Towards an Environmental History of Law

2019 ◽  
pp. 230-271
Author(s):  
Gunnel Cederlöf

The concluding chapter brings together different aspects necessary for analysing the relationship between human action and nature in the process of perceiving, disputing and codifying rights in nature. It targets the many transformative visions for a particular landscape, the battle between interests pursuing different legal principles that underpinned the formation of codes, the influence of scholarly thought on legal debates and, finally, in a close empirical study, it focuses the trajectory of land conflicts during its most intense period until the first more encompassing code of rights in nature in the Nilgiris in 1843. Thematically, it discusses the importance of acknowledging the competing interests of individual absolute property and government sovereignty, and it points to the necessity to focus the process of making law in contrast to treating law as a given. A major emphasis is given to the specific characteristic of people’s resistance against colonial encroachments in a situation of multiple authority and internal divisions among the indigenous communities. Seen in terms of negotiation, it is a strategy of acknowledging, influencing and making use of the other party’s domain of authority—a strategy of keeping confrontation at a minimum level and making gains without open conflict. Land conflicts were characterised by multiple layers of authority. Thereby, it puts forward a complex and more nuanced situation of conflict and negotiation than the previously common binary of the colonial and the colonised. Both these domains were interspersed by conflicts and oppositions, and alliances cut across such imaginative divides. Lastly, the problem of defining regions of regional history is reassessed and revised against the north–south India divide as well as the analytical hill–valley polarisation. Thus four key arguments are derived from the study and brought into a discussion of an environmental history of law. As the study makes clear, the Nilgiris, in spite of being a small region in the hills, were a site where large even global issues were at stake.

2021 ◽  
pp. e20200049
Author(s):  
Isabelle Gapp

This paper challenges the wilderness ideology with which the Group of Seven’s coastal landscapes of the north shore of Lake Superior are often associated. Focusing my analysis around key works by Lawren Harris, A.Y. Jackson, J.E.H. MacDonald, and Franklin Carmichael, I offer an alternative perspective on commonly-adopted national and wilderness narratives, and instead consider these works in line with an emergent ecocritical consciousness. While a conversation about wilderness in relation to the Group of Seven often ignores the colonial history and Indigenous communities that previously inhabited coastal Lake Superior, this paper identifies these within a discussion of the environmental history of the region. That the environment of the north shore of Lake Superior was a primordial space waiting to be discovered and conquered only seeks to ratify the landscape as a colonial space. Instead, by engaging with the ecological complexities and environmental aesthetics of Lake Superior and its surrounding shoreline, I challenge this colonial and ideological construct of the wilderness, accounting for the prevailing fur trade, fishing, and lumber industries that dominated during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A discussion of environmental history and landscape painting further allows for a consideration of both the exploitation and preservation of nature over the course of the twentieth century, and looks beyond the theosophical and mystical in relation to the Group’s Lake Superior works. As such, the timeliness of an ecocritical perspective on the Group of Seven’s landscapes represents an opportunity to consider how we might recontextualize these paintings in a time of unprecedented anthropogenic climate change, while recognizing the people and history to whom this land traditionally belongs.


Antiquity ◽  
1928 ◽  
Vol 2 (7) ◽  
pp. 328-336
Author(s):  
F. Wildte

The Scandinavian peoples emerge into the light of history much later than their neighbours in the South and the West, the Teutons on the Continent and in England. It was only through the Viking raids that the Nordic peoples came into touch with the rest of Europe, and were gradually converted to Christianity. Long after the introduction of the Christian faith they preserved many peculiar and archaic traits. Thus the Nordic peoples retained, with great tenacity and conservatism, their ancient judicial system. This system has therefore been the object of considerable interest even outside Scandinavia, although the manuscripts through which it has become known are much later than the corresponding documents of other Teutonic nations.An investigation of the localities where justice was dispensed in former ages is of importance not only for the history of civilization, but also as a complement to the study of oral and written tradition, and thus to the history of law itself. In view of the many points of similarity between the judicial systems of the various Teutonic nations, some notes on the Thing-steads, or places of assembly, in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, may perhaps be of interest to English-speaking readers.


