COLONIZING CONTRASTING LANDSCAPES. THE PIONEER COAST SETTLEMENT AND INLAND UTILIZATION IN SOUTHERN NORWAY 10,000–9500 YEARS BEFORE PRESENT

This article contributes a western Scandinavian perspective to the discussion of the human colonization of former glaciated landscapes. Four assumptions concerning the peopling of the Norwegian coast are discussed: 1) a delayed colonization, 2) an immigration from the ‘North Sea Continent’, 3) reindeer as the main economic factor, and 4) a rapid rate of expansion along the coast. It is argued that only the first and last suppositions still appear credible, but need to be confirmed. A gradual major development is evident. Stage 1: Marine hunters colonized the resource‐rich coastlines of south‐west Sweden and southern Norway about 10,000 y.BP. Stage 2: Soon after, based on short seasonal moves, some coastal groups started exploiting reindeer in recently deglaciated mountain areas in south‐west Norway. A similar subsistence pattern developed in north‐west Norway. With its remote location, distinct landscape development and many‐faceted environments, Norway appears as ideal for exploring human colonization processes on different geographical scales. More C14‐dates and osteological material are, however, still needed.     

Ancient DNA reveals a major genetic change during the transition from hunting economy to reindeer husbandry in northern Scandinavia

The timing and origin of reindeer domestication has been highly debated. Recent molecular analyses show several mitochondrial lineages of domestic reindeer across Eurasia suggesting different origins of Fennoscandian and Siberian domestic reindeer. In order to investigate the origin of domestic Fennoscandian reindeer, we sequenced a mitochondrial control region fragment of 68 ancient reindeer remains from archaeological sites in Finnmark, the major county for extant reindeer husbandry in Norway, spanning from ca. BC 3400 to AD 1800. The majority of the Stone and Iron Age reindeer assemblages in Finnmark are from settlements in the eastern part of the county, in the Varangerfjord area. The reindeer remains from these settlements show affiliation to the large and complex Beringian haplotype cluster, found in extant reindeer from the Kola Peninsula to north-eastern Russia. A distinct haplotype shift is observed in the late medieval period, when the typical haplotype signatures of extant domestic Fennoscandian reindeer appeared in coastal regions of both eastern and western Finnmark. These haplotypes were not found among the Stone and Iron Age wild reindeer samples of Finnmark, suggesting that this population was not ancestral to extant domestic reindeer of Fennoscandia.     

Mo birget soadis (how to cope with war)

The article studies the Sámi experiences during the ‘German era’ in Norway and Finland, 1940–1944, before the Lapland War. The Germans ruled as occupiers in Norway, but had no jurisdiction over the civilians in Finland, their brothers-in-arms. In general, however, encounters between the local people and the Germans appear to have been cordial in both countries. Concerning the role of racial ideology, it seems that the Norwegian Nazis had more negative opinions of the Sámi than the occupiers, while in Finland the racial issues were not discussed. The German forces demonstrated respect for the reindeer herders as communicators of important knowledge concerning survival in the Arctic. The herders also possessed valuable meat reserves. Contrary to this, other Sámi groups, such as the Sea Sámi in Norway, were ignored by the Germans, resulting in a forceful exploitation of sea fishing. Through the North Sámi concept birget (coping with), we analyse how the Sámi both resisted and adapted to the situation. The cross-border area of Norway and Sweden is described in the article as an exceptional arena for transnational reindeer herding, but also for the resistance movement between an occupied and a neutral state.     

Experiencing ‘moments of home’ through diaspora tourism and travel

Whilst the relationship between diasporic communities and tourism has been explored in the tourism literature, it has generally been underpinned by a limited consideration of the notion of home. Based on ethnographic research with an Iranian diasporic community in the South Island of New Zealand, this paper explores the different ways in which this diaspora community engages with travel and tourism to (re)produce and taste ‘home’. It is argued that the notion of home should be viewed as incomplete, contingent and fleeting, rather than fixed and permanent, specifically within the tourism context. The concept of ‘moments of home’ is presented to illustrate how diasporic communities use travel and tourism to find, maintain or make home when away from their original homeland. Thus, ‘moments of home’ is proposed in order to allow a more complex and dynamic understanding of the relationship between diaspora tourism and home.     

Of Fictional Cities and "Diasporic" Aesthetics

This essay considers the work of social reproduction as it unfolds within the cultural realm in both national and diasporic contexts. Beginning with a discussion of the creation of Malgudi—the quintessential Indian hometown created in the 1930s by one of India's most venerated writers, R K Narayan—I go on to argue that in the preindependence days, this Indian small town was created from an aesthetic position not unlike that of present-day diasporic artists. I then look at the novels of South Asian-American writer Indira Ganesan and the paintings by South Asian-American artist Arijit Sen to document the ways in which the works attempt to map alternative articulations of the space of home and community in a diasporic context. Together, these imaginary hometowns do the work of reproducing a viable social sphere through creative work that overcomes the constraints of colonial rule (in Narayan's case) and immigration (in Ganesan's and Sen's work).     

