MO3351 Doing and Practicing Transnational and Global History

Although for many ‘the Miss World Beauty Pageant’ is no more than an out-dated guilty pleasure, in its heyday the contest was covered by the BBC and drew in over 27.5 million viewers for the 1968 finale.[1] Today, similar international beauty pageants such as ‘Miss Universe’ air in over 190 countries worldwide and are seen by more than half a billion people annually.[2] The premise of the contest is simple; ‘beautiful’ women are elected annually in their own countries to represent the ‘face’ of their nation in a competition against other nations on a global stage. In looking at the Miss World beauty pageant, we can trace how a single woman can sit at an intersection of local, national and even global identities.

Whilst beauty contests have historical roots stretching back to Greek mythology, the Miss World Beauty Pageant is uniquely embedded in the British decolonisation period. Originally created by Eric Morley as a one-off event connected with the Festival of Britain 1951, the celebration of the centenary of the Great Exhibition 1851, interest piqued when the Miss Universe competition was announced in the USA in 1952.[3] As a result, Morley expanded the pageant, and by 1970 58 candidates were competing.

The tension and turmoil of the 1950s and 60s played out on the Miss World stage during its first 20 years: post-war recovery, crumbling empires, and decolonisation. Race and gender became widely discussed categories of analysis whilst Cold War clashes and civil rights movements filled television screens. These phenomena took place on an unprecedented interconnected scale in an era of heightened globalisation, mass consumerism, and mass media.

Research on beauty pageants so far is limited and has focused mainly on contemporary (both local and national) ethnographic studies of singular beauty pageants.[4] Geographically, although a transnational cultural study has been done comparing regional beauty pageants around the world,[5] ironically, international competitions themselves, such as Miss World, have not been analysed through a transnational lens.

Recently, global studies of new imperial histories and imperial visual cultures opened up new fields of inquiry that go far beyond the traditional colonial archive.[6] The extraordinary movements of images across geopolitical borders refuse such simplistic coloniser/colonised frameworks, opening up a mediated space of the transnational through which rewritings of gender, race, nation, citizenship and globalisation are occurring.[7] Now, a more nuanced view of colonialism is emerging as an intricate nexus of mutual entanglements and imbrications.

This leaves a critical research gap for a visual and cultural analysis of the Miss World Beauty Pageant during the decolonisation period through a transnational perspective. The annual competition is a site in which the meanings ascribed to individual and collective identities are continually negotiated on a local, national, and global scale. This makes it an interesting case study to look at as a site where theories of race, gender and nationhood are constructed, enmeshed, and contested.

This project aims at filling a key gap by situating the Miss World beauty pageant in global history as a legitimate and relevant matter of inquiry. Taking each pageant event as its starting point, the project will look at its media reception and how the contestants’ public image was constructed. Then it will draw on the transnational connections of how the winners came to be selected from their homelands and where they ended up after the competition. While the starting point is the competition itself, the project’s inspiration and analytical angle is inspired by global and transnational micro history and postcolonial and feminist theory.

It is precisely this crossover between local, national, global identity and issues of race and gender that sparks the following research questions: What does it mean to be a specifically feminine representation of a nation? How are race, gender, and nationhood mediated in and through women’s bodies on a global, public stage?

One tentative hypothesis is that the Miss World beauty pageant functioned to create a veneer of transnational representation. With each country lined up side-by-side labelled with a white sash, a powerful visual metaphor is created that resembles an exhibition. However there were also moments where colonial visual regimes were scrutinized, even challenged, and go beyond the simple ‘West’ vs. ‘the rest’ binary.

There is a wealth of exciting yet neglected primary source material available including Eric Morley’s biography of the ‘Miss World Story’, British Pathé newsreel snippets of each year’s highlights and photographs and tabloid articles of the winners and contestants. Due to the limited breadth of a 5000-word essay, the choice to study just 20 years of the competition is on pragmatic grounds; whist the choice to not undertake a micro-history on selected individuals or is due to the lack of source material available on each person.

[1] Suparna Bhaskaran, Made in India: Decolonisations, Queer Sexualities, Trans/national Projects (Basingstoke, 2004), p. 41

[2] H. Alan Scott, “Miss Universe 2018 in Photos: Catriona Gray of Philippines Crowned”, 16 December 2018, < https://www.newsweek.com/miss-universe-2018-pageant-photos-catriona-gray-philippines-1259769> [3 March 2019]

[3] Richard Cavendish, “The First Miss World Contest”, History Today 51 (2001) < https://www.historytoday.com/archive/first-miss-world-contest> [3 March 2019]

[4] On contemporary studies of beauty pageants see: Sarah Banet-Weiser, The Most Beautiful Girl in the World (California, 1999), Radhika Parameswaran, ‘Global queens national celebrities: tales of feminine triumph in post liberalization India’, Critical Studies in Media Communication 21 (2004), pp.346-370, Natasha B. Barnes, ‘Face of the Nation: Race, Nationalism and Identities in Jamaican Beauty Pageants’ The Massachusetts Review 35 (1994), pp. 471–92.

[5] See: Collen Ballerino Cohen, Richard Wilk, and Beverly Stoetje (eds), Beauty Queens on the Global Stage: Gender, Contests, and Power (New York, 1996)

[6] For details on imperial visual contexts see: David Ciarlo, Advertising Empire: Race and Visual Culture in Imperial Germany,(Harvard, 2011)

[7] Martin Jay and Sumathi Ramaswamy (eds), Empires of Vision: a reader (North Carolina, 2014), Raka Shome, Transnational Feminism and Communication Studies, The Communication Review 9.4 (2006), pp. 341-361.

In the shadow of the Second International: Social-democratic colonial policy in France, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, 1936-1958.

Historical Context:

Prior to the First World War, the parties of the Second International were bound to a firmly anti-colonialist and anti-imperialist platform. Yet when social-democratic parties directly descended from the Second International were elected in France, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom in the 1930’s, 40’s and 50’s, they pursued, at best, a reluctant decolonization, and at worst, poured resources into maintaining overseas possessions. Central to my project is the question of why these parties seem to have undergone a massive shift in their attitudes towards colonialism prior to taking office.

Academic Context:

While the social-democratic shift on colonial policy has generated large amounts of writing specifically about it, proportionately little of that writing follows the standards of modern-day academic history. The majority of it is explicitly ideological, written by Soviet propagandists, Pan-Arabist and Pan-African revolutionaries, Maoist-Third-Worldist intellectuals, French politicians, and many others besides. It is often written as poems, party platforms, autobiographical books, polemical essays, and personal letters.

Opportunities and Dangers:

The nature of this catalogue of writing provides two opportunities, and one danger. As there is (relatively) little peer-reviewed work that is specifically focused on the evolution of social-democratic colonial policy, I have the opportunity to conduct independent research and come to my own conclusions about this phenomenon without directly shadowing another’s work.

