This thesis explores North Korea’s influential role in the liberation of Southern Africa. Specifically, it examines the question of how political elites in Southern Africa benefitted from North... Show moreThis thesis explores North Korea’s influential role in the liberation of Southern Africa. Specifically, it examines the question of how political elites in Southern Africa benefitted from North Korean support, from 1960 until 2020. The main argument of this book is that liberation (and not the Cold War) is the leitmotif for African–North Korean relations, as the transition from anticolonial struggles to postcolonial politics is characterised by continuity not change. This approach is based on three assumptions. First, political culture in Southern Africa transcends national boundaries, which is a legacy of the exile dimension of the struggle for liberation. Second, scholarship must shift its lens from states to regimes. Third, the standard periodisation of African history and the Cold War distorts a proper understanding of African–North Korean interactions. Show less
This paper focuses on the various roles the ancient road between Boulogne-sur-Mer and Cologne has played beyond Roman times. From the sixteenth century onward, the changing motives and goals for... Show moreThis paper focuses on the various roles the ancient road between Boulogne-sur-Mer and Cologne has played beyond Roman times. From the sixteenth century onward, the changing motives and goals for the preservation of this road ensured that it has served multiple purposes (nostalgia, transportation, legitimation, and tourism), often directly linked to regional or national interests of the territories or nations the road crosses. In these preservations, the Roman past was mostly perceived as the supreme civilisation shaping the identity of several groups and regions, although the trajectory of (parts of) the road most likely originated from Celtic times and also played an important role for Medieval trade. The paper concludes with recommendations for the ways the road could be preserved, conserved and explored in the future, addressing various groups of audiences and with a transregional focus. Show less
Collective identity can be altered by attacking culture’s tangible components (a temple) which are often a manifestation of or a support to their intangible (spiritual practice). That... Show moreCollective identity can be altered by attacking culture’s tangible components (a temple) which are often a manifestation of or a support to their intangible (spiritual practice). That identity can also be altered by attacking culture’s intangible in isolation (prohibition of spiritual practice). The research determines the extent to which international adjudicatory mechanisms have considered the causes, means and consequences of intentionally attacking culture’s tangible and intangible components. The research then brings their separate practice together. Based on treaty law, culture will be placed in a legal mould. Culture can be anthropical or natural, movable or immovable, secular or religious, tangible or intangible, regardless of terminology (cultural property, cultural heritage, intangible or tangible cultural heritage). Culture will then be placed in a judicial mould, in order to consider how natural and legal persons can invoke cultural damage in judicial proceedings. Culture is a legacy-oriented triptych made of local, national and international panels. While each panel makes sense in isolation, they are best understood when viewed together. State responsibility and individual criminal responsibility-based jurisdictions have accepted that attacking culture may be both tangible-centred and heritage-centred in terms of typology of damage. They have further recognised that the victims of such attacks can be natural persons as members of the collective or the collective as the sum of natural persons. But the victims can also be legal persons which may participate in judicial proceedings and seek reparations for harm sustained as a result of damage inflicted to their property (a museum’s building as well as its artefacts). Show less
One of the tasks of a national library is to collect and keep the national printed heritage of a specific country. In this article the author discusses how this is managed for early modern imprints... Show moreOne of the tasks of a national library is to collect and keep the national printed heritage of a specific country. In this article the author discusses how this is managed for early modern imprints (books up to 1801) in the KB ( National Library of The Netherlands. Through the acquisition of a very rare book – Humphrey Bland, Eene verhandeling over de militaire discipline (The Hague 1740) – she demonstrates how the Short-Title Catalogue Netherlands (STCN) and other national and international catalogues help to identify unique copies. These should be acquired to keep the Dutch printed heritage available for future generations.) Show less
The starting point for this study is that for a large part of their existence, the paintings belonging to this genre have primarily been seen as export articles without intrinsic artistic value.... Show moreThe starting point for this study is that for a large part of their existence, the paintings belonging to this genre have primarily been seen as export articles without intrinsic artistic value. This fact, and the fact that they cannot be unequivocally classified, explains why this genre has, for a long time, not received the attention it deserves. The label ‘exportware’, though, does not exclude that these paintings can also be approached as ‘art’. They have an historic, an artistic, and a material value, which, as a result of their representative and social functions, over time formed an artistic phenomenon in its own right, and a shared cultural visual repertoire with its own (Eurasian) character. In order to draw conclusions about the appreciation of the extensive and historically valuable eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Chinese export paintings in Dutch public collections, this multidisciplinary research follows the entire trajectory of this specific transcultural painting genre in sixteen museums, from the production two centuries ago to the current position. At work in this trajectory are mechanisms between people, institutions and the paintings, which increase or, indeed, diminish the appreciation of this time- and place-specific art. Show less
In contrast to a traditional ethno-archaeological approach, in which contemporary communities are mined for information that can be applied to the past, this study considers that the interpretation... Show moreIn contrast to a traditional ethno-archaeological approach, in which contemporary communities are mined for information that can be applied to the past, this study considers that the interpretation of Maya material culture belongs to the people whose identity has been formed within the natural and material environments of that area, and through the effects of cultural interactions and differences (such as the Spanish Conquest and modernity) alongside certain continuities. The aim of this investigation has been to make this study of the past relevant to the present, specifically to people in the Maya area. As such, the theoretical framework, alongside anthropological and archaeological research, looks to philosophies surrounding personhood and materiality that have been extracted from interviewees from the Maya community of Santa Elena, in Yucatan, Mexico. European and Maya theories have been used together to re-position the philosophies behind the investigation of what we call Maya __art.__ Show less
