Selected Publications (in chronological order) by Fred B. Kniffen (1928-1980)

The coming of electricity to rural America in the interwar period seemed to offer prospects not just for economic development but also for remaking lives and for social transformation. This paper deals with the expression of such ideas from the folk music of that time, examining the representations of people and place found in 26 songs composed by the folkmusician Woody Guthriefor the Bonneville Power Administration in May 1941. After providing context about rural electrification, this paper surveys Guthrie's early career and the reasons why the Bonneville Power Administration employed him. The next sections of the paper consider Guthrie's Columbia River Song Collection, highlighting two narrative themes within them: migrants' tales and the notion of electrification as a progressive force for both regional and social transformation. The final section relates the contents of the songs to three different standpoints from which Guthrie, as narrator, shaped his songs: folklorist, radical minstrel, and social documentarist.     

The dialectic of farm and village in French Canada

Michel Verdon. Anthropologie de la colonisation au Québec. Montreal: Les Presses de l'Université de Montréal, 1973. 283 pp. Tables, charts, and appendixes. $7.50.     

The Indian as subject and object of Mexican ethnography

Pierre Durand. Nanacatlan. Société Paysanne et lutte des classes au Mexique. Montreal: Les Presses de 1'Université de Montréal. 1975. 257 pp. Tables, figures, maps, references, and bibliography. $14.50 Canadian, paper.

Judith Friedlander. Being Indian in Hueyapan. A Study of Forced Identity in Contemporary Mexico. New York: St. Martin's Press. 1975. 205 pp. Illustrations, references, bibliography, and index. $5.00 paper.     

Community and Identity: The Making of Modern Gibraltar since 1704

Building on recent historiography that has questioned traditional assumptions regarding the altruism of post-war Canadian foreign policy, this article examines Canada's response to the emergence of the Afro-Asian bloc at the United Nations in 1960. Canadian diplomats initially greeted the emergence of the Third World, hoped to influence delegations from these newly emergent states and had notions of working as a bridge between the west and the rest. However, the increasing radicalism of African and Asian resolutions targeting Canada's traditional allies made this task increasingly difficult. Ultimately, Ottawa was forced to face the fact that it was a western country.     

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.     

Access Orders and the ‘New’ New Institutional Economics of Development

This article examines the Access Order theories of development that have emerged as the latest reformulation of New Institutional Economics by Douglass North and his associates. These scholars claim that Access Order theory represents a radical break from previous models of institutional change in developing countries. They argue that at the heart of development is the problem of controlling organized violence. Two distinct social orders, the Limited Access Order and the Open Access Order, have emerged as solutions to the problem of endemic violence. This article traces the evolution of these new ideas within North's institutional theory and examines how violence is treated within the new framework. The article evaluates the underlying economic model on which the theory is based and argues that the conceptual device of the Open Access Order preserves key features of the neoclassical approach within North's work. The article contrasts the Access Order approach with the political settlements framework. To conclude, the article argues that the Access Order approach serves to strip the progressive potential out of development by ignoring how controlling violence may affect human capabilities, rights and freedom.