The second opportunity comes in the form of the diverse and multi-disciplinary pool of sources that this ideological battleground provides. Politicians, philosophers, revolutionaries, and “ordinary” people alike were actively discussing the purported abandonment of strict anti-colonialism by European social-democratic parties for decades, providing no shortage of individual voices and lives to dive into.

At the same time, this rich background of writing is also a potential minefield. Many of the sources I plan to use are not merely ideologically biased; they are also self-consciously biased. Frantz Fanon and Ho Chi Minh wrote from particular ideological and cultural perspectives, while also being keenly aware of their own social, political, and historical context as they wrote. Critically analyzing both the texts themselves and the motives of their authors will be one of the most important tasks facing me in the course of this project.

Project Structure:

Due to the chronological scope of my project, I plan to split it into two sections. The first will be covered in the Short Essay, and the second in the Long Essay/”Full Project”.

The Short Essay will critically evaluate both the official stance on colonialism taken by the Second International before WWI and the personal beliefs about colonialism and “colonized peoples” held by prominent politicians and intellectuals within the organization. It will consider the impact the nature of the Second International as a de-facto whites-only organization, and the relative importance of electoral strategy vs ideology on colonial policy. The end goal of the Short Essay is to provide a firm intellectual and historical starting point from which the later evolution of social-democratic parties can be evaluated.

The Long Essay will critically analyze the four different interpretations of the social-democratic turn that I have found turn up most frequently in the primary and secondary sources of the mid-to-late-20^th century.

The first interpretation, put forth most often by Soviet and Soviet-sympathizing Marxist intellectuals and politicians, is that the social-democratic turn on colonialism was first and foremost a betrayal by the intellectual elite of Western social-democratic parties that could have, and should have, been avoided.

The second interpretation, put forth most often by intellectuals and revolutionaries from colonial or formerly-colonial regions, is that this evolution was inevitable, given that the voting base of said parties being almost entirely located in the imperial core. Continuing colonial exploitation was directly in the material interests of citizens and politicians alike, outweighing ideological legacy.

The third and fourth interpretations are those most often put forth by those intellectuals and politicians who sought to defend social-democratic parties against the charge that they were betraying the legacy of the Second International. The third interpretation is that the political and economical realities faced by social-democratic parties necessitated a pragmatic approach to the colonies, and that a more radical approach would have resulted in worse results. The fourth interpretation puts social-democratic parties in a paternalistic role, portraying the colonies as a civilizing mission justifiably spreading modernity.

These intellectual currents will be critically examined, with an eye towards determining both their accuracy in the historical context as well as the motivations (ideological, personal, or otherwise) behind these views. The project will conclude with a determination of which interpretation (if any) is most accurate. If none comes close, I will seek to provide an alternative hypothesis that does, one that takes both my own research and the existing historical narratives into account.

Japan’s entry into the modern, globalised era arguably came in the 1850s with Commodore Matthew Perry’s expedition to Japan in 1853 and the forced opening of Japanese ports to Western trade and commerce. The bluntness of Western imperialism, as epitomised by Perry’s expedition, encouraged Meiji Japan’s own imperial expansion in East Asia, driven further by state aims of modernization and the growing need to protect its fragile national security. Migration became a crucial facet in the growth of this Japanese empire in two interconnected ways; firstly, in places that Japan occupied such as Taiwan (1894), Kwantung Province (1905) and Korea (1910), settler colonialism helped to establish a lasting Japanese presence and secondly, Japanese emigration and settlement across the Pacific to sites on America’s Western frontier like Hawaii and California from the mid-1880s was increasingly utilised by Japan as a model to aid in modernization and empire-building back home. This project’s focus lies in the latter – exploring this link between emigration to America and Japan’s imperialism in East Asia, focusing on the context of wartime policy.

The historiography in this field has so far sparsely addressed the transnational linkages between Japanese American immigrants and the empire back home largely due to the gulf between Japanese American history and modern Japanese history. This gulf has largely been sustained by Asian Americanists since the 1960s who have emphasised their racial history against Eurocentric narratives within histories of America’s national formation. This issue points not only to the politics of ethnic studies but also the conventional nationalisationof fundamentally transnational experiences. Yet some pioneering work has been able to escape these limiting trends. Notably, Eiichiro Azuma’s work ‘Between two empires’ has greatly contributed to a nuanced understanding of the Issei (first-generation Japanese to immigrate to America), their simultaneous negotiation of American and Japanese identities and issues of racial subordination. Pedro Iacobelli’s (et al.) volume Transnational Japan as History has also highlighted Japan’s interconnectedness to regions beyond the Asia-Pacific from a variety of different scales.

However, scholars bridging fields of Japanese-American history are yet to assess the role of war in the Issei’s (and their descendant ‘Nisei’) engagement with the Japanese nation-state and empire and reciprocal use of Issei experiences by the Japanese state, which is surprising given the frequent passing comments to Issei patriotism during wartime across existing research. This project seeks to address this gap, whilst re-balancing the focus towards the ideas, motives and actions of the immigrants themselves, not only how the Japanese state managed them.

With this in mind, this project currently forwards a three-pronged hypothesis; firstly, that Japanese immigrants in America from 1894-1945 did provide a fitting example for Japanese imperial strategy in East Asia. Secondly, and more importantly, that Japanese Americans themselves forwarded nationalist and colonial narratives – interacting with their homeland in the context of their marginalisation within American society. Thirdly, that this sentiment grew stronger in the contexts of Japan’s wars in this period.

To construct this argument, Japanese immigrant experiences in America will be contextualised in the cases of the first Sino-Japanese War (1894-95), the First World War (1914-1918) and the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945). These cases are chosen pragmatically for the scale of impact these wars had on Japan, and to a lesser extent, America.

From a methodological standpoint, because the central focus of research is on how far Japanese immigrants across the Pacific were affected by, and subsequently contributed to (directly and indirectly), Japan’s East Asian wars, the analytical perspective will begin and end with them. In doing so it will also have to evaluate the driving motives of immigrant actions – was it marginalisation by American society or an existing deeply-held allegiance to Japan that drove Issei (and Nisei) patriotism? To answer this question requires the roughly fifty-year timeframe adopted by this project. With all this in mind, this research will use a micro-historical approach, particularly when making the empirical and analytical connections to Japanese state policy in wartime. Similarly, it will follow the transnational turn within migration studies to view migrant lives in the context of an ever-evolving reciprocal relationship between homeland and receiving country.

Forming this composite argument, which accounts for the perspectives of actors within America and Japan and covers scales from the ordinary Japanese American immigrant to the Japanese military official, will require primary source material to be diverse. In particular, this project will look at the writings of immigrant intellectuals (termed by Azuma as ‘Issei Pioneers’), the numerous political pamphlets published by the Japanese Association of America and Japanese Chamber of Commerce and translated statements of Japanese officials – amongst other sources from digital archives charting the Japanese American immigrant experience, such as the Densho digital archives.

