Challenges and Opportunities in Cross-cultural Geographic Inquiry

While qualitative fieldwork in cross-cultural settings is central to human geography, there has been limited focus in the literature on the expectations and skills required to succeed as a field researcher in this area. Some practical advice is available for researchers who are new to cross-cultural fieldwork (e.g. graduate students, junior faculty members) and for advisers preparing young academics for such endeavours; however, themes are often treated individually rather than as a collective whole. This paper provides suggestions for novice field researchers by drawing on the experiences of four female graduate students engaged in qualitative geographic research. It identifies some major issues that influence the feasibility and efficacy of cross-cultural fieldwork, and provides practical suggestions to help prospective researchers plan for and implement field-based research projects in these contexts.     

语文课堂教学中的教与学

语文课堂教学是整个语文教学过程的中心环节,语文教师在课堂教学时应遵循教学的辩证关系。教学双方的辩证统一,对促进语文课堂教学任务的完成,改善师生关系,激发学生学习兴趣,提高教育教学质量会起到至关重要的影响。     

新时期地方志工作发展的机遇、挑战与对策

随着我国政治经济社会的快速发展,地方志工作发展面临新的机遇与挑战有：国际间各国文化交流与融合进程加快;国家加大了文化建设投入,社会文化需求日益增长,发挥地方志文化资源作用亟待加强;国家信息化建设对地方志工作带来了机遇与挑战;依法修志,强化地方志机构工作职能,拓展工作内容与领域,切实行使依法行政职能和职责成为必然;方志、年鉴编纂体例,记录内容等业务上拓展创新;方志学理论与实践亟待完善与丰富;图书馆、情报部门、博物馆、档案馆等文化事业的快速发展,管理水平、信息技术应用程度和社会知名度的不断提高,给地方志部门带来了压力和动力;地方志人才队伍建设面临的挑战。地方志工作者应从以下几个方面应对：勇于创新,转变职能;依法行政,完善法规;加大对地方志事业科技工作改革创新力度,使科学技术真正成为促进地方志事业快速发展的动力;加大地方志信息化建设力度,提升地方志工作服务社会与管理水平;加强地方志人才队伍建设。     

Opportunities and constraints for intensive agriculture in the Hawaiian archipelago prior to European contact

Intensive agricultural systems interact strongly and reciprocally with features of the lands they occupy, and with features of the societies that they support. We modeled the distribution of two forms of pre-European contact intensive agriculture – irrigated pondfields and rain-fed dryland systems – across the Hawaiian archipelago using a GIS approach based on climate, hydrology, topography, substrate age, and soil fertility. Model results closely match the archaeological evidence in defined locations. On a broader scale, we calculate that the youngest island, Hawai'i, could have supported 572 km² of intensive agriculture, 97% as rain-fed dryland field systems, while Kaua'i, the oldest island, could have supported 58 km², all as irrigated wetland systems. Irrigated systems have higher, more reliable yields and lower labor requirements than rain-fed dryland systems, so the total potential yield from Kaua'i (49k metric tons) was almost half that of Hawai'i (97k metric tons), although Kaua'i systems required only 0.05 of the agricultural labor (8400 workers, versus 165,000 on Hawai'i) to produce the crops. We conclude that environmental constraints to intensive agriculture across the archipelago created asymmetric production efficiencies, and therefore varying potentials for agricultural surplus. The implications both for the emergence of complex sociopolitical formations and for anthropogenic transformation of Hawaiian ecosystems are substantial.     

Monitoring the media: student production and use of newspaper resource files in economic geography

Abstract

This article discusses the use of newspaper resource files in economic geography, in particular focusing on a simple method of production involving student participation. It connects two related issues: first, the question of topicality in course content; and second, the problems associated with the collection and collation of up‐to‐date material at a time when there are both teaching pressures and an unrelentingly wide array of information and sources available to economic geographers. Against this background, the paper discusses the rationale for such a student‐based media monitoring activity, the simple procedures that might be used, and the advantages and disadvantages involved. It concludes that media monitoring is useful for students in maintaining up‐to‐date ideas and information in their course activity and that it may also trigger a series of valuable debating points, adding to the richness of the educational experience in economic geography.     

History of Psychology in China: Contributions,Challenges, and Future

The history of psychology makes three major contributions:(1) promoting the development of psychology in China;(2) establishing the history of Chinese psychology as an academic discipline;(3) playing an important role in training the next generation of Chinese psychologists.This effort faces numerous challenges,including the reduction in undergraduate teaching hours,declining enrolments at the postgraduate level,limited innovation in research,and a lack of financial support.These challenges stem largely from changes in the Chinese academic assessing system,the greater weight placed on experimental psychology,and a fewer opportunities for researchers.To address these concerns the history of psychology in China should make the history of Chinese psychology its research priority,while also presenting its findings to the public,and developing innovative teaching and research approaches.     