2009 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison E. Robertson ◽  
Silvia R. Cianzio ◽  
Sarah M. Cerra ◽  
Richard O. Pope

Phytophthora root and stem rot (PRR), caused by the oomycete Phytophthora sojae, is an economically important soybean disease in the north central region of the United States, including Iowa. Previous surveys of the pathogenic diversity of P. sojae in Iowa did not investigate whether multiple pathotypes of the pathogen existed in individual fields. Considering the many pathotypes of P. sojae that have been reported in Iowa, we hypothesized multiple pathotypes could exist within single fields. In the research reported herein, several soil samples were collected systematically from each of two commercial fields with a history of PRR in Iowa, and each soil sample was baited separately for isolates of P. sojae. Numerous pathotypes of P. sojae were detected from both fields. As many as four pathotypes were detected in some soil samples (each consisting of six to eight soil cores), which suggests that a single soybean plant could be subjected to infection by more than one pathotype. This possibility presents important implications in breeding resistant cultivars and in the management of PRR. Accepted for publication 14 July 2009. Published 8 September 2009.


Author(s):  
James R. Fichter

This chapter outlines an international environmental history of whaling in the South Seas (the Southern Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans). Pelagic (ie., deep-sea) whaling was not discretely national. “American” whaling, as traditionally understood, existed as part of a broader ecological and economic phenomenon which included whalers from other nations. Application of “American,” “British” and other national labels to an ocean process that by its nature crossed national boundaries has occluded a full understanding of whaling’s international nature, a fullness which begins with whaling community diaspora spread across the North Atlantic from the United States to Britain and France, and which extends to the varied locations where whalers hunted and the yet other locations to which they returned with their catch. Ocean archives—the Saint Helena Archive, the Cape Town Archive Repository, and the Brazilian Arquivo Nacional—and a reinterpretation of published primary sources and national whaling historiographies reveal the fundamentally international nature of “American” pelagic whaling, suggesting that an undue focus on US whaling data by whaling historians has likely underestimated the extent of turn-of-the-nineteenth-century pelagic whaling.


Author(s):  
Derrick Bell

Given Theirhistory Of Racial Subordination, how have black people gained any protection against the multifaceted forms of discrimination that threaten their well-being and undermine their rights? The answer can be stated simply: Black rights are recognized and protected when and only so long as policymakers perceive that such advances will further interests that are their primary concern. Throughout the history of civil rights policies, even the most serious injustices suffered by blacks, including slavery, segregation, and patterns of murderous violence, have been insufficient, standing alone, to gain real relief from any branch of government. Rather, relief from racial discrimination has come only when policymakers recognize that such relief will provide a clear benefit for the nation or portions of the populace. While nowhere mentioned in the Supreme Court’s Brown opinion, a major motivation for outlawing racial segregation in 1954, as opposed to the many failed opportunities in the past, was the major boost that this decision provided in our competition with communist governments abroad and the campaign to uproot subver­sive elements at home. This fortuity continues a long history of similar coincidences motivating the advancement or sacrifice of black interests. Three major examples of what I call interest-convergence covenants involve the abolition of slavery in the northern states, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the Civil War amendments to the Constitution. Lincoln’s issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, and the divergent responses of blacks and whites to his action, were foreshad­owed by abolition policies in the northern states a half-century earlier. In the northern states, slavery was abolished by constitutional provi­sion in Vermont (1777), Ohio (1802), Illinois (1818), and Indiana (1816); by a judicial decision in Massachusetts (1783); by constitutional interpretation in New Hampshire (1857); and by gradual abolition acts in Pennsylvania (1780), Rhode Island (1784), Connecticut (1784 and 1797), New York (1799 and 1827), and New Jersey (1804). In varying degrees, abolition in the North was the result of several factors: idealism stemming from the Revolution with its “rights of man” ideology; the lesser dependence of the northern economy on a large labor force; the North’s relatively small investment in slaves combined with the great hostility of the white laboring class to the competition of slaves; the fear of slave revolts; and a general belief that there was no place for “inferior” blacks in the new societies.


