Preliminary Programme

Tue 13 April
    8.30
    10.45
    14.15
    16.30

Wed 14 April
    8.30
    10.45
    14.15
    16.30

Thu 15 April
    8.30
    10.45
    14.15
    16.30

Fri 16 April
    8.30
    10.45
    14.15
    16.30

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Tuesday 13 April 2010 10.45
R-2 MAT05 Material and Consumer Culture in Transformation
Atelier R3, Pauli
Network: Material and Consumer Culture Chair: Merijn Knibbe
Organizers: - Discussant: Merijn Knibbe
Eloy Alves Filho, Arlete Salcides : The use of traditional and modern technics in the small farms in Brazil
This paper reviews the difficulties that rural workers face, the situation of Land Reform in Minas Gerais and also the insufficient agricultural politics towards family farming in Brazil. The main goal of this paper is to analyze how the use of traditional knowledge and modern techniques affected economic development and ... (Show more)
This paper reviews the difficulties that rural workers face, the situation of Land Reform in Minas Gerais and also the insufficient agricultural politics towards family farming in Brazil. The main goal of this paper is to analyze how the use of traditional knowledge and modern techniques affected economic development and the autonomy of family farming. The data were collected in seven Settlements Projects in four different regions of Minas Gerais State in Brazil, from a sample of 20% of the favored families. We identified several types of knowledge, brought in by past experiences and that are still used in production processes and daily activities. These types of knowledge, like traditional techniques of production and measurement and improvised tools, are highly deviant, of low cost and creative. The productive techniques passed by technical advisors are in their majority conventional. The public technical assistance, available for the settlers is considered by them insufficient and unsatisfactory. The settlers showed satisfaction with the Land Reform in relation to the access to land, to habitation and to education. (Show less)

Ingo Heidbrink : US Influences on Danish Colonial Greenland - The material culture
The rapid transition of Greenlandic society from the near stone-age of the Inuit to a modern western-style society in less than a century seemed to be much more influenced by the US, US-military presence on Greenland and direct US-Greenland diplomatic relations in certain periods of the twentieth century than by ... (Show more)
The rapid transition of Greenlandic society from the near stone-age of the Inuit to a modern western-style society in less than a century seemed to be much more influenced by the US, US-military presence on Greenland and direct US-Greenland diplomatic relations in certain periods of the twentieth century than by Danish or other European influences. US companies operating on Greenland (for example and most important the cryolite-mining in Ivituut) provided a lion’s share of the financing for the economic development of Greenlandic society as well as cultural exchange. US investment in military bases on Greenland, an endeavor that the Danish colonial administration tried to limit at least until the 1950s while the Greenlandic government favored, had similar effects.
Most historical research on Greenland has focused on the traditional Inuit culture and the Danish influence on Greenland since early modern times. Some studies exist on the military history of US engagement on Greenland, but the actual influence of the US presence on Greenland since the 1940s on societal developments and material culture is still uncharted scholarly territory.
The proposed paper will introduce first the traditional colonial Danish policy of keeping the Greenlandic people away from all foreign influences as a policy bound for the protection of the traditional Inuit culture.
In the following it will described how during the early days of World War II the US established military presence on Greenland and consequently first time ever average Greenlanders came in contact with the modern material culture of the western world while Danish/Greenlandic government tried to reduce these contacts at the same time.
The main part of the paper will analyzes, based on field studies in Greenland in recent years, how nevertheless western style material culture was introduced to the Inuit society and how this material culture was adopted by the Greenlandic society. Identification of real and perceptible changes in everyday life on Greenland due to US-influence via a documentation of today still existing evidence of US presence, especially buildings, industrial structures, means of communication and transportation, etc. will be presented as well as they will be discussed under the question whether or not they were utilized in the same way by the US and Greenland or if Greenlanders adopted new usages based on Greenlandic traditions.
Finally it will be analyzed up to what degree the development of today’s material culture on Greenland has been mainly influenced by the colonial mother nation Denmark or the US. Altogether this paper will, hopefully, help to understand the mechanisms that determined the development of material culture in the context of the process of de-colonization and more important if automatically this process was dominated by the colonial mother nation or if and why other nations might have take the lead in such developments.
Although the paper will mainly deal with the Greenlandic example it is designed as a key-study for the development of material culture in all former colonial areas that faced such rapid transitions in the material culture like Greenland did and the mechanisms identified should be applicable more or less globally. (Show less)

Alan Hutchinson : The introduction of new consumer goods in the Northern Trade
With the rise in the trade in dried fish during the Middle Ages fishermen-farmers in the north of Norway based their subsistence to a considerable degree upon exchange on the market in Bergen. The fishermen-farmers themselves organised the transport of the fish to Bergen, with their own locally built ships. ... (Show more)
With the rise in the trade in dried fish during the Middle Ages fishermen-farmers in the north of Norway based their subsistence to a considerable degree upon exchange on the market in Bergen. The fishermen-farmers themselves organised the transport of the fish to Bergen, with their own locally built ships. The peasant families were thus intimately connected to the international market when new consumer goods were introduced from the 17th Century onwards. In addition to the merchant houses in Bergen, the peasants were served from by a network of minor merchants and hawkers in the north. Most of these merchants were burghers of Bergen or Trondheim, who sailed north in the spring and returned in the autumn. Others were officials in the north, among them even priests, for whom trade was financially far more rewarding than their official income. Hawkers were most often men from the north who acquired goods in the southern towns while acting as crew for the ships transporting the dried fish. The ships’ captains, who traditionally held a stock of necessary goods to help their poorer neighbours if needs be, could also acquire goods for resale at home. Over time, increasingly more of the traders established permanent trading stations in the north. From the middle of the 18th Century, many of these stations were given special privileges in trade. The entire system has been termed “Nordlandshandelen”, or the Northern Trade.

Using material from probate records, relating both to debt among the fishermen-farmers and the estates of the traders, hawkers and the more substantial farmers, together with trading accounts held in the two towns, my paper will explore the parts played by these diverse traders in the introduction of new consumer goods to the peasant population at a fringe of the international trade network, and how this changed over the course of the 18th Century. It will also focus on the links between the elements in the trading system, and on the role played by family or other ties in the development and maintenance of particular networks. (Show less)

Jaco Zuijderduijn : Investment Strategies in 16th Century Holland
Based on new research, the paper provides insight into the investment strategies of households and families. To this end we make use of tax registers to study the development of asset management of heads of households over a period of 50 years. This approach allows us to track individual households ... (Show more)
Based on new research, the paper provides insight into the investment strategies of households and families. To this end we make use of tax registers to study the development of asset management of heads of households over a period of 50 years. This approach allows us to track individual households during different stages in the life cycle. Thus we expect to contribute to questions about to what degree households and families opted for different investment strategies at different stages during the life cycle, and also to what degree external elements like war, famine and (long-term) economic cycles had an effect on asset management. (Show less)



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