2,052 results on '"IMPERIALISM"'
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2. Response to Comments on Estate Origins of Democracy in Russia.
- Author
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Lankina, Tomila V.
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DEMOCRACY , *POSTCOMMUNISM , *MIDDLE class , *BOURGEOIS societies , *IMPERIALISM , *NATIONALISM , *SOCIAL mobility , *IDEOLOGY - Abstract
I would like to offer heartfelt thanks to Professors Stephen Hanson, Egor Lazarev, Bryn Rosenfeld, and Gulnaz Sharafutdinova for taking the time to read the book carefully and for offering their thoughtful comments and critique. I am also grateful to the editors of Nationalities Papers for providing a forum for and facilitating the symposium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2024
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3. On Political Tradition and Ideology: Russian Dimensions of Practical Zionism and Israeli Politics.
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Rabkin, Yakov and Yadgar, Yaacov
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ZIONISM , *IDEOLOGY , *POLITICAL science , *IMPERIALISM , *POLITICAL culture , *POLITICAL organizations - Abstract
This article concerns the endurance of political traditions brought to Palestine at the turn of the 20th century from the revolutionary milieu in Imperial Russia. The Russian Empire and its neighbors, which form most of today's Eastern Europe and large swaths of Central Europe, was the homeland of most early Zionist settlers. They had acquired experience in a range of clandestine political organizations in the Russian Empire. It is this revolutionary experience that constitutes the bedrock of Russian Zionists' influence on the political culture of the pre-state Palestine and Israel. Later, those who found themselves in Poland after Versailles became familiar with parliamentary rituals, even though the Polish state did not enjoy democracy for long. We suggest that this seemingly distant history continues to manifest itself in the political culture of contemporary Israel. We consider epistemology, tradition, ideology, and political action while looking at Israeli politics through the lens of its Russian roots. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2024
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4. When things fall apart: On the dialectics of hope and anger.
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Deumert, Ana
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DIALECTIC , *IMPERIALISM , *CAPITALIST societies , *SOCIOLINGUISTICS , *LANGUAGE & culture - Abstract
This article explores the dialectics of hope and anger as responses to what Lear (2006) called 'devastation', the colonial-capitalist destruction of the ontological groundings of life. Lear argues that 'radical hope' allows for 'survival' in such contexts, and his work has been influential. Yet, I want to be careful with relying on hope as a political affect. Hope is also a sociality-sanctioned emotion. Anger, by contrast, remains frowned upon and discouraged. However, anger can have liberatory potential: it constitutes a communicative act, articulating the urgent need for political change. I explore the semiotics of anger by considering the complex affective contours of a musical performance, 'Protest', created by Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach (1960). The expression of anger is reflexive and performative. It is a recognizable register as well as a politically passionate communicative act that resists its own foreclosure and that intersects with hope in complex ways. (Hope, anger, affect, music, negative dialectics, philosophical sociolinguistics) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2024
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5. Fascist transnationalism during the occupation of Albania (1939–43).
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Lang, Alexander
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FASCISTS , *TRANSNATIONALISM , *ALBANIANS , *SUBJECTIVITY , *FASCISM - Abstract
This article links the study of transnational and imperial fascism in the context of the Italian occupation of Albania by examining how Italian authorities sought to turn Albanians abroad into assets rather than liabilities. Organising and monitoring Albanians occurred through conferences, youth institutions and consular activities. Studying such concrete contacts and negotiations allows us to explore the practical issues latent in expanding fascist political subjectivity in transnational and imperial contexts. On the one hand, Italians hoped to verse Albanians in a fascist identity by using existing organisational strategies while silencing or converting potential anti-Italian critics. On the other, many Albanians expressed and offered support for these Italian efforts, though with reservations and conditions, raising questions as to what it meant to be an Albanian nationalist and/or fascist in the years of occupation. The Albanian case therefore contributes to our understanding of the tensions inherent in 'universalising' fascism for colonial subjects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2024
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6. Postcolonial Pessimisms and Alternative Spatial Practices: Critical Interpretation of the concept of the Third Space through the Case of Fatahillah Square, Indonesia.
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Park, Junyoung
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POSTCOLONIAL analysis , *POSTCOLONIALISM , *PESSIMISM , *IMPERIALISM , *FIELD research - Abstract
Spatial practice is at the core of postcolonial geography's response to the geography of colonialism. However, the methodology of postcolonial spatial practice is linked to pessimisms within the postcolonial debate. This study aims to overcome pessimisms of postcolonialism by analysing a case of postcolonial spatial practice through literature review, expert interview, and field study. The case under investigation is Fatahillah Square in Jakarta, which has been transformed through postcolonial spatial practices from a space that symbolised the tragedy of colonialism into one of culture and art. Here, the characteristics of Homi K. Bhabha's "third space" are apparent, but this case may also be interpreted as an extension of the concept. Through the hybrid and emancipatory plurality of its spatial practice, it refutes the pessimisms of postcolonialism and calls for further postcolonial practice and analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2024
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7. JRA volume 34 issue 4 Cover and Back matter.
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KINGS & rulers ,IMPERIALISM - Published
- 2024
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8. Ibn Khaldūn's reception in colonial South Asia.
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Syed, Baqar Hassan
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IMPERIALISM ,INTELLECTUALS ,NATIONALISM ,DESPOTISM - Abstract
Scholars commenting on the reception of the historian and theorist 'Abd al-Raḥmān Ibn Khaldūn (1332–1406) in modern South Asia have held that it was orientalists and Westernised intellectuals rather than indigenous intellectuals who popularised him in the region. Contesting these impressions, I argue that local intellectuals displayed their agency in using the historian's work to respond to various crises of colonial modernity. They read, translated, and appropriated Ibn Khaldūn to seek inspiration for modern Muslim nationalism, as validation for sectarian convictions and the rhetoric of Islamic reform, and to resist colonial and Hindu revivalist narratives of despotic Muslim rule in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2024
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9. The Greatest Name of God: ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib as a cosmic image in Rajab al-Bursī's Mashāriq al-anwār.
