Somaliland: An African Struggle for Nationhood and International Recognition

This paper investigates the benefits of Chinese companies to the Ugandan economy using data gathered during fieldwork in Kampala. Potential contributions to the Ugandan economy are analysed through a number of economic and managerial factors, and their determinants. This paper shows that potential benefits vary on the basis of sector, investment size and ECCO registration. The potential harm caused by one sector in particular is indicated. The paper presents recommendations regarding how potential benefits can be maximised and harm reduced. Given the increased presence of Chinese enterprises in Africa, these findings are relevant to African policymakers and academics.     

The War with the Ottoman Empire: The Centenary History of Australia and the Great War Volume 2

The War with the Ottoman Empire: The Centenary History of Australia and the Great War Volume 2. By Jeffrey Grey (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2015), pp. x + 238. 16 Maps. AU$59.95 (cloth).     

The War with the Ottoman Empire: The Centenary History of Australia and the Great War,Volume 2

The War with the Ottoman Empire: The Centenary History of Australia and the Great War, Volume 2. By Jeffrey Grey (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2015), pp.x + 238. 16 Maps. AU$59.95 (cloth).     

想象的地方性神圣历史——菲律宾阿拉安人的神话观

本文探讨了菲律宾原住民族阿拉安人主位式的神话观。笔者通过五次参与式田野调查,深入民都洛岛山区,搜集当地阿拉安人"活形态"的洪水神话、创世神话,调查原住民的神灵信仰。本文首先介绍了阿拉安人及其神话的基本情况;然后从学术史的角度回溯了"神话观"在民俗学研究中所涉及到的理论和方法;接着重点论述了阿拉安人把神话视为想象的、地方性的历史,作为当地重要的、神圣的"地方性知识",进行朴素而真实的讲述;最终提出神话在阿拉安人中是作为地方性的、神圣的历史而存在的,是原住民理解世界起源、人类起源、本民族起源的世界观和历史观,是原住民"地方性知识"系统中不可缺失的核心内容。     

From Pariah State to Global Protagonist: Argentina and the Struggle for International Human Rights

Democratizing states began in the 1980s to hold individuals, including past heads of state, accountable for human rights violations. The 1984 Argentine truth commission report (Nunca Más) and the 1985 trials of the juntas helped to initiate this trend. Argentina also developed other justice‐seeking mechanisms, including the first groups of mothers and grandmothers of the disappeared, the first human rights forensic anthropology team, and the first truth trials. Argentines helped to define the very term forced disappearance and to develop regional and international instruments to end the practice. Argentina thus illustrates the potential for global human rights protagonism and diffusion of ideas from a country outside the wealthy North. This article surveys Argentina's innovations and proposes possible explanations, drawing on theoretical studies from transitional justice, social movements, and norms cascades in international relations.     

The Glass of Life: Medieval and Modern Stories on the Struggle to Gain and Maintain Honour

The drive to gain and maintain good reputation (honour, good name) in society functions as a primary core value in Middle Eastern and Asian societies. This phenomenon is best reflected in real-life stories. This article relates stories from the Persian world, selected from medieval Persian texts, as well as from twentieth- and twenty-first-century Iranian and Afghan short stories. While the modern story is written in a different context than the medieval epic poem or romance, the theme of gaining and maintaining the good name persists throughout. Medieval texts portray this all-encompassingstruggle in the life of the legendary heroic warrior, who models the struggle for protagonists in modern stories. For the protagonist, to have reputation means that society speaks well of them. A good name is to have a public name. But much more, the good name must include the larger family and one's tribe. It is the family name. Thirdly, the protagonist who seeks to gain and maintain a good name lives beyond themselves. Indeed, they gain a greater name. The stories are frequently laced with tragedy, as protagonists engage in what are considered to be dishonourable deeds in order to maintain their honour and good name.     

The Last Slave Market: Dr John Kirk and the Struggle to End the African Slave Trade

The climax of the battle of Kohima was in June 1944, 70 years ago. This article is about the part played in that victory by Ursula Graham Bower, an English woman subsequently honoured by the RSAA. She led a team of Naga tribesmen from North East India who acted as intelligence scouts, feeding the 14th Army with information about the Japanese, acting as guides for British units and providing a security network against spies. Graham Bower was effective because she had lived amongst the Nagas before the war and gained their trust. Inevitably she was glamourised in the media and hailed as the Jungle Queen or the Naga Queen, a Western beauty fighting against the Japanese. In reality, with the Nagas, she performed a intelligence role, not a fighting role, but it was a vital contribution to victory.     

The capacity to aspire: young persons and gender–age relations in southern Tajikistan and North India

ABSTRACT

Rather than studying young men's career- and/or economic-based aspirations, this article explores the obstacles that hinder youths of both sexes in gerontocratic southern Tajikistan and North India from developing the capacity to make their own life choices. Focusing mainly on the selection of marital partner and largely on women, I explore the narratives of those who have never even dreamed of a good life, of others who have dreamed but been unable to actualize their dreams, of a few who have started to plan the way forward, and of a tiny number who actually managed to achieve their aspirations, teasing out the influences that facilitate this. I suggest that even educated youths with some control over their public lives are constricted by their family relations and that it requires quite specific support to defy one’s family, which can create significant vulnerabilities in settings with no other safety net.     

From the Port of Ventspils to Great Courland Bay: The Couronian Colony on Tobago in Past and Present

In the seventeenth century, Duke Jakob Kettler of Courland embraced the mercantile theories of his age and engaged in overseas colonialism. After several aborted attempts, the Courlanders managed to establish a settlement on Tobago in 1654 only to lose it to the Dutch five years later. European competitors and indigenous resistance frustrated the Duke’s attempts to regain control over the colony. Despite its limited scope and success, the Couronian colonization of Tobago left a strong impact on the historical imagination. This paper aims to document the traces and remembrances of Duke Jakob’s Caribbean endeavor on Tobago as well as in Latvia.