Publications

Abstract

This article comprises an analysis of the practices used by British colonial troops in the suppression of the Boxer Uprising in China (1900-1901). It is argued that the suppression of the Boxers presents not only a colonial war, but also a broader international consensus related to extreme tactics; the rebellion was brutally suppressed by an eight-state international alliance, which included Britain. While Germany has been the focus of much research on the topic related to ‘uniquely’ violent practices, this article explores how British troops also took part in the worst aspects of this campaign and furthermore, that these practices were more than consistent with its approach across the British Empire. The ways in which military men experienced and learnt extreme violence across imperial spaces is also explored, and it points to colonial crossovers and a consensus of European conduct in colonial warfare. I will suggest key ways in which an ‘archive’ of mentalities, networks and practices of violence were transferred across and between different empires, including through an accepted practice of ‘small wars’ outside of Europe.

Abstract

This article analyzes the sociolinguistic construction of two gendered figures in multilingual performances, namely a category of young Mongol wives in rural societies who challenge patriarchal social order, and a group of young urban Mongol men whose dream is to be rich and indulge themselves in luxury. By drawing on the analytical framework of stance and stylization, the study analyzes how the performers’ multivalent stance-taking towards constructed personas and specific social-moral orders are communicated through their skillful stylization of multilingual resources in Inner Mongolia. It also points out that language stylization and stance-taking, taking place in reference to local cultural values and linguistic ideologies, are anchored in continually evolving ethnic, gender, and class relationships in a changing, minoritized Mongolian society in the context of Chinese modernization and capitalist marketization. (Stance-taking, language stylization, gendered discourses, Mongols, multilingualism)*

Abstract

The article examines how people within the Church of Sweden's leadership tried to solve 'the problem of vagrancy' in Sweden in the early twentieth century. In focus are the priest John Melander and the deacon Josef Flinth, who advocated and realized various activities for categories of poor and mobile men in the population. These interventions, defined as help-to-self-help, differentiated between the 'worthy' and the 'unworthy' needy. In publications and lectures, Melander and Flinth presented arguments to transfer 'unworthy' categories to the 'worthy', thereby expanding the community of value. This expansion was conditioned, however, by boundaries drawn regarding ideas on belonging and ethnicity. Working in the borderlands of the community as part of a Christian calling, Melander and Flinth contributed to the expansion of social work in the early twentieth century.

Abstract

As the Mongolian language is equated with ethnic survival in Inner Mongolia, the metadiscourse of Mongolian linguistic purism has become a vital tactic for enacting Mongolian identity and creating a counterspace against Chinese linguistic and cultural hegemony. This paper analyses: (1) the process of establishing iconized links between language, culture, land and race on the second order of indexicalities; (2) the orthographic representation of mixed Mongolian and “pure” Mongolian in the Mongolian social media space Bainu. The study illuminates the interdiscursive processes of presuming and constructing linguistic, cultural, and ethnic boundaries by subaltern groups in an assimilationist nation state.

Abstract

_{This article advances an interdisciplinary and multifactorial socio-cultural approach to the fascistization of the Ustaša in interwar Yugoslavia, leading to terrorism and racial cleansing. It concentrates on the life-trajectories of Mijo Babić and Zvonimir Pospišil, two nationalist activists notoriously known as the first Ustaša terrorists. Drawing on the previously unknown political memoirs of Pospišil and Babić, the article argues that the two activists bridged several phases of cumulative radicalization in the Ustaša organization, from the adop- tion of political violence at the grass-root level in the 1920s to international terrorism in the 1930s and then state-sponsored genocide in the first half of the 1940s. The article points out that Ustaša underwent most forms of political radicalization to terrorism identified by McCauley and Moskalenko (2008), but it also adds to their typology a case of radicalization to mass violence in the regime phase. Ustaša’s trajectory thus illustrates a rare process of transition from the radicalization of an oppositional, non-state group to mass radicaliza- tion leading to racial genocidal policies under a fascist-totalitarian regime. It is hoped that the biographical approach to radicalization advanced by the article contributes to a better understanding of politically motivated terrorism and mass violence in post-1918 Europe}

Abstract

This study examines the digital propaganda campaigns carried out by the Chinese Communist Party in Inner Mongolia following Mongols’ protest against the bilingual education reform in 2020. It analyses texts and images posted on WeChat official accounts of the Inner Mongolia Daily and Inner Mongolia Education Department. Through a detailed discourse and semiotic analyses of propaganda texts we reveal that the national unity and development discourses are replete with Han-centric assimilationist ideology. In our analysis, by drawing on a Bakhtinian chronotope, we foreground how the past, present and future are turned into a unified folkloric-cum-colonial space–time. This study also elucidates how the drastic policy shift and the re-articulation of national form in China is reflected in publicly circulated words and images in Inner Mongolia.

Abstract

Yizkor books are communal memorial books commemorating Jewish communities destroyed in the Holocaust, produced as a result of communal activity. This study analyses the production and function of Yizkor books. It answers questions regarding who produced them, why, when, where and in which languages and discusses the roles the books played, and the memory they produced in relation to Jewish, Iraeli and American memory culture.

This is the largest survey of Yizkor books to date, using more than 1,500 texts by Yizkor book publishers, editors and other important figures as primary sources, as well as thirty complete books, It provides new historical knowledge on the people who initiated and took part in the publication process, the kind of Holocaust memory produced, and how the composition of the editorial and publishing groups, , the languages of publication and the memory of the Holocaust contained in the books changed over time and place. The results are further developed and contextualized using theories on collective memory.

This research demonstrates that the publishers and editors of Yizkor books were a significantly more heterogeneous group than previously claimed. Four groups of publishers are identified: landsmanschaftn, other organizations, individuals without an organization around them and schoolchildren. A wide variety of editors are distinguished, from professional Yizkor book editors, to professionals in other fields and people with no relevant background in editing, who took it on themselves to complete this difficult task. The reasons for publication vary, but included personal and familial connections, the guilt felt by survivors and the urge to tell the world what had happened.

The study also analyses the intended functions of the books according to their authors. Most notably, the books were used as “places of memory”, as gravestones and memorial candles, and as a place to say the kaddish for the many victims whose time and place of death were unknown. In the context of the collective memory of the Holocaust, three main aspects are discussed: the significant place of the diaspora in the commemoration of the community, the prevalence of Zionism in the communities before the war and the idea of universal martyrdom for all victims of the Holocaust, regardless of the circumstances of their life and death.

Abstract

In the 1870s, William Smith Clark was a successful botanist and president of Massachusetts Agricultural College. Nevertheless, frustrated by university politics, financial difficulties, and perhaps a midlife crisis, Clark was recruited by the Japanese government to establish an agricultural college on the northeast Asian island of Hokkaido, where Japan had recently begun an ambitious settler colonial project. In this mutable context, Clark skilfully combined numerous masculine identities, including scientist, missionary, teacher, and explorer, to craft a flamboyant persona that won him lasting respect in Japan. Less suited to Massachusetts, Clark’s inflated persona destroyed his academic and scientific career after his return, however. This chapter explores the construction of personae in “home” and “abroad” contexts and the tensions and opportunities that emerge from travel between them.

Abstract

Scholars have recently begun advocating for the application of social movement theory in the analysis of the rise and development of fascist political entities. While representing a welcome effort to increase the theoretical depth in the analysis of fascism, the approach remains hampered by conceptual deficiencies. The author addresses some of these by the help of a critical discussion that problematises the often incoherent ways in which the concept of ‘movement’ is used when describing fascist political activity both within and across national borders. The analysis then turns to the application of social movement theory to the historical example of the Ustašas. While recent research on social movements has begun to explore the role and character of transnationalism, this case study analysis suggests that the lack of supra-national organisations during the period of ‘classic’ fascism prevented the emergence of a ‘transnational public space’ where fascist movements could have participated. The conclusion is that rather than acting and organising on a ‘transnational’ level, fascist entities appear to have limited themselves to state-based international ‘knowledge-transfer’ of a traditional type.

Abstract

I denna artikel beskrivs ursprunget till, blomstringstiden och de sista åren av Emigrantenselbsthilfe (ES), en självhjälpsorganisation för tyskspråkiga judiska emigranter, som hittills har försummats i den samtida historiska forskningen. Två av ES:s nyckelpersoner, Fritz Hollander och Wolfgang Steinitz, uppmärksammas särskilt, och orsakerna till att ES nästan "glömts bort" diskuteras.

