Positive living: visual activism and art in HIV/AIDS rights campaigns

Using the exhibition ‘Positive Living: Art and AIDS in South Africa’ (Peltz Gallery, London, 2016) as a starting point, this article offers itself as a short history of some key visual strategies developed to raise political consciousness in South Africa and internationally over one of the darkest periods in South Africa’s history from 1999 to 2006 when former President Thabo Mbeki, in denial about the relationship between HIV and AIDS withheld life-saving treatment from hundreds of thousands of the most vulnerable South African citizens who were only just emerging from the scourge of apartheid. The article examines the strategies deployed by fine artists engaged in raising awareness and support from the international community in order to put pressure on the South African government, together with visual strategies sometimes assigned as ‘craft’ or ‘therapy’ and produced as local and often rural community responses to the HIV crisis. ‘Positive Living’ is concerned to provoke a more comparative debate about the relative values and limitations of different visual strategies as part of a wider commitment to the ways in which visual and material culture (notwithstanding shortcomings) can produce powerful tools for social change

Ethnic mirrors: self-representations in the Welsh and Mennonite museums in Argentina and Paraguay

According to some scholars and philosophers, ethnic identities are the best political, social, economic, ethic (and even aesthetic) alternative to State centralism, which is incapable of dealing with cultural diversity. Ethnic communitarism is then defined as a more authentic, humane, democratic and inclusive form of organization. The Welsh colonies of Chubut (Argentine) and the established Mennonite colonies of the Chaco Region (Paraguay) are two ethnic groups with forms of community life that have been thoroughly studied from different perspectives. However, neither has been analyzed their point of view of alterity or their relation with those who do not belong to the community. In their museums the history of the community is represented, self-images and other people's images are constructed and spread. The interesting part of these stories is not what they say but what they do, the form in which contents are expressed. These communitarian historical museums tell about the past but they mainly have an impact on the present. Like national or even imperial museums, Welsh and Mennonite museums tend to naturalize a particular self-centered, prejudicial and evolutionist point of view that often excludes other perspectives, especially those elaborated by the neighboring indigenous communities. In contrast, we believe it is necessary to take a stance for democratic, horizontal relations between communities and more polyphonic and responsible historical representations.Alguns filósofos e acadêmicos assinalam que as identidades étnicas são a melhor alternativa política, social, econômica, ética (e mesmo estética) ao centralismo estatal, que é negligente ao lidar com a diversidade cultural. O comunitarismo étnico é definido como uma forma de organização mais autêntica, humana, democrática e inclusiva. As colônias galesas de Chubut (Argentina) e as colônias rurais dos menonitas no Chaco (Paraguay) são dois grupos étnicos cujas vidas comunitárias têm sido muito estudadas desde diversas perspectivas, mas o seu ponto de vista acerca da alteridade ou sua relação com os atores extracomunitários nunca foi levado em conta. A historia comunitária é representada nos museus galeses e menonitas das respectivas regiões e aí são construídas e difundidas não só as autoimagens mas também as representações dos outros. O aspecto relevante dessas histórias não é o que elas dizem, mas o que fazem, a forma como os conteúdos são expressos. Esses museus históricos comunitários falam sobre o passado, mas seu maior impacto recai sobre o presente. Como os museus nacionais ou imperiais, os museus galeses e menonitas tentam naturalizar pontos de vista particulares, auto-centrados, preconceituosos e evolucionistas que geralmente excluem as perspectivas elaboradas pelas comunidades indígenas vizinhas. Em vez disso, pensamos ser necessário criar relações mais horizontais e democráticas entre as comunidades e difundir representações históricas mais polifônicas e responsáveis

Iconic dishes, culture and identity: the Christmas pudding and its hundred years’ journey in the USA, Australia, New Zealand and India

Asserting that recipes are textual evidences reflecting the society that produced them, this article explores the evolution of the recipes of the iconic Christmas pudding in the United States, Australia, New Zealand and India between the mid-nineteenth and the mid-twentieth centuries. Combining a micro-analysis of the recipes and the cookbook that provided them with contemporary testimonies, the article observes the dynamics revealed by the preparation and consumption of the pudding in these different societies. The findings demonstrate the relevance of national iconic dishes to the study of notions of home, migration and colonization, as well as the development of a new society and identity. They reveal how the preservation, transformation and even rejection of a traditional dish can be representative of the complex and sometimes conflicting relationships between colonists, migrants or new citizens and the places they live in

Managing Heritage, Making Peace: History, Identity and Memory in Contemporary Kenya

Kenya stands at a crossroads in its history and heritage, as the nation celebrates its fiftieth anniversary of independence from Britain in 2013. At this important juncture, what parts of its history, including the Mau Mau uprising, do citizens and state wish to remember and commemorate and what is best forgotten or occluded? What does heritage mean to ordinary Kenyans, and what role does it play in building nationhood and forging peace and reconciliation? Focusing on the 1990s to the present, "Managing Heritage, Making Peace" is a timely exploration of the ways in which Kenyans are engaging with the past in the present, including such local initiatives as the community peace museums movement, local and national monuments and other notable commemorative actions. The authors show how Kenya is facing a continuing crisis over nationhood, heritage, memory and identity, which must be resolved to achieve social cohesion and peace

Monumental histories: commemorating Mau Mau with the statue of Dedan Kimathi

This article is a meditation on the nature of commemoration in a period of renewed interest in the concept of ‘national history’ in Kenya just prior to and during the 2007 election campaigns and the violence which erupted in its wake.1 I am interested in the extent to which commemorative initiatives, while often promoted (as in this case) as inclusive nation-building exercises, ultimately highlight the intractability of certain divisions. The article focuses on the commissioning of the first statue to a Mau Mau leader since President Mwai Kibaki's unbanning, in September 2003, of the guerrilla movement, which many historians consider to be a major force responsible for the country's liberation from the clutches of British colonialism. I want to suggest that the statue of Field Marshall Dedan Kimathi Wachiuri, unveiled on 18 February 2007, on the 50th anniversary of his execution by the British, becomes the conduit for the circulation of competing debates around the nature of history writing, the concept of national memory, the ideal of patriotism and the establishment of criteria to identify heroes and heroines as role models for the next generation. The commission is at the centre of a fraught discussion in the media concerning the question of who might merit the title of national hero or heroine and emerges at a time when the figure of Kimathi for one reason or another is susceptible to appropriation by a number of competing and often incompatible causes