Reference List

Azuma, Eiichiro, Between two empires race, history, and transnationalism in Japanese America (Oxford, 2005).

Iacobelli, Pedro (eds.), Transnational Japan as History: Empire, Migration, and Social Movements (New York, 2016).

Densho Digital Archives, http://densho.org/archives/ (accessed 07/03/19).

The Opium Trade was an international network to behold. The diversity of actors involved in the trade make its history truly transnational. Over the course of the late modern period, Opium came to be the most important commodity in Western trade with China. The Dutch and Portuguese first began smuggling Opium into East Asia via their trading posts in South Asia. Once Dutch and Portuguese influence in South Asia began to subside, the British government, along with East India Company, sought to mitigate their trade imbalance with China by capitalising on the Opium Trade and dominating it. By 1840, the trade imbalance was reversed and China was spending more silver on Opium than it was receiving for tea and porcelain. India was the primary staging ground for growing poppy and producing Opium. Merchants would smuggle Opium from Indian ports to Guangzhou, formerly Canton, which was at the time the only international trading hub in all of China. Realising that the Opium Trade was beginning to pose serious social and economic issues, the Chinese government attempted to crackdown on the trade. The British, seeing a threat to their profits, sent an expeditionary force to Guangzhou and began the First Opium War. The British decisively crushed all Chinese resistance and forced the Qing Emperor to agree to the Treaty of Nanjing, which ceded Hong Kong to the British government, forced China to open its ports to international commerce and ensured the continuation of the Opium Trade. British coercion and the persistence of the Opium Trade crippled the Chinese economy and led to a rapid influx of international actors within China.

The macro-historical ramifications of the Opium Trade have been extensively speculated upon by historians and politicians. Much of the historiography regarding the Trade can be placed into what Dilip Basu termed “detriment” and “benefit” theories. Those favouring the benefit theory generally view the trade as a cause for spreading liberal economics and westernised international relations norms to a stubborn and non-conforming China. These views were popular among Western-imperialists throughout the trade itself and maintained a significant presence in historiography until the second-half of the twentieth century. Detriment theory stipulates that the Opium Trade, driven by Western economic interests and imperial expansion, contributed to the complete collapse of the Qing government, debilitated much of the Chinese population and led to exploitation by foreign powers until the success of the Communist Revolution in 1949. Detriment theory originated at the height of the trade, as many Western observers recognised that Britain had deliberately inundated an entire country with narcotics and condemned British involvement in Opium smuggling. Naturally, the most fervent devotees of detriment theory have been Chinese. The rise of the Chinese Communist Party in the early 20^th century coincided with the spread of fervent Chinese nationalism. Chinese historians came to regard the first Opium War as the beginning of the “Hundred-years of Shame” in which China was dominated by greedy, imperialist foreign powers. Western historians writing in the second-half of the 20^th century leading up to today have subscribed to detriment theory but have also expanded their scope of research to other elements of the Opium Trade, such as evaluating India’s role in the centre of Opium production and determining how international private merchants may have enabled the profitability of the trade. Overall, historiography on the topic is extensive and provides a diversity of approaches to consider.

I would like to hone in on the period of international convergence that resulted from the Opium Trade. It caused a collision of worlds that – like the rest of colonial history – resulted in exploitation. Yet, unlike the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire or American Manifest Destiny, the influence of the Opium Trade and subsequent opening of China spanned across an entire continent and involved nearly all the global powers of the time. With this in mind, I will address a number of key questions in the project. Firstly, how did the economic incentives of Opium smuggling bring together a multiplicity of international actors? How did the opening of China to foreign powers change its social, political and economic make-up? Finally, what ramifications did international convergence have for China and its national sovereignty?

The comprehensive nature of literature regarding the trade makes engaging in specific research more difficult. Ideally, by engaging in the extensive historiographical and primary source material on the topic, I will be able to draw macro-historical conclusions about a transnational network that had long-lasting repercussions for China.

There is a wealth of primary source material but only from the account of British and American citizens – not from a Chinese or Indian perspective. It will be challenging to find Chinese and Indian literature in English that addresses the questions I am attempting to answer. In addition to one-sided primary sources, it must be said that one cannot separate the history of the Opium Trade from national economic and political perspectives. Despite the fact that the Trade’s chief actors were nation-states, transnationalism can still be found in the interactions between nation-states as well as the networks they tie between each other. In the Opium Trade, one finds a detailed, intriguing example of transnational confluence between nation-states.

Valide Sultans (the official mothers of the Ottoman Sultan), are ideally suited for transnational analysis. The Ottomans relied heavily on a slave system for filling high ranking positions, including in the Sultan’s harem, because they believed that slaves would not have split allegiances, or amass too much personal power, this led me to question if this assumption could possibly be correct. Transnational history[1] with input from imperial and transcultural history is perhaps the best way to examine these women’s remarkable journeys from foreign slaves to the heart of imperial power. They lived in a world of seemingly alien power dynamics, but this gives us the opportunity to gain new insights on trans-nationality gender and power in an under examined context.

Questions: 

1. What kind of power did these women wield as transnational actors and how?

2. How did their transnational origins impact the way they used their power?

-Were they biased in favour of their homelands and/or religions?

Iyigun has done a statistical analysis of the impact of the origins of Sultan’s mothers on the Sultan’s later political actions, mostly regarding where the Sultans waged war (2013). While his research has admirable statistical rigour, it almost entirely lacks biographical detail about the Sultan’s mothers themselves. The historical messiness of these women’s lives is ignored as is their personal agency, essentially in his work they are transnational, but not really actors. The lives of many Valide Sultans have been studied in greater depth in works by historians such as Pierce (1993). However, these works do not usually focus on them in transnational context. The most notable exception is Pedani’s article “Safiye’s Household and Venetian Diplomacy” (2000).

It becomes clear that the best way to investigate Valide Sultans as transnational actors is to investigate some of these women in depth. This is a similar approach to that taken in Early Modern Dynastic Marriages and Cultural Transfer, which while about a different geographic area presents a useful model for examining elite early modern women as transnational/transcultural actors (Casalilla, 2016). 

For this essay three Valide Sultans who were significant transnational actors will be examined. The first of these is Nurbanu (1525-1583)  who was probably taken from Corfu while it was under venetian rule, but chose to play up a likely fictional identity as the illegitimate daughter of venetian nobles (Peirce, 1993). Venetians still appealed to her to improve relations, which she did fairly successfully (Peirce, 1993). The second woman is Nurbanu’s daughter in law Sayife (1550-1619) who like her mother in-law was significant to relations with Venice, but was herself Albanian (Pedani, 2000). The third woman is Gülnuş (1642-1715) who was born on Crete while it was under Venetian rule but later in life was key to appointing its governor under Ottoman rule (Argit, 2017). Like the other Valide Sultans mentioned here she attempted to improve relations with Venice, but what is perhaps more interesting is her central role in Ottoman Swedish relations during their war with Russia (Argit, 2017). Many Valide Sultans likely had less of an impact than these women, but this essay will focus on some of the most impactful women, because their stories of rising from slavery to power in a fierce male dominated world are the most remarkable, and also because hopefully the patterns found in their lives may also be found in the lives of some of their less well known counterparts. 