2021 ◽  
pp. 81-90
Author(s):  
Л.Б. ХАВЖОКОВА

Статья посвящена изучению поэтического наследия – одной из многочисленных граней творчества кабардинского поэта, писателя, драматурга, ученого-лингвиста Бориса Кунеевича Утижева. Актуальность исследования продиктована, с одной стороны, недостаточной разработанностью некоторых жанров (сонет, баллада, стихотворения в прозе) в адыгской (кабардинской) литературе, с другой – необходимостью восполнения существующего пробела в изучении поэтического наследия Б. Утижева. Научная новизна исследования заключается в том, что поэзия указанного автора впервые стала предметом отдельного комплексного изучения в диалектике формы и содержания. В центре исследовательского внимания – лирические стихи и сонеты поэта. Отдельное внимание уделяется новаторскому жанру стихотворений в прозе, выявляется специфика их идейно-тематической и структурно-композиционной организации. Детализированному анализу подвергается единственная баллада «Песнь», дается жанровая характеристика, выявляется степень соответствия произведения заявленному автором жанру. В целом, в статье рассмотрена тематика и проблематика, эстетика и поэтика лирических и лиро-эпических произведений: выявлены основные мотивы, изучен богатый поэтический язык, представлена характеристика индивидуально-авторского стиля Утижева. Определен вклад поэта в эволюцию национальной поэзии. В работе использован ряд научных методов, в числе главных – анализ, описание, а также герменевтический метод. Полученные результаты могут стать подспорьем при изучении истории адыгских (адыгейской, кабардинской, черкесской, черкесского зарубежья) литератур, в более общем плане – литературы народов Северного Кавказа и Российской Федерации, а также при составлении спецкурсов и написании квалификационных и другого рода исследовательских работ. The article is devoted to the study of the poetic heritage of Boris Kuneevich Utizhev, that is one of the many facets of the work of the Kabardian poet, writer, playwright, scientist-linguist. The relevance of the study is dictated, on the one hand, by the insufficient development of some genres (sonnets, ballads, prose poems) in the Adyghe (Kabardian) literature, on the other hand, by the need to fill the existing gap in the study of B. Utizhev's poetic heritage. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the fact that the poetry of this author for the first time became the subject of a separate comprehensive study in the dialectic of form and content. The focus of research is the poet's poems and sonnets. Special attention is paid to the innovative genre of prose poems, the specificity of their ideological-thematic and structural-compositional organization is revealed. The only ballad "Song" is subjected to a detailed analysis, a genre characteristic is given, the degree of conformity of the work to the genre declared by the author is revealed. In general, the article examines the topics and problems, aesthetics and poetics of lyric and lyric-epic works: the main motives are revealed, the rich poetic language is studied, the characteristic of Utizhev’s individual author style is presented. The contribution of the poet to the evolution of national poetry is determined. A number of scientific methods were used in the work, among the main ones - analysis, description, as well as comparative-historical and hermeneutic methods. The results obtained can be helpful in studying the history of the Adyghe (Adyghean, Kabardian, Circassian, Circassian abroad) literatures, more generally – the literature of the peoples of the North Caucasus and the Russian Federation, as well as in the preparation of special courses and writing qualification and other types of research work.


