Talk to Gully about matters to do with culture, history, 'theory', etc
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  Talk to Gully about matters to do with culture, history, 'theory', etc
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Author Topic: Talk to Gully about matters to do with culture, history, 'theory', etc  (Read 3212 times)
Tetro Kornbluth
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« on: July 15, 2014, 05:05:23 PM »

Is a thread dedicated (aren't you so privileged? Tongue ) to discussing with Gully any historical or cultural related topic that I can sperge on about. Particular interests are colonial history, representations of imperialism, social science theory in general, the idea of 'culture' and cultural history (although in the case of the latter there are big gaps in my knowledge). My MA thesis was/is on North American Missionaries and their relationship to native peoples. But I hope discussion won't be restricted to that.
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Cranberry
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« Reply #1 on: July 17, 2014, 07:26:43 AM »

Well, then, let's start here.
Why was it that the French were more successful in building up partnerships with the native tribes than the British? (Leaving the obvious exception Iroqouis aside)
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Tetro Kornbluth
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« Reply #2 on: July 20, 2014, 01:41:34 PM »

Well, then, let's start here.
Why was it that the French were more successful in building up partnerships with the native tribes than the British? (Leaving the obvious exception Iroqouis aside)

Sorry not to have yet replied to this and I'll keep my answer reasonably brief.

To understand this you have to understand that by the mid 17th Century and not really due to any government's 'real' intentions two different patterns of settlement had emerged in French and English America. In the former what had happened was closer to what had initially been envisaged - scattered trading postings and garrison settlements exchanging furs, minerals and commodities. The land and its people were frequently hostile to them for sure but it meant that they had to understand and grasp the intricacies of native culture. Also the European inhabitants of these settlements were overwhelming male and especially so in the early decades and so this created greater demand for close - very close in this case - alliances. This though it should be noted, also meant entangling the French administration within various Indian disputes (such as that between the Huron and the Iroquois).

Meanwhile in English America from the Puritans onwards (the Caribbean was different but there were practically no natives there even by 1650) people came in their families, in search of land and economic security, they were not usually traders and entrepreneurs more so than farmers, land speculators and various bourgeois types (the trading element in the northern colonies was usually a financial disaster... Plymouth didn't get close to making back its original investment as had been envisaged). In this environment and society, engagement with the natives was of much less importance and they were, rather, a 'threat' to 'their' property (various legal means were found to make it English land from the very beginning). Competition for land was a defining element of early English colonization as was the shunning of anything 'Indian' except when necessary (even down to growing their own crops despite the environmental unsuitability of some of them vis-a-vis Maize on American soil).

Finally, another factor was religion. In the Americas as a whole, despite the occasional effort, the Catholic countries - and their religious order -invested far more into conversion attempts than the Protestants ones. This was a distinct difference in attitudes which I can go on about in length but don't feel like doing so atm which was that Catholic missionaries tended to support more syncretic approaches towards religion, that is compromising with the local faith and expressing catholic (or quasi-catholic) language and concepts through what would be understood locally. While Protestant missionaries were, in general, much less compromising and wanted to conformity to a particular vision of religion rather than compromise with the population (this is the simple version in both cases). Also Protestant missionaries required that their charges read, while Catholics did not, and this took a lot of time, effort and resources that very few Missionaries had, given that they were rarely if ever supported by government and lacked religious orders. There's no real good Protestant equivalent to the Virgin of Guadelope, for many, many reasons. This reflected some of the cultural attitudes towards American Indians around at that time (although to explain this well would require a whole essay).
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Snowstalker Mk. II
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« Reply #3 on: July 20, 2014, 03:20:02 PM »

Why didn't the Netherlands or Austria acquire any colonies in the Scramble for Africa?
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Tetro Kornbluth
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« Reply #4 on: July 20, 2014, 03:31:24 PM »

Why didn't the Netherlands or Austria acquire any colonies in the Scramble for Africa?

After the Napoleonic Wars the Netherlands focused most of its colonial attention on the Dutch East Indies having effectively lost all but scraps of the Americas, Sri Lanka, Mauritius and the Cape Colony. Indonesia was a very profitable colony and was basically funding the Dutch state for large parts of the 19th Century. Meanwhile the only remaining Dutch colony in Africa was an ignored wreck rendered unprofitable by the slave trade and was eventually sold to the British. Instead of focusing on Africa, the Dutch expanded their domains in Indonesia which was one long succession of wars (Bali didn't fully fall until 1908 for instance) so Africa was deemed a distraction.

As for Austria, with all the problems they had, why would they? They had enough problems taking off adjacent land in Bosnia.
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Snowstalker Mk. II
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« Reply #5 on: July 20, 2014, 03:45:12 PM »

Thanks on both responses. In what is somewhat related, here's an interesting propaganda poster from fascist Portugal.

