Empires for Peace: Denis Veiras’s Borrowings from Garcilaso de la Vega

Writing The History of the Sevarambians in the 1670s, the Huguenot Denis Veiras borrowed many ideas from Garcilaso de la Vega, also known as El Inca, whose Royal Commentaries of the Incas was published in 1609. Both works describe the history of an empire and justify it on the ground that it brought peace and unity. While Garcilaso’s book purported to be a history, his selection of facts reflected his goal of improving the treatment of the Incas by the Spanish. Veiras’s story also claimed to be a history, but it was transparently a fiction, even to the point of lifting many elements from Garcilaso’s book. What both works equally emphasized was that empires could aim at, and could be justified by, the benefits they provided their subjects. Both tell stories of benevolent and paternalistic rulers who founded nearly ideal societies in the countries they conquered. These were models of empire for peace and unity rather than merely promoting toleration of differences or concord among differing parties. Veiras’s utopia thus offers an instructive case study of the effects of cross-cultural borrowings of literary and political ideas.     

A first meeting place: John Webber’s An Interview Between Captain Cook and the Natives (January 1777)

On 26 January 1777, on the first stage of his third voyage to the Pacific, James Cook anchored in Adventure Bay on what is now called Bruny Island, Tasmania. Cook encountered the local Nuonenne people on two occasions, the second of which was recorded in an unfinished drawing (possibly done on the spot) by the expedition’s artist, John Webber. Comments in their journals from officers and sailors on board Cook’s ships indicate that the European perceptions and representations of Aboriginal people were initially mediated by the explorers’ stereotypical understanding of other races. However, through a close reading of a number of structural features of Webber’s composition – symmetry, resemblances in opposition, chiasmus, a figure who acts as a spectatorial stand-in, spatialisation – it is argued that Webber’s drawing recognises the Aboriginal people encountered by the British as individuals, attends to the dramaturgy of the encounter, and is marked in various ways by a powerful and grounded indigenous agency. It is proposed that anthropologist Marshall Sahlins’ paradoxical aphorism ‘structure of the conjuncture’ might be used to illuminate and designate the particular quality of events, the ‘indigenous countersigns’, depicted by Webber in this drawing.     

Knowledge nodes and international networks of connection: representations of private philanthropy by elite higher education institutions

This paper investigates the social and cultural geographies of large-scale individual giving in supporting the work of ‘elite’ international universities. With public funding of higher education in general decline, universities in countries of the global North are increasingly seeking funding from alternative sources, including private philanthropy. Although scholarly work has examined corporate and foundational giving to Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), there has been little enquiry into how donations from wealthy individuals are represented by universities in their official literature. Publications such as annual reports, giving reports and campaign reports are used strategically by HEIs to project a global image. We examine the official literature of 50 elite HEIs located across the globe, uncovering new discourses into the cross-cultural reach of universities. We draw attention to complex social and cultural relations between HEIs and philanthropists, describing their encounters with reference to debates on personal mobilities, world-making and global and social inequalities. We conclude by highlighting the implications for theoretical work on ‘strategic philanthropy’ and on the transformative nature of HEIs as global centres of knowledge.     

Indigenous Methodologies: Suggestions for Junior Researchers

Indigenous methodologies in geography have recently been developed to decolonise Western dominated paradigms. It has been argued that research which does not benefit Indigenous communities should not be conducted. However, Indigenous methodologies are not taught in many post-secondary institutions. Therefore, when they pursue Indigenous topics, many junior researchers are self-taught in these methodologies. However, these methodologies cannot be defined simply and they are too diverse to be learnt in a short period. In Japan, Indigenous peoples are not widely recognised and research on contemporary Indigenous issues is limited. The concept of Indigenous methodologies is rarely discussed. Because of this, Japanese researchers rarely identify their research as adopting an Indigenous methodology. Indigenous researchers are thereby discouraged from pursuing Indigenous methodologies. Furthermore, a methodology or a thesis statement used by researchers to reflect Indigenous perspectives often gets little support from Indigenous peoples. My master's research on the Ainu mirrored this situation. While Indigenous methodologies remain difficult to learn, junior researchers should not be discouraged from this form of engagement. Practical suggestions are therefore necessary to encourage their use and application. Based on my experience, I suggest that researchers approach Indigenous communities from a learning perspective. This would encourage open-mindedness and sensitivity. Researchers should also be prepared and willing to refine their research questions and to continue their literature searches after their fieldwork is completed. These strategies could limit misinterpretation and exploitation of Indigenous knowledges and peoples.     

Alcohol Studies and Anthropology: Broadening the Venture

Caplan, Pat, ed. The Cultural Construction of Sexuality. London: Tav‐istock, 1987. xi + 304 pp. including name and subject indexes. $44.00 cloth; $16.95 paper.

Williams, Walter L. The Spirit and the Flesh: Sexual Diversity in American Indian Culture. Boston: Beacon Press, 1986. xi + 344 pp. including 16 black‐and‐white plates, bibliography, and index. $21.95 cloth.     

跨文化管理研究在中国酒店业经营管理提升和品牌创建中的应用

本文讨论了中国酒店业30年发展历程中始终面临的几个方面的文化问题。例如,跨国酒店公司的海外投资对发展中国家在经济和社会文化方面的积极和消极影响;现代信息技术对酒店管理的促进作用和带来的问题;酒店经营全球一体化与文化多样化之间的关系;中外酒店管理者的文化差异和文化冲突;中国酒店业跨国经营的文化适应等。本文提出,应当加强跨文化管理研究在酒店经营管理中的应用,它可以有效地提升经营管理人员的业务水平,促进酒店业经营管理的国际合作,优化酒店产品营销,指导酒店硬件设施建设,提高人力资源管理效率,指导酒店特色项目的设计运作,提高酒店对外投资效率以及指导酒店的品牌创建。     

西方社会科学研究范式与中国旅游本土化研究

研究方法是旅游研究者顺利开展旅游研究的必备工具,具体的研究方法又受到特定的研究范式的制约,中国的旅游研究者在努力掌握各种研究方法时,往往对其背后的方法论和研究范式缺乏了解,从而限制了研究水平的提高。本文认为,中国旅游研究者要想提高研究水平,必须首先系统理解西方的科学哲学思潮和研究范式,在此基础上,再采用本土化和跨文化的研究策略。     

A Cross-Cultural Study of Young Children's Mapping Abilities

The mapping abilities of four-year-old children in York, England, Durban, South Africa, Tehran, Iran, Mexico City, Mexico and Evanston, Illinois, USA were investigated, using a methodology involving air-photo identification and simulated navigation on an air photo. The results show that essential mapping abilities (perspective and scale transformations) are well developed by the age of four in these cultures, and provide some evidence in support of the hypothesis that mapping abilities emerge without training in very young children of all cultures.     

‘A wonderful city of palms and dates’: Salamis-Constantia in transition from Late Antiquity to the early Middle Ages (ca. 600–ca. 800 CE)

The article focuses on Salamis-Constantia, the political and ecclesiastical capital of the island of Cyprus, from the 360s to the tenth century, marking the passage from Late Antiquity to the early Middle Ages. The aim here is to debunk the historiographical model proposed for interpreting the declining fortunes of Cypriot urban sites, while at the same time applying the category of transition in order to explain the changes experienced in the local economic life, material culture and socio-political structures.