Nested assemblages: migrants,war heritage,informal learning and national identities

ABSTRACT

This article examines relations between Anzac heritage and Australian national identity, among migrant visitors to the Australian War Memorial (AWM). What meaning could a story derived from Australian involvement in the First World War have to migrants who moved to Australia after the Second World War? Participants in qualitative interviews were eleven first-generation Australians, whose countries of birth were England, Greece, Ireland, New Zealand, Philippines, Scotland, South Africa and Sri Lanka, with parental countries of birth extending to Austria, Germany, India and Japan. Drawing on sociomaterial assemblage theory, the findings illustrate the concept of nested assemblages. At increasing scalar levels, the migrants form visitor-AWM assemblages, they may (or may not) feel part of a national Anzac heritage assemblage, and as migrants they are entangled in multiple national assemblages concurrently. Assemblages pertaining to family, faith, learning and memorialising were additional networks at play. Mapping interrelations amongst these assemblages showed migrants as actively gathering and interpreting heritage, sometimes as the enactment of national identity and at other times as the performance of informal, lifelong learning. The findings have importance to institutions seeking to be responsive to diverse and changing populations, particularly those wrestling with tensions around national identity.     

灯的精灵--关于光明与黑暗的民族学研究

严格地说,这不是一篇探讨民俗学基本理论的文章,而是作者用瑞典语写成的博士论文——一项从民族学、民俗学角度出发的关于瑞典照明史研究的综述。惟其如此,这篇文章对中国的民俗学研究才更有启发意义。没有详细的史料堆积(对许多中国读者来说,瑞典人历史上经历的照明技术的改变并非他们感兴趣的热点问题),但是作者关于选题的学术背景和理论框架有详细的、轮廓清晰的描述。自然地理条件给瑞典带来的戏剧性的冬夏光照条件的差别,使作者能够相对容易地将照明技术对人们日常生活节奏和对时空感知的影响凸现并加以分析。通过对瑞典照明史的个案研究,作者在不同的层次上提出了可以观察和切入民俗生活与照明技术之间关系的角度,这些研究视角都可以为观察和分析中国历史上与当代的民俗文化现象提供很多启发。作者提出的理论上和方法上的思考,如技术与社会生活的关联、技术进步的悖论、图片资料作为一种特殊的文本等都在近年来成为文化研究以及技术史领域内经常被讨论的话题。现代化技术和技术产品的日新月异及其对普通人的日常生活的介入和渗透,使得技术与文化的关系成为民俗学者、文化史学者难以忽略和回避的问题。目前国际汉学界中从事类似研究的项目有德国柏林工业大学的“中国日用技术的历史与人类学研究”(Alhagstechniken Chinas,Mareile Fhisch)、英国伦敦大学亚非学院的“现代物品：1870-1950年中国的物质文化和日常生活”(Things Modem：Material Culture and Everyday Life in China(1870-1950),Frank Dik6ner)等。     

Spatial Interpolation and Disaggregation of Multipliers

Most non-survey methods of estimating single-region multipliers have been shown to produce a systematic upward bias, unless a considerable amount of "superior" data is added. Here it is argued that this conclusion does not need to apply to the case of a non-survey, spatial disaggregation of multipliers. The method proposed consists of four steps with two substantive formulas. The first secures the non-survey interpolation of the lacking intra-regional multipliers for the smaller regions by means of regression. The second secures the non-survey spatial disaggregation of the inter-regional spillovers by means of second-order distance decays. The method is illustrated numerically by means of the interpolation and disaggregation of the 2 × 14 Type II biregional employment multipliers for aggregate Dutch regions into one 40 × 40 inter-regional employment multiplier matrix for the Netherlands as a whole.     

Nations,states and homelands: territory and territoriality in nationalist thought

This article is a response to growing recognition that the role of territory has been neglected in recent explorations of nationalism. To improve understanding of how and why territory has been significant to the development of nationalist thought, this article advances two closely related arguments. The first is that the ideology of nationalism is, itself, a product of attempts to merge two very different views about the value of territory and, consequently, two different practices of territoriality. Secondly, I argue that the main lines of division in explanations of nationalism reflect the differential privileging of one view of the significance of territory, and one practice of territoriality, over the other. To substantiate these assertions, the article begins by identifying the latent powers of space and outlining the process of territoriality that allows human beings to harness these powers. This is followed by a discussion of how nationalism – as part of the shift to modernity – contributed to a major transformation in the general significance of territory and territoriality. Drawing on both pre–modern and modern views, the article demonstrates how different understandings of the significance of territory and territoriality help to define the spectrum of nationalist thought that has emerged from the eighteenth–century work of Herder and Rousseau. Through this geographical lens, the article as a whole reveals the profoundly territorial quality of nationalism and thus confirms the view that neither nationalist ideology nor practice can be understood without reference to the spatial powers which it mobilises and creates.     

Characterisation and blind testing of radiocarbon dating of cremated bone

The success of radiocarbon dating of burned or cremated bones depends on the exposed temperature during burning and the degree of re-crystallisation of the inorganic bone matrix. We present a method for characterisation of likely cremated bones by employing visual inspection, infrared spectrometry and carbon stable isotope analysis on the bio-apatite fraction. The method of radiocarbon dating of cremated bones was tested by dating paired samples of bone and associated context materials such as pitch, charcoal and a dendrochronologically dated oak coffin. The dating of these paired test samples were largely performed as blind tests and showed excellent agreement between pitch and bone. The weighted mean age difference of all test samples is observed to −9 ± 60 ¹⁴C yr. To test the indicators and the effects of the degree of burning, a Late-Neolithic human individual has been studied, as this individual exhibits the full spectrum from low temperature burning (charred) to high temperature (“cremated”) from one end of a single bone to the other. This is reflected as a marked step in numerous parameters as well as in a significant difference in ¹⁴C age between the charred and the cremated bone samples.