Colonial Times Research Articles

Alms for the Rich: Impoverished Spanish Women in Pursuit of Making a Living in Late Colonial Lima

Abstract This article establishes the role white women played in shaping the urban labor force and the economy in late colonial times in Lima, roughly from 1790 to 1822. It focuses on the impoverished elite women who, by the end of the colonial period, had to ask for alms to avoid working with their own hands. An important part of the Limeño elites could not respond to the twofold challenge: the negative consequences of the economic and administrative reforms of the Bourbons, and the relative flexibilization of the social order in Lima by the end of the eighteenth century. Instead of adapting to new conditions, the Spanish elites generated a social discourse that reaffirmed status and ethnicity as a means to distinguish themselves from the “vicious” plebeian sectors. More than one thousand applications to Church relief programs serve as the main foundation of this article; they are made up of at least one fifth of the white female population of the city in 1806. The article enters into dialogue with studies on socio-labor practices and the history of gender and ethnicity by engaging with concrete experiences of poor elite women in a city considered to be the opulent center of the Spanish colonial power.

From Crossroads to Holistic Impact: Charting a Praxical Course for Transforming Theological Education in Africa

Theological education in Africa is currently at a crossroads and requires a thorough re-evaluation. The framework for teaching and learning introduced by missionaries during colonial times, which often prioritized Western perspectives and ignored indigenous African contexts, does not adequately address the complex issues and needs of African communities today. As a result, the impact of theological practice lacks both relevance and sustainability within grassroots communities. There is therefore a need for a theological framework that is more relevant, contextual, and responsive to the realities and aspirations of African people in the present context. This article advocates for the decolonization of theological education for a praxical approach rooted in lived experiences. It is essential to firmly anchor theological reflection and action in African traditions in order to effectively address contextual issues. This calls for action beyond academic reform towards meeting the pressing needs of the population. This article sheds light on the inadequacies of the colonial framework within theological education, serving as crucial indicators for holistic and sustainable transformation within the field. Case studies drawn from theological institutions, and local churches from selected countries in East, Central and Southern Africa provide nuanced insights into the importance of this transformative process.

The Long Road to Justice: Equality and the Caste Question from Colonial Times to the Present

Manoj Mitta, Caste Pride: Battles for Equality in Hindu India, Context, 2023, xxviii + 596 pp., ₹999, ISBN 978-9-3577-6294-6 (Hardback).

The Development of Casta Painting as Visual Genre in New Spain and the Production of Ethnoracial Stereotypes

The aim of this essay is to analyze the ways in which the development of the casta pictorial genre contributed to the production and stabilization of racializing and racist stereotypes. These racial stereotypes still persist in cultural imaginaries in and about Latin America as part of the long duration of coloniality. Casta painting from New Spain is analyzed here as a pictorial genre and as a colonial discourse in connection with situated social and racial concepts, such as Creole, caste, and calidad. The analysis develops through a dialogue with perspectives from Semiology of Art, Visual studies, Postcolonial studies, and Latin American Critique of Coloniality. In this regard, this essay intends to create a conversation among different disciplines and fields of study in order to develop a complex, transdisciplinary approach to a problem from colonial times: the production and circulation of ethnoracial stereotypes and their impact on social relations, lived experiences, and subjectivities.

Century‐Long Records of Sedimentary Input on a Caribbean Reef From Coral Ba/Ca Ratios

