Suchergebnisse

'The Post Colonial Aura: Third World Criticism in the Age of Global Capitalism,' by Arif Dirlik, is reviewed.

In 1937–38 Barbados introduced old-age pensions for its poor, black population. This radical innovation – the first in a British colony – occurred in Barbados as part of a slow movement towards social (as well as political) reform, driven by a combination of reformist colonial officials and an emergent black political leadership against the opposition of the conservative white planter and merchant elite, in specific social and economic conditions. The proposed reforms predated not only the (Moyne) Royal Commission on the West Indies but also the riots that prompted its appointment. What the riots did was to strengthen the reformist coalition and weaken conservative opposition on Barbados. Old-age pensions were introduced in the face of reluctance in the Colonial Office. Imperial policy reform was not determined solely from London, but was sometimes driven from the colonial periphery.

In the past few decades, the social sciences have turned decidedly away from essentialist and reductionist ways of theorizing race and its articulations with nation and class. Though invaluable in advancing the social-scientific study and critique of race and racism, this turn has led many to conceptualize race increasingly as an empty signifier whose articulations with nation and class are wholly a matter of contingency This article suggests that we reengage the project of theorizing the insistent, historically recurrent articulations of race, nation, and class without falling into the old traps of essentialism, reductionism, and ahistoricism. Taking colonial Hawai`i as an example, this article analyzes how these categories articulated to racialize Japanese and Filipino migrant labor differentially in the age of empire.

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- A Note about the Terms ''Town Council,'' ''Stores,'' and ''Shops'' -- Chapter 1 The Colonial City by Definition and Origin -- Chapter 1 The Colonial City by Definition and Origin -- Chapter 3 The Colonial City Ordained and Structured -- Chapter 4 The Administration of the Colonial City -- Chapter 5 The City Visualized -- Chapter 6 The Urban Economy -- Chapter 7 Urban Society -- Chapter 8 Caste and Class in the Urban Context -- Chapter 9 The Urban Family -- Chapter 10 The Urban Dialogue -- Chapter 11 Conclusion: The Paradox -- Epilogue -- Appendix A Comparison of Key Elements in the Ordenanzas of 1573 and in Vitruvius -- Notes -- Glossary -- Index

What is the relationship between colonialism and culture? Jeff Bowersox answers this question by looking at how young Germans imagined the wider world around them during the age of high imperialism

In Canada as in other (post)colonial settings, courts have been facing the challenging task of redefining both substantive aboriginal legal rights and evidentiary rules that now look ethnocentric. Recent litigation has shown that while rights claims made by indigenous collectives are difficult to make and sustain in court, the newly revived doctrine of the Crown's inherent 'honour' can work for aboriginal peoples precisely because the Crown's honour is, as it were, self-acting. But the neo-medieval discourse of the Crown coexists, in the text of Canadian courts, with discursive practices that enact a contemporary, pluralistic, socially aware form of judicial anthropology. These two wholly conflicting representations of the Canadian state live happily side by side in current Canadian judicial discourse. This easy eclecticism stands in marked contrast to the difficulties and embarrassments experienced by aboriginal leaders testifying before judges. The close judicial scrutiny of aboriginal claims contrasts with the tolerance of major epistemological contradictions in the state's discourses about itself.

The American War of Independence (1775-1783) spelled crisis for the British West Indies. Trade embargos between rebelling and loyal territories, losses to American pirates and hostilities with other European states left the Crown's tropical Atlantic colonies short of the imported supplies that normally sustained their populations and commerce. Historians have studied the dynamics and consequences of these developments in considerable detail, at both regional and local scales, but have tended to focus on economic, social and political dimensions of the subject matter. Although some investigations have highlighted that climate variability compounded agricultural and subsistence problems in certain locations, the role of climate has rarely been subject to the same level of scrutiny. The present paper addresses this theme by focusing on the Lesser Antillean island of Antigua and the severe drought which gripped the colony during the war period. Through extensive analysis of original, largely unpublished archival sources, the implications of deficient rainfall for human livelihoods, fiscal stability and governmental crisis management are examined. By supplementing findings with evidence from other episodes of warfare which coincided with extreme climate phenomena in the late 1700s and early 1800s, it is argued that successive years of drought were pivotal in defining the severe human and economic losses sustained in Antigua during the American independence conflict. The critical agency of this weather event must, however, be understood as the product of its dynamic interaction with the precarious backdrop of a colonial regime under profound socio-economic and geopolitical stress.

"Why have the struggles of the African Diaspora so resonated with South Pacific people? How have Maori, Pasifika and Pakeha activists incorporated the ideologies of the African diaspora into their struggle against colonial rule and racism, and their pursuit of social justice? This book challenges predominant understandings of the historical linkages that make up the (post- )colonial world. The author goes beyond both the domination of the Atlantic viewpoint, and the correctives now being offered by South Pacific and Indian Ocean studies, to look at how the Atlantic ecumene is refracted in and has influenced the Pacific ecumene. The book is empirically rich, using extensive interviews, participation and archival work and focusing on the politics of Black Power and the Rastafari faith. It is also theoretically sophisticated, offering an innovative hermeneutical critique of post-colonial and subaltern studies. The Black Pacific is essential reading for students and scholars of Politics, International Relations, History and Anthropology interested in anti-colonial struggles, anti-racism and the quests for equality, justice, freedom and self-determination"--Back cover