Re‐creating ‘Dutchness’: cultural colonisation in post‐war Holland

Abstract. Following the liberation of the Netherlands from German occupation in 1945, many Dutch intellectuals were seriously concerned about the moral comportment of the Dutch in particular its youth. In their view, the war led to a sapping of norms, values and virtues they deemed ‘typically Dutch’ which could bring about complete social disintegration. Therefore, they launched campaigns to reinstate the ‘old ways’. Based on what they believed to be the nation's authentic folk culture and character, they attempted to culturally colonise the Dutch. This article describes and analyses various forms of this institutional cultural nationalism in the second part of the 1940s.     

Wired Communities in the City: Sydney,Australia

Questions relating to the ability of particular groups in society to access information and communications technologies (ICTs) have become a growing part of the academic and policy literature. The issues raised in this literature have revolved around a number of themes, many of which can be subsumed under concerns about a growing digital divide whereby society is being divided into information rich and information poor sectors. This differentiation can be between particular social groups irrespective of place, or between people in particular places be these large regional areas (e.g. metropolitan versus non‐metropolitan) or localities and communities within an urban area. This paper focuses on the existence of a ‘digital divide’ across the Sydney metropolitan area. Using ABS 2001 census data the paper presents an analysis of computer and internet access and use for clusters of local communities and focuses on how usage differs across communities as differentiated by socio‐economic status, household and family status and ethnic background.     

Book reviews

Efectos regionales del presupuesto europeo en España [Regional Effects of the European Budget in Spain]. M.D. Correa García and S. Maluquer i Amorós. Inistitut d'Estudis Autonòmics, Generalitat de Catalunya, Barcelona 1998, 216 pp., 4500 ptas, ISBN 84 393 4544 5

Urban Environmental Planning: Policies, Instruments and Methods in an International Perspective. Donald Miller and Gert de Roo (Eds). Avebury, Aldershot 1997, 336 pp., £52.00, ISBN 1 859 72593 7

Worlds of Production: the Action Frameworks of the Economy. Michael Storper and Robert Salais. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA/London, 1997, 370 pp., £29.95 (hb), ISBN 0–67496–203–6     

How to gauge banal nationalism and national indifference in the past: proletarian tweets in Belgium's belle époque

Michael Billig's theory of banal nationalism involves the assumption that the absence of an explicit discourse on the nation should be interpreted as the unmindful presence of nationalism and that the mass media faithfully represent or reflect the discourses of ‘ordinary people’. Recent historical research of ‘national indifference’ in imperial Austria has inverted the correlation between the ubiquity of nationalist discourses and their impact in society. This article assesses these conflicting frameworks and refutes AD Smith's critique of everyday nationalism research as necessarily ahistorical and presentist. This case study of the rank‐and‐file of the social‐democratic Belgian Workers' Party at the close of the nineteenth century uses a unique source of working‐class voices: the so‐called ‘propaganda pence’ or ‘proletarian tweets’ from the Flemish‐speaking city of Ghent. Hot, explicit nationalism was absent from these sources, which begs the question: is this proof of banal nationalism or national indifference? A historically contextualized analysis of the absences shows that workers expressed national indifference towards Belgian, but not towards Flemish ethnicity. In Rogers Brubaker's terms: Flemish ethnicity was a relevant social category, but only in a very restricted number of social contexts could it become a basis for ‘groupness’ or political mobilisation in daily life.     

Identification of a Deep-water B-29 WWII Aircraft via ROV Telepresence Survey

American-produced B-29 Superfortress bomber aircraft flew missions against Imperial Japan in the Pacific Theater from air bases in the Mariana Islands from November 1944 until the end of WWII. Mechanical failures forced many B-29s into the ocean surrounding Saipan and Tinian. Terrestrial wreckage of these aircraft has been located in the Pacific region, but no losses in deep water were located until 2016, when a NOAA exploration cruise investigated sonar targets in the Saipan Channel, between Saipan and Tinian. Disarticulated wreckage from a B-29 was located at 370 m over a large area of the seabed. Telepresence-enabled, non-invasive exploration from NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer allowed scientists on shore to view live streaming video and to work collaboratively to guide the investigation. Experts in aviation archaeology, corrosion studies, WWII history, forensic studies, marine biology, and oceanography participated in the survey using an ROV, highlighting components which could lead to possible identification of the B-29 in situ, and conducting an environmental characterization of the site. This deep-water aircraft site exemplifies multiple-stakeholder driven research in aviation archaeology and highlights several issues in the value of individual site identification.     

