Christina Welch

The Spirituality of, and at, Greenham Common Peace Camp

This paper explores the spirituality of, and experienced at, Greenham Common Peace Camp, Berkshire, Southern England (1981-2000). Although mentioned in much of the discourse on the nuclear protest site Greenham, spirituality is, at best, marginalized in favour of socio-politics. However, there is evidence to suggest that spirituality played a significant role for many of the Greenham women, informing their protests through poetry, song and prose, as well as visually— with eco-feminist thealogy a potent theme. Through examining existing discourse and by interviewing protesters (I use an initial to identify those preferring to remain annoymous), this paper concludes that spirituality at Greenham Common Peace Camp requires further attention, and should no longer be seen as a subsidiary aspect of the camp.

Diversity in gender and visual representation: An introduction

This Special Issue builds upon key arguments that emerged during the course of an interdisciplinary conference that was hosted by the Centre for Gender Studies (University of Winchester, UK) in September 2012. The conference, themed ‘Gender and Visual Representation’, aimed to encourage and develop understanding concerning the social category of gender, the concept of visual representation and their relationship. In doing so, it hoped not only to bring people together with an interest in this field, but also to stimulate discussion within and between disciplines, research paradigms and methods. An added emphasis on ‘real world’ issues sought to inspire and contribute towards broader feminist activism.

Savagery on show: The popular visual representation of Native American peoples and their lifeways at the World’s Fairs (1851–1904) and in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West (1884–1904)

This interdisciplinary article examines and contextualizes the popular visual representations of Native American peoples and their lifeways at the World’s Fairs and Buffalo Bill’s Wild West from 1851 and 1884, respectively, to 1904. It will argue that these fairs and shows were arenas where colonially constructed identities and Western ideologies were enforced and reinforced to the general public, and where Native Americans were knowingly represented, regardless of reality, as primitive savages in direct opposition to Western civilized Christian norms, or as exemplars of assimilation saved from savagery by the benefits of Western civilized Christian norms. It suggests that the maxim of the World’s Columbian Exposition (1893–4), ‘To see is to know’, should not be underestimated in communicating identities; for during the mid-nineteenth to early twentieth century, colonially constructed visual knowledge was used to blur the boundaries between entertainment and education, allowing the cultural ideologies of the West to pass as reality.