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Writing
History into the Landscape: Space, Myth, and Ritual in Contemporary
Amazonia
Fernando Santos-Granero
Like
members of most nonliterate societies, the Yanesha preserve historical
memory through narrative and performative practices such as myths,
traditions, reminiscences, rituals, and body practices. Among
the Yanesha, however, these coalesce into a major inscribing practice,
that of "writing" history into the landscape. I contend that "topographic
writing" constitutes a protowriting system based on "topograms"--individual
elements of the landscape imbued with historical significance
through myth and ritual. When combined in sequential or nonsequential
ways, these elements behave as "topographs" (units of a longer
narrative). Through this mnemonic device the Yanesha have preserved
not only the memory of the mythical consecration of their traditional
territory, but also that of its despoliation and desecration in
more recent times. [history, myth, ritual, landscape, memory,
protowriting systems, Amazonia]
Greek
Cypriot Narratives of History and Collective Identity: Nationalism
as a Contested Process
Yiannis Papadakis
In
this article I consider the appeal of "grand" historical narratives
of nationalism by focusing on the ways in which history and identity
are contested in the context of Greek Cypriot society. I pay particular
attention to diverse expressions of nationalism formulated by
the state, political parties, and individual social actors. By
examining how nationalism is articulated on these different levels,
I propose an understanding of the dialectical process between
"above" and "below" that accounts for the appeal of specific constructions
of nationalism. I investigate this process by looking at how individual
social actors discuss the past in ways that blend elements of
personal, local, and national political history. Such an approach
provides an alternative to theories that hold that nationalism's
appeal lies in proposing a new kind of community as the local
community collapses under the dislocating impact of the forces
of modernity. In contrast, theories of nationalism phrased in
terms of broad cultural ontologies are problematic for explaining
the presence of multiple models of nationalism within a community,
and the ways in which nationalisms can be internally contested.
[nationalism, history, identity, narrative, Cyprus]
Translating
Truths: Nationalism, the Practice of Archaeology, and the Remaking
of Past and Present in Contemporary Jerusalem
Nadia Abu El-Haj
Focusing
on the practices of Israeli archaeology in Jerusalem's Old City
and the building of the new Jewish Quarter (post-1967), I situate
the work of archaeology within a wider network of institutions
and practices, arguing that once we recognize that archaeologists
produce tangible things, its potential power as knowledge and
as science may become more starkly apparent. By examining one
particular instance of scientific practice and its role in processes
of cultural production and spatial transformation, I hope to raise
questions more broadly about the best way to account for how
(scientific) knowledge actually helps to fabricate novel cultural
and political realities and to produce specific regimes of rule.
[archaeology, science, material culture, colonialism, nationalism,
Israel]
Articles
"This
is de Test": Festival and the Cultural Politics of Nation Building
in the British Virgin Islands
Colleen Ballerino Cohen
In
this discussion of an annual festival commemorating emancipation
in the British Virgin Islands I examine the interconnections among
concrete social and political structures and circumstances and
the contingent histories put into play in moves to constitute
a sense of national identity. By focusing on a competition between
bands from two neighboring but politically distinct islands, I
map a complex "national" identity that crosscuts local, regional,
and global affiliations. I also elucidate broader questions about
identity formation in a transnational context. [British Virgin
Islands, Caribbean, national identity, festival, transnationalism,
creolization, citizenship]
Carefully
on the Margins: Christian Palestinians in Haifa between Nation
and State
Amalia Saªar
Christian
Palestinians in Israel are a religious minority within a national
minority. Among the Palestinians of Haifa, however, they are a
majority and an elite. By examining practices of children's socialization,
I follow the ongoing process of boundary maintenance among Christian
Palestinians in the city of Haifa as they navigate among their
potentially conflictual affiliations with the Israeli state, the
Palestinian nation, and the Christian religious community. Christian
Palestinians vacillate between Christian ethnocentrism on the
one hand and Palestinian national identification on the other.
