miles to the north. This study traces formation of the temporary coalition among local interests and Congressional leaders that yielded a possible model for future public lands conflict resolution. It then reviews and critiques the first four years of experience with implementation of the land sales element of the act. It concludes by suggesting some “fine tuning” which, if accepted by environmentalist groups at the national and local level, would point toward the use of the Santini-Burton approach as a source of funds to be used for environmental protection in other areas.     

Identity of non‐self‐evident nation: Czech national identity after the break‐up of Czechoslovakia and before accession to the European Union*

ABSTRACT. In this study the authors analyse Czech national identity after the break‐up of Czechoslovakia and before accession to the European Union. National identity is understood here as a construct consisting of several elements, four of which the authors analyse: territorial identity (localism, regionalism, patriotism, and Europeanism), the image of the nation – the cultural nation (ethno‐nation) and the political nation (state‐nation), national pride (in general, and in cultural performance and in the performance of the state), and love for the nation – nationalism (or more precisely, chauvinism) and patriotism. To create a more complex picture of Czech national identity the authors compare it with national identities in eleven other European countries. To conclude, the authors analyse the attitudes of Czechs toward the European Union, and national identity is used as an important explanatory element of the support for EU governance.     

“Solidarity is our weapon”: Social Mobilisation in Scotland in the Contest of the Post‐Political Condition

The consensual climate of the post‐political order has been recently disrupted in Europe. The mass protests staged in different European countries and the resurgences of the extreme parties in response to the multiple European crises witness the “cracks” in consensual politics. While much of the scholarly attention has been drawn onto the socio‐political implications of large‐scale upraises, the contribution of bottom‐up sub‐national groups to the “return of the political” has been under‐researched. Therefore, this article focuses on sub‐national grassroots groups as instances of the “properly political” (Swyngedouw 2009, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 33[3]:601–620). It is contended that these groups, by putting in place acts of solidarity, are “agonistic” political forms, containing in nuce the potential to counteract the post‐political order and to shape a new politics. To interrogate this argument, the article reports the findings of a case study analysis involving four grassroots groups based in Scotland.     

“Kontakte” – Reflexionen naturwissenschaftlich‐technischer Innovationsprozesse in der frühen Elektronischen Musik Karlheinz Stockhausens (1952–1960)

“Kontakte” – Reflections of Innovative Processes in Science and Technology in Karlheinz Stockhausen's Early Electronic Music (1952–1960). The following article will give an overview of the interdependence of aesthetic and scientific/technical developments in German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen's early works of electronic music. It is an outline of the major steps in his artistic evolution between the works “Etude (Musique concrète)” and “Kontakte”, their relation to innovations in psychoacoustic and sound‐studio technology as well as the impact, that the works from that period had on the fundamental changes in musical aesthetics during the course of the 20th century.     

Diverse unity: creole contributions to interethnic integration in Guinea‐Bissau

The paper explores how creole categories of people who have constituted a small but influential minority in Guinea‐Bissau for centuries contributed to a countrywide, integrated national culture since the eve of independence in 1974. Since independence, several cultural representations previously exclusive to creole communities have been – driven by the nationalist independence movement and the early postcolonial state – transformed into representations of a new national culture, crossing ethnic and religious boundaries. The fact that creole identity and culture had been transethnic – i.e. creole identity brings together individuals of heterogeneous cultural, ethnic and geographic descent – during the colonial period, has fostered in postcolonial times the countrywide spread of previously exclusively creole cultural features. I argue that this ‘transethnicisation’ of creole cultural representations has unified Bissau‐Guineans across ethnic lines, causing a strong commitment with their nation ‘from below’.     

Migrant workers,self‐reliance,and the propensity to hold income protection insurance by country of residence

Utilising a large comparative survey across 11 countries, it is shown that country effects condition the individual uptake of income protection insurance and that shared attributes, including labour market status, are important factors in determining the take‐up of income protection insurance, whatever the respondents' country of residence. We observed differences in the respondents' coping strategies, including self‐reliance, and were able to distinguish between migrant workers and those who work in their country of origin, along with the “special” case of the Australian respondents. These findings have implications for the ongoing debate on the labour market effects of globalisation and the significance of national institutions and regulatory practices.     

