Collecting, curating and exhibiting cross-cultural material histories in a post-settler society

Curatopia ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 244-261
Author(s):  
Bronwyn Labrum
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Social History ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand ◽  
Majority Culture ◽  
History Of ◽  
Material History ◽  
Settler Society

This chapter considers social history in a post-colonial contest. It specifically examines how the history of the majority culture in a post-settler society has and might be curated. Using Aotearoa New Zealand as its case study, it considers the figure of the Pakeha (non-indigenous) curator in relation to, and also in contrast with, indigenous collections and displays. What does a history curator look like in a post-settler society? Does the history curator continue the mutual asymmetry that has characterised relations and curatorial endeavours? Or is there a way to recognise cross-cultural material histories? In considering the development of history, and specifically social history, it suggests that a more useful concept is material history, rather than historical material cultures studies. The rest of the chapter ranges across a broad range of material history, including fashion and clothing, and design, to consider how contemporary museums deal with everyday life and its material aspects in museums, which are still to a large extent focussed on discrete objects and forms of material culture, and which carry the burden of the historical development of their collections into a post-settler world.

Settler governmentality in Canada and the Algonquins of Barriere Lake

2012 ◽  
Vol 43 (5) ◽  
pp. 421-438 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Crosby ◽  
Jeffrey Monaghan
Keyword(s):  
Hot Spot ◽  
Security Threat ◽  
Governance System ◽  
Global Media ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Critical Security Studies ◽  
Indigenous Groups ◽  
History Of ◽  
Settler Society

In September 2009, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper declared to the global media that Canada had ‘no history of colonialism’. Such expressions of the post-colonial Canadian imaginary are common, despite Canada’s dubious legacy of settler colonialism. This article uses Canada’s Access to Information Act to examine how mechanisms of security are mobilized against members of the Algonquins of Barriere Lake (ABL), whose persistent calls for sovereign control of their land and customary governance system have been translated by Canadian authorities into a security threat to settler society. Contributing to the literature on postcolonialism, as well as works on critical security studies and colonial governmentality, this article suggests that distinct rationalities underline colonial activities in settler states. The authors contend that the term ‘settler governmentality’ is more appropriate for settler states such as Canada, and they present the case study of the ABL to argue that (in)security governance of indigenous groups in Canada incorporates techniques that are necessarily grounded in a logic of elimination. The authors detail how an analysis of the interventions in the traditional governance of the ABL contributes to understanding recent security trends regarding ‘Aboriginal extremism’ and indigenous ‘hot spot’ areas in Canada, which are often framed as matters of ‘national security’.

Jumbos and Jumping Devils

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nisha P R
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Cultural Studies ◽  
South Asia ◽  
Social History ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
The Social ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
History Of

Jumbos and Jumping Devils is an original and pioneering exploration of not only the social history of the subcontinent but also of performance and popular culture. The domain of analysis is entirely novel and opens up a bolder approach of laying a new field of historical enquiry of South Asia. Trawling through an extraordinary set of sources such as colonial and post-colonial records, newspaper reports, unpublished autobiographies, private papers, photographs, and oral interviews, the author brings out a fascinating account of the transnational landscape of physical cultures, human and animal performers, and the circus industry. This book should be of interest to a wide range of readers from history, sociology, anthropology, and cultural studies to analysts of history of performance and sports in the subcontinent.

Metal burial: Understanding caching behaviour and contact material culture in Australia's NE Kimberley

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-52
Author(s):  
Sam Harper ◽  
Ian Waina ◽  
Ambrose Chalarimeri ◽  
Sven Ouzman ◽  
Martin Porr ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Contact Material ◽  
Northern Australia ◽  
Assemblage Theory ◽  
Close Proximity ◽  
History Of ◽  
Human Burials

This paper explores identity and the recursive impacts of cross-cultural colonial encounters on individuals, cultural materials, and cultural practices in 20th-century northern Australia. We focus on an assemblage of cached metal objects and associated cultural materials that embody both Aboriginal tradition and innovation. These cultural materials were wrapped in paperbark and placed within a ring of stones, a bundling practice also seen in human burials in this region. This ‘cache' is located in close proximity to rockshelters with rich, superimposed Aboriginal rock art compositions. However, the cache shelter has no visible art, despite available wall space. The site shows the utilisation of metal objects as new raw materials that use traditional techniques to manufacture a ground edge metal axe and to sharpen metal rods into spears. We contextualise these objects and their hypothesised owner(s) within narratives of invasion/contact and the ensuing pastoral history of this region. Assemblage theory affords us an appropriate theoretical lens through which to bring people, places, objects, and time into conversation.

