Measuring Learning Outcomes in Museums,Archives and Libraries: The Learning Impact Research Project (LIRP)

There has been legislation in place since the 1970s in Canada's largest province, Ontario, that encourages the identification of significant heritage buildings and is supposed to provide them with at least a degree of protection. Both heritage recognition and most other land use decisions, however, are exercised at the local government level. W'hile conservation of heritage structures has been successful in some places, an alarming number of significant historic buildings in the province continue to be lost. Relying on dozens of volunteers, this study examined thousands of buildings in over twenty Ontario communities and sought to establish how many heritage buildings had been demolished and to determine why these losses were occurring. It was discovered that in the municipalities surveyed over 400 historically recognised buildings had been lost in the last sixteen years. Recommendations for how to deal with this problem are included in the study.     

大数据背景下国内人文地理研究进展与方法审视

通过梳理人文地理领域杂志近年大数据文章解释其与大数据应用的关系，强调其应用给人文地理学研究带来机遇和挑战：①大数据作为研究方法，不能代替传统人文地理研究范式，而是对现研究方法的补充。大数据和小数据需对话交流；②大数据本身是一种话语权，嵌入人文地理研究系统。保证人文地理学多样性，避免过度依赖大数据，需在批判角度审视和运用；③需关注大数据对于人文地理学研究方法和思想的影响；④运用大数据解读地理和空间过程复杂性的同时，应看到大数据应用对公共服务的潜力，思考其结果如何更好的服务社会。     

现代农业与小农制衔接的两个理论问题

走中国特色农业现代化道路需要解决两大实践难题：一是如何实现小农制与现代农业的有效衔接;二是如何培育资本农业的生成机制。归结起来就是“钱从哪里来”和“人往哪里去”的问题。这里涉及到两个理论问题：如何认识现代小农制的历史地位,如何解决资本与劳动的矛盾对立。本文围绕上述问题,对19世纪末以来马克思主义经典作家的相关讨论做一回顾性阐释。     

When leadership traits meet historic success: Hassan Rouhani and the nuclear deal of 2015

This study aims to show how dispositional characters of political leaders are affected by situational developments during the time‐in‐office. Although newly emerging literature of leadership traits demonstrate that significant events alter leaders’ traits, they mainly focus on the measurement of shocking events on dispositional features, leaving the effect of achievements underexplored. The Iranian nuclear deal of 2015 is one of the most significant successes in the last decade of world politics. Gambling his political career on nuclear talks by promising the Iranian people to solve Iran's decades‐long isolation, President Hassan Rouhani played a momentous role in negotiating the deal. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was globally recognized as a success of Rouhani's leadership. Using the Leadership Trait Analysis (LTA), this article will show the role of Rouhani's personality in the realization of the historic nuclear deal and measure the effect of such a success on Rouhani's leadership traits.     

Recent Studies on Violence: What's In and What's Out

Focusing on four recent books about violence gives a reader an idea of what current anthropological wisdom is and what it tends to omit (peace, domestic violence). Since most studies deal not with direct observation of violence but with representations of it, questions of representation loom large in terms of how anthropologists represent violence in these books and elsewhere in the literature, and what possibilities of representation might round out readers' understanding.     

一二八事变与英国对中日冲突的立场转变

根据观念建构利益的基本观点,本梳理了一二八事变中英国对于中日冲突的立场的曲折转变过程;分析了在这种转变背后,英国内部在如何规范其在华利益上,传统殖民主义观念与现代国际关系准则的交织与冲突;评估了这种转变在英国的远东均势构想、制日集体安全机制的形成以及中英关系的转型方面的效应。     

Poor Law Guardians,Coalminers, and Friendly Societies in Northern England, 1860–1894: Statutory Provision,Local Autonomy,and Individual Responsibility

Abstract

This article examines the ways in which the Poor Law dealt with victims of coalmining accidents who, though friendly society members, felt compelled to apply for parochial relief. It shows that although the Poor Law authorities provided explicit guidance on how to deal with such cases, guardians in the northern coalfields proved strikingly heterodox in the policies which they pursued. It is suggested that their independence has significant implications for our understanding of the relationship between statutory provision, local autonomy, and individual responsibility.     

Creative geographies of ceramic artists: knowledges and experiences of landscape,practices of art and skill

This paper argues for a conception of art as an embodied and creative material practice. It draws on research conducted with seven professional ceramic artists who deal with landscape in their work to explore their processes of art-making through interview and (filmed) observation. It demonstrates the distributed range of embodied and relational more-than-artistic practices which inform how landscape is encountered, known and ultimately represented. It argues that artists’ self-expression in art is based upon material, social and political knowledges which interweave in artists’ lives. By studying ceramicists’ making this paper demonstrates both the non-conscious skill and the conscious technical knowledge needed to make art. It shows chance to have a triple role in practices of making, as something to work alongside, to work against and to draw on as a creative resource. This paper both argues for and demonstrates the value of an approach to art-making that frames it as a complex of both conscious, socio-cultural, technical knowledges and non-conscious skills which together (in)form works of (ceramic) art.     

