Consuming icons: nationalism and advertising in Australia*

ABSTRACT. In extension of Billig's (1995) and Edensor's (2002) contribution to the literature, this paper examines an often overlooked element in ‘mundane’ nationalism, company advertising. Through the development of a typology of advertising strategies, it examines the role of companies as nationalist actors, and highlights how advertisements can engage with and impact on wider national discourses. Nationalist company advertising is classified into types, depending on how associated the company is with nationalism in popular discourse, and whether the advertising campaign involves the company's participation in broader nationalistic political projects. The types developed in this typology include (1) ‘ordinary marketing/achieving nationalist credentials’, (2) ‘ordinary marketing/established nationalist credentials’ and (3) ‘activist marketing/achieving nationalist credentials’. Case studies from the Australian context are used to illustrate these types, how the different types use nationalism, and their varying impact on shaping wider nationalistic discourses.     

The last refuge of a scoundrel: patriotism,militarism and the Russian national idea*

In a nation‐state, where ethnic and territorial borders coincide, patriotism may easily have an exclusivist‐nationalist component, and be used to serve the goals of politicians hoping to mobilise the population for destructive goals. In a multinational state like Russia, the militaristic patriotism that Yeltsin's and Putin's administrations promote can also carry that risk. The Russian state leadership's use of a militaristic patriotism as a means to generate popular support risks unleashing ethnic chauvinism and the military domination of civilian institutions. Such phenomena cast doubt on the prospects for Russia's state‐building process to proceed along liberal democratic lines. Non‐governmental organisations, such as Russia's Committee of Soldiers' Mothers , however, have devised an alternative vision of patriotism, relying on rule of law and the observance of civil rights, and thereby hold out a slim hope for reframing Russian patriotism and building a peaceful democracy.     

Cultural icons and urban development in Asia: Economic imperative,national identity,and global city status

Global cities are characterized by the multiplicity of flows that they are implicated in – flows of people, goods, services, ideas, and images. Yet, global cities do not derive their status only on the basis that they are networked nodes. They also require particular forms of cultural capital. Cities with global aspirations have thus increasingly recognized the need to accumulate cultural capital, for which one means is to create new urban spaces, in particular, new cultural urban spaces (e.g. grand theatres, museums, libraries). These often monumental structures are intended to support a vibrant cultural life, in order to attract and sustain global human and economic flows. In this paper, I examine the efforts by Shanghai's, Singapore's and Hong Kong's governments to develop cultural icons as part of the strategy to help their cities gain global city status, and in the process, constructing shared national and city identities. I illustrate how such efforts are not universally interpreted in the manner intended, with city populations sometimes protesting, sometimes simply oblivious. At the same time, I argue that such strategies to achieve global city status are sometimes at odds with projects of nationhood.     

The supernatural protector of Constantinople: the Virgin and her icons in the tradition of the Avar siege

Abstract

Previous scholarship has maintained that icons of the Virgin were carried in procession during the Avar siege of Constantinople in A.D. 626. Based on a close reading of the primary sources from the seventh to the fourteenth centuries, this paper will argue in contrast that a tight linkage between Marian icons and protection of the Byzantine capital did not occur until after Iconoclasm. The larger implications of this conclusion concern the evolution of the cult of the Virgin in Constantinople from its initial focus on relics to a cult centered on icons and icon processions as it emerged in the second half of the tenth century.     

Racisms compared: Fascist Italy and ultra-nationalist Japan

This article tries to compare the racisms of Fascist Italy and ultra-nationalist Japan as evidenced by foreign policy, attempting to categorize them into three dimensions: the inner logic of the nation state; the justification of expansionist foreign policies; and as an accelerator of cruelty in war. It also surveys Italo-Japanese relations by choosing some points of contact to scrutinize how different racisms reacted to each other.     

