Mexican Conservatives, Clericals, and Soldiers: the 'Traitor' Tomás Mejía through Reform and Empire, 1855–1867

General Tomás Mejía (1820–67) became a leading Mexican opponent of the Liberal Reform Movement in the mid-nineteenth century. Originating from the Querétaro Sierra Gorda, where for twenty years he had a strong power base, he took his stand in defence of the Catholic religion. A devotee of the local cult of the Virgin of the Pueblito, Mejía cooperated first with the Conservative Party and subsequently with the Second Mexican Empire (1862–67). Beween 1864 and 1866, he became the Empire's principal military commander. Juárez had him shot, along with Maximilian, when the Empire fell. Triumphant Liberals blotted out his name from the history of the nineteenth century. Mejía defended an alternative, Catholic vision of Mexico to the Liberal secular state and its Revolutionary successor.     

Dueños,Duendes, Bichos: Non‐Human Agents and the Politics of Place‐Making in a Bolivian Guaraní Community

The article looks at the interactions between the inhabitants of a community of Guaraní people in the Bolivian eastern lowlands and spirit entities found in the forest that forms part of the community's lands. Understanding these interactions as a form of intra‐communal politics, the article engages with the issue of landownership as an ongoing process of negotiation between two different sets of owners. This presents a vision of the political relations between people and spirit beings that is opposed to the currently dominant ontological vision which would put these distinct entities into defined (apolitical) places within a unified cosmovision.     

The Department of External Affairs, the ABC & Reporting of the Indonesian Crisis 1965–1969

The Department of External Affairs took a keen interest in the manner in which Radio Australia reported events in Indonesia throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Radio Australia's high signal strength gave it a massive listening audience in the region. The attempted coup in Indonesia of 1965, its immediate aftermath, and the protracted power struggle that followed, triggered a period of cooperation and conflict between the Department and the Australian Broadcasting Commission over Radio Australia's reporting of events in Indonesia. During this time the Department received and acted upon advice from the Australian ambassador to Indonesia, Keith Shann, and, via Shann, received advice from the Indonesian Army on how it wanted the situation in Indonesia reported. This period is characterised by the Department's efforts to take over Radio Australia, and by cooperation between major western powers to coordinate information policy towards Indonesia. The Department also attempted to influence reporting of events in Indonesia by the Australian press and succeeded in convincing newspaper editors to report and editorialise in a manner sensitive to the Department's concerns.