AbstractCoral reef ecosystems are delicately balanced and are thus prone to disruption by stressors such as storms, disease, climate variability and natural disasters. Most tropical coral populations worldwide are now in rapid decline owing to additional anthropogenic pressures, such as global warming, ocean acidification and a variety of local stressors. One such problem is the addition of excess sediment and nutrients flux to reefs from increased soil erosion from land use changes. Here we present century‐long Ba/Ca records from two Siderastrea siderea colonies as a proxy for local riverine discharge and sediment flux to the southern Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System (MBRS). The coral colonies have linear extension trends, which can be seen as a first‐order indicator for coral health and response. The coral colony that exhibits a decline in linear extension rate from the forereef of the MBRS, mainly receives riverine input from Honduras, whilst the coral from the backreef, which does not exhibit a decline in extension rate, primarily receives riverine input from more sparsely populated regions of Belize. Coral Ba/Ca increased (>70%) through time in the forereef colony, while the backreef colony showed little long‐term increase in Ba/Ca over the last century. Our results suggest that increasing sediment supply may have played a role in the decline of forereef skeletal extension in the southernmost MBRS region, likely stemming from increasing land‐use changes in Honduras.

Towards a constitutional sociology of property rights:

The article examines the emergence of modern social structures of property rights and their constitutional implications during the formation of world society. While European history has addressed this topic regionally, the process of modernization in colonial and postcolonial contexts, along with its global connections, remains underexplored. This work combines theoretical reflections from the literature on the sociology of constitutions with historiographical research on the formation of modern property rights in Europe and its colonies. It argues that the property structure of colonial Brazil is decisive for social cleavages and the social reproduction of exclusion in the later period. Due to the role land played in the constitution of power and privileges in the colonial times, postcolonial elites remain tied to the land. This results in no considerable and powerful sectors within postcolonial elites, unlike the Central and Northern European context, being interested (and strong enough) to break with the exclusionary social hierarchies inherited from the old regime. The old elite tied to land was also the new elite of independent Brazil.

Portraying Political Ideas of National Revolutionaries: A Case Study of Pandurang Mahadev Bapat

The term ‘revolutionary’ has a unique connotation in India’s struggle for national liberation. It refers to those freedom fighters who scrupulously believed in the efficacy of armed resistance to overthrow British rule in India and justified employing extremist techniques to achieve the objective. Consequently, national revolutionism creates a distinct stream of thinking in the Indian national movement from both the moderate and extremist currents in the movement. While there is no end to the literature on both moderate and extremist thinking in British India, the political philosophy of the revolutionaries has not been satisfactorily addressed by academia in a meaningful manner. While there are a few notable exceptions, social scientists in India have generally ignored the revolutionary political ideas because of the foundation of British authority over Indian land; the nation’s political development began to follow a pattern identical to the Western development model. Following that, some extensive Western influences were seen in education, economy, government organisation and administration, significantly impacting the intellectual development of the time. Moreover, the ideas of revolutionaries were, for the most part, immediate intellectual responses to the political challenges and crises that existed at the time of their birth. However, some of these topics were significant, such as formulating a critique of British imperialism, defining the national identity, reorganising Indian society and developing plans for national liberation. As a result, it will be necessary to examine and evaluate the political views of these revolutionaries in the context of the concerns and problems with which they were confronted at the time. This research explores and explains Bapat’s political thought and situates him in Maharashtra’s revolutionary and Hindu political traditions. Lastly, in the first instance, this research proposes a brief look at the development of Bapat’s political career, which played a vital role in shaping his political ideas. Then, it explores the significant politics of colonial and post-colonial times.

Historical analysis of timber exploitation in the Central Pacific Mountains of Costa Rica

Abstract [Introduction] The mountainous region of the Central Pacific of Costa Rica, currently made up mostly of the cantons of Turrubares, Puriscal and Mora, and to a lesser extent by the southwest of Acosta, was one of the most deforested areas since colonial times. [Objective] To comprehensively analyze the historical, socioeconomic, geo-climatic and ecological factors that possibly favored the logging exploitation of the forests of that region. [Methodology] The historical documents, and the geo-climatic, ecological and socioeconomic factors of the region were reviewed. In addition, a census was carried out among forestry professionals and industrialists to determine the timber species possibly extracted from the forests based on the floristic composition of protected forest areas in the region. [Results] The mountainous region was a transit and settlement site for Spanish colonists since the 16th century, which facilitated the development of access roads. Its proximity to the Central Valley, which needed forest and agricultural products for the growing urban area, together with the existence of an ecological convergence zone extraordinarily rich in trees of commercial importance, greatly facilitated the extraction of forest products. [Conclusion] The early colonization of the region, the existence of infrastructure, high demand for forest products at the national and international level, and the availability of forest resources in an area where the tropical dry forest, the cloud forest and the humid forest converge, and the edaphoclimatic conditions that also facilitated the development of agricultural crops, favored the change in land use and therefore the forestry exploitation of the region.

