(Un)settling the Irish emigrant identity: representation and construction of an Irish emigrant/exile identity in the travel narratives of Kathleen Nevin and William Bulfin

Through an examination of the travel works of William Bulfin, Tales of the Pampas (1900) and Kathleen Nevin's You'll Never Go Back this paper considers the representation of the Irish in Argentina and the contribution of these narratives in the construction of identity and the reconstruction of the emigrant identity into an exilic one. Escaping one colonial framework (Britain/Ireland), travelling to and writing from within another postcolonial construct (Argentina and the Spanish Empire), this paper analyses how Bulfin and Nevin use language as a tool to construct, and even invent, an Irish identity. This identity is inextricably linked to home and the desire to return there. Despite this desire, Argentina becomes internalised to some extent, which in Bulfin can be seen in the mix of the Spanish, English and Irish languages in his stories, highlighting that the Irish were doing with language what they had already done with their lives; trying to adapt it to their new situation. In Nevin, the contrast between us and them (Irish and 'Native') demonstrates her attempts to shape an exilic rather than emigrant mentality. Through these texts I analyse how Argentina never quite becomes a new home, but a place where Irish identity is played out and acquires form.

Citizenship, belonging and attachment in the ‘war on terror’

The ‘war on terror’ has had an enormous impact on citizens’ legal rights and legal status. Using data from interviews with British Pakistani Kashmiri Muslims, this paper explores how the change to citizens’ legal rights and legal status in the ‘war on terror’, the legal dimension of citizenship, has impacted the psychological dimension of citizenship. Through denoting legal rights, equality and status the study revealed the powerful role of the state and the police in shaping citizens’ perceptions of the legal dimension of citizenship. The paper explores how changes to participants’ perceptions of their legal status and legal rights are instrumental in shaping the psychological dimension of citizenship—participants’ sense of loyalty, belonging and attachment to their British identity and their Islamic identity.

Religion and returns in Europe

Drawing on social identity and social impact theory, this paper is the first to investigate the impact of religious preferences on share prices and expected returns at the country level. Using data from 12 European countries, our findings suggest that religion has a significant effect on the share price of companies whose activities are considered unethical, i.e., tobacco manufacturers and alcohol producers. The share price of these companies (called sin stocks) is depressed when they are located in a predominantly Protestant environment (relative to a Catholic environment). With investors in Protestant countries being more sin averse than in Catholic countries, they insist upon higher expected returns on sin stocks. Conversely, religious preferences do not have the same impact on the performance of other companies, e.g. socially responsible companies. Our results are robust to various methodologies and controlling for several firm-specific, industry-specific and country-specific characteristics.

A Migrant Culture on Display: The French Migrant and French Gastronomy in London (19th – 21st centuries)

The large contemporary French migrant population – estimated by the French Consulate at around 300,000–400,000 in the UK, the majority living in London and the South-East – remains ‘absent’ from studies on migration, and, in a study of migrant food history in Britain, is considered not to have left traces as a migrant community. Over the centuries, the presence of various French communities in London has varied significantly as far as numbers are concerned, but what does not change is their simultaneous ‘visibility’ and ‘invisibility’ in accounts of the history of the capital: even when relatively ‘visible’ at certain historical moments, they still often remain hidden in its histories. At times the French in London are described as a ‘sober, well-behaved […] and law-abiding community’; at other times they ‘appeared as a foreign body in the city’. This article reflects on the dynamics at play between a migrant culture associated with high cultural capital (so much so that is often emulated by those who are not French) and the host culture perception of and relationship to it, in order to consider what this may ‘mean’ for the French (and Francophone) migrant experience. French gastronomy and culinary knowledge is taken as an example of material culture and of cultural capital ‘on display’ specifically in the activity of dining out, especially in French restaurants, or in those influenced by French gastronomy. The social activity of dining out is replete with displays of knowledge (linguistic, culinary), of cultural literacy, of modes of behaviour, of public identity, and of rituals strictly codified in both migrant and host cultures. Dining out is also an emotional and politically-charged activity, fraught with feelings of suspicion (what is in the food? what does the chef get up to in the kitchen?) and of anxieties and tensions concerning status, class and gender distinctions. This article considers the ways in which the migrant French citizen of London may be considered as occupying an ambiguous position at different times in history, simultaneously possessing cultural capital and needing to negotiate complex cultural encounters in the connections between identity and the symbolic status of food in food production, food purveying and food consumption.

Adulteration and Poor Quality of Ginkgo biloba Supplements

Adulteration of Ginkgo products sold as unregistered supplements within the very large market of Ginkgo products (reputedly £650 million annually) through the post-extraction addition of cheaper (e.g. buckwheat derived) rutin is suspected to allow sub-standard products to appear satisfactory to third parties, e.g. secondary buyers along the value chain or any regulatory authorities. This study was therefore carried out to identify products that did not conform to their label specification and may have been actively adulterated to enable access to the global markets. 500 MHz Bruker NMR spectroscopy instrumentation combined with Topspin version 3.2 and a CAMAG HPTLC system (HPTLC Association for the analysis of Ginkgo biloba leaf) were used to generate NMR spectra (focusing on the 6–8 ppm region for analysis) and chromatograms, respectively. Out of the 35 samples of Ginkgo biloba analysed, 33 were found to contain elevated levels of rutin and/or quercetin, or low levels of Ginkgo metabolites when compared with the reference samples. Samples with disproportional levels of rutin or quercetin compared with other gingko metabolites are likely to be adulterated, either by accident or intentionally, and those samples with low or non-existent gingko metabolite content may have been produced using poor extraction techniques. Only two of the investigated samples were found to match with the High-Performance Thin-Layer Chromatography (HPTLC) fingerprint of the selected reference material. All others deviated significantly. One product contained a 5-hydroxytryptophan derivative, which is not a natural constituent of Ginkgo biloba. Overall, these examples either suggest a poor extraction technique or deliberate adulteration along the value chain. Investigating the ratio of different flavonoids e.g. quercetin and kaempferol using NMR spectroscopy and HPTLC will provide further evidence as to the degree and kind of adulteration of Gingko supplements. From a consumer perspective the equivalence in identity and overall quality of the products needs to be guaranteed for supplements too and not only for products produced according to a quality standard or pharmacopoeial monograph.

