From ethnographic knowledge to anthropological intelligence: An anthropologist in the office of strategic services in Second World War Africa

This article explores the overlapping modalities and practical purposes of anthropological ethnographic knowledge and political–military intelligence gathering – the commonalities as well as the boundaries between them – through an analysis of the career of the anthropologist Jack Sargent Harris (1912–2008), a secret operative for the United States’ Office of Strategic Services during the Second World War in Nigeria and South Africa. Calling upon archival and oral historical sources, the article relates Harris’s training in Boasian cultural anthropology and as a professional ethnographer of African societies and cultures to the ways he recruited informants, conducted surveillance, related to foreign Allied officials, utilized documentary evidence, and worked to establish authority and credibility in his wartime intelligence reporting. The article argues that political purpose is a central artefact of anthropological ethnography as it is in other ethnographic modalities even if the justifications for these endeavours remain distinct.     

Polanyi's Magnum Opus? Assessing the Application of the Counter-Movement in International Political Economy

The concept of the ‘counter-movement’ has had a significant impact within studies in International Political Economy (IPE). In the light of the credit crisis and the growth of growing resentment to the notion of the free market, the idea of the counter-movement has been utilised to understand social reaction to neoliberalism. This article argues that whilst the counter-movement has been used in unique and innovated ways, Karl Polanyi himself used the term largely to refer to a specific period in nineteenth-century British history. This article argues that whilst the counter-movement remains interesting, its application remains open to scrutiny. It questions whether the concept was indeed central to Polanyian economic thought and how much can be given to it in today's contemporary era of neoliberalism. It also suggests that by focusing merely on the counter-movement, Polanyian accounts within IPE are in danger of ignoring much of his wider critique of market economics.     

试论人类学在归国华侨群体研究中的运用

论文从人类学的田野调查实践观、文化整体观、跨文化比较法等三个维度对归国华侨群体进行研究。认为田野调查实践是归国华侨群体研究的基础;文化整体是归国华侨群体研究的内容;跨文化比较是归国华侨群体研究的动力。人类学和归国华侨群体研究相交融,不仅认识"大传统"中的华侨华人,而且也关注"小传统"下的归国华侨群体,这就形成"和而不同、多元共存"的华侨华人研究局面,拓展了华侨华人研究的学术空间。归国华侨群体研究的人类学转向,必将带来多方面的实践和理论意义。     

商王权政治基础的人类学观察——另一视角下的商代青铜器

以西方文化人类学中权力起源的理论为根据,以作为三代文明核心特征的青铜器为对象,对商王权的有关政治基础以及运行机制从另外一个角度作了一些系统思考和分析。     

Biblical anthropology and the idea of human prehistory in late antiquity

Late Antiquity is an important period in the history of anthropology because it marks a divide between the naturalistic and rationalistic anthropological ideas of Greco-Roman philosophers and the "biblical anthropology" that was formulated by Medieval Christian writers. The biblical anthropology that emerged in Late Antiquity addressed the question of the origin of the first humans, our relationship to the natural world, and the original state of mankind. While early Christian philosophers based much of this biblical anthropology on the Genesis account of early human history, they also utilized a great deal of Greco-Roman philosophy in order to expound a vision of human prehistory that profoundly influenced anthropological thought well into the modern era.     

Archaeology’s quest for a seat at the high table of anthropology

Between 1900 and 1970, American archaeologists perceived themselves as second-class anthropologists because the archaeological record suggested little not already known ethnographically, archaeology served anthropology by testing ethnologically derived models of cultural evolution, the archaeological record was ethnologically incomplete as a result of poor preservation, and archaeologists used but did not write anthropological theory. Ethnologists of the period agreed with these points and regularly reminded archaeologists of their limited role in anthropology. A few archaeologists claimed in the 1950s that archaeology could contribute to anthropological theory but they were ignored. The claim was reiterated by new archaeologists of the 1960s, and by the 1970s worries about the poor preservation of the archaeological record had softened. However, most archaeologists after 1970 (and before 1990) used anthropological theory and did not write new theory on the basis of archaeological data. The root cause of American archaeology’s ninety-year absence from anthropology’s high table of theory seems to be the discipline-wide retention of the ninety-year old belief that archaeology is prehistoric ethnology and the (unnecessary and constraining) corollary that archaeologists must use anthropological theory to explain the archaeological record.     

The distinction between freshwater- and terrestrial-based diets: methodological concerns and archaeological applications of sulphur stable isotope analysis

Sulphur isotopes in archaeological bone collagen are not routinely analysed in palaeodietary studies. Here we investigate the potential contribution that sulphur isotope analysis can provide toward the study of ancient human diet and economy, with particular emphasis on the distinction between freshwater and terrestrial consumers. For material from the Late Bronze Age site of Chicha in the south-western Eurasian forest-steppe, sulphur isotopes effectively separate freshwater and terrestrial animal food resources. The sulphur isotope data coupled with nitrogen isotope values from Chicha reflect a dietary reliance upon freshwater animal protein (fish) for the Late Bronze Age inhabitants. In contrast, sulphur isotope values for freshwater and terrestrial potential food species from the Eneolithic site of Bil'shivtsi in western Ukraine were indistinguishable, demonstrating that δ³⁴S values cannot always be relied upon to identify freshwater and terrestrial consumers. The data from this study support the adoption of δ³⁴S analysis as a standard component of palaeodietary studies; apart from its potential to distinguish freshwater from terrestrial consumers, it can provide supplementary dietary information not evident from the carbon and nitrogen isotope data. In addition, certain indices are considered that may be used to assess the validity of sulphur isotope data, as currently exist for carbon and nitrogen. According to the analysis of modern collagen samples, N:S appears to be a broad indicator of collagen sulphur isotope quality. However, more work needs to be done to establish an effective means by which highly-altered sulphur isotope values can be identified and thereby removed from consideration.     