Unearthing the Diasporic bhadramahila in Jhumpa Lahiri’s Unaccustomed Earth and Bharati Mukherjee’s Desirable Daughters

This study aims to examine the influence of the bhadramahila construct both in the Bengal colonial context and its reproduction in the imaginary of the Indian American family dynamics. The works under discussion are: Jhumpa Lahiri’s short story anthology Unaccustomed Earth (2008) and Bharati Mukherjee’s novel Desirable Daughters (2002). Both give evidence to the academic discussions on the position of the bhadralok and bhadramahila in Bengal (India) during colonial times, a rare topic in both Lahiri’s and Mukherjee’s stories. The article puts into perspective the making of the “New Woman” in Bengal in the nineteenth century, then moves to the literary section where it analyses how female characters reproduce their cultural baggage in a hybrid setting and deal with inner conflicts, hence inaugurating the figure of the diasporic bhadramahila in the context of the United States.

Bushranger Re-Enactments: Legend And Landscape

The re-enactment of events from Australia’s history as popular entertainment has dropped away in the twenty-first century. Whilst Old Sydney Town attracted crowds from 1973 through to 2003 with its daily parades of British red coats who marched down to an artificially constructed ‘Old Sydney Cove’, Australians today often have a more conflicted view of Australia’s colonial history. If national identity is maintained through acts of ‘remembering’, as suggested by Ian McBride (2001), the past can be a contested issue that impacts on what is accepted as popular representation. Yet the persistence of bushranger escapade re-enactments, though set in colonial times, suggests that issues beyond Australian national identity are at work in maintaining the popularity of such events. Bushrangers in Australia have fuelled imaginative representations in theatre and then later cinema since the early 1800s, with Andrew James Couzens (2019) stating that the Australian “bushranger legend … responds to the historic and mythic characteristics of outlawry” with “the outlaw as heroes”. This paper investigates three specific bushranger re-enactments. In Braidwood, south-eastern New South Wales, from 1865-1867 the Clark Gang, Tom and John Clark terrorized citizens and were known as ‘the bloodiest of bushrangers’. In 2017, the 150-year anniversary re-enactment of the Clark Gangs’ shooting up of the small country town of Braidwood attracted crowds keen to witness, as well as take part in the drama. The second re-enactment occurs regularly through performances by the Gympie Historical Re-enactment Society. Opting to entertain tourists, the group have staged a ‘Bushranger Show’ at numerous sites throughout inland regional Queensland. The third re-enactment occurred annually, until Covid struck, at Canowindra in northern New South Wales. In 1863 the notorious bushrangers, Ben Hall and Johnny Gilbert locked a group of villagers in the Canowindra pub, the re-enactment takes place at the site of these events, the now named Royal Hotel in the main street of Canowindra. These re-enactments are investigated through multiple lenses of performance, place, and politics. The site-specific nature of these performances positions them as specifically different than performances depicting Australian bushrangers in the cinema or theatre.

Seasonal Variability in the Prevalence of DWV Strains in Individual Colonies of European Honeybees in Hawaii.

