This blog is mostly professional, but may have some personal notes in it as well, as it affects my professional activities.

Its namesake stems from my PhD research into regional identities in the late eighteenth century in what is now southern Bavaria.

I blog about issues related to information literacy, access to library resources, the environment, and the Historical Geography of Rupertsland.

Some sources regarding his life and work.

Fischer, H. (1988) ‘Schön und vortrefflich’: die ‘Charte von Schwaben’: Ein kartengeschichtlich bedeutsames Werk zu Beginn des 19. Jahrhunderts, in: Beiträge zur Landeskunde: Regelmässige Beilage zum Staatsanzeiger für Baden-Württemberg, Juni 1988, 3:1–8.

Fischer, H. (1988) Die ‘Charte von Schwaben’ im Massstab 1:86,400: Erläuterungen, in the series: Reproduktionen alter Karten, Stuttgart.

Fischer, H. (1993) Die ‘Charte von Schwaben’ 1:86,400, Cartographica Helvetica 7 (1993) 1–10.Gradmann, J.J. (1802) Das gelehrte Schwaben: oder Lexicon der jetzt lebenden schwäbischen Schriftsteller, Ravensburg.

Günther, Siegmund (1922) Eine Kartierung Oberschwabens um die Wende des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts, Sitzungsberichte der mathematisch-physikalischen Klasse der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu München, Jahrgang 1921 315–330, 317n.

Wolfart, P. (2008) Mapping the Early Modern State: the Work of Ignaz Ambros Amman, 1782–1812, Journal of Historical Geography, 34(1):1-23.

"Ignaz Ambros von Amman" in Wikipedia [short entry but cites Wolfart (2008).]


Indigenous Studies Portal News

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Court upholds native fisher's tax exemption, by Alexandra Paul, Winnipeg Free Press, March 22, 2012.


From this story alone, having not actually read the ruling itself, nor analysed the other cases that have ruled on section 87 of the Indian Act, I'm fascinated by what I see as a trend towards establishing 'indianness' (for lack of a better word) by the principle of jus sanguinis, a right that as the old phrase has it can 'be carried on one's back'.  This is in marked distinction to the territorially bounded principle used in other cases.
 In short, it is no longer necessary to remain on reserve, and I assume more to the point for future decisions, to somehow prove that you or your ancestors were on reserve, or in that specific geographical locale at the time a treaty was signed, to claim rights that were promised and reiterated in various court rulings to ones identity as an aboriginal person.

This deserves closer attention, both to the use of section 87 in recent cases, and the increased recognition that your status / rights to conduct business, engage in social discourse, or otherwise exist as a Canadian, are not bound by the border markers of the reserve.