These specific Valide Sultans have also been chosen out of practical concern regarding sources. There are significant secondary sources on all of them, although most are not written from a transnational perspective. In addition they all appear in a significant number of sources from their own period including correspondence both by and about them, both informal and diplomatic. In addition the activities of these women was recorded by Ottoman and European observers who had a vested personal or national interest in goings on at court. Many of these sources were translated into english by historians or in some cases for circulation nearly contemporary to their original writing. 

Based on initial research I can hypothesise that Valide Sultans did at least at times wield tremendous power, formally as regent and/or informally via personal relationships. They did this by positioning themselves at the centre of a network of transnational and imperial actors, many of whom were also women. An especially interesting pattern is the seeming importance of Kiras (non-muslim women who served as intermediaries between the harem and the wider world). Geographic and religious origin likely had some influence on Valide Sultans, but these origins do not seem predictive of their actions.

[1] Some historians question how early the term transnational can be applied (Saunier, 2013), a concern that will be addressed in greater depth in the final essay.

Sources:

Argit, Betul Ipsrili, ‘A Queen Mother and the Ottoman Imperial Harem’ in Matthew S. Gordon and Kathryn A. Hain (ed.), Concubines and Courtesans: Women and Slavery in Islamic History (Oxford, 2017), pp. 207-222.

Casalilla, Bartolome Yun, ‘Aristocratic Women across Borders, Cultural Transfers, and Something More. Why Should We Care?’ in Joan-Luis Palos and Magdalena S. Sanchez (ed.), Early Modern Dynastic Marriages and Cultural Transfer (Abingdon, 2016) pp. 237-257. 

Dursteler, Eric R., Venetians in Constantinople: Nation, Identity, and Coexistence in the Early Modern Mediterranean.

Freely, John, Inside the Seraglio: Private Lives of the Sultans in Istanbul (London, 1999).

Iyigun, Murat, ‘Lessons from the Ottoman Harem on Culture, Religion, and Wars’, Economic Development and Cultural Change, 61, No. 4 (2013), pp. 693-730. 

Kravets, Maryna, ‘Blacks beyond the Black Sea: Eunuchs in the Crimean Khanate’, in Benhaz A. Mirzai, Ismael Musah Montana and Paul E. Lovejoy (ed.) Slavery Islam and Diaspora (2009), pp. 22-36.

Kunt, Metin Ibrahim. ‘Ethnic-Regional (Cins) Solidarity in the Seventeenth-Century Ottoman Establishment’ International Journal of Middle East Studies, vol. 5, no. 3, (1974), pp. 233–239.

Lamdan, Ruth, ‘Jewish Women as Providers in the Generations Following the Expulsion from Spain’ Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women’s Studies & Gender Issues 13 (2007), pp. 49-67.

Pedani, Maria Pia, ‘Safiye’s Household and Venetian Diplomacy’, Turcica, 32 (2000), pp. 9-32. 

Pierce, Linda P., Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire (New York, 1993). 

Saunier, Pierre-Yves. Transnational History (London, 2013).

Toledano, Ehud R., ‘Bringing the Slaves Back In’, in Benhaz A. Mirzai, Ismael Musah Montana and Paul E. Lovejoy (ed.) Slavery Islam and Diaspora (2009) pp. 7-20. 

The English Factory at Hirado, Japan. A Microhistory of English Merchants in the early 17^th century.

We often talk about the practicality of transnational history; why do we study it? What can we truly learn? It seems that transnational ideas are being challenged across the world, from Brexit to Trump and his protectionist trade policies, the interconnectedness of the world seems to be unravelling at its seams. Politicians too often use nationalistic histories and interpretations to create political rhetoric which attempts to warp our understanding of the past. Transnational history offers us the chance to re-correct this misinterpretation.

In the case of Wenceslaus Hollar’s painting “Royal Exchange”, which depicts London’s Royal Exchange in 1644, it can be seen that merchants, English and foreign, were already co-operating together discussing business and international news.

Importantly, it highlights how English Imperial aspirations, particularly in Asia concerning the East India company, were built on ideas of transnational co-operation and not English isolationism. Alison Games, in her book Web of Empires, describes this best, stating that the English merchants were forced to become diplomats and ambassadors as they were numerically and diplomatically weak across the world in the 17th century, as demonstrated by travel literature of time such as The Merchant Avizo.[1]

The English merchants were often the first of their nation to establish new markets, like those at Hirado, Japan in 1613. Previously, traditional grand narratives have ignored Hirado as a supposedly insignificant factory which struggled to achieve economic viability, closing down after ten years of operation in 1623. This, however, reflects a modern misconception of trade as an inanimate force, rather it seems that trade and commerce in the 17^th century was based on “personal commercial connection”.[2] This project, therefore, aims to examine Hirado from a transnational perspective, focusing on the lives of the actors associated with the factory and how they are comparable to other English merchants across Asia at the time. In effect, this study will be a microhistory demonstrating the similarity of English transnational actors across Asia.

The study of this factory will be anchored around four research questions:

1. How does the career of these English merchants support the idea of them being transnational actors?
2. What is the relationship between state and trade (internationalism) and, does one override the other?
3. To what extent was there cultural assimilation between the English and the Japanese?
4. How do these questions compare to the situation of English merchants across Asia?

The first question presents a potential pitfall of the project as it runs the risk of becoming overtly narrative. However, it also acts as the perfect building block for the following questions, allowing for them to be interwoven in to the lives of these transnational actors.

One possible hypothesis is that English merchants as seen at Hirado struggled to balance the demands of an internationalist outlook, desired for trade, with the needs of the nation, a conflict of interests which would have defined their actions as transnational actors.

This hypothesis is aided by the limited timescale under investigation as the factory at Hirado was only operational for ten years. Research can, therefore, be easily focused allowing for a more thorough analysis of each of the aforementioned research questions. Furthermore, it avoids the often problematic view in transnational history of interpreting events as part of a wider teleological progression. Instead, emphasis falls on human agency, important if the actions of these transnational actors are to be fully explored.

It can be seen that a transnational lens brings with it problems. It’s lack of clarity in definition creates ambiguity, which is worth investigating. A tentative conclusion could explore the difficulties of comparison in transnational history. For example, the extent to which these transnational actors were part of a larger English network in Asia. Although a shared experience of being numerically, diplomatically weak is suggestive of this, an argument can be made for the English factories being disjointed nucleated units.