Abstract

In this article, I examine how modern Sámi identity is described in the novels of Annica Wennström and Ann-Helén Laestadius. Both authors deal with female protagonists, who live in cities outside the traditional areas of Sápmi, but who as young adults become deeply interested in their family history. The narrators are relating a historyof denial in which everything that had to do with “Sáminess” should be silenced and forgotten as well as a story about young protagonists who try to reconstruct their individual identity in a modern and globalized world. The theoretical framework derives mainly from social psychology and gender studies. The relationship between modernity and the individual “self” has been analysed by Anthony Giddens who suggests that globalization has been linked with extensive consequences for the personal life on an individual level,and the self has become a reflexive project that each individual must construct and preserve.

Wennström’s and Laestadius’ novels are challenging the borders ofthe collective identity of their group. The novels speak for a widened and more open collective Sámi identity, which includes the Sámis living in urban environments, and even those who do not master the Sámi language. The protagonists are also very much aware of the changeability and conceptuality of self-identity, as they became aware of their own possibilities to create a reflexive and trustworthy self-narrative. Both authors are writing about protagonists whose self-identity is been processed in a profound,even distressing, way. In the end of the novels, the protagonists have acquired enough self-regard and integrity to maintain the feeling that their “self” is living and they can reflexively control it.

Abstract

This volume explores the relationship between political change and collective memory about traumatic historical events since 1989. Departing from an interdisciplinary theoretical perspective that bridges the divide between the humanities and social sciences, four empirical chapters provide in-depth analyses of the profound effect the changes that began with the fall of the socialist system in Eastern Europe have had on the way in which traumatic memories of the past have been dealt with during the last three decades.

By exploring case studies from Poland, Croatia, the United Kingdom and Chile, the contributions show how traumatic collective mem-ories have been used in state-sponsored memory production, for the purpose of national mobilisation and as a means by which to mobilise social movements. While focusing on different perspec-tives across time and space, the case studies thus highlight the con-nection between collective memory, identity and calls for justice on both societal and group levels. 

Abstract

This article aims to give an overview of Jewish archives and archival sources in Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. Besides describing significant existing collections, the article looks into ongoing archival projects, digitizing and infrastructure programs, and maps out future challenges.

Abstract

The analysis departs from a discussion about whether one should consider the Croatian Ustašas as fascist, or whether they in fact are best described as radical nationalist group, as was recently argued by Oleksandr Zaitsev in a comparison with the OUN. By combining Mathiesen’s theory of “the unfinished” with the key elements of “generic fascism”, the authors present a new model for the holistic analysis of fascist ideology over time. Following the in-depth theoretical discussion of the phenomenon of fascistisation, they use the Ustašas as an empirical case to elucidate how “abolitionist” movements and organisations keep part of their ideology “unfinished” in public until the acquisition of state power. During an initial “abolitionist” phase, fascists will focus their communication on those ideological elements of importance for the “dogmatic negation” of “the old system”. The ideological elements relevant for the “positive construction” will instead be merely “suggested” until the assumption of power.  We can find the reason behind such strategies in the statist and monistic tenets of fascist ideology, which views the acquisition of political power as an essential prerequisite for the achievement of profound political and societal change. By connecting the process of fascsistisation to the role of agency and state power, the new model also provides a basis for a more refined analysis of the emergence and development of fascist entities.

Abstract

This study examines the utilisation of extreme violence throughout the British Empire. The role of this violence in the colonisation process is considered in relation to the following three cases: the Perak War (1875–76); the ‘Hut Tax’ Revolt in Sierra Leone (1898–99) and the Anglo-Egyptian War of Reconquest in the Sudan (1896–99). Methods that were used include: looting; the use of collective reprisals on civilians and scorched earth policies; starvation tactics on the enemy as well as the wider population. The decision-making processes that led to atrocities being committed are explored, as well as the significance of individual colonial administrators in outbreaks of violence. The ways in which racial prejudices, the advocacy of a British ‘civilising mission’ and British racial ‘superiority’ informed colonial administrators’ decisions on the ground are considered.

This violence needs to be written back into British history. Moreover, this study argues that such brutalities are relevant within a wider context of European warfare and the genocidal violence of the first half of the twentieth century. Instances of British colonial violence are revealing regarding the dynamics of extreme violence. The book is divided into five sections: first it considers the place of colonial violence within the history of the British Empire; the three case studies follow; the final chapter provides an analysis of the cases studies’ findings and discusses its relevance for our understanding of both European and colonial violence, thereby placing British colonial violence within a wider framework of extreme European violence.

