The Riksdag,the state bureaucracy and the administration of hospitals in eighteenth‐century Sweden

Traditionally, the Norwegian modernization process has been presented as a success story that focuses on how social movements and democratized political institutions in the 19th and 20th centuries laid the foundations for a society and culture with an emphasis on social equality. The paper offers an alternative analysis of this process, based not on the issue of material equality and inequality, but on the concepts of normality and deviance. A comparison of the development of the Norwegian national education policy since the middle of the 19th century with the Danish and Swedish experiences involves the exclusion of the dissimilar as a distinct feature of the Norwegian policy. ‘Disability’ was constructed as a category of deviance by public policies and administrative and professional practice. The professions – particularly teachers and doctors – were important actors who offered alternative conceptions of normality and disability. However, the constructions that they selected were those that were in closest dialogue with the particular challenges confronted by the Norwegian modernisation process: first the liberal, then the social democratic construction. Because the national conditions confronting the Scandinavian modernization processes differed from each other, so did the related constructions of disability.     

The Ter Sámi according to the Russian census of 1858: Ethno‐social characteristics

Census material representing the tax‐paying segments of the population of the Russian Empire can be used as an empirical basis for carrying out local research in the field of ethno‐social history. This article deals with ethno‐social characteristics of the Ter Sami of the Kola Peninsula, and is based on archival data from a local census report from 1858. Special attention is given to family structure, marriage preferences and the distribution of family names.     

The Role of the Societas Meteorologica Palatina (1781–1792) in the History of Auroral Research

Abstract

The Societas Meteorologica Palatina, or Meteorological Society of Mannheim, was set up in 1781 to coordinate observations of the weather on an international scale. In addition to temperature, pressure and humidity, observers connected to the network were instructed to record various atmospheric phenomena, among these the aurora borealis. The 39 stations of the network reported about 1400 individual sightings of auroras during the Society's dozen years of existence. The reported sightings are subjected to a statistical analysis that brings out striking discrepancies between the number of auroras that one would expect and the number that was reported. The statistical analysis is supplemented by an analysis of the theoretical and phenomenological comments in the Society's annual reports. The study suggests that observers on the Continent considered themselves just as advantageously situated as observers further north when trying to solve the riddle of the northern lights. It also illustrates the variety of conflicting ideas about the aurora borealis that existed during the late Enlightenment, and how these might have influenced the number of reported auroras. This lack of consensus contributed to many anomalies in the data presented in the Society's reports. By combining linguistic and scientific competence it is possible to shed light on these anomalies and on the historical context that shaped them.     

Research and Activism in Sámi Politics: The Ideas and Achievements of Karl Nickul towards Securing Governance for the Sámi

Abstract

Pacifist, land surveyor, friend of the Sámi people, scholar studying Sámi culture, Karl Nickul's (1900–1980) life work proves that the work of a public servant and researcher can be merged into a strong ethical stand to influence society. Nickul, an early initiator of Finland's peace movement, was by training and profession a land surveyor, who worked for the Finnish government making maps of Lapland and Petsamo in northern Finland in the 1920s and 1930s. Becoming acquainted with the Skolt Sámi, he began to study them and to take part in the official discussions about their status. With a project to preserve Skolt culture Nickul's paramount idea of Sámi governance began to grow. He actively pursued this idea after World War II through his activities in Sámi politics in Finland and in Sámi cooperative efforts in the Nordic countries. The dominant idea was that the Sámi culture was to be protected from outside pressures of settlement, and that the Sámi themselves should be allowed to determine their own identity and their own needs. The paper discusses and analyses Karl Nickul's personal development and involvement in various projects and activities to secure Sámi rights.     

Vincenc Alexandr Bohdálek (1801–1883): Czech anatomist and neuroscientist of the nineteenth century

Vincenc Alexandr Bohdálek (Vincenz Alexander Bochdalek) was a well-known anatomist and pathologist in the nineteenth century. Today, however, his name is all but forgotten. Bohdálek described a number of anatomical structures; some of them became eponyms. Unfortunately, his findings concerning the innervation of the eye, upper jaw, hard palate, auditory system, and meninges are little known today. This current overview is based on available archival sources and provides an insight into his results in the field of nervous system research, which account for almost half his work. Bohdálek can clearly be considered a pioneer in the field we now call functional anatomy, as he tried to find a physiological explanation for the anatomical and pathological findings he observed. The work and results of this truly outstanding neuroscientist of his time are thus again available to current and future generations of neuroscientists and neuroanatomists.     