scholarly journals Another elderly lady to be knocked down: Heritage discourse and the protest to save the Missions to Seamen building, 1986

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Alexander Gordon
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
City Council ◽  
Historical Case Study ◽  
Historical Case ◽  
Considerable Difficulty ◽  
Documentary Sources ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand ◽  
History Of ◽  
Heritage Discourse

<p>Through a specific historical case study, Another Elderly Lady to be Knocked Down applies discourse theory and the Authorised Heritage Discourse (AHD) to the context of urban built heritage in Aotearoa New Zealand. Previously, only limited work had been done in this area. By examining an underexplored event this dissertation fills two gaps in present literature: the history of the event itself and identification of the heritage discourses in the country at the time. Examination of these discourses in context also allows conclusions about the use of the AHD in similar studies to be critically examined.  In 1986 the Missions to Seamen building in Wellington, New Zealand, was threatened with demolition by its government owners. In a remarkable display of popular sentiment, individuals, organisations, the Wellington City Council (WCC) and the New Zealand Historic Places Trust (NZHPT) worked together to oppose this unpopular decision. This protest was a seminal event in the history of heritage in New Zealand.  This study relies upon documentary sources, especially the archival records of the Historic Places Trust and the State Services Commission, who owned the building, to provide the history of this watershed moment in New Zealand’s preservation movement. The prevalent attitudes of different groups in Wellington are examined through the letters of protest they wrote at the time. When analysed in context, these discourses reveal the ways in which heritage was articulated and constructed.  The course of this dissertation has revealed the difficulty of identifying an AHD in this context. The level of collaboration between ‘official’ and ‘unofficial’ heritage perspectives, and the extent to which they shaped each other’s language, creates considerable difficulty in distinguishing between discreet discourses. To better explore the ways that heritage meaning is constructed and articulated, heritage must be recognised as a complex dynamic process.</p>

Lo sguardo del geografo: Massimo Quaini, l’archeologia, la storia

2021 ◽  
pp. 275-275
Author(s):  
Anna Maria Stagno ◽  
Vittorio Tigrino
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Social History ◽  
Local History ◽  
Population Geography ◽  
Study Centre ◽  
History Of

In this paper we discuss how Massimo Quaini, since the end of the 1960’s, dialogued (or did not) with the sister disciplines of historical geopgraphy: archaeology and social history. We reflect on the experimental path of Quaini “towards a new geographicity” and on the numerous meetings, separations, parallel and divergent routes which had place along it; focusing on Massimo’s experiences and acquaintances in Genoa, those of the Ligurian Study Centre on Deserted Villages and of the debates around population geography and history of material culture, and later those related to the Permanent Seminar on Local History and the long discussion around micro-history and its different outcomes.

scholarly journals BJHS special section: book history and the sciences Introduction

2000 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
JONATHAN R. TOPHAM
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Social History ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Book History ◽  
Special Section ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
History Of ◽  
Innovative Work ◽  
Culture Of Science ◽  
History Of Books

The expanding interest in book history over recent years has heralded the coming together of an interdisciplinary research community drawing scholars from a variety of literary, historical and cultural studies. Moreover, with a growing body of literature, the field is becoming increasingly visible on a wider scale, not least through the existence of the Society for the History of Authorship, Readership and Publishing (SHARP), with its newly founded journal Book History. Within the history of science, however, there remains not a little scepticism concerning the practical value of such an approach. It is often dismissed as an intellectual fad or as an enterprise which is illuminating but ultimately peripheral, rather than being valued as an approach which can offer major new insights within the field. This is no doubt in part because much of the most innovative work in history of science over recent years has been carried out by historians anxious to get away from an earlier overemphasis on printed sources. Eager to correct a profoundly unsocial history of ideas, usually rooted in texts, historians have looked increasingly to both the practices and the material culture of science. In such a context, a renewed focus on the history of books sometimes seems like a retrograde step, especially given the common misidentification of ‘books’ with ‘texts’. On the contrary, however, it is just such a twin emphasis on practices and material culture which also characterizes the new book history. Indeed, to the question ‘what is book history for?’ we might answer that its object is to reintroduce social actors, engaged in a variety of practices with respect to material objects, into a history in which books have too often been understood merely as disembodied texts, the meaning of which is defined by singular, uniquely creative authors, and is transparent to readers.