- Author
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Mansouri, Mohammad Amin
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ISLAMIC historiography ,IMPERIALISM ,TIMURID dynasty ,SAFAVID dynasty, Iran, 1501-1736 ,AUTHORITARIANISM - Abstract
ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib (d. 40/661)—a revered figure in Islamic history as both the first Shiʿi imam and the fourth caliph—serves as a significant image of sacral power in the Persianate world and beyond. ʿAlī's authority underwent a profound reimagining in the early modern era as he emerged as a captivating imperial emblem from the Timurid renaissance to the Safavid revolution, rivalling other prominent figures of political authority such as Chinggis Khan (d. 1227), and becoming a symbol of human perfection for both Sunni and Shiʿi intellectuals alike. ʿAlī transcended his role as a Shiʿi imam to assume the status of a cosmic figure, gradually becoming an ideal symbol for imperial branding. However, there is little scholarly knowledge and appreciation of his changing role in this period. This article examines how al-Ḥāfiẓ Rajab al-Bursī's (d. circa 814/1411) Mashāriq al-anwār , which has remained highly popular throughout the Persianate and Shiʿi world, contributed to the reshaping of ʿAlī's image, portraying him as the quintessential archetype of sacral power and unmatched authoritative feats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2024
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10. The Revolution of the Black Diamond Republic: Negotiating Socialism and Autonomy in the Jiu Valley, 1918-1919.
- Author
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Glont, Anca
- Subjects
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NATIONALISM , *IMPERIALISM , *SOCIAL movements , *REVOLUTIONS - Abstract
Scholars frequently portray the end of the Habsburg Monarchy as driven by nationalist revolutions in the provinces. The experience of the Jiu Valley, Transylvania's largest coal basin, demonstrates that nationalism was neither the only basis for revolution nor the most popular in all parts of the province. The multiethnic working class of Jiu embraced revolution as a response to state failures to provide basic services in a worsening wartime economy, even as state demand for coal rose. The miners created the Black Diamond Republic in October 1918 as Austro-Hungarian armies collapsed in an effort to actively negotiate their status after the war. The miners embraced revolution not as a bid for independence or ethnic secession but as a means to maintain local union power and negotiate the conditions of their inclusion in either Romania or Hungary. While "Romanian" and "Hungarian" councils were formed, such identities in Jiu were also linked to occupation (worker, peasant, or intellectual) rather than clear definitions of ethnicity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2024
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11. The Construction of 'Tribe' as a Socio-Political Unit in Global History.
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Leake, Elisabeth
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SOCIAL history , *WORLD history , *SOCIAL dynamics , *SOCIAL processes , *IMPERIALISM - Abstract
This article explores the construction of 'tribe' as a socio-political unit of global history, revealing an evolution of ideas and practices, both of which actively sought to limit, by co-opting, the opportunities and agency of Indigenous groups. The category of 'tribe' was, and is, co-constitutive of Euro-American empire. Euro-American empires created two interlinked dynamics in the social history of the 'tribe'. One was external, a process of categorization to facilitate and effect conquest and integration. The other was internal, a process of reimagining social relationships through which locals adapted to the threats and opportunities of empire. By mapping British approaches to ethnic Pashtuns and the state of Afghanistan onto imperial engagement with 'tribal' communities worldwide - and highlighting both similarities and differences with the North American examples more prominent in the existing literature - global patterns of 'tribalism', as defined by Euro-Americans, become apparent. The article illustrates some - but certainly not all - of the impacts of being labelled 'tribal' while demonstrating ways that areas and societies seemingly peripheral to each other became interconnected because of shared Euro-American terminology and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2024
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12. In Search of Hope: Reimagining the “Dark” in Latin American Marxian Ethnographies.
- Author
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Teófilo da Silva, Cristhian
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ANTHROPOLOGY , *COLONIES , *IMPERIALISM , *VIOLENCE , *SOCIAL injustice - Abstract
Marxian anthropology is a particular trend of “dark anthropology.” Michael Taussig has dedicated his work to understanding the connections of colonialism, capitalism, and local cultures under a Marxian-Benjaminian perspective. This article examines the meanings of hope and future concealed within Taussig’s “dark ethnographies” accomplished in Latin America. The purpose of this analysis is to echo Taussig’s concern to write efficiently against terror to acknowledge that even ethnographies of violence and social injustice can carry powerful cultural messages of hope. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2024
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13. Cuerpo, mestizaje y colonialidad: La alteridad de las mujeres trans en las muestras fotográficas Padre Patria y Vírgenes de la Puerta.
- Author
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del Águila Gracey, Rocío
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MISCEGENATION , *IMPERIALISM , *PHOTOGRAPHY exhibitions , *FEMININITY , *TRANS women - Abstract
Based on the photographic series Padre Patria (2014–2019) and Vírgenes de la Puerta (2014–2016), by Juan José Barboza-Gubo and Andrew Mroczek, this essay reflects on the identity of trans women in Peru from the perspective of sexuality, mestizaje, and the coloniality of power. Padre Patria offers a visual narrative of hate crimes against the LGBTI community in different parts of the country. Vírgenes de la Puerta proposes a new model of femininity through the appropriation of religious icons like the Virgin Mary. From decolonial, feminist, sexual diversity, and biopower theories, this work investigates the reformulation of the photographic portrait of trans women through Marian aesthetics and patriarchal violence. The political dimension of this photographic project seeks to render visible the experiences of trans women today [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2024
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14. Othello: A Moor Rorschach Test.
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Michels-Gualtieri, Akaela
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IMPERIALISM , *CRIME - Abstract
The evolution of the colour of Othello's skin-tone is a surprisingly accurate cultural barometer of attitudes towards race in the eyes of scholars. A significant portion of the critical literature is focused upon the Moor's complexion as one of the main variables within the play. Yet the fact that the script has itself become a variable, and not a constant, has been neglected. This text's transformation can be traced alongside the ratification of racial laws. In Jacobean England, Antebellum American, and Imperial Germany, audiences respectively experienced Othello committing divergent crimes, ranging from murder-suicide, to marriage, to simply existing. These countries' racial legislation coloured the various audience interpretations of the Moor. While Othello's actions were always the same, the public projected their own attributed meanings onto the play – a practice analogous to a living Rorschach test. This article explores the concept of using a metaphorical Rorschach test as a tool for the historicization of the many colours of Othello. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2024
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15. Introduction to Part 2 of the Themed Issue, 'Racism and Colonialism in Hegel's Philosophy': Common Objections and Questions for Future Research.
