The Politics and Poetics of Space in Les Passagers du Roissy-Express

Les Passagers du Roissy-Express is habitually situated in relation to writing on the city and/or postcolonial writing. The aim of this article is twofold: first, to explore the extent to which, in its rewriting of the spaces of the banlieue as historical and contemporary authentic spaces of the French nation, it can be aligned to some post-war sociological writing on rural France. Second, through a close reading of the language of the text, to show the landscape of the banlieue is also an emotional landscape, a landscape of filth and of freshness, of departure and disappearance. The public discourse of rediscovery and difference is inflected by a much more private one rooted in the oppression and suffering of the Occupation, and the text problematises the notions of otherness and elsewhere at both levels.     

Village Plans in County Durham: A Preliminary Statement

THIS paper examines some facets of rural settlement-morphology within co. Durham and demonstrates the way in which all villages involve particular combinations of universal structural components. These provide grounds for a logical classification and a framework within which to explore the origins of some of the plan-types that can be identified. A close analysis of the most regular series, the two-row plans, indicates that a strong measure of deliberate ordering was involved and evidence is presented to suggest that some villages, which were first mapped in the 19th century, possess a plan-type that developed before 1200. Furthermore there are grounds for arguing that there may be traces of village-regulation, such is as found in Scandinavia and has been described by G. C. Homans. A possible date for the imposition of this regularity would be the years immediately after the widespread devastations in the north at the end of the 11th century.     

Festa‐catholicism and media religion: the reproduction and transformation of the festa in Malta

This article examines the evolution of the festa phenomenon in Malta. It suggests that rather than looking at popular religion as an aberration of official Catholicism, it should rather be seen as a sui‐generis phenomenon, and proposes its characterization as “festa Catholicism”. It begins by suggesting that the distinction adopted by many anthropologists in looking at the festa in terms of sacred and profane, to correspond to the internal feasts and external celebrations has limited value both heuristically and in terms of the experiences of the participants themselves. For many of the aficionados (dilettanti) the external festivities are not just ritual but hold religious significance. Indeed, the tension between the public supporters of the saint and the church authorities is not an unfortunate “aberration” but rather is fundamental to explaining the sentiments of the parishioners. It then suggests that the recent exposure of the festa in Malta to close media scrutiny is both exacerbating the tension between the aficionados and the church, but is also transforming the public perceptions of the festa. The media have thus become a primary territory of contestation where both the Church and the aficionados are exploring new areas for the expression of their religious sentiments.     

Apollo and the Virgin: The Changing Meanings of a Sacred Site on Anafi

The ruins of an ancient Greek temple on a Cycladic island form part of an Orthodox Christian shrine. To local people and returning migrants, the site is that of their patron saint; its pre‐Christian past is irrelevant except in so far as it establishes their specific link with the ancient world, and thus with national claims of unbroken continuity between modern and ancient Greece. To early travellers and antiquarians, and to today’s archaeologists, it has been primarily the ancient site which is of interest, while tourists are more concerned in finding “an unspoilt island”. A historical survey of information about the ancient and the Christian site reveals ambiguities and confusions about both. These multiple meanings for locals and scholars are discussed.     

Navigating the “International Dots and Dashes”: David W. McFadden's Great Lakes Suite and the Canada–US Border

In Great Lakes Suite (1997), David W. McFadden fictionalizes his travels around three Great Lakes bisected by the Canada–US border. McFadden both uses and subverts generalizations and stereotypes as the text destabilizes categories of sameness and difference, illustrating an unsettled and unsettling Canada–US relationship. McFadden demonstrates that the “hospitable” relations between Canada and the US are rife with power imbalances: the positions of host and guest, and relations of hospitality and hostility, do not remain fixed, often undermining the Canadian host position. Writing in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, at the time of US intervention in Nicaragua, and leading up to the Free Trade Agreement (FTA), McFadden demonstrates that power constitutes the clearest distinction between Canada and the US. In the midst of Canadian struggles for political and economic power, McFadden uses an ironic humor to reclaim a cultural power for Canada as he argues in favor of maintaining the border.     

Frontiers of Contact: Bioarchaeology of Spanish Florida

The arrival of Europeans in the New World had profound and long-lasting results for the native peoples. The record for the impact of this fundamental change in culture, society, and biology of Native Americans is well documented historically. This paper reviews the biological impact of the arrival of Europeans on native populations via the study of pre- and postcontact skeletal remains in Spanish Florida, the region today represented by coastal Georgia and northern Florida. The postcontact skeletal series, mostly drawn from Roman Catholic mission sites, are among the most comprehensive in the Americas, providing a compelling picture of adaptation and stress in this setting. Study of paleopathology, dental and skeletal indicators of physiological stress, stable isotope (carbon and nitrogen) analysis, tooth microwear, and skeletal morphology (cross-sectional geometry) reveals major alterations in quality of life and lifestyle. The bioarchaeological record indicates a general deterioration in health, declining dietary diversity and nutritional quality, and increasing workload in the contact period. The impact of contact in Spanish Florida appears to have been more dramatic in comparison with other regions, which likely reflects the different nature of contact relations in this setting versus other areas (e.g., New England, New France). The bioarchaeological record represents an important information source for understanding the dynamics of biocultural change resulting from colonization and conquest.