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Tetro Kornbluth
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« Reply #6 on: July 20, 2014, 05:01:36 PM »

Thanks on both responses. In what is somewhat related, here's an interesting propaganda poster from fascist Portugal.



Portugal is not a Small Country is what it says fyi
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PiMp DaDdy FitzGerald
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« Reply #7 on: July 20, 2014, 05:34:01 PM »

How much of an effect do you think WWII had in speeding up or slowing down decolonization? While it is commonly noted that the destruction seriously weakend Europe, the continent was richer, even porportionally, in the 1960s than it was in the 1930s, so there had to be something more than simple power-politics to explain the change in colonial attitudes.
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Tetro Kornbluth
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« Reply #8 on: July 22, 2014, 06:39:09 AM »

How much of an effect do you think WWII had in speeding up or slowing down decolonization? While it is commonly noted that the destruction seriously weakend Europe, the continent was richer, even porportionally, in the 1960s than it was in the 1930s, so there had to be something more than simple power-politics to explain the change in colonial attitudes.

Pass. Troll.
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Mopsus
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« Reply #9 on: July 22, 2014, 10:56:50 AM »

What is the legitimate role of evolutionary psychology?
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TheDeadFlagBlues
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« Reply #10 on: July 22, 2014, 11:34:29 AM »

Why has Protestantism spread so rapidly among indigenous communities in Central America?
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Tetro Kornbluth
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« Reply #11 on: July 22, 2014, 12:47:17 PM »

What is the legitimate role of evolutionary psychology?

I'll answer this fully later but does this refer to the concept of evolutionary psychology or the academic discipline as created by Leeda Cosmides and John Tooby?
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Mopsus
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« Reply #12 on: July 22, 2014, 03:58:24 PM »

What is the legitimate role of evolutionary psychology?

I'll answer this fully later but does this refer to the concept of evolutionary psychology or the academic discipline as created by Leeda Cosmides and John Tooby?

The former, though you can address the latter as well.
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Sol
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« Reply #13 on: November 05, 2014, 06:32:40 PM »

I just found this thread now, so I hope alright if I bump it.

Why did the British partition India the way they did? It seems like if the Brits wanted something quick and easy, they would have gone with ethnicity...
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« Reply #14 on: November 15, 2014, 04:59:18 PM »

Thanks on both responses. In what is somewhat related, here's an interesting propaganda poster from fascist Portugal.



Portugal is not a Small Country is what it says fyi

Portugal is a mighty pluracontinental nation.

Portugal stronk.
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Tetro Kornbluth
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« Reply #15 on: November 16, 2014, 09:15:04 PM »

I just found this thread now, so I hope alright if I bump it.

Why did the British partition India the way they did? It seems like if the Brits wanted something quick and easy, they would have gone with ethnicity...

You are assuming it Britain wanted to partition that way rather than partition being partly decided by the flow of events - "Divide and Rule" was more "We Divide and You Rule" as one commentator put it. As for ethnicity, I doubt it would have been 'quick and easy' as this map of languages spoken in the modern Republic of India demonstrates (a proxy of ethnicity... kind of):



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Sol
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« Reply #16 on: November 16, 2014, 11:31:41 PM »

I just found this thread now, so I hope alright if I bump it.

Why did the British partition India the way they did? It seems like if the Brits wanted something quick and easy, they would have gone with ethnicity...

You are assuming it Britain wanted to partition that way rather than partition being partly decided by the flow of events - "Divide and Rule" was more "We Divide and You Rule" as one commentator put it. As for ethnicity, I doubt it would have been 'quick and easy' as this map of languages spoken in the modern Republic of India demonstrates (a proxy of ethnicity... kind of):






Oh yeah, of course. I guess I figured the Brits would have just wanted to slice it up by ethnicity considering the relevance of that concept to Western European nation-states.
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True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)
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« Reply #17 on: November 16, 2014, 11:55:46 PM »

My understanding is that basically the Hindu leadership of the Congress Party wanted to retain a united India, and that religion served as the most obvious means of division for those who opposed unity.  In theory the Princely States could have remained independent, but neither India nor Pakistan was willing to allow then to have the chance.
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Tetro Kornbluth
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« Reply #18 on: November 17, 2014, 10:58:02 AM »

I just found this thread now, so I hope alright if I bump it.

Why did the British partition India the way they did? It seems like if the Brits wanted something quick and easy, they would have gone with ethnicity...

You are assuming it Britain wanted to partition that way rather than partition being partly decided by the flow of events - "Divide and Rule" was more "We Divide and You Rule" as one commentator put it. As for ethnicity, I doubt it would have been 'quick and easy' as this map of languages spoken in the modern Republic of India demonstrates (a proxy of ethnicity... kind of):






Oh yeah, of course. I guess I figured the Brits would have just wanted to slice it up by ethnicity considering the relevance of that concept to Western European nation-states.

Again that assumes that the British were the driving agents behind partition.
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