基于多源数据的兰州市主城区城市职住空间关系研究

随着中国经济转轨和社会转型，“职住分离”日趋严重，导致城市出现了一系列问题，急需对新的职住关系进行检视。职住关系研究的难点在于如何有效地锁定居住地、工作地，以及居民如何在居住地-工作地之间位移、居住-就业的空间匹配关系。论文以百度POI大数据和热力图为支撑，辅助问卷调查，结合兰州市土地利用现状图，综合应用职住比模型和最近距离等分析方法，多尺度刻画了兰州市主城区的职住关系。结果表明：在城区尺度上，兰州市职住关系总体处于平衡状态，职住平衡型占99.40%，居住倾向型和就业倾向型分别仅占0.12%和0.48%。从城市核心区到边缘区，职住失衡逐渐加重。职住平衡更多地体现在单位型社区上，失衡主要由商业型社区引致。在街道尺度上，职住关系差异明显，绝大多数街道处于职住平衡状态。城市核心区街道以“就业倾向型”为主；边缘区街道表现为“居住倾向型”。     

Transforming Unjust Structures: A Philosophical and Theological Perspective

Abstract

This essay explores the difficult task of transforming unjust social structures (USS). It does so by an understanding of the moral features of interactions, drawing from Hannah Arendt's political philosophy and Paul Ricoeur's conception of institutions. Then a definition of what can be considered as USS is given and some of the characteristic features of these social phenomena specified. As a further step, this essay delves into a theological understanding of USS as structures of sin, for no rationale can be given for the most perverse USS (concentration camps/Gulag). Theology, through the notions of evil and sin, possesses some instruments to understand the absurd violence, the indifference and hopelessness of USS. The essay close with some remarks on how to deal with USS.     

‘A COMFORTABLE LODGING AND ONE SHILLING AND FOURPENCE A DAY’: THE MATERIAL BENEFITS OF AN ALMSHOUSE PLACE

Abstract

This paper examines the material benefits commonly received by almshouse residents from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries, and attempts to assess how well off alms-people were compared with other poor people in the community. It considers not only the stipends or financial allowances received by many almspeople, but also other benefits provided, such as the accommodation, food, fuel and practical help. The evidence points to the experience of almshouse life varying a great deal, and suggests that the standard of living for many almspeople did not differ greatly from that of the poor generally. Many almspeople received poor relief; some were so poorly off that even the workhouse offered greater comfort and security. Yet, for most, there were distinct advantages to an almshouse place. Free accommodation and a regular income, no matter how small, gave them a measure of security; while their position as almshouse residents gave them status, respectability and the opportunity to benefit from further donations.     

Ecological Basis of the Bihu Festival of Assam

Bihu is one of the most important festivals in the northeast Indian state of Assam. Published accounts of the festival mainly deal with its rituals, texts and performance, and its ecological setting is often overlooked. This essay seeks to explore the ecological basis of Bihu and tries to understand how it has assumed its form through an interaction of culture and ecology.     

The legacy of communism: difficult histories,emotions and contested narratives

Abstract

This paper considers contested and traumatic narratives, using a case study of the planned National Museum of Romanian Communism and the site of Jilava Penitentiary, a former communist prison, near Bucharest in Romania. It discusses what happened when representatives from different groups of former victims and perpetrators met together with facilitators and worked towards a shared understanding of the past to reach some consensus about how to deal with different and apparently conflicting narratives within a new museum of communism. It draws on notions of emotional communities in order to understand the role heritage plays in contested situations. It also considers the nature of transitional justice (‘Transitional justice is an approach to systematic or massive violations of human rights that both provides redress to victims and creates or enhances opportunities for the transformation of the political systems, conflicts, and other conditions that may have been at the root of the abuses’.) in this context.     

The influence of temperature on rehydroxylation [RHX] kinetics in archaeological pottery

Almost all archaeological ceramics undergo slow, progressive rehydroxylation by chemical combination with environmental water. The reaction is accompanied by an expansion, and also by the small but measurable mass gain that provides the basis of the RHX dating method. The rate of the RHX reaction increases with increasing temperature. Here we describe comprehensively the effects of temperature on the RHX process in relation to the dating methodology. We deal in turn with the kinetic model of the RHX reaction, the temperature dependence of the RHX rate, and the influence of varying environmental temperature on the RHX mass gain. We define an effective lifetime temperature and show how this is calculated from an estimated lifetime temperature history. Historical meteorological temperature data are used to estimate the lifetime temperature history, and this can be adjusted for long-term climate variation. We show also how to allow for the effects of burial in archaeological sites on the temperature history. Finally we describe how the uncertainties in estimates of RHX age depend on the estimates of temperature history and effective lifetime temperature.     