2019 ◽  
Vol 70 (2) ◽  
pp. 125-144
Author(s):  
Lily Kahn ◽  
Riitta-Liisa Valijärvi

This study is a comparative analysis of the strategies employed in the translation of geographically specific flora and fauna terminology in the first complete Hebrew Bible translations into North Sámi (1895) and West Greenlandic (1900). These two contemporaneous translations lend themselves to fruitful comparison because both North Sámi and Greenlandic are spoken in the Arctic by indigenous communities that share a similar history of colonization by Lutheran Scandinavians. Despite this common background, our study reveals a striking difference in translation methods: the North Sámi translation exhibits a systematic foreignizing, formally equivalent approach using loan words from Scandinavian languages (e.g., šakkalak “jackals” from Norwegian sjakaler, granatæbel “pomegranate” from Norwegian granateple), whereas the Greenlandic translation typically creates descriptive neologisms (e.g., milakulâĸ “the spotted one” for “leopard”) or utilizes culturally specific domesticating, dynamically equivalent Arctic terms (e.g., kingmernarssuaĸ “big lingonberry” for “pomegranate”). The article assesses the reasons behind these different translation approaches.


Polar Record ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 289-302 ◽  
Author(s):  
Huw Lewis-Jones

ABSTRACTCommander John P. Cheyne, R.N. (1826–1902) is a forgotten figure in the history of nineteenth-century polar exploration. A veteran of three expeditions in search of the missing Franklin expedition, his retirement was atypical of the many naval officers who had served in the Arctic. Late in 1876, after the disappointing return of the British Arctic expedition under George Strong Nares, Cheyne first announced his grand plans to reach the North Pole by balloon. He embarked on a transatlantic lecture tour in an effort to raise funds. It was a novel proposal that captured public imagination, but also drew wide criticism, and sometimes ridicule. This paper draws upon a study of primary and secondary materials: original manuscripts and correspondence, British and American newspapers and the illustrated press, souvenirs, pamphlets, and periodical reviews. This is a neglected episode in the history of polar exploration and in the history of aeronautics more generally, and it is a story of naivety and optimism, bravado and speculation. This paper examines the prevailing currents of public opinion of the value of exploration in this period, the debates surrounding new techniques of polar travel, and the changing image of the explorer. Both aeronautical pioneer and itinerant showman, Cheyne was increasingly maligned as a charlatan and lunatic. He proved unable to realise his dream of polar flight.


2008 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 809-818 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter van der Veer

Theories of agency are central to any form of explanation or interpretation of human action in the social and behavioral sciences, including the study of history. In studies of religion, they appear to require even more reflection than usual, because of secular skepticism of religious understandings of agency, involving divine intervention or supra-human powers. The major problem with theories of agency is their immense range and complexity. They involve fundamental notions of emotions and intentions, of habits and social practice, of desire and passion, of passions and interests, of resistance and power, of freedom and un-freedom, of the distinction between subject and object, of interiority and exteriority. As such, they have complicated genealogies in different religious and philosophical traditions. Western philosophical traditions are among the many traditions that have wide-ranging theories about the self and agency and express them in a universalistic language.1 These universalistic claims are perhaps common, but the history of European expansion has implied a universalization of Western thought, so that despite its provincial origin Western thought informs both the understanding and the self-understanding of other societies. From the start, one of the tasks of anthropology and history has therefore been to critique universalistic assumptions about, for instance, agency, by examining other ways of life and traditions. Not only is universalism as such being questioned; the universalization of ideas is being critically analyzed.


2019 ◽  
pp. 1-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Poul Holm ◽  
Francis Ludlow ◽  
Cordula Scherer ◽  
Charles Travis ◽  
Bernard Allaire ◽  
...  

AbstractWe propose the concept of the “Fish Revolution” to demarcate the dramatic increase in North Atlantic fisheries after AD 1500, which led to a 15-fold increase of cod (Gadus morhua) catch volumes and likely a tripling of fish protein to the European market. We consider three key questions: (1) What were the environmental parameters of the Fish Revolution? (2) What were the globalising effects of the Fish Revolution? (3) What were the consequences of the Fish Revolution for fishing communities? While these questions would have been considered unknowable a decade or two ago, methodological developments in marine environmental history and historical ecology have moved information about both supply and demand into the realm of the discernible. Although much research remains to be done, we conclude that this was a major event in the history of resource extraction from the sea, mediated by forces of climate change and globalisation, and is likely to provide a fruitful agenda for future multidisciplinary research.


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