Doing is Learning: Analysis of an Unsuccessful Attempt to Adapt TEK/IK Methodology to Norwegian Sámi Circumstances

Abstract

This article describes a case where an attempt was made to introduce TEK/IK into a conflict between Sámi reindeer owners and environmental institutions. The conflict was brought on by the establishment of a national park in Southern Sámi areas in Norway. At first, the Sámi were in favour of the park, but later on their attitudes changed as the content of planned national park developed. The reindeer owners discovered that the size of the park would be reduced, leaving out what they thought were significant areas in need of protection. They saw the encouragement of increased tourism activities as a threat to reindeer herding and felt alienated by the number of representatives they received in the park management structures. On the basis of these observations reindeer owners protested, but were ignored. As researchers well-established in the Southern Sámi area, we were brought into conversations regarding the park as the local reindeer owners searched for ways of bringing new arguments into the process. At this point we thought TEK/IK represented an opportunity to add weight to Sámi perspectives. As the title of this article indicates, as push came to shove we did not succeed in making room for local participation in our TEK/IK project, despite these existing on-going relations. The article attempts to understand what happened. Our analysis is based upon a perception of TEK/IK as not one, but at least two co-constituted knowledge practices. The premise is that research failures are as important to publish as successes. Our joint ethnographic experience has methodological implications for future TEK/IK research.     

Heritage,transnational memory and the re-diasporisation of Scotland

For a long time in Scotland, diasporic – and popular – heritage with its imaginary emphasising kinship, stylised images and ritualised practices was either overlooked or discredited. The term ‘diaspora’ itself to define Scotland’s vast overseas population has been scrutinised for its usefulness. However, since devolution, it has gained currency in public discourse and policies and has led to the ‘re-diasporisation’ of Scotland. Yet, the ‘diaspora’ had long been identified as an important niche market in relation to heritage perceived as an economic resource. This article explores the changing perception and place of diasporic heritage in Scotland since the 1970s through two case studies. Focusing on processes of remembrance of nineteenth-century Highland emigration materialised through monuments and museums, it highlights the conflicting and shifting relationships that different communities – home and diasporic – have with their past, place and the meanings ascribed to them. The transnational memories increasingly promoted in Scotland act as a means of re-energising nationhood and initiating revisions and re-reading of popular and diasporic culture.     

Den samiska handeln och dess roll som social differentieringsfaktor‐lule lappmark 1760–1860

English summary

During the beginning of the 17th Century, reindeer‐husbandry developed as the dominating economic form of the Sami in Swedish Lappland. Sami society was transformed from a hunting to a pastoralist society, with profound alterations in social and economic structures. In this paper the role of trade as an agent of change in reindeer‐pastoralist economies is studied with an emphasis on conditions in Lule lappmark during the period 1760–1860.

In the middle of the 18th Century, the Sami held a dominating position in the trade of Lule lappmark. Sami traded with the Swedish trading system on the coast of the Gulf of Bothnia, and with the Norwegian trading system on the Atlantic coast. Through this trade, the Sami both disposed of their own reindeer products and conducted important middle‐man trade between the two national trading systems. In addition they carried out a large local trade in Lapland with their own products and with purchased goods.

By the middle of the 19th Centuy. the picture is completely different. The dominating Sami position had been lost and trade with Norway all but disappeared. The initiative in the local trade had gone over to the settlers. All this had occured without any changes in the assortment of goods, trading‐patterns, the volume of trade or prices. The reasons where manifold. The most important ones, however, are to be found in the population development of Lapland and the increase in population and production on the coast of Bothnia.

In Lapland a strong population movement occured with the change from a traditional Sami way of life towards a more settled one based on agriculture. At the same time, the number of settlers with a Swedish ethnic background vigourosly increased. On the coast of Bothnia the population tripled between 1750 and 1850. During this period an important proto‐industrial development also took place based on wood and iron, wind‐ and water‐power. All this meant that the relative importance of traditional Sami goods received from reindeer‐husbandry diminished, even if actual supply and demand remained stable.

The great volume of trade with reindeer‐products and the many important goods received in return demonstrates the importance of trade for the reindeer‐pastoralist economy. The trading‐goods were to a large extent technically superior to the products produced within the frames of the reindeer‐pastoralist economy. The most important factor was, however, the fact that the surplus production left in exchange for these goods, only demanded a small increase in labor input.

