Living in commodified history: constructing class identities in neotraditional neighbourhoods

This paper examines how residents of neotraditional neighbourhoods in the Netherlands socially construct a ‘classed’ place identity and what role the historicised architecture plays within that process. Given that place identity is constructed through social and cultural practices, the paper argues that residents' consumption of historicised environment is bound up with drawing symbolic boundaries that have been explored here by analysing residents' narratives. Three prominent types of narratives were found: (1) residents' locational choice, (2) their aesthetic judgement of the residential environment and (3) the way they use it. Through these layered narratives, all interviewees appear to use historicised aesthetics to classify themselves as part of a valued social category. However, the way of boundary drawing took several forms, based either on fostering moral judgements of social behaviour accompanied by sophisticated efforts to keep neighbourhoods' historicised image unchanged, or by conducting cultural practices shared with fellow residents by which ‘the other’ living outside the neighbourhood is ‘bracketed out’ symbolically and socially.     

Commemorating ‘Struggle Heroes’: Constructing a Genealogy for the New South Africa

This article focuses on new commemorative monuments, memorials and statues in post‐apartheid South Africa. The identification, preservation, celebration and display (not least for tourists) of heritage, especially the heritage of those previously marginalised, are flourishing throughout the country. This article examines how new monuments contribute to constructing new identities in the post‐apartheid context. It will first discuss the perceived need for monuments generally, and the identification and public commemoration of ‘heroes’ in particular. It then explores how selected heroes are linked to processes of identity formation. It will be suggested that by identifying and celebrating new heroes, we, as communities and as a nation, create a genealogy, a chosen ancestry—not in biological but in ideological terms—which serves as a foundation for the construction of our preferred identity.     

Mobility or migration: a case study from the Neolithic settlement of Nieder-Mörlen (Hessen,Germany)

A combination of stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis of collagen and radiogenic strontium isotope analysis of tooth enamel was used to investigate diet and mobility at the early Neolithic settlement of Nieder-Mörlen in Germany. The carbon and nitrogen ratios suggest a mixed terrestrial based diet that is consistent with data previously published for early Neolithic sites in Europe. The strontium isotope data indicate a high degree of human mobility with only one individual having an isotope ratio consistent with locally derived strontium. Unusually, a group of non-local juveniles with isotope ratios typical of upland regions is also present at the settlement but there are no adult burials with such values. Whilst transhumance is considered as an explanation, it would not explain why these non-local juveniles lived foreshortened lives and other possible mechanisms are therefore discussed.     

Depth records and ocean volumes: Ocean profiling by sounding technology, 1850-1930

Oceanographic research commencing in the mid-19th century could not rely on the direct observation of its object, but had to create its images of ocean depth through remote investigation. Depth became a matter of scientific definitions, systematic measurements, and graphic representations. In the course of a century, the opaque ocean of the 1850s was densely depicted in physical terms and transformed into a technically and scientifically sound oceanic volume. Tracing the history of deep-sea sounding technology from wire sounding around 1850 to acoustic sounding in the early 1920s, the paper investigates the relation and interplay between conceptual, pictorial, and technological depth performance. Addressing the conditions and limitations oceanographers encountered in producing single measurements and arranging them into profiles and contour line charts, the paper takes on a narrative approach to spatial representation: resembling a narrated or written story, the texture of depth depended on the richness and coherence of its plots.     

The long shadow of apartheid: a critical assessment of heritage transformation in South Africa 25 years on

ABSTRACT

Based on insights gained from two decades of research on South African heritage and monuments, this paper critically reflects on the status quo of heritage transformation in South Africa 25 years after the end of apartheid. It assesses new directions in national heritage policy and government strategy in relation to recent developments around post-apartheid heritage and the popular demand for a removal of ‘colonial statues’, which gained impetus from the #Rhodes Must Fall campaign. It is argued that the government’s approach to heritage transformation and most notably its treatment of white minority heritage, dominated by the ‘juxtaposition model’, has had limited success. The paper illustrates how heritage and the memory of the past are entangled with socio-political and economic realities in the present, which in turn is overshadowed by the long-term effects of apartheid and impacted by global or transnational considerations, such as foreign investment and tourism.     

‘ … por decir Dios Trino y Uno,dijo Dios tres y uno son cuatro’: the Christian Trinity and the multiplicity of Andean Deities: indigenous beliefs and the instruction of the Christian doctrine in Quechua

In this paper I examine how Christian priests in the early colonial period in the Andes tried to communicate the Christian concept of the Trinity to the indigenous population, mainly through textual but also through visual means. On the basis of these sources, I will address the following questions: how did the priests present the concept in Quechua, one of the general languages of the Andes, in morphological, lexico-semantic and argumentative terms; how was the Trinity represented in painting and, could the Indians relate these explanations to something they were familiar with in their own religion? Answering these questions will provide us with hypotheses as to how the indigenous population might have understood this Christian concept, which, in turn may enable us to better understand modern Andean belief forms with respect to the Trinitarian concept, which I shall briefly discuss in the final section. On the whole, the evidence suggests that, whilst the Christians may have thought that they could explain their Trinity to the Andean people better by using the Quechua language, the adoption of Andean concepts and language resources resulted in different reception strategies, such as the accommodation of Christian beliefs in the Andean religious system, but also the creation of new hybrid concepts based on Amerindian as well as Christian belief forms.