Masculinities and Narrating the Past: Experiences of Researching White men who Refused to Serve in the Apartheid Army

This article reflexively analyses the construction of identity and the representation of the past in qualitative interviews with white men who refused to serve in the apartheid-era South African Defence Force (SADF). The contribution that white male objectors made to the anti-apartheid struggle occupies an ambivalent and increasingly forgotten aspect of South African liberation history. In a reflexive research story, I argue that the gendered, sexual and raced subjectivities of the researcher and researched are central to the joint construction of meaning in the interview and in the creation of self-narratives. The article also analyses how the narratives of white men's involvement in resisting apartheid are defined by their perceived position and wider power struggles in contemporary South Africa.

Race, Debt and the Welfare State

In this article I explore how the figure of debt illuminates the racial politics of welfare in neoliberal Britain. I begin by giving a reading of the simultaneous unfolding of post-war race politics and the Beveridgean welfare state, and then turn to consider the interpellative appeal of neoliberal debt to minoritiSed subjects who have, in certain respects, been de facto excluded from prevailing models of welfare citizenship. In particular, this article considers the ways in which household debt might, even as it increases social inequality, simultaneously produce ideas about equality and futurity, as well as gesture towards the possibility of post-national forms of identity and belonging. If we are to challenge the lowest-common-denominator logics of ‘capitalist realism’ it is necessary to develop orientations to the economic that are as convincing as the popular stories that circulate about the operations of the neoliberal marketplace, and which are as meaningful as the social relations they play a part in constituting. Rather than reproduce the racialized model of welfare citizenship that is implicit to the ‘defence’ of the postwar welfare state, I suggest that there are elements of prevailing neoliberal market relations that might themselves serve as a more substantial basis for expressions of racial equality. There is, in other words, something that we can learn from neoliberal debt regimes in order to develop a more egalitarian future-oriented politics of social welfare and economic redistribution.

Nagaland: Borders, Boundaries, Belonging: Contested spaces and disputed narratives

In 2011 I travelled to three of the ‘Seven Sister’ states of old Assam, Nagaland, Meghalaya & Assam. My journey to this remote and politically sensitive region, bordering Chinese occupied Tibet, Bangladesh and Myanmar was prompted by my father’s experiences in the region during WW2 in the Burma Campaign and brought into sharp relief on-going themes in my work, the impact the past has on the present, the relationship of time and place, identity and memory and the transcultural experiences caused by war, colonisation and migration. The drawings I made on location, the objects I collected and the notes and photographs I took formed the basis of the bookwork: NAGALAND borders boundaries belonging. When making the finished work the material quality of the object and the processes by which it was made become very important. The historical resonance of the medium and the time consuming nature of the process reflect the embedding of form and idea, and paid homage to the material culture of the Naga hill tribes. The bookwork was hand-bound, handset and printed by letterpress. Some spreads were printed in 6 colours and the book took over a year to produce. I see my practice as echoing that of generations of Lady travellers; embracing the need to journey, be in a liminal space, to have a plan but not be afraid to divert from it. To be alone, take a sketchbook and make images is, for me, the definition of the itinerant illustrator; one who travels widely in geographic space, visual forms and ideas, in order to get lost and find the unlooked for.

The Location of Cultural Authenticity: Identifying the Real and the Fake in Urban Guizhou

This article examines notions of cultural identity and authenticity and how these notions are articulated in the small city of Kaili in Guizhou Province, an ethnically diverse region. Despite its urban status, Kaili has been branded by the local government as a yuanshengtai tourist destination. This Chinese term literally translates as “original ecology” but is used in ordinary conversation to denote a cultural authenticity in which people exist in quiet harmony with nature. Promotional literature uses the term to tout the ethnic cultural practices that mainly occur in the villages of Kaili’s municipal periphery. In contrast, many local urban inhabitants—although amenable to the promotion of Kaili as a tourist destination—have rejected the notion that the city itself could be considered culturally authentic, and proudly declare themselves “fake” ethnic minorities, as against the “genuine” ethnic people of surrounding villages. These small-city inhabitants have also defined themselves against big-city visitors by attributing to the visitors a naïve fascination with cultural authenticity, while themselves remaining aloof from such practices. The cultural authenticity discourse in Kaili has thus facilitated a reordering of social and spatial hierarchies, as blasé small-city residents define themselves against both culturally authentic rural people and authenticity-seeking big-city tourists. In analyzing this, the article draws out the broader implications regarding PRC notions of ethnicity, cultural practices, heritage, and identity.