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James, Daniel and Knappik, Franz
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RACISM ,IMPERIALISM - Abstract
In the first part of our editorial introduction to the themed issue 'Racism and Colonialism in Hegel's Philosophy' we outlined its rationale and some of its main topics. Here we address some common objections against research of this kind and formulate questions for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2024
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16. Race and Colonialism in Hegel's Philosophy of Religion.
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Goggin, W. Ezekiel
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PHILOSOPHY of religion ,COLONIES ,RACISM ,IMPERIALISM ,MODERNITY - Abstract
Scholars have paid limited attention to the crucial relationship between Hegel's racism, his support for colonialism and his views on religion. This essay offers a critical reconstruction of how race and coloniality shape the question of religion (and vice versa) throughout Hegel's attempts to critique and ultimately vindicate European modernity. Paying special attention to the seminal role of 'fetishism' in his works, I argue that Hegel's intellectual concerns are racialized from the inception of his project. I conclude by suggesting an alternative philosophical approach to the concept of the 'fetish' and 'fetishism' to resist Hegel's racist and pro-colonial tendencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2024
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17. The Emergence of the Yuan Non-Han Ancestry in Late Qing North China.
- Author
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Iiyama, Tomoyasu
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ETHNIC groups , *INSCRIPTIONS , *MARTYRS , *IMPERIALISM , *CLASSIFICATION ,HAN dynasty, China, 202 B.C.-220 A.D. - Abstract
This study sheds light on the largely unknown trajectories of the emergence of Yuan non-Han ancestry in late Qing North China. Focusing on the case of a Yuan Mongol minister's enshrinement, the article argues that the commemoration of non-Han ancestries seems to have been aroused by the two-century-long imperial project of compiling the Gazetteers of the Great Qing Empire , over the course of which the state reiterated extensive surveys of local worthies, chaste women, and martyred loyal subjects, including those from previous dynasties. Importantly, the surveys coincided with the rise of epigraphic studies that featured exhaustive epigraphic fieldwork, which gave rise to the reinterpretation and replication of Yuan epigraphy, rendering Yuan steles one of the most adamant testimonies of ancestral claims. The ancestries classified during the Qing came to coexist with modern ethnic identities classified by the Ethnic Classification Project during the mid-twentieth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024
- Full Text
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18. Institutionalising global mining knowledge: the rise of engineering education in late Qing China, 1870–95.
- Author
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Chen, Hailian
- Subjects
MINERAL industries ,ENGINEERING education ,MINING engineers ,IMPERIALISM - Abstract
The history of mining education in late Qing China has received relatively little attention in scholarly literature. Through the lens of institutionalising global mining knowledge, this article addresses the following questions: How did the demand for expertise within the framework of mining bureaucracy evolve under the impact of Western imperialism? How did mining education enter scholarly discourse and become eventually institutionalised in the late Qing China? Drawing on evidence from the collections of Sheng Xuanhuai's archive series, it investigates two previously overlooked 'failures' of Sheng's mining-related enterprises, namely his earliest mining practices in Hubei in the 1870s and his proposal for establishing a mining school in Shandong in 1888–89. It then reconnects these efforts with the histories of Western learning, late Qing mining bureaucracy, the monetary crisis of that era, and the global recruitment of engineers despite a pronounced distrust of foreign expertise. It argues that these seemingly discrete efforts or 'failures' in fact paved the way for initiating China's first engineering university as well as other mining colleges in around 1895 and eventually led to the rise of engineering education before the entire educational system was transformed in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024
- Full Text
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19. Divergent tracks: Korean Government Railways' employment and training systems under Japanese colonial rule, 1910–45.
- Author
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Lim, Chaisung
- Subjects
EMPLOYMENT ,INDUSTRIAL relations ,IMPERIALISM ,WAGES - Abstract
This study employs annual reports, time-series statistics, and internal training records of the colonial-era Korean Government Railways (KGR) to conduct a quantitative analysis of its labour management practices. It addresses the colonial characteristics associated with Japanese techno-imperialism beyond ethnic discrimination, revealing a dual-pronged labour strategy that adopted a Japanese government employee system to manage middle- and upper-level personnel and directly recruited on-site workers for the lower echelons. This deviates from the low rates of local employment in Western colonies, particularly self-governing British territories or integrated French territories. In contrast, KGR's employment practices demonstrated economic and ethnic inequalities. It predominantly made Koreans on-site labourers, whereas Japanese not only held similar roles, but also occupied upper- and middle-management positions. Worker mobility, particularly among Japanese employees, grew following the outbreak of war between Japan and the USA, leading to the mass external recruitment of Koreans and the expansion of internal education to alleviate labour shortages. Nevertheless, preferential treatment toward Japanese individuals, which had been in relative decline for promotion, wages, and admission rates to training schools, ultimately persisted. Understanding KGR's employment structure shows how colonisation mediated Korea's modernisation and imposed technical limitations on the management of local labour. National technological decolonisation thus required Koreans to further introduce external technologies after the end of Japan's imperial reign. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2024
- Full Text
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20. Fiscal Transfers between Buenos Aires and the Viceregal Interior at the End of the Colonial Period: Fall of the Situado and the Relation with the Regional Royal Treasuries (1800–1810).
- Author
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Galarza, Antonio
- Subjects
- *
IMPERIALISM , *VICEROYALTY , *HACIENDAS , *PLANTATIONS - Abstract
This study reconstructs remittances from different regional haciendas to the main treasury of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, located in Buenos Aires, between 1800 and 1810. It estimates the extent and periodization of the decline of the situado of Potosí during the last colonial decade, determining whether the contributions from regional treasuries made up for it. It also estimates the impact of transfers on the regional treasuries. By drawing on the accounting books of various treasuries, the article identifies the main mechanisms that the Royal Treasury of Buenos Aires implemented to seize surplus resources of the viceroyalty’s interior haciendas at the end of the colonial period. The ability of the Royal Treasury to seize those surpluses was significant and implemented through various mechanisms of the ancien régime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024
- Full Text
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21. Establishing Colonial Rule in a Frontier Encomienda: Chile’s Copiapó Valley under Francisco de Aguirre and His Kin, 1549–1580.
