Experiencing Dominion : Culture, Identity, and Power in the British Mediterranean / Thomas W. Gallant.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gallant, Thomas W.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Ionian Islands (Greece)--History--1815-1864.

Ionian Islands (Greece).

Ionian Islands (Greece)--Civilization--19th century.

Ionian Islands (Greece)--Cultural policy--History--19th century.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (271 pages) : illustrations, maps

Place of Publication:

Notre Dame, Indiana : University of Notre Dame Press, 2002.

Summary:

Experiencing Dominion contributes to ongoing debates on hegemony, power, and identity in contemporary historical and anthropological literature through an examination of the imperial encounter between the British and the Greeks of the Ionian Islands during the nineteenth century. Each chapter focuses on a different aspect of the imperial encounter, with topics including identity construction, the contestation over civil society, gender and the manipulation of public space, hegemony and accommodation, the role of law and of the institutions of criminal justice, and religion and imperial dominion. Thomas Gallant-widely recognized as one of the leading scholars in historical anthropology- argues that a great deal can be learned about colonialism in general through an analysis of the Ionian Islands, precisely because that colonial encounter was so atypical. For example, Gallant demonstrates that because the Ionian Greeks were racially white, Christian, and descendents of Europe's classical forebears, the process of colonial identity formation was more ambiguous and complex than elsewhere in the Empire where physical and cultural distinctions were more obvious. Colonial officers finally decided the Ionian Greeks were "Mediterranean Irish" who should be treated like European savages. Experiencing Dominion pushes contemporary literature on historical anthropology in a new direction by moving the discussion away from an emphasis on a simple polarity between hegemony and resistance, and instead focusing on the shared interactions between colonizers and colonized, rulers and ruled, foreigners and locals. In this important study, Gallant emphasizes contingency and historical agency, examines intentionality, and explores the processes of accommodation and, when warranted, resistance. In so doing, he reconstructs the world Britons and Greeks made together on the Ionian Islands during the nineteenth century through their shared experience of dominion.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: CHAPTER ONE

Introduction: The Ionian Islands

CHAPTER TWO

European Aborigines and Mediterranean Irish:

Identity, Cultural Stereotypes, and Colonial Rule

CHAPTER THREE

Creating "Western Civilization" on a Greek Island

CHAPTER FOUR

Indirect Rule and Indigenous Politics:

The Case of the Foundling Home on Kefallenia

CHAPTER FIVE

Turning the Horns: Cultural Metaphors, Material

Conditions, and the Peasant Language of Resistance

CHAPTER SIX

Dueling with Daggers:

Masculine Identity and Ritual Violence

CHAPTER SEVEN

"We're All Whores Here": Women, Slander,

and the Criminal Justice System

CHAPTER EIGHT

"We Are the Christians": Religion, Identity,

and Colonial Rule

CHAPTER NINE

The Imperial Encounter on the Ionian Islands:

A Summary.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (p. 219-244) and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780268159603

0268159602

9780268159610

0268159610

OCLC:

1016563102