CHARTING THE “TRANSITIONAL PERIOD”: THE EMERGENCE OF MODERN TIME IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

This paper seeks to chart a concept of historical experience that French Romantic writers first developed to describe their own relationship to historical time: the notion of the “transitional period.” At first, the term related strictly to the evolving periodic conception of history, one that required breaks, spaces, or zones of indeterminacy to bracket off periods imagined as organic wholes. These transitions, necessary devices in the new grammar of history, also began to attract interest on their own, conceived either as chaotic but creative times of transformation, or, more often, as slack periods of decadence that possessed no proper style but exhibited hybrid traits. Their real interest, however, lies in their reflexive application to the nineteenth century itself, by writers and historians such as Alfred de Musset, Chateaubriand, Michelet, and Renan, who in their effort to define their own period envisioned the “transitional period” as a passage between more coherent and stable historical formations. This prospective self‐definition of the “age of history” from a future standpoint is very revealing; it shows not just the tension between its organic way of apprehending the past and its own self‐perception, but it also opens a window on a new and paradoxical experience of time, one in which change is ceaseless and an end in itself. The paper also presents a critique of the way the term “modernity” has functioned, from Baudelaire's initial use to the present, to occlude the experience of transition that the Romantics highlighted. By imposing on the nineteenth‐century sense of the transitory a heroic period designation, the term “modernity” denies precisely the reality it describes, and sublimates a widespread temporal malaise into its contrary. The paper concludes that the peculiarly “modern” mania for naming one's period is a function of transitional time, and that the concept coined by the Romantics still governs our contemporary experience.     

Ideological others and national identifications in contemporary Poland

Sexual minorities in Poland are excluded from the traditional understanding of “Polishness” premised on conservative, Catholic values. This article examines how ethnic Polish citizens who identify as non‐heteronormative navigate their relationship to “Polishness” at a moment of heightened nationalism. Through 31 interviews with Polish sexual minorities, I show that while national identification is a struggle for some sexual minorities, others work to reframe what “Polishness” means to them. I argue for further research examining the ways that stigmatised members of the ethnic majority—what I term ideological others—understand and navigate their relationship to national identity. The study contributes to the literature on everyday nationhood and national identity by attending to national identification among stigmatised members of the ethnic majority.     

Working for Inclusion? Conditional Cash Transfers,Rural Women,and the Reproduction of Inequality

Throughout the global South, conditional cash transfer programmes (CCTs) are used to promote socially inclusive development. CCTs are widely evaluated for their capacity to build children's human capital. In contrast, this paper aims to hold “social inclusion” to account by elucidating the impacts of Peru's CCT “Juntos” on the poor, rural mothers who are expected to meet programme conditions. Grounded in extensive ethnographic research in households, clinics, schools, and village halls, the paper interrogates the work of social inclusion in spaces where uneven development manifests itself in privation. Considered in light of critical feminist theories of performativity and social reproduction, the findings shed light on a far less optimistic reality for the work of social inclusion. This paper contributes a rich empirical account to critical literature on cash transfers and the discourses that drive them, and suggests that the circumstances under which women are required to fulfil programme conditions challenge the substance of contemporary “inclusive” development.     

"A matter of physical health and strength”: disciplining the female body and reproducing the Czech national community in the mid-nineteenth century

An 1850 article “Uzavírání sňatku” (“Marriage”) by Czech physician Jan ?pott outlined the requirements for those who considered themselves part of the Czech national community. ?pott stressed that those concerned with the future national existence had to educate themselves and each other to create healthy offspring. I examine ?pott’s article with regard to contemporary ideas about fitness, the role of women, the need to discipline the female body, as well as the importance of education in reproducing the community. This article’s analysis - set in the broader context of the history of women, medicine, and nationalisms - shows that nation-oriented education could be perceived as a way to ensure the nation’s future existence while simultaneously emphasizing the responsibility of individuals, and particularly women, for the reproduction of the community. ?pott’s propositions are significant to other nineteenth-century national movements and to postnational contexts where national fitness is a concern.     

AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT AND SOCIAL INCLUSION IN BRITAIN

This paper attempts to distinguish the different meanings of “audience development” and “social inclusion” – two areas receiving increasing attention in British cultural policy – by discussing their overlap and close relation to “access”. These policy areas are fraught with inherent contradictions when examined in the light of sociological theories on culture. Consumption skills, the level of which is determined socio‐economically, and the function of culture for distinction suggest problems and paradoxes for audience development and social inclusion. Discussion on representation in culture, which can work to institutionalise inequality, also leads to a call for a “target‐driven” approach to these areas. This would be fundamentally different from the dominant “product‐led” approach that tries to leave the core product intact whilst making changes in presentation. To become truly inclusive is a most formidable challenge for cultural organisations as it inevitably brings them into a wholesale review of their core products.     

‘On Diego Garcia no one never got ill’ (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

The history of the Chagos Islanders was recently highlighted in a semi‐fictionalised production A few man Fridays performed by the Cardboard Citizens Theatre company at the Riverside Studios in London. The month‐long run finished on March 10. I went to the penultimate performance. Also in attendance were a small number of native‐born Chagossians and their children. During the interval, I fell into conversation with Anthony, a 50‐year‐old Chagossian, who was born on the island of Diego Garcia. Along with other members of his family, Anthony was deported from his homeland by the British authorities to make way for a strategically important US base. With 500 or so compatriots he was taken by boat and dumped in the Seychelles. Around 1500 other Islanders were taken to Mauritius. In 2002, however, Chagossians were granted British citizenship. Some 1500 islanders, mainly those from Mauritius but a few from the Seychelles, have now settled in Crawley in West Sussex. But Anthony, along with his sister and her children, is living in rented accommodation in Pimlico in south London. According to Anthony, a primary motivation for his coming to the UK was to seek better healthcare to deal with his type II diabetes. “On Diego Garcia no one ever got ill,” he said. Perhaps this claim should be taken more seriously than conventional functionalist explanations allow.     

A study of social‐market interventions in the shaping of the field of cultural production

A social analysis based on extensive evaluation of the Dance and Drama Awards programme reveals the social‐market political paradigm underpinning the formation of cultural policy in the UK underthe New Labour government. This specific intervention in the field of cultural production is placed in the context of broader government interventions in the cultural domain that seek to give respect to undervalued social and cultural groups. There is a political analysis of the characteristics of the social‐market political formation that underpin New Labour’s “affirmative” actions, and the political strategies informing the government’s “access” and “inclusion” agendas and their impact on the cultural and creative industries. The authors argue that the construction of a “social‐market” position in New Labour’s cultural policy represents an attempt to bridge or “hyphenate” the contradictory claims of social democracy, on the one hand, and economic fatalism, on the other. Despite the rhetoric of social and cultural “transformation”, the authors argue that a “faith” in the market prevents New Labour from transforming the political‐economic and cultural structures that generate economic and cultural injustices.     

Greens and the nation: Is small beautiful?

Despite their distrust of big and centralised political units, their stance in favour of minorities and diversity, Greens do not skip the national issue but reimagine it with a bottom-up and plural perspective under the form of regionalism. This article first study how ecologist theoreticians have defined different regionalist approaches, notably bioregionalism, ecoregionalism and econationalism, which became the basis of the Green approach on the national issue in Western Europe as early as the 1970s. Then, the paper comparatively focusses on Europe Ecology – The Greens Brittany and on the Scottish Green Party, assessing their analysis on their territory: whereas the first defend the project of an autonomous Brittany, the second is actively involved in favour of the independence of Scotland. In analysing the regionalism of the Greens, the article demonstrates that the green stance on the nation is not “identitarian” or “patriotic” but “cognitive”: it is devoid of nostalgia but on the contrary a tool for a multicultural and democratic Europe.     

Reseau urbain et diffusion de l'innovation dans la France pre-industrielle: La creation des caisses d'epargne (1818–1848)

This paper discusses the paradigms of European history and of European civilisation defined in the main histories of Europe written from the Enlightenment to Guizot.