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Garrido, Francisco and Figueroa, Erick
- Subjects
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IMPERIALISM , *NEGOTIATION , *CIVIL war , *INSURGENCY - Abstract
This article explores how Francisco de Aguirre used the Copiapó Valley encomienda to negotiate political power during the transition from conquest to colonial rule in northern Chile. Simultaneously, we analyze the circumstances of how a native society was incorporated into the Spanish Empire after a decade of fighting and resistance on the fringes of the empire. The strategic use of the fear of native rebellions to close the road from Peru to Chile gave Aguirre enough power to negotiate an important political position, which in the future would clash with the colonial authorities. Copiapó Valley’s peripheral location in the southernmost Atacama Desert constituted a political gray zone for the colonial administration. This space contributed to consolidating power for Aguirre and enabled locals some negotiation power within the possibilities afforded by the colonial system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024
- Full Text
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22. Turning points in leadership: Ship size in the Portuguese and Dutch merchant empires.
- Author
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Rei, Claudia
- Subjects
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MERCHANTS , *IMPERIALISM , *SIXTEENTH century , *SEVENTEENTH century , *SHIPS , *LEADERSHIP , *CONSUMER preferences - Abstract
This paper discusses the implications of organizational control on the race for technological leadership in merchant empires. I provide an illustrative framework in which poor organizations have reduced incentives to invest, which in turn stifle technology improvements making leaders lag new entrants. In the late sixteenth century, Portugal's large ships carried more merchandise and were more fitting of the monarch's grandiose preferences, but they also were more prone to disaster. The merchant-controlled Dutch East India Company however, invested in smaller but more seaworthy vessels conducting more voyages at a much lower loss rate. The surviving historical evidence shows Portugal relying on large ships well into the seventeenth century suggesting her technological edge was gone by the time the Dutch dominated the Indian Ocean. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024
- Full Text
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23. Imperial Violence, Law, and Compensation in the Age of Empire, 1919–1922.
- Author
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Dhillon, Hardeep
- Subjects
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MASSACRES , *VIOLENCE , *ASIAN history , *IMPERIALISM , *ATROCITIES , *EMINENT domain , *FREEDOM of expression ,BRITISH colonies - Abstract
The intricacies of modern compensation procedures that value human life, injury, and property are often overlooked, despite growing demands for reparations and justice following state violence. This article historicizes the legal structures of modern compensation, arguing that the advent of imperial rule was characterized not only by the extraction of material resources and labour, but also by the discriminatory construction and implementation of imperial law, which sought to protect European life, wealth, and property. By focusing on one of the most notorious episodes of violence in British imperial and modern South Asian history – the atrocities committed by British officials in Punjab (1919), including the Jallianwalla Bagh massacre – this article underscores how British officials penalized protests and freedom struggles by legalizing indemnities, taxes, and fines to compensate European families. In contrast, colonial officials grossly undervalued the claims and payments of Indian subjects killed or maimed during state violence, if they did at all. Furthermore, this article reveals how imperial state compensation, managed in relative privacy and buried in legal proceduralism, was rooted in legal structures of intersectional racialized inequality, and political concerns that valued the longevity of imperialism, rather than a meaningful gesture of justice and redress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024
- Full Text
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24. 'I am safer in Hong Kong': Transimperial entanglements in Filipino nationalist explorations.
- Author
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Chan, Catherine S.
- Subjects
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FILIPINOS , *ANTI-imperialist movements , *NATIONALISTS , *ASIANS , *IMPERIALISM - Abstract
Between 1907 and 1914, Filipino lawyer, journalist, and nationalist Vicente Sotto found in Hong Kong a sanctuary from the clutches of the Americans. The city also provided him with a space in which to explore alternative ideas for both his own development and the future of the Philippine Islands beyond the confines of pan-Asianism and anti-imperialism. Using Sotto's experience in Hong Kong as a point of access, this article demonstrates modern Asia's anti-imperial era as a product of transimperial 'connectivities' and 'ruptures' wherein new political affinities were forged between like-minded Asians, while interstitial imperial spaces between colony and metropole carved space for radical, yet nuanced and inconsistent, visions of national independence to materialize—at the expense of abutting empires. It serves to decentralize the role of empire, conflating instead the activities of local, colonial, and imperial actors as a singular experience that shaped modern Asia's revolutionary decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2024
- Full Text
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25. Four Theses on the Real and Imaginary British Empire, 1697–1829.
- Author
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Sherman, Alexander
- Subjects
- *
IMPERIALISM , *SHIPS , *REALITY ,BRITISH colonies - Abstract
The entanglement of colonial power's cultural and material manifestations has been an important topic in anticolonial thinking. I tentatively term this the problem of relating the imperial imaginary and imperial reality. This essay focuses on the imaginary and real geographies of the eighteenth-century British maritime empire, using digital methods (custom named entity recognition and mapping) to compare place-names mentioned in maritime fiction and nonfiction with the movements of British ships. In Edward Said's terms, structures of reference are used to see the structures of attitude underpinning the material power of an increasingly global empire. I present four theses on the convergences and divergences between the imaginary empire of texts and real empire of ships: on the centrality of England in both, a shared colonial geography of fungibility, the imaginary's erasure of environmental and bodily restraints, and the imaginary empire's anticipation of, and even preparation for, real imperial domination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
26. The View from the Future: Aurobindo Ghose's Anticolonial Darwinism.
- Author
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MARWAH, INDER S.
