Precious work: white anti-racist pedagogies in Southern Arizona

Social justice activists come to Southern Arizona to involve themselves in humanitarian aid projects that address human rights issues emerging from border securitization processes. Over time, many of these activists connect with other social justice projects, leading to the existence of rich and dedicated networks of activists in Tucson, Southern Arizona’s largest city. Subsequently, we see the development of activist ventures orienting themselves around racial justice, through which white people work to educate other whites about white supremacist society. This paper explores the ways that white activists negotiate whiteness and privilege within Tucson’s activist networks by employing deliberately anti-racist critical pedagogies. Through excerpts from interviews and reflections on experiences as a participant observer from 2013 to 2015, I discuss the figure of the white anti-racist activist. In particular, I examine the paradoxical process of becoming anti-racist, through which white activists work to address problematic aspects of their own and others’ socialization as white subjects within the hierarchy of white supremacist society, a process that necessarily coexists with the knowledge that one cannot ‘unwhiten’ oneself, and many problematic behaviors remain.     

White socio-spatial epistemology

Recent work by geographers concerned with the enduring presence of racism has called for an interrogation of the privileges and contingencies of whiteness. Central to this project of denaturalizing White Identity has been the disclosure of its co-constitution with a host of social practices. Building on the work of critical theorists in the humanities and social sciences concerned with masculinist and post-colonial epistemologies, this paper outlines a socio-spatial epistemology of whiteness. Whiteness's central tenets are an essentialist and non-relational construction of space and identity that underwrite its claims to be realized independent of an Other. Spatially, this refusal manifests itself in the deployment of discursive categories associated with scales, boundaries and extensivity in ways that reify space into discrete, unrelated parcels. We discuss some of the implications of this non-relational construction of space and identity in the context of residential segregation and spatial mobility. The paper concludes by noting that historically and geographically specific forms of whiteness have drawn upon a common socio-spatial framing and that further study in this field will benefit anti-racist activism by disclosing the workings of racialization in numerous human geographic contexts.     

Vikings in Brazil: the Iceland Brazil Association shaping Icelandic heritage

Abstract

The Iceland Brazil Association (AISBRA) was established in 1996 by a group of Brazilians of Icelandic descent, more than 100 years after the first generation of immigrants settled in Brazil in the nineteenth century. The association was the first organisation in Brazil to collectively emphasise and celebrate Icelandic heritage. The association caters to a disparate group of people that had, in many cases, little knowledge about their historical links to Iceland. In spite of the fragmented activities of AISBRA since its establishment, the number of participants has increased, reflecting their growing interest in their Icelandic past. This paper examines how the members of Iceland Brazil Association produce their heritage independently, outside the state recognised heritage, within the Brazilian national context. We analyse how identities are re/shaped in new ways to engage with the past and how values from the past are extracted and turned into contemporary economic, social, and political values. This paper stresses heritage-making as a social imaginary used to define collective identity, which, while based on ancestry, also intersects with ideas of race and class. Representations of their Icelandic heritage allow the members of the Brazil Iceland Association to emphasise their ‘Europeanness’ and thus their associations with whiteness in contemporary post-colonial Brazil.     

The racialisation of local heritage

Abstract

The region of Camden, located on the outskirts of Sydney, is a growing area set to morph from a country town to a thriving suburban district. In 2007, a Sydney Islamic charity sought to build an Islamic school in the region. Local opponents protested the application in ways that expressed contemporary forms of anti-Muslim racisms in Australia. This article pays close attention to the narratives of heritage within these voices of opposition, as a sizeable number of protesters claimed the school would violate the local settler heritage in Camden. In uncovering these discourses, it was evident that a narrative of white peaceful settlement informed the ways locals mobilised local heritage in relation to the school. The racialisation and whiteness of local heritage negated the Aboriginal presence and history in Camden, and provided a template for the maintenance of white colonial hegemony and the construction of many racialised discourses. Further, these racialisations underpinned the popular anti-Muslim sentiment expressed in ways that positioned local heritage as that of national significance.     

早期白瓷的界定与起源问题综述

白瓷的出现打破了青瓷一统天下的局面,并为后世颜色釉瓷的烧制奠定了基础,被誉为中国古陶瓷工艺发展过程中的“第四里程碑”,但是长期以来白瓷的起源问题悬而未决。早期白瓷是处于白瓷创烧时期的过渡品种,釉色介于青和白之间呈不均匀分布,因此如何科学界定“早期白瓷”直接关系到白瓷起源问题的研究。为此,本研究在梳理早期白瓷相关研究的基础上,结合考古发现与科学研究现状,重点分析了目前关于古代陶瓷釉面白度科技研究中存在的问题,提出应统一采用轻工行业标准中日用陶瓷白度的测定方法来计算古代陶瓷的白度,使得今后不同研究者之间公布的白度数据可以互相比较;并提出利用白度、化学组成、烧制工艺等参数作为区分早期白瓷与青瓷的重要指标,这为研究白瓷起源提供了新的方法和思路。     

Colouring special needs: Locating whiteness in NIMBY conflicts

In this paper I examine the importance of 'race' and racialization in conflicts over the siting of human service facilities. Little consideration has been given to the way in which racialization shapes community reactions to client groups, and the idea that NIMBY reactions facilitate the reproduction of white privilege. I explore these issues using a case study of community opposition to 'special needs' housing in San Pedro, California. Analysis demonstrates that some facility opponents racialized client groups in an attempt to defend the socio-spatial privileges of whiteness. Opponents also used a romanticized and 'whitened' construction of community to mark 'special needs' clients out of place. However, other community members used European ethnic identities to mark the whiteness of middle-class opponents. The case study provides insight into the racialization of need, and the way in which whiteness is struggled over within specific social contexts. It also contributes to an understanding of how claims to European ethnicity may be used to veil and/or challenge white privilege. Dans cet article, j'examine l'importance de la 'race' dans les conflits reliés à l'emplacement de bâtiments affectés à la distribution de services sociaux. Même si les concepts de race contribuent à determiner les réactions des communautés face aux bénéficiaires de services sociaux, leur rôle à cet égard a été peu étudié, de même que la façon dont ces réactions facilitent le maintien des privileges réservés aux blancs. J'explore ces questions par le biais d'une étude de cas à San Pedro, Californie, où une communauté locale s'est opposée à l'établissement d'une maison de traitement. L'analyse démontre comment certains opposants ont attribué des stéréotypes raciaux aux bénéficiaires afin de défendre des privilèges socio-géographiques blancs. Les opposants ont aussi fait appel à une conception romantique de communauté blanche dans le but de marginaliser les bénéficiaires de services sociaux. Toutefois, d'autres membres de la communauté ont pour leur part invoqué des concepts d'identité ethnique pour souligner les antécédents raciaux blancs des opposants, ceux-ci faisant également partie de la classe moyenne. Cette étude pose un regard utile sur les processus par lesquels des idées de race sont imputés à des concepts de besoin, et sur la façon dont ces idées sont contestées dans certains contextes sociaux. De plus, l'étude met en lumière comments des concepts Européens d'ethnicité peuvent servir à dissimuler et/ou maintenir le privilège racial blanc. En este papel examino la importancia de la 'raza' y racialización en conflictos sobre la ubicación de facilidades de servicio humano. Ha sido muy poco considerado el modo en que la racialización moldea la reacción de una comunidad a los grupos de clientes y la idea de que reacciones NIMBY facilitan la reproducción del privilegio para gente de raza blanca. Yo analizo estos temas haciendo uso de un estudio que trata la resistencia de una comunidad a la provisión de viviendas para personas de 'necesidades especiales' en San Pedro, California. El análisis demuestra que algunos de los adversarios 'racializaron' los grupos de clientes en un intento de defender los privilegios socio-espaciales de la comunidad blanca. Los adversarios también emplearon una romantizada y 'blanqueada' construcción de lo que es comunidad, así marcando los clientes de necesidades especiales fuera de su sitio. Sin embargo, otros miembros de la comunidad utilizaron identidades étnicas europeas para marcar la 'blancura' de adversarios de la clase media. Por este estudio se adquiere una nueva percepción de la racialización de necesidad, y la manera en que se sigue resistiendo el concepto de blancura dentro de contextos sociales específicos. También contribuye a nuestra comprensión de cómo las reclamaciones a raíces étnicas europeas pueden ser aplicados para velar y/o desafiar el privilegio blanco.     

Beyond race: constructions of ‘Europeanness’ in late-colonial legal practice in the Dutch East Indies

This article proposes to introduce the study of European identity into colonial history and vice versa. It analyses the ways in which the legal classification of the population functioned in late-colonial Indonesia. A close inspection of this case reveals that the oft-cited fundamental colonial difference between ‘ruler’ and ‘ruled’ was in reality not nearly as clear-cut. The concept of ‘Europeanness’ – as opposed to ‘Whiteness’ – is highlighted as the category at the center of colonial hierarchy. This leads to a re-evaluation of the relative significance of various differentiating categories in the colonial context, most importantly race and class. The author concludes that by not taking ‘Europeanness’ seriously as an independent category, scholars of ‘cultural racism’ have tended to overemphasise ‘race’, with the consequence of oversimplifying the complex, multi-layered nature of the colonial social hierarchy.     

文物修复用脱色剂对手工纸耐久性的影响

在文物保护与修复工作中,需要对纸张进行脱色处理以除去部分顽固污渍、霉斑。本研究选取了六种不同类型的脱色剂,探究脱色处理对宣纸、皮纸、竹纸等几类传统手工纸样老化后各项理化性能的影响,揭示了各类脱色剂对不同纸种耐久性影响存在较大差异。研究表明,氧化性脱色剂与还原性脱色剂均会使纸张各项理化性能出现一定程度的下降。整体上,使用的脱色剂氧化性越强,纸张微观纤维受损越严重,脱色前后宏观性能下降幅度越大,而还原性脱色处理对纸张各项理化性能影响较小。在纸质文物修复脱色时,选择合适的脱色剂,可以有效减小文物损伤。     

The diversity continuum: Blurring the boundaries between internal and external others among Italian children of migrants

In recent years, studies on nations and nationalism have experienced a rapid growth prompted by the so-called ‘new nationalism’, which has been interpreted, in the Western world, as the product of white majorities and their anxiety towards a demographic change caused by international migration. This article switches focus and explores the impact of demographic change on the nation from the perspective of its non-white population. Using Italy as a case study, the article relies on the voices and online comments of young Italian adults with foreign backgrounds who, like their parents, are often perceived by the white nationalist rhetoric as in need of integration or assimilation. Data rely on 38 individual semi-structured interviews with representatives of ‘second generation’ associations (ReteG2, Associna, Giovani Musulmani d’Italia and Yallaitalia), as well as forums, blogs and videos posted on the webpages of these associations since their creation until June 2015. The article reveals how the existence of an internal other (the Southerner) is discursively mobilised by these young adults to question the ethno-racial unity of the nation and to draw a diversity continuum between their ascribed foreignness and the internal other. This discursive move allows children of migrants to justify their national belonging and to re-write the nation in relation rather than in opposition to alterity. The relevance of these findings is discussed in terms of the re-making of the nation in times of demographic change and the decline of white majorities.