The Imperial End: How Empire Overtakes Refugees in Jeremiah

ABSTRACT

Refugee studies, postcolonial studies, as well as political theory is used to argue that the portrayal of the Judeans who flee to Egypt, rather than those deported to Babylon, occupy the social space of the everyday conception of refugees in Jeremiah. By examining the narratives of chapters 42–44 in relation to the oracles against the nations (chs. 46–51), I show how the exclusion of the Egyptian group shores up the imperial turn represented in the OANs. After explaining the oracles' imperial character, a discussion follows of how reading them as imperial produces the Egyptian group as refugees in chs. 42–44. An exploration of contemporary discussions regarding refugees follows, enabling the claim that refugees are produced by the state. Finally comes, a broader discussion on how various discursive strategies excludes the Egyptian group of refugees in favor of the Babylonian deportees, supportive of an imperialized agenda.     

Alternative Radio: exhibiting radio and music heritage after the Christchurch earthquakes

This article examines the representation of Christchurch, New Zealand, student radio station RDU in the exhibition Alternative Radio at the Canterbury Museum in 2016. With the intention of ‘making visible what is invisible’ about radio broadcasting, the exhibition articulated RDU as a point of interconnection between the technical elements of broadcasting, the social and musical culture of station staff and volunteers, and the broader local and national music scenes. This paper is grounded in observations of the exhibitions and associated public programmes, and interviews with the key participants in the exhibition including the museum’s exhibition manager and staff from RDU, who acted as independent practitioners in collaboration with the museum. Alternative Radio also addressed the aftermath of the major earthquake of 22 February 2011, when RDU moved into a customised horse truck after losing its broadcast studio. The exhibition came about because of the cultural resonance of the post-quake story, but also emphasised the long history of the station before that event, and located this small student radio station in the broader heritage discourse of the Canterbury museum, activating the historical, cultural, and personal memories of the station’s participants and audiences.     

Rock Art and Ritual: An Archaeological Analysis of Rock Art in Arid Central Australia

Rock art researchers throughout the world have explicitly or implicitly invoked ritual as an activity associated with the production of rock art but the articulation between the structure and composition of rock art assemblages and ritual behaviour remains poorly understood. Anthropologist, Roy Rappaport (1999) argued that all ritual, whatever the content or focus, has a universal structure. We review this proposition in the context of ritual studies and propose a method aimed at assessing the potential for identifying ritual structure in rock art assemblages. We discuss an archaeological analysis undertaken on the rock art assemblages in arid Central Australia, which aimed at distinguishing such a ritual structure among engraved assemblages, likely to have a Pleistocene origin, as well as more recent painted, stencilled and drawn assemblages. This analysis, despite its limitations, provides the foundation for developing a model, which will enhance the understanding of the relationship between the production of rock art and ritual.