This is made possible by the large quantities of surviving source material available including large quantities of letters, diaries and East India Company reports. These materials help provide a personal insight into the inner machinations of the English factory at Hirado. A comprehensive picture of Hirado can, therefore, be achieved making it an ideal microhistory.  

[1] Alison Games, The Web of Empire (Oxford, 2008), p. 87.

[2] Ibid, p. 83.

In 1788, French botaniste du roi Hyppolyte Nectoux received seven new plants from British crown botanist Dr. Thomas Clarke for his botanical station at Saint Domingue, and in 1789 he received twenty more. This remarkable example of cross-cultural knowledge exchange in the Antilles was later described by the editor of Saint Domingue’s Affiches Américaines: ‘The plants that the Administration recently received from Jamaica were accompanied by very friendly letters, wherein the Governor of that colony and the Director of the botanical garden promise to share everything valuable they receive’.^[1]Botanists in the Caribbean could be diplomats as much as they were scientists. 

Instances of inter-imperial scientific exchange in the Antilles stand relatively understudied, and this project aims to redress that. By 1777, France and Britain had successfully constructed their respective paradigms of botanical knowledge cultivation in the Caribbean. From metropolitan institutions like the Jardin du Roi and Royal Academy, scientists were dispatched to colonies like Guadeloupe, Saint Domingue, Jamaica and Saint Vincent. In some instances, French botanists worked just seventy miles from their English counterparts. 

Yet scholarsof British and French eighteenth-century horticulture have been more inclined to reconstruct instances of botanical knowledge trading in Europe than they have in the Antilles.^[2]In general, they have been hesitant to challenge the closed-circuit paradigm of colonial knowledge production drawn up by Regourd and McClellan,^[3]and have not responded to Jarvis’ appeal for historians to see intercolonial spaces as favorable to the cross-cultural exchange of scientific knowledge.^[4]While scholarship has undermined the assumption that imperial rivalry stifled intellectual exchange between botanists in Britain and France, it is yet to undermine that same assumption for botanists stationed at Jamaica and Saint Domingue. Borders remain impermeable to the circulation and exchange of botanical knowledge in the Antilles while they have been exposed as permeable to that same circulation and exchange in Europe, and this is paradoxical.  

The aimsof this project are threefold. First, and most importantly, it aims to shed more light on instances of collaboration between French and British botanists in the Antilles. Second, it aims to challenge the assumption that colonial borders in the Antilles were less favorable to the circulation and exchange of scientific knowledge than those that separated the French and British metropoles in Europe. Third, it aims to show that by applying the transnational ‘lens’ to the inter-imperial production of botanical knowledge in the Antilles, historians can think in new and exciting ways about the organization of imperial space. 

The project will be driven forward by four leading research questions. Why did some French and British botanists choose to collaborate with each other in the Antilles? Who were those botanists? What types of scientific knowledge did they exchange, and how did they exchange it?

One hypothesisis that these botanists were inclined to collaborate: that the enlightenment spirit of epistemic universalism was a transnational force powerful enough to transcend imperial rivalries. Another hypothesis is that these botanists were remaking those same scientific networks that had been made across imperial metropoles. This is more realistic. The frequency at which botanists formed networks and moved between intellectual centres like Edinburgh, London and Montpellier would provide for this.      

The timescale from which this project draws inspiration is wide, and that is deliberate. Parts of the project will seek to address why scientists chose to exchange scientific knowledge when and where they did, and when and where they did not. To this end, the project will view the Antilles as an ‘inter-imperial microregion’.^[5] This paradigm is relatively new. It was conceived by global historians who wished to study inter-imperial spaces, and who recognized the high potential for cross-cultural exchanges within them. The project’s first research goalwill be to identify instances of scientific exchange between French and British scientists in the West Indies. In turn, it will seek to reconstruct those exchanges by identifying the individuals involved in them; their backgrounds, and their aspirations. The project then takes inspiration from the recent uptake in global microhistory: it seeks to reconcile the smaller process of inter-imperial scientific exchange with the larger process of empire-building. Its agenda is simultaneously recentralizing and deconstructive.   

The project will draw on digitalized primary source materialfrom the Bibliothèque nationale de France and British Library. Periodicals, autobiographies and letters of inter-imperial scientific correspondence from the colonial Antilles will be supplemented by letters of intra-imperial communication between institutions like the Jardin du Roi in Paris and the French botanical station at Guadeloupe for example. The project will take further inspiration from a wealth of recent scholarship on eighteenth-century European science. 

^[1]James E. McClellan III, Colonialism & Science: Saint Domingue in the Old Regime (Chicago, 2010), p. 160. 

^[2]For examples see: Ann Thomson, Simon Burrows, Edmond Dziembowski and Sophie Audidière (eds), Cultural transfers: France and Britain in the long eighteenth century(Oxford, 2010).

^[3]For the clearest description of this system see: James E. McClellan III and François Regourd, ‘“The Colonial Machine”: French Science and Colonization in the Ancien Régime’, Osiris 15 (2000), pp. 31 – 50.

^[4]See: Michael J. Jarvis, In the Eye of All Trade: Bermuda, Bermudians, and the Maritime Atlantic World, 1680 – 1783 (Chapel Hill, 2010), p. 464. 

^[5]Jeppe Mulich, ‘“Microregionalism and intercolonial relations”: The Case of the Danish West Indies, 1730 – 1830’, Journal of Global History 8(2013), pp. 72 – 94. 

Research Question:  To what extent do supranational organisations impact individual identity in the case of the European Union (EU)?

1. Thesis

While EU citizens identify themselves as Europeans, they foremost identify with their national roots. However, all Europeans share an identifying economic, social and political congruency that helps create a sense of comradery that transcends borders.

1. Historical Relevance  

Dating back to Bohemia in the 20^th century, the concept of the European identity has continually tormented historians. With the rise of supranational[1] organisations such as the EU, the question of European identity becomes increasingly more urgent. Historical events such as the Brexit vote of 2016, and possibility of Turkey joining the EU, have kept the question of European identity relevant, and an ongoing debate. For this reason, this project proves a key tool in evaluating theprogression of the EU from its creation to the present, and the tremendous impact it continues to have on individual lives.

1. Methodology

In order to add an historical time frame to the question of European identity, this project will give a brief summary of the EU, beginning with the Maastricht Treaty in 1992. With this background explained, this project will then critically assess the concept of individual European identity. This will be accomplished by examining the case studies of two nations: Spain and Hungary.  

Before delving into this analysis, the concept of ‘identity’ needs to be investigated. Historiography for years has been met with the challenge of producing an efficient way to measure identity. While this project does not claim to settle the methodological debate of how to measure identity, it does attempt to add to the conversation. In terms of this project, identity will be analysed through the change in political, economic, and social policies and assessing how these changes affected Europeans. This will be done by explaining how national policies were enforced prior to the EU and compare how policies were enforced after the creation of the EU. For example, when joining the EU, many countries forfeited their national sovereignty in terms of conforming to the laws of the newly created European Economic Community (EEC). This EEC created congruent economic, political, and legal policies, historically altering the future of Europe.

