Malthusianism,socialism and feminism in the United States

This article examines and compares Adam Ferguson's and Guillaume-Thomas Raynal's analyses of modern commercial states by reconstructing their accounts of the history and politics of the Dutch Republic. For both writers, the Dutch case stood as a clear instance of the political dangers implicit in a particular type of commercial polity, and both sought to apply its lessons to an understanding of the future of their own states. Although Ferguson's and Raynal's arguments about the decline of the Dutch trading state overlapped, their analyses reflected different evaluations of the relationship between modern states and modern economic institutions (trading companies and public debts). The broader purpose of the article is to shed light on the distinctive theories of commerce and models of European development that informed the major works of Enlightenment historiography and political thought produced by Ferguson and Raynal in the 1760s and 1770s.     

Villages that Never Were: The Museum Village as a Heritage Genre

Villages of relocated buildings now constitute a phenomenon of the world’s repertoire of heritage. They go by a multitude of names depending on particular inflection: open air museum, folk museum, living history museum, heritage village, museum village and so forth. ¹ [1] On the range of villages, see Thompson, ‘The Social Significance of Folk Museums’; Marshall, ‘Folklife and the Rise of American Folk Museums’; Leon and Piatt, ‘Living History Museums’; Shafernich, ‘On‐site Museums, Open‐air Museums, Museum Villages and Living History Museums’; Moolman, ‘Site Museums’; de Jong, ‘Approaches and Concepts’; Chappell, ‘Open‐air Museums’; Corbin, ‘Representations of an Imagined Past’. This paper reviews the context of the form of the genre’s manifestation in Australia, where it is often known as the ‘pioneer village’. They are the fruit of a populist vision of national history which celebrates white rural settlement as its central theme. In practice, the villages manifest a deep commitment to collecting and saving old buildings as the meaningful construction of a favourite historical identity. But the generation that established Australia’s villages has been overtaken. Today, the intersection of museum villages with the managerialist pressures of local economy enhancement and modern professional standards of heritage management challenge most villages’ survival.     

Caboonbah: The Archaeology of a Middle Class Queensland Pastoral Family

Pastoralism was the mainstay of the developing economy of Queensland. The men and women who owned the pastoral properties were mainly from upper and middle class English and Scottish families. One such family, the Somersets, occupied Caboonbah, a pastoral property in the Brisbane Valley of Queensland in the late nineteenth and the early twentieth century. Excavation of the rubbish gully associated with the homestead provided material evidence of how this family adhered to the tenets of middle class family life while living in an isolated rural area and contending with the fluctuating fortunes of life on the land.     

Heritage and separatism in Barcelona: the case of El Born Cultural Centre

This paper explores the ways in which heritage sites at the crux of neighbourhood renewal and redevelopment initiatives in Barcelona have been manipulated to advance Catalan separatist agendas. We focus specifically on El Born Cultural Centre which was officially opened in September 2013 amid heightened calls for Catalan independence from Spain. A former market site, the centre’s key attraction is its archaeology which has been re-imagined and presented to communicate the horrors of war inflicted on the citizens of Barcelona following the War of Succession in 1714. Narratives that emphasise the historical degradation of Catalan political or cultural identity and/or work to reaffirm the distinct and separate nature of Catalan nationalism resonated strongly with the political reawakening of Catalonians in the run up to the 2014 November referendum on independence. The referendum which was subsequently deemed illegal by the Spanish government, and subsequent regional elections were held in 2015. In considering the negotiation of El Born during this drive for independence, this paper suggests that an examination of heritage sites and the ways in which they engage with, or are received by multiple stakeholders, can offer insights into the complexity of separatist campaigns in ethno-nationalist societies.     

Imagining the ideal city,planning the gender-equal city in Umeå, Sweden

Focusing on imaginaries of the ideal city is an important method to illustrate the power of ideas, imagination, representations and even visions, and how these dimensions influence the way in which cities are organized and lived. In this article, we argue that one current and important city imaginary in a Swedish context is the gender-equal city. In this imaginary, the gender-equal city becomes a symbol for the open, tolerant, bustling, safe city, a city aiming to attract the middle and creative classes. However, at the same time, the imaginary of the ideal, gender-equal city is highly ambiguous. This ambiguity will be discussed throughout the article. Based on present planning projects in the city of Umeå in Sweden, we will discuss how the imaginary of the gender-equal city is presented, filled with meaning and used in place marketing, with the overall ambition of discussing the possibilities and pitfalls of what we call the gender-equality planning strategy. The aim of the article is to study how the city of Umeå is acting to create a gender-equal city and what kind of imaginaries these practices build on. The material consists primarily of a case study focusing on projects that aim to create an equal city, and also includes analyses of policy documents and media reports. This study illustrates how imaginaries are produced through local projects and different imaginaries provide different spaces for politicizing gendered power relations.     

The co-creation (of) culture? The case of Umeå, European Capital of Culture 2014

Culture is often promoted as crucial in efforts to achieve economic growth and social cohesion. In recent debates, greater attention has been directed at the importance of culture in creating democratic and just cities. Drawing on theories concerning participation, we study the processes of citizen participation in the creation of culture in relation to the European Capital of Culture in Umeå in Northern Sweden. The city has been praised for its focus on participation and the ‘co-creation’ of culture. We scrutinize the idea of co-creation, how it is filled with meaning by different actors, the way it is operationalized by city officials and cultural actors/practitioners and the possibilities for public participation and the power relationships at play in the city. We conclude that culture tends to be depoliticized and turned into an arena available for all on supposedly equal terms and ignores the very unequal terms on which different actors participate. It ignores how power relations affect and construct who gets to speak and be heard; that there are conflicting meanings of culture and co-creation and how power influences whose definition of culture is accepted.     

Leporid management and specialized food production at Teotihuacan: stable isotope data from cottontail and jackrabbit bone collagen

Archaeological research at the UNESCO World Heritage site of Teotihuacan (ad 1–ad 550) in the Basin of Mexico provides evidence for leporid (cottontails and jackrabbits) breeding and/or management within a residential complex of the city, Oztoyahualco. The present study tests this notion by analyzing Teotihuacan leporid bone collagen samples (n = 134) for stable isotope ratios of carbon (δ¹³C_collagen) and nitrogen (δ¹⁵N_collagen) to provide information on ancient leporid diet and ecology. Results demonstrate that carbon-stable isotope values from Oztoyahualco specimens are significantly higher than those from other contexts at Teotihuacan and from a sample of modern specimens from the region. These data are consistent with the notion that leporids from Oztoyahualco consumed diets high in C₄ and CAM plants, such as the human-cultivated staples of maize (Zea mays), nopal cactus (Opuntia sp.), and maguey (Agave sp.). Nitrogen-stable isotope results show no significant differences between Oztoyahualco and other contexts, suggesting that Oztoyahualco leporids inhabited similar environments, ate food grown on similar soils, and were feeding at the same trophic level. When considered in combination with archaeological data and previously published isotopic results, δ¹³C_collagen data from Oztoyahualco support the idea that leporids were artificially provisioned by humans, consistent with the hypothesis that they were bred and/or managed through human labor. More broadly, these results hint that food production at Teotihuacan was at least in part conducted by specialized workers in a manner similar to that of commercialized market economy of the later Aztec Empire (ad 1428–1521).