Nature, colonial science and nation-building in twentieth-century Philippines

2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (4) ◽  
pp. 561-578
Author(s):  
Ruel V. Pagunsan
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Natural Environment ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
National Integration ◽  
National Science ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Colonial Science

This article examines colonial nature-making in twentieth century Philippines. It particularly looks into natural history investigations of the American-instituted Bureau of Science and the ways in which it created a discursive authority for understanding the Philippine natural environment. These biological investigations, the article argues, did not only structure the imperial construction of the colony's nature, but also provided a blueprint for imagining notions of national integration and identity. The article interrogates the link between colonial scientific projects and nation-building initiatives, emphasising the scripting of the archipelago's nature and the creation of a national science through biological spaces.

Michael Clegg (1933–1995): from naturalist to environmental correspondent in the multi-media age

2015 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 245-252 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. G. Moore
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Biodiversity Conservation ◽  
Environmental Issues ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Scientific Background ◽  
The Media ◽  
Multi Media

The coverage of natural history in British newspapers has evolved from a “Nature notes” format – usually a regular column submitted by a local amateur naturalist – to professional, larger-format, presentations by dedicated environmental correspondents. Not all such environmental correspondents, however, have natural-history expertise or even a scientific background. Yorkshire's Michael Clegg was a man who had a life-long love of nature wedded to a desire to communicate that passion. He moved from a secure position in the museum world (with a journalistic sideline) to become a freelance newspaper journalist and (subsequently) commentator on radio and television dealing with, and campaigning on, environmental issues full-time. As such, he exemplified the transition in how natural history coverage in the media evolved in the final decades of the twentieth century reflecting modern concerns about biodiversity, conservation, pollution and sustainable development.

Leroi-Gourhan and the Field of Ethnology

Paragraph ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 10-44
Author(s):  
Christopher Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Natural Environment ◽  
Human Sciences ◽  
Arctic Circle ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Language Technology ◽  
Formative Experience ◽  
Post War

The work of French ethnologist and prehistorian André Leroi-Gourhan (1911–86) represents an important episode in twentieth-century intellectual history. This essay follows the development of Leroi-Gourhan's relationship to the discipline of ethnology from his early work on Arctic Circle cultures to his post-war texts on the place of ethnology in the human sciences. It shows how in the pre-war period there is already a conscious attempt to articulate a more comprehensive form of ethnology including the facts of natural environment and material culture. The essay also indicates the biographical importance of Leroi-Gourhan's mission to Japan as a decisive and formative experience of ethnographic fieldwork, combining the learning of a language with extended immersion in a distinctive material and mental culture. Finally, it explores how in the post-war period Leroi-Gourhan's more explicit meta-commentaries on the scope of ethnology argue for an extension of the discipline's more traditional domains of study to include the relatively neglected areas of language, technology and aesthetics.

Two Centuries of Excavating Merovingian-Era Cemeteries In France

2020 ◽  
pp. 76-95
Author(s):  
Bonnie Effros
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Ethnic Identity ◽  
Central Place ◽  
State Funding ◽  
Formal Training ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Private Funding ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
The Creation

The excavation of Merovingian-period cemeteries in France began in earnest in the 1830s spurred by industrialization, the creation of many new antiquarian societies across the country, and French nationalism. However, the professionalization of the discipline of archaeology occurred slowly due to the lack of formal training in France, weak legal protections for antiquities, and insufficient state funding for archaeological endeavors. This chapter identifies the implications of the central place occupied by cemeterial excavations up until the mid-twentieth century and its impact on broader discussions in France of national origins and ethnic identity. In more recent years, with the creation of archaeological agencies such as Afan and Inrap, the central place once occupied by grave remains has been diminished. Rescue excavations and private funding for new structures have brought about a shift to other priorities and research questions, with both positive and negative consequences, though cemeteries remain an important source of evidence for our understanding of Merovingian society.

Hegel's Conception of the Study of Human Nature

1970 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 32-47
Author(s):  
H. B. Acton
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Dialectical Materialism ◽  
Philosophy Of History ◽  
Formal Logic ◽  
Human Society ◽  
Royal Family ◽  
Dialectical Method ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
The Creation

