Spectres of Pan-Islam: Methodological Nationalism and British Imperial Policy after the First World War

In the aftermath of the First World War, British officials were forced to contend with a threat that seemed to undermine their empire from India to Egypt. The anti-colonial revolts that spread across the world in this moment were caused by many factors from the collapse of the Ottoman Empire to far more local concerns. However, many British officials imagined these contemporaneous revolts to be caused by a pan-Islamic conspiracy. The threat of pan-Islam was inflated in the minds of these officials in large part because it fundamentally contradicted their conception of how politics should be ordered on a global scale. This article suggests that the spectre of pan-Islam helped to crystallise a methodological nationalism in imperial policies over Muslim populations. The amorphous spatiality of pan-Islam redoubled a growing commitment to bounded national spaces as a natural unit of political activity. To those officials obsessed with pan-Islam, it was so frightening precisely because it questioned the spatial paradigm through which they understood the world. Other officials saw pan-Islam as a minor nuisance, because they believe that such transnational politics could not possibly survive in a world inherently ordered into contiguous nations. The threat of pan-Islam helped to push both sets of officials into a methodological nationalism, but some saw nationalism as inevitable while others feared that Islam was a compelling threat to a European-dominated inter-national order.     

Paving the way for new regional industrial paths: actors and modes of change in Scania’s games industry

ABSTRACT

Recent scholarly work has enhanced our understanding of how new path development activities are enabled or constrained by ‘regional environments’, made up of pre-existing industrial structures, knowledge organizations, support structures and institutional configurations. This paper moves beyond overly static views on regional environments. We develop a dynamic perspective by analysing conceptually and empirically how a constraining environment can be transformed into one that enables the development of new growth paths. The paper offers a typology of various modes of change, including layering, adaptation and novel application that are used by key actors to ‘manipulate’ the regional support structures to facilitate new regional industrial path development. The conceptual framework is applied to a case study of the digital games industry in the region of Scania, southern Sweden. Our findings suggest that the creation of a more enabling environment for the growth of the digital games industry has been the outcome of multi-scalar processes and combinations of various modes of change employed by a few key individuals operating in the newly emerging path.     

Ambivalent patriotism: Jacob Aall and Dano‐Norwegian identity before 1814

Abstract. Like many Norwegian elite, Jacob Aall (1773–1844) lived between two national identities – Norwegian and Danish. On the one hand, he was a subject of the Danish crown, educated in Denmark in the refinements of European knowledge and high culture; on the other he was a loyal provincial son of Norway, engaged in building the political and economic autonomy of his homeland. This article examines the two sides of national identity in Jacob Aall's life and work by focusing on the evolution in his understanding of the concept of the Norwegian nation. It argues that the patriotism central to Aall's understanding of modernity and the coming‐to‐age of Norway contains two disparate, but equally necessary sides. The one is characterised by an abiding sentiment of national romantic cultural belonging, the other is a learned commitment to the Enlightenment utilitarian principles that gave force to the Norwegian national movement.     

Branding halal: A photographic essay on global Muslim markets (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

In the rapidly expanding global market for halal products, Malaysia and Singapore hold a special position as the only two countries in the world where state bodies certify halal products, spaces (shops, factories and restaurants) as well as work processes. In these two countries and in shops all around the world, consumers can find state halal‐certified products that carry distinctive halal marks. This photographic essay explores the properties of halal marks in Malaysia and Singapore within a framework of visual systems and the conditions of their interpretation, relating the particular systems to the complexities of which they are a part. More specifically, I explore the visual systems of halal marks on products, advertisements, shops as well as restaurants.     

Payments for Ecosystem Services in Nicaragua: Do Market‐based Approaches Work?

The concept of Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) is gaining increasing attention among scholars as well as conservation and development practitioners. The premises of this innovative conservation approach are appealing: private land users, usually poorly motivated to protect nature on their land, will do so if they receive payments from environmental service buyers which cover part of the land users’ opportunity costs of developing the land. However, this article warns against an over‐enthusiastic adoption of a one‐sided market‐based PES approach. Based on a field study of the Regional Integrated Silvopastoral Approaches to Ecosystem Management Project (RISEMP), one of the main PES pilot projects in Nicaragua, it suggests that a mixture of economic and non‐economic factors motivated farmers to adopt the envisaged silvopastoral practices and that the actual role of PES is mistakenly understood as a simple matter of financial incentives. The authors argue that PES approaches should be understood as a part of a broader process of local institutional transformation rather than as a market‐based alternative for allegedly ineffective government and/or community governance.     

After the Nicaraguan Non‐Payment Crisis: Alternatives to Microfinance Narcissism

This article argues against ‘microfinance narcissism’ and calls for a re‐politicization of the microfinance paradigm. The dominant verdict on microcredit has undergone a damning transformation, from ‘magic bullet for poverty reduction’ to ‘cause of suicide’. Nowadays, both radical critics and mainstream voices deplore microcredit's negative impact on micro‐entrepreneurs. They argue for a reorientation where credit is targeted at established small and medium‐sized enterprises, particularly in rural areas. The crisis in microfinance worldwide, including burgeoning protests, are viewed as proof of the commercial derailment and/or misplaced faith in microfinance's positive social and economic impact on the poor. This article engages with this debate through a study of the Nicaraguan micro‐finance crisis. It challenges existing analyses that pin the crisis on agricultural over‐indebtedness, lack of due diligence, or Sandinista populist politics. Illustrating the dangers of neglecting the diverse nature of microfinance, it reveals the paradoxical outcomes of the crisis: a refocus on the urban at the expense of agricultural credit for small and medium enterprises and a consolidation of the power of national processing elites. Nicaragua's Non‐Payment Movement is also shown to be both a product of elite manipulation and an expression of legitimate resistance to an industry that turns a blind eye to the manner in which markets and politics constrain clients’ potential.     

Discerning geological and geographical sources of Belgian Upper Paleolithic fluorites by rare earth elements and Sr-isotopic geochemistry

Fragments of fluorite (CaF₂) have been found at five Belgian Upper Paleolithic sites (Spy, Chaleux, Trou Magritte, Trou du Frontal and Verlaine caves), primarily of Magdalenian age. These sites are located in a large geographical area. The aim of this study is to isolate one or more primary sources where the mineral could have been quarried prehistorically, and hence try to deduce if time and effort were put into obtaining it, or if it was simply a useful nearby raw material. In order to achieve this objective, isotopic ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr and REE ratios are used. A total of four archaeological samples from the Chaleux, Spy and Trou Magritte sites along with geological samples were analyzed (new results and data from the literature), obtained from two distinct stratigraphical units in Belgium: the Givetian limestones (mainly from the Calestian Band), and the Dinantian limestones.