Rethinking the role of the arts in politics: lessons from the Négritude movement

The arts can be a powerful tool for emancipation, community building and political expression. This article makes the argument that artistic and cultural expression should be viewed by politicians and policy makers as an effective form of political engagement and an important feedback loop for understanding the political dissatisfaction of the electorate. It draws on one particular historical example, the Négritude movement, to highlight the value and strength of cultural movements in responding to questions of politics and to draw out lessons for current policy makers in recognising the value of culture in effecting political change. Against a contemporary political and scholarly narrative of disaffected citizenship, this article demonstrates that a lack of trust in a political model does not necessarily demonstrate a disinterested citizenry; rather it can suggest a citizenry who have found new and innovative ways to engage. The Négritude movement provides one such historical example.     

HISTORY MAKING AND ETHICS—AN INTEGRAL RELATIONSHIP?

In this review essay, I examine the arguments made by Marnie Hughes-Warrington, with Anne Martin, in Big and Little Histories: Sizing Up Ethics in Historiography. While I find much to praise in this history, I also ask critical questions about the impact of non-Western ethics on historical writing, the role of ethics in historical writing generally, the need to further investigate the everyday lifeworlds of history makers in order to fully understand their ethical dispositions, and the relationship between the ethics of history making and engaged forms of historical writing. I conclude this review essay by offering some reflections on the interrelationship between history and memory and the ethics involved in both.     

Demography and ethnic continuity in the Tlailotlacan enclave of Teotihuacan: the evidence from stable oxygen isotopes

Mechanisms for the maintenance of Zapotec ethnicity in Tlailotlacan, an enclave of Teotihuacan, Mexico, are reconstructed using oxygen-isotope analyses of bone and enamel phosphate. The data indicate continual interaction among the enclave inhabitants, their Oaxacan homeland, and other diaspora colonies, with no dominant post-marital residence pattern. There is no apparent association between social status and place of origin, and individual agency is indicated by variable acceptance of Teotihuacan traditions. Striking patterns of movement include the sojourning of children in other regions and the relocation of breastfeeding women. These segments of the population would have played major roles in the social and political articulation of diaspora colonies. Foreign signatures in primary burials indicate that some immigrants died shortly after their arrival in Tlailotlacan. Data from secondary burials indicate the transportation of dead relatives or ancestors to Teotihuacan for burial. We conclude that the behaviour of immigrants in ancient and modern cities is analogous in many ways.