The Protohistoric ‘Quicklime Burials’ from the Balearic Islands: Cremation or Inhumation

Traditionally, the Balearic so‐called ‘quicklime burials’ of the Iron Age have been considered to be inhumations in quicklime. The general appearance of the bones, however, resembles more closely that of cremated bones. Laboratory tests reveal that the observed features of the bones from these burials, including cracks, thumbnail fractures and warping, cannot be explained by an inhumation in quicklime. The δ ¹³C value, Fourier transform infrared spectra, SF values and the low carbon content of the apatite moreover indicate a thermal manipulation of the bones. The ¹⁴C content is depleted with regard to the accepted archaeological age of the sample, which can best be explained by carbon exchange between bio‐apatite and fossil CO₂ released during the heating of limestone. This implies that the Balearic ‘quicklime burials’ must be interpreted as an elaborate cremation practice in presence of limestone. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Commemoration of the Great War: A Global Phenomenon or a National Agenda?

During the First World War, people from all over the world were present in Flanders Fields. On the eve of the centenary of the Great War, it is striking that the war is not commemorated as strongly in every country that was involved. This article explores the specific national sensitivities related to the commemoration of the First World War and the reasons why some states commemorate it more strongly than others. The data for this article were obtained through desk research and expert interviews. In addition to focusing on the main conclusions, this article briefly explores some theoretical insights on memory and commemoration. The particular history of a nation’s involvement in the war, the extent to which the war contributed to the nation-building process of the state in question, the extent to which a military tradition existed and the extent to which civil society was involved in the commemorative events are all factors that influence the intensity and the way that the war is commemorated. Another remarkable difference is that the emphasis of commemorative events is on a contemporary peace message in some states while other nations focus on the memory as such. Remembrance of Flanders Fields in particular is only important to some nations. The commemoration of the First World War is, as well as much other expressions of heritage, a historic and social construct.     

Uncorking the neoliberal bottle: neoliberal critique and urban change in China

Neoliberalism’s theoretical ascendancy within urban geography coincided with the rapid growth of scholarly attention to Chinese cities. Therefore, it is unsurprising that neoliberal causality has been a widely used tool for interpreting China’s spatial transformation. This paper critically reviews some of the most prominent debates on neoliberalism in the Chinese context. China’s Leninist political hierarchy and Dual Structure, crucial institutions for the management and regulation of society and economy under Mao, are now reduced to the quirks of “actually existing neoliberalism.” Neoliberal critique applied to China, however, fails to adequately explain China’s spatial development because it assigns causality for social and economic inequality to globalized processes of capital accumulation while ignoring the continued importance of Maoist institutions in China’s present-day political economy. Uncritical acceptance of neoliberalism’s explanatory power for spatial change has led to flawed and inaccurate portrayals of the development and future trajectories of Chinese cities, and misrepresents the sources of social injustice in Chinese society.     

Anchoring Pontifical Authority: A Reconsideration of the Papal Employment of the Title Pontifex Maximus

It is a common assumption that the title of supreme priesthood or pontifex maximus is included in the official papal titulature, and it has been supposed that the Roman bishop adopted it from the Roman emperor in late antiquity. In fact, however, it was probably not until the fifteenth century that the designation was first used by the papacy, and it has continued to be part of papal representation ever since. The title was deeply rooted in the Roman imperial past. At several stages in papal history the papal agency felt the need to draw back (again) on this ancient, traditional title and managed to successfully (re‐)introduce the title by anchoring it in the cultural biography of the papacy.