Voltaire, Robertson, Gibbon, and Guizot consolidated a model of the history of Europe which has its origins in the fall of the western Roman Empire and the invasions of the Barbarians. The other main steps of this history were the Christianisation, the creation of a vital economic centre in western and northern Europe, the development of the cities, the rediscovery of Roman law, the creation of a complex system of states, the colonial expansion and again the birth of a society of “good manners”.

A common civilisation which did not ignore the differences which existed between one country and another – the “national characters”, discussed by David Hume in 1748. Instead the different national characters – the variety of Europe as Guizot wrote – represented an important element of the European civilisation.     

English Evangelicals,Protestant National Identity,and Anglican Prayer Book Revision, 1927–1928

This paper examines English Anglican and Free Church evangelical reactions to the Church of England's Prayer Book revision proposals in 1927–1928, arguing that their responses reveal the resilience of Protestant national identity and anti‐Catholicism within English evangelicalism during this period. The concept of a Protestant nation, reformed heritage and Protestant constitution remained integral to the English evangelical identity. The robust “no‐popery” response of evangelicals in 1927–1928 points to the durability of the Protestant national narrative in English culture and society beyond the nineteenth century and suggests that the liberal Anglican vision of a broadly Christian national identity had a significant ideological rival in the interwar period.     

Gentrification Interrupted in Salford,UK: From New Deal to “Limbo‐Land” in a Contemporary Urban Periphery

This paper examines two potential lacunae in understanding low‐income residents’ experiences of contemporary state‐led gentrification via a study of neighbourhood restructuring in Salford, UK, 2004–2014. The first is the localised politics preparing the ground for neighbourhood “redevelopment” and housing demolition. The second is the blighted social landscape which emerges with the subsequent stalling of this project. A focus on “before” and “after” is adopted in order to disrupt the linear policy and “effects” temporalities that much qualitative gentrification research tends to inhabit. We see how state‐led neighbourhood restructuring does not simply displace, but carries residents from “empowerment” to abandonment and transfers them from active struggle into devitalised limbo. As such, the paper demarcates challenges and opportunities for resident mobilisation inherent in a vacillating urban renewal programme, powerful in its inception but which has since “hit the buffers” (Lees 2014, Antipode 46(4):921–947) in light of global and municipal fiscal crises.     

‘A sense of where you belong in the world’: national belonging,ontological security and the status of the ethnic majority in England

ABSTRACT. The significance of national forms of imagination and organisation has been increasingly questioned in an era of rapid globalisation. While theoretically stimulating, those who stress the importance of global mobility and sociability sometimes overlook what well‐established, “thick” attachments to the nation offer to disparate individuals, notably in terms of anchoring subjectivity. This first part of this paper explores how debates around belonging in England continue to define certain “ethnic” groups as more or less national, because they embody certain traits, practices or norms. It is then suggested that those who claim, and are treated as if, they belong “without question” may be offered a key sense of material and ontological security that is underpinned through routine practices, symbolic forms and institutional arrangements. The second section looks to evidence this argument by exploring how challenges to this ontological order, which focus on the agency of “perceived” others in relation to everyday spaces, practices and material objects, are debated and resisted.     

The Tertiary Turn: Locating “The Academy” in Autobiographical Accounts of Activism in Manchester,UK and Auckland,Aotearoa New Zealand

Abstract: Activists often strategically negotiate sectoral boundaries by switching between public, private and voluntary sectors over the life course in order to pursue their aims. This paper draws on a cross‐national study that explored the extent of this inter‐sectoral movement and the specific “career pathways” activists developed in relation to governmental, private and voluntary/community sector organisations. Using an analysis of 46 biographical narratives gathered from activists in Manchester, UK and Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand during 2007 we situate “the academy” in these life stories of activism. Teasing out from these accounts the motivations behind a turn towards tertiary education at particular moments we examine how “academia” supports and sustains individual activists while legitimising and professionalising their activism. In so doing, we track the tactical transfer of knowledge, skills and expertise effected by contact with “the academy” to make substantive and conceptual claims around the future role universities might play in the knowledge economy.