Within the reindeer‐pastoralist society, trade has a role as promotor of property‐differentiation and social stratification. Through hoarding of silver the rich reindeer‐owner could withdraw a substantial part of his property from the eternal plague of reindeer‐pastoralism ‐ the ever occuring bad years with heavy losses of reindeer. After such a year, he could use the silver to buy food, saving his diminished herd from slaughter and quickly building it up again. The owner of a small herd, without any silver, had to slaughter the few reindeer that survived in order to live; hence social differences could be conserved over generations.     

‘Poor heathens’, ‘Cone-headed natives’ and ‘Good water’: the production of knowledge of the interior of Australia through German texts from around the 1860s

This essay critically reviews the textual archive related to the two German mission stations in the South Australian Lake Eyre basin: the Lutheran Hermannsburg mission at Killalpaninna and the Moravian mission at Kopperamanna. The multiple entanglements of these stations far beyond their missionary activity become evident through examining distinctly religious material, such as mission journals, and secular texts, in German-language newspapers and scientific journals. These include entanglement in German domestic affairs as well as German diasporic politics; and in debates over scientific advancement and British colonial expansion.     

The Scandinavian reindeer (Rangifer tarandus L.) after the last glacial maximum: time,seasonality and human exploitation

Antlers and bones of reindeer (Rangifer tarandus L.) are the most frequently found vertebrate remains from the Late Glacial deposits of Southern Scandinavia. The Danish collection now consists of more than 350 specimens and of these 47 have been radiocarbon dated extending the range of occurrence in the area with ca. 1300 ¹⁴C yr. Thus the first occurrence is pushed back to ca. 12?500 ¹⁴C yr BP (late Bølling chronozone) while the youngest date lies at ca. 9200 ¹⁴C yr BP (late Preboreal chronozone) establishing that the reindeer survives well into the Holocene. The seasonal dates of the reindeer indicate for the first human occupation (the Havelte group from the Bølling period) a summer, autumn and early winter occupation, with reindeer, as well as man, apparently being absent during the coldest winter months. Finally, it is shown that Southern Scandinavia acted as a calving area throughout the Late Glacial and Early Holocene thus discrediting the North–South model of reindeer groups moving from a wintering area in Southern Scandinavia to a calving area in the foothills of the North European plain.     

Trade,tribute and household responses

During the Late Middle Ages the combined pressures from the stately tributary organizations of Novgorod and Norway, in cooperation with the capitalist organization of the German Hansa, seem to have driven the hunting population of Varanger in East Finnmark to exploit the wild reindeer resource heavily. The article deals with how a Saami household who lived in a turf house on a peninsula in the present municipality of Nesseby (Unjárgd) dealt with the situation.     

Entheseal Changes in Free‐Ranging Versus Zoo Reindeer—Observing Activity Status of Reindeer

We evaluate whether entheseal changes (EC) can be used to reconstruct activity among reindeer to study its domestication. Humans influence reindeer activity patterns through corralling, which renders them less mobile than free‐ranging reindeer and through use as draught animals, which can result in overuse of certain muscles. There is also variation within free‐ranging reindeer in baseline activity levels due to environmental factors. Other sources of variation at entheses include age, sex, pathology, size, and genetic disposition. Here we examine if there are differences in the entheses between zoo versus free‐ranging reindeer. We recorded the entheses of reindeer long bones using a modified EC scoring system. Weight effects were accounted for by performing analyses separately for specimens under and over 95 kg, but unfortunately age information was lacking. We found that several flexor muscle insertion sites in the ulna were more developed among free‐ranging reindeer. This difference is likely due to feeding behaviour. The free‐ranging animals were digging for lichen from under the snow whereas the zoo reindeer were fed by their keepers. This difference in entheses, however, was found to be significant only among the heavier reindeer. Among the zoo reindeer, the insertion for Subscapularis muscle was more developed, possibly due to increased time spent immobile with the shoulder‐bracing muscle apparatus activated. This difference was significant among the heavier deer and nearly statistically significant among the lighter weight reindeer. Domesticated Siberian draught reindeer fell between zoo and free‐ranging reindeer in several tibial entheses. According to these results, some forelimb entheses may be useful to study differences in mobility and feeding patterns between groups of reindeer. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Diasporic dwelling: the poetics of domestic space

This article explores the politics of diasporic dwelling in domestic spaces. Heidegger's concept of ‘dwelling’ is popular in studies of diasporic life as it articulates a sense of belonging in mobility without the problematic connotations of rootedness conjured up by ‘home’. However, the way Heidegger's ‘dwelling’ functions in diasporic contexts is rarely considered, an absence this article seeks to address by exploring the concept in more detail, focusing in particular on ‘the fourfold’ and preservation. This discussion is grounded in the domestic spaces of two Palestinian women living in Britain. Drawing on in-depth interviews, the article explores how these women's houses, and particular spaces within them, enable and constrain their dwelling. I argue for greater attention to be paid to the expansive and integrative capacities of domestic space and demonstrate the need to address houses in their social context and as internally heterogeneous. This article also contributes to ongoing debates about material and symbolic dwelling and diasporic identities that include but also exceed territorialised belonging.     