It is easy to understand why Hegel's philosophy should be little studied by English-speaking philosophers today. Those who at the beginning of the twentieth century initiated the movement we are now caught up in presented their earliest philosophical arguments as criticisms of the prevailing Anglo-Hegelian views. It may now be thought illiberal to take much interest in this perhaps excusably slaughtered royal family, and positively reactionary to hanker after the foreign dynasty from which it sometimes claimed descent. Hegel was a systematic philosopher with a scope hardly to be found today, and men who, as we say, wish to keep up with their subject may well be daunted at the idea of having to understand a way of looking at philosophy which they suspect would not repay them for their trouble anyway. Furthermore, since Hegel wrote, formal logic has advanced in ways he could not have foreseen, and has, it seems to many, destroyed the whole basis of his dialectical method. At the same time, the creation of a science of sociology, it is supposed, has rendered obsolete the philosophy of history for which Hegel was at one time admired. In countries where there are Marxist intellectuals, Hegel does get discussed as the inadvertent forerunner of historical and dialectical materialism. But in England, where there is no such need or presence, there do not seem to be any very strong ideological reasons for discussing him. In what follows I shall be asking you to direct your thoughts to certain forgotten far-off things which I hope you will find historically interesting even if you do not agree with me that they give important clues for an understanding of human nature and human society.

The sociocultural realm in relation to environment, biology, and history: Notes on Van Gennep and the emerging social sciences of his day

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 330-337
Author(s):  
Harvey E Goldberg
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Natural Environment ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Cultural Anthropology ◽  
American School ◽  
Broad Approach

Van Gennep’s research interests were located in the region where the fields of folklore, anthropology, sociology, and religion overlapped. His Rites de passage reflected a broad approach to ritual and social life that took into account the natural environment, biology, and history. This article scans his interests and emphases in relation to the American school of cultural anthropology that developed in the twentieth century. It assesses parallels and differences, and points to areas deserving further clarification such as Van Gennep’s understanding of language.

Incentivizing Safety and Discrimination: Employment Risks under Workmen’s Compensation in the Early Twentieth Century United States

2014 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-67
Author(s):  
Nate Holdren
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Employment Discrimination ◽  
Job Applicants ◽  
Insurance Companies ◽  
Point Of Entry ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Workplace Accidents ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Workmen's Compensation

This article takes criticisms of employment discrimination in the aftermath of the creation of workmen’s compensation legislation as a point of entry for arguing that compensation laws created new incentives for employment discrimination. Compensation laws turned the costs of employees’ workplace accidents into a risk that many employers sought to manage by screening job applicants in a manner analogous to how insurance companies screened policy applicants. While numerous critics blamed insurers for discrimination, I argue that the problem was lack of insurance. The less that companies pooled their compensation risks via insurance, the greater the incentives for employers to stop employing people they would have previously been willing to hire.

scholarly journals Vilnius memoryscape

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 248-280
Author(s):  
Irina Moore
Keyword(s):  
Collective Memory ◽  
Cultural Landscapes ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
Memory Formation ◽  
Power Relation ◽  
Historical Continuity ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Baltic

Abstract Through the lens of semiotic landscapes, I analyse here collective memory formation in the Baltic republic of Lithuania. A theoretical focus on power relation in “monumental politics”, the concept of memoryscape (Clack, 2011), Van Gennep’s 2004 sociological application of liminality, and a methodological approach that “treats space as a discursive as well as physical formation” (Jaworski & Thurlow, 2010) are combined to examine the process of monument destruction, creation, and alteration in post-Soviet Vilnius. I argue that cultural landscapes represent not only relationships of power within societies but are also used as a tool of nation-building and power legitimation. I highlight a fourfold process: (1) razing – monumental landscape cleansing; (2) raising – the return of memory via the creation of national historical continuity symbols and of new lieux de mémoire (Nora, 1996) and the memorization complex (Train, 2016); (3) polyphonic memorial narratives of empty spaces; and (4) the memory limbo helix or recursive memories.

scholarly journals Concepts of “nation-building” by F. Fukuyama and R. Cooper and their importance for modern practice of nation-building

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 118-122
Author(s):  
Evgeny A. Chibirkin ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Nation Building ◽  
National Integration ◽  
Foreign Experience ◽  
Francis Fukuyama

The process of nation-building in modern societies within the framework of national integration is considered in the article from different approaches and taking into consideration analysis and understanding of foreign experience. Special attention is paid to the concepts and views of Francis Fukuyama and Robert Cooper along with their importance for practice of nation-building. An inference is made that today these concepts and attempts to implement them in practice cannot be recognized as perfect and adequate to current challenges of internal and external origins.

scholarly journals Captain Vivian Hewitt and the fate of his collection of birds’ eggs and specimens

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 349-357
Author(s):  
David Clugston ◽  
Errol Fuller
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Middle Years

Vivian Hewitt was a little-known collector of natural history specimens (mainly birds and their eggs) during the early and middle years of the twentieth century. Although an obscure figure his influence on the museum world of his time – and later – was considerable and his collection of Great Auk material became almost legendary. Some of his story and that of his collection is a matter of published record but many elements remain obscure. In this study, we present previously unpublished details of Hewitt’s extraordinary life.

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