This project will then flesh out the concept of the “European identity” using two case studies: Spain and Hungary. The case study of Spain was chosen to represent the Mediterranean member states within the EU, holding a polar-opposite history to that of Eastern European members such as Hungary. Being part of Eastern Europe, Hungary has unique communist ties that set it apart historically from many EU member states, deeming it an interesting case study. First, Spain will be examined, explaining the shift in Spanish policies before the creation of the EU in 1992 and after the creation of the EU. Next, the same exercise will be done with Hungary. It should be noted that by choosing such distinct member states, this project will ground its conclusion on the extreme contrast between Spanish and Hungarian history. This is done to show the tremendous difference in policy changes within Spain and Hungary pre-EU and EU. By arguing from extremes, this project has the ability to clearly show how these policy changes altered the day-to-day lives of Spanish and Hungarian citizens. The divergences between the effect of EU policies within Spain and Hungary give rise to the conclusion that while member states are bound by shared policies, citizens chiefly consider themselves Spanish or Hungarian before European.

1. Practical Considerations

Though measuring identity by critically assessing policy changes, is a supported and recommended practice by academics such as Antje Wiener and Thomas Dietz, there remains resistance to this method of analysis. It can be argued that policy changes merely generalise the impact on individual lives, and could overly marginalise the effects of certain policies. For example, most EU member states benefited from the creation of the Euro, creating a more stable economy for EU citizens. However, this statement is a generalisation, as some citizens may have felt constrained by this new currency rather than liberated. Therefore, this project acknowledges that some individuals’ opinions may be overlooked in the critical analysis.

Additionally, due to the constraints in word limit, this project will only look at two case studies. While this will provide in-depth examples, it will concurrently only use two member states to prop up its argument. Though this gives the reader a unique micro-history of two EU member states, it is notably an incomplete account of the full European identity.

Primary Sources:

• Maastricht Treaty
• Single European Act
• Treaty of Amsterdam
• Treaty of Nice
• Treaty of Rome

Secondary Sources:

Habermas, Jurgen, The Crisis of the European Union, (Cambridge, 2012).

Krastev, Ivan, After Europe, (Philadelphia, 2017).

Laurenson, Finn, Historical Dictionary European Union, (Plymouth, 2016).  

Lindseth, Peter, Oxford Handbook of International Organisations, (Oxford, 2008).

Schweiger, Christian, and Visvizi, Anna, Central and Eastern Europe in the EU: challenges        and perspectives under crisis conditions, (Oxford, 2005).

Wiener, Antje and Dietz, Thomas, European Integration Theory, (Oxford, 2004).

Williams, Alan, The European Community, (Oxford, 1991). 

[1] ‘Supranational’, in terms of this project, will be defined as an organisation whose jurisdiction overrides national governments.

Art can be an excellent medium for learning about other cultures. I find film to be the most engaging of all common art forms. It feeds on our most perceptive senses – sight and sound — but also taps in to our capacity for empathy. A truly great film will transplant the audience to its setting and connect them to its characters. Today, films from all over the world are easily accessible through streaming services and many of them allow us insight into foreign societies. While one cannot physically interact with the setting or characters, a film in itself can be a humanised vestige of the socio-political ordeals happening within foreign societies.

The Cannes Film Festival, over the past few decades, has turned itself into a transnational event where films from Asian – and now African – nations are given the same attention as films from Western nations with more established film industries. The festivals highest accolade, called the Palme d’Or, was first awarded to an Asian country in 1954, when Japan’s Teinosuke Kinugasa beat out films from France, The USSR, Brazil, Greece, India and the U.K. with his “Gate of Hell.” Kinugasa’s film also won an Oscar for ‘Best Foreign Language Film.’ At a time when the world was still fresh with the wounds from Second World War II, the Cannes Festival used film to bridge the gaps between former enemies who had suffered horribly at the hands of one other. With this in mind, one must imagine that platforms for Japanese culture to express itself on a global stage would have been exceptionally limited and likely met with reservations if not outright negativity. The Cannes festival has maintained its transnationalism and each year, the festival continues to collect nominations from the far corners of the globe. Recently, the festival has been making a point of being globally inclusive. The main competition included films from Iran, Kazakhstan, China, Japan, Turkey, Lebanon and Egypt. Film is an industry that been historically dominated by a limited number of countries, namely the U.S., U.K. and France. While the most profitable movies are still almost invariably Hollywood productions, the Cannes Festival gives platforms to films and directors who would otherwise be overlooked by moviegoers. The films selected by the juries are most often small budget films with intensely humanist plotlines rather than widely released blockbusters.  The 2015 Palme D’or winner Dheepan traces the excruciating ordeal of a former Sri Lankan Tamil Tiger as he finds political asylum in the crime-ridden suburbs of Paris. These kinds of storylines illustrate both the international and human focus of the festival. Art is an exceptional vehicle for transnationalism and the Cannes Film Festival epitomises the power of film to transcend cultural, political and national barriers.

My other module I’m taking this semester covers modern Iran form 1800 to the present day. Last week we covered the Great Game, which refers to the imperial competition in Central Asia between the juggernaut empires of Russia and Britain. Specifically this largely concerns imperial interest in Iran and Afghanistan as Russia pushed to claim a warm sea port whilst Britain sought to protect their interests in India. Whilst this would suggest a topic and period dominated by high politics, the cultural exchange and transnationalism are startling eclectic and broad. Classically, much imperial history is written in a binary fashion, focusing on the conflict between dominion and resistance. However it becomes very apparent that there were far more complex issues in the imperial struggle at play, with the great game a clear example of this.
On a high diplomatic level, too few historians allocate Iran a foreign policy, merely seeing the Kingdom as a subject of great power politics. However in reality this is far form the case, as the Shah fully understood his precarious position, and the necessity of using his state’s geo-strategic location to his political advantage. Iran was of vital importance to the British policy as buffer state, and the Shah used entreaties to the French during the Napoleonic conflict as a foil to extract concessions and guarantees from the British. In fact he ensured that British policy became so invested in Iran that the London sponsored the stationing of a regular detachment in Tehran, the opening of a cannon foundry and the establishment of an Imperial Bank. At Curzon’s insistence Iran was perpetually at the forefront of discussion in Whitehall. This was an enormous success for the Shah, despite several historians portrayal of it as classic imperial intrusion and domination.
Not only did the Great Game involve a large amount of top level diplomatic entanglement, but it also saw an enormous degree of cultural exchange. Iranian diplomats, such as Abdol Hassan Kahn travelled throughout Europe to Russia, France and Britain. When, accompanied by much anticipation, he arrived in London, Hassan Kahn was welcomed into the upper echelons of society. He became close friends with Sir Gore Ouseley, hobnobbed with the aristocracy and became a freemason. Iranian guests were impressed with the Thames tunnel, the Forth rail bridge and British concepts of democracy. Even Iranian minority leaders such as Afghani were invited to speak at academic gatherings. This was not a one way cultural exchange however, the British maintained a permanent diplomatic presence in Tehran. Perhaps, most notably led by John Malcolm, who was key in promoting cultural exchange between Britain and Russia, authoring one of the first complete histories of Iran after spending much of his life in subcontinental Asia. On occasion Malcom had even led the Shahs armies and remained a proponent for engagement with Afghanistan and Iran until his death.
This all serves to demonstrate both the complex issues surrounding the transnational studies of empire and how multidimensional both the transfer of culture and political relations were. On a more personal level however, it is very exciting to see and get an opportunity to witness and practice transnational history beyond the boundaries of this module.

