‘If anything is to be done with the Indian,we must catch him very young’: colonial constructions of Aboriginal children and the geographies of Indian residential schooling in British Columbia,Canada

Although not fully conceptualized as such by geographers, children and concepts of childhood were focal points of colonialism. Well into the twentieth century, Aboriginal peoples in Canada were discursively constructed by colonists as child-like subjects in need of colonial intervention in order that they ‘grow up’ into de-Indigenized Canadian citizens. Further, an important aspect of the colonial project entailed confining Aboriginal children in institutions known as Indian Residential Schools wherein, through material and curricular means, efforts were made to transform the children and dispossess them of socio-cultural identities. Much of the literature on children's geographies contemplates the socially constructed nature of childhood and critiques the pervasive (yet under-evaluated) understanding that childhood is a clear and demarcatable state of being prior to adulthood. Little attention, though, has been paid to historic or social discourses that relegated groups of people to a perpetual state of truncated childhood while simultaneously removing their children in order that those children mature into adults who embodied radically different cultural traits than their ancestors. This paper explores how Aboriginal peoples were doubly confined; firstly, by colonial constructions about children, childhood, and Othered (Aboriginal) peoples and then, secondly, within the material geographies of colonial residential schools.     

后现代主义思潮与人类学、考古学的研究--地域文化研究要注意的一个理论问题

20世纪70年代以来西方学术界的后现代主义思潮,全面颠覆了西方传统的学术思维方式,其对于人类学和考古学的影响相对较迟,而“范式转换”以及文化相对主义对多样性的考古学文化研究提供了新视角。     

From ethnographic knowledge to anthropological intelligence: An anthropologist in the office of strategic services in Second World War Africa

This article explores the overlapping modalities and practical purposes of anthropological ethnographic knowledge and political–military intelligence gathering – the commonalities as well as the boundaries between them – through an analysis of the career of the anthropologist Jack Sargent Harris (1912–2008), a secret operative for the United States’ Office of Strategic Services during the Second World War in Nigeria and South Africa. Calling upon archival and oral historical sources, the article relates Harris’s training in Boasian cultural anthropology and as a professional ethnographer of African societies and cultures to the ways he recruited informants, conducted surveillance, related to foreign Allied officials, utilized documentary evidence, and worked to establish authority and credibility in his wartime intelligence reporting. The article argues that political purpose is a central artefact of anthropological ethnography as it is in other ethnographic modalities even if the justifications for these endeavours remain distinct.     

This is Not an Answer to the Question “Who is Indigenous?”

‘Indigenous’ is a colonial category, and it is always related to particular colonial configurations of diversity and in relationship to particular colonial/national states. In this paper, the many historical configurations in which the terms ‘Indian’ and ‘Indigenous’ have figured are traced, including the Spanish colonial state and the Argentine state. The ways in which these successive systems of categorization are juxtaposed is described. Finally, post-Western understandings of what it could mean ‘to be Indigenous’ are explored.     

New Subjectivities: Capitalist, Colonial Subject and Archaeologist. Review of “Capitalism in Colonial Contexts”. Society for Historical Archaeology, Albuquerque, January 2008”

The sub-discipline of Historical Archaeology continues to push out its borders from its origins as the archaeology of British colonial settlement in North America. This review article evaluates the contribution of a set of papers presented at the Society of Historical Archaeology meeting in Albuquerque New Mexico in early 2008, and shows how new theoretical formulations are taking shape.

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Résumé  La sous-discipline de l’archéologie historique continue à faire reculer ses frontières de ses origines en tant qu’archéologie de l’implantation du colonialisme britannique en Amérique du Nord. Cet article évalue la contribution d’un ensemble d’articles présentés à la Society of Historical Archaeology à l’occasion de la rencontre qui s’est tenue à Albuquerque au Nouveau Mexique au début de l’année 2008, et montre comment les nouvelles formulations théoriques prennent effet.

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Resumen  Desde sus orígenes en los trabajos arqueológicos de la colonización británica de Norteamérica, la sub disciplina de Arqueología Histórica ha ido ampliando sus límites. Este artículo revisado evalúa la contribución de una serie de trabajos presentados en la junta de la Sociedad de Arqueología Histórica en Alburquerque (Nuevo México) a principios del 2008, y demuestra que las formulaciones teóricas están empezando a tomar forma.