The most prevalent viral pathogen of honeybees is Deformed Wing Virus (DWV) and its two most widely studied and common master-variants are DWV-A and DWV-B. The prevalence of DWV variants in the UK and in the US is changing, with the prevalence of the DWV-A strain declining and DWV-B increasing over time. In 2012, only DWV-A was detected on the Hawaiian Islands of Oahu. In this study we focused on a colony-level survey of DWV strains in a single apiary and examined the prevalence of DWV variants over the course of two years. In 2018 and 2019, a total of 16 colonies underwent viral testing in January, May, and September. Of those 16 colonies, four were monitored in both 2018 and 2019. Individual colonies showed variability of DWV master variants throughout the sampling period. DWV-A was consistently detected; however, the detection of DWV-B was variable across time in individual colonies. Ultimately, this study demonstrated a seasonal variation in both viral prevalence and load for DWV-B, providing a perspective on the dynamic nature of DWV master variants emerging in Hawaii.

Beyond the dominant narratives: Identifying Indigenous and African individuals in Quebec St-Lawrence Valley colonial cemeteries by three-dimensional morphometrical analysis of the temporal bone

In Quebec, written accounts of free or enslaved Indigenous and African individuals during colonial times are few and limited. Three-dimensional geometric morphometric methods applied on 214 temporal bones individuals are used to explore intra-cemetery population variation throughout three centuries (1683–1878), to identify plausible non-European or admixed individuals. First, Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was generated from populations originated from Africa, North-America (Indigenous) and Europe where colonial cemeteries are projected to assess their degree of overlap with the reference groups. Second, Discriminant Function Analysis (DFA) based on typicality probabilities also allowed to assign unknown individuals to the three reference groups. Our results highlighted discrepancy between PCA and DFA. With the PCA, Quebec colonial groups overlap with the Europeans except for three individuals. For the DFA, 64 % (n = 136) were classified as typical to one group and 36 % as atypical (n = 77). Most were European, (82 %; n = 112), followed by those as Indigenous (7 %; n = 10), intermediate between Africans and Indigenous (6 %; n = 8) and Africans (5 %; n = 7). Compared with previous research, one individual from the first Protestant cemeteries of St-Matthew in Quebec could be assessed as plausible African or admixed origin. Two others need further analysis: one from St-Matthew and one from the first Catholic cemetery of Notre-Dame in Montreal. Finally, in response to dominant narratives that focused mainly on Euro-colonists, this research provided for the first time a new snapshot of several colonial population diversity in Quebec, underlining the presence of marginalized groups -especially those of African origin, who are absent from the archaeological reports under study.

Historiography of Yogācāra Philosophy in 20th Century India

Paradigms of historiography of philosophy in India have being changed since late 19th c. till present, depending on the social and cultural context of the history of Indian philosophy as a part of contemporary Indian culture. This change manifests itself in the conceptions of Indian historians concerning the teaching of Buddhist Mahāyāna school of Yogācāra (4th c. and later). Historians of colonial times, basing themselves on the philosophy of Neovedаntism (S. Radhakrishnan, S. Dasgupta), regarded Buddhism as a derivate of late Vedic culture and Yogācāra as a teaching that reflected - though in an essentially transmuted form - the ideology of Upaniṣads. The latter, according to Neovedantists, was based on the postulate of the existence of the single cosmic soul - Brahman, the true human Self (Ātman) being identical to it. Historians of the late colonial and early postcolonial times (P.T. Raju, D.P. Chattopadhyaya, A.K. Chatterjee, partly also S. Dasgupta) brought Yogācāra closer to the teachings of European idealism, mainly to conceptions of G. Berkeley, G.W.F. Hegel, F. Bradley, J.E. McTaggart, trying to demonstrate a principal identity of fundamental problems in Indian and Western philosophy. At the same time, they brought Yogācāra together with the teaching of Brāhmaṇic school, Advaita Vedānta, regarded as another form of Indian idealism. In later times, following the evolution of contemporary Indian culture and changings in its social and political context, historians like D.J. Kalupahana became to analyze Yogācāra as a kind of philosophy of mind. All these facts show the dependence of strategies of historico-philosophical studies in India on its social, political and cultural context: in the Yogācāra teaching mainly those aspects call attention that a historian sees as the closest to the problematic field of contemporary philosophy.