- Subjects
- *
BIOLOGICAL evolution , *EVOLUTIONARY theories , *POLITICAL science , *IMPERIALISM , *AUTONOMY & independence movements - Abstract
Darwinism and evolutionary theory have a bad track record in political theory, given their entanglements with fin-de-siècle militarist imperialisms, racialized hierarchies, and eugenic reformism. In colonial contexts, however, Darwinism had an entirely different afterlife as anticolonialists marshaled evolutionist frameworks to contest the parameters of colonial rule. This article exhumes just such an evolutionary anticolonialism in the political thought of Aurobindo Ghose, radical firebrand of the early Indian independence movement. I argue that Ghose drew on a nuanced reform Darwinism to criticize British imperialism and advance an alternative grounded in the Indian polity's mutualism. Evolutionism formed a conceptual ecosystem framing his understanding of progress—national, civilizational, and spiritual—and reformulating the temporal and conceptual coordinates of the liberal empire he resisted. The article thus exposes the constructiveness of anticolonial politics, the hybridity of South Asian intellectual history, and the surprising critical potential of Darwinism in colonial settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
27. JRA volume 34 issue 4 Cover and Front matter.
- Subjects
IMPERIALISM ,KINGS & rulers - Published
- 2024
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
28. Professors of racial medicine: imperialism and race in nineteenth-century United States medical schools.
- Author
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Willoughby, Christopher D. E.
- Subjects
MEDICAL schools ,MEDICAL sciences ,MEDICAL education ,HUMAN beings ,RACE - Abstract
This article examines some of the racist features of nineteenth-century medical school curricula in the United States and the imperial networks necessary to acquire the data and specimens that underpinned this part of medical education, which established hierarchies between human races and their relationship to the natural environment. It shows how, in a world increasingly linked by trade and colonialism, medical schools were founded in the United States and grew as the country developed its own imperial ambitions. Taking advantage of the global reach of empires, a number of medical professors in different states, such as Daniel Drake, Josiah Nott and John Collins Warren, who donated his anatomical collection to Harvard Medical School on his retirement in 1847, began to develop racial theories that naturalised slavery and emerging imperialism as part of their medical teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
29. Hegel, Colonialism and Postcolonial Hegelianism.
- Author
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Mascat, Jamila M. H.
- Subjects
IMPERIALISM - Abstract
This article aims to shed light on Hegel's conception of colonialism and its implications for the postcolonial reception of Hegel. Drawing on the abundant literature on the topic, it begins by engaging with Hegel's understanding of colonialism through a close reading of relevant passages of his works, in particular the Heidelberg Vorlesungen über Naturrecht und Staatswissenschaft (1817–18), the Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts (1821), the Vorlesungen über die Philosophie des Rechts (1819/20, 1821/22, 1822/23, 1824/25) and the Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte (1822/23, 1830). Having mapped and reconstructed Hegel's conception of colonialism through his writings and lectures, the article argues that his account of Europe's modern colonial expansion is based primarily on economic considerations, rather than on civilizational assumptions proclaiming the spiritual superiority of European peoples—to which Hegel nevertheless subscribes. The conclusion explores distinct and divergent postcolonial perspectives for engaging with the contemporary legacy of Hegelianism. It addresses, on the one hand, Tibebu's critical reading of Hegel's philosophical enterprise as 'the coldest rationalisation of genocidal murder and carnage' based on 'paradigmatic apartheid' and, on the other, Brennan's redemptive reading of Hegel, which values his theoretical contribution to the shaping of 20th century anticolonial thought. After contrasting these two interpretations, the article argues in favour of postcolonial strategies for critical reappropriation and sabotage of the legacy of Hegel's philosophy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
30. Neo-Imperial Cold War? Biafra's Franco-African Arms Triangle.
- Author
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Wyss, Marco
- Subjects
- *
CIVIL war , *MILITARY assistance , *SECESSION , *HISTORIOGRAPHY , *ZAMBIANS ,NIGERIAN Civil War, 1967-1970 - Abstract
During the Nigerian Civil War, France became the main supplier of military assistance to the secessionist Biafra. In a neo-imperial pursuit to weaken the potential regional hegemon Nigeria, it secretly provided arms and ammunition to the Biafrans in collusion with Côte d'Ivoire and Gabon. Yet the driving force behind this Franco-African arms triangle was not the Elysée, but the Ivorian president Félix Houphouët-Boigny. Newly unearthed documentary evidence from French archives enables this article to break new historiographical ground: firstly, to show the Elysée's sheer reluctance to militarily assist Biafra and lack of a coherent policy in doing so; secondly, to confirm Houphouët-Boigny as the "mastermind" behind the arming of Biafra, as well as to identify his Cold War motivations; thirdly, to uncover Gabonese president Omar Bongo's increasing agency and influence in the scheme; fourthly, to demonstrate that it was the Ivorian and Gabonese presidents who transformed the arms triangle into a square by bringing the Rhodesians and, especially, the South Africans in; and, finally, to retrace the emergence and functioning of the "African-French" military assistance to Biafra at the policy level not only from Paris's, but also Abidjan's and Libreville's perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
31. Unimaginable Community: Watchwords and Frelimo's Abandoned Nationalism in Independence-Era Mozambique.
- Author
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Allina, Eric
- Subjects
- *
NATIONALISM , *INTERNATIONAL relations , *IMPERIALISM , *MOZAMBICANS - Abstract
During its decade-long war (1964–74) against Portuguese colonialism, Frelimo developed a language to express the style in which it imagined the nation. On taking power in 1975, Frelimo used this language — its watchwords — to signal the shared identity it aimed to instill within Mozambique. Frelimo asked Mozambicans to live in the future tense: to turn away from familiar idioms of belonging and embrace a sense of self and other untethered to past or present. The misalignment between this vision and its reception is most evident at local levels of administrative action, where people at lower rungs of the state received Frelimo's watchwords and creatively applied them, transforming ideas into practices. Many Mozambicans were unable or unwilling to accept Frelimo's vision, and as civil war engulfed more of the country in the early 1980s, Frelimo abandoned this nationalism, exchanging it for an idea of national community people could more easily imagine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
32. Water and History in Southern Africa.
- Author
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Webster, Anjuli
- Subjects
- *
ORAL tradition , *EPIC poetry , *AFRICANS , *MANNERS & customs , *IMPERIALISM - Abstract
How has water shaped the history of a region that is bordered by ocean, brimming with ephemeral rivers, and yet prone to drought? This article explores water histories in Southern Africa over the past two hundred years. Using oral traditions, epic poetry, archival sources, and secondary anthropological and archaeological literature, I examine how Africans and Europeans related to, claimed, and used different bodies of water. In the first section I discuss how water was central to isiNguni conceptions of social and political life. In the second section I discuss how European empires used water to enclose and dispossess African land and to build hydropolitical colonial orders over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. I conclude by reflecting on afterlives of these water histories in the present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
33. A Song of Fallen Flowers : Miyazaki Tōten and the making of naniwabushi as a mode of popular dissent in transwar Japan, 1902–1909.
- Author
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Littler, Joel
- Subjects
- *
FOLK art , *URBAN poor , *POPULAR culture , *COMMUNITARIANISM , *IMPERIALISM , *NIHILISM - Abstract
The popular genre of sung and spoken performance— naniwabushi —was the biggest 'craze' during the first decade of the twentieth century in Japan. This article uncovers how Miyazaki Tōten (1870–1922), a revolutionary and thinker who became a naniwabushi balladeer, was instrumental in the rise of naniwabushi as a popular art form during the Russo-Japanese transwar period (1902–1909) and used it to engage in a practice of nihilist democracy. In using a transwar frame to examine the content, audiences, and contemporary reports of his performances, this article concludes that Miyazaki Tōten created 'new' naniwabushi to deliberately link the techniques and rhetoric of the Freedom and People's Rights Movement from the 1880s to the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905). He used naniwabushi to articulate his concepts of autonomous freedom, nihilism, and anarchist communitarianism in a time usually characterized by the heavy suppression of dissent. It counters the impression of the wholesale embrace of nationalism and support for Japanese imperialism and shows how Japan's urban poor engaged in political discourse through popular entertainment that was critical of Japanese imperialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
34. Traumatic Continuities: Interlocking Violences in Nelly Rosario’s Song of the Water Saints (2002).
- Author
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Flores, Nicolás Ramos
- Subjects
- *
COLLECTIVE memory , *IMPERIALISM , *HISTORICAL trauma - Abstract
This article examines the construction of a multifaceted collective memory through the main female protagonists in Song of the Water Saints (2002) by the Dominican American author Nelly Rosario. By bridging memory studies, Latin American studies, and Afro-Latinx studies, the book examines racial and gendered constructs, intergenerational struggles, US imperialism, and Rafael Trujillo’s dictatorship to show the interconnected nature of memorial articulations for subaltern subjects. Through a literary close reading, this article dissects the lives of three generations of female characters—Graciela, her daughter Mercedes, and Graciela’s great-granddaughter Leila—and how they challenge, reinforce, and suffer racialized, political, and gendered subjectivities. By examining intersectional and historical trauma simultaneously, this study contributes to the field of memory, Afro-Latinx, and Latin American studies by showing the muddled construct of memory for Dominicans and Dominican Americans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
35. Dispelling the Fantasy of Innocence: Complicity and the Cultivation of Transgression in Settler Colonial Contexts.
- Author
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Allard-Tremblay, Yann
- Subjects
- *
INNOCENCE (Psychology) , *TRANSGRESSION (Ethics) , *IMPERIALISM , *RESPONSIBILITY , *COLLECTIVE action - Abstract
This article critically engages with the Canadian framing of settler colonial/decolonial politics in terms of guilt and innocence. I argue that centring innocence, even as something to be snatched away from settlers, as with the theorization of settler moves to innocence, can corrupt the practice of moral responsibility. Furthermore, I argue that the desire for and expectation of innocence, in the face of structural injustices such as settler colonialism, are illusionary and that complicity is widespread. In contrast, I follow Iris Marion Young's focus on political responsibility, but I argue that public collective actions need not be as centred as she suggests. Given the nature of settler colonialism and of coloniality, I argue for the acknowledgment of the political significance of daily individual acts and for the cultivation of dispositions that disrupt unjust structures, such as a disposition to transgress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
36. Reverberations of Empire: How the Colonial Past Shapes the Present.
- Author
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Go, Julian
- Subjects
- *
HISTORY of colonies , *HISTORY of social sciences , *PERSISTENCE (Personality trait) , *IMPERIALISM , *EIGHTEENTH century , *ARCHAEOLOGICAL excavations , *HISTORY associations ,BRITISH colonies - Abstract
Modern colonialism from the eighteenth century onward encompassed most of the world's surface. Today, the world is different. In theory at least, nation-states rather than empires and colonies are the global norm. The sorts of colonial conquests that mark earlier centuries appear to have ended. But does this mean colonialism in the past is not relevant for the present? Scholarly and popular discussions allude to the idea that past colonialism impacts the present, using a variety of terms like "legacies," "imprints," "vestiges," "ruins," or "afterlives." Yet existing scholarship has yet to fully clarify and catalog the specific processes and mechanisms that connect colonial history with its putative legacies. This essay, based upon the 2022 Presidential Address to the Social Science History Association, identifies and discusses four such processes and mechanisms or "modes of reverberation": (1) continued colonialism through simple reproduction, (2) the persistence of power through formal and informal institutionalization, (3) path dependent historical trajectories (or "colonial institutionalism"), and (4) colonialism's archive of meaning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
37. CCC volume 57 issue 1 Cover and Front matter.
- Subjects
- *
EUROPEAN history , *GERMAN history , *IMPERIALISM - Published
- 2024
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
38. « Un container de papiers »: Citoyenneté et fabrique des apatrides dans les villages de colonisation du centre de la Côte d'Ivoire.
- Author
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Banégas, Richard and Cutolo, Armando
- Subjects
IMPERIALISM ,IVOIRIANS ,POLITICAL accountability ,POLITICAL doctrines ,CAESARISM - Abstract
Copyright of Annales: Histoire, Sciences Sociales is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
- Published
- 2024
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
39. Qu'est-ce que le Makhzen ?: Retour sur l'historiographie marocaine de l'État moderne (xvie-xixe siècles) depuis l'indépendance.