It seems that in the last two years, transnational ideas have been challenged across the world. From Brexit to Trump and his trade protectionist policies the interconnectedness of the world seems to be unravelling at its seams. Repeatedly politicians hark back to by gone days of old, reminiscing about factually incorrect historical pasts. It is why I find Wenceslaus Hollar’s painting “Royal Exchange. 1644” so striking.

The painting depicts English and foreign merchants animated in conversation, discussing business and news, working in cooperation for financial advantage. Cooperation is a keyword word here, for Englishmen relied greatly on the aid of others during the early 17th century. Traditional conceptions of Englishmen overseas, especially merchants are synonymous with exploitation of the local populace, the cause of the opium wars is a fine example. Yet, during early English explorations of the economic networks developing across the world, especially in Asia we find this to be not the case. The English were numerically and diplomatically weak across the world in the 17th century.

The English factory at Hirado in Japan offers an excellent example of this, demonstrating how Englishmen were not only merchants but ambassadors and diplomats. Transnational actors operating on an international stage. Robert Cocks, the factor at Hirado was known to stay up all night if he suspected Japanese guests were to be visiting. In many ways Hirado offers us an excellent case study of English merchant activity in Asia, highlighting the importance of integration in local cultures.

It also offers interesting character studies such as that of the life of William Adams (which spanned across the turn of the 17th century). An Englishmen whose career saw him serve in the English navy, the Company of Barbary Merchants, as well as a Dutch expedition to the Far East in 1598. A transnational career which did not stop there, for in 1600, Adams, embroiled in religious rivalry, was imprisoned in Japan for five years before eventually rising to become an adviser to the shogun, Ieyasu. In search of opportunity Adams, traversed much of the known world, serving under three different states.

In the end the factory at Hirado was closed in 1623 after struggling with solvency for most of its operational career, contradicting transnational tendencies to view economic integration as a gradual process. This is because Japan proceed to close itself off from much of the west for the next couple of hundred years. However, this in my opinion makes it a more interesting transnational case study for historians cannot be swayed by narratives of progression which have often plagued histories associated with the interconnectedness of the world.

Last night I attended one of the student run fashion shows, Ubuntu. The show was suppose to be set in Mansa Musa’s Court prior to western colonisation. The vision was to recover the narrative of a strong, powerful, and flourishing African prior to the confines of slavery and western imperialism. The show was thought provoking, inspiring, and surprisingly a great example of transnational history.

To elaborate, the Ubuntu contained elements of dance, spoken word, and fashion. All the designers featured in the show were from either the Caribbean or of African descent.  The word itself, ‘Ubuntu’ means togetherness. So fittingly, the show was designed to bring together everyone in the audience as well as the show committee, despite colour, gender, or nationality. From the African dances, to some of the poems featured in the show, many different cultures and traditions mixed on stage connecting some audience members to their heritage while concurrently introducing others to a unfamiliar culture.

Looking at elements of Ubuntu piece by piece, I cannot help but to see all the transnational links within the show. For example, the models in the show additionally represented a range of African countries. I found it completely inspiring that this one fashion show in the middle of a Scottish seaside town could host so many different colours and nationalities on its stage. Looking around the crowd last night, it was one of the only events in St Andrews I can say was truly diverse. It was pretty amazing to see so many different people congregating together to celebrate African culture. Recollecting on this, I find it amazing that there are actually two level of transnationalism going on. (1) the obvious culminating of many different African nations being celebrated on a stage in St Andrews,  and (2) the different nationalities from American, French, Russian, Venezuelan and so many more coming together to celebrate this African culture that they are not even a part of. To have so much pride for a culture that is not even nationally yours is pretty astounding. I think it showed a deeper understanding that the students of St Andrews are just so happy to celebrate diversity and recover the lost narrative of Africa.

In a way, this is proof that the world is changing. People want to celebrate different nations. It is desired to be diverse and different. Students want to see more ethnically diverse faces up on stage than the usual sea of white. This little micro-history case study of an African fashion show in St Andrews is proof of the desire to be transnational. While some people in the crowd grew up listening to the African music pumping through Club 601, most of us did not. However, hearing these traditional African songs and watching these dances take place, it showed people want to be informed. I found myself incredibly proud of the performances I was watching, despite the fact I have no ethnic connection to Africa. I think people were moved that a minority culture such as African heritage in St Andrews could organise an entire show, and sell out a room. People were proud Ubuntu was finally getting its deserved facetime to show St Andrews what African culture was really about. Sixty years ago, it would be unheard of to have students pay money to go and watch traditional African dances. But, now in 2019, Ubuntu was a sold out show, with people wanting to take part in this new culture and inform themselves. This desire to understand African culture is not just a win for history, it is a win for transnationalism as a discipline. People want to understand global connections and want to become more knowledgeable world citizens.

This week I’ve decided to write about cooking. 

Before I left for the holiday period last semester I was given Michel Roux’s new cookbook, the french revolution. Its packed with traditional French recipes that appear under subheadings like ‘Légumes, Légumineuses et céréales’, ‘Repas de Famille’ and ‘Festins Gourmands’: ‘very achievable’ classics that ‘don’t need lots of fancy equipment… nearly all the ingredients are easy to come by’. 

My flatmate and I cook for each other every other night. It’s an efficient system that lets you get your work done one night, and relax the next. Tonight was my turn, and I’d decided earlier on in the day that I’d have a crack at Roux’s Moules à la Bière(1kg mussels from Tailend, 340 ml of beer from Luvians, 2 shallots, 2 garlic cloves, 2 TSP of black pepper (already had it) and 4 TBS of crème fraiche from Tesco’s). £ 8.75 might sound like a lot, but when you consider I’m only cooking every other night, that comes in at (roughly) 4 pounds a day for supper. 

Presentation and flavor matter a lot at no.15, and I absolutely nailed this one in an hour and fifteen minutes (roughly the time I usually cook for).

That might sound like a lot of time (time that might otherwise have been spent on essay or tutorial reading for example), but I think there’s a lot to be said for having spent it on cooking. 