Abstract

The analysis departs from a discussion about whether one should consider the Croatian Ustašas as fascist, or whether they in fact are best described as radical nationalist group, as was recently argued by Oleksandr Zaitsev in a comparison with the OUN. By combining Mathiesen’s theory of “the unfinished” with the key elements of “generic fascism”, the authors present a new model for the holistic analysis of fascist ideology over time. Following the in-depth theoretical discussion of the phenomenon of fascistisation, they use the Ustašas as an empirical case to elucidate how “abolitionist” movements and organisations keep part of their ideology “unfinished” in public until the acquisition of state power. During an initial “abolitionist” phase, fascists will focus their communication on those ideological elements of importance for the “dogmatic negation” of “the old system”. The ideological elements relevant for the “positive construction” will instead be merely “suggested” until the assumption of power.  We can find the reason behind such strategies in the statist and monistic tenets of fascist ideology, which views the acquisition of political power as an essential prerequisite for the achievement of profound political and societal change. By connecting the process of fascsistisation to the role of agency and state power, the new model also provides a basis for a more refined analysis of the emergence and development of fascist entities.

Abstract

This book investigates the memory of the Holocaust in Sweden and concentrates on early initiatives to document and disseminate information about the genocide during the late 1940s until the early 1960s. As the first collection of testimonies and efforts to acknowledge the Holocaust contributed to historical research, judicial processes, public discussion, and commemorations in the universalistic Swedish welfare state, the chapters analyse how and in what ways the memory of the Holocaust began to take shape, showing the challenges and opportunities that were faced in addressing the traumatic experiences of a minority. In Sweden, the Jewish trauma could be linked to positive rescue actions instead of disturbing politics of collaboration, suggesting that the Holocaust memory was less controversial than in several European nations following the war. This book seeks to understand how and in what ways the memory of the Holocaust began to take shape in the developing Swedish welfare state and emphasises the role of transnational Jewish networks for the developing Holocaust memory in Sweden.

Abstract

This article addresses how (‘selective’) British memory has served to emphasize the extreme violence perpetrated by others at the expense of a critical examination of brutalities in ‘British history’. Not least, the genocidal violence perpetrated by (British) settler colonisers, as well as the extreme violence that was inherent throughout the systems of administrative colonialism. The ‘history wars’ in Australia have not penetrated ‘British history’. Assumptions are often based on British ‘exceptionalism’; an approach mirrored by British memorialisation and museum exhibitions, including Britain’s Holocaust Memorial Day and the Imperial War Museum. That the knowledge produced by scholars on the key linkages between Britain and extreme violence is not translating to the wider public, has been demonstrated through Brexit debates. The British Empire has loomed large in these discussions, on all levels of society, and politicians have been particularly willing to use ahistorical narratives to further their causes. The ongoing significance of empire to British national identity has also been demonstrated by recent polls on perceptions of the British Empire. National narratives are currently being confronted across Europe in the face of increased right-wing populism and anti-EU sentiments. In this context, thresholds are continuously being crossed. An example of ahistorical/selective narratives is the British foreign secretary’s comparison between the EU and a Soviet gulag. ‘Balance sheet’ approaches to the Empire in particular have served to continue narratives of British ‘exceptionalism’. This crisis or selectivity of memory has brought us to a crossroads. A responsible and critical assessment of Britain’s relationship with extreme violence is necessary; we must move beyond a patriotic approach (Drayton).

Abstract

This article uses the concept of social death to explore the experiences and motivations of perpetrators of honor killings in light of social psychological evidence. This analysis then seeks an explanation for some honor killing cases where ostracism or extreme social exclusion of the perpetrator has preceded the murder. I argue that in some honor killing cases, extreme rejection and exclusion may lead the individual to feel that he or she has no choice but to seek validation or approval through killing to be re-included and recognized by the community and family.

Abstract

This chapter deals with testimonies derived from legal processes and documents the creation of several bureaus for the provision of legal aid to Jewish refugees and survivors making claims against Germany, Poland and other countries between 1947 and 1950. Yet another bureau, The URO Bureau, was created in 1953 as a national branch of the international United Restitution Organisation to assist individuals who wanted to file claims for restitution in line with the German compensation laws of 1952. The files of these bureaus include both the applicants’ personal testimonies and the final accounts that were part of the applications, drafted in the more objective and detached style that is typical of legal testimonies. The author shows how claims for justice have influenced the narratives in these testimonies.