I argue that these seemingly contradictory attitudes and practices
are responses to and a utilization of the broader political economy
of Israeli Palestinians, which has itself been dynamic and even
contradictory. Furthermore, I argue that we can use the perspective
of such a group on the margins to highlight some of the conflictual
aspects of the broader nation-state system. [Palestinians in Israel,
Christian Palestinians, marginality, nation-state, oppositional
behavior, resistance]
Flagellation
and Fundamentalism: (Trans)Forming Meaning, Identity, and Gender
through Pakistani Women's Rituals of Mourning
Mary Elaine Hegland
In
addition to the expansion of their ritual involvement resulting
from the growth of religious transnationalism, Shi'a Muslim women
in Peshawar, Pakistan have increasingly faced restrictive ritual
constructions of femininity and fundamentalist ideology. In mourning
rituals they have encountered symbolic complexes that reinforce
men's role as repositories of holy power and succor and remind
them of their own unworthiness to shed blood on behalf of Imam
Husein and his cause. Because of binding ties to family, religious
group, and representatives of the sacred, the women have not been
inclined to protest overtly male authority and dogma. Rather than
denying or contradicting symbolic and verbal deprecations of femininity
outright, they have devoted themselves to the commemorative rites
for the Shi'a martyr, Imam Husein. They have used these rituals
to develop their own self-confidence, performance abilities, entertainment,
fame, and social support, disclosing through the performative
aspects of their ritual activity their agency and transformative
achievements. When we examine what individuals make of religion
and rituals in practice, self-flagellation and religious fundamentalism
may present potential for agency and individual creativity, together
with renewal of cultural and power structures. [gender, ritual
performance, Pakistan, Shi'a Muslims, the body, agency, fundamentalism,
religious transnationalism]
Coming
to Terms with Navajo Nádleehí: A Critique
of Berdache, "Gay," "Alternative Gender," and "Two-Spirit"
Carolyn Epple
In
this article I assess what premises underlie the categories berdache,
"alternate gender," "gay," and "two-spirit"; and whether these
premises are relevant to the ways in which many Navajos construct
the "alternate gender" of those known as nádleehí.
Proponents of these categories often extricate traits from their
contexts and perceive male and female as mutually opposed, absolute
values. Many Navajos, however, describe traits as inseparable
from the universe and view male and female as situational values.
[Native American, Navajo, gender, sexuality, worldview]
1996
AES Distinguished Lecture Series
Transnationalism,
Nationalism, Citizenship, and Property: Eastern Europe Since 1989
Katherine Verdery
The
formerly socialist societies of Eastern Europe and the Soviet
Union offer an unusual point of departure for considering the
mutual interaction of transnationalizing and localizing processes.
In this essay I explore these processes with respect to two topics--citizenship
and property--important in classic liberal paradigms, which writing
on transnationalism often challenges. New citizenship provisions
and privatization programs in the former socialist bloc have both
transnational causes and nationalizing consequences, for reasons
different from those encountered in literature on transnationalism
elsewhere. [transnationalism, national identity, citizenship,
property, socialism and postsocialism, Eastern Europe]
Transnationalism
in the Caribbean: Formal and Informal
Don Robotham
Comparing
the effects of transnationalism in Central Europe with its effects
in the English-speaking Caribbean reveals the unique features
of the Caribbean: it is an area that has for centuries been both
rooted in strong African ethnicities and deeply penetrated by
global capitalism. This means that while the task of global capitalism
in Central Europe is radical rupture, its task in the Caribbean
is one of realignment. Complex interrelations between international
and national economic forces are producing critical changes in
identity, class, and political orientation in the Caribbean. Despite
deep economic and cultural penetration and significant economic
and political shifts toward globalization, transnational symbols
have been appropriated by informal transnational activities and
popular culture to reinforce nationalism and to carve out a space
from which resistance can be maintained. [transnationalism, structural
adjustment, ethnic contract, class, culture, English-speaking
Caribbean]
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