史前城址与中原地区中国古代文明中心地位的形成

２０世纪７０年代以来,中国境内史前时代城址陆续被发现,部分并经发掘。综合２０多年的发现,已知这批史前时代城址分别分布在黄河、长江两大流域,总数据不完全统计,达５０座左右。 由早期城址的大批发现及国外考古学理论的陆续被介绍而引发的关于早期城址的功能及其在中国古代文明发展中的地位的讨论十分热烈。本文也拟就这一问题,谈一点一得之见,并着重讨论在各地早期城址大批涌现的历史背景下中原地区中国古代文明中心地位的形成问题,以就教于识者。　　　　　　　　一 黄河流域发现的史前时代城址,仅就其分布地域而言,可以分作…     

Nature,Capital and Neighborhoods: “Dispossession without Accumulation”?

Abstract: The ongoing economic crisis, which originated in the USA and has since spread rapidly to capital markets worldwide, is massive, complex, and many times contradictory. One could say the same for responses to the crisis as governments, firms and multi‐national institutions struggle to grasp the full magnitude of the event. This article interrogates the key commodities involved—land, labor and money—and the always‐uneasy relations between spaces of social reproduction and capital. Such ambivalence is critical to understanding how new economic realities are formed in light of retreating neoliberalism as markets become destabilized. The analysis provided suggests the commodities involved in the housing crisis are the basis for a countermovement against dispossession.     

Seeking the State: Appropriating Bureaucratic Symbolism and Wealth in the Margins of Southeast Asia

Anthropological research on Southeast Asian states has contributed to understanding how local communities engage with states in their everyday lives. Two approaches drawing out the complexities of state‐society entanglement stand out. First is Foucault's idea that states possess the art‐of‐government. Through techniques such as mapping, census data, biometrics and so on, states are believed to achieve new levels of control over people, who are thus rendered as individual citizens. Second is Scott's idea that societies possess the art‐of‐not‐being‐governed. People, particularly in peripheral areas, seek to escape state control, for instance by sheltering in the hills and forests of Asia. In this article, we seek to identify and expand upon a literature which we see as emerging from the space opened between Foucault and Scott's work, to demonstrate the many creative and diverse ways that peripheral societies seek out states. In doing this we present a synthesis of diverse forms of entanglement to provide new insights into understanding relations between societies and states.     

浅谈生物塑化技术在考古学和人类学中的应用

虽然现在将生物塑化技术普及到文物资料保存工作当中的难度还很大,但这种技术在考古学和人类学领域的应用将具有广阔的前景。     

The Port Hamilton (Geomundo) Incident (1885–1887): Retracing Another Great Game in Eurasia

This paper traces a much overlooked historical event, whose impacts threatened to upend the status quo in the Far East and potentially escalate the Anglo-Russian rivalry in Eurasia. With the occupation of Port Hamilton (Geomundo) by a hegemon, Britain, Korea was catapulted into the centre stage of the international system, where it garnered unprecedented attention from major powers. It was also during this period that neutralisation was contemplated both within and without Korea. By exploring this incident through contemporary neutralisation discourse, this work illustrates neutralisation's role in providing an analytical framework to assess the geopolitical importance of this incident in international relations. After suffering a crushing defeat in the Crimean War, Russia was forced to modify its designs in the Mediterranean and adjust itself to a new regional order. Since its room for manoeuvre was constrained by its chief rival, Britain, the Russian government was forced to tread more cautiously in European geopolitics and to refrain from military means in advancing its interests there. Similarly, the British offensive on Geomundo thwarted Russian expansion into the Far East and denied Russia access to the Pacific, allowing Britain to repeat the feat that it had achieved in the Crimean War.     

Towards Eurasia: remapping Europe as ‘upstart peripheral to an ongoing operation’

In order to heed the call in world literature studies to work against disciplinary Eurocentrism by refiguring both what constitutes world literature and how this is read, in this article I propose world literature as an archive of world-making practices and as an impulse for the articulation of alternative methodological approaches. This takes world literature from the postcolonial South as, following Pheng Cheah, instantiating a modality of world literature in which the need for imagining worlds with alternative centres to those determined by coloniality is particularly acute. A response to this is facilitated and illustrated by a reading of Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore’s Letters from Russia (1930), and South African writer/activist Alex La Guma’s A Soviet Journey (1978). By drawing forward connections between the postcolonial South and the former Soviet Union, this complicates traditional colonial arrangements of the colonial ‘centre’ as cradle of civilisation and culture, as well as postcolonial scholarship’s cumulative fetishisation of ‘Europe’, by allowing a reshuffling of the co-ordinates determining ‘centres’ and ‘peripheries’ and a more nuanced grasp of ‘Europe’ simultaneously. These imaginative journeys destabilise ‘Europe’ as closed category and call forth Eurasia as a more appropriate categorical–cartographical framework for thinking this space and the connections and (hi)story-telling it stages and fosters.     

《古代的交互作用:欧亚大陆的东部与西部》述评

最近 ,英国剑桥大学麦克唐纳研究所出版《古代的交互作用 :欧亚大陆的东部与西部》文集 ,它集中展示了欧亚大陆的考古及东西文化交流的最新成果。 1998年以来 ,剑桥大学举办了 3次大型国际会议 ,内容涉及欧亚大陆史前学、人类学、语言和文化。本书为 2 0 0 0年“史前后期欧亚草原的开发”会议文集。由著名考古学家伦福儒教授作序 ,收入不同国家学者的文章 2 1篇 ,全面介绍了欧亚草原新石器晚期至铁器时代初的考古发现和的研究成果 ;另有部分文章涉及该区域内的植物考古学与人种学的Y染色体DNA分析