Aboriginal people and Canadian geography: a review of the recent literature

A review of recent literature by Canadian geographers on Aboriginal people in this country suggests an increased focus on this important topic. This paper is organized by two main sections: the dispossession of Aboriginal peoples from their land and rights, and current attempts to contest and to redefine Aboriginal people's places in contemporary Canadian society. In both sections, I address representational strategies which transformed Aboriginal peoples and their lands conceptually, and the material transformations which accompanied them. I highlight evidence of Aboriginal people's responses wherever this material is available. Some remaining challenges to Canadian geographers are: integrating the research of people working as researchers for Aboriginal organizations, and institutions working with Aboriginal people into the academic milieu; including the voices of Aboriginal peoples in our research; and addressing under‐represented topics including urban Aboriginal peoples, reserve geographies, Métis peoples and Aboriginal women. Une revue des travaux des géographes canadiens au sujet des Aborigènes de ce pays révèle que ce sujet d'étude important reçoit de plus en plus d'attention. Cet article est composé de deux sections principales: la thématique de la dépossession des terres et de la privation des droits des Aborigènes, et les tentatives actuelles de contestation et redéfinition de leur place dans la société canadienne contemporaine. Dans les deux sections, j'aborde les stratégies de représentation qui ont transformé les Aborigènes et leurs terres du point de vue conceptuel, ainsi que les transformations matérielles qui les ont accompagnées. j'attire l'attention sur la réaction des Aborigènes à chaque fois que cette information peut être vérifiée. Certains défis sont encore à relever par les géographes canadiens: intégrer, d'une part la recherche effectuée pour le compte d'organisations aborigènes et d'autre part les institutions oeuvrant de concert avec ces peuples, dans le milieu universitaire; inclure le point de vue des Aborigènes dans notre recherche; et s'attaquer à des sujets encore trop négligés, notamment les Aborigènes en milieu urbain, la géographie des réserves, les Métis et les femmes aborigènes.     

6. ACTES DE PRÉSENCE: PRESENCE IN FASCIST POLITICAL CULTURE1

In order to discuss the notion of presence, I explore Fascist Italy as an example of a presence‐based culture. In the first part of this paper, I focus on the doctrines of “the philosopher of fascism,” Giovanni Gentile (1875–1944), in order to show that his programme of cultural awakening revolves around the notion of the “presentification of the past.” This notion formed the basis of Gentile's dialectic of the act of thought, which is the kernel of his actual idealism, or actualism. I argue that actualism should primarily be interpreted as an ontology of a historical reality; it expresses the view that reality is history. In his 1914 inaugural “L'esperienza pura e la realtà storica” (Pure Experience and Historical Reality), Gentile drew this view to its ultimate consequence by developing a view of experience that has some striking parallels with the contemporary views of presence as expounded by Gumbrecht, Runia, and Ankermit. In the second part of my paper, I discuss how Gentile and his collaborators put presence into practice in school reforms, the Enciclopedia Italiana, and in hundreds of monuments, memorials, and exhibitions. Finally, I discuss the 1932 Mostra della rivoluzione fascista, which was not only the apex of fascist culture politics, but also of the practice of presence. In this context, I argue that this practice should not be seen as a politics of historical interpretation, as Hayden White once held, but as a politics of sublime historical experience, or presence. The presence of presence in fascist political culture raises some difficult questions for all who embrace the new paradigm, questions that can only be answered if the notion of presence is somehow balanced by the critical historical method, which is the basis for a true dialogue with the past.     

Cohesion,Polycentricity, Missing Links and Bottlenecks: Conflicting Spatial Storylines for Pan-European Transport Investments

This article undertakes a discourse-centred investigation of the underlying rationales of European Union (EU) transport-sector investments. Its central contribution is the 'Conflicting-Storylines Proposition', stating that EU transport investments lack consistence and sustainability due to the existence of partially complementary, partially competing EU development objectives which are in turn expressed through four key storylines: 'cohesion', 'polycentricity', 'missing links' and, most recently, 'bottlenecks'. EU decision-making remains deeply conflicted and contested. Transport sector investments have to satisfy different aims related to growth, competitiveness, cohesion and sustainability. The Trans-European Network priority projects violate cohesion and sustainable development goals by concentrating investments in already privileged areas.     

ITALIAN LEGACIES1

This paper discusses David Roberts's latest book in which he seeks to throw some light on urgent postmodern historiographical issues from the angle of Italian historicism, led by Benedetto Croce (1866–1952) and Giovanni Gentile (1875–1944). Focusing on the relationship between theory and practice, Roberts argues that there was a close relationship between Italian historicism and fascism. On the basis of the principle that “reality is nothing but history”, both Croce and Gentile sought to develop a philosophy that connects historical thinking to action. In this context, Gentile's presentist interpretation of the historical sublime eventually led to totalitarianism, whereas Croce's radical historicism formed the basis of a more liberal view of society. In his discussion of the reception of the Italian tradition, Roberts rejects Carlo Ginzburg's and Hayden White's “misreadings” of Croce and Gentile, and concludes that Italian historicism is still relevant to modern historiography. In this paper I show that Roberts, by renouncing an exclusively philosophical approach to the Italian tradition, tends to overlook the underlying issues. In order to redress the balance, I argue that the political issues between Croce and Gentile went back to profound philosophical differences concerning the relationship between philosophy and history on the one hand and between past and present on the other. From this perspective, Ginzburg's and White's debates about the relationship between history and politics, and the role of the historical sublime in historiography, should not be viewed as “misreadings” of Croce and Gentile, but as mere variations on the themes of their predecessors. The relevance of the Italian tradition is therefore not primarily to be found in its response to postmodernism, but in setting the agenda for rethinking the relationship between history and practical life in the contemporary world.