Assertion Of Superiority Research Articles

Pittenweem Priory and the conventuality question

Pittenweem Priory began life as the caput manor of a daughter-house established on May Island by Cluniac monks from Reading (c. 1140). After its sale to St Andrews (c. 1280), the priory transferred ashore. While retaining its traditional name, the ‘Priory of May (alias Pittenweem)’ was subsumed within the Augustinian priory of St Andrews. Its prior was elected from among the canons of the new mother house, but it was many decades before a resident community of canons was set up in Pittenweem. The traditional view, based principally on the ‘non-conventual’ status of the priory reiterated in fifteenth-century documents, is that there was ‘no resident community’ before the priorship of Andrew Forman (1495–1515). Archaeological evidence in Pittenweem, however, indicates that James Kennedy had embarked on significant development of the priory fifty years earlier. This suggests that, when the term ‘non-conventual’ is used in documents emanating from Kennedy's successors (Graham and Scheves), we should interpret it more as an assertion of superiority and control than as a description of realities in the priory.

The Politics of China’s Aid to North Vietnam during the Anti-American Resistance, 1965–1969

ABSTRACTBehind the public display of Sino–North Vietnamese unity in the anti-American resistance during the height of the People’s Republic of China’s Cultural Revolution from 1965 to 1969, Beijing’s insistence on Hanoi’s acceptance of Maoist ideology coupled with its assertive demand for Hanoi to denounce Soviet revisionism politicised its economic and technical assistance to North Vietnam. Although appreciating Beijing’s enthusiasm to aid North Vietnam, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam [DRV] resented Beijing’s political and ideological objective of promoting Maoism and anti-Soviet revisionism in North Vietnam. In response, the DRV government asserted independent decision-making and bureaucratic control over the management of foreign economic and technical aid, which in turn collided with the Chinese assertion of superiority and insistence on their control over all China-aided projects. The fragmentation of Chinese bureaucratic institutions and the political chauvinism of some radical Maoists at the Chinese Embassy in Hanoi, who oversaw Chinese aid to North Vietnam, further hindered Beijing’s ability to exert significant influence over Hanoi.

Guilty of lese-racism: A court judgement for the crime of union of conjugal nature between citizens and subjects

The text takes its cue from a 1939 court judgment regarding a “racial” crime and goes on to analyse the characteristics of fascist colonial racism, which throughout this period was undergoing significant changes. The assertion of the superiority of the “white race” moves from common social discrimination of the liberal period, to an assertion of superiority codified in law and the basis of the native policy. The custom of white men (usually soldiers) taking local black women as sexual partners – so-called “madamato”, which was both racist and sexist, becomes the main target of State repression, in the name of a rigid separation and hierarchical classification of the “races”.

The denigration of heroes? How the status attainment process shapes attributions of considerateness and authenticity.

This article develops and tests a theory to explain the common tendency to "denigrate heroes," whereby high-status actors are suspected of being inconsiderate and inauthentic relative to low-status counterparts. This tendency is argued to reflect two conditions typical of status attainment processes: (a) assertions of superiority over others and (b) the presence of incentives to pursue status. The latter is key since awareness of such incentives breeds suspicions of inauthenticity, which in turn undermine perceptions of prosocial intentions. This theory is validated in a series of online experiments, in which categorical status hierarchies emerge either via deference on a coordinated task or via competitive interactions. Results show that high-status actors may also be "celebrated" as authentic and considerate when the observable incentive structure is such that assertions of superiority appear as unintended by-products of prosocial action. Implications are drawn regarding the sources of instability and insecurity in status hierarchies.

Trouble at the races.

Trouble at the races.

Prometheus bound, but myriad loose ends

Prometheus bound, but myriad loose ends

Politicization of Ethnic Identities in Sierra Leone

This article traces the impact of state formation and class formation on the emergence and development of competitive ethnopolitical identities in Sierra Leone. The politicization of Creole, Mende, Temne and Limba identity deserves scrutiny on account of the dominant role these identities have played in shaping political processes in postcolonial Sierra Leone. Not only is Sierra Leone a culturally plural and intensely stratified society, its postcolonial political history attests to, and offers interesting insights about, the intimate connections between class, ethnicity and state formation. From the end of the nineteenth century until independence, the most divisive ethnoregional conflict in Sierra Leone pitted colony Creole elites against protectorate African elites. The Creoles, separatist in their political attitudes and aspirations, rejected political equality with protectorate Africans and the latter resented both the assertions of superiority by Creoles and their relative dominance in Sierra Leone politics prior to decolonization. This polarization persists even today, but its political significance has paled in comparison to both the rift between the Mendes of the south and the Temnes of the north and the contemporary dominance of Limba cultural entrepreneurs and politicians. Fissures in protectorate elite solidarity coincided with the emergence of political organizations founded and led by competing petty bourgeois elements. One such organization, the All Peoples Congress (APC) party, was formed as an alternative to the Mende-dominated Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP).