"If I See Some of This in Writing, I'm Going to Shoot You": Reluctant Narrators, Taboo Topics, and the Ethical Dilemmas of the Oral Historian

This essay argues that in the co-creation of the historicaldocument that is the oral history narrative the oral historianmust balance sensitivity to the interviewee with the professionalresponsibility to preserve history, without abdicating the roleof trained interpreter of the past. During the course of a lifehistory interview with a lightskinned African American woman,Marguerite Davis Stewart, the authors confronted a variety ofethical concerns over the shared authority of the interviewwhen the narrator disagreed over the range of topics to be covered—specificallythe issue of racial identity—and the final product. Theauthors conclude that scholars who employ oral history in theirresearch must confront taboo but historically significant topicsthrough an open dialogue with their narrators, but that theyultimately control the interpretation of the resulting information.     

Biological continuity between the A- and C-groups in lower Nubia: Evidence from cranial non-metric traits

Data are presented on 45 cranial non-metric traits in skeletal samples of the Lower Nubian A-Group (ca. 3100–2500 BC) and C-Group (ca. 2000–1500 BC) cultural periods. Results, based on the mean measure of divergence statistic, reveal biological continuity, consistent with interpretations of in situ evolution as opposed to models of discontinuity resulting from gene flow. Any differences between the A-and C-Group cultural phases that may be evident in the archaeological record are therefore more likely the result of local cultural evolution, rather than the introduction of new ideas, customs, and materials through the migration of a new population into this area. The problem of small samples necessitates that our results be accepted cautiously.     

From Mission to Maynggu Ganai: The Wellington Valley Convict Station and Mission Site

The Wellington Valley Convict Station and Mission site, now known as Maynggu Ganai Historic Site (meaning “people’s land” in local Wiradjuri language), contains the archaeological remains of the convict agricultural station that was established in 1823. The site, subsequently taken over by the Anglican Church Missionary Society as a mission to the Wiradjuri, operated from 1832 to 1844. Drawing upon archaeological survey, the extraordinary historical archive associated with this site, and an analysis of community consultative research, this article explores the role of this site in colonial cultural exchange, as well as the contemporary cultural meanings of this history and its physical remains for the community today.     

Legislative Coalitions and Presidential Signing Statements

We examine how the congressional coalition in favor of a law affects the probability of the president appending a positive or negative signing statement to it. Our results show that coalitions matter—presidents consider the power and status of a law's sponsor and the composition of its cosponsorship coalition when deciding whether to offer praise or raise concerns. Moreover, the factors driving praise and criticism differ from one another in important ways. These analyses demonstrate the value of assessing the valence of a signing statement rather than just its presence, and of extending the focus of research on signing statements beyond aggregate factors to investigate how the context surrounding a particular law shapes the president's reaction to it.     

Interpretive walks: advancing the use of mobile methods in the study of entrepreneurial farm tourism settings

This article draws on the application of interpretive walks in a socio‐geographical study of tourism‐oriented entrepreneurial activity on multi‐generational family farms in New Zealand. We highlight the great potential this method holds for tourism researchers interested in the ways tourist spaces are produced in processes of place‐making. Mobile methods have been a feature of qualitative field research in several disciplines for some time, particularly in cultural geography with its emphasis on human interactions in and with landscapes. The interpretive walk, known also as the walking interview, has been applied mainly in urban neighbourhood, health, transport, and housing research, where it has proven very useful for revealing human connections to place that have been difficult to elicit using stationary face‐to‐face interviews. This article is one of the few that reports on the use of the method in a farm tourism setting. It is also one of few applied studies seeking to understand the local geographies of farm tourism and their connections to the farm site as both family home and place of primary production. The method is characterised as an effective tool for navigating and interpreting the socio‐spatial settings in which new rural tourism ventures emerge, evolve, and are embedded. The approach allows for unexpected encounters with spatial practices and strategies, projects, and objects, behind which lie stories of changing human relationships with the land, economy, and community, and of the exigencies of everyday life that are less readily unearthed using conventional interviews.     

Bending the body for China: the uses of acrobatics in Sino-US diplomacy during the Cold War

This paper examines how acrobatics was imbued with multiple meanings through the practices of nation-state building and international diplomacy. More specifically, the author discusses why the Chinese government chose acrobatics to facilitate the Sino-US rapprochement and the implications of this cultural diplomacy for the governments as well as the acrobats. Drawing on oral history interviews and archival data, this study demonstrates how the relationship between acrobatics and the ideas of ‘Chinese revolution’ was established, strengthened, disrupted, and finally re-modified to facilitate China’s relations with the West. This historical investigation advances the literature on performing arts and politics by exposing the political logics in the North-South exchange. As important, the analysis of acrobats’ engagement with Cold War politics evades state-centric narratives and contributes to an understanding of international diplomacy from a bottom-up perspective.