“This Special Shell”: The Church Building and the Embodiment of Memory

Religious, congregational, individual, and community memories are embodied in church buildings. Under normal circumstances these memories sit harmoniously together. Once the church building is destined for closure, however, the equilibrium of the memory platforms is disrupted, often causing conflict. The value of associating memory with a building is questioned, especially when such attachments are seen to impede the rationalisation of church assets. Through the process of closure and afterwards, the memory patterns and associations are reorganised, redrawn, and reprioritised. This article examines these memory shifts in the context of Australian religious history from the 1970s to the present day. Special attention is given to the Uniting Church in Australia.     

POST-COLONIZATION INTERACTION BETWEEN VANUATU AND FIJI RECONSIDERED: THE RE-ANALYSIS OF OBSIDIAN FROM LAKEBA ISLAND, FIJI*

PIXE–PIGME analysis of 19 obsidian artefacts from Lakeba Island in east Fiji identified contact with northern Vanuatu in the post-colonization period ( c. 2500–1000 bp ) of Fiji. The Lakeba obsidian is the only physical evidence for interaction across the 850 km water gap separating the archipelagos of Vanuatu and Fiji in the first millennium ad . New research on the Vanuatu obsidian sources with laser ablation – inductively coupled plasma – mass spectrometry (LA–ICP–MS) casts serious doubt on the validity of a long-distance inter-archipelago connection in the post-Lapita era. This paper presents the re-analysis of 18 obsidian artefacts from Lakeba using LA–ICP–MS and radiogenic isotope results that demonstrate that the Lakeba obsidian is not from Vanuatu, and it most likely derives from the Fiji–Tonga region. Geochemical evidence for long-distance interaction and migration between the West and Central Pacific in the post-Lapita era has yet to be identified.     

The creative destruction of Niagara-on-the-Lake

Heritage shopping villages are becoming increasingly commonplace in rural North America. Their creation reflects the demands of post-modern consumers to purchase symbolic capital in the form of unique products and experiences reflecting a bygone era. Entrepreneurs have responded to this by commodifying heritage and tradition; a process that leads to the creation of new landscapes and a perceived destruction of the old. This transformation has been described in the model of creative destruction (Mitchell 1998). In this paper the model is applied to Old Niagara-on-the-Lake, a heritage shopping village located in southern Ontario, Canada. Data on functional change, visitor numbers and residents' attitudes are analysed for the period 1950–1998. It is concluded that historic Niagara-on-the-Lake is in the early stages of 'advanced destruction'; one characterized by major investment, large numbers of visitors and partial destruction of the rural idyll. Results of this analysis confirm that while the basic premise of the model is sound, modifications are required to accommodate some of the study's findings.     

China and the United States: a succession of hegemonies?

This article critically reviews the suggestion that we are experiencing a ‘succession of hegemonies’ from the United States to China. It develops Martin Wight's writings on hegemony, and introduces a fundamental distinction (not made by Wight) between a power transition and a hegemonic succession. Wight held complex views about the nature of power and at times seemed to subscribe to a purely materialist account. Elsewhere he was more nuanced and appealed to the purpose of dominant states as part of his argument that influence does not correlate exactly with mass and weight. This suggestion is developed in the author's view of hegemony—as distinct from primacy—as denoting a legitimate practice within international society. These ideas are then superimposed upon current debates about a power transition, or a succession of hegemonies, as between the United States and China. The existing debate conflates those two issues. Accordingly, while it can readily be acknowledged that there are important indicators of a shift in the material distribution of power, this in no way amounts, as yet, to any kind of hegemonic succession. For the latter to occur, there would need to be clear evidence of an effective socialization of the aspirant hegemon's purpose and support for its preferred order. On the contrary, to date China has been largely content to operate within existing frameworks, rather than instigate a revision of them, and does not yet present a model for emulation elsewhere. It is possible that a power transition, without any hegemonic succession, could be corrosive of global governance.     

THE EXPANSION OF FRENCH LANGUAGE RIGHTS IN ONTARIO, 1968–1993: THE USES OF TERRITORIALITY IN A POLICY OF GRADUALISM

Franco-Ontarian language rights have been granted through a policy of gradualism over the past 25 years. It will be argued that this policy has embraced a territorial component for selected domains - education, the judiciary, and government services - a fact that has helped to minimize backlash from the majority and aided the processes of extending language rights from the local level to the entire province. This has been accomplished in education and the judiciary and appears to be in progress for government services. It is through an analysis of territoriality that the significance of these processes to substate nationalism is revealed.
Durant les 25 dernières années, les Franco-Ontariens ont été soumis à une politique d'après laquelle ils ont obtenu peu à peu leurs droits linguistiques. Cette politique, qui touche à l'education, aux tribunaux et aux services gouvernementaux, a une composante spatiale qui a aidéà minimiser les réactions de la majorité, tout en étendant les droits linguistiques du niveau local à la province entière. Les droits linguistiques ont été obtenus dans les domaines de lÉducation et des tribunaux, et il paraît que les mêmes droits seront acquis dans la domaine des services gouvernementaux. C'est par le biais d'une analyse territoriale, que se révèle la signification de ces processus, au niveau provincial.     

INTERVIEW WITH

Born in 1903, in north central Mississippi, Clark received his B.A. from the University of Mississippi, his M.A. from the University of Kentucky, and his Ph.D. from Duke. Clark has collected thousands of documents, edited a dozen volumes, and written over 30 books and 60 articles, many of them about the South since the Civil War. Clark has served as president of Phi Alpha Theta, the Southern Historical Association, and the Organization of American Historians. He and his wife, Martha Elizabeth Turner, were married in 1933 and have a son and a daughter. Retiring in the 1970s after four decades at the University of Kentucky and Indiana University, Clark remains active in such historical circles as the Filson Club, where this interview was conducted in April 1991 by Roger Adelson.