Late Iron Age transculturalism in the northern “periphery”: understanding the long-term prehistoric occupational area of Viinivaara E,Finland

The Late Iron Age of northern Finland is often approached through an ethnic perspective. Archaeological sites are defined as local or foreign and, accordingly, linked to either Sámi or non-Sámi groups. In recent decades, the concept of transculturalism and mixing of cultural traits has been discussed by several researchers, and their work has shown that such categorizations can be questioned. Correspondingly, certain sites and artifacts found in the northern parts of Finland seem to relate to interactions and contacts instead of ethnic backgrounds. One such site was excavated at Viinivaara E in 2013 and 2014. Based on the fieldwork, the site can be linked to encounters and cultural exchange between local groups and visitors. The entangled nature of the site is understood by taking into consideration its location and landscape, but also by examining the archaeological and historical conception of Late Iron Age northern Finland in general. Further, transcultural dynamics present at the site are also tied to social development on a broader temporal and spatial scale.     

Looking Out to Look In: The Use of the Periphery in China's Geopolitical Narratives

Using a previous paper published in Eurasian Geography and Economics (Agnew, 2012) as a point of departure, an American geographer and specialist on China explores the role of the periphery (frontier, borderlands) in forging perceptions of China's place in the world. By presenting counter-narratives to the myth of a singular Chinese culture/ethnicity spreading inexorably from a Yellow River hearth region over five millennia, the author demonstrates how the Chinese have "looked out" (i.e., used a complex and seemingly alien frontier space) in order to "look in" (mark a "Chinese" identity as culturally homogeneous even when it was not). The paper examines how this process worked through time to repeatedly reinvent an unambiguous and knowable China from histories of intermixing, ambiguity, and spatial complexity. It contrasts a Mao-era perspective of a periphery marking the leading edge of an expanding and homogeneous Chinese culture with post-Mao and post-socialist narratives, which view the periphery more as a "contact zone" between China and its neighbors, where Han ethnicity and Chinese civilization alike are viewed as having absorbed external influences.     

Time to Say Goodbye

Tim Hortons’ first donut store was established in Hamilton, Ontario, in 1964; other stores were added over time as the chain gradually diffused across Canada to become the country’s largest quick-service restaurant chain with more than 2,400 restaurants. In achieving this dominant status it adopted one of the strategies of any successful restaurant chain; utilizing a uniform architectural style to emphasize to customers the consistency in its menu and operations. This article examines the processes underlying the development of the Tim Hortons brand and the diffusion of its restaurants into the US, specifically the appearance of their restaurants in the Great Lakes borderlands. The study found a consistent architectural style in Ontario but several different styles in Michigan and New York. It is suggested that this lack of consistency in brand identification in its US restaurants is a contributory factor to their lack of profitability and smaller sales.     

The (un)lettered frontier: power and literacy in the eastern Andes of Charcas,seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries

In colonial Latin America, notaries played a critical role in the generation of written, objective truth in an uncertain world. But were notaries indispensable? By the mid-seventeenth century, Spanish communities in the eastern Andean borderlands of the Audiencia of Charcas had not only begun to do without notaries, but even actively and sometimes violently kept them out of their jurisdictions. Borderland communities became spheres of legal activity where the ability to create law without notaries implied not only the transfer of writerly resources to new agents, but also a shift in the modalities of power and authority within the frontier. The impact of such a legal regime was not merely local. At times, frontier officials used their ability to create un-notarized documents as a tool to resist the spatial hierarchies of center and periphery, sometimes neutralizing the claims of officials in the Audiencia of Charcas to jurisdiction over local matters, while actively promoting local ties to the king.     

Imagining the borderlands: managing (to prolong) conflict in Tibet

The current phase of political conflict in Tibet began with pro‐independence protests in the late 1980s and saw a significant surge of unrest in 2008. But that unrest was not continuous and for much of the last 25 years was at a low level of intensity. Yet the Chinese authorities have categorised the situation in Tibet as a ‘life‐and‐death struggle’ against pro‐independence forces throughout this period. This paper notes earlier debates in Chinese history about political strategies for managing borderland peoples, including late imperial era attempts by Chinese officials to forcibly change Tibetan culture that provoked rather than assuaged conflict. It suggests that this happened again in the 1990s when a group of Chinese officials proposed policies that sought directly to change core cultural practices among Tibetans. These policies of selective cultural intervention, unprecedented in the post‐Mao era in Tibet, fuelled long‐term resentment, leading to the violence and unrest of 2008. The paper argues that these policies were inseparable from the institutional interests of the agency within the Chinese Communist Party, the United Front, which had promoted them, to the extent that its status and influence within the state bureaucracy depended on it preventing them from being challenged or reversed. It made cultural intervention in Tibet seem normative to the Chinese policy elite by invoking three interlocked imaginings about ways of managing borderland peoples – the perception of perpetual war, Han expertise at borderland management, and latent threat within borderland cultures. That these have led to the prolonging of conflict in Tibet for over a quarter‐century is a reminder of the importance of considering institutional dynamics in the analysis of ethnic conflict.     

BEFORE THE DELUGE: CANADIANS ON FOREIGN OWNERSHIP, 1920–1955

More Americans now reside in Canada than at any time since the Vietnam War. This article documents and analyzes the migration, settlement, and identity of US-born residents in three Canadian cities. My work helps fill the gap in the scholarly literature on issues related to international migration at the Canadian–US borderlands. The article's overarching goal is to illustrate that transnationality, as exhibited by US immigrants in Canada, is far more complex than prior studies of transnational identity have indicated. Findings from this study indicate that transnational linkages and identities are geographically and temporally contingent and are, as such, a reflection of both time and place. My comparison of the shifting identities of American migrants who reside in three different metropolitan areas in Canada allows a more critical analysis of the ever-shifting terrain of transnational identities as they are expressed in different contexts. Data analyzed for this study were compiled from the Canadian census for the years 1961 through 2006, survey questionnaires, unstructured and structured interviews, and on-site field work.     

Prophetic Activism in an Age of Empire

Abstract

The paper explores the emergence of prophetic activism as a counter-narrative to the dominance of conservative Christianity in national politics. It is based on the premise that the use of religion in American politics remains highly contested. While portions of American Christianity support an imperial project, alternative visions of a more humane future are simultaneously gaining strength. These new forms of prophetic activism are emerging in two distinct yet overlapping social locations: the borderlands and among cosmopolitans. Given the marginality of the borderlands context, prophetic activism has become firmly grounded in liberative religious paradigms that empower people to identify the commonalities between contemporary forms of exploitation and those against which the ancient biblical prophets once raged. An embrace of these same liberative paradigms also enable cosmopolitans to enter into solidarity with the struggles of others for justice.     

William Ogilvie,the Klondike Borderlands and the Making of the Canadian West

This article focuses on William Ogilvie, the Canadian Dominions Surveyor and Commissioner of the Yukon during one of the most formative periods in Canadian history—the opening of the Yukon Territories during the Klondike Gold Rush. By the mid-1890s, Canadian and American miners flooded the Yukon–Alaska border in search of gold. The mass migration of American miners created anxieties among Canadian officials who believed Americans would forcibly annex the Yukon Territories. In light of this, Ogilvie was tasked with clarifying the contested boundary line and establishing economic links across the Atlantic to Great Britain in order to secure the Canadian boundary and maintain Canadian authority on the frontier. In 1898, Ogilvie left for Great Britain to tie Canada more closely to the British Empire and, effectively, sell the Yukon to potential British investors. This article thus speaks to issues in the North American borderlands and Atlantic history.