Diasporic identifications: exile,nostalgia and the Famine past in Irish and Irish North-American popular fiction, 1871–1891

During the nineteenth century, “exile” became a key term to describe the Irish-diasporic community in North America. More recently, scholars in the fields of diaspora studies and Irish studies have described this community as a “victim diaspora” with connotations of forced expulsion, exile, and nostalgia for the homeland. Moreover, among scholars and within the Irish-American community, the notion exists that the Great Irish Famine (1845–1851) constitutes the Irish-American “charter myth”, that it was the starting point of an Irish-American identity. This article sheds a different light on these (self-)identifications by discussing the concepts of origin myth, exile and nostalgia and also considers the concept of diasporic belonging in the context of Irish and Irish North-American works of popular “Famine fiction” written between 1871 and 1891. Consequently, the impact of these late nineteenth-century literary considerations on present-day conceptualisations of the Irish-American community as a victim diaspora are discussed.     

Technological,Functional and Contextual Aspects of the K2 and Mapungubwe Worked Bone Industries

Mapungubwe (AD 1220–1290) is generally regarded as the first urban centre in southern Africa, functioning as the seat of power for an extensive but short-lived polity. More than 80 years of excavations here, and at its nearby predecessor K2 (c. AD 1000–1220), resulted in a substantial assemblage of material remains from elite and commoner contexts. This assemblage includes a large collection of worked bone objects, such as needles, awls, tubes and objects of personal adornment. Of particular interest are the bone arrowheads and link-shafts, of which a significant number of specimens were found complete and intact. Such quantities of well-preserved worked bone objects are unique in the archaeological record of the region. The worked bone assemblages from these two sites provide a rare opportunity to study multiple components of the production process as well as the use context of bone objects. In this paper, we characterise the K2 and Mapungubwe worked bone industries through various morphological, technological, use-trace and contextual approaches and discuss the significance of these aspects in terms of raw material selection and manufacture and archaeological use context. In particular, this study shows the complexity of these worked bone industries over time.     

‘Life in Happy Land’: using virtual space and doing motherhood in Hong Kong

This paper examines how a group of Hong Kong working mothers use the internet in performing and realizing their paid work and domestic role identities. The internet is a technology-enabled space and also what Michel de Certeau calls a ‘practiced place’, where its nature and functions are necessarily determined by the actions and practices of agents. Through participant observation and the analysis of a sample of chatroom and forum messages from a user-driven Hong Kong-based parenting website called Happy Land, I examine the relationship between this virtual space and its users. I find that the website has developed beyond its technology-mediated nature into a community of face-to-face friendships and social and emotional support. In effect, this virtual space plays a role in the social reproduction of the contemporary dual-earner family by enabling working mothers who use the website to perform roles in production and reproduction respectively.     

Made in the Nene Valley? Identifying the origins of mortaria using ICP analysis

The Nene Valley, in eastern central England, was a major pottery production centre in the Roman period. Many kiln sites have been identified in the Lower Nene Valley region and, although comparatively less is known about production in the Upper Nene Valley, substantial amounts of mortaria and other coarse wares have been recovered during excavations at Roman sites in the area, and much of it is thought to be locally made. However mortaria made in the Upper and Lower Nene Valley can be difficult to tell apart, and many also have similar forms and fabrics to mortaria produced in Mancetter–Hartshill, Warwickshire. Therefore ICP analysis was used in an attempt to identify the products of different regions.     

The Netherlands in the constellation of the eighteenth-century Western revolutions

In the constellation of the eighteenth-century revolutions, the French events have always occupied a dominant position. Consequently the other European upheavals have been considered as being provoked or strongly influenced by France. Yet, the Dutch revolutions in the 1780s and 1790s provide some important nuances to this interpretation. Before the French took over the Bastille, there was already a Dutch revolution with devoted Patriots, speaking about rights of man and constitutions. The Patriots had to flee abroad in 1787. In 1795, thanks to the French Army, they were able to return to their drawing boards, eager to think anew their government and society. This paper investigates how they did it and whether the American and French precedents were so influential after all in the construction of the Batavian Republic.