Category Archives: Country

Spain as South – the Black Legend has a warm heart

‘Africa begins at the Pyrenees.’ Voltaire “Whatever has black sounds has duende.” Garcia Lorca Spain seems an exception to civilised Europe. While the Enlightenment promoted the pursuit of reason based on natural order, Spain remained captive to a theatre of violence as it persecuted heretics and bulls. Is this a true image of Spain? What [...]

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Jorgen Jorgenson returns yet again

Jorgen Jorgenson was a Danish adventurer who travelled to Tasmania twice, first in the founding party of Hobart and then as a convict. Between visits, he had been bestowed with the title of the first King of Iceland. He wrote many books, including a study of Tasmanian aborigines. His life sustains a ongoing link between [...]

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When children grow up in the Kingdom of Bellavista

In the Kingdom of Bellavista there lived two peoples. For centuries they had lived in perfect harmony, but lately there had been troubles. High on the hill, there lived the refined nobles, who cultivated highly sophisticated sciences and arts. With great care and kindness they managed the affairs of the realm, particularly those they fondly [...]

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Do we need another north?

The South African design expo Design Indaba makes the claim that global ascendency has passed to the other half of the world: Stand back Milan, London and New York, here comes SOUTH! SOUTH is an inversion of hand-me-down Eurocentric creativity, a world map turned upside down conceptually, so that South Africa is on top. Over [...]

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Verticalism and its underbelly

How is it that the North seems to sit above the South? Does this support a world that gives superior value to what originates from the North, as opposed to the problems in the lowly South? How might this vertical orientation be contested? This paper was presented at the International Conference on Hegemony, Counter Hegemony [...]

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