Archaeological evidence of fish in the diet of the garrison at the Berry Head Forts,Brixham (Torbay) 1794–1817, with special reference to European hake Merluccius merluccius

Abstract

Post-excavation analysis of animal bones recovered from late 18th-/19th-century military refuse deposits within the Berry Head Forts (Torbay, Devon, UK) has provided evidence for the inclusion of fresh fish in the garrison’s diet. European hake was the principal fish in the food rations of the ordinary soldiers whilst more expensive fish, notably turbot, sole and John Dory, was only eaten in the officers’ messes. Reconstructed lengths of the hake in the archaeological assemblage formed a distribution pattern very different from that plotted from data on modern trawler-caught hake, showing how much post-industrial commercial fishing activity has profoundly altered the age/size structure of modern hake stocks.     

The rhetoric of science and the critique of imperialism in British social anthropology,c. 1870–1940

In this article I discuss issues of memory and historicity in a contemporary African prophetic movement, the Tokoist church. I do so by focusing on the multiple processes of “biographization” of the prophet’s (Simão Toko) life from the different allegiances within the movement. I suggest that, despite recent critiques on the biographical method, the ethnography of those (unstable and heterogeneous) processes can be very helpful to understand the place of memory and historical consciousness in contemporary Christianity.     

Huacayñán (1952–1953) and the biopolitics of in(ex)clusion

The foundation of the modern Ecuadorian State in the 1940s and early 1950s coincides with a series of attempts to synchronize and incorporate certain “problematic” sectors of the population that were supposedly resistant to progress and whose forms of life were incompatible with modernity, a capitalist economy, and a cohesive nation. This biopolitical project for the modernization and governance of the population also had repercussions on—and analogous manifestations within—the discourse of national identity, the design of cultural policies, and the production of State-sponsored national art. This article analyzes Huacayñán / El camino del llanto / The Way of Tears (1952–1953), a collection of FIGURE 3 aintings by Oswaldo Guayasamín that was commissioned by the government of Ecuador in 1951. Huacayñán was conceived within the ideology of mestizaje as an instrument of aesthetic cultural modernization and as a visual artistic showcase of the harmonious integration of ‘Ecuadorians.’ Despite, or even because of its governmental overdetermination, however, this article shows how Huacayñán instead materialized the exclusionary logic of the syncretic and biopolitical policies of the State, displaying dystopic visions of violence and exclusion, and of a fractured nation inhabited by monsters and resistant to mestizo-ization.     

Birkarlar and Sámi – inter-cultural contacts beyond state control: reconsidering the standing of external tradesmen (birkarlar) in medieval Sámi societies

It is not until the fourteenth century that written records offer a glimpse into the coastal societies of Northern Sweden. Records include references to a social stratum referred to as the birkarlar, who were tradesmen engaged in trading with the Sámi. The origin of the birkarlar, their prominent status and the meaning of the term, is an enigma that has been much disputed among scholars although there is consensus about the economic and fiscal supremacy of birkarlar vis-á-vis the Sámi. However, the paradox of tradesmen employing force against their most important circle of suppliers and customers remains a puzzle. The birkarla institution is analyzed by means of alternative reading of historical records from the perspective of the indigenous Sámi and coastal farming communities. The postulated animosity between Sámi and the birkarlar is critically examined in light of the social and economic context of interior and coastal communities during the Late Iron Age and Early Medieval period, and in relation to historically known Sámi kinship relationships and marriage traditions. Data are analyzed with regard to demography and social structure, and from a landscape perspective including the logistics and practicalities of inter-cultural contact. Analyses corroborate that birkarlar were deeply rooted in the coastal communities and fully involved in the regular subsistence activities. They were representatives given a commission of trust and contacts between the birkarlar and the Sámi were characterized by mutuality and inter-dependence.     

