Bridging Mental Boundaries in a Postcolonial Microcosm

Miles, William F. S.

doi:10.1515/9780824861681

Cited by 70 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…William Miles (1998) and Margaret Rodman (2001) have both commented that the squabbling between the British and French led to an ineffective colonial project. While I agree with their assessment, I want to suggest that there is another aspect of the Condominium's weakness that can be understood by looking at the role of documents.…”

Section: Enforcing Laws and M Odern Subjectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Effects of Elusive Knowledge

Widmer¹

2008

Journal of Legal Anthropology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In this article, I discuss two roles of documents in the creation and enforcement of public health laws in early colonial Vanuatu and their implication in colonial attempts to transform ni-Vanuatu societies and subjectivities. Colonial officials of the British-French Condominium based their projects on their admittedly partial knowledge in reports generated by experts studying depopulation. This knowledge, I argue, produced a ‘population’ by categorizing people according to their relationship with a reified notion of culture. The Condominium enforced health laws by sending letters to people categorized as Christian who would, the Condominium hoped, adhere to the regulations as self governing subjects. Officials would engage in persuasive conversations when they enforced the regulations in ‘bush’ villages. I conclude by reflecting on ni- Vanuatu knowledge of well-being and illness that could not be represented or documented and its centrality for subjectivities that might elude, if not subvert, the modern subject presumed by colonial strategies of governance.

show abstract

Section: Enforcing Laws and M Odern Subjectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Effects of Elusive Knowledge

Widmer¹

2008

Journal of Legal Anthropology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This system, frequently also known by the epithet 'Pacific Pandemonium,' comprised two commissioners, two residencies, two postal systems, and two languages, and encouraged two broad kinds of Christianity (Anglo-Protestant and Franco-Catholic). The only unity was to be found within a joint court in the capital of Port Vila in which disputes over thorny issues of land ownership were heard (see Miles 1998;Van Trease 1987). The archipelago was divided into districts, each managed by a French and a British District Agent in conjunction with indigenous "assessors" and some newly made "chiefs."…”

Section: P H O T O G R a P H I C A N A L O G I E Smentioning

confidence: 99%

Malakula: A Photographic Collection

Geismar

2006

Comp. Stud. Soc. Hist.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

During the year, the Museum has received from Dr. Haddon a gift of the first importance in the shape of his collection of several thousands of anthropological photographs, accumulated by him over a very long period and from every part of the world. In honour of Dr. Haddon's eightieth birthday these photographs had been put in order, prints made from the negatives, and the whole collection catalogued, uniformly mounted, and arranged in a cabinet specially made for them. .. The large number of photographs already in the Museum have now been incorporated in the collection, many hundreds have been added, chiefly by friends of Dr. Haddon, and it is hoped that the collection, which will be called the Haddon Photographic Collection, will steadily increase. It is already one of the most comprehensive in existence. 2 This paper starts inside a drawer. One of a series of custom-built wooden units, the solid drawer was initially made in 1935 to mark the eightieth birthday of Alfred Cort Haddon (1855-1940), an ethnologist who worked closely with what is now the Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (CUMAA) from 1892 to 1926. Whilst the Haddon Photographic Collection has continued to grow over the years, the form of Haddon's original Acknowledgments: The research for this paper was funded by the Getty Grant Project at the Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. I particularly thank Anita Herle for opening the photo archive doors and providing stimulating and knowledgeable discussion, guidance, and for her unwavering professional and personal support. I would like to thank the Museum for kind permission to reproduce the images from their collection here. Additional support during research was given by an Economic and Social Research Council postdoctoral fellowship and a CUMAA Crowther Beynon collections grant.

show abstract

“…The idea behind this article has been to try 'discerning the new mental boundaries that are gradually taking the place of the older ones'. 82 Much is changing as a second generation of negropolitains return to the islands and to Guyane from the French mainland, where unemployment, crime and racism are making their lives increasingly unattractive. 83 New drug habits have become localised, with the consumption of crack accounting for an estimated eighty per cent of muggings in the Antilles and Guyane.…”

Section: Trapped In Luxurymentioning

confidence: 99%

What is Freedom? Competing Notions of Rights & Responsibilities in the French Caribbean

Hintjens¹

2001

Itinerario

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

According to Frantz Fanon, decolonisation starts out as ‘a programme of complete disorder’. This idea is interestingly echoed in the Creole expression ‘ce on dezod ka me lod’, which translated means that through chaos comes order. In 1998–1999 Martinique lost 23,000 working days; strikers blockaded the ports of Pointe à Pitre in Guadeloupe and Fort de France in Martinique for several weeks at a time in 1998. Trade unions have built up membership levels of eighty to ninety per cent in hotels and in public administration. In this article we will be examining some of the consequences and causes of new forms of socio-economic action and political protest that have emerged in the French Caribbean since the end of the Cold War. For a long time, the French Caribbean was a haven of relative calm and prosperity in the Caribbean. The Dutch Antilles and Aruba and the British dependent territories (now renamed UK Overseas Territories) have also generally shared this good fortune. Today the relative prosperity of the non-sovereign territories is becoming more marked as independent Caribbean states slip into economic recession and growing poverty, so that their political systems and leaders face an endemic crisis of political legitimacy.

show abstract

Bridging Mental Boundaries in a Postcolonial Microcosm

Cited by 70 publications

References 0 publications

The Effects of Elusive Knowledge

The Effects of Elusive Knowledge

Malakula: A Photographic Collection

What is Freedom? Competing Notions of Rights & Responsibilities in the French Caribbean

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About