‘Why did they take him away?’ The theft of Neddy Larkin

Neddy Larkin, a Bundjalung man from New South Wales, Australia, was stolen from his grave and in 1891 sold to the Peabody Museum, Cambridge, MA. This paper uses the methodology and concepts outlined in Latour’s An Inquiry into Modes of Existence to chart Neddy Larkin’s transitions from kinsman to scientific data.     

Democratic ambivalence in post mortem

Pablo Larraín’s trilogy of films has broken new ground in Chilean cinema by offering a new perspective on realities of the Pinochet dictatorship, the outbreak of the coup, and the dissolution of Pinochet’s power. This article explores Larraín’s use of banality, which, I claim, realizes a democratic ambivalence that is latent in historical representation and History proper. Rather than accusing Larraín’s films of conservatism or apathy, I argue that these films seek to destabilize the known categories of identification: a radical gesture against any form of establishment. Paying particular attention to Larraín’s aesthetics, I claim that the radical gesture of Post mortem (2010) lies in its innovations at the level of mise-en-scène and editing. Drawing on philosophical insights in Jacques Rancière’s and Gilles Deleuze’s writings on historical representation and ambivalent representations, I argue that Larraín avoids conventional forms of historical fiction and Latin American political cinema.     

‘Our Bantustans are Better than Yours’: Botswana,The United States,and Human Rights in the 1970s

Many historians have upheld the 1970s as the ‘breakthrough’ decade for human rights. Botswana was a notable beneficiary of the efflorescence of these principles, especially as human rights gained greater prominence in the foreign policy of the United States (US). From 1966 to 1980, the government of Seretse Khama upheld one of the strongest human rights records of any African state, using it to acquire vital economic aid and psychological encouragement from the West. This study of US–Botswana relations is significant for showing the capacity of an underdeveloped and vulnerable state, surrounded by white minority regimes, to use internationalist ideals to improve its prospects for greater security and prosperity. The research also reveals the limits of Botswana's approach, particularly when the US could not align its strategic interests in Africa with its professed value for human rights. Botswana was therefore exceptional in perceiving its geopolitical priorities as closely tied to its integrity as a self-proclaimed model for non-racial democracy in Southern Africa. The article helps to show how the 1970s human rights movement was not just a Western one or an American one, but a truly transnational one, with unique, though often underappreciated, contributions from those in Africa.     

Economics and freedom of navigation in East Asia

Public calls for a more aggressive regional response to China’s pressing of its territorial claims in the South China Sea are typically couched in terms of the threat posed to freedom of navigation. Yet this invites an obvious question: If freedom of navigation, a vital interest for nearly every country in the region, is at risk, why has the regional response to China’s actions to date been so limited? This article argues that one compelling explanation lies in the economics of freedom of navigation in East Asia. Put simply, the risks of freedom of navigation being impeded are frequently overstated, and a more sober assessment of these risks can reduce the incentive that countries have to take more dramatic action.     

The Spirit and the Gifts: Dako,Benjamin Morrell and Cargo in the Vitiaz Trading area,New Guinea

In 1830 an American trader, Benjamin Morrell, abducted Dako, the son of a prominent leader from Uneapa Island in the Bismarck Sea, took him to New York and, four years later, returned him to Uneapa. Dako's encounter with America and his return provides insight into the region half a century before colonization, and in particular into local mytho‐practical knowledge at that time. This enables us to discern subsequent transformations. Myths concerning an origin spirit and guardian of the dead, Pango, which then dominated Uneapa cosmology have since ‘disappeared’. This, we argue, is not because Pango has been superseded or suppressed, but because the parallel ‘white’ world over which the mytho‐practical Pango presided has become ever more manifest as Uneapa has been drawn into a colonial, post‐colonial and globalised world. Today, Pango refers predominantly to white people. Islander's experience of American ‘Pango’ was a shocking event at the time, but we show how trading with Pango established transformatory possibilities for reciprocal trading relations with the dead which remain the concern of today's Cult movement on the island.     

Context,Continuity, Correspondence,and Continental Connections: New Approaches to the Ironwork Hoards of Roman Britain

For over forty years the study of Roman ironwork hoards in Britain has been defined by a single study by Manning (1972). This article summarizes the wealth of advances made since that publication regarding the distribution, context, and contents of these hoards, highlighting how these alter our understanding of them as a continuation of Iron Age practices. Furthermore, by looking at British hoards at a European level for the first time, we see that British and Continental hoards are closely related. Using Correspondence Analysis to produce new groupings based on content, which crosscut those proposed by Manning (1972) based on distribution, the article provides the first analysis of the entire contents of these hoards. Finally, a discussion of hoard contents is used to examine the potential significance of the artefacts deposited.     

Europe's confused transmutation: the realignment of moral cartography in Juan de la Cosa's Mappa Mundi (1500)

Following the voyages of Christopher Columbus, John Cabot, Alonso de Ojeda and Amerigo Vespucci in the last decade of the fifteenth century, the New World of the Americas entered the cartographic and moral consciousness of Europe. In the 1500 mappa mundi of Juan de la Cosa, navigator and map-maker, we see Europe as a hybrid moral entity, a transitional blend of the medieval and the modern at the crossroads between two mappings of Europe. This paper argues that the Juan De la Cosa map represents a blurred transition between map-making traditions and a mixed moral rhetoric of European identity. The De la Cosa map operates across two sets of imagined axes: held horizontally, the map is set to a Ptolemaic grid with Europe straddling the Prime Meridian, and yet when held vertically it presents a medieval moral continuum in which the Americas occupy an ascendant position, a verdant new Jerusalem in contrast to the Babylon of the Old World. Europe is both drawn to the centre of a new world order, and also pushed to the moral margins in an echo of the medieval mappa mundi still imperfectly resolved.