- Author
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Perrier, Antoine
- Subjects
MONARCHY ,EXECUTIVE power ,POLITICAL systems ,IMPERIALISM ,LIBERALISM - Abstract
Copyright of Annales: Histoire, Sciences Sociales is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
- Published
- 2024
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
40. Histoire des savoirs et relations de pouvoir: Les métamorphoses de la science administrative italienne (1875-1935).
- Author
-
Rapini, Andrea and Weill, Pierre-Édouard
- Subjects
ELECTIONS & international relations ,THEORY of knowledge ,LIBERALS ,LIBERALISM ,IMPERIALISM - Abstract
Copyright of Annales: Histoire, Sciences Sociales is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
- Published
- 2024
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
41. How 'Chinese Dynasties' Periodization Works with the 'Tribute System' and 'Sinicization' to Erase Diversity and Euphemize Colonialism in Historiography of China.
- Author
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Millward, James A.
- Subjects
- *
CLASS politics , *ELECTRONIC textbooks , *INTERNATIONAL relations , *DIPLOMATIC & consular service , *FOURTEENTH century , *IMPERIALISM , *HISTORIOGRAPHY , *INTERNATIONAL agencies - Abstract
The thirteenth edition of Robert Art and Robert Jervis's International politics: enduring concepts and contemporary issues (2017), a textbook used in the core International Relations class for MA students in the Georgetown Masters in Foreign Service and many other such courses, asserts the following: 'By the fourteenth century, these Sinicized states [China, Japan, and Korea] had evolved a set of international rules and institutions known as the "tribute system", with China clearly the hegemon and operating under the presumption of inequality, which resulted in a clear hierarchy and lasting peace.' This appears in a short article by David Kang, summarizing arguments from his books. It appears in a section titled 'The mitigation of anarchy', sandwiched between short pieces by Stephen M. Walt ('Balancing and bandwagoning'), Hans Morgenthau ('Diplomacy'), Stanley Hoffman ('International law'), and Robert Keohane ('International institutions'). This positioning suggests that while international relations in the West involves balancing, bandwagoning, law, and institutions, East Asia runs on the 'tribute system'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
42. Colonialism and Nationalism in Hong Kong: Towards True Decolonization.
- Author
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Tam, Gina Anne
- Subjects
- *
IMPERIALISM , *HONGKONGERS , *NATIONALISM , *DECOLONIZATION , *POLITICAL systems , *PUBLIC demonstrations ,BRITISH colonies - Abstract
In June of 2019, millions of Hong Kongers took to the streets. What began as a protest against an extradition bill quickly evolved into a broader movement to safeguard Hong Kong's autonomy from the People's Republic of China (PRC). Protesters pointed with increasing alarm to the fast disappearance of Hong Kong's distinct legal system, political system, and civic culture as well as the erosion of the borders, both physical and abstract, that separated the territory from the mainland. The 1997 handover was designed to safeguard Hong Kong's local autonomy after the end of British colonialism, these demonstrators claimed, and Beijing's government was threatening that promise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
43. Entertainment, Chinese Culture, and Late Colonialism in Hong Kong.
- Author
-
Pang, Allan T. F.
- Subjects
- *
IMPERIALISM , *COLONIAL administration , *CULTURAL activities , *PUBLIC support , *CULTURE - Abstract
This article argues that the late colonial government of Hong Kong shaped and reconstructed Chinese performances and festivities to secure public support, creating Chinese culture that was sui generis and historically produced. The disturbances of the 1960s prompted local officials to improve state–society communication and legitimize their rule. They utilized Hong Kong people's identification with Chinese culture to formulate their policies. Focusing on the Festival of Hong Kong, carnivals, Chinese opera shows, and the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra, this article shows that colonial administrators adopted policies that targeted people across generations and communities. They sought to cultivate a sense of belonging to Hong Kong by engaging both the older and younger generations in these cultural activities. Late colonialism became intertwined with notions of Chineseness in Hong Kong. Unlike colonial officials in other former British territories, those in Hong Kong went beyond British culture and focused on cultural elements that the people preferred. This cultural perspective, which has been underexplored, shows that late colonialism in Hong Kong not only made the colony's decolonization differ from other cases but also created diversified Chinese culture that was independent of the mainland China's and Taiwan's political discourses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
44. Racial Equality and Anticolonial Solidarity: Anténor Firmin's Global Haitian Liberalism.
- Author
-
HOLLEY, JARED
- Subjects
- *
ANTI-imperialist movements , *EQUALITY , *RACE relations , *LIBERALISM , *IMPERIALISM - Abstract
This article recovers Anténor Firmin's contribution to anticolonial political thought by excavating his liberal worldmaking project of global racial equality and anticolonial solidarity. I assess Firmin's contrast between "true" and "false" liberalism in Haiti, reconstructing his understanding of true Haitian liberalism as committed to the core ideas of historical progress, national regeneration, and rehabilitation of the Black race globally. I contextualize his Equality of the Human Races in metropolitan Paris during his first exile, arguing that his critique of anthropological racism should be seen as integral to his commitment to Haitian liberalism. I then situate his discussion of what he called "European Solidarity" in wider legitimating languages of French colonialism. This recovers Firmin's neglected critique of colonialism as a reciprocal system of economic exploitation and discursive domination, and his attempt to rescue the universal ideal of solidarity from its truncated expression in languages of racial inequality and practices of colonization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
45. Decolonizing African Mental Health Laws: A Case for Kenya.
- Author
-
Juma, Paul Ochieng and Ngwena, Charles
- Subjects
- *
MENTAL health laws , *LAW reports, digests, etc. , *IMPERIALISM ,CONVENTION on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities - Abstract
The aim of this article is to use a decolonial approach to interrogate Kenya's laws and policies that compel the admission and treatment of persons with psychosocial disabilities. Against the backdrop of the colonization of Africa, the article appraises the historical development of Kenyan mental health laws. It critically analyses domestic policies, legislation, court decisions and the Constitution as they apply to admission to healthcare facilities of persons with psychosocial disabilities and to the freedom to decide about treatment, in order to reveal the persistence of coloniality. It highlights gaps in the protection of equality, dignity and liberty. It also draws on pertinent provisions of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities as a juridical method for translating a decolonial agenda into a normative framework. Ultimately, the article proposes a framework for decolonizing Kenya's mental health laws and policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
46. Response to George Qiao's Review of Uncertainty in the Empire of Routine: The Administrative Revolution of the Eighteenth-Century Qing State.