The politics of the Shanghai courts: the state,local elites,and social networks in Nationalist China, 1927–1937

This article explores the ways in which the Nationalist Party established dominance over the Shanghai courts in the foreign concession area to use them as weapons against political dissidents, and it analyzes the intricate relations among the Nationalist Party, local elites, and the Shanghai courts during the Nanjing decade (1927–1937). Building on recent studies that pay attention to the limited success of the Nationalist Party’s policy of putting the judiciary under Party control, this study demonstrates that the process of establishing the Nationalist Party’s dominance over the Shanghai courts was highly contested. The interplay between the Nationalist Party’s effort to gain control over the Shanghai courts by building formal and informal institutions and the local elites’ appropriation of their own social networks rendered the Shanghai courts vulnerable not only to the Party’s intervention, but also to the influence of social forces. I argue that due to the weak authority of the Shanghai courts, the Nationalist Party’s use of law against political foes could be a double-edged sword.     

Deviant ideas,prohibited books and aberrant practices: reflections of the Roman Inquisition in the societies of the Venetian Ionian Islands (sixteenth–seventeenth centuries)

The paper examines the history of relations between the Roman Inquisition and the societies of the Venetian Ionian Islands. Specifically, it studies cases of arrest or accusation to the Inquisition of subjects of the Republic of Venice residing permanently or displaying in the Ionian region delinquent behaviour on issues relating to faith during the period οf the sixteenth to seventeenth centuries. Besides the definition of the divergent ideas embraced or propagated by the accused as well as their deviant behaviours and practices, principal issues investigated are on the one hand the role and the policies of the State authorities regarding religious dissent and its repression, and on the other the perception of the Roman Inquisition by the local societies and the reflections of its function in the social domain.     

The Historic Port of El Real de Salinas in Campeche, and the Role of Coastal Resources in the Emergence of Capitalism in Yucatán, México

The emergence of capitalism in the peninsula of Yucatán is generally presented as a process resulting from the capitalization of the agricultural sector and the export of products from its sugar, cotton, and henequén plantations in the nineteenth century. In addition to these products, the peninsula also had a dynamic coastal economy in which the harvesting of salt and the extraction of logwood (Haematoxylum campechianum), played a major role and contributed to the flow of goods to international markets. We present a preliminary archaeological survey and historical documentation of El Real de Salinas, a salt-producing port on the north coast of Campeche, which was also involved in the extraction of other coastal products and closely linked to the inland plantation system.

Peace without social reconciliation? Understanding the trial of Generals Ríos Montt and Rodriguez Sánchez in the wake of Guatemala’s genocide

ABSTRACT

This article argues that the legal trial against Generals Efraín Ríos Montt and José Mauricio Rodriguez Sánchez for genocide and crimes against humanity has evidenced the interplay between the complex factors shaping post-conflict reconstruction and social reconciliation in post-genocide Guatemala, and, ultimately, the disjunctive impact of the country’s peace process. The ‘genocide trial’ then is more than a legal process in that it represents a thermometer for Guatemala’s peace process and, ultimately, for testing the nature and stability of the post-genocide/post-conflict conjuncture. Interiorization of human rights frameworks and justice mechanisms by indigenous and human rights activists, including of the Genocide Convention, has consolidated a partial rights culture. However, the trial and the overturning of its verdict have simultaneously evidenced the instability, fragility and disjunctive nature of post-conflict peace and the continuing impact of the profound legacy of the genocide and of social authoritarianism. The article argues that while the trial has wielded broad impact within both state institutions and society, consolidating indigenous political actors, it has simultaneously fortified spoilers and evidenced indigenous collective memory as a fragmented and contested sphere.     

Original DocumentsAnglo-Saxon Document Relating to Lands at Send and Sunbury,In middlesex,In the Time of Eádgár: and The Writ of Cnut,on the Accession of Archbishop Æthelnoth to the See of Canterbury,A.D. 1020

The techniques used for new determinations of the radiocarbon ages of the fragments of boats discovered at North Ferriby are described, together with a demonstration of the application to the results of a computer-based calibration procedure. An interpretation is suggested of the possible calibrated date-ranges thus generated. Archaeological implications of these are considered both in connection with the dates for other British craft that have been excavated in the vicinity of the Humber and in a wider context of European boats bearing related constructional features. The discussion includes the centuries-long persistence in different regions of specialized boat-building traditions.