     

试论人类学在归国华侨群体研究中的运用

论文从人类学的田野调查实践观、文化整体观、跨文化比较法等三个维度对归国华侨群体进行研究。认为田野调查实践是归国华侨群体研究的基础;文化整体是归国华侨群体研究的内容;跨文化比较是归国华侨群体研究的动力。人类学和归国华侨群体研究相交融,不仅认识"大传统"中的华侨华人,而且也关注"小传统"下的归国华侨群体,这就形成"和而不同、多元共存"的华侨华人研究局面,拓展了华侨华人研究的学术空间。归国华侨群体研究的人类学转向,必将带来多方面的实践和理论意义。     

商王权政治基础的人类学观察——另一视角下的商代青铜器

以西方文化人类学中权力起源的理论为根据,以作为三代文明核心特征的青铜器为对象,对商王权的有关政治基础以及运行机制从另外一个角度作了一些系统思考和分析。     

The Social Role of Technology in Coastal Alaska

Novel technologies linked to women and men through identity-demarcated tasks and knowledge sets can potentially have differential and even long-term effects on each group. This study follows the trajectory of two significant imports into the coastal western Alaskan system, the firearm and the metal cook pot. These imports had different implications for coastal Yup’ik women and men, young and old. Over time the gun became an integral piece of a man’s tool kit and one that had the potential to boost production and thus a man’s access to status-building. However, these same tools had the potential to undermine the apprenticeship system of male authority. Likewise, the metal cook pot replaced the productive oversight and skill set of elder women’s ceramic production but created paths of independence for younger Yup’ik women. These changes in technology destabilized relative balances of gender and age based status, security, and authority and fashioned new gender and age based social and economic opportunities and limitations.     

The Gothic and the Gaelic: Exploring the Place of Castles in Ireland’s Celtic Revival

This paper examines the conflict in early nineteenth century Ireland that emerged between the way castles were portrayed in academia on the one hand and romantic literature on the other. Focusing on a key text of the Celtic Revival, Sydney Owensons The Wild Irish Girl, the paper explores how this novel (with its strong gothic influences) established a lens through which Gaelic Ireland could be understood and how this in turn affected the representation of castles. The second part of the paper ties these themes into an analysis of the relationship between architecture, literature and identity in the occupation of Leap Castle, Co. Offaly during the changing political climate of nineteenth and early twentieth century Ireland.     

‘The first duties of persons living in a civilized community’: the Maya, the Church, and the colonial state in southern Belize

In recent years, historical geography has been at the forefront of new scholarship on the spatiality of colonial power and its complex relations with indigenous communities. This literature shows that imperial policies – emerging through state and scientific institutions, cultural practices, and capitalist ventures – required particular ways of conceptualizing, mapping, and organizing spaces and territories which transformed the geographies of indigenous communities, livelihoods, and identities. Through a close reading of archival texts from the late 19th and early 20th century, this paper examines the spatial and political relations between three groups: the Catholic Church, the British colonial state, and the Maya communities of southern British Honduras. Differences between the Catholic Church and the British colonial state – in their aims and approach to winning hegemony over the Q'eqchi' and Mopan Maya – were accommodated and assuaged by a tacit agreement: that the Maya must be settled in permanent communities. Colonial power, in both its spiritual and statist modalities, was imminently geographical, and this geography comprised the common ground between Church and state in their approach to the Maya.     

Photography as Geographical Fieldwork

Photography has a long history in geographical fieldwork. This paper reports on a student project that recovers this history and uses photography and commentary to represent the city of Barcelona. The place of the project within the broader (second-year undergraduate) fieldcourse and curriculum is described. The paper concludes with considerations of the way that photography lends itself to raise issues of representation evident in contemporary human geography. Since it is accessible to students, and offers practical examples, photography is a good way to approach and introduce more complex questions of method, epistemology and representation.     

Blood talks: Eugenic modernity and the creation of new Japanese

In fin-de-siècle Japan, the ideal of "eugenic modernity," or the application of scientific concepts and methods as a means to constitute both the nation and its constituent subjects (New Japanese), crystallized in the space of imperialism. Three of the main themes explored are the application of eugenic principles to make connections between biology, kinship, and the plasticity of the human body; to contemporize historical stigmas; and to promote "pure-bloodedness" and "ethnic-national endogamy" as cultural ideals.     

Beyond the Visual: Considering the Archaeology of Colonial Sounds

Many historians and archaeologists have focused on trade goods in the French colonies, yet few have examined how these items were animated in colonial contexts. Here, the issue of colonial performance as it related to trade goods (such as hawk bells, brass tinklers, glass beads) is examined and it is argued that the power of these objects was more than purely visual. Case studies from French Louisiana are presented to discuss the intersection of bodies and objects, of the exotic and the erotic towards understanding the sounds that emanated from colonial communities and households.     

Boundaries, Borders, and Reference Points: The Caribbean Defined as Geographic Region and Social Reality

Terms used to describe a region often reflect and directly influence the way space, identity, and history are conceived or constructed. The Caribbean is one such place where external definitions frequently transcend simple geography and socio-political boundaries. The region can be understood by both temporal and cultural categories. The case is made in this paper that archaeological interpretations of social history are impacted by how one conceives of the region.