全球主义时代中国面临的挑战

在过去的十年里,“全球的”(global)、“全球化”(globalization)“全球主义”(globalism)几个词被如此频繁地和在如此众多的情况下使用,以至于它已不再有一个通用的意义或定义存在。所以当我们论及“全球主义”,尤其是当它成为向决策的一种挑战的时候,就需要对此解释一下。笔首先要排除几个概念。这些概念常常被描述为独特的,近来又被说成是全球的。     

浅谈语文教学中的情感体验

在语文教学中要注重情感体验,以唤起学生的主体意识,充分发挥学生的主观能动性,更好地落实新课标的要求。可以说,注重情感体验,语文教学就成功了一半,情感教育应是语文教学的生命。     

西方近代边疆理论的初步发展

文章认为,在资本主义的产生、发展时期,民族国家的出现是近代边疆理论形成的重要前提,重商主义与殖民扩张则是近代边疆理论形成的内在动力。这一时期,传统边疆向近代边疆的转变、国际法的初现也对近代边疆理论的发展产生了重要影响。     

The Early Supreme Court and the Challenges of Riding Circuit

The ratification of the United States Constitution ushered in a new system of government. No longer did the thirteen states merely hang together by the threads of a confederation; they now bonded to each other as one nation. Organized chiefly by the first three articles of the Constitution, a federal government began to take shape. The Framers expressly laid out the functions and duties of the first two branches in the first two articles—the legislative and executive. However, Article III, which organized the judiciary, remained short and ambiguous. The Founders charged the First Congress with the task of organizing the federal judiciary. Even after Congress created the judiciary, however, questions still plagued the system. This essay argues that the actions taken by the Justices of the early Supreme Court to ease the burden of circuit riding expanded and further defined the judiciary's role as a branch of government.     

共产国际与中国共产党早期苏维埃政权的执政实践

大革命失败后,中国共产党在共产国际的指导下确立了实行土地革命和武装起义的方针,也从此走上了建立苏维埃政权的革命道路。然而在这一时期,受共产国际"左"的教条主义和"城市中心论"思想的影响,中国苏维埃革命运动一开始就照搬苏俄革命的经验,致使各地城市暴动接连遭到失败。也正是在这一时期,经过多次城市武装起义失败教训的洗礼,越来越多的革命者开始认识到,到农村中去,到那些受过大革命风暴影响的农村中去,会有革命发展的广阔天地。这是以毛泽东为代表的中国共产党人勇敢突破共产国际的理论模式,开始探索适合中国实际的"农村包围城市、武装夺取全国政权"革命道路的实践基础和理论来源。"任何国家的革命道路问题,都要由本国的共产党人自己去思考和解决。"这段历史无疑是最鲜活的案例,折射了共产国际与中国共产党对中国苏维埃政权道路的认识歧异;同时也彰显了我们党为了救国救民,不怕任何艰难险阻,在革命斗争中坚持独立自主、一切从实际出发的伟大革命精神。     

In and Out of the Classroom: The Promise of Material Culture

Amish women have contributed to the preservation of their sect's material culture by making distinctive quilts. Their quilts created from 1870 to 1935 epitomize the uniqueness of the Amish lifestyle and can be distinguished from the body of American patchwork quilts of the same time period. While Amish quilts may be distinguished from other quilts by the use of solid colors, dark material and unique patterns, regional differences between Amish quilts are also apparent. The quilts of the Amish communities of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and Holmes County, Ohio have characteristics that define them as Amish, but also as unique to each region. Pennsylvania quilts are distinguished by a square shape, central design, wide borders and intricate quilting stitches. Ohio quilts show greater use of color, repeated patterns and rectangular shapes. Major variations in Amish quilts developed between geographic areas rather than over time.     

清末民初上海公共租界会审公廨法权之变迁(1911～1912)

清末民初,上海公共租界会审公廨法权较之以往发生了重大的变化。《申报》对此作有较为详细的报道,以此为考察材料,通过对法权变化内容的分析和这一过程的动态重构,以期从中透视变乱之际中外权势转移的动态情景,并得以多层面、多视角得认识中国法制近代化的艰辛历程。     

世界政党的当代发展趋势及其现实启示

政党自其产生起就始终处在一个不断发展变化的过程之中。当前,世界政党的发展出现了以下新的态势,即从传媒政党化走向政党传媒化;力求建设包容性政党,积极增强政党的包容性;国际与地区性联合使党际交流日益频繁。认真分析和研究当代世界政党发展的新特点,对于现阶段加强和改进我们党的建设具有重要的现实启示。     

Challenges and Controversies in the Protection of Archaeological Resources

Abstract

I think the following paper by S. Alan Skinner is important in two ways. First, it shows how, in the United States, if an archeological contractor wishes to take issue with an agency's procurement policies, he or she can use standard federal government protestation procedures to do so. Most of us are unfamiliar with these procedures, and Skinner's paper provides a valuable primer for those who may have to use them in the future. Second, I. think Skinner's paper is important for its demonstration of a distinction between procurement problems that can be effectively addressed through case-by-case protestation and those that cannot. Note that in Skinner's case, the Comptroller General did not comment on the archeologists' concern about curation capabilities and, perhaps even more significantly, did not deal with the agency's policy of awarding contracts based largely on cost, without solicitation or evaluation of research proposals. I doubt if the Comptroller's failure to fully consider these matters resulted from any deficiency in the case presented by Skinner and his colleagues. These issues are never likely to be considered by the Comptroller, I believe, because they are professional in nature, and it is not the Comptroller's business to settle professional disputes.

All this is not to suggest that archeologists should not challenge agencies that fail to ensure proper curation or that select archeological contractors primarily on the basis of bid. Such policies should be challenged at all possible levels, and the fact that our challenges are not always (or even often) effective will not detract from the documentary record of professional objection that will thus be constructed. Such a documentary record will be vital if really effective action—probably through the Congress—is ever to take place.

What I do suggest is that, by documenting the failure of the Comptroller General to reach the issues of broadest importance to archeologists in his case, Skinner has outlined a challenge to the authorities responsible for managing the federal historic preservation system. The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation and the Secretary of the Interior are explicitly charged with consultation with other federal agencies to ensure that their policies effectively contribute to the preservation of historic places and archeological data. Contracting policies that result in low-quality research or impermanent preservation of data and collections are legitimate targets for the historic preservation authorities, and should be vigorously attacked. Actions like the one taken by Skinner and his colleagues will help the federal authorities to launch and sustain such an attack.