First off, I think getting into a habit of cooking new recipes really helps me to relax. Reading for most of the day can feel quite frustrating, but trying to cook something new for the first time at the end of a long day is quite liberating. It’s definitely a creative activity that can break the harsh realities of the work-rest 24-hour day. 

What’s better is that I find cooking helps when I’m lost for work related words or ideas: when I’m stuck with a methodological problem or struggling to structure an argument for an upcoming essay for example. I think there’s something about the creativity involved in making a meal that helps to me to think about academic problems in ways I might not have while sitting at desk. That’s why I bring a pad of paper to the kitchen counter when I cook. If something new comes to me from the heavens, I jot it down, and I end up with a small collection of notes for when I come back to tackle the problem later. I hadn’t thought about what I’d blog about today until I started chopping the shallots. By the time I’d added the crème fraiche to the beer, I’d drawn up a rough plan.   

I also appreciate the reward in having cooked something nice, in sitting down at the table with my flatmate to eat, and in taking the time to chill out. I think a lot of students miss out on this when they head back to St Andrews after a holiday.  

I reckon the whole process (from pan to plate, table to chat and chat to dishwasher) takes about 2.5 hours. It might be procrastination, but that procrastination sure can be productive. 

On 18^th October 1954 Antigone Costanda, Miss Egypt, became the first non-European to be crowned Miss World. The following year, during the 1955 Miss World beauty pageant, Costanda did not attend the event and crown her successor as per the usual tradition due to political hostilities between Egypt and Britain over the Suez Canal. On 15^th October during the 1956 Miss World pageant this photo is taken of Miss Israel (Rina Weiss – left), holding hands with Miss Egypt (Normal Dugo – right). Some two weeks later on the 29^th October, Israel invaded the Egyptian Sinai.

Carole Crawford, Miss Jamaica, became Miss World in 1963, just months after Jamaican independence in 1962. Remembered as one of the shortest entrants (only 5’3”) and a face that was ‘uncharacteristically Jamaican’, being only part black, Carole became the first “coloured” Miss World. She went on to become a nationally recognised icon – with her face pictured on a special issue of more than 3 million stamps.

In 1966, the winner was Reita Faria from India, the first Asian woman to win the event. She impressed the judges in ‘Best in Eveningwear’ for wearing a sari and after her one-year tenure as Miss World went back to concentrating on her medical studies, becoming the first Miss World doctor. That same year Miss Spain, Paquita Torres Perez, withdrew from the competition because Miss Gibraltar, Grace Valverde, was in the pageant.

By 1970, 58 contestants competed for the Miss World title but it was Jennifer Hosten, Miss Grenada who won the crown. The event was marked by controversy in the days beforehand, during the contest itself and afterwards. Hosten was the first black woman to win Miss World and there were several accusations the contest had been rigged. The organisers had allowed two entries from South Africa, one black (who placed 2^nd) and one white. The evening itself was affected by protest by Women’s Liberation activists and the Angry Brigade anarchists.

These incidents demonstrate that the Miss World beauty pageant is not just a competition judging beauty. It is a site in which meanings are ascribed to individual and collective identities performed through women’s bodies, where political, cultural and racial issues are contested and mediated, and the nation is forced to confront itself.

The Miss World contest was created in 1951 as part of the ‘Festival of Britain’, which was initially pitched as a celebration of the centennial of the Great Exhibition of 1851. The winner selected was Kiki Håkansson from Sweden, despite 21 out of the 26 contestants being British, leading the contest to be dubbed ‘Miss World’ by the media. Gradually, as the popularity of the contest grew, countries sent in candidates from their own national competitions.

Thus, for a woman to reach the London stage and present herself in front a transnational audience and panel of judges, she must first be deemed suitable in demeanour, appearance, and style to embody the values and goals of her nation. This process is self-reflective and a place where a particular public can “tell stories to themselves about themselves”.[1] Each decision made by the individual and those surrounding her, whether it’s about skin colour, dress or even body language, reveal elements about the political, social and cultural context in which national identities are expressed and constructed. Consider: South Africa sending two racially contrasting candidates, Miss India choosing to wear a sari for the evening wear portion of the show or even Miss Egypt and Miss Israel holding hands in the midst of a conflict between their home countries. The Miss World beauty pageant insists on equating women’s bodies with discourses of the nation, formulating the equation woman=nation. The deployment of female bodies to such a degree heightens the performativity of national feminine identity and its negotiation on a global stage. On the other hand, these women also represent a ‘world community’ and those who win often end up conforming to the aesthetics of an unspoken western vision of glamour or style.[2] Furthermore, the contest itself is a profoundly political arena where issues regarding gender, race and international conflicts are negotiated.

This is why I have decided to choose the Miss World beauty pageants to be the focus of my final project. I will look at the first 19 years of its existence starting with Kiki in 1951 and ending with Jennifer in 1970, highlighting how the global and the national interests interact during moments of tension and also sympathy. In this way I hope to find out what it means to be a specifically feminine representative of the nation.

[1] Sarah Benet-Weiser, The Most Beautiful Girl in the World and National Identity (California, 1999), p. 2

[2] Raka Shome, Transnational Feminism and Communication Studies, The Communication Review 9.4 (2006), p. 264

When mentioning terms such as colonialism and English identity, I tend associate words such as oppression and superiority (at least a superiority complex). Within my project however, I will seek to challenge these preconceptions by focusing on the earlier stages of English colonial history. In particular, I want to focus in on the English factory at Hirado in Japan and compare it to English colonists in North America during the period between 1600 and 1623. With both these cases I seek to explore the malleability of English identity, reflective of power or lack there of, that Englishmen possessed.

I may just like the ring of “A Web of Lies”, but from background reading I think this is perfect description of English and their interactions with foreign peoples at the turn of the 17th century. This is because English identity became second to instincts of survival and the pursuit of economic gain. The Merchants Avizo, in short a self help book for English merchants operating in Spain and Portugal is a perfect example. The work instructs merchants to be “lowly, curteous, and serviceable unto every person”, emphasising the importance of humility and restraint in these catholic nations.

Yet, this approach was not universal, with these networks of Englishmen acting differently depending of the situation that they faced. This is why I have chosen to compare Japan and English North America as they juxtapose each, for although they shared economic motives at their core, the results were entirely different.

I understand that upon selecting English North America I open myself to criticism that the English merchants of Japan were not comparable to English “colonists” of North America. However, this is in many ways not the case. The early English “colonisers” did not envision the policy of settlement which came to define English North America. Instead, as highlighted by Alison Games one of their objectives was the establishment of trading posts which Games describes as being “characterized by the amicable and cooperative relations English traders employed around the world”.

In short I hope to contrast two networks of Englishmen seeking to exploit the wealth of new lands. Revealing how ideas on identity and conduct, associated with imperial hegemony are simply lies, misconceptions from the later colonial period.