Segmented Possibilities: Migrant life Histories of Hindustani Workers in Post Colonial India

2020 ◽  
Vol 97 ◽  
pp. 134-158
Author(s):  
Camille Buat
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Life Histories ◽  
Spatial Configuration ◽  
Labour Force ◽  
Uttar Pradesh ◽  
Paper Mill ◽  
North India ◽  
Indian Society ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
History Of

AbstractStarting in the late 19 th century, workers from north India came to constitute the backbone of the urban and industrial labour force in Calcutta and neighboring mill municipalities. As they settled in and around the colonial metropolis, these Hindustani workers maintained strong connections with their rural homes. One generation after the other, they reproduced this dual settlement over the following decades. This bi-local structure of labour circulation, which linked village and city through the constant coming and going of men and women, progressively broke down from the late 20 th century onwards, following the closure of the large textile, engineering and paper industries which underpinned the economic vitality of the Calcutta region. The article sketches out the history of this socio-spatial configuration over the second half of the 20 th century, through the life histories of two migrant Hindustani workers. Born around 1940, Siraj Prajapati and Mohan Lal both spent the greater part of their working lives in Calcutta's industrial suburbs. Siraj, a potter by caste, was engaged in the artisanal production tea-cups in Howrah. Born into one of the most marginalized sections of north Indian society, Mohan managed to train as a mason, and was employed in the Titagarh Paper Mill through the 1960s and 70s. Both have now settled back in their respective villages of eastern Uttar Pradesh. Teasing out the contradictory ways in which both men frame their life trajectories, the article contributes a micro-perspective to the social history of rural-urban migration in post-colonial north India.

scholarly journals Introduction

2018 ◽  
Vol 71 (4) ◽  
pp. 1051-1057
Author(s):  
Michal Biran
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Family Relations ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
The Social ◽  
Scientific Exchange ◽  
Hebrew University ◽  
History Of ◽  
Mongol Empire ◽  
High Level

Abstract The Mongol empire (1206–1368) caused massive transformations in the composition and functioning of elites across Eurasia. While the Mongols themselves obviously became the new Eurasian elite, their small number as compared to the huge territory over which they ruled and their initial inexperience in administrating sedentary realms meant that many of their subjects also became part of the new multi-ethnic imperial elite. Mongol preferences, and the high level of mobility—both spatial and social—that accompanied Mongol conquests and rule, dramatically changed the characteristics of elites in both China and the Muslim world: While noble birth could be instrumental in improving one’s status, early surrender to Chinggis Khan; membership in the Mongol imperial guards (keshig); and especially, qualifications—such as excellence in warfare, administration, writing in Mongolian script or astronomy to name but a few—became the main ways to enter elite circles. The present volume translates and analyzes biographies of ten members of this new elite—from princes through generals, administrators, and vassal kings, to scientists and artists; including Mongols, Koreans, Chinese and Muslims—studied by researchers working at the project “Mobility, Empire and Cross Cultural Contacts in Mongol Eurasia” at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The annotated biographies assembled here not only add new primary sources—translated from Chinese, Persian and Arabic—to the study of the Mongol Empire. They also provide important insights into the social history of the period, illuminating issues such as acculturation (of both the Mongols and their subjects), Islamization, family relations, ethnicity, imperial administration, and scientific exchange.

Rethinking sovereignty with reference to history and anthropology

2009 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 315-330 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan Wachspress
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
The State ◽  
Historical Case ◽  
Sovereign State ◽  
Colonial State ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Political Sovereignty ◽  
History Of ◽  
Anthropological Literature

While legal practice and scholarship are driven by the use and understanding of complex legal terminology, there has been little effort to incorporate the humanistic scholarship of anthropologists and historians into theoretical or practical accounts of these words and their usages. This paper attempts to historicise and complicate a term that serves as a bridge or meeting point between the legal and the political; sovereignty has been conceptualised since the sixteenth century as both a framing device that produces unity within the state while establishing mutual equality within the interstate order, and as the capacity to make law without being subject to that law. Recent anthropological literature has challenged the personification implicit in political–theoretical definitions of sovereignty, arguing instead for a theory of sovereignty that can be applied to ‘complicated’, post-colonial contexts, where legal orders are plural or overlapping and the state is weak or non-existent. What such critiques cannot explain, however, is how the concept of the ‘sovereign state’ became so central to political discourse on a global scale. This paper draws upon legal historical case-studies concerned with the production of the colonial or post-colonial state or the deployment of ‘sovereignty’ as a justificatory concept in colonial settings. In doing so, this paper argues for understanding sovereignty both as a practice across time and space that organises legal institutions and as a justificatory strategy in the intellectual and social history of those institutions, an approach that allows scholars to draw upon the insights of political theorists, anthropologists and historians. While primarily intended to instigate a broader interdisciplinary conversation, this paper also suggests a preliminary conclusion: sovereignty has historically been deployed as a means of including that which cannot be considered the same, mediating the colonial tension between ‘otherness’ and legal homogeneity.

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