Beyond individual responsibility towards healthy food choices: A qualitative study among Pakistani women in Hong Kong

While biomedical understandings of food and diet coupled with discourses on individual responsibility towards healthy food choices are nowadays prominent, other social and cultural meanings attached to food and diet are largely devalued. The limits of such a reductionist approach are more evident when related to the experiences of migrant and ethnic populations, whose alternative knowledge(s) and practices about food and health are especially neglected. A multicultural city with a public healthcare system inherited from the British colonial times and largely shaped by biomedical ideas of health, Hong Kong offers a lens into the limits of such a reductionist approach. Due to their vulnerability in the context of Hong Kong as shaped by intersecting social identities, 72 women from Pakistan were recruited to be our community partners in a community-based participatory action research project to investigate their health needs and concerns. 12 focus group discussions were conducted, exploring their experiences of “healthy” food and overweight especially related to their encounters with the Hong Kong public healthcare system, as these issues emerged as key health concerns within the community. Four major themes emerged: unmet expectations of care, health is beyond the individual, constraints to a healthy diet in the context of migration, and beyond health: food as care for diasporic women. This study highlights the limit of a reductionist approach to healthy food as merely based on nutrition and individual responsibility. It stresses the need of a counter-discourse in the field of public health, emphasizing not only alternative cultural ideas of health and food, but also enlarging the field of health in biomedical terms to embrace “care” and acknowledging the structural constraints shaping migrant and ethnic population's vulnerability in making “healthy” food choices.

The politics of indigeneity: decolonizing historical memory and education in Colombia

ABSTRACT This article explores how the Misak (Guambianos) from the Colombian southwest are revitalising their collective memory and militant politics in a nation that has historically prioritised its Spanish heritage. Through the analysis of twenty-month collaborative research conducted by three Misak University (MU) students and the article’s author (a non-Indigenous Colombian affiliated with a university from the Global North), the article claims that political engagement results from this community’s autonomous educational institutions and pedagogical practices. The MU is one of these Misak autonomous efforts engaging with non-traditional pedagogies, such as caminar el territorio, to promote a ‘militant indigenous identity’ committed to their cultural differentiation. These educational practices evolved from other methods for memory reproduction embraced by the Misak since colonial times. As the tearing down of the statues of Spanish conquistadores in 2020 shows, the Misak’s educational efforts have cultivated a new indigenous generation that seeks to make a political and cultural impact beyond their territory.

Encouraging Islamic Hospitality with Indigenization in Indonesia and Malaysia

Every society has struggled endlessly to maintain its identity since colonial times. One of them is the cultural concept of carrying out worship in a religion, which has been expanded massively through the cultivation of black-and-white ideology, right and wrong, or which means the truth of the teachings determines the obedience of religious people. However, this issue has become popular because many people want to be more compliant, so the migration movement is massive in society. This article examines that since Islamophobia emerged as a result of the 9/11 tragedy, Indonesia and Malaysia have conceptualized friendly Islam with the theme of religious moderation. This research uses a qualitative approach with the critical juncture method. Research findings show that in Malaysia, a multi-ethnic party won last year's elections after falling out with a Malay-Muslim party. Identity politics is quite strong in Indonesia. Meanwhile, Indonesia is busy promoting Wasatiyya Islam as a basic religion, and it was also promoted in the R20 last year. For years, these two countries have tried to become friendly countries for various ethnicities and religions. Thus, indigenization is more suitable because the two countries have similar traditions and cultures, so indigenization is important for politics and the state.
 Keywords: Indigenization, Religious Moderation, 9/11 Tragedy, and Political Identity

Zohra Begum Kazi: Pioneering Bengali female doctor and nationalist representation.