海外华人跨国主义实践的模式及其差异——基于美国与新加坡的比较分析

论文参考有关跨国主义的理论文献和实证研究,分析了移民个人、移民社会以及民族国家在国际移民进程和跨国活动中所扮演的不同角色,考察了在美国和新加坡的华人新移民及其社团组织与祖籍国之间互动模式的变化。结果显示,由于国际移民的迁移历史以及移居国(地)结构的多重差异,导致了海外华人社会在人口构成和族裔社区建设等方面存在显著差异。个人、社团、祖籍国和移居国实际上并不是单方面地影响着海外华人的跨国活动及其与祖籍国的互动关系,他们的互动关系还受到国家关系和地缘政治等宏观因素的制约。因此,国际移民参与跨国活动的主要目的是为了寻求更好的、更广阔的创业和就业机会,以便提高个人和族群在移居国的社会地位,但其结果因移居国社会的结构因素影响而产生差异。     

Imaging the materiality of a diaspora: Recording the biographies of Greek Orthodox church buildings in London

The materiality of world diasporas – in every form, from landmark features to everyday objects – is a relatively modern approach towards studying the diasporas' relationship with both homeland and hostland. Photo narratives and various modes of imaging can be employed to better record, assess and disseminate the narratives of diasporic lifeways in terms of their material culture. This article examines how Greek Orthodox communities have altered Western denomination church buildings in London to serve their spiritual and community needs. The new, amalgamated characteristics are described, while the debate around the role these religious communities should play in the hostland is also discussed.     

Cornish tin-streamers and the Australian gold rush: technology transfer in alluvial mining

Abstract

The Cornish are known around the world for their mining skills. In the 19th century the migration of Cornish mining families created a diasporic community with settlements in the United States, Mexico, South Africa and Australia centred on copper, tin and gold mines. While the Cornish are generally associated with underground mining, recent research in Australia suggests that ancient methods for working surface tin deposits played an important role during the gold rush. The identification of Cornish tin-streaming as the source of alluvial mining technology in Australia sheds light on a little-documented branch of mining that has played a significant role in shaping the landscape of goldfields regions.     

Comments on economic change and the prehistoric fur trade in Northern Sweden

In this study, we used stable isotope analysis and radiocarbon dating to study diet, mobility and chronology in two late medieval/historical coastal populations in northern Norway. We have shown that the individuals buried at Kirkegårdsøya date between 1331 and 1953 cal AD and had a homogenous marine diet, whereas the individuals buried at Gullholmen had a more heterogeneous diet, consisting of both terrestrial and marine proteins and date between 1661 and 1953 cal AD. We have demonstrated that reindeer protein was not an important part of their diet, and also discussed the importance of correcting for the marine reservoir effect in populations with a coastal subsistence. Our interpretation is that individuals buried at Kirkegårdsøya primarily belonged to a Coastal Sámi community, although Norwegians with a similar diet (and likely comprising a minor population in the area) cannot be ruled out. The more varied diet and mobility at Gullholmen could, as predicted, indicate that these individuals may have had a more diverse cultural affinity.     

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.     

Locating processes of identification: studying the precipitates of re-memory through artefacts in the British Asian home

Memory has been figured as an important process of placing and locating people and communities, both geographically and socially. Memory has also been significant in research on people who are not part of a formal record of history. This memory work includes a focus on black identity, especially in the work of Toni Morrison and Paul Gilroy. This paper seeks to examine the relevance of memory and re-memory for the social geographies of the South Asian population in Britain. In the first section I examine visual and material cultures as mechanisms for memory, especially their role in figuring diasporic positioning, and identity politics. These memories are in the form of testimonies and biographical narratives. In the paper I have argued for the relevance and value of re-memory in understanding the narratives of British Asian heritage in the everyday domestic environment. Re-memory is an alternative social narrative to memory as it is a form of memory that is not an individual linear, biographical narrative. Re-memory is a conceptualization of encounters with memories, stimulated through scents, sounds and textures in the everyday. 'Home possessions' constitute precipitates of re-memories and narrated histories. These are souvenirs from the traversed landscapes of the journey, signifiers of 'other' narrations of the past not directly experienced but which incorporate narrations of other's oral histories or social histories that are part of the diasporic community's re-memories. Collectively, visual and material cultures are identified as precipitates of these re-memories in the form of historical artefacts of heritage and tradition.