The representation of Mongolia in contemporary travel writing: imaginative geographies of a travellers' frontier

This article analyses the representation of Mongolia in five works of travel writing published since the fall of the country's communist regime in 1990. It argues that this travel writing is characterized by a discourse that generates and circulates an ‘imaginative geography’ of Mongolia as a ‘travellers' frontier’. Support for this argument is derived from highlighting sets of collective, cohesive representations, performances and speaking positions that crosscut the works studied. It is maintained that these have the effect of naturalizing a very particular conceptualization of Mongolia as a frontier destination in the age of globalization and mass tourism. This research adds to an established body of geographical scholarship on travel writing, but departs from it by considering contemporary works rather than ones from the colonial period. In doing so it attempts to illustrate the relevance of contemporary travel writing as an object of study for geographers seeking to explore the anatomy of today's imaginative geographies, which have clear links to, but are not entirely mediated by, the discourses that characterize colonial travel writing.     

Conceptualising differently-mobile passengers: geographies of everyday encumbrance in the railway station

This paper develops ideas of differential mobility at the scale of the ‘everyday’ by investigating some of the complex relationships between mobility and immobility; facilitation and encumbrance when moving through railway stations. Drawing on in-depth qualitative research with rail passengers in Britain, the first section explores the entangled relationship between differently-mobile bodies and the station by considering some of the tensions that emerge between experiences of encumbrance and facilitation. Focus here is on how navigating through the station with different mobile objects, or ‘prostheses’, impacts on passengers in a variety of ways. Drawing on insights from science, technology and society studies, it demonstrates how moving with different objects gives rise to fluid apprehensions of both mobile objects and the built form of the station itself. However, and importantly, this section suggests that this fluidity also has the capacity to disrupt the intended affective dimensions of the built form. The second section explores how differently-mobile passengers move through the station with these mobile objects. Drawing on de Certeau's notion of ‘tactics’ and Ingold's idea of the ‘taskscape’, this section pulls out some of the practical knowledges that, through repetition, develop into skills and techniques for moving. In doing so, this paper seeks to illuminate some of the complex relationships between mobility, prosthetics, encumbrance and affectivity that emerge when moving through the railway station.     

Hinton Rowan Helper's the land of gold and the evolution of race relations in California

The California Gold Rush of the mid‐nineteenth century attracted a multitude of prospectors from around the world, bringing together a vibrant mix of ethnicities and cultures. Historians have argued that race emerged as the most important mark of identity in California as whites labeled and eventually excluded ‘inferior’ races. Hinton Rowan Helper's The Land of Gold documented his three‐year trip to California in the early 1850s, recording his reactions to ‘others’ in detail. Helper has been portrayed as the archetypal white racist on the California frontier. This essay challenges that view, contending that he was more preoccupied with culture and behavior than race. It evaluates Helper's comments on, first, Native Americans, second, the Chinese, and finally, his wider reactions to California and the construction of whiteness.     

Securing the “Interests” of the South: John Mitchel,A.G. Magrath,and the Reopening of the Transatlantic Slave Trade

Traditionally scholars have downplayed the importance of southern calls to reopen the transatlantic slave trade in the 1850s. Those who have paid serious attention to this effort see it as another endeavor by aristocratic planters to enshrine their social, economic, and political power in the antebellum South. The advocates were, as one puts it, “no champions of the common white man.” Two Irish-American leaders who supported the reopening, John Mitchel and Andrew Gordon Magrath, complicate this view of the attempt as just a planters’ plot. Their actions and opinions indicate that some proponents did see importing African slaves as something that would benefit all whites and not just the elite, and, as a result, protect the overall “interests” of the South. Mitchel and Magrath's support of Ireland and Irish immigrants and their opposition to British power influenced their positions on the matter.     

Filibusters,Fenians, and a Contested Neutrality: The Irish Question and U.S. Diplomacy, 1848–1871

Abstract

The period from the late 1840s to the early 1870s represented a distinct one in Irish-American politics. This article frames Irish-American nationalists active in this period as nonstate actors seeking to influence the course of U.S. foreign relations to serve their own interests. In particular, it focuses on the activities of the Fenian Brotherhood and an earlier, less well-known organization, the Robert Emmet Club. The actions of both highlighted the looseness of U.S. neutrality legislation and, ultimately, provided a compelling argument for Anglo-American rapprochement. Simultaneously, in the immediate postbellum years, U.S. statesmen had reason to manipulate the Irish question to further their own ends. As Anglo-American relations improved, however, the geopolitical value of Irish nationalism declined; Irish-American nationalists were left marginalized in the calculations of U.S. diplomats.