‘It broadens your view of being Basque’: identity through history,branding, and cultural policy

The purpose of the paper is to address what is the impact of the synthesis between Basque history, branding identity and Law 8/1994 on Basque identity in the homeland and Diaspora. Naturally occurring brands combine history, anthropology, sociology, and marketing to explain the phenomenon of communities defined by a sense of place. Focusing on both the Basque Country and Basques in Boise, Idaho as one case study, the authors discuss how the naturally occurring brand and cultural policy of the Basque people became formalized 20?years ago with Law 8/1994. The article addresses who the Basques are and how they have branded themselves through language, place, industry, food, drink, and culture. Similarities to other communities are explored so that other ethnic/cultural communities can learn from this Diaspora cultural policy discussion.     

The Heroic Outlaw in Irish Folklore and Popular Literature

As a symbolic figure in Irish folklore and popular literature, the outlaw embodies folk morality in conflict with the self-interest and inequity of the state. In the aftermath of British colonisation, the Irish outlaw is represented as more than a criminal. He provides a hero through whom ordinary Irishmen and women can vicariously enjoy brief victories, and imagine their collective dignity in the midst of political defeat and its consequences. Legends, ballads and chapbooks portraying the outlaw are the products of hard-pressed people representing themselves to themselves, reflecting on their strengths and weaknesses, and contemplating issues of morality and justice.     

The Place of the Dog: AKC Breeds in American Culture

The American Kennel Club (AKC), the primary registry agency for purebred dogs in the United States, had recognized 138 breeds through September 1995. An investigation of the source areas of these breeds reveals the cultural authority of Great Britain in organized dog breeding in the United States. Although Great Britain accounts for more than one-third of the AKC breeds, however, its importance has declined. Dogs from Asia account for more than one-fifth of the breeds recognized since World War II. Breed names that contain toponymic elements (such as Sussex Spaniel) usually reinforce the importance of the area in which the breeds were developed. An analysis of the patterns of geographic names reveals a pronounced emphasis on Western Europe, particularly Great Britain. A decline in the prominence of names from Europe has occurred. Asian name sources have become more important, and Australia and Africa have begun receiving attention. North America as a source of breeds as well as a source of naming has occupied a relatively minor role throughout the AKC's history. American breeders and promoters of purebred dogs have tended to look outward, especially toward Europe, for sociocultural forms.     

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.     

Architects Creating a Landscape

This article is derived from a research project designed to establish a better understanding of the nature of professional architectural activity in the State of Victoria, Australia, in the second half of the 19th century. It posed the following question: why is the activity in rural areas not acknowledged by the traditional approaches to studying architectural history? Part of the conclusion is that our understanding of urban cultural landscapes/townscapes will be improved if we look beyond the limitations of separate disciplines such as architectural and social history or historical geography. The landscape is built from many layers and they all need to be acknowledged if we are to understand what we find important about it. The reasons for seeking the conservation of our urban environment cannot be related solely to the peculiar interests of one discipline alone. Over the past 30 years the Australian community has developed a substantial interest and appetite for heritage conservation and along with that has grown a broadening interest in how the importance of the urban environment is defined.     

Wangga: The Linguistic and Typological Evidence for the Sources of the Outrigger Canoes of Torres Strait and Cape York Peninsula

How an isolate distribution of the Austronesian outrigger canoe complex came into the possession of Pama‐Nyungan speakers of Cape York Peninsula and Torres Strait has long been obscured by the diverse typology and lexicons of these canoes. Here I pinpoint links between the typological variation and the distribution and ages of associated Austronesian loan words. These links implicate several Austronesian contact sequences, one in Torres Strait and another in southeast Cape York Peninsula, and point to speakers of Papuan Tip Oceanic languages as the main source. Some of these loan words reflect archaic forms of Papuan Tip words and are thus indicative of early contact dates. I suggest that the introduction of these canoes most likely involved past episodes of sustained trade engagement and/or small‐scale colonization by speakers of Austronesian languages.     

John Marshall,McCulloch v. Maryland,and the Concept of Constitutional Sovereignty

Scholars have long debated John Marshall's intent in his famous opinion in the case of McCulloch v. Maryland (1819). Despite long-standing disagreement concerning the character of Marshall's nationalism and federalism, interpretations of the opinion typically rely on an incomplete picture of the case. This analysis revisits McCulloch to illustrate his support for national and state sovereignty as defined in the Constitution. It then moves beyond the opinion itself to examine Marshall's defense of McCulloch in a series of newspaper essays he authored in the aftermath of the case. Situated alongside the McCulloch opinion, these essays show that Marshall was as much concerned with defending the sovereignty of the Constitution as he was with adjudicating political authority between national and state governments.