新疆行省制下督、抚、将军的改制探索

清末新疆改设行省,施行"新制"。在这个过程中,如何策划新设行省的高层政区,妥善处理督、抚、将军的关系是清廷面临解决的两个重要问题。由于朝廷议定的行省建置实际上已经偏离左宗棠、刘锦棠最初的设计,以致贯穿清末新疆省政治生活内部最突出的问题——抚、军争权与督、抚、将军关系问题,本质上是由新疆行省制度设置的不完善及行政层级的缺陷造成的。当新疆的社会常情与朝廷的谕令章程发生矛盾时,其高层政区的运转弊症尤为引人瞩目,清廷也在不断地尝试内外均衡的调适机制。最终,新疆"新制"运行改革的过程,并入了晚清政府探索变革的轨道。     

城市历史地图编制刍议——以《西安市地图集》编绘为例

本文以参与《西安市地图集》“古都演变图组”的实际工作经验立论,初步探讨了地图学领域的专题地图-城市历史地图编制的意义、特点和方法,并侧重于典型城市内容设计与处理的方式,指出这一工作对当代城市建设和城市历史地理研究都有应用价值。     

Examining the Olympics: heritage,identity and performance

A major aspect of Ireland's history is the continual problems of a sectarian nature, yet the issue of 'the troubles' gets scant consideration in the permanent exhibitions mounted in Northern Ireland's museums, and is only beginning to emerge in more temporary exhibitions and statements about museums. In addition, the belief that cultural heritage plays a significant part in conflict resolution in Northern Ireland has long been expressed in statements on education policy and local government programmes. However, the concept of using museums for exploring this history for a positive outcome has not, despite the scale of the political problem, been a high-profile issue in Northern Ireland's museums nor has it had a great deal of academic attention. This paper is a contribution to this gap. It assesses the role that Northern Ireland's museums play in the current political context. It evaluates the reasons why, since their foundation, museums in Northern Ireland have largely chosen to avoid controversial issues in their displays. It considers how attitudes are changing and how museum professionals are tentatively beginning to engage with political issues and enter into dialogue on subjects such as cultural and political identities in Northern Ireland.     

Rigorous Reasoning, Reflexive Research and the Space for 'Alternative Archaeologies'. Questions for Maritime Archaeological Heritage Management.

As England's heritage policy is shaped around us, it is vital that there is debate, and some consensus, among the maritime archaeological community on core management questions. These include approaches to degrading underwater sites, how to deal with shipwrecks threatened by development, and crucially, who should be driving these decisions. This paper argues that there is a need for self-critical analysis of the meaning of 'heritage'. It problematises the notion of professional archaeologists as 'guardians of the archaeological record' and the conception of 'heritage' formed without reference to ideas of the past being a product of the present and, therefore, the potential for the production of multiple pasts.
© 2007 The Author     

Lessons from COVID-19 can prepare global tourism for the economic transformation needed to combat climate change

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic led to the cessation of almost all international travel in the first half of 2020. A return to pre-pandemic growth patterns will take time and depend on the depth and extent of the recession sparked by COVID-19. The recovery phase will overlap with global efforts to deal with the evolving climate crisis. For the tourism industry to thrive in a future world it must look beyond the temptation of adopting strategies based on a return to the pre-COVID-19 normal of the past and instead seek to understand how it should respond to the emerging transformation of the global economy to carbon neutrality. Many of the lessons that emerged from the pandemic can be applied to strategies to deal with climate change. Of most interest is the success of strategies such as “flattening the curve”. Application of similar strategies plus adoption of the circular economy model to wind back Green House Gas emissions will help avert the global environmental disaster that will occur if global temperatures continue to increase. These strategies point to what a future carbon-neutral economic production system might look like, the path to which could offer the tourism industry numerous opportunities to transform from the current model that favours a high resource consumption model to one that is environmentally friendly and resource neutral.     

Applying Policy Process Theories to Environmental Governance Research: Themes and New Directions

Policy scholars have effectively leveraged policy process models, theories, and frameworks to respond to a variety of important environmental questions. For example, how do environmental issues arrive on the agendas of policymakers? What factors contribute to environmental policy change? What are the designs and effects of institutions (e.g., policies or cultural norms) on environmental governance? In this review, we survey the field of policy process scholarship, focusing on environmental governance, with three objectives. The first objective is to catalog the policy process models, theories, and frameworks most often featured in studies of environmental governance. The second is to capture the methodological choices commonly employed in the application of these models, theories, and frameworks in environmental domains. The third is to identify how these approaches deal with issues central to environmental governance research, including time, space, and policy scale. We aim to identify trends and strategies for integrating key considerations of scale into empirical policy process scholarship.