The Boer War and the Media (1899-1902)

The South African War that broke out in October 1899 was bothvery old and very new. It was a traditional war, the last ofthe old-fashioned British imperial wars, with cavalry playinga significant part. But it was also a very modern war, for instancein the British Army's use of railways to subdue the Boers inthe early months of 1900, or the use of trench warfare by theBoers along the Modder river. It was disturbingly new in theway that it changed in the autumn of 1900 from a war betweenarmies to a guerrilla war against a civilian population, mostdistastefully so in the British concentration camps set up tohouse Boer women and children. Above all, it was a distinctlycontemporary war in its impact on the media, especially thenewspapers, and in the interaction between the media and thoseparticipating in the fighting. It was a significant war, farbigger than originally expected, and was therefore big news.The British Army, ill-prepared for the original Boer invasionof Natal, at first numbered 75,000 troops. In the end, the Britishand imperial forces totalled 450,000 with contingents from Canada,Australia, New Zealand, and India. The British lost 22,000 men,13,000 of them from disease. The Boers lost about 7,000 in thefield, while another 27,000 (many of them very young children)are estimated to have died in the concentration camps. Therewere also about 20,000 black and ‘coloured’ Africanswho died in concentration camps, though this was little reportedat the time. So it was a major episode in British military history.The impact on British opinion of the relief of Ladysmith andespecially of Mafeking in 1900 was quite overwhelming. In afrenzy of ‘jingo’ celebration, the verb ‘mafficking’entered the language. In these circumstances, the consequencesof the Boer War on the media and its representation of war wereinevitably massive.     

Rural Transformation and Cultural Industries: Popular Music on the New South Wales Far North Coast

This article explores the emergence of popular music as a niche cultural industry, connected to economic and social transformations on the New South Wales Far North Coast (also known as the ‘Northern Rivers’ region). The various images of the New South Wales Far North Coast as a ‘lifestyle’ region, ‘alternative’ locale and coastal retreat have attracted a diverse mix of ex–urban professionals, unemployed persons, youth subcultures, backpacker tourists and retirees. Yet, despite population growth, the region continues to suffer unemployment rates among the highest in Australia. Against this backdrop, diverse popular music ‘scenes’ have emerged, constituting an industry with linkages to cultural production in Sydney, Melbourne and overseas. While the region’s unique cultural mix has been suggested as a key site of comparative advantage, future employment is likely to remain transient, insecure, and governed by industry–wide labour relations. This case study illustrates some of the complexities underpinning contemporary urban–regional change in Australia, and provides cautious assessment of the capacity of the cultural industries to reinvigorate rural economies.     

Cartographies of the Colonial/Capitalist State: A Geopolitics of Indigenous Self-Determination in Australia

'Indigenous self-determination' is a multivalent term that has come to represent various meanings in different political and cultural contexts. Indigenous peoples' strategies for self-determination have become increasingly prominent in the domestic polities of many 'first-world' nations, and in the sphere of international law and human rights. These strategies have challenged the cartography of the nation-state with competing claims to land ownership, sovereignty, and self-governance. In Australia, indigenous strategies for self-determination are diverse and holistic and revolve around issues including land rights, law, environmental management, and control over service provision. These are evident in a variety of both 'elite' and 'popular' geopolitical texts. Meanwhile, Australian governments have created new structures that have attempted to encapsulate meanings of 'self-determination,' allowing some indigenous decision-making control, whilst entrenching the nation-state's ultimate hegemony over land. The geopolitics of indigenous strategies for self-determination, and tensions concerning the meaning of the term, are examined, revealing some ways in which discursive trends and material structures interact in locally produced relations of power.     

Schizophrenia, reification and deadened life

Recent debates concerning the abolition of the schizophrenia label in psychiatry have focused upon problems with the scientific status of the concept. In this article, I argue that rather than attacking schizophrenia for its lack of scientific validity, we should focus on the conceptual history of this label. I reconstruct a specific tradition when exploring the conceptual history of schizophrenia. This is the concern with the question of the sense of life itself, conducted through the confrontation with schizophrenia as a form of life that does not live, or as Robert Jay Lifton termed it "lifeless life" (1979: 222-39). I conclude by arguing that the contemporary attempt to deconstruct or abolish the schizophrenia concept involves a fundamental shift in concern. The attempt both to normalize psychotic experiences, and to conceive them purely in terms of cognitive processes that can be mapped onto brain function, results in a fundamental move away from the attempt to understand the experience of madness.     

Domestic Economy and Daily Practice in Guadeloupe: Historical Archaeology at La Mahaudière Plantation

Archaeological research has made significant contributions to the study of the African Diaspora in the Caribbean, but until recently researchers neglected the French islands. This paper reports on archaeological fieldwork at Habitation La Mahaudière in Guadeloupe, focusing on the economic and social lives of plantation laborers and exploring articulations between local realities at this sugar plantation and broader historical process of the Caribbean region and the French colonial world.