This paper aims to elucidate a comprehensive biographical account of Zohra Begum Kazi, the pioneering Bengali female doctor in Bangladesh. Her professional journey commenced during the British colonial time, achieved prominence during the era of Pakistan, and ultimately reached the pinnacle of her life's accomplishments in the independent Bangladesh. Despite her distinguished medical career, her life was significantly shaped by sundry historical discourses, endowing her with the attributes of a philanthropist, a revolutionist, and a nationalist. This study seeks to assess her multifaceted contributions in three distinct dimensions: firstly, her role as a medical doctor; secondly, her engagement in the nationalist movement, and thirdly, her intellectual influence as a moral and social philosopher. Through this multifaceted analysis, we aim to consign her within the annals of Bangladesh's national history as the leading Bengali female doctor.

Spanishness and Race in North American Monumental Architecture

The representation of Spain, and Spanishness in general, at sites of collective identity in the United States and Canada requires scholarly attention. Many monuments, which range from statues and museums to capitol buildings and national parks, continue to commemorate colonial times despite broader public awareness of the association between colonization and racialized violence, as well as the explicit movement toward decolonization. This commemorative material also demonstrates how non-Spanish settlers have appropriated historical moorings of Spain and its colonial past to reinforce and whitewash their identities in places such as New Mexico and Texas, and even in Newfoundland and Labrador. How monuments are funded and gain public support is another vector that points to the ways that identity—particularly, white identity—informs monumental architecture in ways that exclude people of colour, as well as women, who, when featured in monuments, are usually dehumanized as concepts rather than being the actors of settler-colonialism. This article explores these challenging topics with the aim of articulating a roadmap for future scholarship on this subject.

Land Ownership Rights to Cultural Reserve Buildings in Surabaya based on Basic Agrarian Law and Cultural Heritage Law

<div><p class="abstract"><span>In colonial times, the city of Surabaya was an important part that held a lot of history. Surabaya is known as the oldest port city in Indonesia during the Dutch East Indies era and was the centre of government and international trade. Apart from that, Surabaya was also named a city of heroes because the heroes at that time were willing to sacrifice themselves to fight for and defend the independence of the Republic of Indonesia by fighting the invaders. On that basis, Surabaya is rich in cultural heritage. Most of the heritage of these historic buildings is still standing and can be found in several areas of the city of Surabaya. The local Department of Tourism and Culture has established regulations to protect original historic buildings as city heritage. However, in fulfilling the rights and obligations of individuals and city governments, land rights owned from generation to generation must be considered by the local city government. This research uses normative juridical with doctrinal and statutory regulatory approaches. This research aims to find regional regulations regarding cultural heritage related to ownership rights in managing cultural heritage land and buildings.</span></p></div>

Politics and Census in Nigeria: Challenges and the Way Forward

Population is very vital to the government for nation building of a country especially, Nigeria. Nigeria’s population has been contentious and politicized since colonial times. Census statistics embodies an essential database prerequisite for measuring the physical and social well-being of a nation’s population. Hence, for any country to realize its development potentials, it requires a comprehensive population database support to guide its socio-economic programs, planning and implementation. The fusses in Nigeria census steered the cancellation of the 1962 general population census which was repeated in 1963.The Population of an area is considered a political weapon, a condition desiderata for provision of amenities, infrastructure and in fact, guides wealth allocations and fiscal planning. Regrettably, Nigeria is yet to produce an acceptable and satisfactory demographic data for infrastructural development and nation building. Scholars of Nigerian history appear not to have paid adequate attention to nation building in Nigeria as a result of inaccurate population database. Hence, it is a perception of issues of politics and population census this paper tend to address. Qualitative research methodology was adopted for effective analyses. The paper concluded that inherent contemporary issues have continued to defeat the main aim of population census as an instrument for strategic planning and sustainable development. Lack of accurate census figures has contributed to Nigeria’s policy summersault and under development. It is unfortunate that in this 21st century Nigeria still does not have effective and reliable census data due to the fact that politicization, Falsification of population census result, religion rivalry, ethnicity stimulation and fluctuation of period of conducting census serves as a controlling force against accuracy of population census figures.