- Author
-
Dykstra, Maura
- Subjects
- *
REVOLUTIONS , *FALSE claims , *IMPERIALISM , *EDUCATIONAL standards ,CHINESE history - Abstract
A review published in this journal claims that my first academic monograph, Uncertainty in the Empire of Routine: The Administrative Revolution of the Eighteenth-Century Qing State (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2022), fails to meet "basic academic standards" (George Zhijian Qiao, "Was There an Administrative Revolution? Review Essay on Maura Dykstra, Uncertainty in the Empire of Routine: The Administrative Revolution of the Eighteenth-Century Qing State ," Journal of Chinese History (2023), doi:10.1017/jch.2023.19). The reviewer makes this remarkable claim not by demonstrating any egregious or particularly damning fault, but rather with an argument of preponderance, claiming that the book contains "hundreds of errors" (2). The review also contains several dubious and disturbing arguments about what constitutes good history. The flaws of those larger methodological and historiographical assertions are serious and compelling enough that they must be treated at length, separately. In this, my initial response to the review, I will constrain myself to rebutting the reviewer's false claims that the book is full of errors and that I have committed academic malfeasance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
47. Was There an Administrative Revolution?
- Author
-
Qiao, George Zhijian
- Subjects
- *
CITATION networks , *BUREAUCRACY , *SCHOLARLY method , *INFORMATION resources management , *IMPERIALISM - Abstract
This essay takes a close look at Maura Dykstra's monograph Uncertainty in the Empire of Routine (Harvard Asia Center, 2022). It analyzes the book's multitude of problems, such as its flawed conception, numerous factual blunders, failure to engage existing scholarship, problematic choice of primary sources, and dubious citation practices. Most significantly, this essay aims to provide ample evidence to demonstrate how the book systematically misrepresents the majority of its primary sources to support an untenable thesis. It argues that the book's central claims are ungrounded in evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
48. The many swords of Shivaji: Searching for a weapon, finding a nation.
- Author
-
Halladay, Andrew
- Subjects
- *
SWORDS , *WEAPONS , *NINETEENTH century - Abstract
Since at least the nineteenth century, the Maratha warrior-king Shivaji (r. 1674–80) has served as a central symbol in Indian politics. This article interrogates his legacy through the lens of his famous sword, the Bhavani Talvar. At least three swords have been identified as this weapon since the nineteenth century; by analysing each of these claims in turn, I consider how the discourse around Shivaji's sword(s) traces the evolving legacy of Shivaji himself. Interested less in the historical merits of these claims than in the socio-political work they perform, I seek to uncover why the last of these three, now in London, has become essentially synonymous with the Bhavani Talvar in the popular sphere. Ultimately, I attribute this preference to the object's political resonance: supposedly given to the Prince of Wales by a descendant of Shivaji in 1875, the object has been a rallying cry for Indian politicians of diverse ideological persuasions, who, in demanding its return, have sought to position themselves as the heirs to Shivaji and the healers of a nation still ailing from colonial wounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
49. Find the river: Discovering the Tsangpo-Brahmaputra in the age of empire.
- Author
-
Simpson, Thomas
- Subjects
- *
GEOGRAPHICAL discoveries , *BODIES of water , *IMPERIALISM , *TWENTIETH century , *METAPHYSICAL cosmology , *BORDERLANDS , *TRANSBOUNDARY waters - Abstract
Despite the enormous size and economic and scientific significance of the Tsangpo-Brahmaputra River, questions of where and what it was generated successive waves of dispute from the mid-eighteenth to early twentieth centuries. Geographical discovery in the eastern Himalayan borderlands neither entailed the application of fixed theories and techniques, nor resulted from consistent flows of information along established channels. Europeans instead understood the region's rivers in many different ways, influenced by sporadic deluges of data, competing forms of expertise, shifting imperatives of colonial political economy, unsettling encounters with various bodies of water, and heterogeneous Asian knowledge structures. Informants, infrastructures, and cosmologies of often-overlooked communities at imperial margins fundamentally reshaped European knowledge. Under these conditions, practitioners of spatial sciences came to thrive on the proliferation of models and objects of discovery rather than seeking definitive closure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
50. Beyond conservation: Royal picnics at Elephanta and the legitimization of empire.
- Author
-
Mulgund, Deepti
- Subjects
- *
ROYAL weddings , *PICNICS , *STATE power , *POLITICAL communication , *CAVE paintings , *NINETEENTH century , *IMPERIALISM , *PILLAGE - Abstract
Histories of conservation suggest that from the nineteenth century onwards, the custodianship and conservation of colonial antiquities enabled European powers to legitimize imperial claims. This article complicates this view by focusing on a series of visits made by British royals to the Caves of Elephanta, near Bombay, as part of their tours of India. Of particular interest are the visits in 1870 and 1875, which were essentially picnics, including fireworks and feasting, with little showcasing of ongoing conservation efforts. The article argues that these early visits also sought to advance a narrative of imperial legitimization through the British heirs' presence at an Indian monument. Rather than acts of rational governance, such as conservation measures, these picnics were transactions within the ceremonial economy that privileged consumption as a means of legitimizing empire. They present a register of imperial engagement with an Indian monument that is neither 'plunder' nor 'preservation'. Instead, they are posited as predecessors of the durbars (courts/assemblies) produced by the British administration from 1877 onwards. As acts of imperial political communication, the Elephanta visits drew upon the popularity of the picnic as a form of leisure, and consumption, and the long-standing aesthetic resonances of the site, such as the island's picturesque framing and the Caves' Romanticist associations. These enduring aesthetic frameworks made the acts of consumption legible as imperial political communication. The picnics at Elephanta demonstrate that colonial antiquities featured in imperial narratives of legitimization based on political pageantry, exceeding conservation and rational governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
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