The last outpost of Empire: Rockall and the Cold War

This paper is about what can be seen at sea. It considers the historical geography of a site at the geopolitical axis of the British Empire and the Cold War. It focuses on a hitherto unacknowledged historical reference point: the last territorial expansion of the UK, which laid claim to the tiny islet of Rockall, lying some 300 miles west of the Scottish mainland. Rockall was annexed in September 1955 because it was situated within radio-electrical range of a test site for Britain's first nuclear missile, the American-made ‘Corporal’. As a ‘tactical’ nuclear missile designed for potential deployment in Eastern Europe, the Corporal was a central part of NATO defence policy in the 1950s. Crucial to its development was a testing station in the Outer Hebrides, from which the guided missile could be fired and its ballistic trajectory tracked over the North Atlantic. Occupying an area only 83 feet across and 100 feet wide, Rockall represented a strategic vantage point for the rival gaze of Soviet intelligence. Following Paul Virilio's argument that the logic of war is less about scoring territorial or material victories than about securing ‘the “immateriality” of perceptual fields’, this paper details the ceremonial annexation of Rockall and the subsequent transformation of the Hebridean seascape into a vast topography for military surveillance. This final expansive moment of British imperialism was legitimated by symbolic and rhetorical strategies tying Rockall to both earlier geographical exploration and the science of natural history.     

Women and children last: the poverty and marginalization of one-parent families

The spatial distribution and socioeconomic status of one-parent families in Great Britain and Australia are described, and reasons for the increase in this type of family are analyzed. The author finds that "one-parent families, largely composed of women and children, constitute one of the most rapidly-growing family types. Evidence from Britain and Australia reveals their extreme marginalization in the labour market, and their concentration into public housing. These problems are related to patriarchal structures within society, particularly the expectations of traditional gender roles and the segregation of women's job opportunities."     

Russian and Central European family structures: a comparative view

Some general features of family structure in Russia and Central Europe in the eighteenth century are examined and compared. Sources of data for Yaroslavl', a province northeast of Moscow, are evaluated. Principles of family structure are analyzed, with a focus on the basic pattern of patrilineality in the area. Features examined include variations in family size and complexity, the existence of the seniority principle in the hierarchy of family authority, problems concerning remarriage, patterns of age at marriage, variations in the length of intervals between generations, family kinship structures, and the presence of non-blood relatives in the household.     

Russian Revenues from Oil and Gas Exports: Flow and Taxation

A senior Japanese economist traces the flows of revenue derived from oil and gas exports through the Russian economy. The author examines the use of revenues and investigates their contribution to Russia's state and regional budgets in the form of taxes. After detailing the methodological difficulties encountered in measuring revenue streams statistically, he proceeds to approximate their magnitude through intensive use of input-output table data and budget statistics provided by the Russian Federation Ministry of Finance. His investigation of the list of destination countries for Russian oil and petroleum products exports has interesting implications for the study of capital flight from Russia to the West. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: F14, H20, Q43. 10 tables, 37 references.     

Memoirs,confessions and apologies: the last chapter of Byzantine autobiography

Abstract

Two issues are addressed here: the status of Byzantine autobiography and the state of Byzantine literary culture in its last years. Autobiographical information was mostly a device used at all levels of Byzantine literature for immediacy, emphasis and to suggest personal involvement. It continued to function in this way in the last years of Byzantium, but there was also a degree of experimentation, as it extended its range into satire and comedy and, in the hands of Theodore Agallianos evolved from the rhetoric of apologia into fully-fledged autobiography.     

Ideology,Semiotics, and Clifford Geertz: Some Russian Reflections

This article, written by a Russian cultural historian, analyzes the concept of “ideology” in the work of Clifford Geertz and his role in understanding the figurative nature of ideology as a cultural system. The author compares Geertz's semiotic approach to culture with the semiotics of culture developed by Russian theorists, particularly Yuri Lotman, showing the convergence and divergence of the two different national traditions. This understanding of the nature and functions of ideology opens new possibilities for discussing the tortured relations of ideology and literature, showing the way fiction can affect the formation of ideological systems and influence practical politics. The analysis is illustrated by examples from Russian political life of the 1990s,when revolutionary changes demanded new sets of ideological metaphors that in their turn shaped the direction of events.